Shinmaru

"Why does parking have to be so horrible on weekdays?" Charlie asked himself, as he roamed around the bank's parking lot for the fifth time. Complicating matters further was the fact that Charlie's bucket of money was dangerously close to tipping over, and Charlie most certainly did not feel like picking up all of that loose change off of the floor of his car. While he was mulling over that, Charlie spotted a free spot in the far corner of the parking lot. It was much farther away from the bank than he would have liked, but Charlie knew to take things when you could get them, so he drove over to the parking space and parked his car there. Charlie got out of his car and went over to the back seat, where his Salvation Army bucket was waiting. Before he went to pick up the bucket, however, Charlie bent over to the front seat and whispered lovingly to Charles. "Be a good boy and stay in your seat, Charles," Charlie cooed. "I have enough problems without you acting up, okay?" Charles, of course, stayed completely silent, and Charlie took that to mean that they were in agreeance with each other. Charlie smiled to himself, turned his attention back to the back seat, and rubbed his hands together, getting himself ready to lift up the bucket. He gripped his hands tightly around the handle of the bucket and lifted it up with a series of heavy grunts and groans. Little by little, Charlie pulled his bucket through the parking lot and into the bank, settling himself into the long line that was formed in front of the bank tellers. Charlie looked up at the clock nervously. He had already been away from the apartment for fifteen minutes, and the long line did not look like it would be moving very speedily. As much as Charlie enjoyed his time away from Apartment Building C, he was not exactly comfortable with the idea of leaving the tenants on their own for any length of time. He was sure that something was going on there at the moment; he could feel it in his bones. Charlie feared the worst...that someone, somehow, had on gotten their hands on the first draft of the novel that he was writing. That novel was not yet ready for public viewing! It still needed to be tweaked and rewritten! Charlie seethed to himself before he noticed that he was being called up to the next open bank teller. Charlie snapped back into reality and, struggling mightily, pulled his bucket over to the bank teller and lifted it up onto the teller's desk. The bank teller looked at the bucket, then at Charlie, then at the bucket again. "Sir?" the teller asked. "What is this?" "It's a bucket of money," Charlie answered. "What does it look like?" "Why do you have a bucket of money here?" the teller asked. Charlie frowned. "I want to deposit this money into my account," Charlie said. "Look at all this change!" the teller said. "Couldn't you have at least gotten dollar bills rather than change?" "Look," Charlie said, becoming quickly irritated. "If I could have gotten dollar bills, I would have gotten dollar bills. But I wasn't paid in dollar bills, I was paid in quarters, dimes, nickels and a silver piece from 1756. So there." "There are places where you can get change exchanged for money, you know that, right?" the teller noted. "Just put the money into my account!" Charlie yelled. "I'm on limited time here!" Little did Charlie know that he was right. He had been away from the apartment for a full half an hour, and already things were going wrong. If Charlie had known that the electricity had gone out and the tenants were mixing with each other, he would be having fits. "Fine, fine," the teller said. "Sit down over there, we'll have to count your money to make sure that we get an accurate reading of the total amount of money in your account." Charlie rolled his eyes and plopped himself into a chair, grumbling all the while about the sad state of affairs in the world and how a guy couldn't even get some good service any more. "Oh yeah," the teller added, pointing at Charlie's red and yellow striped scarf. "If you're looking for the next showing of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the theater's that way." Several of the teller's co-workers pointed and laughed at Charlie, who turned beet red and gnashed his teeth angrily. "For your information," Charlie spat venemously. "This is a replica scar from the webcomic Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire. I wouldn't sink as low as to replicate that low-grade wannabe magic in Harry Potter!" "Oh, I'm sorry," the teller grinned. "My mistake." Charlie simply turned around in his chair, grumbling grumpily to himself.

[quote name='BlueYoshi][color=teal']I've got a gut feeling that the dual screen is really just a gimmick marking the release of the Nintendo DS. I can foresee what the compatible games would be like; just generally a wave of 'fillers' to support its affiliation. In its market venture, I can almost guarantee that the DS will be considered as just another portable system. To play a game that actually absorbs the concept of the DS is well and good, but how long is it before you start seeing games that operate on a sole basis, completely leaving that second screen out? We may get one or two good titles a year that really bring out the spark of the dual screen function in the same way that we only have two good GBA connectivity games, and while I agree that GBA connectivity wasn't the main attraction of the GameCube, it certainly was a big thing.[/quote][/color] I have to say that this is one of my bigger issues with the DS; exactly how many developers will actually make the strides to take full advantage of the system, and how many will simply be satisfied with making shovelware for the system, like so many did during the Game Boy Color regime. It'd be a shame if only Nintendo and maybe one or two other companies really took advantage of the what the DS has to offer. Right now, I'm hesitant on both the DS and the PSP. They both have potential, but neither has really [i]grabbed[/i] me and made me want to spend my money. I'm not really much of a handheld gamer, so one or the other would have to look really good for me to want to buy them at all. There are just so many issues with both systems right now, but I do realize that neither are really that close to being released and that there's a lot that can happen in the coming months.

Okay, now that we've got the introductions out of the way, we can get to the real parts of the RPG. This first scenario is pretty basic, but I'm sure that we can all build it into something pretty memorable. Right now, I think that we'll ride this scenario out as far as it goes, because doing every scenario with the systematic approach that we used for the introductions would get boring after a while, and nobody would be able to do their characters justice with only one post per scenario. So, just keep posting and we'll see where this takes us. Charlie did not know how it was possible, but each of the tenants had managed to make him more suspicious of their motives than before. It was very clear to Charlie that each of them were up to no good in their rooms. However, what really made Charlie angry is that he could really do nothing about it. They all paid their rent, and despite some occasional grumbling, they all paid on time. Interrupting Charlie's train of thought was a massive cough that welled up from inside of him, forcing its way through his throat. As soon as Charlie was finished hacking and wheezing, he sent a vicious glare in the direction of Kenneth's room. However, since Kenneth's door was closed, he did not see Charlie glaring at him. After a few moments of hardened glaring, Charlie sighed and attempted to pick up his Salvation Army bucket. The bucket was nearly overflowing with quarters, and Charlie's stick-thin arms could barely pick the bucket a couple of feet off of the ground before he had to sit down and rest. Charlie groaned as he realized what he would have to do; he would need to pick up the bucket, move it forward a few feet, and place it down again so that he would be able to catch his breath. Charlie would need to do this over and over again until he made it all the way downstairs. Complicating things further was the fact that he was currently on the top floor of the apartment building, the third floor. Charlie thought it would be a big stretch to expect that the rickety wooden stairs would be able to withstand the combined wait of Charlie and his money bucket, but he had no alternative. So, with a massive grunt, Charlie picked up his bucket, moved it a few feet and set it down again. Over and over again, Charlie completed this task until calling it repetitive would be considered a massive understatement. Somehow, Charlie made it all the way down to the bottom floor of the apartment building. He put his bucket down by the door and went over to fetch his keys from his coat, which was laying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Normally, Charlie did not care for driving, but he knew that he would not be able to carry his Salvation Army bucket all the way to the bank without at least pulling what few muscles he had. Charlie searched his coat pocket and found his keys. When his hand tightened around them, the lights in the apartment building flickered slightly. Charlie rolled his eyes and moaned loudly, throwing his keys upon the floor in frustration. "Great, just great," Charlie fretted. "Figures that right when I'm about to go out, the electrical system decides to screw around." Charlie started to walk over to a shadowed, secluded area of the apartment building, but thought better of it. Instead, he went over to his bucket and prepared to lift it up again. "I can't leave my bucket out in the open," he reasoned. "Who knows who might come and try to take my money?" So, Charlie went through the struggle of carrying the bucket up two flights of stairs and set it down in front of his room. Charlie unlocked his door and gave the bucket a hard kick. Charlie's foot slammed against the bucket and it did not move an inch. He grabbed his foot in pain and hopped up and down, screaming all the while. After a few steps, Charlie lost his balance and fell down the stairs. A few of the tenants could hear Charlie's head bounce against the stairs as he fell downwards. When Charlie hit the bottom, he stormed back up the stairs and pushed his bucket into his room. "Come on, Charles," Charlie said, motioning to Charles. "You're coming with me." Charlie picked up Charles and walked out of his room, closing and locking it behind him. Charlie, holding Charles in his right hand, went back downstairs and over to the shadowed, secluded area that was on the right-hand side of the staircase. It was so dark in this area that Charlie had not known about it until he had accidently stumbled upon it a couple of weeks after he had inherited Apartment Building C and moved in. The light inside of Charles flickered softly, revealing a hidden door and a rubber glove on the wall. Charlie set Charles on the floor for a few moments and proceeded to put on the glove. Then, he unlocked the door, picked Charles up off of the floor and went inside the door, locking it behind him. Inside of the door was another set of stairs, leading downwards. The area was dark, dank and a very unpleasant area. The sound of a drop of water dripping against the floor constantly drilled its way into Charlie's head whenever Charlie stepped foot into this area. Soon, Charlie reached the bottom and spied what he wanted, which was across the room: A circuit breaker. More accurately, a penny which was currently tipping in and out of the circuit breaker. Charlie ran over to the circuit breaker, and with his rubber-gloved hand, adjusted the penny so that it would stick firmly inside of the circuit breaker. Charlie then took a moment to listen for any suspicious noises that might be coming from upstairs. He had not told any of the tenants about this underground area, because he did not believe that he could trust any of them with the knowledge of where to control the flow of electricity in the apartment building. That, and Charlie rather enjoyed being asked for help every once in a while, because most of the tenants required copious amounts of electricity for whatever it was they were doing in their rooms and when the electric system went on the fritz, they practically begged Charlie for help. It was a feeling that he really enjoyed. When he did not hear any noises, Charlie went back upstairs, out of the hidden door, and, with Charles in tow, picked up his jacket and headed back upstairs to his room to fetch the bucket of money. After another half-hour ordeal, Charlie was finally outside and ready to drive to the bank. Charlie took a look at his car; he had not driven it in a while and he had no idea what make it was at all. It was banged up beyond recognition, though it still worked decently. Charlie thrust the bucket into the back seat and climbed into the front. He put Charles in the passenger seat and buckled his seat belt. When he was assured that Charles was secure, Charlie buckled his own seat belt, checked to make sure everything was okay and pulled out from the alley that he had parked his car in. "Thank god I'm finally able to get this crap over to the bank," Charlie muttered to himself. "I've gotta make a mental note to remind those whackos to stop paying in change..." Despite this, though, Charlie was decently happy and leaned back in his seat, glad to be away from the apartment building for the time being. Unbeknownst to Charlie, however, was the fact that the penny, which had been hanging so precariously in the circuit breaker when Charlie set it right, was now wobbling to and fro, ready to fall out of the circuit breaker at the slightest mishap in the house. And there you go. I'm sure that everyone knows what's going to happen next, so you guys and gals take it from here.

