Tag: fiction

We’re Fucked, Pt. 105 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

As I ease the door to Nairu’s bedroom open, a broadening ribbon of hallway light pierces the darkness, creeping up the child-sized bed, reaching the slumbering form of the little girl we call our own. Glow-in-the-dark stars dot the ceiling, and under them, Nairu is lying prone, covered up to her neck in a lemonade-pink quilt featuring unicorns with turquoise-blue manes and self-satisfied smiles. The white light bathes our girl’s tranquil face, as well as strands of her chestnut hair, in a milky glow. Her hands are tucked under her chin, her rosy lips parted. Her torso rises and falls with each gentle breath. Our antediluvian baby.

Nairu must have grown on me like a cluster of orchids blooming in a marsh; I want to kneel by the bed, cradle her face, and rub my thumbs along the ridges of her cheekbones. Deep in dreamland, what fantasies are dancing behind those closed eyes? Is she strolling among towering conifer trees? Is she splashing in a stream, catching prehistoric fish with her bare hands? Is she playing a game of tag with a wooly mammoth while her furry-footed, beastly father cheers her on from the sidelines? Is she riding on the back of her centaur mother, racing through a grassy plain, while sabertooths watch them in awe? Is she fleeing in panic from a stampede of ground sloths? In the frosty quiet, has she stumbled upon the lifeless forms of her mother and father, cold as the ground beneath them?

Even though Nairu has been abducted into a world irradiated with perversion, she dared to drift into dreams in the abode of two women who remain mostly strangers to her, one of whom is a dangerous lunatic. Outside our sanctuary, how many unspeakable horrors lurk in the shadows, eager to suck the marrow from this girl’s bones? I must shield Nairu from enduring the same nightmares that haunt me, but for that I’d have to clean out society one doorstep at a time. Any potential threat to our pixie child? I’d hack them to pieces with a machete.

Jacqueline’s warmth envelops me as she leans into my side, hugging my waist, squeezing her breasts against my left arm. She tilts her head to whisper in my ear.

“Isn’t she lovely, our sweet little doll?”

Her sensual voice has rolled my spine into a tight spring.

“Mh-hm.”

“I get to take care of this innocent child. We are a family.” Her whisper becomes threadbare, as if she struggled to form each syllable. “Years ago, I was so miserable.”

I want to turn my head and meet Jacqueline’s eyes, but she buries her nose in my hair. Her fingers trace a path along the back of my scalp. She lets out a sultry sigh into my ear canal, which vibrates my eardrum with a whooshing noise like wind in a microphone. Goosebumps erupt on my skin.

“And then you appeared,” she whispers, “you twisted thing.”

Jacqueline wraps me tighter. My left earlobe becomes engulfed in a heated humidity as mommy savors the rounded, fleshy part of my ear with her tongue. A purry moan escapes her throat. She laps in slow motion at the outer rim of my ear, then the inner rim, then the hollow next to the ear canal, bathing them in warm saliva. I’m curling my toes and shrugging to keep from breaking in shivers as a tidal surge of desire rises up in my gut.

Before Nairu stirs from her sleep and sees one of her new mothers licking the other’s left ear like a lollipop, I ease the door shut until the latch clicks.

I close my eyes. Jacqueline’s tongue is sliding with a sensuous motion over the cartilaginous hollows, ridges and furrows of my ear, causing saliva to drip down to my earlobe. As she shifts her weight subtly from one foot to the other, and the pressure of her breasts squashing against my left arm intensifies or diminishes, I listen to her sounds: deep breaths, wet smacks when she withdraws her tongue to wet it, throaty noises when she swallows. My bodily heat is pooling in my crotch while an increasing moisture dampens my panties.

A hand lifts the front of my shirt, and those fingers caress my sunken abdomen. I shiver. A whimper slips out of my mouth. As Jacqueline’s fingertips dally toward my pubic bone, leaving trails of warmth in their wake, my nipples stiffen.

“You want mommy to dote on her baby girl, don’t you, sweetheart?” Jacqueline’s breath kisses the inside of my ear. “Yes, you’re in dire need of mommy attention.”

A feverish desire pulses in my groin, and my pelvic muscles contract involuntarily, while Jacqueline’s left hand unbuttons my trousers. I help her lower the waistband. Her right hand slides inside my trousers and along the curve of my ass, to knead my cheeks hungrily.

A tongue is coating the ridges of my left ear in saliva. A hand glides aside the seat of my panties, then cups and squeezes my bare ass. As a hand wanders down past my pubes, two of its fingers brush against my slit through the drenched panties, that cling to my quivering pussy. Those fingers rub my sex back and forth, sending a thrill through me.

