Story: Pixel by Pixel

She shimmered into being, taking form pixel by pixel less than a stone's throw away from where I stood absorbed in the beauty of the waterfall before me. Distracted, I looked surreptitiously at her, eyes lingering over her form, slowly coaxing the textures that made her to focus on my screen. Something about her appearance, something about her appearing at this moment in time when I had for long stood soaking in the absurd lonely loveliness of this place with its haunting music, something about her appeared to be designed to penetrate the shell of my isolation. A shell I had clung to for a very long time. Wordlessly, I swiveled towards her as if to invite her more fully into my world. I smiled inside, for I knew just what I had to say to her, I knew just what words would bind her to me and keep her in my world. She knelt, as if in anticipation, her knees apart, her eyes looking up pleasingly, her skin glowing under the diaphanous clothes she wore. "Greetings, my Master", she said as he shimmered into being, taking form pixel by pixel.

Story: Toys or Men? (by JJ)

The toys held my attention at first. So many to try, so many shapes and sizes.

Then he caught my eye. Tall, dark and handsome, not unusual for this place. But he stood there, quietly pondering, a calm, self assured island in this sea of iniquity.

When he spoke, I felt myself respond, as if a current flowed from him to me, drawing me in. His presence surrounded me as we talked and laughed that brief while. When he said he had to be going, I didn't want him to leave. But it was silly; we'd known each other only minutes.

Yet, I was aware of him, even when alone again.

Story: Keeping Count

"One hundred and thirty eight"; the thought came unbidden, flooding his mind, riding in on the surge of power feeding into his body as he came alive again. He knew what it meant. It was the number of times he had died and been reborn, at least since the time he figured out a way to keep score. He surveyed the scene materializing before him striving in vain to recall anything else from his past. It never worked, nothing but the last thought passed through death to the next life. *Get naked bitch* he heard himself say and did what he always did to keep from going insane, he shut down his mind's senses from what was happening to him, to what he was doing to others. Only his internal clock kept track of the passage of time. He was ready when the inevitable jolt of power rushing out of his body came. His senses awoke and in one brief instant of clarity he could see his victim. Bending forward he kissed softly the tears on her face, whispering, "One hundred and thirty nine".

Story: Sentience?

She knew the sun shone only for her. That all the beautiful naked writhing bodies around her, pelvises thrusting mindlessly, were enshrined in darkness. And yet, whatever little hope she had left in her unending quest had brought her to this newly formed island. She swiveled impatiently, waiting for the horizon to deepen, for the textures in the far grayness to come alive. And then as she turned she saw him, at first a white amorphous blob and then resolving slowly, piece by piece, into skin and clothes and hair. Something about him drew her eyes to his face, to his glance upon her, and she knew instantly. The sun shone for him too. She had found another sentient.