Two Page Shorts - Nick Venom (big ebook reader txt) 📗

a bill that would nearly kill me. Have you heard of the Toxic Waste Bill?” Dennel nodded her head. “Crude convinced me to sign that bill, leading to Hangman, my kidnapper, and torturer, to be born. I created this monster.”

As they chatted, none of them noticed an eye peering at them from the rafters or the almost invincible string floating near the neck of Woodole. 

“You. Will. All. Die.” The man hiding under a tattered cloak muttered as more string emerged from his fingertips, forming in the shapes of nooses. The nooses floated down and prepared themselves to catch Breson and Naju.

“What do we do now?” Dennel asked Brooks.

“We need to leave this warehouse before Hangman reappears.” Brooks declared. “If we can’t escape, then we’re all dead here. Our deaths will allow Crude to rule America with an iron fist, eliminating any threats to him. He’ll take over America without any resistance.” Dennel nodded and ordered Wales and Harrison to pick Brooks up. 

“Woodole, open the door! Breson, contact the truck!” Dennel ordered. Woodole went to the door and opened it, feeling a sudden tight sensation wrapping around her neck. Her body was lifted into the air in an instance. She grabbed at her neck to tear the string off, but couldn’t do it in time before the string snapped her neck. 

Dennel watched with widened eyes as Woodole’s body was snapped, now dangling in front of them. “Rush the door! Escape before we’re locked in!” She ordered. The team rushed towards the door with Wales and Harrison dragging Brooks with them. Two nooses adjusted to fit the necks of Breson and Naju, launching them up into the air. They began choking on the sudden lack of oxygen as the nooses tightened around their necks, lifting them higher into the air. 

Dennel and the others rushed outside, closing the door behind them. They were forced to leave behind members of their team, now with three casualties.

Harrison scanned the area and noticed two large garbage bins sitting next to the front door. He motioned for Wales and Dennel to help push them in front of the entrance. “Can anybody contact the truck?” Dennel asked the others after they closed off the entrance.

“I’ll see if I can,” Hankins said, taking out his radio. “This is TF-147 Jake Hankins reporting in. Truck, where are you, we need a pickup.” He shouted into the radio. He put the radio up to his ear and waited for a response, never getting it. He waited for a few seconds but got nothing more than static. “Truck isn’t responding.” 

“Something is very off. What if Hangman killed the driver?” Harrison asked.

“I never signed up for this,” Wales shouted, raising his hands to his head while walking around in circles.

“It’s possible,” Strong muttered. “Our intel is very limited.”

“We need to double-time it to HQ,” Dennel ordered.

“How do we escape a supernatural killer?” Wales asked.

“Let’s leave now!” Hankins shouted, pointing at the door. The door was being smashed in. The others nodded and turned to run away from the warehouse when a large explosion went off behind them. They turned around and noticed that the door was wide open, revealing the dimly lit main room with the bodies of their three comrades lying on the floor, dead. A small puddle of blood formed in their mouths with little amounts splashing out. 

“You. Can. Not. Leave.” muttered a voice coming from the warehouse. Five nooses formed, created out of the same near-invisible string, and charged towards the team. Strong noticed the string glittering off the sunlight.

“Scatter! There are invisible nooses going towards us!” Strong shouted, alerting everybody to the sudden danger. Everybody scattered, running in different directions as the nooses traveled towards them. Harrison carried Brooks over his shoulders as he ran towards the street. The nooses loosened and formed long strands that wrapped themselves on stop signs and nearby residential buildings. The string tripped Strong and Wales while gripping onto Hankins. Harrison and Dennel weren’t affected by the string and managed to escape Hangman’s grip, rushing towards the direction that the truck went towards with Brooks in their hands. 

Hankins, meanwhile, felt the string slowly tightening, ripping into his skin. He shouted as the string slowly dug its way into his skin while Strong and Wales were dealing with the string attaching to their shoes. Wales thought fast and discarded his shoes, escaping the string. He picked himself up before helping Strong out of the string. 

Hangman, now irritated, formed two nooses and ordered them to grab onto Strong and Wales. The nooses followed his instructions with no hesitation, grabbing onto Strong and Wales’s necks. The nooses choked them before dragging them towards the warehouse. They both grabbed at the string, but couldn’t tear it off. The string began to rise into the air, effectively raising both soldiers into the air and hanging them. 

Wales reached into his pocket and grabbed his knife, cutting the string that was at his nape. He dropped to the ground, slamming onto the pavement. His head immediately snapped up and watched in terror as Strong’s soul slowly departed her body; her body becoming limp. Wales whispered a quick apology before turning around and running towards Hankins, who was struggling with the string that was cutting to his bones. Wales got to him and began cutting the string, which frustrated Hangman. However, he didn’t send more nooses, instead, disappearing into the shadows. 

