A Roll Of The Dice - 10
This series of narrative fiction is based on random words that are picked via dice rolling.
Technique • Touch • Designer • Curve • Effort • Wrist • Fool
A single touch will kill you. That's the first thing we learned in class. To avoid dying, you needed to perfect your technique. Well, easier said than done.
I twisted the throwing knife in my hand, lining up my target. If I missed, it would lunge at me, and I'd be at the mercy of my reflexes. I let the knife fly, my wrist stiffening as I released. A perfect bullseye. My target crumpled as the knife sheered through its single eye.
The cycloptids were a race of eldritch aliens that had smashed into our moon about 200 years ago. They were actually the pets, we believed, of the space-faring race that had crash-landed the massive ship. Not too bright, ridiculously quick at reproducing, and generally harmless (you know, aside from the instant death touch from their skin), they were silly little creatures.
The actual intelligent life on the ship had perished in the flames of the lunar wreck, but the cycloptids were found by our space program and taken home. We had no idea they'd be such an invasive species (or that upon skin-to-skin contact a human would melt.)
A Roll Of The Dice - 10
“It had been a dire, world-altering event about a century and a half ago. Now it was just life.”
And so, here I found myself, a 16-year-old trained in the art of killing cycloptids as a daily effort. It had been a dire, world-altering event about a century and a half ago. Now it was just life.
I had a designer throwing knife set, created just for my generation's aesthetic. The curve had been specially calibrated by a major athletics company and the hilt was customized to my palm.
Commodification of mass species genocide was nothing new (did you know there was something called a rhinoceros at one point?) and the corporations weren't fools. They knew exactly how to capitalize on the cycloptid issue, and we bought right into it. Toys for kids, anti-cycloptid ads, custom knife sets, and fast-food mascots (like the Frycloptid) were as normal as the air we breathed.
Anyway, you can imagine my shock when the one I just killed got back up and spoke.
