CHANCES

Well, decided to make another series, this a cyberpunk one, to be monthly, so in the future i will take better care of the chapters, please enjoy

0001#

CHANCES.

The sound pumped hard, she could feel the beats moving through her little but athletic body, her enhanced second body.

In life you only got to live three times, and that was her second shot. She smiled at the idea, after all she loved risks.

She looked at the crowd: thousands of ravers, a storm of lights and sounds, taking the streets like a flood.

Every time you die, you come back with a special ability. Hers was extremely useful: She fixated her eyes on the roof of the building on the other size of the street. Her shadow disappeared from the ground, like water down a drain, and reappeared on the roof top of the building across the street. Suddenly, her body become semi-transparent and vanished, only to reappear on the spot where her shadow had emerged.

As she felt her weight returning, she draws her pistol, a suppressed plastic 9mm. She looks at her wrist watch, and a big man open the door to the roof. Just in time, good smokers! Two in his heart: dead but salvageable, unless it was his third. She feels like checking on his rebirth marks, but she is on a rush now.

She is fast and silent as a cat, another enhancement she bought. Different from abilities, you could buy as many enhancements as your bank account allowed.

She gets to a door. A camera watches it, moving slowly from left to right. She focuses on the blind spot under the camera, and suddenly she reappear there. Close range, good visibility, easy transition, but still, too tiring. She put a jammer on the cam.

She waits until someone comes to check it, but no one comes. Shit security hmm? The lock is easy to open. Inside all is dark, she literally crawl inside, carefully. She soon hears the moaning, and it’s explained why no one went check the cam. The guy on the job was getting a job, a blowjob. The girl was one of the “entertainers” from the “club” down stairs. Oh well why complain about good luck? With cold-blood she shot the man in the chest. The girl doesn’t have time to realize what is going on, before she got a couple rounds in her chest as well.

Well she was out of ammo, already. No just kidding, she just exchanged the mag and turn of the CCTV.

Time to loot! Not the bodies, ew. The good stuff.

She opens a door and enters a fully automated lab. Like a mini car assembly line, with many robots doing robots things, except they were producing ecstasy and the new fashion, Vertigo.

Meh… to much work to sell ravers candy, not her stuff anyway.

She cross the room, and find an office, two men inside, one sleeping, in his hand a cheap ass .38 and the other a bean-counter, fully focused in counting money.

Delicious money, come to mommy!

She shot the bean counter in the back, flawless, and turn to shoot the guard, a fat old guy, strange choice of a guard to a group of dealers who work with ravers.

Oh well, nothing personal, well, its personal but not against you, it’s more against the establishment.

She pop twice, and the bullets land where they were supposed to, but they bounce of it, like the guy was made of solid steel. Oh boy, not bullet proof ability…

The man wake up, look at the corpse, then at the girl and try to shot her.

The first shot lands on his own foot, the other two way off target, well, to be honest a 1.65m girl isn’t much of a target.

She back-flips with cat-like grace and lightning speed, the guard simply go through the wall like it was made of wet toilet paper.

-FREEZE!

And he shot his last three rounds, missing completely.

-Hey old man, when you say “freeze” you is supposed to wait before shooting, even with this lame aim of yours!

-You… You killed him!

He punch an steel table were lay one of the man-portable automated drug factories, destroying it and making it go through the floor. The girl jump again, not away from him, but over him, into the accountability.

-Easy grandpa! You gonna trash this place like that!

She laughs deliciously, like an angel and sit beside the dead “bean-counter”, she pull the shirt away of his neck. No marks there.

-Hey grandpa, why so mad? This guy still has two lives to spare…no need to be all touchy about it!

-Kids…you wont realize how valuable a life is until you run out of them!

He throw away the useless revolver, put his hands together, like if he was a Buda, and let go a loud “OHM”

She barely have time to jump before a shock wave, like a gust of wind blow a man-size hole on the sound proof wall.

-Shit… two abilities? So you are in the end of your rope isn’t?

She fires against his eyes, doing nothing more than blind him for a second. With uncanny agility she slid between his legs and run for the door.

-YOU…OHM!!!

The shock wave almost caught her. This time opened another hole on the floor. The deafening music covers everything.

