John was suffocating, drowning on the honey thick words. The frantic sensation lasted but a moment after he finished the incantation. As he hung weightless above the burning pentagram, he felt nothing. He was so desperate, he had resorted to fire code violations to end his loneliness. A spark of black fire, highlighted in white too bright to look at, twinkled at the top of the center candle as he dialed back on the gravity. Could it actually be working? No way.

Smoke began to fill the high-ceiling cafeteria, occluding the false skylight and staining the pastel stucco of this never to be finished all-inclusive paradise. He thought of all the rich saps that might never get to cuss out a waiter for under spooning their caviar or whatever. Almost enough to bring a tear to his eye.

“Attention,” called down an automated woman’s voice from above, vowels round as marbles. “Hot ash detected on muster group B, deploying suppression measures. Thank you for dining on August Grande Orbital Vista, stand back!” Hoses uncoiled themselves like whining snakes.

John looked about frantically, dragging a tablecloth to throw over the summoning circle. The black/white flame caught it instantly, sending a gout of blacker smoke to curl along the prefabricated arches.

“Hot ash! Hot ash!” the automated attendant bellowed, as sprinklers filled with foam began to spray, laser aimed at the candles. They dimmed lower every second.

“No!” John ran, unsure of his plan as he jumped into the circle, shielding the center flame from the foam with his body. The pain grew as the flame cut through his coveralls, then stopped, more than stopped. He felt great. Had he been afraid?

He wondered how anyone could be afraid in this warmth. A hand ending in long sharp nails reached up and touched his shoulder lightly, pushing him back.

“I’m very grateful, but you’re crushing me,” came a raspy woman’s voice.

John staggered back, getting to his feet. He tapped his chest, the burn didn’t go past the top layer of his uniform. He should still stop by the automatic med bay later, but it was hard to think about anything as he looked into the circle.

Other than the long black curling horns cutting through her silver hair, the sharp teeth resting on black lips, the almost talon-like nails on hands and feet and the fact she seemed to clock in at about 6 foot 9, she was the most amazing looking woman John had ever seen, real or holo.

She stood and brushed herself off, sending a cloud of soot up again. A small drip of more foam came from the ceiling in reply. “Ah,” she yelled, laughing. “Can you turn that off?”

“No, sorry,” John said, suddenly awkward beyond measure. This was the first human he had seen in over two years. But human wasn’t the right word, was it?

She stood at her full height and bowed, letting her smokey dark gray gown knock over two of the now thoroughly doused candles. “I am Arix, Princess of the Eighth Suffering, Legion Lure of the Blind! To what purpose have you summoned me, mortal?” she asked, hesitating as if trying to remember her next line. “That you might exchange your everlasting soul for my service?”

“Can you keep me company?” He asked, “this orbital station is so lonely.”

“Very well- wait really?” she asked, rocking her head back, raising an eyebrow, and looking him up and down. “That’s it?”

“What can I say?” John chuckled nervously. “I’m going a little stir-crazy out here.”

“Where are we?” She walked to a table by a window overlooking the titanic gas giant.” Holy shit, are we in space?”

“The most amazing vacation destination station in the galaxy,” John offered, following her like a puppy. “Or at least it will be once the striking shipbuilders guild comes here to finish it. The scale of the orbiting behemoth means it has to be assembled on location, smack dab in the middle of jack shit, and apparently, I was the only sop desperate for credits willing to cross the pickets and come out here.”

“So you’re all alone in this huge place?” she asked, stepping into the floral atrium. The demon looked like John did the first time he saw it. He hadn’t even seen a plant until he was nine. She dragged a claw across one of the apple trees. “How do you keep it running by yourself?”

“The automated systems do almost everything,” John said, grabbing an apple and taking a bite before handing it to her. She smirked and snatched it. “I’m really just here in case something fails, but there’s only so much one engineer could do anyway. Mainly I’ve been waiting for others to come, but I guess the strike’s still on and I’m stranded. I can’t access my bank account from here but I’m guessing I’m pretty rich by now, at least.”

“I see,” she said, holding the apple like a raccoon might horde a grand prize. “Do these work? Could you contact them? Your bosses?” She pointed to a row of monitors tucked behind a service wall.

