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DuthguyHello everyone! So, I am seeking one or two female writers for the ideas listed below, but right off the bat, I do want to express how important it is to me that your writing is of high quality. I also want to ensure you are aware ahead of time that it can take me a bit to finalize characters and plot skeletons. I put a lot of passion and thought into my ideas, and often times will apply the same effort to RPs that I utilize when writing one of my novels. I implement a lot of research into stories and characters, so please be patient with me when the RP is first starting up as it takes me a while to iron everything out. Also add to the mix my full-time job, the two novels I'm writing, a YouTube storytelling series I'm working on, and an unnamed project based around Avatar: The Last Airbender in collaboration with an artist friend of mine.
That being said, once we are up and going, I can commit to at least two or three posts a week, possibly more if that particular week has a lower workload. My posts tend to be at least several paragraphs, unless we are in a back-and-forth between the characters where shorter posts are more fitting. Though, even in those, I try to detail out how my character is thinking, feeling, observing, etc. One of my novels is written in first-person, but in RPs, I always use third-person past-tense and ask that you do as well.
While everything in the public RP posts will be mostly PG-13 with fades-to-black, I would prefer co-writers who are comfortable moving the story to PM for fully-detailed intimate encounters, sparing none of the wonderful, glorious details. However, it is imperative we have a decent story-to-smut ratio, and a considerable build-up to their first time in bed together.
For anyone interested, please do not post here. Send me a PM, including which idea(s) you're interested in, your ideas for your character(s), your preferences for the appearances and personalities my character(s), and your likes and dislikes on the adult side of things. I will then reply with a few sample images for my characters based upon your preferences, my own preferences for your character images, and my likes and dislikes for intimate encounters.
And now, on to some of my ideas. I will list them below in hider tags.
This story is a modern-day supernatural fantasy romance with a considerable amount of action. My character is a centuries-old werewolf who often uses the alias "White Moon," which he earned for being the first white-furred Lycan in nearly a thousand years. While his appearance in human form will depend on the co-writer's preferences, he has a few stages of his transformation where he grows claws and fangs, his hair turns white, and his ears become pointed like an elf. Each stage is more wolf-like than the last, with his final form looking similar to the image I've included below.
Your character is a young woman who recently went off to college for the first time, but unbeknownst to her, the house she grew up in had a series of protection wards, which masked the power that lies dormant deep within her. You see, her mother - who died when she was still a young girl - came from a long line of witches. Unfortunately, her mother kept putting off telling the girl's father of her true nature, and when the daughter was born seemingly without any magical potential, the mother felt relieved. By this point, most of the covens had been destroyed or scattered by Templars and Witch Hunters, so the mother hoped her daughter could live a normal life since she apparently was born without any magic.
But years after the mother died under mysterious circumstances (your choice), the daughter began having nightmares. These got progressively worse as she neared adulthood, and unbeknownst to her at the time, this was a symptom of her Mana Core first blossoming. It turns out she DID have magical potential, but she was a late-bloomer who didn't show any signs until long after her mother had died. Her father was completely clueless, and neither of them knew the girl would endanger herself by moving away from the house with the protective wards the mother had placed when they first moved in. In the past, the daughter had left for days at a time for vacations and such, but the effects of the protections still lingered on her body, masking her from being detected as a Magi (umbrella term for all magical beings).
So, after she's been at college for a couple weeks, her growing Mana Core has shed off the remnants of the wards, and her nightmares have now turned into remarkably vivid depictions of an evil smiling man who's eyes glow red:
I will write the Red-Eyed Man as a sort of villain in our story who seeks to breed with your character to create hybrid demon-witch heirs, and the Lycan character will be the one who comes to warn her and watch over her while she learns to use her power. He knows some magic and can help with her initial training, but their goal is to seek out another witch who can instruct her properly. If two female writers join this one - or one who wants to play two characters - there would also be a chance for a master/slave-type pairing between the Red-Eyed Man and another one of his captives.
We can discuss this plot further through PM, and below is the image I mentioned earlier showing White Moon's final form:
So those are the ideas I'll present for now, and I look forward to hearing from any interested writers :D.
