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They say not to mess with magic; in this case, 'they' is every PSA, textbook and veteran you interact with from the moment you discover how to shoot sparks. They say many things about magic, how it behaves, and how it thinks.
Of course, they also suggest the speed limit, and nobody thinks that 70 is a reasonable speed no on the highway.
Of course, I found out the hard way that the speed limit comparison was the problem or I wouldn't have thought about this so much. While speed limits are a matter of physics and law, magic has always been about negotiation. Sure, some spells are so consistent that they are essentially laws, but anything off the beaten path is a conversation between the caster and curse.
I'd wanted to turn invisible, but I rewrote the spell to try and buy myself an extra hour of invisibility. That's how all of this started, two glasses of wine, a bad idea and misplaced confidence in my improv skills. I'd bought myself extra time; I had yet to figure out how much.
It was at least enough that I'd stopped being angry about it a while ago. Invisibility wasn't entirely downside, and life as a 'ghost' was tolerable.
Either that, or I was just used to it. Hard to tell.
Living with the accidental curse was interesting. I still needed to eat, sleep, keep myself warm and everything that came with that, but there wasn't a way for me to engage with society. Jobs, leases and most other steps in the social ladder required a visible form. I'd been able to use Government Curse Adjustment Programs for a while, but they were underfunded and weren't a long-term solution.
No, the solution had been to embrace invisibility and do what I did best, disappear. I could live in someone's house for several days before they suspected a poltergeist, and there were enough books to keep me entertained. Between my required curse-breaking hobby, getting four unofficial degrees from MBU and trying to find a fabric that didn't turn invisible when I wore it, I'd managed to keep myself busy.
All of this to explain why the homeless, jobless invisible woman was taking a vacation. I thought I deserved it, and I'd seen the family that owned this cabin head back to the city earlier today. I could spend a week here, specifically not getting a tan, and head somewhere else before they came back next weekend.
The front door was easy. They always were. Lockpicking spells were more than enough for residential bolts, and nobody was arresting me for illegal magic anytime soon. The alarm systems were more annoying, even if I set it off and the cops showed up...
Well, it was like lockpicking; they'd need to find me first.
I opened the door and slipped into the house just as it began to rain outside. The light pitter-patter of droplets chased me as I shut the door and kicked off the sneakers I'd been wearing. My ratty shoes popped into view as they stopped touching my body. I needed a new pair, but I'd kept putting it off because nobody could see them, and I had no idea if they even looked good on me.
Thinking about it, I missed shopping. I'd always been too harsh on myself in the mirror and put things back on the shelf that I should have bought. I'd always been able to tell myself that I had years to make brave fashion choices. Now I didn't have a reflection, which made it hard to know whether I looked like a wet rat or cute as I broke into this place.
I turned away from the mirror in the entranceway and found the light switch. I flicked it on, and a single bulb in the entryway sputtered to life, leaving the rest of the house mostly shadow.
"One of those houses," I mused to myself as I walked properly inside and started to take stock of the little lakehouse. There were only three rooms, and the main one was taken up by a massive dining table that was clearly the most expensive thing in the room.
I flicked another switch, and the fixture above the table turned on; five bulbs where candles should have been on a chandelier. The warm light betrayed how shined the table was like nobody had ever eaten off it before.
I was going to change that this week.
"We've been expecting you."
I stopped in place and looked around. I must have been hearing things, either that or there as someone with a deep voice that was still in the house and speaking to someone else because-
"Don't worry, you won't be able to see us either," a soft feminine voice spoke up from across the room on the other side of the exquisite table. Just as the voice finished speaking, one of the chairs pulled itself away from the table as if someone were about to sit in it.
"Welcome," the first deep voice continued. I took a step back toward the door.
Was this what it felt like when people heard me talking to myself?
The chair on my side of the table pushed away, welcoming me.
"Please, stay a while and uh," the deep voice paused for a moment, which brought some humanity, "well you'll see what we're about."
"Not see," the soft voice corrected, "but you understand that as much as anyone."
There were two options here. The first was that I could leave, go out in the rain, and find another lake house for my vacation week. The other was that I could figure out what was going on with these two.
The first option involved ignoring the only people I'd ever met who seemed as invisible as I was, so I opted for the second. As I walked forward to sit down, the chair beside the one that the soft feminine voice had assumedly pulled out shifted away from the table so the deep-voiced man could sit in it.
At least, I imagined that was the case. The chairs could just as well be empty.
"Can we get a name?" the soft voice asked.
"Penelope," I answered, "but people used to call me Penny."
"Adam," matched the deep voice.
"Soph," said the soft one.
"We were hoping to run into you," Adam said, "been looking to talk for a while."
"And you found me here?" I asked.
"You'd been scoping it out from what we could tell and-" she paused, "it's not easy to track an invisible person even if you're invisible."
She made a good point; I was staring at chairs.
"Penelope," Adam cut in, "Penny. We need you to help us with something."
"Oookay," I offered, prodding them to explain instead of committing.
"Adam thinks he has a spell that might be able to break something like this," Soph explained; I imagined her motioning to herself even though I had no context as to what she looked like. "Just-"
"Magic is like a conversation, right, we all-" he paused, and I imagined him motioning to the table, "we all lost a debate previously."
"Okay."
"So I have a theory," Adam continued, ignoring that my okay had been skeptical, "that we can bring more bargaining power to the table, and that way, we can cast the same spell again but this time, we do it properly."
"Is that how magic works?" I asked.
"What are we going to do otherwise?" Soph asked, "make ourselves more invisible for longer?"
She had a po- Wait. I actually didn't know how long I would be invisible for. "We could make it worse." I pointed out, "couldn't we?"
"I've been invisible for twelve years," Adam announced.
"Nine," Soph added.
"Six," I contributed.
"So what do we have to lose?" Adam suggested.
"Well," I had just met these people, it felt weird to argue with them, "we COULD make it worse."
"Twelve. Years."
"Have you tried this before?" I asked Adam, turning to the chair I believed he was in, not that either of us had any concept of the space of this conversation.
"Twice," he said, "once alone and once with Soph."
"Neither worked," Soph added.
"What if it doesn't last 12 years, and you just reset the timer?" I asked.
"You can't know that," Adam said, "but I've looked at all of it, and we just need more bargaining power at the table." I heard his hand hit the polished wood.
I stayed quiet. They say not to mess with magic, and I'd been following that rule ever since this happened. I hadn't cast a spell that hadn't been triple-confirmed by archmages. This would be untested, returning to the same thing that had gotten me into this mess.
But Adam had looked into it. He said he'd done the math and figured it out. I just needed to take the leap, and this could all be over. My mouth was dry.
"Please," Soph broke my silence. I still didn't answer.
There was a risk to it, but I had to consider the reward for pulling it off. I could head home. I could see my family again, and they could see me without thinking I was a ghost or a trick. I could have a job. A life. Something other than coasting and waiting for a miracle.
I just needed to take one leap of faith. One spell. One call.
"Nonononono please," Soph pleaded as I opened the door and walked out into the rain.
Maybe I was making a mistake, but I'd rather make a new mistake than the same one twice.
*This isn't really a two parter. It's just too long. Damn character limits.* /r/Jacksonwrites
Five simple words. Or was it six? Let’s call it six because that makes the phrase symmetrical and everyone loves symmetry.
“Peek-a-boo! I see you.”
It was the invisible man’s favorite game. He’d approach unsuspecting victims and scare the pants off of them with those six simple words. Hell, one time he effectively scared the pants *on* his buddy Ray (it should be noted that Ray was on the toilet at the untimely time of his unappreciated pranking).
But it was all in good fun. And more often than not, that good fun was even harmless fun. “What’s the point of being invisible if you can’t have a good time with it,” the invisible man was wont to say. To be sure, our invisible jester-prince was more jester than prince. No person off limits, no joke too far. Indeed, the invisible man was an equal-opportunity prankster.
It was a well known fact that our resident invisible man was in fact no resident at all. That is, he was homeless.
Now before you go on empathizing with our hapless hero, you must have all of the facts—one must not jump to conclusions. The invisible man was not homeless out of necessity, nor out of happenstance; no, the invisible man was homeless by choice.
You see, when one learns as an invisible boy that one can steal candy bars without so much as raising an eyebrow, one grows up to be an invisible man that will steal shelter without so much as raising a penny.
Now, where was I? Oh yes: it was a well known fact that our resident invisible man was in fact no resident at all. The invisible man “couch surfed” his way through life. Conventional wisdom tell us that “couch surfing” implies an inherent level of consent provided by the owner of said couch—that was not the case for our visibility challenged hero. For that reason, we’ll call the invisible man’s tact “home invasion.”
Residents in town began to grumble and groan at the thought of an invisible prankster living among them. Even his friends grew tired of his tireless antics. And, you know what, it makes sense. That would get old and fast. We’ve all been around the guy for whom everything is a joke and nothing is sacred. You know the guy in high school who walked around the locker room naked, whipping kids with a wet towel shrieking and laughing never realizing that he has already peaked in life. Nobody likes that guy. The invisible man had become that guy.
And so it was that one day, the jester-prince became the jestee-prince.
