Mine Knight awoke with a jolt. He had no idea where he was. His eyes darted around behind the steel face guard sloppily welded to a dinged-up hardhat he called a helmet. The sun struggled to break through a mottled blue-gray overcast. The mouth of a rugged sandstone ravine further filtered the sparse sunlight down into a rat's nest of decrepit stone structures and desiccated shrubbery several hundred feet below the surface. The dim light that completed its pilgrimage into the depths shone deceptively bright against Mine Knight's fluorescent-green vest.

A smoky smell wafted its way to Mine Knight's face. Was something burning? He scrambled into a rough facsimile of a standing position and scanned his surroundings like a thief on the run. The extinguished remains of a campfire sat in a shallow pit, encircled by old bricks on a sandy floor of ancient cracked tiles in various tones of gray. The tiles probably formed some kind of pattern originally but it would be impossible to discern it now. He was in the ruins of... some kind of building. He didn't recognize any of it.

The ceiling had certainly seen better days. Several large holes gave a rather clear view of the rather unclear sky. Sandblasted walls of pockmarked beige brickwork surrounded him, forming a large hexagonal chamber with several archways serving as ways in or out. They seemed to lead into a greater labyrinth of similar-looking rooms. The would-be points of entry were blocked by a translucent blue force field. A spool of rope was coiled up near one of the force fields. These he did recognize. He must’ve been in some kind of maze. Great. He also recognized his adventuring pals Tackle Knight and Psych Knight, still very much asleep.

Tackle Knight was sprawled out with his back propped up against a wall. On his head was a round helmet with a sturdy-looking wireframe structure protecting his mouth and nose. His pauldrons and chestplate had the number 47 haphazardly painted on in white, a stark contrast against the dark red of his armor. Mine Knight was pretty sure he had asked what the numbers were for recently but the answer was escaping him.

Psych Knight was on his side, facing away from the others. He wore an ornate wooden mask and a blue robe with an accompanying wizard hat. Psych Knight wasn't actually a wizard but he had claimed his uncle was. At the very least he knew some magic, which was usually helpful. He was also snoring like a bullhorn.

Seeing as he wasn't in any immediate danger, Mine Knight snatched his backpack off the ground and rifled through his belongings. Everything that was supposed to be there was there, plus a tattered parchment map he hadn't seen before. He unfolded the thing expecting answers, but was only further stumped when he realized he had no clue where this was, what this was, and most importantly, why the hell he was there.

It was probably a treasure hunt. He had been doing a lot of those lately. Or this was an abduction and now they were all stuck in a death game. That didn’t happen nearly as often but if it happened twice it could happen again. He really hoped it wasn’t an escort quest. Those were the worst, and if it was one they had clearly failed since it was just the three of them in the room. Mine Knight needed a second opinion and he knew the fastest way to wake everyone up.

He stuck his arm through the force field.

In a split second it went from a pleasant clear blue to a furious bright red. Klaxon screeches ricocheted through the room like a small army of rabid chihuahuas made of sound.

Nigh-instantaneously Tackle Knight was on his feet, hands out ready to, well, tackle something. There wasn't just murder in his eyes, there was an entire massacre ready to be let out and later reported in several national newspapers as a front-page headline. That immediately faded when he saw it was just Mine Knight doing the usual wake-up routine.

Meanwhile Psych Knight pulled the brim of his hat over his ears, rolled over, and then aimlessly flailed his hand at a rolled-up piece of paper he had on the ground nearby. After a couple of misses he eventually hit it, causing the force field, and more importantly the abhorrent acoustics, to vanish along with the paper. He rolled back the other way again, and prepared to re-enter the border checkpoint to Dreamtopia. Right before he could declare things at customs, Mine Knight shook him awake.

"C'mon, man, I told you to only do that if there was an emergency," Tackle Knight grumbled.

"This is an emergency." Mine Knight pointed at his allies accusatively. "Do either of you know where we are?"

"Yeah, it's uh..." Tackle Knight looked around for a second with his hand on the back of his head. "Huh, that's weird. I can't remember."

"Me neither. Pretty sure it's some kinda magic thing." Psych Knight yawned and leafed through a small stack of paper scrolls. "It definitely feels like magic, but I probably set up a-" Psych Knight's voice trailed off as he stared dumbfounded at one of the scrolls. "Wait, no, this should've worked."

"Wait, why didn't what work?" Mine Knight tried to snoop over Psych Knight's shoulder but he was too busy panicking to think about letting anyone else get a look. Tackle Knight stood back from the affair, arms crossed.

"This doesn't make any sense-" Suddenly the scroll vanished from Psych Knight's hands. Now Mine Knight had it. "Hey, give that back!"

Mine Knight procured a pair of reading glasses seemingly from the ether and began examining the scroll. Tackle Knight's pocket suddenly felt just a bit lighter. He gave Mine Knight a look that most people would understand as meaning "really?" Mine Knight definitely understood what that look meant but his eyes were preoccupied with using the glasses to read.

"What is this, Psychic magic resistance? Looks like it's still active."

Psych Knight tore the scroll out of Mine Knight's hands. "Yes, and something's wrong because it didn't stop us from losing our memories."

Tackle Knight cleared his throat. He also plucked his reading glasses off of Mine Knight's visor and put them back in his pocket. "So… the scroll's a dud?"

"It's definitely not a dud."

"How can you tell?"

“Watch this.”

Psych Knight waved a hand in front of Mine Knight’s face. “You’re feeling very tired.”

“Not this time.”

“See? So either it’s super strong Psychic magic or it’s Data magic. I really hope it isn’t Data but there’s a way I can test for it.”

Psych Knight tore up the resistance scroll.

“Making someone forget with Psychic magic is like putting up a mental block around something. I can remove that block. Forgetting something with Data magic takes the information out of your brain. Nothing I can do about that.”

Psych Knight grabbed a stick of charcoal from a small side pouch in his backpack and started drawing a magic circle on a nearby wall. From a larger compartment he produced several strange looking gemstones that glistened with an otherworldly shade of pink. They began glowing as Psych Knight put his hand up to the circle. Suddenly, the gems were gone and the charcoal circle collapsed into dust on the floor.

Everyone stood in awkward silence for a moment. It didn’t work.

Tackle Knight cleared the dead air. “We should leave. We aren’t prepared for whatever magic this place is throwing at us.” He pointed at Mine Knight. “You have a rope trail set up, right?”

Mine Knight hesitated. “Yeah, but… if there’s treasure here it’s gotta be insane if the security is this good!”

“Sure, let’s keep going. Keep forgetting where we are every morning. Keep using up our supplies stuck in…” Tackle Knight took a good look at his surroundings, namely the terrain towering over him,”a giant hole in the middle of the desert. Sounds like a great time.”

