18+
Spoiler
When a gnat is given the power of a bear, chaos reigns.
Xaero, Quake 3 Arena
The cold morning's wind blew leaves from the balcony down onto the people intently watching Dave from the street. Dave was not on the balcony, which was exactly why he was being watched. He was at a place where people went to die, but Dave was not, by any means, suicidal. In fact, he rather enjoyed his life.
Past the receptionist, up the elevator, beyond a flight of stairs, through an office of confused insurance workers and stunned security, and now finally Dave stood on a thin ledge. There were blinking lights and people's faces below him, some expressionless, some concerned, some crying - soon, for a reason. Dave was not suicidal, but he did jump.
His heart jumped with him, providing that surge of adrenaline which, for Dave at least, was a rare commodity nowadays. Tears welled up in his eyes, but only because of the strong wind that was mercilessly assaulting them. The firemen had not expected this to be over so soon, it appeared, because they had not taken out the net to catch Dave with. They were scrambling to get it out of the truck, but something had become stuck, and he was far too low anyway for anything to have worked now. The great forces beyond the skies must have pressed the pause button on their remote control, and every face froze in anticipation of the impact. The older folk expected blood and disfigurement, while the younger folk expected a fountain of gore - that's the way fatal falls were in videogames, and surely videogames never lied. But Dave would not die today, because he most certainly was not suicidal. He closed his eyes just before he could make out individual rocks on the pavement, his face slackened in an ethereal smile, and there was ever so small of a blue glow somewhere on the left half of his field of vision. He opened his eyes.
Dave was no longer in the air or on the ledge, and both the traffic and the crowd went about their day like a healthy heartbeat. Insurance workers kept working their insurance, and security kept on securing, unaware of Dave's existence. A lovely Asian couple were riding the elevator to get a quote for their new car. The stairs had not been used in days. As Dave opened his eyes, when any normal person would expect to see the bearded face of Saint Peter or the goateed face of a certain red individual, he expected only to see a receptionist of a skyscraper building, and that was exactly what he saw.
The receptionist smiled a polite smile at Dave, expecting him to provide the office name he was going to be visiting today.
"I'm sorry," Dave said, the same look of ethereal enlightenment still on his face. "I believe I have the wrong address. Would you, by any chance, know where I can find Parker & Associates?"
The receptionist told him, but he didn't pay attention to what she said. He nodded, smiled, and left the building. I wonder if Parker & Associates actually exist, he thought.
And in his field of vision, on the left half, there was a light blue glow. On closer inspection, the glow was produced by two little words, each in an oval. SAVE. LOAD. Just like on the screen of what was his Nintendo DS, when he smashed into it face-first during the accident five years ago. No one on the front seats survived, of course, but the words stayed burned in the darkness of closed eyes. Dave didn't believe in magic before this happened, but he had a few bitter laughs after the fact. Just imagine the origin story, were his life a comic book: NintendoMan! He had a game system stapled into his skull! After waking up from the surgery, he found he had the powers of a video game!
On his way home, Dave saw a woman drop her wallet while closing her purse. He picked it up, called her over and gave it back to her.
"Thank you so much," the woman said. Not much of a woman, now that he saw her up close. An attractive girl of twenty or so, beaming at Dave. "I appreciate it."
Glad to be of service, Dave said. So I lost a piece of paper, where your phone number should have been. Now all I have is this blank piece of paper. I helped you with your problem, perhaps you could help me with mine.
"You're welcome," Dave actually said. He nodded to her and continued walking. I should have saved, he thought. But why take the risk of rejection if he could not just reverse time? That was the excuse, anyway. Shame he couldn't go back more than one save.
Dave stopped at a street crossing. There was an art exhibition for him to tend to in a few hours, but he wanted his patrons to see the master at work. He would be painting while they admired his completed pieces. The question was - what to paint? But that question was solved, of course. Dave really enjoyed the view on the way down from that skyscraper.
As he waited for the light to turn green, something caught his eye in the line of cars waiting for the light with him. A guy and a girl chatting in a car, both teenagers. Laughing, simpering. Looking at him sometimes. Dave sighed and closed his eyes, and there was a small glow on the left in the darkness of his field of vision. He opened his eyes; the pair was still at it.
He leisurely walked up to the car, as if he was crossing the street, but stopped at the window. The pair also stopped goosing around, and looked at him. "Nice coat, man," he heard the guy inside say. Dave grinned a little, enjoying the taste of surging rage.