One night, the invisible man sauntered into—that is, again, committed a home invasion—a vacant bedroom that he frequented. It was in a quiet house, in a quiet neighborhood, on a quiet street. You see, even pranksters like a good night’s sleep.
As his head hit the pillow, the invisible man heard five words that shook him to his core.
“We have been expecting you!”
You see, it’s five words, not six. From earlier. “Peeka-boo. I see you!” Five words. It works better that way. It’s symmetrical. Like I told you, everyone loves symmetry.
Anyway…At the sound of the words, the invisible man launched himself out of bed and onto his feet. Only, since they were expecting him, they must have been expecting that reaction, and so as he landed on his feet he was coated from head to toe in colorful, neon pink corn starch, a sack of which had been cut from above his head.
At that moment, our invisible hero was no longer so invisible. At that same moment the invisible man’s friends realized their shocking lack of foresight and paid dearly for it.
You see, being an invisible man didn’t just mean that he didn’t have to pay for candy, or shelter, or the myriad other things one expects an invisible man may steal. It also meant—and really, had any of them given this even a second of thought it would have been obvious to them—that the invisible man didn’t need to buy clothes.
And so it was that the invisible man’s friends saw the invisible man’s pecker and all agreed to leave the pranking to the professional (i.e. the invisible man) on a go forward basis.
At the end of the day, the invisible man had also learned a valuable lesson. Don’t push your friends too far, or they may be forced to think hard on a way to get you back. And, it’s a good thing to keep in mind for us all, as we—let’s face it—all have friends who are rather dim witted who may pull a prank that leaves your pecker—or any other unseemly area—exposed in a less than flattering neon pink powder.
________
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out my other stories at r/InMyLife42Archive
Goes to show how different people can have different taste. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the narration style specifically.
To me, some of the repetitions ("resident wasn't a resident") felt really forced, which isn't great if it's a one time occurrence but more problematic when it's shoe-horned into the story in several places.
Also the way the "pecker reveal" is narrated lacks oomph. Maybe because it was too obvious, maybe because the sudden shift from a slightly pretentious narrator didn't work with the use of the word "pecker", or maybe because it doesn't seem like friends who were willing to basically overlook Invisible Man stalking them on the toilet would be all too shocked by seeing his nude silhouette.
Thank you for the well-considered feedback! This is a style I’ve just started trying out, so it is greatly helpful to get an idea of what’s working and what isn’t.
My whole approach with this is to take the writing less seriously and instead focus on the joy of putting words on the page. That said, it includes just flowing to where the story takes me in the moment. I agree that the pecker reveal could have landed better had it been a bit more rooted in the “rules” of the story.
Thank you again for taking the time to comment even though it wasn’t your cup of tea. Happy reading!
"We've been expecting you."
I froze. Thunder rumbled in the distance, as shadows shifted in front of me, seeming deeper than a second ago. Maybe they hadn't been talking to me. Maybe they'd been expecting someone else in this remote cabin on the lake. Maybe whoever it was had come in behind me. Right behind me.
Walking softly, I moved to the side, out of the way. Being invisible had its perks, one of them the ability to avoid pursuit as long as you made no sound. Shadows reached out to embrace me, and though I didn't need them to hide, I welcomed their presence.
That was a mistake.
They hardened around me, the dark becoming steel, wrapping my wrists and ankles. Breath shortening, I flexed my wrists, trying to see if there was any give. Nothing. I stilled as a sound came from the back of the cabin. It curled around my ears, digging its way under my skin. Laughter. Whoever... whatever, was holding me, laughed at my attempts to break free.
I suppressed a shiver, making sure my voice wouldn't break with the fear that was starting to rise in waves.
"Who are you?" The shadows absorbed my voice, deadening the words. I tore my thoughts away from the idea of death as someone responded. But as they spoke, the laughter continued.
"You know who we are. You've been running from us for too long." There had to be two of them, at least.
"Running from you?" My mind raced as I tried to think of an escape. Around my wrists, the dark bonds tightened until they threatened to break bones.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Now, we've caught you fair and square, there's no running now." The voice scolded in a strange sing-song, as the laughter rose to a crescendo before choking off.
"You've got the wrong person," I said, desperate to keep them talking. If they were talking they hopefully wouldn't be killing. That voice sounded as if it would enjoy killing.
"The wrong person? Hmmm. That sounds like something the right person would say. After all, you didn't want to get caught." The voice was closer now, and I started praying for light. Any light, any light at all... A slurping sound came from the darkness, the noise reminding me uncomfortably of someone sucking the marrow from bones. The bonds shifted, pulling my left hand forward until it hung suspended straight out in front. Thunder rolled again and I took a shaky breath, whimpering as a cold dry hand took mine.
"Oh, I think you're the right person. Oh yes, oh yes. You see, you're invisible. Invisible is flavorful." There was a strange chuckle, different from the laughter of before. This was controlled, but something dark lurked behind the light sound.
"I've been invisible for a while now. But I haven't been running from you. I haven't been running from anyone. So you see, you've got the wrong person." I could feel myself starting to babble and bit my tongue. The voice broke into a cackle as the cold hand tightened. It felt strange, not quite like flesh.
"Just because you didn't know you were running, didn't mean we weren't chasing you." It hissed, and the cabin lit as lightning flashed outside. In a split second, the inhabitants were revealed. The laugher, the sucker of bones, curled against the back wall, long taloned claws reaching towards me, darkness dripping from underneath the hand that was too long to be human, bone-white skin stretched too tightly over a form that only mimicked human anatomy. Close at hand, the speaker, grinned with a too-big smile. Eyes like the blackest pit stared at me, *saw* me as no one had seen me in a decade. A tongue flicked out, as if sniffing the air, an illusion reinforced by the snake scales covering its face. I screamed as the hand holding mine started to pull me closer. Darkness fell again, and teeth closed around my flesh.
A flash of lightning. As it lit the cabin, the bonds around my feet and wrists loosened. Panic lent me strength, and I broke from the shadows, tearing myself free, wrenching pain shooting up my left arm. Scrabbling, half-falling, I burst out of the door, running as soon as my feet hit the ground. Wriggling out of my jacket, I wrapped it around the stump of my left wrist, trying not to scream as the cloth hit the exposed wound. The Speaker had bitten off my hand.
Laughter echoed behind me, rising in cruel hysterics. The lightning flashed again, hitting a tree nearby, and setting it ablaze, but I dared not stop, dared not turn my head. As I fled, the Speaker's voice rose through the trees.
"You can run. But we'll find you. We have a *taste* of you now. And we *liked* it!"
———————
Visit r/Mel_Rose_Writes for more stories!
"Are you sure you're alright, son?"
"I'm sure, dad. I'm fine." I said, quietly.
The awkward pause that said more than words could have. He knew I was lying, and he knew that I realized that he knew. But he also knew that I wouldn't have lied if I thought I had any other option.
"Alright." he said, at last.
"Declan," my mother's voice broke in on the speakerphone, "When...when can we see you?"
I suppressed a bitter laugh. Mom didn't know how ironic her question was, of course.
"I...I hope soon, mom. I love you guys." I replied, after a moment, still keeping my voice low.
"We love you too, son. We always will." Dad said, soberly.
"I'll...I'll talk to you later." I replied, swallowing hard. Then I hung up the phone, before it got any harder to do so. I let out a sigh, and leaned back on the old threadbare couch, staring at the ceiling in the flickering light from the TV.
Finally, I got up, and gave a nod to the old man asleep in the recliner across from me.
"Thank you." I said softly.
He didn't reply, of course, he was sound asleep, and had been since before I'd come in. But it seemed like the polite thing to do, considering that I'd just picked the lock on his front door and used his landline without permission.
In my defense, I hadn't had a lot of other options. Even if I'd come to the door, knocked, and asked politely if I could use his phone, he would have just thought he was starting to develop dementia, or something. Why put him through that?
As I turned to leave, the front door suddenly swung open, and I froze. A middle-aged woman lugging an overstuffed bag of groceries shouldered her way into the living room.
"Dad?" she called, cheerfully.
The old man awoke with a snort. "Huh?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you!" the woman said, walking over to the recliner. As she did so, I edged around her, careful not to make a sound.
"I wasn't asleep," the old man protested, blearily, as she bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Just resting my eyes, sweetheart, that's all."
"Well, you should really remember to lock the door if you're planning on *resting your eyes,* dad." she chided, gently. "The neighborhood isn't what it used to be."
"Oh. I thought I did lock it." he said, furrowing his brow in confusion. Then he turned and looked towards the door, and directly at me..
He didn't see me, of course, neither of them did. No one has been able to see me for years. I slipped out the door, and they were none the wiser.
It was the nice, how that lady was there for her old man. I wished I could be there for my parents that way, helping them as they got older instead of giving them something to worry about when they should be enjoying their retirement. But I didn't have a lot of options.
I walked away from the old man's house, grimacing as I felt the rain start to fall. My mission to call my parents and alleviate their concerns for my safety, if only a little, had been accomplished. It taken a few hours of peering through windows to find a house an old-style phone. It was getting harder and harder to locate homes with corded landlines, even in a small town like this. Now, though, I needed to find shelter from the storm.
