Emily Wilson
Stories
6
Chapters
1,139
Words
357.3 K
Comments
0
Reading
1 d, 5 h
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“I expect I’m not doing myself any favors,” the girl spoke. “Favors?” “Remaining silent. You’re here to judge me, and silence is damning.” “I’m not so sure I like the word ‘judge’. Evaluate is a better word. “Silence says a great deal, does it not? I recently heard a man speak to the people in charge about the homeless, the masses of refugees we are still trying to find homes. He spoke of needs, of women and children, and of families that have been broken because temporary…-
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I was plunged into darkness. Things stopped making sense. I was surrounded. I couldn’t think straight because I couldn’t Thirty, forty, fifty people, more appearing every second, streamed through portals. All of the survivors, returning to the battlefield to see it for themselves. To turn their eyes towards The looks were hostile. All the worse because they Strangers. Not strangers like people I didn’t This darkness around me, it was an absence of illumination, an absence of any light that…
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167 •
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What I’d done, taking control, using people like sacrificial pawns, I’d made enemies. I’d offended the pride of countless villains, of heroes, even. I was a kill-on-sight target. I could sense the doorways closing. Only the ones close to me remained open. Though ‘close’ was a hard label to apply when talking about dimensions. I turned to my old standby. I gathered my bugs, drawing them through the portals that remained, gathering them at my destination. I stepped through into the cloud. A…
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We ran. My number one priority was to keep moving, keep active. Things were easier so long as I was moving towards a goal. I had to get myself sorted. Wrap my head around the tools at my disposal. For that, I needed time. I needed to put distance between us and Scion. I reached out to Ash Beast, a living force of nature. It had originally triggered in Matruh, Egypt, and had been roaming since, making its way across Africa. All of the destructive power of any class S threat, tempered by the fact that it…
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167 •
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I didn’t break eye contact with Dragon. My eyes were damp, and it was impossible to find a balance in terms of keeping still. I either slumped over or I held myself so rigid that I trembled, an ache creeping over my body, my muscles too taut. Back when Emma and I had been friends, way back in middle school, we’d done one of the sleepover dares. Going into a dimly lit room and staring out our reflections. Repeat the name of the monstrous woman, a name that escaped me now, over and over, without…
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167 •
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I made my way into Brockton Bay, the Boardwalk. Five more steps carried me into New Delhi. Only a minute later, I was walking through Brockton Bay again, downtown this time. Los Angeles. Bucharest. Brockton Bay again. Madison, Wisconsin. Cauldron’s Headquarters. Ruins. Places built up by man, painstaking, sometimes over Shattered, eroded, dashed aside. Roads were now uneven slabs, rising and falling, while buildings had folded or leaned over, spilling out their innards. Those same innards hinted…
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We were broken, routed. When had it happened? When had we reached that critical juncture? Had one specific act or moment marked the point where the rank and file capes had stopped fighting and started merely trying to survive? Morale was failing, and had failed long ago. A good fifth of our fighting force here was made up of Nilbog’s creatures and Dragon’s suits, which self-repaired and kludged together with the remains of other damaged suits to return to the field again and again. That was…
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I didn’t trigger. Kind of silly, really, that I’d expected to I felt the range of my power halve, as though a guillotine blade had dropped down, cutting it off. My control began to slip. It wasn’t so severe as the effect on my range, but I could feel it degrading. I was aware of my bugs in a general sense, and they were moving in reaction to my subconscious thoughts, but the end result wasn’t precise. I moved them, but getting them to stop had a fraction of a second’s delay. Slipping out of…
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Two parts to a whole. This, as everything does, builds towards the ultimate objective, a propagation of the species. To rise above a competition among one’s own species is a kind of transcendence. Cooperation, a goal that extends beyond one’s lifespan, one’s community. This entity can recall the moment of transcendence, the unification and reinvention of their species. Everything extends to an end goal. A complete and total mastery of all things. In time, just as they spread and consumed their…
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“ “What are you thinking?” Golem asked. “I’m thinking we go straight up, then exit onto whatever floor has the portal.” “There are others inside,” Golem said. “Sveta, Weld, Shadow Stalker… prisoners.” “ “I will.” “ Golem nodded. “Makes sense.” He and Cuff joined Alexandria in fixing a platform out of the hand we’d hidden inside. Much of Cauldron’s internal structure was gone. We could see a cross-section above, where rooms had been sliced through. The energy…
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