Journey back to an unexpected time and delve deep into what you think you know…
A note from VIV, editor of This and Other Things
It seems that there are both angels and demons of the universe with an interest in humanity. Maybe they have shown an interest in other sentient beings of the universe too, but there is documentation of their intervening in the lives of humans.
Transmission Inquirer, planet: Earth, or TIp: Earth, is a website that is maintained by anonymous writers who claim to present true accounts of human interaction with the supernatural and the alien.
This periodical was started in late 2014, shortly after stories began to circulate on the internet about a cult in the South Carolina lowcountry dedicated to a spider God, and a man who showed up in cities across the country with the ability to make things appear out of thin air. The cult dedicated to the spider God is associated with an underground fighting ring, and stories about the cult have mostly been contained to the TIp periodical, but the stories of the man with the preternatural ability to make things out of thin air are the site’s claim to fame and they are the reason the site has gained a loyal following over the years.
TIp: Earth is considered to be mostly conspiracy theories, but since the site’s debut, the world has seen many crazy things that even reputable news organizations have covered; including apparent medical experiments in a small town in North Carolina, people stricken with a parasite that made them zombie-like in Tennessee, and a drug that apparently contains alien substances found in New York and Maryland. Conventional news sources report these as the strange stories they are, but TIp claims to trace these stories back to their origins and to explain the involvement of top secret government labs in Georgia staffed by aliens who partner with secret research organizations across the world that are plotting to leave Earth behind because of the irreparable damage we have done and are currently doing to the planet. According to TIp, these organizations are using the general public as guinea pigs with the goal of breeding a stronger population to colonize the universe. These organizations are convinced that the man made damage to the planet Earth, things like climate change and the development of weapons of mass destruction, will make the planet unlivable by 2080 and they have been working in secret with advanced alien life to secure the future of select humans on other planets.
It is a vast conspiracy that TIp: Earth has been working to chart for about half a decade and it is their belief that the man with the preternatural ability is at the center of it all.
The website has an extensive archive of stories about the man and they vary in style and format; some are personal accounts of witnesses who have seen him first hand or people who claim to know the man personally, some are news stories that originally appeared on other sites, some are editorials that theorize on the man’s motives and origins, some are essentially fan fiction that tells stories about the man who can make his imagination real.
One ongoing story that originally started about the man and his ability is a cross between a fictional narrative and a long form journalistic piece that appears monthly. It attempts to synthesize the stories about encounters with the man and other materials like news stories that chart his location, and editorials that seek to explain his motives, into one cohesive narrative. It is called the Chronicles of the Maker, and the man is the main character of the story up until around 2017 when he seemingly disappeared. Various anonymous writers have continued the Chronicles of the Maker, though, and it is mostly about strange things he is likely dealing with in secret, namely the other strange stories that appear on the TIp website.
The Chronicles of the Maker have two new main characters, a gay couple named Ivan and Clay, who have a connection to the Maker, and strange abilities of their own that have been documented on the site; there were reports of destruction at a night club in Charlotte, North Carolina and reports that both have been seen either glowing green or surrounded by a green flame. Ivan and the Maker are believed to have been schoolmates, but that has not been verified, and the writers of the Chronicles have positioned Ivan and Clay as the current champions of humanity for the Americas while the Maker is on his secret missions.
The PRL Serials, in conjunction with This and Other Things, proudly presents Strange Encounters, an anthology series that will showcase new titles such as The Maker, Dark Angels, Sun Child, and other new series inspired by the work of the Chronicles. The series that will appear in the PRL Serials will be written by VIV, and will fit the continuity of the original Chronicles that appears on TIp: Earth. VIV’s stories will combine the theories of TIp with the vast information at the disposal of PRL Contributors to present unique stories about the past of your favorite PRL Heroes. And she will do it in the first ever PRL 2 in 1, a format that is a boon to the voracious reader. Each issue of the 2 in 1 is actually two issues from two different series that provide a bigger picture of key moments from the history of the PRL epic. So get ready. The pink pterodactyl is ready to move.
Phase I – The Children of A-space
by VIV
The children were sacrifices. To nothing and by noone, no person anyway. They were chosen by existential markers in the fabric of space that indicated their presence and then insisted on their eventual replication when the stuff of creation swirled into existence. The children were echoes of something else; a previous self, a parent, a universal abstract. The children are all of us, but unlucky, asked to shoulder a constant burden that cannot be neglected.