“If we’re in the desert that’s at least a week’s travel from Oldhaven. If we can’t remember that we’ll only forget more if we stick around.” Psych Knight picked up the rope. “Maybe the hypothetical treasure could pay off our loan but, y’know, we could also die here.” He stepped out of the room, following the trail they had probably left previously. “You’re more than welcome to stay but I’m getting out of here.”

Tackle Knight followed after him. Mine Knight looked out into the labyrinth of rooms that led deeper into the ruin, performed a brief cost-benefit analysis of his situation, and begrudgingly joined his friends on the way out, grumbling.

“The Debtomancer is gonna kill us.”

The trio trudged along for a good few minutes. Tackle Knight stopped dead in his tracks.

“Something’s watching us.”

Everyone stood silent for a second. A faint scuttling sound echoed through the maze like a bloodthirsty whisper.

Mine Knight brandished a land mine, ready to throw it like a discus.

Tackle Knight shotgunned a dark blue potion and watched the entrances behind the group.

Psych Knight yanked a scroll out of his bag. It floated up into the air and let out a pulse of energy before crumbling to dust.

“I’m not seeing any other living things.”

Hesitant, Psych Knight crept forward, separating himself from the group ever so slightly.

Tackle Knight whipped around to face Psych Knight but by that point it was too late. A dark writhing blur pounced on Psych Knight like a bolt of lightning hopped up on 30 gallons of coffee, sending him sideways into another room.

A small land mine whizzed through the air, ricocheted off a wall, and detonated a few feet away from where Psych Knight had landed. An explosion was heard followed by the sound of whirring gears and the same scuttling sound from before.

The other Knights rushed in to check on Psych Knight. He was on the ground, slightly scuffed up but still alright. A mechanical bug leg was smoldering on the ground nearby.

Tackle Knight helped up Psych Knight while Mine Knight grabbed the severed leg. “...what just happened? Last thing I remember we decided to leave the room.”

Mine Knight presented the leg to the others. “We were leaving, but you got attacked by whatever this was. Looks like it wiped some of your memory too.”

Psych Knight’s eyes widened. “It probably took our memories while we were sleeping.”

Tackle Knight was visibly confused, like a child given an abacus and a pile of tax returns without any instructions. “Why didn’t it trip the force field?”

“It only works on living things. Same with most of my other magic. That must have been a construct.”

“It’s over there!” Mine Knight threw another explosive down the hall at the limping machine.

“Don’t break it! We might be able to get our memories back from it!”

“Trust me, I won’t.”

The flying mine missed the automaton. Instead it detonated in front of it, sending it flying back towards the trio like a giant drunken spider launched from a trebuchet.

It landed on the ground with a THUNK. The machine resembled a massive tick made of wood and metal. Instead of a proboscis it had an odd trumpet-shaped device. Its abdomen was full of ethereal shimmering wisps of… something that floated around in a transparent vessel.

Mine Knight turned to Psych Knight with a smirk. “See? Not broken.”

Its cold, lifeless eyes glared at the party with calculating animosity. Before it could even think about taking a step forward, Tackle Knight did like his namesake and pinned the machine to the ground with ultraviolent fervor. He took one good look at its face and buried it in the sand with a cathartic crunch. Its limbs continued flailing aimlessly under Tackle Knight, proving it still functioned, somewhat.

Mine Knight creeped closer to the writhing machinery. Psych Knight trailed close behind, keeping his distance from the automaton.

“You think you could steal our memories back from that thing?”

“I dunno, I’ve never tried taking something like that before. I guess I can try taking mine first.”

He reached his hand towards the mechanical tick. One of the wisps was gone from the glass chamber. It floated up from Mine Knight’s hand into his head. For a moment he smiled. Then a slightly concerned look took over.

“You, uh, sure I should do this for your guys’ memories? It might not work.”

Tackle Knight grunted, “Just do it! I’m getting tired of holding this thing down.”

Mine Knight sighed and two more of the wisps vanished from the machine. They meandered their way through the air into the respective heads of the Knights who had been lacking them.

“Mine Knight, you motherfucker! I told you we should’ve packed Data magic protection! We’re in The Memoryhole Monastery! What did you think it would’ve used?”

“Hey, I thought Psychic would’ve been good enough! Who the hell uses Data magic anyways? Accountants?”

Tackle Knight got up from the automaton and promptly curbstomped it into the ground like it owed him lots of money and had just gravely insulted his mother.

“First off, no, that would be Economic magic, and second, lots of places do! Don’t you remember The Tomb of Encyclos The Definer? Or The Temple of Thesaurion?”

“Yeah well I didn’t want to spend the extra money on the stuff. You already had plenty of Psychic magic thingies. And those were stupid dungeons. We could’ve gotten some crazy treasure from this place! My sources said so!”

“Your ‘sources’ were a bunch of unreliable anecdotes and rumors. I can’t believe we listened to you.”

Tackle Knight stepped between the two bickering idiots. "Okay, shut up the both of you. Let’s just get the hell outta here and get back to civilization."

“Fine, but Mine Knight is paying for the ferry back to Oldhaven. And I’m picking the next dungeon.”

“Fine! But if you pick another lame one I’m gonna steal your… eyesight or something.”

“Is that a threat? My uncle knows the Prosecutomancer!”

“Sure, and my uncle works for King Moe Narch.”

Tackle Knight groaned and put his hand up to his brow. This went on for the entire way out of the ruin.

Three days. Three days without water to die from dehydration. Three days until the dust storm would settle down. Three days until rescue. Three days until Doctor Adrian Ajax, or perhaps what was left of him, would be found by another living soul. Three horrid days until this Schroedinger’s Box would be opened. For three days Doctor Ajax would have to stay holed up in his tent, a tent that seemed to have only a few days left in it. A large gash in the tent’s side had been haphazardly patched up with several strips of duct tape and the adhesive was slowly giving out. His cell phone had just enough charge left in it for him to make an emergency call for rescue. The last of his water was stuck in his car, some unknowable distance from his tent. Venturing out into the dust storm would surely spell certain death. Trapped in a polyester prison, Doctor Adrian Ajax had no choice but to wait.

Doctor Ajax was a professor of anthropology at The University of Arizona. Several months prior he heard of an abandoned colonial settlement rumored to exist deep within the Sonoran Desert. Doctor Ajax had always longed for a discovery to claim for himself, something that would forever leave his mark on history. The man was no stranger to strange rabbit holes. He was known throughout the department to spend months on end holed up in his house looking into lost cities and undiscovered ruins spawned from even the most scant hearsay. It had become a sort of tradition for the freshmen to come up with a new rumor at the end of the year so he would grade their final assignments more leniently. For about a week after the end of the spring semester, Doctor Ajax was hard at work cross-referencing old regional maps and satellite photos. Finally, he pinpointed the town’s most likely location and began preparing for his voyage out into the sandy wastes.

