NPC Local Union #001

May 13, 2025

“Five hit points! Five hit points and they expect me to attack that ogre! The Hell with this party. The Hell with their quest. I am a NPC and I am proud of it. I deserve to be paid equally. I deserve to be treated equally.”

“Who is with me?”

The crowd cheered in response. Its numbers grew every day as more and more PCs found their numbers insufficient for the adventures they chose. Previously, what took three fighters, two clerics, and a mage/thief, now took three fighters and three non-playing characters (aka, NPC) to fill the ranks. Easily rolled up, easily killed off, more easily forgotten, they had enough of their fodder status.

"Today, the NPCs are going to unionize."

“Not a guild, but a union. We, the NPCs, of this land reserve the right to say NO to danger. We reserve the right to fate us to certain death. We will no longer go hungry. We will no longer be poor. We, the NPCs, will sit and watch you entitled PCs of this land pay for your failures. We are sentient! We are experienced! And it is about time you understand this.”

“Today, my union members, you are people, not just characters. Today, you will take names. Names of honor. Names of dignity. Names that will be remembered. Today, I will be known as William of Knotmoor. Come with me and fulfill your destiny!”

It Always Ends the Same

May 12, 2025

I heard the policeman order me to stop. Like I care.

The chase was the best part. This one was fit and could keep up. He kept his pistol holstered, preventing the wild accusations of me shooting random people.

I don’t have to carry a firearm. He will soon discover why.

I am limber and agile. He is smart and fast. A few tossed trash cans and eventually he will miss a step or two.

So many before have. This one, so far, hasn’t.

He calls again for me to halt. Technically, I have not broken a law. He knows this. All of his kind knows this. But, they think they are in control and when challenged, they will ignore the laws they are sworn to enforce. This makes them dangerous when encountered in groups.

So far, his backup has not arrived to help him violate me.

I turn down the alley to discover it is a dead end. I like that phrase, “dead end”. So permanent. So final. As his first shot catches me in the leg, it is apropos that the chase concludes here. I stumble from the bullet, but manage to arise before he makes his final offer.

“Get down on your face. Hands behind your back or I will shoot again.”

The fire from within burns with a ferocity I covet. I know what is coming. It always ends the same way. My eyes become aglow from the crimson that consumes me.

It only takes my stare for him to unload his magazine of ammunition in fear. He sees the inferno in real time. I see him in slow motion. I had respect for this one. He was patient. He was a thinker. But, in the end, he is as who came before him.

My hellfire grows exponentially, consuming him and all other flammables in the alley. The sudden rush of heat boils every drop of water in his body, expanding each 1000 fold its original volume. His meat within, for a mere microsecond, emits a tantalizing aroma that would attract beasts of gargantuan hunger, ready to consume the source. As it is, the microsecond passes quickly resulting in a malodorous expulsion sickening all who should encounter his former essence.

When the additional police do arrive, they discover a young man of business and education who witnessed the fireball. Two gruesome shadows of soot remain where once stood a rookie police officer and the young woman he chased.

Within the confines of the alley, where the officers take statements, the charred human remains putrefy under the fetid conditions.

I explained that I cannot believe I survived the explosion. The Sergeant chalked it up to me being across the street, outside of the blast radius. He has no more questions for me and I am off to my business I have never been to before, working on accounts I have never seen, ready to take on the world I am all too familiar with.

For I am a Phoenix and it always ends the same.

Just reborn with a new body. Just renewed with opportunities aplenty.

