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Post by Mako on May 7, 2016 12:14:32 GMT 8
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Post by Mako on May 7, 2016 13:55:38 GMT 8
#1. "Scales of Worth" Date: December 20, 2010 Status: Completed, graded by Dragoness Target: Magikarp Outcome: Magikarp captured
#2. "Virulence" Date: February 4, 2011 Status: Completed, graded by Synthesis Target: Ekans Outcome: Ekans captured
#3. "Tales of the Kingdom Beasts" Date: March 15, 2011 Status: Completed, graded by Fossil Fusion Target: Gligar Outcome: Gligar captured
#4. "It's a Cold Way until the Morning Shines" Date: March 23, 2011 Status: Completed, graded by Dinobot Target: Cubchoo Outcome: Cubchoo captured
#5. "Dance of Swords" Date: March 30, 2011 Status: Incomplete, suspended indefinitely Target: Mienfoo Outcome: -n/a-
#6. "The Healing Salve" Date: April 19, 2011 Status: Completed, graded by Alaskapigeon Targets: Cottonee & Petilil Outcome: Cottenee & Petilil captured
#7. "The Seel Witch of Merrow Marsh" Date: April 19, 2012 Status: Completed, graded by Alaskapigeon Target: Lotad Outcome: Lotad captured
#8. "Pokéstrav, Chapter One: A Haunting of Church and State" Date: May 9, 2012 Status: Incomplete, suspended indefinitely Targets: Sableye, Gastly, Natu, Lunatone Outcome: -n/a-
#9. "Marked" Date: January 21,2013 Status: Completed, graded by Felly Target: Scraggy Outcome: Scraggy captured Additional Information: Winter Writing Competition 2013 Entry
#10. "Rock Fashion" Date: January 27, 2013 Status: Completed, graded by VeloJello Target: Roggenrola Outcome: Roggenrola captured
#11. "The Litterbug" Date: June 1, 2016 Status: Completed, graded by Felly Target: Scatterbug Outcome: Scatterbug captured + Write-a-Roll prompt met Additional Information: Summer Writing Competition 2016 Entry; Write-a-Roll Competition 2016 Entry
#12. "New species of Pyukumuku (Protomuku sunyshorensis sp. nov. Kukui & Rowan, 2016) exhibiting rudimentary offensive, damaging attacks from Sunyshore Sound, Sinnoh Region." Date: December 26, 2016 Status: Completed, graded by Elysia Target: Pyukumuku Outcome: Pyukumuku captured Additional Information: SuMo Stories 2016: Days and Nights of Madness submission
#13. "Cosmic Script and Flute Notes" Date: August 4, 2017 Status: Completed, graded by Ralin Target: Unown-? Outcome: Unown-? captured Additional Information: SWC 2017 Entry
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Stories
Jun 18, 2017 4:30:07 GMT 8
via mobile
Post by Mako on Jun 18, 2017 4:30:07 GMT 8
Konrad Falkström could not focus. Lines of worry creased his somber face, and the events as of late had only made his close-cropped hair ever grayer. Even after his morning ritual of two hefty mugs of coffee (black, but brewed with eggshell), Flodstaden’s Chief of Police simply had too much in mind to absorb the print on the tablet before him. He read a few lines—something about the Moderate Party’s candidate, the ‘charismatic’ Gregard Hylander, being in the lead—scrolled to see nothing else that wasn’t a sensationalized retelling of the incident, then gave up as he sank into a sofa. No matter how much he repeated visualizing what had happened at the Institute of Research up in Hesselberg, none of it made sense. How could sixty-seven people just drop dead? And the bodies . . . Falkström shuddered to think of those whom he saw; not in his twenty years on duty as Chief had he seen bodies so disfigured and burned, which was a lot to say considering he's had his fair share of gruesome hate crimes. . . . No witnesses, no suspects, and the place was heavily surveilled—recovered security footage had merely shown each person present in the vicinity dropping to the ground and never getting back up. The PR Department had at the moment tried to pass it off as a gas leak of some sort, but a dozen industrial safety inspectors and engineers had already been called to check the building, only to find that everything was in perfect condition. On all fronts it appeared that the case was shaping up to be as cold as the bodies of the victims, until the medical examiners came back with their reports . . . and consequentially brought forward yet more seemingly unanswerable questions. It was true, however, that the autopsy reports looked a little more promising (if more than enough sickening, Falkström thought) as far as having a lead was concerned. Remembering what the head examiner had told him in confidence, what he initially suspected as burns were actually patches of dissolved flesh. Traces of a residue had been found from all the remains where the patches occurred, its offensively bright, pinkish hue now ingrained into Falkström’s mind, pulsing rhythmically at the back of his consciousness. The trouble was that all the experts were at a loss as to what the residue could be. Snapping out of his reverie, Falkström reached for a remote and turned on the flatscreen. He skipped over elections coverage (Hylander's triumphant smile flashed on the screen for a split second), lingered for a moment on SverigeToday to see one of his Chief Inspectors give out a succint update on the Hesselberg investigation and announce that the area had now been quarantined, before ultimately settling on a nature show which he had always found somewhat calming. Falkström sighed heavily, directing the remote towards a projector overhead as he did so, and instantly the room was bathed in blues and greens: lifelike holograms of what was being displayed on the television took form all around him. What had been a typical living room in Flodstaden suburbia now looked as though it were the depths of the sea. Projected over furniture were forests of kelp illuminated by an indiscriminate light source, glinting brilliant yellows and gold against the dark water, while sand and coral consumed the tiled floor. It was among the many creature comforts his daughter insisted on gifting him, which only grew in number since his wife passed away from an unknown degenerative disease two years prior. On most days it was all too much for the fifty odd Police Chief, though he did appreciate how far VR technology had come. But these days weren't most days, because on most days sixty-seven people don't just inexplicably die. He mused how curious it was for things to advance to a point where holograms could be a part of everyday life, and yet the origin and identity of what was clearly a hazardous substance could remain a mystery. Briefly he thought of the bitter ordeal his wife had to suffer from and how the cause of it was never identified, wondering if the residue would likewise end up an enigma. The disembodied narration floated from the screen. . . .join us as we uncover yesteryear's denizens of the deep and venture into waters of the past. . . . Now regionally extinct in Sweden and neighboring countries, these basking sharks — otherwise known to science as Cetorhinus maximus — were the largest of their kind to be found in Nordic seas. . . .The light from the projector flickered and suddenly a pair of basking sharks materialized, their impossibly cavernous maws directed straight at Falkström's face. The sharks' gaping mouths stayed unclosed as they swam slowly around the room, something which the narration had confirmed was a defining behavior of the species and also that which had given basking sharks their name. Of course Falkström knew them by another name, for his father was a boatman and had once took him