My eyes roll back. Jacqueline’s heat has sunk into my bones and is traveling through my body, setting every corner aglow. I’m feeling faint; my legs threaten to give out from under me. In the center of my mind, a chained, horned wolf bays for sex and blood.

Jacqueline removes her mouth from my ear, and pulls back. I turn my head to meet her cobalt-blues, now glassy. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips parted and wet. She’s sticking her glistening tongue out. From its tip hangs a bead of saliva that gleams like a pearl. I stand on my tiptoes, envelop her coral-pink organ with my lips, and suck on her tongue as if to drain it of nectar.

I’m dizzy, and breathing in a floral fragrance. Jacqueline’s firm hands are stroking my shoulders. The corners of her mouth have risen in a seductive smile.

“Sorry to leave you wet and ready, darling, but… c’est de mieux d’arrêter maintenant, before I fuck you in the hallway. Get that sexy body of yours to the bathroom and freshen up.”

“I-is the rot heavy on my skin?”

“I can tell you have sweated quite a bit.”

“More like crawled through shit.”

Jacqueline chuckles.

“Go ahead and hop in the shower, sweetie. Wash the grime off and feel good again. Once you join me in our bedroom, as I told you on the phone, I’m going to show you something special.”

Author’s note: today’s songs are “Forever” by Roy Harper (also this live version), “My Girls” by Animal Collective, and “Lysergic Bliss” by Of Montreal.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout the novel. A total of a hundred and sixty-eight videos so far. Check them out.

Are you also in dire need of mommy attention? Then check out the audiochapter I produced for this part.

Review: Sayonara Eri, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Reseñas1 Comment

Four and a half stars.

I’ll get to see you every time I watch it. No matter how many times I forget you, I’ll remember you again and again.

This is a one-shot manga created by the deranged author of Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man, as well as plenty of other one-shots. Regarding Fujimoto, as it pertains to this story, you should know that the guy is a cinephile who would have rather been an animator than a manga author. In fact, when he got around to coming up with Chainsaw Man, he had become so disillusioned that he intended it to be his last tale, one in which he would go nuts and give zero shits about whether others enjoyed it. Turns out that Chainsaw Man became a worldwide sensation, which has chained Fujimoto into making more manga, starting with a sequel of sorts to his megahit (which may have been a bad idea; I’m not enamoured with it so far).

Anyway, the protagonist of this one-shot I’m reviewing is a middle school kid who is tasked by his mother with the grim duty of recording the last stage of her illness, right up until the moment of her death. The author depicts most of the panels as stills from the videos the kid is recording. As his mother’s condition worsens, we understand that our protagonist hasn’t grasped the enormity of what’s happening to the woman, and when the day comes that he has to walk into that hospital and record his mother’s last moments, he runs away.

As someone who has a terrible time processing his emotions unless he’s recording himself (in a similar way as many writers can’t understand what they’re feeling unless they write it out), and as an aspiring filmmaker, he edits the footage into a movie. He intends to present it at school and get more people to know his late mother.

However, that movie lacked an ending, and the protagonist’s absurd way of concluding it (won’t specify because it’s a spoiler) causes him to get mocked by his classmates. His teachers consider the movie a disgrace to the memory of his mother, and a schoolmate whose mother also died tells him that how he treated her demise was unforgivable.

Despairing, unable to process both his mother’s death as well as having his heartfelt movie mocked savagely, he heads to the roof of the hospital where his mother died, intending to record his suicide. There he meets a female schoolmate named Eri.

She praises his film despite its many faults, and prevents his suicide by dragging him to an abandoned building to watch a series of movies. She intends for him to grow as a filmmaker, so he can ultimately make the movie that represents his true self.

Mr. Fujimoto, master of levitation, just how many twists did you cram in this one-shot? Most of what we witness through the manga is depicted as stills from recorded footage, so we are never sure of our footing. Are we experiencing a recreation of events as the protagonist would have wanted them to happen? Are we watching the elaborate fantasy that he created to cope with the losses in his life? Did any of it happen? Does it matter?

A masterful tale by one of my favorite manga artists, whose taste for the absurd is right up my alley. Sayonara Eri is an ode to the power of art to remake our lives, to allow us to endure the cosmic absurdity for another day.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 104: AI-generated audiochapter

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Nothing like returning home to a French mommy (cue meme “guys literally only want one thing and it’s fucking disgusting”). This audiochapter covers chapter 104 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.