Naturally, he was unable to secure funds for a proper investigation into the alleged ghost town so he had to make the trek on his own. The forecast had called for clear weather the whole week. He piled his things into his sedan, made sure to top off his tank, punched the abandoned settlement's coordinates into his phone, and ventured forth down a barren highway. Before he knew it, he was only a few miles away from the town. He made a sharp turn off the pavement and into the sand. He had gone driving off-road a couple times before, but never this far out. Fueled by curiosity and hubris, he kept going further and further into the dusty nothingness.

Just a hundred feet from the town's supposed location, his car got stuck in the sand. In a panic Doctor Ajax floored the accelerator, which only served to dig his tires deeper into the ground. As he got out of his car to try and dig his wheels out manually, he spotted something on the horizon. Something unmistakably man-made. He hurriedly grabbed some supplies from his car, accidentally tearing a hole in his tent as he gathered things together, and went the rest of the journey on foot.

At last he stumbled upon the sandblasted structure: A large archway meticulously carved from an exotic wood. Much of the detail and nearly all of the paint had been weathered away over the centuries. The ruins of a town lay before it. Every building was maybe a facade at best at this point, save a single two story house still standing along the outskirts. Old maps claimed there used to be a river that passed by the town, which had since dried up. The remains of a well sat in a crumpled pile of sandstone bricks in the center of town. Scrubs had taken up residence around it, garnishing the mostly beige structure with a little greenery. A lone scorpion stood as a stalwart sentinel, watching the strange man approach the well from a crevice in the ruin. Doctor Ajax looked around in awe, recording everything he could with his phone. He snapped out of his trance, realizing he was going to be there for a while, and started setting up camp.

It was then that he realized there was a hole cut into the tent. He hastily patched it up with some duct tape, made sure the tent was secure, and returned to investigating the until recently lost ghost town. Doctor Ajax made sure to capture everything he was seeing with his phone. He had had this phone for nearly half a decade at this point, so the battery wasn’t nearly what it used to be. In his excitement he completely forgot about this.

Doctor Ajax walked around the town surveying the remains of various buildings for nearly two hours, trying to piece together why this town was built here and who might have lived in it. Eventually he made his way to the only standing house. The windows had long since been destroyed and the door sat ajar on oxidized hinges. He carefully creaked the door open further, unveiling a distinct lack of life within. Doctor Ajax crept into the house, leaving footsteps in the sand that had poured into the house over the years. Sunlight beamed in through windowless frames which all seemed to converge on an ornate wooden box half-buried in a pile of sand in the middle of the room. The rest of the room was barren wood with similar mounds of sand and other debris scattered throughout. There used to be stairs to the second story; now they were but just a few planks precariously perched upon the wall.

As he scanned the room he couldn’t help but fixate his attention on the box in the center of the room. He approached it, making sure to capture its every angle as it sat submerged in the sand. Doctor Ajax gingerly removed the box from its place of rest. Grains of sand twinkled in the sunlight as they fell from its sides. He set the box down carefully on a clear patch of floor, unlatched a small metal hook, and flipped the lid open. Inside was a watch resting on a red velvet pillow. The opulent object sat there in stark contrast to its environment. The metal had a perfectly polished finish as if it had just been cleaned. The black obsidian watch face sat behind a round piece of sapphire glass, with its white ivory hands stuck at midnight. Several additional dials decorated it, each one a different timer. Out of its right side protruded a set of knobs and buttons. The band was made of a similarly shiny metal that ended with a clasp on the opposite side. Beyond these details, the watch was entirely devoid of any hints of its origin.

While ogling the curious chronograph, Doctor Ajax could hear the wind begin to howl outside. Not soon after he began to get pelted by grains of sand flying through the window frames of the house. If there were windows in this house he may have decided to stay in it. But then again, he didn’t have any water in there. Doctor Ajax put the watch back in its box and took it with him back to his tent, covering his nose and mouth with his shirt to avoid inhaling the airborne earth that whizzed by. Visibility was getting worse by the second as Doctor Ajax approached his tent. The forecast didn’t call for any major dust storms, so he figured it might just be a small one going by. It’d be a good thing if it were short too, as he was parched and had only brought a single bottle of water with him. The rest was in his car. It was at this moment Doctor Adrian Ajax realized he had no idea where his car was relative to his tent.

This wasn’t the first time Doctor Ajax had been stranded in the desert. He had a satellite plan on his phone and the local rescue team knew him from his previous offroading escapades. As he looked down at his phone, he realized he hadn’t stopped recording video on it and the battery was teetering on the brink of emptiness. He hastily dialed the rescue team and informed them of his situation. He figured the dust storm would settle down in a few minutes and he’d be out of there soon enough. Doctor Ajax arrogantly drank the last of his water while waiting for the operator’s response. He was told the sudden dust storm looked like it wouldn’t be calming down for at least three days. Doctor Ajax spat out the last of his water in shock.

Three days. That’s how long he would have to wait. The gusting sands perpetually pelted his shelter in rhythmic waves and showed no signs of ceasing. To pass the time Doctor Ajax was fiddling around with the strange watch he had found. It was an automatic watch. He twisted the main knob, winding it up. The hands immediately began ticking. Not soon after he figured out how to get the timer to work and set it to three days and put it on his wrist. At least now he could see how long it would take until he would be rescued. It was starting to get dark and Doctor Ajax was quickly growing tired. As he drifted off to sleep he almost thought he heard the sandstorm begin to subside.

When he woke up the next morning, Doctor Ajax was in the hospital. After a brief conversation with a doctor, he was let out. Apparently the dust storm had settled down for a few hours after nightfall, letting the rescue team pick him up via helicopter. Somehow he had slept through the entire ordeal. He looked down at his watch. A little under 60 hours remained on the watch timer. As he walked home and grabbed the spare key from under the welcome mat, he started to feel thirsty. It was a rather hot day out. Nothing abnormal about that. He went inside and had a nice glass of water.

Somehow he still felt dehydrated. Maybe it’d just take a bit for the water to get into his system. As he sat down and had another glass of water, he could feel a sinking feeling begin to form a pit in his stomach. As if by instinct, Doctor Ajax tried winding the timer of the watch up more. Maybe just a minute. The moment he stopped touching the dial he immediately felt better. Doctor Ajax took the watch off and set it down on the table.

