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- Jan 22, 2010
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Holy crap.
I'm nowhere near done.
I'm nowhere near done.
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It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!
Short Story Contest #6 - Survival Horror
- Status
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2008
- Messages
- 2,319
Here's another WIP to show I'm still working on it. I hope I'll have it finished in time. I'm going to attach my final submission as a .doc file. If I don't, it'll be quite a wall of text as you can see, which is not pleasant to read.
I signal my second-in-command to follow me to the bridge.
It was busy at the Eye. People were walking all around the place with paperwork in their hands or analyzing the magic tablets that were placed orderly by the side. It’s no surprise it’s a busy place, but now it’s worse than usually.
The Eye was an underground observatory that uses magic to oversee anything and everything that happens in the outside world. We work here as part of an organization without an official name. After all, our existence is secret to anybody who lives outside. The people here seem to have grown fond of calling themselves and their colleagues Silent Gods. Somebody thought of that name a while back and it stuck. We observe the outside world and intervene if anything occurs that could threaten the existence of any of the factions. However, our policy demands that we don’t leave the slightest clue behind, should we be forced to intervene. We rarely have to, but it would explain why most people here name each other Silent Gods. The reason to our secrecy isn’t that hard to find either. If people know they’re being watched and ‘judged’, they will act unlike themselves. And for that, we have these magic tablets. They link to millions of places, but now they’re all fixed on a few specific areas.
As we pass through the door to the bridge, a tall man turns around to see who it is.
“Nothing yet, ma’am.” he tells me with a disillusioned expression on his face.
I asked him what we could’ve possibly overlooked, but he didn’t know the answer to that either.
“Ok, let’s retrace what has happened. There must be a reason.” I continued.
“Very well. It all started yesterday at 17:39.” the man said as he walked to a large map in the center of the room. He zoomed in on one of the 4 territories on the map and placed a couple of markers in it.
“When the troops of the Malgorn faction, led by general Creigo, marched into Gardona territory here, they slayed all scouting patrols they encountered. The Gardona faction didn’t expect an attack from them, but from the Jorph faction to the north. They reinforced their northern border with most of their troops, led by their general, general Stulliwyn.” he said while marking a large area on the edge of the map.
”By the time they got the message that they were under attack from the south, they were forced to get back to their capitol as soon as possible. This would’ve been a 3-day trip and they would never have arrived in time. General Creigo was well aware of this, so he marched towards the heart of the Malgorn Empire, slaying every battalion that tried to slow them down as much as possible.”
He moved the marker that represented the Malgorn army towards the center of the map and continued.
”This delay barely had any effect. In just 35 hours, general Creigo and his legion stood at the capitol walls. With the attack force he had at his disposal, he could’ve claimed the metropolis well before general Stulliwyn and his men would arrive.”
“But he didn’t.” I clarified. “Now the question is: Why?”
I lean over the map, looking for any clues that could even give the slightest hint to this strange behavior. They had nothing to fear and everything to gain.
“Did the intercepted orders enlighten anything, Uraph?” my second-in-command, Gretoh asked.
“Our spies got all orders they could find, but those only contain info about attacking the capitol.” the tall man replied. “There’s nothing that would point towards a retreat. The Calwax faction to the west didn’t show any sign of hostility, so they couldn’t have feared for an attack from them. Calwax also has no pacts with the other factions.”
Uraph takes a deep breath while looking at the map.
“It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“We must be overlooking something.” I said while joined him in staring at that wretched map. “You don’t just put your entire army behind enemy lines to reach the grand prize and leave without even touching it.”
“Uraph…” Gretoh suddenly said.
I looked at him and saw a glimpse on his face that would indicate he might have found a clue or something.
“Can you track down the current position of general Stulliwyn and his troops?” he continued.
“Yea, sure. Just a minute.”
Uraph went to one his private tablet to enter some data. The map was wiped of all markers and not much later, a new one appeared.
“What are they doing there?” I asked myself while curiously looking at the flashing area that just appeared.
“And now check the location of Malgorn’s armies.” Gretoh continued, still showing that same expression on his face.
A bit more data was entered in the tablet, and another market appeared.
“Are you sure that’s them?” I asked.
“Absolutely, ma’am. It seems that general Stulliwyn finds chasing the enemy more important than protecting his homeland.”
“No, they’re not moving fast enough to be hunting them. It’s nothing like a chase.”
We both looked curiously at Gretoh when he said those words. I didn’t make him my second-in-command for no reason. He has more military experience than anybody I’ve ever encountered, which is why this was so curious. If he says they’re not chasing, they’re not chasing. But what were they doing then?
As those thoughts passed my mind, I saw his posture change as if he had it all figured out. And he almost did.
“I know what pattern that is.” he mumbled, still trying to put the pieces together he just seem to have found. “They’re not hunting them… They are joining them.”
I was stunned by what he just said. I wanted to believe him like I always have, but this would be like defying the laws of nature.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war for over 25 years.” I said in disbelief.
“Besides, if there were orders like that sent to the armies, we would have known.” Uraph added to that.
That look Gretoh had didn’t change a bit after hearing that. He had a theory, and it was well grounded by the looks of it.
“Exactly!” he said.
He looked at me, and I noticed a glimpse of pride. He must’ve put all the pieces together, there’s no doubt about it.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war and they sent no orders. That’s because it’s not them. Gardona never could’ve sent a message to their army that fast. By the distance between the border and their current position, the Gardona army was already on its way when the city was reached by the Malgornian troops. They’re disobeying orders to protect the border.”
“What?” Uraph said shocked. “Then what about their defenses against the Jorphans?”
“See for yourself.”
Gretoh nodded to the tablet and Uraph understood he should track down the biggest army the Jorph Empire had outside their walls. A little bit later, a third point on the map started flashing. That one wasn’t where it was supposed to be either. As ironic as it may sound, it was all so strange that it actually started to make sense.
“Shall I track down the main Calwax army as well, just in case?” Uraph asked.
I nodded and a moment later, a fourth point was marked. As we all suspected, it was way out of its patrolling area.
“So it’s a military gathering of the entire continent, huh? But what will they be doing there? I’ll check if we had any relative intercepted messages from any of the other factions.”
I looked at Gretoh to see if he could save him the effort by explaining that as well, but he didn’t seem to have gotten that far in solving the riddle himself either.
With Uraph working on that, it was just Gretoh and me brainstorming around the map where 4 flashing strobes were slowly crawling towards the center. Every once in a while, I saw Gretoh focus on a part of the map, as if he had a clue, but then he figured it wasn’t possible and got back to his thinking position. This went on for almost half an hour and it was getting more and more frustrating by the minute.
“I checked everything trice, but not a single clue to any of this from any faction.” Uraph said as he came walking.
“What exactly did you check?” Gretoh asked.
Uraph obviously was frustrated by his failed efforts as well, because he took it as an assault against his skills.
“If you think I’m not able to do what I do, you’re welcome to take over any moment!”
“That’s not what I meant.” Gretoh said, remaining his cool. “I just wanted to know what you used as source.”
“Well, unless you know of more than 4 capitols from which they can send out orders, I think I got them all.”
I didn’t wanted to make Gretoh look like the guy who just barged in as the know-it-all, and I understood where he was going for, so I took over.
“Uraph, check the receivers instead. They might not be disobeying orders, but they may have received orders which overwrite their original ones. If that’s the case, it doesn’t have to mean the orders were sent from the capitols.”
Now Uraph understood what Gretoh meant, but also what he had to do. He rushed back to his tablet and calibrated it to track the receivers of the generals leading the armies while we waited anxiously for the results.
“Well, I got good news and bad news.” He said. “The good news is that they all did receive orders.”
“What were the orders?” I asked.
“Yea, that’s the bad news. I can only see they got orders, but I can’t open any.”
“We don’t have to read them.” Gretoh replied. “We already know half of the results. We just don’t know why they’re doing this. But there are more ways to find out.”
“That’s right.” I continued. “These orders must’ve been magically masked to avoid being detected by the headquarters of each faction. That means there must be traces of paramysa, the rare material that allows this kind of cloaking. Uraph, try to track back the original location from which the orders were sent by following those traces back to its source. If we go there, we might find out more about this wicked situation.”
He set to it immediately, but it was one hell of a job. Paramysa is so rare, there’s nobody specialized in it to help us track it down. Gretoh and I helped him by each settling behind another tablet and divide the chores. It still took us over an hour to get a rough location.
“There. I’ll place it on the map.”
We gathered around the map for a new evaluation. The armies were all dangerously close to each other. In less than an hour, they would reach the center, where now the 5th marker was placed. The marker that indicated the location from which the orders were sent.
“The Blind Ruins. This has got to be the worst case scenario.”
“That place negates all magic. We’ll be going in blind.”
“Hence the name.” Uraph replied as if he was stating the obvious.
“We don’t have a choice.” I interrupted. “There’s a problem that affects the entire continent and it involves the 4 biggest armies on it. They’re not doing as commanded by their home commands, and someone is trying very hard not to be found as cause of it all. To me that sounds like we got to do our jobs and do it fast.”
“We can’t send scouts ahead this time, because they can’t report back. Communications will be lost as soon as they arrive. And as just a scout team, they won’t be ready to defend themselves for whatever they encounter.” Uraph protested.
“No scouts this time. It’s just going to be Gretoh, me and our best first encounter party. We need to go in prepared for anything without having to rely on magic or magic-powered equipment.”
He didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t have to read his face to figure that out. This was a huge risk, but we had no time for alternatives or even thinking about possible alternatives. Luckily he saw this as well and went to assemble the party and get the gear prepared. Only 10 minutes later, we were all prepared and ready to be sent to the Ruins. Gretoh and I were standing with 6 of our best men on the teleportation platform.
“I don’t know if this’ll work, since the area we’re sending you to negates magic.”
“We will just have to be lucky then.” I confidently said.
I gave the signal and a few seconds later, a concentration of magic created an orb of energy above us. Not much later, the orb expanded drastically until we were all engulfed by its light.
“What the…”
The ground started to shake and some of us were losing balance. I got down on one knee to take a better stance. I looked around to see who or what could be causing this, but there was nothing in sight but old ruins. Half of the party was starting to look more worried, while the other half was starting to look more alert. Suddenly, a loud bang caught us off guard and we all covered our ears. The ground started to tremble under our feet, and with everyone focused on keeping their eardrums intact, nobody could brace themselves. We fell a few dozen meters as the light above us faded completely away.
“Ugh…” I heard some people mumbling.
I tried to move, but there was something holding me back. With too much dust around, I didn’t open my eyes, so I just felt what it was. It seemed like a weighty chunk of rock. With a firm push, I got it off of me and when I stood up I noticed that I surprisingly wasn’t very injured. I checked again, but there were only some scratches and bruises. The next thing I noticed was one of the others shivering on the floor without any visible wounds. Still half dazed, I struggled to him. By the looks of the equipment, he was the medic.
“Snap out of it.” I said while shaking him a bit up to bring him back to consciousness.
But then I noticed something he was laying on. I rolled him over and saw a curious diamond-like rock with a sharp end. I quickly checked the medic’s back and as I feared, there was a deep wound.
“Stay with me!” I yelled at him. “Somebody help me here!”
The rest of the party was coming to as well, but didn’t notice the wounded medic until just now. Some weren’t able to get fully conscious of the situation, but the others who were came running immediately. I grabbed bandages from his kit and turned him around to start, but then I saw a shard of that diamond-like rock got stuck in his back. It must’ve broken off.
“Let me through”
Gretoh pushed away a few men to get a closer. When he saw the shard in the medic’s back, he froze though. After a short silence, he slowly kneeled down next to me.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t help him.”
I was amazed by what I just heard.
“Why? He’s wounded and needs help.”
Gretoh shook his head and turned the medic’s around again so his face would be shown. He had already passed away, since his eyes didn’t move anymore at all.
“That crystal rock he landed on was crystalized paramysa. It looks like diamond, but is very weak as a material. However, this does not mean its effects are weak as well.”
He took the medic’s body from my hands and put him to rest on the rubble.
“Apparently he landed on the rock, which broke off a shard that got stuck in the wound it created. When his organs were exposed to a pure paramysa shard, all life-essentials were drained from them, causing a quick but painful death.”
I looked at the body again, like so many were and couldn’t help but wonder how awful his last moments must’ve been.
“Meia bernennet alorn.” I prayed. “Rest in peace, my friend. Your efforts for our civilization will not be forgotten.”
The rest of the party, for as far as they were aware enough of the situation, repeated my prayers. I stood up and went to help the rest who weren’t completely conscious yet. Luckily nobody else was seriously hurt. One of the men was close to suffering the same fate as the medic, but missed the dreadful paramysa rocks by a few inches.
“Alright, everybody here?” I asked when we got everyone in the area on their feet.
Some were looking disappointed, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew what was on their mind.
“I know we lost a good friend in here, but I’m afraid we don’t have the time to give him a proper funeral just yet. But I promise you, we will give him every bit of respect he deserves once we’re done here.”
I took a small break to see how they were reacting. It wasn’t very positive, but it’s the best I could expect from a situation like this.
“Gretoh, what do you think just happened?”
He looked above for clues and replied “We should’ve predicted this.”
I looked up to try to see what he saw, while he faced me again.
“The teleporter was magic-driven. It was powered from our headquarters, so it was stable at that point. Normally, when the power is cut off, the portal automatically shuts down. But since this place isn’t magic-friendly, it must’ve ripped the portal apart when the power that kept it stabilized was cut off. Then the implosion created a shockwave strong enough to tremble the ruins to its literal downfall.”
Having that sorted out, I stopped looking up and started looking back at Gretoh again.
“Like I said, we should’ve predicted this.”
My mind went back to the corpse in the rubble, but I couldn’t show that to the rest. Gretoh knew me well enough to see right through me, so he helped me cover my thoughts by acting normal and focused on the mission. If he could do it, then so could I. I pulled myself together and started to think what I would’ve done if this was any other situation. Quite simple: I’d check the environment for clues where to go next.
We landed in a large manmade chamber. There was nothing added though, it was just plainly cut out of rock. Nevertheless, there were paramysa crystals sticking out the walls at several places. Finding out where to go next was also quite easy, since there was only one way out.
As you see, there's nothing survival-horror-ish about it ...yet!
Fun fact: I'm gonna put in a little plot-secret. You can't figure it out yet, but when the final submission is posted you will. Major respect for the person who can figure it out ^^ (it's really not easy, I can tell you that lol)
Chapter 1
“Alright, let’s see if there’s anything new we can work with. Come on.”I signal my second-in-command to follow me to the bridge.
It was busy at the Eye. People were walking all around the place with paperwork in their hands or analyzing the magic tablets that were placed orderly by the side. It’s no surprise it’s a busy place, but now it’s worse than usually.
The Eye was an underground observatory that uses magic to oversee anything and everything that happens in the outside world. We work here as part of an organization without an official name. After all, our existence is secret to anybody who lives outside. The people here seem to have grown fond of calling themselves and their colleagues Silent Gods. Somebody thought of that name a while back and it stuck. We observe the outside world and intervene if anything occurs that could threaten the existence of any of the factions. However, our policy demands that we don’t leave the slightest clue behind, should we be forced to intervene. We rarely have to, but it would explain why most people here name each other Silent Gods. The reason to our secrecy isn’t that hard to find either. If people know they’re being watched and ‘judged’, they will act unlike themselves. And for that, we have these magic tablets. They link to millions of places, but now they’re all fixed on a few specific areas.
As we pass through the door to the bridge, a tall man turns around to see who it is.
“Nothing yet, ma’am.” he tells me with a disillusioned expression on his face.
I asked him what we could’ve possibly overlooked, but he didn’t know the answer to that either.
“Ok, let’s retrace what has happened. There must be a reason.” I continued.
“Very well. It all started yesterday at 17:39.” the man said as he walked to a large map in the center of the room. He zoomed in on one of the 4 territories on the map and placed a couple of markers in it.
“When the troops of the Malgorn faction, led by general Creigo, marched into Gardona territory here, they slayed all scouting patrols they encountered. The Gardona faction didn’t expect an attack from them, but from the Jorph faction to the north. They reinforced their northern border with most of their troops, led by their general, general Stulliwyn.” he said while marking a large area on the edge of the map.
”By the time they got the message that they were under attack from the south, they were forced to get back to their capitol as soon as possible. This would’ve been a 3-day trip and they would never have arrived in time. General Creigo was well aware of this, so he marched towards the heart of the Malgorn Empire, slaying every battalion that tried to slow them down as much as possible.”
He moved the marker that represented the Malgorn army towards the center of the map and continued.
”This delay barely had any effect. In just 35 hours, general Creigo and his legion stood at the capitol walls. With the attack force he had at his disposal, he could’ve claimed the metropolis well before general Stulliwyn and his men would arrive.”
“But he didn’t.” I clarified. “Now the question is: Why?”
I lean over the map, looking for any clues that could even give the slightest hint to this strange behavior. They had nothing to fear and everything to gain.
“Did the intercepted orders enlighten anything, Uraph?” my second-in-command, Gretoh asked.
“Our spies got all orders they could find, but those only contain info about attacking the capitol.” the tall man replied. “There’s nothing that would point towards a retreat. The Calwax faction to the west didn’t show any sign of hostility, so they couldn’t have feared for an attack from them. Calwax also has no pacts with the other factions.”
Uraph takes a deep breath while looking at the map.
“It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“We must be overlooking something.” I said while joined him in staring at that wretched map. “You don’t just put your entire army behind enemy lines to reach the grand prize and leave without even touching it.”
“Uraph…” Gretoh suddenly said.
I looked at him and saw a glimpse on his face that would indicate he might have found a clue or something.
“Can you track down the current position of general Stulliwyn and his troops?” he continued.
“Yea, sure. Just a minute.”
Uraph went to one his private tablet to enter some data. The map was wiped of all markers and not much later, a new one appeared.
“What are they doing there?” I asked myself while curiously looking at the flashing area that just appeared.
“And now check the location of Malgorn’s armies.” Gretoh continued, still showing that same expression on his face.
A bit more data was entered in the tablet, and another market appeared.
“Are you sure that’s them?” I asked.
“Absolutely, ma’am. It seems that general Stulliwyn finds chasing the enemy more important than protecting his homeland.”
“No, they’re not moving fast enough to be hunting them. It’s nothing like a chase.”
We both looked curiously at Gretoh when he said those words. I didn’t make him my second-in-command for no reason. He has more military experience than anybody I’ve ever encountered, which is why this was so curious. If he says they’re not chasing, they’re not chasing. But what were they doing then?
As those thoughts passed my mind, I saw his posture change as if he had it all figured out. And he almost did.
“I know what pattern that is.” he mumbled, still trying to put the pieces together he just seem to have found. “They’re not hunting them… They are joining them.”
I was stunned by what he just said. I wanted to believe him like I always have, but this would be like defying the laws of nature.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war for over 25 years.” I said in disbelief.
“Besides, if there were orders like that sent to the armies, we would have known.” Uraph added to that.
That look Gretoh had didn’t change a bit after hearing that. He had a theory, and it was well grounded by the looks of it.
“Exactly!” he said.
He looked at me, and I noticed a glimpse of pride. He must’ve put all the pieces together, there’s no doubt about it.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war and they sent no orders. That’s because it’s not them. Gardona never could’ve sent a message to their army that fast. By the distance between the border and their current position, the Gardona army was already on its way when the city was reached by the Malgornian troops. They’re disobeying orders to protect the border.”
“What?” Uraph said shocked. “Then what about their defenses against the Jorphans?”
“See for yourself.”
Gretoh nodded to the tablet and Uraph understood he should track down the biggest army the Jorph Empire had outside their walls. A little bit later, a third point on the map started flashing. That one wasn’t where it was supposed to be either. As ironic as it may sound, it was all so strange that it actually started to make sense.
“Shall I track down the main Calwax army as well, just in case?” Uraph asked.
I nodded and a moment later, a fourth point was marked. As we all suspected, it was way out of its patrolling area.
“So it’s a military gathering of the entire continent, huh? But what will they be doing there? I’ll check if we had any relative intercepted messages from any of the other factions.”
I looked at Gretoh to see if he could save him the effort by explaining that as well, but he didn’t seem to have gotten that far in solving the riddle himself either.
With Uraph working on that, it was just Gretoh and me brainstorming around the map where 4 flashing strobes were slowly crawling towards the center. Every once in a while, I saw Gretoh focus on a part of the map, as if he had a clue, but then he figured it wasn’t possible and got back to his thinking position. This went on for almost half an hour and it was getting more and more frustrating by the minute.
“I checked everything trice, but not a single clue to any of this from any faction.” Uraph said as he came walking.
“What exactly did you check?” Gretoh asked.
Uraph obviously was frustrated by his failed efforts as well, because he took it as an assault against his skills.
“If you think I’m not able to do what I do, you’re welcome to take over any moment!”
“That’s not what I meant.” Gretoh said, remaining his cool. “I just wanted to know what you used as source.”
“Well, unless you know of more than 4 capitols from which they can send out orders, I think I got them all.”
I didn’t wanted to make Gretoh look like the guy who just barged in as the know-it-all, and I understood where he was going for, so I took over.
“Uraph, check the receivers instead. They might not be disobeying orders, but they may have received orders which overwrite their original ones. If that’s the case, it doesn’t have to mean the orders were sent from the capitols.”
Now Uraph understood what Gretoh meant, but also what he had to do. He rushed back to his tablet and calibrated it to track the receivers of the generals leading the armies while we waited anxiously for the results.
“Well, I got good news and bad news.” He said. “The good news is that they all did receive orders.”
“What were the orders?” I asked.
“Yea, that’s the bad news. I can only see they got orders, but I can’t open any.”
“We don’t have to read them.” Gretoh replied. “We already know half of the results. We just don’t know why they’re doing this. But there are more ways to find out.”
“That’s right.” I continued. “These orders must’ve been magically masked to avoid being detected by the headquarters of each faction. That means there must be traces of paramysa, the rare material that allows this kind of cloaking. Uraph, try to track back the original location from which the orders were sent by following those traces back to its source. If we go there, we might find out more about this wicked situation.”
He set to it immediately, but it was one hell of a job. Paramysa is so rare, there’s nobody specialized in it to help us track it down. Gretoh and I helped him by each settling behind another tablet and divide the chores. It still took us over an hour to get a rough location.
“There. I’ll place it on the map.”
We gathered around the map for a new evaluation. The armies were all dangerously close to each other. In less than an hour, they would reach the center, where now the 5th marker was placed. The marker that indicated the location from which the orders were sent.
“The Blind Ruins. This has got to be the worst case scenario.”
“That place negates all magic. We’ll be going in blind.”
“Hence the name.” Uraph replied as if he was stating the obvious.
“We don’t have a choice.” I interrupted. “There’s a problem that affects the entire continent and it involves the 4 biggest armies on it. They’re not doing as commanded by their home commands, and someone is trying very hard not to be found as cause of it all. To me that sounds like we got to do our jobs and do it fast.”
“We can’t send scouts ahead this time, because they can’t report back. Communications will be lost as soon as they arrive. And as just a scout team, they won’t be ready to defend themselves for whatever they encounter.” Uraph protested.
“No scouts this time. It’s just going to be Gretoh, me and our best first encounter party. We need to go in prepared for anything without having to rely on magic or magic-powered equipment.”
He didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t have to read his face to figure that out. This was a huge risk, but we had no time for alternatives or even thinking about possible alternatives. Luckily he saw this as well and went to assemble the party and get the gear prepared. Only 10 minutes later, we were all prepared and ready to be sent to the Ruins. Gretoh and I were standing with 6 of our best men on the teleportation platform.
“I don’t know if this’ll work, since the area we’re sending you to negates magic.”
“We will just have to be lucky then.” I confidently said.
I gave the signal and a few seconds later, a concentration of magic created an orb of energy above us. Not much later, the orb expanded drastically until we were all engulfed by its light.
Chapter 2
As soon as the light started to fade, we all took standard defensive positions. Mere seconds later, the brightness reduced enough to see the place was deserted.“What the…”
The ground started to shake and some of us were losing balance. I got down on one knee to take a better stance. I looked around to see who or what could be causing this, but there was nothing in sight but old ruins. Half of the party was starting to look more worried, while the other half was starting to look more alert. Suddenly, a loud bang caught us off guard and we all covered our ears. The ground started to tremble under our feet, and with everyone focused on keeping their eardrums intact, nobody could brace themselves. We fell a few dozen meters as the light above us faded completely away.
“Ugh…” I heard some people mumbling.
I tried to move, but there was something holding me back. With too much dust around, I didn’t open my eyes, so I just felt what it was. It seemed like a weighty chunk of rock. With a firm push, I got it off of me and when I stood up I noticed that I surprisingly wasn’t very injured. I checked again, but there were only some scratches and bruises. The next thing I noticed was one of the others shivering on the floor without any visible wounds. Still half dazed, I struggled to him. By the looks of the equipment, he was the medic.
“Snap out of it.” I said while shaking him a bit up to bring him back to consciousness.
But then I noticed something he was laying on. I rolled him over and saw a curious diamond-like rock with a sharp end. I quickly checked the medic’s back and as I feared, there was a deep wound.
“Stay with me!” I yelled at him. “Somebody help me here!”
The rest of the party was coming to as well, but didn’t notice the wounded medic until just now. Some weren’t able to get fully conscious of the situation, but the others who were came running immediately. I grabbed bandages from his kit and turned him around to start, but then I saw a shard of that diamond-like rock got stuck in his back. It must’ve broken off.
“Let me through”
Gretoh pushed away a few men to get a closer. When he saw the shard in the medic’s back, he froze though. After a short silence, he slowly kneeled down next to me.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t help him.”
I was amazed by what I just heard.
“Why? He’s wounded and needs help.”
Gretoh shook his head and turned the medic’s around again so his face would be shown. He had already passed away, since his eyes didn’t move anymore at all.
“That crystal rock he landed on was crystalized paramysa. It looks like diamond, but is very weak as a material. However, this does not mean its effects are weak as well.”
He took the medic’s body from my hands and put him to rest on the rubble.
“Apparently he landed on the rock, which broke off a shard that got stuck in the wound it created. When his organs were exposed to a pure paramysa shard, all life-essentials were drained from them, causing a quick but painful death.”
I looked at the body again, like so many were and couldn’t help but wonder how awful his last moments must’ve been.
“Meia bernennet alorn.” I prayed. “Rest in peace, my friend. Your efforts for our civilization will not be forgotten.”
The rest of the party, for as far as they were aware enough of the situation, repeated my prayers. I stood up and went to help the rest who weren’t completely conscious yet. Luckily nobody else was seriously hurt. One of the men was close to suffering the same fate as the medic, but missed the dreadful paramysa rocks by a few inches.
“Alright, everybody here?” I asked when we got everyone in the area on their feet.
Some were looking disappointed, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew what was on their mind.
“I know we lost a good friend in here, but I’m afraid we don’t have the time to give him a proper funeral just yet. But I promise you, we will give him every bit of respect he deserves once we’re done here.”
I took a small break to see how they were reacting. It wasn’t very positive, but it’s the best I could expect from a situation like this.
“Gretoh, what do you think just happened?”
He looked above for clues and replied “We should’ve predicted this.”
I looked up to try to see what he saw, while he faced me again.
“The teleporter was magic-driven. It was powered from our headquarters, so it was stable at that point. Normally, when the power is cut off, the portal automatically shuts down. But since this place isn’t magic-friendly, it must’ve ripped the portal apart when the power that kept it stabilized was cut off. Then the implosion created a shockwave strong enough to tremble the ruins to its literal downfall.”
Having that sorted out, I stopped looking up and started looking back at Gretoh again.
“Like I said, we should’ve predicted this.”
My mind went back to the corpse in the rubble, but I couldn’t show that to the rest. Gretoh knew me well enough to see right through me, so he helped me cover my thoughts by acting normal and focused on the mission. If he could do it, then so could I. I pulled myself together and started to think what I would’ve done if this was any other situation. Quite simple: I’d check the environment for clues where to go next.
We landed in a large manmade chamber. There was nothing added though, it was just plainly cut out of rock. Nevertheless, there were paramysa crystals sticking out the walls at several places. Finding out where to go next was also quite easy, since there was only one way out.
As you see, there's nothing survival-horror-ish about it ...yet!
Fun fact: I'm gonna put in a little plot-secret. You can't figure it out yet, but when the final submission is posted you will. Major respect for the person who can figure it out ^^ (it's really not easy, I can tell you that lol)
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Guys... This contest needs to be extended.
One thing is that we have lots of people who would very much like to compete but arent finished.
Another thing is that we 'got no judges. So declaring the contest finished is silly.
About the fairness of extending the contest i see NOTHING wrong with it.
It wont make the already finished stories' any worse, and the people who wrote them even have more time to read 'em through and maybe tune them abit.
Personally i'm not handing in mine before tomorrow. 'jest incase i wanna edit something. ^^
You COULD argue that extending the contest allows people to spend more time on their entries and this increase the overall quality, but most of the people that need an extension will be spending the time on finishing the story, not polishing it.
Also, the people who are already finished have all the opportunities in the world to polish their stories even more in the extra time.
