SSWkly: Scavengers of the Deciduous Niche

        If you've read my earlier post today, you will know that this is my second Short Story Weekly post for the week.  Main lyt because I wasn't wble to get the post up by Sunday...so instead of missing a week, I'll be doing this second story. It is crazy to think that October is half a month a way! This year is flying by so fast, and looks to be the best year for the Malacast Editorial, thanks to all of you who come here weekly to read posts. I hope to eventually be posting daily, as the day we receive internet access up in my lonely little mountain top comes nearer, I'll be able to do much more than I've been limited to now. 

        For this week, I'll be doing something slightly different, most of my stories no longer have a sequential order anymore, and this one will be no different. With-that I present: 

 

                                              Scavengers of the Deciduous Niche

      The tiring winter drowned onwards, leaving an icicle-covered full moon in tow, lupine howling wt the sight if the full sphere, the winds howling throughout hallowed dendron. A savage most rolls out from escaping heat through cavern maws. The world is a splendid silence, even the soft steps of paw prints in the snow keep even the shriilest ears at ease. Relentless snow had fallen weeks before, but not even a gentle flurry has ruined the skyscape, the portrait was as clear as freshly molded glass.  

        The pairing off of coupled loves for the winter rest had staked their mutal claims, and off to burrows and caves to vanish for the months leading up to til spring. All was right in the forest, nothing was out of place. It was a beautiful aura of all things simple. And yet, there was slight disturbances, carried off on wings of blood, talons of greed. Beaks that tore fresh meat from off rotting bones. Even in this purity of white, there was a death to behold, a murder by predators, an epitaph for prey.

       The clear skies gave fright chills to the fauna that caught a hint where fur did not patch skin. Wolf stood by with rubies dripping vicariously from her jowls. Rabbit had lain by her feet, rose petals covered white fur, a few twitches of the knee, but he was long lost to the shrieking winds. She had  been lonely on the night's terrain, and smothered herself with the deadly curiosity of Rabbit, tearing white strewn fur from pink flesh, giving it a new home on the forest floor, heating the graves of where tree leaves once fell, now a dust frozen under permafrost. 

    Wolf bays out to the moon, Rabbit's blood coagulates over her panting jowls, looking outwards she sees Partridge, forlorn at the sight, but turns about and flies away up I to the conifers, where only the hardiest of birds may roost. Squirrel, on the off-chance of waking too soon for a quick lick of snow, sees her cousin Rabbit lain out in puddles and fur, a ragdoll wonder of viscous carrion....so he slinks back into his hallowed birch,  to dream of nightmares of the prey's mutilated corpse for three  months to come. 

       The world is rough, and if a lappen is not going to be made out as a meal for mongrel lupine, than he'd better know to flicker his tail, and break the speed barrier. Squrrel knows how to avoid treachery as this, by clambering up the nearest tree, and hollowing out the nearest lichen-infested region, protected then by a bubble of sap, and a prickle of pine resin. Still, these skills are not applicable to the whoosh of birdshot, and next thing she knows, there is nothing left of her but stew and moccasins. 

     Wolf howls and moves on, a beast into the shadowy night,where even others of her kind fear her solidarity, neither knowing if she had turned to the sickness, or had been sick all her lie, she mushed off towards a region of darkness that not even the Ursa lumber. Leaving a foul stench of death, where not even fowl dare peck, Raven and Crow prefer the head on their shoulders, over the snippets of tendon-bound strings that lay beneath in No-Bird's-Land. Their meals will have to come later that day, when the cherished meat had been picked by mongrels less savory than Wolf, and here was to hoping to receive some marrow for their patience. They dared to not pick fights with Badger and Fox, hunger was more a saving-grace to remind them that they were still alive. 

     For now, the night carried on, the forest floor alive with the sultry coldness of death as its surroundings. A Florentine fitting of majesty carved into the canopies, nothing but splendor for Trees' only enemy was miles away in cabins made of their fallen brethren. The placid dance of fire, Man's call signal, would not haunt such a deep-wilderness place, the spectators of centuries' past, Trees stand strong. 

     The darkness grows darkest only for shielding of the light, but with it comes mourning, prey escaped to feed the predators' hunger...Crow is unamused, Raven basks in the deplority of it all. Desth still lingers for the fallen lappen, and Wolf is  miles from the great Sun's rays. All beknownst to the scavengers of the deciduous niche, as they pick the ribbons off Rabbit's bones....sun breaks, Crow and Raven get their long-awaited, ravenous turn. They gouge on the splintered calcium, the lukewarm marrow...bellies engorged, they break into tranquil, laziez-faire flight. Business as usual. 

       Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial. We are now down to eight more Short Story Weekly posts, one that is being worked on as the third-to-last, and it has been in the works for some time, if it is worthy of third-to-last, it will be up the second(?) week of October, which is upon us faster than ever before, so-it-seems. Still, I'm excited to move on with this blog site, and do more posts that are more focused on the true aspects of this blog site, especially reviewing films again. To segue into next week, along with a new #SSWkly, I'll be posting a review of Don't Breathe, the most recent film I've seen. It will be up next week, because any longer and it wouldn't be worth reviewing, but I'll try to give a narrative that is unique to other critics, so it will be at least intesting if you've already watched the film. 

          Again, I'm sorry for missing a second week, so I hope this short story makes up for it, and thank you all again for the avid support! 

Short Story Weekly: Rotten Tog Part 2 of 2

Here is the conclusion to Rotten Tog, with several major announcements  at the end of this post, enjoy!

                                                                   Rotten Tog (concluded) 

   

 The sun spiraled out of control, releasing Machiavellian ferocity to the infertile lands. The green died down, a vast yellow of sun-kissed Earth was as unlivable as the dismal Malebolge, littered with mythical beasts of jovial jaws lined with sharp ivory. David rode aside the  mass of Tog, and felt like a babe swaddled in blanketed skin of ruby, a flea on the back of a blue whale. Together, they advanced onward towards whatever accounts as a goal in this world. 

  David was weary: the radiation was no longer a factor in his life, but the unforgiving was enough to make even the ashes of the dead burn. Tog clambered over debris mountains that blocked the paths to Salamander, who surely was impatient for the Spire. He had more power than anyone else in the Wasteland, but he was apropos to power by weaker-minded men, and fiendish followers that allow tyrants to form from out of the exertion of doing nothing. It was Roger Salamander that forced the direction of the Wasteland. Apparently, the world could never rid itself of men that see opportunity in the time of great tragedy. 

   David knew that Roger Salamader would have him killed, and turn Tog into a sideshow to make enough credits on to make the rotten juggernaut a new Wonder of the World. David rembefes a book he read a a child on the Seven Wonders of the World, it was about great feats achieved by ancient man. Today, ancient man created the atom bomb, improved binary fission, and Tog was the unnatural answer to the bare outcome of when those reactions blow. Salamander would  write Tog like everything else the bastard claimed,

  The skies opened as the acid rain fell more like flakes than the rain of his youth, David knew that his skin was hardened by centuries of life masqueraded as a static death. Yet, Salamander's skin was hardened by a lack of humanity. He rode on the side of the giant, but knew that the real monster was who would sell him his freedom, all for some pre-apocalyptic aritfact. Whatever got him out of the Wasteland, the better. 

   "So Tog, why were you even roaming the Outside? I mean, I can understand  why you'd not want to trust humans, but why go all the way out there to avoid any remanant of society? Why the Outside?"

 "Tog does not care about the Outside. It technically not a bad place to live, humanity treats Tog like shit, so only in the barren wastes does Tog find recluse. Also, Tog seen great deal of the world, and searched for many sunshine units, now Tog wants to find his own kind. All life unique and indicative from other life, but even Tog knows there must be similar being like Tog. Even in scarce world, not one being is absolute." 

David understood, he knew that even in a world as dismal as the one he's watched grow into  a wild of pathetic survival, that even the fiercest natural rejections can feel lonely. Even Tog, perceivable a monster, must want to understand his own existence, come to terms with his own circumstances.  David himself had become something of a monster, and he wasn't afraid to admit it, but he dared not speak of such things in front of Tog, who for all his physical deformities, was intellectually sound, not some half-minded twit that has no sense of self.

 The compound for the Bastard Scourge lady ahead, it was small for the complex headquarters if the scum of scum, but even Salamander was limited by design, the world really was reset to zero, and even kings had to sully themselves in the shit-filled streets with the rest of humanity.  It was silted with as much radioactive dust as most other buildings completely exposed to the elements,mbut it was still far better than most of the buildings that have become so shambled, dilapidated by bombs, hellfire missiles, and even a ree pockmarks for a .45 pistol, that the compound, nicknamed the Grasshopper, because gave the semblance of the former green insect, whose successors now are the size what David could only describe as Great Danes. Still, the building had its charm, this wasn't his first time ever seeing, it from afar, nor would it be his first time entering. 

  A couple of Salamander's thugs were watching from afar, and once they saw limbering Tog, David could tell that they were already in a frenzy over what he understandingly could grasp that a big monster nearly twelve feet tall was heading their way. More mend came out, machine guns aimed at Tog and David. David knew that having Tog come right up to the front door was not a very whol some idea, but he also knew that it would be better if Tog stayed back. 

 "Tog, you may want to hold back a bit, they're not the friendliest bunch in this area, and Roger's guys aren't the most understanding of things outside the realm of the Bastard Scourge. I might wanna play it safe and have you stay back, I'll go ahead and deliver the Spire. Now I don't have the right to ask of this of you, but if I do get into some trouble, if you would like to come help, I'd greatly appreciate it, friend."

 Tog smiled a bit, but what half wasn't a smile, couldn't be more distinctive of a grimace if it came coupled with even the loudest sigh ever bellowed. 

