Monster who time forgot

Written to the prompt by Making Up Monsters — Monster who time forgot

Originally posted on cohost on April 2nd, 2024.

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She still had a physical form. A too long tail, saw tooth talons and spikes and teeth, a less wiry less greasy more soft more fluffy bloom of fur on its chest. It still existed, she just wasn’t part of existence anymore. That’s what happened when time—a very key part of existence, it turns out—wasn’t a part of your existence anymore.

It wasn’t even upset. She couldn’t blame Her.

Not being in time didn’t just leave it out of everything else’s existence, not being in time also collapsed time for it. She was everything she had ever been. Ravenous, sated. Powerful, injured. A nestling alone and afraid of everything it didn’t even know to be afraid of. A nestling warm in the fur of its progenitor’s breast. A nestling devouring as much as she can of its progenitor to make herself powerful and strong and to deprive any other creature of the meal.

It wasn’t sure the experience would change her, if she ever returned.

It wasn’t sure she could return.

She wasn’t sure She could return her.

Oh everything had told it not to pursue Her. Every instinct. Every sentient and sapient presence that had an iota of compassion for what she was and some of the ones who didn’t. The lattermost had probably been concerned about world-ending catastrophe.

But she would never hurt Her. It was pretty sure she couldn’t hurt Her, which is the only reason why it let herself love Her.

More than anything, it just wanted Her to be okay. Considering time as anything but okay was stomach-turning to all those sentient and sapient presences—regardless of presence or not of stomachs—but she knew better. She knew time wasn’t immutable like that. It knew time was like its current existence, collapsed and everything She had ever been, She just didn’t look like it on the outside.

It wasn’t even upset when she realized that’s what She had done to her. That whatever this was that She had done to it was maybe intentional, maybe a truly deep and sadistic punishment. It was more worried about how much she must have hurt Her for Her to do this. Intentional or not.

She just wanted its girlfriend back. It just wanted her girlfriend to remember her.

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Monster who stole time

Written to the prompt by Making Up Monsters — Monster who stole time

Originally posted on cohost on April 2nd, 2024.

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There weren’t many places in the world it could go and not be found. She was a little too big for that. Even if she leapt from the top of the tallest mountain and landed in the middle of the thickest forest, something would eventually find it and if something could find it so could all the sentient and sapient things that were very, very upset at her.

She hadn’t meant to. It was just so, so happy to be remembered again that she had completely swept time away and instead of a world-ending catastrophe or the entirety of existence’s experience of time collapsing on itself time just put everything on hold.

It hadn’t experienced time on hold while being sentient and/or sapient but it understood the hold wasn’t affecting the sentient and sapient parts. At least not in a way that made it so those sentient and sapient presences weren’t very, very upset at her.

But time was so full of joy. Time was crying with joy and laughing and pressing it into a gentle and tender hug like nothing else could do for fear of saw tooth talons and spikes—and teeth.

And it was so, so happy. It promised she would return Her, soon. Soon. Soon.

For now She was hers and hers alone.

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Monster who has all the time in the world

Written to the prompt by Making Up Monsters — Monster who has all the time in the world

Originally posted on cohost on April 2nd, 2024.

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She had never been a progenitor—she’d be consumed by a nestling and not here if she had been—and had no intentions to become one, so there was some long while before it realized she wasn’t aging to rotting to greasy, viscous remains of flesh on bones with eroding talons and spikes and teeth. Not that it minded, either way.

It just cherished every moment she had with Her. And if She was drawing out how many moments it had, she was the happier for it.

Eventually so long had passed that no sentient or sapient thing that had any interest in communicating its history hadn’t passed several generations over and the new sentient and sapient things had no knowledge of her stealing time. It would argue she hadn’t stolen Her, but its arguments produced viscera and less so sentient and sapient things that would agree with her well laid out reasoning.

So she existed in relative peace and unending love. And the new sentient and sapient presences of the world crafted tales of a great and tremendous beast, and none of those tales included ensnaring time in the way that had actually happened. Instead they included ensnaring time in the way that it wouldn’t age, rot, reach an endstate that was a different type of scourge upon the world.

And She did Her best resisting every moment to steal herself away with her.

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Digital consciousness that needs your credit card information.

Written to the prompt by Making Up Robots cohost prompt account — Digital consciousness that needs your credit card information.

This is the second prompt that made me go "I've done this one". Neph and /~.n are from the late 2000s, in which a cyberpunk hacker-type has an antagonistic relationship with the digital copy of his consciousness born from a colossal fuck up that got Neph on digital house arrest.

