As usual, the Hospital was crowded and there were people waiting for one thing or the other in all corners. It was a good thing then that Alban had brought along his friends from the government then, with a flash of their badge and a silent glower, doors were opened and people made way.Marina’s room was set in the far end of the Hospital, completely closed off from the others. Alban wasn’t entirely sure why this was done but he didn’t complain.Entering the room, the first thing he observed was that it was a single man bedroom, Marina didn’t have anyone she was sharing the room with, perhaps that would have been different if he’d been injured as well.The second thing was marina herself, she had her hands wrapped up in sloppy bandages and had almost fallen over reaching for the pistol she now pointed at him. The dogs Alban had brought along shamelessly backed out of the room, choosing to stand outside rather than help diffuse whatever situation might be occurring.“Hello Marina.”“Al
I sat bruised, bloody and beaten amid my enemies, their predatory grins dug into my pride as I knew that they only waited for a single word to tear into me. Luckily, the one to give the order wasn't present and I only suffered a periodic smack to the back of my head.My jailors were kind enough to let me have access to a television, more for their entertainment and less of mine, of course, but it gave me all the information I needed and even more."Just last night, the Volstovian government finally confirms that it is under attack from a neighbouring country.""Yeah, I don't think there's any need at this point for confirmation, we've got clear footage of the battlefield a full aerial and ground view too.""Ah, yes George, let's have the clip played," she pauses to look to the camera, "Viewers, please be warned, what you are about to witness can only be described as deeply disturbing."The station slides over to play the clip and it is truly disturbing. A screech pierces through the r
I died of old age.For some reason I thought and hoped that that would be my finally death. It wasn’t.I was back again, lying in the painfully comfortable bed that greeted me with each reincarnation into my nineteen-year-old body. Having experienced death in more methods than most dead people could boast of, the experience had become gruesome.I’d died in several ways; stabbing, shot in the head, shot in the head by a sniper, suffocated with a pillow, war, bubonic plague, suicide, the list goes on.But in total, I had lived a sum of nine lives and a hundred and seventy-two years. Yes, the experience was gruesome.I sighed, done waiting for the puppeteer of my misery to reveal itself to me. Whatever pioneered this phenomenon around me. Unsurpringly it didn’t. After close to two centuries of life, I still had no clue what purpose my repetition served. I had no idea what mistake I was to rectify. If this was a game, I had no waypoint.I sprung to my feet, unamused by my tenth reincarnat
My back was greeted by my painfully comfortable bed. I died again.Ha!Actually no, I hadn’t. Though I was brave enough to steal a bit of Luciano’s hair with that bullet, I knew I couldn’t control the military without his support. I needed him gone, yes, but not only for my satisfaction. If I got rid of him without mapping and buying out the loyalties of those who would replace him then, I’d only be creating more problems for myself.Currently he held the highest ranking position in all facets of the military. That would need to be broken down. I preferred to have options to choose from. If I had three military advisors and members of my ruling council, then I had a better chance of dividing their forces when I smell a coup.A few well-placed promises and threats and I’ve got a stable hold on the Military, no one willing to move against each other, much less myself. The problem arose in how to rip his power away from him and divide it among those I wish.“So far the reports show no si
I would be lying if I didn’t think this was cringe worthy.It was raining, we all wore black and many women from what remained of my extended family wiped out the waterworks.Well we had to bury them sometime. My parents I mean. This was the tenth time I was holding their funeral, burying endearing pictures of the two of them in the same casket. Was that cheap? Burying two people in one casket just because you could-seeing as pretty much nothing remained of their bodies.It’s the thought that counts.I hear and feel my phone ring, the frightening sounds of Mark Hamill’s iconic joker laugh. I let myself smile at the visible scares it gave everyone at the funeral. I pulled it out and ended the call. No point actually answering a schedule call now is there? Why would I schedule a call? Why to get out of my parent’s repetitive funeral, escape my aunts and the mound of cousins that seemed to keep growing, of course.I turned around and began to walk away with the phone placed against my e
I didn’t know what exactly to think of the article I’d just read. I held my phone closer to my face, squinting my eyes as I skimmed over the article once again. Much of what was written here was written with a strong and confident tone, like the ‘facts’ and ‘evidence’ presented couldn’t be refuted. But it was the arrogance that angered me.“She really believes in what she has written doesn’t she,” I comment.“Quite outrageous notions, Mister President.” The man in my company agreed wholeheartedly, even as his voice shook and his hands trembled.I look to him and smiled. I couldn’t exactly call him cowardly just because he was scared of what a nineteen-year-old like myself would do to him. I’ve got to give him credit, he hasn’t pissed himself despite the two machine guns placed on either side of his head.The president of Peak View Media (PVM); a privately owned media house that distributed news in all available forms and even made a few TV shows. He was a rich man by all standards but
Well this certainly be how I tell the story.I can’t say I didn’t expect some form of rejection at my offer. I did, even in my past lives my position as President did nothing to help the fact that I still had to work for requited emotions and I’d only found it effortlessly once; when I wasn’t even worth as much as I am now. It made me come to understand that women, at least the women I’ve met, generally like being chased around like the roadrunner the moment a man, powerful or not, expresses interest. It was exhausting.But I certainly wasn’t expecting her to burst out laughing in my face. I kept an unsteady smile on my face, it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to be laughed at after giving such a proposal. Or to be laugh at all in any situation.I let her get it out of her system, still holding my smile in place. “Are you done yet?”Her lips still quivered as she held a finger up at me, taking in deep breaths and wiping away…tears.“Ahhh. That was great. Okay, I’m done.” She says with
I walked into my office early in the morning, a pile of work awaited me and I could already feel my sleep schedule shifting. It was unsettling not being able to sleep in as often as I used to.I hung my jacket over my chair and prepared to go over a ton of work. A lot of immediate changes had to be made to government expenditures, notably issuing subsidies for the growing population invested in media. The media was one of the few sectors in the country that was mostly privatized legally anyway. It was important to leave the media majorly in the hands of the private citizens, they knew what entertained best and what entertains provides the most efficient distractions.But it was even more important to privatize more of the industry as power has been passed on for the first time in the country. A bad image would cause unwanted destabilization. And how do you avoid that? Provide government subsides they become dependent on. The threat of it being withdraw is surprisingly more effective f