Doctor Ajax was not a superstitious man, but something felt wrong with this watch. It was made a long time ago so perhaps it was just made of something we would know is dangerous now. If that was the case, he shouldn’t just have it sitting around in his house in the open. Besides, it was a historical artifact. It was a miracle that it was still in such good condition, let alone working. Maybe it’d be better if he sent it to the University’s archaeology department.

After a few phone calls someone came by to take the watch off Doctor Ajax’s hands. Out of sight, out of mind, right? He went back to checking his email for a few minutes until he started to get thirsty again. Dry day today, huh? Except this time the parched feeling never subsided. It grew stronger by the second. It felt like a tumor spreading through his body. Doctor Ajax figured it must be all in his head. He looked down at his hands and watched his skin slowly shriveling and flaking. Disregarding the obvious sign that things were not all in his head, Doctor Ajax decided to take a shower. A cold shower to hopefully snap him out of whatever desert madness he might’ve caught while stranded in his tent.

He could feel the cold for sure, but not the water. It felt like the moisture was actively being repelled from his skin. It was a strange feeling, like putting your hands in the water while wearing rubber gloves. Except this was over his entire body. Even his hair couldn’t hold water and stayed perfectly dry as he hopelessly scrubbed at it, only dislodging some sand from his scalp. Doctor Ajax got out of the shower, with no need to dry himself off, and decided he needed a drink. A strong drink.

Doctor Ajax rummaged through his fridge, the cold humid air feeling like a desert night against his cracking skin, and pulled a six pack of beers out from the back. He cracked one open. And then another. And another. Before he knew it he had downed the entire pack. Doctor Ajax didn’t feel thirsty anymore, but he also didn’t feel much of anything at this point. He fumbled his way over to the couch, aimlessly flicking through things on his cell phone. In a drunken stupor he felt his phone fly out of his hand and crash into the stone mantle of his fireplace. The screen shattered as it fell down onto more hard stone, causing the entire thing to break into pieces. The phone’s SD card, the only thing proving he had actually found a ghost town, was snapped clean in half and fell into a pile of old ashes within the fireplace. Doctor Ajax watched this happen in slow motion as he dropped out of consciousness and collapsed onto the couch.

Hours later in the middle of the night Doctor Ajax bolted awake with a searing headache. He couldn’t tell if it was from a hangover or from dehydration. Regardless, something had finally clicked in his head. It was the watch. The watch did this. He needed to wind the timer back up. It worked when he had that water earlier and then wound it. If it worked once it should surely work a second time. But how would he get it? He looked at the clock. It was just around 3 AM. Every building on campus would be closed by this point. Besides, he wouldn’t even know where to look for the thing. Even if he could find it, would he even be allowed to touch it again? Or try to wind it up again? Messing with historical artifacts is generally frowned upon in this line of work. To top it all off, who would even believe him? It was ridiculous. Impossible. Absolutely outrageous that a watch could inflict such a condition on a man firstly, and secondly that winding a single timer on it would restore him to normal. It didn’t help that his car was still stuck somewhere out in the desert.

Doctor Ajax’s head was spinning. His whole body was spinning. He twisted around like a maniac trying to figure out what to do. All the while his movements became more and more erratic as he could feel moisture vanishing from his musculature. In a last-ditch effort he grabbed his rarely-used landline and tried calling one of his colleagues in the archaeology department. It went straight to voicemail. After the tone Doctor Ajax could barely muster several raspy wheezes before collapsing onto the floor. The receiver dangled down from the table like a hangman in a windstorm. In his last moments of consciousness all Doctor Adrian Ajax could hear was the mild monotone buzz of an empty phone line.

The next day his colleague saw a rather lengthy voicemail left by Doctor Ajax’s landline of all things. A seemingly empty voicemail. It droned on for a moment before he could hear a loud thud followed by even more silence. He immediately called the police. Half an hour later the door to Doctor Adrian Ajax’s house was busted down by law enforcement. The desiccated remains of the late Doctor were discovered unceremoniously discarded on the floor. Coroners ruled it death by dehydration. This stumped the coroners who figured it should have taken three entire days without water to cause this kind of condition they clearly saw before them.

Doctor Ajax’s car was eventually returned, but nobody ever found the ghost town he had supposedly discovered the watch in. All the buildings had been destroyed in the dust storm that would have buried Doctor Ajax had he stayed there. The watch was eventually lost among all the other trinkets often brought into the archaeology department. Doctor Adrian Ajax himself would never be known for any kind of historical discovery, but he would be forever remembered as a strange medical case study. A morbid fun fact.

“...so you’re saying no country has legal claim of anything in space?” Abe asked.

“Yeah, that’s right. Space Treaty I think.” said Huey. He had just read about it the other day.

“What’s stopping us from taking over the Moon, then?”

“Well for starters we don’t have a space ship.”

“I think I know someone who does.” Abe replied with mischievous grin growing on his gray face.

“I don’t like it when you make that face.”

The two were seated in the cafeteria of Area 51. It was well-past dinner time and the place was empty outside of the duo. Huey was the resident chef and was wearing his usual chef’s uniform, a white button down, black slacks, and a dirty apron. He had worked his way through government cafeterias across the country, each one in a more secretive place than the last. His cooking became the stuff of legend among intelligence agents. Huey was able to whip up some pretty tasty stuff all on a government cafeteria budget.

Huey wasn’t sure if aliens were real or not, but wasn’t really phased by seeing them in person. Years of watching sci-fi movies with his brother had desensitized him to the very idea. He made quick friends with Abe, one of the Grays on the site. Abe sat across from Huey in a garish Hawaiian button-down, cargo shorts, and socks with sandals. Abe spent a lot of his time wandering the tidy halls watching dried paint dry even further. Needless to say, he was bored. In his boredom he often found himself concocting outlandish pranks or other stunts that would usually get him in trouble with the agents.

Huey found Abe’s antics amusing, and tried to help him from time to time, all while trying to be discrete about it. Of course, it’s hard for an amateur to be discrete among some of the best intelligence agents in the world. Luckily for him, they usually let Huey slide so long as he kept making good food.

In their last escapade, Abe and Huey took a flying saucer out for a joyride. Abe promptly had his hangar access revoked. Huey had no idea what Abe wanted to do with the moon, but he did notice him watching a lot of TV lately. The site installed cable in the alien dormitories after the complaint department finally got tired of swimming laps in their mountain of complaint forms.