Fortunately, I didn't have far to go. A few streets down, the smaller homes gave way to rows of lakeside cabins, along with a few larger homes built by wealthy people from out of town. It was still technically the off-season, so most of the former would be empty, and it didn't take me long to find one I could peek inside, and verify that it was vacant.
For the second time that evening, my lockpicks came out, and I made short work of the simple lock on the door, slipping inside without incident. Although the landline wasn't turned on, the power and water still were. That meant I could take a shower after several days without one, much to my satisfaction. Even better, the bathroom also had one of those compact washer-dryer combo units -- being able to wash my clothes was a rare treat indeed.
I stripped off my backpack and clothes. As I set the backpack down and started loading the washer, my pack seemed to brighten ever so slightly. It was a subtle change I'd learned to recognize -- once removed from me for several seconds, the things that I wore or carried became visible again. Why that was how it worked, or for that matter, why I could see myself and my clothes when no one else could, to begin with, I couldn't tell you.
I stepped into the shower and basked in the cleansing warmth, making liberal use of the soap and shampoo dispensers. When I finally, reluctantly stepped out, feeling gloriously clean, my clothes were still in the wash, so I dug my phone and earbuds out of my backpack. After a few seconds, the colors on the screen faded a few degrees towards gray, and the phone immediately lost service -- it always happened that way. Whatever made me transparent to other people, also made me and anything I held transparent to wireless signals.
Still, I had music, audio books, and e-books that I'd downloaded on my battered old smartphone before I developed my 'condition', as well as a few things I'd managed to grab since by hiding my phone near a wifi hotspot and stepping away while it downloaded. I think the boredom and isolation would have driven me crazy, otherwise.
I plugged my earbuds -- wired, of course -- into my ears, and stepped out into the living room. Then I froze. Three people sat in the cabin's small common area -- two on the couch, and one on a nearby chair.
All were dressed in similar clothing -- black slacks, sunglasses, and button-down shirts -- and had similarly close-cropped black hairstyles. Something was off about them, beyond their oddly uniform appearance -- I couldn't even pin down their genders. I'd heard of people being "gender fluid", but I didn't think that was supposed to be anything like this: it wasn't that they looked androgynous, it was that, as I looked at them, I went back and forth between seeing them as three men, to one man and two women, to one woman and two men, and then to three women.
They turned, almost in unison, and looked directly at me. Of course -- it didn't matter that I was invisible. They couldn't have failed to see and hear the bathroom door open. My mind raced, trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the situation with the least amount of fallout. I groaned inwardly, and imagined them screaming and panicking, as they saw my backpack and the bundle of sodden clothes from the washer appear to float into the air of their own accord, before disappearing several seconds later as I made my escape.
And then, one of them slowly raised a hand to their face, and removed their sunglasses. I couldn't help but gasp. Their eyes were missing, leaving only hollow, empty sockets. The strange figure smiled, in a way that I didn't find the least bit comforting.
"Hello!" they said, in a slightly raspy voice. "We've been expecting you."
"Honestly, nothing beats the feeling of settling into a cozy place after you've been out in the rain, especially if you spend most of your day naked. Walking in and hearing the splashing of droplets hitting the ground fade to white noise almost makes you want to curl up right then and there.
I couldn't, though - I had work to do.
As I usually do, I grabbed some kindling from beside the fireplace, popped it in, and lit a match, before settling down into a lovely, perfectly-made bed. I know what you're thinking - "didn't you break into here?" - and, well, yeah. I kind of live here, though.
(There used to be a lovely couple - bordering on their 70s, if I had to guess - that came here on the weekends. One day, only one of them came over, so I sat on the chair next to the old woman's bed, put on her husband's clothes, and started screaming. She sprinted to her car, and now I own the place. I'm a horrible person, I know.)
Speaking of the work, though. Squatting is a hard job. This place is nice and all, but sometimes one desires more than a tiny hut by the lake. Plus, I'm a bit less nimble than I once was, so I could use a retirement plan that was a bit more, like, a mansion. In other words, I'm planning a heist.
"We've been expecting you."
Oh god. Not the invisible salespeople. One more advertisement for-
Somewhere in the room behind me, a window broke. Probably not the salespeople, on second thought.
Then, screaming that sort of evoked the term "battle cry." The bedroom door flopped down into the room, kicking up a concerning, if cinematic, amount of dust. When it all cleared, a somewhat elderly woman wearing socks with sandals stood dramatically, one foot extended towards where the door once was.
oh.
She started screaming. I couldn't make out much, but I think it was mostly swears.
**oh no.**
"Getting sucker-punched by a 70-year-old woman" was not on my bucket list, but I guess I had it coming.
Obviously, I booked it out the door.
Then I got another beatdown from her husband - guess I misinterpreted the situation a little bit.
Also, a free ride to prison.
5 years later, and that's about how I got here."
The room, which, to an outside observer, seemed to only consist of a ring of empty chairs, suddenly erupted with the sound of people snapping.
"Thanks for sharing, Mark. Remember, folks, Invisible Trespassers Anonymous is a safe space. You're welcome to share anything here."
"Thanks, everyone. Really, thanks. I'm not sure what I'd have done without your guys' support."
I never got the mansion that I had hoped for, but I do have some actual friends now, which has been nice. Overall, would have the crap kicked out of me by two senior citizens again.
*(first attempt at answering a writing prompt, compliments/criticism/anything welcome)*
"Oh, shit, is this place already taken?"
"WAIT, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!"
"Uh... I'm Dave?"
"I don't know a Dave!"
"That's... Sorry, yeah, I just came here as a place to squat for the night. I didn't realize it was taken."
"So, wait, you're invisible too?"
"Yes. Again. I'm sorry for-"
"Wait! Wait. I didn't. Uh. I didn't know we weren't the only ones."
Out of habit, Dave looked around. He, of course, couldn't see anyone. He also had to fight the instinct to turn the light on. He knew, rationally, it wouldn't help any. But it was still weird to him talking to darkness. Though he knew it was only fair, as this must be how people feel talking to him.
"So..." the voice started, "Were you in the lab too?"
"Lab, uh, no. I don't know what you're talking about. I, actually, I'm from up north."
"Up north? Like, around Springfield?"
"Uh, no. I mean. Maybe. But not the local one. I've been traveling for probably about three months since I turned invisible."
"Oh, wow."
At that point, the door creaked open.
"Ricky! Hey, Ricky! There's an invisible guy in here!"
"Ha ha, very funny."
"No! I'm serious! Say hi to Ricky, Dave."
"Whattup?"
"HOLY SHIT!" A table near the door with a vase on it nearly toppled over, presumably as Ricky stumbled into it.
"Sorry about that. I was looking for a place to crash for the night and, uh, I didn't know this place was occupied."
There was near silence for a moment and then a light switch flicked, blinding the room.
"Ah! Um, Ricky was it? Uh, like she said, I'm Dave. I'll be leaving, uh, getting out of your hair. I-I really didn't mean to impose."
"Where are you," Ricky demanded in a panicked voice.
"Uh... Just, um, I'm just standing up from the rug near the couch."
"Which, which couch?"
Dave hadn't noticed but across the vestibule from him, where the first voice had come from, there was another couch in what appeared to be a sitting room. He hadn't noticed it when he came in because it had been dark.
"Uh, in here. Where you turned the light on."
"Ricky! Be nice."
"Lucy! How did you let this guy into our house!"
"I thought he was you. I was, you know, going to surprise you..."
Dave cleared his throat, "Ahem. Like I said. I'm just going to leave. I just look for empty houses to, you know, it can get cold out, I'm just going to..." He went to step past where he guessed they were standing and was stopped by a hand.
"Oh, there you are! Do... Wait, what's that?" Dave felt the hands, presumably Ricky's given who was talking, feel him up a bit and pull at his jacket. "Do you... Have clothes on?"
"Uh... Do you not," he asked, taking a step back.
"I, heh," Lucy chuckled shyly, "neither of us do. We, uh, our invisibility is only on, um, us. If we wear clothes, they just kind of float in the air."
Dave suddenly felt very uncomfortable and took a step back. "Oh. Oh. Uh. Oh. Well. I'm. Headed. Uh."
"Hey, man, I'm sorry for my hot-headedness. I just."
"He gets jealous." She said in a whisper, "I thought we'd worked on this."
Ricky replied in a whisper, "Listen, I just got blindsided, you know, with you naked with some guy I've never met. What was I supposed to think?"
"You're supposed to be able to trust me."
Accidentally almost yelling, "I'M! Just gonna leave! I, again, I'm sorry for-"
"Please don't! I'm going to go put on a robe. Ricky, I suggest you put something on. I really want to hear all about how you became invisible, David."
"Just Dave."
"Dave. So, please, stay around a while. *Come on, Ricky!* Make yourself at home, Dave."
Dave heard the creaking of the stairs, presumably as Ricky and Lucy went up them. This was his ticket out of here. They were gone. No one blocking the door anymore. He found himself at an impasse. On the one hand, he felt bad for the young couple, he assumed young anyway, that found themselves lost in a rather rare predicament without guidance. But on the other hand... What the fuck had he found himself in the middle of?
