Original thread removed to avoid clutter. Posts 1 and 2 reposted here, then continuing with new posts.


February 24th, 2012

It began with two things, a letter and an asshole.

All right, technically it began with the letter, but if it wasn't for the asshole you probably would have simply thrown the letter away thinking it to be junk. Specifically the asshole had been your boss at work, well - your ex-boss now you supposed, given the bastard had got you fired. He was the son of the companies owner, a useless waste of flesh who had been over-promoted simply because his dear ol' pops happened to be the guy everyone wanted to suck up to.

He'd done some stupid shit and you, foolishly, had called him on it. Admittedly it wasn't so foolish when you considered the amount of trouble the shit he had pulled could have caused, but he didn't seem to care as he had come down on you like a ton of bricks for 'humiliating' him in front of his workforce. Bunch of cowards... not one spoke out against him. Not that you really blame them though, you and they both knew that if they had defended you then they'd be the next ones on the chopping block under the bosses axe.

So, there you were. Fumbling with the lock to your apartment - an apartment you now couldn't make rent on - while trying to balance your box of workplace belonging in one arm along with a bag full of alcohol you had bought with some of your now scarce savings. If any night was a night for a person to drink themselves into a stupor, than this had to be it - unemployed, poor and unless you got a source of money within the next week or two, soon to be homeless. Oh, you could probably beg a place at a friend's for a few days but if you wanted to keep a roof over your head you only option then would be to crawl back to your father.

That would just be swapping one asshole for another tough. Your father wasn't technically a bad person, he was practically a pillar of the community back home in the shrine he tended. But he had... he had betrayed you in the worst way possible... And so you had left as soon as you were able to, though it had taken several years to get to that point. He had yelled and ranted, and you had simply walked away and went to the city, to university, and you had not cared to see him since. Your grandfather had talked to you, how the hell you father managed to convince him to leave the ancestral shrine you had no idea, and another row had erupted.

Pff. Like you were going to become a priest like he wanted. So what if it was family tradition? There was no way in hell you were going to become one after what had happened back then... and unless you changed your mind, which wasn't damn likely, there was no way you were going to go crawling back to your father either.

All this inevitably led to the letter.

You'd practically slipped on the damn thing when you came into your apartment since some fool had obviously slid it under your door rather than stick it in your letterbox on the ground floor like they were supposed to. The close call of almost breaking your neck in a fall aside, the letter had been the last thing on your mind at the time and so you had simply picked it up and thrown it onto a nearby surface while you headed off to drink yourself silly.

Except... you couldn't. You'd downed maybe two shots of some cheap liqueur, brandy maybe, and then discovered that you didn't care enough to keep drinking. Instead you had simply watched television for a while - listening to the news spout on about politics this and crimewave that. There was a warning of unusual seismic activity in the mountains up north, but the numbers and warnings they rattled off didn't faze you, around here small earthquakes were pretty common after all.

It wasn't until just after you had begun fixing yourself dinner, just some pan-fried chicken and noodles - you had learned long ago that being able to cook properly made life so much better, that you remembered the letter you had left earlier. Hands still damp from washing them you retrieved the letter and peered at it as you let you let your food sizzle away happily. It didn't seem all that odd, though the address was hand written in elegant flowing letters - not a handwriting style you recognised offhand. The stamp on it was... missing. Which meant that the letter must have been hand delivered then - though who would bother writing a postal address on a letter if they were going to deliver it by hand?

Curious.

Your inspection pauses for a few moments so that you could flip and stir the chicken and noodles in their pan before resuming with the decisive action of simply tearing the letter open. Immediately the scent of... something... over-powered that of the cooking food. It was a familiar sort of scent... earthy with perhaps more than a touch of aromatic woods and, yes, there was definitely the slightly acrid odour of incense. What it meant you didn't really know, but you did know this was the sort of smell that permeated both the wooden countryside houses of your home village and, more disturbingly, it was the smell of a shrine.

You were almost tempted to throw it away then, that smell bringing back memories you didn't want. Something, however, stayed your hand and instead made you poke two fingers inside the envelope and extract the contents from within.

Of course then your chicken started to burn, causing you to discard the letter onto a counter top where it lay until late that night as you fixed yourself a drink to head to bed with. In the end you read the letter while sitting in your bed, enjoying the warmth your blankets provided.

“To the recipient of this message.” it began, in that same neat handwriting that had been on the envelope. “For you to be reading this you have been picked to receive a rather exciting offer.” Once more you almost threw the letter away, thinking it to be junk but... what the hell, you had nothing else to do so you figured there would be no harm in at least reading it through properly. “Bear in mind that this is a one time offer, and that once refused or accepted no change of decision will be brokered. If you wish to take up this offer, please circle any six of the following words - do, please, decide on these in any way you wish.”

Glancing down at the bottom of the letter you note the, rather large, list of words all separated by commas. Then you look back up and almost drop the letter in shock at the next line.

“In future, however, we would prefer it if you read your mail before you got into bed. You really shouldn't leave things too late after all. Now, please, choose if you will.” Gulping at the... spookily precognitive ability of whoever wrote this, you cast your eyes properly over the list of words. There doesn't seem to be any pattern, any rhyme or reason that you can see - just an unconnected list of words to pick from and, oddly, you realize that somewhere along the line you must have taken up a pen from your bedside table.


Pick six.

Busy, Ummm?, Motherly, Boring, Following, Shy, Angry, Swinging, Normal, Hungover, Worthless, Elegant, Refined, Sexy, SPRING!, Loved, Intelligent, Unlucky, Greatest!, Fair, Cheeky, Maid, Strongest!, Flat, Black, Rumia, Musical. Fevered, Envied, Dead, Feminine, Slave, Honest, Speedy, Red, Monstrous, Fairy, Secret, AWESOME!, Excited, Sleepy, Distracted, Efficient, White, Peckish, Amazing, Educational, Fantastic, Working, Scented, Spinning, Balanced, Irritable, Aroused, Loyal, Brilliant,