The children always grow into adults, trained into a purpose that they cannot comprehend.
The Maker
– Issue 1 –
Early reports of the Maker place him in small town North Carolina. He was spotted as a child, no more than ten years old, in a town called Kannapolis rescuing people from the second floor of a burning apartment building. The witness says there was a lot of commotion; many bystanders watched as firefighters fought the flames from the front of the building, and the boy was in the back standing next to an elaborate playground slide that appeared at all of the windows and allowed those trapped on the second floor to make it to safety. Everyone from the second floor was saved and they stared in awe of the strange slide, and the witness claims that the slide suddenly disappeared, right before everyone’s eyes. The witness says they noticed the little boy because he was fairly tall for the age of his face, and he dressed very humbly like someone had made his clothes, and the witness is sure that he did not live in the apartment building. The boy slipped away into a nearby thicket of trees and no one seemed to notice but the witness who thought the boy might have something to do with the disappearing slide.
This early account is likely the Maker’s first brush with heroism and it would be the last for a long time.
When Kevin arrived at his house, he was panting, sucking in air as deeply into his lungs as he could bare, and then letting it go for as long as it had taken him to inhale. He stood on a side of the two-story house that didn’t have a door and he pressed his back into it, laying his hands flat, praying that he would not be noticed by anyone. He had learned to control his anxiety from the school counselor who noticed that he had panic attacks when he was at school.
“When it feel like your heart’s beating out of your chest,” she said to Kevin gently as they sat in her office, “just take deep breaths, in and out, until it calms down. Deep breath in, deep breath out…”
He imagined her saying it. She was young, early twenties, and she loved her job at the same elementary school she had attended, and she was pretty. She always smelled nice, but not flowery and unbearable like old women wore sometimes. He heard her gentle voice as he tried to disappear next to the house and the rise and fall of his chest slowed.
When he felt normal, a smile crept across his face. He was happy, but he couldn’t be. He shouldn’t be.
He smiled as his fingertips slowly massaged the dirty siding of the home that was humble but impressive because his father had made it himself. His family made a lot of the things they needed because his father insisted that life was complicated by extravagance. They weren’t Amish or anything, but his father had built his home in as remote a location as he could secure so that the real convenience in their lives was making things rather than traveling to find them.
Kevin was winded by the time he rode his bike all the way from the apartment complex where he had imagined the elaborate playground slide, and out through the hills of grass to his house, but he was in good shape and he was used to biking long distances. He had to catch his breath mostly because the excitement of the situation had overwhelmed him. He had saved people but he wasn’t supposed to.
“That’s gonna get you killed, boy,” his father had said many times. “Little black boy can’t be making stuff out of nothing. If they find out, if people find out about this, they gonna rip you apart.” He always said it very earnestly while he held Kevin’s head in his hands and stared into his eyes. He loved his son, and he was frightened for the boy who had a gift that made him even scarier than the average black man. Some familiar with the story believe that Kevin’s father made the home where he did to hide his special son from the world, even though he constructed it before Kevin was even born. Somehow he knew that his son would be special and he had to protect him from the world for as long as possible.
Kevin had manifested his ability shortly before the incident at the apartment complex, and when he showed his family what he was capable of, his father was petrified. His mother and his sister laughed with delight and whenever they could find a moment away from his father, they had him dream up fun things for them to enjoy. But from the first time his father saw Kevin bring his imagination into existence, he impressed the seriousness of keeping his gift a secret from the world.
“You can’t be Superman,” his father said. “This ain’t no cartoon. This is real life.”
Kevin was afraid because his father insisted that he ignore the wonder of his newfound ability. His father convinced him that nothing good could come to him if the world outside of his family learned what he could do.
He heard his father’s concern as he stood next to the house and he felt the pace of his heart quicken. Somebody probably saw me, he thought to himself, they probably coming to get me now. He leaned back against the house and he had to calm himself again.
If they were coming for him, there was nothing he could do and he was quiet from then on. He jumped at shadows and startled at unexpected noises near his house and when he was in school. The panic was enough to quash his superhero ambitions for a few years.