Cast

  • Leire: same old thief from the sewers of Riften
  • Jacqueline: the real Triss Merigold

I produced audiochapters for the entire previous sequence, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or the world ends, whichever comes first. A total of two hours, thirty-three minutes and twenty-nine seconds of audiochapters produced so far. Check them out.

Review: O Maidens in Your Savage Season, by Mari Okada

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, ReseñasLeave a comment

Teetering between three-and-a-half and four stars. Great title, by the way.

The author of this manga series is a veteran anime scriptwriter who has worked on, if not put together from the beginning, movies and series like A Whisker Away, Anohana, Toradora!, and Hanasaku Iroha, which are the ones I recognize now from her long list of credits. You can tell that level of professionalism in how she wrote this series: it balances the character arcs of five high school girls, each the protagonist of their own tale, who make up their local literature club. I envy authors who can orchestrate multiple viewpoints in the same story, each with its own character arc.

The series starts with one of the girls reciting a risqué passage of one of the novels they choose among themselves to read: A vision of her pale flesh, and then the soft tangle of her undergrowth, filled my eyes as I got down onto my knees and buried my face into the lush, fragrant bower; moused trembling lips over the contours of her flower to slake my thirst on the sweet, aromatic nectar spilling from the crevice. The way each of the five girls reacts introduces their character arcs.

We have a physically undeveloped girl who, as an aspiring writer, is attempting to publish erotica, but she’s getting rejected because she lacks real experience, and she can’t wait to get fucked and get it over with. A cool, mysterious model-like beauty who appears mature, but who as a child had been (as we find out fairly early on) princess-zoned by a pedophile, which screwed her up. A “childhood friend” type who has lived her entire life next to the guy she likes, but who sees her as a sister, so she isn’t getting anywhere with him. A cheerful and kind girl who has never felt the tingles for anybody, and who isn’t sure if she even likes boys. Finally, a total prude for whom any notion of sex makes her feel as if she’s sinking in toxic sludge.

As the author exposes in the notes at the end of the series, she relied on anime artists to design the girls, and you can tell: those kinds of artists focus on differentiating the visual design of the characters as well as their personalities, something that even novelists should take into account. They end up feeling quite memorable in that respect, as if they could carry a much longer series.

Anyway, the inciting incident of the girls’ development happens when, during one of the many doki doki developments in their (non-suicidal, non-murderous) literature club, they discuss among themselves what they’d like to do before they died. The cool, mysterious beauty of the club says simply that she wants to get fucked (in softer terms). From that day onward, the five girls attempt in their fumbling way to navigate their developing sexuality, usually in manners that involve extreme awkwardness and running away; I don’t think I have ever read any other series in which running away was the solution to so many problems.

As the main dude in this story we have the childhood friend and neighbor of the girl who wants to date him. For whatever reason he’s seen as a suitable mate, although the guy is a clueless dork who is obsessed with trains. As I was wondering what angle the author was playing with him, she soiled the guy further by having that girl catch the kid at home as he was masturbating to rape porn (onboard a train, of course). This is the link to that moment in the anime adaptation.

The girls don’t understand their feelings nor their impulses, and make dubious decisions like trying to score with their teachers, with their former abusers, with each other’s love interests, or with each other. Quite realistic and entertaining in that respect.

Although I have read plenty of manga over the years, even these last few, that involved high schools somehow, this was the first series during which I thought, “Oh shit, is this too girly for me?” I don’t read straight shoujo (nor straight shonen for that matter; I couldn’t get into My Hero Academia). I recall an anime whose concept intrigued me years ago, because it involved a magician who traveled to the past and had to hang out there for reasons. I was going along with its girly parts until they started using pocky sticks as magic wands, at which point I was forced to beat my chest and look up videos of people pummeling each other, to regain my masculinity. But yes, during this series I’m reviewing, I wished it fell much more into the seinen category. Curiously enough, that’s what the author intended, as she says in the notes, but when she started writing the script, the girls kept rebelling, due to their initial innocence, to the sexual activities the author intended to force them through. Still, the story is likely quite risqué for Japan.

I enjoyed the story. I empathized with the girls’ struggles to shed their innocence and become hardened degenerates. However, some emotional moments didn’t land that well for me; I felt that he author was trying to tie everything too neatly. But perhaps I simply didn’t understand the emotional depths she was plumbing. I’m quite emotionally retarded, after all.