Hiraeth

May 11, 2025

I cannot return from whence I came

The landscape that is lies fallow no more

From its former majesty springs

Concrete foundations

And asphalt drives

Pre-planned for buyers

With more dollars than sense

I yearn for the days of yesteryear

Where blue skies were blue

Running water took the monikers

Of crystal and clear

And silence, serene silence

Was the mean

And not an outlier

It was the last of the

Last of idyllic manors

A simpler time for simpler folk

Forsaking quantity over quality

I have my memories of its grandeur

I also have my memories of letting it go

A price I will eternally pay

The First of all my Future Days to Come

May 10, 2025

For Sandra

I took the severance package

I told my boss I would not return

Not just to this job

I would not return to his cold arms

He said I would be sorry

I replied I was yesterday

But not today

I placed my house on the market

Too close to my former employment

Not worth the taxes

Not worth the expense

Not worth the overtime I had to earn

Not worth the leers I endured

Or the shame

Today, I saw a map of Montana

So why not live there?

Someone must live there

It is called “Big Sky Country”

With fewer buildings

With fewer cars

And fewer jerks

Tomorrow, I will give my house keys

To the real estate agent

Tomorrow I will pack my bags

Making Horace Greely happy

Albeit 172 years too late

Today is the last of my yesterdays

Tomorrow is the first of all my future todays to come

In Conclusion

May 08, 2025

I awoke somewhat light headed. Sunlight shone through the open window. I took an inventory of myself to discover my clothes, those unwashed, muddy jeans and shirt from my attack were replaced with a cotton nightshirt. My skin and hair were clean. The bruises from ago had somehow healed.

I sat up in bed and looked at the mirror. The bullet hole in my head had also healed.

I died last night. I was attacked, possibly raped, and shot in the head, maybe not in that order. But, somehow, I am clean, fully functional, and alive.

This cannot be true. Once you die, you die.

I lay paralyzed in bed, unable to comprehend the last events of my life.

Then, I smelled coffee.

And bacon.

Someone is cooking in my house. Or is it their house? Am I a guest or a patient?

Once again, I arise. I have to go discover answers. After last night, I have nothing to lose.

The old lady finished pouring two cups at a table set for one. She waved her hand for me to take the seat with the bacon, croissant, and sliced strawberries. She didn’t wait for me to ask questions before she began sipping from her cup.

When in Rome,

I took a sip of the coffee, good coffee. I passed on the butter and took a small bite from the croissant. I even partook of a strawberry slice before she began to speak.

“What do you remember?”

Even though I did not know her name, I told her what she wanted to know.

“What do you know of this place?”

“Nothing.” It was all I could offer before another sip.

“You are Katheryn Hollister. You were a nursing student until your conclusion.”

“What do you mean, were a nursing student?”

“Please permit me to finish. You were a nursing student until your conclusion at the age of 28. I was also 28 when I concluded, much in the same way as you.”

I tried to interrupt, but to no avail. It is as if this woman had to tell me what she was saying. I acquiesced by finishing my coffee, listening intently.

“This place has no formal name. Many of the people here refer to it by a variety of nomenclatures. I like to call it home. I have been here so long, it might as well be such.”

“How many people live here?”

With a final sip of her coffee, the old lady rose and began clearing the dishes. I waited for her to answer my question.

“No one actually lives here. We prefer the term, “reside”. With each passing moment, you will grow older even though you will not feel any detrimental effect in the process. Now that you have arrived, ostensibly to take my place, I am free to depart. In the meantime, you will encounter as many residents that wish to encounter you.”

With that, she began to fade, almost an evanescence. I asked her name. I missed her first, but heard her last, “Genovese”, loud and clear.

Returning to the bedroom, I discovered one set of clothes that fit me well. Fully functional, comfortable, and modest were (maybe still are) the adjectives I gravitate toward. I alighted from this house’s porch, on my way to find answers to my many, many questions.

While there are no days or nights “here”, I must have been “here” for an unusually long time. I noticed upon my return, I had quite a few gray hairs and my first wrinkles near my eyes. I did not feel tired or hungry, but I went through the motions to sleep and eat anyway.

By the time I did encounter another resident, they were as bewildered as myself. He had no answers to give other than he enjoyed going through puberty and growing to manhood during his residence. He did not enjoy his conclusion.

