Adam Fout — Dark Short Stories and Poems

Dark science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, and poetry — read free now

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The GOD

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The path is a procedurally generated madland of mathematical infinities and geometric patterns. Crimson cubes crawl from the icosahedronal minds of hidden netGODS, stack along fractal wireframes, shift to green-gold-platinum-black, burst and reform.

They shift, screech, morph into digital outlines of trees, beetles, and darker things.

The trees and beetles die. The darker things follow me.

A GOD appears ahead, bathed in golden equations.

The path behind me corrupts, collapses, fades away.

I approach.

The Children

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And the children came to us.

And they had questions.

They asked us uncomfortable things.

“Why are things this way?”

“Why must things be this way?”

“Will things be this way forever?”

“Who is responsible for this?”

What could we say to such things?

How could we explain?

“Things have always been this way.”

“Things must always be this way.”

“Things will always be this way.”

“It does not matter who is responsible—you must simply obey.”

And our lips trembled, and our hearts broke, and our minds split, and war became peace, and slavery became freedom, and ignorance became strength, and we wondered how it could be this way.

How could it be this way?

It was not supposed to be this way.

And the sun was black, and the light was darkness, and the children came with unending questions, and we covered our washcloths with chloroform, and methane, and VX, and Po-210, and CO2, and U-235, and we held it over the faces of the children.

And they died.

And we looked around, and we found that there were no children left, that the unceasing questions would cease, and we sighed, for we could finally be at peace.

And we trained cameras and microphones upon their bones, in case they awoke. And we let the machines carry on the work, for we wanted only to play.

And as the chemicals ate into our guts and the machines stabbed our backs, we joined the children, with smiles on our faces, and the certain knowledge that what we had done was right.

And after 100,000 years, the smiles still sit upon our bones, deep under the water, at the bottom of the poison sea. And not even the monstrosities that scrape their bellies across the ocean floor can see our smiles, for they are blind.

Perhaps, we were blind.

And When They Came Upon Us

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And when they came upon us, it was night.

And when they came upon us, all was darkness.

And when they came upon us, we gave them bread.

And when they came upon us, we gave them drink.

And when they came upon us, we gave them beds.

And when they came upon us, we gave them our sons, our daughters, and our homes.

And when they came upon us, they gave us daggers in our bellies.

And we died.

And we asked why. And they did not answer.

And when the bombs fell, they asked why.

And no one answered.

Because no one was left to answer.

And perhaps, when the next ones come upon us, they will find our bones, with their daggers in our bellies.

And they will ask why.

And no one will answer.

And perhaps, when the next ones see the daggers in our bellies, when they see the craters of the bombs, they will say unto themselves:

“We should not do these things, for they are bad things, and they end in darkness.”

If we cannot continue.

Let us at least be a lesson.

For those who come afterwards.

And let us hope.

That there will be those.

Who come afterwards.

Do You See?

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“You see, Gerald, you see, it wasn’t just that… that… it wasn’t just that you were BLIND, you see. You see, it was worse than that Gerald… far, FAR, worse, you see. It wasn’t even an INTENSIVE or OVERRIDING… overriding, blindness, Gerald. Jesus CHRIST it was so much MORE than that… so much more…. You see, blindness… blindness, you see, is a complete—a COMPLETE, Gerald—lack of sight, right? Right? Right. Right-right-right So INTENSIVE, OVERRIDING blindness… it’s-it’s-it’s-it’s not any different from simple… simple BLINDNESS, is it? Is it Gerald? But it is, I suppose—a-a-a-a-a PERSON can be b-b-b-blind, I suppose, and still see, see SHAPES and such… SHAPES, Gerald, and-and-C-C-C-COLORS, maybe? Black, white, gray… a-bit-a-bit-a-bit-A-BIT of BLUE, perhaps, maybe, Gerald… oh dammit Gerald, even if you had this-this-this OVERRIDING blindness, you see, a COMPLETE lack of sight-sight-sight NOTHING AT ALL GERALD! Even-even-even if you had, you had, THAT, you see, then-then-then things might, might, MIGHT have been, have been, different. Maybe maybe maybe MAYBE you’d-you’d-you’d be reDEEMable, redeemable, Gerald. Redeemable. But you didn’t have that, you see, you didn’t no no No No NO YOU DIDN’T… no you didn’t… no you don’t, no you don’t… you don’t. NO! You have something-something-something else, Gerald, something BEYOND, beyond, mere blindness BLINDNESS Gerald… something… worse, worse, worse. It’s-it’s-it’s-it’s like you SEE reality, you see, you SEE reality, Gerald, you SEE it just fine, you see, but something-something-something CHANGES, it CHANGES, Gerald, somewhere between y-y-y-your eye and-and-and-and YOUR BRAIN, Gerald, something… something… along the fucking optic NERVE, Gerald, a TWIST, a twist, you see, a twist, a twist…. It’s twisting and twisting and you’re twisted you’re twisted and the TRUTH, Gerald, the REALITY… it’s not that you’re not SEEING it DAMMIT! It’s that-that-that-that it’s THAT you’re not SEEING IT, you see, at ALL, not-at-ALL, Gerald, but so much worse so much worse because you are YOU ARE seeing it and you’re not, at the same time, you see, at the same time the truth it MELTS on its little journey along-along-along your optic nerve, MELTS into a million billion trillion tiny pieces and re-re-re-re-REFORMS, you see, reFORMS, Gerald, into something-something-something ELSE, to a-a-a-a-a LIE CHRIST… into a LIE, Gerald, it ch-ch-ch-changes in your MIND into something STRANGE, something else, something you-you-you WANT, you see, something YOU want…

Not what is, Gerald, not what-what-what IS.

You just see what you you YOU want, what you WANT, to see, you see, Gerald.

Do you see? Do you see? It’s-it’s-it’s-it’s BEYOND, blindness, BEYOND… I can’t even-even-even TELL, you see, I can’t even TELL if you see, if you see the truth in the first place, in the first place, Gerald, in the first place. It’s like, it’s like, it’s LIKE YOU SEE and you DON’T, you see, you see and you DON’T see, at the same time, you see.

I-think-I-think-I-think that’s WORSE, Gerald, that’s WORSE than blindness. It’s so much-Much-MUCH WORSE, Gerald.

You see, you don’t see… but nor-nor-nor are you BLIND, Gerald, you’re not blind you’re not blind you’re not you’re NOT, you see.

You’re deluded. You’re stuck-stuck-stuck in what you want. But reality doesn’t, it doesn’t CHANGE, like that, GERALD, it doesn’t CHANGE like that just because-because-because YOU want it to. It doesn’t. It doesn’t.

And it will kill-kill-kill-KILL YOU CHRIST! It will kill you, you see, it will kill you it will kill you, Gerald, it will kill you it will kill you…”