in his youth to an inlet where these sharks would surface, feeding peacefully. Brugden, his father had called them. The narration continued: Years of habitat loss had contributed significantly to the decline of their already dwindling numbers, with the last sighting in Sweden being off the coast of Kalvsund nearly a decade ago. Now only populations south of the equator remain. . . .No surprise there, Falkström thought, for he knew that even the inlet he had just been remembering had since been filled-in to make way for a resort complex, undoubtedly part of the government's push in recent years to achieve ever grander styles of living for the wealthy, much to the general public's dismay. No wonder the Moderates are winning.The basking shark pair now circled back towards Falkström, mouths still agape and showing the internal banding of their gills. Slowly they approached, and soon would pass through Falkström's head as though they could see him, as though he was their next meal. Fittingly enough the narration had begun describing their feeding habits, and now the two mouths were inches away from the Police Chief, when suddenly his phone rang and drowned whatever the narrator was saying about filter feeding — prompting Falkström to turn off the VR projector just before the sharks could pass through him. The room's usual lighting returned in a matter of seconds; the sharks had flickered into nothing, kelp and all manner of seagrass had seemingly vanished into furniture, and not a grain of sand remained on what was once more the checkered tiling of the floor. Falkström muted the television before rising up to get his phone, still ringing. He had left it on the counter beside the coffee maker, which was of a kind more expensive than what he considered reasonable. It was, however, another of his daughter Klara's gifts, and probably the only one of them he admitted to needing, conceding that it did its job well: black, but brewed with eggshell. Falkström answered his phone. It was Chief Inspector Aries Lund, the very same Inspector he had seen on SverigeToday minutes ago. "Herr Falkström," came Lund's voice, sounding fatigued. "Saw your update. Quarantine go as planned?" asked the Police Chief immediately. "Media's been relentless, but it's done," said Lund. "Building's under wraps and they've closed off 23rd and 24th Mortengatan here in Hesselberg — nothing's getting in or out by road without clearance. Säpo got involved." Lund paused, as if expecting a response from Falkström at this last mention of the national security service's involvement in the quarantine procedure. But Falkström said nothing, and so Lund pressed on, the tiredness in his tone audibly changing into ill-disguised alarm: "They want you at the labs, Chief." "News on the residue, then?" "I don't know. Herr Falkström . . . the examiner in charge of it was found earlier. Hung himself, by the looks of it. Room they found him in . . . Nilsson's at the scene, sent me photos. Sending you the same right now. Not pretty. . . ." A coldness that had nothing to do with the January winds outside ran through Falkström's spine as he scanned the photographs. They showed a laboratory in a state so chaotic that Falkström wouldn't have recognized it as the main forensics unit in Linköping if it weren't for the filenames. Equipment and apparatuses the Police Chief could only guess the purposes of lay askew, damaged, or thrown on the floor. Shattered glass carpeted the scene like snow. At the center of disarray, however, was the hanging body of the examiner, limp and pale in death, arms and white coat stained black with rivulets of blood. The cable that had ended the examiner's life was knotted on a ceiling pipe and was coiled thickly around the neck, suspending the body in midair, and behind which an equally disturbing sight was present on the wall: circles haphazardly drawn with what looked to be the examiner's own blood, forming a large, grotesque bullseye that from a distance framed the body at its center. And as Falkström looked at the bullseye the more it taunted him, the blood on the wall turning rapidly into a violent pink and then to black again, and then back to a shock of magenta and he closed his eyes but the color seeped into his eyelids and it flashed; it was bright, unrelenting, beating like a heart whose pulses were that awful, sickly shade — "Herr Falkström?" "I'll be there. Säpo nosing around Linköping as well?" "Yes, though Nilsson's told me they're cooperating. At least for now." * * * * * The bullseye did not leave his vision even as he went off to wash his face, reflected on the mirror though his own walls were bare. Pale blue irises stared back at hardened features, as brows furrowed at an uneven shave. Once more he closed his eyes, the tap left running just enough for trickles to fall in imitation of the blood dripping off that unfortunate examiner's arms. . . . Konrad Falkström's last thought before giving into the sway of memory was of him wondering if he was too old to keep doing the job. It was almost effortless for him to remember 'the days before', as he would come to refer to it, which meant those times when his wife was alive—but not just—for the days before were those days when Eloiza was wholly alive, before either of them knew the full force of what 'degenerative' meant, before their only daughter had moved to Madrid, and before she had stopped singing the song she had always sung. . . . In the meadow, There the larks come, To greet the dawn; In the meadow, There I wait for you.A splash of water, and the hurried sound of metal turning.
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Stories
Jul 10, 2017 18:07:16 GMT 8
Post by Mako on Jul 10, 2017 18:07:16 GMT 8
That Which Hungers Konrad Falkström could not focus. Lines of worry creased his somber face, and the events as of late had only made his close-cropped hair ever grayer. Even after his morning ritual of two hefty mugs of coffee (black, but brewed with eggshell), Flodstaden County’s Chief of Police simply had too much in mind to absorb the print on the tablet before him. He read a few lines—something about the Moderate Party’s candidate, the ‘charismatic’ Gregard Hylander, being in the lead—scrolled to see nothing else that wasn’t a sensationalized retelling of the incident, then gave up as he sank into a sofa.
Try as he might repeatedly visualizing what had happened yesterday at the Institute of Research up in Glottesborg, none of it made sense. How could sixty-seven people just drop dead? And the bodies . . . Falkström shuddered to think of those whom he saw; not in his twenty years on duty as regional Chief had he seen bodies so disfigured and burned, which was a lot to say considering he’s had his fair share of gruesome hate crimes. No witnesses, no suspects, and the place was heavily surveilled—recovered security footage had merely shown each person present in the vicinity dropping to the ground and never getting back up.
The PR Department had at the moment tried to pass it off as a gas leak of some sort, but a dozen industrial safety inspectors and engineers had already been called to check the building, only to find that everything was in perfect condition. On all fronts it appeared that the case was shaping up to be as cold as the bodies of the victims, until the medical examiners came back with their reports . . . and consequentially brought forward yet more seemingly unanswerable questions.
