• Chocolate Chip Muffin
    By Fuzzy Logic

    Once upon a time in a far away land there was a Chocolate Chip Muffin. The End….Damn that wasn`t a story that was just a shout out to a muffin well here’s the next best thing.

    The Lost Smile

    Another morning in anguish: the noxious stench, the smells of rotting souls and loss of hope dances around my nose and I get the luxury of only wishing not to heave all over my grime-tarnished shirt and pants. The sunlight stabs my eyes open through a hole in the ceiling that tells me to get up, the light saying the same thing every day, "Just one more day. Try to get past one more day." The door opens and the metronomic song starts, bare feet hitting the cold hard brick, all of us in time. Everyone leaves their shell of a room and walks out turns to the metal door and, we are taken into the courtyard. We are each handed a deadly pill and food. My eyes drift to my buddy, 2173, next to me who was trying to remember the difference between the bread and the pill, a little hit to the head jogged his memory and he threw the pill to the other side of the yard. A man like us pushed us down to the dirt then got down with us said "Make Money, ******** Bitches that is the meaning of life." He then walked away, he had obviously snapped from the treatment. Every day we picked to live or die it is our only right, and picking is the hardest decision we make. We also ponder what happens when the treatment is over. Treatment lasts 6 months and few people passed the final test, but no one knows what the test is. Before we can move on in thought the screeching alarm goes off and the guards come into the yard. The guards are in gray uniforms and look as if their standardized clothes have started to scab over with crusty brown dirt and blood; it was spreading a little more every day. The leader, the man that has the biggest grin, has had his dark coating spread to his skin. It's crawled up his neck and then blends into his flesh that has been painted with a bit of red. His grin went up to his ears, his teeth clenched together to form a solid wall of white. That smile was the most painful thing to see even after all the death.

    We were dragged out of the courtyard into a small cramped room that is shadowy and humidified. Every day is different sometimes we are handed a stick and sent out to kill each other; we could be blind folded or even fight a poor animal. But if we don't fight they will kill both of us. They blindfolded me and dropped me onto a cold floor. I heard another thing drop; it made not animal sound so I was facing a fellow man. Tap, tap, tap, it sounded like metal to the ground... he had a weapon. I was defenseless. He grunted so I moved, he missed me and I tackled the grunting noise catching him by the arm. He had stabbed me; I grabbed his hand that had held the knife pulling it along with his arm to his back until I could hear his bone snap. The knife was still lodged in my shoulder, pulling the knife out I stabbed at him catching him in the chest. I heard him gurgling and gasping for air, knowing I had reached pierced his lung. Next thing I knew the butt of a gun hit my head and I was knocked out I awoke without my blind fold but saw the grinning man "Only part 1 of 2 of today's treatment is left is left, then you get to take your long awaited test 2257." He turned around and walked away motioning for his men to start the endurance test. Which only means beat the s**t of him till your board or he is nearly alive.

    My limp body is dragged out into the courtyard as I gasp for air, 2173 sits next to me placing my bread with the pill on top. He says "which one for dinner." My eyes go towards the bread. I sat up and ate we made eye contact. We both realized what day it was. Six months ago to this day we met at the dock to board the ship to become the country's heroes, their super soldiers. We were told this experience would help our nation’s country. At the time we didn't know what the experience would entail we were happy to contribute. We even were willing to respond to the numbers they gave us for names. That same day we met, we had lain next to each other struggling to stay conscious, and our mission to help the home land had turned into a mission to survive. This was the same man I looked at to go on, the same man that had been with me from beginning to end, the same man who smiled every day because we were alive, even if it was only for a moment. I was so happy to realize that we both would get out of here, I got up and looked at him he smiled at me and I smiled back for first very first time. I even started to laugh at the fact that we lived through their training that was more like torture. My smile was as big as the "Grinning Mans", and then we walked in. The grinning man pulled 2173, myself and a few other men by the back of our dirty old shirts and took us to a room. We were thrown to the ground, the grinning man stood in front of us, he told us how this was his favorite part of our stay here, "The Hunt"! He had pushed us further every day to make us stronger, but now he had to be sure we could survive in something we knew little about. He opened the door to a jungle that we had never faced before, it’s been the first time we had seen life outside of these walls. The grinning mans tells to ignore this miracle of life and swim away from this island to another and our test will be complete. If we stop he will chop off our heads, if we are slow he will shoot us, if we do not escape this island his dogs get the chance to find and kill us, if we can’t swim we will drown. He shot off his gun, we all ran out. The first man was taken in by the vines, all we heard was his girly scream cut short. My heart raced quicker as I ran faster and my friend was only two steps behind. We reached the cliffs above the ocean in no time, but it was a towering edge overlooked jagged rocks. I looked at my buddy then back down below. Jumping would be just like taking the pill. We had to hide until it was safer so we make fox holes then covered ourselves, drifting of the sounds of men we knew screaming and suffering, knowing we couldn't do anything to help them.

    The barking startled us from our sleep. They had let out the dogs and they were coming closer; they sounded only inches away so I got up, grabbed my friend's arm and ran. His arm felt a little weird, but I didn't look back. We ran along the cliff edge looking for a safe place to jump. The dogs were only yards away. I looked at 2173 motioning him to jump, and then saw his bloody arm, realizing I had saved him from the dogs chewing up his arm however he wasn't able to swim with the torn up body part. I paused to think for only but a moment and suddenly 2173 pushed me off into the water. I landed in the cold water, I popped back up as fast as I could and saw him run out of sight, and luckily I heard no screams and no gun shots.

    I swam for hours and saw a dot of land in the horizon, I was so close. I battled though the waves trying to hold me back. I finally pushed passed to waters and crawled onto the sand the water so close it would tickle my feet as it came up and would leave them freezing as it rolled back. I let out a heavy sigh of relief and for the first time in six months I was relaxed. All was silent only nature was singing. The waves reaching up to the beach, the rustle of the bushes, the heavy pants of the forest….the gun shots of the… I opened my eyes just in time to see a bloody torn up arm fly over my head dethatch from its owner. I got up, turned around and saw the grinning man and realized I had swum in a long a** circle. 2173 corner against the tree and the grinning man was aiming for his heart next. I came up behind the grinning man pulled the arm holding the gun down then my other hand went for his neck; I dug in my nails till his blood would shoot out from each plus. Pushing him the ground I ran to my friend and helped him lean against the tree a shot went off right above 2173`s head, I grab a nearby broken shell and stabbed him over and over again, but it was the first stab that made him pull the trigger, that fired the bullet that hit 2173`s heart. As the blood sprayed from the grinning man, my friend fell over and said,”Thanks for ending it.” The grinning man laughed with his last breath and I sat there in the pool of blood the only one with a smile.