Anyway, you’ll enjoy this series if you are interested in the budding sexuality of high school girls.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 104 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial3 Comments

I nudge the front door closed with the back of my sneaker, and it settles behind me with a solid thump. I release my pent-up breath. I’m home, in the private domain of Miss Jacqueline Rouxel. I’m welcomed by the sight of the corridor and the smears of light from the recessed ceiling fixtures reflected in the glossy parquet. To my left opens the ample living room, its walls painted baby blue. The balcony door looks out into a patch of darkness.

A wave of relief washes over me; for the first time since I left for work in the morning, I can loosen my muscles and my brow.

Water is dripping from the moldy, spare umbrella I grabbed at the office. I turn around to slide it into the stand. I take off my corduroy jacket and place it on the coat hanger. My keys hit the tray with a sharp clatter.

Jacqueline is ambling down the corridor to meet me. Her unbound raven-black hair cascades to her shoulder blades, swaying gracefully. She has donned an oyster-pink silk robe, tied up at the waist with a sash, that highlights the contours of her voluptuous figure. As she walks, the light swims within the fabric like sunlight playing on a rippling pond.

I want to proclaim with elation that I’m home, that although I was brought against my will to this strident, chaotic world, I have managed to survive, but my vocal cords refuse to comply. Jacqueline is near enough for her intoxicating fragrance to envelop me with a mixture of freshly-washed skin, soap, cream, roses and jasmine, that triggers an ache of longing deep within me.

My partner in crime, the woman I adore, stops two feet away. Her eyes, cobalt blue like the deep ocean and blue tangs and hyacinth macaws, are brimming with warmth as they gaze down into mine. Her plump lips curve into a radiant smile that lights up her ivory-white features, that weakens my knees. Whatever may exist in this universe beyond Jacqueline blurs as my focus remains locked on my beloved. She bolsters me despite the rot inside me, despite my crippling derangement. Yet, a pang of guilt gnaws at my heart; her tenderness is wasted on such a filthy bitch, whom the rest of the world has rightfully neglected.

In the periphery of my vision, I catch sight of Jacqueline’s midnight-sky-black bra, whose satin fabric glistens subtly and is decorated with lace overlays, that supports the pair of massive breasts. I long to lose myself in eternity ensconced in her arms, burying my face in the ivory-white slopes of her tits so her warmth and softness and familiar scent soothe my frayed nerves. My heart pounds with the desperate need to be engulfed by her like a piece of paper succumbing to a flame.

However, a clammy, mucous-like sensation clings to my skin and clothes. Does Jacqueline’s fine nostrils detect the blob’s putrescent stench mingled with the acrid tang of my own sweat? The rot must have seeped even into the fabric of my panties, that are chafing against my private parts. I’m contaminated, marked with the brand of evil. I need to rip off my tainted clothes and scrub away the filth until my skin feels like it’s been flayed.

“J-Jacqueline, I’ve gone through a disturbing, exceedingly long argument with a blob of sewage.”

She steps closer, leans forward, and presses her plush lips against mine. Her tongue, that velvety organ, plunges in to probe mine warmly. I shudder. The hair on my nape stands up. Hot white noise tingles between my thighs. Her eyelashes flutter, tickling my eyelids, as her quickened pulse throbs through the skin of her lower lip.

While her soft tongue swirls around mine, Jacqueline slides her fingers behind my hips and clasps her palms together in the small of my back, pulling me closer. Her breasts heave against mine as she inhales and exhales, letting out low moans that resonate through me like a hum. My fingertips meander up and down her dorsal groove through the silky fabric of her robe, between the symmetrical ridges of muscle, until I touch the stiff clasp of her bra. As I fiddle with it, my mouth floods further at the prospect of unhooking the clasp and suffocating on those mounds of smooth flesh.

With a wet smacking sound, Jacqueline withdraws her lips from mine, breaking our embrace. I lean forward to resume the kiss, but I’m unable to connect our mouths. When I open my eyes, Jacqueline is gazing at me with the fondness of a mother regarding her child. Her cheeks are flushed pink.

“Bonsoir, ma belle,” she says in a silky accent that washes over me like a bath of lily petals, and makes me picture a rural village in the south of France.

The hot-blooded pleasure that had swelled within me begins to evaporate from my abdomen. I had lost any grasp of what words may mean, but now I’m coming up from my daze in the bottom of a warm sea. Reality, familiar yet foreign, has come into view like a distant shore after a weeks-long maritime journey. I hear the ghostly echo of Jacqueline’s voice asking, “Vous avez fait de votre vie, aujourd’hui, comme une araignée?“

The warmth of her saliva lingers on my tongue as I regain my breath. I struggle to push a single word out.

“B-bonsoir.”