And to give you an idea of my writing capabilities, I'll paste in the first few pages of one of my novels:
That being said, once we are up and going, I can commit to at least two or three posts a week, possibly more if that particular week has a lower workload. My posts tend to be at least several paragraphs, unless we are in a back-and-forth between the characters where shorter posts are more fitting. Though, even in those, I try to detail out how my character is thinking, feeling, observing, etc. One of my novels is written in first-person, but in RPs, I always use third-person past-tense and ask that you do as well.
While everything in the public RP posts will be mostly PG-13 with fades-to-black, I would prefer co-writers who are comfortable moving the story to PM for fully-detailed intimate encounters, sparing none of the wonderful, glorious details. However, it is imperative we have a decent story-to-smut ratio, and a considerable build-up to their first time in bed together.
For anyone interested, please do not post here. Send me a PM, including which idea(s) you're interested in, your ideas for your character(s), your preferences for the appearances and personalities my character(s), and your likes and dislikes on the adult side of things. I will then reply with a few sample images for my characters based upon your preferences, my own preferences for your character images, and my likes and dislikes for intimate encounters.
And now, on to some of my ideas. I will list them below in hider tags.
(This idea has received a lot of interest and is no longer available for new inquires beyond those who have already PMed me)
This story is a modern-day supernatural fantasy romance with a considerable amount of action. My character is a centuries-old werewolf who often uses the alias "White Moon," which he earned for being the first white-furred Lycan in nearly a thousand years. While his appearance in human form will depend on the co-writer's preferences, he has a few stages of his transformation where he grows claws and fangs, his hair turns white, and his ears become pointed like an elf. Each stage is more wolf-like than the last, with his final form looking similar to the image I've included below.
Your character is a young woman who recently went off to college for the first time, but unbeknownst to her, the house she grew up in had a series of protection wards, which masked the power that lies dormant deep within her. You see, her mother - who died when she was still a young girl - came from a long line of witches. Unfortunately, her mother kept putting off telling the girl's father of her true nature, and when the daughter was born seemingly without any magical potential, the mother felt relieved. By this point, most of the covens had been destroyed or scattered by Templars and Witch Hunters, so the mother hoped her daughter could live a normal life since she apparently was born without any magic.
But years after the mother died under mysterious circumstances (your choice), the daughter began having nightmares. These got progressively worse as she neared adulthood, and unbeknownst to her at the time, this was a symptom of her Mana Core first blossoming. It turns out she DID have magical potential, but she was a late-bloomer who didn't show any signs until long after her mother had died. Her father was completely clueless, and neither of them knew the girl would endanger herself by moving away from the house with the protective wards the mother had placed when they first moved in. In the past, the daughter had left for days at a time for vacations and such, but the effects of the protections still lingered on her body, masking her from being detected as a Magi (umbrella term for all magical beings).
So, after she's been at college for a couple weeks, her growing Mana Core has shed off the remnants of the wards, and her nightmares have now turned into remarkably vivid depictions of an evil smiling man who's eyes glow red:
I will write the Red-Eyed Man as a sort of villain in our story who seeks to breed with your character to create hybrid demon-witch heirs, and the Lycan character will be the one who comes to warn her and watch over her while she learns to use her power. He knows some magic and can help with her initial training, but their goal is to seek out another witch who can instruct her properly. If two female writers join this one - or one who wants to play two characters - there would also be a chance for a master/slave-type pairing between the Red-Eyed Man and another one of his captives.
We can discuss this plot further through PM, and below is the image I mentioned earlier showing White Moon's final form:
This story takes place on the remote OSSL-109, a space station in orbit around the distant planet Aedaria. The world's atmosphere is not breathable by humans, and so they send down synthetic clones that they can control remotely, similar to the move Avatar. The humans live and work on the station in four-member teams, switching out with other teams every six months.
At the time the RP starts, your character is a young woman who has just recently graduated from Starfleet Academy and earned a commission as an officer. After celebrating with her friends and family for a few weeks, she is deployed on her first mission, which sees her travel to OSSL-109. She meets the other three members of her new team, and they begin their six month stint, periodically hopping into their pods to sync with their Synthezoids on the surface.
