Swartz-Barnes 1

Mrs. Mounts

Gavin Swartz-Barnes

Creative Writing

February 6th, 2019

The Things In The Pit

“Sorry.” That was the last thing that she heard before the man had walked away. Sophie

was getting her fix. A surprisingly common occurrence. She was surprised she hadn’t died yet,

but without it, she was going to die. The man she had been speaking to was her normal dealer,

but apparently, he was out of stock. Sophie didn’t believe that for one second. It was his way of

making her beg for what she wanted. He was a disgusting creature denying her what she needed.

And she was going to get him back for what he was doing to her. She pulled out that gun she

kept inside that oversized jacket and shot him in the back of the head. The cell rang out through

the morning crowd. For a moment everything was still. Sophie wasn’t however. She was taking

whatever was found in his pockets. Simple painkillers, cocaine, his personal stash of LSD, and a

rare find, photoshrooms. He was packin’, but he just wasn’t dealin’.

Sophie was shaking from head to toe, the previous painkillers she took this morning

obviously weren’t enough and for that, she was glad she had another excuse to take more. It

made her feel weightless, though it’d take a bit before they entered her system. It was the act of

taking them that made it all the more appealing. Her broken down Mazda 781 took its time

starting before the sound of police sirens could be heard. Sophie would be fine. She always was.

This was her first time killing, but it was worth it. Anything was worth it.

The towering building that spanned the evertowering city of Travis made for a gloomy

existence. In truth, it was one of the most underdeveloped, but it was good enough. Good enough
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for those that were living in the world that had spontaneously evolved in the past years. It wasn’t

long ago when traditional cars existed, but now hovercrafts and new flashy forms of

advertisement went around like it was a whole new world. For some, the life didn’t change. The

chops remained the same, the people remained the same, and the sins did too. Sophie never

thought about these things, it was better left to not think about how people like her were a

stagnant experience with slight upgrades every couple of decades. The world of highs were ever

evolving, but it was the experience that always stayed the same. An awesome wave as she liked

to call it. The ding as she opened the door to her Mazda and press of a button towards the engine

left her warming her hands to the outside cold. Sophie spent the next couple of minutes looking

at the dark sky of metal sky-steel staring back at her.

The drive back to her dull apartment was a short one. The lights flashed before her eyes

and the world sped up as the LSD kicked into her system. It had been a long time since she had

actually taken LSD. What a shame that her old dealer moved out of town. Well, ‘moved out of

town.’ As she made her way up to her third story apartment building, she fiddled with her

microchip key with excitement as she entered the room. The process took a couple of seconds for

the verification, but the door lock unclicked soon enough. Cory and Frankie were still there from

the night before. The window’s artificially made view of a desert canyon set the tone of the room

as the warmth rushed over her. She hadn’t checked up on Frankie. It was probably a good idea

to check up on her, but if she had overdosed, Sophie would have had to call the cops, something

she wasn’t keen on doing at the moment. She decided to just hope for the best. The apartment

smelled of fermenting urine and the reek of weed. The aroma of alcohol was often masked by

this, but if you stayed long enough you might get used to the former and only smell the later.

Sophie put the gun onto the counter with a loud smack and moved back over to the door to make
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sure that it was closed. It wasn’t. She bolted the door and locked it with her key before

measuring up everything she had gotten from her late dealer. It was probably around twenty-two

grand worth of drugs. It was a good haul. The problem now was covering up the fact that she

killed one of her dealers. In the business, it was important to remember who were you dealing

with from time to time. Her dealer, a relative newbie to the world had only been dealing for a

couple of months. At least, that’s what Frankie said. She didn’t know if she was lying like she

often did. Nevertheless, the Bulldog 1952 was a cell pistol that she could get behind. It was her

first time using it on a person, but it wasn’t her first time shooting. When she was part of the

force she had learned to fire a gun, but, she hadn’t been a part of the police long enough. The

stripping of firearms was more of her thing. The magnetic pulleys and mechanics of it all was

what she was into. That didn’t matter though, being high all the time was much more fulfilling.

Cory woke up with a spat of puke and disgusting sludge from his throat from the

‘Grung’. This drug was Cory’s homebrew that he loved making. As stupidly simple as it was.

Sophie couldn’t hate it. Cory knew how to lace weed with a twinge of heroin. It was strange, and

it was not even close to the real heroine, but it was a great time when you weren’t up for getting

stabbed. Frankie was always up for that, but Sophie liked taking a break.

“Finally you’re up. I got some for us.” Sophie’s voice cracked as she began coughing. It

was just a cold.

“Jesus Christ Sophie, where’d you get all of this?” Cory’s slim and physically appealing

form was detracted from the fact that half of his face was sunken in and his eyes were constantly

faded. Sophie loved that the most about him.

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“I shot that kid. He straight up lied to me. Can you believe that? He said he didn’t have

anything for us. What a waste.” Her tone was unsoftened by anything she had said. Cory took a

step back and swallowed what she had just said and smiled. Well ‘smiled.’

“This is gonna last us a bit.” There was a pause and then Cory spoke once more, “Did

you check on Frankie?”

“Nope.”

“I will.” Cory took a stumble towards the bathroom door, the residence of their beloved

friend Frankie and opened it up. Sure enough, the girl was over the toilet and laughing to herself.

A mixture of whoops and cries for help were heard as the door opened, but Cory just snickered

and shut the door once more. “She’s alright.” It was just another day in the life.