  "Tog don't mind helping out little man, but Tog concerned on just how you will be able to single for help from behind thick walls."

  Yes, normally thwt would be a concern, given the circumstances that most things tend to go array when you lest expect them to, but David was no first-timer to trouble. Granted, he'd welcome desth gracefully, but after getting so close, after so many months of tracking down the damn instrument of Salamander's desires, he'd rather not die until after he accounted for his riches. Who wants to die before they get paid, right? 

   "I'll set off a hand bomb, it has a very short fuse. You hear it, you come marching in with authority. If you don't, I won't hold it against you, but get far aways from this place as fast as you possibly can, becaue Salamander will try everything to hunt you down and claim you as a victo's prize. Things should run smoothly,mbut if not, it was an honor knowing you for this short time. Hate to say it's an a. Honor to know most people not out to kill you these days for a ya period of time. Still, I'd appreciate the back-up if needed."

  Tog wasn't quite sure what to say next, but he grunted in response, but didn't give headway on whether or not he intended to actually help out David if it came to a firefight. David dropped down lightly to the sandy ground, and began to walk towards the Grashopper, he held the Spire high, and waved his hands empathically in the air. Once Salamander's men realized who was coming towards him, they backed off, and actually moved aside to let him into the compound. 

The low-lit room was barely powered by dying generators, and misshapen candles. The compound floor was covered in dried blood from those who have failed Salamander before. It was a pretty nasty sight. Most other people would be frightened in being in such a precarious position, but David wasn't really that terrified, this was the last time he would ever have to deal with Salamamder ever again. Still, so hung was off, and hr was thinking gang Roget was going to back out of the deal, because he was starting to feel very unsafe by the fact that Slams der's thugs seemed to be surrounding him without halting. He was about to grab the hand bomb hidden inside his pocket, when Salamander stepped out from of the main atrium doorway. 

   "Enough boys! Let's give this guy some air, look at him, he's turning blue with your bad style! And look at this! He's got my Spear, or Spire, or whatever the hell it's called. All I know is that he did his job, which is  or than I can say for most of you morons! I gotta say, Davey Boy, I'm quite surprised you're not fucking dead, but instead you're hear days earlier than expected!"

  "Here's the Spire, do you hsve the credits I've asked for? I want to part from here, and head to sea. I'll make myself scarce, and you can do whatever the hell you want." David was sweating , the radiative dust was piercing his sunken eyes as he feverishly wiped his forehead. 

  Roger Salamander saw this nervousness, and was almost bashful at David's fear. 

  "Davy, Davy, Davy! You're making me all humble over here! I knew I was a terrifying guy, but to make your millennium-aged ass petrified. Trust me Davy, if I was gonna have out offed, it'd have happened well before you even entered the o'l Grasshopper here. Don't worry, I got your credits, and only wish you a nice retirement. You've been good to me, my father, and his father before him. Truth is, you've been almost a family heirloom, but a voice of reaaon, why I've always saw you as a friend, and I hope you feel the same."

  "Look, I just want to get out of the heat, I know it's not a realistic dream, but I wanna go to higher ground, a place where I'm not known, a seclusion that is invariably safer than it is here. Overall, I want my own personal state of tranquility." 

  "Okay Kafferty; okay, we get it, you got smarts, and balls. You got what I've wanted,mand you've helped me get a great deal of success in the Wasteland, and for that sir, a million credits is not enough. So here, take this, and be gone, we don't have any more business, but don't be shy, stop in again before I'm too old to remember my damn name

   Oh I don't think you'll ever forget that you're the Bastard of the Scourge, not even if you live seven-hundred years. Dsvid thought to himself, but he only smiled and nodded waving a hand to Roger. He turned, and attempted to get to the door, but Slamander's men did not make way. David laughed under his breath, readjusted himself, and again tried to move through the crowd, but he was more pushed back, rather then hindered from moving forward. 

 "Heh, tell me, Roger, was this part of the plan all along? Is it the money? A million I it's is a splash in the pan for you!"

  He heard a click, and turned to see a carbine rifle puttering in his direction. He knew he wasn't mortal, and a diesel-powered rifle would be sure to cut holes in him large enough to make him more abstract space than grizzled mass. 

  "Nah, it's not really abut the ones, and it's not even personal, David. See, you're a pretty popular guy down in the Swash Backs. Turns out there's a couple of mercs that have a hard-on for your head. They're offering twenty-times the going rate of most other bounties, and every cocksucker from the Wilds to the Bay are hunting your ass down. Twenty billion credits! Hell, I'd turn myself in for that sort of money! So friendship aside, I'm sorry but you're gonna have to be spending that holiday of yours in some shithole down deep in the Swash. Look at the bright side though! At least my great-great-great grand kids will have you to thank for getting out of this Wasteland scum fuck hole of a world!" 

   David smiled, whistling off whatever lips he had left, and slowly turned around  to face  the dozen men thwt stood, posed with their rifles aimed right at his head. "What? You're not gonna face me, David?" Salamander sneered. 

  "Well, I know that you like to shoot people in the back, so why not your friends too? Besides, it's easier to look at these sorry mugs, you really are the Bastard of the Scourge; you know that, Rog?

  "Don't fucking call me that, Kafferty! Not you!" 

   This wasn't David's first rodeo, he kept a dead-stare with zombie eyes locked on all twelve men in-front of him now, as his right hand slowly reached into his pocket, as he gently removed the pin to the hand bomb. He smiled as he heard it lightly click, but nobody else was paying attention, as they sweated bullets in his wake. David's reputation was known throughout the Wastes. He was  seen as a legend, and a myth, a man out of time who had forgotten more than most people could learn. He was not a pushover, and these men knew he was a monster: a silver-tongued devil. 

  "You see. Speechless, I'm sure you weren't expecting this, were you, Kafferty?"

   "Nah, but you're not going to expect what I'm cooking. David smiled, and the twelve men with guns backed up 

  Now Roger Salamnder, who had grown men of higher stature, and nobler status on their knees begging for mercy, was growing concerned.

  "Did this stupid fuck just threaten me? Did this fuck just grow the biggest set of balls this side of the Roundtop threaten me? I knew you were stupid, but I didn't realize you were that fucking stu-"

  With a swift spin on the ball of his skeletal heels, David turned around, and popped the cooking hand bomb into Roger's mouth, shoving him backwards, and grabbing the carbine, spinning around as the bomb blew up Slamander's head in a bloody mess. Kafferty unloaded several rounds as the flabbergasted men we're still watching eyeballs and skull fragments of their boss flying around like a snow globe. Kafferty clipped three of the twelve, as he hid behind a metal crate. He clutched the credits to his chest with one arm, the gun firmly gripped  in the other.

    There were about thirty men that were loyal to the end to Salamander, but he wasn't sure if they'd follow their boss to the end. Either way, he wasn't going to chance it, but he knew that even his skills were not enough in such a small structure with such a large number of enemies. His chances of survival were slim. That was just fine with him.

 It was approaching a hard minute since the bomb went off, and still no sign of Tog. Perhaps Tog left him to be, perhaps he was already gone from the area, long out of earshot of the bomb, and the continuing barrage of bullets. Or worse: perhaps he was already gone, dead from Salamander's men in an ambush attack. He accepted that this was his fight, and quite frankly it was even wrong of him to suggest thwt Tog give a damn about him, but for a bit of time, just in a few sentences, he thought there was a brotherhood connection, two outliers forced by circumstance to become friends. In this world, friends were worth more than twenty quadrillion credits. 

  The engine of the carbine gurgled and puttered as David shot above his head at Salamander's remaining fiends, but they were all piling in around him at an alarming rate. There seemed to be even more than the estimated thirty, by nearly doubled the goons. Also, the carbine rifle was running out of ammo,mand if that weren't enough, it died out, and seized up, as the last bullet spit out between the eyes of.a poor scumbag that left himself wide open. 

  He thought that perhaps the men could be reasoned with, surely they could...then again, most of the guys still alive had overheard Roger's announcment of how much his bounty was worth, and that was enough to have them make sure that his head was right in the hands of the Swash mercs. He started to laugh, thinking back to what Roger said before he was an abstract painting, that of he were David, he'd have turned himself in for that sort of bounty. It showed that there was no humility left. Maybe it would be better for them to fill him up with enough holes that no amount or radiation could bring him back. 

  CRASH! The ivory whalebone jaw smashed the door open, splattering a great deal of the men shooting at David. Tog came in, rating like a bear inside a cave during an earthquake. The men scattered, now turning their attention to the giant mountain of a figured. David smiled, he wasn't alone, and he at leat get to see the sun set on the ocean one more day. That was, if they made it out alive. Even so, the optimism for such a hope was good enough if these were his last moments. 

  Tog brutally smashed and crushed the ant-like men in his way, looking out to make sure David was not amongst the strewn bodies, as the bullets bounced off like pebbles kicked up in the dust of battle. 

The blood squirted up high in the sky, splashing like flung paint about the brown, rusted room, tainting it to a black color. There were screams to hold rank, yowls of pain that sounded like animals, and body parts amassed in terrible patterns all about what could only be described as a killing floor. 

    David saw the gore, and for a few moments, he almost felt pity for these ruffian followers. Then he came backs to his mind, as Tog gently picked him up, and  the two burst through the wall again, credits in hand, and a string of bodies like monkeys in a barrel laid in their wake. The last thing David saw was the Grasshopper crumbling downwards to the ground, in a huge ashen mess. David looked down, and saw he was clipped in the side, it wasn't mortal, but in the irradiated Wastes, even a paper it could be the death of you. 

