The bean, it must be found. For MHD's Fairytales contest.

I have no idea why I wrote this. All I can say in my defense is that it seemed like a good idea at the ti--wait no that's a lie, I said, repeatedly that this was stupid and shameful every time I mentioned working on it.

The truth is I needed to publish something before the end of the year and there is CLEARLY a burning need for wolf stories in the psyche of children using the internet. But then they write them badly, or make their wolves behave like clans of cats. So here is a simple straightfoward story of a young wolf leaving his pack in search of a better life. Maybe no one will ever feel the need to write another one now, or if nothing else maybe this will give them ideas for how to do it in slightly more minimum-standards-meeting ways.

Final conclusion however is that writing about some dumb animal with no agency is not something I'd recommend.

If you don't know what this is for, then it isn't for you.

A short, educational piece. Please remain sensitive and respectful in the comment section. (I'd hate to have to report you to an admin for bullying me.)

(DO NOT READ if you're at all easily offended or lacking in a sense of humor. There's nothing graphic at all in here, but seriously, I still cannot stress it enough, this story is not for you.)



Dedicated to the good people of COG.

Vote here.

Story C: I Already Hate My Story, but I Hate All My Writing. Here It Is I Guess. All 868 Words Of It. “Once upon a time, there was a powerful duo, two brothers in all but blood. They had a large sum of money from their younger days, and they wanted to create a new nation, one better and purer than the filth of the mega-cities and crime-filled outer planets. They gathered lots of people and spent trillions on getting people to their new utopia. And that is where you come in. You have been chosen to be a part of their vision. But, the brothers had a problem. They didn’t know what the best way to create peace was. Say the name to hear each brother's speech.” You think for a moment, and then decide you want to hear Fidel’s speech first. “Fidel,” you say, and the screen in front of you lights up, revealing a large hairy man, extremely tan. He wears a camo military uniform and a beret, smoking a really big cigar. Like seriously, just buy two at that point. He begins to speak, with a deep booming voice and a heavy Cuban accent. “I am Fidel Markus, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Mars City, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Civitas, 'It belongs to everyone.' I reject that; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Colombia, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by morality, Where the strong would not be constrained by the weak! And with the sweat of your brow, Colombia can become your city as well.” You watch him speak, and he seems confident and strong. You want to pick him, but you go ahead and check the other option. “Andrew,” you call out to the elevator. You see a skinny white man in a suit, his nose and face scrunched tightly to the middle. He has mousy brown hair and blue eyes, but something about him projects power, and not good power either. He speaks powerfully with no noticeable accent. “My name is Andrew Ryan, and I’ve come to convince you to join me in my regime. Why should one person have more food than they ever could want, but another is starving as he watches the other. Why, should a man who works day and night in a mine make half as much money as a CEO drinking martinis in some in some building in the middle of a city? It’s not fair, is it? That’s why I, have decided we will all share. I will place everyone in the role best suited for them, and together we will thrive. So, choose Civitas, and together we will stand strong.” You mull over his words, you like what he’s saying about everyone equal, but you also like keeping what you work for. You’re still thinking as the elevator stops, and you see a tall man in a suit standing there. “Hey Jahseh, haven’t seen you in forever.” you say. “Haven’t seen you in a while either lil bro, have a good flight?” Jahseh asks. “Yeah it was good, they have nice cruisers, couldn’t even tell when we hit a wormhole.” “Well I’m glad, here, come with me, I wanna catch up with you in my room, you can register later.” “Lead the way.” He begins walking purposefully, heading through the gates of Colombia. You look around, and it almost perfectly resembles Havana, or what you’ve seen from the old videos and pictures. Right now it looks like a crater. It’s beautiful with clear blue water and a mix of rustic and new looking buildings. He leads you to a building that you assume is an apartment complex, and you take an elevator to the top. You walk down to room 705, and Jahseh opens the door for you. You walk in and see a meticulously clean apartment with a more modern look to it than the rest of the town. You sit down at the dining room table and he pours you both a glass of Krogonian whiskey, and you begin catching up, talking about what’s happened since you last saw each other, but then you hear a loud knock at the door, and Jaseh tells you to wait there for a moment. You hear the door open and close again, and hear him walking down the hall. You want to get up, but you think better of it, and sit for another hour, and he returns, looking disheveled. “What happened?” You ask, concerned. He grabs his glass of whiskey and downs the thing in one gulp. He begins telling you the story. “You know how the two brothers who run this place have vastly different ideologies? Well I’m a middle man, advising them both. But they began fighting. I managed to calm them down but their lieutenant went on the warpath, guns blazing. Lot’s of civilian casualties. I had to hunt and kill every one of the bastards. Well, it’s over now. Or it is for now. Anyways, how have you been?”