Sooo... I dont really see anything foul in getting it extended.
Unless EVERYONE still disagrees with this then i will PM pyritie.
One thing is that we have lots of people who would very much like to compete but arent finished.
Another thing is that we 'got no judges. So declaring the contest finished is silly.
About the fairness of extending the contest i see NOTHING wrong with it.
It wont make the already finished stories' any worse, and the people who wrote them even have more time to read 'em through and maybe tune them abit.
Personally i'm not handing in mine before tomorrow. 'jest incase i wanna edit something. ^^
You COULD argue that extending the contest allows people to spend more time on their entries and this increase the overall quality, but most of the people that need an extension will be spending the time on finishing the story, not polishing it.
Also, the people who are already finished have all the opportunities in the world to polish their stories even more in the extra time.
Sooo... I dont really see anything foul in getting it extended.
Unless EVERYONE still disagrees with this then i will PM pyritie.
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I totally agree on extending it, at least 3 days.
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- 2,999
Come on, wanna read some sh-stuff
Extend it to saturday 11:59PM - That way if you have judges, they could get stuck in, mon-fri is obviously more problematic
Oh really? What is a 'plot-secret'? I'll see if I can find it =D
Extend it to saturday 11:59PM - That way if you have judges, they could get stuck in, mon-fri is obviously more problematic
Oh really? What is a 'plot-secret'? I'll see if I can find it =D
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- Aug 23, 2008
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- 2,319
I'd like an extension. I can imagine why it's not fair to the ones who already finished their submissions, because they did keep to the deadline. But what's more important is healthy competition, and since there's no judge and plenty of potential work out there that people want to finish, I'd say an extension would be well in place
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okay, extension time
you now have until the end of the weekend
you now have until the end of the weekend
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I'll probably judge this if i don't have a submission by the weekend.
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Yes an extension!
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Thanks Pyr.
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What day is it here on THW?
Is it Thursday still or Friday?
Is it Thursday still or Friday?
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According to the deadline, which is in GMT, it's friday now. The time is 13:39 in the same timezone.
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So our time here is later then the time here.
That means I still have time.
That means I still have time.
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You had time either way. The contest has been extended by 2 days. So 2 days, 9 hours and 10 minutes from now is the new deadline.
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Going to turn to the dark side and churn out a crappy story in two days that probably can't be recognized as a horror story, but meh it's fun ^^
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click the "GMT" link in the first post
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WIP #2 and I've also drew Rick, the main character.
I’ve been shattered in my life for too long. Since I was a kid I got beat up by bullies almost every single day. As there were no one to protect me, I’d come home bruised and bleeding and if I am lucky I would come back with just a scratch and a tear in my eye. My mother, Sofia died. She had a heart disease. My father, David was an alcoholic, a bar drunk, he used to go out every day and come back in the morning completely wasted without any money. Sofia was crying every night because of that, she tried to help him but he refused. She got beaten up and had scars all over her body from David, my dad. But nevertheless when she died he hanged himself leaving me and my brother Tom all alone. Tom took care of me until was sixteen years old.
One day he told me he was going to the shop to buy milk and bread. He went and never came back. I waited for him to come back weeks, months. I cried and prayed all alone in my dark, dirty, decaying room, thinking about what happened, why has god punished and abandoned me but it didn’t help. On that day I’ve decided I need to take control over my life and start living again. I remember my brother saying how London was the best place to go if you wanted a nice job and pleasant life. He was telling me that couple of times after a bed time story. Later I made up my mind to become a police officer so I signed up in the cop academy. Three years have passed since then. I’ve been serving the people alongside the sheriff in [Baltimore].
The new product of shampoo, makes your hair shine twice as much.. I can’t believe this crap, why do they even bother putting this shit into the newspapers?! Oh god, I’m so bored! When are we going to land, we’ve been flying for more than ten hours now and this guy sitting next to me, uh, stinks like a hobo. I-I wonder if he’s dead, he’s been sleeping like a baby for more than seven hours, I can’t take it anymore. I clicked the button above my seat and in a few seconds, the stewardess came and asked me if I needed anything.
I responded: When the hell are we arriving at London?! And tell this smelly piece of shit that’s sleeping next
to me to take a freakin’ bath or move him to another seat because I can’t take this stench anymore? She told me to stay calm and relax, that in just a few minutes we’ll be landing in London airport.
As she started to walk away I looked to my right through the foggy window and I saw some black shady thing. I wiped my eyes and thought I was going crazy for a moment so I tried calming myself down saying “relax Rick, everything is going to be fine, you just need to get outta this plane”. Suddenly I felt something heavy on my right shoulder, as I turned my head to see what it was I found the smelly guy’s head leaned on my shoulder. That was it, I freaked out and stood up. The guy fell on my seat, so I shouted “mam, this guy isn’t feeling well, get some help.” The stewardess came to see what was happening and checked his temperature by putting her hands on his forehead and she looked at me and said “he’s cold like a dead person!”. She asked me have I done anything to him. As I was standing shocked looking at the man suddenly opening his mouth and grabbing the woman with his hands and so quickly he pulled her onto his lap and started to eat her head, brain to be exact. Blood was spraying everywhere. I couldn’t believe my eyes, the plane started to shake and the lights were going on and off while some of the people were screaming others were praying. It was all like a fire alarm mixed with a terrorist attack. I pulled out my gun as I was holding onto an empty seat that was next to me. I started to shoot at the man but only to see that the body of the stewardess was lying on the floor. The cannibal man probably went to search for another victim while I was in panic. I realized it was a waste of time to look for him so I went to the pilot’s cockpit.
I was running at my full speed. When I was meters away I saw the door of the pilot room knocked down. As I was walking in I saw him on his chair spinning around without a head and with his insides and blood dripping all over the floor. I threw up instantly but grabbed a hold of myself when I saw that the plain was going to crash into a forest ahead of us.
Desperately I tried controlling the plane without any knowledge whatsoever. My heart was pounding like never before. Somehow with all of the screaming, I heard someone coming in. I pointed my gun, stood up and turned around as fast as I could and before I started to shoot I saw an old man. One of his arms was badly injured and as he started to walk closer to me I said stay back or I’ll shoot!
Out of his dry old lips he started to talk:
I was once a war pilot, I’ll get us down, you’re too young and your purpose of life is much more important than mine. I’ve served my time boy and I will gladly die as a pride pilot than a cowardly old geezer!
I was surprised at the old man’s decision; I thanked him, tapping him on the shoulder as I walked out of the cabin. I started to run and shout “people, stay calm! We are about to la...!?”
Something grabbed my leg and pulled me with such strength like I was tied to a horse. I turned to find out that an old woman was pulling me.
She was covered in blood, crawling naked without a leg. It seemed like she was mutating, half of her head was like it was pulled inside out.
I fired my gun at her with no hesitation. As my bullet went through her head, her brain blew up and created a big splash of blood on the wall behind her. I felt like I was going backwards and as soon as noticed that the plane was about to land, I grabbed a hold to a bar as fast as I could. As I was about
to die I said “Sorry brother, I couldn’t find you!” I closed my eyes and in a few moments everything went quiet, I opened my eyes and it flashed white.
I started hearing very familiar voices in my head saying mom, stop playing with Rick, It is lunch time! Rick, go to your room, now! Mom, you’re father and me have something important to tell you? You are…., Mom don’t leave me, MUUUM!? Son, she is gone now. Lunch is served my little brother! Dad, dad, not you too! Oh god why are you punishing me? First my mother and now this? Okay, I’ll be waiting for you here, don’t take too long?
Blackness was slowly covering my view and I knew I was going to end
my life but then suddenly.. It flashed white again and I saw that cannibal guy in front of me. For some reason I said “Die monster!” Splash! I started questioning myself where I am? Where is this place? I’ve never seen it before and why is my body controlling itself?!
I was surrounded in ruins, explosions were all around me and the sky was red.
Dust and blood in the wind was blowing and the sound of killing and screaming was the only thing I could hear. Someone was running beside me, as my body moved uncontrollably I was only seeing what my eyes would let me and speak what my mouth would say.
I was running like I had six legs, jumping ten meters high in the air, grabbing onto ruined buildings with my claws and running on them. I couldn’t believe it. When I looked above I saw something enormous, it was bigger than a sky scraper. I jumped on it’s leg, my arm turned into a big black spike and it started stabbing it but it seemed it didn’t have any effect. My partner that was next to me boosted me and I jumped onto the giants shoulder, and as I ran, I encountered some slugs coming out of the giant’s shoulder, I quickly got rid of them by pulling spikes out of the it.
As I started to run, the giant’s hand was about to squash me. I’ve raised my hands above and tried to resist the giant’s hand but it seemed like it was over, I couldn’t resist it’s power. Every memory in my head started to flashback but suddenly I heard Tom. He was saying wake up! You must survive! You’re the only one who is…
I started opening my eyes and saw a middle aged man giving me CPR. He had a grizzled beard and sadness in his eyes. When I realized I was alive I quickly took a few steps back and stood up. I asked him what happened and where we were? He was heavily breathing and responded quickly “we have not time for this boy! Follow me, NOW! “
It was cold like I was back in northern Canada, surrounded by giant naked trees. Fire was everywhere and so were dead bodies. I looked at my hands, as blood was dripping out of them I told myself, I am not gonna die here!
I did what the old grizzled man said and I followed him. I squeezed my hands and started running. Looking ahead, and realizing that I was slowly falling back.
I heard something gaining up behind me. Splashing in the mud, like it had four legs, it was making loud growling noises. I turned my head to see what it was, a black wolf with teeth almost big as dinosaur’s and saber-like fangs. The wolf was covered in blood, and was filthy like it ate a pile of corpse. While I was running my adrenaline started rising. Fast as I could I started searching for my gun and remembering that I left it in the plane. As I was looking backwards the old grizzled man yelled “get in fast!” I looked ahead and saw a small old wooden hut. We got in and shut the door hoping that the wolf would back off. But In a few seconds the wolf started jumping and attacking the door with great force.
The old man yelled “I’ll hold the door, find something to kill the beast, and fast!!” I started to panic and rushed into a pile of trash hoping to find a weapon. Old wore out clothes, pictures of kids, spider webs, a lot of dust, all in a big pile on the floor, but no weapons.
The wolf stopped attacking the door, and in a few seconds I heard it squeal like it was being attacked by someone or something. The old man opened the door to see what happened but as far as I could see there was nothing outside, only blood. The old man shut the door and stood silently like he was frozen.
I heard running, something was coming and fast. I quickly opened the wardrobe to search for a weapon. I heard the window break in pieces and something stepping in. I turned around and saw a monstrous thing attacking the old man. I heisted and started throwing the clothes that were in the wardrobe. I saw a box in the back, crossed my fingers and opened it: a revolver gun and with 3 bullets next to it. The old man was holding off the monster on the floor and yelling hurry! I recharged the gun and hoped it would work, fired the first bullet and shot in the monsters head. The bullet went straight through it, and still the monster didn’t stop. It looked at me, like it knew me, it stood up and said “ Yougggh,” “ You betrayed us, now you’ll pay”. He started running at me and I shot but missed. Last bullet, I shoot again and missed. As he jumped a spike went through his heart.
It fell on me and I lost balance and fell down on the floor. The monster was lying on top of me. It opened its eyes and started to talk “They are looking for you, you are dead already.” He closed his eyes and I pushed him aside and slowly stood up. The old man asked me what was the monster saying and who was looking for me. I had no idea myself, without an answer I left the cabin shocked. I thought “could this have something to do with my dream earlier?” We started heading north, to London. As we were going, we saw a small town. We started running towards it, happy like heaven was awaiting us there.
But someone whispered though loud enough to hear “stop”. We stopped, the next thing we heard is “over here”. We followed the sound and found a young girl. I asked her “why aren’t you in the village girl” she was breathing heavily and said “I was running away from mommy, please tell her to stop… She attacked dad and now she is looking for me” We were not sure if she was just imagining things or was she telling the truth but we figured if everything that happened from now is true and why wouldn’t this be? The old men told me he was going to stay with the girl to protect her and that I should go ahead and see if anyone is alive in the village and return safely.
As I sneaked into the village I saw a lot of people moaning and slowly limping through the streets. As much as they looked alive they were dead I was sure of it. There was no way for me to get in without getting noticed. I observed the village carefully: a bar on the left side, a lot of houses on the right, wait, is that a gun shop?! Bingo! I sneaked through narrow passages, behind the barrels, underneath the cars, climbed the stairs, walked on the roofs, and through the chimney I went in. As I fell down, dust went in my through so I started coughing. I peeled the skin of my hands while I was trying to slow the fall before hitting my ass on a pile of wood. But I failed and caused more injury and noise then I would cause if I ran straight through the front door with a siren turned on.
Moaning got louder and more psychotic and all eyes were on me. I grabbed a crowbar that was next to me and swung it a few times as a warm up as I got up. I quickly jumped over the bar sliding like it was oiled up and stabbed the moaning zombie in it’s head and yelled “Shut the fuck up you bastard” I turned on the radio and my favorite song was on “Enter Sandman from Metallica”. I got ready to stab the other zombie but I felt sorry for it, she had a beautiful body and face which is rare for a zombie It’s embarrassing but I fell in love and It was actually a pity to kill her. So I managed to hold her hands off an’ put a tape over her mouth, tie her hands with a dusty old rope and I shut her in the cabin behind me.
I taped the dust of my palms on my chest. I took what guns were there and packed my pockets with a lot of ammo. As in the song went the words “I tuck you in, keep you warm within, keep you free from the sin, till the sand man coo….knocking down the door with my leg…oomees” and said “WHO WAAAANTS SOMEEEEE??!!” I pulled both of my rifles from my back and started shooting the brainless zombies while slowly walking forward. Every zombie in the town started walking towards me, their number kept growing. The idea wasn’t turning out good as I thought it would. I had to recharge but with no time as the zombies were getting at me.
I used the rifles as weapons and started stabbing each zombie, two by two. While I was concentrating on killing zombies that were in front of me a zombie managed to grab one of my rifles from the back and started pulling it. I kicked it in it’s mother fucking ugly face with my leg. I let go of the rifles and pulled out two revolvers from my gun holders. As I started to shot, some deep loud voice said “STOP”. Every zombie stopped in the village from moving a muscle. I looked above and on the top of the roof I saw a demon, he didn’t look much like the ordinary mutating creatures. He had a scarf on his eye, long black hair, vampire’s teeth and a big black cape covering half of the dark blue sky.
He jumped down elegantly without making any noise. I said to myself “Damn, I’m screwed”. The demon asked me “Who dares to enter my town?” I looked at him and yelled “This ain’t your town ugly bastard, get the fuck out or deal with me”. He started walking towards me, “I know you, your Darvin, they called you the death itself. I’d recognize you anywhere, haha!” I freaked out and asked myself “How the fuck do these creeps know me?” “Foolish, foolish Darvin, you don’t remember me do you?, we were like brothers back then, fighting and covering each others backs. But I’ve accepted an offer and now my power is stronger, my knowledge goes beyond eternity and my satisfaction for killing is bigger then ever!
Join me Darvin and we could have an immortal life together. “Man screw you, I didn’t come her to chit-chat” I pointed my gun at his forehead. ”Bed time passed buddy” I started shooting rapidly but somehow every time he dodged the bullet. “It’s useless Darvin, join me, and you will have the life you dreamed of, or die as the human scum you are now!” He vanished into thin air, and in a moment he grabbed me from behind. He held my hands tight. I struggled but it was no use, soon his fangs started growing, they went deep through my skin. Blood started coming out but something went through my body, something strange a felling that I’ve only felt when I was a small child. “Can you feel it Darvin, the rage going through your body, the power, everything you wanted to be.
My heart started pumping, this strength, I felt it in my dream earlier. My heart beat started rising and my skin felt strange. Veins on my body started appearing, you could actually see how blood is going through them. I asked the Demon “Hey chump, you never told me your name?” “Fadescar it is”, “Okay “Fadescar” time for you to go back from where you came from” I suddenly pulled my hands with great power forward freeing myself and kicking him in his stomach with my elbow. He coughed and said “Yes, that’s it: cough:”. I turned around and said “This ends now” I pulled out a gun from my belt and pointed at the center of his forehead while he was grabbing his stomach from the last hit. “Say good bye Faddy” A purple aura around the gun was glowing. I shot the demon and with great speed he went through the house behind him destroying it like it was made out of cards.
The power in my veins slowly started vanishing and my heart beat was going slower and slower. The aura from the gun was gone and I shot the zombies that were around with the remaining bullets I had. I looked around and went into the closest car. A body was lying there and as I started pulling it, it grabbed a hold on me. It opened it mouth and tried to say something but I didn’t care much so I pulled her out and threw her down on the ground smashing her skull open with my leg. I got in the car and realized I needed keys to start the engine. I opened the door again, pulled the lady back in and I looked over her body to find the key and so I did.
My hand was shaking, I wanted to put the key in the lock fast as I could but I missed a few times. Zombies had already started crawling on my car. Finally I got the key in right, I started the engine and did a little road cleaning. I drove with full speed to the place where I left the old guy and the girl and just in time I came because they had some uninvited guests. I opened the door for them and said “get in”. They ran and got in as fast as they could, shut the door and I started to drive.
“Soon it will be night fall, who know what creatures lurk then. I never asked you, what’s your name senior?” I asked “ “You can call me Bill. While I was driving I searched the car around for a map and found it under a cross underneath the seat. “Only 20 more kilometers to London”, I turned on the radio for any news, but every station was offline expect this one. “Shhhhh…we….shhhh….might have….shhh….come to…shhhh….there is no wa….shhh…I repea…shhh…come to…shhh…the radio…shhh…buildi….shhhh…radi…shhh…Frank….shhh…military…shhh…goin…shhh…s…sh..outh…..”
“Frank? My brother must be there! Does anyone of you know about the Frank station?” “Actually, it’s the “Franky” station, the most popular station in the London.” “ Okay lets see on this map, if we gooo here, and turn right here, we should be stopping somewhere here considering that the London is full of zombies. Okaaay, here is how the plan goes, we stop a kilometer from London here, walk from there, sneak our way to a roof top, observe the place and then head for the Franky station and if we are lucky we might run into the military!” While driving through the woods, I heard a voice, it was whispering with an echo voice. “Does anyone hear that?”, “Hear what, Rick?” “Ahhhgg.” I pulled over the car.
My head started to hurt, like it was about to explode. I closed my eyes for a moment hopping it would hurt less when I opened them, I was in another place pushing something above my head. The power that I’ve felt while fighting the Demon Fladescar, I felt it again. I found myself under the giant’s hand, I pushed it from me and jumped from it’s shoulder and tossed a long black chain out my palm and started spinning it around the giant’s neck cutting it off and jumping on the ground. What I saw ahead of me was thousands of more same giants heading towards me. I said “Fladescar, we need to finish this fast or else we will not be able to stop these abominations”. We headed towards a big creator. My inner power started growing, every step I took closer to the creator I felt stronger and stronger. It seemed as if I was in London or am I imagining things , hardly recognizable when everything is in ruins.
When we arrived to the creator we jumped in the air hundreds of meter high. The view was horrible from up there, nothing was standing. Even the mountains were crushed down into piles of dust and the sky had vanished and was black. I spin myself and rushed into the hole of the creator. The creator looked like it was alive, pumping or were we actually going into a big monster? Just meters before entering the empty black hole it flashed white and I appeared in the car. Opening my eyes slowly, Bill and the small girl who I never asked her name was beside me and shaking me. I looked at both of my hands for a moment, they started to hurt. Black fading veins started appearing on my hands. I was a few seconds from screaming but I manned up and held the pain inside me. The veins started fading and were soon gone. Bill started questioning me “What are does big black dots on your hands and what are does black veins around them?”.
I ignored the problem and said “nothing, just something, lets continue driving” Bill for some reason was caring for me and asked me do I want him to drive. “No, I’ll drive”.
After the painful trip, we’ve arrived at the map’s location or I think we did. I stepped out of the car followed by Bill and the small girl. When I looked at London city a desperate feeling came out of me suddenly. As far as I could see, an ocean of zombies was limping through the streets. I couldn’t believe it. “Where is my brother, I hope he is still alive”.
We've heard a noise coming from the city. It sounded like someone was shooting rapidly without stopping. We rushed hoping it would be the military but only to find three people fighting off a horde of zombies. We started running towards them to help even if we didn’t have any weapons whatsoever. One of them started shooting at us, I yelled “stop” but it was too late. I drank a bullet in my left shoulder. I didn’t stop, I yelled again, “We are human”. The guy squinted and yelled “Run, fast and don’t look behind”.
We trusted him and started running towards them. The expression on their face was no good, they started running themselves for a barricaded building with heavy metal doors. The ground was shaking for some reason and the feeling was coming from behind us. It seemed as if I was the only one running, I looked back and saw the little girl fallen down to the ground, she must have tripped. Bill stopped to help her but something grabbed him even dough I couldn’t see what it was, bill was hanging upside down hanging on his leg. I rushed and helped the girl to get up. I couldn’t tell the girl to run alone, a lot of zombies were coming in. Bill shouted “Go without me, save the girl” I looked at him and a saw a brave man saying honorable words, I smiled at him.
I lifted the girl up and carried her to the barricaded building. Before entering in I looked back to see Bill but sadly I didn’t see him, then I knew he was dead . The ground started shaking again, cars were being thrown around, trees falling down, street lamps falling down and getting bend. We hurried and entered the metal door and one of the three men closed the door and all we heard was one strong hit on the other side of the door. I asked him “what the fuck was it?”. “A stalker, it’s invisible and enormous.
I asked them about their hide out, who are they and what were they doing here. I got short and direct answers. They got supplies to last them a month, they are men from a nearby village and they came here for hope to find someone. I told them about the Franky station and they were surprised to hear about it. They offered me food, bread and milk to be exact. I ate it all, a licked the plate off. One of the men told me to follow them to a room where I could sleep with the girl. Electricity was forbidden from being used at night, it lures zombies and other creatures that are lurking at night.
I undressed and took a shower in the tub. Hot water, I relaxed the first time in the day but still, my mind was full of bothersome thoughts from all that happened. I left Bill to die, I could have saved him or at least I could have tried. The memories that keep appearing what are they. It seems like every time I get closer to London they happen more often. They never happened to me before like that in Baltimore, really strange. I got out of the tub, and went in bed. I tucked the girl in and myself in and fallen asleep.
To be continued…..
The character doesn't look the best but gives you some kind of image that I had of him in my mind.
I've made it less of a text wall. Somehow in the Word it looks nicer. =/
I’ve been shattered in my life for too long. Since I was a kid I got beat up by bullies almost every single day. As there were no one to protect me, I’d come home bruised and bleeding and if I am lucky I would come back with just a scratch and a tear in my eye. My mother, Sofia died. She had a heart disease. My father, David was an alcoholic, a bar drunk, he used to go out every day and come back in the morning completely wasted without any money. Sofia was crying every night because of that, she tried to help him but he refused. She got beaten up and had scars all over her body from David, my dad. But nevertheless when she died he hanged himself leaving me and my brother Tom all alone. Tom took care of me until was sixteen years old.
One day he told me he was going to the shop to buy milk and bread. He went and never came back. I waited for him to come back weeks, months. I cried and prayed all alone in my dark, dirty, decaying room, thinking about what happened, why has god punished and abandoned me but it didn’t help. On that day I’ve decided I need to take control over my life and start living again. I remember my brother saying how London was the best place to go if you wanted a nice job and pleasant life. He was telling me that couple of times after a bed time story. Later I made up my mind to become a police officer so I signed up in the cop academy. Three years have passed since then. I’ve been serving the people alongside the sheriff in [Baltimore].
The new product of shampoo, makes your hair shine twice as much.. I can’t believe this crap, why do they even bother putting this shit into the newspapers?! Oh god, I’m so bored! When are we going to land, we’ve been flying for more than ten hours now and this guy sitting next to me, uh, stinks like a hobo. I-I wonder if he’s dead, he’s been sleeping like a baby for more than seven hours, I can’t take it anymore. I clicked the button above my seat and in a few seconds, the stewardess came and asked me if I needed anything.
I responded: When the hell are we arriving at London?! And tell this smelly piece of shit that’s sleeping next
to me to take a freakin’ bath or move him to another seat because I can’t take this stench anymore? She told me to stay calm and relax, that in just a few minutes we’ll be landing in London airport.
As she started to walk away I looked to my right through the foggy window and I saw some black shady thing. I wiped my eyes and thought I was going crazy for a moment so I tried calming myself down saying “relax Rick, everything is going to be fine, you just need to get outta this plane”. Suddenly I felt something heavy on my right shoulder, as I turned my head to see what it was I found the smelly guy’s head leaned on my shoulder. That was it, I freaked out and stood up. The guy fell on my seat, so I shouted “mam, this guy isn’t feeling well, get some help.” The stewardess came to see what was happening and checked his temperature by putting her hands on his forehead and she looked at me and said “he’s cold like a dead person!”. She asked me have I done anything to him. As I was standing shocked looking at the man suddenly opening his mouth and grabbing the woman with his hands and so quickly he pulled her onto his lap and started to eat her head, brain to be exact. Blood was spraying everywhere. I couldn’t believe my eyes, the plane started to shake and the lights were going on and off while some of the people were screaming others were praying. It was all like a fire alarm mixed with a terrorist attack. I pulled out my gun as I was holding onto an empty seat that was next to me. I started to shoot at the man but only to see that the body of the stewardess was lying on the floor. The cannibal man probably went to search for another victim while I was in panic. I realized it was a waste of time to look for him so I went to the pilot’s cockpit.
I was running at my full speed. When I was meters away I saw the door of the pilot room knocked down. As I was walking in I saw him on his chair spinning around without a head and with his insides and blood dripping all over the floor. I threw up instantly but grabbed a hold of myself when I saw that the plain was going to crash into a forest ahead of us.
Desperately I tried controlling the plane without any knowledge whatsoever. My heart was pounding like never before. Somehow with all of the screaming, I heard someone coming in. I pointed my gun, stood up and turned around as fast as I could and before I started to shoot I saw an old man. One of his arms was badly injured and as he started to walk closer to me I said stay back or I’ll shoot!
Out of his dry old lips he started to talk:
I was once a war pilot, I’ll get us down, you’re too young and your purpose of life is much more important than mine. I’ve served my time boy and I will gladly die as a pride pilot than a cowardly old geezer!
I was surprised at the old man’s decision; I thanked him, tapping him on the shoulder as I walked out of the cabin. I started to run and shout “people, stay calm! We are about to la...!?”
Something grabbed my leg and pulled me with such strength like I was tied to a horse. I turned to find out that an old woman was pulling me.
She was covered in blood, crawling naked without a leg. It seemed like she was mutating, half of her head was like it was pulled inside out.
I fired my gun at her with no hesitation. As my bullet went through her head, her brain blew up and created a big splash of blood on the wall behind her. I felt like I was going backwards and as soon as noticed that the plane was about to land, I grabbed a hold to a bar as fast as I could. As I was about
to die I said “Sorry brother, I couldn’t find you!” I closed my eyes and in a few moments everything went quiet, I opened my eyes and it flashed white.
I started hearing very familiar voices in my head saying mom, stop playing with Rick, It is lunch time! Rick, go to your room, now! Mom, you’re father and me have something important to tell you? You are…., Mom don’t leave me, MUUUM!? Son, she is gone now. Lunch is served my little brother! Dad, dad, not you too! Oh god why are you punishing me? First my mother and now this? Okay, I’ll be waiting for you here, don’t take too long?
Blackness was slowly covering my view and I knew I was going to end
my life but then suddenly.. It flashed white again and I saw that cannibal guy in front of me. For some reason I said “Die monster!” Splash! I started questioning myself where I am? Where is this place? I’ve never seen it before and why is my body controlling itself?!
I was surrounded in ruins, explosions were all around me and the sky was red.
Dust and blood in the wind was blowing and the sound of killing and screaming was the only thing I could hear. Someone was running beside me, as my body moved uncontrollably I was only seeing what my eyes would let me and speak what my mouth would say.
I was running like I had six legs, jumping ten meters high in the air, grabbing onto ruined buildings with my claws and running on them. I couldn’t believe it. When I looked above I saw something enormous, it was bigger than a sky scraper. I jumped on it’s leg, my arm turned into a big black spike and it started stabbing it but it seemed it didn’t have any effect. My partner that was next to me boosted me and I jumped onto the giants shoulder, and as I ran, I encountered some slugs coming out of the giant’s shoulder, I quickly got rid of them by pulling spikes out of the it.
As I started to run, the giant’s hand was about to squash me. I’ve raised my hands above and tried to resist the giant’s hand but it seemed like it was over, I couldn’t resist it’s power. Every memory in my head started to flashback but suddenly I heard Tom. He was saying wake up! You must survive! You’re the only one who is…
I started opening my eyes and saw a middle aged man giving me CPR. He had a grizzled beard and sadness in his eyes. When I realized I was alive I quickly took a few steps back and stood up. I asked him what happened and where we were? He was heavily breathing and responded quickly “we have not time for this boy! Follow me, NOW! “
It was cold like I was back in northern Canada, surrounded by giant naked trees. Fire was everywhere and so were dead bodies. I looked at my hands, as blood was dripping out of them I told myself, I am not gonna die here!