Jacqueline’s lips stretch into a grin that brings out her dimples. The lace trim on her right sleeve slides down to the crook of her elbow as she raises that hand to stroke my cheek. Her tongue darts out and licks her lips.

“Gummy candy and… Mentos?”

“Yeah, I bought some on the way back. I wanted to mask the taste of vomit.”

“You vomited, dear?” Jacqueline’s brows knit together. “From an argument?”

“Ah… Doesn’t matter.”

“Indeed, what would anything that has happened out there matter now that you’re home and we can enjoy ourselves?” Jacqueline steps back, and her cobalt-blues scan me from head to toe. “I must say, though, that I was sure you would have returned a watery ghost. Drenched from the storm, your shoes soiled with mud. But here you stand, almost pristine.”

I let out a dry chuckle.

“I’m glad, because I feel like I spent hours knee-deep in shit. When I left the office, I was expecting to see Donostia in ruins, the buildings crashing down, the bridges falling into the river, the streets crawling with foul abominations… But instead, the storm had subsided to a drizzle.”

“Lucky girl.” Jacqueline grabs my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Now come with me, darling.”

As she guides me down the hallway, she casts a glance over her shoulder and raises a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. Her eyes are twinkling.

A sketchbook page adorns the white wall. Our prehistoric prodigy has transformed that canvas of cream with strokes of colorful crayons. Her art depicts a trio bound by handclasp, and as the central figure stands a girl of about ten years old, with peach-orange skin and a swath of chestnut hair. The red smudge forming her mouth is curved into a smile.

Author’s note: the songs for today are “Yours Truly, the Commuter” by Jason Lytle, “Sally Cinnamon” by The Stone Roses, and “Friday I’m In Love” by Yo La Tengo.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout this novel. A total of a hundred and sixty-four videos so far. Check them out.

You want to listen to Jacqueline speak in French, don’t you? You know you do. Check out the audiochapter I produced for this scene.

Such a pleasant start for this demented new sequence titled “Miraculous Milk.”

Ongoing manga: Vinland Saga, by Makoto Yukimura

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, ReseñasLeave a comment

Let me tell ya about the odd manga series that is Vinland Saga, with which I’ve had a peculiar relationship. This is mainly the story of one historical dude named Thorfinn Karlsefni, born in Iceland but destined to spend most of his days very much not in Iceland.

For me, since the tale went through its massive inflection point, Vinland Saga became two stories in one. In the first half, we meet Thorfinn as a kid when he was living with his family in their Icelandic village. Thorfinn’s father used to be a badass mass murderer for some famous Nordic group of killers, until he got sick of it and adopted the philosophy that the true warrior doesn’t fight. After Thorfinn witnesses the consequences of such a change in perspective when they meet a group of hardened killers, our protagonist becomes consumed by a thirst for vengeance that put other vengeance addicts to shame; the guy lives to get stronger, killing whoever stands in his way, in order to murder the man responsible for his rage. We follow him, and his group of mercenaries, as they invade, pillage, murder, and murder some more.

This isn’t much of a review, because, to be honest, I’ve forgotten most of what happened in the first part; I must have read it perhaps a couple of years ago. The point is that for me, the notion of Vinland (that, as a historical aside, was what the first Nordic settlers called North America when they reached the place about five hundred years before Columbus) floated as an intangible Shangri-La: a virginal place where Europeans could flee from the horrors of war, slavery, disease and their own general stupidity to build a new nation that would know no war nor slavery. As the main characters traveled further and further east (pretty sure they got to the so-called Byzantine Empire (actually the eastern half of the Roman Empire; RIP, never forget)), I was happy to hold in my heart that mythical Vinland as the childhood dreams of a broken Thorfinn, who had known nothing but war and death for as long as he could remember.

But Thorfinn went through a personal revelation that has become a bit of a meme recently for mysterious reasons.

As a man who had killed hundreds whose spirits kept tormenting him in nightmares, who had lost his freedom and nearly his life, he turned around and dedicated himself to absolute non-violence. He came to believe that there was no such thing as a righteous kill, and would go to any extent to prevent war from breaking out. With that perspective, he returned to Iceland and gathered a crew of settlers to sail westward and found a new nation in which swords wouldn’t be necessary.

I found myself drifting away from the series at this point. For me the story seemed finished. Worse than that, I started considering Thorfinn an idiot. As a leader who had to take care of a few dozen settlers, he prohibited them from having weapons or building defenses, believing that they would be able to coexist with the natives, whom predictably would consider the Nordics as invaders. Most settlers around him saw Thorfinn as a good guy, but a naïve idealist who may get everyone killed. Now that I’m up-to-date with the manga, I suspect that the author is going to pull a brilliant gotcha to show that Thorfinn’s noble idealism could not survive reality. If his story ends up following the conclusion of the historical Thorfinn Karlsefni, I don’t see how it could go any other way. The author has said recently that the story doesn’t have much longer to go, so we’ll see.