     The two of them made it to the docks, and with a clean rag, and some duct tape, the woundDavid  received was as clean, and as patched up as good as one could get in the Wasteland. The two of them jumped aboard one of the largest pre-apocalyptic yachts that was still untouched. The owner was completely shocked by the immensity of Tog, but he took his 40,000 credits regardless. David smiled as tog laid him on a bed inside the bowels of the ship. The yacht was more like a tanker,,in that within its walls, even Tog looked small. David told Tog to travel Northwest, and to wake him at dawn. Tog nodded in compliance, as the two of them headed off down the tributary. 

   Where would they go? What lurked beyond the borders of the radiation? Was there anything else around, or was it all just decaying from the center, outwards? Whatever happened, they were assured that they we're friends, two freaks in a world that creates nothing but monsters. So they traveled towards higher places, unfamiliar faces, and new experiences. Destiny was at hand for David Kafferty, and Rotten Tog. 

Thank you so very much for reading the Malacasf Editorial, and I hope that you've enjoyed Rotten Tog. I was quite excited for this particular story, it was something I wanted to write since completeing Enclosure, and it really was inspired by my current circumstances. The story was emphatically fun to write, but I've also wanted to complete this story in the allotted amount of time, so I may just do a one-shot sequel down the line one of these days. Seeing at how I've set this story up, tying up loose ends with both characters, there is room to continue this story, but for now I hope you enjoy this ending, but know that it's surely not the last time I write about these characters. This upcoming Monday, will be return to Monday Blogs, specifically another Short Story Weekly. I have a very, very busy schedule the next few months, so I will be writing up a storm of stories and posts. 

 

 Now for the announcments: For years I've been writing, and praising other media: books, film, games,,and I've done #MondayBlogs, started my #ShortStoryWeekly project, which has forced me to become a better writer, and allowed me to spread my wings, and feel free to immerse myself into worlds for short visits, but my time spent there has been nothing short of wonderful. I've also teased my first book, literally the first book I've ever written. The Divine. I want to share my work with everyone here, and I will be giving a small tidbit for free on the Malacast Editorial exclusively. It will be even shorter than the sample copy you can download once the story is up online, but it will be enough to set the scene. The book has been edited, if anything slipped by, it will be caught prior to full-on publication. 

  The big announcment is: the sample of the book will be up on the Malacasf Editorial on Friday,  April 29th. This is exactly one week from today, and the sample will be free. The book's publication date is still later in 2016, but I cannot at this time give a precise date. 

I have one smaller announcment: I will still be doing a short story the week I release the sample, but I am going to make sure it's released this  Monday. So for the first time in a long-while, next a Short Story Weekly will also be a #MondayBlogs post. I expect it to be a  very good story, and far different than most others posted this year. I've already started writing it prior to this publishing this post. So look for all that post for Short Story Weekly. I can also announce now, leading up to the weeks before E3 takes flight, that I'll be doing several game-related posts. I'll be doing a dreaded Top Ten list, several base commentaries on the industry in another post, and of course my official preview post for E3, which will be different than the predictions post, having different connotations on the trade show itself, and its guest developers. Those post will be very late May, Early June. Hard to believe weare nearly into summer! But the year has been a rollercoaster for entertainment, with Deadpool perhaps being the biggest surprise of all, and the hope for a sequel as early as 2018! 

    Thank you again for reading the Malacast Editorial, I appreciate all my readers from around the world, and how I keep growing with readers as the months accumulate. I appreciate those who keep returning, and I can only continue to do my best to create more great content. Also, the big 300th post will be happening fairly soon, hopefully before E3, but if not, I'll make sure it's worthy of  such a milestone. 

Short Story Weekly: Part 1 of 2: Rotten Tog

   This week is another two-parter, not that I couldn't tell it all in one-shot, but I think it's a story that will actually need some tweaking at the second part. This story is heavily influenced by films like: A Boy and His Dog, The Hills Have Eyes, and game like, of course, Fallout.  I find this story is worthy of two-parts, but it allows for people to fully read this whole story, and have time for the second part. Granted it's not as much a thinker like say The Harrowing Inheritance, which had to be split into three parts, but the point is I find these "short" stories are ironically not really that short. Still, stories like Enclosure are long enough to be one-shot, but sometimes, it's rather easier for both myself, and the reader to split up these parts, but it allows for me get these stories out in time, but also to not  encumber the readers with a ton of posts. I'll be releasing part two next week, then the following week (the last week of April) will be another story, which will be a one-part story. It seems to be two-parts to one-part stories every other week, but it's been allowing me to be the most productive, and quite frankly, I'll go back to shorter one-shots eventually. 

    Regardless, I hope to bring great stories to the masses, and however they are received, I'll try my best to complete a short story every week, and give you a very applicable, entertaining tale. Granted,mi can be hit-or-miss, but this project when started early last year, and has been a goal of mine for nearly seven years, is going swimmingly, and  although all criticism aside, it could be going better (things can always go better) I find these Short Story Weekly posts are the only recurring posts I've done that seem to be minimally acceptable and moderately successful. 

      I will do my damnedest in the future to make each Short Story Weekly post into one whole post in the future. For now, I'll give you Part 1 of 2 of my abstract look at the post-nuclear world in a buddy story that's both obtuse, and yet something very, very familiar in:

                                                                   

                                                                       Rotten Tog

     A bastard winter came forth with assault over the wastelands, immeasurable amounts of irradiated snow came floundering downward, leaving clumps of nuclear atrocities blanketed in burning cold. Morose fauna able to withstand the radiation wish for death every waking moment they have to venture off into that maelstrom.  David Kafferty watched two pathetic curs with barely flesh to hide their salted bones toss around a jackrabbit carcass that was more reptillian than lappen. The world was always cruel, but the fallout forced a violent change in life to survive, life reacted accordingly, it replaced the moral compass with a nautical GPS, shark-like in it's deadly accuracy to seek out and kill whatever remnants of life could be surviving. David walked away. He knew the beasts had their burdens, but his were heavier, like a crown of hematite. 

    His right-hand companion, Tog, an eleven foot-tall monstrosity was carrying the jaw of a sperm whale, carved out into a hackney blade of spike teeth that weighed over sixty pounds each. Irradiation had made the ocean the stuff of nightmares, and David had been forewarned by his monstrous ally that it was a hellish domain. Tog was something formerly human, and yet something entirely new to this world. David Kafferty had heard rumors of monsters in the shadows, the cryptozoology memoirs that sold books, which in-turn had made such horrid Sci-Fi films was now standing besides him, and could pinch him out of existence. 

   He met Tog, a burnt-skin of deep ambers and darkest vermillion hue, on the outskirts of the wasteland, known as the Outside, a malcontent region of the new nightmare that not even the Wild Beasts  dared to roam. David had to go out there for some credits, about a million of them, and retrieve something from the old world. David had lived a long time, he rememberd the world before the M.A,D. Effect killed everything. He ever loved. The instant burst of radiation had made his cells impervious to age. For seven hundred years he carried on, not sure why he didn't just try to kill himself to end the nightmare. At one point, he really thought that this was his personal Hell. He had come close one time to ending it all, but found bullets could not even penetrate the irradiated armor. He had starved for days, and after a month without food, he then realized that even if he were to commit suicide for the inside, it wasn't going to be enough. 

 He knew a million credits was a drop in the pan, especially for a job that could even end his assumed immortality, but the Outside was never seen by human eyes, only from a distance did early observers of the Wastes even acknowledge the Outside's existence. Heh, falsely named, thought David, it sounds like sanctuary, rather than the most irradiated, most criminal of regions that this new world had to offer. 

  Tog, a juggernaut of a fiend, lumbered about in the distance, carving his whale jaw club, the ivory bludgeoning spearheaded a slice in the green sky. He was a mountain amongst bucket loads of rubble. David Kafferty gazed upon the mountainous Tog, there were acidic buzzards circling his head, and the ground shook underneath his girth of gelatin-cooked skin. Kafferty knew he had to scour the Outside, and search out the artifact that his employers held so dear, but what precise plan he had, went away at the size of this lumbering brute. 

   There was an artifact, as old as David himself, perhaps older, and his employers would pay a ton of credits for it. David wasn't sure just precisely what it was, but knowing how naive the world has become, it could be a weapon, or a dog's chew toy. The Outside was full of pre-apocalyptic junk, David saw strewn garbage; rusted and piled in fused chunks of Old World contraptions. David saw Tog first, the lumbering monstrosity was hard to miss, seeing as he stretched to the sky. At first David was terrified, as most people would be when confronted with an unnatural freak of a Nature, but he was more concerned with finding the coordinates of the sought-after artifact, and returning it for enough credits to get the  hell out of The Garrison, and make his way up to the  Coast, even buy a boat, and get as far away from the epicenter of the nuclear hell. 

    That's when he heard the rumble, and Tog looked at him with eyes as red as a volcano's heart, and David believed he was finished, yet Tog approached him with caution, not ferocious tenacity.  As he approached the 5ft 10in David, it was abundantly clear to the man, that this monster was truly a walking rock, and filled the landscape. Still, he stood his ground, picking up his minigun, and aiming it at the approaching monster. The gun started rotating, but this was met without concern, and this frightened David even further. 

  "You, puny little man. Put down weapon, a Tog mean you no harm." The voice was equivalent to a hole in the Earth growling out hallowed words from Hell. 

  "I think I'll just keep this chain rolling, if it's all good with you, I think you may want to keep a clear distance, I can clearly hear you from China even if I had half an ear." 

 "Funny little man, but that rolliepollie firecracker won't hurt much. You better believe that like smash you to little bits before you fire a shot. Why are you out here? This place is the Outside, humans not welcome. You should leave now."

  David held his ground, and lifted the minigun even higher up, making sure that a clear shot to Tog's head was precise. 

  "Ha! You're funny, I respect a fearless ant!"