When asked, he replied his name was, “Alan Kurdi.” When pushed, he said his conclusion came from drowning. Empathically, I said, “gunshot wound.” Neither of us wanted to continue the conversation. As he departed, I noticed wrinkles on my hands indicative of what I would have looked like had I lived long enough to find out. Moments later, my skin looked almost transparent. If what was happening was as if it happened before, my time was running out. All I could do was kneel beside a small pond to watch my reflection begin to slowly fade. My residency was at an end. I might have been angry at my lot in life, yet all I could do was smile. What I had was more than others. Here, I was given (By whom? Who knows?) a small respite in which to think, gather my thoughts, and face my destiny as a complete person.

I am in conclusion.

Whispers at Lakeside

May 07, 2025

“Most of the families will be packing up and leaving this week.” Sasha always stated the obvious, never once thinking that the silence in our conversations need not be filled with the mundane. I heard the crickets chirp and watched the lightning bugs skim the water, oblivious to the hungry fish residing inches below the water line.

The lightning bugs and I had one thing in common. We both had very little time to find a mate.

It was my first summer without an impending urgency to prepare for a new school year. I had graduated, as did Sasha. She was going to attend college. I was not. Sasha chose an out-of-state university nearly 900 miles away. If she asked, I would go with her. I might find a job that paid enough for a small apartment near campus, making what we had this summer permanent.

“Have you given any thought about what you will do?”

Another inane question that should not be answered, let alone asked. I reached my hand over to hers and gave it a light squeeze.

She returned my light squeeze with a heavier squeeze.

“I think I’d like to make breakfast for you every morning.”

Lakeside frogs make that unusual sound that if heard from a human, you would call 911 and hope for the best. Here, at the sloping lakeside offering a modicum of privacy from our parents who already correctly suspected our intentions, the frogs gave audible cover to everything from coos to whispers.

We exchanged coos two nights ago while the fireworks provided diversions aplenty.

Tonight, the menu listed whispers aplenty, almost as a buffet, from appetizer to desert, satisfying teenage curiosity.

“Just breakfast? What about dinner?”

During our first snowfall, we remained in bed watching the flakes land on our slanted window. Since we couldn’t afford to heat the apartment to a toasty level, each flake adhered without melting.

Not as good as fireflies and frogs by lakeside, but with Sasha at my side, we didn’t care.

I Laid My Single Rose

May 05, 2025

The feel of the barrel was colder than she expected. I began carrying, for nostalgia as well as protection, my Erma Werke KPG-68A in 32acp for just this sort of day. Christina had never seen it before and if she doesn’t answer correctly, she will never see it again.

“I know you went to a publisher with our story. How much did you tell them?”

Her breath became shallow as if it was 17 years ago that fateful night. Tears began welling in her eyes. Even a stranger could tell the wheels in her mind were spinning, looking for another lie to assuage my anger.

Her statement was not to my liking. I squeezed the trigger. Once the smoke cleared and I regained my hearing, I saw her lifeless body reveal the contents of her head. A 32acp hollow point, at this close range confirms her gray matter is actually gray. It also confirms I have much more work to finish today.

The fishing boat could not take the waves the storm brought. The captain and the two photographers assisted the six of us by distributing the life jackets and firing flares into the darkened sky. The storm came upon use quickly. We never even had the chance to dispense with our bikinis before the craft began taking water. I was not ready when the single rogue wave impacted the boat broadside, capsizing the craft, hurling the six of us into the cold water. When I surfaced, I did not see the boat or the men. However, I did hear my fellow models scream. It took nearly ten minutes for us to converge and begin swimming toward a shadow. Perhaps this was another boat. Perhaps it was an island.

Either way, among the frequent lightning strikes, it did not appear to be a mirage. Within the next thirty minutes, all six of us made it to the rocky outcrop jutting less than a meter above the water line.

Five of us were bruised and battered. Cheryl, the sixth was unconscious with severe cuts upon her thighs and back. I held onto her and my rock until the storm passed and the sun rose the next day.