“Password protected by the union, all the systems are,” John said. “I gave up trying like a year ago. Hey, do you think these air purifiers look like a techo laundromat?” John asked, pointing into the next room they passed. “I always thought so.”

She squeezed beside him to peek in. “Kinda yeah, but you’d have to feed your shirts in through the slit one at a time. I think they look more like the holes you stick your arms through at museums, and feel stuff you can’t see.”

“Wow, you’re right,” John said, smiling. That had never occurred to him.

“You know your soul is a pretty big thing to give up. Are you sure that’s all you want?” she asked, bending down to see him eye to eye.

“Yeah, I already feel so much better. All these thoughts bouncing around in my head were killing me. I even tried that thing from the movie where he painted a face on a ball and named it but my ball was an agitator from the pool and the cleaner system recalled it back after a few days.”

“Okay, it’s your soul. What do you want to show me next?” she asked, standing back up eagerly.

“Oh, you gotta see the karaoke room, the costumes in there are insane.” John said, eye going wide with his idea. “Wait, no, stay here and wait till I call you. You have to guess who I’m dressed like.”

“Alright,” Arix said, shaking her head as the man scampered through the hall. She had thought he was sly to sacrifice himself to save her but he didn’t even seem to know that meant he got his wish for free. Not a bad gig, besides. She was already growing fond of the human. This could be like a vacation.

She sauntered to the monitor terminal and bowed her head in unsanctified prayer. “Jaeryx,” she hissed in the abyssal tongue. “Find me a damned one, one who was a shipbuilder union member in life.”

“I have one on the racks now, Legion Lure,” the eager croaking voice came. "What would you like of him?"

"I need him to type something."

A severed and callous hand popped into existence and flopped energetically on the floor. She bent and picked it up before it could crawl away, holding it up to the terminal.

“Type your login details and I will give you a moment’s peace,” she offered cruelly, digging a claw below the cracked fingernail. The hand worked across the keys and the terminal chimed. John was still out of sight.

She dismissed the hand back to its suffering body and read the title of the first and only email sent to the station. “Station August Grande is abandoned in union deal. No further ships will be sent in or out.”

“Okay, come here,” John said. "Guess who I am!"

“Coming,” Arix said with a smirk, clicking the delete button.

/r/surinical

As the portal devoured my body and soul, and transported it to new surroundings, I had just heard the news. Hell and Heaven were full, save for one soul.

I reincorporated in a small metal room, with a man wearing shredded clothes and lank autumnal hair streaking down to a grim frizz of a beard. He was bleeding from a pricked finger, runes and sigil adorning the walls.

He rasped at me. "Can you keep me company? This orbital station is so lonely." I swept my tail languidly, my aura penetrating even his bony form.

I didn't have the heart to tell him.

I stood to my full height, watching him smile, and feeling his despair as the hostile truth he was keeping from himself had sunk in. It was delicious.

I let my bladed legs bounce a few times before bounding over to him, and sat on the floor as he summoned the strength to crawl to me. I savoured his exquisite agony, knowing this would be the last time I would do so for a long time.

It took a long time for him to get to me, and I felt ecstatic the entire time. After an interminable amount of time (and the solaris moving a degree in the air) he rested his head on me, gasping at the exertion.

He rested his head on my lap, and I cradled him ,as he whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." getting weaker with each one. The taste was organically pleasurable, for I knew what was coming next.

He faded into unconsciousness, breathing slowing on my lap, and I tasted the light of life as it transmuted into cessation.

It took a few minutes before that blinding pleasure faded, and humanity itself breathed its last. I collected the remnants and opened a portal to the great scales, to be judged by the multiverse.

Something was not right. Something was very much not right. I could not feel anything but a hint of loneliness and regret. Where was the violence echoing, the psychopathy, the criminality and willful ignorance? Where was the hubris that made it all possible? Whenever i came to this plane of existence it was always there. There was at least something. But this felt off.

I looked at what my senses made me believe to be the singular source what i craved and kept me anchored in this plane.