This team will consist of two men and two women. Both the males will be written by me, and you can take either one or both of the females. Or, if two writers are interested, you each have one. Everything starts out business-as-usual, but a few days in, we can drum up some cause of external conflict that puts the team in danger. Same as the other RP idea, this will feature romance and smut via PM, but also thrilling action.
NOTE: While I may use a lot of Star Trek terminology and such for this RP, please consider it a custom narrative universe independent of ST canon.
At the time the RP starts, your character is a young woman who has just recently graduated from Starfleet Academy and earned a commission as an officer. After celebrating with her friends and family for a few weeks, she is deployed on her first mission, which sees her travel to OSSL-109. She meets the other three members of her new team, and they begin their six month stint, periodically hopping into their pods to sync with their Synthezoids on the surface.
This team will consist of two men and two women. Both the males will be written by me, and you can take either one or both of the females. Or, if two writers are interested, you each have one. Everything starts out business-as-usual, but a few days in, we can drum up some cause of external conflict that puts the team in danger. Same as the other RP idea, this will feature romance and smut via PM, but also thrilling action.
NOTE: While I may use a lot of Star Trek terminology and such for this RP, please consider it a custom narrative universe independent of ST canon.
My idea for this is sort of a custom DC Universe wherein Superboy and Supergirl (Conner and Kara) are re-imagined as the twin children of Kal-El, and take his place as the adopted children of the Kents in Smallville. In this continuity, Kal-El was raised on Krypton and become a scientist like his father, Jor-El. At some point in the recent past, he lead a series of expeditions to survey habitable worlds with underdeveloped technology, during which he discovered Earth. He was amazed to find another species so similar to Kryptonians in appearance, though he noted their lack of biological photosynthesis.
Suspecting Humans might share ancient DNA with Kryptonians, he returned to the blue world several times to collect genetic samples. However, his research was put on hold when the Oan Alliance - of which Krypton was a Member World - was pulled into a decades-long war against the Apokk Imperium (my version of Apokolips). It was Lord Imperator Uxas (Darkseid) who oversaw the creation of Kryptonite to use as a weapon against the Alliance's strongest frontline warriors, as well as developing the Sun-Eater Bombs used to blow up Krypton's star, Rao.
Shortly before the planet's destruction, Kal-El put his pregnant wife, Allura, into a pod and sent her to Earth, far-removed from the intensifying conflict. He also sent his good friend and ally, J'onn J'onzz, to secretly watch over them. Kal had met J'onn, one of the last surviving Green Martians, when the two crossed paths on Earth in the past, and had formed a strong bond.
So Allura arrives on Earth, and is able to communicate thanks to Kal uploading Human languages to her Universal Translator Neural Implant. She still looks young enough where she can pass herself off as a pregnant runaway teenager, and is eventually taken in by Jonathan and Martha Kent. A few weeks later, they rush her to the hospital and she gives birth to Conner and Kara before dying. The medical staff are perplexed that they can't confirm the woman's identity or find any relatives to take the children, but since they were born in America, they are still granted Social Security Numbers and Birth Certificates. The Kents decide to adopt the two, name them Conner and Kara, and they grow up on the farm, not knowing of their alien origin until much later in life.
So, for this RP, I'd like to use Tom Welling and Kristin Kreuk from the Smallville show as the faceclaims for Conner and his romantic interest. You can have her be Lana Lang, or give her some other name, your choice. If you want to write two characters, you could also play Kara Kent and choose whoever you want for the faceclaim. Depending on your preference, I will play a second main character to be the love interest for Kara, whether that be male or female. If a second female writer decides to join, we can work out an arrangement that we all agree to.
Just for the sake of nostalgia, here are the openings for all ten seasons of the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuqtz_9JMfc
And here are some cute images of Tom and Kristen that really make me want to do this pairing:
Suspecting Humans might share ancient DNA with Kryptonians, he returned to the blue world several times to collect genetic samples. However, his research was put on hold when the Oan Alliance - of which Krypton was a Member World - was pulled into a decades-long war against the Apokk Imperium (my version of Apokolips). It was Lord Imperator Uxas (Darkseid) who oversaw the creation of Kryptonite to use as a weapon against the Alliance's strongest frontline warriors, as well as developing the Sun-Eater Bombs used to blow up Krypton's star, Rao.