-Fuck, why he had to have two abilities like that? It’s unfair…

She measure the distance to the door and to the next building.

Suddenly the wall over her head explodes as another shock wave burst thought it. Now she have no were to hide. The windows are broken.

-So little girl, surrender?!

She looks to the crowd, forty floors below, then look to him firmly.

-Fuck you.

And jump.

The man doesn’t believe and run to see it. But she disappeared. Above his head, a figure materializes. The girl uses all her weight to push him down. The man lost his balance and almost fall, hanging from the window for no more than one hand.

She lands inside again.

-Please girl! Help me!!! I’m sliding!

-Aren’t you bullet proof? Forty floors won’t kill you.

-it didn’t work…like that!!

No one with half a brain goes around telling the secrets of his or her abilities, after all every single ability has a fatal flaw or a weakness.

-Not convinced. Good trip down.

-I’m serious!!! Look, my ability only cover 30% of my body each time. If I fall it won’t save my life!

-Too bad. Not my problem. Try landing on your feet.

The girl turns his back and walk away.

The man is now alone. He didn’t want to end like that, he didn’t want the job. He was just a loser trying to earn a living, in a world who doesn’t forgive losers. Tear roll of his eyes as he feel his fingers slipping… that was his last life.

He closes his eyes, wishing that his ability don’t make his suffering worst than it had to be.

But a hand grasps his wrist, holding it tightly

-FUUCK! GODDAMN YOU! Jesus, if you gonna fall from windows at least lose some weight!!!!

-Girl…Girl!!!

-Yeah, yeah, I’m fucking Madre Teresa of the old fat guys… Now climb it because I’m not that strong!

The man climbs back, grateful. He looks at her, her shoulder is visibly dislocated, and yet, she holds up, enduring a pain that would make grown men cry.

She looks at his eyes and asks:

-So what we do now?

The man sit, confuse, he is lost, she thinks, and she is out of juice for her ability, no way she can transit with that shoulder after three previous transitions.

But before they could even think, a group of armed men, or better, boys, enter the room, confused, angry, and armed with automatic weapons.

-Fuck, yo James, you lazy fuck, WTF yo doing? Damn our stuff is all destroyed!

-Hey that chick, isn’t the one Velvet want to see dead, dead for good?

-Yeah…Fuck James, at least once in your fucked life you did something right.

James step back as the boys aim her guns at her. James turn his eyes away, but she don’t feel angry. She feels pity. She walked a couple miles on shoes that would fit James right now, and she knows he won’t forgive himself, ever; she never forgave herself.

She looks at the boys, flip her middle finger with the good arm she got left and spoke, valiantly.

-Hey bitches, try not missing a sitting duck, fuckers!

…

TO BE CONTINUED.

'you need a hero" is the first chapter of a weekly series i will keep from now on

000#

YOU NEED A HERO.

Every man has a dream of becoming a legend, immortal, remembered forever for his actions and his accomplishments. It’s an egoistic goal, but at least is an honest one, some people even try to hide such goal behind excuses, justifications, but that is pointless.

I will achieve this goal with truth and honesty, and I will be remembered for ages to come.

The night fall over this city, where I born and lived in anonymity until now, a life full of disappointment and frustration: The life of a stallion who cant run, a eagle that cannot fly, despite all the wonders I could see, I was paralyzed by fear and my own mediocrity.

But tonight I will spread my wings and conquer the skies, tomorrow the world will know what I am, what I will be, through hard work, dedication and courage.

I look down and see cars and people, so tiny. I was tiny before, but not anymore.

At first I thought about using a mask of some kind, to be easily recognized after my actions, but that would be dishonest, it would be merely a false modesty.

I will go with this face I born with.

I check my uniform, an act of vanity, I confess; it’s black, functional, and has everything I need.

I pull the hood over my head, not to hide my face, but because I love how it look at night, so powerful.

The streets are now mine. I know many dreamed to live what I live now, and I am sure, after they see my actions, they will rise too.

Took me only one hour to see my opportunity, a man attacking a girl, from a distance I hear her calls for help, and I see him ripping of her clothes.

