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Thursday Prompt - The Great Holiday Story Exchange
This one goes out to 
Fromthedead . Warning, this is a fairly stupid and absurdist tale made up solely for comedic purposes. I'm hoping it brings a smile.
Welp, here's my attempt at a gift exchange.
-Vet
Have you heard the legend of From the Dead? Not many know their story. Not the true version, at least.
The legend changes from storyteller to storyteller. Some say they’re a spirit in disguise. Others say they’re a zombie. And still others think they never existed in the first place. I for one choose to reserve judgment. I believe in facts above emotion.
“It’s inhuman.”
That’s what Mr. Tomly told me. He claimed to be one of the few people to have seen what their face looked like and lived to tell the tale. I tracked him down to his small cottage in Romania. For a man so fortunate, he seemed the least charitable, fixing a permanent scowl during our entire conversation.
“Don’t ever look at them directly,” Tomly said. “What has been seen cannot be unseen.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I said. “You survived, and you turned out fine.”
“I lost an eye.”
“And gained an eye patch. See, you got out of great!”
The man’s scowl worsened. I knew not to poke my nose where it wasn’t welcome, so I took Tomly’s testimony and went on my way.
His story was one of rarity. Circumstance. He’d happened to have passed by FTD on the street. A gust of wind had blown their hood off for a few seconds. Only a few seconds. Barely enough time for any of the other onlookers to notice.
But Tomly had noticed. In the ensuing months to pass, he’d both lost vision in one eye and spontaneously developed the ability to speak Romanian.
“Americani proști și legendele lor,” he’d said as I left. I didn’t know what it meant, but I assumed it was good luck.
So I pressed on to London. There I was to meet a woman by the name of Gloria Eliric. A woman who claimed to have sat next to FTD in primary school.
“It’s a phantom, I tell ya’,” Gloria said.
“A phantom? Like Casper?”
“No, Casper was a ghost. FTD is a phantom.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Phantoms are better.”
Gloria was a woman who’d spent the past twelve decades of her life wondering how she’d survived twelve decades. By her own accounts, she’d stopped aging after primary school. Her body had been trapped as an eleven-year-old for over a century. She’d bought stilts to appear more adult-like.
“I knew that phantom,” she said. “It spoke to me. Changed me. I liked it.”
“You liked the phantom?”
“Who didn’t?! That thing was drop-dead gorgeous! Literally! One of my friends tried to ask them out and died.”
“Oh my god.”
Gloria recounted her story with an awestruck gaze, her hands held close to her chest as she relived the memories. There were no records of dead children at Gloria’s school. But then, who would report that kind of thing anyhow? Whatever the case was, I could believe by that point that FTD’s existence wasn’t just a rumor. But were they simply a mysterious entity or a malicious one? Did they act out of necessity or out of some will of their own? These were the questions that drove me to keep digging. To see the truth through to the very end.
That’s when I came face to face with him.
When I got to my third lead, I knew I was fully out of my depth. For the third lead was for Benjamin Balmer. A name many of you may recognize by his public alias, The Sunday Night Thief. He was being held in a maximum-security prison so secluded just mentioning its location would get me arrested. But my publisher has good contacts so I can say it’s somewhere in [redacted].
The guards took me to a room where I could talk to Balmer face to face. Even if it was a room with some twelve armed soldiers and several cameras.
“You’re real,” Balmer said as he was led to my table. “I can smell you.”
“Real enough, I think. I take it not many visitors then?”
“The live ones are scared I’ll rob them.”
“Would you?”
“I haven’t stolen a thing since…the incident.”
As I spoke to Balmer, I noticed him fidgeting with his chains. His eyes would dart around the room randomly. At one point he jumped at the sound of nothing, turning white as a sheet. I don’t know what that man saw, but he refused to calm down no matter what I tried.
“Balmer?” I asked. “Balmer, what do you remember from that night?”
Balmer shook his head. “Snow. Ice-cold snow. Flying turkey. Yellow eyes.”
“Turkey?”
