Future Squirrels

I wrote this as part of another Writing Prompt found on Reddit. The prompt was titled: 2,000,000 A.D., humanity is long gone, a new species is just becoming intelligent enough to form a civilisation. An individual discovers a lost human artefact in the desert and argues to his superiors it isn't natural

The following is my submission:

Weelo stuffed his cheeks full of acorns. He didn’t know they used to be called acorns, of course, for that word had disappeared from this world eons ago. In his language, they were simply called by the word they used for fruit: something that grew on trees that you could eat. Nine! He could carry nine at a time! This was a new record for him. He needed to show Reeesh! He hopped down from the lower branches of the acorn tree, landing on all fours. His bushy tail twitched a few times as he sniffed the air. Giant squirrels don’t navigate by sight or even memory, like most animals. They relied on the smell of their destination, and followed the intensity. As it grew stronger, you were closer. Weelo spun in jerky, squirrel motions facing this direction and that until he determined the direction of his village. Then he hopped up onto his rear legs and ran towards home. He was so excited about his new personal best that he couldn’t contain himself.

“Reeesh, look!” he shouted, but because he had four acorns packed into each cheek and one in the center on his tongue, it sounded like “Reepsshglaack!” and he slobbered and nearly choked on the ninth acorn. He dropped to all fours again, and coughed and gagged. He involuntarily spat out four acorns, gasped, choked again, and spit out a fifth. Two of them rolled down the incline to his right, and he quickly stuffed the three remaining acorns back into his mouth and scurried after the renegades.

Down the embankment he went on all fours, slobber on his furry little chin, but a look of determination and concentration on his gray and white face. The acorns bounded down faster and faster, and getting farther away from one another. Weelo may have been prone to excitement, but he was not prone to panic. He picked up his pace and was able to snatch one out of mid-air. He grinned inwardly, for fear that if he let a smile cross his lips, he’d lose another acorn or two. With the first renegade acorn now firmly in his grip, he veered off after the second, but by this time, it had gotten very far away. He picked up his pace and closed the distance. The acorn bounded crazily from rock to rock as the incline grew ever so slightly steeper. Finally, as Weelo reached it, the incline gave way to a cliff. He skidded to a stop at the last second and his paw shot out. He grazed the acorn as it plummeted over the edge, just out of reach, and he watched helplessly as it disappeared far below.

He sighed (slobber, slobber), and looked around, sniffing the air. Where am I? He thought. A new smell entered his twitching nose. It was new to him. Completely unlike anything he’d ever smelled. It was just off to the side a bit. He looked around and saw a square rock, about as big a himself, with strange markings on it. It was covered in dirt and dead leaves, but since it was so strange looking and had a weird smell, he decided to have a closer look. He brushed away the grime and found a small indentation. When he touched it, it clicked and opened up. It was a box! But not like the woven grass boxes his peers made. No, this was a new kind of box. Inside this box was a… thing. A branch, maybe? Another rock? It was smooth and about as big as his leg. It was clean, too; protected from the elements by the box.  Someone placed this here. But who? He took it out and noticed similar markings on the side. They looked like this: RONCO’S PERSONAL TIME PORTAL – WHEN WILL YOU GO TO, TODAY? But to him it was just meaningless scratches.

“Reeesh! I need to show Reeesh!” Weelo shouted, but it was mostly slobber and another acorn fell out of his mouth. He sniffed the air for his village, and once he determined its direction, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him with the thing held tightly to his chest.

 * * *

“Weelo, where have you been?” Reeesh, the village elder stood on his hind legs with his paws on his hips.

“You have to see this!” Weelo shrieked, proffering his thing.

“It’s a rock. So what? Have you brought back fruit?”

Weelo got excited. “Nine! I fit nine in my mouth!” But then he realized that he had lost two and couldn’t prove his claim. He hadn’t even bothered to pick up the last one he dropped when he found this thing. *This* *thing!* He remembered. “Reeesh, look! This is more important than fruit.” He proffered the thing to Reeesh again.

Reeesh sighed and took it from him. He turned it over and over, uninterested, unimpressed. “Fine. What is it?”

“I… I don’t know. But it’s not a rock. Look. It’s got some strange scratches on it.” He pointed to the scratches: RONCO’S PERSONAL TIME PORTAL – WHEN WILL YOU GO TO, TODAY?

Reeeshe scoffed and his whickers twitched irritably. “It’s scratched. Stuff gets scratched. That happens.” He tossed the thing onto the ground at Weelo’s feet. Weelo made a move to catch it but was too slow. As the thing hit the ground, it clicked and hummed. The ancient fusion power source still had life. The thing glowed for a moment and a beam of light emanated from one end. A very short distance away, the air rippled like a pond when you drop a fruit into it.