The glass tore his skin as he drove his fist through it, and grabbed the young man by the throat. His strength surged to a superhuman level by the burning pain, and he pulled the kid right out of the driver's seat through the window. This is what happens when you drive without your seat belt, Dave thought.
"What the fuck, what the fuck, stop," the kid choked. His girlfriend screamed.
"Do I look funny to you?" Dave asked. "What the fuck were you little shits laughing at? Do I look funny? Is that it?"
"No man, no, we were just talking, fuck, just let me go, don't do this, man..."
"I want to see what your girlfriend's head looks like, mounted on your spine," Dave said. He breathed heavily, and his words were growls. His body felt light as air now, and there was no pain.
The cars around him honked, though some skipped the honking and drove through the red light. Others had people with shocked faces coming out. Some watched. Some took pictures. Some called 911. No one moved. They never do, Dave thought.
He drove his thumb through the bottom of the squealing kid's chin, his nail piercing the skin. He dragged him by that wound, as if a fish by a fishing hook, to the nearest stop sign a few meters away. The sign was rusted, and had very sharp edges.
Only about ten minutes later, Dave was lying on the ground, blood oozing out of several bullet holes, mixing with the blood of other people.
There was a lot of blood on his clothes, some of it so fresh it still slid about, not quite absorbed by his reddened coat. There was blood on his hands, blood on his nose – a blurred blemish which swam in and out of focus – and there was blood sprayed and dripped all over the asphalt.
His right hand gripped several vertebrae; there was a mess of hair and pulpy matter scattered in a perimeter of gore all around him. His left hand wasn’t functional, as one of the bullets had severed some important internal connection that had allowed movement of the limb.
Dave lay there, broken and almost extinguished, and slow, calm thoughts like after a colossal, explosive orgasm, floated through his dimming mind.
Decapitating people is a lot easier than pulling out their spine, Dave told himself, even when you've got adrenaline-induced super-strength. Those old Predator movies made it look too easy. And the feeling of resisting flesh and sinew covered bone was now forever imprinted on his palms and in his mind. He still had to decide whether he hated or loved that.
At this stage his eyesight was failing rapidly, a gray-and-orange fog spreading gradually from the periphery of his vision to the center. A slow booming combined with a perpetual hiss was also slowly rising to overwhelm his hearing.
He grimaced with pain and deep tired pleasure as his flickering consciousness struggled to hold on with its last strength to the dying, bullet riddled carcass.
A scream or a shout floated by sometimes, increasingly visual, a few crouching figures with extended hands seemed to be edging closer. Cops probably.
Pushing himself with worm-like movements, of whatever part of his body still obeyed his commands, Dave rolled to one side and examined his handiwork. The tufts of hair, the blood, the soft glistening pulps. The horror-pierced deathmask of a teenage girl. The boy’s face was nearby, dislodged eyes leaking fluid and hanging from empty sockets.
What a great day, Dave thought as he saw their expressions, another painting. He closed his eyes.
Now the pair was in their car again, chatting, laughing, throwing him looks. Why, time for one of my own looks, Dave thought. He smiled - it was an "I've-heard-you-squeal-like-a-pig" smile. It was an "I-know-what-your-insides-look-like" smile. It was a "fuck-with-me-again-and-we'll-have-some-more-fun" smile.
It was a smile that told a dark story.
Straightaway the blonde-haired birds looked grave. Tires squealed - not unlike the kid himself minutes prior - and the old Ford sped through the milliseconds-old green light.
His studio was in a middle-upper class area, with large subdivisions on each side. Plenty of kids bored to death, making up problems for themselves out of nothing else to do. Some called themselves "goth", others "emo". All stared wide-eyed at the painfully detailed canvases depicting stomach-turning scenes. The goths mostly liked the graphic ones, while the emos preferred the more abstract ones - to each their own. Dave himself sat in the corner, painting his next piece, answering questions and sometimes signing autographs.
It was later in the evening, when the exhibition was almost empty, that she came. She surely was significant, Dave knew this from the start, because her presence distracted him from his second painting before she even stepped foot into the studio. In such a stark contrast to his normal audience of fake blood, multitudes of chains, and black leather, she was wearing white.
"Hello," she said, moving her long platinum hair behind her ear. She cocked her head as she did that, and closed her eyes. Then she looked at Dave and smiled.
