Gris Lee Stories

It’s the middle of the night and I’m trying to pick what song to play at my funeral. I plug myself into the music matrix. Physically here, mentally gone. Idly shuffling through every sad song that saved me. Dwelling in the irony, of my catharsis becoming the closing credits. The songs play and the people enter; beta testers to my demise. Tears fall, and tears rise, on all consecutive tries to find the bloody one that’s right. I have to, if I want to fight the nails coming for my skin. I’d rather be a ghost in fictional hell than the literal one my body is in. Quick, it’s coming back. Play another one; tune in, so I can tune out. Vision turning black. Ignore the bitemarks breaking out as a bruise. It doesn’t even matter, as in the end, Linkin Park is what I choose. Memories that kept me sane, now poisoned by pain when the voice behind it all came to its own end. Keep me in your memory, they said; and leave out all the rest. So, as a test I leave i

Hard to tell how long I’ve been gone. Seconds, years, centuries even. Time is endless, and meaningless here.  I stood at the door of my pride and joy; The Untold Tavern. In a void of nothing, this bar exists for lost souls to come have a drink and chat before returning to their own worlds. Both the exterior and interior shift in appearance, though my favourite is the classic bar of human fantasy realms. I’ve worked here as long as I could remember. I was not born. One day I just was; Monica, the bartender. Ah, yes, that is in fact my real name by the way. Whilst travelling, shortening it to ‘M’ seemed like a decent way to hide my identity. It could stand for anything, after all. And thus, when my time was done I could slip away into relative obscurity.  I’m not sure what I am exactly, nor who created me. I admire myself in the reflection of the window. Like the tavern, my form isn’t necessarily set in stone either. Though, I have one that I’m partial to. The tall, bald, genderless elf

She scares me. That’s the summary of it. That’s the short, sweet version. Oh, I know I should explain further. But, how am I supposed to convey the entire, complicated story of this walking calamity in just a few, fleeting words? I’ll tell you about the first incident. The only one that I, thankfully, had the misfortune of being involved in. Now, I’d grown quite used to navigating the chaos of Gehenna by this point. Receiving such a strange invite like that should have raised such red flags. Looking back, this had likely been a throwaway account. I had been contacted by a young woman looking for people to join her focus group, supposedly for some book she was writing. My curiosity piqued, as per usual, I agreed to meet with her. Following the address she gave me, I came to some sort of community room, situated on the ground floor of a set of skyscraper apartments. Strolling right on in, I found there were already people here. There were about twelve of them in total, myself making it t

I came to learn something about the younger Vittore brother; he’s not so much a problem child, as he is just a child with problems. During my time working at Acerbi’s Bar, I’d become quite aware of how popular it was with the mafia. Some combination of their various family members came to frequent the place often. I like to think they’re civil people. To give them credit, most of the time they were. With the bar being such an old fashioned, classy place, Acerbi was rather protective over keeping it intact. Usually, the only trouble caused were by local gangs or events. The mafia on the other hand were surprisingly well behaved. No doubt orders from the don, but it’s appreciated nonetheless.  By this point I’d had the pleasure of meeting the don and his consigliere, Solitaire. However, the younger brother, Ricardo, had eluded my presence. When I made the wine delivery to the party a while back, I’d hoped to meet him. However, I only got so much as a glimpse of the man before he’d storme

Of all the promising vault hunters I’d come across in my galactic travels, she certainly surprised me the most. It was in Fyrestone, a town in the Arid Badlands on the planet of Pandora. That’s where I met the young lady. At the time I’d been working as an apprentice to Dr. Zed Blanco, the legendary doctor to psychos, vault hunters  and crimson raiders alike. His lack of a medical license may be off-putting, as well as his little genetic experiments. But, all in all he’s a good, caring man. You could see that especially by the way he treats his niece.  Dr. Zed himself had moved back to his original home to pick up the pieces from the aftermath of the vault fiasco. For a short while it was just the two of us. The day by day usually consisted of patching up passers through, restocking the vending machines and collecting creature parts for god knows what. I told myself to ignore the unholy screeching from the doctor’s personal laboratory. Still, it had been a fairly cozy gig. Claptrap cam

Despite my sorrowful adventure in the Grey Forest, I didn’t feel ready to leave Mistwell straight away. Couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason why; pity for the poor deer person, a fascination with the village itself, or perhaps the nagging feeling I was going to miss out on something if I left too soon. Even disregarding all that, maybe the elders would appreciate a hand from someone of relative youth. I say that, despite the fact I’d glamoured myself to look closer to their physical age.  To my luck the local tavern still had free rooms in the back. They hardly got guests anymore due to the village’s reputation. Perhaps occasionally you’d see a passing traveller, I was told, but little more than that. Even rarer still would you see anyone younger than their thirties roaming around. Some of the rumours surrounding the place spelled out danger for the youth unfortunately. Children, teens or young adults playing around in the fields or forest years ago and going missing, the barkeep

I wasn’t quite expecting to see her of all people in Nirvana. It was a sunny weekend, and I had all the time in the world. What better day than any to go to the zoo, I thought. Well, Noah’s Ark Zoo is much more than just that. Tripling as a nature reserve, garden and educational facility, it stood on its own turf within the Nirvana borders. After a chilled out tram ride, and one ticket later I strolled on through the gates.  So clean, and so green, and just so many animals. I’d made sure to arrive so I could circle the entire park, see all there was to see. For the better part of the morning I’d spent my time strolling past some of the larger enclosures. Gushing over the strange giraffes, the soft llamas and the gargantuan elephants, I must’ve seemed like a kid at a candy store. A monkey almost stole my wallet too. How exciting! It was mid afternoon in the reptile room when I finally saw her.  Naga, I believe her name was. I’d learned it through conversation with the pastel nightmare k