The Plague

No one noticed as the epidemic became incipient. Even as people started dying from the new strain of bacteria, the entire society was oblivious.

I was the only one who could see what was happening and nobody would listen to me.

You might think I'm crazy and when the story ends it will turn out I'm inside the locked cell of an insane asylum. I wish that were the case.

Instead, I'm the last man on Earth.

I did some research after the plague. The most aggressive characteristic of the disease is that it shuts down a person's mind so they are unaware of being sick. I was the only person to have an immunity.

Unfortunately for the bacteria, it evolved too well and now there are no more hosts for it. It's as extinct as the human race will be after my death.

This is no solace for me.

Today's story deviates in that it is exactly 150 words instead of 100. It's something of an epic.

The Chthonic States

I'm thinking I might quit my job.

I'm so old, I remember when we only had 51 states. But after the war, the Chthonic States moved underground. That's where we got the 63 we have today. It feels like a separate country if you ever visit, though not many people do.

I only go there hunting bounties. The laws are different down there and you're allowed to carry weapons still. Packing heat doesn't make you feel safer. The government leaves you alone but you've got to worry about angry citizens.

It's good money, but it's no longer worth my life.

The Warlock's Apprentice

Ralph couldn't stand the tenebrous gloom that hung over the hovel and did everything he could to bring a bit of life to the place. Once, he tied ribbons around the frog legs, but they caused the spell to misfire. Instead of being cursed with thirteen years of bad luck, the enemy king found himself with a penchant for curly hair. Another time, he ruined a batch of poison apples by adding cinnamon. His master was constantly berating Ralph's predilection for bright-colored robes.

It was never easy being gay, but it was especially difficult as a warlock's apprentice.

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.