Ora Et Labora: An Acceptance of Life: Chapter 1 – An Extra Ordinary Man

Chapter 1 – An Extra Ordinary Man

“Where are you really working for?! Tell me!” I hear being said from a nearby house.

Rushing over to the source, I enter the back of the house and see someone tied to a chair and being beaten up by four people. Immediately drawing my gun, I shoot two of the people through the head with one bullet, and the other two with the rest of the clip as they scramble for cover. I load a new clip into my pistol while looking around, unsure if there are any more criminals here.

“What the hell, man?” the guy tied to a chair says.

“What? I thought you needed help,” I ask.

“Yes and no. One of those guys that you shot was an undercover cop.”

“Oh, shit. From the Dominion or the Columbian Union?”

“Which does it matter? They’re both the same at this point. What kind of vigilante are you? Who are you? Blindfold Man?”

“I call myself The Cross.”

“Because of the cross on your blindfold? That’s stupid.”

“It was all I could come up with. Who are you, and why were you working with an undercover officer?”

“Because he was going to give me a way out, or rather, he forced me to because I would’ve gone to jail if I didn’t. I work for a usurer and get a little kickback for helping them with their operations. Now, I know you work for justice, and all that, but independent heroes like you need money. If you let me go, I’ll get you all the cash I have on me.”

“What?”

“I owe it to you for freeing me from that double agent. The cops might be on me now more, but at least I won’t be suspected of being a traitor anymore and killed for it. Come on, we’ll cross swords later, if you let me go now.”

I look around and think for a moment. Screw it. I quickly press my gun to the man’s forehead, shield my eyes, and pull the trigger twice. The sight of death and the feeling of other men’s blood on me still disgusts me. I report the incident to the hero association I work for, give them my vigilante name to confirm it’s legit, have authorities clean up the scene, and get paid for my work. Taking one last look at the dead bodies, I cross myself and leave, and continue my nightly patrol.

Undercover work is morally dubious, but I still feel bad for what I did. I’m not even sure what the purpose of undercover work is anymore, since the Dominion is spreading all over the world and making sure that every inch of it is crime-free and free from evil. They’re even going to be in this city soon and absorbing the hero association I work for into their ranks. Still, a usury ring in this city is a problem. I should know since my family and friends were in debt to banks, loaners, and credit card companies for generations.

It’s only recently that the Dominion has done something about the predators who have made an industry taking advantage of the poor and common man. They tried to legally discharge the debts of honest people who struggled to pay them, but after a lot of back-and-forth, the Dominion chose to force a solution. Discharge the debts, go to jail, or be executed if you resisted arrest. Some of the loaners discharged the debts, some went to jail for resisting the change, and the others are being hunted. The Castigators, a subsidiary of the Dominion, is doing a lot of the hunting, but the Compassionate, another subsidiary, is doing the most. The Compassionate are known for their mercy; however, they are also known for caring for the poor and common man. As a result, they show no mercy to the usurers.

Replacing the loaners is the Dominion, which uses taxpayer dollars to give honest, poor, and common men the money they need when they’re desperate or hit with tragedy, such as accidents or deaths in the family. In the event of further need, the loan will be forgiven within the same year or years after, depending on the given situation. The system isn’t perfect, but loans that expire and a zero-percent increase in taxes are better than nothing. Due to their kindness, the poor and common men of the world easily give up the names and locations of the usurers, and the Dominion continues to grow in membership, reach, and popularity. As for my part in this, I’m a part-time hero who works a full-time job as a car mechanic when I can make time. My actual full-time role is that of a husband and father.

The reason I’m a registered vigilante is my family and neighbors, and my desire to protect them all. All I have to my name is a pistol, a lot of ammo, a knife, a blindfold to cover my face, and a visor beneath it, which makes me see through it and see in the dark. It’s not much at all compared to superhumans and other vigilantes, but I still get the job done. In my patrols today, I’ve managed to come across other crime scenes; however, more capable heroes and vigilantes get to the criminals and villains faster than I or are more capable than I of tackling them, so I call in backup to have them handle it. I still get credit and am paid for it, just not as much.