"it...it worked.." he stammered. Looking at me wide eyed. It took me a second to realize that he was not on the ground, he was flying in mid air. Flying without wings, without technology i looked around and noticed i could not realize any sort of ecliptic. I was flying as well... or rather floating in this strange room. It looked like a tube 4 meters across. Mostly white to beige with Human machines littering each and every surface.

I tried to get closer to the human but as i was floating i was just flailing my arms and legs around starting to spin and slowly float in the opposite direction.

"Calm down" he said holding one hand up and another one behind him. I sensed he held something. A Weapon of sort. Wearing gray clothes with a red badge showing a ball printed on it was "Singularity Lab Mykanda"

"Where am i! What is this?" i finally asked. I was at the end of my wits. Holding on to some railing at the end of the room holding myself to the wall to at least get a semblance of reality back.

"You are in Space." he said. And it dawned on me. They have advanced beyond what we thought was possible. Indeed, no pull. No Gravity, that explains it.

I probed his mind, staring at the human intensely and made it in. But nothing made sense as well. Yes base emotions where all there. language aswell, but there was something wrong. Something was off. I blinked and exited, trying to take over, to enthrall him was dangerous without first figuring out what this was. I looked around and saw a black surface, i squinted and saw what looked like stars.

"Go ahead look outside, that will explain everything." he said. still keeping his distance.

'Outside', what a relieve. I slowly made my way towards this window of his grabbing carefully whatever i could get a hold off, trying to press my body at the wall as not to float into the middle and possibly get stuck there like a moth that feel into a cup of water. Eventually i made it and looked out. What i saw beggared belief. A strange black sun, with a violent disk was in the distance, but towering infront was a giant planet, dark and almost glowing.

"The big one is a brown dwarf. We call it Mykanda. The Black hole in the distance is PS49X we are currently in the Pegasus galaxy. You cant see the milky way from here, its too bright here, too many gases. You know why i summoned you?" he finally said.

How is this possible. He mentioned black hole and a galaxy. The last time i heard about it was when the humans just finished their second world war. When they experimented with weapons by splitting atoms. It was 1956 then. How long has it been since? I tried to remember. But came up blank. I turned my head away from the window and looked at some of the monitors, one of them, displaying graphs that didnt concern me hid the information in the top right corner. April 29. 2719

"its been 760 years!" I shouted.

"Thats how long you where gone? Incredible!"

"I demand to know what this is about." I had it. If anyone knew about scheming and setting up traps it was me, and this reeked like one. One for me!

He laughed and smiled "Honestly i was lonely i work alone here, and i cannot leave. There is nothing and nobody here. There also wont be."

I relaxed a bit, he was being truthful, yet still not saying everything. Seems my intuition was right, he was lonely. Not maddeningly so, but close to getting there eventually. There was no one close by. But still something was not right, i should at least feel the echoes of long past worlds, their death-throws, something that could sustain me on a low level. "Why wont there be anyone else here?" I asked.

He looked towards a larger monitor and without touching anything the monitor started display what i presumed to be a simplified model of the station and the surrounding celestial objects. "This station was build to study the effects of time and reality itself. At this point" a red circle was drawn around what i assume is this vessel "is in a sense disconnected from most of the universe. This rouge brown dwarf is going to fall into the black hole in a couple of years. The station itself orbits it and there is nothing we can do to stop it." He looked a bit sad, when he said it.

I started to feel what he meant. The blackhole was indeed a deep dark hole, like a headache moving slowly across my skull i could sense its presence. It was pure terrifying nothingness. It was terrifying. "What is your name?" i finally asked.

"Felix Opton, and yours?" he asked.

"Aliana the corrupter " i said with a smile, that quickly vanished as i realized one very important thing. He didnt lie, he truly believed that there was no way out. Which meant that i was stuck here. Doomed to fall into the hole. I could harm him, he was the only mortal around. There was nothing else. I got angry "Why have you done this!" I pounded with my fist on the side of the vessel, smashing some machine in the process. Shortly afterwards the area was underlined with a red light and tiny insectlike machines, came crawling over the surface, crawling over me to get to the spot where my rage was concentrated. They where repairing it right infront of my eyes.

