3 Short Stories

Story 1. Fish

I knew today was going to be a good day for me! This is the most fish that I've ever caught in a single session! I thought that day was a good one but that is the same day that my whole world changed. I put another one in the cooler, almost full, and put another worm on my hook and plopped down on my chair after casting and before I could put down my pole I could definitely feel a bite! This one wasn't much of a fighter and he too joined his friends in the full cooler. That was enough for the day I was going to make my dad proud, we were going to eat amazingly tonight I can hardly wait! But then my luck turned on me, when he first spoke to me I thought nothing of him except a poor man needing to eat before he inevitably dies of starvation due to the lack of empathy my town was full of. He approached me while I walked to my home and begged me for a fish, just one of my precious fish, at first I thought he would go away if I ignored him but he was persistent and eventually I gave up and asked him what he needed so badly. Get a job you low life. I wanted to tell him these fish were my hard work paying off but then I heard the pain in his voice and I saw the suffering in his eyes that I just couldn't say no to him, like I was being obliged to give him all my fish but I didn't intend on doing so. Putting down the cooler and pulling out one of the smaller fish that I had caught that afternoon gave me a feeling of power, in this moment I decide whether he eats or starves but there were way too many fish that I would've felt guilty about declining and I handed the man a fish and walked off only to hear strange noises from behind me. Choke you pathetic dead beat. The stranger was choking!! He was grabbing his neck and frantically kicking the air while turning blue, I can't move. I'm frozen. The man stopped. Then everything went dark, no darker than dark! Blacker than black! After that the black faded and I was face to face with the man. This was before I handed him the fish? How am I back here? What's going on? The man snapped his fingers and I went back into "reality". That had to be a day dream just a really strange thought. I pushed away any of my thoughts and the man demanded me to give him a fish, this time he was more impatient and angry.  Putting down the cooler and pulling out the smallest fish that I had caught that afternoon I handed the man his fish. Bite sized. But the man slammed the fish on the floor and stomped on it! He claimed that this fish was poisoned and then he grabbed my neck and started to strangle me! Again the world went to black and (again) I was face to face with him. I saw that face for all eternity. I know the bearer of it. Poisoned fish. Hell.

Story 2. Smiling

Lucky. That was the word to describe my life ever sense some unspecific, ordinary day. I couldn't be stopped any more. I won every game. I won every argument. I won everything! I wish not to wake up in the morning some days. I want to have this wretched curse lifted. I am the richest man I know and if I meet someone richer I get more money than them within three days. My luck does not carry over to others however, in fact it has made some of my closest friends lives hell. I've even lost family members most likely for their life insurance and will. It all started like a dream, some people would kill to be this lucky, he was winning everything! Lottery, arguments, and death. He had been diagnosed with HIV and suddenly it was gone. Happy. His life was solid gold. Fast forward 30 years and all he wants is this to end, he wants to end. He tried suicide, gun jammed, people stopped him at the bridge, couldn't find razer blades, and always, even after insane stuff such as car accidents or jumping off of buildings, he would recovery within months. He spends all his money on charities but he gets it all back in return. Tragic. I want to die. But one day he was feeling extra depressed a man came to his door and shot him, but the man didn't run out of bullets. But somehow he got back up from getting shot and the man at the door looked at him, smiled, and put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. Amazed. The stranger didn't fall or flinch. No doubt he was the thing that had cursed him, swiftly he grabbed the strangers handgun and shot him in between the eyes. He died this time. Then the luck ran out. He wasn't lucky or immortal like him. He was an angel inhabiting a vessel. By killing the stranger he released all his luck but the angel retreated back to the center of the earth. He died by getting shot by police by accidentally holding the gun towards them.

Story 3. Flash

My name is #4. Ever sense man learned how to travel back in time and forward in time we have decided that names are irrelevant. It all started 6 years ago when I was still new to the research of time manipulation, I had a name then but considering what happened it's been forgotten. We discovered how to make a working machine that can manipulate time, we named it Flash. Now it was a top secret military project, there was no motive to make the device apart from man's never ending thirst for knowledge and power. It was all my fault. All my fault. I'm the reason the world is hell. MY FAULT. When we actually made the first working prototype of Flash we only went to a few seconds in the past and that's how we learned how it works. You do not stay in the same time line per say, the man didn't just appear he disappeared. However a second later he returned. If you use it you are not in the same reality you once were in but if you return you do, or so we thought because the second time we tested it, the man had a fierce mustache but when he returned he was without it, and he was saying that another man never wore glasses. We learned that you don't have a guarantee of returning back to the exact same timeline. Tic toc. Then I made the worst decision of my life. I had the idea to start traveling to different timelines and giving them Flash, of course we made more afterwards but hadn't used them. And we went to three timelines that too were seconds before us. That was a huge mistake! Times up. We didn't know because we were still researching and it was an unknown machine but we inadvertently created hell. See the universe can comprehend one Flashing per timeline, but when you have more than one flash in a timeline and use two different versions is where the universe can't correct itself. It started out normal just some things being in places we didn't remember putting them. But the line that connected every different timeline human had been cut, basically every timeline version of yourself is almost a direct copy with some missing features or new features, but if you were in a spot somewhere then your opposing timeline self was highly likely to be there in their timeline. Now having two Flashings in a timeline cuts all ties. Tic Tic. This lead to anarchy. People started dying without knowing the cause or things started appearing that weren't there before and people from other timelines were showing up despite their opposing timeline comrade still being in this universe. They could interact with one another but it became a law that they didn't due to some being scared their doppelganger would succeed them. Time laws were created by the government but now everyone thought for themselves, you didn't share thoughts with your other timeline self anymore. This lead to underground organizations making thousands of flash devices making the world even more unstable. Tic. Now the world is just in constant fear, worry, and ferocity. No laws. Out of all the infinite selves that you had if ONE of them died then all the other unlimited would just die on the spot. We called those deaths Timeless. I haven't used the Flash device once and I never plan on it, I've met myself millions of times. I'm afraid of what I helped create. It's all my fault. Toc.