Now let me tell you about this crush of mine. Name’s Hild. Even as a teen, living in a small village with her family, she was a Leonardo da Vinci of the Early Middle Ages, destined to die in obscurity if or when some assholes raided the area.

After a personal tragedy, she finds herself scarred and abandoned in the wilds. Turned into a stoic, tenacious loner, she fends for herself hunting with her own custom-made crossbow, until years later she casually comes across the person responsible for the deaths she had vowed to avenge.

Hild should be the protagonist of Vinland Saga, and yet she’s conspicuously underused as a secondary in a large cast. As far as I’m concerned, Hild should be the protagonist of every story.

Anyway, don’t sleep on Vinland Saga, you who have checked out lots of manga recommendations and passed on this one because you don’t care about vikings. I don’t give a shit about vikings, and this story is fantastic. Follow the adventures of Thorfinn and his pals as they travel around in medieval Europe, meet lots of interesting people and kill plenty of them. In the first half, at least.

Two full seasons of the anime adaptation have already been produced. Regrettably I only watched the first four episodes of the first season, but they were very well done. Here’s the trailer of the first season. It seems that they are on Netflix too.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 103: AI-generated audiochapter

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Will I miss novella-long dialogues, now that this sequence has ended? Likely not. This audiochapter covers chapter 103 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.

Cast

  • Leire: Vex, mighty infiltrator that belongs to Riften’s thieves guild
  • Alberto the blob: like a thousand Argonians

I have produced audiochapters for this entire sequence. A total of two hours, twenty-six minutes and forty-one seconds. Check them out.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 103 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial3 Comments

“Don’t look so defeated,” Alberto the blob says. “Listen, I know that the news about an impending apocalypse is hard to wrap your tiny mind around. However, despite how unbearable and loathsome you are, the universe still tolerates the burden of your existence. Don’t forget that.”

I narrow my eyes at the wall-wide, gooey scrotum of fate.

“What I don’t forget,” I retort in a ragged voice, “is that the universe lacks sentience, and therefore can’t give two shits about me or you for that matter. Otherwise it could choose not to implode in a fit of self-annihilation. But thank you, Blubberass, for your manipulative attempt to console me.”

The blob lets out a wet chuckle. I shake my head.

“I’m so glad that I can make even an ectoplasmic wall of pus crack up,” I grumble.

“Oh, quit your bellyaching. All it takes for greatness is the right kind of unhinged. Now that we’re balls deep in the cosmic stew, that’s exactly what we need: a freak among freaks.”

I lower my head as my fingers dig into the fabric of my shirt.

“I don’t even like human beings.” I struggle to push more words past the knot in my throat. “I shouldn’t be the one to save them.”

The putrescent heap of slime gurgles a sloshing sigh.

“Tough titties, pal. You don’t have to like ’em, you just have to save ’em.”

I envision a fire-breathing serpent coiled around the throat of the universe. I force a breath deep into my lungs, then exhale slowly.

“Can we cut the bullshit and get to the point? How in Arachne’s name, pray tell, am I supposed to fix a dying universe? These gaping wounds in the fabric of reality… How can they be stitched back up? What’s your grand plan, Oh Mighty Overlord of the Dark?”

“I’m glad you finally asked!” Alberto proclaims with theatrical flourish. “It’s not like we have been trying to explain the problem to you for weeks. But, you know, no rush. The universe is just on the brink of annihilation.”

My eyelids twitch.

“Get on with it, Blubberball!”

“Alright, alright. No need to feel guilty for your cognitive deficiencies. As a humble servant of the greater good, I will lay out a plan for you: destroy the professor’s machine. As in physically wreck it.”

“If that machine is a nexus of energies, a conduit between dimensions, then once it’s smashed to bits, the energies tapping into it would still exist and the tears in reality would continue to grow. Wouldn’t they?”

Alberto’s gooey form undulates irritably like a fleshy ocean current.

“Leire, you have the intellectual capacity of a walnut, and I’m merely a messenger. I don’t know jack shit about how that machine works. The professor has assured us that his invention should be demolished, so that’s what I’m conveying to you, the only one who can act on this information. Grow some humongous cojones and obliterate the magnum opus of a genius. Hopefully then the tears in space-time will shrink to a pinprick, preventing further entities from slipping through.”