Shortly before the planet's destruction, Kal-El put his pregnant wife, Allura, into a pod and sent her to Earth, far-removed from the intensifying conflict. He also sent his good friend and ally, J'onn J'onzz, to secretly watch over them. Kal had met J'onn, one of the last surviving Green Martians, when the two crossed paths on Earth in the past, and had formed a strong bond.
So Allura arrives on Earth, and is able to communicate thanks to Kal uploading Human languages to her Universal Translator Neural Implant. She still looks young enough where she can pass herself off as a pregnant runaway teenager, and is eventually taken in by Jonathan and Martha Kent. A few weeks later, they rush her to the hospital and she gives birth to Conner and Kara before dying. The medical staff are perplexed that they can't confirm the woman's identity or find any relatives to take the children, but since they were born in America, they are still granted Social Security Numbers and Birth Certificates. The Kents decide to adopt the two, name them Conner and Kara, and they grow up on the farm, not knowing of their alien origin until much later in life.
So, for this RP, I'd like to use Tom Welling and Kristin Kreuk from the Smallville show as the faceclaims for Conner and his romantic interest. You can have her be Lana Lang, or give her some other name, your choice. If you want to write two characters, you could also play Kara Kent and choose whoever you want for the faceclaim. Depending on your preference, I will play a second main character to be the love interest for Kara, whether that be male or female. If a second female writer decides to join, we can work out an arrangement that we all agree to.
Just for the sake of nostalgia, here are the openings for all ten seasons of the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuqtz_9JMfc
And here are some cute images of Tom and Kristen that really make me want to do this pairing:
This story centers around a young woman who was whisked away to New York from Tokyo when she was a little girl, a desperate attempt by her mother to keep her out of the Yakuza's clutches. It had only been recently revealed that the father of this child was none other than Hironobu Arasaka, head of Tokyo's largest crime family. He had a short-lived fling with the girl's mother a few years prior, and never knew she had been pregnant. What makes this situation even more dire is that Hironobu is a Fey, meaning so is his daughter. This makes her highly sought after by multiple factions within Japan.
So her mother flees to America with her, raising the child in New York City. Perhaps they run a small market there, and my character lives nearby, shopping at their store a few times. This could be how they start the foundation of a relationship, and he could offer to help her close up the shop one night and then take her out for a night on the town. But then scouts for the Yakuza discover her location and kidnap her, killing my character in the process. Then somehow my character returns to life due to some sort of demonic or magic intervention, and he works with her mother to try and rescue the young woman.
As for the faceclaim, for this woman, I would really love if someone was willing to use Misako Uno, a Japanese singer and member of the band AAA (Attack All Around). I'll include some images of her below. You can of course name her whatever you like, I just want her image to be used :D.
Misako Uno
And here are some music videos she is in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq1W8fjtymw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wykx9MzjL-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyxKDECv1gs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIA0G4qKtRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP53ySPUjHQ
And a video of her singing Beauty and the Beast in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUoIt-zxN8Q
So her mother flees to America with her, raising the child in New York City. Perhaps they run a small market there, and my character lives nearby, shopping at their store a few times. This could be how they start the foundation of a relationship, and he could offer to help her close up the shop one night and then take her out for a night on the town. But then scouts for the Yakuza discover her location and kidnap her, killing my character in the process. Then somehow my character returns to life due to some sort of demonic or magic intervention, and he works with her mother to try and rescue the young woman.
As for the faceclaim, for this woman, I would really love if someone was willing to use Misako Uno, a Japanese singer and member of the band AAA (Attack All Around). I'll include some images of her below. You can of course name her whatever you like, I just want her image to be used :D.
Misako Uno
And here are some music videos she is in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq1W8fjtymw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wykx9MzjL-8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyxKDECv1gs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIA0G4qKtRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP53ySPUjHQ
And a video of her singing Beauty and the Beast in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUoIt-zxN8Q
This is sort of a fusion idea that mixes story elements from both ST and SV:
Your character has just moved to town to fix up her late grandfather's farm in the hopes of selling it, but she begins to form a strong bond with a local hunter and ultimately decides to stick around longer. However, she soon notices that strange things happen in this valley, and magical beasts roam the forests outside of town. My character is aware of this and actively hunts the monsters down to keep the town safe, selling the kills to a wizard who lives in a tower. The wizard uses the various body parts to stock his occult shop, and the local doctor even visits there, implementing alchemy into his clinic.