I did what the old grizzled man said and I followed him. I squeezed my hands and started running. Looking ahead, and realizing that I was slowly falling back.
I heard something gaining up behind me. Splashing in the mud, like it had four legs, it was making loud growling noises. I turned my head to see what it was, a black wolf with teeth almost big as dinosaur’s and saber-like fangs. The wolf was covered in blood, and was filthy like it ate a pile of corpse. While I was running my adrenaline started rising. Fast as I could I started searching for my gun and remembering that I left it in the plane. As I was looking backwards the old grizzled man yelled “get in fast!” I looked ahead and saw a small old wooden hut. We got in and shut the door hoping that the wolf would back off. But In a few seconds the wolf started jumping and attacking the door with great force.
The old man yelled “I’ll hold the door, find something to kill the beast, and fast!!” I started to panic and rushed into a pile of trash hoping to find a weapon. Old wore out clothes, pictures of kids, spider webs, a lot of dust, all in a big pile on the floor, but no weapons.
The wolf stopped attacking the door, and in a few seconds I heard it squeal like it was being attacked by someone or something. The old man opened the door to see what happened but as far as I could see there was nothing outside, only blood. The old man shut the door and stood silently like he was frozen.
I heard running, something was coming and fast. I quickly opened the wardrobe to search for a weapon. I heard the window break in pieces and something stepping in. I turned around and saw a monstrous thing attacking the old man. I heisted and started throwing the clothes that were in the wardrobe. I saw a box in the back, crossed my fingers and opened it: a revolver gun and with 3 bullets next to it. The old man was holding off the monster on the floor and yelling hurry! I recharged the gun and hoped it would work, fired the first bullet and shot in the monsters head. The bullet went straight through it, and still the monster didn’t stop. It looked at me, like it knew me, it stood up and said “ Yougggh,” “ You betrayed us, now you’ll pay”. He started running at me and I shot but missed. Last bullet, I shoot again and missed. As he jumped a spike went through his heart.
It fell on me and I lost balance and fell down on the floor. The monster was lying on top of me. It opened its eyes and started to talk “They are looking for you, you are dead already.” He closed his eyes and I pushed him aside and slowly stood up. The old man asked me what was the monster saying and who was looking for me. I had no idea myself, without an answer I left the cabin shocked. I thought “could this have something to do with my dream earlier?” We started heading north, to London. As we were going, we saw a small town. We started running towards it, happy like heaven was awaiting us there.
But someone whispered though loud enough to hear “stop”. We stopped, the next thing we heard is “over here”. We followed the sound and found a young girl. I asked her “why aren’t you in the village girl” she was breathing heavily and said “I was running away from mommy, please tell her to stop… She attacked dad and now she is looking for me” We were not sure if she was just imagining things or was she telling the truth but we figured if everything that happened from now is true and why wouldn’t this be? The old men told me he was going to stay with the girl to protect her and that I should go ahead and see if anyone is alive in the village and return safely.
As I sneaked into the village I saw a lot of people moaning and slowly limping through the streets. As much as they looked alive they were dead I was sure of it. There was no way for me to get in without getting noticed. I observed the village carefully: a bar on the left side, a lot of houses on the right, wait, is that a gun shop?! Bingo! I sneaked through narrow passages, behind the barrels, underneath the cars, climbed the stairs, walked on the roofs, and through the chimney I went in. As I fell down, dust went in my through so I started coughing. I peeled the skin of my hands while I was trying to slow the fall before hitting my ass on a pile of wood. But I failed and caused more injury and noise then I would cause if I ran straight through the front door with a siren turned on.
Moaning got louder and more psychotic and all eyes were on me. I grabbed a crowbar that was next to me and swung it a few times as a warm up as I got up. I quickly jumped over the bar sliding like it was oiled up and stabbed the moaning zombie in it’s head and yelled “Shut the fuck up you bastard” I turned on the radio and my favorite song was on “Enter Sandman from Metallica”. I got ready to stab the other zombie but I felt sorry for it, she had a beautiful body and face which is rare for a zombie It’s embarrassing but I fell in love and It was actually a pity to kill her. So I managed to hold her hands off an’ put a tape over her mouth, tie her hands with a dusty old rope and I shut her in the cabin behind me.
I taped the dust of my palms on my chest. I took what guns were there and packed my pockets with a lot of ammo. As in the song went the words “I tuck you in, keep you warm within, keep you free from the sin, till the sand man coo….knocking down the door with my leg…oomees” and said “WHO WAAAANTS SOMEEEEE??!!” I pulled both of my rifles from my back and started shooting the brainless zombies while slowly walking forward. Every zombie in the town started walking towards me, their number kept growing. The idea wasn’t turning out good as I thought it would. I had to recharge but with no time as the zombies were getting at me.
I used the rifles as weapons and started stabbing each zombie, two by two. While I was concentrating on killing zombies that were in front of me a zombie managed to grab one of my rifles from the back and started pulling it. I kicked it in it’s mother fucking ugly face with my leg. I let go of the rifles and pulled out two revolvers from my gun holders. As I started to shot, some deep loud voice said “STOP”. Every zombie stopped in the village from moving a muscle. I looked above and on the top of the roof I saw a demon, he didn’t look much like the ordinary mutating creatures. He had a scarf on his eye, long black hair, vampire’s teeth and a big black cape covering half of the dark blue sky.
He jumped down elegantly without making any noise. I said to myself “Damn, I’m screwed”. The demon asked me “Who dares to enter my town?” I looked at him and yelled “This ain’t your town ugly bastard, get the fuck out or deal with me”. He started walking towards me, “I know you, your Darvin, they called you the death itself. I’d recognize you anywhere, haha!” I freaked out and asked myself “How the fuck do these creeps know me?” “Foolish, foolish Darvin, you don’t remember me do you?, we were like brothers back then, fighting and covering each others backs. But I’ve accepted an offer and now my power is stronger, my knowledge goes beyond eternity and my satisfaction for killing is bigger then ever!
Join me Darvin and we could have an immortal life together. “Man screw you, I didn’t come her to chit-chat” I pointed my gun at his forehead. ”Bed time passed buddy” I started shooting rapidly but somehow every time he dodged the bullet. “It’s useless Darvin, join me, and you will have the life you dreamed of, or die as the human scum you are now!” He vanished into thin air, and in a moment he grabbed me from behind. He held my hands tight. I struggled but it was no use, soon his fangs started growing, they went deep through my skin. Blood started coming out but something went through my body, something strange a felling that I’ve only felt when I was a small child. “Can you feel it Darvin, the rage going through your body, the power, everything you wanted to be.
My heart started pumping, this strength, I felt it in my dream earlier. My heart beat started rising and my skin felt strange. Veins on my body started appearing, you could actually see how blood is going through them. I asked the Demon “Hey chump, you never told me your name?” “Fadescar it is”, “Okay “Fadescar” time for you to go back from where you came from” I suddenly pulled my hands with great power forward freeing myself and kicking him in his stomach with my elbow. He coughed and said “Yes, that’s it: cough:”. I turned around and said “This ends now” I pulled out a gun from my belt and pointed at the center of his forehead while he was grabbing his stomach from the last hit. “Say good bye Faddy” A purple aura around the gun was glowing. I shot the demon and with great speed he went through the house behind him destroying it like it was made out of cards.
The power in my veins slowly started vanishing and my heart beat was going slower and slower. The aura from the gun was gone and I shot the zombies that were around with the remaining bullets I had. I looked around and went into the closest car. A body was lying there and as I started pulling it, it grabbed a hold on me. It opened it mouth and tried to say something but I didn’t care much so I pulled her out and threw her down on the ground smashing her skull open with my leg. I got in the car and realized I needed keys to start the engine. I opened the door again, pulled the lady back in and I looked over her body to find the key and so I did.
My hand was shaking, I wanted to put the key in the lock fast as I could but I missed a few times. Zombies had already started crawling on my car. Finally I got the key in right, I started the engine and did a little road cleaning. I drove with full speed to the place where I left the old guy and the girl and just in time I came because they had some uninvited guests. I opened the door for them and said “get in”. They ran and got in as fast as they could, shut the door and I started to drive.
“Soon it will be night fall, who know what creatures lurk then. I never asked you, what’s your name senior?” I asked “ “You can call me Bill. While I was driving I searched the car around for a map and found it under a cross underneath the seat. “Only 20 more kilometers to London”, I turned on the radio for any news, but every station was offline expect this one. “Shhhhh…we….shhhh….might have….shhh….come to…shhhh….there is no wa….shhh…I repea…shhh…come to…shhh…the radio…shhh…buildi….shhhh…radi…shhh…Frank….shhh…military…shhh…goin…shhh…s…sh..outh…..”
“Frank? My brother must be there! Does anyone of you know about the Frank station?” “Actually, it’s the “Franky” station, the most popular station in the London.” “ Okay lets see on this map, if we gooo here, and turn right here, we should be stopping somewhere here considering that the London is full of zombies. Okaaay, here is how the plan goes, we stop a kilometer from London here, walk from there, sneak our way to a roof top, observe the place and then head for the Franky station and if we are lucky we might run into the military!” While driving through the woods, I heard a voice, it was whispering with an echo voice. “Does anyone hear that?”, “Hear what, Rick?” “Ahhhgg.” I pulled over the car.
My head started to hurt, like it was about to explode. I closed my eyes for a moment hopping it would hurt less when I opened them, I was in another place pushing something above my head. The power that I’ve felt while fighting the Demon Fladescar, I felt it again. I found myself under the giant’s hand, I pushed it from me and jumped from it’s shoulder and tossed a long black chain out my palm and started spinning it around the giant’s neck cutting it off and jumping on the ground. What I saw ahead of me was thousands of more same giants heading towards me. I said “Fladescar, we need to finish this fast or else we will not be able to stop these abominations”. We headed towards a big creator. My inner power started growing, every step I took closer to the creator I felt stronger and stronger. It seemed as if I was in London or am I imagining things , hardly recognizable when everything is in ruins.
When we arrived to the creator we jumped in the air hundreds of meter high. The view was horrible from up there, nothing was standing. Even the mountains were crushed down into piles of dust and the sky had vanished and was black. I spin myself and rushed into the hole of the creator. The creator looked like it was alive, pumping or were we actually going into a big monster? Just meters before entering the empty black hole it flashed white and I appeared in the car. Opening my eyes slowly, Bill and the small girl who I never asked her name was beside me and shaking me. I looked at both of my hands for a moment, they started to hurt. Black fading veins started appearing on my hands. I was a few seconds from screaming but I manned up and held the pain inside me. The veins started fading and were soon gone. Bill started questioning me “What are does big black dots on your hands and what are does black veins around them?”.
I ignored the problem and said “nothing, just something, lets continue driving” Bill for some reason was caring for me and asked me do I want him to drive. “No, I’ll drive”.
After the painful trip, we’ve arrived at the map’s location or I think we did. I stepped out of the car followed by Bill and the small girl. When I looked at London city a desperate feeling came out of me suddenly. As far as I could see, an ocean of zombies was limping through the streets. I couldn’t believe it. “Where is my brother, I hope he is still alive”.
We've heard a noise coming from the city. It sounded like someone was shooting rapidly without stopping. We rushed hoping it would be the military but only to find three people fighting off a horde of zombies. We started running towards them to help even if we didn’t have any weapons whatsoever. One of them started shooting at us, I yelled “stop” but it was too late. I drank a bullet in my left shoulder. I didn’t stop, I yelled again, “We are human”. The guy squinted and yelled “Run, fast and don’t look behind”.
We trusted him and started running towards them. The expression on their face was no good, they started running themselves for a barricaded building with heavy metal doors. The ground was shaking for some reason and the feeling was coming from behind us. It seemed as if I was the only one running, I looked back and saw the little girl fallen down to the ground, she must have tripped. Bill stopped to help her but something grabbed him even dough I couldn’t see what it was, bill was hanging upside down hanging on his leg. I rushed and helped the girl to get up. I couldn’t tell the girl to run alone, a lot of zombies were coming in. Bill shouted “Go without me, save the girl” I looked at him and a saw a brave man saying honorable words, I smiled at him.
I lifted the girl up and carried her to the barricaded building. Before entering in I looked back to see Bill but sadly I didn’t see him, then I knew he was dead . The ground started shaking again, cars were being thrown around, trees falling down, street lamps falling down and getting bend. We hurried and entered the metal door and one of the three men closed the door and all we heard was one strong hit on the other side of the door. I asked him “what the fuck was it?”. “A stalker, it’s invisible and enormous.
I asked them about their hide out, who are they and what were they doing here. I got short and direct answers. They got supplies to last them a month, they are men from a nearby village and they came here for hope to find someone. I told them about the Franky station and they were surprised to hear about it. They offered me food, bread and milk to be exact. I ate it all, a licked the plate off. One of the men told me to follow them to a room where I could sleep with the girl. Electricity was forbidden from being used at night, it lures zombies and other creatures that are lurking at night.
I undressed and took a shower in the tub. Hot water, I relaxed the first time in the day but still, my mind was full of bothersome thoughts from all that happened. I left Bill to die, I could have saved him or at least I could have tried. The memories that keep appearing what are they. It seems like every time I get closer to London they happen more often. They never happened to me before like that in Baltimore, really strange. I got out of the tub, and went in bed. I tucked the girl in and myself in and fallen asleep.
To be continued…..
The character doesn't look the best but gives you some kind of image that I had of him in my mind.
I've made it less of a text wall. Somehow in the Word it looks nicer. =/
Attachments
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2008
- Messages
- 2,319
The reason it looks cooler in Word is because Word's text only reaches until the end of an A4 paper's size, sorting the words more under each other instead of creating large horizontal lines that last until the edge of the screen. Especially with a 1920x1080 resolution screen like I have, it's a huge difference. Another difference is the font size. On this site, the font size within hidden text is 10 I'd guess. Big difference in length with large amounts of texts like here. Finally, you'd be amazed by the difference in reading if you read black letters on white background or light letters on dark background. So I think I'll attach my final submission as a .DOC as well for the sake of a fun reading time ^^
By the way: Nice supportive image you got there. You got talent
By the way: Nice supportive image you got there. You got talent
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,580
Reserved for final submission!
EDIT:
Here it is! 5,236 words!
(I hope this would at least get 1 vote in the polls.)
The Island.docx
or you can just read the wall of text here!
The Island
“What happens in the island stays in the island”
Created by: GunSlinger21
Chapter 1-Prologue
It was October 21, the sun was rising and I was still asleep on bed. Drops of sweat appeared on my face slowly trickling down onto my pillow, I kept on squirming like a worm as if I were to be killed, suddenly, I fell and landed on the floor, head first.
“Shit…” I said as I tried to stand up and wake up from a nightmare thinking it was all over, but in my situation, my nightmare has just begun.
I picked up the bed sheet and threw it on the bed. I walked towards the window that was boarded up. Looking through a small crack on it I scanned the area. There was a car in front of my house lying on its side, the apple tree on my neighbour’s front yard was slowly withering, down the street the fire hydrant was destroyed and there was water everywhere. I saw something move behind the car and quickly focused my eyes on it. I waited for a few seconds and saw what was moving, there were two of them fighting over something covered in red liquid. I focused on what they were fighting over which was all torn apart that I don’t recognize what it was. It was either an animal or a person but maybe it was just garbage covered in ketchup since there was a broken ketchup bottle beside them.
Those Creatures looked like zombies, they walked like dogs, their teeth were razor sharp and had bone-like spike running down their neck down to the end of their tails.
I backed away from the window, put the jeans that was lying on the floor, went outside my room and walked down the stairs.
My house is a short, blue; two-storey building that has a front and a back yard. It was surrounded with more houses but behind it is a small forest that leads to the local park. On the first floor were the kitchen and the living room, as for the second floor, it has 2 rooms, my bedroom and the guest room. The bathroom is on the first floor and has a shower and a bath tub.
My name is Vincent E. Isaac. I’m 24 years old and work as an accountant at the nearest bank just 3 blocks away. I sometimes lie in bed all day other times I go to my back yard and practice archery.
I went down the stairs and turned right to my kitchen. I opened the food drawer and was frustrated to see that there was only one can of food left, and it was sardines.
“Why did I even buy this crap?”
I shuffled through the drawers in search of food but found nothing but a dead cockroach. I sighed and took the can and cooked it trying not to think about the taste. I hesitated at first but was so hungry that I forced myself to eat it, enduring the foul taste at every bite. After eating, I sat there thinking about what to do next. I was out of food, the water is almost gone and my clothes started to stink, bad.
“I have to get out of here.”
I stood up and went upstairs to my bedroom, put on a pair of socks and my shoes, took a jacket hanging behind the door. I took another look through the crack and saw that they were still fighting over the garbage or whatever it was.
“Damn it! How am I supposed to…? Wait! Maybe I can go through the forest.” I said as I ran to the guest room.
I peered through a small hole on the boarded-up window and saw that nothing was on the yard, even on the forest. I ran down the stairs and to the backdoor. I stood there for a moment and slowly reached out my hand, stopping inches away from the door knob, breathed deeply and said:
“Here goes nothing.”
I grabbed the door knob, opened it and ran outside.
Chapter 2-The Outside
I ran and climbed over the fence. I walked slowly through the forest until I reached the park and quickly hid myself behind a tree when I saw something run pass the gate. I took a look at what it was and saw a man, around his forties, being chased by three of those dog things. One of them caught up to him and bit his leg. The man let out a groan and fell down giving the other creatures ample time to catch up but I quickly looked away and closed my eyes. I heard nothing but the sound of flesh being torn apart and screaming. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around for a way to get out of the park without being noticed.
There were two entrances to the park, the west and east gate but if I go to either of those two, they would notice me. I kept looking around and saw a huge hole near the east gate. A car seemed to have rammed through the wall leaving a huge gaping hole there. It was the best way for me to get out of there; trees covered the area so I should have low visibility there. I looked at them and saw their backs turned towards me. Seeing that this was my chance, I ran from tree to tree until I was about thirty feet away. I took another look at them and still saw their backs against me. I ran towards the hole when I suddenly tripped over a rock and landed on the hood of the car.
“Beep! Beep! Beep!” The car gave out an irritatingly loud sound.
I turned my head and saw them looking directly at me, they opened their mouths and ran towards me.
“O-Oh my god!” I said as I stood on the car.
I ran over the car and jumped, landing on the pavement and ran across the street, took a left and looked behind me. Those things appeared on top of the car and suddenly ran towards me when the saw me. I kept on running, dropping everything that could slow them down, chairs, tables, trash bins, and everything that I saw. I took a right on Main Street and saw two cars facing each other blocking my way. I did one of those hood slide things like they did in the movies but it didn’t go so well for me because I stopped half way, I pulled myself off the car. I ran and hid in an alley on my right, my back on the wall. After a moment, those things ran past me and I sighed in relief but froze when I felt something breathed above me.
I slowly looked up and saw one of those dog-like creatures, but his one didn’t seem to have eyes and can cling to walls. It opened its mouth and saliva dropped on my face. It slowly lowered its tongue onto my nose then moved it around spreading saliva all over. It brought back its tongue and let out a shriek. I quickly ran to my right and looked behind me; it was jumping from wall to wall and leaped towards me. I fell down and grabbed its head, trying to keep it away from biting me. It was scratching me with its claws which were so painful. It gnashed and gnashed its teeth at me. My hand was slowly slipping.
“This is it.” I thought.
“I’m going to die here.”
“Torn apart by this thing.”
They say that before you die, your life flashes before your eyes, but all I saw was me working my ass off which was the only thing I did. My hand slipped, I closed my eyes so I won’t see it coming but then I heard a thud followed by a shriek that sounded like a dog crying. Opening my eyes, I saw a man holding a machete in his right hand, the sun was behind him so didn’t see what he looked like. I looked to my right and saw the creature lying on its back but it quickly got on its feet. It let out a shriek and jumped towards the man. He grabbed it by its head and stabbed it in its chest, after that he threw it on the ground. Black blood was oozing out of its chest. It squirmed around in pain, let out a shriek and died, covered in its own blood.
“You ok.” The man said, reaching out his hand.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I said as I held his hand and pulled myself up.
I saw his face when I stood up. He was a black man, bald, maybe around 25 years old. He was taller than me, probably six feet tall, and he was definitely more buffed up than me.
“Thanks for saving me.”
“No problem. Nice shirt by the way.” He said with a smile on his face
“Thanks, I just bought this-.“ I said stopping when I saw my shirt.
It was all torn apart, full of holes exposing my body. The man laughed.
“Very funny.” I said, zipping up my jacket.
“Mark.” He said, reaching out his hand.
“What?”
“Name’s Mark.”
There was a slight pause and I said:
“Vincent.”
We shook hands and smiled at each other.
“Heeey!” Someone shouted in the distance.
We both looked in the direction where it came from. There were two people running towards us, one of them was a man who was pushing a shopping cart and the other one was a woman, who was waving her arms at us.
“Hey!” Mark shouted back waving his arms.
“Friends of yours?”
“Yeah.”
Shortly afterwards, they reached us, panting, and there were beads of sweat on their foreheads.
“Next time… Don’t run off on us like that.” The girl said still panting
“Sorry for that.” Said Mark as he scratched his head.
“Who’s this?” The guy said.
“Oh, this here’s Vince.”
“Vincent.”
“Vince Vincent, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. By the way, how did you guys find me?”
“Well we hear a car go off so we went to check it out but Mark here suddenly ran then we followed him and here we are.”
“Hey wanna come with us?” The woman said.
“Where are you going?”
“To the old junkshop at the end of the town.”
“Well I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“So you’ll go?”
“If it is ok with you guys.”
“Yeah.” They all said in unison.
“Thank you.”
“Now that that’s settled. Let me introduce these guys.” Mark said, putting his arm over my shoulder.
“This is Katherine.” He said pointing to the girl.
“You can call me Katy.”
“John.” Pointing to the taller guy.
“Sup.”
“We should get going it’s almost lunch time.” John said.
“Oh yeah. Come on Vince, Let’s get going.” Mark said, smiling at me.
“Ok.” I said smiling back.
Chapter 3-A New Home
On the way to our destination, we came across a few houses and shops, we managed to scavenge food, tools, clothes and other supplies, putting them inside the shopping cart that we pushed, but we also encountered a few monsters on the way and also managed to avoid them except for one that ripped the back of my jacket. It took us an hour and a half to reach the junkyard and I guess it was 12:24 p.m. that time.
The junkyard had a red gate on the front and was protected by brick walls. Mark banged the gate and we heard footsteps come near it. The gate slowly opened and we saw four people all holding weapons. We went inside and one of them asked Mark:
“New recruit?”
“Yeah, let’s go inside and I’ll introduce you to him.”
Mark signalled me to follow him. We passed piles of mechanical trash and God knows what else while walking towards a small warehouse. Before we reached it, I saw a flock of birds or something in the distance but before I was to know what it was, Mark pulled me saying:
“Come on.”
We entered the warehouse, it was just like the outside, full of junk and stuff, the only difference was that it was more organized. Mark led me to the center of the warehouse where there were chairs and sofas forming a circle, surrounding a large barrel where they used to put fire in. All of them sat down except for me and Mark. He then introduced me to them
“Jasmine.” Said the woman, reaching out her arm.
“Max.” The shortest guy said while I shook hands with Jasmine and then did a high five with him.
“I am Lee.” Said the Chinese guy and shook hands with me.
The other guy didn’t say anything so I thought maybe he’s shy. So I reached out my hand to him and said hi. He just looked at my hand, stood up and said:
“Ron.”
Then left us.
“Don’t worry about him. My brother tends to be grouchy at times.” Jasmine said with a reassuring smile.
“Hey is lunch ready yet?” Max asked.
“Oh yes. I forgot.” Jasmine said as she ran towards what looked like a stove.
“Just a minute. You guys start preparing.” Shouted Jasmine in the distance.
The guys went to a small table and took plates, spoons, and forks then distributed it among us. In just a few seconds, Jasmine came with a pot of fried rice and a plate with eggs, sunny-side-up, just the way I like it. The smell overwhelmed me, it smelled so delicious that it made me drool. We shared the food, ate, shared stories, and laughed all together except for Ron who wasn’t with us.
“Well.” Mark said, standing up.
“Time to get back to work.”
“Work?” I said.
“Yeah, work. What? You thought we would just lie here all day?”
“No. I just thought what you would be working on at a time like this.”
“For one thing, we need power. So I have to install these solar panels. You should come and help me, but first you should clean yourself, you look like a mess.”
He was right, I looked like a mess. My shirt was destroyed, the back of my jacket was ripped off, and there was slobber on my hair and face.
“John will show you where to go.”
“Come on.” John said, standing up.
I followed him to the far end of the warehouse and then showed me the bathroom, took a towel and threw it to me. I went inside and turned on the shower, it was warm and very relaxing.
“This feels nice.” I said as I touched the water. I soon closed the water and removed my jacket, forgetting what had happened to my shirt.
“Nice shirt.” He said grinning.
“My joke!” Mark shouted as he passed by.
“So. You ok?” John said.
“Yeah I’m fine.”
“Ok then. I’ll be going now.”
“Ok thanks.”
I removed my clothes, turned on the shower, and stood there enjoying the divine touch of the water until someone shouted just outside the bathroom.
“Hey! John here! There’s a pair of clothes here. Just use them when you’re done.”
“Ok! Thank you!” I shouted back.
After showering, I took the clothes John left me and wore them. The clothe he left were a pair of jeans and a shirt, it was a perfect fit. I went outside and asked Lee how to get up to the roof.
“There are stairs on the left of warehouse.” He replied.
I climbed the stairs and saw Mark hammering something. He saw me and waved, I waved back. As I went to help him, I noticed the same flock of birds circling above but I ignored it and went on my way.
“So what do you need help with?”
“Help me hammer these nails into place.” Mark said, giving me a hammer.
I took the hammer and sat next to him. After a few minutes of hammering, Lee appeared in the distance, walking towards us when a shriek was heard and Lee quickly flew to his left, impaling him to a pole.
“What the fuck!” Mark said, shocked at what he saw.
Another shock was heard and Mark looked behind him, quickly saying:
“Duck!” as he pulled me down.
I saw something glide inches above us, it was red and as big as a dog.
“Run!” Mark shouted.
We ran towards the stairs until one of them attacked Mark. They slid through the ground as he fell. I ran towards them fighting on the ground and hit the monster with the hammer I held in my hand, launching it five feet away from us but flew away. I helped Mark get up on his feet and again ran towards the stairs. Reaching it, we ran down the stairs when a flying creature flew towards us. Mark pulled me and I dodged its claws then ran down. The creature got up and quickly crawled towards us but before it caught up, Mark closed the hatch on the creature’s leg. It tried to release its leg but found no luck in doing so. It suddenly flapped its wings violently that it made the stairs shake. Soon I saw the bolts on the stairs slowly loosen. Afterwards, the stairs started to slowly fall to its side.
“Shit! We have to jump now! Mark shouted at me.
“But what if we-“
“Nooow!”
Mark pulled me and jumped over the railings, taking me with him. We landed on the ground and rolled for a few feet. Pain overwhelmed me as I rolled through the ground, stopping with my body facing the stairs. I saw it fall onto the brick wall, crushing it along with the trapped creature. I tried to stand up but the pain pulled me down. Mark soon helped me up and we jogged to the open area in front of the warehouse where we saw everyone looking worried.
“What happened?” Katy said, looking more worried.
“No time to explain. We have company.” Mark said.
There was another shriek and we all looked in its direction. Mark suddenly ran towards Katy, tackling her to the ground as something flew above them.
“What the hell was that?” Max said.
“I don’t know” Mark said as he helped Katy up and picked up a long rod.
“Whatever it is, we have to defend ourselves.” John said as he did the same as Mark.
All of us picked up weapons and defended ourselves, killing everything that came near us, trying to protect each other, trying to keep ourselves alive. While we were fighting I saw something fly towards us from beyond the gate and was shocked to see that it was a car. When I saw that it was going to hit Max, I yelled at him:
“Max! Get out of the way!” As I pointed to the car.
He looked at me blankly then at the car but before he was to know what to do, the car hit him, sliding through the ground, leaving trail of blood.
“Oh my god! Maaax! Katy yelled as she witnessed what happened.
Suddenly, we hear something hit the gate, leaving a huge dent to it. Soon, something bashed through the dent open and a huge monster appeared. It had huge claws and was freakin big. Its roar pierced through our ears.
“Shit! Get inside! Go! Go! Go!” Mark shouted.
We quickly ran towards the warehouse but before we were able to reach it, Katy was taken away by the flying creatures. She screamed in agony as the monsters tore her apart.
“Katy! Jasmine screamed.
“Forget about her. We have to go!” Mark said, pushing Jasmine inside.
As we went inside, we were panting heavily.
“How are we gonna get out?” I asked.
“There a hatch behind us that leads to the sewers. We could go there.” Mark replied.
“Well we have to go now. The gate won’t hold forever.” Ron said.
While we walked to the backdoor the huge monster destroyed the wall.
“Wha-What the?” Mark said.