Heh, things are getting a bit hectic around here. I?m going to be away tomorrow, so I figured that I should try my best to start up the RPG today. Right now, we?re just starting simple; Charlie is coming back to Apartment Building C after a day out of town and he?ll be collecting rent from the tenants. I figure that?s a good enough way for everyone to introduce their character a bit more and flesh out some of the details of the house and the tenants? rooms. EDIT: Just so there is no confusion, I'm including the list of participants in this post. KnightOfTheRose (Volvo Nike) OtakuSennen (Tom Wesley) KarmaOfChaos (Daisy) Arika (Candy DeMoore) wolf prncss (Protiva) DeathKnight (Kenneth Andrew Howell) Nebackenezzer (Simon Jester) Shy (George Washington) Wondershot (Emilio) Rain. It was everywhere, and it would not go away. Charlie emerged dramatically from a conveniently placed cloak of fog that enveloped the surrounding area. Thick droplets of water doused Charlie?s face and his thick clothing. Charlie wiped his brow with a dampened sleeve, which, of course, only served to make his face even wetter than it already was. Charlie grimaced, cursing slightly, and pulled out a pair of swimming goggles that he had swiped from a little girl at the local YMCA. With the grace of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Charlie struggled to put the goggles on his head, finally winning his hard fought battle after five minutes. Most unfortunately, Charlie neglected to note that the goggles would snap against his face when he let go of them and was met with a sharp pain to the face when he let go of his goggles. Rubbing his goggles and cursing with pain, Charlie took a look at where he was. Two bright lights coming at him at high speeds told Charlie that he was standing in the middle of the street. With the bravado of a fifteen-year-old geek at a high school dance, Charlie let out a high-pitched yelp and dove out of the street, narrowly missing a collision with a large truck. The driver of the truck took a moment to slow down, flip Charlie off and drive off again. Charlie stood up, wiped the mud off of his robes and shook his fist at the truck driver. ?Same to you,? Charlie yelled. ?You fat, inbred son of a *****!? The truck skidded to a stop and Charlie?s eyes widened in fear. ?...great.? Charlie decided not to wait for the truck to turn around and give chase; instead, Charlie took this opportunity to hightail it to his apartment building as soon as possible. ?See what happens when we go outside, Charles?? Charlie told his lantern. ?We get guys like that trying to kill us. It?s better just to hang around inside most of the day. Though, with the psychos we have hanging around at home, maybe getting run over would be an improvement.? Charlie slowed to a slight jog, raising his lit lantern above his shoulder that his vision would be improved. Charlie was about halfway to the apartment building when he ran up to a young man loitering by an empty building. When the young man saw Charlie approaching with his lantern held up in the air, he began jumping up and down excitedly. ?Oh my god!? the young man yelled. ?Is it time for the Olympics already?!? By this time, Charlie had already passed by the young man. All at once, however, he stopped so that he would be able to think about and appreciate exactly what the young man had said. ?What the hell are you talking about?? Charlie asked. ?The Olympics,? the young man said. ?You?re carrying around an Olympic lantern, aren?t you?? Before Charlie could utter even one word, the young man swiped Charles and ran off with him. Charlie gave chase and attempted to recover his beloved lantern. Splashes of water flew in every direction as Charlie ran as fast as he could after the young man. Eventually, Charlie caught up to him and wrestled him to the ground. The heavy torrential downpour had loosened up the young man?s grip, unfortunately, and Charles slipped out of the young man?s hands. ?Charles!? Charlie yelled. ?I?ll save you!? Charlie immediately let go of the young man and bounded after his lantern. He knew that he would not be able to run fast enough to catch Charles, so, at the last moment, Charlie leapt into the air, arms outstretched, and attempted to catch Charles. Charlie caught Charles by the very tips of his fingers and somehow managed to keep a firm hold on him even as he hit the ground with an audible thump. Charlie skidded for a couple of feet and then leapt up with a cry of victory. He turned around to face the young man and brag to his face. ?Ha!? Charlie said. ?That?s what you get for-? Charlie cut off his own sentence as he realized that the young man was gone. With the look of eternal grumpiness returning to his face, Charlie trudged angrily back to the apartment building. By the time he came home, he was just about drowning in dirty rain water, which had conveniently come from the drain that dumped out water onto the area near the front door. Charlie walked inside his dirt apartment building and hung his robe on the coat rack that was near the door. The robe was soaked and heavy with water, so the flimsy wooden hook that Charlie placed his coat onto snapped almost immediately after Charlie let go of his robe. Charlie frowned and sighed heavily. He was used to things breaking around the apartment. It was just the way things were. Charlie walked over to the stairs and took a look at the calendar that was hanging at a crooked angle on the wall above the handrail. Charlie let out another audible groan as he realized just what date it was; it was the end of the month, time to collect the rent from the tenants of the building. In Charlie?s ideal world, he could just leave the pack of weirdoes living in his house alone. Charlie did not really care for regular people too much and the tenants of this apartment building were by no means normal. However, the bank had been very pushy with Charlie as of late, reminding him very often that he had payments to make on the apartment building, as his late uncle had been in heavy debt at the time of his death. Charlie began walking up the stairs, grumbling to himself over his lot in life. He walked all the way up to the second to last stair, which gave way and broke under the pressure of Charlie?s boot. Charlie had not seen this coming, so his momentum carried him forward a bit and he tripped face first onto the ground. Charlie got up, coughing, and wiped away the thick dust that had caked onto his goggles. He took a moment to pull his foot out of the stair and limped down the hall to his room. Charlie removed his key from his pocket, opened his door and closed it. He walked a couple of feet and was yanked rudely to the floor; his long, red and yellow scarf had gotten caught in the door. In a perfect imitation of Sideshow Bob, Charlie grumbled disgustedly and unwrapped his scarf from his neck. He then stood up, opened his door, removed the scarf from the doorway and closed the door again. Charlie removed his goggles from his face and threw them comically onto his bed. Charlie then placed Charles upon his desk and blew out the flame that was inside of Charles. ?Sorry, buddy,? Charlie said. ?But I?m going solo tonight. You understand, right?? Charles looked up mournfully at Charlie. ?Now don?t look at me like that! I?m just trying to protect you, is all?you?re so vulnerable to danger, Charles. I don?t want to lose you?? With that, Charlie picked up Charles and kissed him passionately. Most unfortunately, however, Charlie burned his tongue on the glass inside of Charles. When he yelped with pain and attempted to pull back, Charles? hatch closed upon Charlie?s tongue trapping it momentarily. Charlie hopped up and down and, after a few minutes spent struggling, pulled his tongue out of Charles. ?What the hell was that about, Charles?!? Charlie yelled. ?Did you just try to kill me?!? Charles stared up at Charlie. ?Don?t you dare use your cute look on me, Charles. You know it makes me hot when you do that.? Charlie refused to look at Charles for the rest of the night and left the room in a huff. He then went back into his room, because he had forgotten to bring along the collection bucket. The collection bucket was a small tin pail with the Salvation Army insignia on it. ?Might as well get started?? Charlie said to himself wistfully, as he walked over to the first tenant?s door and knocked on it softly. And that?s where my post ends. Everyone, just post your introduction post, and we?ll take it from there ^_^

I don't really think that I'm enough of an authority on wrestling to write a decent top-ten list, mostly because there are so many wrestlers that I've never seen in my life (most of my wrestling experience is from WWF/E and WCW). So, yeah, I'm just turning this list into who my ten favorite wrestlers are, heh. 10. Sean Waltman - Waltman's better known as The 1-2-3 Kid and X-Pac. He might've become an arrogant prick later on in his career, which is unfortunate because it seemed that transformation came when he injuries hindered his wrestling ability, but there is no denying that when he was healthy, he could really go. He also deserves a lot of respect for being one of the early pioneers (along with other wrestlers on my list, such as Brian Pillman, Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels) to popularize high-spots in mainstream wrestling matches. 9. Ric Flair - It's a testament to how great Flair is that he's remained entertaining throughout his career. As many people have said when describing Flair, he is still amazing when it comes to cutting promos...the crowd eats out of the palm of his hand every time he has a mic in his hands. And, although nowhere near the quality of his glory years, Flair can still have a good match every once in a while; it's his late 80s/early 90s matches with NWA, WWF and WCW that cement his spot among the greats, though. 8. Kurt Angle - It's really unfortunate that neck injuries are threatining to take Angle out of the ring for good, because he's been gold ever since he first came to the WWF. Angle's mic work is top-notch as both a face and heel (though, his heel work is superior) and the quality of match that Angle puts on is consistently fantastic. Angle could probably burst into my room, kick my *** and it'd be a three-star *** kicking, at least. I'd probably have to get some moves in, myself, for it to be any higher :p 7. Chris Jericho - I love Chris Jericho and I think still think he's the best current wrestler of today. Jericho isn't as technically adept as someone like Kurt Angle or Chris Benoit, but he's more than capable of putting on a fantastic match and his mic work is rivaled only by The Rock, in my opinion. I'm hoping on a nice run with the WWE Heavyweight Championship for Y2J before the year is over... 6. Brian Pillman - I was horribly sad when Brian Pillman died, because he was still every bit as talented at the time of his death as he was when he first broke into the business. Like Owen Hart, he combined competent technical wrestling skill with flashy high spots and put on consistently great matches. Also like Owen, Pillman's work as a heel is truly superb. I really enjoyed Pillman's time in WCW with Steve Austin as one half of the Hollywood Blondes and Pillman's Ticking Time Bomb character in the WWF is easily my favorite gimmick. The man was cool, no doubt. 5. Owen Hart - Owen was such a fun wrestler to hate during his early days, heh. He played the whiny heel to perfection and you could tell that he truly enjoyed playing that character with all his heart (pun not intended). Owen always poured his all into matches, which is fantastic because he was an extremely talented wrestler who combined technical superiority (some say his technical talents were equal to or even better than his brother Bret's) with great high flying skill. Owen always put on an exciting, entertaining match that was fun to watch. 4. Mick Foley - You can't not love Mick Foley. It's impossible; I'm expecting science to prove this fact once and for all someday. Foley's mic skills, like Ric Flair's, have been consistently amazing throughout his wrestling tenure - many of Mick Foley's promos should be required viewing for anyone who wants to get into the wrestling business. Also, Foley is just damned daring in the ring; I'm still trying to figure out just how the hell he lived through all of the insane bumps that he's taken over the years. 3. Bret Hart - Bret's mic skills (until his heel turn, that is) left something to be desired, but his wrestling skill more than made up for that (very) slight shortcoming. Bret's technical skill is unmatched by just about anyone and it's undeniable that he had a big impact on wrestling going mainstream (not as much as someone like Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin, but only a notch or so below). 2. Steve Austin - I've been a big fan of Steve Austin for a long time (ever since his days as Stunning Steve Austin in WCW). One of the few heels that I actually cheered for when I was a little kid watching wrestling (I was actually mad when he lost the U.S. Championship to Ricky Steamboat lol). He will always be remembered for his days as Stone Cold Steve Austin, however, because of the [i]massive[/i] impact he had on wrestling. His mature promos took wrestling to the next level, and the best part is that he put on amazing matches to go along with this. 1. Shawn Michaels - Yes, he was an arrogant little bastard backstage during the better part of his career, but there's no denying Shawn's skill in the ring. When you compare Shawn to anyone else, to me, it seems like he'll come out on top each time. The combination of his technical wrestling skill, his ability to tell a story with his matches, his mic skills, his high flying skills, his willingness to take sick bumps to entertain the fans and his amazing run in the mid to late 90s makes Shawn Michaels my favorite wrestler of all time. Period.