This is a rather vague idea, and I am open to fleshing it out more with the right co-writer(s) :D.
Your character has just moved to town to fix up her late grandfather's farm in the hopes of selling it, but she begins to form a strong bond with a local hunter and ultimately decides to stick around longer. However, she soon notices that strange things happen in this valley, and magical beasts roam the forests outside of town. My character is aware of this and actively hunts the monsters down to keep the town safe, selling the kills to a wizard who lives in a tower. The wizard uses the various body parts to stock his occult shop, and the local doctor even visits there, implementing alchemy into his clinic.
This is a rather vague idea, and I am open to fleshing it out more with the right co-writer(s) :D.
So those are the ideas I'll present for now, and I look forward to hearing from any interested writers :D.
And to give you an idea of my writing capabilities, I'll paste in the first few pages of one of my novels:
It was a clear Summer day, blue skies above and green fields below as our plane continued to climb higher. It was just a small aircraft, carrying the four of us and the pilot, the engines humming loudly. We sat there dressed in our jumpsuits, parachutes strapped to our backs, ready for what was supposed to be a fun experience. But in the end, as you might have assumed, I died.
We had been skydiving plenty of times before. I had just turned nineteen, and this was my seventh jump (not counting the tandem training sessions with an instructor). There was no reason for us to expect it would all go so horribly wrong…
“Alright, we’re almost to the drop zone!” yelled my best friend, Barry. He was rather tall and pale with long blonde hair sticking out from under his helmet. I had always thought he was gorgeous and had been crushing hard lately. The other two with us were Suresh and Sandeep, short twins and foreign exchange students from India who went to our university. They both preferred to look a bit wild and unpredictable, and had recently dyed their hair neon pink.
And then there was me: Caleb Qadir. I was just under six feet tall with a thin, athletic build, short black hair, light brown eyes, and golden honey skin. I was originally born in Cairo, Egypt, but my family had emigrated to the United States when I was a young child.
The four of us loved to hang out together, whether that be jumping out of planes or scaling mountains or huddled around a table playing a fourteen-hour session of Dungeons & Dragons or pulling an all-nighter running raids in World of Warcraft.
“Yeah, rock on!” Sandeep shouted as we all started to stand.
“Woohoo! Let’s get this!” Suresh cried out. We pulled our goggles down over our eyes and slid the door open, exposing us to the sky rushing past outside.
The pilot - a certified instructor - reminded us again of a few safety steps, which we had heard plenty of times by then, but he was still legally obligated to disclose.
“Banzai!” Suresh screamed as he leapt from the plane.
“Up, up and away!” Sandeep hollered as he followed his brother out through the door.
“Catch ya on the flip side!” Barry yelled with a smile, winking at me before he dropped out of the aircraft backwards with his arms stretched out. I grinned. He was so cool.
“Cowabunga!” I shouted happily as I jumped as well.
It felt exhilarating as the air whipped past me, and I could hear hoots and hollers from the other guys as we all descended. We all tried out a few cool moves, flipping and spinning and spiraling around. We were all having the time of our lives.
We came together in a circle with our hands joined, smiling at each other.
“Alright, let’s break!” Barry said, and we all pushed away and continued to pull off a few more tricks. Then the other three began releasing their chutes.
“Oh crap,” I mumbled to myself as I pulled on my ripcord, which seemed to be stuck. I tugged a bit harder, then quickly switched to my back-up. “What the hell? Not this one too!”
“Caleb!” Barry shouted as I dropped past them, falling fast. They were all drifting slowly downward, their parachutes open. “Pull your cord! Pull it!”
“Dude, quit screwing around!” Sandeep cried out. They were all shouting at me, their voices becoming increasingly panicked as the ground rushed up towards me at blinding speed.
“I don’t think he’s joking!” Suresh screamed, terrified. “He’s in trouble! He’s in trouble!”
As the distance between us grew, I could no longer hear their voices, and I was fighting off a major panic attack as I continued to frantically pull on both my ripcords. And then, a ray of hope.