It was true, however, that as far as having a lead was concerned the autopsies looked a little more promising (if more than enough sickening, as Falkström learned). Remembering what the head examiner had told him in confidence, what he initially suspected as burns were actually patches of dissolved flesh. Traces of a residue had been found on all the remains where the patches occurred, its offensively bright, pinkish hue now ingrained into Falkström’s mind, pulsing rhythmically at the back of his consciousness.
The trouble was that all the experts were at a loss as to what the residue could be.
Birdsong outside snapped Falkström out of his reverie. It was still the early hours of the morning, though already the Police Chief was in his uniform—or rather, he was still in them—so consumed was he last night with the case that he had time for little else. Rest did not come easy, of course, but when it did it came in a single wave, crashing down on him in a burst of the residue’s color. Sleep, it seemed, proved no refuge to that haunting hue.
Falkström reached for a remote and turned on the flatscreen. He skipped over elections coverage (Hylander’s triumphant smile flashed on the screen for a split second), lingered for a moment on SverigeToday to see one of his Chief Inspectors give out a succinct update on the Glottesborg investigation, announcing that the area had now been quarantined, before ultimately settling on a nature program which he had always found somewhat calming.
The Police Chief sighed heavily, now directing the remote towards a projector overhead as he did so, and instantly the room was bathed in blues and greens: lifelike holograms of what was being displayed on the television took form all around him. What had been a typical living room in Flodstaden suburbia now looked as though it were the depths of the sea. Projected over furniture were forests of kelp illuminated by an indiscriminate light source, glinting brilliant yellows and gold against the dark water, while sand and coral consumed the tiled floor.
It was the latest addition to the many creature comforts his daughter insisted on gifting him, which only grew in number since his wife passed away from an unknown degenerative disease two years prior. He thought the gifts would stop coming after his daughter had moved abroad, but after the flatscreen, several Cordovan jackets, and even the tablet he had just been using to check the headlines, among many other such things he would never have gotten himself, he had come to abandon the notion that they would. On most days it was all too much for the fifty odd Police Chief, the hologram projector especially. Not that he was ungrateful for his daughter’s generosity, but Konrad Falkström was a man who favored simplicity.
Only these days weren’t most days, and things were currently all but simple—dealing with sixty-seven inexplicable, simultaneous deaths saw to that.
Falkström mused how curious it was for times to advance to a point where holograms could be a part of everyday life, and yet the origin and identity of what was clearly a hazardous substance could remain a mystery. Briefly he thought of the bitter ordeal his wife had to suffer from and how the cause of it was never identified, wondering if the residue would likewise end up another medical enigma. These thoughts he shook off as his attention wandered to the holograms of seagrass swaying gently around him, moving to the whim of currents that swept the room, ones that were just as unreal but gave the room a feeling of coolness and ease.
The disembodied narration floated from the screen.
“. . . join us as we uncover yesteryear’s denizens of the deep and venture into waters of the past. . . . Now regionally extinct in Sweden and neighboring countries, these basking sharks—otherwise known to science as Cetorhinus maximus—were the largest of their kind to be found in Nordic seas. . . .”
There was a flickering of light from the projector and suddenly a pair of basking sharks materialized, dun-skinned and mottled, their impossibly cavernous maws directed straight at Falkström’s face. The sharks’ gaping mouths stayed unclosed as they swam slowly around the room, something which the narration had confirmed was a defining behavior of the species and also that which had given basking sharks their name. Of course Falkström knew them by another name, for his father was a boatman and had once took him in his youth to an inlet where these sharks would surface, feeding peacefully. Brugden, his father had called them.
The narration continued:
“. . . years of habitat loss had contributed significantly to the decline of their already dwindling numbers, with the last sighting in Sweden being off the coast of Kalvsund nearly a decade ago. Now only populations south of the equator remain. . . .”
No surprise there, Falkström thought, for he knew that even the inlet he had just been remembering had since been filled in to make way for a resort complex, undoubtedly part of the incumbent administration’s push in recent years to achieve ever grander styles of living for the wealthy, much to the general public’s (and Falkström’s) dismay. No wonder the Moderates are winning.
The basking shark pair now circled back towards Falkström, mouths still agape and showing the internal banding of their gills. Slowly they approached, and soon would engulf Falkström’s head as though they could see him, as though he was their next meal. Fittingly enough the narration had begun describing their feeding habits, and now the two mouths were inches away from the Police Chief, when suddenly his phone rang and drowned whatever the narrator was saying about filter feeding—prompting Falkström to turn off the VR projector just before the sharks could pass through him.
The room’s usual lighting returned in a matter of seconds; the hologram-sharks flickered away into air, kelp and all manner of seagrass had been replaced with furniture, and not a grain of sand remained on what was once more the checkered tiling of the floor.
Falkström muted the television as he rose up to get his phone, still ringing. He had left it on the counter beside the coffee maker, which was of a kind more expensive than what he considered reasonable. It was, however, yet another of his daughter Klara’s gifts, and probably the only one of them he admitted to needing. He conceded that it did its job well: black, but brewed with eggshell.
Falkström answered his phone.
It was Chief Inspector Aries Lund, the very same Inspector he had seen on SverigeToday minutes ago.
“Herr Falkström,” came Lund’s voice, sounding fatigued.
“Saw your update. Quarantine go as planned?” asked the Police Chief immediately.
“Media’s been relentless, and there were some . . . complications, but it’s done,” said Lund. “Building’s under wraps and they’ve closed off 23rd and 24th Sommargatan here in Glottesborg—nothing’s getting in or out by road without clearance.”
“What complications?”
“Säpo got involved.”
Lund paused, expecting a response from Falkström at this last mention of the Swedish Security Service’s involvement in the quarantine procedure. But Falkström said nothing, and so Lund pressed on, the tiredness in his tone audibly changing into ill-disguised alarm: “You’re wanted at the labs, Chief.”
“News on the residue, then?”
“I don’t know. Herr Falkström . . . the examiner in charge of it was found earlier. Hung himself, by the looks of it. Room they found him in . . . Coroner Nilsson’s at the scene, sent me photos. Sending you the same right now. Not pretty. . . .”
A coldness that had nothing to do with the January winds outside ran through Falkström’s spine as he examined the photographs. They showed a laboratory in a state so chaotic that Falkström wouldn’t have recognized it as the Chemistry Unit at the National Forensics Center in Linköping if it weren’t for the filenames. Equipment and apparatuses the Police Chief could only guess the purposes of lay askew, damaged, or thrown on the floor. Shattered glass carpeted the scene like snow.