Heh, the infamous ending of [i]1984[/i]...don't know what I should say to that. Anything I say to affirm or deny any sort of sad ending would ruin the story, don't you think? :P Anyway, I've had Chapter Twelve done for a long while now, but I haven't posted it yet for various reasons. However, I think I'm ready to get back into the swing of things with the story, so I've decided to put up Chapter Twelve :) [b][u][center]Chapter Twelve: The Dance[/b][/u][/center] Jacob sat isolated at the front of the diner. He stared out the window at the people walking incoherently across the streets and at the cars whizzing past them, the drivers yelling in fits of rage as they realized they almost hit a person and would have had a large dock to their insurance had they gotten into an accident. Jacob sighed wistfully and rose to his feet, looking at the clock hanging on the wall on the other side of the room. It was six-thirty PM, about a half hour until the dance would be starting. Jacob went to the back room to inform the manager that he would be leaving. Jacob opened the door and saw the manager scribbling furiously on a piece of paper. The manager looked up at Jacob and put his pen down on the desk, his arms covering the paper. ?Is there something I can do for you, Jacob?? the manager asked. ?I need to leave early tonight,? Jacob said. ?I have something that I need to take care of.? ?No problem,? the manager replied. ?I doubt that there is going to be much business tonight, anyway. Julia?s already left, so just put up the closed sign when you leave, okay?? ?Okay,? Jacob nodded. He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Jacob walked all the way over to the subway station, paid for his ticket and got into the subway, sitting down near the door. The subway train lurched to a start, picked up momentum and made its way through the tight corridors at a steady pace. Jacob sat contentedly in his seat, arms folded in his lap. His face gave away no hint of how utterly nervous he was feeling at that very moment. His heart was pounding, his blood was racing and his palms were tingling with barely contained excitement. After what seemed like an eternity, the subway car crept to a stop, jolting forward slightly. Jacob was thrown off-balance and almost fell out of his seat, but he managed to hang on and avoid falling to the floor. He got up, dusted off his clothes, which were not really dusty and exited the subway train. The underground area leading out of the subway station was crowded and Jacob had a tough time working through the masses of people. He was crushed in between bodies that seemed to spring out of nowhere; his shoulders were scrunched, his hips were narrowed and his ribs threatened to collapse under the pressure. Jacob?s breathing slowed to the point where it seemed that he was exhaling more breath than he was taking in. Before Jacob imploded upon himself, however, he was squeezed out of the group of people and onto the sidewalk. Jacob took several gasping breaths and the area immediately in front of him exploded into a dazzling display of red and black. He groped around along the ground, trying in vain to find something to help him get to his feet. Eventually, Jacob grabbed onto a handrail situated along the hall of stairs leading back down to the subway station. He took a moment to catch his breath and, when his vision cleared up, he raised himself onto his feet. Jacob took a moment to survey the area. The land was now familiar to him, a stark contrast to when he first emerged into this strange land, wandering everywhere with no semblance of where he was. He looked at everything that was no familiar to him; the crumbling buildings, the faded walls and the run-down streets. Jacob walked over to a crosswalk and prepared to cross over to the other side. He took a couple of steps onto the street, then a group of police cars came barreling down the road, nearly running Jacob back onto the sidewalk. The police cars twisted and turned comically before stopping in a frenetic horde in front of a large building. Jacob recognized this building as the bakery that he had stopped at in his first trek through the city. He swiftly crossed the street and, with his hand placed onto his forehead just above his eyes, he proceeded to scope out exactly what was going on. A gaggle of officers rushed out of the cars and burst into the bakery. After a few moments, they dragged out the young man from the bakery, kicking and squirming, and threw him onto the sidewalk. Soon after this had occurred, the bakery burst into flames. Jacob found the whole instance to be quite bizarre. Before he could dwell on this, however, yet another car came barreling down the road. The car slammed into a fire hydrant that was situated mere feet from where Jacob was currently standing. When the car crashed into the hydrant, the hydrant was thrown forcefully from its stand and careened into a nearby wall. Water gushed from where the hydrant had previously been standing and spread everywhere in a cool mist. Jacob decided that he did not want to hang around here for much longer and began to run away. He stole a look at the young man from the bakery for a second or two, before he ran out of sight. When Jacob was a considerable distance from the bakery, a thought suddenly entered his mind: He had no idea where the dance hall was. All Mr. Smith had told him was that it was on the other side of the town. Jacob thought that this piece of information was not really helpful in the least, given that Jacob was still not very familiar with the city, but he had no choice but to press onward and hope that he would run into the dance hall eventually. He trudged onwards, making sure to get a good look at each and every building in the area. Jacob was certain that the dance hall would be in one of the more affluent areas of the city, but considering all the strange occurrences that Jacob had bore witness to, it was not a far stretch of the imagination for Jacob to consider that the dance hall could conceivably be in one of the poorer areas of the city. Jacob stole a quick look around the area in which he was walking. Several people were walking speedily along the sidewalk; most looked as if they were trying to evade the steely gazes of the others walking beside them. Bright lights shone against the blackened sky in a dazzling display of color. Different, and violent, shades of red, blue, green and purple twinkled incessantly and unfailingly. Jacob was sure that these lights had caused their fair share of epileptic fits over the years. Off in the distance, Jacob saw several distinguished people emerging from a long stretch limousine. They seemed to be congregating around a large building that was shining brightest of all among the rest of the glistening structures. By the time Jacob had arrived at the building, the group of people had already made their way inside, save for one person. Jacob looked up at the large sign, which was covered in bright lights and hanging over the front door, that read ?The Opera?. ?The Opera?? Jacob asked himself. ?I thought this would be the dance hall?? ?This [i]is[/i] the dance hall,? the person who had elected to stay behind replied. ?But why call it The Opera, then?? Jacob asked. ?Well,? the person said. ?The Opera wants to attract people of a certain?personage to come here. People of affluence are more likely to come to an opera rather than a dance hall, you see.? ?But why not just make it an opera?? Jacob asked. The person shrugged. ?I?m not sure about that,? the person replied. ?But we?re too set in our ways to change now.? With a slight bow of his head, the person walked inside of The Opera, leaving Jacob very confused. ?Well, I have the right place, at least,? Jacob reasoned to himself. ?Now, all I have to do is wait for Smith.? Without warning, an object landed on Jacob?s head. He twisted his head in surprise as his arms shot up to the top of his head to see what had landed upon it. His hands grasped the object in question; it was a top hat. ?Would you mind catching this for me, as well?? a voice yelled from above. Jacob looked skyward and saw Mr. Smith crouching on a ledge, near a stone gargoyle. Mr. Smith was dressed in a tuxedo, complete with long tails dangling betwixt his legs, shining black shoes and a small, black bowtie. The only oddity was that Mr. Smith still wore his beloved sunglasses, tilted slightly downwards upon the bridge of his nose. Mr. Smith brought out a long cane and tossed it down to Jacob, who caught it easily and admired the golden handle at the top of the cane. After that, Mr. Smith leapt down from the ledge and landed upon the sidewalk, bending his knees slightly to absorb the shock of his landing. Jacob could not stop goggling at Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith took this opportunity to stroll smoothly up to Jacob and take back his top hat, placing it firmly upon his head. ?May I have my cane, as well?? Mr. Smith asked. ?Oh!? Jacob said. ?Oh, of course.? Jacob handed the cane to Mr. Smith, who swung it in a small circle before grasping the handle firmly and holding it upright. Jacob thought that Mr. Smith looked quite bizarre in his get-up but thought it much wiser not to mention this. ?Are we going to stay out here jabbering like two idiots all night or are we going inside?? Mr. Smith asked. ?Er,? Jacob said. ?Let?s go inside.? ?Good boy,? Mr. Smith replied, already opening the door. Jacob stepped forward and Mr. Smith held the door open for Jacob. After Jacob stepped inside, Mr. Smith followed him, letting the door close in front of a man and a woman who had wanted to come inside of The Opera. The inside of The Opera was emblazoned in a blinding display of gold. A golden chandelier hung precariously from the roof, fiery candles adorning it on all sides. Jacob had never seen such a spectacle in his life and stood in awe of the chandelier and its mighty presence. Mr. Smith raised his hand to Jacob?s ear and snapped his fingers several times. Jacob shook his head and emerged from his momentary stupor. ?I can assure you that you?ll see more glorious sights than?[i]that[/i],? Mr. Smith said, half-seriously, half-sneeringly. ?Just keep following me.? Mr. Smith turned toward the grand staircase that led them up to a massive gold-embossed door. Jacob and Mr. Smith walked up the deep red, velvet carpeting of the stairs, both keeping their hands on the smooth, golden handrail. Haughty couples floated snottily past Jacob and Mr. Smith as they made their way up the curvy, twisting stairway to the golden heaven. When they reached the top, Mr. Smith walked up to the large, glowing door and threw it open. He walked out onto a ledge and threw his right arm out, beckoning Jacob to look at the plethora of people out on the dance floor. Jacob, however, was too busy staring wide-eyed at the acute embellishment of the main ballroom. Several of the chandeliers that he had just been hypnotized by were hanging from golden chains, which were attached to the roof of the room. The chandeliers were wobbling slightly, as if one mere touch would be enough to make one of them crash onto the ground. Jacob?s eyes were glazed over as he approached the ledge where Mr. Smith was standing. Mr. Smith stood off to the side and smirked at Jacob, apparently amused that he was so awestruck by the riches he bore witness to. He put his hand upon Jacob?s shoulder, though Jacob did not seem to notice. After a few seconds, Mr. Smith pulled Jacob roughly away from the ledge and glared at him. Though Jacob could not see that Mr. Smith was glaring at him, since Mr. Smith was still wearing his ever-present sunglasses, Jacob knew that the look he was currently receiving was not a pleasant one. ?I think that you?ve had enough exposure to the riches,? Mr. Smith snarled quietly. He gave himself a few seconds to compose himself and continued on. ?I think that now is the time that we talk.? ?Find me a seat,? Jacob said. ?And we?ll talk.? Mr. Smith laughed to himself. ?Growing more confident, are we?? Mr. Smith asked. ?Good, good, it will make this all the more enjoyable for me. Fine, I shall find you a seat, if that is what you wish.? Mr. Smith turned smoothly and advanced over to the stairs on the left side of the room. He ambled down the blue velvet stairs and Jacob toddled behind nervously. ?We?ll wait until everyone is done dancing, then we can find some seats. Right now, there is too much commotion.? Jacob nodded in agreement. He and Mr. Smith leaned against the wall, hands in their pockets, and waited for the imperious couples in the middle of the ballroom to cease their dancing. Jacob took this opportunity to take in the ambience of the bottom floor. There was a white piano on the far side of the ballroom, with a young man who looked like he had come straight out of college playing it. The young man was tall and gawky, stringy-haired, greasy-skinned and pimply-faced. His long, spindly fingers, awkward in every other aspect of life, moved with angelic grace upon the keys of the piano. The smooth sounds of the piano filled Jacob?s heart and soul with happiness and he couldn?t help but notice that the couples that had seemed so supercilious before, now seemed entrancing and humble; they were not dancing, but merely floating around the ballroom. After a few minutes, the young man stopped playing the piano. The overbearing couples continued their disdainful dancing while the young man took a few clumsy bows and exited quickly from the room. Mr. Smith tittered to himself and grinned over to Jacob. ?He?s good, isn?t he?? Mr. Smith asked. ?Yes, he is,? Jacob replied. ?He even had you loving those couples for a minute or two, didn?t he?? Mr. Smith asked. Jacob turned red and refused to look over at Mr. Smith. ?Oh, did I hit a sore spot? Don?t worry, stronger people than you have fallen prey to his music. That?s why he does what he does.? ?What about you?? Jacob asked. ?I see a couple of chairs on the other side of the room,? Mr. Smith pointed out, ignoring Jacob?s question. ?Nice and out of the way. You?re clothes are already drawing enough attention to us.? Jacob looked down, embarrassed. He had forgotten to dress formally. He was wearing a plain white shirt, beige slacks and black dress shoes. It was one of three different outfits that Jacob owned, besides the outfit he had taken from the room in the hospital room. He bought all of his clothes with the money he received from his job at the diner. ?I?m sorry,? Jacob said, now a bit fearful of Mr. Smith. ?I was in such a hurry, I forgot what I should wear?? ?I?m not going to hurt you, if that?s what you?re worried about,? Mr. Smith said flatly. ?And I know that you don?t have any formal wear, anyway.? ?How did you know that?? Jacob asked. ?Because [i]I[/i] don?t have any formal wear,? Mr. Smith replied. ?But you?re wearing formal wear right now?? Jacob said, perplexed. ?I took this from someone,? Mr. Smith said, now a bit bored. ?He wasn?t going to have any use for it tonight, so he let me borrow it for the night.? Jacob shuddered. He could only imagine who would actually let Mr. Smith borrow something of theirs. Mr. Smith seemed to sense Jacob?s tension and allowed himself a tiny smirk. He led the way to the small group of chairs situated at the far side of the room. Nearest the group of chairs was a long table with a large white cloth draped on top of it; the table was covered from head to foot with an abundance of food. From time to time, people would pass buy, take some food, nibble on it slightly and walk away. Jacob and Mr. Smith each took a seat in one of the red chairs. Mr. Smith leaned over, grabbed a piece of bread and offered it to Jacob. Jacob politely declined the offer of bread. Mr. Smith, who did not seem the least bit surprised or irritated, simply shrugged his shoulders and ate the bread himself. He took a moment wipe his mouth with a napkin and turned to Jacob. ?Now that we are done with all the pretense,? Mr. Smith started. ?I believe that we can get to talking.? Jacob nodded excitedly. This was the moment that he had been waiting for. ?I?m sure that there are many questions that you?ve been dying to ask me, so to speak.? ?Yes,? Jacob said. ?Fire away,? Mr. Smith said lightly. ?What do you want?? Jacob asked. ?What do I want?? Mr. Smith asked. ?I simply want what you want. I am?dissatisfied with the current state of the world and I am looking for change. That is all that I want.? ?No,? Jacob replied. ?That?s not all you want. I know it isn?t all you want.? ?For now,? Mr. Smith said. ?Change is all that I am satisfied with. Nothing more, nothing less.? ?Where do I figure into all of this?? Jacob asked. ?A simple question,? Mr. Smith said. ?With a highly complicated answer. I am afraid that I cannot supply you with the ends; I can only provide you with the means for you to find what you want. Or, rather, I can point you in the right direction of those means.? ?And where is the right direction?? Jacob asked. Mr. Smith paused to look around. Curiosity overtaking him, Jacob also took this time to look around. All Jacob saw were a few couples still dancing in the middle of the ballroom, while other couples had ceased their dancing to strike up conversations on all sides of the room, laughing gaily all the live long day. ?The right direction is all around you, Jacob,? Mr. Smith said. ?You just have to look in the right place, you see.? ?And where is the right place?? Jacob asked. ?I don?t know,? Mr. Smith replied. ?The right place is different for everyone. I have my own place and you have yours. You?ll have to find out what the right place is for yourself. I?m afraid I can?t help you much with that.? ?Well, thanks anyway,? Jacob muttered, standing up. Mr. Smith leapt up, clutched Jacob?s shoulder tightly and rammed him back into his seat. ?You fool!? Mr. Smith hissed. ?Haven?t you suspected a thing by now?? ?What are you talking about?? Jacob asked incredulously. ?I guess your brains must have really been addled after all that time,? Mr. Smith said solemnly. ?You?re really clueless.? ?Clueless about [i]what[/i]?? Jacob demanded. ?Clueless about [i]them[/i],? Mr. Smith replied, his arm sweeping across the room. ?Don?t you see them? They?re everywhere.? ?I see a lot of people,? Jacob said. ?So what?? ?They?re after you, don?t you know?? Mr. Smith said. ?They?re after me, too. I don?t think they realize who you are yet, but I?m sure that they know who I am. Look at their eyes; they keep looking back over here. Doesn?t that strike you as a bit suspicious?? Jacob peered closer at a few of the couples that were still dancing in the ballroom. Indeed, a few of their eyes kept swinging over in the direction of Jacob and Mr. Smith. ?How are we going to leave, then?? Jacob asked. ?And how did they find out we were here?? ?Not all of them are idiots,? Mr. Smith said. ?Just the guys at top. They have some wily bastards working for them, but they?re only good at tracking people down. I?ve not been caught yet, have I?? ?So, how do you propose we get out of here?? Jacob asked. ?Just follow my lead,? Mr. Smith said, standing off. He threw his top hat to the floor and let it roll under the food table. He walked to the middle of the room, and a couple of men approached him from the right and the left. ?Excuse me,? one of the men said. ?We?d like to talk to you. Can you spare a moment?? ?I?m afraid that I can?t,? Mr. Smith replied. With whip-like speed, Mr. Smith swatted one of the men?s faces with the golden handle of his cane, thrust the handle into the gut of the other man and thrashed him in the face with a spin kick. Jacob, now enlightened as to how Mr. Smith wanted to leave the Opera, sprung out of his chair and attempted to flee the area. Another pair of guards spotted Jacob and attempted to apprehend him. Jacob, wide-eyed and in great fear, leapt over the food table and continued to run away. The pair of guards continued to give chase. Jacob spotted a few pears placed upon a silver platter, picked two of them up and threw them at the guards. They ducked the pears, so Jacob flung the silver platter at them. They evaded this, as well, but the momentary distraction gave Jacob enough time to begin running away again. While Jacob was busy distracting the guards, his mind was busy preparing an escape route. He knew that the guards would be likely to be carrying guns, so escaping through the windows of the room was not the smartest of plans, as they could just pick him off from inside of the Opera. There was an emergency exit in the back of the Opera, but it was much too far away for Jacob to be able to successfully make it before the guards could plug him full of holes. Sighing resentfully, Jacob knew that he had to trust Mr. Smith?s plan and he would somehow have to stay alive until Mr. Smith righted things. This was actually going rather well, as Mr. Smith had already knocked over half of the guards unconscious. He was busy dueling the last pair of guards on his side, while the other pair of guards were still busy trying to nab Jacob. One of the guards ran up to Jacob and attempted to fight him. Jacob gave in fully to his instincts and blocked all of the guard?s punches at rapid speed. He ducked, twisted and dodged all of the blows and found himself upon the floor after evading another of the guard?s painfully slow punches. Jacob bounded to his feet, sweeping the guard?s legs out from under him, and the guard was knocked unconscious, his head banging against the hard white marble floor of the Opera. Jacob looked up at the last guard, his pulse racing and his heart pounding. Jacob could feel the adrenaline flowing through his veins. However, this feeling was replaced very swiftly with brutal fear, as the final guard pulled a pistol out of his shirt pocket. ?You?re a good fighter when you?re cornered,? the guard sneered. ?But the game is up.? The guard shot at Jacob and, whether by luck or by fate, the bullet grazed Jacob?s cheek, causing no more damage than a slight burn. Jacob took this opportunity to leap up, grab the guard?s arm and twist the gun out of his hand. However, the guard?s other arm reached into his own pocket and pulled out a small knife. The guard put the knife up against Jacob?s throat and put pressure on it. Jacob let out a low, guttural moan. ?That?s right,? the guard said. ?You realize that you won?t be escaping this, don?t you?? ?Drop the weapon,? a voice said. Mr. Smith was glaring at the guard and walking towards him and Jacob. ?Keep out of this,? the guard spat. ?I?ll slit the kid?s throat if you step any closer.? ?Kill him,? Mr. Smith said. ?And I?ll kill you.? ?You won?t be able to do it,? the guard said. ?You don?t even have a weapon!? In a flash, Mr. Smith pulled out a gun and shot the guard square in the middle of the forehead. The bullet sliced through the guard?s forehead and left a dime-sized hole. A slight stream of blood splattered onto the back wall and left a long red streak. The guard fell against the floor, dead before he even hit the ground. Blood flowed softly from the fatal wound. Jacob, who was now deathly white, looked up at Mr. Smith with his lowering jaw trembling and quivering with nervous twitches. ?It was either him or you,? Mr. Smith said. ?You didn?t want to die, right?? ?Couldn?t you have spared him?? Jacob asked, somehow suppressing the urge to vomit across the marble floor. ?No,? Mr. Smith said. ?I?m afraid that would have been an impossibility.? Mr. Smith turned on his heel and began walking back to the front. ?Since you seem so?[i]averse[/i] to fighting, I suggest you find another way out of this place. The police force will almost certainly be gathered at the front. If you don?t fight, you won?t survive.? ?But where can I go?? Jacob asked. Mr. Smith replied by shooting at the window nearest Jacob. Jacob leapt aside slightly when the window pane shattered into a million pieces. Jacob scurried over to the window and looked outside. He was about three or so stories above the ground; he could barely make out all of the glass that had fallen outside. Jacob turned around to ask Mr. Smith another question, but he was gone. Jacob sighed to himself and surged onto the window ledge. He knew that the leap was far too high for him to survive without at least minor injury to himself, so he scouted the area for another way out. A few feet to his left, Jacob spotted a tree branch that looked just thick enough to support his weight for a few seconds. Jacob hopped over to the branch and grasped it tightly with his hands. The branch dipped slightly and looked near ready to snap, but still managed to hold firmly. Jacob went hand-over-hand across the branch and gripped the trunk of the tree, sliding slowly down it. Jacob let himself drop a few feet onto the cold, wet grass. He immediately scanned the area to make certain that nobody was watching him and, when he was assured that nobody saw him, he ran from the Opera. Jacob clung tightly to the brick walls of the houses and peered around corners, wary for anyone that might still be trying to capture him. Jacob had already been incredibly paranoid up to this point and Mr. Smith?s none-too-surprising revelation had not done much to alleviate any of those maniacal feelings. Jacob heard a siren off in the distance, bolted straight for an alley and leapt into a large dumpster, sitting scrunched up in a tight ball, arms wrapped around his legs. The sirens faded slowly into the background and Jacob peeped slowly out of the dumpster. After wiping a stray banana peel off of the top of his head, Jacob climbed out of the dumpster and went back onto the sidewalk. It was now close to midnight and the night grew extremely chilly. Jacob was breathing heavily and his breath streamed out in thick puffs of gray carbon dioxide. His eyes were darting to and fro, from side to side, never stopping for even one mere moment, for fear that if he stopped, someone would catch up to him and that would be the end of his life. All of a sudden, for no reason at all, Jacob broke into a speedy run. He ran past the bakery, which had by now burned down completely into the ground, all the way to the entrance of the subway station. He ran for five minutes straight. His mouth was thick with the taste of blood and he had the overwhelming need to spit on the ground. He ignored this, though, and walked down the entrance corridor into the subway station. There were only a few people waiting for the subway train in the station. The few people that were there had chosen to mass at the very front of the station, near where the train would stop when it arrived at the station. Jacob decided that he did not want to get involved with these people and elected to stay at the very back at the station. After about ten minutes or so of waiting, the subway pulled into the station, sparks flying out onto the tracks, and the doors opened for the people to shuffle inside. Jacob walked swiftly up to the doors and entered them just as they were closing. The group of people that had assembled near the train stuck together and sat in a group on the left side of the train. Jacob went over to the right side of the car, where he would be all alone, sat down, closed his eyes and leaned back against his seat. A few of the people from the group on the left side of the train pointed their fingers at Jacob, whispering a bit and snickering to themselves, but Jacob paid no heed to this. He was too busy thinking of other things. Jacob was busy thinking about what Mr. Smith had told him. In the back of his mind, Jacob had always figured that the government would ultimately be the source of his troubles, but he had not realized the extent of which everything had gone. Was he really that dense? Mr. Smith had acted as if everything that was going on should have been extremely obvious, but Jacob still had no clue as to what was happening. However, he knew what he would have to do and he did not like it one bit. Mr. Smith had suggested that Jacob go straight to the source to find out what was really going on?but that meant going straight into the actual government headquarters itself. Mr. Smith did not seem to hold the government in any sort of esteem, and Jacob himself did not really think that they were the brightest institution in the world, but going into their actual headquarters would still prove to be risky business. And why couldn?t Mr. Smith shed any light on what was going on? Furthermore, how much could Jacob actually trust him, if at all? It was clear to Jacob that Mr. Smith was a highly dangerous person. Yet, Mr. Smith did not try to kill Jacob and, in fact, had protected him. Mr. Smith had some sort of interest in Jacob, though Jacob was still not convinced that this interest was altogether good. The dreams of the shadowy figure were still fresh in Jacob?s mind and he knew in the very deepest reaches of his heart that Mr. Smith was the darkened figure from those dreams. He had caused Jacob extreme pain and anguish, so Jacob had no choice but to be as wary as possible when it came to dealings with Mr. Smith. Jacob wanted to think more, but he was extremely tired and worn out from his jaunt in the Opera. He sat back in his chair in an attempt to get comfortable and fell asleep. Almost as quickly as he drifted off into sleep, however, Jacob was rudely awakened by the engineer of the subway train. ?We?re at the end of the line,? the engineer said. ?Time for you to leave.? Jacob nodded groggily and stood to his feet, wobbling slightly. Jacob walked out of the subway train, his eyes bleary and his steps unsure. Jacob walked out of the subway station covering his eyes because he had expected it to be daytime. He was surprised to find that it was still nighttime. Jacob continued walking, glad to see that the end of the line was his usual neighborhood. Jacob passed by the diner and stole a look inside, hoping to see the manager, but it appeared as if the manager had closed up shop and left for the night. Jacob walked further, now just wanting to get home and have a good night?s rest. He made it to the apartment building, fumbled a bit with the doorknob and stepped inside. He closed the door, turned around and was greeted by a familiar voice. ?It?s pretty late,? the old manager said. ?You should?ve been home a while ago.? ?I know,? Jacob said. ?But I had things to do earlier.? ?I understand,? the old manager replied. ?Just get yourself some sleep. You look terrible.? ?Yeah,? Jacob said. ?Yeah, I?ll go get some sleep.? Jacob trudged up the stairs, his mind a cacophony of voices, mutterings and dull, painful thoughts. A myriad of people cried out all at once and Jacob felt the sudden and urgent need to cry out in pain. He made it to the top of the stairs and was greeted at once by the third old man. ?Hello, Jacob,? the old man said. ?Hello,? Jacob replied, rubbing his temple gingerly. ?Have you heard the news yet?? the old man asked. ?I?ve heard some news,? Jacob said. ?But you?re probably talking about something else.? ?Come into my room,? the old man said, motioning to his room. Jacob followed him inside and sat down upon the old man?s bed. His television was on and a news anchor was talking. ?Listen to the news.? Jacob listened. The anchor was currently talking about the bakery which had burned down earlier in the night. ??and the employee of the bakery has been charged with arson, assault and first-degree murder,? the anchorman said. ?His trial is expected to begin tomorrow morning. In other news, two unknown men were apprehended and killed earlier this evening.? Jacob gasped lightly as the pictures of the manager and the publisher appeared on the television. ?It gets worse,? the old man said. ?The two unknown men were believed to have been conspiring to overthrow the government, which is a capital offense and punishable by death upon sight. Government agents tracked the two men to a building in the slum area of town and killed them both. Had they been taken in alive, the government would also have charged them with arson, since the building that they met in burned down.? The old man turned off the television in disgust. Jacob was now paler than ever and could not say a word. ?He was a great man,? the old man said. ?He was just trying to make a difference and they killed him. It?s a damn shame.? Jacob stood awkwardly to his feet. A solitary tear was trickling down his left cheek as he walked slowly out of the room. The old man peered at Jacob quizzically as Jacob went back to his room. Jacob entered his own room and closed his door lightly. He went over to his bed, fell onto it and went to sleep. He died over and over again in his dreams.

