Arsirl

This is just something I spit out while thinking about a story idea. I may write more about the same story, but I probably won't revisit the narrator of this. This could be someone talking about events that happen in a much bigger story. I may revisit this, I may not. If you want to do something with this, go ahead. Consider it to be creative commons.

The elf? Yea, I met the elf. I met him in a bar about two weeks before the incident. It was a small dive over on the east side called the Oasis. It's the type of place that hadn't been redecorated since the mid seventies. The place was mostly empty that night. There was a group of punk kids playing pool were the only patrons before I got there. I wasn't in a mood for company, so I got myself a whisky, and then sat at a corner table not far from the bar.

When Arsirl came in, I could tell he was having a worse day than even I. He was wearing a stocking hat, which wasn't out of the ordinary since it was chilly that night. The way he was dressed, at first I figured he was there to hang with the punk kids where were there. He wasn't exactly dressed in the punk rock fashions, but he looked to be about their age, and he certainly wasn't clean cut.

Nothing about him stuck me as being particularly odd until he ordered his drink. He ordered a wine. I mentioned that this place was a dive right? Yea, this really wasn't the type of place where one normally ordered wine. It's not like he just comes in and says," I want a red wine". No, he ordered it the way you'd order in one of those pretentious wine bars. I don't remember exactly what kind of wine it was. I'm not a wine guy; I really didn't give two shits what kind he ordered. It was just strange that he ordered fancy wine.

Anyway, the bartender gave him a funny look, before digging out a bottle from beneath the bar and pouring some red liquid into a glass for the guy. It wasn't even a wine glass, just a regular drink glass. I really doubt the bottle contained what he ordered, but he didn't seem to care.

After he got his glass of wine, he paid the bartender with a handful of crumpled bills. He then came over and sat down at my table. I was doing my best to look like I didn't want someone to sit with me, but he didn't take the hint. Maybe I should have been more forceful in my insistence that he sit somewhere else. But if I had done that, I wouldn't be telling you about him now.

So, he sat down, and he says to me, "I've had one hell of a day."

As he sat there, I couldn't help but start to feel sorry for the guy. I dunno, as much as I wanted to wallow in my own self pity, the guy was really likable. He talked in a funny accent, but something about him really made you want to like him. I could see if he were cleaned up, he could have gotten himself into any fancy bar in town. You know that kind of guy.

He said something about it being really hot in there, which he was right, it was hot in there. Then he took his hat off. I noticed right away that his ears had points to them. I didn't say anything about them as I figured that they were those fake things the science fiction people put on their ears to look like that Spock character from Star Trek.

Deciding that I didn't really want him to go away, I thought the best I could do was be civil to him. I asked him to tell me what had happened to cause him to have a bad day. Besides, maybe hearing about his rough time would help me forget my own troubles.

He told me that he was an elf from another reality parallel to our own. He told me that ours was one of several realities separated by barriers. These different realities contained all of the mythological creatures from our stories and legends. Our reality is the normal one that all of the other ones are tied to. When the barriers between the realities weaken, then things can cross over.

According to his story, the reason that the tales of the Greeks talked about things like the Chimera, is that they really did exist. It had just crossed over from its own reality into ours. The same thing went with all of the elements of different Mythologies from around the world.

He told me that the barriers had been strong for the past several hundred years, and that's why we hadn't seen anything in such a long time. Being an elf, he was immortal, and was still here since the last time the barriers had been weak. He was the last living thing on earth from another realm.

Of course, I thought he was just making all of this up. Trying to be smart, I asked why we didn't find remains of all of these things. If there were dragons running around hundreds of years ago, then we should have some evidence of them. His explanation was that when the barriers strengthened, all traces of anything that didn't belong here got erased. I asked him why he was still here then. He said he didn't know.

Deciding to humor him, I asked what all of this had to do with his day, and why it was so bad. That's when he told me that a barrier was starting to weaken. He had spent the day trying to stop it, but he wasn't sure he had succeeded. It was being damaged by some science experiment going on at the University. He said something about breaking into the University to break some of their equipment to prevent what they were doing.

I asked him if we were going to see a dragon running around central park soon. It's kind of ironic that I had to ask that exact question. He said he hoped that we wouldn't see that.

As my drink was empty, I thanked him for the story, and left. I still didn't believe anything he had told me. I still figured he was just some science fiction nerd with an overactive imagination. His story did help me take my mind off my own rotten luck that day.

As you can imagine, I was pretty damned surprised two weeks later when I flipped on the news to find that there was a dragon running around central park, and that this elf that I had met was trying to reinforce the barrier between the two realities. I know he got the barrier back up, and we're not in eminent danger of being attacked by dragons anytime soon, but now we know that there are things out there. I'm sure the scientists won't rest until they find a way to pierce those barriers and find out more about what's out there.

Of Cutlass and Katana Part 2

The cold splash of water on my face woke me up. I groggily looked around and saw that I was being held in a cell. A guard was standing on the other side of the bars looking at me holding a now empty cup. He must have stood six and a half feet tall and looked as though he could lift a ship by himself. His arms were tattooed in the strange script of the ninjas.

"Get up ya damned pirate." He growled.

I slowly picked myself up off the floor. As I started to move I felt a sharp pain on my sides. The skirmish the night before must have resulted in a couple bruised if not cracked ribs. Once I got to my feet I stood up tall and looked the man straight in the eyes. His eyes held mine for a minute, then he grunted and walked off.

