Jarrod sat at a polished oaken table, the warm glow of the bulbs that occupied various ornate light fixtures reflected in its lacquer polish. In front of him was a single plate, silver and ornate, with a simple spam sandwich placed in the middle. The choice of food seemed out of place among the refined and understated taste of the rest of the room.

​

Leaning forward slightly, Jarrod took another bite. Good, he noted. Despite the feeling that the kitchen staff were likely unfamiliar with his particular choice of meal, it was delicious. Some small part of him found that vaguely annoying. That people with so much could take something like that, something that he felt belonged to people like him, and improve upon it. Make it something better. He took another large bite and left the remaining half of the humble sandwich atop the shining plate.

​

Part of him felt that he should be scared. Surely, anyone would be scared. Yet despite willing his heart to race, he couldn't shake the sense of calm. Perhaps the calmest he'd been in years.

​

The dark door at the end of the room gently swung open, and the face Ms. Kesner pushed through the now open portal. "Jarrod, need anything?" she asked.

​

She was a beautiful woman. Her auburn her fell lazily around her shoulders. Its brown and red shades complimented her stormy hazel eyes, further accented by her simultaneously simple yet elegant grey dress. All of this was starkly in contrast to Jarrod's own meager appearance.

​

Jarrod knew beauty like that. Beauty that you might mistake as a casual sort of accident at first. It wasn't brought about by shades of expensive satin or gaudy makeup. There was not any overt display of wealth. Yet, most often that kind of calculated simplicity was brought about by those who'd spent their entire life perfecting the art - wolves in the clothing of sheep.

​

"Some water, maybe?" Jarrod replied. Despite their best efforts to spruce the sandwich up, you couldn't get all the salt out of spam.

​

Ms. Kesner raised an eyebrow and cast a disarming smile. "Water? Are you sure? You know you can anything you'd like. If you can dream it, we can arrange it."

​

Worried I have cold feet, then? he thought.

​

"No, thanks. Water is fine."

​

The woman nodded and exited as gracefully as she'd arrived, the door closing silently on well greased hinges. What am I trying to prove? Jarrod pondered. Part of him wanted to ask for top shelf whiskey. Part of him wanted to taste wine more expensive than a car's down payment. Yet his being refused to do so. He'd leave the way he lived. Simple. He wouldn't give in to the luxuries denied to him for so long. He wouldn't surrender now - he couldn't. Not after so long.

​

In the soft glow of the room, Jarrod wondered what other men and women must've felt like in his spot. Some had undoubtedly panicked. Felt the constricting darkness of death creeping in from the edges of the peripheral vision, and squirmed at its midnight touches. Of course, they could leave anytime as long as they pledged to pay back whatever items they had consumed. This was, after all, a voluntary action.

​

It hadn't always been. They'd started with prisoners. Of course once the general populace caught wind of this, the bleeding hearts of the world had gone into an uproar. They'd dared to ask the question 'what is the worth of a human life?' Ironically, Jarrod knew that was probably the wrong question to ask. The answer, though most with a lesser understanding of the will of men would protest, was that many lives aren't worth the husk they were imprinted upon. A week's worth of power for a city? Shit, it was a bargain.

​

He was stirred from his bout of contemplation by Ms. Kesner returning, a crystal glass of ice water clinking softly in her hand as she strode forward into the room. She deposited the glass neatly in front of him and turned sharply on her heel to leave.

​

"Wait," Jarrod spoke.

​

She paused, turning back towards him. "Yes?"

​

"How much longer?" he asked.

​

She delicately turned her wrist and inspected the shining watch which adjourned it. "About 5 minutes, now." Her features grew ever so slightly concerned. "Are you still looking to move forward with this?"

​

Jarrod let out a soft chuckle. Of course that's her concern.

​

"Yeah - yeah, don't worry about that."

​

Though she tried not to make it obvious, a bit of tension left her shoulders as she heard his response.

​

"Will you sit with me?" Jarrod asked.

​

The easy practiced smile which had danced across her features earlier returned, and she flashed a white smile. "Of course," she spoke as she moved to pull one of artfully crafted wooden chairs back from the table.

​

She settled in, running a hand through her hair and removing a few stray auburn wisps which had fallen lightly across her forehead. "So... are you ready?" she asked in a soft tone.

​

Jarrod took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Hell, I have been for a long time."

​

She pursed her lips and offered a sympathetic look. As he had wondered about the feelings of those before, he wondered how many times this woman had offered that exact look to those which had sat in this room.

​

A few moments went by in the resulting silence.

​

"Do you all feel good about this?" Jarrod began again, "About what it is you do here?"

​

As soon as he spoke he regretted it slightly. It's not like this woman in particular was to blame for the way the world had turned out - how his world had turned out.