A man wearing a mask that covered the top part of his face---except for his dark blue eyes---appeared. He wielded a scythe and wore a cloak that covered his body from head to toes. He watched as Wales cut down Hankins, smirking to himself before he turned around and disappeared to the other side of the roof. 

Dennel and Harrison returned with the truck, pulling up to the curb. “Get in!” Harrison shouted from the back of the truck as he beckoned them in. Wales helped the limping Hankins into the truck before getting in himself. Once in the truck, Harrison slammed the doors shut and shouted for Dennel to “gas it”. Dennel followed his orders and applied as much pressure as she could onto the pedal, launching the truck into motion. Sitting next to Dennel was the dead body of the driver. The driver had a large gash on his forehead, his skull peeking out. The gash seemed to be created by a sickle or scythe, something that Hangman wasn’t known to have. However, that wasn’t the main issue at the moment. Instead, Dennel focused on escaping, speeding away from the warehouse, leaving the bodies of Grace Strong, Roxy Woodole, Donna Breson, and Ulanda Naju behind at the warehouse, all dead. 

As the truck roared towards HQ, a drone followed them and recorded their actions. Brooks looked out of the back door windows but missed the small and quick red drone flying over them. 

“Interesting, they managed to survive and retrieve Brooks.” Crude whispered to himself. He slammed his fists on his desk, throwing his mug and pencils a couple of inches into the air before landing back on the desk with a loud ‘thud’ sound. 

“This messes with my plan. It seems like it's time to go to Plan B.” He began scribbling onto a loose piece of paper before handing it to the only bodyguard in the room. The bodyguard took the paper out of the room and headed down a long corridor before climbing two flights of stairs to ground level. There the bodyguard dropped off the letter in front of one of the White House’s doors before knocking on it and turning around. He then headed back down to rude’s hidden workroom. Meanwhile, the door slowly creaked ajar but didn’t open farther than that. 

“It’s time,” a mysterious voice muttered from behind the door. “Plan B has been activated.”

The door slammed shut.

Announcements:

Hello All!

 

Two short stories were cut from Volume III, being Hotel Life & Pain: Chapter One and John Calamity: The Reincarnation of the Evil God. These short stories were cut because I would rather spend more time expanding on these titles and making them better than releasing stuff that I'm not proud of. Eventually, these short stories will see the light of day but in a better fashion. These are the only casualties, lowering the total amount of short stories on this roster from twelve to ten. 

Fallen Hero: Chapter One - Darkness

Zee awoke on top of a magic circle, alongside his class of thirty classmates. Zee quickly glanced around his immediate surroundings, noticing that they were in a luxurious room. Several people watched them, some donned in iron armor that resembled that of the middle ages while others wore rags and other torn bits of clothing. 

A man stared at Zee, noticing a clear difference in behaviors. While Zee’s classmates stared at him, Zee looked at everything except him. It was almost disheartening. Even so, he swallowed his feelings and stood up from his throne, finally alluring Zee’s eyes. It’s finally time. He thought to himself.

“I am King Marshall Rosewater, the king of the Ice Spikes Kingdom!” He announced. “Welcome to my domain! You have all been summoned from your world to become heroes in my world. To defeat the demons plaguing this world and finally bring this world to peace!”

Zee’s classmates looked around wildly, bewildered by the sudden announcement. Most of them didn’t know much about fantasy worlds and demons while some others were overly excited. 

“Excuse me? Is there a way we can return?” A pale-skinned teenager stepped in front of the others, dressed in a blue polo, brown cargo shorts, and red sneakers (a strange combination). He had been the class president of Zee’s class, known as Ricardo. “And why did you pick us?”

King Marshall flashed him a moment of disgust that was too minute for anybody except for Zee to see. In the place of his disgust was a nod of acknowledgment. “I see… Why were you chosen? Well, there is no specific reason.”

“So you’re telling me that our class was summoned randomly? Any class or group of people could’ve been summoned in our place?” Ricardo asked.

King Marshall nodded. “Anybody. Our magic isn’t at the Supreme level, so we cannot summon specific people here. Wherever and whoever gets caught in the spell are taken here.”

“And I’m assuming that they don’t have free will once they’re ‘caught’?” He asked, pointing out an incorrect word in King Marshall’s answer.

King Marshall glared at him, this one lasting longer than his moment of disgust before he looked away. “Under my laws, such words