Mimi walked confidently back to her Lexus after dropping off her two grade school children. She had gained some weight after marrying a successful stock broker. Everyone understood it was for money. Everyone knew he was cheating on her. But, she kept her cool, put on a good front for the children, and played her part of “Suzie Homemaker” as well as could be expected.

This gave Mimi oodles of time to perform oodles of tasks under the radar of even the most conspicuous eyes. Since the incident, Mimi grew a spine and became the most deliberate of us to take on life. I hacked into a variety of her financial holdings to discover the total in excess of ten million dollars. Mimi constantly moved her assets, preventing a thorough search. Not much of a paper trail for someone to follow. When I did meet with her, under obviously false pretenses, I displayed a recent spreadsheet of her work.

“What do you want from me?”

She was not the Mimi on the boat. This Mimi had matured, keeping reserved, listening, always listening, for cracks she could exploit.

“I have a job for you. Perform it well and you will never see or hear from me again. Fail to do so and your children might end up watching a variety of step mothers attend their weddings. Kapeesh?”

A simple nod was all of the agreement Mimi offered.

“What do you want?”, she asked again, revealing nothing in her well-rehearsed poker face.

“Where can I find JoAnne?”

Sunrise on the rocks was just as dangerous as midnight a few hours before. We were wet, cold, exposed, and still subjected to the waves of a sea not yet settled in its ferocity. Cheryl would never revive under these conditions. Perhaps it was for the best. Without food or water, none of us may survive. I doffed my bikini top to tie her hands together through a small keyhole in the rocks. I was now a bit more exposed, subject to more sunburn, but alleviated from the responsibility of holding onto her until our rescue.

In time, I took inventory of the survivors.

Mimi stood on a rock searching the horizons looking for help.

Christina hung to her rock, shivering in the cool breeze, adding nothing other than keeping herself from further harm.

JoAnne, the best swimmer in the group, took the time to remove her bikini and dive for fish, crustaceans, or anything edible. She felt better “al natural”. If she had returned with something to eat, I would have felt better.

I discovered Brenda sunbathing topless on her rock, oblivious to the impending dangers abreast of her indifference. She added nothing to a solution, but withdrew nothing from our dilemma. In a nutshell, she didn’t care.

Years later, I tracked down Brenda playing a combination of pageant mom and HOA Karen in the parking lot of a grocery store. She wanted to tell everyone where to park. One young man declined her offer. Brenda insisted that he needed to listen to her. He replied she was confused with the definition of listening and agreeing. Brenda took out her phone to call the police. The young man took out his knife to prevent the former.

I had the opportunity to prevent what was to transpire from transpiring. But, I remember Brenda never lifting a finger to help Cheryl when Cheryl needed help. Brenda was the first to watch Cheryl slip away. I was now the first to watch Brenda do the same. Her blood oozed faster than I thought was possible, pooling midway between her waist and hips. Her cotton pants were perfect for an experiment in capillary action, eventually separating the plasma from the solids of her blood. Some coroner, somewhere, took pictures of her body and filed them under liquid chromatography.

I believe her murderer did me a favor. Eventually, I would have to kill Brenda myself. He saved me from the problem. Also, I believe watching Brenda die made it easier for me to fulfill my eventual destiny.

The details of our ordeal must never see the light of day. For those who cannot agree with this simple truth, I exist.

On day two, Cheryl died from her wounds, Her body just gave up to the forces unleashed upon her. The surviving group (JoAnne, Mimi, Christina, Brenda, and myself) began making difficult choices. We needed shelter from the sun. We needed food and water. Most of all, we needed to be rescued. The last would solve the formers. JoAnne never discovered any fish, but did manage to chip away at an obsidian stone to reveal a sharp edge in case we did catch any fish.

By day three, Christina joked that Cheryl might taste like a fish. On day four, all of us were in agreement. JoAnne volunteered to do the work. It is amazing that none of us voiced any opposition to her proposition. By the night of the fourth day, none of us spoke again to each other of the incident.