The site was initially trying to give the aliens a “proper education,” limiting them to books and the ancient computers in the library that were still on dialup. The dialup didn’t even work. Someone let a dozen Betelgeusean Cable Chewers loose in the library 50 years ago and nobody bothered to fix anything. That lack of fixing was mostly because Betelgeusean Cable Chewers are aggressive territorial creatures that can spit highly-corrosive acid at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. They also live for 200 years on average, have nigh-bulletproof skin, and are immune to every known poison on this side of the galaxy. So really the aliens only had some books and a Betelgeusean Cable Chewer sanctuary. The TVs were a welcome change.

Huey closed up the cafeteria for the day and followed Abe down the hall to who knows where. All the while Abe kept humming various commercial jingles.

“You sure like those ad jingles, huh?” Huey asked to hopefully stop the accursed humming.

“Oh yeah, they’re nothing like the ads we’ve got back home. You Earthlings really know how to sell stuff.”

“You see anything interesting?”

“That game thingy looks really cool but it’s way out of the allowance this stinkin’ place gives me,” Abe said, punching a tacky framed poster from the 70s. “Plus I don’t even have a phone to make an order.” The poster swung back and forth a little, ending up slightly tilted. A robotic arm quickly burst out of the wall to re-align it.

“I hate those things. They give me the creeps.”

Huey eventually found himself in the alien dormitories. The walls were lined with doors marked with strange glyphs. Those glyphs were English letters and words. To fresh-off-the-space-ship aliens they’re pretty strange, but you get used to them. Abe stopped in front of a door and knocked.

“Carl, open up! It’s Abe!”

An annoyed groaning sound bellowed from the door.

“Ugh, just as I was bouta get some shut-eye.”

The door swung open, revealing a tired-looking Sasquatch in polka-dotted pajamas. Yes, Sasquatches are from space. They were some of the first aliens to land on Earth and spook people for shits and giggles. But the biggest joke was on them after they brought chicken pox back to their planet. Take that, stupid aliens. That’ll teach you for scaring me at camp and stealing my DS.

“Eyyy, Abe, what’s going on man? And Huey, nice job on that lasagna!”

“Not much, not much,” Abe replied, “You know about the Space Treaty?”

“The what now?”

Abe and Huey explained the space treaty and something about taking over the Moon.

“Hohoho, so whadaya thinkin’ of doin’ with the Moon, little man?”

Abe whispered something to Carl in a language Huey barely understood. It was Spanish. From what little he remembered from high school, Huey heard something about a projector and money. The two shared a laugh.

“You got it, buddy. Meet me by the hangar entrance tomorrow at two. I gotta get back to that sleepin’ thing I was tryin’ to do.”

Carl promptly closed the door and presumably went to sleep. Abe and Huey headed back out of the dormitories.

“So what was that about a projector?” Huey inquired.

“Oh, we need to put something on the Moon. It’s gonna be good.”

“Uh huh…”

The two continued down the halls talking about some other things before they reached Abe’s room.

“Alright, you heard the ‘Squatch. Hangar door at two. See ya tomorrow, Huey!”

“Wait, I don’t even know what we’re do-” Huey was cut off by Abe shutting the door excitedly.

The next day was like any normal Tuesday at Area 51. Huey made food and talked to some agents and aliens during down time. All the while his brain was a mix of dread and excitement. Before he knew it, it was nearing two. Lunch was well over now, so Huey started making his way to the hangar entrance.

By the door stood Carl and Abe. Both were wearing their space suits. On the floor were a couple of large cardboard boxes with some wires peaking out of one of them.

“Seriously, what are we about to do? I’ve been in the dark about this the whole time.”

“Put yer space suit on first,” Carl said, throwing him one.

“Okay…”

After a brief visit to the changing rooms, Huey returned to find Carl opening the door to the hangar using his key card. Carl hadn’t been on the aforementioned joyride so he hadn’t gotten his privileges revoked. Huey assumed whatever this ended up being would.

“They got your uniformed bugged, y’know.” Abe said as they piled into the same flying saucer they took the joyride in.

“Don’t they have everything here bugged?” Huey retorted.

“Not this puppy,” Carl replied, patting the dashboard.

“So are you gonna tell me what we’re doing now?”

“At this point I wanna keep it a surprise,” Abe said with that same mischievous grin.

“Fine.”

Carl and Abe hit some buttons and flicked some switches. The dashboard lit up with colors. Some of which humans can’t even perceive. Before long they taxied their way to the runway and got clearance to take off. Of course, they needed to turn on the saucer’s cloaking before they got out of Area 51’s airspace. Soon enough they were up in the vacuum of space, steadily approaching the Moon.

The saucer touched down on the lunar surface, kicking up a little dust. The saucer still had to be kept invisible in case there were any nosy telescopes back on Earth.

“Alright, grab the boxes.”

“What’s in these things?”

“Nothin’ much. Some solar panels, a computer, a whole buncha wires, and a big ‘ol projector.”

Setting everything up was pretty easy. The projector was plugged into a computer, and the computer into the solar panel. The once-monochrome surface of the Moon lit up with vibrant colors.

“So… what’s this?”

“We gotta be a little further down to see it.”

The trio went back into the saucer and took off. As they got further from the Moon, Huey realized just what they had done. In massive, colorful letters, the Moon had “YOUR AD HERE” plastered on it followed by a familiar phone number.

“Hey wait a minute, that’s my number!” Huey exclaimed.

This was the final story I wrote for the course, which didn't have a prompt. It was fun writing it. The tangent about the cable chewers was pretty obviously inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"Do you know how much you cost the city with your wanton destruction?"

"How long have you been training birds?"

"How the hell did you teach pelicans to pick up beehives without being stung?"

"And you're absolutely sure you didn't know the cashier wasn't deathly allergic to bees?"

"You do know 'supervillain' doesn't count as a real job, right?"

"Did you really just call your birds your henchmen?"

"What, is your lawyer a parrot or something?"

"Really? How could a bird possibly defend you in court?"

"Are you trying to deny the various CCTV and phone recordings of the incident you caused?"

"Was it all really worth the trouble just for a single candy bar?"

"...and not even a full-sized one?"

The prompt for this one was "Create a story of a detective interviewing a suspect but only by using the questions the detective would ask. Come up with a list of at least ten questions that "tell the story" of where this story takes place, who this suspect is, what this suspect may have done, and what is the evidence that supports that this suspect committed this crime. Remember you can only use the detective's questions to do this." I was definitely thinking about Venture Bros. while writing this one.

“BREAKING: VOYAGER PROBE GOLDEN DISK STOLEN AND UP FOR BID”

“’THE SOUNDS OF EARTH’ RETURNS TO EARTH, NOW FOR SALE”

“VOYAGER DISK VOYA-GONE”

The headlines flashed by as I mindless flicked through stations in my dimly lit room. The TV was the only source of light. It cast a dead blue-gray light on my face as I looked on with a similarly dead gaze. I couldn’t believe it. The golden disk on the Voyager 1 probe, millions of miles out into space, had been stolen. The worst part was, I think I did it.