Looming over the chaos of it all, however, was the hanging body of the examiner, limp and pale in death, arms and white coat stained black with rivulets of blood. The cable that had ended the examiner’s life was knotted on a ceiling pipe and was coiled thickly around the neck, suspending the body in midair, and behind which an equally disturbing sight was present on the wall: circles haphazardly drawn with what looked to be the examiner’s own blood, forming a large, grotesque bull’s-eye that from a distance framed the body at its center.
And as Falkström looked at the bull’s-eye the more it taunted him, the blood on the wall turning rapidly into a violent pink and then to black again, and then back to a shock of magenta; he closed his eyes but the color seeped into his eyelids and it flashed; it was bright, burning, beating like a heart whose pulses were that awful, sickly shade—
“Herr Falkström?”
“I’ll be there. Säpo nosing around Linköping as well?”
“Yes, though Nilsson’s told me they’re cooperating. At least for now. . . .”
The bull’s-eye did not leave his vision even as he went off to wash his face, reflected on the mirror though his own walls were bare. Pale blue irises stared back at hardened features, as brows furrowed at an uneven shave. Once more he closed his eyes, the tap left running just enough for trickles to fall in imitation of the blood dripping off that unfortunate examiner’s arms. . . .
Konrad Falkström’s last thought before giving into the sway of memory was of him wondering if he was too old to keep doing the job. It was almost effortless for him to remember the ‘days before’, as he would come to refer to it, which meant those times when his wife was alive—but not just—for the days before were those days when Anetta was wholly alive, before either of them knew the full force of what ‘degenerative’ meant, before the increasingly ineffective string of treatments and therapies, and before she had been reduced to singing that song, those barely audible words issuing from discolored lips. . . .
In the meadow, There the larks come, To greet the dawn; In the meadow, There I wait for you.
A splash of water, and the hurried sound of metal turning.
* * * * *
The black Volvo pulled out of the driveway, turning steadily onto heavily asphalted road.
Linköping was a half hour drive from Flodstaden, though the uncharacteristic heavy morning traffic—Falkström was sure it was a result of rerouting after the main roads to Glottesborg were closed—meant that it would take almost twice as usual.
As he drove, Falkström considered how Säpo would handle his arrival. Twenty years on the force and he’d never had to deal with the Security Service interfering; inter-regional briefings that were more formalities than important meetings were the extent of his previous interactions with Säpo, and even then the Police Chief had only talked to an agent or two in passing. That they were here, visible and cooperating, was unheard of for cases; this, Falkström figured, only underscored the gravity of the incident at hand.
Over the years the agents of the Säkerhetspolisen—colloquially known as Säpo—had earned something of a mythical status, at least even more so than they did from when Falkström was a child. Growing tensions involving messy foreign affairs, rising acts of terrorism, and other ministerial headaches had called upon the authorities to strengthen national security; in the last few decades Säpo had done its job so spectacularly that Sweden had seen an unchallenged era of peace, and they did so discreetly, never at the forefront of things but always present in the background that the media had naturally blown up their efforts as nothing short of legendary. Many agreed. Those who didn’t bred even wilder conspiracies.
Why then, Falkström wondered, was Flodstaden seemingly immune to this so-called era of peace? The numbers were definitely on the side of this being true for the County. Over forty hate crimes resolved in two decades to his name. Add to that the mess that was this Glottesborg case, with sixty-seven souls screaming at him for justice . . . though Falkström feared it could be time for their pleas to fall on deaf ears.
Doubt crept on him like mold.
Sixty-eight, came a silent correction, and his grip on the wheel tightened. His friend Rejko Virolainen was dead. To think he had only talked to the Finn yesterday about the burns on the victims . . . no, they weren’t burns exactly . . . ‘It’s dissolved flesh’, the examiner had told him. . . ‘We’ve recovered a residue that’s the most likely cause. . . .’
And now the horrid pink of the residue came back to the front of his vision, the flashes of color exacerbated as he turned to an avenue; in the park beyond he caught sight of a creature awash with the same shade of pink—it was hairless, and had a large tongue that undulated hypnotically in the early morning light, and the markings on it were the finishing stroke to this affront on his faculties. Rings. It had rings. Rings which he now saw on everything, rings within rings within rings, like a bull’s-eye, and painted in Rejko’s blood—did you see that unknowing face, Chief?
All at once Falkström saw the world plunge into that eye-watering hue, the sun seemingly filtered through a VR projector not unlike the one he owned. He sped up the avenue oblivious to the sudden absence of traffic, desperate to outrun something he knew he couldn’t.
Rings within rings within rings.
* * * * *
At about 8:30 A.M. Konrad Falkström arrived at the National Forensics Centre, and it was a relief to the Police Chief to be greeted by the building’s imposing, marble-white façade.
Nothing in pink, Falkström repeated to himself, and this was the first of three things he had been silently reciting on the last half hour of his drive to Linköping.
The creature was a projection, Falkström thought, now parking the Volvo alongside several identical vehicles emblazoned with Säpo’s coat-of-arms. Second on his list, he assured himself that the creature he had seen was nothing more than a hologram, coming from one of those VR games that were all the rage with today’s kids and kids-at-heart. He was neither, but did find himself guilty of recognizing the creature, though struggled to remember what it was called.
It’s one of those Pikamonsters, a Pikachu, those things that were hard to avoid when you grew up in the ‘90s even if you were a boatman’s son from the province. There was a kid there in the park, or maybe there were two—and it was a game and they had been projecting it from their phones.
He got off the car, suddenly aware of the weight of his pistol on its holster.
“Rejko is dead,” this he said to himself aloud, the first time he’d done so since he’d been reciting. “And you are in shock.”
It was the last and hardest thing for him to repeat on this mental list, but there came immense respite in hearing himself say it. He had imagined the world bathed in the residue’s color—the last thing he had discussed with the examiner—imagined, too, the rings and the bull’s-eyes from seeing it on Nilsson’s photos, and even fabricated a taunt in Lund’s voice in his head all because his mind was on overdrive.
He walked to the Centre unchallenged; the guards stationed at the front recognized him immediately and let him in without question. All too familiar corridors greeted him, the halls managing to look at once pristine and sullen, as Falkström’s steps carried him automatically to the scene of the suicide.
Coroner Marien Nilsson was
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Stories
Aug 14, 2017 7:46:14 GMT 8
via mobile
Post by Mako on Aug 14, 2017 7:46:14 GMT 8
/Unstoppable
In a forgotten age, so long ago that even the elders have but an inkling of its time, curious creatures walked the world, their powers extraordinary and godlike. They might have been real gods, but now they are dead, or else sleeping. Some say to speak of one in the case of the divine is to speak of the other.