"Hello, I'm Dave," Dave said, standing up quickly. "How are you?" He didn't find anything smarter to say.
"Your art is so interesting," she said, looking around. The art had shocked her, to a degree, but in a good way - such that she forgot to answer his question. She slowly paced by a row of abstract paintings, looking closely at each one. "It reminds me a little bit of Goya. Can you see it? The images, the expressions -- it takes a connoisseur to create works of beauty from the evolving scenes of someone else's nightmare."
"Yes," Dave said. He ate her, he feasted on every inch of her body. Her pure skin, her innocent smile. Her perfectly sized and perfectly round breasts, coquettishly hidden by the veil-like white dress. His heart sped up, and he had some difficulty breathing. "You're... familiar with Goya, then?"
"Oh, yes," she said, now looking at the grotesque paintings, some of which implied dismemberment. "I read a lot. Lovecraft mentioned Goya as the old master, the one painter who could capture distilled horror on canvas, faces distorted in true anguish. This here--" she pointed to a painting near the floor, and bent over to pick it up-- "this one practically screams 'Saturn Devouring His Son'."
Dave was listening, but he couldn't hear. She wore those close-fitting black pants that gymnasts wear. They outlined perfectly the curves-- and the creases. Thanks to the soft light of the studio, there was but a subtle hint of a mound between her legs. Dave sat down, as he felt a tightness in his crotch. To try and calm his raging heart, he took a deep sigh, closed his eyes, and wiped his face with his palm. No-- impossible. It was impossible to quench this thirst. There came a pale blue light on the left side of his vision.
"Oh-- sorry-- do you not want me touching the paintings?" the girl said, recoiling from the picture.
"No, it's okay," Dave said. "I didn't catch your name?"
"My name's Joy," she said. She had a beautiful smile.
"That's a pretty name," Dave said, standing up. "Look at that one there, I just finished it," he said, pointing to a curious image. The central part of it was a rock, highly detailed, from the top down. Everything else was radially blurred, but one could kind of make out policemen, people, cars, buildings. "That is the view of a person jumping to their death." He took a paint can that stood nearby. "The suicidal sees nothing but the way ahead of him." He walked to her in a funny way to hide his erection, but her back was turned to him. "He cares nothing for the people he will traumatize, whether they are the onlookers or friends and relatives." He was close to her now - she did not turn because she must have thought that he came up to her in order to explain the painting better. "Thus, suicide is ultimately a selfish action, in every way and form."
The can dented as he cracked it against the back of her head, and seconds later, the lights in the studio turned off.
She was a virgin, too.
She came to about thirty seconds later, her perfect face and her torn clothing illuminated by the cold strips of street lamp light passing through shuttered windows. Dave's hand was wrapped around her throat, but it was not clenched. Just enough to hold her in place. His other hand fondled her breasts. She gasped, her eyes widened, and her hands clung to his arm in panic. But then her muscles relaxed, and her hands slid down his arm with each thrust - not gently, and not in resignation. She did not cry, and she did not scream. She stared blankly into the ceiling, through Dave. Not something Dave had seen before, but then again, all people were different.
It did not take long. He was finished after another thirty seconds, perhaps owing to how beautiful she was. But it still didn't quite feel right - that catatonic look was more than a bit of a turn-off. He liked it when they screamed. He liked it when they would try to resist and he'd choke them, just to put them in their place. But this was different, and not in a good way.
He took a deep sigh, pulled out, and went back to his easel. The scene was perfect. Torn clothes, ravaged beauty. Resignation, maybe. All on a prolonged marble counter, as if a sacrificial altar. He looked a long time at the scene, and she did not move once - the good girl. This scene was absolutely, absolutely perfect. It will be his next masterpiece.
Once he had the image strongly in his mind, he kicked back in his chair, his body still shivering with after-orgasm. In this ecstasy, he closed his eyes. Blue glow.
"No, it's okay," Dave said. His breath was back to normal, his heart pumping pleasure through his body. Before him was no longer an idol of beauty, but just a regular human being. No... something else changed. "I didn't catch your name?"
"My name's Sorrow," she said. She no longer had a beautiful smile, and a hint of silver appeared behind her palm. Dave tensed.
She had a smile that was about to create a dark story.
Thanks to Jherek for his help and contributions to this story. Thanks, dude!