Dark Angels
– Issue 1 –
Whispers of a spider cult spread around the South Carolina lowcountry and they tell of a man who was their leader before he turned his back on them forever. This man was big; he was well over six feet tall, and he was almost three hundred pounds of muscle. His fists were like boulders and his arms were veiny like a nineties comic book character. He was not your typical cult leader. By all accounts, this man made a living to support his family by winning fights in an underground fighting ring, and his followers formed up around him because he was seemingly invincible and an impressive showman.
This man reached the pinnacle of success in the early nineties and by that point, men were begging him for the secrets of his power. Reportedly, the man told his secret to his inner circle, friends and acquaintances who demonstrated their loyalty and reinforced his reputation to the community at large. It was late one night a group gathered in a field of weeping trees; the scene seemed to be melting under the humidity of the night and everything looked ominous like they were preparing a seance. This man asked for secrecy from everyone in attendance on the penalty of death, which everyone knew he was capable and eager to execute. Then he demonstrated the ability to manipulate the size of his fists and feet, then he grew his entire body. At one point, there was a yellow glow from his eyes and he spoke as if he was possessed.
“All praise to Anes, the Spider God who makes me mighty,” he supposedly said, or something very similar, and some claim that they saw the shape of a large spider with the face and torso of a woman form in a yellow glow behind him.
The cult formed around the powerful man, but when he disappeared, the followers assumed that he had been taken by the Spider God and would be replaced, so they dedicated themselves to the myths they made themselves about the spider; where it had come from, and the proper way to earn it’s favor.
They were not a gang exactly, the followers of Anes were a loose association who carried on the underground fights in the lowcountry after their leader disappeared. One man who made a name for himself in the underground fights was called the Butcher and he happily killed men for the entertainment of people with money. The Butcher claimed to have the same powers as the former leader, though this was never verified.
Coincidentally, the Butcher was responsible for the fire at the apartment complex where the Maker made his first appearance. He was visiting a girlfriend and he liked to drip wax over her body before sex, and he accidentally knocked over one of the many he had burning in the room.
The former leader of the Spider Cult, or fight club if you will, is believed to be a relative of Clay Franklin, the man who glows green and exhibits size changing abilities. Because of their supposed ages, the former leader would likely be Clay’s grandfather. The connections between the former leader and Clay Franklin are thin at best; most who believe the theory cite the fact that the father of Clay Franklin was a boxer with family ties to the Carolinas, and specifically the South Carolina lowcountry.
Clay was a very quiet child and he spent a lot of his childhood being invisible. He knew that it was best that way. His mother had five other children to care for and she was often doing it on her own as his father traveled the country being the best boxer in the country. Clay believed that it was his responsibility to ask for as little as possible and to make as little noise as possible. But this trait made him his mother’s favorite. Of course she never forgot him and she always kissed him first when she came home from work. But when she wasn’t around, Clay was a ninja like the cartoon he watched, and he learned to move quietly around his home and neighborhood.
His family house was a duplex in a community of duplexes and there was a tree on the side of the backyard that was behind his house. It was a large tree, as tall as the light pole that stood nearby, with sturdy branches that he liked to climb up. He was very nimble in the tree and he could jump from branch to branch like the squirrels he watched.
One day he went out into the backyard and he heard his brothers approaching from the side of the house. He instinctively dashed for the tree, not wanting to be seen by them for fear that they would tease him and hit him for no reason other than the hierarchy of their birth order. When he was close, he jumped easily and grabbed a branch, then swung his leg up. He pulled himself up into the cover of the leaves by the time they were in the back and he could hear them talking about girls they liked and the ones they thought were ugly. Clay was prepared to wait in the tree until they left, he could find something interesting to do up there, and soon enough, he saw a squirrel bounding through the branches. Suddenly he wanted to try and he tried to leap onto another branch, but he had ignored the branch just above him, and when he pushed off to jump, he slammed his head into the sturdy wood, and then tumbled to the ground onto his back.
His brother saw him and called for their mother who was preparing a meal in the kitchen.
Clay heard all the commotion, he didn’t black out. In fact, what he experienced was the exact opposite. He saw the world like he was wearing rainbow shades, everything was so colorful and bright. And he saw some strange creatures moving around the world; people-animal, animal-people hybrids.
As he was taken away in an ambulance and his mother crowded in next to him, Clay saw a large spider with the head and torso of a woman staring at him. She smiled though Clay did not know if it was pleasant. When the door of the ambulance slammed shut, the colors of the world returned to normal.
PRL Serials 