  "I'm looking for the Spire. An Old-World  relic, my boss wants it, and he's led to believe it's somewhere in the Outside." Tog smiled a mouth full of gravel, teeth gnawed down to pulp. 

  "Spire? I've not heard of such a thing...describe it for me, mayhaps I've heard of this instrument."

   David wasn't sue whether or not to trust such a brutish beast, but Tog seemed partially intelligent, if not some sort of savant, either way, he was the master of this domain. So he described the Spire as his bosses have: a long spike with a battery pack that was red and blue, and five inches in diameter, and about four feet in length. Supposedly it connected to another artifact that was already in his bosses' possession. 

   Tog nodded. The cranking of his brain echoed loud enough for David to become eerily perturbed by the gurgling grinding sounds. 

   "I may have seen such a thing, little man. However, I'm not sure I can trust a gnat as you with his little firecracker pointed so firmly on my crevasse brow."

   David's mammalian mind wanted to believe that Tog meant him no harm, as Tog was an intelligent being, thus he could be reasoned with, but the reptillian brain had seen many men reasoned from out their lives by far more intelligent beings than the skycraper hovering over him now. With some remorse, he let the barrel of the gun spin down, until the cranking mechanical sound tapered off onto the toxic winds of the Outside, and a desert whispering clouded out an natural sounds the world once made. 

  "Good, good, now we reasoning, bargain. Tog help you, and you help me. This land, it's covered in salts that burn, and sands that punch with fists of malice. I ask you little man, for...quip pro quo? Many think Tog dumb, many think Tog monster! Tog reconcile differences, and know man judgmental, regardless of good-nature. My brain functions, my memories are intact. Tog know of your Spire, Tog certain of this, you take me with you from the Outside, I'll accompany you to this Spire, and give it to you personally. 

  "I plan on leaving this land, heading out to sea, I want to get away, find some sanctum of humanity not irradiated by this hellish radiation. I've lived for over seven-hundred years, I've tried to die, I've tried to live, and all I know now is that since I can neither, I must move on, it's all I can do, if even for nought." David knew now that if Tog wanted to, he would've crushed his bones with a single swipe. Maybe it'd have been better for him to have done so, Death was always a welcomed benefactor to the irradiated soul down deep in his decayed body. 

   "Tog not sure that's a safe plan, Tog has seen the oceans that surround this land, Tog travel a great deal over the course of many sunshine units, and has been granted this implement in a battle that be written in the stars. I took the whale, and that is but the most docile of monsters that lay down in the dark, green deep." 

  David smiled, his teeth surpringly white for being older than modern dentistry, he heard the warning,,knew that it would have to be braved, but the oceans were his salvation, and his escape from the world that had taken everything from him, he'd rather die, and not give a fuck about the circumstances that would come from the dire beasts of the deep. Sharks, whales, even pissed-off irradiated manatees with seventeen breasts, would not keep him from leaving the epicenter of nuclear catastrophe behind.  

  "Then we are at an impasse my Goliath friend. I seek the seas, you clearly have a piece of it that makes you fear going back. Normally something that would make a monster, and I say that with all-due-respect frightened, would normally keep a saner man at bay. However, becaue I'm no longer sane,nor am I truly anything left of a man, I'll seek to see the sea, and depart once I'm given my pay. Now, I will deliver you from Outside Tog, but from there, you will be on your own. I seek new land, and I urge you to do the same. The world out there is as cruel as this place, formulated with beats of burden, tapped in glowing glares, ready to kill at a moment's notice. The seas are mine to conquer...if you care to join, I will assure you safe passage."

  Tog looked over David, who had not shown one ounce of fear this entire time. The man had intrigued him, this living being had more courage than most mutated meanies he had come across in all his travels. With that, Tog knew he had to agree, he would help David. 

 "Then it is so, these days, life is too short to compromise. Tog will investigate the pyramidal ruins to help find the Spire. Then Tog shall accompany you on your travels, in return for helping you on complete this task."

  It was done, the two have made the complimentary alliance, and they knew now that the trek was halfway through. With a few trudging thrusts forward, a sprint with tree trunks, the two were at the pyramidal building which was to host the resting place of the Spire. Tog smashed through the plexiglass ceiling, and dropped through. The two were met with some minor obstruction, as giant insects attacked out of predatory nature. The jarring whalebone jaw smashed the insects into crystallized dust, and that was enough for the two of them to move forward unhindered. 

   Tog led David to a room of sandy brown, and irradiated green, clouds that would make a Geiger counter sing Mercy Me. If they were anything but monsters the world has made them, death would've met them in this aptly-designed tomb.  Tog smashed through walls, cushioning David from falling debris with surprising efficiency with the ivory weapon of ungodly terror. 

They both surfaced from the radiation-filled debris, clouding the room with a haze as hot as the sun's surface, and behold! The Spire awaited their less-than-trivial excavation. 

  With Spire in hand, David Kafferty was feel at peace for once in nearly seven centuries. He aspired to grow out of his funk that had left him feeling more a zombie than a man, and now he had enough capital to make his way: loading up on enough supplies that a man of his condition could ever need, and a boat large enough to house ten Togs, and the whole of the Wastes, with enough room left over for a tennis court. He missed tennis, and his lire before all this shit went down. 

 He barely remembers life before the radiation enveloped the earth, society succumbing to a demise of its own design. Still, the sentiment remains the same, feelings of nostalgia never leave a human mind, even if one forgets why nostalgia even resides so heavily In the heart.  All he remembered was a boy named Ashely, and a girl obsessed with a mortal idol named Daisy Duke. That's all he remembered....and Denver Omelettes, you never forgot Denver Omelettes. 

   The two raced out of the crumbling pyramidal building, apparently smashing down walls to a pre-apocalyptic building that was more shell than scaffold was plenty of destruction to have to come crashing down like an avalanche of metal and glass.  Tog ran with David on his back, along with the whalebone jaw, and the Spire snugly gripped in David's hands, he rumbled and rolled about to strands of chain that were tied around Tog's shoulders, a makeshift chain armor that was more aesthetics than protective. 

    It took David over a day to trudge through to the Outside, and merely two hours, maximum for Tog to jog out to the clearing. both could see a horizon of daylight steak across the visual irradiated rays, and with  one last sprint where speed was actually picking up on the over one-story Tog, they had reached the end of Outside, and beginning of the Wastes. The two of them made it relatively easy through the harshest part of the Wasteland, but now became the most deadliest part of the journey: now David had to deal with his boss: Roger Salamander, the Bastard of the Scourge. David knew that it wasn't the creatures of wasteland morphed by man-made horrors, but the men still untouched by such horros, that think they own the world...because deep-down, nobody is left to tell them otherwise. Hesitantly, David and Tog pressed on, towards a million credits, and the Bastard of the Scourge. 

  And so concludes Part 1 of the two-part story: Rotten Tog. Take your time reading this one if you want, and although there's going to be a far-thrilling conclusion to this story, but it will not be out until Friday of next week.  I feel this gives people time to read up on one story, with some time to digest in-between. I appreciate all of you out there who read these short stories, and I assure you that part two of this story will be exceptional work because I think it will be a truly unique approach to the story we all know and have seen so many times before, yet we never get sick and tired of it. Thank you for readin the Malacast Editorial, and have a wonderful week! 

Enclosure Part 2 of 2 Warning! Extremely Graphic Story! Reader's Discretion is Strongly Advised!! Short Story Weekly

This is Enclosure Part 2

 As with the first part I must give you an elongated introduction stating that the story you are about to read is a very graphic and very perversive in nature. I would highly recommend those who offend easily from sexually explicit language and imagery, and gratuitous violence should stop reading now. This story does not reflect all other stories from Short Story Weekly, although other stories may be as violent in nature, but it is often the exception, as opposed to the rule. Still, this is not for young audiences, and may not even be legal in your country to read. Still, this is a work of fiction, and as fiction goes, is curtailed solely to the imagination. Though this story is to shock the readers, it is not without valid points, so please bear in mind that this is more than shock for the sake of shock. However, this does not make it anymore admissible to younger audiences, who I beg now stop reading immodestly. I can only give so much warning, bit it is jarring to post this portion of Enclosure without at least giving fair warning. This part is longer than the first, and much more brutal in execution (no pun intended) than Part 1. 

    I must also reiterate that the fiction presented here is rare to the rest of the stories told in Short story Weekly, which are as diverse and unique as to the rest of the posts on this blog. My views do not represent those of Blogger, or to other contributors past, present, and/or future of the Malacast Editorial. 

 Thank you for supporting the Malacast Editorial, and please enjoy this conclusion of Enclosure:

The day went by, unhampering my desires. I signed pages, treatise availed over business-strained circumstances. Albeit, I wasn't paying much mind to the complaints in the office. I had only a yearning for monsters in my mind, beasts bethrothed, pining abided by the ever-faithful ticking of the clock's seconds towards five. Tick, tick, tick, tick, went the sound if the every-passing dullness that engraved a tome upon my fleshly tomb, rising and falling with breaths of decay and resuscitation. 

  I pillaged the desktop for every little bit of crumbling society that laid about my workspace. I wanted to damage my civility, taint my barbarous soul with fucka less given to the cunts that asked me mundane Monday fallacies. I wanted flesh iodine-scented pools of red glory to be upon my phallic charge, thrusting into a whomping machine of invariable chagrin, chewing on mincemeat parts of frailty and pathetic function. 

  Finally the clock struck the five, and twelve, and with a sprint of youth in love with the damsel down the high school hall, I bolted steadfastly to my sports car whilst narrowly running over other escapees from the cages of career. I steered to my homestead, watching gardeners collapse daisies in place of tulips and perrnial marigolds. Mid-season annuals sprouted second life spores to spit seeded vestibules onto stamen tips, a goregeous misanthropic malady of natural turbulence from lawmower blades. I changed lanes, passing school buses leaving in lines back towards destitute halls of misleading learning, never realizing that nature took place not in the classroom, but hallways and playground entropy. I parked in the driveway. 