Xaero, Quake 3 Arena
The cold morning's wind blew leaves from the balcony down onto the people intently watching Dave from the street. Dave was not on the balcony, which was exactly why he was being watched. He was at a place where people went to die, but Dave was not, by any means, suicidal. In fact, he rather enjoyed his life.
Past the receptionist, up the elevator, beyond a flight of stairs, through an office of confused insurance workers and stunned security, and now finally Dave stood on a thin ledge. There were blinking lights and people's faces below him, some expressionless, some concerned, some crying - soon, for a reason. Dave was not suicidal, but he did jump.
His heart jumped with him, providing that surge of adrenaline which, for Dave at least, was a rare commodity nowadays. Tears welled up in his eyes, but only because of the strong wind that was mercilessly assaulting them. The firemen had not expected this to be over so soon, it appeared, because they had not taken out the net to catch Dave with. They were scrambling to get it out of the truck, but something had become stuck, and he was far too low anyway for anything to have worked now. The great forces beyond the skies must have pressed the pause button on their remote control, and every face froze in anticipation of the impact. The older folk expected blood and disfigurement, while the younger folk expected a fountain of gore - that's the way fatal falls were in videogames, and surely videogames never lied. But Dave would not die today, because he most certainly was not suicidal. He closed his eyes just before he could make out individual rocks on the pavement, his face slackened in an ethereal smile, and there was ever so small of a blue glow somewhere on the left half of his field of vision. He opened his eyes.
Dave was no longer in the air or on the ledge, and both the traffic and the crowd went about their day like a healthy heartbeat. Insurance workers kept working their insurance, and security kept on securing, unaware of Dave's existence. A lovely Asian couple were riding the elevator to get a quote for their new car. The stairs had not been used in days. As Dave opened his eyes, when any normal person would expect to see the bearded face of Saint Peter or the goateed face of a certain red individual, he expected only to see a receptionist of a skyscraper building, and that was exactly what he saw.
The receptionist smiled a polite smile at Dave, expecting him to provide the office name he was going to be visiting today.
"I'm sorry," Dave said, the same look of ethereal enlightenment still on his face. "I believe I have the wrong address. Would you, by any chance, know where I can find Parker & Associates?"
The receptionist told him, but he didn't pay attention to what she said. He nodded, smiled, and left the building. I wonder if Parker & Associates actually exist, he thought.
And in his field of vision, on the left half, there was a light blue glow. On closer inspection, the glow was produced by two little words, each in an oval. SAVE. LOAD. Just like on the screen of what was his Nintendo DS, when he smashed into it face-first during the accident five years ago. No one on the front seats survived, of course, but the words stayed burned in the darkness of closed eyes. Dave didn't believe in magic before this happened, but he had a few bitter laughs after the fact. Just imagine the origin story, were his life a comic book: NintendoMan! He had a game system stapled into his skull! After waking up from the surgery, he found he had the powers of a video game!
On his way home, Dave saw a woman drop her wallet while closing her purse. He picked it up, called her over and gave it back to her.
"Thank you so much," the woman said. Not much of a woman, now that he saw her up close. An attractive girl of twenty or so, beaming at Dave. "I appreciate it."
Glad to be of service, Dave said. So I lost a piece of paper, where your phone number should have been. Now all I have is this blank piece of paper. I helped you with your problem, perhaps you could help me with mine.
"You're welcome," Dave actually said. He nodded to her and continued walking. I should have saved, he thought. But why take the risk of rejection if he could not just reverse time? That was the excuse, anyway. Shame he couldn't go back more than one save.
Dave stopped at a street crossing. There was an art exhibition for him to tend to in a few hours, but he wanted his patrons to see the master at work. He would be painting while they admired his completed pieces. The question was - what to paint? But that question was solved, of course. Dave really enjoyed the view on the way down from that skyscraper.
As he waited for the light to turn green, something caught his eye in the line of cars waiting for the light with him. A guy and a girl chatting in a car, both teenagers. Laughing, simpering. Looking at him sometimes. Dave sighed and closed his eyes, and there was a small glow on the left in the darkness of his field of vision. He opened his eyes; the pair was still at it.
He leisurely walked up to the car, as if he was crossing the street, but stopped at the window. The pair also stopped goosing around, and looked at him. "Nice coat, man," he heard the guy inside say. Dave grinned a little, enjoying the taste of surging rage.