“How am I supposed to smash a bunny machine that taps into the multiverse?”

“Have you forgotten that you’re insane? Have confidence in your mad skills.”

I glance down at my chest, but my breasts aren’t equipped to wield artillery cannons or nuclear missiles.

I shrug.

“Well, I’m a pro at ruining stuff, so I’ll figure it out. Where is this doomsday device located?”

“You’ll come across it, and once you do, you will recognize it immediately.”

My eyebrows knit together in frustration as my temper flares.

“Could you be any vaguer, you mucus-clogged imbecile?!”

“Just shut your cakehole, keep your fucking eyes as well as that interdimensional fuckhole of a brain open, and learn to pay attention to your surroundings.”

“Should a quest to get me interested in the world require universe-ending stakes?!”

“Apparently so, Leire. Apparently so. I mean, it always has to be something grandiose with you. Nevermind the little things, like good hygiene or treating your former co-workers with decency; universe-ending stakes or nothing. And to be honest, after however long I’ve been forced to listen to your babbling, which has turned my mind into a sewer, I feel that the universe ending may be a blessing.”

I rub my hands down my face. My muscles have tensed up with adrenaline, and a headache is gnawing at my skull like a starved rat.

“Is that all you came to convey?” I ask in a weary voice. “I have a pressing appointment with my amatory goddess, so before I hurry to cram in mommy goo by the spoonful, do you intend to bother me with further pieces of invaluable advice?”

“Just remember that you’re our emissary on this plane, all we’ve got, as sickening as the notion may be. We’re cheering for you. One of us is, anyway. I’m realistically pessimistic about your chances.”

I let out a bitter laugh. Sluggish, I shamble back to Jacqueline’s chair and flop down on it. The chair creaks as if complaining.

“Alright, well… I better get going and save the universe or whatever. Let’s keep this shitty world spinning, even though its sentient inhabitants have done little to deserve the ride. As for you, return to your home in the sewerage pipes of hell.”

“Yeah, fuck off, Leire. Enjoy the rest of your depraved existence.”

A smile creeps onto my face.

“You bet I will, Blubberboy.”

The blob makes a rumbling noise like a tuba full of turds. His gelatinous bulk starts convulsing, wobbling and rippling. As dozens of eyeballs shake and bounce against each other, viscous ropes of goo flail out, undulating like inky anacondas. Alberto’s volume is shrinking with a fleshy slurp as if a drain had opened in the wall and were sucking him down.

The puddles and splotches of black goo that have sullied the carpet are stretching dozens of tiny arms. Those wriggling strands, dark vines that grow in fast motion, are pulling themselves from the fabric as they reach out toward the wall. Blackened tissues, with which I had wiped my face after Alberto spat at me, roll up the inner wall of my wastebasket, then tumble across the carpet to meet the interdimensional drain that is pulling in every droplet of tarry putrescence.

A myriad of melon-sized eyeballs pop out from the dwindling mass of slime, dropping onto the carpeted floor with a series of thuds before rolling around like slick marbles. As they come to a halt, they blur, start hissing, and one by one they dissolve into effervescent mists of pollutants that carry a bitter, metallic scent.

With a glug, the last gob of ooze is sucked down into the void. Black and greasy smears remain, like spills of crude oil, but as the rain lashes against the office windowpanes, the stains begin to fade.

Author’s note: the songs for today are “Fat Lip” by Sum 41, and “See You at Your Funeral” by PUP.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout this novel so far. A hundred and sixty-one videos. Check them out.

Enjoy some amateur theatre with AI-generated voices by listening to the audiochapter of this chapter. Check it out.

Thus concludes the saga of Alberto the blob, that started back in chapter 80, during November of last year. This last sequence has been the longest of the novel by a significant margin, with about 25,000 words. You can hear the entirety of this sequence as audiochapters through this link.

The next chapter will kick off a new sequence titled “Miraculous Milk,” throughout which I’ll proceed to lose what little remains of my audience.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 102: AI-generated audiochapter

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

The first rule of the world is that everything vanishes forever. This audiochapter covers chapter 102 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.

Cast

  • Leire: that sassy blonde thief from the sewers of Riften, whom you’d date if you could
  • Alberto the blob: scaly Cyrodiilians with non-forked tongues

I have produced audiochapters for this entire sequence so far. A total of two hours, twenty-one minutes and twenty-five seconds. Check them out.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 102 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial5 Comments

“As wretched as you’ve considered your life to be,” Alberto the blob says somberly, “the worst is yet to come. The professor’s machine borrowed its reality-altering powers from other dimensions, which are now bleeding in to balance the mess out. Consequently, our reality is thinning down and fraying, and the leaks in space-time are increasing in number and size. Picture the eldritch horrors that will crawl out of those tears as whole alien ecosystems merge with ours. And the same way your presumably sentient self invaded the Ice Age, this planet will face intrusions from otherworldly intelligences.”