   The sun was setting unsteadily fast, as I changed into clothes more befitting my future frolics. Mr. Saturday was out of town, essentially on business that assorted his other contested carrion projects. A vulture of bitter strychnine cultivating in a man of nefarious beak and diseased talon. A friend when need-be, but a pawn in the game of life, and a rather unfortunately-placed one at that...pitiful. 

   I jumped back in my beast of a car, it purred and clicked just as I hoped my dear Cherie would, her cage not of burden, but one that was to be of passion. My mind was blank with nothing more but the desire, and the hunger within. Was I mad? A sick fuck of sorts that none other would ever comprehend? Was I just living in the moment, eccentric by the forgone conclusions of happiness mixed with lust? No! I wants to play with fire...I wanted to burn a fire most unholy. I wanted unlimited freedom...I would get it. 

   The zoo was closed, but with little deference,mi was given passage, pacing myself behind ample toes that so wanted to marathon out of their penny loafers towards the enclosure of the Sheeba Queen Cherie. The yearning was brewing for so much time, it was not without protest, but in the end reason was lost, sanity left someplace back in January; my heart was now in May. The iron bars of titanium were cold to the touch, impenetrable, but my throbbing heart, and equally formidable member had but ignored theconundrum...my concupiasant heat could melt galaxies, boil God's blood, I saw Cherie, and scathed soot onto my bones. 

  Her curiosity was darling at first, she had been fed, for her face was covered still in meat and dried, fatty blood caked around her jowls. I felt stiffness in my spine, and I had to calm myself, or else I'd finish too soon, but she looked at me with a desire that was not of haste, not of fear, but of equality. The mamilla an intelligence shined through, as she rubbed up against the bars. I had jumped the barricade, and was now face-to-face with Cherie, she was pungent in carrion, but indicating ly in heat. I smelled her stink, as she rubbed her hindquarters across the cage. She sprayed, and showered my shoes and lower pants, it mixed with a concoction of pheromones and cat urine I had  begun spraying  on myself, symbolically accepting that the point-of-no-return has been passed.

  I coaxed her to the side of the enclosure that was more like a cave, a faux structure where the cheetah would be housed at night. I broke the lock, and made my way inside, breathing in,,and releasing the last bit of rationality I had in my body, and stripped down to my bare ass skin.

 My muscles clenched as Cherie came up to me, now more curious than ever. She smelt her own spray, and a mixture of pheromones that I collected months before from male cheetahs, and boiled down to pure essence. I smelt the air and it was enough to knock most honest men out. Yet, my jutting me ever was so engorged, it spent me of blood to stay afoot. She chirped, and rubbed against my prick, the harsh whiskers poking and prodding it, my heart skipped a beat, as I began to lubricate. I was fully erect, and nothing was to stop this from happening. 

Guards were paid off, the staff had all but went home, and I had tunnel vision, as Cherie presented herself to me, caught in the fantasy as much as I. I fished out protection from my shirt pocket, and tossed it to the side, already covered up in the stank bile of a closed encampment for an animal of such size.  I cracked the package, and covered my organ, the stench of lubrication stronger now than ever as my nostrils were raw with musk scent. 

  Cherie laid baring herself to me, almost backing up with anticipation, as her perforated end, and variegated fur was alluring me further. Before I could pull back, my tip had slowly entered, and like a life-changing experience to a prophet touching palms with God, I had been kissed by a vibrant flower of sensuality, as bare flesh touched coarse fur. I could feel her insides as she purred  sensing a bit of irritation on Cherie's part, as I violated the sanctity between Man and Beast. Her non-retractable claws dug deep into the dirt floor, as I began to thrust and push deeper into the narrow canal. It was unlike anything I've experienced, I felt my shaft grabbed and pulled with a ferocious twist and turn, as Cherie began to growl in cat-like delight. I could not stop myself, I sped up, humping and thrusting harder, knowing it was hurting my sweet girl, but I was enraged by the stench of sex and hard cheetah hindquarters that squeezed unbearably on my groin. Her tail rose and flickered my face, it battled me until I bit it lovingly, kissing it with hard pecks and smooching noises. 

    I felt so empowered, so beastly, and the when I released, I cared not that the rubber shifted, I had finished raw with the beast, and in a turn of rage she kicked back, knocking me backwards, and showcasing my raw prick, covered in Cherie's virginal blood. She rolled around in antsy jerks, licking herself clean, some of my evidence leaking out, as she cleaned up the crime scene. Several angry chirps were followed by her plopping down in exhaustion, as I slowly exited the capture, chaining up the gate with the broken lock behind me. 

   After I came back to my senses, that mammalian rationality had returned, and I was faced with the self-pergury of  my actions. I had laid with Cherie, an innocent bystander to my self-proclaimed lust, but she seemed amply enticed to receive what I so eagerly wanted to bestow. She followed me around the cage, and chirped forlornly as I went to jump the barricade. I went back to the enclosure, and called her up to the cage. I placed my lips upon her meaty jowls, and didn't flinch a bit when she pierced my bottom lip. It was a blood kiss, and I feared not when I felt the dribble of my own blood, I walked away with my tongue, and that was all I asked. 

   Back over the barricade, I made my way towards the exit, it was several meters out, but the bit of shame and guilt I withheld for my own personal desires were slightly irritable, but I was too euphoric to let even the endtimes end my bliss.  I'd only have been happier if I were able to have tasted the awaiting vessel prior, but I'd settle with the taste of spit and raw chicken on my tongue. Although I assuredly would've not walked away whole if I were to tempt such fate. 

   I went to the gate, and it was locked, a bit of an issue, but I was full of profoundly new energy, that I begun to scale the gate to return to my awaiting car, ready to go home to a meal of girth, and a drink worthy of this bestial excursion. You could imagine now dumbfounded I was when I later awoke on my back with the shock of having burned palms and melted rubber on the soles of my feet. The pain was equivalent to a monstrous bite throughout my body had snapped it's jaws clean onto my very being, and singed like a brained lobster still struggling to repair synapses. 

  Then I saw him standing over me like a dark shade of retribution. Charlie, the trainer, he had lifted me up from the shoulders, and shoved me against the gate. The shock was harsh, but less intense from before. It was abundantly clear now that this was no charade, I was being eletictuted on the iron gates, and it was Charlie, the Jordanian who was doing it. 

 "You shouldn't be here, Mr. Jake, you mistreating the animals, not good for business, not good for Charlie, see?" 

He smacked me across the face, and I fell to the ground. Dirty, shaken, and a bit of blood smeared across my face from a snapped nose. He proceeded to hit me several times, and gagged me, covering my head, he dragged me off towards the far-end of the park. I felt the pressure of the gravel scrape against my sore privates, as I whimpered in a muffled pain. 

     I was unmasked in a dizzy spell in what could only be the caretaker's shed. It was dimly lit, and  made up with gardening implements, and feed for the more herbivorous animals in the zoo. 

  "Ah, you're awake now Mr. Jake, good, good! We have a bit of talking to get to, before we get to it then, now; don't we?" Charlie was stringing a weedwhacker, a few feet from me. I could sense my dire circumstances growing more and more desperate as it became clear I was strapped tightly to a metal chair, bolted to the cement floor. 

"What is the meaning of this Charlie?! What we you doing?!" I tried to maintain control, but it didn't seem very applicable to the circumstances. 

""Aye, Mr. Jake! Don't be playing me a fool, you know very well why you're here, and why I'm going to do what I'm about to with that sun-tanned wimpy skin of yours, I'm gonna chop and cut you into ugly!" He brought the weedwhacker right up to my face and began spinning it to full rpm. It muffled even my loudest screams of terror, as the whipping strands of serrated plastic just came within millimeters to my sweaty, clammy skin. I felt the spittle of my mouth ship up into my nostril, as though he wre trying to drown me with my own fear. 

 Then the blades went down, and Charlie's face came up to greet mine. 

     "Relax Mr. Jake, I'm not gonna rip you up nice just yet, were gonna have a talk before I make you dirty, right? Gonna have you forgive yourself, then I'll cleanse you of all wrongdoing, alright?"

    "Charlie! Please! This is quite unnecessary! For Christ's sakes! I am your boss! I pay your ticket to stay in this country, and your going to turn around and treat me like this! Let me go, and I'll consider not pressing charges and sending your ass back to Jordan!"

   "Aye, you be the boss man and you think you be better than me with all your money, and your power, but what you got, huh? What you got for me?" Charlie came close enough thwt I could see holes where his teeth should be, and smelt a mixture of sawdust and rum. 

  "Fine, I'll buy you out, I'll pay you whatever you want, and I'll add to it because I simply can afford to! Now let me go, this isn't funny anymore!" I saw that this was a difficult placement to be stuck, but I wasn't going to just sit there. Unfortunately, Charlie was good at knots, and I was running out of options. 

   "I don't want your money, no matter what sleezy tactics you got up yo sleeves, Mr. Jake. I want to hear you pray for your sins." He face went as solemn as a lamb, judging only on the clarity of my hubris, wanting nothing more than my atonement. I'd be damned if he thought for a moment I'd grant it!

   "I do not sin. There is no such thing! There is only obligation to the truth of ones actions, or the decision to pry back the truth, and suffice to tell the lie. I have no regrets, Charlie." He looked deeply into my eyes, and then grasped my groin with his clenching massive hand. I was some already, and lighting bolts begot my sight as Charlie's clamping grip kept me from abdicating any sense or cry. 

  "Bullshit"

   He began his statement, and at the moment, I would've agreed with little wiggle room to debate. 

