Oracle9 at 14:28, 14 August 2023

2023-08-14T14:28:54Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:28, 14 August 2023
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	~~__FORCETOC__~~		'''By Oracle9'''

	In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers.		In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers.

Oracle9: Removed periods from headings cos it broke the discord url

2023-08-05T21:11:21Z

Removed periods from headings cos it broke the discord url

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:11, 5 August 2023
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	In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers.		In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers.

	== EPISODE ONE. ==		== EPISODE ONE ==
	''(Lap dog.)''		''(Lap dog.)''

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	Junji felt strangely like a part of a whole, his memories being refracted and distorted across hundreds of collective minds. He could feel himself slipping away.		Junji felt strangely like a part of a whole, his memories being refracted and distorted across hundreds of collective minds. He could feel himself slipping away.

	== EPISODE TWO. ==		== EPISODE TWO ==
	''(Bien hecho.)''		''(Bien hecho.)''

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	“Let’s move.”		“Let’s move.”

	== EPISODE THREE. ==		== EPISODE THREE ==
	''(Dispara.)''		''(Dispara.)''

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	“Did he escape?” the first guard asked. Junji stood behind them. One side of his face looked like it was about to burst. He grabbed both of their throats and crushed them between his fingers.		“Did he escape?” the first guard asked. Junji stood behind them. One side of his face looked like it was about to burst. He grabbed both of their throats and crushed them between his fingers.

	== EPISODE FOUR. ==		== EPISODE FOUR ==
	''(Your real family.)''		''(Your real family.)''

Oracle9 at 20:58, 5 August 2023

2023-08-05T20:58:11Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:58, 5 August 2023
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	“Did he escape?” the first guard asked. Junji stood behind them. One side of his face looked like it was about to burst. He grabbed both of their throats and crushed them between his fingers.		“Did he escape?” the first guard asked. Junji stood behind them. One side of his face looked like it was about to burst. He grabbed both of their throats and crushed them between his fingers.

			== EPISODE FOUR. ==
			''(Your real family.)''

			The next few weeks were a blur.

			It was too cold for yoga, too cold for anything, so Prophet would begin the hunt as soon as he woke up. He would hike through steep, unfamiliar forests for miles to come up with nothing. No deer, no elk, no moose. His rations dwindled, Prophet’s pack getting lighter as the days dragged on. He began hunting well into the night. Stumbling through cobalt valleys under a dimming sky with the snow up to his knees. Mom wouldn’t have done this, he couldn’t help but think. In her endless paranoia, she would have had everything planned out. They would be sitting by the fire, eating rations, biding time. Prophet pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. He heard a hoof settle in the snow. Maybe a hundred meters out. A deer.

			Prophet started walking downwind, keeping a quick pace but careful not to make too much noise. From tree to tree, the deer’s image formed in a landscape of sound. It was fairly small, maybe a juvenile. Gnawing on a bush next to a spruce tree. It was so cold, Prophet could barely feel his hands. he brought the rifle up. The deer raised its head, as if it were about to leave and Prophet didn’t hesitate. He fired.

			The bullet ricocheted off of the tree, spitting bark in the deer’s face. It ran off.

			Prophet’s breath quivered. He grabbed his rifle and smashed it against a nearby log, denting it. Mom wouldn’t have missed. He brought it down again and the gun snapped like a twig. The other half of the barrel went flying off into the frost. Mom wouldn’t have even put herself in this situation. She would always be somewhere comfortable, relaxing while Prophet rotted in his own mistakes. Always with some advice to give.

			Prophet kneeled in the empty forest.

			A little bit of advice would be good right now.

			—

			Hidori’s eyes burned so he took off his glasses and rubbed them until stars formed in his vision. On his computer were twenty or so open tabs, most of them pieces of paper photocopied onto government databases. They painted a picture of a young boy from eastern Novenae, graduating from high school at near the bottom of his class, enlisting in the Novenae Defense Force, being gravely injured on a recon mission at the border. The Foundation had picked Temilo’s name randomly out of a handful of people who’d been blinded during the war, and entered him into the program. There wasn’t any information from before high school, but the Foundation hadn’t looked. They had assumed it wasn’t important. Hidori switched over to a tab with a picture of Prophet’s graduating class. Out of the hundreds of students, Hidori picked out Prophet’s face. Prophet looked softer, less burdened, but he wasn’t smiling. There was a knock on the door to Hidori’s office.

			“Come on in.”

			Izel walked into Hidori’s office with trepidation. “Hey.”

			Hidori looked disappointed. “The council send you?”

			Izel sat at the chair in front of Hidori’s desk. “No. Just making sure you’re okay.”

			Hidori turned back to his computer.

			“It’s heartless, the way they went over you like that. I asked them to wait for you. I don’t know what’s gotten into them lately.”

			Hidori rested his chin on the palm of his hand.

			Izel looked over at the envelopes stacked up on his desk. “What’s all this?”

			“I just don’t get it.”

			“Get what?”

			Hidori turned his laptop around to face Izel. “Temilo’s from Kiuh Saang, Teresita’s home district. He joined the army right after high school, a week after he graduated. A lot of people do, especially people with grades as poor as his, but maybe he was running away. He must have gotten involved with Teresita somehow. Still, I’m just not sure why he would go back after all these years.”

			Izel looked at the screen, and then back at Hidori. “Why are you doing all this? He went AWOL… at this point, it doesn’t matter why.”

			“Temilo is my friend. Am I supposed to believe that he would just throw everything away? After all he did for Naomi? There ''has'' to be a good reason.” Hidori sunk back into his chair. “If only I could talk to him, just ask him myself.”