We are in the middle of the city, and in the buildings hundreds, no, thousands may hear her screaming but they do nothing. I would do nothing, but that was before.

I dash on him, my elbow hit hard on his kidney. He falls on the ground, but the battle isn’t over, he pulls a gun to me.

I feel no fear, just a feeling of freedom, as I kick it away from his hand.

I smile and lay punch after punch on his face, until he falls unconscious.

The girl cry and thank me for saving her, I remove my hood and smile with true satisfaction…

 As I feel my knife sliding offs its sheath.

She looks confused as I stab her in the heart, with a perfect movement. Oh all the training on dogs and homeless people really was worth the effort.

She falls on the ground dead, one hit kill. It’s so beautiful I feel like crying, but I can’t, my work isn’t done yet! The filthy rapist is awake and saw everything, excellent! I would feel horrible to kill him unconscious.

He tries to run, but is too late: My blade go deep on the back of his neck, I go until the hilt touch his skin. His death is slower, but not more painful, once I carefully severed his spine, just below skull. For those who know blades, this is an extremely difficult task to do, even in a still target, but mine was moving. And once again, I was perfect.

One hit kill.

Tonight I reborn, to be forever remembered as the One Hit Kill “maniac”, and my deeds and skills will soon be know for all! Soon I will be a legend.

I clean my blade carefully in his clothes, before leaving. The night is still young and I have much work to do, after all, fame and glory are hard to get, in this crazy world.

To be continued.

THE HOUSE

THE HOUSE.

People tell tales about haunted places, and such places are always dark and sinister, like an warning to any eventual trespasser that something evil lurk in It’s dark corridors.

But maybe its just how things reflect the feelings of what wanders in shadows, sadness, regret, anger, all of them together, covering the haunted place like mold.

That house, today abandoned, is one of those places.

Dark, humid, cold, even in summer… And no one live there.

Some people tried, but they were too afraid to stay, “something” they would say “is not right in that house”.

The young, the brave and bold youth, always challenge the house. It’s like a initiation, after all everyone who enter that house left it a little bit different.

Tonight they gather inside it, inside the house, they talk laud, laugh and giggle, they mock it, they challenge the house, and when only silence responds, they think they are victorious in a battle against something they never saw, and even doubt that exists.

Soon they are too drunk, and they feel sleepy…it’s so late…

They get into the haze that lay between dream and reality, and finally the time arrive.

Now shadows crawl off the walls, through the floor, and over the silly children, hands cold and invisible, pulling one after the other to a different place of the house. They scream, they try to scape, but now all doors to the outside are locked, all windows shut.

One after the other, they cry like children as those invisible hands molest, punch, twist.

They are now separated, split inside that house, alone in the shadows, victims of sick demons who pray on them, violating bodies and minds.

But here, no one die, no, they goal is that they live with that.

In the next morning they get up, they cry, they are scared, they are confused and never will be the same again, now they are tainted, damaged, broken.

And the house, it will wait for the next, after all, always will be a next one.

MIRROR

Watching from a mirror.rorrim a morf gnihctaW

When small, I used to think that some kind of parallel universe existed and we could see it only through mirrors, and it was absolutely identical to ours, except for that characteristic inversion of left and right.

I imagined that everything was so equal, that even or ideas and actions were equal and happened at the same time. Once I was a very lonely child, I even found the idea comforting, once I had a east one person who knew my feelings, and that was like me.

When I become a teenager, I forgot about it, not that I had new friends or more attention from my parents, no it was the other way around. I was tagged as the “loser” of my school, and was bullied daily.

They took my money, beat me severely, made me do their home works, humiliated by taking of my clothes… every single day.

No one never paid attention to it, or better, no one give a damn: Colleagues, teachers and even my parents look at me with disdain and spite, to them, I was only getting what I deserved for be such a pussy.

I was when I started to talk alone, or so people would say.

I only had one person to turn, and it was my mirror twin. At home I cried many times in front of my mirror, and I said comforting words to my mirror-twin, who cried in the other side. At school, after the beatings and pranks, I would to the bathroom, and I would be there to give strength to my twin.

People start calling me loon and other thinks, but I didn’t care. We were together against both worlds.