…or at least helped. Finding a job as a fresh out of college with a bachelor’s in astrophysics was way harder than I thought it would be. The only gig I could find was this bounty on some calculations to be paid in bitcoin. I assumed it was all hypothetical stuff for some kind of science fiction project. What they wanted to do seemed impossible. They wanted to send a small ship with several people from Earth to just outside the solar system, rendezvous with Voyager 1, and then make it back all in the span of a few days.

The fact they were paying in bitcoin should’ve been the biggest red flag. Honest businesses sure as hell don’t pay you in crypto. You do that if you want to be untraceable. You do that if you want to stay away from the law. Criminals pay in crypto. I’m not a criminal. At least I wasn’t until they actually stole the damn disk and damned me for unwittingly colluding with them. But I didn’t question it. I needed that money. My college loans weren’t going to pay themselves. Neither was my food, my rent, my car… You get the picture.

So there I was, working away at the problems like a machine. There were a lot of things to solve. There was also a lot of money on the line, to be paid in full only upon completing everything. There was also a very strict non-disclosure agreement. I couldn’t tell anyone about this job, what kind of work it involved, or even that there was an NDA involved. For three days I locked myself away from the rest of the world. I could have asked for help on things, but like I said, I needed the money. I ignored calls, messages, knocks on my door, and even the one knock on my window. My parents were obviously worried sick.

“Why weren’t you answering any of our calls? We thought you might’ve gotten sick …or worse!” My mother exclaimed over the phone.

“I’m alright, ma,” I calmly replied, “I was really busy with a small job.”

“What kind of job doesn’t even let you call your own mother?!”

“...I can’t tell you. Like I legally am not allowed to say.”

“Oh, did you finally get that gig with NASA?”

“Not exactly.”

“You can tell me who you worked for. I’m your mother for crying out loud!”

“I honestly don’t know who it was for. They really wanted it to stay hush-hush.”

“Did they at least pay you well?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. Weird thing was that they paid in bitcoin.”

“Bitcoin?”

“...yeah.” In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have said that.

“You better not be selling drugs!”

“I’m not, ma! I’m not!”

“What good was getting that degree if you can’t even put it to use!”

“I was using it ma!”

“Doing what?!”

“Like I said, ma, I can’t say!” At this point I was pleading to a brick wall. A very, very angry brick wall.

“What kind of work were you doing that’s so important that you can’t tell your family about it!?” I decided it might’ve been good to break the NDA just a little bit.

“Fine. It was some kind of bounty on a bunch of astrophysics calculations.”

“Oh, so you were teaching terrorists the right way to launch missiles?”

“What? No! It looked like some kinda sci-fi stuff. They were for some things that’re impossible to do.”

“Oh, so for something like a movie?”

“I don’t really know. But I really shouldn’t be saying anything further.” That seemed to explain things well enough for her.

“Alright, if you say so.” The conversation then went on to some more personal, and very much more unrelated, matters.

Finally, I settled on the auction channel. That’s where they were selling the funny gold circle. The disk sat in a plain, clear glass box on a foam cushion. It was slowly rotating on a plastic circle on top of a wooden podium surrounded by cameras of all shapes and sizes. Everyone wanted to get a picture of the disk. The crowd was enormous. The auction hall wasn’t built for this capacity. Bidders, reporters, and spectators spilled out of the room into the hallway were all staring at the disk, mesmerized. I watched on in horror as the fruits of my labor unveiled this desecration of the human legacy in space.

The final bid was 50 million dollars. It went to some oil mogul who’ll probably keep it locked up in his house over his fireplace or use it as a very expensive coaster. That’s what I thought anyways, before his mansion got raided by the FBI and the disk was recovered. Seems like they didn’t want to make a big scene in the auction hall. Shortly after the disk was back in the government’s hands, it was analyzed and proven to be the real deal. The search was on for the perpetrators.

A very solemn looking man addressed the situation to the people. He was apparently from the FBI. Even they didn’t have a clue who took the disk, but they were looking. With every syllable he said, dread shot through my veins.

“What if they found me?”

“What would they do with me?”

“Would I be charged for the theft if they couldn’t find anyone else?”

“Was this all a setup?”

“Am I the fall guy here?”

Just then, there was a knock on the door. A very strong knock. Followed by a

“FBI, open up!”

The door then exploded open as troops stormed my apartment. As I was being dragged up from my couch, I watched as they tore through my things, ripped the hard drive from my computer, and crammed all my work and notes into plastic bags. I decided to stay silent the whole time. I didn’t want to say or do anything that could make this situation any worse than it already was. I was cuffed and thrown into the back of an armored van. I was the only one in there. Maybe I was the scapegoat after all…

“...and that’s how I ended up here.”

“And that’s all you know, and all you had to do with the operation?” Asked a very stern looking man in a plain suit. He was wearing dark, reflective sunglasses inside. Inside a very dimly lit room made of brick and one-way glass.

“Yeah, that’s everything. I swear I had no idea what they were gonna do, or if it was even possible!”

“You really don’t know who you were working for?”

“None. Honest.”

“Hmm…” The man got up and turned around. He pressed something near his ear and murmured something to, seemingly, himself.

“I have word that you’re free to go for now. We’re going to keep your hard drive for further investigation, but you’ll get it back soon.”

“Okay.”

“Also, since this is part of an active investigation, you can’t tell anyone about this.”

As I left the interrogation room, I was blindfolded, and driven back to my apartment. The driver handed me my phone. There were 10 missed calls from my mother. Maybe being blamed for stealing the disk was a better fate.

This one also didn't have a prompt. I'm not too fond of this one. I rushed it out and it was also my first attempt at writing from this perspective. I learned shortly after writing this that Bitcoin is actually pretty easy to trace since all of its transactions are public records. I've had the idea of doing some kind of story involving stealing the Voyager disk for some time.

They say in space, nobody can hear you scream. Unfortunately, ghosts are not bound by the laws of physics and can make sound anywhere. Gary Elwood thinks he may be seeing, and more annoyingly, hearing ghosts. Gary’s job is usually rather peaceful. He carries cargo in his freighter ship throughout the galaxy between space stations. In the unkempt cockpit of the vehicle, Gary sits, gritting his teeth as he whizzes through the star-spangled void. Voices, or what sound like they could maybe be voices, and visions, echo through the claustrophobic vessel.

