Tag Archives: Superpowers

The shifter, edited, in a downloadable format, with partial audio

Original post:[The Shifter](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/2wb322/wp_a_shapeshifter_deals_with_an_existential/)

PDF download(free): [The Shifter](https://samgalimore.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/the-shifter.pdf)

Amazon link(if you’re feeling generous): [The Shifter](http://www.amazon.com/Shifter-Sam-Galimore-ebook/dp/B00UA6KFO0/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425592610&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=the+shape+shifter+sam+galimore)

First bit of the audiobook: [The shifter audio](https://clyp.it/iru4c20s)

Another /r/writingprompt book/novelette finished. This one was completely unplanned. I kept trying to end it as quickly as possible but the story just kept on running. It was so much fun talking with all of you as the thing came out part by part, and I am looking forward to the next time :).

If you read this the first time around, this new version is more polished, having gone through a couple drafts to remove errors. It also has a few sentences and paragraphs added in to smooth out character arcs, but the biggest change is the ending. There’s a page or two right at the climax that are entirely new, and I think will provide much better closure for the reader.

Shameless plug time! If you liked this one, there are two more(not in this series), that you might like. [Letters to my father](https://samgalimore.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/letters-to-my-father.pdf), about a daughter who leaves her father a series of letters in a desperate attempt to fix his future. And [Unhooked](https://samgalimore.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/unhooked.pdf), about a dystopian society where almost everyone spends their lives in lucid dreams, and one man decides to wake up.

That’s all for now, if you guys like the audio version I may run with that, but right now I’m just happy that this is all polished up and ready to go. Thanks again guys!

Until the next journey,

*S.D.G*

A retired super villain is caught in the middle of a bank heist with his 6 year old daughter

“Duck Sarah.” I told her, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her under one of the tables.

“Daddy.” She said, looking at the red cape gang as they surged through the crowd waving guns and grabbing bank employees by the collar. “Daddy you told me you were done with this.” She said. Looking at me, and then looking at the villains.

“I am done Sarah.” I try to tell her, but she’s not thinking clearly. She thinks I’m in on this. That I helped them out somehow.

“Daddy you said the men with capes wouldn’t come after you anymore since you helped them safe the city.” She accused me, and started to slowly slide away.

“W-what?” I asked, confused now. She thought that the red cape gang was here for me? Did she think they were the heroes. I’m so baffled by her misinterpretation of the events that I don’t stop her when she leaps up from under the table and runs to commander cape whose talking to captain cape about the silent alarm.

“Don’t hurt him!” She says. “He’s hiding over under that table, please don’t hurt him.” She begs.

There’s something special about daughters, especially young ones. They can know that you’re one of the scummiest most rotten people on the planet, and still believe in you. They can even try and protect you from the people they think are heroes. Sarah would sit up late at night watching the old news footage of the superheroes battling it out with the supervillains, and she always cheered for the superheroes, even when I was one of the villains. Now that I find out when it really came down to it. She chose her own father over her personal heroes.

It was a bit unfortunate that the people she had chosen as heroes were actually just villains in misleading costumes, but she didn’t figure that out until commander cape put a gun to her head and captain cape trained his gun on me.

“We see you old friend.” Commander cape called out. He used to be my sidekick. “Come out with your hands up.”

I come out with my hands up, but only after I’ve thrown the table I’m sitting under at them. They both duck and my daughter hits the ground and covers her head with her hands.

Captain cape gets winged by the table and goes down. Commander cape rolls and recovers, but I’m already on top of him when he brings his gun up. I kick it out of his hands and knock him unconscious with a single punch.

Sergeant cape and private cape coming bursting out of a backroom, but they’re no match for me and I quickly lay them both out with lighting speed and agility.

Just before private cape loses consciousness he asks. “We should’ve known your superpowers were too strong.”

“Didn’t commander cape ever tell you? I don’t have any superpowers. I just did what any father would have done when their child was in danger.”

I can freeze time, but there’s a catch

I have to take someone with me when I go, that’s the rule. Whenever I stop time, I need a companion. It’s a weird rule, and one I don’t really see that much of a point in, but it makes for an interesting time.

I tried taking people I knew first, friends, family, classmates, girlfriends, but the trouble was their brains just couldn’t process it. During the time freeze they would either run off and do their own thing which they’d always wanted to do, or they’d go catatonic with shock and not do anything the whole freeze. That might’ve been alright, after repeated trips they would probably get the hang of things and we could have some proper fun, but the trouble was after the freeze they convinced themselves it didn’t happen.

Some of them would claim they had been drugged by someone. Others would tell me it was all just a lucid dream. When I asked how I remembered the events the same as they did if it was just a dream they told me that they must have already talked to me about the dream and got so excited by it that I had one of my own. It’s amazing how far people will go to maintain their perceptions of reality.

I had a problem then. If I couldn’t take anyone I knew, who could go with me? There was no way I was letting this power go to waste, so who should I take along? After family I tried starting the freeze out with someone then ditching them. That didn’t work, as soon as they were out of sight time resumed as normal.

Next I tried random people from the gym or the coffee shop, but most of those people either fainted or called the cops on me. Or called the cops and then fainted. I don’t think the police had a complete description of me yet, so I stopped trying random people from shops.

This was really beginning to irritate me. I needed someone who I didn’t know, but who had seen enough weird stuff that a little magical time freezing wouldn’t completely weird them out.

That’s when it hit me. I didn’t think it would work. I mean, how could this not end badly? But I was running out of options, so I gave it a try.

“Hey man, I don’t have any money, but I’d love to take a walk around the city with you.”

“I appreciate the offer friend, but you don’t want to walk with me. People give the homeless weird stares.”

“Well you know, I might have just the thing to fix that.”

Good Morning Earth 623!

Nerds and artists take over the world after everyone is given superpowers based on imagination.

Audio for this story can be found at: http://clyp.it/5ryy2uei

“Thought projection radio is here to tell you Goooooood Morning Earth 623! It is a bright sunny day in this pocket universes biggest city! Let’s get down to news. In politics Eminem, the god of the rap dimension, is stopping by the president of the Universes’ office in order to ‘stop all the haters’. In science Unidan is still cloning himself. The petition to expel him into his own new universe has reached 2 billion signatures, but he’s multiplying faster than we can recruit. Breaking Benjamin has suggested we wait for superman, but that hasn’t worked since all the superman keep dying since all the rooster teeth fans turned the sun red. In sports the new England Bengals have found a way to cheat at Calvin ball. This was not thought possible in a game without rules, but the head coach solved this by making some. Lastly, we would like to once again thank all the babies everywhere for not crushing us with their infinite imaginations.”