Within time we would be connected all the time, and he would suggest that we could be together in the same side; at least we won’t be alone anymore.

I agreed and we start gathering materials for our ritual.

At midnight, we do it. We both touch the glass that separates both worlds, and it become liquid.

Suddenly his fingers become claws, dark and strong, and I am dragged to the other side.

There I find a void. I am scared and I turn to him. He is so like me, but also so different! He mock me as he walk thought the portal and seal me there, now I am a puppet, mimicking any of his moves. Now he is me. Before he turn his back to me he say:

-Enjoy purgatory, and don’t worry about the asses you cried about so much. I will get them, eventually.

SOUNDS

I hear things, strange things, things no one is supposed to hear, sounds of things that shouldn’t be.

Not words, but screams, cries, howling sounds, from nowhere, all the time, everywhere.

Night and day it never stop, at street I have to cover my ears. I can hear the sound of tires burning, breaks screaming, a loud thump, glass and bone breaking, something falling dead on the ground, a cry. But there’s nothing there, nothing.

At night I hear footsteps, thousand of dead invisible feet marching slowly through the night, dragging chains of crime and regret, howling into the void. But if I look through my window, there is nothing there.

Gun fire and someone begging for his life in the middle of the trains station, a girls cry and the sound of a body crushing on the concrete, in a school like any other.

Someone gasping and struggling for air hanging from a rope that is not there; children begging “mommy don’t hurt me” as blunt violent sounds end in soft flesh.

An old woman cries for help, she says she can’t breath, but no one hear. A man run around screaming that he is not dead, he can’t be.

A little girl weep and ask for help, she can’t find her mom, but if you look, she wasn’t there.

Day and night, always. And I know that it will never end, for I know that the voices, the sounds, they will haunt me forever.

ENTRAILS

It is in my guts, I can feel it moving more at night, it’s like they can tell when is day or night. I tried to seek for a doctor, but they don’t know what it is, they just look at me like I am a guinea pig and run endless tests.

I run, from everything I knew, and I cant tell why… I don’t know, its like a impulse, making me run day and night and dream with the taste of blood and guts.

Tonight I killed a stray dog and eat its entrails, raw. I always loved animals, but today I was like a madman, I had to crush his head and eat his insides while they were warm, and for more scary I am, I cant deny the fact that for the first time in months the pain and the hunger are gone. I left the hollow carcass and flee before anyone see me. I don’t know if its shame of something more devious, a wish for impunity.

Two weeks since the first time I killed and eat the entrails of a dog. I killed and eat other twelve after that day, it feel so good, the taste, the feeling, the smell, but my hunger grow and after every banquet I need more entrails, oh I need it so much that is even hard to think

Tonight I killed a girl, she couldn’t be older than seventeen. I hit her in the head, put tape on his mouth tied her to a old bed and eat her while she was still alive. I cant erase it from my mind, the horror, the agony, and worst: The delicious taste. I even controlled myself to keep her alive longer, so I could eat her insides still warm. All of her insides.

I cried and beg god to kill me, as I buried the useless skin, bone and muscle, but the next day I was hungry again.

Tonight, after killing and eating five more people, I almost left one escape. He was too athletic, to fast. But I am fast too, more than ever before. My body changed, I can smell them from miles, the entrails I need so badly. He was scared of my face, and tried to hide. But I found him and crushed his head with a brick. From now on I will be more careful. After all it tastes better when they are still alive.

I broke into a pharmacy, and grab ether. Now things are far more easy. I regret they are unconscious when I start to eat, but at least they don’t run from me anymore. Today I am celebrating, one year since I started it on my guts. My banquet is also special, a pregnant woman, pregnant of twins. I left nothing than skin and bones of my three delicious meals.

I already killed and eat forty humans. I don’t consider me one of them anymore.

They are hunting me, it was inevitable, after they found the leftovers. In the future I shall be more cautious with what is left from my meals.

They shot me, but I felt nothing, I am truly a monster. I fled to another city.

My guts again, I can feel it bursting, I dig my hands deep on my own flesh and split my abdomen open. The putrid blood and pus gush from me into the ground and I saw the most beautiful thing of the world, my child: Tiny little worms, white, enough to fill both of my hands.