It threw a water tank at us but we jumped away. This action separated me from the backdoor and the others. That thing looked at me then suddenly charged towards me.
“Vincent! Run!” Jasmine yelled.
I quickly ran to my right before it hit me. The monster crashed through the piles of parts and hit the wall, creating a violent shudder through the building which made me drop to my knees.
“Vince! Look out!” Mark shouted, pointing at a chunk of metal flying towards me.
The adrenaline rush forced me to jump away, luckily avoiding it but as I landed, I saw the monster was just three feet away from me. Fear took control over my body causing me to freeze. The monster raised its right arm and hit me with it. The force of the hit caused me to be thrown 15 feet away, positioning me behind a gas pipe and the barrel with the bon fire.
“GAAAAHH!” I cried in agony as I held my left shoulder.
I couldn’t move my shoulder anymore so I had a hard time getting up. The monster again charged towards me, breaking the gas pipe and throwing the barrel near the others and quickly caught up to me. I raised both of its arms and tried to hit me but before I was to be crushed, my reflexes made me roll, evading my pancake end. With the strength I had left, I forced myself to stand up and run towards the others. I noticed the gas leaking as I stood up and had an idea.
“Throw the fire wood!” I yelled as I ran towards them.
“What good will tha-“ Mark said.
“Just do it.”
Mark picked up the lit stick and threw it at the monster. I looked behind me. As the stick was about to hit the beast, a great, big ball of fire appeared and exploded, launching me outside the warehouse.
“That was close.” I said as I stood up, hand on shoulder.
“Are you hurt? What happened to your shoulder?” Jasmine said with a worried look.
“I’m fine. It’s just a bruise. Oww!” I yelled when she touched my shoulder.
“Your shoulder is broken. Here let me help you.”
Jasmine took out a cloth from her bag and made a tie that cradled my arm.
“There. How’s that?”
“It’s fine.”
“Hey. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Mark said as he opened the hatch.
A very bad odor exhumed the air.
“What the? I’m not going in there with that smell.” I said, covering my mouth.
“Don’t worry I brought supplies.” Mark said showing a sack filled with different items.
There were 5 gas masks and 3 flash lights in the sack. We wore the masks and started to descend into the black pit.
Chapter 4-The Sewers
I couldn’t see anything down there. Everything was pitch black, the only thing I can see were the others under the light from the hatch.
“Ok, let’s move.” Mark said as he turned on his flash light.
“Wait. Do you even know where you’re going?” I said with an uneasy tone.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been here once; I think I know where I’m going.”
“Where are we going anyway?” Jasmine asked.
“To the mountains. There’s a hatch there and the ocean is just near there.” Mark said as he moved forward.
We followed him through the sewers until Mark suddenly turned off his flash light and whispered something to us.
“Turn off your lights.”
We turned them off.
“What’s ha-“ I said
“Ssshhh… Don’t move.” Marks said, covering my mouth with his hand.
“There are six of them. They seem to be eating.”
I heard crunching sounds and growls. This made me very uneasy, sweat started to appear on my face and my chest was about to explode from my heart pounding.
“Hold hands and follow me”
We held hands.
“How can you even see through this?”
“Night vision goggles.”
We followed him a forward then to the right..
“Ok turn on your light.”
Once we turned on our lights. We saw piles of bodies, brutally torn apart. This made me puke; Jasmine on the other hand screamed but was stopped by his brother.
“Damn! Close your lights.” Mark said
We closed them and I wiped my mouth. I heard growls and footsteps in the distance.
“There they are, they’re splitting up… Damn! Two of them are coming this way. Follow me; the hatch is just 50 feet away.”
We held hands and followed Mark.
“Run! They’re running towards us.
We ran and Mark suddenly stopped.
“Quick! Climb up the ladder.”
Mark was first, then me, Jasmine, her brother, and last was John. Mark opened the hatch and I saw them in the distance growling. They quickly ran towards us.
“Go! Go! Go!” Mark said as he pulled me out.
He pulled Jasmine and Ron out but before he was to pull John out, he disappeared. Screaming was heard and slowly faded away.
“John. John. John!” Mark shouted at the empty hole.
Chapter 5-The Escape
“Damn it!” He said, kicking a rock and put his hand to his face.
Jasmine was sitting there, knees to her face and arms around her, Ron was there hugging her sister. We had to get out of here; we had to get off this island. Everything around me was slowly disappearing.
“Come on guys. The ocean isn’t far from here. We can still leave.”
“What’s the point? We’re gonna die anyway.” Jasmine said.
“Don’t lose hope. We made it this far right? There’s still a chance for us to survive.”
“He’s right. Come on, let’s get going.” Ron said.
“Ok fine.” Jasmine said as she stood up.
We climbed the mountain until I found a clearing at the edge of the mountain. I stood there and looked at the city. It was destroyed, everything, gone. I closed my eyes and felt the breeze softly hit my face. The others called me and I ran there. To my surprise I saw the ocean. We looked over the horizon and stood there for a moment. Relief filled up our heads. We were gonna escape.
We descended the mountain and found ourselves on the coast.
“Here we are.” I said.
“What now?” Jasmine said.
“We need a boat to get out.”
“Hey look! There’s one over there.” Ron said
There was a small boat there floating at the far side of the beach. We ran for it, eventually reaching it in seconds. It was full of moss and dirt but it was a sight for sore eyes.
“Oh my god. We’re getting off this island. I can’t believe this.” Jasmine said, full of hope.
“Look Mark, we’re gonna get out, we’re gonna get off this isla-“ I said as I looked at Mark behind me.
He was pointing a gun at us.
“Mark, what are you doing?” I said, moving forward
“Don’t move!”
“What are you doing?” Ron said.
“Trying to save myself.”
“But…But the boat is big enough. We can get out together.” Jasmine said with a shaky voice.
“You don’t get it do you?”
“Get what?”
“Everything you see here, everything that has happened. Is all because of me.”
“You…You did all this?”
“Yes.”
“But why? Why would you do this?”
“It was for an experiment.”
“An experiment?” I said
“Yes. It was an experiment on evolution. I was to test on how evolution would work on living things. I found this island and used it for my experiment; I turned it into a city and attracted people all over the world. Now that I had my test subjects, I started conducting the experiment, kidnapping people, stealing animals, but soon things got a little out of hand.”
“Little? This is fuckin huge! The-these things are killing people, they’re destroying everything, and you did this all for just a stupid experiment!” Ron said with an angry voice.
“Yes and I intend to keep it that way and I don’t want anyone to hinder my success.”
“You’re still going to do it after all this?”
“Correct.”
“Then why did you help us?”
“I needed you to keep me alive until I escaped.”
“You were using us all this time. W-We trusted you!”
“In this world, you mustn’t trust anyone.” He said as he walked towards the boat.
“Then what about us?”
“I’m going to leave you here and let the monsters do the dirty job for me.”
“Why you!” Ron yelled.
Ron charged at Mark but fell when Mark shot him. Ron screamed in pain while rolling around with his arm on his right shoulder.
“Brother!
We ran and tried to help Ron. Mark got on the boat, said goodbye and drove away.
“Maaark! You son of a bitch!” I shouted
Three hours have passed and we were sitting under a rock. Ron passed out fifteen minutes after he was shot, and Jasmine was sitting beside him, holding his hand. I stood near the waves and looked over the horizon. We didn’t know what to do, it was getting dark, we had no shelter, no food, nothing… I sat next to Jasmine.
“We’re not getting out are we?” Jasmine said.
“No. No we won’t.”
We sat there and watched the sun set, our hopes slowly fading into darkness like the sun. When all hope was lost, we heard something.
“Do you hear that?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah It sounds like… A helicopter!”
We stood up and looked around searching for the helicopter and found it in the horizon. I took off my shirt and waved it around shouting at the same time. Jasmine did the same with here jacket. The helicopter come towards us and stopped just above. We we’re going to be saved, we were gonna leave. I looked at Jasmine, who was so full of hope, she looked at me and back at the helicopter. They lowered down a bed and we put John in. We repeated this 2 times, Jasmine first then me. We were so happy, the feeling of joy, the feeling of relief, the feeling of being alive.
Chapter 6-Epilogue
After we left, we were treated to a hospital and stayed there for two months before the hospital released us. We soon went to the government and got an audience with the president. We told them everything that has happened to us, at first they didn’t believe us until an investigation crew were sent and came back positive. After a week, the US government launched a missile at the island to destroy it and erase every trace of it ever existing. After the launch, we soon parted ways, Jasmine got a job as a nurse, got married to a teacher in Canada and had 2 kids, Ron was accepted into the military and became a member of the Special Force, as for me, well, I found someone who loves me and whom I loved back. We went back to our mediocre lives but had time to speak to each other and forgot everything about the island, but ONE question has been bothering me every day since we left the island.
What happened to Mark?
EDIT:
Here it is! 5,236 words!
(I hope this would at least get 1 vote in the polls.)
The Island.docx
or you can just read the wall of text here!
The Island
“What happens in the island stays in the island”
Created by: GunSlinger21
Chapter 1-Prologue
It was October 21, the sun was rising and I was still asleep on bed. Drops of sweat appeared on my face slowly trickling down onto my pillow, I kept on squirming like a worm as if I were to be killed, suddenly, I fell and landed on the floor, head first.
“Shit…” I said as I tried to stand up and wake up from a nightmare thinking it was all over, but in my situation, my nightmare has just begun.
I picked up the bed sheet and threw it on the bed. I walked towards the window that was boarded up. Looking through a small crack on it I scanned the area. There was a car in front of my house lying on its side, the apple tree on my neighbour’s front yard was slowly withering, down the street the fire hydrant was destroyed and there was water everywhere. I saw something move behind the car and quickly focused my eyes on it. I waited for a few seconds and saw what was moving, there were two of them fighting over something covered in red liquid. I focused on what they were fighting over which was all torn apart that I don’t recognize what it was. It was either an animal or a person but maybe it was just garbage covered in ketchup since there was a broken ketchup bottle beside them.
Those Creatures looked like zombies, they walked like dogs, their teeth were razor sharp and had bone-like spike running down their neck down to the end of their tails.
I backed away from the window, put the jeans that was lying on the floor, went outside my room and walked down the stairs.
My house is a short, blue; two-storey building that has a front and a back yard. It was surrounded with more houses but behind it is a small forest that leads to the local park. On the first floor were the kitchen and the living room, as for the second floor, it has 2 rooms, my bedroom and the guest room. The bathroom is on the first floor and has a shower and a bath tub.
My name is Vincent E. Isaac. I’m 24 years old and work as an accountant at the nearest bank just 3 blocks away. I sometimes lie in bed all day other times I go to my back yard and practice archery.
I went down the stairs and turned right to my kitchen. I opened the food drawer and was frustrated to see that there was only one can of food left, and it was sardines.
“Why did I even buy this crap?”
I shuffled through the drawers in search of food but found nothing but a dead cockroach. I sighed and took the can and cooked it trying not to think about the taste. I hesitated at first but was so hungry that I forced myself to eat it, enduring the foul taste at every bite. After eating, I sat there thinking about what to do next. I was out of food, the water is almost gone and my clothes started to stink, bad.
“I have to get out of here.”
I stood up and went upstairs to my bedroom, put on a pair of socks and my shoes, took a jacket hanging behind the door. I took another look through the crack and saw that they were still fighting over the garbage or whatever it was.
“Damn it! How am I supposed to…? Wait! Maybe I can go through the forest.” I said as I ran to the guest room.
I peered through a small hole on the boarded-up window and saw that nothing was on the yard, even on the forest. I ran down the stairs and to the backdoor. I stood there for a moment and slowly reached out my hand, stopping inches away from the door knob, breathed deeply and said:
“Here goes nothing.”
I grabbed the door knob, opened it and ran outside.
Chapter 2-The Outside
I ran and climbed over the fence. I walked slowly through the forest until I reached the park and quickly hid myself behind a tree when I saw something run pass the gate. I took a look at what it was and saw a man, around his forties, being chased by three of those dog things. One of them caught up to him and bit his leg. The man let out a groan and fell down giving the other creatures ample time to catch up but I quickly looked away and closed my eyes. I heard nothing but the sound of flesh being torn apart and screaming. I slowly opened my eyes and looked around for a way to get out of the park without being noticed.
There were two entrances to the park, the west and east gate but if I go to either of those two, they would notice me. I kept looking around and saw a huge hole near the east gate. A car seemed to have rammed through the wall leaving a huge gaping hole there. It was the best way for me to get out of there; trees covered the area so I should have low visibility there. I looked at them and saw their backs turned towards me. Seeing that this was my chance, I ran from tree to tree until I was about thirty feet away. I took another look at them and still saw their backs against me. I ran towards the hole when I suddenly tripped over a rock and landed on the hood of the car.
“Beep! Beep! Beep!” The car gave out an irritatingly loud sound.
I turned my head and saw them looking directly at me, they opened their mouths and ran towards me.
“O-Oh my god!” I said as I stood on the car.
I ran over the car and jumped, landing on the pavement and ran across the street, took a left and looked behind me. Those things appeared on top of the car and suddenly ran towards me when the saw me. I kept on running, dropping everything that could slow them down, chairs, tables, trash bins, and everything that I saw. I took a right on Main Street and saw two cars facing each other blocking my way. I did one of those hood slide things like they did in the movies but it didn’t go so well for me because I stopped half way, I pulled myself off the car. I ran and hid in an alley on my right, my back on the wall. After a moment, those things ran past me and I sighed in relief but froze when I felt something breathed above me.
I slowly looked up and saw one of those dog-like creatures, but his one didn’t seem to have eyes and can cling to walls. It opened its mouth and saliva dropped on my face. It slowly lowered its tongue onto my nose then moved it around spreading saliva all over. It brought back its tongue and let out a shriek. I quickly ran to my right and looked behind me; it was jumping from wall to wall and leaped towards me. I fell down and grabbed its head, trying to keep it away from biting me. It was scratching me with its claws which were so painful. It gnashed and gnashed its teeth at me. My hand was slowly slipping.
“This is it.” I thought.
“I’m going to die here.”
“Torn apart by this thing.”
They say that before you die, your life flashes before your eyes, but all I saw was me working my ass off which was the only thing I did. My hand slipped, I closed my eyes so I won’t see it coming but then I heard a thud followed by a shriek that sounded like a dog crying. Opening my eyes, I saw a man holding a machete in his right hand, the sun was behind him so didn’t see what he looked like. I looked to my right and saw the creature lying on its back but it quickly got on its feet. It let out a shriek and jumped towards the man. He grabbed it by its head and stabbed it in its chest, after that he threw it on the ground. Black blood was oozing out of its chest. It squirmed around in pain, let out a shriek and died, covered in its own blood.
“You ok.” The man said, reaching out his hand.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I said as I held his hand and pulled myself up.
I saw his face when I stood up. He was a black man, bald, maybe around 25 years old. He was taller than me, probably six feet tall, and he was definitely more buffed up than me.
“Thanks for saving me.”
“No problem. Nice shirt by the way.” He said with a smile on his face
“Thanks, I just bought this-.“ I said stopping when I saw my shirt.
It was all torn apart, full of holes exposing my body. The man laughed.
“Very funny.” I said, zipping up my jacket.
“Mark.” He said, reaching out his hand.
“What?”
“Name’s Mark.”
There was a slight pause and I said:
“Vincent.”
We shook hands and smiled at each other.
“Heeey!” Someone shouted in the distance.
We both looked in the direction where it came from. There were two people running towards us, one of them was a man who was pushing a shopping cart and the other one was a woman, who was waving her arms at us.
“Hey!” Mark shouted back waving his arms.
“Friends of yours?”
“Yeah.”
Shortly afterwards, they reached us, panting, and there were beads of sweat on their foreheads.
“Next time… Don’t run off on us like that.” The girl said still panting
“Sorry for that.” Said Mark as he scratched his head.
“Who’s this?” The guy said.
“Oh, this here’s Vince.”
“Vincent.”
“Vince Vincent, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. By the way, how did you guys find me?”
“Well we hear a car go off so we went to check it out but Mark here suddenly ran then we followed him and here we are.”
“Hey wanna come with us?” The woman said.
“Where are you going?”
“To the old junkshop at the end of the town.”
“Well I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“So you’ll go?”
“If it is ok with you guys.”
“Yeah.” They all said in unison.
“Thank you.”
“Now that that’s settled. Let me introduce these guys.” Mark said, putting his arm over my shoulder.
“This is Katherine.” He said pointing to the girl.
“You can call me Katy.”
“John.” Pointing to the taller guy.
“Sup.”
“We should get going it’s almost lunch time.” John said.
“Oh yeah. Come on Vince, Let’s get going.” Mark said, smiling at me.
“Ok.” I said smiling back.
Chapter 3-A New Home
On the way to our destination, we came across a few houses and shops, we managed to scavenge food, tools, clothes and other supplies, putting them inside the shopping cart that we pushed, but we also encountered a few monsters on the way and also managed to avoid them except for one that ripped the back of my jacket. It took us an hour and a half to reach the junkyard and I guess it was 12:24 p.m. that time.
The junkyard had a red gate on the front and was protected by brick walls. Mark banged the gate and we heard footsteps come near it. The gate slowly opened and we saw four people all holding weapons. We went inside and one of them asked Mark:
“New recruit?”
“Yeah, let’s go inside and I’ll introduce you to him.”
Mark signalled me to follow him. We passed piles of mechanical trash and God knows what else while walking towards a small warehouse. Before we reached it, I saw a flock of birds or something in the distance but before I was to know what it was, Mark pulled me saying:
“Come on.”
We entered the warehouse, it was just like the outside, full of junk and stuff, the only difference was that it was more organized. Mark led me to the center of the warehouse where there were chairs and sofas forming a circle, surrounding a large barrel where they used to put fire in. All of them sat down except for me and Mark. He then introduced me to them
“Jasmine.” Said the woman, reaching out her arm.
“Max.” The shortest guy said while I shook hands with Jasmine and then did a high five with him.
“I am Lee.” Said the Chinese guy and shook hands with me.
The other guy didn’t say anything so I thought maybe he’s shy. So I reached out my hand to him and said hi. He just looked at my hand, stood up and said:
“Ron.”
Then left us.
“Don’t worry about him. My brother tends to be grouchy at times.” Jasmine said with a reassuring smile.
“Hey is lunch ready yet?” Max asked.
“Oh yes. I forgot.” Jasmine said as she ran towards what looked like a stove.
“Just a minute. You guys start preparing.” Shouted Jasmine in the distance.
The guys went to a small table and took plates, spoons, and forks then distributed it among us. In just a few seconds, Jasmine came with a pot of fried rice and a plate with eggs, sunny-side-up, just the way I like it. The smell overwhelmed me, it smelled so delicious that it made me drool. We shared the food, ate, shared stories, and laughed all together except for Ron who wasn’t with us.
“Well.” Mark said, standing up.
“Time to get back to work.”
“Work?” I said.
“Yeah, work. What? You thought we would just lie here all day?”
“No. I just thought what you would be working on at a time like this.”
“For one thing, we need power. So I have to install these solar panels. You should come and help me, but first you should clean yourself, you look like a mess.”
He was right, I looked like a mess. My shirt was destroyed, the back of my jacket was ripped off, and there was slobber on my hair and face.
“John will show you where to go.”
“Come on.” John said, standing up.
I followed him to the far end of the warehouse and then showed me the bathroom, took a towel and threw it to me. I went inside and turned on the shower, it was warm and very relaxing.
“This feels nice.” I said as I touched the water. I soon closed the water and removed my jacket, forgetting what had happened to my shirt.
“Nice shirt.” He said grinning.
“My joke!” Mark shouted as he passed by.
“So. You ok?” John said.
“Yeah I’m fine.”
“Ok then. I’ll be going now.”
“Ok thanks.”
I removed my clothes, turned on the shower, and stood there enjoying the divine touch of the water until someone shouted just outside the bathroom.
“Hey! John here! There’s a pair of clothes here. Just use them when you’re done.”
“Ok! Thank you!” I shouted back.
After showering, I took the clothes John left me and wore them. The clothe he left were a pair of jeans and a shirt, it was a perfect fit. I went outside and asked Lee how to get up to the roof.
“There are stairs on the left of warehouse.” He replied.
I climbed the stairs and saw Mark hammering something. He saw me and waved, I waved back. As I went to help him, I noticed the same flock of birds circling above but I ignored it and went on my way.
“So what do you need help with?”
“Help me hammer these nails into place.” Mark said, giving me a hammer.
I took the hammer and sat next to him. After a few minutes of hammering, Lee appeared in the distance, walking towards us when a shriek was heard and Lee quickly flew to his left, impaling him to a pole.
“What the fuck!” Mark said, shocked at what he saw.
Another shock was heard and Mark looked behind him, quickly saying:
“Duck!” as he pulled me down.
I saw something glide inches above us, it was red and as big as a dog.
“Run!” Mark shouted.
We ran towards the stairs until one of them attacked Mark. They slid through the ground as he fell. I ran towards them fighting on the ground and hit the monster with the hammer I held in my hand, launching it five feet away from us but flew away. I helped Mark get up on his feet and again ran towards the stairs. Reaching it, we ran down the stairs when a flying creature flew towards us. Mark pulled me and I dodged its claws then ran down. The creature got up and quickly crawled towards us but before it caught up, Mark closed the hatch on the creature’s leg. It tried to release its leg but found no luck in doing so. It suddenly flapped its wings violently that it made the stairs shake. Soon I saw the bolts on the stairs slowly loosen. Afterwards, the stairs started to slowly fall to its side.
“Shit! We have to jump now! Mark shouted at me.
“But what if we-“
“Nooow!”
Mark pulled me and jumped over the railings, taking me with him. We landed on the ground and rolled for a few feet. Pain overwhelmed me as I rolled through the ground, stopping with my body facing the stairs. I saw it fall onto the brick wall, crushing it along with the trapped creature. I tried to stand up but the pain pulled me down. Mark soon helped me up and we jogged to the open area in front of the warehouse where we saw everyone looking worried.
“What happened?” Katy said, looking more worried.
“No time to explain. We have company.” Mark said.
There was another shriek and we all looked in its direction. Mark suddenly ran towards Katy, tackling her to the ground as something flew above them.
“What the hell was that?” Max said.
“I don’t know” Mark said as he helped Katy up and picked up a long rod.
“Whatever it is, we have to defend ourselves.” John said as he did the same as Mark.
All of us picked up weapons and defended ourselves, killing everything that came near us, trying to protect each other, trying to keep ourselves alive. While we were fighting I saw something fly towards us from beyond the gate and was shocked to see that it was a car. When I saw that it was going to hit Max, I yelled at him:
“Max! Get out of the way!” As I pointed to the car.
He looked at me blankly then at the car but before he was to know what to do, the car hit him, sliding through the ground, leaving trail of blood.
“Oh my god! Maaax! Katy yelled as she witnessed what happened.
Suddenly, we hear something hit the gate, leaving a huge dent to it. Soon, something bashed through the dent open and a huge monster appeared. It had huge claws and was freakin big. Its roar pierced through our ears.
“Shit! Get inside! Go! Go! Go!” Mark shouted.
We quickly ran towards the warehouse but before we were able to reach it, Katy was taken away by the flying creatures. She screamed in agony as the monsters tore her apart.
“Katy! Jasmine screamed.
“Forget about her. We have to go!” Mark said, pushing Jasmine inside.
As we went inside, we were panting heavily.
“How are we gonna get out?” I asked.
“There a hatch behind us that leads to the sewers. We could go there.” Mark replied.
“Well we have to go now. The gate won’t hold forever.” Ron said.
While we walked to the backdoor the huge monster destroyed the wall.
“Wha-What the?” Mark said.
It threw a water tank at us but we jumped away. This action separated me from the backdoor and the others. That thing looked at me then suddenly charged towards me.
“Vincent! Run!” Jasmine yelled.
I quickly ran to my right before it hit me. The monster crashed through the piles of parts and hit the wall, creating a violent shudder through the building which made me drop to my knees.
“Vince! Look out!” Mark shouted, pointing at a chunk of metal flying towards me.
The adrenaline rush forced me to jump away, luckily avoiding it but as I landed, I saw the monster was just three feet away from me. Fear took control over my body causing me to freeze. The monster raised its right arm and hit me with it. The force of the hit caused me to be thrown 15 feet away, positioning me behind a gas pipe and the barrel with the bon fire.
“GAAAAHH!” I cried in agony as I held my left shoulder.
I couldn’t move my shoulder anymore so I had a hard time getting up. The monster again charged towards me, breaking the gas pipe and throwing the barrel near the others and quickly caught up to me. I raised both of its arms and tried to hit me but before I was to be crushed, my reflexes made me roll, evading my pancake end. With the strength I had left, I forced myself to stand up and run towards the others. I noticed the gas leaking as I stood up and had an idea.
“Throw the fire wood!” I yelled as I ran towards them.
“What good will tha-“ Mark said.
“Just do it.”
Mark picked up the lit stick and threw it at the monster. I looked behind me. As the stick was about to hit the beast, a great, big ball of fire appeared and exploded, launching me outside the warehouse.
“That was close.” I said as I stood up, hand on shoulder.
“Are you hurt? What happened to your shoulder?” Jasmine said with a worried look.
“I’m fine. It’s just a bruise. Oww!” I yelled when she touched my shoulder.
“Your shoulder is broken. Here let me help you.”
Jasmine took out a cloth from her bag and made a tie that cradled my arm.
“There. How’s that?”
“It’s fine.”
“Hey. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Mark said as he opened the hatch.
A very bad odor exhumed the air.
“What the? I’m not going in there with that smell.” I said, covering my mouth.
“Don’t worry I brought supplies.” Mark said showing a sack filled with different items.
There were 5 gas masks and 3 flash lights in the sack. We wore the masks and started to descend into the black pit.
Chapter 4-The Sewers
I couldn’t see anything down there. Everything was pitch black, the only thing I can see were the others under the light from the hatch.
“Ok, let’s move.” Mark said as he turned on his flash light.
“Wait. Do you even know where you’re going?” I said with an uneasy tone.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been here once; I think I know where I’m going.”
“Where are we going anyway?” Jasmine asked.
“To the mountains. There’s a hatch there and the ocean is just near there.” Mark said as he moved forward.
We followed him through the sewers until Mark suddenly turned off his flash light and whispered something to us.
“Turn off your lights.”
We turned them off.
“What’s ha-“ I said
“Ssshhh… Don’t move.” Marks said, covering my mouth with his hand.
“There are six of them. They seem to be eating.”
I heard crunching sounds and growls. This made me very uneasy, sweat started to appear on my face and my chest was about to explode from my heart pounding.
“Hold hands and follow me”
We held hands.
“How can you even see through this?”
“Night vision goggles.”
We followed him a forward then to the right..
“Ok turn on your light.”
Once we turned on our lights. We saw piles of bodies, brutally torn apart. This made me puke; Jasmine on the other hand screamed but was stopped by his brother.
“Damn! Close your lights.” Mark said
We closed them and I wiped my mouth. I heard growls and footsteps in the distance.
“There they are, they’re splitting up… Damn! Two of them are coming this way. Follow me; the hatch is just 50 feet away.”
We held hands and followed Mark.
“Run! They’re running towards us.
We ran and Mark suddenly stopped.
“Quick! Climb up the ladder.”
Mark was first, then me, Jasmine, her brother, and last was John. Mark opened the hatch and I saw them in the distance growling. They quickly ran towards us.
“Go! Go! Go!” Mark said as he pulled me out.
He pulled Jasmine and Ron out but before he was to pull John out, he disappeared. Screaming was heard and slowly faded away.
“John. John. John!” Mark shouted at the empty hole.
Chapter 5-The Escape
“Damn it!” He said, kicking a rock and put his hand to his face.
Jasmine was sitting there, knees to her face and arms around her, Ron was there hugging her sister. We had to get out of here; we had to get off this island. Everything around me was slowly disappearing.
“Come on guys. The ocean isn’t far from here. We can still leave.”
“What’s the point? We’re gonna die anyway.” Jasmine said.
“Don’t lose hope. We made it this far right? There’s still a chance for us to survive.”
“He’s right. Come on, let’s get going.” Ron said.
“Ok fine.” Jasmine said as she stood up.
We climbed the mountain until I found a clearing at the edge of the mountain. I stood there and looked at the city. It was destroyed, everything, gone. I closed my eyes and felt the breeze softly hit my face. The others called me and I ran there. To my surprise I saw the ocean. We looked over the horizon and stood there for a moment. Relief filled up our heads. We were gonna escape.
We descended the mountain and found ourselves on the coast.
“Here we are.” I said.
“What now?” Jasmine said.
“We need a boat to get out.”
“Hey look! There’s one over there.” Ron said
There was a small boat there floating at the far side of the beach. We ran for it, eventually reaching it in seconds. It was full of moss and dirt but it was a sight for sore eyes.
“Oh my god. We’re getting off this island. I can’t believe this.” Jasmine said, full of hope.
“Look Mark, we’re gonna get out, we’re gonna get off this isla-“ I said as I looked at Mark behind me.
He was pointing a gun at us.
“Mark, what are you doing?” I said, moving forward
“Don’t move!”
