Emergency Rations

After the shuttle crashed, the landing crew was forced to bivouac on the planet's surface. Their first task was to search the hostile environment of this lifeless planet for any sort of organic material. Otherwise, they would be living off of emergency rations until they were rescued.

Emergency rations were the worst. None of the marines had ever tasted them, but they knew the stories. They all knew a guy who knew a guy who had eaten them once in academy.

Everyone understood that the emergency rations were made of people, their fellow crew members to be exact.

To Curtsy Properly

She was forced to curtsy from a young age. The Queen required the girl to bow with the proper technique, and when she failed, the punishments were severe. The monks were called upon to drill her at all hours, contorting her body with their chaste hands until the proper form was hammered into her forever.

For her part, she deserved all the harsh treatment as she was particularly recalcitrant. She denied the Queen's authority and would have gladly ripped out the queen's eyes or stabbed her with the crown. She would never forgive the Queen for murdering her father.

Build It And They Will Come

The majority of his days were spent in darkness, so he was startled by the flickering of light in the distance. The illumination grew stronger as it approached. He thought of running. He could only imagine that the sudden shadows cast on the wall were those of danger approaching.

The light grew to a crescendo until a man walked around the corner. He was dressed in spelunker's gear, with a headlamp shining brightly from his helmet.

"Man, you scared me. I've been working in the cave gift shop for ten months, and you're the first customer I've seen."

Modern Exploration

For today's modern explorer, there are two questions that remain unanswered. The first is what lies on the other side of a black hole. The other is what is at the bottom of a pit of quicksand.

Francis LeMond knew that visiting a black hole was way beyond his budget so he determined that he would be the first to return from the bottom of a pit of quicksand.

Unfortunately for Francis LeMond, it turns out there is a simple answer to the question of what lies at the bottom of a pit of quicksand: death by suffocation.

Alice Who Sings

Alice couldn't speak. She could only sing. Even as a baby, her cries came out as melodies. Her parents were afraid to send her to school because not only the other kids, but also several teachers, made fun of her and treated her as an outcast.

Alice wasn't the only strange one in her family. Her brother was obsessed with astronomy and convinced they weren't alone in the universe.

When the invasion began and they learned that the only way to appease the aliens was through song, that's when everyone realized they were trapped inside an M. Night Shymalan movie.

Sibling Rivalry

They were both failures in life.

His brother was the one destined for greatness, until his inner demons and thirst for heroin derailed his ambitions.

For some reason their parents, his brother's girlfriend, their mutual friends, his therapist, they all blamed him for his brother's failures. They never seemed to realize that he was also a victim. He was always being compared to his brother's lofty standards. His success in school, his victories on the baseball field, his general affability.

So yeah, he'd gotten his brother hooked on heroin. But couldn't they see it was actually a cry for help?

Whispers

Caspar would hear the whispers as soon as he closed his eyes. At first they seemed related to his dreams, but gradually they became detached, having nothing to do with his REM cycles.

The whispers were not kind. They commanded him to murder his family. Caspar wanted to ignore them, but as their stridency increased, he eventually relented.

When the police found him covered in blood and surrounded by corpses, Caspar claimed that it was God who was whispering to him. The jury agreed, and he was eventually set free.

You see, God was whispering to the jurors as well.

The Staircase

It was a Sisyphean task. Tom's only job was to clean the staircase leading down the side of the building. Never mind that he lived in Seattle. Or that they were located directly across from the Rodeo and Cattle Auction. Never mind that he never managed to reach one end of the 17-step flight of stairs before someone muddied them up again by walking past.

Never mind all that.

What really bothered Tom was that not once in his 30 years of employment had he ever been named Employee of the Month. It was enough to make a man give up.

The Insult

When Michelle walked into the room, Wayne immediately confronted her. Everyone could agree he was the biggest asshole at the party, so nobody was surprised when he said, "You look like a monkey used finger paint on your cadaver."

Michelle nearly broke into tears and no one would have blamed her. Even for Wayne, the comment was horrible. But Michelle composed herself and spoke loudly enough for everyone at the party to hear. She couldn't find the words to explain the series of events that had led up to it, but she confirmed yes, that was exactly what had happened.

Radioactive Contraband

The space haulers needed two years just to reach the asteroids. In the same way that planes fly over the North Pole because it's more direct, the cargo ships slingshot around planets to save fuel and gain momentum. The biggest danger to the astronauts was monotony.

Captain Ott never complained about his meager salary, though he knew the company made huge profits on the minerals he returned with. Complainers generally never got to fly again. Instead, he took his own share of the uranium and sold it on the black market. The cancer was worth sticking it to his bosses.