​

"Frankly, yes." She didn't offer a sympathetic look at this. In fact, a thoughtful certainty crossed her features.

"There's a group of nineteen year Olds on the ghats of Varanasi who would be more productive in a week than you dumbfucks are in a week! Beggars in Beijjng have better numbers" Shrieked the manager at the top of his lungs.

In his hands was a file, probably containing this quarter's numbers.

"What the duck is a vanasasi?" Murmured Chris while trying his best to avoid the manager's eyeline.

"Vara-nasi" I whispered back. "In India. It's like a holy city or something. Old folks like going there to die. Supposed to get them into heaven"

"Do you dipshits have something to say?" Screamed the manager, turning more and more crimson with every passing second.

"Well.... sir.... I mean..... those countries have a much denser population......and ......I mean...... you know......" I trailed away.

"OH! Would you like to explain that to the CEO, mother fucker? Until numbers pick up, overtime is cancelled for all of you idiots. Understood?" He said before huffing and puffing out of the conference room.

All the ground workers gathered around in a circle.

"Any new ideas?"

"The hospitals still have banned us. Those damned new laws. One idiot hooks up the system to the NICU and suddenly all patients are out of limits "

"The old folks home kicked me out for suggesting we take consent from people with Alzheimers"

"All we have, are people who have signed over their body energy atleast one year prior to their death"

"I read an article that said some people were killing homeless people to harvest energy."

The manager walked back into the conference room.

"Listen up guys. I want to remind you that I'll be leaving for my year end vacation tomorrow. When I return, I want the numbers to be doubled. Don't forget, you can always sign up your family for a discount"

"Sir......if you don't mind us asking...... you and your family? Someone said slowly

"Why the fuck would I ever do that?" He yelled.

I guess even in death workers are worth less

They did it to avert a nuclear winter.

In the race for green energy, they started cutting corners to achieve nuclear fusion before anyone else. A reactor meltdown here, an unintentional atom split there, and within years the Earth was pockmarked with unlivable land.

When one of these experiments went awry, the splitter found its mark not on an atom, but on a man - more precisely, splitting his body from his soul. The energy produced was terrific, and suddenly the ideas started flooding in. The possibilities.

They started with criminals on death row. Then people with terminal illnesses. They began harnessing all of the energy to do away with the mistakes of the past. The next snag was determining what to do with the husks. Current infrastructure couldn't exactly handle the sudden increase in the amount of dead bodies.

They found a solution, that being to periodically airlift loads of the bodies to leave behind in those dead lands. Inhumane through and through, but if you didn't think about it, it couldn't haunt you, right? The dead lands were obviously unlivable anyway, so what did it matter if it was filled with more bodies?

It quickly became apparent what the fatal flaw was: they didn't account for the will of the souls.

They did it to avert a nuclear winter. So why did the snow still come?

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

My first time trying my hand at one of these - it's probably not great, but my first thought when I saw the prompt was considering exothermic and endothermic reactions; if the energy produced by splitting a body from a soul was so significant, obviously the energy consumed from a wayward soul that decided it wasn't done living bonding back into SOMETHING would be equally significant. Idunno, it was a messy stream of consciousness, and about halfway through it occurred to me this could also be a neat setup to a zombie apocalypse scenario where the damaged souls come back to their decaying bodies, both incomplete and uncertain as to what's next aside from a hunger that can't be satiated.