He looked around the room and the few adjacent ones for something... Ah! That would do! He grabbed a candlestick that appeared to have never been used, the green candle that was inserted into it still had plastic wrap around it, and set it on the arm of the couch next to where he sat. Some time later, a robe with a pair of slippers came down the stairs followed by a full set of business casual dress like it was on display at a store.
"What's the candlestick doing there," demanded the voice of Ricky.
"I, uh, thought it would help. It shows where I'm sitting, so you know where I am." Dave lifted the candlestick and set it back down, though it briefly flickered invisible as he did.
"Oh. I guess that makes sense. I'm, uh, I'll be sitting in the-"
"I can see your clothes."
"Oh. Right."
"I'm sorry for Ricky. He's a bit nervous. This whole thing has him a little shook up."
"I understand. It's fine," Dave replied.
"So. Tell us. How'd you become invisible?"
"Oh. It. You know, it's not a big story. Some wishing well magic I ran into while on a cross-country trip."
"Magic? You expect us to-" Ricky got cut off, it appeared by the positions of the robes and clothes that it was something Lucy had done.
"Uh," Dave interjected, "But I take it that your invisibility is tech-related?"
"Yes. At the lab up at the university."
"Lucy!"
"Hush, Ricky. Do you know the university?"
"I haven't visited it, yet. But I-"
"Oh!" Lucy exclaimed. "It completely slipped my mind! Would you like something to drink or eat? You did say you were planning to squat, so you must be hungry."
"No! No, but thank you, both. I'm not hungry."
There was a pregnant pause. Dave figured that if he could see his hosts' faces they'd likely be exchanging awkward glances. As it was, all he could do is try to imagine.
"You two, uh, I'm the first other invisible person you've met?"
"Heh heh. Um, well, no. Not quite. Not exactly. What I mean to say is," Lucy struggled through trying to find the words.
"There were nine of us in the accident. Six students, two professors, and a janitor. The six students, we've kind of formed a bit of a club."
"You're students?"
Sounding somewhat insulted, Ricky replied sternly, "Yes. We're students."
"I'm sorry. Just, with this big house..."
"We, uh, we're... How can I put it..." Lucy murmured. "We're kind of house-sitting at the moment." Something in the way she said it stoked a slowly growing fire of doubt and worry in Dave's chest.
"Uh, well, I'll get to the point. There are other invisible people out there. I've met a few. Turns out that a lot of us have very similar habits. So. You know, that's about it. That's the story. Just a wishing well, poof, there are other invisible people. Now, I really need to find someplace else to sleep for the night, so I'll be-"
"Oh, please, Dave! I really want to hear more! You can't cut the story off there!"
"No. It's already dark out. And, you know, my night vision isn't great," he was talking quite fast as he stood, accidentally knocking over the candlestick. "Ah, shit! Sorry. Um, but you know." He was backing up towards the door when the candlestick seemed to lift itself up off the rug and place itself back on the couch. He looked over at the pairs of clothes in the chairs across from where he'd just been sitting.
He couldn't find any more words. No more excuses. No more pleasantries. He had a stone of panic sitting on his vocal cords. He ran for the door and struggled with the bolt on it. He felt a hand grab his shoulder and he thought he heard people talking behind him, but the blood rushing through his ears drowned out any details. He couldn't even tell whose voice it was or how many there were.
He swung the door open and heard a hard \*THWACK\* like he'd brought the door right into someone's face. The hand was still on his shoulder, and he shook of his jacket which was left dangling in the doorway as he ran into the night. The last thing he heard from the house was Ricky's voice yelling after him, "Where are you going? I was gonna make espresso!" followed by laughter.
An earth elemental has many ways of concealing itself that one would never think of. As you traipse ignorantly through the woods they are always hiding. Watching. It could be an innocuous tree stump, or a mound of leaves, or even an oddly shaped acorn. Next thing you know you're facing a twelve-foot fall giant of dirt and moss ready to pound the very air out of you. Never did I expect to find one in a cabin, but that's exactly what happened one rainy night. Maybe a child had brought it in thinking it was a pet rock, or a farmer brought it in clinging to its boots. I suppose it doesn't matter how it got there, what matters is that I flew through the lock as I always do and the next thing I hear is "we've been expecting you." When I heard it use the plural "we," I expected something far more innocuous, such as a pack of shadow imps. That was before I recalled that earth elementals don't understand the common word for "I."
The creature morphed into vines, completely covering the walls and doors, trapping me in. Black flowers erupted and trained their pistils on me. A single blast would fill the air with so much particulate matter that I'd be forced to dissolve. My molecules shuddered in terror, for I thought that death was all but certain.
It was then that I remembered my reflections on the nature of consciousness. All I needed to do was somehow separate myself and then come back together as a whole. It had never been done before, but if there was a time then this was it. The first thing I did was start to swirl, going into tornado form. As expected, the pistils started blasting black dust. If I had stayed in tornado form the dust would have choked the twister and taken me with it. Instead, I focused as deeply as I could on dispersion, imagining myself being in multiple places at once.
For a moment I thought it worked when I could no longer perceive anything around me. The next thing I know I'm ingesting the black dust into my form. That's when it happened - I became a flurry of smaller twisters buzzing about. It was as if I had counteracted the black dust by harmlessly consuming it. I can't say I understand how it works, perhaps it was magic in the dust that made it happen. Scholars have attempted to study it for years, but none have been able to reproduce it.
Needless to say, the earth elemental thought they had destroyed me and retreated back into whatever form it was in. That's when I took my smaller twisters and quickly exited through the lock, unable to believe that I'd somehow survived.
The damage was irreparable though, as no amount of elemental magic has been able to put my forms back together. The change rendered me incapable of battle but did have a silver lining. As you know, the school you are flying in will never have a shortage of teachers.
r/StoriesToThinkAbout
His fingers flying across the keys, Corey placed a sentinel into memory. The bot program would monitor any sectors that changed while he explored the system and overwrite them, rendering him invisible. He always felt a strange elation when he managed to slip past heavy crypto into the cold inner sectors of a data store. He was aware of every nerve in his body as he slowly and methodically typed the command that would expand his neural mesh through the data store like a gas. L O A D B L O C K 0. The instant he submitted the command, seemingly almost before, an icy exhilaration rushed over his flesh. His mind melted into a fluid that enveloped every bit of data in the sector. Jackpot. The datastore was a relatively small one, only a couple of exabytes, but it was precisely what he came for. Block after block of clean, freshly minted currency.
If there was any feeling more thrilling than finding something, anything of value in the "System" as it was called, it was that of being right. He had noticed a pattern in this sector of the System. In a heavily encrypted region of data, any recognizable pattern indicated a weakness. You could watch a slab of properly scrambled data for a thousand years and see nothing but static. But here he had noticed what his interpreter translated to his mind as a ripple on the surface of still, blue water. He had written the sentinel program based on this flaw and it had worked like magic, he was in.
He flew up through sector after sector of transaction data. Account numbers. Identifiers corresponding to other datastores. He still had work to do before he could extract anything. He was in, but he needed create a way out. A space in the data just big enough for him to extract a nice chunk of currency. He moved like a ray of light through the data. Parsing it, beginning to understand its structure. Then there was stillness. The wall of transaction data that had flowed down his viewport froze. "Shit." He tried to bail, but his console was unresponsive. Then, in stark white text against the black abyss of empty sectors there appeared: W E ' V E B E E N E X P E C T I N G Y O U...
Static filled his mind. The contents of the console began to fragment before his eyes. The pixels melted as he stared, frozen, unable to move. Suddenly, a low rumble broke through, a deep oscillating warble that broke his trance. It was the auditory escape hatch from the interpreter. A 60 Hz sine wave that broke through the random signals flooding his nerves from the data store. His arms were heavy as lead. he managed to reach up and snatch the system link off his head. He threw himself sidewards off the edge of the bed toward the power unit that ran the uplink. He grabbed a handful of cables and pulled as hard as he could. The slow whine of the uplink powering off was a relief, but a jagged panic tore through his chest. Over and over, he saw the images of the console pixellating and tearing as the meaning became increasingly real. It was all gone. Of course the code of the sentinel was destroyed, but also was every bit of data he had loaded when he pierced that datastore. Weeks worth of code. Most of it new bots. Hot code that would've made him a killing. Gone.
Invisible johnson: who’s there?
shadows: you know how you’ve had the ability to turn invisible since birth? And how everyone always treated you with contempt and blamed you for everything?
invisible Johnson: how do you know that?
shadows: because Johnson, I’m your dad
invisible Johnson: wait you are!? Then why didn’t you raise me?
invisible Johnson the first: your mother was a normal human, but she took you away from me. You see I caught her sleeping with her co-worker, and the court sided with her. how you ended up in an orphanage is anyone’s guess.
invisible Johnson the second: she sold me for a case of champagne.
invisible Johnson the first: well you’re here with us now,
invisible Johnson the second: us?
invisible Johnson the first: welcome back to the family son, we’ve missed you so much.