The glass tore his skin as he drove his fist through it, and grabbed the young man by the throat. His strength surged to a superhuman level by the burning pain, and he pulled the kid right out of the driver's seat through the window. This is what happens when you drive without your seat belt, Dave thought.
"What the fuck, what the fuck, stop," the kid choked. His girlfriend screamed.
"Do I look funny to you?" Dave asked. "What the fuck were you little shits laughing at? Do I look funny? Is that it?"
"No man, no, we were just talking, fuck, just let me go, don't do this, man..."
"I want to see what your girlfriend's head looks like, mounted on your spine," Dave said. He breathed heavily, and his words were growls. His body felt light as air now, and there was no pain.
The cars around him honked, though some skipped the honking and drove through the red light. Others had people with shocked faces coming out. Some watched. Some took pictures. Some called 911. No one moved. They never do, Dave thought.
He drove his thumb through the bottom of the squealing kid's chin, his nail piercing the skin. He dragged him by that wound, as if a fish by a fishing hook, to the nearest stop sign a few meters away. The sign was rusted, and had very sharp edges.
Only about ten minutes later, Dave was lying on the ground, blood oozing out of several bullet holes, mixing with the blood of other people.
There was a lot of blood on his clothes, some of it so fresh it still slid about, not quite absorbed by his reddened coat. There was blood on his hands, blood on his nose – a blurred blemish which swam in and out of focus – and there was blood sprayed and dripped all over the asphalt.
His right hand gripped several vertebrae; there was a mess of hair and pulpy matter scattered in a perimeter of gore all around him. His left hand wasn’t functional, as one of the bullets had severed some important internal connection that had allowed movement of the limb.
Dave lay there, broken and almost extinguished, and slow, calm thoughts like after a colossal, explosive orgasm, floated through his dimming mind.
Decapitating people is a lot easier than pulling out their spine, Dave told himself, even when you've got adrenaline-induced super-strength. Those old Predator movies made it look too easy. And the feeling of resisting flesh and sinew covered bone was now forever imprinted on his palms and in his mind. He still had to decide whether he hated or loved that.
At this stage his eyesight was failing rapidly, a gray-and-orange fog spreading gradually from the periphery of his vision to the center. A slow booming combined with a perpetual hiss was also slowly rising to overwhelm his hearing.
He grimaced with pain and deep tired pleasure as his flickering consciousness struggled to hold on with its last strength to the dying, bullet riddled carcass.
A scream or a shout floated by sometimes, increasingly visual, a few crouching figures with extended hands seemed to be edging closer. Cops probably.
Pushing himself with worm-like movements, of whatever part of his body still obeyed his commands, Dave rolled to one side and examined his handiwork. The tufts of hair, the blood, the soft glistening pulps. The horror-pierced deathmask of a teenage girl. The boy’s face was nearby, dislodged eyes leaking fluid and hanging from empty sockets.
What a great day, Dave thought as he saw their expressions, another painting. He closed his eyes.
Now the pair was in their car again, chatting, laughing, throwing him looks. Why, time for one of my own looks, Dave thought. He smiled - it was an "I've-heard-you-squeal-like-a-pig" smile. It was an "I-know-what-your-insides-look-like" smile. It was a "fuck-with-me-again-and-we'll-have-some-more-fun" smile.
It was a smile that told a dark story.
Straightaway the blonde-haired birds looked grave. Tires squealed - not unlike the kid himself minutes prior - and the old Ford sped through the milliseconds-old green light.
His studio was in a middle-upper class area, with large subdivisions on each side. Plenty of kids bored to death, making up problems for themselves out of nothing else to do. Some called themselves "goth", others "emo". All stared wide-eyed at the painfully detailed canvases depicting stomach-turning scenes. The goths mostly liked the graphic ones, while the emos preferred the more abstract ones - to each their own. Dave himself sat in the corner, painting his next piece, answering questions and sometimes signing autographs.
It was later in the evening, when the exhibition was almost empty, that she came. She surely was significant, Dave knew this from the start, because her presence distracted him from his second painting before she even stepped foot into the studio. In such a stark contrast to his normal audience of fake blood, multitudes of chains, and black leather, she was wearing white.
"Hello," she said, moving her long platinum hair behind her ear. She cocked her head as she did that, and closed her eyes. Then she looked at Dave and smiled.
"Hello, I'm Dave," Dave said, standing up quickly. "How are you?" He didn't find anything smarter to say.