At the very least, some have merely retreated, clinging to the souls of unwitting mortals, or else persisting inside wondrous artifacts.
In the Stonelands there ruled a fierce warlord, brutish and stubborn, one whom the villagers called dimaga, the Unstoppable. And that he was unrivalled, true enough to his moniker, the villagers believe he had come into the possession of one of the divine artifacts.
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Stories
Jan 9, 2018 22:34:18 GMT 8
via mobile
Post by Mako on Jan 9, 2018 22:34:18 GMT 8
The sky was an inferno, and the sea was its mirror-twin.
The sandbank on which our two creatures of interest crawled glistened a fierce orange, the shade that reminded one of a sunset, as they watched with equal parts dread and solemn acceptance the destruction of their home unfolding like a fever offering no respite—only escalating ever further into worse without hope of burning itself out. In truth it was only a few hours into the morning, and though now obscured by rising columns of smoke, the smaller of the two creatures knew that the sun hung meekly above them, choked just as much as the world below.
It was the smaller of the pair, too, who first broke the silence: "You called me coward."
The plates on this creature's back shone defiantly silver, as though unwilling to be tinged by the relentless, fiery haze seemingly hellbent on consuming everything else. It didn't shift its gaze as it talked; its yellow eyes remained transfixed on the sky, in which there were now new pinpricks of light—not the sun's (for it remained still captive by pillars of ash and smoke), but of the same kind they witnessed in the night before, the kind that had catalyzed this catastrophe to begin with. The lights appeared distant, but not for long.
Thus, too intent on keeping its vigil, the Wimpod didn't see its companion turn with a disheartened expression creasing its dark face, doubt written in the red orbs that were its eyes.
"You dwell on that now?" sighed the Kabuto.
"You called me coward," repeated the Wimpod in a tone that hinted no trace of accusation, sounding instead as a statement of fact. "I called you dead, and myself smart enough to run and stay alive. And yet I am back here with you, and together—together we die."
"Same fate for everyone..." With some effort the Kabuto turned to join the Wimpod's skyward watch, careful at first not to move the lower half of its shelled hide, or what remained of it—what was once impenetrable defense lay crushed and damaged—but, realizing the futility of it, moved itself back into position with a jerk. A needle of pain shot up to its upper body, though the whirlwind of disaster before them made it seem like a minor discomfort.
"You think they can make it?" asked the Kabuto flatly. It was the question it had been meaning to ask since the colony's hurried exodus, up to this point hindered from being articulated by guilt. But just as pain was no longer a concern, so too was hesitation in the face of imminent death. "Even the land giants stood no chance."
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Stories
Nov 25, 2018 20:02:35 GMT 8
Post by Mako on Nov 25, 2018 20:02:35 GMT 8
Dream Eater The Route is 11, the tall grass is glistening with morning dew, and the dirt path snaking across it is well-trodden, mirroring in some ways the circuitous tunnels of dream, that in-between of waking and sleep, and it is in that space in which I linger, in which I feed. The human psyche is a smorgasbord, and it tempts me with a plateful of sensations; imagine, for a moment, a delicacy of despair, an hors d'oeuvre of inspiration, a bitter drink of failure, and a sweet taste of victory...
I am Drowzee, Dream Eater, and here I recount some thoughts on the thoughts of others.
Subject: YOUNGSTER Dave
YOUNGSTER Dave encountered me in the tall grass with a blaze in his eyes. He sees me as he would any other Drowzee: tapirine in appearance, with the identifying trunk and the signature yellow hide on brown.
Subject: GAMER Jasper
Subject: ENGINEER Bernie
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Post by Mako on Feb 22, 2019 9:38:06 GMT 8
That Which Hungers
Konrad Falkström could not focus. Lines of worry creased his somber face, and the events as of late had only made his close-cropped hair ever grayer. Even after his morning ritual of two hefty mugs of coffee (black, but brewed with eggshell), Flodstaden County’s Chief of Police simply had too much in mind to process the text on the tablet before him. He read a few lines—something about the Moderate Party’s candidate, the ‘charismatic’ Gregard Hylander, being in the lead—scrolled to see nothing else that wasn’t a sensationalized retelling of the incident, then gave up as he sank into a sofa.
Try as he might repeatedly visualizing what had happened yesterday at the Institute of Research up in Glottesborg, none of it made sense. How could sixty-seven people just drop dead? And the bodies . . . Falkström shuddered to think of those whom he saw; not in his twenty years on duty as regional Chief had he seen bodies so disfigured and burned, which was a lot to say considering he’s had his fair share of gruesome hate crimes. No witnesses, no suspects, and the place was heavily surveilled—recovered security footage had merely shown each person present in the vicinity dropping to the ground and never getting back up.
The PR Department had at the moment tried to pass it off as a gas leak, but a dozen industrial safety inspectors and engineers had already been called to check the building, only to find that everything was in perfect condition. On all fronts it appeared that the case was shaping up to be as cold as the bodies of the victims, until the medical examiners came back with their reports . . . and consequentially brought forward yet more seemingly unanswerable questions.
It was true, however, that as far as having a lead was concerned the autopsies looked a little more promising (if more than enough sickening, as Falkström learned). Remembering what the head examiner had told him in confidence, what he initially suspected as burns were actually patches of dissolved flesh. Traces of a residue had been found on all the remains where the patches occurred. Its offensively bright, pinkish hue was now ingrained into Falkström’s mind, pulsing rhythmically at the back of his consciousness.
The trouble was that all the experts were at a loss as to what the residue could be.
Birdsong outside snapped Falkström out of his reverie. It was still the early hours of the morning, though already the Police Chief was in his uniform—or rather, he was still in them—so consumed was he last night with the case that he had time for little else. Rest did not come easy, of course, but when it did it came to him in a single wave, crashing down in a burst of the residue’s color. Sleep, it seemed, proved no refuge to that haunting hue.
Falkström reached for a remote and turned on the flatscreen. He skipped over elections coverage (Hylander’s triumphant smile flashed on the screen for a split second), lingered for a moment on SverigeToday to see one of his Chief Inspectors give out a succinct update on the Glottesborg investigation, announcing that the area had now been quarantined, before ultimately settling on a nature show which he had always found somewhat calming.