By the end of my personalized shift today, I think the only good thing I did was that first encounter and reporting a usury ring in the city. Seeing what time it is, I make sure that I’m not followed home and head back to it for some well-earned rest. My house is a humble, two-story house with a garden in the back and a cross and statue of Mary and St. Joseph in the front window. Going inside, I say hello and am immediately met with the smell of a freshly cooked dinner.

“Welcome home, Oliver. I’m relieved you’re back,” my wife, Jennifer, says.

Walking out of the kitchen, she goes up to me with our son, Lucas, in her arms and gives me a tight hug. Jennifer is wearing a red and pink shirt and a red skirt. Her brown hair smells like she just washed it, and her green eyes are just as pretty as ever. Lucas has my blue eyes and black hair, and seems to be on the verge of falling asleep. Hugging and kissing them, I thank God that I came back home to them. We sit down for dinner, and I tell Jennifer how my day was at both my jobs.

“How about you? How was school?” I ask.

“The kids were being kids like they usually were,” Jennifer says with a cute giggle. “Hearing about a usury ring in the city is concerning. I hope no one has been desperate enough to take their money yet.”

“I’ll take care of it. I just hope I don’t accidentally shoot any officers again.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. Does your hero association know about it?”

“No, I didn’t tell them about it.”

“Then, there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll pray for their soul later.”

“Are we still taking a trip out to the countryside? I could use some fresh, country air and a break.”

“We will during spring break.”

“Who’d think that I have to wait for spring, summer, and Christmas break all over again as an adult?”

“You’ll make it, Oliver. Come on, let’s rest for the day. You’ve earned it.”

I sit on the couch with Lucas in my arms and Jennifer next to me watching TV and talking about the shows and movies we watch, relating them to other things we’ve watched and memorable events in our lives.

“You only say that you don’t like awkward romances because it was awkward for you to ask me out and talk to me on our dates,” Jennifer says.

“I eventually got comfortable with it,” I say.

“Yeah, after like five dates, you were comfortable.”

“But I proposed to you after a month of dating. That has to mean I’m a little brave.”

“You were brave because your parents and mine knew you had a ring for me after our first couple of weeks together, and kept pushing you to propose, and stop waiting for what you thought would be an appropriate moment.”

“It still makes me cringe that I proposed in public with people watching us and me stuttering my words.”

“I’ll forever remember it.”

Lucas whines a bit, making Jennifer and me stop talking and letting him rest. He’s right. We should be silent and simply enjoy the rest of the night together. If the rest of my life were just this moment, I wouldn’t mind it all because this is my Heaven on Earth.

My next short story is done and out today!

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It was hard to get by on two jobs for Briar so she could take care of her husband and child. A promiscuous woman offers her the chance to earn more at the cost of giving her body to perverts, leading Briar to abandon her previous work and turn against her loved ones. She is given the chance to experience pleasure at a higher level, and it's when her body is morphed into glass and given higher endurance and strength that she sees the error of her ways. Briar then goes on a rampage, destroying and killing the people who objectified her and shattered her life and soul.

Like Glass in the Skin: Chapter 3 – Perversion’s Reward

Chapter 3 – Perversion’s Reward

The last hideout of the degenerate that I worked for is in the poor district of the city where I lived. Cops and people who aren’t poor don’t visit here, unless it's to pass by or go to the hideout I’m going to. It’s a run-down area that is only slowly getting better, thanks to the Dominion running the criminals and superhuman villains out of the city, but the few syndicates and secretive criminal, human, and drug trafficking groups still exist in secret and small groups. The last hideout is under a bridge through a door that leads to the sewers. I walk through the damp and barely lit halls until I come to a pink and purple door.

Through the door, I walk down a set of stairs and begin to hear the pulse-pounding music of the hideout’s club. I think I hear the sounds of footsteps in the noise; however, by the time I recognize that the sound of footsteps is coming from behind me, I’m hit upside the head so hard that my head goes through the wall. My body feels unresponsive as I try to force it to get up, and yet, I can only twitch. I’m pulled to the floor with about two men and three women standing above me, all of whom are superhuman and have their bodies augmented for maximum pleasure.

“It looks like she’s still alive,” one of them says.