“Oh thank god,” I gasped as my chute finally opened. But I was too close to the ground. It was going to be a rough landing, not to mention I was nearing a highway amidst the sea of green fields.
“Crap! Crap! Crap!” I panicked as I realized there was no way to stop myself from crashing into the powerlines along the street. I frantically tried to release the straps to my chute and take my chances dropping, but my harness was stuck.
“Come on! Come on! Damn it, come on! Uugh!” I yelped out as I made contact, slamming into the wooden pole as the strings from my parachute wrapped around the powerlines. I instantly felt a shockwave of electricity rip through my body, the worst pain I had ever experienced.
It seemed to last forever, and then the strings burned enough to snap, sending me spiraling towards the asphalt. I felt multiple bones crack as I crashed to the ground, laying there in agony. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to die. The pain was just too much.
“Caleb!” my friends touched down nearby, rushing over to me as my mind faded to black…
I faded in and out of consciousness as I heard my friends panicking, then the sound of incoming sirens. Soon I was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance before I blacked out again. I awakened once more as I was rolled quickly through the halls of an emergency room, bright lights hurting my eyes - someone had removed my goggles and helmet. There were people surrounding me as they rushed along, both medical personnel and my friends, who had also removed their gear.
“You’re gonna pull through, buddy!” I heard Barry reassure me. The tears in his eyes made me doubt his claims.
“We’ll do everything we can, but we have to ask you to part ways here,” an older female doctor said to my friends. “A nurse will show you to the waiting room and I’ll be in to speak with you as soon as I can.”
“You’ll be up on your feet in no-time! Alright Caleb? You’re gonna be fine! We got a new D&D campaign coming up, remember? We can’t lose our Warlock! Not now!” Barry called after us as the staff rushed me towards an operating room. I was openly weeping now.
I began fading out again as a nurse slipped an anesthesia mask on my face, and overheard the surgeons mentioning something about one of my broken bones stabbing a vital organ and internal bleeding. I was considerably fuzzy at this point and wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with my body.
And then… I noticed a strange woman standing in the corner, watching me. Her form was black and featureless, save for two glowing green eyes. She said nothing and made no movement, just standing there like a statue.
I managed to lift a weak, shaky hand to point at her, and when the medical staff turned to see what I was gesturing to, they clearly didn’t see anything.
And then everything faded to black once more...
I couldn’t tell you how long I was out for, but when I finally awakened again, I felt like I was floating in a sea of darkness. I couldn’t see my body, but I could feel it as I opened and closed my hands. My pain was completely gone, there was a sense of warmth around me. I heard echoes of voices drifting in as if from a great distance, and realized it was the doctors talking to my friends and family.
I tried to isolate the source, and suddenly the hospital waiting room materialized around me, though everything had a soft ethereal glow. I was floating there still unable to see my own body despite the light, though I could still feel it.
“I’m so, so sorry that we weren’t able to save him. We did everything we could, the damage was just too severe...” the older female doctor explained somberly as my mother wept in my father’s arms. His own eyes were welling up as well. Barry sat in one of the chairs, leaned forward with his face in his hands as he bawled, hard. Sandeep and Suresh were on either side of him, hugging him as tears streamed down their own faces.
“Mom! Dad! Barry!” I called out, my voice distorted and echoing like a phantom. “It’s me! Caleb! I’m here! I’m here!”
It was no use. No matter how loud I yelled, I could not make my presence known. I tried to float over towards them, but I could not physically interact with them either. This was pure torture for me. To see them all in so much pain and unable to let them know I was there. Then I noticed the Green-Eyed Woman again, standing in the corner.
“Did you do this?” I screamed at her angrily as I floated over towards her. “Are you some kind of Grim Reaper?! Are you punishing me or something?! Bring me back to my family and friends! Now! You bring me back, right now! Right this second!”
I was both furious and terrified. I didn’t know what to think, this new ghost-like version of my mind was completely overcome with raw emotion. Anger and fear and hate and passion all rolled into one raging firestorm.
“Answer me! ANSWER ME, GOD DAMN IT!” I tried to swing my invisible fists at her, but she vanished in a puff of black smoke, only to reappear a few feet away. This little dance repeated a few times, and then suddenly the room began to shake.