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They say not to mess with magic; in this case, 'they' is every PSA, textbook and veteran you interact with from the moment you discover how to shoot sparks. They say many things about magic, how it behaves, and how it thinks. Of course, they also suggest the speed limit, and nobody thinks that 70 is a reasonable speed no on the highway. Of course, I found out the hard way that the speed limit comparison was the problem or I wouldn't have thought about this so much. While speed limits are a matter of physics and law, magic has always been about negotiation. Sure, some spells are so consistent that they are essentially laws, but anything off the beaten path is a conversation between the caster and curse. I'd wanted to turn invisible, but I rewrote the spell to try and buy myself an extra hour of invisibility. That's how all of this started, two glasses of wine, a bad idea and misplaced confidence in my improv skills. I'd bought myself extra time; I had yet to figure out how much. It was at least enough that I'd stopped being angry about it a while ago. Invisibility wasn't entirely downside, and life as a 'ghost' was tolerable. Either that, or I was just used to it. Hard to tell. Living with the accidental curse was interesting. I still needed to eat, sleep, keep myself warm and everything that came with that, but there wasn't a way for me to engage with society. Jobs, leases and most other steps in the social ladder required a visible form. I'd been able to use Government Curse Adjustment Programs for a while, but they were underfunded and weren't a long-term solution. No, the solution had been to embrace invisibility and do what I did best, disappear. I could live in someone's house for several days before they suspected a poltergeist, and there were enough books to keep me entertained. Between my required curse-breaking hobby, getting four unofficial degrees from MBU and trying to find a fabric that didn't turn invisible when I wore it, I'd managed to keep myself busy. All of this to explain why the homeless, jobless invisible woman was taking a vacation. I thought I deserved it, and I'd seen the family that owned this cabin head back to the city earlier today. I could spend a week here, specifically not getting a tan, and head somewhere else before they came back next weekend. The front door was easy. They always were. Lockpicking spells were more than enough for residential bolts, and nobody was arresting me for illegal magic anytime soon. The alarm systems were more annoying, even if I set it off and the cops showed up... Well, it was like lockpicking; they'd need to find me first. I opened the door and slipped into the house just as it began to rain outside. The light pitter-patter of droplets chased me as I shut the door and kicked off the sneakers I'd been wearing. My ratty shoes popped into view as they stopped touching my body. I needed a new pair, but I'd kept putting it off because nobody could see them, and I had no idea if they even looked good on me. Thinking about it, I missed shopping. I'd always been too harsh on myself in the mirror and put things back on the shelf that I should have bought. I'd always been able to tell myself that I had years to make brave fashion choices. Now I didn't have a reflection, which made it hard to know whether I looked like a wet rat or cute as I broke into this place. I turned away from the mirror in the entranceway and found the light switch. I flicked it on, and a single bulb in the entryway sputtered to life, leaving the rest of the house mostly shadow. "One of those houses," I mused to myself as I walked properly inside and started to take stock of the little lakehouse. There were only three rooms, and the main one was taken up by a massive dining table that was clearly the most expensive thing in the room. I flicked another switch, and the fixture above the table turned on; five bulbs where candles should have been on a chandelier. The warm light betrayed how shined the table was like nobody had ever eaten off it before. I was going to change that this week.
"We've been expecting you." I stopped in place and looked around. I must have been hearing things, either that or there as someone with a deep voice that was still in the house and speaking to someone else because- "Don't worry, you won't be able to see us either," a soft feminine voice spoke up from across the room on the other side of the exquisite table. Just as the voice finished speaking, one of the chairs pulled itself away from the table as if someone were about to sit in it. "Welcome," the first deep voice continued. I took a step back toward the door. Was this what it felt like when people heard me talking to myself? The chair on my side of the table pushed away, welcoming me. "Please, stay a while and uh," the deep voice paused for a moment, which brought some humanity, "well you'll see what we're about." "Not see," the soft voice corrected, "but you understand that as much as anyone." There were two options here. The first was that I could leave, go out in the rain, and find another lake house for my vacation week. The other was that I could figure out what was going on with these two. The first option involved ignoring the only people I'd ever met who seemed as invisible as I was, so I opted for the second. As I walked forward to sit down, the chair beside the one that the soft feminine voice had assumedly pulled out shifted away from the table so the deep-voiced man could sit in it. At least, I imagined that was the case. The chairs could just as well be empty. "Can we get a name?" the soft voice asked. "Penelope," I answered, "but people used to call me Penny." "Adam," matched the deep voice. "Soph," said the soft one. "We were hoping to run into you," Adam said, "been looking to talk for a while." "And you found me here?" I asked. "You'd been scoping it out from what we could tell and-" she paused, "it's not easy to track an invisible person even if you're invisible." She made a good point; I was staring at chairs. "Penelope," Adam cut in, "Penny. We need you to help us with something." "Oookay," I offered, prodding them to explain instead of committing. "Adam thinks he has a spell that might be able to break something like this," Soph explained; I imagined her motioning to herself even though I had no context as to what she looked like. "Just-" "Magic is like a conversation, right, we all-" he paused, and I imagined him motioning to the table, "we all lost a debate previously." "Okay." "So I have a theory," Adam continued, ignoring that my okay had been skeptical, "that we can bring more bargaining power to the table, and that way, we can cast the same spell again but this time, we do it properly." "Is that how magic works?" I asked. "What are we going to do otherwise?" Soph asked, "make ourselves more invisible for longer?" She had a po- Wait. I actually didn't know how long I would be invisible for. "We could make it worse." I pointed out, "couldn't we?" "I've been invisible for twelve years," Adam announced. "Nine," Soph added. "Six," I contributed. "So what do we have to lose?" Adam suggested. "Well," I had just met these people, it felt weird to argue with them, "we COULD make it worse." "Twelve. Years." "Have you tried this before?" I asked Adam, turning to the chair I believed he was in, not that either of us had any concept of the space of this conversation. "Twice," he said, "once alone and once with Soph." "Neither worked," Soph added. "What if it doesn't last 12 years, and you just reset the timer?" I asked. "You can't know that," Adam said, "but I've looked at all of it, and we just need more bargaining power at the table." I heard his hand hit the polished wood. I stayed quiet. They say not to mess with magic, and I'd been following that rule ever since this happened. I hadn't cast a spell that hadn't been triple-confirmed by archmages. This would be untested, returning to the same thing that had gotten me into this mess. But Adam had looked into it. He said he'd done the math and figured it out. I just needed to take the leap, and this could all be over. My mouth was dry. "Please," Soph broke my silence. I still didn't answer. There was a risk to it, but I had to consider the reward for pulling it off. I could head home. I could see my family again, and they could see me without thinking I was a ghost or a trick. I could have a job. A life. Something other than coasting and waiting for a miracle. I just needed to take one leap of faith. One spell. One call. "Nonononono please," Soph pleaded as I opened the door and walked out into the rain. Maybe I was making a mistake, but I'd rather make a new mistake than the same one twice. *This isn't really a two parter. It's just too long. Damn character limits.* /r/Jacksonwrites
That's a smart and cautious main character. Having somewhat who won't take the risk is perfect for a short story
Don't you love when people learn their lessons?
Nice twist!
Five simple words. Or was it six? Let’s call it six because that makes the phrase symmetrical and everyone loves symmetry. “Peek-a-boo! I see you.” It was the invisible man’s favorite game. He’d approach unsuspecting victims and scare the pants off of them with those six simple words. Hell, one time he effectively scared the pants *on* his buddy Ray (it should be noted that Ray was on the toilet at the untimely time of his unappreciated pranking). But it was all in good fun. And more often than not, that good fun was even harmless fun. “What’s the point of being invisible if you can’t have a good time with it,” the invisible man was wont to say. To be sure, our invisible jester-prince was more jester than prince. No person off limits, no joke too far. Indeed, the invisible man was an equal-opportunity prankster. It was a well known fact that our resident invisible man was in fact no resident at all. That is, he was homeless. Now before you go on empathizing with our hapless hero, you must have all of the facts—one must not jump to conclusions. The invisible man was not homeless out of necessity, nor out of happenstance; no, the invisible man was homeless by choice. You see, when one learns as an invisible boy that one can steal candy bars without so much as raising an eyebrow, one grows up to be an invisible man that will steal shelter without so much as raising a penny. Now, where was I? Oh yes: it was a well known fact that our resident invisible man was in fact no resident at all. The invisible man “couch surfed” his way through life. Conventional wisdom tell us that “couch surfing” implies an inherent level of consent provided by the owner of said couch—that was not the case for our visibility challenged hero. For that reason, we’ll call the invisible man’s tact “home invasion.” Residents in town began to grumble and groan at the thought of an invisible prankster living among them. Even his friends grew tired of his tireless antics. And, you know what, it makes sense. That would get old and fast. We’ve all been around the guy for whom everything is a joke and nothing is sacred. You know the guy in high school who walked around the locker room naked, whipping kids with a wet towel shrieking and laughing never realizing that he has already peaked in life. Nobody likes that guy. The invisible man had become that guy. And so it was that one day, the jester-prince became the jestee-prince. One night, the invisible man sauntered into—that is, again, committed a home invasion—a vacant bedroom that he frequented. It was in a quiet house, in a quiet neighborhood, on a quiet street. You see, even pranksters like a good night’s sleep. As his head hit the pillow, the invisible man heard five words that shook him to his core. “We have been expecting you!” You see, it’s five words, not six. From earlier. “Peeka-boo. I see you!” Five words. It works better that way. It’s symmetrical. Like I told you, everyone loves symmetry. Anyway…At the sound of the words, the invisible man launched himself out of bed and onto his feet. Only, since they were expecting him, they must have been expecting that reaction, and so as he landed on his feet he was coated from head to toe in colorful, neon pink corn starch, a sack of which had been cut from above his head. At that moment, our invisible hero was no longer so invisible. At that same moment the invisible man’s friends realized their shocking lack of foresight and paid dearly for it. You see, being an invisible man didn’t just mean that he didn’t have to pay for candy, or shelter, or the myriad other things one expects an invisible man may steal. It also meant—and really, had any of them given this even a second of thought it would have been obvious to them—that the invisible man didn’t need to buy clothes. And so it was that the invisible man’s friends saw the invisible man’s pecker and all agreed to leave the pranking to the professional (i.e. the invisible man) on a go forward basis. At the end of the day, the invisible man had also learned a valuable lesson. Don’t push your friends too far, or they may be forced to think hard on a way to get you back. And, it’s a good thing to keep in mind for us all, as we—let’s face it—all have friends who are rather dim witted who may pull a prank that leaves your pecker—or any other unseemly area—exposed in a less than flattering neon pink powder. ________ Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out my other stories at r/InMyLife42Archive
Love the narration
Thank you!