He started to hyperventilate, his chains rattling. The guards took a step towards him, but I didn’t want them to get in the way.
“Balmer I-”
“The turkey. The turkey!”
He slammed his hands on the table, rapidly beating against it.
“IT THREW THE TURKEY! HOW? HOW DID IT THROW THE TURKEY? THERE WAS NO TURKEY!”
At that point, the guards all came around to pull Balmer away, the man continuing to shout as he kicked his chair over. I took ten grown men to restrain him, and even then they were barely able to cart away the Sunday Night Thief.
“HOW? HOW? THE TURKEY!”
Balmer’s voice continued to echo through the facility as he was pulled away. I honestly didn’t know what to think at the time. But my interview was over. The guards were quick to escort me away from the prison, though by that point I was at my wits end anyway. Just what insane rabbit hole had I stumbled on? Who was this creature who could turn sane men into lunatics?
Assuming of course Balmer was sane before the incident. That’s a story for another report.
After three investigations, I’d come to the following conclusions about FTD. One, that they were extremely powerful. Two, that they could alter people in unshakable ways. And three, that I really did not want to dive any further in my search. But that’s the thing about reporters. We never know when to quit. And even if I knew the dangers, I felt like I needed to uncover the truth. That’s what I took the job for. My fear could go jump in a ditch for a while. I wasn’t leaving without results.
So I did the one thing left for someone to do when there was nowhere else to turn. I went to the source.
They say if you look into a mirror on a cold winter’s night at three in the morning, you can summon the legend directly to you. Why one would want to do so varies from person to person. Some like the idea of summoning extremely powerful entities into their living quarters. Some try it on a dare. And some like me do it for answers. They say FTD gives good advice.
So I did the ritual. I woke up on a snowy winter and went straight to my dresser mirror. There were no incantations to recite. No blood rituals. I simply had to stare into the mirror and call out to them. To believe without a shadow of a doubt they would appear.
And they did.
After months of research, hundreds of dollars spent in travel expenses, and three less-than-decent interviews, I was finally face-to-face with the source of all the rumors. FTD.
And to my shock, they spoke to me. In a voice that was surprisingly human.
“Nice hair.”
And then the creature faded away.
Words cannot describe how it felt to see the source in the flesh. Metaphorically speaking. I came into this journey as but a youngster. A youngster with a mind intensely curious and determined to find the answers I sought. But I came out full of wisdom. As someone who finally understood what all those people spoke of.
I shouldn’t have done this alone. I should have brought my dog or my husband or my best friend. Such knowledge needs to be shared. But I came alone. And thus, alone was changed. I’m writing this story now as an entity of pure brain power. It’s almost Christmas outside my window, and I now have to explain to my children why I’ve lost my body. The price of wisdom, it seems.
It’s actually not half-bad, all things considered. I can see the universe as it is and as it was, which is pretty cool as far as I’m concerned. Bodies are overrated. But I digress. My story is but one of many who’ve been affected by FTD’s existence. We each change in some way simply by being around them. Some more drastically than others. And for my part in this story, I have no regrets.
I set out to report the facts and nothing but the facts. I believe I have done so. Nothing I’ve written here could possibly be misconstrued as the ill-thought-out ramblings of madness. For someone mad would surely not go to such grand lengths for answers. And to the creature who gave me this new form, I thank you dearly for your insight.
I hope you continue to spread your wisdom to others. Merry Christmas, from one disembodied existence to another.
Fromthedead . Warning, this is a fairly stupid and absurdist tale made up solely for comedic purposes. I'm hoping it brings a smile.Welp, here's my attempt at a gift exchange.
-Vet
The Search for FTDHave you heard the legend of From the Dead? Not many know their story. Not the true version, at least.
The legend changes from storyteller to storyteller. Some say they’re a spirit in disguise. Others say they’re a zombie. And still others think they never existed in the first place. I for one choose to reserve judgment. I believe in facts above emotion.
“It’s inhuman.”
That’s what Mr. Tomly told me. He claimed to be one of the few people to have seen what their face looked like and lived to tell the tale. I tracked him down to his small cottage in Romania. For a man so fortunate, he seemed the least charitable, fixing a permanent scowl during our entire conversation.