The squirrels looked on in amazement as the ripples subsided and were replaced by what they could only describe as a hole in the air. On the other side of the hole were some very strange creatures. They were looking back at the squirrels excitedly. One of them moved very close to it, making the squirrels take a step back. The creature bared its fangs and made a noise.

“It works! The time portal works!!” the noise sounded like, but to the squirrels, it was meaningless growls. On the chest of this creature, Weelo saw similar scratches to the ones on the thing. They looked like this: RONCO CHRONOLOGY LABS – DR. R. JAMESON

The creature leaned forward making eye contact with Weelo. “Those are some big squirrels!” The creature growled again, unintelligibly.

The Super Police Department

I wrote this as part of a Writing Prompt found on Reddit. The prompt was titled: "Waiting for superman" in this universe isn't just a song, 911 is a superhero on demand service

The following is my submission:

    Ring. Ring.
    “911. What is your emergency?”
    “The bitch hit me!”
    “Who hit you, sir?
    “My wife. She’s drunk again. And when she gets drunk, she gets mean.”
    “What’s your name and address, sir?” The emergency operator sighed as she took down all the necessary information for dispatch. It seemed that crime had gone up rather than down since the implementation of the SPD. Everyone wanted to meet the new superheroes, and no one, well, almost no one had real emergencies. Her last call was a cat stuck in a tree. Really? A cat in a tree? It was bad enough that the city had already been turned into a comic book without adding cheesy, unoriginal clichés to the mix. And then there were these new cops. They had their superpowers thrust upon them. Just a few months ago, they were just your average guys. Construction workers, cab drivers, pizza makers… Nothing special. They were just in the right place at the right time, and now they all thought they were hot shit. Just a bunch of fanboys living out their dreams.
    At least I don’t have to patrol the streets with these jag-offs, she thought.
    “I heard that, Marie!”
    “Screw you, Mindbender!” she shouted. She didn’t even care anymore that Phil could read her mind. At least now he knew she wasn’t lying when she said she wasn’t interested in going on a date with him. She had fought him off for six months before the... what did they call it? The Empowerment? He’d bug her on a daily basis and she’d turned him down again and again. Once he had his powers and looked into her mind, he realized that she was truly disgusted with him and gave up on the spot. At first she felt violated, but quickly stopped caring once he backed off.
    It was her last call and she could finally clock out and go home. She logged off her computer and put the phone on “busy”. She didn’t even look up on her way out of the station. She just waved to whomever tossed her a courteous “G’nite, Marie” and made a bee-line for her twenty year old sedan.
    As she turned onto her street, she saw Greg and Mickey from vice shaking down a local dealer. He was small time and she thought he might even live in her building. The cops recognized Marie as she parked and exited her car, and waved.
    “Hi, Marie,” they said in chorus. These guys used to be alright in her book. They were cops prior to the Empowerment, and she’d worked with them for about a year before that. Now, they just looked goofy in their metallic capes and their swollen egos. Douchebags, she thought.
    “Hey, Sliverfox. Meteor Man.” She frowned, “Dirty Tony.” Dirty Tony smiled weakly and looked down at his shoes. “Keep up the good work, guys.”
    She entered the elevator and pushed the button for her floor. Just as the doors began to close, a hand shot between them and forced them open. Marie sighed. It’s always something.
    “Sorry,” the figure smiled weakly. “I just really wanted to get off the street.” It was her new neighbor, Mike. He began stabbing at the “close” button. She rolled her eyes. “You see, there are cops everywhere. I can’t seem to get away from them.”
     Marie was suddenly interested . “Why…?”
    “You’re not a cop are you?” Mike gave her a nervous once over but didn’t wait for a reply. “Nah, couldn’t be a cop.” He stabbed at the button again and the doors finally closed. Marie thought about telling him that she did indeed work for the police department, she just didn’t put on the uniform, anymore. It’d been a long time since she’d been a beat cop, but she was still on the force. She didn’t have super powers so she’d been shuffled around the department until she landed in the 911 operator’s call center. She was still bitter about that, but not because she hadn’t had powers bestowed upon her, she didn’t want them, but because all non-super cops were slowly relegated to more clerical positions. Anyway, if she told this guy she was a cop, she wouldn’t be able to find out why he needed her NOT to be a cop.
    “Why do you want to get away from them?”
