TFtales

The sun was shining in the sky, the few clouds doing nothing but add a little texture to the otherwise uniform blue.  It was a beautiful day. Quite at odds with what was about to unfold on the ground. Somewhere inside the industrial area of the city, a young man dashed into a shaded alleyway and ducked behind a rusty barrel to keep himself out of sight.  He wore a dark, baggy, hooded sweatshirt, with the hood up to conceal his face somewhat, some baggy jeans covered with an assortment of rips from previous escapades, and some well worn shoes.  He had short brown hair, eyes of a similar colour, and was otherwise unremarkable with an average

Wanted, a young enthusiastic person to participate scientific studies. No College degree needed. Reimbursement pay in the €3000 per month for each study. Interested parties apply at Dr. Olborn's office at the city university. It was this newspaper ad that starred into the eyes of a recently unemployed youth, Joseph. To the world, he was just another statistic in the troubles in European Debt crises, but to Joseph, he was without a job. Lately he would have put in the effort, but at €3000 a month, he couldn't pass up that offer. 'What's the worst that can happen?' Joseph thought 'a short walk to the university, which was on the wa

Change, Escape, Adjust  (Entry for TFtales Summer 2012 contest) “Uhnnnn…” ‘Where am I?’ Paul awoke to find himself not in his own bed, but in what appeared to be a high-tech jail cell, complete with energy-field cell door. Having no clue as to how he got there, he decided to ransack his memories for any clue as to what may have happened last night, hoping to find something that could help him. As time went on, he became so engrossed in his search that he failed to notice the field vanish and a hovering drone enter the room. Until the drone zapped him, that is. *BZZZAAP!!!* “EYAARGH!” The streng

"This body, this body holding me, we are eternal, all this pain is an illusion." Parabola - Tool -------- I yanked the headphones from out of my ears at the sound of a gigantic crash and  a massive eruption of dirt. Though I couldn't have been sure at first, as soon as I turned to see what the source of the sound was, I realized what I was also hearing was the sound of a massive tidal wave of polluted water causing said crash. I had to cringe and avert my gaze slightly at the sight of it - the murky mixture of blacks, olive greens and browns was not my idea of water; the consistency resembled a mixture between tar and custard, closer to th

According to physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This can be said in law as well. For example, the death sentence: A life for a life.  I learned the hard way that this can be true in life as well. The irony was that it all began on a rather good day. Finally, I was getting to shoot a real gun.  Until then, the best I could have was my air rifle. If anything, I blamed the red tape surrounding the usage of real weapons. Either way, that didn't matter anymore. The school had arranged for the students in the shooting club, including me, to go trap shooting. I was rather excited, despite the fact that t

Never Feed me an Energy Drink "Therefore, det [A] e R^2x2 = ad-bc..." I banged my head on my desk and sighed. Linear algebra was a pain in the arse for me and it showed.  I was reading my notes and all I got was a mess of numbers, letters and symbols.  I would barely pass, like usual.  But I wanted to get a good grade this time; this class counted for university.  And since I wanted to get scholarships, I could not afford grades in the 60's to low 70's.  So I kept going.  There were so many different concepts: determinant, adjoint, vector space, eigen vector, subspace theorem.

The boy shivered. He walked along the path slowly, the crunching of snow the only thing he could hear, aside from the occasional whistling of the winds through the trees. He took off one of his gloves and blew warm breath into the hand, before putting the glove back on with shaking hands. His thick, Kevlar-lined jacket was the only consolation to him from the harsh, cold winds, as the sun was setting in the distance, and it was already more than cold. He was a soldier, well, a few hours ago, at least. The dog tags draped around his neck and the rifle slung near his abdomen were more than enough proof. But, soldier or no soldier, he was a fri

Hello there, dear reader! It looks like you're about to start reading this story ^.=.^ While I'm honoured that you'd like to read my works, I regrettably have to inform you that this story has been discontinued after eight chapters and a sidestory merge. There won't be any more chapters in this story, sadly. I am however working on a new project that will hopefully outshine this old gal - it's going to be released some time in the future, and I hope you'll be there to read that was well. If you can deal with this story ending abruptly with no end in sight, then by all means read on, and dream. Jarl Gullberg ------- People dream. It's nat

It was a rough day at Austin-Bergstrom International when our airplane landed, with wind and rain threatening to close down the airport. But somehow, the Thursday Shanghai run always came through. Our Boeing 777-4G9 seemed to glide in to the runway despite hefty crosswinds, before touching and quickly slowing down. Under air traffic controller guidance, I exited at the nearest taxiway and it wasn't long before the 777 was mated with the gate and everyone started to collect their things and disembark. I said goodbye to the people in first class, which was handled by one of three jet ways. I just turned around to grab my bag from the cockpit wh

It was offered as a cheap apartment, and boy was I paying for it. The constant dull roar of Austin Airlines Irkut MS-21's jetliners taking off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport behind me was an annoyance. Despite the extensive soundproofing of the apartment complex, the noise still occasionally managed to rattle some things in my apartment. I rolled over in bed, my frustration building up as I checked my alarm clock on the side of my nightstand. "1:34 AM" it read in its familiar blue lettering. I muttered an expletive and rolled back over into the bed. I stared at the fast moving ceiling fan going around and around. Another roar, s