“Don’t ever look at them directly,” Tomly said. “What has been seen cannot be unseen.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I said. “You survived, and you turned out fine.”
“I lost an eye.”
“And gained an eye patch. See, you got out of great!”
The man’s scowl worsened. I knew not to poke my nose where it wasn’t welcome, so I took Tomly’s testimony and went on my way.
His story was one of rarity. Circumstance. He’d happened to have passed by FTD on the street. A gust of wind had blown their hood off for a few seconds. Only a few seconds. Barely enough time for any of the other onlookers to notice.
But Tomly had noticed. In the ensuing months to pass, he’d both lost vision in one eye and spontaneously developed the ability to speak Romanian.
“Americani proști și legendele lor,” he’d said as I left. I didn’t know what it meant, but I assumed it was good luck.
So I pressed on to London. There I was to meet a woman by the name of Gloria Eliric. A woman who claimed to have sat next to FTD in primary school.
“It’s a phantom, I tell ya’,” Gloria said.
“A phantom? Like Casper?”
“No, Casper was a ghost. FTD is a phantom.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Phantoms are better.”
Gloria was a woman who’d spent the past twelve decades of her life wondering how she’d survived twelve decades. By her own accounts, she’d stopped aging after primary school. Her body had been trapped as an eleven-year-old for over a century. She’d bought stilts to appear more adult-like.
“I knew that phantom,” she said. “It spoke to me. Changed me. I liked it.”
“You liked the phantom?”
“Who didn’t?! That thing was drop-dead gorgeous! Literally! One of my friends tried to ask them out and died.”
“Oh my god.”
Gloria recounted her story with an awestruck gaze, her hands held close to her chest as she relived the memories. There were no records of dead children at Gloria’s school. But then, who would report that kind of thing anyhow? Whatever the case was, I could believe by that point that FTD’s existence wasn’t just a rumor. But were they simply a mysterious entity or a malicious one? Did they act out of necessity or out of some will of their own? These were the questions that drove me to keep digging. To see the truth through to the very end.
That’s when I came face to face with him.
When I got to my third lead, I knew I was fully out of my depth. For the third lead was for Benjamin Balmer. A name many of you may recognize by his public alias, The Sunday Night Thief. He was being held in a maximum-security prison so secluded just mentioning its location would get me arrested. But my publisher has good contacts so I can say it’s somewhere in [redacted].
The guards took me to a room where I could talk to Balmer face to face. Even if it was a room with some twelve armed soldiers and several cameras.
“You’re real,” Balmer said as he was led to my table. “I can smell you.”
“Real enough, I think. I take it not many visitors then?”
“The live ones are scared I’ll rob them.”
“Would you?”
“I haven’t stolen a thing since…the incident.”
As I spoke to Balmer, I noticed him fidgeting with his chains. His eyes would dart around the room randomly. At one point he jumped at the sound of nothing, turning white as a sheet. I don’t know what that man saw, but he refused to calm down no matter what I tried.
“Balmer?” I asked. “Balmer, what do you remember from that night?”
Balmer shook his head. “Snow. Ice-cold snow. Flying turkey. Yellow eyes.”
“Turkey?”
He started to hyperventilate, his chains rattling. The guards took a step towards him, but I didn’t want them to get in the way.
“Balmer I-”
“The turkey. The turkey!”
He slammed his hands on the table, rapidly beating against it.
“IT THREW THE TURKEY! HOW? HOW DID IT THROW THE TURKEY? THERE WAS NO TURKEY!”
At that point, the guards all came around to pull Balmer away, the man continuing to shout as he kicked his chair over. I took ten grown men to restrain him, and even then they were barely able to cart away the Sunday Night Thief.
“HOW? HOW? THE TURKEY!”
Balmer’s voice continued to echo through the facility as he was pulled away. I honestly didn’t know what to think at the time. But my interview was over. The guards were quick to escort me away from the prison, though by that point I was at my wits end anyway. Just what insane rabbit hole had I stumbled on? Who was this creature who could turn sane men into lunatics?