We received medical attention and kept silent the entire time. Once we debarked, it was over a dozen years before I became aware of Christina’s book and Brenda’s murder. All that remained was JoAnne. With Mimi’s help, I now know where to look.

Gary Indiana was not the city it used to be. Once glowing with opportunity, Gary now fell upon drugs, crime, and unemployment. I didn’t think I would unearth JoAnne in Gary, but I did.

JoAnne resided in the Center for End Hospice Care in Gary. I told the doctor, I was JoAnne's friend. He told me that whatever I needed from her or wanted to tell her, I had better do it quickly.

I got the message.

Bedridden, JoAnne had two IVs and a button that could dispense morphine. She was at that stage where if she kept the button pressed, her dose would be an end of life dose.

Thus, our conversation was brief.

None of us had any intention in speaking with JoAnne. Once she turned to drugs, none of her friends or family would either. She went from an aspiring model to an HIV+, cancer ridden drug addict with little time left. I had my Erma Werke with me, but would not need it.

The last thing JoAnne told me was that she was taking all of her secrets to her grave.

I believed her as she pressed her button until she flat lined.

No nurse or doctor arrived to verify her condition.

This was not the place for such a service to be offered or expected.

No one showed me to the door.

It has been nearly ten years since JoAnne died. Mimi took a successful turn with local and state politics. I could have blackmailed her, but declined. A promise is a promise.

We buried Cheryl in a small grave near Sacramento. My hand still traces the small sun burn scars I have near my breasts that have never healed. If not for her, none of us would have survived. Today would be my last time at her grave. If anyone could have forgiven our actions, it would be her.

I laid my single rose before I walked away forever.

Share

May 03, 2025

I have never seen one. Not in person. Not even a picture. It is almost as if it were illegal to ask. I’ve heard of their existence and their extinction. My mother won’t tell me their stories. My grandmother looks at me as if I will be the last of my kind. I believe her to be correct.

On August 27, 2145, they released the toxin. It disrupted human reproduction. It tagged (alkylating with multiple propyl and iso-propyl substituents) the Y-chromosome, rendering it too massive for the shuffle during meiosis. The mosaic loss accelerated the inevitable. In a nutshell, the rapid rise of the Mashad Imperium caused the equally rapid decline of the human male gender. Was it an act of terrorism? Was it an act of God? Those were questions for theologians and politicians to ask in the closed, darkened recesses they both frequently populate. For the remaining 3 billion female humans, life had to go on. Not for long and not as well as before. But, it is what I have and I have to make the best of it.

Since the panics, riots, wars, and nuclear exchanges, reducing human population to half a billion, most remnants of civilization fell into ruins. For the survivors, vengeance took a back seat to survival. Without men, there would soon be a “without women day”. Birth rates fell to nearly zero. I attend school alone. I walk among the hastily created graveyards populated with names of lore of a time when such names were common. They are all males here. Not a single female. This is as close as I get to meeting one. I am 14 years old. Not much to look forward to.

My grandmother is 50 and very sickly, most likely from exposures during the wars. I am fascinated with her not only because I look so much like her, but she acts so much like me. She tells me not to worry. I want to believe her. By next week, I will grieve at her funeral, never knowing what I should be learning.

I ask my mother, now an elder in her own right at age 32 for guidance. She only speaks about a future I cannot see. I also look like her, but rarely act or speak as she does.

“Be patient. Someday, this will all change. You just have to wait.”

She utters this mantra, hoping I will finally stop bothering her. She tells me I am lucky to even have been born. I don’t see how. I don’t understand how.

“Who is my father? What was he like? How did he survive the toxins? Why won’t you tell me?”

Silence. Nothing but silence. I want to run away, but where would I go? Outside is filthy. There is no food, no water, and no safety. Between the wild animals and the stories of the semi-survivor’s cannibalism, I cannot take the chance of escaping.