“She’d better be. I like my meal, while it’s still warm.”

“We could use her body to research to repair the damage she’s done.”

“Yes, but first, we’ll have our fill of her.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

The five superhumans grab me and take me into the club. As they carry me, some of the people in the club watch me be taken into the backrooms. Among the crowd, I see the faces of the people I foolishly spared. Of course, they’d value their addictions and personal happiness, even at the cost of themselves and others, and come running to the dealers of their pleasures. If I were in their situation, I’d do the same thing, and hate them all the more because of it. My assailants have their way with me in a private room where others suffer the same fate, willingly or unwillingly.

How did I enjoy this treatment from others to begin with? I’d try to struggle if I didn’t know that struggling prey is what turns on these kinds of scum. I feel disgusted by myself and wish that the torture that I’m being put through would kill me, as they have accidentally or intentionally done with others in this situation. Why did I think I deserved to live any longer? Why did I think I could accomplish my goal, or should’ve died any other way?

The sound and vibrations of an explosion rock the room and stop my assailants from violating me further. Someone comes in to ask for their help because the heroes of the Dominion are here. Dropping me immediately, I twitch and start to move as my body’s healing kicks in. In the room, I see one of the chemicals that heals me, and yet, I don’t want to use it and just die where I am, but at the same time, I want to live. I go back and forth in my decision until I unintentionally grab the chemicals and use them on myself.

Back to my full strength, I start blindly killing everyone in the club, no matter how innocent they may seem, and especially go after the people who are running away. No one is allowed to survive. I won’t allow the evil disease in this club to infect anywhere else, so after painting every inch of this club in blood, including the backrooms and hidden exits, I fall to my knees, throw up, look at my hands, and start stabbing my chest. Damn this healing power in my body! Why won’t it let me die?! I then start stabbing my head and throat to no avail, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing to stab myself. A hand suddenly comes out of nowhere and grabs my hands.

Looking up, I see a woman with white hair, grey eyes, and grey skin, who is wearing a black shirt, skirt, and boots. Behind her are two other men, one hooded in green, and the other, clothed in red and black, who are searching the rest of the club for survivors and putting them down with flames.

“Let go of me!” I scream as I struggle to get out of her grasp. “Let me die! I deserve it just as much as these other pieces of shit!”

“Hold on, hold on! Stop it! Why are you trying to kill yourself?” she says.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?! I’m just like these degenerate scum. I used to work for them, until I finally woke up when they changed my body into this. I’ve been slaughtering them all day, and now…now it’s my turn to die.”

“I know how you feel. I used to work in the same perverted industry as you did. My name is Tanith. What’s yours?”

“…Briar. You’re with the Dominion, aren’t you? Why won’t you kill me?”

“I saw you killing the degenerates here, so you’re not like them. We’ve also been hearing about a woman made of steel or glass destroying places like this across the city. I’m assuming it was you.”

“Yes, it was. So what?”

“So, you can join the Dominion as I did, and make up for the life you lived.”

“But…but I’ve been responsible for so much death and destruction. I even had a hand in killing my own husband and child! I don’t deserve to be remembered as a wife and mother! I don’t even deserve to live another second!”

“I violated my parents for an audience and trafficked many innocent people. I’m just as horrible as you are, if not worse, but God is merciful. Us being alive is proof of that.”

“I don’t even know what I believe in anymore.”

“We’ll help you, Briar. Trust me.”

Tanith helps me up and offers me her hand. I don’t want to live, but I also know that it would be wrong for me to just kill myself. Suicide would be giving in to my impulses again, so I refuse my desires for the first time in a while and take Tanith’s hand. She and her friends led me out of the club, back to the surface, and to the nearest Dominion hero association office. There, the Dominion gives me time to rest in a room before telling me what they want me to do and asking if I truly want to join them. Looking over at Tanith, who sponsored me, she gives me a smile and a nod, so I say that I understand and accept the job. My husband and child thought I was a hero for all the work I did to keep the family alive. I didn’t think I was before, but now, I have the chance to be an actual hero for others.