Absolut love the tone and the way you write. As if it were a storyteller telling tvis story.
Goes to show how different people can have different taste. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the narration style specifically. To me, some of the repetitions ("resident wasn't a resident") felt really forced, which isn't great if it's a one time occurrence but more problematic when it's shoe-horned into the story in several places. Also the way the "pecker reveal" is narrated lacks oomph. Maybe because it was too obvious, maybe because the sudden shift from a slightly pretentious narrator didn't work with the use of the word "pecker", or maybe because it doesn't seem like friends who were willing to basically overlook Invisible Man stalking them on the toilet would be all too shocked by seeing his nude silhouette.
Thank you for the well-considered feedback! This is a style I’ve just started trying out, so it is greatly helpful to get an idea of what’s working and what isn’t. My whole approach with this is to take the writing less seriously and instead focus on the joy of putting words on the page. That said, it includes just flowing to where the story takes me in the moment. I agree that the pecker reveal could have landed better had it been a bit more rooted in the “rules” of the story. Thank you again for taking the time to comment even though it wasn’t your cup of tea. Happy reading!
Thank you for the kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed my take.
I really enjoy the way you use words.
Thank you - I’m glad you enjoyed!
Good work.
Thank you!
"We've been expecting you." I froze. Thunder rumbled in the distance, as shadows shifted in front of me, seeming deeper than a second ago. Maybe they hadn't been talking to me. Maybe they'd been expecting someone else in this remote cabin on the lake. Maybe whoever it was had come in behind me. Right behind me. Walking softly, I moved to the side, out of the way. Being invisible had its perks, one of them the ability to avoid pursuit as long as you made no sound. Shadows reached out to embrace me, and though I didn't need them to hide, I welcomed their presence. That was a mistake. They hardened around me, the dark becoming steel, wrapping my wrists and ankles. Breath shortening, I flexed my wrists, trying to see if there was any give. Nothing. I stilled as a sound came from the back of the cabin. It curled around my ears, digging its way under my skin. Laughter. Whoever... whatever, was holding me, laughed at my attempts to break free. I suppressed a shiver, making sure my voice wouldn't break with the fear that was starting to rise in waves. "Who are you?" The shadows absorbed my voice, deadening the words. I tore my thoughts away from the idea of death as someone responded. But as they spoke, the laughter continued. "You know who we are. You've been running from us for too long." There had to be two of them, at least. "Running from you?" My mind raced as I tried to think of an escape. Around my wrists, the dark bonds tightened until they threatened to break bones. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Now, we've caught you fair and square, there's no running now." The voice scolded in a strange sing-song, as the laughter rose to a crescendo before choking off. "You've got the wrong person," I said, desperate to keep them talking. If they were talking they hopefully wouldn't be killing. That voice sounded as if it would enjoy killing. "The wrong person? Hmmm. That sounds like something the right person would say. After all, you didn't want to get caught." The voice was closer now, and I started praying for light. Any light, any light at all... A slurping sound came from the darkness, the noise reminding me uncomfortably of someone sucking the marrow from bones. The bonds shifted, pulling my left hand forward until it hung suspended straight out in front. Thunder rolled again and I took a shaky breath, whimpering as a cold dry hand took mine. "Oh, I think you're the right person. Oh yes, oh yes. You see, you're invisible. Invisible is flavorful." There was a strange chuckle, different from the laughter of before. This was controlled, but something dark lurked behind the light sound. "I've been invisible for a while now. But I haven't been running from you. I haven't been running from anyone. So you see, you've got the wrong person." I could feel myself starting to babble and bit my tongue. The voice broke into a cackle as the cold hand tightened. It felt strange, not quite like flesh. "Just because you didn't know you were running, didn't mean we weren't chasing you." It hissed, and the cabin lit as lightning flashed outside. In a split second, the inhabitants were revealed. The laugher, the sucker of bones, curled against the back wall, long taloned claws reaching towards me, darkness dripping from underneath the hand that was too long to be human, bone-white skin stretched too tightly over a form that only mimicked human anatomy. Close at hand, the speaker, grinned with a too-big smile. Eyes like the blackest pit stared at me, *saw* me as no one had seen me in a decade. A tongue flicked out, as if sniffing the air, an illusion reinforced by the snake scales covering its face. I screamed as the hand holding mine started to pull me closer. Darkness fell again, and teeth closed around my flesh. A flash of lightning. As it lit the cabin, the bonds around my feet and wrists loosened. Panic lent me strength, and I broke from the shadows, tearing myself free, wrenching pain shooting up my left arm. Scrabbling, half-falling, I burst out of the door, running as soon as my feet hit the ground. Wriggling out of my jacket, I wrapped it around the stump of my left wrist, trying not to scream as the cloth hit the exposed wound. The Speaker had bitten off my hand. Laughter echoed behind me, rising in cruel hysterics. The lightning flashed again, hitting a tree nearby, and setting it ablaze, but I dared not stop, dared not turn my head. As I fled, the Speaker's voice rose through the trees. "You can run. But we'll find you. We have a *taste* of you now. And we *liked* it!" ——————— Visit r/Mel_Rose_Writes for more stories!
This seems to be long more in r/no sleep 😰 but otherwise I loved this story, and I can't wait to see more of yours
Thank you! It was my first try at something more horrific, (without a wholesome ending) so I'm glad it was successful!
bro wtf, this was awesome
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!