   "You see Mr. Jake, you don't have much respect for the rules of God above. You see an abomination, steady to sin because you have lost your morality."

    "Morality....is....a....broken....fallacy, Charlie." I squeezed out, as grips tightened on both my sore prick, and my nails breaking against the metal armrest. 

    "Wrong Mr. Jake! Morality be deep in a man's heart, it is what drives him to do right or ignore his heart when he does wrong. Even if you bury your moral compass deep down until it almost ceases to exist, it still be there! If you hesitate, even for a moment of time, that is your moral telling you it's wrong! If you be a nonbeliever, you may not follow God in the sky, but all men follow God on the paper, that is why morality be real....why God be real, and why you are an abomination. You lay with beast as you'd lay with woman, that is a wretched sin!" Although I felt his anger intensify, his grip came off of me, and I cried and breathed in fresh air, my testicles getting burned from the flow of blood and oxygen again. 

   "You dictate to me the sin of laying with an animal, but it was not a crime of murder! Passion perhaps! Obsession, absolutely! No man was harmed by my actions, and I would never hurt Cherie! I love her, and it was more powerful an experience than Aphrodite from the foam! Did not Zeus lay with Cygnus? Creating Helen of Troy?! How could something so beautiful come from out the copulation of what you claim is so dirty?! Do I feel some shame? Yes! But more the shame of a schoolboy after his first vibrant experience of virginity's loss, it was a loss of innocence! But it was a beautiful, incredible experience that was angelic, not some disgraced monstrosity like you're accusations make it to be!" 

     "I stand up for Cherie! She was the victim to your devilsh lust! You made your own bed of Sodom, now I will atone you of these sins, I do so I'm the acknowledgment that I too have sinned, but you have committed sacreligious confounded acts that must be cleansed with blood. I pity you, Mr. Jake, but I detest your burden, and seek to relieve you of it!" He brought the weedwhacker to my face without much warning. The spittle of blood was almost cooling to the touch for the first second, and like a retractable head of a tortoise when attacked, I clenched my eyes and screamed through clenched, biting teeth, numbing my broken lips, and tearing skin. The pain came after the onslaught, and was surprisingly bloodier than expected. I screamed out as the blades died down a second time. 

   "Here, let me clean out the sin, Mr. Jake." Charlie wiped gently away the blood like the Virgin to her fallen savior.

     "I...can't...breathe!" I exasperated from out torn lips. I'm sure I wasn't pretty right now. 

   "Aye, Mr. Jake, you're breathing just fine, probably for the first time in a long while, the sin is washing away through that kissed face. The Lord washes aways all the sins of the world, and has mercy upon you, let the cooling kiss of His world fix your wrongdoings."

   "You fool! I am a man of virtue! Yet I asked to be free! My loss of virtue wasn't from a lack of faith! My loss of virtue was a freeing from the shackles of slavery! Money has allowed me the greatest wealth of freedom! I have lived the life I so desired! I've saved countless lives through charity, I've worked to replace laws with responsibility! I take responsibility for my actions, and you may see me as a man who is more downtrodden and dirty than a pedophile or a killer, but I dare you to look beyond your own holy privilege and see, I'm the free man, you are enslaved to a false idol. The false idol of idols. I judge you not for your beliefs, because my beliefs are beyond your depravities. You are the monster, you are the bad guy, I am just a man who loved a cheetah. Is that really so terrible? Of all the travesties this world offers, child murderes, rapists that keep body parts in freezers. Politicians and corporations that rape the lands upon which you were born! And I'm the fucking monster?! You are a fool Charlie, and raising a false flag of justice for some subconscious desire to bleed me.

   "Do me a favor please: when you're finished with me, and you have taken all that I have to give, please Charlie, try not to finish in my hair, it's just not a polite way to snuff someone." I giggled a bit, no owing that this was not about me, this was about Chaflie, it was rather cute in it's own, sick way. He hated me because secretly, behind his false religious hubris, there was a sadist who needed an excuse to cut me. What sane man weedwhacks a man to his apparent death? What justice is there in this spectacle? Charlie had watched me fulfill my desire, and enraged for trying to fit the very moral compass he defends, is now being used in justifying his deviancies in punishing my supposed sin. His retribution is my punishment, and his secret carnal desire!

   "You sick man! I am defending Cherie! The silent victim!"

  "Oh please! I didn't hear her complaining, and quite frankly, Charlie, I know you're going to kill me, so get the fuck on with it. By-the-way, I see you can't contain your excitement. A word of advice, when you're torturing someone to death, try not to wear sweatpants in the future, it hides the *cough* evidence of your enthusiasm." I nodded down towards his erection, pitching a tent in his loose blue sweats. "No homo, of course." I smirked through the pain. 

  It didn't matter that the end was coming, I had made my point, and one the debate woth little protest, and perhaps that is why the simple-minded fight the most ferociously: violence is their shield from the intellectual mind. I was spent, the piano from the lacerations and came protruding through the quagmires of my stung being. 

  Charlie's fury was relenting, it was apparent when the chainsaw came out, and the gasoline nearly filled the small shed with a mirage of clarity. For the first time, I had felt something stronger than self-preservation. I had danced in the leaves with a beast of prowess and sexual prowess. I had lived the life of a free man, and was now witnessing the downfall of man enslaved to his own short-sighted fairy tales. I could accept my death, and that was becaue I had accepted years before it wasn't my choice. Then again, after having sex with a cheetah, perhaps it wasn't much more in this life that I could experience that would ever culminate to such a...dare-I-say, spiritual moment? 

    Yet my story wasn't some lofty fairy tale light in the loafers and filled with a happy ending. My Calvary didn't arrive, I was not fortunate enough to be saved by a white knight on a shining steed. However, my story was perhaps more like an Eastern fable, for karma was surely had:

   As I laid dying, the buzzing in my ears as Charlie brought the chainsaw down onto my left shoulder, tearing limb and berserker jutting through my lung, I smiled through the pain....guess I wasn't all that good at tightening chains.

   The chainsaw lowered, and a rumble came not from the mechanics of the flesh-tearer tool, but from another mechanical maelstrom of claw and fang. Cherie was loose, she must've forced open the barely-chained gate. Charlie turned around, and fear was in his eyes. I quickly kicked the chainsaw out of his hand, and it went flying across the floor, well past Cherie, barely catching her tail. It slid on my blood, a lucky break, as I sat up, gazing at the open wound on my heart's side.

   "Good girl, be nice." Charlie tried to coax down the big cat, but she was having none of it, the scent of my blood all over him, and in the air had her pounce up and tear claw into his chest, making ribbons out of body in three quick strikes. Charlie was gone, and I wrestled to get out of the chair, but unlike myself, Charlie was good with thing knots. 

  I struggled and freed my right arm. I sacrificed the string of a left arm that was hanging juxtaposed to the chair, and howled as I let the tendons rip. I was barely coherent, the blood-loss was very serious, but I tried my best to stand up from the metal chair. After I accepted that my arm was lost, and getting to a hospital was far more important than the struggles of relearning to write with my right hand, I turned to see Cherie, licking her jowls, human flesh upon her face. 

  "Hey girl, you know I always loved you, righ? The second I saw you in that cage, I got this fantasy playing out in my head. At first I just thought it was cute fun, something to spice up the day, make those extra tugs at the wheel go a bit more swimmingly, but I knew that you were my desire, Cherie." 

  She sat there, listening to me intensely pour my heart out to her, while my literal heart was nearly pumping through my skin. 

   "I love you, Cnerie, I never felt more alive than when I was with you...although the women in the world, and I had experienced it all: from Thailand princesses, to French femme fatales, and I got the closest to God wheni laid down with you...a cheetah....how fucked up is that?" I joked with her, as she panted, and chirped, as she came to my side. I slid down, and she rubbed right up next to me. I couldn't move, I was losing too much blood, and in that moment I knew I'd not live to see the sun. 

  She cuddled,up by my side, I suppose it was some form of affection, I knew she was a big cat, not some anthrophobic creature of reason and understanding. I accepted. Y faith, and reminisced on my time spent nestled with Cherie in coupling, and the affirmation now as she nestled by my side. The. I remembered that she was a wild animal, an opportunist, a predator. Looking back in those last few seconds of mortality, I hoped it was a kindness to end my suffering. 

    Cherie sat up and looked me in the eyes, her foul breath notwithstanding my desire, as I leaned in and kissed her on the jowl. My lips we're shredded to merely flesh prints of their former lush, but I didn't even mind the pain. She licked my blood as I sat back like a schoolboy twerp having kissed the prom queen in front of the whole assembly, and smiled. Cherie then lunged for my neck, and the connection between spine and brain were lost, I was practically dead, as she finished me. They call the orgasm the little death, but I knew to die big. She killed me, a predator seeing an easy meal. On the savannah, she'd have been lucky to eat as well as this in a year. 

   I didn't care, I loved her regardless. She'd have not been my love if she had shown even the slightest bit of pity.  I slowly slipped away, that wonderful memory would fade out the scene. How could I hold hate in my heart towards my dear Cherie? After all, she only did what came natural. 

So concludes the story Enclosure, perhaps the more controversial, and more Libertarian-inspired story I've ever written. Firstly, thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial. For years I have been a proponent of freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. These are two of many rights we wee gifted with by the common sense that makes our world greater. When we are free, the world is a better, more just place, and this story is my evident forgone conclusion that we need freedom of the press. This story is not am exclamation point, and can be seen subjectively as poor, or bad. 

     However it's perceived, I believe it is proof that whatever offends,,should be allowed to offend, and I'm proud of this story, as I would be with many others. I hope this ending was worth the wait, and I hope you enjoyed it,,or at least tolerated it. Short Story a Weekly will be back next week with a brand-new story, shorter than this one I can attest, and it will not be as...provocative,,least not in the same ways. 