The Police Chief sighed heavily, now directing the remote towards a projector overhead as he did so, and instantly the room was bathed in blues and greens: lifelike holograms of what was being displayed on the television took form all around him. What had been a typical living room in Swedish suburbia now looked as though it were the depths of the sea. Projected over furniture were forests of kelp illuminated by an indiscriminate light source, glinting brilliant yellows and gold against the dark water, while sand and stone consumed the tiled floor.
It was the latest addition to the many creature comforts his daughter insisted on gifting him, which only grew in number since his wife passed away from an unidentifiable degenerative disease two years prior. He thought the gifts would stop coming after his daughter had moved abroad, but after the flatscreen, several Cordovan jackets, and even the tablet he had just been using to check the headlines, among many other such things he would never have gotten himself, he had come to abandon the notion that they would. On most days it was all too much for the fifty odd Police Chief, the hologram projector especially. Not that he was ungrateful for his daughter’s generosity, but Konrad Falkström was a man who favored simplicity.
Only these days weren’t most days, and things were currently all but simple—dealing with sixty-seven inexplicable, simultaneous deaths saw to that.
Falkström mused how curious it was for times to advance to a point where holograms could be a part of everyday life, and yet the origin and identity of what was clearly a hazardous substance could remain a mystery. Briefly he thought of the bitter ordeal his wife had to suffer from and how the cause of it was never identified, wondering if the residue would likewise end up another medical enigma. The holograms of seagrass swayed gently around him, moving to the whim of currents that swept the room, ones that were just as unreal but all the same gave the room a feeling of coolness and ease.
The disembodied narration floated from the screen.
“. . . join us as we uncover yesteryear’s denizens of the deep and venture into waters of the past. . . . Now regionally extinct in Sweden and neighboring countries, these basking sharks—otherwise known to science as Cetorhinus maximus—were the largest of their kind to be found in Nordic seas. . . .”
There was a flickering of light from the projector and suddenly a pair of basking sharks materialized, dun-skinned and mottled, their impossibly cavernous maws directed straight at Falkström’s face. The sharks’ gaping mouths stayed unclosed as they swam slowly around the room, something which the narration had confirmed was a defining behavior of the species and also that which had given basking sharks their name. Of course Falkström knew them by another name, for his father was a boatman and had once took him in his youth to an inlet where these sharks would surface, feeding peacefully. Brugden, his father had called them.
The narration continued:
“. . . years of habitat loss had contributed significantly to the decline of their already dwindling numbers, with the last sighting in Sweden being off the coast of Kalvsund nearly a decade ago. Now only populations south of the equator remain. . . .”
No surprise there, Falkström thought, for he knew that even the inlet he had just been remembering had since been filled in to make way for a resort complex, undoubtedly part of the incumbent administration’s push in recent years to achieve ever grander styles of living for the wealthy, much to the general public’s (and Falkström’s) dismay. No wonder the Moderates are winning.
The basking shark pair now circled back towards Falkström, mouths still agape and showing the internal banding of their gills. Slowly they approached, and soon would engulf Falkström’s head as though they could see him, as though he was their next meal, at which point the narration had begun describing their feeding habits, and now the two mouths were inches away from the Police Chief, when suddenly his phone rang and drowned whatever the narrator was saying about filter feeding—prompting Falkström to turn off the VR projector just before the sharks could pass through him.
The room’s usual lighting returned in a matter of seconds; the hologram-sharks flickered away into air, kelp and all manner of seagrass had been replaced with furniture, and not a grain of sand remained on what was once more the checkered tiling of the floor.
Falkström muted the television as he rose up to get his phone, still ringing. He had left it on the counter beside the coffee maker, which was of a kind more expensive than what he considered reasonable. It was, however, yet another of his daughter Klara’s gifts, and probably the only one of them he admitted to needing. He conceded that it did its job well: black, but brewed with eggshell.
Falkström answered his phone.
It was Chief Inspector Aries Lund, the very same Inspector he had seen on SverigeToday minutes ago.
“Herr Falkström,” came Lund’s voice, sounding fatigued.
“Saw your update. Quarantine go as planned?” asked the Police Chief immediately.
“Media’s been relentless, and there were some . . . complications, but it’s done,” said Lund. “Building’s under wraps and they’ve closed off 23rd and 24th Sommargatan here in Glottesborg—nothing’s getting in or out by road without clearance.”
“What complications?”
“Säpo got involved.”
Lund paused, expecting a response from Falkström at this last mention of the Swedish Security Service’s involvement in the quarantine procedure. But Falkström said nothing, and so Lund pressed on, the tiredness in his tone audibly changing into ill-disguised alarm: “You’re wanted at the labs, Chief.” “News on the residue, then?”
“I don’t know. Herr Falkström . . . the examiner in charge of it was found earlier. Hung himself, by the looks of it. Room they found him in . . . Coroner Nilsson’s at the scene, sent me photos. Sending you the same right now. Not pretty. . . .”
A coldness that had nothing to do with the January winds outside ran through Falkström’s spine as he examined the photographs. They showed a laboratory in a state so chaotic that Falkström wouldn’t have recognized it immediately if it weren’t for the filenames, which read: CHEMUNIT108-NFC-LINKÖPING. Equipment and apparatuses the Police Chief could only guess the purposes of lay askew, damaged, or thrown on the floor. Shattered glass carpeted the scene like snow.
Looming over the chaos of it all, however, was the hanging body of the examiner, limp and pale in death, arms and white coat stained black with rivulets of blood. The cable that had ended the examiner’s life was knotted on a ceiling pipe and was coiled thickly around the neck, suspending the body in midair, and behind which an equally disturbing sight was present on the wall: circles haphazardly drawn with what looked to be the examiner’s own blood, forming a large, grotesque bull’s-eye that from a distance framed the body at its center.
And as Falkström looked at the bull’s-eye the more it taunted him, the blood on the wall turning rapidly into a violent pink and then to black again, and then back to a shock of magenta; he closed his eyes but the color seeped into his eyelids and it flashed; it was bright, burning, beating like a heart whose pulses were that awful, sickly shade—
“Herr Falkström?”
“I’ll be there. Säpo nosing around Linköping as well?”
“Yes, though Nilsson’s told me they’re cooperating. At least for now. . . .”
The bull’s-eye did not leave his vision even as he went off to wash his face, reflected on the mirror though his own walls were bare. Pale blue irises stared back at hardened features, as brows furrowed at an uneven shave. Once more he closed his eyes, the tap left running just enough for trickles to fall in imitation of the blood dripping off that unfortunate examiner’s arms. . . .