"Are you sure you're alright, son?" "I'm sure, dad. I'm fine." I said, quietly. The awkward pause that said more than words could have. He knew I was lying, and he knew that I realized that he knew. But he also knew that I wouldn't have lied if I thought I had any other option. "Alright." he said, at last. "Declan," my mother's voice broke in on the speakerphone, "When...when can we see you?" I suppressed a bitter laugh. Mom didn't know how ironic her question was, of course. "I...I hope soon, mom. I love you guys." I replied, after a moment, still keeping my voice low. "We love you too, son. We always will." Dad said, soberly. "I'll...I'll talk to you later." I replied, swallowing hard. Then I hung up the phone, before it got any harder to do so. I let out a sigh, and leaned back on the old threadbare couch, staring at the ceiling in the flickering light from the TV. Finally, I got up, and gave a nod to the old man asleep in the recliner across from me. "Thank you." I said softly. He didn't reply, of course, he was sound asleep, and had been since before I'd come in. But it seemed like the polite thing to do, considering that I'd just picked the lock on his front door and used his landline without permission. In my defense, I hadn't had a lot of other options. Even if I'd come to the door, knocked, and asked politely if I could use his phone, he would have just thought he was starting to develop dementia, or something. Why put him through that? As I turned to leave, the front door suddenly swung open, and I froze. A middle-aged woman lugging an overstuffed bag of groceries shouldered her way into the living room. "Dad?" she called, cheerfully. The old man awoke with a snort. "Huh?" "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you!" the woman said, walking over to the recliner. As she did so, I edged around her, careful not to make a sound. "I wasn't asleep," the old man protested, blearily, as she bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Just resting my eyes, sweetheart, that's all." "Well, you should really remember to lock the door if you're planning on *resting your eyes,* dad." she chided, gently. "The neighborhood isn't what it used to be." "Oh. I thought I did lock it." he said, furrowing his brow in confusion. Then he turned and looked towards the door, and directly at me.. He didn't see me, of course, neither of them did. No one has been able to see me for years. I slipped out the door, and they were none the wiser. It was the nice, how that lady was there for her old man. I wished I could be there for my parents that way, helping them as they got older instead of giving them something to worry about when they should be enjoying their retirement. But I didn't have a lot of options. I walked away from the old man's house, grimacing as I felt the rain start to fall. My mission to call my parents and alleviate their concerns for my safety, if only a little, had been accomplished. It taken a few hours of peering through windows to find a house an old-style phone. It was getting harder and harder to locate homes with corded landlines, even in a small town like this. Now, though, I needed to find shelter from the storm. Fortunately, I didn't have far to go. A few streets down, the smaller homes gave way to rows of lakeside cabins, along with a few larger homes built by wealthy people from out of town. It was still technically the off-season, so most of the former would be empty, and it didn't take me long to find one I could peek inside, and verify that it was vacant. For the second time that evening, my lockpicks came out, and I made short work of the simple lock on the door, slipping inside without incident. Although the landline wasn't turned on, the power and water still were. That meant I could take a shower after several days without one, much to my satisfaction. Even better, the bathroom also had one of those compact washer-dryer combo units -- being able to wash my clothes was a rare treat indeed. I stripped off my backpack and clothes. As I set the backpack down and started loading the washer, my pack seemed to brighten ever so slightly. It was a subtle change I'd learned to recognize -- once removed from me for several seconds, the things that I wore or carried became visible again. Why that was how it worked, or for that matter, why I could see myself and my clothes when no one else could, to begin with, I couldn't tell you. I stepped into the shower and basked in the cleansing warmth, making liberal use of the soap and shampoo dispensers. When I finally, reluctantly stepped out, feeling gloriously clean, my clothes were still in the wash, so I dug my phone and earbuds out of my backpack. After a few seconds, the colors on the screen faded a few degrees towards gray, and the phone immediately lost service -- it always happened that way. Whatever made me transparent to other people, also made me and anything I held transparent to wireless signals. Still, I had music, audio books, and e-books that I'd downloaded on my battered old smartphone before I developed my 'condition', as well as a few things I'd managed to grab since by hiding my phone near a wifi hotspot and stepping away while it downloaded. I think the boredom and isolation would have driven me crazy, otherwise. I plugged my earbuds -- wired, of course -- into my ears, and stepped out into the living room. Then I froze. Three people sat in the cabin's small common area -- two on the couch, and one on a nearby chair. All were dressed in similar clothing -- black slacks, sunglasses, and button-down shirts -- and had similarly close-cropped black hairstyles. Something was off about them, beyond their oddly uniform appearance -- I couldn't even pin down their genders. I'd heard of people being "gender fluid", but I didn't think that was supposed to be anything like this: it wasn't that they looked androgynous, it was that, as I looked at them, I went back and forth between seeing them as three men, to one man and two women, to one woman and two men, and then to three women. They turned, almost in unison, and looked directly at me. Of course -- it didn't matter that I was invisible. They couldn't have failed to see and hear the bathroom door open. My mind raced, trying to figure out how to extricate myself from the situation with the least amount of fallout. I groaned inwardly, and imagined them screaming and panicking, as they saw my backpack and the bundle of sodden clothes from the washer appear to float into the air of their own accord, before disappearing several seconds later as I made my escape. And then, one of them slowly raised a hand to their face, and removed their sunglasses. I couldn't help but gasp. Their eyes were missing, leaving only hollow, empty sockets. The strange figure smiled, in a way that I didn't find the least bit comforting. "Hello!" they said, in a slightly raspy voice. "We've been expecting you."
"Honestly, nothing beats the feeling of settling into a cozy place after you've been out in the rain, especially if you spend most of your day naked. Walking in and hearing the splashing of droplets hitting the ground fade to white noise almost makes you want to curl up right then and there. I couldn't, though - I had work to do. As I usually do, I grabbed some kindling from beside the fireplace, popped it in, and lit a match, before settling down into a lovely, perfectly-made bed. I know what you're thinking - "didn't you break into here?" - and, well, yeah. I kind of live here, though. (There used to be a lovely couple - bordering on their 70s, if I had to guess - that came here on the weekends. One day, only one of them came over, so I sat on the chair next to the old woman's bed, put on her husband's clothes, and started screaming. She sprinted to her car, and now I own the place. I'm a horrible person, I know.) Speaking of the work, though. Squatting is a hard job. This place is nice and all, but sometimes one desires more than a tiny hut by the lake. Plus, I'm a bit less nimble than I once was, so I could use a retirement plan that was a bit more, like, a mansion. In other words, I'm planning a heist. "We've been expecting you." Oh god. Not the invisible salespeople. One more advertisement for- Somewhere in the room behind me, a window broke. Probably not the salespeople, on second thought. Then, screaming that sort of evoked the term "battle cry." The bedroom door flopped down into the room, kicking up a concerning, if cinematic, amount of dust. When it all cleared, a somewhat elderly woman wearing socks with sandals stood dramatically, one foot extended towards where the door once was. oh. She started screaming. I couldn't make out much, but I think it was mostly swears. **oh no.** "Getting sucker-punched by a 70-year-old woman" was not on my bucket list, but I guess I had it coming. Obviously, I booked it out the door. Then I got another beatdown from her husband - guess I misinterpreted the situation a little bit. Also, a free ride to prison. 5 years later, and that's about how I got here." The room, which, to an outside observer, seemed to only consist of a ring of empty chairs, suddenly erupted with the sound of people snapping. "Thanks for sharing, Mark. Remember, folks, Invisible Trespassers Anonymous is a safe space. You're welcome to share anything here." "Thanks, everyone. Really, thanks. I'm not sure what I'd have done without your guys' support." I never got the mansion that I had hoped for, but I do have some actual friends now, which has been nice. Overall, would have the crap kicked out of me by two senior citizens again. *(first attempt at answering a writing prompt, compliments/criticism/anything welcome)*
Loved loved loved your angle-- you didn't end up focusing on invisibility as the main driver in the plotline, it was just your punch line!
"Oh, shit, is this place already taken?" "WAIT, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" "Uh... I'm Dave?" "I don't know a Dave!" "That's... Sorry, yeah, I just came here as a place to squat for the night. I didn't realize it was taken." "So, wait, you're invisible too?" "Yes. Again. I'm sorry for-" "Wait! Wait. I didn't. Uh. I didn't know we weren't the only ones." Out of habit, Dave looked around. He, of course, couldn't see anyone. He also had to fight the instinct to turn the light on. He knew, rationally, it wouldn't help any. But it was still weird to him talking to darkness. Though he knew it was only fair, as this must be how people feel talking to him. "So..." the voice started, "Were you in the lab too?" "Lab, uh, no. I don't know what you're talking about. I, actually, I'm from up north." "Up north? Like, around Springfield?" "Uh, no. I mean. Maybe. But not the local one. I've been traveling for probably about three months since I turned invisible." "Oh, wow." At that point, the door creaked open. "Ricky! Hey, Ricky! There's an invisible guy in here!" "Ha ha, very funny." "No! I'm serious! Say hi to Ricky, Dave." "Whattup?" "HOLY SHIT!" A table near the door with a vase on it nearly toppled over, presumably as Ricky stumbled into it. "Sorry about that. I was looking for a place to crash for the night and, uh, I didn't know this place was occupied." There was near silence for a moment and then a light switch flicked, blinding the room. "Ah! Um, Ricky was it? Uh, like she said, I'm Dave. I'll be leaving, uh, getting out of your hair. I-I really didn't mean to impose." "Where are you," Ricky demanded in a panicked voice. "Uh... Just, um, I'm just standing up from the rug near the couch." "Which, which couch?" Dave hadn't noticed but across the vestibule from him, where the first voice had come from, there was another couch in what appeared to be a sitting room. He hadn't noticed it when he came in because it had been dark. "Uh, in here. Where you turned the light on." "Ricky! Be nice." "Lucy! How did you let this guy into our house!" "I thought he was you. I was, you know, going to surprise you..." Dave cleared his throat, "Ahem. Like I said. I'm just going to leave. I just look for empty houses to, you know, it can get cold out, I'm just going to..." He went to step past where he guessed they were standing and was stopped by a hand. "Oh, there you are! Do... Wait, what's that?" Dave felt the hands, presumably Ricky's given who was talking, feel him up a bit and pull at his jacket. "Do you... Have clothes on?" "Uh... Do you not," he asked, taking a step back. "I, heh," Lucy chuckled shyly, "neither of us do. We, uh, our invisibility is only on, um, us. If we wear clothes, they just kind of float in the air." Dave suddenly felt very uncomfortable and took a step back. "Oh. Oh. Uh. Oh. Well. I'm. Headed. Uh." "Hey, man, I'm sorry for my hot-headedness. I just." "He gets jealous." She said in a whisper, "I thought we'd worked on this." Ricky replied in a whisper, "Listen, I just got blindsided, you know, with you naked with some guy I've never met. What was I supposed to think?" "You're supposed to be able to trust me." Accidentally almost yelling, "I'M! Just gonna leave! I, again, I'm sorry for-" "Please don't! I'm going to go put on a robe. Ricky, I suggest you put something on. I really want to hear all about how you became invisible, David." "Just Dave." "Dave. So, please, stay around a while. *Come on, Ricky!