    “They all have capes!” Mike looked at her as if that were a sufficient answer, but he continued explaining anyway. “It’s not fair to the criminals, anymore. I mean, I get it. It’s not supposed to be fair. It’s not like a boxing match or a football game where the competitors are supposed to be evenly matched. Crimes are illegal, justice and good should prevail, yadda yadda yadaa. But this whole super powered cop thing has gotten out of control. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.”
    “What was supposed to…”
He cut her off again. “Everyone in that warehouse explosion, the Empowerment, was supposed to get their powers, sure. But they weren’t all supposed to become cops. Hell, I thought NONE of them would become cops. There’s no need for anonymity when you’re wearing a cape AND a badge. No, those guys were supposed to wear masks like the rest of us.”
    “You have super pow…”
    “I mean, the good guys were supposed to become vigilantes, the bad guys were supposed to go on crime sprees.” He wasn’t even looking at her anymore. He was talking to himself as he watched the floors tick by. Five, six, seven.
    “Supposed to?”
    “Human nature.” He shook his head. “Human nature makes people do bad things, but society and laws keep us, THEM, keeps them in check.”
Marie maybe bitter now, but she was generally a good person and she believed that people were generally good, too. That’s why she went into the force in the first place. “So these people were sup…”
    “Yeah, yeah. People are mean. They’re dicks, really. They were supposed to turn this town upside down. I don’t know what went wrong. The warehouse exploded, the serum infected the entire east side docks and all these people started being good people and became cops.” He was glossy eyed now and practically unaware of her presence anymore. “I tested it on mice and chimps. They all became dicks. What went wrong. Did I…” he trailed of, mumbling.
     Marie’s jaw dropped. “You did this?!” She shouted.
    “What? I… what?” He turned to her, suddenly aware of her presence again. “No, no. You don’t understand.”
    Marie looked at him, waiting for him to follow that up with some explanation. He had none. He just stared back at her. The floors ticked by. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She punched the stop button, and the elevator slammed to a halt between fifteen and sixteen. He blinked at her.
    “You son of a bitch!” She shouted. He recoiled. "I work dispatch because of you. I’m not a beat cop anymore! I take calls from fanboys who have their Frisbees stuck on the roof just so they can get a glimpse of Lizard Larry! Lizard Larry isn’t even a good superhero name! That guy used to sell me overcooked bacon at Denny’s!”
    “Y… You’re a cop?”
    “Barely!” Marie was seething. She dropped her voice to a hiss and grabbed him by his shirt.   “Mike, you’re going to fix this.”
    “I can’t. I tried. But I can’t. The lab…”
    “Then give me power! No, wait,” she didn’t want power. She hated people with powers. “What the hell are you going to do about this?”
    “Nothing,” Mike stammered. “I mean, I can’t. My lab blew up. It was in the warehouse.”
    “Then I’m going to arrest you take you in. If I have to be stuck with these stupid supercops, I’m at least going to…” Then the wind went out of her sails. She released Mike and punched the elevator’s sixteen button. The elevator moved for a couple of seconds and the doors opened onto their floor.
    Marie decided she was fine with being a call center cop. The passion for old fashioned crime fighting with a badge and gun had left her. Even if she could go back to being a beat cop, she couldn’t compete with the cops of the SPD. She couldn’t have powers and didn’t want them if she could.
    They stepped off the elevator, Mike a few slow steps behind her. She turned to him. He waited expectantly.
    “I’m a call center cop. This city is a comic book. It’s all your fault.”
    Mike swallowed. Marie shook her head, reeled back, and punched him in the nose. Mike staggered backwards against the closed elevator doors, his hand flying up protectively.
    “Go home, Mike,” she shook her head and turned away from him. “And keep the noise down. I can always hear your porn through our stupid walls.”

Homecoming

     Raylin strapped herself into the small pod and gave a nervous thumbs-up to the crewmen who secured the airlock to the craft. They returned the gesture and headed back to the transfer chamber. As soon as the secondary airlock was secured, the cabin lights flickered to life and somewhere, there was a hiss and cool air flowed across her nervous face.

     “Raylin, are you alright?” Jack asked over the intercom.

     “I’m okay, Jack. Just a little nervous is all.”

     “I understand. Just remember that the last two unmanned pods we sent, made it to the surface intact. You’ll be fine.” Raylin just nodded and closed her eyes. She had to trust that the engineers had done their jobs right. All she could do now was wait and think.