“What are you doing?” Ron said.
“Trying to save myself.”
“But…But the boat is big enough. We can get out together.” Jasmine said with a shaky voice.
“You don’t get it do you?”
“Get what?”
“Everything you see here, everything that has happened. Is all because of me.”
“You…You did all this?”
“Yes.”
“But why? Why would you do this?”
“It was for an experiment.”
“An experiment?” I said
“Yes. It was an experiment on evolution. I was to test on how evolution would work on living things. I found this island and used it for my experiment; I turned it into a city and attracted people all over the world. Now that I had my test subjects, I started conducting the experiment, kidnapping people, stealing animals, but soon things got a little out of hand.”
“Little? This is fuckin huge! The-these things are killing people, they’re destroying everything, and you did this all for just a stupid experiment!” Ron said with an angry voice.
“Yes and I intend to keep it that way and I don’t want anyone to hinder my success.”
“You’re still going to do it after all this?”
“Correct.”
“Then why did you help us?”
“I needed you to keep me alive until I escaped.”
“You were using us all this time. W-We trusted you!”
“In this world, you mustn’t trust anyone.” He said as he walked towards the boat.
“Then what about us?”
“I’m going to leave you here and let the monsters do the dirty job for me.”
“Why you!” Ron yelled.
Ron charged at Mark but fell when Mark shot him. Ron screamed in pain while rolling around with his arm on his right shoulder.
“Brother!
We ran and tried to help Ron. Mark got on the boat, said goodbye and drove away.
“Maaark! You son of a bitch!” I shouted
Three hours have passed and we were sitting under a rock. Ron passed out fifteen minutes after he was shot, and Jasmine was sitting beside him, holding his hand. I stood near the waves and looked over the horizon. We didn’t know what to do, it was getting dark, we had no shelter, no food, nothing… I sat next to Jasmine.
“We’re not getting out are we?” Jasmine said.
“No. No we won’t.”
We sat there and watched the sun set, our hopes slowly fading into darkness like the sun. When all hope was lost, we heard something.
“Do you hear that?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah It sounds like… A helicopter!”
We stood up and looked around searching for the helicopter and found it in the horizon. I took off my shirt and waved it around shouting at the same time. Jasmine did the same with here jacket. The helicopter come towards us and stopped just above. We we’re going to be saved, we were gonna leave. I looked at Jasmine, who was so full of hope, she looked at me and back at the helicopter. They lowered down a bed and we put John in. We repeated this 2 times, Jasmine first then me. We were so happy, the feeling of joy, the feeling of relief, the feeling of being alive.
Chapter 6-Epilogue
After we left, we were treated to a hospital and stayed there for two months before the hospital released us. We soon went to the government and got an audience with the president. We told them everything that has happened to us, at first they didn’t believe us until an investigation crew were sent and came back positive. After a week, the US government launched a missile at the island to destroy it and erase every trace of it ever existing. After the launch, we soon parted ways, Jasmine got a job as a nurse, got married to a teacher in Canada and had 2 kids, Ron was accepted into the military and became a member of the Special Force, as for me, well, I found someone who loves me and whom I loved back. We went back to our mediocre lives but had time to speak to each other and forgot everything about the island, but ONE question has been bothering me every day since we left the island.
What happened to Mark?
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- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
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- 111
@gunslinger this part of the story didn't make any sense.
Try not to put too much characters in the story at different times as it confuses the reader. Try place a paragraph to show at least 3/4 of the people in the story.
I couldn't keep up as who is alive and who is dead.
You showed us 1 man and 1 woman but who's the other?
Try not to put too much characters in the story at different times as it confuses the reader. Try place a paragraph to show at least 3/4 of the people in the story.
I couldn't keep up as who is alive and who is dead.
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2006
- Messages
- 4,162
GunSlinger21, try using less dialogue.
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,580
lol. Sorry, forgot that I removed one character.
EDIT:
Fixed it.
EDIT:
Fixed it.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2008
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I was so close to the end that I simply couldn't go to bed without finishing it. For the sake of a fun reading experience, I recommend you to read the .DOC file instead of the wall of text in the hidden tags. But if you can't open Word files, you can still (somewhat) enjoy reading it in here
I signal my second-in-command to follow me to the bridge.
It was busy at the Eye. People were walking all around the place with paperwork in their hands or analyzing the magic tablets that were placed orderly by the side. It’s no surprise it’s a busy place, but now it’s worse than usually.
The Eye was an underground observatory that uses magic to oversee anything and everything that happens in the outside world. We work here as part of an organization without an official name. After all, our existence is secret to anybody who lives outside. The people here seem to have grown fond of calling themselves and their colleagues Silent Gods. Somebody thought of that name a while back and it stuck. We observe the outside world and intervene if anything occurs that could threaten the existence of any of the factions. However, our policy demands that we don’t leave the slightest clue behind, should we be forced to intervene. We rarely have to, but it would explain why most people here name each other Silent Gods. The reason to our secrecy isn’t that hard to find either. If people know they’re being watched and ‘judged’, they will act unlike themselves. And for that, we have these magic tablets. They link to millions of places, but now they’re all fixed on a few specific areas.
As we pass through the door to the bridge, a tall man turns around to see who it is.
“Nothing yet, ma’am.” he tells me with a disillusioned expression on his face.
I asked him what we could’ve possibly overlooked, but he didn’t know the answer to that either.
“Ok, let’s retrace what has happened. There must be a reason.” I continued.
“Very well. It all started yesterday at 17:39.” the man said as he walked to a large map in the center of the room. He zoomed in on one of the 4 territories on the map and placed a couple of markers in it.
“When the troops of the Malgorn faction, led by general Creigo, marched into Gardona territory here, they slayed all scouting patrols they encountered. The Gardona faction didn’t expect an attack from them, but from the Jorph faction to the north. They reinforced their northern border with most of their troops, led by their general, general Stulliwyn.” he said while marking a large area on the edge of the map.
”By the time they got the message that they were under attack from the south, they were forced to get back to their capitol as soon as possible. This would’ve been a 3-day trip and they would never have arrived in time. General Creigo was well aware of this, so he marched towards the heart of the Malgorn Empire, slaying every battalion that tried to slow them down as much as possible.”
He moved the marker that represented the Malgorn army towards the center of the map and continued.
”This delay barely had any effect. In just 35 hours, general Creigo and his legion stood at the capitol walls. With the attack force he had at his disposal, he could’ve claimed the metropolis well before general Stulliwyn and his men would arrive.”
“But he didn’t.” I clarified. “Now the question is: Why?”
I lean over the map, looking for any clues that could even give the slightest hint to this strange behavior. They had nothing to fear and everything to gain.
“Did the intercepted orders enlighten anything, Uraph?” my second-in-command, Gretoh asked.
“Our spies got all orders they could find, but those only contain info about attacking the capitol.” the tall man replied. “There’s nothing that would point towards a retreat. The Calwax faction to the west didn’t show any sign of hostility, so they couldn’t have feared for an attack from them. Calwax also has no pacts with the other factions.”
Uraph takes a deep breath while looking at the map.
“It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“We must be overlooking something.” I said while joined him in staring at that wretched map. “You don’t just put your entire army behind enemy lines to reach the grand prize and leave without even touching it.”
“Uraph…” Gretoh suddenly said.
I looked at him and saw a glimpse on his face that would indicate he might have found a clue or something.
“Can you track down the current position of general Stulliwyn and his troops?” he continued.
“Yea, sure. Just a minute.”
Uraph went to one his private tablet to enter some data. The map was wiped of all markers and not much later, a new one appeared.
“What are they doing there?” I asked myself while curiously looking at the flashing area that just appeared.
“And now check the location of Malgorn’s armies.” Gretoh continued, still showing that same expression on his face.
A bit more data was entered in the tablet, and another market appeared.
“Are you sure that’s them?” I asked.
“Absolutely, ma’am. It seems that general Stulliwyn finds chasing the enemy more important than protecting his homeland.”
“No, they’re not moving fast enough to be hunting them. It’s nothing like a chase.”
We both looked curiously at Gretoh when he said those words. I didn’t make him my second-in-command for no reason. He has more military experience than anybody I’ve ever encountered, which is why this was so curious. If he says they’re not chasing, they’re not chasing. But what were they doing then?
As those thoughts passed my mind, I saw his posture change as if he had it all figured out. And he almost did.
“I know what pattern that is.” he mumbled, still trying to put the pieces together he just seem to have found. “They’re not hunting them… They are joining them.”
I was stunned by what he just said. I wanted to believe him like I always have, but this would be like defying the laws of nature.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war for over 25 years.” I said in disbelief.
“Besides, if there were orders like that sent to the armies, we would have known.” Uraph added to that.
That look Gretoh had didn’t change a bit after hearing that. He had a theory, and it was well grounded by the looks of it.
“Exactly!” he said.
He looked at me, and I noticed a glimpse of pride. He must’ve put all the pieces together, there’s no doubt about it.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war and they sent no orders. That’s because it’s not them. Gardona never could’ve sent a message to their army that fast. By the distance between the border and their current position, the Gardona army was already on its way when the city was reached by the Malgornian troops. They’re disobeying orders to protect the border.”
“What?” Uraph said shocked. “Then what about their defenses against the Jorphans?”
“See for yourself.”
Gretoh nodded to the tablet and Uraph understood he should track down the biggest army the Jorph Empire had outside their walls. A little bit later, a third point on the map started flashing. That one wasn’t where it was supposed to be either. As ironic as it may sound, it was all so strange that it actually started to make sense.
“Shall I track down the main Calwax army as well, just in case?” Uraph asked.
I nodded and a moment later, a fourth point was marked. As we all suspected, it was way out of its patrolling area.
“So it’s a military gathering of the entire continent, huh? But what will they be doing there? I’ll check if we had any relative intercepted messages from any of the other factions.”
I looked at Gretoh to see if he could save him the effort by explaining that as well, but he didn’t seem to have gotten that far in solving the riddle himself either.
With Uraph working on that, it was just Gretoh and me brainstorming around the map where 4 flashing strobes were slowly crawling towards the center. Every once in a while, I saw Gretoh focus on a part of the map, as if he had a clue, but then he figured it wasn’t possible and got back to his thinking position. This went on for almost half an hour and it was getting more and more frustrating by the minute.
“I checked everything trice, but not a single clue to any of this from any faction.” Uraph said as he came walking.
“What exactly did you check?” Gretoh asked.
Uraph obviously was frustrated by his failed efforts as well, because he took it as an assault against his skills.
“If you think I’m not able to do what I do, you’re welcome to take over any moment!”
“That’s not what I meant.” Gretoh said, remaining his cool. “I just wanted to know what you used as source.”
“Well, unless you know of more than 4 capitols from which they can send out orders, I think I got them all.”
I didn’t wanted to make Gretoh look like the guy who just barged in as the know-it-all, and I understood where he was going for, so I took over.
“Uraph, check the receivers instead. They might not be disobeying orders, but they may have received orders which overwrite their original ones. If that’s the case, it doesn’t have to mean the orders were sent from the capitols.”
Now Uraph understood what Gretoh meant, but also what he had to do. He rushed back to his tablet and calibrated it to track the receivers of the generals leading the armies while we waited anxiously for the results.
“Well, I got good news and bad news.” He said. “The good news is that they all did receive orders.”
“What were the orders?” I asked.
“Yea, that’s the bad news. I can only see they got orders, but I can’t open any.”
“We don’t have to read them.” Gretoh replied. “We already know half of the results. We just don’t know why they’re doing this. But there are more ways to find out.”
“That’s right.” I continued. “These orders must’ve been magically masked to avoid being detected by the headquarters of each faction. That means there must be traces of paramysa, the rare material that allows this kind of cloaking. Uraph, try to track back the original location from which the orders were sent by following those traces back to its source. If we go there, we might find out more about this wicked situation.”
He set to it immediately, but it was one hell of a job. Paramysa is so rare, there’s nobody specialized in it to help us track it down. Gretoh and I helped him by each settling behind another tablet and divide the chores. It still took us over an hour to get a rough location.
“There. I’ll place it on the map.”
We gathered around the map for a new evaluation. The armies were all dangerously close to each other. In less than an hour, they would reach the center, where now the 5th marker was placed. The marker that indicated the location from which the orders were sent.
“The Blind Ruins. This has got to be the worst case scenario.”
“That place negates all magic. We’ll be going in blind.”
“Hence the name.” Uraph replied as if he was stating the obvious.
“We don’t have a choice.” I interrupted. “There’s a problem that affects the entire continent and it involves the 4 biggest armies on it. They’re not doing as commanded by their home commands, and someone is trying very hard not to be found as cause of it all. To me that sounds like we got to do our jobs and do it fast.”
“We can’t send scouts ahead this time, because they can’t report back. Communications will be lost as soon as they arrive. And as just a scout team, they won’t be ready to defend themselves for whatever they encounter.” Uraph protested.
“No scouts this time. It’s just going to be Gretoh, me and our best first encounter party. We need to go in prepared for anything without having to rely on magic or magic-powered equipment.”
He didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t have to read his face to figure that out. This was a huge risk, but we had no time for alternatives or even thinking about possible alternatives. Luckily he saw this as well and went to assemble the party and get the gear prepared. Only 10 minutes later, we were all prepared and ready to be sent to the Ruins. Gretoh and I were standing with 6 of our best men on the teleportation platform.
“I don’t know if this’ll work, since the area we’re sending you to negates magic.”
“We will just have to be lucky then.” I confidently said.
“As a failsafe, you will automatically be teleported back here when you leave the ruins. So should it go wrong somehow, that’s your main ticket back.”
I gave the signal and a few seconds later, a concentration of magic created an orb of energy above us. Not much later, the orb expanded drastically until we were all engulfed by its light.
“What the…”
The ground started to shake and some of us were losing balance. I got down on one knee to take a better stance. I looked around to see who or what could be causing this, but there was nothing in sight but old ruins. Half of the party was starting to look more worried, while the other half was starting to look more alert. Suddenly, a loud bang caught us off guard and we all covered our ears. The ground started to tremble under our feet, and with everyone focused on keeping their eardrums intact, nobody could brace themselves. We fell a few dozen meters as the light above us faded completely away.
“Ugh…” I heard some people mumbling.
I tried to move, but there was something holding me back. With too much dust around, I didn’t open my eyes, so I just felt what it was. It seemed like a weighty chunk of rock. With a firm push, I got it off of me and when I stood up I noticed that I surprisingly wasn’t very injured. I checked again, but there were only some scratches and bruises. The next thing I noticed was one of the others shivering on the floor without any visible wounds. Still half dazed, I struggled to him. By the looks of the equipment, he was the medic.
“Snap out of it.” I said while shaking him a bit up to bring him back to consciousness.
But then I noticed something he was laying on. I rolled him over and saw a curious diamond-like rock with a sharp end. I quickly checked the medic’s back and as I feared, there was a deep wound.
“Stay with me!” I yelled at him. “Somebody help me here!”
The rest of the party was coming to as well, but didn’t notice the wounded medic until just now. Some weren’t able to get fully conscious of the situation, but the others who were came running immediately. I grabbed bandages from his kit and turned him around to start, but then I saw a shard of that diamond-like rock got stuck in his back. It must’ve broken off.
“Let me through”
Gretoh pushed away a few men to get a closer. When he saw the shard in the medic’s back, he froze though. After a short silence, he slowly kneeled down next to me.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t help him.”
I was amazed by what I just heard.
“Why? He’s wounded and needs help.”
Gretoh shook his head and turned the medic’s around again so his face would be shown. He had already passed away, since his eyes didn’t move anymore at all.
“That crystal rock he landed on was crystalized paramysa. It looks like diamond, but is very weak as a material. However, this does not mean its effects are weak as well.”
He took the medic’s body from my hands and put him to rest on the rubble.
“Apparently he landed on the rock, which broke off a shard that got stuck in the wound it created. When his organs were exposed to a pure paramysa shard, all life-essentials were drained from them, causing a quick but painful death.”
I looked at the body again, like so many were and couldn’t help but wonder how awful his last moments must’ve been.
“Meia bernennet alorn.” I prayed. “Rest in peace, my friend. Your efforts for our civilization will not be forgotten.”
The rest of the party, for as far as they were aware enough of the situation, repeated my prayers. I stood up and went to help the rest who weren’t completely conscious yet. Luckily nobody else was seriously hurt. One of the men was close to suffering the same fate as the medic, but missed the dreadful paramysa rocks by a few inches.
“Alright, everybody here?” I asked when we got everyone in the area on their feet.
Some were looking disappointed, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew what was on their mind.
“I know we lost a good friend in here, but I’m afraid we don’t have the time to give him a proper funeral just yet. But I promise you, we will give him every bit of respect he deserves once we’re done here.”
I took a small break to see how they were reacting. It wasn’t very positive, but it’s the best I could expect from a situation like this.
“Gretoh, what do you think just happened?”
He looked above for clues and replied “We should’ve predicted this.”
I looked up to try to see what he saw, while he faced me again.
“The teleporter was magic-driven. It was powered from our headquarters, so it was stable at that point. Normally, when the power is cut off, the portal automatically shuts down. But since this place isn’t magic-friendly, it must’ve ripped the portal apart when the power that kept it stabilized was cut off. Then the implosion created a shockwave strong enough to tremble the ruins to its literal downfall.”
Having that sorted out, I stopped looking up and started looking back at Gretoh again.
“Like I said, we should’ve predicted this.”
My mind went back to the corpse in the rubble, but I couldn’t show that to the rest. Gretoh knew me well enough to see right through me, so he helped me cover my thoughts by acting normal and focused on the mission. If he could do it, then so could I. I pulled myself together and started to think what I would’ve done if this was any other situation. Quite simple: I’d check the environment for clues where to go next.
We landed in a large manmade chamber. There was nothing added though, it was just plainly cut out of rock. Nevertheless, there were paramysa crystals sticking out the walls at several places. Finding out where to go next was also quite easy, since there was only one way out. I signaled the party to move out in that direction. 2 scouts in front, 1 covering our backs and the rest was ready for battle. We already lost all sense of direction since we fell through the ruin floor, so we didn’t really know which way we were heading. Either way, the further we went, the more crystals were sticking out the walls and ceiling. Even the floor was covered with them, making us extra cautious. After travelling over half an hour, we noticed the crystals in the distance were glowing. We kept our guard up as we moved closer and when we got there, they didn’t seem to be glowing after all. They were reflecting light from around the corner.
“You think it’s an exit?” I asked Gretoh, but when I saw his expression, I knew he probably thought the light wasn’t actual daylight.
After looking a bit better, I noticed the light beams were slightly flickering, so it couldn’t have been sunlight. In the same formation as before, we proceeded towards the light since it was still the only way forward. We arrived in what used to be a larger area than it is now. The entire room was covered by paramysa crystal that nearly blinded us. We were even more surprised when we found out that a small dot of light coming from the center caused all this. The crystals reflected the light, so even a tiny light source as this could illuminate the entire place. I walked over there to shade the orb so the room would get a bit less bright. As the area got slightly less dark, the silhouette of a man in a white robe appeared.
“On guard, men! We’re not alone.” I quickly commanded.
I couldn’t do anything myself, because I had to cover the orb to actually keep the man in sight for the rest of the party. I saw something from the man reaching out to me. It was his arm.
“Stay back!” I warned him.
But against anything I expected, he only made the orb’s light dim with his hand’s motions. I didn’t have to cover the orb anymore since we could all see normally now. Gretoh was astonished.
“That was magic.” He mumbled. “How did you do that in here?”
The man didn’t reply. Instead, he only curiously watched me. I looked back at him and noticed something was off.
“Wait… Scelm?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. The man in front of me was really Scelm, a researcher who used to work for us. He was the first who was sent out to these ruins to map them. Back then we didn’t know that magic was negated around these parts. We haven’t heard of him ever since.
“We assumed you died after weeks without a word from you.”
I still couldn’t believe it, but I was just so happy he was alive. I walked towards him to make sure, but I was forcefully pulled back. It almost caused me to lose my balance and noticed it was Gretoh who was to blame.
“That’s not the Scelm we know.” He said.
I looked and him and then back at Scelm, but he looked just like how I remembered him.
“You actually got a promotion, didn’t you, Gretoh?” Scelm suddenly said. “High enough to pull her cloak. That’s quite the advancement you’ve made.”
He sounded quite insulting, but what would you expect if the world kept spinning while you’re left in solitude.
“Tell me, Mr. Reynard. Did you send the orders to the 4 generals?” Gretoh asked as direct as he could possibly have.
I was so busy worrying about what he was doing here, I almost forgot why we were here in the first place. Luckily I made a very good choice on who I made my second-in-command.
“I didn’t expect you to be here, but I shouldn’t be surprised.” Scelm continued, avoiding the question again.
Slowly but steadily, rhythmic vibrations started to echo through the crystal-filled room.
“That sounds like… Jorphan war drums!”
“Exactly.” Scelm whispered.
The rhythms started to get distorted as other vibrations came through as well.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. The moment of truth is here at last.”
“You did send those orders. What’s the point of all this?”
A small smile appeared on Scelm’s face, and then he calmly said “Don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough it’s in everybody’s best interest.”
Scelm walked towards one of the walls and broke off a piece of paramysa crystal and crushed it in his hand. The crystal dust emitted a pulsing glow that shone through his fingers. The moment he did that, all drums were silenced and all vibrations stopped. It was completely silent and I awaited what would happen next. Then he dropped the paramysa dust on the crystallized floor. You could hear the clear sound of every grain of dust that touched the ground. The whole place started to tremble again. We all knew what was going on up there.
“Since when is open war in everybody’s best interest?” Gretoh yelled over the noise coming from above.
“I have been down here for years, doing the same work as you have. But unlike you, I’ve been open to all possibilities. All you care about is protecting your precious factions, but you’re too ignorant to see that the same thing you’re protecting is also the cause of everybody’s suffering!”
He took a deep breath to calm down and continued.
“Just think about it. It makes no sense to just keep protecting people that are causing problems. They never learn. To prove that, I created a couple of superior creatures to aid the factions. And now, all 4 of them are leading the largest armies on the continent. Not that it surprises me. That’s why I used these crystals here to add a special ability to my creations. If they can’t resist building nothing but armies to create pain and suffering, I will make them regret that dearly. With the biggest battlefield in recent history happening above, it will be also have the biggest death toll. My creatures ‘consume’ every death nearby to gain power. This, to ensure they will only gain full strength when the factions really have gone way too far in their military operations.”
That was quite something to even try to imagine. The generals of each army are getting stronger with every death. There must be almost a million men battling right now and all generals are there too.
“What are you going to do when they reach full strength?” I asked.
Gretoh and I were on the same level now. We both were as direct as possible and taking nothing for granted.
“Then I will make them all pay for the death and destruction they all created.”
“By killing them?”
“That would make me just as bad as them. Besides, I’m not letting them get away that easily.”
“They’re human, just like us! We make mistakes!”
“You do. I don’t. And since this is a mistake in human nature, I’m going to make sure they won’t make any more mistakes. I will help them evolve into a stage far beyond humanity! There will never be so much pain and suffering again.”
“Evolve? You mean you’re going to turn them into abominations! You’re insane, Scelm!”
Gretoh rushed at him in anger, but Scelm had other plans. He shoved the paramysa dust from the floor into Gretoh’s face, blinding him. With a firm push, he pushed him back to us. I checked his face to see if the dust caused any harm, while the rest of the party covered me. Luckily there was nothing for as far as I could see and Scelm didn’t make any sudden moves.
“I wanted to use one of my own creations as the base for its perfection, but you have much more potential. You have rage, which tends to combine quite well with vengeance.”
A loud shock made the room shake and a few crystals hanging from the ceiling even came down. None came close to any of us, luckily, but I got a terrible headache. It wasn’t any normal headache. It was like my head was being crushed from the inside. I wanted to get it out or keep my head from imploding, but nothing worked. I did get a glimpse that the rest of the party was having even worse problems. They were severely convulsing on the ground and in a lot of pain.
“That was quick. You see, the bigger the armies, the faster the death count rises. Gretoh, my old friend, you’re going to play a big part in the new era for humanity.”
Scelm tapped the crystal wall and not much later, the 4 generals themselves came through the walls and ceiling. It was the most unnatural thing I’ve ever seen.
“Syjilem, Stulliwyn, Creigo and Bacapp, the time has come at last! Merge into the creature that you were always meant to be. Salvation from imperfection awaits you!”
He pointed at Gretoh, who was also having trouble keeping his head together. I couldn’t let anything happen to him. I would protect him, just like he would protect me if I was down. I stood up and struggled to keep my balance, but that was the least of my problems. As fast as I could, I walked towards him without falling to the floor. That would only cost me more valuable time. In the few seconds I had, I still noticed I wasn’t fast enough. Then no more safe play. That was a mistake I shouldn’t have made. I lost my balance, but didn’t give up yet. I started crawling to him instead. When I was close enough to grab his clothes, a large spiked boot stepped on my arm when I reached out. It was Bacapp, and he had no intentions of letting me anywhere near Gretoh. He kicked me so hard, that I flew a good dozen meters through the room until I landed on the hard ground. That really hurt, but not as much as the pain of my failure. I let him down when he needed me.
“Gretoh!” I screamed, but it wouldn’t help.
He tried to fight back, but those creatures were inhumanly powerful. Bacapp and Stulliwyn grabbed his arms, so he couldn’t struggle. Slowly, their hands molt and the disgusting fluid that came free covered Gretoh’s arms and crawled towards his shoulders. They held him firmly down on the ground as they completely fused with him. Gretoh’s face disappeared as the bodies of the generals fused as well, covering him completely. The other 2 creatures picked him up and fused similarly on his back. He was now latterly swallowed by these monsters and all that remained now was this abomination that reeked of burned human flesh. I couldn’t believe he was gone. I looked at the rest we took with us in this mess, but they were still not in control of their bodies. All the pain I saw them in was too awful to see. Their skin began to rot. There’s no other way of explaining what happened. Some strange fungus started to grow all over them. It must be that ‘evolving’ Scelm mentioned. It was making me sick.
“Look beyond its appearance and see perfection! Never again will we have the problems we’ve always been solving. We can return to the way it was, but then in peace.”
“The way it was was without these hideous monsters. You’ve been surrounded by these crystals for way too long. It twisted our mind. Come back to your senses!”
He was not amused by these words and thought I betrayed him. In a way, I did. But he lost his sanity. There was no point arguing with him.
“You’re just as much causing problems as they are and I won’t allow it.”
He turned his attention at the abomination that consumed Gretoh.
“Kill her.”
I had to get out of there. If Bacapp alone could send me flying with a simple kick, what would the 4 of them combined be capable of? There’s no way I could’ve taken them on, so I quickly started running back the way we came from.
Then I smelled a familiar stench. It was that same burning flesh stench from before. He was here and I knew there was no more time to cover myself up and no chance to find a new hiding place. All I could do was sit, make myself as small as possible and hope it wouldn’t spot me. The stench got worse and worse until it was almost unbearable. But I couldn’t break now. There was no way I was going to let something stupid as a filthy smell get me killed. Then I heard footsteps. I could hear them getting closer. I tried so hard not to make a sound, it only made me pant. I silently raised my hand to cover my mouth, afraid of any sudden sounds coming out. The footsteps kept coming closer. With all the effort of not making any noise, my heartbeat just seemed to get louder. I psyched myself out, listening to it. I was so scared it might also be able to hear it, I was getting tears in my eyes. That moment couldn’t be over soon enough. Through my tears, I saw a blurry picture of the monster’s feet stumbling past me. I was begging in myself it would pass me by quickly and didn’t dare to look up to avoid any accidental sounds that could blow my cover. That would be my worst nightmare. Those blurry legs faded away in the dark distance and the stench slowly started to clear.
I waited a bit longer until that terrible smell was almost completely gone to be sure it was far enough and then I sighed in relief. There was no time to let it all sink in. I had to find a way out. With my robe, I wiped my tears away, while trying not to get any dirt in my eyes. Clearing my eyes and mind made me notice a tiny opening in the wall I was sitting against this whole time. When I took a closer look, I noticed it led to a new path. One that was partially uncovered by the same shock that brought me this shelter. I checked the road the monster took to see it was really safe to make some noise and started to dig a hole big enough for me to fit through. As soon as I was on the other end, I started to create as much distance between me and that cursed place. A new source of light shone in the distance, but this one was different. It was steady. It was daylight! The sun aimed its rays of light straight into the cave, making it hard for me to see anything, but that didn’t matter. I was finally out of there.