 

The End

Like Glass in the Skin: Chapter 2 – One Desire Replaced by Another

Chapter 2 – One Desire Replaced by Another

As I walk the streets of the city, I notice how quickly my body heals. When I survived the explosion at the factory, most of my body had deep cracks in it, but after some time, the gaps healed. I know my body is supposed to be durable enough to withstand the intense depravity of superhuman perverts, but I didn’t know my body had to be this durable to do so. I’m already having second thoughts about my plan, and yet, what am I going to do with my life now? I have no family to return to, and my new body and abilities make me overqualified for my old jobs.

If I joined a hero association like the Dominion, they’d dig into my past, uncover the crimes I’ve committed, and either lock me up forever or execute me. Honestly, I’d rather die than do anything else right now. I walk into an alley and start pounding my head against the wall, initially softly, then more forcefully, until much of the wall is broken and I see the other side. I realize I’ve attracted attention from passersby. Idiot. If an explosion didn’t kill me, why would this? I’m an idiot, even more so for trying to take the easy way out, as I already did when I prostituted myself. Regaining my composure, I head back toward one of the hidden strip clubs I’ve been in, hoping that destroying them might save others from the life I’ve led and somehow make amends.

Going through the ruins of a condemned, windowless building that’s under construction, I walk down the stairs and begin hearing the pounding music of the club.  The smells of desperation and depravity that disgusted and then excited me become apparent the deeper I head down, and make me regret not taking it as another red flag that I should’ve listened to. I walk the dark halls, lit up by small neon lights, and see the superhuman guards outside the door of the club. They look at me strangely, and yet, they don’t attack or say anything to me at first.

One of them says, “Briar? Looks like they finally upgraded your body to something better, not that your body wasn’t hot before. Now, we can actually get to know each other a bit better.”

I stick my sharp hands through the chests of both guards and then say, “No. You don’t want to know me better.”

Both guards are stunned at first, and not dead yet, until I cut their heads off with another swipe of my hands. I can’t imagine doing anything perverted again with anything, and don’t want to imagine the further depths of depravity that these people would’ve put me through. Kicking open the doors of the club, its loud music and wretched smells become overwhelming as the never-ending party in it continues. I see in the men and women here, my old self, the one who was desperate for money, and the ones who intentionally give their bodies and souls for pleasure. I see my face on all of them, and I become so disgusted that I start indiscriminately killing everyone, starting with those who are enjoying themselves the most, and then shifting over to the people who I know run the club.

The man who interviewed me begs for his life after I cut off his limbs, but I show him no mercy, with a final swipe at his neck so he chokes to death on his own blood. More superhumans start coming after, all of which I have to stab multiple times in the chest, throat, and face before they die. I’m outnumbered, and these people are better at fighting than I am, leading to me getting beaten up more than I’m able to kill. One of the superhumans uses her strength to punch me so hard that I go through the wall and into a storage area. Much of the stuff is used for sex and medical supplies involving sex. Knowing that some of it has regenerative properties, I break the bottles and spray them all over me, which heals me up and strengthens my body.

By the time the guards reach me, their attacks do nothing and hurt themselves when they attack me, allowing me to easily kill them. The chaos I’ve caused in the club has cleared it out. With no one else here, I start cutting wires, spilling alcohol over the floors, and light a match to make the entire place go up in flames. Next, I make my way toward the brothel and immediately start feeling weird from the regenerating chemicals I poured on myself. I knew the damned things were experimental and made by inexperienced, perverted scientists, but I expected their products not to wear off so easily.

The all too familiar feeling of a hangover starts to make me collapse on the streets and throw up, and after several minutes of doing so, I realize that some people have stopped to ask me if I’m okay. I ignore them and continue forward, as my new body’s unnatural healing kicks back in, and I feel fine enough to walk. Not one part of me wants anyone’s help. I’ve already harmed too many innocent people with my life’s choices, and I refuse to get anyone else hurt because of me. Heading down a series of alleyways, I go into one building that looks to be a part of a larger apartment, but is actually an entirely separate building, only known to those who have connections to its owners.