Okay, I went through all of the sign-ups, read them over and over again, and decided on who made it into the RPG. You can rest assured that I thought hard about who did and did not make it into the RPG. I had to make a couple unfortunate cuts, but I'm happy with the quality of sign-ups and I'm actually honored that so many people took a genuine interest in this, heh. And, now, the list: KnightOfTheRose (Volvo Nike) OtakuSennen (Tom Wesley) KarmaOfChaos (Daisy) Arika (Candy DeMoore) wolf prncss (Protiva) DeathKnight (Kenneth Andrew Howell) Nebackenezzer (Simon Jester) Shy (George Washington) Wondershot (Emilio) With these, I tried to get a good mix of unique characters who I felt could play off of each other well, along with people I know would be able to provide quality posts (there are a couple people here who I am not familiar with, though, who just happened to impress me with their sign-ups). I felt that a couple characters in the sign-ups were uninspired or just a bit too similar to other characters, so that's where the unfortunate cuts came from, heh. If you're on this list, I shall be sending a PM to you after I'm done with this post, so that you can see this right away. If, for any reason, you cannot participate in this RPG, I implore you to inform me immediately, because there are a couple people whose sign-ups were on the bubble, so to speak, who would be good additions to the RPG if there are people who are unable to participate in this RPG. Once you receive the PM and you read this post, I'd like for you to respond to me via PM telling me that you have read the post and the PM. Now, there are a few important things that I wanted to mention about the RPG: 1) One, don't be afraid to venture from Apartment Building C every once in a while. I left the surrounding area of the apartment building purposely vague, so that people could form the land into something that fit their own needs. If your character has some sort of job, or something, feel free to have them leave the apartment building and spend the day there. Or, perhaps, they might go out with a couple friends (or a couple of tenants at the apartment, if you work it out with the others). Everyone in the RPG has the ability to mold the surrounding area and to flesh it out into an area that is truly [i]alive[/i], as long as everyone's descriptions remain consistent with each other. [b]The main focus of the RPG will always be Apartment Building C, but I'm just saying that you don't have to be restricted to just the apartment building itself.[/b] 2) Two, building relationships, alliances, etc. is wholly encouraged. I don't want this to be about ten seperate people each going about their business on their own, because that will get old really quickly. I think what will make this RPG great is the interactions between the different tenants and their reactions to whatever scenario I choose to pull out of my hat at the time. Also, having clear cut friends and enemies will make it a lot easier to write posts and think up ideas, for me, anyway. 3) Three, I will be the one who introduces the different scenarios into the RPG, but I'm always willing to accept ideas for scenarios. Feel free to suggest whatever ideas you want to happen to the apartment building (such as a fugitive taking the whole building hostage or something completely different from that). I might not use the idea, but feel free to suggest ideas all the same. And that's about it. I'm toying with the idea of starting up the RPG today, but I will most likely start it up tomorrow or Sunday.

Source: [url]http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/06/21/news_6101035.html[/url] [quote=GameSpot][b]Sony sticker shock: $500 PS3, $249 PSP are possibilities[/b] In a year-end report that puts Leo Tolstoy to shame, industry analysts Michael Pachter and Edward Woo of Wedbush Morgan Securities presented the industry today with a 144-page tome of charts, theories, prognostications, and predictions. Unlike Tolstoy's books, however, their book has a happy ending. In their report, titled The Definition of Insanity: Why The Next Console Cycle Will Start Off With A Whimper, the analysts present an "in-depth look at interactive entertainment software." And while many of the report's data points were revealed in May, during a Pachter-hosted E3 Conference Program luncheon, most of the data is, in fact, new. Probably the most exotic of the report's predictions was a reference to Sony's PlayStation 2 update. The report suggests that Sony is considering adding PSX and TiVo-like functionality to the PlayStation 3. If it does, the sticker price on the unit could climb as high as $500. The report states: "We expect Sony to introduce its next console with more functionality than its current console. We base this conclusion on the introduction of the PSX, planned for late this year. The PSX will include a Digital Video Recorder (similar to TiVo) functionality; broadband Internet accessibility; wireless LAN functionality; and DVD read-write functionality. These features add approximately $500 per unit to the cost of production, resulting in an expected launch price of around $700. By late 2006, we expect the cost to include these features to decline to around $250, but speculate that the next generation console, should it include these features, could debut at $500. At this level, we believe that many consumers will be alienated." Other key findings include an industrywide growth rate (of revenues) of 10 percent per year through 2010 and a growth rate of 14.5 percent in revenues for console and handheld software in the US for the next three to four years. The report also suggests that US publishers will begin to see a significant increase in sales of game software in Japan and that software sales will surpass domestic music sales (in revenues) over the next two years. Of note on the hardware front, the analysts expect that, due to increasing multimedia functionality (DVD playback, high-def capabilities, and Web access), the percentage of households that own at least one console will climb from 38 percent seen during the 32-/64-bit cycle to 52 percent during the ongoing 128-bit cycle. On the PC front, the report isolates three games that will act as key market movers--Doom 3, The Sims 2, and Half-Life 2--and states that PC sales overall will be driven to "near record levels." As well, the Wedbush analysts check in with their estimate of the PSP launch price, pegging the hardware to sell at $249.99 and the software to retail for around $30. Ultimately, it will be female gamers, the increased spending power of "tween" gamers (8- to 14-year-olds), and aging but committed gamers introduced to interactive entertainment on the Atari 2600, for example, that will fuel the continued and dramatic growth of the industry. The report's summary closes with the following brave prediction: "We expect interactive entertainment to be the fastest growing entertainment sector over the next five to 10 years. We forecast the interactive entertainment industry to grow US software sales by approximately 11.4 percent per year over the next three years. We project book and music sales to grow less than 5 percent per year over the next three years and we believe that box-office movie receipts will grow in the 2-4 percent range over the same time period. Using our projected growth rates, we forecast that the US interactive entertainment industry in 2004 will continue to be larger than these competing entertainment sectors (with the exception of the music industry which we believe will be surpassed over the next three years), becoming the largest of these major entertainment sectors within the US." [/quote] The basic gist of the article is that analysts are predicting the PS3 to debut at $500, while the PSP debuts at $250 with software selling at $30 each. Keep in mind that this is all prediction based upon analysis of current trends and does not represent anything official from Sony...but it is something interesting to think about.