     Mankind had always gazed curiously out of the portholes onto the vibrant blue-green globe that occupied their otherwise black sky. For generations they admired its beauty and speculated what secrets it held. They had forgotten that they were Earth-born and this orbiting station was the only world they ever knew as home. They had dedicated what resources they could to studying earth but were not able to learn much. They built probes and sent them to Earth and the first few burned up in the atmosphere. The last two had included heat shielding and survived to the surface but for unknown reasons, failed before any data could be transmitted back. Now it was a human’s turn. Her mobility and supplies would give her a better chance of data collection but she also went with the knowledge that she would never return.

     The pod shuddered and blasted away from the station. Raylin opened her eyes wide and watched the station slowly shrink away. I’m the farthest away from home than anyone has ever been, she thought erroneously. The pod drifted for hours before finally breaching the atmosphere. It shook violently and Raylin cried out. Just when she thought she was going to die, the chute opened and the pod eased its descent. Raylin opened her eyes but did not move until the pod had forced its way through the trees and settled in the soft earth of the forest floor. Raylin secured her pressure suit, strapped on her pack, and kicked at the pod door until it opened. She stepped outside.

     When she woke up, she panicked. Her hands flung up to her face and found the protective helmet was missing.

     “I can’t breathe,” she screamed, but realized almost immediately that this was not true. She could breathe just fine. “Where am I? What happened?” she said to no one in particular, and was shocked to receive an answer.

     “You are on Earth.” It was a deep voice that set waves of fear coursing through her body. The hair on the back of her neck stood up in a primal way she had never experienced. It was the kind of fear prey animals experience right before they are pounced upon and consumed or had their limbs torn from their bodies.

She turned towards the voice and before her stood a creature she hadn’t even seen in her worst nightmares.

     “Who are you?” she said nervously.

     “We are apes. You are human. 500 years ago, your kind gave us the gift of knowledge and speech. But then you tried to enslave us. You continued to destroy this world and our kind. We waged war. You lost. We spared your lives and banished you from this world. You have now broken this treaty. Any human who sets foot on our world will pay with their lives. Yours will be the first.”

My Ancestor, Myself - A short story (about a long story).

     The Omam is one of four sacred places on my world. This is my fourth journey here to the place that birthed all our ancestors, and hopefully I will make a hundred more such journeys. My body is battered and broken so surviving this is difficult but I am confident that I, like my ancestors, and even myself before me, will persevere. I have arrived at the last mountain peak and as I reach the top of the trail, I can see the Tree of Birth in the valley below. It is a beautiful expanse of white and yellow leaves with dozens of wide trunks securing it to the valley floor. The scent of its blossoms, no longer blocked by the mountain range I just crossed, assails me and I am reminded of my previous childhoods. In the ritual of my people, I kneel at the first sight of it and ask for the blessings of my fathers. The guardians greet me as I chant. One, at first, approaches me. He is twice my height with a strong upper body and thick forearms with claws as big as my chest. He walks slowly on all six legs and paces before me until my chanting is finished. When I am done, he approaches. His heavily armed jaw flexes as he verifies my scent. I reveal my abdomen to him and he examines the pigmentation and the swelling that signifies I carry my new vessel. Another guardian approaches. They exchange snorts and grunts and the second one examines me as well. Soon they are satisfied that I am Omam-Tol, carrying new life, and escort me into the valley. I have made the final leg of my journey and eventually reach the Omam grove. My guardians give me one last look and disappear into the surrounding foliage.
     The Omam spreads out before me and I walk among the trunks for a while feeling for the place where I will make my transition. Hanging in the trees in their own cocoons, are other Omam-Tols who have made the journey themselves and are in various stages of metamorphosis. I pay my respects as I pass them and eventually find a place among them. I leap up into the pale yellow branches and excrete the masheef that will be my own cocoon for the next two years. I form the base and attach it to the branch and secure myself to it. I meticulously spin the masheef about my body until only my head remains visible from the outside. I feel my vessel begin to move within me and I know it’s time. I complete the cocoon and am protected within. Over the next few days, my brow heats up and the pain settles in. For a while I writhe as my abdomen burns and finally splits open. My new body, a miniaturized version of myself emerges, and the pain subsides. I cannot see it for the darkness within the cocoon is complete but instinctively I know every contour of my new body. I take the vessel into my arms and as I feel the cocoon constrict around us as the birthing fluid solidifies the silk, we slowly drift off into the sleep of new beginnings.
     Over the next two years, my vessel will receive my consciousness and feed off of my old body; consuming my old life for my new life. When the metamorphosis is complete, I, in my new vessel, will emerge from the cocoon and begin life in the new body carrying with me the wisdom of my own past.
     I am an Ancient. I am a Forefather. I am an immortal.