Maybe the zombie scenario would have been better lol

    Mathis sat in the lobby of the soul clinic reminiscing the past 35 years leading him to this moment. At 65 years old he was still full of life and unfortunately cancer too. Once he was cleared for Soul Fission he sorted his affairs and accepted his fate.      Soul Fission was first developed 35 years ago as a response to the energy and climate crises. Mathis was a lead scientist on the project. Soul Fission is the splitting of the soul from the body. The soul was discovered to have an immense amount of energy stored inside and could be used to power the world’s energy needs. Once discovered, the governments of the world mandated how it was to be used. An ethics board was set up and soon the dying and dead became one of the largest energy contributors in the world. Carbon emissions dropped and the effects of climate change slowed drastically. Mathis and his colleagues were branded as heroes and Mathis received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the project.      Mathis took a look around the lobby. He saw many elderly people, but he was shocked to see a child. The child was bald and sickly looking. Probably no older than six or seven.  His mother shrouded herself around him and rocked him back and forth. You could tell she had been crying for ages. Her face was marked with tear tracks and heavy bags under her eyes. Mathis knew anyone could be split, but this was a rare occurrence surely? A woman older than him leaned over and talked with her hand in front of her mouth as if that would shield her booming voice. “It’s sad, isn’t it?  Probably couldn’t afford the cost of living tax. My friend Linda says it’s really common these days. The ethics board voted against raising it, but no one listened of course.” Soul splitting was technically voluntary, but  you see, if someone is medically deemed to be terminal or unable to work they are taxed for each year they do not split their souls. Most families can’t afford the tax and risk being jailed, which eventually leads to having your soul split anyway since the courts decided splitting prisoners was legal.      Mathis felt a malignant horror creep into his stomach. He was no hero, he was a villain. He created the methods that lead to the deaths of countless people. This realization hit him like a bus. He quickly fumbled his check book out of his pocket and wrote the amount of the yearly tax in the blank space. He took a deep breath and stood, walking across the room to the mother and child. He silently held the check out to the mother who looked up at him in a confused awe. “What’s this?” She sniffed. “A drop in the bucket.” Mathis replied softly. The mother examined the check and finally realized Mathis’s intent. In any other circumstance she would not accept a stranger’s money, but in this was the exception. She began to cry, this time happy tears and embraced Mathis in a hug.  “I don’t know who you are, or why you are helping us, but I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.” “It’s the least I can do.” His eyes rimmed with tears and he broke away and rushed out of the building.      In the coming days Mathis used his acquired wealth to fund and participate in various political groups and movements that were fighting against the involuntary soul splitting that the taxes caused. He started his research again. This time for more ethical sources of energy. He dedicated his life to these causes until he passed away from cancer four years later.       You’ve probably heard the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. What could be more good than saving the world? If you had asked him 35 years ago if his work were crucial to the future race and planet he would have said yes. All they really managed to do was avert one crisis and replace it with another. Mathis and his team did the best they could, but society proved not to be trusted with such power. Guilt followed Mathis to the grave. How could it not? However his plight to make things right eventually bloomed into reality decades later after much fighting for change by his predecessors.       

On a cold winter night, two figures approach one another in an abandoned train station, surrounded by snow and pine trees. The moon illuminates one, a pale woman, blonde-almost-white hair dangling out of her hood as she stops near the edge of the platform. The other figure, a man, appears from the shadows nervously looking her up and down as his eyes dart around the interior.

"Do you have them?" asks the woman.

The man reaches into his overcoat, his janitor ID card dangling from his breast pocket. It says his name is Jarl.

After rooting around a bit he pulls a small black cloth from his overcoat. He unwraps it to reveal small crystaline, ghostly white cylinders of varying sizes, no more then 2 inches long.

"Yup, fresh from the factory. They wont even miss them, we've got new-."

He's cut off by a train wooshs through the abandoned terminal, causing the pairs overcoat's to flap violently. Jarl covers his eye's, missing the woman reaching down, and tapping the talk button on her comm link three times.

Two cloaked figures leap from atop the train station onto the speeding train. It's a behemoth, each carriage, an identical brutal steel container. They work their way down the front of the carriage and peak inside the door. Hearing no one, they move in.

It's dark, save for some faint blue light strips near the top of the carriage. Once inside, they drop their cloaks. One of them is a woman, pale similar to the one on the plaform, the other a man, short dark hair and a goatee. Both atheltic in their black tactical gear, walky's, and a pair of side arms. They survey the carriage. It seems to contain uniform boxes, about six feet long. The woman, Zariel, moves up to one and puts her ear to the side.

"Poor things, you have no idea what's at the end of the line."

The man, Ryv, moves to another box and starts feeling around.

"Stop" Zariel shouts "any tampering and they will stop the train before we get to the shield".

Ryv pulls back.

"Sorry, I just wanted to see it, maybe save this one. Who knows if this will work".

Zariel stands. "It will. Mariel has been scouting this place for months. Once we're inside we'll be able to save all of them."

Ryv moves towards her and pulls her hand up to his lips and gives it a light kiss. They stay in that moment, knowing this might be the last time they see each other.

Zariel suddenly grabs the back of her neck. The hairs on it have risen. They both wince and begin to keel over. Quickly pulling out a syringe of gray liquid they stab it into their necks. After a moment the pain subsides.

Zariel nods. "Thirty seconds."

She exits the carriage, and climbs atop. The wind howling, but she doesn't feel it. She pulls out her pistols, and checks the cartridges. Bullets tipped with a ghostly white gas shine inside. Satisfied, she scans ahead. A bright flash near a snow back gives away the perimeter, she fires a shot. It ripples across the shield; no damage. She fires a pair of rounds. A slight shimmering dent appears, but it quickly heals. Letting out a small sigh, she looks down, imagining where Ryv would be standing, then begins to unload her pistols at the rapidly approaching shield. Each round making a progressively larger dent, but no crack. She charges forward, as the guns flair and dives into the shield. A white flash appears as her body disintegrates, causing a crack to form in the shield.

