Epoch - D'oh

The creature rose up before us to about 10 times the size of any man. Covered in black oily slime and reeking or raw sewage, he let out a loud roar. He was of a viscous consistency, and was able to take any form.

Fame and gold was promised to those that came out victorious, but that seemed little reward when death was the only other option.

FIGHT!

The word flashed up on screen.

This was the moment that would define us all.

The creature lept towards at a group of civilians, he was too quick for them to draw their weapons and the creature swallowed them up in a sea of sludge. Screams erupted as people begun to flee. The young boy next to me fired his cross bow at it. It was a direct hit, and on impact, the creature reduced to nothing more than a puddle on the ground. A smirk fell across the young boys face and looks of bewilderment on others as they began to consider that the young boy had defeated the monster that had been terrorising this town for years. People slowly but surely, begun to approach what was left of the creature on the ground.

The ground began to shake violently. The black puddle sitting on the coloured pavement erupted into a volcanic mass. Then everything went black.

GAME OVER. INSERT COINS TO PLAY AGAIN

Epoch - Dogmatix

She’d figured that the apocalypse would have been more literal, that there would be a definable moment where humanity ceased, and but for the afterlife, the doomsayers would have no avenue to the phrase ‘I told you so’.

Nuclear war, GM crops, alien invasion, financial ruin, divine intervention, take your pick., there had been enough reasons presented to people from the liberal media, through to paranoid survivalist forums on the Internet to fear the end times coming, but who had predicted this?

The world almost seemed louder now, as if without humanities efforts the earth out of necessity intervened to fill in the silence. She was grateful.

These were end times.

Luke 21:28 “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place”  

Was this her generation? She had traded for the bible, not because she was religious, but
because of the pleading look in the woman's eyes. Perhaps it meant something? Perhaps.

Coughing she smiled, being alone she had almost forgotten she possessed the power to make noise. Humming a tune she vaguely remembered, she pondered - How long until I forget this melody, are there any left who remember it?

Time moves more slowly in End Times.

Epoch - Jow Bates

"This is taking ages." Thought Ollie, staring somewhat blankly into the sky. It was a relatively cool night and the darkened canvas which blanketed his studio was absolutely littered with stars, which was nice. It looked like an ephemeral Pollock masterpiece made from white neon.
Ollie thought about glow-sticks that had been chewed through by over-enthused and gurning ravers, the luminescent fluid bursting over their extended chins.
"Is there anyway we can hurry this up?" Asked Ollie to no one in particular and he plucked another spent word from the ether and placed it carefully into his artistically crafted L-plate Rizla. The words arranged themselves pleasingly on the tobacco, causing Ollie to smile, he then turned sharply in an effort to reply to a question that hadn't been asked, he thought he'd heard someone.
There was a faint humming across a rhythmic beat, like the ground was pulsing some kind of alluring bass and Ollie was reminded of the rave he'd been to earlier that night, but that was about the extent of his memory. His left hand fell to the soft ground and he caressed the dew-dampened grass he was sitting on. He pressed into the earth and felt it press warmly back into him, then his attention turned back to the sky; a living tapestry of history. A constant poem, being performed by the audience it encompassed, the sky was always a reliable source of awe.
"Awe." Ollie muttered, that was a good one. He plucked "Awe"  from the air, inches away from his mouth and laid it down meticulously, next to the others. He enjoyed the prospect of lighting this up, another gathering of some of the most beautiful words context could muster, fresh Golden Virginia and Original Slims making up the frame, he felt like an architect.
"Probably just one more now." He thought to himself, a tad distastefully as none of those words would do, certainly not at this stage, good chefs always pride themselves on their deserts as even the most seasoned food critic will walk away from a meal remembering most clearly that which the ate last.
He froze for a moment, trying to remember why he was sitting here, it seemed unfathomably important a while ago and as realisation set in, sobriety kicked wonder from his mind. He must have been sat there for aeons he thought, looking down at his lap, now scattered with torn paper and spilled tobacco. His tongue found and retrieved the small piece of sodden papery card that had once held the face of Super Mario and he spat the spent tab from his being. Ollie felt a little used up at the nights recourse and he looked halfheartedly for his phone, not expecting to find it. He didn't and instead brushed the mess of smoking paraphernalia from his jeans and leaned forward to hug his knees. Not entirely sure what he was attempting to roll as it was clear he didn't have anything other than rolling tobacco, he smiled. He sat there for a while longer, breathing in the moment that elapsed between triptych sobering that was his mind clearing, not so much a comedown as a unannounced detox, it was nice. Time paused and he drank in the transient cleansing epoch that was his existence.
"Epoch." He said to himself, standing up.
"That's a good word."

Epoch - Darly Bites

Miserable bastards.

Death, ugliness, crucifixion, blood and guts.

They all look like fucking bank managers.

Apart from that one. Absolutely shitfaced, riding his bike, one hand steering, badly. The other hand clutching a half empty bottle.

JP and his JD? Or was it vodka? Paint splattered, haphazard, vomit inducing mess.

What a load of bollocks.

Give the man an exhibition.

Epoch - Beau

Rubbing his eyes while averting them from the cheap fluorescent lights that clung to the ceiling, Francis slowly rolled over on his bed, only to have his instincts stop him at the last second as he realised he was on the top level of a bunk-bed. He reached blindly for the glasses he had placed on his locker adjacent, and sighed heavily as he remembered his current lot in life. His ocular sense had been restored not 2 seconds when his auditory sense was bombarded with the resonance of the clanging metal door to his right. "Dorm 5, prepare for chow!", shouted an fat and inept female guard before she slammed the door shut and walked away. "Man, stop with that bangin' door shit. We fucking know when it's time to eat, you fat bitch.", said an inmate from the back while he pulled a blanket over his head. Of course he was 20 seconds too late for the officer to hear his words, and of course him complaining didn't make the dorm any quieter, but the inmates all knew how good it felt to cuss at the prison employees.

Francis collected all the sanity he could muster, put on his shoes, and jumped off the bunk, making sure to land quietly so as not to suddenly wake up his bunkmate. It wasn't that Francis had any respect for him, but rather he was slightly scared of pissing anyone off. He knew damn well that at any moment, any seemingly nice person could snap in a place like this; he'd seen it before. Rolling a cigarette, he walked to the back of the dorm where the toilets and sink were, lit his cigarette, and began to piss in one of the urinals. Carelessly ashing his cigarette into the toilet while still peeing, specks of red ash were shot straight at his junk, causing Francis to squeal. "Fuck, that hurts! SHIT!", he cried. He brushed it off and mustered up even more collectedness; he'd need it. "12 fucking months for drunk in public...", he mumbled to himself. "Only in America.".

He had already served 8 months on his misdemeanor charge, and had figured long ago the system would have let him out at the halfway point of it all. They hadn't. Francis had already given up on the prospect of early release. He was living with violent criminals who, if things had gone their way, would have actually killed the individual they intended to off. He was living with non-violent criminals as well, who had simply gotten caught with drugs and were now serving 7-20 year sentences. But Francis was still living there. His crime? He liked to drink. The reason for being arrested, he knew, was because the American Prison System was a money racket.

"I'm done with this country.", Francis said aloud as he walked to the door for breakfast time. "I'm done with it.".

Then, before breakfast, someone asked him to play Scrabble, and Francis scored 46 points using the word "epoch". TRIPLE WORD, BITCH!