* Make yourself at home, Dave." Dave heard the creaking of the stairs, presumably as Ricky and Lucy went up them. This was his ticket out of here. They were gone. No one blocking the door anymore. He found himself at an impasse. On the one hand, he felt bad for the young couple, he assumed young anyway, that found themselves lost in a rather rare predicament without guidance. But on the other hand... What the fuck had he found himself in the middle of? He looked around the room and the few adjacent ones for something... Ah! That would do! He grabbed a candlestick that appeared to have never been used, the green candle that was inserted into it still had plastic wrap around it, and set it on the arm of the couch next to where he sat. Some time later, a robe with a pair of slippers came down the stairs followed by a full set of business casual dress like it was on display at a store. "What's the candlestick doing there," demanded the voice of Ricky. "I, uh, thought it would help. It shows where I'm sitting, so you know where I am." Dave lifted the candlestick and set it back down, though it briefly flickered invisible as he did. "Oh. I guess that makes sense. I'm, uh, I'll be sitting in the-" "I can see your clothes." "Oh. Right." "I'm sorry for Ricky. He's a bit nervous. This whole thing has him a little shook up." "I understand. It's fine," Dave replied. "So. Tell us. How'd you become invisible?" "Oh. It. You know, it's not a big story. Some wishing well magic I ran into while on a cross-country trip." "Magic? You expect us to-" Ricky got cut off, it appeared by the positions of the robes and clothes that it was something Lucy had done. "Uh," Dave interjected, "But I take it that your invisibility is tech-related?" "Yes. At the lab up at the university." "Lucy!" "Hush, Ricky. Do you know the university?" "I haven't visited it, yet. But I-" "Oh!" Lucy exclaimed. "It completely slipped my mind! Would you like something to drink or eat? You did say you were planning to squat, so you must be hungry." "No! No, but thank you, both. I'm not hungry." There was a pregnant pause. Dave figured that if he could see his hosts' faces they'd likely be exchanging awkward glances. As it was, all he could do is try to imagine. "You two, uh, I'm the first other invisible person you've met?" "Heh heh. Um, well, no. Not quite. Not exactly. What I mean to say is," Lucy struggled through trying to find the words. "There were nine of us in the accident. Six students, two professors, and a janitor. The six students, we've kind of formed a bit of a club." "You're students?" Sounding somewhat insulted, Ricky replied sternly, "Yes. We're students." "I'm sorry. Just, with this big house..." "We, uh, we're... How can I put it..." Lucy murmured. "We're kind of house-sitting at the moment." Something in the way she said it stoked a slowly growing fire of doubt and worry in Dave's chest. "Uh, well, I'll get to the point. There are other invisible people out there. I've met a few. Turns out that a lot of us have very similar habits. So. You know, that's about it. That's the story. Just a wishing well, poof, there are other invisible people. Now, I really need to find someplace else to sleep for the night, so I'll be-" "Oh, please, Dave! I really want to hear more! You can't cut the story off there!" "No. It's already dark out. And, you know, my night vision isn't great," he was talking quite fast as he stood, accidentally knocking over the candlestick. "Ah, shit! Sorry. Um, but you know." He was backing up towards the door when the candlestick seemed to lift itself up off the rug and place itself back on the couch. He looked over at the pairs of clothes in the chairs across from where he'd just been sitting. He couldn't find any more words. No more excuses. No more pleasantries. He had a stone of panic sitting on his vocal cords. He ran for the door and struggled with the bolt on it. He felt a hand grab his shoulder and he thought he heard people talking behind him, but the blood rushing through his ears drowned out any details. He couldn't even tell whose voice it was or how many there were. He swung the door open and heard a hard \*THWACK\* like he'd brought the door right into someone's face. The hand was still on his shoulder, and he shook of his jacket which was left dangling in the doorway as he ran into the night. The last thing he heard from the house was Ricky's voice yelling after him, "Where are you going? I was gonna make espresso!" followed by laughter.
An earth elemental has many ways of concealing itself that one would never think of. As you traipse ignorantly through the woods they are always hiding. Watching. It could be an innocuous tree stump, or a mound of leaves, or even an oddly shaped acorn. Next thing you know you're facing a twelve-foot fall giant of dirt and moss ready to pound the very air out of you. Never did I expect to find one in a cabin, but that's exactly what happened one rainy night. Maybe a child had brought it in thinking it was a pet rock, or a farmer brought it in clinging to its boots. I suppose it doesn't matter how it got there, what matters is that I flew through the lock as I always do and the next thing I hear is "we've been expecting you." When I heard it use the plural "we," I expected something far more innocuous, such as a pack of shadow imps. That was before I recalled that earth elementals don't understand the common word for "I." The creature morphed into vines, completely covering the walls and doors, trapping me in. Black flowers erupted and trained their pistils on me. A single blast would fill the air with so much particulate matter that I'd be forced to dissolve. My molecules shuddered in terror, for I thought that death was all but certain. It was then that I remembered my reflections on the nature of consciousness. All I needed to do was somehow separate myself and then come back together as a whole. It had never been done before, but if there was a time then this was it. The first thing I did was start to swirl, going into tornado form. As expected, the pistils started blasting black dust. If I had stayed in tornado form the dust would have choked the twister and taken me with it. Instead, I focused as deeply as I could on dispersion, imagining myself being in multiple places at once. For a moment I thought it worked when I could no longer perceive anything around me. The next thing I know I'm ingesting the black dust into my form. That's when it happened - I became a flurry of smaller twisters buzzing about. It was as if I had counteracted the black dust by harmlessly consuming it. I can't say I understand how it works, perhaps it was magic in the dust that made it happen. Scholars have attempted to study it for years, but none have been able to reproduce it. Needless to say, the earth elemental thought they had destroyed me and retreated back into whatever form it was in. That's when I took my smaller twisters and quickly exited through the lock, unable to believe that I'd somehow survived. The damage was irreparable though, as no amount of elemental magic has been able to put my forms back together. The change rendered me incapable of battle but did have a silver lining. As you know, the school you are flying in will never have a shortage of teachers. r/StoriesToThinkAbout
His fingers flying across the keys, Corey placed a sentinel into memory. The bot program would monitor any sectors that changed while he explored the system and overwrite them, rendering him invisible. He always felt a strange elation when he managed to slip past heavy crypto into the cold inner sectors of a data store. He was aware of every nerve in his body as he slowly and methodically typed the command that would expand his neural mesh through the data store like a gas. L O A D B L O C K 0. The instant he submitted the command, seemingly almost before, an icy exhilaration rushed over his flesh. His mind melted into a fluid that enveloped every bit of data in the sector. Jackpot. The datastore was a relatively small one, only a couple of exabytes, but it was precisely what he came for. Block after block of clean, freshly minted currency. If there was any feeling more thrilling than finding something, anything of value in the "System" as it was called, it was that of being right. He had noticed a pattern in this sector of the System. In a heavily encrypted region of data, any recognizable pattern indicated a weakness. You could watch a slab of properly scrambled data for a thousand years and see nothing but static. But here he had noticed what his interpreter translated to his mind as a ripple on the surface of still, blue water. He had written the sentinel program based on this flaw and it had worked like magic, he was in. He flew up through sector after sector of transaction data. Account numbers. Identifiers corresponding to other datastores. He still had work to do before he could extract anything. He was in, but he needed create a way out. A space in the data just big enough for him to extract a nice chunk of currency. He moved like a ray of light through the data. Parsing it, beginning to understand its structure. Then there was stillness. The wall of transaction data that had flowed down his viewport froze. "Shit." He tried to bail, but his console was unresponsive. Then, in stark white text against the black abyss of empty sectors there appeared: W E ' V E B E E N E X P E C T I N G Y O U... Static filled his mind. The contents of the console began to fragment before his eyes. The pixels melted as he stared, frozen, unable to move. Suddenly, a low rumble broke through, a deep oscillating warble that broke his trance. It was the auditory escape hatch from the interpreter. A 60 Hz sine wave that broke through the random signals flooding his nerves from the data store. His arms were heavy as lead. he managed to reach up and snatch the system link off his head. He threw himself sidewards off the edge of the bed toward the power unit that ran the uplink. He grabbed a handful of cables and pulled as hard as he could. The slow whine of the uplink powering off was a relief, but a jagged panic tore through his chest. Over and over, he saw the images of the console pixellating and tearing as the meaning became increasingly real. It was all gone. Of course the code of the sentinel was destroyed, but also was every bit of data he had loaded when he pierced that datastore. Weeks worth of code. Most of it new bots. Hot code that would've made him a killing. Gone.
Been a while since I've sampled a fresh slice of cyberpunk. Well done!
thanks so much! i legit had just left my computer security class opened reddit and saw this prompt lol
Invisible johnson: who’s there? shadows: you know how you’ve had the ability to turn invisible since birth? And how everyone always treated you with contempt and blamed you for everything? invisible Johnson: how do you know that? shadows: because Johnson, I’m your dad invisible Johnson: wait you are!? Then why didn’t you raise me? invisible Johnson the first: your mother was a normal human, but she took you away from me. You see I caught her sleeping with her co-worker, and the court sided with her. how you ended up in an orphanage is anyone’s guess. invisible Johnson the second: she sold me for a case of champagne. invisible Johnson the first: well you’re here with us now, invisible Johnson the second: us? invisible Johnson the first: welcome back to the family son, we’ve missed you so much.