Writer's note : have a Worm AU. It's something that has been eating away at me. Hopefully, this will break my writer's block for Goblin Queen.
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This is me, the average white collar wage slave chained to the cycle of working nine to five. Monday to friday, day in, day out, every week of every month of every year.
This is me, making sure that the T four oh fours were filed properly by people who applied for loans. And that they were sent to my manager to approve before their requests were sent up to finance to be paid out.
This is me, watching my coworkers go on. Watching from the sidelines as they were promoted or left the company. Fired with shame or happily quitting for another job.
This is me, keeping my nose clean, and doing the daily grind. Monday to friday, nine to five, week after week. Turning down the offers to go out for a drink on the weekend.
This is me on vacation, by myself, as I jet to Los Angeles for the annual Games Day convention run by Games Workshop. I did have an expensive hobby, but the revival of the Doctor Who franchise with that movie and its subsequent miniatures war game was one of the few things that kept me going. True, there wasn't much of a gaming culture here where I live, but it wasn't much to drive south to New York on the weekends.
The laments of those children and young punks who were not willing or able to compete with me by purchasing the newest models were a delight to my ears.
Day in, day out... I lived in the eternal now as days, months, years blended together. Always the same.
Until one day... it wasn't the same.
This is me as I stand before my latest manager, having being called into his office for a private discussion. He was young, in my eyes, having but just graduated from college with a massive debt like most such kids.
I could only blink and listen to his words in absolute silence, while in counterpoint to his words, there was a dull roar in my ears. I was being let go. Because of the economic downturn. Because the global economy was going belly up due to the freaks and the disasters that followed them about.
I had done nothing wrong. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was the convenient one to be laid off first.
This... this is me as I sit at home. Surrounded by my miniatures.
All those years I had spent slaving away... thrown to the side and trampled upon. My attempts to apply for other work, something... anything... was fruitless. I had no references. I had no one to ask for help.
This is me as I sit in the darkness. Outside, a deluge from the heavens roared. I had no options. I could not sustain myself with my paltry savings. I had no way out. All I could do was sit in the darkness and rage at the unfairness of it all.
If.
I.
had.
made.
connections.
Perhaps.
I.
wouldn't.
be.
in.
this.
situation.
This is me, in the darkness, holding the final solution in my hand. It's cold metallic weight in stark contrast to its size.
This is me as I raised my hand despite the heavy weight in it to my head.
This is me as my hand trembled as I struggled to control my breathing.
This is me as my trigger finger jerked.
This is me.
This is.
This.
The smell of cordite accompanied the jerk of my hand and the flash of light.
I had dreams once.
Hopes of a better tomorrow.
Aspirations to be so much more.
I couldn't understand how this happened. My heart and soul ground into the dust.
To be trapped in the darkness.
In the twilight, alone.
A gun pointed to the side of my head.
And time slowed for me...
An eternity in the span of my heartbeat.
And in that endless moment, I saw [Infinity] as it twisted in on itself, an ever growing mass of metal, unknown stone, crystal. bone and flesh.
There had been something. I had seen something and yet, it faded away as dew beneath the light of day.
My head shifted slightly at the impact of the bullet, before it fell to the hardwood floor. The sound of the metal hitting the wood sounded far too loud and yet compared to what had came before, it was almost silent.
I could only look down at the twisted and flattened piece of metal in surprise before reaching down to pick it up.
The moment of heat I felt from it faded quickly as the skin on the surface of my fingers split apart with a wet tearing sound and sensation as of a scab being pulled off.
What lay beneath was cold dark metal that twitched like muscle as I flexed my fingers while the skin and flesh of what had been my human fingers were pulled apart and folded into their mechanical replacement.
This is me, Jamie Rinkle, sitting in the dark... filled with horror because I was a monster. I was one of them.
One of the freaks that had started to roam the world for the last decade.
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Grotesque MaShin
Worm AU
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The first few hours I was filled with horror, fear and shock.
Part of me expected the Suits to show and forced me to join them. Part of me expected homeland security to break my door down and arrest me for being one of them.
But that wasn't accurate, was it? I was one of them now.
I had heard stories, everyone had, of the monsters that the freaks were. Some of them played at heroes and villains. But they were not the dangerous ones. There were those who were simply terrorists. Unstoppable monstrosities who gleefully threw away their humanity to become something else.
Living bio-machine horrors that towered over building, bristling with weapons that burned all who challenged them.
And I was one of them now.
I was still mostly human, with only my hand transformed. I dared not look in the mirrors at the armor plating on the sides of my head and which flowed across my forehead to join together like a knight's visor.
I could only look at my hands.
There was a vague thought that I could parley this into some way to make money.
A part of my mind whispered that I could have my revenge on the bank that had thrown me to the side when I was no longer of use to them. The company that I had given so to, and from which I had never asked anything.