"Your art is so interesting," she said, looking around. The art had shocked her, to a degree, but in a good way - such that she forgot to answer his question. She slowly paced by a row of abstract paintings, looking closely at each one. "It reminds me a little bit of Goya. Can you see it? The images, the expressions -- it takes a connoisseur to create works of beauty from the evolving scenes of someone else's nightmare."
"Yes," Dave said. He ate her, he feasted on every inch of her body. Her pure skin, her innocent smile. Her perfectly sized and perfectly round breasts, coquettishly hidden by the veil-like white dress. His heart sped up, and he had some difficulty breathing. "You're... familiar with Goya, then?"
"Oh, yes," she said, now looking at the grotesque paintings, some of which implied dismemberment. "I read a lot. Lovecraft mentioned Goya as the old master, the one painter who could capture distilled horror on canvas, faces distorted in true anguish. This here--" she pointed to a painting near the floor, and bent over to pick it up-- "this one practically screams 'Saturn Devouring His Son'."
Dave was listening, but he couldn't hear. She wore those close-fitting black pants that gymnasts wear. They outlined perfectly the curves-- and the creases. Thanks to the soft light of the studio, there was but a subtle hint of a mound between her legs. Dave sat down, as he felt a tightness in his crotch. To try and calm his raging heart, he took a deep sigh, closed his eyes, and wiped his face with his palm. No-- impossible. It was impossible to quench this thirst. There came a pale blue light on the left side of his vision.
"Oh-- sorry-- do you not want me touching the paintings?" the girl said, recoiling from the picture.
"No, it's okay," Dave said. "I didn't catch your name?"
"My name's Joy," she said. She had a beautiful smile.
"That's a pretty name," Dave said, standing up. "Look at that one there, I just finished it," he said, pointing to a curious image. The central part of it was a rock, highly detailed, from the top down. Everything else was radially blurred, but one could kind of make out policemen, people, cars, buildings. "That is the view of a person jumping to their death." He took a paint can that stood nearby. "The suicidal sees nothing but the way ahead of him." He walked to her in a funny way to hide his erection, but her back was turned to him. "He cares nothing for the people he will traumatize, whether they are the onlookers or friends and relatives." He was close to her now - she did not turn because she must have thought that he came up to her in order to explain the painting better. "Thus, suicide is ultimately a selfish action, in every way and form."
The can dented as he cracked it against the back of her head, and seconds later, the lights in the studio turned off.
She was a virgin, too.
She came to about thirty seconds later, her perfect face and her torn clothing illuminated by the cold strips of street lamp light passing through shuttered windows. Dave's hand was wrapped around her throat, but it was not clenched. Just enough to hold her in place. His other hand fondled her breasts. She gasped, her eyes widened, and her hands clung to his arm in panic. But then her muscles relaxed, and her hands slid down his arm with each thrust - not gently, and not in resignation. She did not cry, and she did not scream. She stared blankly into the ceiling, through Dave. Not something Dave had seen before, but then again, all people were different.
It did not take long. He was finished after another thirty seconds, perhaps owing to how beautiful she was. But it still didn't quite feel right - that catatonic look was more than a bit of a turn-off. He liked it when they screamed. He liked it when they would try to resist and he'd choke them, just to put them in their place. But this was different, and not in a good way.
He took a deep sigh, pulled out, and went back to his easel. The scene was perfect. Torn clothes, ravaged beauty. Resignation, maybe. All on a prolonged marble counter, as if a sacrificial altar. He looked a long time at the scene, and she did not move once - the good girl. This scene was absolutely, absolutely perfect. It will be his next masterpiece.
Once he had the image strongly in his mind, he kicked back in his chair, his body still shivering with after-orgasm. In this ecstasy, he closed his eyes. Blue glow.
"No, it's okay," Dave said. His breath was back to normal, his heart pumping pleasure through his body. Before him was no longer an idol of beauty, but just a regular human being. No... something else changed. "I didn't catch your name?"
"My name's Sorrow," she said. She no longer had a beautiful smile, and a hint of silver appeared behind her palm. Dave tensed.
She had a smile that was about to create a dark story.
Thanks to Jherek for his help and contributions to this story. Thanks, dude!
But it's going to be tough love. Also, I'm going to assume you gave me permission to rip apart this story entirely, which is something I usually feel guilty about doing. So this should be fun.