			Izel paused for a moment. The only light in the room was from Hidori’s desk lamp. She could see the shadow of some framed photos, cleaning supplies stacked on the shelf behind Hidori. Without Prophet, and without the clan, she felt truly alone. She wondered if this would be the mistake that costs her everything.

			“Hidori?”

			The businessman perked up.

			“There’s something you should know about Temilo and I.”

			—

			Prophet awoke in the heat of the morning sun. The bedsprings creaked as he sat up. The room he was in was small and bare with just the bedside table next to him where his pistol was placed by an ornate lamp. The window was open and the sounds of the city were notably absent. Just the birds chirping and the odd car passing by. He remembered driving for a long while last night. He remembered his mother, once she was satisfied that they were not being followed, driving into a village deep in the forest bisected by a rough gravel path. Prophet had heard families sleeping soundly in their bedrooms. The streets were narrow and split by crevices that snaked every which way. They pulled up to a squat home surrounded by a low wall. That was all Prophet remembered. He listened through the floorboards and heard water being poured onto soil, along with a familiar humming.

			“Ayudame,” Mom commanded as Prophet reached the bottom of the stairs. She was halfway through watering shelves upon shelves of potted plants. “Then we can have some breakfast.”

			Prophet grabbed another watering can from the kitchen and filled it up in the sink and did so. The events of the previous night began to dawn on him.

			“That was foolish, what you did,” Mom said. “You should have at least finished the job. Now, we’re both in trouble.”

			“You wanted me to kill you?” Prophet asked.

			“I wanted you to pick a side.”

			“I did.”

			“It was too late.” Mom took a philodendron’s leaf in the palm of her hand. She looked at the wrinkles along its carapace. She muttered, “I need to water this one more often.”

			Prophet tipped the watering can over a spider plant. “We could go to Rockfield. Maybe some of our cousins survived. Our real family.”

			“Tu familia real fue en el casino.”

			“What’s your bright idea, then?” Prophet snapped. “What do you want to do?”

			Prophet’s mother thought for a moment. “You have to kill me.”

			“What?”

			“That’s what your friends want, right? If you bring them my dead body, they will forgive you.”

			“Is this another mind game? Another loyalty test? Aren’t you sick of testing me, your own flesh and blood, to see if I’m good enough?”

			“I’m teaching you, hijo.”

			“I don’t need teaching.”

			“You do if you want to survive.” Prophet’s mother put the watering can away and stepped into the kitchen. She took some scrambled eggs and bacon off of the stovetop onto two plates, and began to set the dining table. “Nobody will help you now except me, Temilo. You need to learn to make the difficult choices. Until then, we will stay here.”

			Prophet said nothing. He took a seat and they ate breakfast in total silence.

			—

			Ebisu sighed as she entered the foyer of her home. She pried off her shoes, and changed out her office clothes for sweatpants and a T-shirt.

			Yuppies don’t understand that their business isn’t the sum of its products or its achievements, or its glass headquarters in the trendy part of town.

			Ebisu fumbled with her phone and, after a moment, classical began to play out of the speakers in the corners of her living room.

			Their business is a number. The money coming in and the money going out. All that matters is keeping that number positive.

			She walked over to the kitchen, her figure blurred in the stainless steel of the appliances, and she got out the cutting board and a knife and some carrots. She laid it all out on the granite counter and began to slice away. Unlike most accountants, Ebisu wasn’t satisfied with just keeping the books balanced. She saw how big the numbers could be, what would make them big enough that they’d never have to worry about money again. It infuriated her, watching people overrule her to play it safe, keeping the revenue pathetically small. If they could only see what she saw. Ebisu looked up. There was a figure standing in the hall at the kitchen entrance. She dropped the knife, covering her mouth, stumbling back.

			“Oh my god… Junji?”

			The music coming out of the speaker soared and dipped. Junji’s larynx squeezed out sound around the tumors in his throat.

			where is my boy?

			Before Ebisu could say anything, Junji dug his fingers through her ribs and into her heart. The blood stopped flowing into Ebisu’s brain, replaced instead by a fluid black and slick. Ebisu’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and her body went limp. Viscera spilled onto the floor. The music from the speakers drowned out the sounds of the transformation that followed.
	[[Category:Story]]		[[Category:Story]]

Oracle9 at 20:52, 5 August 2023

2023-08-05T20:52:13Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:52, 5 August 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
			__FORCETOC__

	In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers.		In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers.

Oracle9: Created page with "In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers. == EPISODE ONE. == ''(Lap dog.)'' Prophet pulled the cap off of the syringe and jabbed it into his thigh. A dull pain bounced around his leg as he pushed down on the plunger. What he couldn’t see, outside of his window, was the Lancastrian snow falling on a dead forest. Still and lifeless. In the mornings, Prophet would p..."

2023-08-05T20:52:03Z

Created page with "In the second installment of the Prophet series, Temilo must choose between the clan that raised him or the corporation which gave him his powers. == EPISODE ONE. == ''(Lap dog.)'' Prophet pulled the cap off of the syringe and jabbed it into his thigh. A dull pain bounced around his leg as he pushed down on the plunger. What he couldn’t see, outside of his window, was the Lancastrian snow falling on a dead forest. Still and lifeless. In the mornings, Prophet would p..."

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The Prophet, Season 2 - Revision history

Oracle9 at 14:28, 14 August 2023

Oracle9: Removed periods from headings cos it broke the discord url

Oracle9 at 20:58, 5 August 2023

Oracle9 at 20:52, 5 August 2023