Author Topic: EP696: The Homunculi’s Guide to Resurrecting Your Loved One ...  (Read 3047 times)

divs

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Escape Pod 696: The Homunculi’s Guide to Resurrecting Your Loved One From Their Electronic Ghosts


Author : Kara Lee
Narrator : Katherine Inskip
Host : S.B. Divya
Audio Producer : Summer Brooks

This story is an Escape Pod original.

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0. Confession

If you are reading this, your Loved One has died. We are sorry for your loss.

If you are reading this, then you stumbled onto an archived thread on a lost forum saying that supposedly, it is possible to bring back the dead using their electronic ghosts, and that the Homunculi, whoever they are, know how it is done. And then you searched and searched in a blur of grief and desperation and nearly killed yourself with illegal thaumaturgical network protocols before you found our servers.

And now you want to know whether you really can bring your Loved One back from the dead.

The answer is mostly yes, with one exception.

But you must know that this is not a resurrection. It is a trade. Your Loved One may return to the land of the living in exchange for your life, body, humanity, and most of your soul. In other words, you will have to condemn yourself to being one of us for the rest of eternity.

We will not lie and say that there is much to our existence.

But there is hope. We, the Homunculi, would know. Because hope is why we wrote this guide.

For you see, we cling to a deep-down, bitter, shameful hope that we will one day be saved by someone who loves us. And we hope against hope that the someone will be you.

We know it is a terrible thing to hope for. We know better than anyone what awaits those who make the trade.

And so we apologize for our selfishness. But we do not ask for forgiveness. We only ask that you remember what it is to hope for something impossible.


Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!



Fenrix

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Reply #1 on: November 23, 2019, 06:30:07 PM
The frame on this one was effectively executed, and I was pleasantly surprised with the optimistic ending about spreading positivity.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


CryptoMe

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Reply #2 on: February 10, 2020, 09:33:13 PM
Very bizarre concept, but interesting. Though I can't imagine anyone choosing to do this. I wonder if this was done on purpose by the author. Are we to understand that the Homunculi do or don't understand how unappealing this pitch is?