Eh, why not? In the past few months, my love of reading and writing has blossomed, mostly due to the fact that I started doing these activities on my own time rather than being forced to do them for some school related project. I cannot tell you how much better my life has become now that I really enjoy reading and writing again, heh. When it comes to novels, I enjoy stories that are off-the-wall and I'm a fan of black humor and satire (like what you would fine in [i]Catch-22[/i] or [i]Slaughterhouse-Five[/i] for example). Speaking of humor, I really enjoy comedy of all sorts. Slapstick, jokes, satire, political humor, random humor, whatever...I just like sitting back and having a good laugh at the bizarre nature of life. Sometimes, you just have to be able to laugh at things. I'm a pretty big gamer, have been for a long time, but like Charles, I haven't been gaming as much lately. I've developed this nasty habit of leaving games unfinished; I have several games on my shelf right now that I've come close to beating, but I haven't beaten yet. I'm really lazy about that sort of thing, I guess. But from time to time, I still enjoy sitting down and having a good gaming session, however long it may last, heh. Music's become a big part of my life, as well. I have next to no talent at all when it comes to creating music, but listening to it makes for a good time. I listen to a wide variety of music, but most of my absolute favorites fall under the all-encompassing genre of rock (I'm trying to keep it as general as possible, here). Sonic Youth, Pixies, Nine Inch Nails, The Beatles, Queens of the Stone Age, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Radiohead are some of my favorites, just to give you a general idea of what I enjoy listening to.

Forgive the title, I could not think of anything else, heh. There is a small apartment building on the corner of a not-so-busy street. People rarely come to visit this apartment building due to its ramshackle looks and dirty rooms. Also, the building is infested with many rather seedy types of people, much to the chagrin of the landlord, Charlie. It's not his fault that cheap rent and dirty buildings attract a bunch of weirdos. Charlie struggles from day-to-day in his apartment building, attempting to keep his sanity and get his work done. However, it seems that the forces of nature have it in for good 'ol Charlie, as his building is prone to natural (and not so natural) disasters. Under the constant pressure of the constant strange events that periodically force Charlie out of his room, coupled with the very annoying antics of his fellow tenants, Charlie will undoubtedly snap one day. This is the story of that journey into madness... ----- As you may or may not be able to tell (let's hope it's the former), this is meant to be a comedic RPG. The basic plotline follows the landlord, Charlie, and the other tenants of Apartment Building C in their day-to-day lives. Of course, this is no ordinary apartment building; it has the tendency to fall privy to many strange happenings, such as natural disasters, electrical blowouts, paranormal activity and stuff that would not be out of place in a sci-fi novel. Plus, other things. I'll think of that stuff along the way. I'll, of course, be playing the role of Charlie, the landlord of the apartment building. Everyone else shall sign up as tenants. Feel free to make your characters as strange and bizarre as humanly possible, as long as they're funny. You can be just about anything you please: failed writers, out of work actors, fathers (or mothers) stuck paying child support, mad scientists, escaped convicts, starving artists and just about anything else that comes to mind. Unfortunately for Charlie, he lacks the means to run background checks on people, so he has no idea what the hell he's getting into when he lets people rent rooms in his apartment building. Here's the basic sign-up form: [b]Name:[/b] Your character's name. [b]Gender:[/b] Their gender. [b]Age:[/b] Their age. [b]Description:[/b] A description of what your character looks like. You can either make a detailed description in text form or provide a picture, if you so desire. [b]Biography:[/b] Short biography that tells the who, what, where, why and how of your character. [b]Reason For Moving In:[/b] Why's your character moving into this apartment building? [b]Idiosyncracies:[/b] Any little quirks that make your character a raving weirdo. Now, for my sign-up... [b]Name:[/b] Charlie. Just Charlie. [b]Gender:[/b] Male [b]Age:[/b] 25 [b]Description:[/b] Charlie is average-sized with brown hair that goes down to his shoulders, beady brown eyes and a pale complexion. Due to the fact that he is always seen wearing a red and yellow striped scarf and long flowing robes, people often ask him if he's obsessed with Harry Potter, which is simply not true (in actuality, Charlie is a big fan of the webcomic Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire). [b]Biography:[/b] Charlie has always loved reading and writing. He had huge aspirations of becoming a serious novelist out of college, but was forced to write children's books in order to scratch a decent living. All of Charlie's children's books, however, were rejected, because they were deemed "far too morbid for children to read". Charlie's failure in his dream of writing nearly sent him over the edge and he sunk into a deep depression for months. One day, though, he got a letter in the mail; an uncle of his had died and left him his old apartment building. Charlie took a look around his current area of residence (a three-room apartment with a stoner named Jeff) and decided that anything could be better than that, so he took off. Charlie quickly changed his mind when he saw the actual apartment. Calling it a "fixer-upper" would've been an insult to fixer-uppers around the world. Charlie could not go back to his old apartment, however, because he had told off Jeff in a curse-filled tirade and had shoved a bong down Jeff's throat. Since Charlie is stuck with nowhere to go, he has no choice but to try and get a few tenants to stay at the apartment building so that he can get a somewhat healthy living. For Charlie, that healthy living involves writing the one novel that will propel him into a life of luxury and an early retirement. [b]Reason For Moving In:[/b] Told off Jeff, so he has nowhere else to go. Plus, he's under the delusion that this will be a quiet place and he'll somehow get some really good writing done here. [b]Idiosyncracies:[/b] Due to his experiences in life, Charlie is brooding, pessimistic and cynical. He hates people and is quick to insult them, though his insults are never any good. Charlie is also bizarrely attracted to magic and fantasy, as evidenced by his less-than-healthy admiration of Dominic Deegan. He also has a pet lantern in his room that he likes to call Charles. Long story short, Charlie is a nutcase. And there you have it. I'm not certain how many people I'm going to accept into the RPG; I think I'll just wait and see what the quality of the sign-ups is like and go on from there. Sign-ups shall be judged on overall quality of the writing and how humorous I find your characters (your sign-up doesn't have to be extremely hilarious, but I have to see the potential for humor within your character). Also, I would prefer people who are willing to be committed to this RPG. When I say committed, I don't mean that this is the only RPG you have to be in at the time, but I wouldn't like it if you signed up for it, made a post or two and abandoned it completely. Please sign up only if you're willing to stick with the RPG as long as it goes. Thanks and good luck to everyone who chooses to sign up ^_^

So sad that nobody has resurrected this thread yet :( Anyway, I bought Four Swords Adventures a little less than a week ago and I've really been enjoying it. I've only had the opportunity to play the game single-player, but I'm happy to say that it's still worth your time even if you don't have access to multiplayer. The system used for taking control of all of the Links is very good, though it does take a few tries to get used to. However, once you're able to memorize which direction on the C-Stick corresponds to which Link Formation (because, face it, using the C-Stick is leaps and bounds easier than the other options lol), forming your Links on the fly to deal with different puzzles and enemy attacks becomes second nature. I read EGM's review of FSA and heard some griping about the game's graphics, but I honestly cannot see what they're talking about; the graphics are by no means flawless, but they are still very nice to look at. Perhaps they're speaking of areas in the game that I've not reached yet (I'm at Hyrule Castle in Level 4 right now), but I doubt it lol. I've also been impressed with the sheer amount of enemies that the game can pack onto one screen without any hint of slowdown whatsoever. You go through some really crazy battles in this game and the game keeps up with all the action just fine. One complaint that I do (sort of) agree with is that it's annoying to start at square one at the beginning of every single level in FSA. One of the more enjoyable aspects of the Legend of Zelda series is acquiring the different items spread throughout the dungeons and using them whenever you feel neccessary. However, one aspect of this system that is kind of nifty is that it adds a bit of strategy to which weapon that you choose to pick up (you can only handle one weapon at a time). Will you choose the Pegasus Boots or the Magic Hammer for the journey ahead? Trust me, there are a few points in the game where, if you don't choose the right weapon, you'll be screwed lol. Hopefully, someone (Desbreko? lol) will be able to comment more on the multiplayer aspect of the game, because I'm sure that playing FSA multiplayer is even more fun than playing FSA single-player.

I was in limbo as to whether or not to keep this open, but I'm going to go with my gut feeling that this thread isn't really going to get much discussion out of anyone. Thread Closed

