Spattering Neurons

Sheathed
Originally uploaded by cheerfulstoic.

With all the adrenaline rushing through me I couldn’t even remember how I got into this situation. All I could think of as we walked up the increasingly steep path was the man pointing the gun at me and his partner pointing a gun at Amanda back at the cabin. Soon enough we got to the base of the rock wall.

“They’re up there?” I asked incredulously.

“Why do you think you’re here? You can climb the wall and get the diamonds and if you don’t, the girl dies.”

“What about a rope? I’ve never even climbed this route before!”

“We haven’t got time for that, now move it!”

“Can I at least go around to the other side? There’s a route I’ve done a number of times that would be much better.”

“I’m sorry, maybe you haven’t had a gun pointed at you before. Do you need me to explain how this works? I tell you to do something and you do it, or one of the bullets comes out of here and into your head”. I stared silently at him for a moment. Realizing I had no choice I turned to look at the task at hand.

The base of the wall looked pretty good, lots of grips. Pushing the doubt out of my mind I got to it, foot up, grab a hold, foot up, grab a hold, and so on. After about a minute, the sound of a scream and the gun going off distracted me and almost made me lose my grip. Then I heard Amanda’s voice, “It’s OK, come on down”. I chanced a look down and saw her standing over the man with the gun in her hand. Slowly I climbed back down.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Didn’t you know I’m a ninja?” she said with a grin.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Want to get some frosty chocolate milkshakes?”

“Yeah, totally!” she said, walking with me back to the cabin.

Dreesed
Originally uploaded by cheerfulstoic.

It was a dark winter evening. After getting off work Brian headed over to a dark corner of campus to meet a friend and see Saul Williams’ unique brand of poetry. Uneasy, Brian was constantly looking over his shoulder. It had been a while since he had come around this part of OSU, and for good reason. Five years he survived this place before getting the hell out.

Brian turned his head quickly. It was so quick it could have been an anomaly in his imagination, but he knew better. It was foolish to think he could just walk down the street like he used to. He should have stayed indoors and used the archaic network of walkways that crisscrossed over the maze of roads and sidewalks.

Then they were there. Five of them. Two freshmen, two sophomores, and Optical, a tall senior with a mess of brown hair and a pair of glasses with one lens missing.

“Alpha… Haven’t seen you in a while. I hear they got you workin’ up in the Humanities College.” The disdain behind those last two words was palpable. “Shouldn’t you be back there dissecting some postmodern arguments?”

Brian took a minute to look over the crew. All of them had scars cutting through tattoos of mathematical formulas and diagrams. “That’s funny, Opti. You know I’m doin’ tech support.”

Optical smirked, “I hope they give you good life insurance, because I expect they won’t find more than a picoliter of you when we’re done.” He stepped closer, followed by his cronies.

“What’s your tolerance on that estimate?” said a voice from the shadows. They all looked just as Professor Q stepped into the light. Seeing him, Optical shot a last look at Brian with squinted eyes and was gone a second later.

“Were they that bad when I was here?” Brian asked the professor.

“Oh my, I seem to recall them being quite a bit worse,” he said, grinning as they walked on down the street.