Again, I am recognized by the guards outside, and again, I am hit on, and I kill them in a similar way to the others I’ve been killing. Despite all the destruction I’ve caused, no one in this building probably knows what I’ve done. Word gets around slowly in seedy circles like these because of the grip the Dominion has over the world, so the only way they would know is if anyone was alive to tell of what I did or saw the aftermath. As far as I know, I left no survivors who would run back to snitch on me, and no one has discovered the damage I’ve done, perhaps, beyond the authorities who must be investigating it. I have to get this done today before the Dominion arrests or kills me. I must have my revenge and stop and prevent others from living the life I lived.

Immediately breaking down the metal door, I rush in and start on the first floor, where new employees are “interviewed” and start killing every pervert who has a fetish for virgins, the desperate, and scare away those who were about to be taken advantage of. The first floor is now cleared, so I leap up through the ceiling and start clearing out the second, where the more dedicated and experienced prostitutes and clients are. No one is shown mercy here; neither the clients nor the employees are spared from me crushing their heads with my foot, cutting their throats, and stabbing them through their chests. It’s at a time like this that the inhabitants of each room probably regret that the walls of these rooms are soundproof for the sake of the secrecy of the perversion done in them. After making sure there’s no one alive here, I make my way to the third floor, which is guarded by superhumans.

Yet again, I am recognized, and the guards think this is my first day on the third floor. Frustrated by them, I plunge my hands into both of their heads and repeatedly punch their heads until their heads are crushed into bits. I go up to the third floor and instantly see a storage room that people are walking in and out of. Half of me wants to be safe and use the regenerative chemicals on me, while the other doesn’t want the feeling of a hangover again.

“Screw it,” I say as I make my decision, go into the storage room, kill everyone in it, and use the chemicals on me.

It’s then that I’m thankful that most things in places like this are flammable and have things to start fires with, so I use them to destroy everything else in the room and start a fire. After that’s done, I start clearing out the rooms, and in one of them, I find a face I recognize, a normal woman who was more perverted than I was, now dead after trying to prostitute herself to superhumans. She was told the low survival rate for doing so, but she didn’t listen. Idiotic whore. This is what they all are. I hardly know the woman, and yet, I’m angered by the sight of her somewhat recent death.

As I go from room to room, I begin to revel in the slaughter more than I should. I break limbs and use the bodies of the whores and clients alike as weapons against one another, and find it more fun when the superhumans survive several fatal blows, so I can hit and stab them more until they die. That’s right. Cry and beg for mercy, but don’t die so easily. I want to make sure you all suffer for what you’ve done! Each of these perverts deserves to die a painful and slow death. They’ve enjoyed themselves enough and have to pay the price!

The chemicals I’ve used on myself begin to make me feel similar to being drunk, but I don’t mind right now. It enhances the pleasure of all this killing I’m doing, especially on those who have particularly changed their bodies for this line of work. These are women with broken jaws, multiple breasts, and holes, and there are men with multiple orifices, tongues, and even tentacles, so they can feel an increased sense of pleasure. I know that not all of them are here willingly. Some people have been mutated and tied or chained to beds and walls against their wills. Given their condition, I kill them to end their suffering, since freeing them wouldn’t do much to free the Hell they’re living in. Just like all pleasures, the killing of everyone on this floor is over when I want more, so I finish spilling chemicals and alcohol all over the building to ensure its destruction, and watch it burn from a nearby outside rooftop.

Watching the building burn fills my head with fantasies of how I killed so many people to the point where I feel like touching myself. Uncontrollably, I do, until I remember that these people were just like me. My desire to pleasure myself turns to disgust and a desire to kill myself. The hangover from the chemicals makes me throw up, and again, I remember my family and my regrets. I want it to end. I just want my life to end. Please make it all end! After the effects of the hangover are negated by my body’s healing, my state of mind is cleared.

I remember there’s one last place to burn to ensure the last hideout of perversion I know of is erased from the city. It’s almost over. After that, I’ll find a way to end it all. I know I won’t see my family after I die, but I deserve to die as much as every other pervert I killed. It’s the right thing to do.