All of the sudden, the light became less bright as if the sun itself was being dimmed. When it had faded enough for me to see, I found myself standing on a manmade floor. At first, I didn’t understand, but then I remembered. Uraph’s failsafe. As soon as we would leave the anti-magic area of the ruins, we would automatically be teleported back here. I might’ve gotten myself to safety, but there was still a lot of stuff that had to be done. This part of the Eye was deserted it seemed, so I went to the bridge to find Uraph and tell him everything. When I arrived, there wasn’t anybody there either. Something wasn’t right. There was almost always someone at the bridge, but the place looked like it was abandoned. Then I heard a noise coming from the corridor. The sound of some tool that fell on the floor. I turned around to see if anybody was there to tell me where everyone went to, but the man who dropped it was no longer capable of speaking. He was mutated, covered in a dark fungus, like my party was in that cave. His mouth was molten shut and there were only stumps where his hands used to be. But that posture was unmistakably Uraph’s. I couldn’t believe he fell victim. More mutated men and women came from other rooms. There were dozens of them. If that mutating aura even penetrated to the secure walls of this facility, who knows how far it had reached. Maybe everyone is already mutated. I thought if Gretoh and I could resist its terrible effect, Uraph could too. But the evidence shows otherwise. It was all lost now. I was cornered and the only human left on the continent. Maybe even the only one left on the planet. The mutated people came stumbling and crawling towards me, trying to infect me as well. Lost in thoughts, I went to Uraph’s tablet and sealed the bridge with a magic barrier. I wrote my whole story in this tablet. Should anybody be out there that is not mutated and reads this message, I will be either dead or one of them. Should anybody be out there who reads this after humanity is erased from the face of the planet, then please listen to me when I say we weren’t as bad as my brother claimed. He was just lost. My part in this is over now. There is nothing more I can do. I see my friends and colleagues trying to break in, so I’m going to release the barrier and hope for it to end quickly and painless. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I let it come this far. I’m so, so sorry… for everything.
Free cake for whoever finds the plot-revealing secret I hid in this story ^^
But like I said before: It's quite a difficult one.
Apocalypse
by Avator
Chapter 1
“Alright, let’s see if there’s anything new we can work with. Come on.”by Avator
Chapter 1
I signal my second-in-command to follow me to the bridge.
It was busy at the Eye. People were walking all around the place with paperwork in their hands or analyzing the magic tablets that were placed orderly by the side. It’s no surprise it’s a busy place, but now it’s worse than usually.
The Eye was an underground observatory that uses magic to oversee anything and everything that happens in the outside world. We work here as part of an organization without an official name. After all, our existence is secret to anybody who lives outside. The people here seem to have grown fond of calling themselves and their colleagues Silent Gods. Somebody thought of that name a while back and it stuck. We observe the outside world and intervene if anything occurs that could threaten the existence of any of the factions. However, our policy demands that we don’t leave the slightest clue behind, should we be forced to intervene. We rarely have to, but it would explain why most people here name each other Silent Gods. The reason to our secrecy isn’t that hard to find either. If people know they’re being watched and ‘judged’, they will act unlike themselves. And for that, we have these magic tablets. They link to millions of places, but now they’re all fixed on a few specific areas.
As we pass through the door to the bridge, a tall man turns around to see who it is.
“Nothing yet, ma’am.” he tells me with a disillusioned expression on his face.
I asked him what we could’ve possibly overlooked, but he didn’t know the answer to that either.
“Ok, let’s retrace what has happened. There must be a reason.” I continued.
“Very well. It all started yesterday at 17:39.” the man said as he walked to a large map in the center of the room. He zoomed in on one of the 4 territories on the map and placed a couple of markers in it.
“When the troops of the Malgorn faction, led by general Creigo, marched into Gardona territory here, they slayed all scouting patrols they encountered. The Gardona faction didn’t expect an attack from them, but from the Jorph faction to the north. They reinforced their northern border with most of their troops, led by their general, general Stulliwyn.” he said while marking a large area on the edge of the map.
”By the time they got the message that they were under attack from the south, they were forced to get back to their capitol as soon as possible. This would’ve been a 3-day trip and they would never have arrived in time. General Creigo was well aware of this, so he marched towards the heart of the Malgorn Empire, slaying every battalion that tried to slow them down as much as possible.”
He moved the marker that represented the Malgorn army towards the center of the map and continued.
”This delay barely had any effect. In just 35 hours, general Creigo and his legion stood at the capitol walls. With the attack force he had at his disposal, he could’ve claimed the metropolis well before general Stulliwyn and his men would arrive.”
“But he didn’t.” I clarified. “Now the question is: Why?”
I lean over the map, looking for any clues that could even give the slightest hint to this strange behavior. They had nothing to fear and everything to gain.
“Did the intercepted orders enlighten anything, Uraph?” my second-in-command, Gretoh asked.
“Our spies got all orders they could find, but those only contain info about attacking the capitol.” the tall man replied. “There’s nothing that would point towards a retreat. The Calwax faction to the west didn’t show any sign of hostility, so they couldn’t have feared for an attack from them. Calwax also has no pacts with the other factions.”
Uraph takes a deep breath while looking at the map.
“It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“We must be overlooking something.” I said while joined him in staring at that wretched map. “You don’t just put your entire army behind enemy lines to reach the grand prize and leave without even touching it.”
“Uraph…” Gretoh suddenly said.
I looked at him and saw a glimpse on his face that would indicate he might have found a clue or something.
“Can you track down the current position of general Stulliwyn and his troops?” he continued.
“Yea, sure. Just a minute.”
Uraph went to one his private tablet to enter some data. The map was wiped of all markers and not much later, a new one appeared.
“What are they doing there?” I asked myself while curiously looking at the flashing area that just appeared.
“And now check the location of Malgorn’s armies.” Gretoh continued, still showing that same expression on his face.
A bit more data was entered in the tablet, and another market appeared.
“Are you sure that’s them?” I asked.
“Absolutely, ma’am. It seems that general Stulliwyn finds chasing the enemy more important than protecting his homeland.”
“No, they’re not moving fast enough to be hunting them. It’s nothing like a chase.”
We both looked curiously at Gretoh when he said those words. I didn’t make him my second-in-command for no reason. He has more military experience than anybody I’ve ever encountered, which is why this was so curious. If he says they’re not chasing, they’re not chasing. But what were they doing then?
As those thoughts passed my mind, I saw his posture change as if he had it all figured out. And he almost did.
“I know what pattern that is.” he mumbled, still trying to put the pieces together he just seem to have found. “They’re not hunting them… They are joining them.”
I was stunned by what he just said. I wanted to believe him like I always have, but this would be like defying the laws of nature.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war for over 25 years.” I said in disbelief.
“Besides, if there were orders like that sent to the armies, we would have known.” Uraph added to that.
That look Gretoh had didn’t change a bit after hearing that. He had a theory, and it was well grounded by the looks of it.
“Exactly!” he said.
He looked at me, and I noticed a glimpse of pride. He must’ve put all the pieces together, there’s no doubt about it.
“Malgorn and Gardona have been at war and they sent no orders. That’s because it’s not them. Gardona never could’ve sent a message to their army that fast. By the distance between the border and their current position, the Gardona army was already on its way when the city was reached by the Malgornian troops. They’re disobeying orders to protect the border.”
“What?” Uraph said shocked. “Then what about their defenses against the Jorphans?”
“See for yourself.”
Gretoh nodded to the tablet and Uraph understood he should track down the biggest army the Jorph Empire had outside their walls. A little bit later, a third point on the map started flashing. That one wasn’t where it was supposed to be either. As ironic as it may sound, it was all so strange that it actually started to make sense.
“Shall I track down the main Calwax army as well, just in case?” Uraph asked.
I nodded and a moment later, a fourth point was marked. As we all suspected, it was way out of its patrolling area.
“So it’s a military gathering of the entire continent, huh? But what will they be doing there? I’ll check if we had any relative intercepted messages from any of the other factions.”
I looked at Gretoh to see if he could save him the effort by explaining that as well, but he didn’t seem to have gotten that far in solving the riddle himself either.
With Uraph working on that, it was just Gretoh and me brainstorming around the map where 4 flashing strobes were slowly crawling towards the center. Every once in a while, I saw Gretoh focus on a part of the map, as if he had a clue, but then he figured it wasn’t possible and got back to his thinking position. This went on for almost half an hour and it was getting more and more frustrating by the minute.
“I checked everything trice, but not a single clue to any of this from any faction.” Uraph said as he came walking.
“What exactly did you check?” Gretoh asked.
Uraph obviously was frustrated by his failed efforts as well, because he took it as an assault against his skills.
“If you think I’m not able to do what I do, you’re welcome to take over any moment!”
“That’s not what I meant.” Gretoh said, remaining his cool. “I just wanted to know what you used as source.”
“Well, unless you know of more than 4 capitols from which they can send out orders, I think I got them all.”
I didn’t wanted to make Gretoh look like the guy who just barged in as the know-it-all, and I understood where he was going for, so I took over.
“Uraph, check the receivers instead. They might not be disobeying orders, but they may have received orders which overwrite their original ones. If that’s the case, it doesn’t have to mean the orders were sent from the capitols.”
Now Uraph understood what Gretoh meant, but also what he had to do. He rushed back to his tablet and calibrated it to track the receivers of the generals leading the armies while we waited anxiously for the results.
“Well, I got good news and bad news.” He said. “The good news is that they all did receive orders.”
“What were the orders?” I asked.
“Yea, that’s the bad news. I can only see they got orders, but I can’t open any.”
“We don’t have to read them.” Gretoh replied. “We already know half of the results. We just don’t know why they’re doing this. But there are more ways to find out.”
“That’s right.” I continued. “These orders must’ve been magically masked to avoid being detected by the headquarters of each faction. That means there must be traces of paramysa, the rare material that allows this kind of cloaking. Uraph, try to track back the original location from which the orders were sent by following those traces back to its source. If we go there, we might find out more about this wicked situation.”
He set to it immediately, but it was one hell of a job. Paramysa is so rare, there’s nobody specialized in it to help us track it down. Gretoh and I helped him by each settling behind another tablet and divide the chores. It still took us over an hour to get a rough location.
“There. I’ll place it on the map.”
We gathered around the map for a new evaluation. The armies were all dangerously close to each other. In less than an hour, they would reach the center, where now the 5th marker was placed. The marker that indicated the location from which the orders were sent.
“The Blind Ruins. This has got to be the worst case scenario.”
“That place negates all magic. We’ll be going in blind.”
“Hence the name.” Uraph replied as if he was stating the obvious.
“We don’t have a choice.” I interrupted. “There’s a problem that affects the entire continent and it involves the 4 biggest armies on it. They’re not doing as commanded by their home commands, and someone is trying very hard not to be found as cause of it all. To me that sounds like we got to do our jobs and do it fast.”
“We can’t send scouts ahead this time, because they can’t report back. Communications will be lost as soon as they arrive. And as just a scout team, they won’t be ready to defend themselves for whatever they encounter.” Uraph protested.
“No scouts this time. It’s just going to be Gretoh, me and our best first encounter party. We need to go in prepared for anything without having to rely on magic or magic-powered equipment.”
He didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t have to read his face to figure that out. This was a huge risk, but we had no time for alternatives or even thinking about possible alternatives. Luckily he saw this as well and went to assemble the party and get the gear prepared. Only 10 minutes later, we were all prepared and ready to be sent to the Ruins. Gretoh and I were standing with 6 of our best men on the teleportation platform.
“I don’t know if this’ll work, since the area we’re sending you to negates magic.”
“We will just have to be lucky then.” I confidently said.
“As a failsafe, you will automatically be teleported back here when you leave the ruins. So should it go wrong somehow, that’s your main ticket back.”
I gave the signal and a few seconds later, a concentration of magic created an orb of energy above us. Not much later, the orb expanded drastically until we were all engulfed by its light.
Chapter 2
As soon as the light started to fade, we all took standard defensive positions. Mere seconds later, the brightness reduced enough to see the place was deserted.“What the…”
The ground started to shake and some of us were losing balance. I got down on one knee to take a better stance. I looked around to see who or what could be causing this, but there was nothing in sight but old ruins. Half of the party was starting to look more worried, while the other half was starting to look more alert. Suddenly, a loud bang caught us off guard and we all covered our ears. The ground started to tremble under our feet, and with everyone focused on keeping their eardrums intact, nobody could brace themselves. We fell a few dozen meters as the light above us faded completely away.
“Ugh…” I heard some people mumbling.
I tried to move, but there was something holding me back. With too much dust around, I didn’t open my eyes, so I just felt what it was. It seemed like a weighty chunk of rock. With a firm push, I got it off of me and when I stood up I noticed that I surprisingly wasn’t very injured. I checked again, but there were only some scratches and bruises. The next thing I noticed was one of the others shivering on the floor without any visible wounds. Still half dazed, I struggled to him. By the looks of the equipment, he was the medic.
“Snap out of it.” I said while shaking him a bit up to bring him back to consciousness.
But then I noticed something he was laying on. I rolled him over and saw a curious diamond-like rock with a sharp end. I quickly checked the medic’s back and as I feared, there was a deep wound.
“Stay with me!” I yelled at him. “Somebody help me here!”
The rest of the party was coming to as well, but didn’t notice the wounded medic until just now. Some weren’t able to get fully conscious of the situation, but the others who were came running immediately. I grabbed bandages from his kit and turned him around to start, but then I saw a shard of that diamond-like rock got stuck in his back. It must’ve broken off.
“Let me through”
Gretoh pushed away a few men to get a closer. When he saw the shard in the medic’s back, he froze though. After a short silence, he slowly kneeled down next to me.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t help him.”
I was amazed by what I just heard.
“Why? He’s wounded and needs help.”
Gretoh shook his head and turned the medic’s around again so his face would be shown. He had already passed away, since his eyes didn’t move anymore at all.
“That crystal rock he landed on was crystalized paramysa. It looks like diamond, but is very weak as a material. However, this does not mean its effects are weak as well.”
He took the medic’s body from my hands and put him to rest on the rubble.
“Apparently he landed on the rock, which broke off a shard that got stuck in the wound it created. When his organs were exposed to a pure paramysa shard, all life-essentials were drained from them, causing a quick but painful death.”
I looked at the body again, like so many were and couldn’t help but wonder how awful his last moments must’ve been.
“Meia bernennet alorn.” I prayed. “Rest in peace, my friend. Your efforts for our civilization will not be forgotten.”
The rest of the party, for as far as they were aware enough of the situation, repeated my prayers. I stood up and went to help the rest who weren’t completely conscious yet. Luckily nobody else was seriously hurt. One of the men was close to suffering the same fate as the medic, but missed the dreadful paramysa rocks by a few inches.
“Alright, everybody here?” I asked when we got everyone in the area on their feet.
Some were looking disappointed, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew what was on their mind.
“I know we lost a good friend in here, but I’m afraid we don’t have the time to give him a proper funeral just yet. But I promise you, we will give him every bit of respect he deserves once we’re done here.”
I took a small break to see how they were reacting. It wasn’t very positive, but it’s the best I could expect from a situation like this.
“Gretoh, what do you think just happened?”
He looked above for clues and replied “We should’ve predicted this.”
I looked up to try to see what he saw, while he faced me again.
“The teleporter was magic-driven. It was powered from our headquarters, so it was stable at that point. Normally, when the power is cut off, the portal automatically shuts down. But since this place isn’t magic-friendly, it must’ve ripped the portal apart when the power that kept it stabilized was cut off. Then the implosion created a shockwave strong enough to tremble the ruins to its literal downfall.”
Having that sorted out, I stopped looking up and started looking back at Gretoh again.
“Like I said, we should’ve predicted this.”
My mind went back to the corpse in the rubble, but I couldn’t show that to the rest. Gretoh knew me well enough to see right through me, so he helped me cover my thoughts by acting normal and focused on the mission. If he could do it, then so could I. I pulled myself together and started to think what I would’ve done if this was any other situation. Quite simple: I’d check the environment for clues where to go next.
We landed in a large manmade chamber. There was nothing added though, it was just plainly cut out of rock. Nevertheless, there were paramysa crystals sticking out the walls at several places. Finding out where to go next was also quite easy, since there was only one way out. I signaled the party to move out in that direction. 2 scouts in front, 1 covering our backs and the rest was ready for battle. We already lost all sense of direction since we fell through the ruin floor, so we didn’t really know which way we were heading. Either way, the further we went, the more crystals were sticking out the walls and ceiling. Even the floor was covered with them, making us extra cautious. After travelling over half an hour, we noticed the crystals in the distance were glowing. We kept our guard up as we moved closer and when we got there, they didn’t seem to be glowing after all. They were reflecting light from around the corner.
“You think it’s an exit?” I asked Gretoh, but when I saw his expression, I knew he probably thought the light wasn’t actual daylight.
After looking a bit better, I noticed the light beams were slightly flickering, so it couldn’t have been sunlight. In the same formation as before, we proceeded towards the light since it was still the only way forward. We arrived in what used to be a larger area than it is now. The entire room was covered by paramysa crystal that nearly blinded us. We were even more surprised when we found out that a small dot of light coming from the center caused all this. The crystals reflected the light, so even a tiny light source as this could illuminate the entire place. I walked over there to shade the orb so the room would get a bit less bright. As the area got slightly less dark, the silhouette of a man in a white robe appeared.
“On guard, men! We’re not alone.” I quickly commanded.
I couldn’t do anything myself, because I had to cover the orb to actually keep the man in sight for the rest of the party. I saw something from the man reaching out to me. It was his arm.
“Stay back!” I warned him.
But against anything I expected, he only made the orb’s light dim with his hand’s motions. I didn’t have to cover the orb anymore since we could all see normally now. Gretoh was astonished.
“That was magic.” He mumbled. “How did you do that in here?”
The man didn’t reply. Instead, he only curiously watched me. I looked back at him and noticed something was off.
“Wait… Scelm?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. The man in front of me was really Scelm, a researcher who used to work for us. He was the first who was sent out to these ruins to map them. Back then we didn’t know that magic was negated around these parts. We haven’t heard of him ever since.
“We assumed you died after weeks without a word from you.”
I still couldn’t believe it, but I was just so happy he was alive. I walked towards him to make sure, but I was forcefully pulled back. It almost caused me to lose my balance and noticed it was Gretoh who was to blame.
“That’s not the Scelm we know.” He said.
I looked and him and then back at Scelm, but he looked just like how I remembered him.
“You actually got a promotion, didn’t you, Gretoh?” Scelm suddenly said. “High enough to pull her cloak. That’s quite the advancement you’ve made.”
He sounded quite insulting, but what would you expect if the world kept spinning while you’re left in solitude.
“Tell me, Mr. Reynard. Did you send the orders to the 4 generals?” Gretoh asked as direct as he could possibly have.
I was so busy worrying about what he was doing here, I almost forgot why we were here in the first place. Luckily I made a very good choice on who I made my second-in-command.
“I didn’t expect you to be here, but I shouldn’t be surprised.” Scelm continued, avoiding the question again.
Slowly but steadily, rhythmic vibrations started to echo through the crystal-filled room.
“That sounds like… Jorphan war drums!”
“Exactly.” Scelm whispered.
The rhythms started to get distorted as other vibrations came through as well.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. The moment of truth is here at last.”
“You did send those orders. What’s the point of all this?”
A small smile appeared on Scelm’s face, and then he calmly said “Don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough it’s in everybody’s best interest.”
Scelm walked towards one of the walls and broke off a piece of paramysa crystal and crushed it in his hand. The crystal dust emitted a pulsing glow that shone through his fingers. The moment he did that, all drums were silenced and all vibrations stopped. It was completely silent and I awaited what would happen next. Then he dropped the paramysa dust on the crystallized floor. You could hear the clear sound of every grain of dust that touched the ground. The whole place started to tremble again. We all knew what was going on up there.
“Since when is open war in everybody’s best interest?” Gretoh yelled over the noise coming from above.
“I have been down here for years, doing the same work as you have. But unlike you, I’ve been open to all possibilities. All you care about is protecting your precious factions, but you’re too ignorant to see that the same thing you’re protecting is also the cause of everybody’s suffering!”
He took a deep breath to calm down and continued.
“Just think about it. It makes no sense to just keep protecting people that are causing problems. They never learn. To prove that, I created a couple of superior creatures to aid the factions. And now, all 4 of them are leading the largest armies on the continent. Not that it surprises me. That’s why I used these crystals here to add a special ability to my creations. If they can’t resist building nothing but armies to create pain and suffering, I will make them regret that dearly. With the biggest battlefield in recent history happening above, it will be also have the biggest death toll. My creatures ‘consume’ every death nearby to gain power. This, to ensure they will only gain full strength when the factions really have gone way too far in their military operations.”
That was quite something to even try to imagine. The generals of each army are getting stronger with every death. There must be almost a million men battling right now and all generals are there too.
“What are you going to do when they reach full strength?” I asked.
Gretoh and I were on the same level now. We both were as direct as possible and taking nothing for granted.
“Then I will make them all pay for the death and destruction they all created.”
“By killing them?”
“That would make me just as bad as them. Besides, I’m not letting them get away that easily.”
“They’re human, just like us! We make mistakes!”
“You do. I don’t. And since this is a mistake in human nature, I’m going to make sure they won’t make any more mistakes. I will help them evolve into a stage far beyond humanity! There will never be so much pain and suffering again.”
“Evolve? You mean you’re going to turn them into abominations! You’re insane, Scelm!”
Gretoh rushed at him in anger, but Scelm had other plans. He shoved the paramysa dust from the floor into Gretoh’s face, blinding him. With a firm push, he pushed him back to us. I checked his face to see if the dust caused any harm, while the rest of the party covered me. Luckily there was nothing for as far as I could see and Scelm didn’t make any sudden moves.
“I wanted to use one of my own creations as the base for its perfection, but you have much more potential. You have rage, which tends to combine quite well with vengeance.”
A loud shock made the room shake and a few crystals hanging from the ceiling even came down. None came close to any of us, luckily, but I got a terrible headache. It wasn’t any normal headache. It was like my head was being crushed from the inside. I wanted to get it out or keep my head from imploding, but nothing worked. I did get a glimpse that the rest of the party was having even worse problems. They were severely convulsing on the ground and in a lot of pain.
“That was quick. You see, the bigger the armies, the faster the death count rises. Gretoh, my old friend, you’re going to play a big part in the new era for humanity.”
Scelm tapped the crystal wall and not much later, the 4 generals themselves came through the walls and ceiling. It was the most unnatural thing I’ve ever seen.
“Syjilem, Stulliwyn, Creigo and Bacapp, the time has come at last! Merge into the creature that you were always meant to be. Salvation from imperfection awaits you!”
He pointed at Gretoh, who was also having trouble keeping his head together. I couldn’t let anything happen to him. I would protect him, just like he would protect me if I was down. I stood up and struggled to keep my balance, but that was the least of my problems. As fast as I could, I walked towards him without falling to the floor. That would only cost me more valuable time. In the few seconds I had, I still noticed I wasn’t fast enough. Then no more safe play. That was a mistake I shouldn’t have made. I lost my balance, but didn’t give up yet. I started crawling to him instead. When I was close enough to grab his clothes, a large spiked boot stepped on my arm when I reached out. It was Bacapp, and he had no intentions of letting me anywhere near Gretoh. He kicked me so hard, that I flew a good dozen meters through the room until I landed on the hard ground. That really hurt, but not as much as the pain of my failure. I let him down when he needed me.
“Gretoh!” I screamed, but it wouldn’t help.
He tried to fight back, but those creatures were inhumanly powerful. Bacapp and Stulliwyn grabbed his arms, so he couldn’t struggle. Slowly, their hands molt and the disgusting fluid that came free covered Gretoh’s arms and crawled towards his shoulders. They held him firmly down on the ground as they completely fused with him. Gretoh’s face disappeared as the bodies of the generals fused as well, covering him completely. The other 2 creatures picked him up and fused similarly on his back. He was now latterly swallowed by these monsters and all that remained now was this abomination that reeked of burned human flesh. I couldn’t believe he was gone. I looked at the rest we took with us in this mess, but they were still not in control of their bodies. All the pain I saw them in was too awful to see. Their skin began to rot. There’s no other way of explaining what happened. Some strange fungus started to grow all over them. It must be that ‘evolving’ Scelm mentioned. It was making me sick.
“Look beyond its appearance and see perfection! Never again will we have the problems we’ve always been solving. We can return to the way it was, but then in peace.”
“The way it was was without these hideous monsters. You’ve been surrounded by these crystals for way too long. It twisted our mind. Come back to your senses!”
He was not amused by these words and thought I betrayed him. In a way, I did. But he lost his sanity. There was no point arguing with him.
“You’re just as much causing problems as they are and I won’t allow it.”
He turned his attention at the abomination that consumed Gretoh.
“Kill her.”
I had to get out of there. If Bacapp alone could send me flying with a simple kick, what would the 4 of them combined be capable of? There’s no way I could’ve taken them on, so I quickly started running back the way we came from.
Chapter 3
I almost forget how dark the tunnel was in comparison with the lit room, and I knew running was just a very short-term solution to the problem. It wasn’t even the real problem. That… thing was going to corrupt every human being on the planet. But right now I had to handle 1 problem at a time. First I had to escape from there and then I could start thinking about what I could do about that monster. And if that wasn’t a burden enough, my mind was haunted with the memory that a dead end was eventually waiting for me. But I had no choice. The least I could do is stall and hope an opportunity would present itself. The further I ran back through the tunnel, the less crystals were decorating the walls. I knew that it meant I was getting closed to the hall where we fell down. I also remembered how much crystal was on the walls over there, and judging by the amounts I saw here, I knew I was getting dangerously close to the end of the line. Then I saw a pile of rubble to the side, which was probably created by the shock of the generals reaching their full power. At first sight it seemed too small to cover behind. However, luck was on my side, as it was just big enough for me to squeeze in. But if that creature would even stop to look around, he would spot me for sure. I had no other option and dug myself in. I covered myself in the dirt to blend in the environment and to neutralize my scent. There’s no telling how good his nose is, if he even has one, so I took no chances.Then I smelled a familiar stench. It was that same burning flesh stench from before. He was here and I knew there was no more time to cover myself up and no chance to find a new hiding place. All I could do was sit, make myself as small as possible and hope it wouldn’t spot me. The stench got worse and worse until it was almost unbearable. But I couldn’t break now. There was no way I was going to let something stupid as a filthy smell get me killed. Then I heard footsteps. I could hear them getting closer. I tried so hard not to make a sound, it only made me pant. I silently raised my hand to cover my mouth, afraid of any sudden sounds coming out. The footsteps kept coming closer. With all the effort of not making any noise, my heartbeat just seemed to get louder. I psyched myself out, listening to it. I was so scared it might also be able to hear it, I was getting tears in my eyes. That moment couldn’t be over soon enough. Through my tears, I saw a blurry picture of the monster’s feet stumbling past me. I was begging in myself it would pass me by quickly and didn’t dare to look up to avoid any accidental sounds that could blow my cover. That would be my worst nightmare. Those blurry legs faded away in the dark distance and the stench slowly started to clear.
I waited a bit longer until that terrible smell was almost completely gone to be sure it was far enough and then I sighed in relief. There was no time to let it all sink in. I had to find a way out. With my robe, I wiped my tears away, while trying not to get any dirt in my eyes. Clearing my eyes and mind made me notice a tiny opening in the wall I was sitting against this whole time. When I took a closer look, I noticed it led to a new path. One that was partially uncovered by the same shock that brought me this shelter. I checked the road the monster took to see it was really safe to make some noise and started to dig a hole big enough for me to fit through. As soon as I was on the other end, I started to create as much distance between me and that cursed place. A new source of light shone in the distance, but this one was different. It was steady. It was daylight! The sun aimed its rays of light straight into the cave, making it hard for me to see anything, but that didn’t matter. I was finally out of there.
All of the sudden, the light became less bright as if the sun itself was being dimmed. When it had faded enough for me to see, I found myself standing on a manmade floor. At first, I didn’t understand, but then I remembered. Uraph’s failsafe. As soon as we would leave the anti-magic area of the ruins, we would automatically be teleported back here. I might’ve gotten myself to safety, but there was still a lot of stuff that had to be done. This part of the Eye was deserted it seemed, so I went to the bridge to find Uraph and tell him everything. When I arrived, there wasn’t anybody there either. Something wasn’t right. There was almost always someone at the bridge, but the place looked like it was abandoned. Then I heard a noise coming from the corridor. The sound of some tool that fell on the floor. I turned around to see if anybody was there to tell me where everyone went to, but the man who dropped it was no longer capable of speaking. He was mutated, covered in a dark fungus, like my party was in that cave. His mouth was molten shut and there were only stumps where his hands used to be. But that posture was unmistakably Uraph’s. I couldn’t believe he fell victim. More mutated men and women came from other rooms. There were dozens of them. If that mutating aura even penetrated to the secure walls of this facility, who knows how far it had reached. Maybe everyone is already mutated. I thought if Gretoh and I could resist its terrible effect, Uraph could too. But the evidence shows otherwise. It was all lost now. I was cornered and the only human left on the continent. Maybe even the only one left on the planet. The mutated people came stumbling and crawling towards me, trying to infect me as well. Lost in thoughts, I went to Uraph’s tablet and sealed the bridge with a magic barrier. I wrote my whole story in this tablet. Should anybody be out there that is not mutated and reads this message, I will be either dead or one of them. Should anybody be out there who reads this after humanity is erased from the face of the planet, then please listen to me when I say we weren’t as bad as my brother claimed. He was just lost. My part in this is over now. There is nothing more I can do. I see my friends and colleagues trying to break in, so I’m going to release the barrier and hope for it to end quickly and painless. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I let it come this far. I’m so, so sorry… for everything.