Assuming of course Balmer was sane before the incident. That’s a story for another report.
After three investigations, I’d come to the following conclusions about FTD. One, that they were extremely powerful. Two, that they could alter people in unshakable ways. And three, that I really did not want to dive any further in my search. But that’s the thing about reporters. We never know when to quit. And even if I knew the dangers, I felt like I needed to uncover the truth. That’s what I took the job for. My fear could go jump in a ditch for a while. I wasn’t leaving without results.
So I did the one thing left for someone to do when there was nowhere else to turn. I went to the source.
They say if you look into a mirror on a cold winter’s night at three in the morning, you can summon the legend directly to you. Why one would want to do so varies from person to person. Some like the idea of summoning extremely powerful entities into their living quarters. Some try it on a dare. And some like me do it for answers. They say FTD gives good advice.
So I did the ritual. I woke up on a snowy winter and went straight to my dresser mirror. There were no incantations to recite. No blood rituals. I simply had to stare into the mirror and call out to them. To believe without a shadow of a doubt they would appear.
And they did.
After months of research, hundreds of dollars spent in travel expenses, and three less-than-decent interviews, I was finally face-to-face with the source of all the rumors. FTD.
And to my shock, they spoke to me. In a voice that was surprisingly human.
“Nice hair.”
And then the creature faded away.
**********Words cannot describe how it felt to see the source in the flesh. Metaphorically speaking. I came into this journey as but a youngster. A youngster with a mind intensely curious and determined to find the answers I sought. But I came out full of wisdom. As someone who finally understood what all those people spoke of.
I shouldn’t have done this alone. I should have brought my dog or my husband or my best friend. Such knowledge needs to be shared. But I came alone. And thus, alone was changed. I’m writing this story now as an entity of pure brain power. It’s almost Christmas outside my window, and I now have to explain to my children why I’ve lost my body. The price of wisdom, it seems.
It’s actually not half-bad, all things considered. I can see the universe as it is and as it was, which is pretty cool as far as I’m concerned. Bodies are overrated. But I digress. My story is but one of many who’ve been affected by FTD’s existence. We each change in some way simply by being around them. Some more drastically than others. And for my part in this story, I have no regrets.
I set out to report the facts and nothing but the facts. I believe I have done so. Nothing I’ve written here could possibly be misconstrued as the ill-thought-out ramblings of madness. For someone mad would surely not go to such grand lengths for answers. And to the creature who gave me this new form, I thank you dearly for your insight.
I hope you continue to spread your wisdom to others. Merry Christmas, from one disembodied existence to another.
Mary Shelteen
ISNN
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 43.1 kB
Listed in Folders
Oh, you drew Fromthedead in the exchange as a second person? That's interesting, lol.
And haha, a fun story. He is certainly a very mysterious entity. I even have heard that those who see his face beneath that hood turn into foxes.
Maybe you're a fox now, but one who is so overwhelmed with the experience that you perceive it as ascendance from humanity. It actually fits.
I think it was fun, not overdone at all. And ah, the border between you as VetTelisun and Mary Shelteen is blurry now. Such is the power of FtD. Good luck with university and so on too, and I hope FtD likes it. I liked it myself certainly. ^^
And haha, a fun story. He is certainly a very mysterious entity. I even have heard that those who see his face beneath that hood turn into foxes.
Maybe you're a fox now, but one who is so overwhelmed with the experience that you perceive it as ascendance from humanity. It actually fits.
I think it was fun, not overdone at all. And ah, the border between you as VetTelisun and Mary Shelteen is blurry now. Such is the power of FtD. Good luck with university and so on too, and I hope FtD likes it. I liked it myself certainly. ^^
I can't tell what my favorite part was: getting to remember those days in primary school, putting an end to The Sunday Night Thief with that turkey (long story, don't ask), or how I got turned into one of those 3 AM challenge videos!
My lungs hurt from laughing, this was great!
My lungs hurt from laughing, this was great!
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