If I Die Before I Wake

"Interesting," the man said as he stood back and looked at the limp body of Maggie. "She never screamed out."

He placed a couple of bloody tools on a palette and stood back to admire the corpse he had just made. He reached for a camera and snapped off a photo and smiled.

"What a subject," he said with such sadness. "Such a pity."

He touched his hand to her chin and lifted up her head and stared at it for a brief second before letting it fall limp. He thought about kissing her lips but never acted on impulse.

He turned to his next victim and with a hand to his lackeys he said, "Dispose of her."

The man approached Max, who was strapped down on a steel slab. Metal bands strapped across his body to hold him from escaping.

"Your friend was an interesting subject," he said to Max. "I hope you fare as good as she did."

Max started to chuckle.

"What is funny?"

"Nothing much," Max said in a raspy voice. "Just that you have made a big mistake."

"What do you mean?" the man said as he turned to see the latch come from from Mags' limbs. And the lackeys began to remove her form. The man snapped to attention as he saw Mags open up an eye.

"You don't know the level of pain that you have brought upon yourself," Max said.

On the Run, Forced to Flee...

The rain continued to fall and showed no sign of letting up soon. Max could tell that morning was coming since the sky seemed to lighten up a bit. There was a hint of a smile on his lips, another night gone by.

Max raced through the bushes since time was of the essence now. Suki kept up pace with him, constantly looking over her shoulder. She stumbled a little and was about to fall but Max caught her arm and kept her steady.

"I don't think I can run anymore," Suki said with so much exhaustion.

"Daylight is just moments away," Max told her. "Just for a few more minutes, kay."

Suki forced a smile and continued to run on numb legs. 

"I hate this world," she muttered.

"Because of the vampires?" Max questioned.

"No," Suki replied. "It doesn't have a Timmy's."

Games Without Frontiers

Max's eyes flickered at the crisp blue sky overhead, where clouds blocked and puffy floated overhead much akin to an old NES video game.

His head pounded as if a small insect had crawled inside and now was munching on his grey matter. His eyes hurt as if thousands of small needles where being jammed into them.

"Where in the hell are we?" Angst asked. She sat up and glanced around. "Sure is pretty though."

"I rightly don't know," Max answered truthfully. He was suffering from what appeared to be jet lag and couldn't get his bearings.

"You okay Max?" Frank asked.

"Yeah," Max replied.

"You ever see that Disney flick Tron? I think this is something like that?" Frank stated.

"Tron?" Angst repeated. "What is that?"

"It's about a world of programs playing games to survive," Frank gave her the reader's digest version.

"You mean Reboot?" Angst asked. "I like that show with Bob, Dot and Mike the TV. Really hated that Enzo though."

MAXical Mystery Tour

Like Twilight for Chocolate

Suki slid across the floor, her arm outreached grabbing for the Godhammer. Around her bullets ate up the concrete, showering dust around her. It was a hailstorm.

She reached the gun and continued to slide behind some cover, and that began to disintegrate as well. She went fetal as she felt the gun in her hand and she pressed the trigger for it to charge up. Dust specks rained around her, turning her black hair into silver.

She could hear the faint hum and the gun began to give a faint glow like a distant star in the twilight sky. Another few seconds and those bastards wouldn't know what hit them.

Cube Hype

Madison Hall walked swiftly next to the orderly down the stone stairs. She didn't know what to expect when she had received her new case. Madison was glad to be given such a subject to study, it would be a definite book or two, and she would probably do the talk-shows.

"He's down here," the orderly said. "This is where we keep our special cases."

"I know," Madison said matter-of-factly. "I've read his dossier."

"Let me tell you sister," the orderly said with a hint of a wry smile. "Reading and seeing are two different things."

Madison thought the orderly was shining her on. With her being new to this ward, they probably wanted to scare her with hidden bogeymen ready to spring out and get you.

The orderly reached up and punched a set of keys and a buzzer sounded and the door unlocked.

"Is he kept alone?" she inquired.

"It's hard to say," the orderly replied. He made sure that the door was shut behind them and he hit the locking mechanism. "He might not even be there."

"What do you mean?" Madison inquired. "Does he escape?"

"It's hard for me to say," the orderly said. "Some times he goes for a few days, but he always reappears here. Haven't you read his file?"

Madison stopped in her tracks. "You mean to say that he is gone physically? Not mentally?"

The orderly kept walking down the white corridor.

Madison proceeded to walk in, analyzing the new data which the orderly was telling her. She felt the orderly was pulling her leg, trying to get a shine on the new face in the crowd.

The orderly approached the door at the end of the hall which was labelled: Project Cube.