After about a half hour of writing/typing, I finished Chapter Twelve, so now I can post Chapter Eleven (that sentence will make logical sense someday)! Hope you enjoy it. [b][u][center]Chapter Eleven: The Young Man from the Bakery[/b][/u][/center] The bakery had burned down completely to the ground by the time the police had arrived. The young man from the bakery sat in the back of the shop, twiddling his thumbs. Ever since the day Jacob had come into his life, and left just as quickly, the young man had been depressed. He truly wanted with all his heart to catch just one more glimpse of Jacob. He wasn?t sure if it was love, but he would not have been surprised to learn that it was so. He walked over to the door leading to the back room, opened it and stepped inside of the back room. Inside, there were many machines. The machines were busy making all sorts of baked goods, though most of the machines were dedicated towards making doughnuts, as doughnuts were the most popular item in the bakery. One machine, in particular, caught the young man?s attention; there was a machine in the far corner, covered in cobwebs and dust, pumping and wheezing out doughnuts. This machine was in the last pathetic stages of its life. The young man would be sad to see it go, because this was the machine that made the doughnuts that he most often gave to customers. There was a stack of black boxes next to the old machine. These boxes, too, were caked in dust and cobwebs; the young man always cleaned them thoroughly before giving them to a valued customer, however. The young man walked over to the stack of boxes, picked one up and began wiping it with a soft cloth. The cloth picked off all of the dust from the box and left it looking blacker than ever. The young man smiled to himself and strolled over to the old machine, where a dozen doughnuts were laying in wait. He scooped up the doughnuts and placed them in three neat rows of four inside of the box. He closed the lid softly and carried it out of the back room and placed it under the area where he worked. The front door opened and the bells attached to the door sang a song of jingles and jangles. Two men stepped into the bakery, both dressed in white laboratory coats and slacks. The man of the left, who was named Gary, was tall, had short, closely cropped blonde hair and tiny spectacles that gave his face a humorous look. The one of the right, named Larry, was a bit shorter and had balding, brown hair. He also wore glasses, but his lenses were extremely large and gave his brown eyes the appearance of being much larger than they actually were. Gary and Larry walked steadfastly up to the front area. ?May I help you?? the young man asked. Larry paused and started to look around the bakery, while Gary placed his elbows upon the front area, just in front of the cash register. ?Well,? Gary said, his voice smooth as velvet. ?We would like a few doughnuts. You wouldn?t happen to have any, would you?? ?As a matter of fact,? the young man said. ?I happen to have some fresh doughnuts right here.? The young man attempted, unsuccessfully, to hide his grin while he brought out the black box of doughnuts and set it upon the front desk. Gary picked up the box and raised it in front of his face. He rotated it around and seemed to be checking for something. ?Is there something wrong?? the young man asked, tilting his head slightly. ?I?m not really fond of the box color,? Gary said. ?I don?t like it, either,? Larry said. ?Would you mind getting us a different box?? Gary asked. ?I apologize if I?m inconveniencing you in any way.? The young man frowned. ?I guess I could give you a different box,? he lamented. He took the black box, placed it back under the shelf in the desk and trudged to the back room. Larry intensified his search around the bakery until the young man came from the back room with a pink box of doughnuts in his arms. After the young man came back into the room, Larry nonchalantly continued to peer about the room. The young man placed the box of doughnuts in front of Gary. ?Will that be all?? the young man asked. ?No,? Gary said. ?I think I?ll buy the black box with it, after all. I think a friend of mine might enjoy it.? The young man immediately brightened up. ?A wise choice, sir,? he said, grinning. ?That will be fifteen dollars for both boxes.? Gary reached into his pocket and took out his wallet, removing three $5 bills from it and handing them to the young man, who placed them into the cash register. The young man pressed a few buttons and the register closed with the clinking sound of money. He bent down, picked up the black box of doughnuts and placed it on top of the pink box. He slid them over to Gary, who picked them both up and started to walk to the door. ?Come on, Larry,? Gary said. ?Let?s head off now.? ?Okay,? Larry replied. He strode over to the door and opened it for Gary. Gary walked through the door and Larry followed him, closing the door behind him. The young man stood up, took out a feather duster and started to walk around the bakery, dusting each of the benches lined around the front room. A gleaming light caught the young man?s attention as he was cleaning the third bench. He looked up, a bit confused, and saw two bright, shining lights illuminating the inside of the bakery. After a few seconds, the lights turned onto their side and went away. The young man took a few seconds to regain control of his sight, which was lost temporarily due to the brightness of the lights, and when he looked up Gary and Larry were standing in front of him. ?Do you want your doughnut box back?? Gary asked, holding out the pink box of doughnuts, sans doughnuts, of course. ?What happened to the black box?? the young man asked. ?A friend of ours took it,? Larry said. ?Why?? the young man asked. ?I suppose he fancied the box,? Gary replied. ?He always was an oddball.? ?Did he eat the doughnuts?? the young man asked hopefully. ?I?m not sure,? Gary said. ?I don?t think he did,? Larry offered. ?He never did like doughnuts too much. I think he just wanted the box; he probably just threw the doughnuts in the garbage.? ?Or maybe he gave them to some homeless guys,? Gary said. ?Sometimes he feels a bit charitable, you know?? ?Yeah,? Larry said. ?That?s true.? The young man again looked totally disappointed and lumbered his way back towards his desk and his cash register. ?Hold on for a moment,? Gary said. The young man turned around. ?What is it?? the young man asked. ?Would you mind talking with us for a few moments?? Larry asked. ?No, not really,? the young man sighed. In truth, he did not care for these two men in the least, but he was terribly bored, so he accepted their offer to talk. He walked over to the third bench, where Gary and Larry were already sitting, and sat down across from them. ?Okay, we?re just going to ask you a few questions,? Gary said. ?Is that okay with you?? ?Sure,? the young man answered. He placed his hand on his chin and stared past Gary with a glazed look in his eyes. ?You?ve worked here for a while, right?? Larry asked. ?Yeah,? the young man answered. ?For about a year and a half now.? ?Do you think that you would be able to remember a particular customer who wanted any goods from your bakery?? Gary asked. ?I don?t know,? the young man replied. ?It depends on how recently they came here.? ?We?re looking for someone who came in here a few days ago,? Larry said. ?We believe that he works here.? ?Nobody but me works here,? the young man replied. ?Nobody?? Gary asked. ?The man who owns the place comes down once a month to get a look at the profits,? the young man said. ?But, other than that, I?m usually the only person here, besides the customers.? ?That?s funny,? Larry said, who actually did not think that this was funny in the least. He was perplexed as to how his information could be wrong. ?Are you sure that nobody else works here?? ?I could show you the payroll, if you like,? the young man said. ?That won?t be necessary,? Gary said, frowning. ?So, perhaps this person may have been a customer, then?? ?I don?t know,? the young man said. ?You still haven?t told me who you?re looking for. Plus, weren?t you just asking about a customer earlier before you asked if anyone was working with me?? ?No,? Larry said. ?Okay,? the young man replied, very confused. ?The man in question is about your height,? Gary said. ?Short brown hair, brown eyes. He goes by the name of Jacob. Jacob S., if it comes to that.? ?I?m not sure whom you?re referring to,? the young man said, knowing exactly whom Gary was referring to. ?I think you know exactly whom we?re referring to,? Larry said, a vicious gleam in his eyes. ?Now, how about you tell us all about him?? ?What if I don?t want to?? the young man asked. ?I think that it would be for your benefit to tell us all that you know,? Gary said. The young man sighed. ?He came in here a few days ago,? he started. ?He looked really tired and confused; I think that he may have been new to the city. He came into the bakery, attracted to the smells, I believe. He just wanted to sit down and take a whiff at the smells coming out of the back room. However, I shared a few doughnuts with him.? ?You WHAT?!? Larry shouted, horrified. The young man tilted his head. ?Yeah,? he said. ?Ordinary, run of the mill doughnuts.? ?Oh, thank goodness,? Gary said, wiping his forehand with his wrist. ?And what happened after that?? ?He left,? the young man said. ?And that?s all?? Larry asked. ?Yeah,? the young man replied. ?Are you sure that you don?t know where he may have gone off to?? Gary asked. ?Yep,? the young man answered. ?What if we were to make it worth your while?? Larry asked. ?How would you be able to do that?? the young man asked. Gary reached into his lab coat and pulled out a small brown bag tied with a drawstring and placed it upon the table. The contents of the bag clinked together noisily. ?Thirty silver coins,? Gary said. ?All yours, if you tell us where Jacob is.? The young man eyed up the pouch nervously. ?I don?t think that I can do that,? the young man answered. ?Why not?? Larry asked. ?Everyone could use some money, couldn?t they?? ?It?s nice money,? the young man agreed. ?But I can?t sell out Jacob.? ?Why not?? Gary asked. ?Because I love him,? the young man answered. ?Oh, for the love of God!? Larry yelled, swiping the bag off of the table. ?You?re telling me that you won?t take this money and sell out this guy because you LOVE him?!? ?Yes,? the young man answered simply. ?Jesus Christ!? Gary yelled. ?How unpatriotic is THAT?!? Gary went to the middle of the bakery, where the bag of coins had landed, and picked it up off of the floor, placing it into the pocket of the left side of his lab coat. Larry leaned in close to the young man and motioned for the young man to lean in close as well by waving his finger a bit. ?Are you sure that you won?t cooperate with us?? Larry whispered. ?This is very important, you know. You could be a hero if you do this.? ?I don?t want to be a hero,? the young man said. ?I can?t be a hero, anyway.? ?Why not?? Gary asked. ?That?s a secret, too,? the young man answered. ?We don?t need you to tell us that,? Larry said, disgusted. ?Let?s get out of here.? Larry got up from the bench and stormed over to the door. Gary turned on his heels and followed Larry over to the door. Larry opened the door and stepped outside, barely leaving the door open enough so that Gary could follow suit. The young man stared at the door for a few seconds before shrugging to himself and continuing with his work. He brought the feather duster back out and began to re-dust the benches. After a few minutes, the young man finished with his work and set the feather duster upon the front desk with the cash register. The young man sat down and tried to reflect on what happened to him. However, before he could begin to reflect, several armed officers, with government insignias, rushed into the bakery. A few pointed weapons at the young man, while two others rushed him and beat him on the shoulders and in the ribs with their nightsticks. There was a loud snap and the young man felt a couple of his ribs break inside of his body. He let out a loud yelp, which was all his body could muster due to the pain. Another couple of officers grabbed the young man forcefully and dragged him outside, throwing him upon the sidewalk. The rest of the officers kept their pistols trained upon his head, while the two left inside proceeded to take out matches, light them up and throw them around the bakery. The young man stared in horror as the flames spread quickly around the building. After a few seconds, the area was enveloped in a fiery orange blanket, flames ripping through the sky like bright red knives. The young man heard a car approaching the group. The car, a bright red car, slammed its brakes and swung into a nearby fire hydrant, causing it to dislodge and send water gushing into the sky. A short, round man wearing a mustard yellow suit and a red tie ran over comically to the group of people hanging around the burning building. He was yelling harshly and waving his arms violently. The young man wasn?t really paying attention to him, however. A darkened figure had just sprinted past the gushing water on the other side of the street and now hurried into the shadows. The young man stared after him, romantic feelings stirring within him, yearning to chase after the mysterious figure. However, he was rudely interrupted by a shove from one of the officers. ?Just what the hell is going on?!? the round man yelled. ?Who are you?? one of the officers asked. ?I OWN this bakery!? the round man yelled. ?Why is it on fire?! And why do you have one of my workers in custody?!? ?This man works for you?? another one of the officers asked. ?He?s been charged with several counts of first-degree murder and arson.? ?Oh,? the owner of the bakery said. ?I have no idea whatsoever who that kid is.? ?I didn?t think so,? the officer replied, dragging the young man to his feet and shoving him into a car. Several other officers piled into their cars and they left the scene quickly. The owner of the bakery sighed and walked away from the scene. A few minutes later, a horde of police cars rampaged onto the scene, only to find that the bakery had burned down. ?Hey, what happened here?? one of the officers asked. ?I don?t know,? another officer replied. ?The whole place is burned to a crisp.? ?Looks like we got here too late,? the first officer said. ?Damn,? the other officer said. ?That?s a shame.? The officers piled back into their cars and drove away from the scene as the last remnants of the bakery fell unto itself in a pile of still smoldering ashes. A bit of wind passed through, picking up some ash and spreading it onto the street. Still, nobody cared about this bakery, as it was rumored that whoever bought his or her baked goods from there would die. And that rumor would continue to carry on for years, as it was said that the young man?s ghost continued to haunt the bakery for the rest of eternity, though he would not start on this course of life until sixty years later, when he died in prison.

[b][url=http://www.anime-expo.org/index2004.html]Official Anime Expo 2004 website[/url][/b] This year's Anime Expo is being held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, which is only about a half hour or so from where I live. The actual convention will be from July 2nd to July 5th and I'm hoping to make it there on either the 4th or the 5th (preferably the 4th, heh). Information about ticket prices and such can be found [b][url=http://www.anime-expo.org/reg/index.html]here[/url][/b]. Now, I'm not really a [i]huge[/i] fan of anime, but I want to go because it seems like it'll be a lot of fun and I'm hoping to meet a few people at the expo. I know that OtakuSennen will be going on the 4th and the 5th (which is why I want to go on either one of those days) and he tells me that KarmaOfChaos will be going on the 4th, as well...so, if you can make it to Anaheim on the 4th or the 5th, maybe it'd be nice to have a good group tour the expo. I'll be getting the final word on whether or not I'll be attending tonight, so hopefully I'll have some good news on my attendance, haha. Of course, there's going to be plenty of stuff to do there, and you can get more details about the expo on the website, since I don't have the time to really run through everything...again, though, it seems like it'll be tons of fun and, hopefully, I'll be able to make it and see a few people there :) Any other interested parties? If you're already planning to go, what are you looking forward to? Maybe if someone has attended past Anime Expos, they can give us some anecdotes or something to give us a good idea of what to expect there, especially me, since I'm an Anime Expo virgin :p EDIT: It's official - I'm going. Yay!

Due to my lack of a PS2, there are some good platformers that I've not had the chance to play...Maximo, Jak and Daxter and Rachet and Clank included (my PS2 owning friends don't have those games, unfortunately). With Super Mario Sunshine, I think the general dislike stems from the fact that a lot of people seem to think that it's just an upgraded Super Mario 64 (an opinion, which I don't think is warranted at all). For me, I liked Super Mario Sunshine, but I really hated those short platformer areas, at first, because they were really though; much tougher than anything else presented in Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine, in my opinion. I recently picked up SMS and started playing it again, though, and found that I enjoyed those areas because I had more experience with them and knew how to beat them. Doing good at something definitely helps make you like it more than you dying repeatedly at that stage lol. It's hard to single out one platformer that was most influential for the entire platforming genre, but I think that it's no contest that the entire Super Mario Bros. series is easily the most influential platforming series. From Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Sunshine and everywhere in between, the Super Mario Bros. series is definitely representative of platforming at just about every stage of its existence. As for platformers I'd recommend? Well, this is where it gets a bit confusing, because today's platformers have taken on a lot more genres and its hard to pin down just what exactly is a platformer, anymore. Would something like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time be a platformer? Beyond Good and Evil (even though I don't really think it's a platformer lol)? Platformers, more than anything else, have readily assimilated influences from other genres in order to provide gamers with a new and fresh experience with the genre, and the new school of platforming, so to speak, has really stretched the boundaries of what people would consider to be a "platformer".

[quote name='Lore][size=1']Pomp and Circumstance. That moving piece of music, played at every graduation, is so aptly titled. *sweet smile*[/size][/quote] Haha, ain't that the truth? :p I graduated this past Wednesday. Luckily, our graduation ceremony was a whole hour less than I was expecting it to be and the weather was not too bad, so it wasn't too harsh to sit through. We went through the whole graduation ceremony, which included the horribly cliche valedictorian speech that, of course, was said in a horribly sweet tone, so as to give the parents a nice show. Hip hip hooray. Much more meaningful was the time that I spent with my friends afterwards, getting some hugs and goodbyes, while signing yearbooks and receiving my diploma (like [strike]Sara[/strike] Lore, we also received our diplomas after the actual ceremony). As for college, I shall be attending Cal Poly Pomona, which is about a half hour or so from my current home. I can't live at the college as of yet, so the close proximity is ideal for commuting. Luckily, it's a good school, as well lol. I'll be majoring in Journalism, though I don't know if I'll be going into journalism once I finish school...I know I'll be going into something writing related, though. We'll see what happens.