“What is going on? What is going on?!” I screamed as she began looking around, seemingly as confused as I was. The fabric of space itself was starting to crack around us, a bright multi-colored light flashing from behind the slits. Then everything shattered as we heard a strange, distorted explosion.
“WhoaaaaAAH!” I cried as it felt like I was sucked into a vacuum tube. I was flying through a long rainbow tunnel of some sort, which my mind interpreted as reminiscent of the Bifrost from the Thor movies. I also noticed that I could now see my body as I zipped along. I was completely naked, but fully healed. It was as if a new physical form had been constructed for me upon the death of my old one...
We had been skydiving plenty of times before. I had just turned nineteen, and this was my seventh jump (not counting the tandem training sessions with an instructor). There was no reason for us to expect it would all go so horribly wrong…
“Alright, we’re almost to the drop zone!” yelled my best friend, Barry. He was rather tall and pale with long blonde hair sticking out from under his helmet. I had always thought he was gorgeous and had been crushing hard lately. The other two with us were Suresh and Sandeep, short twins and foreign exchange students from India who went to our university. They both preferred to look a bit wild and unpredictable, and had recently dyed their hair neon pink.
And then there was me: Caleb Qadir. I was just under six feet tall with a thin, athletic build, short black hair, light brown eyes, and golden honey skin. I was originally born in Cairo, Egypt, but my family had emigrated to the United States when I was a young child.
The four of us loved to hang out together, whether that be jumping out of planes or scaling mountains or huddled around a table playing a fourteen-hour session of Dungeons & Dragons or pulling an all-nighter running raids in World of Warcraft.
“Yeah, rock on!” Sandeep shouted as we all started to stand.
“Woohoo! Let’s get this!” Suresh cried out. We pulled our goggles down over our eyes and slid the door open, exposing us to the sky rushing past outside.
The pilot - a certified instructor - reminded us again of a few safety steps, which we had heard plenty of times by then, but he was still legally obligated to disclose.
“Banzai!” Suresh screamed as he leapt from the plane.
“Up, up and away!” Sandeep hollered as he followed his brother out through the door.
“Catch ya on the flip side!” Barry yelled with a smile, winking at me before he dropped out of the aircraft backwards with his arms stretched out. I grinned. He was so cool.
“Cowabunga!” I shouted happily as I jumped as well.
It felt exhilarating as the air whipped past me, and I could hear hoots and hollers from the other guys as we all descended. We all tried out a few cool moves, flipping and spinning and spiraling around. We were all having the time of our lives.
We came together in a circle with our hands joined, smiling at each other.
“Alright, let’s break!” Barry said, and we all pushed away and continued to pull off a few more tricks. Then the other three began releasing their chutes.
“Oh crap,” I mumbled to myself as I pulled on my ripcord, which seemed to be stuck. I tugged a bit harder, then quickly switched to my back-up. “What the hell? Not this one too!”
“Caleb!” Barry shouted as I dropped past them, falling fast. They were all drifting slowly downward, their parachutes open. “Pull your cord! Pull it!”
“Dude, quit screwing around!” Sandeep cried out. They were all shouting at me, their voices becoming increasingly panicked as the ground rushed up towards me at blinding speed.
“I don’t think he’s joking!” Suresh screamed, terrified. “He’s in trouble! He’s in trouble!”
As the distance between us grew, I could no longer hear their voices, and I was fighting off a major panic attack as I continued to frantically pull on both my ripcords. And then, a ray of hope.
“Oh thank god,” I gasped as my chute finally opened. But I was too close to the ground. It was going to be a rough landing, not to mention I was nearing a highway amidst the sea of green fields.
“Crap! Crap! Crap!” I panicked as I realized there was no way to stop myself from crashing into the powerlines along the street. I frantically tried to release the straps to my chute and take my chances dropping, but my harness was stuck.
“Come on! Come on! Damn it, come on! Uugh!” I yelped out as I made contact, slamming into the wooden pole as the strings from my parachute wrapped around the powerlines. I instantly felt a shockwave of electricity rip through my body, the worst pain I had ever experienced.