Konrad Falkström’s last thought before giving into the sway of memory was of him wondering if he was too old to keep doing the job. It was almost effortless for him to remember the ‘days before’, as he would come to refer to it, which meant those times when his wife was alive—but not just—for the days before were those days when Anetta was wholly alive, before either of them knew the full force of what ‘degenerative’ meant, before the increasingly ineffective string of treatments and therapies, and before she had been reduced to singing that song, those barely audible words issuing from discolored lips—
In the meadow, There the larks come, To greet the dawn; In the meadow, There I wait for you.
A splash of water, and the hurried sound of metal turning.
* * * * *
The black Volvo pulled out of the driveway, turning steadily onto heavily asphalted road. Linköping was a half hour drive from Flodstaden, though the uncharacteristic heavy morning traffic—Falkström was sure it was a result of rerouting after the main roads to Glottesborg were closed—meant that it would take almost twice as usual.
As he drove, Falkström considered how Säpo would handle his arrival. Twenty years on the force and he’d never had to deal with the Security Service interfering; inter-regional briefings that were more formalities than important meetings were the extent of his previous interactions with Säpo, and even then the Police Chief had only talked to an agent or two in passing. The fact that they were visible and cooperating was unheard of for cases, only further underscoring the gravity of the incident at hand.
Over the years the agents of the Säkerhetspolisen—colloquially known as Säpo—had earned something of a mythical status, at least even more so than they did from when Falkström was a child. Growing tensions involving messy foreign affairs, rising acts of terrorism, and other ministerial headaches had called upon the authorities to strengthen national security; in the last few decades Säpo had done its job so spectacularly that Sweden had seen an unchallenged era of peace, and they did so discreetly, never at the forefront of things but always present in the background that the media had naturally blown up their efforts as nothing short of legendary. Many agreed. Those who didn’t bred even wilder conspiracies.
Why then, Falkström wondered, was Flodstaden seemingly immune to this so-called era of peace? The numbers were definitely on the side of this being true for the County. Over forty hate crimes resolved in two decades to his name. Add to that the mess that was this Glottesborg case, with sixty-seven souls screaming at him for justice . . . though Falkström feared it could be time for their pleas to fall on deaf ears.
Doubt crept on him like mold.
Sixty-eight, came a silent correction, and his grip on the wheel tightened. His friend Rejko Virolainen was dead. To think he had only talked to the Finn yesterday about the burns on the victims . . . no, they weren’t burns exactly . . . ‘It’s dissolved flesh’, the examiner had told him. . . ‘We’ve recovered a residue that’s the most likely cause. . . .’
And now the horrid pink of the residue came back to the front of his vision, the flashes of color exacerbated as he turned to an avenue; in the park beyond he caught sight of a creature awash with the same shade of pink—it was hairless, and had a large tongue that undulated hypnotically in the early morning light, and the markings on it were the finishing stroke to this affront on his faculties. Rings. It had rings. Rings which he now saw on everything, rings within rings within rings, like a bull’s-eye, and painted in Rejko’s blood—did you see that unknowing face, Chief?
All at once Falkström saw the world plunge into that eye-watering hue, the sun seemingly filtered through a VR projector not unlike the one he owned. He sped up the avenue oblivious to the sudden absence of traffic, desperate to outrun something he knew he couldn’t.
Rings within rings within rings.
* * * * *
At about 8:30 A.M. Konrad Falkström arrived at the National Forensics Centre, and it was a relief to the Police Chief to be greeted by the building’s imposing, marble-white façade.
Nothing in pink, Falkström repeated to himself, and this was the first of three things he had been silently reciting on the last half hour of his drive to Linköping.
The creature was a projection. Falkström now parked the Volvo alongside several identical vehicles emblazoned with Säpo’s coat-of-arms. Second on his mental list, he assured himself that the creature he had seen was nothing more than a hologram, coming from one of those VR games that were all the rage with today’s kids and kids-at-heart. He was neither, but did find himself guilty of recognizing the creature, though struggled to remember what it was called.
It’s one of those Pikamonsters, a Pikachu, those things that were hard to avoid when you grew up in the ‘90s even if you were a boatman’s son from the province. There was a kid there in the park, or maybe there were two—and it was a game and they had been projecting it from their phones.
He got off the car, suddenly aware of the weight of his pistol on its holster.
“Rejko is dead,” this he said to himself aloud, the first time he’d done so since he’d been reciting. “And you are in shock.”
It was the last and hardest thing for him to repeat on the list, but there came immense respite in hearing himself say it. He had imagined the world bathed in the residue’s color—the last thing he had discussed with the examiner—imagined, too, the rings and the bull’s-eyes from seeing it on Nilsson’s photos, and even fabricated a taunt in Lund’s voice in his head all because his mind was on overdrive.
He walked to the Centre unchallenged. The guards at the front recognized him immediately and let him through without question. Inside, all too familiar corridors greeted him, looking at once pristine and sullen; quickly he made his way to the Forensic Chemistry Wing, only stopping once he reached the laboratory unit that was the scene of the suicide.
Hazard tape lined the ruins of the laboratory, still in the same state of disarray as on the photos Lund had sent him. A harsh, sour scent permeated the air. Rejko’s body hadn’t been removed, and Falkström flinched a little as he approached: he couldn’t make himself look at the body directly, and the circles of blood graffitiing the walls were much more unnerving to see in person.
Several people were busying themselves around the crime scene. Investigators Falkström only knew by sight were documenting and gathering evidence. Just outside the scene one of them was questioning the laboratory staff, each one distressed and uneasy.
Coroner Marien Nilsson, auburn haired and hatchet-faced, was talking to a group of Säpo agents, their suits dark and their expressions unreadable.
“Ah, finally,” said Nilsson, turning to the Police Chief. “This is him.”
There were introductions, and a shaking of hands. The investigator who had been interviewing the staff joined them. “What’s the situation here?”
The investigator answered: “Body was found by one of the staff about two hours ago. One Rejko Virolainen, 48, Finnish. Head examiner in charge of the Glottesborg residue. They say he stayed in last night, CCTV confirms it. Acted normally until 4 A.M. when he’d started wrecking the place. Footage went corrupt a minute after, only resuming an hour later, and then—” At this point the investigator made a sweeping gesture across the room, stopping at the bull’s-eyes on the walls. “—we have all this.”
“Anything about the residue?”
“He left a few notes, and the staff working with him explained. Still unidentifiable, though they say it’s exhibited enzymatic properties, and is acid-resistant.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone. All of it, I presume.”