Yay, another reply ^_^ This was definitely a pleasent surprise, heh. [quote name='Arcadia][size=1']The story is awesome - I have no idea what's going at all, but I love it anyway. All the little hints and new perspectives you introduce only add to the feeling, and it definitely keeps up the interest.[/quote][/size] I'm glad to see I'm doing that right lol. One of the things that makes this so difficult to write is revealing enough so that the reader wants to continue reading, but not so much that too much of the story is given away too early. Also, I'm trying to reveal things slowly so that later on, when all the shocks and surprises come, it doesn't all come out of left field; that wouldn't be too good lol. [quote][size=1]I don't really haven't any complaints grammar-wise. I like the use of repitition (when it's used for the literary purpose, of course ^_~) and the as-a-matter-of-fact-ness that a lot of the sentences seem to have. Some of it is very [i]Catch-22[/i] to me, but it's also obvious that you've got your own thing going here and I can't wait to see where you're going to take it.[/size][/QUOTE] Yes, good 'ol [i]Catch-22[/i] was definitely an influence on my little story (I was waiting for someone to point it out :p). However, I'm also glad that it doesn't seem as if I'm trying to emulate Joseph Heller's novel, because that's not really what I'm trying to do. I [i]do[/i] pay little homages to what inspires me, though, because I enjoy honoring the stories that turn on the lights in my head and get the gears moving...and, of course, you obviously noticed some of that, heh. And some of the central themes and such of my story are similar to those of [i]Catch-22[/i] because I pretty much hold the same stance on a lot of things that Heller did in his novel. Again, though, this isn't [i]Catch-22[/i] nor is it meant to be - I've tried (and succeeded, hopefully) to place my own unique spin on things and, along the way, I pay tribute to some of the things that inspired me to write, which is the same thing I do in a lot of my stories (short stories and novels alike). As for the matter-of-fact-ness of the sentences...well, I'm glad that doesn't seem to bother at least [i]one[/i] person lol. Descriptions of actions are my biggest weakness as a writer, I think. I'm more adept at story and character than description, though I do believe that I've made improvements to the way I describe things...trust me, I'm working as hard as possible to make certain that this doesn't get boring or anything, because that would suck :whoops:

I merged the threads. Be sure to check the [url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=39422][b]game thread list[/b][/url] to see if there is already a thread for a game you want to create a thread about. Thanks.

It's only been a week since I've updated this? o_O; It feels like a lot longer, that's for sure... Anyway, I couldn't stand leaving my (one or two :p) fans in suspense, so I decided to post the next chapter, even though I am nowhere near done with Chapter Twelve (I'm trying to stay a bit ahead, so I always have something to post, even if I'm not done with the current chapter I am writing). So, yes, I hope you enjoy this - it's a doozy of a chapter lol. [b][u][center]Chapter Ten: The Manager[/b][/u][/center] ?I can still smell the rancid stench of death around me. I can barely remember my own name, my birthplace, my family; anything about myself was completely wiped away from my memory during that god-forsaken war. However, I?ll try to give you as much as I can remember, because understanding who I was fifty-seven years ago is essential for knowing exactly how much the government has destroyed everyone?s lives. I was a young man of eighteen years before the war started. I remember growing up in a decent house; my father never made too much money, but he always made enough and sacrificed enough to be able to provide us with a good life. We were a happy family, always looking on the bright side of things, always looking for a way to improve our current situation. And, in me, we thought that we had the perfect solution to our problems. My grades were good enough to get me into a good college. However, we lacked the necessary funds to gain me entry into a good school. Luckily, at the time it was lucky, anyway, the government was taking people into their army and offering to pay for college tuition. I took the offer and enlisted into the army. At first, it was not so bad. Since I was an inexperienced soldier, I was mostly relegated to mess hall duty and cleaning duty. I had no desire to engage in any battles, so I was more than happy to work hard and clean in order to get a college education. However, after a few months, the driving force behind the war gained control. The figurehead of the government and the start of all the problems?General Rogers. General Rogers, even then, was a violent, psychotic head case. He had no qualms with sending walls of soldiers into battle simply to overwhelm the enemy with human targets in order to claim victory. No matter that thousands upon thousands of men and women died due to his inferior tactics. General Rogers was too busy reaping the rewards of military glory to bother with little details like that. After the six-month period of the war, I was put permanently into the fighting ranks. Even though I was not placed into the heavy battles right away, I still saw more than my share of gruesome bloodshed?I even caused some of it, myself. Our regiment mostly saw action in the slum areas of the city, as that was where General Rogers knew that the people would never turn to his side. So, to take care of that little problem, General Rogers wanted us to kill all of the residents of the slum areas. The stupid fools that we were, we obliged?we thought we were doing what was best for our country. I can still remember the screams. Men, women and children, we were totally indiscriminate in whom we chose to kill. We stormed into decaying warehouses, rickety apartment buildings and wherever else, finding innocent families and slaughtering them with the bullets of our rifles. Every day was a storm of blood, guts and gore, endless screams of torture?and the crying. I can never forget the crying, the tears of the children as their families were taken away from them. I was uncaring, totally unfeeling and unemotional as I helped kill of families, one by one. I was a monster. Those battles, however, were nothing compared to some of the other stories I heard?there were heavy rumors of a secret weapon that the military developed. A super soldier enhanced by genetic experiments at the beginning of the war. There might have been multiple soldiers for all I know. The stories I heard from that camp were more gruesome and horrifying than anything I ever saw on the battlefield. They said that he painted the walls red with the blood of the victims he killed, entire walkways would be littered with broken and battered body parts by the time his battles were over. It was sickening. After another six months fighting the lower-level battles, the military saw fit to throw us into the bigger battles, the ones with far more carnage in one fight than we had seen in the past six months combined. In these battles, we fought the ?enemy? head-on; I never found out who the supposed enemy was. All I know was that we barged in on their city one day and started to take over. Blind imperialism at its finest, nothing but a bunch of thick-headed soldiers doing their duty for the fat cats to get rich off of. That?s where I stayed for the next four and a half years. Battle after battle was waged?I remember one battle in particular as being the most hideous thing I have ever participated in, in my life. We were to storm an outpost in the suburbs of the city. This outpost was where most of the daily suburban operations were planned out; since we had invaded their city, a tight shift had to be run so that they could continue their way of life while simultaneously trying to get us the hell out of their town. They knew that we were coming and they were more than ready. We were met at the front and killed off almost immediately. Half my troop was killed in the first five minutes. My best friend, whom had joined the army with me, also to get a college education, was the first one to get hit. He wasn?t one of the lucky ones who died a quick death. He was shot in the stomach and was left to bleed to death. In my mind?s eye, I can still remember perfectly the whole grisly scene of his death. ?It?s so cold,? he said, shivering on the ground, bullets whizzing over our heads. ?It?s okay, man,? I replied. ?We?ll get you out of here.? I tried to treat him the best that I could, but there was no hope for him. The wound was much too large to wrap; you could see clear to the inside of his body and bear witness to the internal injuries that the bullet had caused as it ravaged its way through his body. A fluid mixture of stomach acid and blood flowed quietly out of his gaping wound, mixing into a noxious and nauseating green liquid that spilled out onto the ground. As more acid began to flow out, his skin began to corrode and burn away, leaving bits and pieces of his small and large intestines exposed to the dirty air of battle. ?It?s so cold,? he whispered. ?I can feel it?it?s cold.? He grabbed me weakly by my collar. I was too stunned to formulate a reply. All I could do was to make him as comfortable as possible before he died?but that was impossible. How could you make a dying, suffering man comfortable? The one luxury that a person deserves before they die, they could not have. He died, bleeding away a miserable death, a few minutes later. The rest of my troop stormed the outpost, while I stood back horrified at what they were attempting. Not one of them even made it close to the outpost. Some soldiers were shot in the arms and crumpled to the ground, grasping their wounded appendages. Some had their legs picked clean off, amputated by several rounds of powerful bullets shot at them. One soldier had his head blown completely off of his body. His neck was ripped from his shoulders and his head rolled upon the ground like a mannequin?s head, a scowl of war on his face. The battlefield was forever reddened with the fallen lives of my regiment. Body parts littered the landscape, tossed aside like all manners of trash in a landfill. They all died that day; I was the only one left alive, whether out of pity or simply that they wanted me to suffer mentally for the deaths of my comrades, I never knew. As I walked the long walk back to the base, I knew that I could not take any of this senseless killing any longer. I had to do whatever I could to ensure that I would get out of this war alive. I was about one hundred yards away from the base when I decided to take some drastic action. With a grimace on my face, with shaking hands, I took my combat knife out of my pocket and plunged it into the top of my right thigh. I screamed with pain and stumbled and walked back to their base, where I collapsed near the hospital wing. I still have the scar to this day. I awoke the next day in one of the hospital cots. The nurse told me that I had been asleep for about a day and that the doctors had performed surgery on me almost immediately after I had been brought back to their tent. ?How fast did they go through it?? I asked her ?Well,? the nurse said. ?It wasn?t almost immediately, per se.? ?Why?? I asked. ?They were squabbling over who would get to perform surgery on you,? the nurse said, shaking her head. ?Those doctors are all the same. They?ll perform surgery, but only because they?re getting paid to do it. I swear, if there was no money involved, only the nurses would still be here.? I leaned back against my cot. My leg still hurt too much for me to stand up, so I could not enact my plan. I had nothing to do, so I drifted back to sleep. I awoke the next day. There was nobody in the room and the bandage on my leg was wrapped tightly enough that I did not experience much pain when I walked. I got out of my cot and limped over to the dresser. I opened the dresser, took out my clothes and changed out of the hospital gown that the nurse had given me. After I put on my clothes, I went over to the door and peeked outside. There was nobody outside, nobody who was paying attention to me, at least, so I opened the door and left the hospital area. After that, I made my way out of the city and left the war completely, escaping through the back area of our camp, making sure to take along some supplies with me. You can brand my actions as cowardice or anything that you want. It doesn?t matter to me, because I know my reasoning for leaving the war was sound. I had killed so many people, broken up so many families, that my mind could not stand the anguish of killing any more people. Had I been in even one more battle, I am sure that my mind would have snapped. During the two years that were left in the Seven Year War, I migrated to other nearby towns that had not gone under siege during the war. I took on several odd jobs, some in grocery stores, some in restaurants and others in pawn shops. With each job, though, nothing changed; I still struggled to gather up enough money to live a healthy life, day in and day out. But even with the hardships that I was facing, I refused to let it all get me down, because I knew in my heart that any life was better than the life that I had just left. After two years of odd jobs, I received word that the Seven Year War (which, of course, it was not called back then) was over. I was not jubilant, as I had expected to be; I was soberly reminded of just how many people had lost their lives in that senseless harbinger of Armageddon. In fact, in many ways, the Seven Year War truly was senseless. Not once did I ever hear any actual reasoning for this war?all I ever knew was that we were attacking another country. Perhaps we were doing the work of an evil dictator. It would certainly not surprise me in the least. After the war ended, I finally found a steady job in a diner, the diner in which I currently own, as a matter of fact. The man whom hired me was extremely sickly, yet full of vigor and life ? I never understood how the man could be so sick, yet so energetic. It perplexed me. The man, his name was David, if I remember correctly, was as kind as they came and he took me readily under his wing. He could tell from my disposition that I was extremely troubled and did all that he could to ensure that I would be able to live a happy and productive life. In the three years that I lived with David (he died after three years), I never once had the desire to go back to my family; I rarely thought about them, which surprises me to this day. Don?t get the wrong idea, I loved them and they supported me a lot, but David was something different altogether?I felt very close to him, like a son does to a father, which is ironic in a way, since I had a perfectly healthy father that I could have gone back to at any time. David put me to work at just about every position imaginable in the diner and he taught me all the tricks of the trade. I learned how to work the cash register, how to clean correctly and how to prepare the food, just as the two workers I currently have employed under me have learned. However, David also taught me how to best bargain for the food that we would have to bring in every day and how to attract customers. He was a truly brilliant person and I always wondered why he ran a diner instead of going out into the world and really making something of himself. After three years, the diner was doing better than it ever had before. People were streaming in, ready to eat a hearty meal at the drop of a hat. To tell the truth, it was almost too much for David and I to handle, at times, since we were the only two people to work in the store, but we never let the strain show on our faces. I was thankful for this life and I?m sure that he was, as well. Later that year, David died. He refused to be taken to the hospital because he said that he never trusted any of the ?quacks? that worked there. Plus, he claimed that they never truly cured anybody, they only prolonged the wait for someone?s death. I thought that this was an overly pessimistic way of looking at things, but then I remembered the doctors at the war hospital and realized that David was right. David was right about a lot of things. I?ll always remember our talk on his deathbed. ?Are you doing okay, David?? I asked. ?Never better,? David said with a slight chuckle. ?Never better.? I soaked a rag in some clean water, twisted and turned it a bit to let some water loose and applied the rag to David?s forehead to cool him down slightly. He sighed and leaned back against his pillow. ?What?s wrong?? I asked him. ?I?m just sorry that I won?t get to see you become someone truly great,? David said. ?You deserve better than this?far better than this. I just can?t see a bright boy like you slaving away in a diner for the rest of his life.? ?But I like it in here!? I said. ?You like working with me,? David corrected. ?And now I?m going away.? ?I?ll still take care of the diner for you,? I said. ?That?s nice,? David said. ?But?I have something else that I would like you to take care of, first.? ?What is that?? I asked. ?That scar on your leg,? he said, pointing at my leg. ?Where did you get it from?? I blinked in surprise, since I never knew that David had known about the scar I had gotten from the war. I didn?t want to tell him the truth, but I knew that anything less than the truth would be an insult to his memory, so I told him exactly how I had gotten the scar. He frowned and leaned into the pillow some more. ?Yeah,? I said. ?It?s not a pretty story.? ?Grab my leg,? David said. ?Excuse me?? I asked. ?Grab my leg,? he repeated. I did so and, with a shock, pulled off the lower part of his leg. I turned a deep shade of red and attempted to reattach his leg, mumbling hurried apologies under my breath. David let out a laugh and waved off my apologies with his hand. ?That?s not necessary,? David said. ?I just wanted to show you that you were not the only person affected by the war. I, too, was forced to fight, for a time.? ?But, you must have been far past the age limit for soldiers!? I said. ?No offense.? ?None taken,? David replied. ?And age limits never really mattered to General Rogers ? he?d send every man, woman and child into war if he could. What?s to stop him from sending an old codger like me into war?? ?Nothing, I guess,? I mumbled. ?Exactly,? David said. ?And that?s why I want you to fight the good fight. You may continue to work here, if that?s what you desire, but I never want you to give up the fight against people like General Rogers who continue to fight wars and spread annihilation at the drop of the hat?that?s no way for anyone to live.? ?I understand,? I said. ?Will you promise me that you will continue to fight?? David asked. ?Yes,? I answered. ?I will.? ?Good,? David said. ?You?ve always been a good kid.? Those last words came out of David?s throat in a raspy, struggled tone, like his voice was pushing a giant boulder uphill. He closed his eyes, sighed deeply and finally gave in. His heart slowly came to a stop and he died. Tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face. I fell onto my knees, embraced his body and sobbed against it. Even as I?ve worked hard to run the diner, fulfilling David?s dying wish has always been my top priority. I could have had my choice of any worker I wanted, since, even after David?s death, the diner was still in top condition and many people still continued to eat there. However, I used my job interviews to scout for people that I thought had something special, something unique. Something that I knew would be able to aid me in my hunt for vengeance. After many years, however, this became increasingly difficult. It was a miracle that I had managed to keep the diner in tip-top shape for so long. I had strayed from my promise slightly in that I hired temporary workers to help me with the upkeep of the diner. However, strangely enough, most of these workers died soon after I hired them. The first worker that I hired who stayed alive for any length of time was Julia. Julia is a special girl in many ways. She is extremely intelligent and very dedicated to her work. I can also see that she?s been affected, much the same as I. Maybe there is a certain aura about those who have been affected like I have?you can just see the pain that they endure by peering into their eyes. I know that Julia is far too young to have served in the war, but that does not mean that she was not affected by it. Not by a long shot. A few years after I hired Julia, I happened upon another find, this one a young man named Jacob. He did not appear much older than Julia, though you can never be too sure about that sort of thing. He has the same distant look in his eyes that Julia gets from time-to-time, as well, so I?m fairly certain that he was affected by the war, as well?in fact, his pain looks to be far greater than both mine and Julia?s! I certainly cannot imagine the torment that this young man seems to be going through. However, in these two, I think I have finally found a way to make the world a better place. Julia and Jacob both possess the mental capacity to be able to fight the fight that I?ve been unable to take on. I haven?t been able to present either of them with this information, though?I don?t know if I can put all of this upon them just like that. I?m just running away from my problems again. I?ve decided, then, that I want this manuscript to be presented to Jacob and Julia when I die. Hopefully, they will read this and succeed where I have failed. I feel that my time will soon be up even if I am nowhere near the age that most people die?it?s just a stirring within my bones that?s telling me that I am going to die soon. Or, perhaps, it?s just the smell of death that I can still smell all around me.? The manager put his pen down. His hand was throbbing with a dull pain. He cast the pen aside onto his desk and rubbed his sore wrist gingerly. The manager had not written that much in a long time, but this was a very important document. The manager went over to a desk, brought out a manilla folder and took it over to the desk that he was writing the manuscript on. He picked up the manuscript, placed it into the folder and put it back onto the desk. The manager walked over to his closet and took out a trenchcoat and a large hat that covered most of his face. He would need to go out later on in the night and it would be safe to go out in clothing that covered most of his body so that nobody would see who he was and get suspicious. He put on the trenchcoat and slipped the manilla folder into the inside pocket of the coat. He slipped on his hat and left the backroom, turning off the light as he closed the door. He turned off all of the lights in the diner and walked out the door, locking it behind him. The manager walked down the sidewalk with short, hurried steps, trying to strike a balance between not walking so slow that he did not make it to his destination and not walking so fast as to rouse too much suspicion. He continued to walk deliberately towards his goal but did not notice that he was being tailed. A man similar to the person who had followed Jacob during his journey from the hospital to the city was now following the manager. The manager hailed a taxi, which stopped near the sidewalk on which he was standing. The yellow, slightly rusted door opened and he climbed inside. After a few seconds, the taxi took off. The man who was following the manager did the same thing as the manager had just done, hopped into a taxi and sped off, though with this taxi, the taxi driver had been rudely thrown out the side. The manager looked out the window of his taxicab. It had begun to rain softly outside; the sky was grayed and extremely gloomy. Not a very good omen. The manager stuck his hand into his coat pocket nervously and told the taxi driver to stop when he got near the subway. The cabbie nodded and continued on his route. The government agent continued to tail the taxicab closely, turning when the latter turned and coming to a stop when he stopped. The new rain made the roads a bit slicker than normal, but that was an advantage for the agent, since the cab driver would be more likely to drive carefully in fear of getting in an accident and not being able to collect his cab fare. That would make it far easier for him to be followed. Soon, the manager?s cab stopped at the subway entrance. He paid the cabbie his fare and stepped out onto the street. He quickly wished that he had brought along an umbrella, since the rain was now pouring down extremely hard, but that was just a tiny inconvenience. The manager covered the contents of his manilla folder completely in his coat pocket and approached the stairs leading down to the subway. He gripped the handrail tightly and made his way down the steps slowly and surely in order not to lose his footing and fall on the steps. The agent stopped his cab soon after the manager made his way down the stairs and he followed him. The manager made his way through the busy crowd that was emerging from the subway train that had just stopped. He went up to the ticket man and paid for his subway ticket, passing through the rotating fence as he did so. The agent popped in line right after the manager and did the same. They entered the subway one after the other, through the automatic sliding doors of the train. It was warm inside the subway train. After the cold of the rain and the station, the manager was fearful that he was going to catch a cold. He walked towards an empty seat, droplets of water dripping from his overcoat onto the floor as he made his way over to the seat, and he sat down. The agent opted to stand at one of the poles lining through the middle of the train in lieu of sitting down near the manager. He did not want to rouse the manager?s suspicions, not yet. The subway ride took about ten minutes. By the time the subway stopped, the warmth of the train had dried off the manager?s clothes completely. The conductor?s voice came on over a loudspeaker, asking the patrons of the train to hold on, as the train was coming to a stop. Each person gripped the railing near their seats so that they would not lose their balance and fall onto the floor, in what would surely turn out to be an embarrassing situation. The subway slowed down to a complete stop and the manager stood up as the sliding doors of the subway train opened. He stepped out first and, after a few seconds, the government agent followed him. They were the only two to emerge from the train. The manager walked through the new station and to the outside, where the rainfall had let up a bit. The manager stepped back out into the rain and continued to protect the sacred document that was in his stead. The agent continued to follow the manager slowly and cautiously; this whole mission depended on the fact that the manager would not see him until the last minute. The manager looked to the right and the left and disappeared into an alley. The agent cursed lightly and followed him quickly into the alley. The agent had advanced fast enough that he witnessed the manager run into a run-down, decrepit building. He took out a small phone from his pocket and called for backup. The manager walked into the building. Immediately, he felt the nuzzle of a gun in the nape of his neck. He raised his arms slowly skyward and stood at attention. The gun was taken away from his neck and he felt a hand clapped onto his shoulder. ?Good, it?s you,? a voice said. ?No hard feelings, I hope; I have to be careful, you know.? ?I understand,? the manager said. ?You wouldn?t happen to have a coat rack or something, would you? My clothes are soaked.? ?It?s over there,? the man said, pointing. ?Thanks,? the manager replied. ?So, you?re going to hold onto this, right?? ?Yeah,? the man said. ?And I?m going to publish it, too.? ?Publish?? the manager asked. ?That was never part of the deal.? The manager hung his hat and his coat onto the coat rack and took the manilla folder out of the coat pocket. ?It wasn?t,? the publisher said. ?But think of how many people you could turn to your side if lots of people end up reading what you?ve written! You know as well as I do how many people seem to have forgotten the events of fifty years ago?I don?t know why that is, but these are things that people need to remember!? ?I agree,? the manager said. ?But you could be throwing rocks at a hornet?s nest here.? ?I?m not following you,? the publisher said, tilting his head. ?I mean,? the manager said. ?That by publishing this, you may turn the whole government against you. As stupid as they are, you do not want them as your enemy.? ?That?s a chance I?m willing to take,? the publisher replied. ?I have other things ready for publishing and we can really garner some support and make some money!? ?Money?? the manager asked. ?Is that why you?re doing this?? ?Of course not!? the publisher said indignantly. ?But if you?re going to do something, you may as well make a couple of bucks on the side.? ?I don?t want my manuscripts to be a party to any money making scheme,? the manager said, glowering at the publisher. ?Is that clear?? ?Fine,? the publisher said. ?I won?t publish it. I?ll just get it to the two kids when you die.? ?Good,? the manager said. ?Thank you very much?this means a lot to me.? ?Don?t mention it,? the publisher said. ?I want to see them go down as much as you do.? Just then, the lights went out. ?What the hell?? the manager asked. ?I don?t know,? the publisher said. ?Must be a power failure?? A loud bang rang out that was accompanied by a flash of light. A low grunt of pain was heard, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. A second bang was heard and another body hit the ground. The lights flashed on and the agent was standing over the dead bodies of the publisher and the manager, alongside another agent that he had called for backup. ?Good,? the agent smirked. ?They?re both dead.? A pool of blood was forming slowly around the manager?s body and some of the blood had gotten onto the manuscript that was inside the manilla folder. The agent picked up the folder and thumbed through the contents of the manuscript quickly. ?It was good that we got to them; there might?ve been a disaster had they been allowed to publish this.? ?Yeah,? the other agent said. ?What shall we do?? ?We?ll burn the place down,? the first agent said. ?Leave no trace of it.? Both of the agents took out matches from their pockets and struck them against the sandpaper lining the tips of the match packages. The matches lit up and they tossed them onto the ground, setting the floor ablaze. Before they headed out of the house, the agents tossed the manuscript into the fire, ensuring that nobody else would be able to read it and find out about some of the heinous actions that had taken place fifty years prior. The house burned down that night and nobody cared, as it was going to be demolished later that year.