Ryv stands at the back of the carriage listening to the carnage above, he closes his eyes and holds his breath, expecting the end. The guns go silent. The end does not come. He let's out a sigh and touches his ear piece.

"Wow, I didn't think we'd get past. Your amazing. I love you."

He waits, but no reply. He's alone now. Though he doesn't get a moment to grieve the realization as the pale blue lights suddenly turn orange, and the train begins to slow. Ryv steps outside. They are no where near a station, so this can only mean that they detected the breach.

He pulls back inside and sits down behind one of the boxes in the centre Drawing his pistols, he checks the cartridges. They have the same ghostly rounds as Zariel's. He reaches inside his shirt, pulling out the skull necklace he was wearing, and putting his hand on the side of the box.

"Don't worry, I will at least save you."

After a few minutes he can hear the soldiers coming down the carriage. The clink of their automatic weapons against their plated armor. The door creaks open and two soldiers slowly move inside, checking the carriage.

Ryv takes a deep breath, leaps to his feet and fires a single round. It penetrates the first soldier and explodes against the second, blowing both apart. As their stumps slump to the floor, bullets start flying in from the carriage door, ricoching around the carriage. He ducks back behind the box. More soldier rush in and he can hear them moving to the other end of the carriage. There are too many of them.

The doors at the other end fly open and the soldiers start moving towards Ryv. He jumps back up and begins to fire in both directions. His rounds exploding, causing massive damage, but the returning automatic fire also finds it's mark. He slumps down, checking his wounds while a fresh batch of soldiers moves around the outside of the carriage. Gray goo oozes from a wound in his chest. He coughs up some ooze. This is over. Grabbing the skull around his neck as the solders begin to circle; he stands.

"In Morte", he shouts as he kisses the skull.

A bright flash moves through the carriage. The explosion even illiminating the now empty train station.

Jarl is startled by the flash as he trudges through the snow banks. Quickly turning on his comm link.

"What was that?" he shouts into it.

Though some broken static, the word "Reapers" is heard. Unfortunately too late for Jarl, whose shocked face rolls onto the snow. His slumping headless torso reveals Mariel, the woman he met earlier, with a bloody sickle in her hand.

The great mage barriers of the Sen people kept the abyss at bay stopping their last city from total annihilation the last ditch attempt that had caused the lives of their awakened arch-mages to burn their life force was a bittersweet success.

Such a vast and sturdy barrier that allowed entry and exit to the Sen people's were expensive in magical resources that could power the vast barriers manabanks a solution was needed or their inventories would have been sucked dry in a matter of months.

Arcturius Farsight a void explorer and Geniveve Salasnikov were our salvation from the certain demise of our species the forefather and foremother of truly modern magic. Arcturius discovered an intelligent race of mammals called humans with a distinct soul makeup different from any other recorded sentient or monster lifeform. Geniveve managed to make a epoch spanning discovery on accident while performing experiments on this new species. The introduction of Soul Fission! A way to harvest humans souls at a previously unheard of efficiency of magic extraction. One hundred common humans who hadn't awakened mage powers were enough to grant our city a months worth of power and human mages greatly increased the gains to almost absurd levels.

Now our warriors and explorer mages are combing the vast void looking for more planets and realms filled with this new race. As interrogation has successfully given us information of many vast disparate empires chock full of walking power sources to keep our manabanks full of power!

The time for hunting is now...

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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    The interrogation room was bare bones: a steel table, two steel chairs, and a single incandescent light hanging from the ceiling. Detective Hugo Boone had brought in another snatcher and was sitting down across the table from him. They'd grown bolder since the near constant brown-outs plagued the city. This was the fourth one he'd brought in this week, they'd all flipped quick, these guys always do.

    "Name you gave the cops who picked you up is Nick, is that right? Which illegal power station is paying you?" asked Hugo.

    "Oh you got it all wrong, I don't work for an illegal station, nice try," said Nick, leaning back in his chair with a smirk on his face.

    "Is that right? Sex workers turn up dead in your apartment often?"

    "Just doing my job, just like you."

    "Yeah, well, my job is catching guys like you. You can give me the name of your boss now and get a nice plea deal, or you'll find yourself in a soul splitter helping power the city."

    "I already help power the city," said Nick with a laugh.

    "Where'd you get the soul splitter?" asked Hugo.

    Before Nick could respond, the door opened and two men entered in black suits and sunglasses.

    "Is this Nicholas Akers? You'll be releasing him into our custody," one of them said. He handed Hugo the release paperwork and their badges: Agents Miller and Dobson from the Ministry of Energy.

    As they walked him out, Nick turned and said with a smile, "Told you I don't work for an illegal power station."