Story B: Un Hombre Malo "Carlos, do you ever wonder why they send us out here in chrome plated armor to fight in a jungle? Seems like we could do twice the job in brown or green fatigues." "Sure, but like this, we look like mean hombres. Most of the battle is fought en su mente. Entiendes?" Carl sighed. "I guess so. I'm not sure these psychopaths are going to be impressed by some flashy armor though." As if to confirm what he had just said, one of the colonists stepped out from his clay hovel and took a shot at Carlos, the small caliber round pinging off his skull-like helmet. "Down with the capitalist swine in the empire!" Rang out horse from his traitorous throat. Before Carl could react to the attack on his companion, a rather tall fungal growth inside a fenced enclosure suddenly snatched the colonist with tendrils and pulled his inside. "Quémalo! Quémalo todo!" Carlos yelled, shouldering his gun and laying down covering fire toward the village and fungal crops. Carl shouldered the large laser projector and began shining the intense beam on any structure or biotic mass that looked like it could burn. Carl grinned watching the man eating fungus burst into flame as he swept his laser projector across the accursed landscape. How far had these colonists fallen since their separation from the mother planet if they were raising these xenobiological abominations for food? Out from the flames came a robes figure. A deep hood obscured his features, but as he spoke, the utter hate in his voice could not be disguised. "So, the empire of thieves and whores has come to visit destruction on her more righteous children. Did your bureaucrats miss their tax payments?" Carl turned to his partner. "Carlos, waste him." Carlos raised his plasma rifle to his shoulder without hesitation and fired a burst at the strange cultist. "Come plomo, pinche pendejo!" The cultist back flipped out of the way and threw back his hood. "You've made a mistake. Your sins against nature have returned to haunt you." He raised a forefinger to his temple, lifting the curtain of black greasy hair to reveal a pulsating fungal lump firmly attached to his skull. "Ten cuidado!" Carlos called out as Carl drew the wicked vibro sword from his belt and began sprinting at the cultist. As Carl came closer, his head throbbed violently in time with the grayish purple mass on the cultist's head. His sprint became a laborious trudge forward, his limbs grew heavy and he could feel a trickle of blood beginning to run out of his nose. Carl began firing round after round at the strange man. While the hooded man performed strenuous acrobatics in order to avoiding getting filled with a hail of bullets, he somehow found the time and breath to continue his tirade. "The hubris of humanity reaches its zenith in the soldier. Blind to the spiritual and natural side, you fight simply flesh against flesh, believing that humanity is both the greatest hero and villain. How blind you are! The fungus has told me all. In the eyes of eternity, we are but dust." Carl coughed, spitting a wad of phlegm and blood which ran down his neck inside the helmet. "One dust mote to another, can't you just shut up and die?" The cultist laughed. "My friend," he said, tapping the growth on the side of his head, "lets me see glimpses of the future. That's how I'm avoiding your attacks." "Let me know," Carl huffed "if your friend saw this." He lobbed a "skull-shaker" Sonic grenade. The blast of sound that shredded the still air of the fungal jungle sent the zealot to his knees, clutching his head in paroxysmal agony. Now that the tables were sufficiently turned, Carl stood to his feet and strode the rest of the way, finally thankful for his helmet and it's filtered audio. "Well bozo, looks like It's the end of the jihad for you and yours." With all the vindictive rage in his heart, he swung the sword down heavily on the crown of the cultist's head, feeling it crack and smash. The red and dull pinky-grey slop that spilled out onto Carl's shoes didn't bother him a bit. Feeling victorious, he took off his helmet and turned to Carlos. His stomach dropped as he saw what was in his hand... another sonic grenade. Carl instinctively reached for his side arm. "Keep your hands away from your pistol cabròn. No estoy jugando." "Calm down Carlos. What's your deal?" "I need that little fungus on the side of his head?" "What!?" "It's power, man. Con eso, I would be unstoppable. Un Dios entre los hombres. He was untrained and put up a fight against us, the empire's best. Imagine if I had it in my hands" Carl looked at Carlos incredulous. "How are you going to turn your back on your planet and your friend because you want to stick an ugly Xeno tumor on the side of your head." "En realidad, era facil." Carlos said, hurling the grenade at Carl. Carl sunk to his knees as a symphony of discordant torment was unleashed on his ears. He screamed, though his screams did not reach his ears, and at the end of that moment (an eternity in itself) the bullet bit his brain.