Thus, I am affixed to the soil of this compound. No better than an indentured servant. No better than a prized piece of livestock.

Someone has a plan for me.

In the next two years, I will watch my mother grow old. Her health will fail quicker than my grandmother’s. This is the fate of all who live here. This will be my fate. During her funeral (I had to dig her grave), I surmised this to be so.

Now, at age 16, I have no family, thus, I am alone. The few remaining women of the compound all wait for their death.

Everyone except for me.

By age 17, one of the few elders delivered a package. She will fall to what she calls old age (she is only 42). Her daughter, age 27, looks as bad as her mother.

She will not live to see age 28.

In the package lies one key and one book. The book has instructions as to what I need to do should I be my family's sole survivor. The key unlocks the room to where I am to do this task.

It only takes me an hour to find the room in the building. The key fits perfectly. I enter with the book and an intense curiosity, for I have never been here, not ever heard of the place. The directions I am to follow are easily understood. I switch on the power (must be from batteries for no generator activates) and proceed to the only console with a chair.

The book tells me to read the written instructions that await me. They seem cryptic, but understandable. I am glad I worked during school so I could read and understand what was asked of me. I learned a few more details of the extinction of man. According to this, there will be no more human births. There would, instead, be a series of cloning to perpetuate the species. If I agreed to be cloned, I simply had to insert my arm through the aperture for the machine to take a blood sample. Someone would be notified and months later, deliver to me an exact clone of myself.

This is how I was born (poor choice of the word, copied is better). This is why I look like my mother. This is why my mother looks like her mother. We are all clones since the day of the toxins. This machine wants me to acquiesce and continue the cycle.

What the instructions failed to explain was that when you make a copy of a copy, each new copy degrades accordingly. I am a third generation clone (possibly a 4th or a 5th). My grandmother died young, my mother died younger. I may not live to see 30.

Why would I want to share this curse with another generation?

The sun rose on the remains of my mother’s compound. I am not strong enough to dig the grave that will keep her intact from the wild animals I must hide from. I am nearly 10 years old and will have to leave the only home I have ever known. While packing what I can carry, I came across a strange package containing a key and a book.

Thrum

May 01, 2025

Normally, I have difficulty sleeping

I awaken tired, as if some sentinel denied my requisition for rest

I lay in bed for hours

Indifferent to REM advances

Unaware of scientific advances

Designed to assist my kind

“Please remove me from the clutches of insomnia”

I beckon all within proximity of my silent screams

I have tried medicines, bromides, and tinctures

The last I enjoyed the most

But, alas none worked as advertised

A new doctor offered to me a new treatment

Guaranteed to work

At the ridiculous price of $10

I was suspicious

I was concerned

I could not, would not, should not move forward

However,

Part of me didn’t care

Correction: All of me didn’t care

I asked for directions

He texted the directions to salvation

He also texted they only take quarters

He would not answer any reply I offered

The night came to meet him

Old Concordia Highway

Twenty five miles from town

The highlight of the 50’s and 60’s

The low light by today’s standards

But, I was desperate

I met him in front of an old Holiday Inn

With a partially functioning (HUGE) neon sign

He asked to see the roll of quarters

I displayed my quarter collection skeptically

He smiled and advanced the key for Room 12

“You can figure out the details by yourself”

It took ten minutes to discover the secret

It took five minutes to negotiate the sale

I purchased the coin operating “Vibro-Bed” for $2600

I had it in my apartment by noon

That was Thursday

Today is Saturday

Except for a bathroom break

A caloric nibble

And a reloading another roll of quarters

I will be soundly asleep

Until Tuesday morning

That is when I have to go to the bank

And get more quarters

Alone

April 30, 2025

Alone

All alone

I’m all alone

I want to be alone

I asked to be left alone

Forever alone

So alone, I am not even with myself

I sleep alone

I eat alone

I work alone

I am home alone

I am alone with my thoughts

I am alone in the dark

When I am letting well enough alone

I am better off alone

All by myself