Iadora Reynard
[END OF LOG]
Free cake for whoever finds the plot-revealing secret I hid in this story ^^
But like I said before: It's quite a difficult one.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
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- 2,583
Alright.
I'll never be able to finish this because this contest isn't in my genre. I'm not good in writing in this theme.
Sorry for failing.
Anyway, here's my submission. I'm guessing it's my final, even if it's not finished. :\
I'll never be able to finish this because this contest isn't in my genre. I'm not good in writing in this theme.
Sorry for failing.
Anyway, here's my submission. I'm guessing it's my final, even if it's not finished. :\
Chapter 1 - Unforeseen Events
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
My cellphone's alarm was on, and as usual, I was late for school. My haggard eyes open up to a beautiful sunrise; and chirping birds on the roof. I was there, lying on my bed with a blanket covering half of my body, and trying to get the strength to get up. I groaned, and jumped right off my bed. From there, I sensed something a little bit... off with this day. Ignoring my sense, I walked over to my cabinet to prepare to take a shower. As I took a shower, I heard weird bumping sounds on the outside of the bathroom wall. Once again, I ignored it and went on with my day. Realizing that the school bus had already left me behind, I reached for my bag and set it on the couch. My parents already went off to work, and I was all alone in the house. I grabbed my jacket, brushed my teeth and reached for my bag and ran out into the garage, taking my bike and pedaling as fast as I can to school. "I haven't biked this fast in a while; I hope my laziness doesn't kick in here.” I said to myself as I was biking down the street. As I took a right turn to Meltor Street, I saw two cars in the distance. School was just about three more blocks away, so I started to slow down a bit to be able to have the energy to keep pedaling until school. As I crossed the intersection, I didn't notice the two cars colliding right behind me. The shockwave knocked my off my bike, and uncontrollably sent my bike to crash into a small patch of shrubs. I landed not too far from the accident, only scraping my knee and giving myself a slight pain on my back. I stood up, scraped dust off my uniform, and checked both cars to see if the drivers were alive. Upon looking at the driver's seat of both cars; I could see blood splattered all over the scene. Their faces were flattened from the windshield, and shards of glass were stuck all over their bodies. This horrendous sight made me vomit on the street. After the accident, I ran over to my bike and pedaled as fast as I can to school. The adrenaline rush in me made me sweat all over my body. After arriving at school and locking my bike to one of the chains, I walked over to my class. Along the hallway, I met the Willy, the school's janitor. "Hello, Jess. You're late again. It's Monday, too.” the janitor said. "Yeah, I’m very sorry Willy. I hope I won't be late tomorrow, the Student Elections are tomorrow.” I replied. "Okay, Jess. Hurry up before the prefects catch you.” Willy advised. "I'll be off now, thanks.” I said as I bade him farewell. Step after step, I remembered the horrifying sight of the two drivers. It made me feel sick. Later, I reached Biology Room 103. Upon opening the door, I could smell blood in the air. As I looked on the specimen tables, I could see the two victims of the car accident on two separate tables, and several other bodies on different tables. As I looked at one of the bodies that looked like Luke, my best friend, I saw a silhouette of what seemed to be a large otherworldly demonic creature. Seeing this, the silhouette turned its head to face me, chanted a few words and I immediately felt drowsy, making me slowly drop to the floor.
Chapter 2 - The Dream
"Jess... Jess..."
A strange voice called out. The voice sounded like a ghost; frightening chills that sound like gasps of air. When I opened my drowsy eyes and took a look around, I saw a bloody ceiling. I stood up, and saw the bodies still on the examination tables. Nauseated from the smell of the dead bodies, I took a quick look around the room and found out the demonic silhouette was no longer there. I immediately left the room and look all around the hallway. I saw blood spilled all over the walls and the tiles. I saw dead bodies scattered around the hallway. I saw trash and open lockers all over the long corridor. Taking step after step, I felt an inner fear growing within me; the type of fear that could leave you traumatized for months; the type that needed medical attention. The bodies were brutally slaughtered, with organs all over the bloody floor. Not being able to take the horrible sight, I raced out of the school campus as fast as I could. Removing my bike from its chains, the fastest thing that popped into my mind was, 'Meltor Street...' I started pedaling towards Meltor Street, and saw a reddish sky, deserted streets and the nauseating smell of rotting corpses and blood. As I reached Meltor Street, I saw the same demonic silhouette eating from a corpse's torso. I stopped and slid, but stayed on my bike. The figure heard my bike wheels skid on the asphalt road and turned its face to face me. It had glowing, bloodshot eyes, sharp, vicious horns and an extremely buff physique. It stood up and charged towards me, grabbing my neck and making me lie down on the rough road. As his other hand was pinning my neck to the rough, rocky surface of the road, he raised his other hand to claw me. Before his claw was able to reach my cheek, I opened my eyes; and noticed my face was all wet. I raised the top half of my body and took a look around. I saw Luke, holding a bucket of water. "Hey, Jess! What happened to you? You were tossing and turning on the bed. It made me so worried that I used the last resort on waking you up, which was throwing a bucket of water right to your face." Luke said. "Pass me that towel over there." I said as I shook myself awake. "Do you know anything about what I was dreaming about? Any hints?" I asked. Luke answered, "I'm sorry, but you were muttering strange words. After a few minutes of chanting, you stopped and you were moving around vigorously. That's when I woke you up." "Fine, come and sleep over. Let's see what happens to me tonight." I said. "Alright, but I'll ask permission from my mom first. You go on ahead to your house. I'll follow." Luke said. After that conversation, we left school and we took Meltor Street as a shortcut back to our homes. The accident was still being cleared up by the police, and I heard one of the forensic experts that this event had something to do with the unexplained forces of the world. This left me wondering; "What could possibly cause this accident?" Later, we passed by Luke's and I went on ahead to my house. Once arriving home, I went over to my bedroom and thought all about the events that happened earlier today. After a few hours of waiting, I fell asleep.
Chapter 3 - The First Strike
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
My cellphone's alarm was ringing again, but this time I wasn't late. I looked around me, and remembered that Luke was supposed to come over for a sleepover. I came downstairs and asked my mother, "Mom, did Luke come over last night?" "No, I don't remember him passing by last night." my mother replied. "Okay, thanks." I answered. "What could have happened to Luke? Well, maybe he wasn't allowed by his mother to come over. I'll see him in class, anyway." I wondered. I got ready for school, and waited outside for the school bus. After a short ride, we arrived at school. I looked around the entire campus before class, and saw every one of my friends, all except Luke. "He's probably late." I thought to myself. As soon as class started, I started to worry about Luke. "This is ridiculous. He might have gotten sick." I muttered to myself. When break time came, I escaped from school and biked over to Luke's. Knocking on the door, Luke's mother answered. "Hello, Miss Anderson." I greeted. "Oh; hello, Jess!" Miss Anderson replied. "Miss, where is Luke? I haven't seen him all day." I answered. "Luke? He said he was going to sleep over at your house." Miss Anderson replied. "Oh damn." I thought to myself. “Alright, Miss Anderson. Thank you for your help.” I said as I bade her farewell. “Goodbye, Jess. I’ll see you soon.” She replied. This couldn’t have been happening. Where is Luke? I started to think. I had remembered that his favorite place was the lake. He had spent most of his time there last summer, all day long, just lying around and doing whatever he wanted to. Agreeing to visit the lake, I walked over to my bike and started biking all the way to the lake. On the way; I started to face the facts. That ‘vision’ I saw yesterday; with Luke on the dissecting table… This could’ve been just like how the two drivers had died! It’s like I somehow foresaw his death. This thought made me feel sick; it made my body start shivering and made my hair rise up. It was an unpleasant feeling; it truly made me feel sick. My stomach started to feel like something was inside it. My palms started to sweat, because I didn’t want my best friend to die and fall prey to a monstrosity. I wanted him to live a happy life before he died. But then I told myself that I would not think that he died; because it might give me bad luck. My mind told me that he wasn’t dead, but deep in my heart I knew that he was. He was probably taken by that monster I had seen in my dream in the clinic yesterday. This brought me to a tear. Luke was my best friend since the first grade; I couldn’t lose him now. I need a best friend to live with, just like everyone else. After about ten minutes of biking, I finally arrived at the lake. There was a comic book next to the tree that Luke always stayed at. He never left anything in the lake, meaning that he was gone; forever. The minute I saw that comic book on the grass; I jumped off my bike, and it went straight into the trees. My knees dropped to the ground, and my eyes were starting to go all puffy and watery. I shouted into the sky, with a depressed heart and soul. A half hour passed, and I finally gathered the strength to move on. I picked up the comic book, and saw tears onto the pages saying, ‘One by one, you will fall; until all cease to exist.’ These tears in the paper made me realize that I had to stop this enemy somehow.
Chapter 4 – One by One
“Singulas volueris, donee desinat esse omnia.”
I heard these words chant to me while I was reading the tears in the comic book, over and over again until I was able to memorize it. This constant voice gave me a shivering feeling; the feeling of knowing that you are not alone. This feeling in my gut gave me the idea that my enemy was still here. It was watching me. I shook this feeling off my back, and got to my bike. To my surprise, I could see that my bike’s paintjob had been ruined by a large, scratch mark. I feared going any closer to my bike, but I had to go before I was the next of its victims. Grabbing the handlebars of my bike, I felt a force pulling back; it seems this was Luke’s killer. I couldn’t see anything of the creature, but when he let go of the bike, I could feel the warmth of its breath down my neck. This told me that it was definitely time to leave. I immediately hopped onto my bike and started pedaling out of the vicinity of the lake. As I pedaled, I heard heavy footsteps that seemed to be following me. Each step shook the ground, and each step gave me more determination to escape from the clutches of this monstrosity. I soon got away from the creature, because I didn’t hear its footsteps anymore. I decided to go back to school, and finish the day. As soon as I arrived back in school, I got news that a student of our class had passed away whilst taking a nap in class. She apparently just placed her head down on the table, and dozed off. When class finished, her friends noticed she wouldn’t wake up; and there were Latin words etched on her wooden table, saying, “Singulariter.” I immediately checked the table and looked for Ms. Syne; our teacher who can speak a bit of Latin. I arrived in the faculty room; and saw Ms. Syne reading an ancient book written in Latin. I quickly asked her, “Ms. Syne, could you please translate this for me? It’s in Latin.” She replied, “Sure, Jess. Just give me a few minutes to clean my desk.” As she said this, I looked for my notebook; and when I saw the page where I had written the Latin words, I could see that they had traces of some sort of red liquid, resembling blood. I showed Ms. Syne the notebook; and she said, “The word ‘Singulariter’, means ‘One by one’ in English, Jess. I’m not sure what that had to do with the death of Miranda.” At once, I remembered the tears on Luke’s comic book, “One by one you will fall; until all cease to exist.” Realizing this, I asked Ms. Syne if she knew of any demonic creature that lives eternally and preys on human lives in any Latin history.
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
My cellphone's alarm was on, and as usual, I was late for school. My haggard eyes open up to a beautiful sunrise; and chirping birds on the roof. I was there, lying on my bed with a blanket covering half of my body, and trying to get the strength to get up. I groaned, and jumped right off my bed. From there, I sensed something a little bit... off with this day. Ignoring my sense, I walked over to my cabinet to prepare to take a shower. As I took a shower, I heard weird bumping sounds on the outside of the bathroom wall. Once again, I ignored it and went on with my day. Realizing that the school bus had already left me behind, I reached for my bag and set it on the couch. My parents already went off to work, and I was all alone in the house. I grabbed my jacket, brushed my teeth and reached for my bag and ran out into the garage, taking my bike and pedaling as fast as I can to school. "I haven't biked this fast in a while; I hope my laziness doesn't kick in here.” I said to myself as I was biking down the street. As I took a right turn to Meltor Street, I saw two cars in the distance. School was just about three more blocks away, so I started to slow down a bit to be able to have the energy to keep pedaling until school. As I crossed the intersection, I didn't notice the two cars colliding right behind me. The shockwave knocked my off my bike, and uncontrollably sent my bike to crash into a small patch of shrubs. I landed not too far from the accident, only scraping my knee and giving myself a slight pain on my back. I stood up, scraped dust off my uniform, and checked both cars to see if the drivers were alive. Upon looking at the driver's seat of both cars; I could see blood splattered all over the scene. Their faces were flattened from the windshield, and shards of glass were stuck all over their bodies. This horrendous sight made me vomit on the street. After the accident, I ran over to my bike and pedaled as fast as I can to school. The adrenaline rush in me made me sweat all over my body. After arriving at school and locking my bike to one of the chains, I walked over to my class. Along the hallway, I met the Willy, the school's janitor. "Hello, Jess. You're late again. It's Monday, too.” the janitor said. "Yeah, I’m very sorry Willy. I hope I won't be late tomorrow, the Student Elections are tomorrow.” I replied. "Okay, Jess. Hurry up before the prefects catch you.” Willy advised. "I'll be off now, thanks.” I said as I bade him farewell. Step after step, I remembered the horrifying sight of the two drivers. It made me feel sick. Later, I reached Biology Room 103. Upon opening the door, I could smell blood in the air. As I looked on the specimen tables, I could see the two victims of the car accident on two separate tables, and several other bodies on different tables. As I looked at one of the bodies that looked like Luke, my best friend, I saw a silhouette of what seemed to be a large otherworldly demonic creature. Seeing this, the silhouette turned its head to face me, chanted a few words and I immediately felt drowsy, making me slowly drop to the floor.
Chapter 2 - The Dream
"Jess... Jess..."
A strange voice called out. The voice sounded like a ghost; frightening chills that sound like gasps of air. When I opened my drowsy eyes and took a look around, I saw a bloody ceiling. I stood up, and saw the bodies still on the examination tables. Nauseated from the smell of the dead bodies, I took a quick look around the room and found out the demonic silhouette was no longer there. I immediately left the room and look all around the hallway. I saw blood spilled all over the walls and the tiles. I saw dead bodies scattered around the hallway. I saw trash and open lockers all over the long corridor. Taking step after step, I felt an inner fear growing within me; the type of fear that could leave you traumatized for months; the type that needed medical attention. The bodies were brutally slaughtered, with organs all over the bloody floor. Not being able to take the horrible sight, I raced out of the school campus as fast as I could. Removing my bike from its chains, the fastest thing that popped into my mind was, 'Meltor Street...' I started pedaling towards Meltor Street, and saw a reddish sky, deserted streets and the nauseating smell of rotting corpses and blood. As I reached Meltor Street, I saw the same demonic silhouette eating from a corpse's torso. I stopped and slid, but stayed on my bike. The figure heard my bike wheels skid on the asphalt road and turned its face to face me. It had glowing, bloodshot eyes, sharp, vicious horns and an extremely buff physique. It stood up and charged towards me, grabbing my neck and making me lie down on the rough road. As his other hand was pinning my neck to the rough, rocky surface of the road, he raised his other hand to claw me. Before his claw was able to reach my cheek, I opened my eyes; and noticed my face was all wet. I raised the top half of my body and took a look around. I saw Luke, holding a bucket of water. "Hey, Jess! What happened to you? You were tossing and turning on the bed. It made me so worried that I used the last resort on waking you up, which was throwing a bucket of water right to your face." Luke said. "Pass me that towel over there." I said as I shook myself awake. "Do you know anything about what I was dreaming about? Any hints?" I asked. Luke answered, "I'm sorry, but you were muttering strange words. After a few minutes of chanting, you stopped and you were moving around vigorously. That's when I woke you up." "Fine, come and sleep over. Let's see what happens to me tonight." I said. "Alright, but I'll ask permission from my mom first. You go on ahead to your house. I'll follow." Luke said. After that conversation, we left school and we took Meltor Street as a shortcut back to our homes. The accident was still being cleared up by the police, and I heard one of the forensic experts that this event had something to do with the unexplained forces of the world. This left me wondering; "What could possibly cause this accident?" Later, we passed by Luke's and I went on ahead to my house. Once arriving home, I went over to my bedroom and thought all about the events that happened earlier today. After a few hours of waiting, I fell asleep.
Chapter 3 - The First Strike
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
My cellphone's alarm was ringing again, but this time I wasn't late. I looked around me, and remembered that Luke was supposed to come over for a sleepover. I came downstairs and asked my mother, "Mom, did Luke come over last night?" "No, I don't remember him passing by last night." my mother replied. "Okay, thanks." I answered. "What could have happened to Luke? Well, maybe he wasn't allowed by his mother to come over. I'll see him in class, anyway." I wondered. I got ready for school, and waited outside for the school bus. After a short ride, we arrived at school. I looked around the entire campus before class, and saw every one of my friends, all except Luke. "He's probably late." I thought to myself. As soon as class started, I started to worry about Luke. "This is ridiculous. He might have gotten sick." I muttered to myself. When break time came, I escaped from school and biked over to Luke's. Knocking on the door, Luke's mother answered. "Hello, Miss Anderson." I greeted. "Oh; hello, Jess!" Miss Anderson replied. "Miss, where is Luke? I haven't seen him all day." I answered. "Luke? He said he was going to sleep over at your house." Miss Anderson replied. "Oh damn." I thought to myself. “Alright, Miss Anderson. Thank you for your help.” I said as I bade her farewell. “Goodbye, Jess. I’ll see you soon.” She replied. This couldn’t have been happening. Where is Luke? I started to think. I had remembered that his favorite place was the lake. He had spent most of his time there last summer, all day long, just lying around and doing whatever he wanted to. Agreeing to visit the lake, I walked over to my bike and started biking all the way to the lake. On the way; I started to face the facts. That ‘vision’ I saw yesterday; with Luke on the dissecting table… This could’ve been just like how the two drivers had died! It’s like I somehow foresaw his death. This thought made me feel sick; it made my body start shivering and made my hair rise up. It was an unpleasant feeling; it truly made me feel sick. My stomach started to feel like something was inside it. My palms started to sweat, because I didn’t want my best friend to die and fall prey to a monstrosity. I wanted him to live a happy life before he died. But then I told myself that I would not think that he died; because it might give me bad luck. My mind told me that he wasn’t dead, but deep in my heart I knew that he was. He was probably taken by that monster I had seen in my dream in the clinic yesterday. This brought me to a tear. Luke was my best friend since the first grade; I couldn’t lose him now. I need a best friend to live with, just like everyone else. After about ten minutes of biking, I finally arrived at the lake. There was a comic book next to the tree that Luke always stayed at. He never left anything in the lake, meaning that he was gone; forever. The minute I saw that comic book on the grass; I jumped off my bike, and it went straight into the trees. My knees dropped to the ground, and my eyes were starting to go all puffy and watery. I shouted into the sky, with a depressed heart and soul. A half hour passed, and I finally gathered the strength to move on. I picked up the comic book, and saw tears onto the pages saying, ‘One by one, you will fall; until all cease to exist.’ These tears in the paper made me realize that I had to stop this enemy somehow.
Chapter 4 – One by One
“Singulas volueris, donee desinat esse omnia.”
I heard these words chant to me while I was reading the tears in the comic book, over and over again until I was able to memorize it. This constant voice gave me a shivering feeling; the feeling of knowing that you are not alone. This feeling in my gut gave me the idea that my enemy was still here. It was watching me. I shook this feeling off my back, and got to my bike. To my surprise, I could see that my bike’s paintjob had been ruined by a large, scratch mark. I feared going any closer to my bike, but I had to go before I was the next of its victims. Grabbing the handlebars of my bike, I felt a force pulling back; it seems this was Luke’s killer. I couldn’t see anything of the creature, but when he let go of the bike, I could feel the warmth of its breath down my neck. This told me that it was definitely time to leave. I immediately hopped onto my bike and started pedaling out of the vicinity of the lake. As I pedaled, I heard heavy footsteps that seemed to be following me. Each step shook the ground, and each step gave me more determination to escape from the clutches of this monstrosity. I soon got away from the creature, because I didn’t hear its footsteps anymore. I decided to go back to school, and finish the day. As soon as I arrived back in school, I got news that a student of our class had passed away whilst taking a nap in class. She apparently just placed her head down on the table, and dozed off. When class finished, her friends noticed she wouldn’t wake up; and there were Latin words etched on her wooden table, saying, “Singulariter.” I immediately checked the table and looked for Ms. Syne; our teacher who can speak a bit of Latin. I arrived in the faculty room; and saw Ms. Syne reading an ancient book written in Latin. I quickly asked her, “Ms. Syne, could you please translate this for me? It’s in Latin.” She replied, “Sure, Jess. Just give me a few minutes to clean my desk.” As she said this, I looked for my notebook; and when I saw the page where I had written the Latin words, I could see that they had traces of some sort of red liquid, resembling blood. I showed Ms. Syne the notebook; and she said, “The word ‘Singulariter’, means ‘One by one’ in English, Jess. I’m not sure what that had to do with the death of Miranda.” At once, I remembered the tears on Luke’s comic book, “One by one you will fall; until all cease to exist.” Realizing this, I asked Ms. Syne if she knew of any demonic creature that lives eternally and preys on human lives in any Latin history.
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Alright guys, even though i had some data corruption slapping me in the back of my head my story is all finished.
I'm satisfied with it, even. Which is unusual.
I hope you guys like it as well.
The Spinning Coin
They say, that there is a balancing force in the world.
Something that keeps the world from consuming itself.
The thought of this always made me feel comfortable,
but that ended when I myself was faced with this force.
For you have to remember that if something is only there to preserve balance,
It is not always on your side.
My arm hurts.
My arm hurts, my leg hurts, my back hurts and my head hurts.
That's a relief. I was sure I died.
I slowly sit up, and bite my tongue to suppress the pain that unnecessarily reminds me of it's presence.
A quick check up reveals that nothing is broken, but I have an open wound in my back which luckily hasn't leaked enough of my blood to kill me yet.
I get up and take a look at where I've been lying.
A small pool of blood is surrounded by chunks of rock. Possibly debris from the accident.
Not too far above me I can see the hole in the cavern wall that the explosion opened.
Too high to climb though, so I have to find another way out.
I scan the nearby scenery as I bandage my back with strips of cloth from my shirt.
I'm in one of the Cavern-Keeps. Great underground fortresses that the dwarves build below and above their actual cities.
The place appears to be deserted. The place must have been evacuated already.
I shiver and start walking. I have to find a way to get out of the tunnel-cities.
I've been sent here to the tunnel-cities with a task. Not exactly my task, and it wasn't exactly me who'd been sent, but the group needed me for this.
Word had spread that the dwarven cities were collapsing, and when the news were confirmed several groups were dispatched to investigate the case and help the dwarves.
I usually don't go with the group on big tasks, but I'm the only one that understands dwarven architecture So here I am, deep beneath the ground. Inside a great city which can collapse any moment.
My entire group is dead, just like all the other groups, and I have none of my equipment.
We found out what was causing the collapse a lot faster than any of us would have imagined.
Usually the dwarves build their Cavern-Keeps with a nice amount of exits.
Sadly this does not appear to be the case, as I haven't seen a single tunnel out of this place yet.
Somewhere beneath me I hear faint screams. Possibly some dwarves that didn't get up fast enough.
Apart from that this place is dead silent. Or... Not really that silent.
I can hear faint, irregular breathing pretty close actually.
Just around the next corner someone is lying in a pile of debris and blood pretty similar to the one I found myself in.
Far above in the cavern's roof a huge hole can be seen. Something big and wooden is balancing on it's edge, threatening to fall down at any moment.
I rush over and start dragging him away from the spot. His blood sticks to my hands, and a small mutter of 'Owww...' is whispered through his lips.
”Can you move on you own? Hello? Are you conscious?”
I ask as I move him out of the danger zone.
A soon as we wont get crushed if that thing falls down I give him a quick check up, revealing that almost all of the bones in his lower body are broken.
”Damn... I'm sorry, I'll have to leave you here. I cant take a dead weight.”
I get up again and start walking away with a sting of guilt, but before I can take more than one step something grabs my left foot.
I turn around and see the wounded man looking at me with terror-filled eyes.
His mouth starts moving, and he mumbles something strange about something being broken.
I sit down again and grab his shoulders.
”What's broken? If it's your legs then I'm sorry, I cant fix them.”
He mumbles on, and I still cant make out what he's saying.
Just as I'm about to get up and leave his mouth drops open, and the terror in his eyes spreads to the rest of his face.
He raises his right arm and points at something behind me.
I spin around, telling myself that whatever this is I gotta be ready for it.
But I find the only thing I was not prepared for: Nothing at all.
Baffled, I stare into thin air for a minute.
I turn around again to try and get some sense out of the man, but he is gone too.
Suddenly I'm scared. Really scared.
I know he wasn't an illusion, I know he was real. Flesh and blood even.
I know he was there just a minute ago...
They must have done it. Whatever they, or it, are they must have done it!
But... The sounds weren't there. The sounds were there the other times, this was just...
As soon as the sounds cross my thoughts I can hear them somewhere in the cavern, closing in on me.
I suppress a scream and start running. And I keep running.
We found the answer deep beneath the dwarven cities. Deeper than any dwarf would in his right mind ever admit to have been.
In our investigation we had groups search as many parts of the cities as possible for any clues we could find. The group we sent to the lower tunnels never returned.
As none of the other groups had found anything, we gathered up and moved down there as one big force.
We didn't get far before we stumbled upon corpses.
Dwarven corpses.
Everywhere, littered across the tunnels like dust in an old mansion.
Blood smeared across the walls, making the whole place smell like a slaughterhouse.
As soon as I saw it all my mind told me that something was wrong.
I told myself to stop stating the obvious and take a closer look at the bodies, but something still didn't quite fit in.
Then someone from one of the other groups shouted at us, telling us to come quick.
He'd found someone alive. A dwarf. He was breathing slowly, and he didn't look wounded.
But something in his eyes told me he was dying.
One of our leaders sat down next to him, tried to wake the dwarf and asked him questions.
But when the dwarf finally opened his eyes and started speaking he wasn't looking at at any of us.
He was looking at something else.
”We experimented. We tried to tip the balance.
We succeeded. We found a way to allow order to overthrow chaos. We found a way.
Then it came. They came. The sounds...”
That was when we first heard them.
The sounds, the horrible sounds. Like every feeling of fear and horror you had ever experienced Like every sound you know would mean your death if you heard it, All at once.
Our leaders yelled for us to get into position, to get our shields up and out swords ready.
But at that time I was already running.
I had figured out what seemed so wrong about all the dwarven corpses.
There had been no signs of battle. At all.
And as I ran, the sounds were joined by a chorus of screams.
They're behind me. Right behind me.
I can hear them, the sounds. The horrible sounds.
Panic. I run, way faster than I actually can. And I keep running.
It's all a blur now. All kinds of dwarven structures enter my vision and leave a few seconds later.
I am looking for one specific thing, and nothing else matters.
I round a corner, jump over a pile of rubble and find myself in a dead end.
'look around, spot a loose stone in a nearby wall.
I grab it and try to pull it out, but it wont budge.
I can hear the sounds closing in. They're just around the corner now.
Desperation. I reach into my belt pouch. There's something warm there, something I cant remember being there before.
Doesn't matter. It's sharp. I pull it out and slam it into the gap under the loose brick.
For a second a white light shines from whatever-it-is and the brick falls out.
I take a firm grip in the newly opened hole and swing myself over the wall.
Too fast. My right foot slams into the ground earlier than I had intended, and I once again become aware of the pain that I've been ignoring as it surges through my legs with renewed power.
I suppress yet another scream and start running.
If I don't find a way up soon, I'll die. One way or another.
As the only one I escape the lower tunnels. While I run through the dwarven cities I try to warn people with a mix of shouts and screams, telling them to get out as fast as they can.
Luckily most of the dwarves have already left their cities for fear of being buried alive, but those who remain look at me like I'm a raving lunatic.
And as I had feared, the sounds follow me up.
Soon I hear the screams of the victims again, and I turn around for a minute only to have my mind blinded with terror.
All around, people are dying. There are no signs of any actual wounds, and no visible killers, but everywhere people are dying.
And every time someone dies, another scream momentarily joins the chorus.
Every time someone dies, the ground shakes.
Every time someone dies, it is bloody.
Horribly, horribly bloody.
I'm loosing. They're getting closer and close, and I cant run any faster.
My legs hurt more and more. If I don't find an exit soon, I'm doomed.
I round yet another corner, and I see nothing. Just another street to run down.
While I damn whoever is responsible for this I try to focus on keeping my pace, getting my breath under control and...
I fall. I slam head-first into the ground.
It's lost now. I try to get up, but they're right next to me now. I can hear them at full strength now. The volatile horror that they emit.
I feel my senses black out and see my vision blur. I feel my body slowly shutting down. I...
No. I cant die here. I wont let it happen. I cant die because... because...
Because I'm the only thing left.
As I ran from the 'massacre' a couple of dwarves joined me.
They knew the way to the surface, and I followed them up what seemed like endless stairs, lifts and tunnels.
Then we found ourselves in a tunnel leading to the Great Keep, the main district of the dwarven cities.
If we could get to the Great Keep we would be safe. The place was full of evacuation tunnels and...
Just then, the sounds caught up to us. We started running as fast as we could, but one of the dwarves wasn't fast enough, and soon he fell to the ground.