   I appreciate my readership, and I'm glad you all continue to read the Malacasf Editorial every day. I will continue to post, and as we embark on the 300th post, which is unbelievable to me. I remember the 200th post being so long ago, but I've come to terms that 300 is far more amazing an accomplishment. I hope to one-day reaching 500 posts, and in the years to follow, it should be feasible. After 500 however? I believe I will call it quits. Although it's nearly two hundred posts away, it will come up shorter than perceived, and when that time comes, I'll be ready to make a decision.  Thank again for your readership! I appreciate every reader I get! As a writer, those who take the time to acknowledge your work, are worth double their weight in gold. 

     One last announcment, and I promise it will happen, unlike other announcements: I will be updating the Facebook profile, which means actually using it, because it seems apparent that I cannot put off the usage of it. So I'll be logging into Malacast Agentt that's right, two "Ts" in Agentt. Don't ask me why Facebook doesn't acknowledge Malacast Agent as a real name...yet Rainbow Smith is...ugh, the travesties that arise in the Western world, I swear! Nevertheless, thank you for your unrivaled support! 

    

  

Enclosure: Part 1 of 2 Short Story Weekly

This Short Story Weekly is going to be a two-parter, and a rather extensive story.  There is no theme this month, not intentionally anyhow. Still, I am very excited to write this story which is a pseudeo horror noir, but really this is the sort of storytelling I take pride in, and sharing it with the world is not only an honor and a privilege, but I hope embodies the sacrum of what it means to be a writer. This will atypical to the short stories I've posted on here, but it so more affluent to my favorite style, thus giving me the chance to showcase in grandiose style skills that wouldn't necessarily be shown. 

   Despite the content of these short stories varying from point-to-point, I have to now give a full disclosure warning of adult content that will be prevalent in this particular story. I have not completed the whole story at this point-and-time, but I feel obligated to say the content may be disturbing to some readers, so I'm giving you fair warning before reading this piece. I assure you thwt warnings in the past may not have been equivalent to content, but for this one, I can verily assure the readers that it will be graphic, and I cannot stress the word graphic enough, because it was written with no holds barred, dirty, filthy imagery that I really wouldn't want younger audiences to read. 

     Still, as I cannot control those who read my blog, or view every individual who reads my blog, I can only give you this long-winded explanation, so nobody can say I didn't give fair heed to the content I'm about to present. It will be violent, sexual, and both parts will have details in them that are not for younger readers. Granted, I'm likely not to have younger readers, but just in case, this is not a story for those under the age of 18, in the U.S. anyhow. 

   

With all that said, I would like to present to you Part 1 of 2 of :Enclosure

      The enclosed pond. I sat by the pond, watching extraterrestrial avian swim and dive bomb solid surface, breaking the tension of the water with  beaks of carotene driving apart the water, and raising up wiith slippery demons of the deep, kois with whiskers that sing in resonation like those of my this dragons. Down gullets like gunny sacks, they swallow whole, already digesting deep in the sanctum, flopping as acids smelt scale to solid waste. The mixture of blood I. The water turns the stolid ponds of whimpering waves into blackness. The festering stench of organs, friended and slopped out in a visceral barbarism is now just vestige of life skimming above the pools. 

   The stench of the water isn't from it's caged enclosure, but from the feral biting and scraping that leaves particles of morbidity behind, it is the stench of past death. I once saw a tiger tear through the meat of a cow, it wasn't dignified. It was messy, gnarly a crimson dreamscape, chalky and fingerprinted throughout the dusty exhibit. This was after hours, when just skeleton crew were present, but more likely automated systems ever functioning. The zoo was lovely this time of year, but the heat and the wench of excrement, and the grinding bones of what is to become waste is enough to entrance the mind with thoughts of rugged primitives fending in a world so familiar to the senses, yet so far removed from the mind. 

    My name? It really wasn't my name that so-much mattered anymore. I've been raped of it's meaning. I have been ravaged of a name long-ago. I go now by Loin, Steak, or Chop. The best modifier though, should be Ground Beef.  Oh! That reminds me: only thirty minutes until they feed the cheetahs a calf. Lucky bitch was going to have veal tonight, and I was chomping down on a melting snow-cone just to avoid heat exhaustion. The beasts in the cages are the lucky ones, it's when we're free roaming do we then suffer. 

      I straggle my way towards the lions' den. The fleeting cries for it's mother trail far off, as young ones are ushered out of the zoo. Children who are fascinated by the beauty and hubris of the wildlife, but far too impressionable to see the plight of nature when prey is massacred by predator. The calling of the calf grows louder, and like a siren's song, I'm drawn towards the cacophonous moos. The cheetahs are already circling around, chirping and growling. These beasts of speed, now forced into an enclosure not nearly narrow enough for them to correct course, are waiting patiently for the proverbial lamb to the slaughter. 

       The dapper monsters in their spotted suits readied for the gate to lift, and the prodding of the calf turned into squeals of pain and fear. Even the simplistic of prey know when the end is about to unfold, and that is the brutal, yet beautiful truth of the world. 

   "Hey! You can't be here! Zoo's closed! Head to the nearest exit!" 

    A zookeeper came running up to me, but I paid him no mind. I was friends with the owner, and Charlie, the manager of the big cat exhibits, gave me the go-ahead to watch this battle for survival. Besides, I paid good money to hang around. 

   "You must be the new guy! I'm Daryl, a good friend of Charlie, and might I say, a good friend if Mr. Saturday. Ah! Greg Saturday, a good man! Knew his father, we had an understanding, but young Greg, never quite understood my habits. I'm allowed to be here, Mr.?" 

  "My name's Richard, I've just been out in charge of the aviary sanctuary, but I noticed you were walking towards the Big Cats, and it's feeding time, so we really don't allow patrons to be around when the feeding begins. Normally we have fresh beef for the cats, but cheetahs need to chase down their food. It seems cruel, but I assure you, it's not something one wants to witness."

 I smirked, as Charlie came running up to me, but he was ushering me towards the feeding, which was moments from beginning, and I felt a slight flicker in my pants. 

  "Evening Jake! Mighty fine of you to come out tonight. Mr. Saturday was saying he hasn't heard from you in a while, he appreciates that grant you gave to expand the alligator sanctuary! We are just about to have the evening feeding, so please make your way towards the exhibit, I'll be along shortly!"

  I walked away, but couldn't help but catch the off-handed commentary between Charlie and Richard. 

    "Jeez!  What's with that guy? Why would anyone wanna watch what's about to happen? It's a bloodbath!" 

    "Relax, Dick! He's a valued customer, and he pays extra to hang around for the cheetah feeding. Jake's a good man, he's just a bit eccentric, you know? He's also the best damn job security we have right now."

   I heard the bickering as I walked pass the enclosure housing the howler monkies, hooting and raving at the carnage that would begin shortly. Adjusting my waistline, I moseyed towards the cheetah pen. Cherie, the resident feline was already licking her chops in anticipation for the game she was about to ravage with claws and teeth. She chirped with desire, her hindquarters flex and spasm with itching muscles steadying for the inevitable cranking  of the gate being lifted. The bleating of the baby antelope perked up Cherie's ears, she purred with delight, flexing killer claws. She was the sexiest creature I've ever dared to lay eyes upon. No other feminine beast on earth can compare to the sultry, seductive mannerism of the cheetah. I adored watching Cherie work, eating her meals with meat and beings torn from ligaments like God intended. Still, she was so calm, so serene in those moments of carnage, it looked more peaceful than death in sleep. 

      Suddenly, my anticipation grew, an arousal that entranced my eyes as the creaking gate began to turn. A chirping Cherie was stiff like a statue molded in lapis ludis, diamonds glistening in onyx off her fur in extravagant print. The antelope was dropped out of it's cage, and began to cower in the corner, as prey does. The slow cranking continued, as Cherie jumped around in delight. She must've been ravenous tonight, my dear, sweet Cherie was practically squeezing underneath the gate, and the premature start ensued. Bursting through the seams at over fifty-five miles an hour, towards an antelope thwt could run at barely forty miles an hour, was a burst of raw energy. Cherie pounced on the beast as full sprint, the antelope glided at a valiant effort, zig-zagging as instincts guided it to try and survive the onslaught,mbut to no avail. First, the claws came out, and then the teeth mangled the throat of the antelope, breaking and twining around blades of enamel, and now she stood wearing a jowl of red. With the deepend black ridges about her eyes, she looked like she was dolled up for the ball. The antelope lipstick, and her ear tag were as close to a debutant than any in this sleezy enclosure. 

My heart skipped two whole beats,then pounced back in at 120bpm, as the adrenaline kicked into overdrive. I've seen this all before, but never had it been so forthright, so extravagent....so brutal.  The deed was red, pink, and flesh-tinged, like the sun kissed the insides, blessing them with their first exposure to rays. The moonlight  glistened off the moisture, and it was wonderfully gruesome. Cherie's face was made up for the ball, meat slopping off the sides of her clicking jowls. The mangled body kicked several times, but it was just actions of an afterthought. My heart filled with such bliss, watching the natural order take place in man's oldest experiment: that nature can be trapped, that beasts are safer caged. 

  Cherie's head went down,mand wrestled loose a femur, the tiny hoofed leg came up with a tearing noise that reminded me more of rubber bands snapping than say a tree limb cracking. The crunch was brutal in it's own right, but when she laid on top of it, all that heavy weight crushing down on the fragile body, she had made a bed of her meal. It was natural for cheetahs to be brutish in captivity, but there was something more instinctual, something primal in this unnatural space 

"Blessed girl, you've done well." I was very pleased by her, she was the most sexually provocative creature I've ever seen on earth. Her movements were sulfurous and dangerous, curves with teeth, but like a sports car, Cherie was wild speed. She's my one true love. 