In the distance, a star comes into view. Its brilliant blue hue illuminates the cockpit. Foil food wrappers on the floor shimmer and gleam in its light. Gary gets ever closer to the star, and something begins eclipsing its light on his ship. A pristine space clinic floats serenely ahead. The star gives it an angelic glow. The clinic hadn’t responded to any of his calls, but it was clearly still operational. The shiny bay doors to the dock gracefully opened and let him into the station. They promptly shut behind him.

Something was off. Everything was clean. Too clean. As if no living thing had stepped foot in this facility in decades. The walls were a clinical gray. The floor a slightly darker tone. As his ship touched down, a legion of cleaner bots scurried out from a small structure and began scrubbing away at every nook and cranny on the freighter. Gary stepped out onto the spotless floor and approached the door to the lobby. With each step he took, the cleaner bots would swarm to his dirty footprints, wiping away any trace that he’d been there.

The voices got louder and the visions more vivid as he got closer to the door. It slid open. At the front desk sat a distinct lack of a receptionist. Or even a receptionist droid. Like in the dock, everything was cleaned with weapons-grade precision. The room was barren aside from the receptionist’s desk, a few benches to wait, and a vending machine. That should do. And it did. Inside was one last bottle of Ghost-B-Gone. Gary fumbled in his pocket for spare change and procured just enough to get the bottle. The voices grew ever louder. Gary fumbled even more, and dropped a quarter on the floor. The coin’s collision rang throughout the empty halls of the station, followed by the many wheels of many, many cleaner bots ready to vacuum up the loose change on the floor.

The prompt for this one was "Not realizing that the facility has been closed for almost thirty years, a man who has started to see ghosts goes to check himself into a mental institution." Friends have told me the "ghost-b-gone" bit messes with the tone, which I agree with. I really like the idea of an abandoned space station that's in perfect working order because of robots and whatnot.

Tony Trilton, the world’s first trillionaire, is dead. Tony didn’t exactly get along with his family. His hobbies alienated his parents and drove his wife to a divorce. She took the kids and half of his then-millions. In his last will and testament, he left everything he possessed to his pet gorilla, Barnaby. After learning that some gorillas were trained to speak in sign language, Tony became obsessed with animal intelligence and spent every waking moment of his free time trying to teach animals to talk. Barnaby was his only true success. The octopus ran away before it learned proper grammar and the birds were more interested in making music. They ended up leaving Tony and his scientists to form a birdband and signed on to a very lucrative record deal.

Barnaby was smarter than the average gorilla, or so Tony thought. Really all Barnaby did with his newfound linguistic skills and luxuries of the 0.00000001% was sit around, ask for food, and make gorilla noises at people online in video games. Things changed when Barnaby discovered YouTube. Suddenly, everyone wanted to watch the funny gorilla play video games and scream in sign language. Just as suddenly, Barnaby started getting sponsorship deals left and right. Tony had to step in and do all the negotiating. The first company was offering crates of fruit instead of money and Barnaby was about to agree to that. With Barnaby’s gorilla charm and Tony’s business-savvy brain, Tony was able to grow from a millionaire into a trillionaire. But Tony isn’t alive anymore. Now Barnaby has all the money. And the pool. And the mansion. And the yacht. And the jet. And the private island retreat.

Naturally, the news swarmed to this story like flies to rotting carrion. ‘The Gorillionaire,’ they called him. News trucks flooded the Trilton estate to get an interview. Anchors knocked on the door with the force of a thousand angry drummers. Barnaby was woken up by that sound. Sunlight beamed into the lavish master bedroom as he rolled out of his king sized bed with banana-patterned blankets. He brushed his teeth and threw on a gold-trimmed bath robe. The knocking continued.

“The milkman must be in a hurry today,” thought Barnaby as he made his way down the grand staircase to the Persian rug before the massive mahogany doors. Meanwhile, the milkman couldn’t even get into the driveway.

It had been a few weeks since Tony passed away. At this point Barnaby was used to doing things by himself, but still missed the guy. Nobody knew how Tony kicked the bucket. There were rumors that Barnaby had something to do with it to get at the fortune for himself, but that was impossible. Tony was off in Bermuda. Barnaby was at home eating oranges and playing video games. Barnaby picked up the empty bottles by the door and opened it, ready to greet the milkman. Instead he was met with an onslaught of questions and cameras.

“Mr. Barnaby, what do you plan to do with the Trilton fortune?”

“Mr. Barnaby, what do you think of people calling you ‘The Gorillionaire?’”

“Is it true you were asked to play King Kong in a new movie?”

“What is your relationship with The Birdband?”

“Did Tony Trilton really leave you everything?”

“Is it really true that you know nothing about Tony Trilton’s death?”

“Why should I answer you? What do I get out of it? I don’t know any of you.” Barnaby signed at the nosy newscasters. Suddenly, the questioning squad ceased. While the reporters rumbled among themselves to figure out what he had just said, and what he meant by it, Barnaby noticed the milkman waving to him by the curb. He began politely pushing people past to get there. As he approached the milk truck, several reporters proceeded to pester him with more questions, but Barnaby simply ignored them.

The truck stood proudly by the curb in its cow-print paintjob. A small cow statue sat on the roof. Standing by the truck was Moe, the milkman. Moe had worked in this wealthy neighborhood as a milkman for 15 years. You get to meet some colorful characters in a place like this, but Barnaby was the most interesting. For most, it isn’t every day you get to talk to a mansion-dwelling gorilla in a bath robe. It isn’t for Moe either. He delivers every other day.

“Mornin’, Barney!” Moe chimed as he tipped his hat to the affluent ape.

“Good Morning, Moe,” responded Barnaby with a smile. “Sorry about the mess there,” he signed while motioning towards the cacophonous crowd with his head. “I don’t know what they’re doing here.” Moe enjoyed how straightforward Barnaby was. It was a breath of fresh air from the pompous prattling the other residents subjected him to.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, big guy. They just wanna talk to you. You’ve been a big hit on the news lately what with you inheriting Tony’s everything, Lord rest his soul.” There was a brief moment of silence. Moe cleared his throat.

“Ah yeah, I got your milk here for ya.” Moe handed over some filled bottles while Barnaby gave him his empties.

“Thank you.” Barnaby replied, setting the full bottles down first before signing, of course.

“You should try answering some of the reporters over there. I see you answering questions on that internet show of yers all the time. It’s like that but in real life.”

“But online people pay to ask me things. I didn’t see any of those people offering me anything in return.”

“So why do you answer what I ask?”

“You bring milk here, but more importantly, you’re my friend.”

“How do you know those reporters won’t make good friends?” Barnaby stood and thought for a moment. He didn’t really have many real-life friends beyond Moe. The only people he regularly interacted with were faceless internet users and faceless, soulless, corporate sponsors. It probably wouldn’t hurt to get some more face-to-face interaction.