I’m engulfed in a vision of Arachne’s shimmering cosmic loom, interstellar strands pulsating with starlight, an intricate tapestry that has linked the grit beneath our feet to the nebulous edges of Her domain. In the end of the warp attached to Earth, rips have been torn open like jagged gashes in a dishcloth, each a yawning gateway to other realms, allowing the worst of the Thread Weaver’s servants to intrude in our world.

The buildings of Donostia are engrafted with throbbing fleshlike growths that ooze a corrosive slurry. Ground-sloth-sized, amoebic monsters, their blubbery forms slick with a glistening sheen, slink down the streets, gobbling up pedestrians in a cacophony of screams and squelches. The highways, those ribbons of tarmac, writhe with tentacles that reach out and snatch at speeding cars and trucks. I smell air thick with sea salt; the oceans are churning into a foaming, swirling turmoil as gargantuan blurs shift under the waves: leviathans rising from the deepest trenches of the cosmos. The blanket of blue above is pockmarked with wormholes that vomit forth winged nightmares. As their inky bodies spread across the sky, they cast long shadows on the world below, a world being devoured and digested.

A shiver slithers down my spine, and its icy tendrils wind their way into the pit of my stomach.

“That looks about right for what is about to happen,” the blob says, his words oozing out of his putrid, gelatinous bulk. “Once the dimensional planes sync up, this planet getting a lot of dicks stuffed in it all of a sudden is the intermediate step, a pit stop on the highway to oblivion. According to the professor, eventually the universe will unravel and collapse. Forget about those large beasts from the Ice Age, the wooly mammoths and sabertooths that once roamed the earth: our species, with its knowledge, artworks, cultures, and history, will disappear. Every species that has braved the many extinctions in our planet will be wiped out as if they never existed. We’re facing the end of everything.”

I swipe away the layer of sweat that has accumulated on my forehead.

“Shouldn’t you be, you know, fucking pissed at the bunnyman? After all, his gadget set off the final countdown.”

The gooey mass heaves as if shrugging.

“Maybe I am angry about this reality unravelling thing, but not enough to shit on the professor for achieving something brilliant.”

“He turned you into a slime-dripping slug that wallows in poisonous waste!”

“Unlike you, I don’t blame others for my psychological problems. I was warned not to mess with the machine twice, but I got greedy and ended up sneaking in for more. Hell, its own creator couldn’t keep away, even though he understood the dangers. And honestly, I wasn’t too thrilled about my existence in this dimension. All the excitement I experienced in my youth was gone like an amputated limb. Now I don’t need to feel trapped by the walls of this office.”

Although I raise an eyebrow at the blob, I’d love to be freed from the bane of my existence. One of these days I will ask Jacqueline to pay my bills.

“I can see the appeal of never having to work again. Maybe you were meant to become a wet heap of organic garbage.”

“Anyway,” the blob gurgles, “now that you’re in possession of the relevant facts, you should understand your purpose, your role to play in the grand tapestry of existence: your unhinged self must prevent humanity’s extinction, along with the universe’s collapse into eternal nothingness.”

His words hang in the air like a noose I’m expected to slip my neck into. I rub my clammy palms up and down the sleeves of my shirt.

“Save humanity?” I echo in a hollow voice. “Save the universe?”

Does this filthy species deserve to be saved?

Most of my interactions with people have been detrimental to my sanity. The cutting remarks, the dismissive glances, the never-ending ridicule; a tide whose bitter taste has always lingered in my mouth. Even as a child, I wanted to disappear from the mind of everyone who knew me, to live isolated in some mountain sanctuary, a fortress of solitude where I could escape from a world that was nothing but cruel to me. What stake do I have in humanity’s salvation? Why should I care about a universe hell-bent on tearing itself apart?

Author’s note: today’s songs are “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin, and “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout the novel so far. A hundred and sixty songs. Check them out.

Sometimes all it takes is an audiochapter to lift your mood. Check out the audiochapter for this one.

This chapter is shorter than usual, but I have been halving my writing time because I have to study for an upcoming exam that will determine if they’ll keep calling me for work. It’s not like these chapters will correspond one-to-one with the structure of the final novel, whenever I get around to self-publish it.