Contrasts

There are two kinds of people in this world.

Dying of the Light

WARNING: Mentions of emotional abuse, heavy existential dread. Reader discretion is advised.

You haunt me.

Ultraman Trigger looked out on the universe.

Billions upon trillions of stars, flashing like pinpricks in the inky darkness of the cosmos, unfathomable light years away. Nebulae swirled and churned in a rainbow storm of dust and life-to-be. Planets turned their circles, sometimes show and patient, sometimes at speeds incomprehensible to mortal eye. All around were lights, sounds, colours - things that would stagger the imagination of any human able to perceive it all in this way.

But Trigger could find no joy in it. No solace from his thoughts.

Every lie. Every sick joke. Every waking moment. Thousands of years gone and the memory of you still burns.

His almond eyes seemed fixed on a point so distant that mortal eye would bleed if it attempted the same feat. He did not breathe - his kind did not need to, and in this near-total vacuum there was no point. Behind him, the shining sun of Earth - Sol - raged on, throwing out its fire across the face of the one planet orbiting it that could ever support intelligent life. It looked close, but it also seemed somehow incredibly distant, as though perspective and distance had become optional things.

And Trigger knew, in the back of his mind, that there were thousands of other universes out there, with their own Sols and their own Earths, each doing the exact same thing. Some younger, some older.

He derived no comfort from it.

That's all you are now. A memory. A thought in my head. And you leave me here, alone.

Anger

WARNING: The following contains an implied instance of transphobia and thus may be distressing to certain readers. Also the word 'gringo' is used. Discretion is advised.

He knew he shouldn't really have been up here. He had to help the others in the juice bar. Grandma Micaela was out to get ingredients, and it was late afternoon in Agama, which meant heat and stickiness. Customers would be flocking into the bar in droves, and there'd be only two others tending bar. Both of whom would be rushed off their feet keeping up with demand.

But Valério Freitas needed to be in his room so he could work out some anger.

Z-Day

There were three kinds of people who came back on that day.

There were the very confused.

Panty's Christmas Carol - Future (18+)

Something was wrong with Daten City.

It had always been a dirty city, in both senses of the word. Despite being an up-and-coming metropolis, it was usually seen as more of a Chicago than a New York or San Fransisco, with even the most up-market and hoity-toity districts full of dark corners, dodgy secrets and seedy doings. Not to mention the general layer of trash, bubblegum, pigeon shit and dark soot from all the car exhausts. It was almost as if the entire city had an oily sheen to it that the glitz and glamour only accentuated.

This... was a different kind of dirty.

Panty's heels crunched through the snow as she walked through Daten Central Park. Or, rather, what had been Daten Central Park. 

But as she looked around, she could see that it had it had... changed.

The once neurotically well-kept gardens and hedges were a tangle of weeds, briars and things the angel couldn't identify at a glance. The trees were sagging under the weight of unpruned boughs and what grass poked through the white blanket was almost up to her knees. The buildings on either side where showing extreme aging - stone was cracked, crumbling and covered in moss, steel was rusting and bending and glass was broken into snow-like shards. Many of the street lamps weren't on, and aside from the silvery sheen from a full moon the place was in almost total blackness.

Everything was deathly still. The only sound, aside from Panty's footsteps and her shallow breaths, was a faint wind that whipped at her hair. Where was everyone... or everything? No cars on the streets, no people, all the doors were locked... There wasn't even a single light on in any of the windows. No signs of life to be seen, not even the singing of birds or barking of foxes.

What had happened? Had some ghost, or perhaps a demon, come through the city and-

The streetlights flickered.

Panty knew what that meant by now, and braced herself. She wanted to be ready this time. No goddamn Ghost of Christmas Fuckery was going to catch her by surprise and-

A sound like the rusting hinges of an iron gate.

Better Off Alone (NSFW)

WARNING: The following contains themes not suited for younger audiences or those of more sensitive dispotion. Viewer discretion is advised.

"And in related news, the Olympia Police Department have released the names of the two men killed in a bizzare incident in the Undercity Market Square. The individuals, Mercurio Pozzi and Umberto Ardizzone, were found dead outside a fruit stall owned by local gardener Bertrand Bellincioni at half past three two weeks ago in a mangled condition, with the only clue being an unidentifiable energy trace on the corpse of Ardizzone.

"Police have yet to identify the killer of the two men, who were known to be associates of the small-time Capitani crime family-"

"THE VEG DID IT"

"Stew, this isn't the time to editorialize right now."

"No, come on, it's so obvious! Two men dead in front of a fruit and veg stall?! CHECK THE VEG! The real killer's there!"

"...you never got over that incident with the courgette in high school, huh?"

"I swelled up like a balloon, Chick! It was awful! And I know for a fact that anything that grows underground is never good for ya! Ask that gardener what he's been growing in his back yard!"

"And a reminder, folks, never to watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes before a major murder happens. Now, back to actual news..."