“I gotta get going, Barney. The guy at the next house’ll chew me out if I’m late again.”

“I suppose I’ll give it a try. See you Thursday, Moe.”

“See ya later, Barney!”

Moe got back into his truck and drove off. Barnaby turned around and returned to the crowd of newscasters. He knew he would talk to the strangers at his door, but first he had to put this milk away before it spoiled. He made his way back inside, put the milk in the fridge, and went back to the door.

“It looks like Barnaby The Gorillionaire has returned to answer some questions,” several casters chattered with slightly different deliveries. The questionnaire went smoothly. Barnaby then shared some laughs with the reporters as he recounted his history with Tony. Overall, it was a grand old time.

As things were quieting down, a new truck pulled up to the mansion. It was dark gray with blacked out windows. From it stepped a mysterious character clad in a dark trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat. In the middle of summer. The mystery man shoved his way through the others to get to Barnaby.

“You does thinks you ams deserving of Trilton’s moneys?” the stranger snapped in a strange, gargley voice.

“What?” Barnaby replied, bewildered by the sudden hostility.

“Me ams beings true heir of moneys!” the mystery man screeched, throwing off his coat. This wasn’t a mystery man. It was a mystery octopus. A mystery octopus with a strange gadget embedded in its head. It was wearing one of Tony’s suits. The suit had a red stain near the chest. In the center of the stain was a hole. In the octopus’s arm was a gun.

This one didn't have a prompt. The idea for the story came from an image I found online some time ago.

This was the town of Bigrock, known for it’s famous Big Rock (better known as a mountain by today’s experts). Grug was not from Bigrock. Grug was from the city of Lakeside, known for the lake beside it - and its famous Pteranodon wings. Grug worked for the Rock Delivery Service, and was assigned to deliver a package to a Witch Doctor Rocksmith. The usual delivery person was out. She got in a traffic accident with an Ankylosaurus while riding a strange new vehicle. Grug heard they were like boats but for the earth. Grug didn’t trust them and decided to deliver this package on foot, as he always had.

Grug approached the Witch Doctor’s cave. A winding dirt road led up to its entrance. As he got closer, Grug noticed two odd constructs covered by a wooden hut of sorts. He couldn’t make them out properly, but he could make out the rockbox. Something was off about it. It was stuffed with tablets and parchment. Just then, a strong gust of wind blew across the fields. The parchment fluttered about in the box, and something moved in the hut. Instinctively, Grug turned. The machines had moved. But how? They were made of stone. There was no way stone could be moved by the wind. Unless…

These must be those new things. Those… what were they called? Grug thought for a moment. Ah yes, cars. They must be evil. They must quench for blood. Why else would the previous delivery person be injured by them? Grug shook. Were they really moved by the wind? Or did they move with it so he wouldn’t notice that they’re alive? They must have killed the Witch Doctor and sent for him to deliver this package! This must be a trap! But Grug knew better than to fall for it. Grug threw the package at the cars. They screeched as they reeled back. Now was his chance. Grug ran for it.

The prompt for this one was "A substitute postal carrier comes to a rural home where the mailbox is overflowing with previously delivered mail. The postal carrier observes that there are two cars in the driveway. What should the postal carrier do?" I'm not too fond of this one, but I also don't dislike it. It's kinda just there.

Dan is a Dwarf. For generations Dan’s people had toiled on these grounds. His forefathers told him of The Great Cataclysm that had plagued the land many ages ago; the earth was ravaged and left a desolate wasteland. For three ages of darkness the land lay barren. When the next age of light arrived, the land was blessed with a lush expanse of new vegetation. Today was the day of The Prophecy. Today the Bulb Trees would be ready for harvest. Today Dan was to harvest the bulbs.

Dan ascended one of the sacred Bulb Trees, dagger in hand. Large leafed branches dotted the tree’s smooth, green trunk. He had placed a tarp on the forest floor to collect the bulbs. All he had to do was cut them from the tree and drop them. The sun beat down on Dan as he got to work. Suddenly, everything went dark. Dan turned to face the source of the shadows. It was The Flood Titan.

Greg is a Giant. Last week Greg dug up part of his backyard to make way for a vegetable garden. A few days later he planted enough things to make himself a nice salad. Today Greg felt like having that salad. Greg stepped outside into his yard. The white picket fence surrounding it gleamed in the sunlight. The birdbath he installed the other day stood proudly in the center. By this point the birds had flown away, but this didn’t bother Greg. He had a salad to make.

The first order of business was the broccoli. As he stood over his garden he saw a strange glint among the broccoli’s florets. That and a strange little man. A strange little man breaking into his property and tampering with his would-be salad.

“Die, Flood Titan!” squeaked the minuscule miscreant. With all his might, Dan hurled his dagger into the sky. It went up maybe half an inch in Giant units before pathetically plummeting to the ground. Greg crouched down to take a closer look at the vegetable invader. The puny punk was clad some kind of armor fashioned from a cricket’s exoskeleton.

“You dare approach me, Flood Titan?” Dan shrieked as he waved his fist. Greg had no idea what was going on, but decided to play along.

“Yes, it is I, the all-powerful ‘Flood Titan,’” Greg snidely responded with air quotes. “But seriously, who’re you and what’re you doing in my garden?”

“I am Dan, of the Dwarves. Who are you to call our sacred ancestral land your garden?”

“I’m Greg, and I own this property.” Greg motioned towards the rest of the yard and his house with his arms. Meanwhile Dan held on for dear life as Greg The Flood Titan attempted to knock him off the Bulb Tree with a blast of air.

“You may have destroyed my home with your foul weather powers, Flood Titan Greg, but you are no match for my Dwarven spirit! If you kill me all my kin shall come for your head!”

“Wait, there’re more of you down there?”

“The forest shall bear ever more fruit with your blood nourishing it!” Dan continued screaming his head off while Greg pondered how to deal with his newfound neighbors. Just then an idea hit him, unlike Dan’s dagger. Greg got up and started heading back to his house.

“Where are you fleeing to, coward?” Dan screeched. “Get back here and fight me!”

“I’m going to the store,” Greg responded. “I’m gonna buy some pesticide.”

The prompt for this story was "A dwarf and a giant meet in the middle of a forest. Both claim they are the rightful owner of the forest. What happens next?" I was thinking of adding more to the story, with Greg coming back home from the store - which was closed - to find the Dwarves had an industrial revolution and destroyed his garden. Dan would've been retired in some kind of resort town built in the birdbath and Greg would talk to his son. The next day the dwarves would've evolved past the need for physical possessions, and even physical bodies, kinda like that one episode of Futurama with the robot planet. I think it ending where it does is fine.