Like Glass in the Skin: Chapter 1 – When the High Wears off

Chapter 1 – When the High Wears off

People joke about life not being fair, but when your life is at a dead end, the joke no longer becomes funny. I worked two jobs, one at an office and another at a supermarket, to help my family pay the bills and put food on the table. My husband was disabled because of a workplace accident, so he could only collect disability checks, but at least he could stay home and take care of our child, which we could only have one of, no matter how many times we tried to have more. Even with the hero association of the Dominion’s recent takeover of the world and their balancing wages for all normal humans and superhumans, we continued to struggle because of the many debts we owe. There didn’t seem to be any hope that our lives would get better, no matter how much we prayed, until a woman with dark skin approached me at the supermarket.

“Are you okay? What’s your name?” she asked.

“Briar. I’m fine, thank you for asking,” I said.

“You don’t look fine, girl. You seem like you’re going to die from exhaustion any second now, Briar.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if I did,” I said.

“I know that feeling, sister. I was like you, too, until a friend approached me with the same offer I’m going to give you.” The woman gave me a card with roses on it. “Call that number and set up an interview with my employer. We’ll get you a better job than this. It’ll make you happier and free you from all your stress.”

The woman walked away without saying another word. It was obvious she was a stripper or sex worker, given her somewhat scantily clad choice of clothes. Still, for some reason, I didn’t think it’d hurt to call for an interview and see what the job was. When I called, I got an interview the next day at a strip club. The man who interviewed me checked me out, looked at my background, and said he’d give me the job within an hour. I was so taken aback by it all that I hesitated to accept at first.

“I’m sure you’re concerned about your family, but you don’t have to worry about them. We’ll give you about the same hours as your supermarket job, but you’ll be paid more, you can change into your normal clothes, and they don’t need to know a thing,” he said.

I’ve been a woman dedicated to my faith; however, it’s been degrading over the years because of the suffering I’ve been through. The thought of my family continuing to suffer forced me to shake hands with the man, and before I knew it, I danced with the woman I met for money in embarrassing clothes, or lack thereof. After my first day, I brought my concerns to the woman, who consoled me. She shared the same faith but rationalized taking this job as necessary to care for our families. She then offered me a pill and some alcohol to wash it down, and without thinking too much, I took it and felt better.

Days later, our family finally became financially stable. My job gave me time off to spend with my family. I got used to it after a week and actually started to enjoy it. One day, I was offered extra money to perform an especially erotic dance with the woman, and I accepted, despite not knowing what to do. The woman told me to follow her lead, so I did. She kissed me, and we danced in a way that looked like we were having sex. After that, I received more requests to do similar dances and was then asked to do even more explicit things for more money. Because of how good it all made me feel and the money involved, I agreed.

The extra work involved being in a sex club and giving my body to others for their pleasure. In my heart, I knew it was degrading, but I didn’t care. I was happy for the first time in years, had enough money to make this kind of work my primary job, and, at my new friends’ suggestion, I did. A couple of months passed, and my husband and child finally realized something in me had changed. My husband confronted me about it, and I blew him off. It was at this time that I cared more about sex work than my family because of how much better and freer it made me feel. We argued from day to day so much so that I’d leave my home so I could sleep over my new friends’ house and relate my grievances with them.

It got to the point where the woman who initially recruited asked me, “Your family is more of a burden now than the reason why you work, haven’t they?”

“They have. This place and these people feel more like my family now than they do,” I said.

“We have a way of taking care of that. We use the AI-driven care you bought, so your husband could get around, arrange an accident to get rid of them permanently, if you want.”

I thought about it, weighed my happiness and freedom in my new life against the pains and restrictions of my family, and decided to okay the plan. The next day, the AI-driven car my husband used got into an accident, and both he and my child died, along with a few other pedestrians. My conscience hardly felt a thing at the time. In fact, I felt freer than I ever had before. For the next month, I enjoyed a life of constant pleasure and happiness without the constraints and stresses of a family.

These new people were my family. They made me happier than my family ever has. Being a wife was a mistake, and being a mother, doubly so. They kept me from being truly free and happy. I can’t imagine my life getting any better than this, and yet, the woman who first recruited me had a new way to make more money and feel an even deeper level of pleasure and happiness. Because I’m a normal human, I wasn’t able to handle the rougher superhuman clients, but with the new modifications, I would be able to experience pleasure on a whole new level.