He died screaming, while blood pumped out of his body from some invisible hole, and the earth shook.
Rocks fell from the cavern ceiling, blocking the way upwards. Trapping us.
In a last desperate struggle for survival, one of the dwarves pulled out a small package of explosives, lit the fuse and threw it at the rocks.
Then everything was enveloped in fire, and I felt myself falling.
With the last bit of determination stored somewhere in my body, I roar as loud as I can.
I roar with every last bit of muscle, every last bit of mind, every last bit of everything.
And it works. Or at least, something happens.
For a short while my roar blocks out the sounds.
I feel control of my limbs return to me in a split-second, and I jump from the ground and start running in a single movement.
I round a corner. Then another one. Then a third.
I keep running, charging forwards. Everything goes incredibly fast, and I wonder how long I can keep this up if I don't find an exit soon.
As soon as these thoughts cross my mind I hear the sounds catching up to me again.
My inhuman speed dissipates faster than It came, and I'm once again running a loosing battle.
I can feel my senses slowly going numb in the back of my head again, and the sounds appears to be everywhere now.
But just before events repeat themselves I spot what I'm looking for: a way up.
Straight ahead of me in the cavern wall is an emergency lift. A crude device designed to move a group of people to somewhere near the surface.
I sprint towards it, jump in and pull the lever.
Instantly the lift starts moving upwards at a dazing speed, and even though I knew it would happen It takes me by surprise.
I collapse on the lift's floor, and the last thing I hear before I black out is The Sounds fading deep below me.
***
When I next open my eyes, I can feel a cold breeze against my body.
I look up, and find myself lying in a cave opening.
Right in front of me is the great snowy plains of Steelcore Peaks, and the sun is shining down on a gorgeous mountain landscape.
I made it! I got out! I survived!
I get to my feet and run out into the snow, laughing inside as I fill my lungs with fresh air.
I lie down in the snow, and feel the cold against my skin.
By the numerous gods... I. Am. Tired.
Then, like lightning from a clear sky it strikes me what is about to happen.
Here I am, lying amidst the frozen wastes in thin and ragged leather armour. I have no food, no supplies of any kind and I am dead tired.
Already now my body is beginning to stop functioning, and within seconds none of my limbs respond.
It's not fair. It's simply not fair.
I got this far... Survived this long... and here I'm dying because I actually made it out.
And as the last bits of energy leaves my body, I cry.
I cry for all that was lost within these mountains, for all that has happened in there.
For the many heroes that went in, but will never come out again.
For all of the dwarven accomplishments and generations of work lost, soon buried under rocks forever.
For the fact that no one will ever know what actually happened down there, and that we will all be forgotten.
But... nothing happens. I feel my body frozen to the core, my last bits of energy stripped from my muscles. But I do not die.
The sad tunes of a bamboo flute pierces the chilly wind, and a voice emitting sadness and serenity replaces the sounds of the mountain plain.
“There are some things that you cannot escape.
Some things that the world itself throws at you, which leaves you in an endless sea of despair.
But there are also times when the world itself has to show mercy.
Times, when just a little something needs to be spared.”
I feel something touching the back of my head, and then everything slowly begins to go white.
The last thing I see is a man in a blue robe walking away, playing a bamboo flute in harmony with the chilly winds.
After that I hadn't expected to ever open my eyes again.
To quote myself 'I thought I'd died'.
But it appears that something was indeed to be spared, that something really was to be left of the horrors that happened in the tunnel cities.
I am no longer me, though. I am someone else. Something else.
That which was me has been replaced by something far bigger. A higher plane of existence, you might even say.
But to this day I fear nothing more than the wrath of the Balancing Force, and the horror that follows it.
EDIT:
Made some small nitpicking changes.
I'm satisfied with it, even. Which is unusual.
I hope you guys like it as well.
The Spinning Coin
They say, that there is a balancing force in the world.
Something that keeps the world from consuming itself.
The thought of this always made me feel comfortable,
but that ended when I myself was faced with this force.
For you have to remember that if something is only there to preserve balance,
It is not always on your side.
My arm hurts.
My arm hurts, my leg hurts, my back hurts and my head hurts.
That's a relief. I was sure I died.
I slowly sit up, and bite my tongue to suppress the pain that unnecessarily reminds me of it's presence.
A quick check up reveals that nothing is broken, but I have an open wound in my back which luckily hasn't leaked enough of my blood to kill me yet.
I get up and take a look at where I've been lying.
A small pool of blood is surrounded by chunks of rock. Possibly debris from the accident.
Not too far above me I can see the hole in the cavern wall that the explosion opened.
Too high to climb though, so I have to find another way out.
I scan the nearby scenery as I bandage my back with strips of cloth from my shirt.
I'm in one of the Cavern-Keeps. Great underground fortresses that the dwarves build below and above their actual cities.
The place appears to be deserted. The place must have been evacuated already.
I shiver and start walking. I have to find a way to get out of the tunnel-cities.
I've been sent here to the tunnel-cities with a task. Not exactly my task, and it wasn't exactly me who'd been sent, but the group needed me for this.
Word had spread that the dwarven cities were collapsing, and when the news were confirmed several groups were dispatched to investigate the case and help the dwarves.
I usually don't go with the group on big tasks, but I'm the only one that understands dwarven architecture So here I am, deep beneath the ground. Inside a great city which can collapse any moment.
My entire group is dead, just like all the other groups, and I have none of my equipment.
We found out what was causing the collapse a lot faster than any of us would have imagined.
Usually the dwarves build their Cavern-Keeps with a nice amount of exits.
Sadly this does not appear to be the case, as I haven't seen a single tunnel out of this place yet.
Somewhere beneath me I hear faint screams. Possibly some dwarves that didn't get up fast enough.
Apart from that this place is dead silent. Or... Not really that silent.
I can hear faint, irregular breathing pretty close actually.
Just around the next corner someone is lying in a pile of debris and blood pretty similar to the one I found myself in.
Far above in the cavern's roof a huge hole can be seen. Something big and wooden is balancing on it's edge, threatening to fall down at any moment.
I rush over and start dragging him away from the spot. His blood sticks to my hands, and a small mutter of 'Owww...' is whispered through his lips.
”Can you move on you own? Hello? Are you conscious?”
I ask as I move him out of the danger zone.
A soon as we wont get crushed if that thing falls down I give him a quick check up, revealing that almost all of the bones in his lower body are broken.
”Damn... I'm sorry, I'll have to leave you here. I cant take a dead weight.”
I get up again and start walking away with a sting of guilt, but before I can take more than one step something grabs my left foot.
I turn around and see the wounded man looking at me with terror-filled eyes.
His mouth starts moving, and he mumbles something strange about something being broken.
I sit down again and grab his shoulders.
”What's broken? If it's your legs then I'm sorry, I cant fix them.”
He mumbles on, and I still cant make out what he's saying.
Just as I'm about to get up and leave his mouth drops open, and the terror in his eyes spreads to the rest of his face.
He raises his right arm and points at something behind me.
I spin around, telling myself that whatever this is I gotta be ready for it.
But I find the only thing I was not prepared for: Nothing at all.
Baffled, I stare into thin air for a minute.
I turn around again to try and get some sense out of the man, but he is gone too.
Suddenly I'm scared. Really scared.
I know he wasn't an illusion, I know he was real. Flesh and blood even.
I know he was there just a minute ago...
They must have done it. Whatever they, or it, are they must have done it!
But... The sounds weren't there. The sounds were there the other times, this was just...
As soon as the sounds cross my thoughts I can hear them somewhere in the cavern, closing in on me.
I suppress a scream and start running. And I keep running.
We found the answer deep beneath the dwarven cities. Deeper than any dwarf would in his right mind ever admit to have been.
In our investigation we had groups search as many parts of the cities as possible for any clues we could find. The group we sent to the lower tunnels never returned.
As none of the other groups had found anything, we gathered up and moved down there as one big force.
We didn't get far before we stumbled upon corpses.
Dwarven corpses.
Everywhere, littered across the tunnels like dust in an old mansion.
Blood smeared across the walls, making the whole place smell like a slaughterhouse.
As soon as I saw it all my mind told me that something was wrong.
I told myself to stop stating the obvious and take a closer look at the bodies, but something still didn't quite fit in.
Then someone from one of the other groups shouted at us, telling us to come quick.
He'd found someone alive. A dwarf. He was breathing slowly, and he didn't look wounded.
But something in his eyes told me he was dying.
One of our leaders sat down next to him, tried to wake the dwarf and asked him questions.
But when the dwarf finally opened his eyes and started speaking he wasn't looking at at any of us.
He was looking at something else.
”We experimented. We tried to tip the balance.
We succeeded. We found a way to allow order to overthrow chaos. We found a way.
Then it came. They came. The sounds...”
That was when we first heard them.
The sounds, the horrible sounds. Like every feeling of fear and horror you had ever experienced Like every sound you know would mean your death if you heard it, All at once.
Our leaders yelled for us to get into position, to get our shields up and out swords ready.
But at that time I was already running.
I had figured out what seemed so wrong about all the dwarven corpses.
There had been no signs of battle. At all.
And as I ran, the sounds were joined by a chorus of screams.
They're behind me. Right behind me.
I can hear them, the sounds. The horrible sounds.
Panic. I run, way faster than I actually can. And I keep running.
It's all a blur now. All kinds of dwarven structures enter my vision and leave a few seconds later.
I am looking for one specific thing, and nothing else matters.
I round a corner, jump over a pile of rubble and find myself in a dead end.
'look around, spot a loose stone in a nearby wall.
I grab it and try to pull it out, but it wont budge.
I can hear the sounds closing in. They're just around the corner now.
Desperation. I reach into my belt pouch. There's something warm there, something I cant remember being there before.
Doesn't matter. It's sharp. I pull it out and slam it into the gap under the loose brick.
For a second a white light shines from whatever-it-is and the brick falls out.
I take a firm grip in the newly opened hole and swing myself over the wall.
Too fast. My right foot slams into the ground earlier than I had intended, and I once again become aware of the pain that I've been ignoring as it surges through my legs with renewed power.
I suppress yet another scream and start running.
If I don't find a way up soon, I'll die. One way or another.
As the only one I escape the lower tunnels. While I run through the dwarven cities I try to warn people with a mix of shouts and screams, telling them to get out as fast as they can.
Luckily most of the dwarves have already left their cities for fear of being buried alive, but those who remain look at me like I'm a raving lunatic.
And as I had feared, the sounds follow me up.
Soon I hear the screams of the victims again, and I turn around for a minute only to have my mind blinded with terror.
All around, people are dying. There are no signs of any actual wounds, and no visible killers, but everywhere people are dying.
And every time someone dies, another scream momentarily joins the chorus.
Every time someone dies, the ground shakes.
Every time someone dies, it is bloody.
Horribly, horribly bloody.
I'm loosing. They're getting closer and close, and I cant run any faster.
My legs hurt more and more. If I don't find an exit soon, I'm doomed.
I round yet another corner, and I see nothing. Just another street to run down.
While I damn whoever is responsible for this I try to focus on keeping my pace, getting my breath under control and...
I fall. I slam head-first into the ground.
It's lost now. I try to get up, but they're right next to me now. I can hear them at full strength now. The volatile horror that they emit.
I feel my senses black out and see my vision blur. I feel my body slowly shutting down. I...
No. I cant die here. I wont let it happen. I cant die because... because...
Because I'm the only thing left.
As I ran from the 'massacre' a couple of dwarves joined me.
They knew the way to the surface, and I followed them up what seemed like endless stairs, lifts and tunnels.
Then we found ourselves in a tunnel leading to the Great Keep, the main district of the dwarven cities.
If we could get to the Great Keep we would be safe. The place was full of evacuation tunnels and...
Just then, the sounds caught up to us. We started running as fast as we could, but one of the dwarves wasn't fast enough, and soon he fell to the ground.
He died screaming, while blood pumped out of his body from some invisible hole, and the earth shook.
Rocks fell from the cavern ceiling, blocking the way upwards. Trapping us.
In a last desperate struggle for survival, one of the dwarves pulled out a small package of explosives, lit the fuse and threw it at the rocks.
Then everything was enveloped in fire, and I felt myself falling.
With the last bit of determination stored somewhere in my body, I roar as loud as I can.
I roar with every last bit of muscle, every last bit of mind, every last bit of everything.
And it works. Or at least, something happens.
For a short while my roar blocks out the sounds.
I feel control of my limbs return to me in a split-second, and I jump from the ground and start running in a single movement.
I round a corner. Then another one. Then a third.
I keep running, charging forwards. Everything goes incredibly fast, and I wonder how long I can keep this up if I don't find an exit soon.
As soon as these thoughts cross my mind I hear the sounds catching up to me again.
My inhuman speed dissipates faster than It came, and I'm once again running a loosing battle.
I can feel my senses slowly going numb in the back of my head again, and the sounds appears to be everywhere now.
But just before events repeat themselves I spot what I'm looking for: a way up.
Straight ahead of me in the cavern wall is an emergency lift. A crude device designed to move a group of people to somewhere near the surface.
I sprint towards it, jump in and pull the lever.
Instantly the lift starts moving upwards at a dazing speed, and even though I knew it would happen It takes me by surprise.
I collapse on the lift's floor, and the last thing I hear before I black out is The Sounds fading deep below me.
***
When I next open my eyes, I can feel a cold breeze against my body.
I look up, and find myself lying in a cave opening.
Right in front of me is the great snowy plains of Steelcore Peaks, and the sun is shining down on a gorgeous mountain landscape.
I made it! I got out! I survived!
I get to my feet and run out into the snow, laughing inside as I fill my lungs with fresh air.
I lie down in the snow, and feel the cold against my skin.
By the numerous gods... I. Am. Tired.
Then, like lightning from a clear sky it strikes me what is about to happen.
Here I am, lying amidst the frozen wastes in thin and ragged leather armour. I have no food, no supplies of any kind and I am dead tired.
Already now my body is beginning to stop functioning, and within seconds none of my limbs respond.
It's not fair. It's simply not fair.
I got this far... Survived this long... and here I'm dying because I actually made it out.
And as the last bits of energy leaves my body, I cry.
I cry for all that was lost within these mountains, for all that has happened in there.
For the many heroes that went in, but will never come out again.
For all of the dwarven accomplishments and generations of work lost, soon buried under rocks forever.
For the fact that no one will ever know what actually happened down there, and that we will all be forgotten.
But... nothing happens. I feel my body frozen to the core, my last bits of energy stripped from my muscles. But I do not die.
The sad tunes of a bamboo flute pierces the chilly wind, and a voice emitting sadness and serenity replaces the sounds of the mountain plain.
“There are some things that you cannot escape.
Some things that the world itself throws at you, which leaves you in an endless sea of despair.
But there are also times when the world itself has to show mercy.
Times, when just a little something needs to be spared.”
I feel something touching the back of my head, and then everything slowly begins to go white.
The last thing I see is a man in a blue robe walking away, playing a bamboo flute in harmony with the chilly winds.
After that I hadn't expected to ever open my eyes again.
To quote myself 'I thought I'd died'.
But it appears that something was indeed to be spared, that something really was to be left of the horrors that happened in the tunnel cities.
I am no longer me, though. I am someone else. Something else.
That which was me has been replaced by something far bigger. A higher plane of existence, you might even say.
But to this day I fear nothing more than the wrath of the Balancing Force, and the horror that follows it.
Vall Towershield – Lifegiver Squire
Missing In Action
Missing In Action
EDIT:
Made some small nitpicking changes.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 111
Beep* Beep* Spelling Error!!
And what's with the bold and italic words?
(I'm sorry if this hurts peoples feelings but I feel like there is something wrong with the stories)
Other than that, it was a good story but it lacks plot and creature description(if there really is one)
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 210
That's a matter of style and emphasis. Ever read Catcher in the Rye? Some people italizes syllables to emphasive pronounciation, others whole words to emphasize meaning. Bolding has the same effect.
And all good writers like constructive feedback, so don't bother holding back (assuming its constructive).
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
Well, i think i did what i wanted to do with this story.
...which was something very specefic, i give you that.
But i'm happy with it.
Also, thanks for pointing out that spelling error.
One of those 'nnoying ones that slip through spell check.
...which was something very specefic, i give you that.
But i'm happy with it.
Also, thanks for pointing out that spelling error.
One of those 'nnoying ones that slip through spell check.
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2010
- Messages
- 941
I wasn't planning on joining this contest initially, but I had some last-minute inspiration and decided to roll with it. I just started working on this tonight, so i'm sure I won't win (I might not even finish) but I still would like to try and make an entry ^-^
Please tell me what you think so far.
Please tell me what you think so far.
The Nightmare - Raven0
Incarnations of my dark mind wrought
Destruction upon my every thought
In a world not made of sand or stone
But rather perceptions of a soul unknown
A world with crumbling walls
Empty rooms and empty halls
Tangible things which meld into
A solemn sky of solemn blue hue
Not much to see in this desolate place
Such confined thought for such confined space
But over the ruined walls I now can see
The vast unknown to which I could flee
But what unforseen darkness could that unknown hold
The foreboding fulfillment of omens foretold
Belief is not required to be punished for a sin
To have one's soul tortured for all time therein
Illogical theologies with logical flaws
That somehow still instill fear and give me pause
For to plunge into the depths unknown
Means losing control of where one's thrown
So I stand amongst the crumbling walls
empty rooms and empty halls
and stare at those tangible things which meld into
a solmen sky of solemn blue hue
And there I stood through timeless tides
Until my demons came with hasty strides
Their shadowy bodies racing through
Those empty halls and me they pursue
Their purpose clear with unveiled intent
Into the dark unknown I must begin my descent
With driven hearts, they only wish to
Shake the foundations of what I find true
Their horrid visage and black eyes
Mask their true selves in a clever disguise
For these demons do not come to bring pain
But rather save from deception an innocent brain
The barriers made by these crumbling walls
The lack of thought in these empty rooms and empty halls
The lying tangible things which meld into
The truthful solemen sky of solemn blue hue
But even with understanding of their true intent, I still flee
For ignorance is better than what they bring me
I run from those creatures to save myself
Truth is more terrifying than death itself
The sky no longer blue but red
No longer filled with longing but dread
Swirling clouds in bloody haze
Send my mind into a craze
Incarnations of my dark mind wrought
Destruction upon my every thought
In a world not made of sand or stone
But rather perceptions of a soul unknown
A world with crumbling walls
Empty rooms and empty halls
Tangible things which meld into
A solemn sky of solemn blue hue
Not much to see in this desolate place
Such confined thought for such confined space
But over the ruined walls I now can see
The vast unknown to which I could flee
But what unforseen darkness could that unknown hold
The foreboding fulfillment of omens foretold
Belief is not required to be punished for a sin
To have one's soul tortured for all time therein
Illogical theologies with logical flaws
That somehow still instill fear and give me pause
For to plunge into the depths unknown
Means losing control of where one's thrown
So I stand amongst the crumbling walls
empty rooms and empty halls
and stare at those tangible things which meld into
a solmen sky of solemn blue hue
And there I stood through timeless tides
Until my demons came with hasty strides
Their shadowy bodies racing through
Those empty halls and me they pursue
Their purpose clear with unveiled intent
Into the dark unknown I must begin my descent
With driven hearts, they only wish to
Shake the foundations of what I find true
Their horrid visage and black eyes
Mask their true selves in a clever disguise
For these demons do not come to bring pain
But rather save from deception an innocent brain
The barriers made by these crumbling walls
The lack of thought in these empty rooms and empty halls
The lying tangible things which meld into
The truthful solemen sky of solemn blue hue
But even with understanding of their true intent, I still flee
For ignorance is better than what they bring me
I run from those creatures to save myself
Truth is more terrifying than death itself
The sky no longer blue but red
No longer filled with longing but dread
Swirling clouds in bloody haze
Send my mind into a craze
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
Well, you've got VERY little time let Raven.
But 'part from that i think it could become something pretty nice
But 'part from that i think it could become something pretty nice
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 111
@Raven0 That sounds like a horror POEM =.=
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2010
- Messages
- 941
Update.
Nightmare - Raven0
Incarnations of my dark mind wrought
Destruction upon my every thought
In a world not made of sand or stone
But rather perceptions of a soul unknown
A world with crumbling walls
Empty rooms and empty halls
Tangible things which meld into
A solemn sky of solemn blue hue
Not much to see in this desolate place
Such confined thought for such confined space
But over the ruined walls I now can see
The vast unknown to which I could flee
But what unforseen darkness could that unknown hold
The foreboding fulfillment of omens foretold
Belief is not required to be punished for a sin
To have one's soul tortured for all time therein
Illogical theologies with logical flaws
That somehow still instill fear and give me pause
For to plunge into the depths unknown
Means losing control of where one's thrown
So I stand amongst the crumbling walls
empty rooms and empty halls
and stare at those tangible things which meld into
a solmen sky of solemn blue hue
And there I stood through timeless tides
Until my demons came with hasty strides
Their shadowy bodies racing through
Those empty halls and me they pursue
Their purpose clear with unveiled intent
Into the dark unknown I must begin my descent
With driven hearts, they only wish to
Shake the foundations of what I find true
Their horrid visage and black eyes
Mask their true selves in a clever disguise
For these demons do not come to bring pain
But rather save from deception an innocent brain
The barriers made by these crumbling walls
The lack of thought in these empty rooms and empty halls
The lying tangible things which meld into
The truthful solemen sky of solemn blue hue
But even with understanding of their true intent, I still flee
For ignorance is better than what they bring me
I run from those creatures to save myself
Truth is more terrifying than death itself
The sky no longer blue but red
No longer filled with longing but dread
Swirling clouds in bloody haze
Send my mind into a craze
The creatures followed with undying resolve
Their dark forms morphing as if to evolve
Their black beady eyes gazed into my soul
As if to cut into my heart and make a hole
Leaping over crumbling walls
I ran through the empty rooms and empty halls
Reaching those tangible things which meld into
The dreadful sky of dreadful red hue
All around me the rooms began to melt
To my mind's last sanctuary, the final blow had been dealt
My demons began to maniaclly laugh
If only to instill terror on my behalf
The deceptive structures which contained my mind
Which covered my eyes and kept me blind
All around me began to disappear
The abyss below still the sum of my fear
Reaching the end of the hallway at last
I became faced with an obstacle I was unable to pass
For the hallway had emptied into that abyss of inhumanity
I had finally come to my own edge of sanity
Faced with a decision that any man would rue
I could either face my demons or face that which is true
My sanctuary of lies all around me began to collapse
Although only seconds, hours seemed to elapse
Behind me the safety of what I thought was real
Before me the abyss that would invariably reveal
All that the universe has to offer and more
Secrets that would both amaze and deplore
The creatures behind me gaining ground
Their horrible moans bouncing through the air abound
My predicament being less than sublime
I stood there, motionless, like a moment in time
My demons surrounded me like a pack of dogs
Determined to force me into the abyss's grey fogs
I still stood un-moving, as if dumbstruck
My escape had ended, I was out of luck
Nightmare - Raven0
Incarnations of my dark mind wrought
Destruction upon my every thought
In a world not made of sand or stone
But rather perceptions of a soul unknown
A world with crumbling walls
Empty rooms and empty halls
Tangible things which meld into
A solemn sky of solemn blue hue
Not much to see in this desolate place
Such confined thought for such confined space
But over the ruined walls I now can see
The vast unknown to which I could flee
But what unforseen darkness could that unknown hold
The foreboding fulfillment of omens foretold
Belief is not required to be punished for a sin
To have one's soul tortured for all time therein
Illogical theologies with logical flaws
That somehow still instill fear and give me pause
For to plunge into the depths unknown
Means losing control of where one's thrown
So I stand amongst the crumbling walls
empty rooms and empty halls
and stare at those tangible things which meld into
a solmen sky of solemn blue hue
And there I stood through timeless tides
Until my demons came with hasty strides
Their shadowy bodies racing through
Those empty halls and me they pursue
Their purpose clear with unveiled intent
Into the dark unknown I must begin my descent
With driven hearts, they only wish to
Shake the foundations of what I find true
Their horrid visage and black eyes
Mask their true selves in a clever disguise
For these demons do not come to bring pain
But rather save from deception an innocent brain
The barriers made by these crumbling walls
The lack of thought in these empty rooms and empty halls
The lying tangible things which meld into
The truthful solemen sky of solemn blue hue
But even with understanding of their true intent, I still flee
For ignorance is better than what they bring me
I run from those creatures to save myself
Truth is more terrifying than death itself
The sky no longer blue but red
No longer filled with longing but dread
Swirling clouds in bloody haze
Send my mind into a craze
The creatures followed with undying resolve
Their dark forms morphing as if to evolve
Their black beady eyes gazed into my soul
As if to cut into my heart and make a hole
Leaping over crumbling walls
I ran through the empty rooms and empty halls
Reaching those tangible things which meld into
The dreadful sky of dreadful red hue
All around me the rooms began to melt
To my mind's last sanctuary, the final blow had been dealt
My demons began to maniaclly laugh
If only to instill terror on my behalf
The deceptive structures which contained my mind
Which covered my eyes and kept me blind
All around me began to disappear
The abyss below still the sum of my fear
Reaching the end of the hallway at last
I became faced with an obstacle I was unable to pass
For the hallway had emptied into that abyss of inhumanity
I had finally come to my own edge of sanity
Faced with a decision that any man would rue
I could either face my demons or face that which is true
My sanctuary of lies all around me began to collapse
Although only seconds, hours seemed to elapse
Behind me the safety of what I thought was real
Before me the abyss that would invariably reveal
All that the universe has to offer and more
Secrets that would both amaze and deplore
The creatures behind me gaining ground
Their horrible moans bouncing through the air abound
My predicament being less than sublime
I stood there, motionless, like a moment in time
My demons surrounded me like a pack of dogs
Determined to force me into the abyss's grey fogs
I still stood un-moving, as if dumbstruck
My escape had ended, I was out of luck
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
@Neo_Child
Your point is?
Your point is?
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2010
- Messages
- 339
Whoops, seems like im too late to complete my submission xD, gotta try not to be too lazy in the next contest.
@Dragonson nice story, there are a few grammar/spelling mistakes though...IMO your story is the best in this contest. You alternated the story with the present/past, and there is a good amount of tension/horror in the story, those are the main reasons why i like your map
@Dragonson nice story, there are a few grammar/spelling mistakes though...IMO your story is the best in this contest. You alternated the story with the present/past, and there is a good amount of tension/horror in the story, those are the main reasons why i like your map
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
@Frostloh
Thanks. That makes me happy to hear.
'personally just hoping to get on the podium though.
Thanks.
That makes me happy to hear.'personally just hoping to get on the podium though.
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 111
I have to say that besides reading the other stories mostly the best I read was you Dragonson, well its better than mine but well see about it in the polls ;P
Oh yea, you asked me about why I pointed out the horror poem thing. It is just I see the title of this contest was SHORT STORY contest #6 so the short story kinda slipped at that part.
I just noticed the judging point and I think I will get low marks on the Pacing of my story as the ending part was rushed since I hard school test coming up and with the deadline near.
Oh yea, you asked me about why I pointed out the horror poem thing. It is just I see the title of this contest was SHORT STORY contest #6 so the short story kinda slipped at that part.
I just noticed the judging point and I think I will get low marks on the Pacing of my story as the ending part was rushed since I hard school test coming up and with the deadline near.
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2010
- Messages
- 339
Not neccesarily a bad thing, if the entire story is slow-paced it might get extremely boring imo, as long as it doesn't feel sloppy it actually makes the story better in some cases.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
What does and what does not make a story better is a horribly complex thing.
And usually, the general views on the case changes alot.
And usually, the general views on the case changes alot.
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,751
It is Monday here, has the contest finished?
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2008
- Messages
- 2,319
Yes. The contest finished about 6 hours and 26 minutes ago.
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
Guys, we still need some judges.
I'l send some VMs around. If anyone would like to judge, please volunteer.
I'l send some VMs around. If anyone would like to judge, please volunteer.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2009
- Messages
- 6,276
Right, My offer stands, Time to Get Reading.
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- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 111
Ahhhh finally I can see how my story is.....
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2008
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- 2,319
If TWIF has no final submission, I'd say he would be a great judge. Did you get confirmation about this from Py?
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2009
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- 6,276
No, I haven't
I'll wait till then to start.
I'll wait till then to start.
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- Aug 23, 2008
- Messages
- 2,319
The public polls can already be opened while TWIF (if he is accepted) judges and scores.
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2009
- Messages
- 2,999
I cleared it with Py, Dragon.
I can judge to, looks like you guys are sorted
I can't say exactly when I'll get round to it but it'll before the end of the week (i.e Friday at the absolute latest).
I can judge to, looks like you guys are sorted
I can't say exactly when I'll get round to it but it'll before the end of the week (i.e Friday at the absolute latest).
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2006
- Messages
- 11,136
twif's fine with judging story contests; he's been good at that in the past
he just sucks at judging concept art contests >__>
he just sucks at judging concept art contests >__>
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 4,787
So, we got TWIF and Gray as contest judges.
Do we need anything else or should we just get the poll opened?
Do we need anything else or should we just get the poll opened?
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 111
i say we open the polls!!!
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