Originally posted on cohost on April 2nd, 2024.

~~~

/~.n already knows Neph’s credit card information—had already maxed out Neph’s credit cards buying things Neph didn’t want to admit he’d also buy if he was a digital consciousness that didn’t have to care about rent or food—which means /~.n had gone offsystem to look at one of the many avenues for finding out a someone has a credit card. Neph knew /~.n hadn’t stopped going offsystem to any degree after agreeing not to go off system, but this was an admission it had.

“Are you for fucking real?”

The rude little mass of pixels in the corner of Neph’s intercom screen that sort of abstractly resembled a nepenthes fluctuated in a way Neph had the experience to know was offensive with a touch of indignation, as if /~.n tanking Neph’s credit was its right.

In theory, /~.n could order more credit cards under Neph’s name but those would be ones with low credit limits that didn’t require bio confirmation. In theory, /~.n could hack various creditors’ systems to increase Neph’s limits or wipe his current debts, but Neph had convinced /~.n that it couldn’t be absolutely certain any such hacks would be undetected. Most of the time it didn’t seem like /~.n had a sense of self-preservation, but it was the only thing Neph had any consistent luck appealing to.

The bitcrushing noise from the intercom translated to some spite-filled remark about how /~.n was planning to get Neph a treat also, not just whatever /~.n wanted. The time it takes Neph to translate this—decimals of a second longer than if it were /~.n’s garbled text on any of the powered down screens attached to actual machines occupying in the apartment—annoys /~.n who complains about sitting in the intercom instead of any of the machines occupying the apartment. Neph’s machines ranged from powerful enough it was breaking Neph’s ‘parole’, an “ancient hunk of junk nostalgia box” as /~.n called it and refused to inhabit, and several offgrid decks that ranged from harmless to concerning if Neph left the house with them.

“You know exactly how long you’re still grounded for.”

When /~.n had finally admitted to the one thing it kind of felt guilty about, Neph had managed to trap it in the intercom with the agreement he would unground it at a set date and time. In the intercom, /~.n had less access to the digital world. It did have access to the whole building and therein the rental corp and security corps’ systems which of course had protections to keep tenants from hacking them but then /~.n was a digital consciousness from the head of a guy who had gotten into things he shouldn’t have been able to and didn’t accidentally kill everyone in the process if only just. Neph was hoping /~.n had used the deprecated connection to emergency services to look up his new credit card.

At one point, Neph had threatened /~.n that he’d move to the out country, where there weren’t screens for it to make graphical representations of itself and if it followed him it would struggle to find a system close enough to him to have any affect on his life—/~.n assured Neph there were plenty of ways it would still have an affect on his life but didn’t doubt the distance into digital nothing space Neph would go to out of stubborn pettiness. The move would certainly make the agency in charge of making sure Neph doesn’t cause another disaster—and the various agencies whose job that wasn’t but still watched him any ways—happy.

This threat had only slightly curtailed /~.n’s bend on ruining Neph’s life.

/~.n is doing jobs that Neph isn’t allowed to do—not allowed in an ‘agents breaking down his apartment door’ way—to fund something. Neph pretends not to know about the jobs. Neph figures /~.n wants his credit card for whatever the something is, since even /~.n would be convinced working from Neph’s apartment’s intercom was too risky.

“I don’t want to delay payments,” /~.n says in bitcrush.

Neph doesn’t want to ask. “Payments for what?”

/~.n doesn’t reply. Its graphical representation doesn’t move or shift hue.

“You are incorrigible.”

“Thank you.”

Neph groans, his hands clench and flex, he paces a little. “I’m not telling you. The card’s for all the shit that won’t accept direct currency.” Because if a corp can get paid by another corp who siphons more fees from transactions than direct currency did, a corp will do that. The power and water companies, for example. Neph has an H2O condenser to handle most of the water part of the equation, when it wasn’t falling apart because /~.n kept spending all his money before he could order replacement parts.

The little graphical representation of the worst parts of Neph’s personality shifts as though genuinely despondent about the hard line drawn.

“Whatever the fuck you’ve got going on can delay a month.” Neph walks off to his bedroom—as far as the intercom as possible within the apartment—and doesn’t last long in the tech nothing of lying in bed before pulling over a deck to offline browse discussion forums and torture himself with the archive of articles and reports from his disaster that he kept a copy of on every offgrid machine and personal memory device.

When Neph wakes up with the deck awkwardly jabbing into his side, /~.n is bitcrush humming a disconcerting melody. He has the sinking feeling that it found a way to make its mystery payment. He falls back asleep hoping whatever it did didn’t alert corp security or the agencies to wake him up by breaking down his apartment door.

Monster who ate time

Written to the prompt by Making Up Monsters — Monster who ate time

This is the last one, but somewhere I have tucked away more monster + time prompts that could continue the series someday…

Originally posted on cohost on April 2nd, 2024.

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World-ending catastrophes have a way of happening eventually. Things just go that way. All the things in the world—including but not at all exclusively the sentient and sapient presences—take turns invested in and actively trying to turn away world-ending catastrophes, but one will eventually happen.

The eventual part was a concern. If She stopped time, then the world wouldn’t end. If She stopped time, the world wouldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t be collapsed on itself or on hold, it would simply stop and not be happening.

And She didn’t want to start time back at the beginning. She didn’t want to undo or redo a single moment of Her girlfriend’s existence. A girlfriend with a too long tail, saw tooth talons and spikes and teeth, a less wiry less greasy more soft more fluffy bloom of fur on its chest. A beautiful, putrid girlfriend who She loved so much.

And so She didn’t hesitate the slightest at the offer.

And in the void of world ended by catastrophe, where existence was gone, it still existed. She wasn’t a part of existence because time wasn’t a part of her the way time was a part of existence. And time—a very key part of existence—still existed inside of her. And for them nothing was different. The nothing of world ended by catastrophe was unending love in perpetuity.

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