It was strange. I was excited for the day, got up early, and headed out to the factory on the outskirts of the city, where I would be changed, but when I got there, my excitement quickly went away. People were screaming in pain, not out of pleasure, but out of fear for their lives. Many were there against their will to be taken advantage of and turned into living sex objects. Of course, I’d seen it before; however, seeing a person being painfully turned is another thing entirely. The pangs of my dead conscience started to bother me again for the first time in months.

I wanted to leave and never look back, and yet, I kept moving. I told myself it wouldn’t be bad for me. That it would be quick and painless for me, that I’d leave as quickly as I’d arrive, and I’d experience a whole new way to live happily. All that positive thinking vanished as soon as I saw the huge boiling pot below me that I was supposed to dive into. It was grey, sludgy, sinking, and so hot that I started to sweat from just being near it. Before I could turn away to ask if I could leave, the woman I knew pushed me into the pot, and I burned.

It was my wake-up call, as I felt every inch of me burn in agonizing pain. My skin and bones felt as if they were melting off, and the sensations of the drugs in my system were erased. Suddenly, I began to feel used to the pain, and then crawled out of the pot and lay on the floor. The woman I knew told me that I looked beautiful in my new form, and I was brought a full-body mirror to look at myself. My pink hair looked completely gray, along with the rest of my body. My eyes were entirely silver, and my clothes combined with my body, and yet, I felt completely naked and as if I were made of a metallic glass.

I was congratulated by the people surrounding me since people they bring here sometimes don’t survive the transformation process and simply become one with the sludge in the pot. I felt as if my mind and conscience saw everything clearly for the first time in a while, and I began to remember everything with a heavy sense of regret, remorse, and anger, most importantly. My anger began boiling like the sludge, and as soon as I got up, I put my hand straight through the throat of the woman I knew. In those seconds, I realized I really never knew her name. Seeing that she wasn’t instantly dead, or rather, not caring that she wasn’t, I stuck my other hand through her chest and then through her head, killing her for certain.

It was then that security was called and descended on me. I used my new body to beat them down, cut their eyes and throats with my sharp fingers, and plunged my hands into their throats, heads, and chests. No matter what gun or superpower they used against me, I hardly felt a thing, but I also didn’t care if I did. I wanted to kill every single person in this factory for what they did to me and the others in it. I also wanted them to kill me for my mistakes and end this rotten life I’ve lived, and yet, I managed to live until the last bit of security was killed by my hand. Since I was alive, I freed everyone I could, then started destroying the electrical systems and knocking over the boiling pots to destroy the factory. Despite being in it when it exploded and being thrown several miles away by the blast, I survived.

Why did I survive? Why am I still living? I’ve been going over the events of my life as I’m lying on the rooftop, looking at the night sky, and thinking about what I should do with my life now. All I can think about is revenge and killing the perverts who made me into one of them, so that’s what I’ll do. I know where their few hideouts are, so I’ll kill every one of them. They won’t hurt or corrupt anyone else by the end of this night.

A collection of my latest books are out today on Amazon!

Paperback ($9.99) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GTFN5WVX

Kindle ($4.99) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GTCS6HZV

The world can only belong to one truth, one ruler of the world. 

The Dominion and its heroes have been keeping the world safe from evil of all kinds, from the criminal underworld to the powers that be. Now, after years of fighting, the Dominion sees that it should not only protect the world, but rule it, and once it has it, it will establish the Catholic faith in its rightful place as the one true faith of the world and give the world back to its Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

The time has come for a new dawn, one where righteousness reigns supreme above sin. 

This collection includes: Scourge of Angels, Peace Through Force, A Gentle Hand's Influence, and How the Just Dominated the World, along with some Behind the Story trivia for each story.

My 345th book and ending of Timeo Severe and John Elio's journey is out today!

Download for free at select online retailers - https://books2read.com/b/3L7oV0

After over thirty years of being superheroes, leading their own hero association, and protecting the world, John Elio and Timeo Severe realize that the world would be better in their hands. Their enemies don't stand a chance, and the world is theirs to take, so that the Catholic faith will reign supreme as the only one true faith of the world, and so that the God of truth and love, our Lord Jesus Christ, can rightfully reclaim what is His.