Once the guard's back was turned on me, I looked to see if I was the only prisoner held. I was alone in the cell, and the walls between cells were solid. I thought better of calling out to see if my shipmates were in the other cells. I tried to recall the night before, but it was a bit foggy. I remembered drinking quite a bit of grog, then getting attacked by the pirates. The fight itself was a blur, and I must have been knocked out quickly.

My head starting spinning from the after effects of the grog, and I quickly found the latrine in the corner. From the next cell I heard a hushed voice, "That you Andy? I'd recognize the sound o' that heavin anywhere."

"Aye sir, it's me." I replied after wiping my mouth. I was glad to hear the captains voice.

"It be just the 2 o' us down here. "

"Any suggestions on how we get out of here?"

"These ninja cells be too strong to break our way out. We wait till the come get us for execution. We be fightin our way out from the chopping block."

I responded with a low "yarr", and sat quietly clearing my mind waiting for them to come get us.

The Hunt

I trudged through the knee deep snow. My quarry was somewhere ahead of me, and the biting wind was to my back. The light from the full moon lit up the horrible tracks in front of me. My fingers that gripped my rife were numb and blue. Icicles hung from the scraggly beard that adorned my face.

For weeks I had been walking in the wilderness. The trail of the monster bringing me further into the cold north each day. My only companion was the rifle I held in my hands. I ate what food I could find along the way. My wife had surely given me up for by dead at this point. None of that mattered though, the only thing that mattered was the pursuit.

I looked ahead and saw a rabbit cross the trail. The though of fresh meat to eat was tempting, but I couldn't risk alerting him to my presence with a gunshot. I simply kept on walking. The tracks in the snow wouldn't last long in this wind, so I knew he couldn't be far ahead of me. The rabbit sat as still as a rock when I passed it not knowing that I already knew it was there. I kept my eyes on it as I walked forward studying it's details.

I started this hunt after it came to me in a dream while visiting the north lands with my wife. I saw the monster then, I saw what it would do if he wasn't stopped, and I saw that it was me who must stop him. I left that same day. I knew that my wife wouldn't understand that I was doing what had to be done, so I left without saying anything to her.

I wasn't watching where I was going, and I fell into a trap laid for me by the monster. Some tree branches were buried in the snow cleverly placed there to trip me up. I fell face first into the snow. As my rifle hit the ground a shot rang out which caused the rabbit to take off. I scrambled back to my feet and looked around I saw nothing but the maddening white landscape around me. I looked down to pick up the trail, but the monster must have erased his tracks after setting the trap, as I no longer could see them.

He was clever, but not clever enough. I knew which way I came from, I knew which way was north. I put the trail I made behind me, and continued walking forward. I kept trudging through the snow.

Posthuman Cleanup

"Hello?, Is this the used body pickup service?"

"I'd like to schedule a pickup."

"uh-huh, My name is Kat, and I live at 555 North Terrace."

"Yea, that's over on the west side."

"It's an organic body."

"Yes it's my own."

"It's been discarded for about three days."

"Oh really? I didn't know I should have called that soon."

"Well, it is still operating."

"I just couldn't bring myself to terminate it."

"Yea, I've kept it fed like normal and everything."

"Well, I have it restrained so it can't damage itself."

"Tomorrow at 4:00? I don't know if I'll quite be home by then, is 4:15 ok?"

"Great, see you then."

Kat watched with horror as the robot hung up the phone.

Of Cutlass and Katana Part 1

It was a clear night with a full moon. The light was enough that we could make out every detail of the ship. I'm still not sure if the fact that we didn't have to light any lanterns worked to our advantage or not. The wind was calm, so we weren't moving very fast.

The crew was in a jovial mood that night. Most of them were on the deck drinking grog and singing "Yo Ho Yo Ho". I was on the deck enjoying myself like the rest of the crew having a bit too much of the grog.Ol' Jim was manning the wheel, while the captain was looking out over the ocean.

Captain Gray Beard was a beast of a man. He stood five and a half feet tall, and was solid muscle. His eyes were so dark that they seemed black. The beard that was his namesake was indeed gray and hung to the middle of his chest. He was a hard ass of a captain to work for, but no one dared do anything to anger him.

The captain usually spent his evenings alone in his quarters. It was unusual for him to even be around the crew when they were being social. Perhaps he suspected that something was going to happen. He had a good sense of the seas and usually knew when something was up. If he knew, he didn't let on to any of the rest of us, because what happened took us completely by surprise.

It was a couple hours past sundown when the attack began. No one saw the other ship pull up by ours. No one heard the oars of the other ship in the water. The first thing we heard was the scraping sound of a grappling hook being pulled across our deck. "Yarr, we are bein boarded" someone yelled. I turned to the sound and saw four more hooks fly up and catch onto the rail of our ship.

Within moments we were surrounded by ninjas. There was a long pause while we looked at them and they looked at us. They were covered head to toe in black. A slit in their mask allowed us to see their eyes. I heard a pistol to me left go off, and one of the ninjas took a shot in the chest and flew backwards over the rail. Then chaos erupted. The sound of cutlass clashing with katana could be heard all over the deck.

The ninjas were completely silent as they fought. There were no screams of pain when they died, or shouts of joy when they cut one of us down. Our crew was half drunk and prone to shouting. All around mixed in with the clashing of steel and occasional pistol shot, were the sounds of pirates shouting, "Avast!", "Yarr", and "Arg".