  After Cherie was done with the carcass, She was ushered back into her enclosure, and she napped on the concrete floor, packed full of protein, and ready to rest after a hunt well done. I was elated by the capricious moment, still captivated by the nasty imagery that came from the slaughter. As quickly as it happened, I found myself already leaving the zoo, satisfied by the insatiable beauty of nature's fire. 

  I tossed and turned with dreams of sinking my teeth into beasts of all shapes and sizes. The sensation was exquitwely pleasing to my subconscious senses, and meats bled out with rose petals of jubilation; they clumped up in cascading clots onto the floors of my imagination.  I slept well inside my sizable bed, it allowed me the freedom to spread out with exasperation, and wriggle with beatitude. Dreams of tearing flesh from bone, and bedding down with the Queen of the Serengetti: Cherie. 

  I was obsessed with the beast, I wanted to become one with the beast, entangled in an anthropormorphic twine of unnatural hedonism. Her variegated fur against my bare, dark flesh, un fathomable, but yet, so pure...so wild...so heathenish. I had to have a part of that, I had to be a part of that, and I knew it had to be tonight. This wasn't about obscenity, but lust, desire, and months of anticipation building up....this would be my only escape. 

  Mr. Saturday and I went back to childhood friends. He was an eccentric man, who had made money in businesses all over the world. His real desire was animals, exotic beasts that in other situations would never be allowed to be owned without years of appeals to higher courts, and listening that would cost him millions of dollars a year if he were to have them as mere pets. So when he discovered that most zoos were losing money, he had found himself in hot water. Mr. Saturday was desperate, and reached out to me for help. I had made him a very, very, generous donation to keep his zoo alive. Granted, he was not without money, but Mr. Saturday was vehemently against any business that didn't turn profit after thirty-minutes its grand opening.

  I did not hesitate to throw him a couple of dollars, it was enough money to run him on empty for at least two seasons, and I could tell by his shocked expression, it wasn't what he was expecting. 

    "Jake! You didn't have to make such a donation! I should've had my accountants stop you. I was about two seconds away from selling this damn money pit! Worst investment I've ever made. When I was told that the zoo veiled an anonymous donation of nearly twice what I paid for the damn thing, I knew it had to be you, crazy motherfucker that you are! Don't get me wrong, I'm sincere Jake, but tell me: why would you not only bail me out, but give me enough money to turn this dump into the most profitable zoo in the country?" I could remember his excitement. He invited me up to his offices in a shock when it was ousted to being I who had donated the millions. 

  "Come now, Saturday! You and I both know I help out my friends, I've bailed you out quite extensively over the years, and I've had my share of run-ins that your influence was all that was needed to make the problems go-away. We are meant of wealth and stature, Saturday, and we are always perceived as the enemy.  We are friends by experience, let thwt speak for itself, but we are also compatriots by association of our wealth. Now I'm sure we are both familiar with quip-pro-quo?"  I smiled that wicked smile that he loved to see. 

   "Oh, how I know of your quips, Jake. How I know what obscure, tantalizing hobbies you have had in the past. Let me guess, you want to fuck one of the animals, right?" He laughed and laughed at his bemused observation, but for it's callous repertoire of cackling and unintelligible jargon, he was not far off from my mater plan. 

   "Ah, always I. The gutter, my dear Saturday, but not quite my intention! No, I have confirmation that your zoo will be qccuiring a young female cheetah, and it has been attempting to get one since Day One."

   "Yes! But how could you have known that?! I've received word but merely an hour before-"

    "Before our meeting here? Yes Saturday, I know becaue I'm the one who made sure that the transaction went through with the Jordanians. Don't look so shocked, Satruday! I promise you,MIT was your money, I just coaxed them into providing the healthiest creature, not some starved pathetic mongrel that was on it's last page. You really shouldn't deal with that sort of riffraff, Saturday. They never deliver on their promise. Poachers and over glorified trappers, they don appreciate the fine power of a beat of such power and grace."

   "Well then, Jake! This is a cause for celebration. Allow me to pop the cork on this bottle of Dom-"

    "Before you bring out that overpriced bottle of monk's drink, perhaps I wasn't clear....I done want money, we both know I could do to lose a but of it, as I'm always finding myself behind the proverbial eight-ball becaue of it! No, I only ask to watch the beast eat, once a month, at my discretion."

   Saturday was shocked by request, his jaw nearly dropped as the cork flew out of the bottle, nearly taking out the hanging light fixture above his desk. He regained his composure, returning to the businessman that I've known to buy out corporate towers for anthills. Saturday used that sort of tone I've heard before when he wanted to negotiate. I knew then that I was in. 

   "Park regulations  do require us to make sure the park is vacant during feeding, too gruesome for the kids apparently. Yet, I'm certain we being the close friends we are can work out a deal. I don't see why you couldn't watch us throw some meat into the cage. Big cats in captivity tend to get a bit restless and shred whatever meat is thrown into the  cage. Normally it's chicken or beef, whatever is closest to their regular meal. So when we go to feed her, I'll even allow you to toss in the meat to the enclosure, how's that sound?" I sups this was supposed to make me feel enthralled to b e apart of the whole zoo experience, but thwt was not my intention.

"Actually, dear Saturday, I have other plans in mind for the feeding of your newest commission. You see, I'm not going to have you scrounge up leftovers for a creature of such power. This cat isn't some lazy lion that only takes down the slowest calf, or the smallest buck. No! This animal is the sports car of the cat world. It's sleek, sexy, defined by nothing but muscle tone and teeth. She will be eating only fresh, young antelope, and she will chase it down like sport. I have already put the schematics out for a runner,,where she can exercise, and chase her prey. She will do this only once a month, when I want to see it done, the rest of the time she will be fed fresh, not frozen and thawed meat, and this will only be small quantities once a day. I have hired you a trainer that will run her right, and keep her in the healthiest shape any cheetah could be in, is that fine with you?" I was direct, and made all manner of negotiation null and void. 

  "You mean...living prey? But that's unethical! It's against regulation! I can't allow a baby antelope to be murdered for your pleasure! Sorry Jake! I will not allow that! No! Take your money, take your trainer, whoever the hell it is-"

 "Charlie."

"Charlie! And go to hell! The whole point of this place is to teach people the value of exotic animals! To get kids interested, and have them have close, safe encounters with these majestic beasts. This is a place of learning, not a killing grounds!"

"You see Ssturdy, this is why I must politely say that you're full of shit! You want to teach these people about life, about Nature, well Nature brutal, it's one dies so others can live, it's being relentless in your fulfillment of hunger, and always taking more than you need becaue tomorrow you may go Hungary! It is just as applicable, just as beautiful to watch a predator on the 'killing grounds' as you call them, than watching them sit in captivity, wishing to be running wild and free, on the plains. So are you going to deny me this?"

  Saturday looked down at the spillage of champagne on his desk and noticed it was leaking lightly down I to his trousers, making a distinctive line down the crotch to his shoes. 

   "Absolutely! I'm not going to see some baby animal killed for your amusement, Jake! I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of watching some animal be killed just because you demand it...no! I appreciate our friendship, and the help you've been, but I cannot for my greater conscience allow for an animal to be kille DNA harmed in my zoo!

    "You see, Saturday...you don't have to watch, I know your not a strong stomached guy, but there is a point to be made here....you're just afraid of watching not because of some poor, innocent antelope being shredded to bits, it's becaue you're the same....you've always been the same."

   "Excsuse me, tread lightly Jake, don't think that you're too big to get your ass thrown right out of here!" Saturday's threat was empty, as was the groin of his pants from the outline that was forming. 

   "You see, Saturday; you've always acted like you're the big bad predator, always thinking you'll topple industries, and make fortunes on other people's loses, but that's not a predator, that's a scavenger. You're merely a diseased vulture, not worth eating, but you pick off the carcasses of whatever's left over. You're not a mogul, your an opportunist.

  " I'm the one who bankrupts my competition, I'm the one who takes all the riches before you swoop in and fill yourself on the pickings. We are complete opposites, you and I Saturday, but thwt is your biggest fear. You see us as equals, I a predator, you a scavenger, and you believe we are mutual components to the same feast. Yet you know that at any given moment, you can become prey, but never be the predator, the apex moniker. So go ahead, toss me out of here Saturday, it's within your power, but just remember who can turn that chagrin beak of yours into an appetizer before the main course." I smiled at him, speaking and with a cold, powerful tone. He went white, and sweat poured out, the scent of fear. I merely put out my hand, and he took it in his clammy palm, and I shook until I nearly broke his fingers. Saturday was a good friend, but in-the-end, he was merely there to clean up my mess. 

     I awake to my mundane life. My housekeeper had set the dining table for my breakfast: rare steak with a side of eggs, and a  thimble-full of caviar. The only green on my plate was a garnish, which I fling to the side of the plate, and devour my meal with exquisite delight. I was ravenous form my somni-like excursions, but I wanted to taste the real deal. Tonight...it had to be tonight. In that moment, I felt happiness, smitten with joy, and a slight tingle in my prick. Tonight would be just right. 

Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial. Part 2 of this story will be out next week, and will be the conclusive ending, albeit the longer part of this story. It will be released with a similar long-winded warning as was given to this part, but I will contest that this is the return of Short Story Weekly in full. I space site your patience, as I've been busy with several other posts. I also did some slight editing on my Street Fighter V review, it's more for aesthetics, rather than content. So if you've enjoyed Enclosuree, I will have the conclusion next week, but the following week will be something completely different, and less likely to need any graphic warnings, so if you are new to Short Story Weekly, you should know that this is not common to most content reflected on this blog. 

    Thank you again,mand have a great week!