Okay, I've had to delete the last three posts in this thread, all of which were pretty spammy. One sentence posts saying that you don't like the game aren't going to cut it; please only post if you have something to contribute to the discussion beyond the fact that you either like or dislike the game. Thanks.

[quote name='Yoko_Kurama']I would personally recomend Golden sun, Final Fantasy, .hack, and etc.[/quote] But [i]why[/i] do you recommend these games? It's not enough to simply list the games - it doesn't really help anyone out at all. All you're doing is naming games, you're not naming the good and bad points of these particular games (and you're just naming game series, actually lol). So, please put a bit more effort into posts next time...if you have any questions whatsoever, feel free to PM me or any of the moderators at any time.

I like the pottery you have here...I had limited time on the wheel this year (though, I did make what I consider to be my best piece on the wheel), but I did get to work on the banding wheel, which is about as good. I also noticed the box among that stuff, so I'm guessing that you also worked with the slab roller, heh. Personally, I never cared for the slab roller...all my boxes were lame lol. But, yes, nice work.

Heh, still one of those things that I remember, even after almost sixteen years. My first console was the NES and the first game that I vividly remember playing was the Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. compilation cartridge. Mostly, I remember me laying upon the top bunk of my cousin's bunk bed, Zapper in my right hand as I hunted down Mario while he was trying to beat Super Mario Bros.. He was pretty surprised to find out that you still had use of the Zapper while playing the Super Mario Bros. portion of the cartridge, as you can imagine.

I think the banner looks good, though the bright parts stand out a bit too much for my tastes. Snake and the leaves look sort of odd against it. The M also looks sort of strange, since part of it is also set against the light background. The avatar is pretty impressive, though. I love how you just look at it and Snake just pops out of the foliage; it's a cool optical effect, heh. It definitely fits in well with the theme of Metal Gear Solid 3, as well. You did a great job with that.

[quote name='maladjusted][color=firebrick] *raises eyebrow* Didn't anyone read my post? In the book it said Sirius [b]used[/b'] to be handsome. [/color][/quote] Exactly. The look of Sirius, as it was described in the book, was nailed pretty well in the movie - he looks aged, gaunt and insane. Do people seriously expect Sirius to look "scruffily sexy" straight out of Azkaban prison? lol Anyway, I saw the movie yesterday and I was impressed with it. First, though, I'll gripe out what I didn't like, which was the pace of the movie (the same problem I had with the first two movies, as a matter of fact). Since there's so much stuff going on the novel, every action in the movie is shot off at a rapid-fire pace and that makes everything a bit disorienting after a while. The pacing made each scene appear "shorter" than they actually were, if that makes any sense at all. Plus, you have the obligatory cutting of scenes from the book, but I didn't really have many gripes with that (though, I was slightly miffed that [spoiler]Harry receiving the Firebolt was pretty much treated as an afterthought[/spoiler]). Other than that, I enjoyed the movie. I especially enjoyed all the subtle touches that added to the dark ambience of the movie. If you've read the novel, there's no question that it has a dark undertone to it and I think that it was pulled off pretty nicely in the film. Prisoner of Azkaban didn't try to hit you over the head and yell "HEY, THE MOOD IS SUPPOSED TO BE DARK!!!111" at the top of its lungs, which I appreciated (things like the dark, drab clouds and the ringing of the clock bells while Harry, Ron and Hermione were walking to their classes are the touches that I'm referring to). I also thought that David Thewlis did a great job as Lupin. He pretty much nailed Lupin's idiosyncracies, as far as I'm concerned. I was a bit less impressed with Gary Oldman's performance as Sirius Black, but that's maybe a bit unfair, since [spoiler]Sirius isn't really in that much of the movie, anyway[/spoiler]. I felt that his fits of insanity were a bit overacted, but it wasn't too bad, since it could have been far worse. Gary Oldman did an admirable job with everything else related to Sirius, in my opinion. However, I was most impressed with Tom Felton. In the first Harry Potter movie, he was little more than annoying, in my opinion. He showed improvement during the second movie, but this movie is where he made visible strides, heh. He was fantastic as Malfoy - every scene with him was great, haha. So, yeah, I was impressed with the movie. It wasn't the most incredible movie I've ever seen in my life, but it made for a fun time and it was worth the money to see it, which is really all that matters.