"Dont do that please. If you break it, you will just fall into the blackhole. Alone." he showed his right hand now. Holding a gun. It looked a bit different from what i remembered but all in all it was probably one of these fine instruments of death the humans where so fond of. "I dont think i im going to need this. "You where part of my research. We figured out that Demons are infact real" Pointing at me. "Well at least in one special reality, not in this one. But in the one i was researching you exist as energy riding along the magnetic field of the earth. We use a captured naked singularity and connect with to probes we sent into the blackhole. Via this method we can access a multitude of realities, when i found yours i knew i wouldnt be alone anymore. You are energy, information in a sense. Simply accessing it, turned you into...well you. And as i am the only source of nourishment for you. It would be unwise for you to harm me in any way. All the data get sent home. There is nobody else but me, so lets get comfortable with each other, Aliana."

I blinked then blinked again. I couldn't believe my eyes. I ran my hand through my greasy hair. It worked? It really worked. Or maybe I've finally lost it? Too long have I been left to my own vices. It's definitely a possibility. There's a limit to the things I can do on this station to distract myself from the reality of my situation. Hopefully my eyes aren't deceiving me.

A demoness stood in front of me standing on a pentagram. Her ivory horns, black wings and tail gave away the fact that she wasn't human. Her face sculpted with inhuman beauty.

"A mortal dares summon ME? Rashka?" She looked at me intently. Her dark grey eyes glowed ominously. A power ran through me. It felt as if my very soul was getting violated. After a moment of this, she licked her lips as if she found something delicious.

" The stench of loneliness reeks off of you. Tell me, what have you been through to accrue so much?" She asked as she started to look around. The more she looked around the more curious she became.

"Where are we? Speak, Human!"

" We are on station 23." I said plainly.

" Elaborate. " She snarled.

" It's a orbital space station that's been sent off course and abandoned after...well...it doesn't matter. I'm the last man on this station and there's no way off. I'm—we are stuck here." I paused as I gathered my thoughts. It's been a long time since I spoke to someone. I felt as if I was learning to speak again.

" Thankfully this station is self-sufficient and has everything I need to keep living for 200 years. Everything else on the other hand doesn't work anymore. The only thing this station can do is drift across space indefinitely. I guess you could say I was messing around out of boredom and I somehow summoned you." My throat felt dry and I was out of breath. Why is it so hard to speak?

" I see. Space you say? Fascinating." Rashka walked up to me and brought her face close to mine until we were inches apart. My heart quickened as she traced her long nail down my cheek and neck.

"And what is it you want from me?" She demanded softly with authority.

" Can you keep me company? I asked, " As you have already surmised, This orbital Station is so lonely."

"Ask and you shall receive but be warned that a contract was signed the moment I was summoned and your soul belongs to me After I fulfil your wish..." She paused as she digested what I said and raised her eyebrow inquisitively.

"That's it?"

"When you've been here alone for as long as I have there isn't really much else to ask for. "

She laughed while she started walking towards the exit into the hallway.

" You are a weird mortal. Never have I've been asked to just keep someone company before. So be it. How about giving me a tour of the place..what's your name human?"

" Kyle, and sure." I smiled warmly. I caught up until I was walking side by side with her and began the tour.

Note: I dictated this in one take and hand transcribed the audio. I've edited the transcript lightly. Thanks for the opportunity to practice dictablogging or verbal writing :)

###

This system's planets are spaced far apart. Leonis made for an ideal imperial recruit: young, energetic, and unreasonably brave. It is also quite unfortunate for the imperial powers that he allows his head to be filled with vague notions of duty, sacrifice, and commitment to a cause bigger and higher than himself.

And now he finds himself in an orbital station that is nothing but a metallic and glass indictment of the warped monstrosity a false "universal" identity and misplaced zeal can produce. Orbiting around Wrangus, the unnamed station is yet one of the many imperial observatories and way stations legislated from deep within the steel and glassed bowels of the imperial home planet - A Place That Shall Not Be Named.

Days quickly turned into weeks as the young zealot ensured that all terminal panels were clean and floors were shinier than when they first shipped from imperial robotic slave factories somewhere in the vast, barely-charted, exploited waste the empire calls its territory. Days blur into weeks, and weeks fast morph into months.