It seemed to last forever, and then the strings burned enough to snap, sending me spiraling towards the asphalt. I felt multiple bones crack as I crashed to the ground, laying there in agony. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to die. The pain was just too much.
“Caleb!” my friends touched down nearby, rushing over to me as my mind faded to black…
I faded in and out of consciousness as I heard my friends panicking, then the sound of incoming sirens. Soon I was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance before I blacked out again. I awakened once more as I was rolled quickly through the halls of an emergency room, bright lights hurting my eyes - someone had removed my goggles and helmet. There were people surrounding me as they rushed along, both medical personnel and my friends, who had also removed their gear.
“You’re gonna pull through, buddy!” I heard Barry reassure me. The tears in his eyes made me doubt his claims.
“We’ll do everything we can, but we have to ask you to part ways here,” an older female doctor said to my friends. “A nurse will show you to the waiting room and I’ll be in to speak with you as soon as I can.”
“You’ll be up on your feet in no-time! Alright Caleb? You’re gonna be fine! We got a new D&D campaign coming up, remember? We can’t lose our Warlock! Not now!” Barry called after us as the staff rushed me towards an operating room. I was openly weeping now.
I began fading out again as a nurse slipped an anesthesia mask on my face, and overheard the surgeons mentioning something about one of my broken bones stabbing a vital organ and internal bleeding. I was considerably fuzzy at this point and wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with my body.
And then… I noticed a strange woman standing in the corner, watching me. Her form was black and featureless, save for two glowing green eyes. She said nothing and made no movement, just standing there like a statue.
I managed to lift a weak, shaky hand to point at her, and when the medical staff turned to see what I was gesturing to, they clearly didn’t see anything.
And then everything faded to black once more...
I couldn’t tell you how long I was out for, but when I finally awakened again, I felt like I was floating in a sea of darkness. I couldn’t see my body, but I could feel it as I opened and closed my hands. My pain was completely gone, there was a sense of warmth around me. I heard echoes of voices drifting in as if from a great distance, and realized it was the doctors talking to my friends and family.
I tried to isolate the source, and suddenly the hospital waiting room materialized around me, though everything had a soft ethereal glow. I was floating there still unable to see my own body despite the light, though I could still feel it.
“I’m so, so sorry that we weren’t able to save him. We did everything we could, the damage was just too severe...” the older female doctor explained somberly as my mother wept in my father’s arms. His own eyes were welling up as well. Barry sat in one of the chairs, leaned forward with his face in his hands as he bawled, hard. Sandeep and Suresh were on either side of him, hugging him as tears streamed down their own faces.
“Mom! Dad! Barry!” I called out, my voice distorted and echoing like a phantom. “It’s me! Caleb! I’m here! I’m here!”
It was no use. No matter how loud I yelled, I could not make my presence known. I tried to float over towards them, but I could not physically interact with them either. This was pure torture for me. To see them all in so much pain and unable to let them know I was there. Then I noticed the Green-Eyed Woman again, standing in the corner.
“Did you do this?” I screamed at her angrily as I floated over towards her. “Are you some kind of Grim Reaper?! Are you punishing me or something?! Bring me back to my family and friends! Now! You bring me back, right now! Right this second!”
I was both furious and terrified. I didn’t know what to think, this new ghost-like version of my mind was completely overcome with raw emotion. Anger and fear and hate and passion all rolled into one raging firestorm.
“Answer me! ANSWER ME, GOD DAMN IT!” I tried to swing my invisible fists at her, but she vanished in a puff of black smoke, only to reappear a few feet away. This little dance repeated a few times, and then suddenly the room began to shake.
“What is going on? What is going on?!” I screamed as she began looking around, seemingly as confused as I was. The fabric of space itself was starting to crack around us, a bright multi-colored light flashing from behind the slits. Then everything shattered as we heard a strange, distorted explosion.
“WhoaaaaAAH!” I cried as it felt like I was sucked into a vacuum tube. I was flying through a long rainbow tunnel of some sort, which my mind interpreted as reminiscent of the Bifrost from the Thor movies. I also noticed that I could now see my body as I zipped along. I was completely naked, but fully healed. It was as if a new physical form had been constructed for me upon the death of my old one...