I feel that my time is set, but I must guarantee the future of my child: I found a farm, where pigs are grown. At night, I feed my child to as many pigs I can, almost a hundred of them, to be host of my child.

I run, and throw myself in a river. I will die soon, but I die happy, dreaming of the delicious entrails my spawn shall taste.

IT IS THERE.

 It’s day again, we survived another night.

It doesn’t act so violently like it does at night. I think the sun is too strong to his tastes, but still isn’t safe. Miguel tried to escape during the day, in a rubber boat. Carlos and Marcos went with him. I and the others were too afraid to leave, even when we are so close of the island.

Our fear saved us.

It struck from below, hit so hard that the boat and the men flew in the air, before falling in his kingdom. Yes, his kingdom, the ocean, where that cruel, vicious tyrant lust for death.

Miguel was the lucky one: We could see it swallowing him whole, and even hear the sound of his bones getting crush on that horrible mouth. Carlos wasn’t a good swimmer, he tried to escape, but he barely move, until the moment he was pulled down into the clear water. Marcos was an athlete; we really believed he would get to the island.

But he didn’t. Something got him, and we could see struggle and blood in the water, then Marcos appeared again, inexplicably close to us, five meters, just on the edge of the reef.

For the next hour we heard his screams, his calls for our help. Devious monster, he expected us to try something to save Marcos? How can it be so clever?

Fabricio was Marco’s best friend, and he tried to reach him, but we hold him just before he jump in the water. Just in time to see it’s dark shadow close to us, waiting, just below Marcos.

Marcos lay on its back for at least two hours, until it got tired of waiting. It grab our friend and twisted it like a crocodile would do. For almost one minute we hear his last screams, as he disappeared in that mouth, filled with jaws. Fabricio cried and prayed for hours, before risking going down into our ship. Since we got stuck in this reef, two days ago, it kept us alive, out of the reach of the beast, or so do us thought. But last night the captain tried to go into the flooded section of our ship, and was caught, we don’t know how.

It’s not a shark, not a squid, no one know what it is. But I do, oh yes, I don’t have doubt, it’s the devil.

We tried to stop Fabricio, but he goes down anyway. Why not? We all are going to die here. One hour later, Fabricio reappear, he brings bottles of water and the box with flares, but it is crushed, the monster again.

Fabricio spoke to us, but we are all too tired to hear.

He work all day on something, the rest of us already gave in.

As the dawn comes, it comes too, like it does every night since we got stranded over this reef: first it circles us, slowly. We can see that strange fin, cutting the water like a razorblade.

Then, when the night falls completely, it comes at us, like a torpedo.

The reef kept us safe until now, it is too big to be simply crushed by the devil, but still…when it hit the reef we all can hear and even feel the impact. He do it sometimes for hours, other times for minutes, mostly when we try to sleep.

Then it starts to snoops the rear end of the boat, the part almost entirely under water.

It shakes us, and tries to drag us into the darkness, but the reef don’t give up to his strength, and I thank god for it.

Then, the howling begun, like the cry of thousand dead souls, loud and dreadful, and the devil don’t stop until sun rises.

When the day comes, we cry, and try to sleep, but today we kept waked, Fabricio has a plan.

He has a spear, big steel hooks and a strong chain. He tie part of the chain to the body of the ship, so it won’t slip. The other part he ties to the hooks, and the hooks he tie around his torso, finally, he covers himself.

- When it comes, be prepared to swim to the island. Don’t stop, don’t look back.

Fabricio went in the water, even over the reef, only his shoulders and head stay out the water.

He is insane, we all can see what he want to do, but none of us try to stop him now. We are desperate.

Fabricio dive and we saw the water bursting with his blood. Caught in the first try.

We run and jump in the water. I am the last one to remain in the boat, I must be sure if it’s hooked: the chain rush to the water, pulled by the abnormal strength of the beast.

I jump too and I swim faster as I can. We reach the island, three out of eight, just in time to see it finally dragging the boat off the reef.

We cry and we laugh, we thank Fabricio and god, but suddenly, we can see something slowly crawling of the water like a crocodile, huge, horrible and evil.

Hanging from its mouth… a chain.