With fire in his eyes, the young imperial recruit can slowly feel his passionately-held assumptions about service, duty, commitment, and the "Greater Imperial Good," slowly ebbing away into the cold embrace of the void surrounding him. While it's true that Wrangus is not exactly the galactic trade intersection that many other fortunate recruits have been assigned to, the young man held onto a lingering wish for at least some sort of social activity flowing through this empty corner of space, but no chance.

He can only stare out into the void each day as he witnesses the all-too-predictable angry dance between the two bright stars that made the centerpiece of the violet-bluish sky ahead. "Did I make a mistake?" This is the one question he could barely keep himself from asking, yet it claws at him. It baits with every button he pushes daily to ensure that all systems in the station are working.

It baits knowing that today's data will be the same as yesterday's and last month's. He could feel the seconds of his life ticking away. Nobody out there notices, and it will take quite some convincing for him to believe that somebody cares. Yet, he pressed on ensuring all systems were operating, food was being generated, waste recycled, heat repurposed, and energy converted.

As he slumped down in his command console for what seemed to be yet another uneventful and terminally long day, a bright spot on his console caught his eye. It's as if it's blinking quickly in and out of existence. He considers himself lucky to have caught it. Zooming in on his sensor, he quickly runs a chemical and energy assay. The words "all clean" escaped from his lips.

In terms of dimensions, it didn't seem like much. Three units by five units. Quickly doing the mental calculation, of the amount of energy it would require to reconstitute into the station's decompression and decontamination bays, he quickly concludes that this would be an easy job. Carefully listening to his best instincts, he pushes on the retrieval sequence button, and within seconds, this mysterious piece of, from all appearances, space junk appears in the bay.

With a flick of his wrists, the standard imperial energy field encompasses his body as he instantly teleports in front of the object. These imperial suits (for lack of a better term) act as all-around protective gear, virtually guaranteeing its wearers from any harm or danger posed by gravity, decompression, toxic chemicals, or a wide range of radiation. Light, transparent, and requiring very little energy inputs, these suits are part of why the empire arose and continues to exist (much to the pain and suffering of the many species currently under its control.)

Running his hands through the surface, he can't quite help but notice the intricate, almost-syncopated pits and jagged edges interspersed with flat, uneven spaces. It's as if the individual organism or the species that created this object wanted to give off a "primitive" impression. His young mind could not help but conclude that it was very clever. No sooner had he finished running his hands through the front of the object than it started to hum.

Before he fully realizes what's going on, the object bursts into unbearable light. He had seen explosions before during training; they were quite routine. But there is something about the light from this device that pushed him to shield his eyes, something he rarely did during live-fire training. "I am here," a distinctively female voice proclaims.

As he regains the strength in his knees to stand up straight with his chest toward the voice, a wild explosion of pulsating, quickly-changing colors seems to fill the room. No heat, just irresistible light immune to the intimidation of logic or easy explanation. Again, he is forced to cover his eyes. "I am here!" the voice impatiently declared again. Putting down his arms and hands, he defiantly opened his eyes to take in the full image in front of him. It was a female demon.

Demons, of course, come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and energy emanations. It's as if, by definition, they play to our own cultures' understanding of what a terrifyingly powerful and horrifically willful organism should be. The young recruit understood this. At least he had that much mental and spiritual discipline. Within a split second, the demonist shifted through what seemed like a thousand manifestations, each a homage to every different subcultural, anthropological variation of thousands of language groups that made up the empire.

"You are quite hard to pin down," the female voice points out. One can sense from the lilt of her voice that she was impressed at the recruit's mental clarity. "How would you like me to appear?" she finally said, much like a magician losing his patience after running out of tricks. "Appear however you want," the young recruit answered. His answer took time, not because he was afraid but because he wanted to choose his words carefully.

Considering the energy released by the device, the young man's once-crisp imperial standard outfit looked wrinkled and disheveled. One can easily be forgiven that his suit had shrunk a size or two in some places. The demonist looked at the young and disheveled man that summoned her. "Can you keep me company?" he asks. This orbital station is so lonely."

r/tylerwritestheweb

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