Mr. Bright was an old agent. One that had been alive for a period of time that would

remain undefined until the ends of the cosmos collapsed on one another and the thing finally

died. Bright was an agent who had died in 1977 when he found out the truth. It was like

everyone else that learned about the things, they either died or found a place amongst them. It

was a nice experience existing as Mr. Bright. Most people forgot about his existence, in truth,

who would remember. At the time of his life, the thing played his part without growing too much

suspicion and eventually landed himself a life away from the force. The thing figured it would be

a major benefit to having someone who was such an interesting character as Agent Bright. He

was a part of a division that existed for time tracking the things that found themselves beyond the

world of man. Although his thoughts were a bit outdated, the thing had fed upon very little in the

past one hundred years. Sure there was Mrs. Gondoa and that kid that wounded up in the wrong

alley, but Mr. Bright had been the best the thing had had in years. The thing wanted something

new, a new story to gather, another immortal life to forever exist within itself as a part of the
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hivemind that it collected. The preference to be Mr. Bright out of all of the people it had

consumed was something that didn’t make lightly. The multiple lives that it had allowed for so

much experience, but Bright’s was the most interesting one. Having to be him for the remaining

of his life and slowly going in and out of existence as the years went by was possibly the hardest

part. The advancement of machines, the destruction of other countries, the annihilation devices,

Agent Bright was there to see it all.

Mr. Bright landed himself on the force once again a few days ago. It wasn’t that hard

learning all of the laws again with the minds of ancient geniuses. What took the majority of

training consisted of him getting used to these new fangled cell guns, which were based upon the

propulsion of energized metal that would leave behind wounds that even Bright thought were a

bit overkill. The controls of the new vehicles that were developed in 2056 were a nice sight to

behold. The slick new designs and drive devices made it a lot simpler for autonomous travel. The

thing didn’t quite understand why society had taken a liking to the machines the way they did. It

felt that it was a strange thing to desire autonomy rather than exploring the unknown realms of

the galaxy. Sure, humans had discovered a sprinkle of things found within the ocean, but when

was their pursuit of knowledge finally going to lead them into the beyond? The thing never

knew.

Bright’s first call was today. The date was April 2nd, 2077. The day was rainy, and the

city of Travis was often a hectic one, but it mornings like these that thing appreciated. The

collective consciousnesses within it slowly morphed what it had become. Little by little, it

assimilated into the planet that it inhabited and appreciated the things that it had to offer. The

time it took for this strange race to actually develop was so short that it surprised the thing. It

supposed that it made up for all the years that the race spent squabbling in rock caves away from
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the fires. The call detailed one dead suspect. The body was found in an alleyway and it appeared

to had been tampered with. Bright reported into the job and began his hunt,

Bright’s arrival at the scene was quick. The thing had to be quick, he didn’t want the lives

of all these people going to waste when they could be put to use somewhere else. Bright’s years

studying and analysis of the new world left him with a supernatural intelligence. To be fair, it

wasn’t even Bright, it was the thing’s intelligence. The thing just liked being Bright. Bright

identified the gun almost immediately. The head was completely seared and the face almost

unrecognizable. This wasn’t intentional. It was something that the aggressor did on accident.

Bright knew this because they left prints on the body. The scanner that Bright was equipped with

was rigged to immediately send a response to the headquarters, allowing for approval of a

warrant of arrest almost immediately. It was a beautifully efficient tool. That’s why Bright had to

tamper with it. Bright made sure that the thing was broken so that the response of the fingerprint

identification would loop back to himself rather than HQ. He had to fabricate a good enough

story.

Bright looked up the I.D of the woman known as Sophie Yakov, a Russian immigrant

that came to Travis around fifteen years ago. She was a part of the force until she was tested for

drugs and found guilty of possession of several types. Bright took his vehicle down to her

apartment.

Sophie heard a knock on the door and froze. It didn’t help that Cory, Frankie and she

were in the middle of important, well ‘important’ business. The snorting of cocaine and drinking

of alcohol would have to wait as Sophie grabbed her pistol and made her way over. The peephole

gave sight to a nice looking man, dressed in a suit and old-fashioned trilby. His voice from the

other side spoke in a nice and affirmative way.

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“This is the Travis Police, open up.” Cory and Frankie scrambled for their own guns, but

Sophie was already in action. She fired a cell through the door. She then proceeded to unload the

rest of the clip into the door aiming in various places across the door. The sound of gunfire was

then followed by the sound of screaming and the fleeing of people from their apartment. Then

there was silence. Cory and Frankie were still grabbing all of their things when Sophie opened

the door. The man stood there with various holes in his body. They were smoking but they were

reforming at the same time. It was a disgusting writhing mass of flesh that interwove itself in

between the holes of where Sophie had shot.

“That wasn’t very nice of you.” The man’s body ripped the clothing off itself and began

to transform into a bestial form with fur of a bear and the teeth of a shark rotating in a pit like a

grinder. Sophie dropped the gun in petrification as her body was turned to mince. The thing

picked her up by her leg and put her into its maw like a chicken drum and turned to face the

other two, who were now raising their guns to fire at it. The thing wasn’t into being a glutton, but

it supposed it could have a feast today. The cells clashed into the thing’s body and it did indeed

hurt, but it didn’t matter. It’s arm, composed of thousands of muscles whipped out and crushed

the other girl into the wall, breaking her almost immediately. The man stood there with his finger

on the trigger finding itself unusable. The thing gave out of a chuckle as it gripped him in both of

its hands and ripped him into two pieces. The eating didn’t take long. The thing didn’t like these

new members, but he supposed they would just be the first of many disgusting examples of the

human race.

The newspapers ran the next day commemorating Bright and his bravery in facing a band

of enraged drug dealers. Unfortunately, they got away, but are now on a watchlist. The names
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Sophie Yakov, Frankie Presdin, and Cory Gill were all identified as the suspects. Bright smiled

as he held the shimmering data slate in front of him and the thing did too.