It wasn’t the investigator who had answered, but there before them now was a man whom Falkström knew. He looked just as when Falkström met him years ago: he had a mane of hair the color of straw, and wore browline glasses that magnified tired eyes.
“Herr Falkström,” said the man, extending a hand towards the Police Chief. “If you remember—”
Falkström hesitated to shake for the space of a second, but took it, and said, “I do. Doctor Krantz. You were the last to see to my wife’s case.”
“Yes, I’m terribly sorry, she was a most unusual and unfortunate patient,” said Krantz, dropping the handshake and turning to the body, “this one too. Forgive me—I’m here as Board Deputy to the Institute of Research, and Herr Falkström, I’m here for you.”
* * * * *
Falkström could not deny himself feeling resentful towards Krantz, embittered by the doctor’s failure to ultimately save his wife. He knew he wasn’t being reasonable, but being confined in a room with him and with Säpo agents standing guard outside made it feel like he was being interrogated, something which he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of.
“You should know the truth,” said Krantz, surprising Falkström, who expected to be questioned. “I was more than an oncologist even back when I handled your wife’s case. I oversee a visionary wing at Glottesborg, funded by our government, and it’s all quite sensitive and very confidential, which is why our friends from the Säkerhetspolisen are with us. I don’t know how else to tell you this, Herr Falkström, but we specialize in . . . extra-dimensional research.” Falkström got up from his chair. “Visionary indeed. You waste my time, Doctor, and people are dying. I’m leaving.”
“Anetta’s episodes were what started this all. Yes, Herr Falkström, I suggest you sit back down.”
Falkström’s pulse quickened at this display of audacity from Krantz, but the mention of his wife’s name stopped him from going for the door.
“Dimensions exist parallel to ours, Herr Falkström, and we’ve discovered entities that reside in them. It so happened that your wife became host to one such entity. We still don’t know why. We tried to study it, and help her, as you know, but nothing worked, and then whatever was taking hold of her stopped, leaving her in the regrettable state that she was in.”
Krantz paused and waited for Falkström’s response. Too many things were swimming in the Police Chief’s head—patchworks of memories painted in flashes of that sickening color, and a seemingly infinite explosion of rings, within rings, within rings—
“W-why—why tell me this now?”
“Because, Herr Falkström, you appear to be hosting the same entity that had plagued your wife.”
At this, all became clear in Konrad Falkström’s mind. The flashes were gaps, and now the blanks were being filled. His trip yesterday to Glottesborg, asking to see Anetta’s files, and the havoc that ensued. Staying up last night to visit Rejko, here, and driving the examiner insane. Returning here, and driving up the avenue. This wasn’t an interrogation. It was an arrest.
For the second time in the day Falkström became suddenly aware of the weight of his sidearm, sweat now running the creases on his forehead. He unholstered the pistol. “I—I’m a danger, Doctor Krantz . . .”
The Säpo agents burst into the room, restraining Falkström before the gun was level with his temple. “END THIS NOW KRANTZ!”
“It won’t end with you, just as it hadn’t ended with Anetta,” said Krantz, “let us help you.”
Falkström struggled and resisted, but now the rings flooded his vision entirely, its hold on his mind was total and complete, and he could not see more Säpo agents restraining him into a gurney, could not see innumerable cables and cords being punctured into his skin. All he knew were the rings, pulsing, expanding, consuming—and then a blackness, and then nothing.
* * * * *
“Two years ago
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Stories
Jan 11, 2021 14:03:17 GMT 8
Post by Mako on Jan 11, 2021 14:03:17 GMT 8
Legend #002.. * . . . . . . + . *:・゚ . . ✧*: ・゚✧ . . + . . . . . . . . . ★ . . . +. + . + It hurts to turn the radio on ✧ ・゚✧ My stamina’s gone, my spirit is weak +. Because every time I start to move on・゚✧+. . . Keep hearing that song, I’m brought to my knees . . . . . * . . . . + . + . ★ . . + . . + .+. . . . . + . . . . . . . To permanently see in reverse. .. + . . . . . . * . Take the remorse out of defeat . . ✧*: ・゚✧ . . Because everything that’s under my skin ✧ ・゚✧ ✧*: ・゚✧ . . + . . . Where I end and begin still belongs to me . . . ★* . . . + . . . . . + . . * . . . + . . . . . . * . * . +.. . * + . . I’m fine to sit and stare at the door・゚✧ . + . . + . . Can’t run anymore, too weary to stand. .. + . . + . . . .. Abandon the effect with the cause . + . . My life is on pause, it’s out of my hands *:・゚✧*:・゚✧ . . . + . . * . . . + . . . .. + .★ . . . . * . * . +.. . * + . . To perfectly perform in reverse 。.。:+* . * There’s no way to rehearse, there’s nothing to plan ・゚゚・。 Because everything that’s under my skin . + . . Where I end and begin, that’s who I am . * . +. ・゚゚・。 * . * . +. * . * . +. ・゚゚・。 . . + . . . . Oh, only silence can restore * . + The sense of place I had before. .. + . . . . Oh, only silence can repair. . . + . My sense of self I lost somewhere . + . . * . . ・゚゚・。 . + . . . . * . . . . + . 。・:*+ . . . + Oh oh, oh, only silence can restore * . . * The sense of place I had before . . .. + . Oh, only silence can repair . * . . .. + . * . My sense of self I lost somewhere . . + . . + . . . . . + . . * . . * Because the last time I let myself feel this way . . ★ It was a long, long time ago. .. + . . . And now we get so scared, and we get so scared 。・:*+ . * To be nowhere left alone. . . . + . + . . . + . . + .+. . . Because the last time you let yourself feel this way . . It was a long, long time ago . . . And now we get so scared, and we get so scared . . To be nowhere left alone *:・゚✧*:・゚✧. . + . . . . *:・゚ . + . . . .. . . + . . * . . . + .+. .。・:*: + . ... . . + . . . .. + . . . + . + . Because it’s now or never now+ It’s now or never now, now, now * . * . . . . + Because it’s now or never now . . It’s now or never now, now, now . . . . . . + . . * . * . . . . + . + . . . + Because it’s now or never now . + . It’s now or never now, now, now ・゚゚・。 . . + .+. . Because it’s now or never now. . ★ . It’s now or never now, now, now, now, now, now, now ・゚゚・。 . . . + . . . . . + .+. . . + . . . . Claiming Jirachi. Tier 1 Coordinator Legend. 16 Master Ribbons. [Judge Log] / [Legend Tracker] / [Contest Hall] / [Contest Legendary Changes] / [Now or Never Now - Metric]
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