Internet Gone Wrong

A story of the Fog

2017-06-24T14:27:00.003-05:00

The fog descended unnaturally fast, obscuring everyone in a matter of seconds. It was thick and wet and made it difficult to see more than a few feet in front, even with the flash lights on.

We were only a few blocks from our destination so we went against our better judgement and continued forward, one of the children began to cry and their mother pulled them close in an effort to calm down the frightened child.

“Shhh… it’ll be alright, now shhh…”

It worked and the kid calmed down, leaving an earie silence that permeated our entire surroundings.

The air felt thick, but not from the fog. It was as if we could sense in the air that something was moving around us just out of sight.

We kept moving, the heavy silence following us. No matter what was hiding out there we still had to make it back to our shelter before the doors closed for the night. If we didn’t make it there in time we would have to quickly find another safe place before night came in earnest. The chance that would happen was miniscule, so much so that if they failed to arrive on time they would most likely not survive the night.

Looking at his watch, Mazer saw that they had only a little bit of time left, but enough to get back which caused him to relax slightly. As long as there wasn’t anything to slow them down in the next few blocks they’d be home free.

He sighed.

This resupply mission was fucked from the beginning. They set off with a dozen gatherers, but now only a quarter of the originals remained. They did find a few survivors as well, but not enough to make up for the ones lost. That being the case, Mazer was entirely on edge for most of the mission. He was looking forward to get indoors and out of this horror story of apocalyptic scale.

Only one block away now.

Mazer stopped the group right before the corner that would lead to their safe haven and took a peak around it. Slowly, he rounded the corner with his head; just enough to poke it out, and was met with two large black eyes staring back at him. That moment stretched into an eternity of moments, and while Mazer was stunned, the tongue covered in spikes leapt out from the sharp grinned mouth that belonged to those large black eyes. In that infinity of moments for Mazer, it only took a single one for the tongue to wrap around his neck, dig in with spikes, and be pulled toward the now gaping mouth.

Without being able to even process what just happened, Mazer’s head was crushed in an explosion of bone, blood, and brain matter. His headless corpse collapsed, twitching as the remaining blood being pumped through his body shot out from the bloody remains of his neck.

The ones behind Mazer that saw close up what happened began to scream in terror and tried to run away, or around towards the safety of that large brick building they were promised.

None of them made it more than 20 feet.

What's this?...

2015-08-18T18:01:00.001-05:00

For anyone still out there, here's a little preview of what's to come...

HAHA TIME FOR AN UPDATE!!!

2012-07-19T02:18:00.000-05:00

So... first and foremost, I'd like to apologize for not updating you all on the status of the stories I'm writing. The main reason why I haven't been doing that is because... I haven't really been working on my stories as much as I probably should have been...

So... sorry about that...

Sorry about not updating forever!!! Here is an awesome cross-over picture for your troubles!!!

Anyways, onto what has been distracting me from writing! Lately I have been hanging out with a few new and old friends since summer started and I have been constantly away from my computer and any place quiet enough for me to write... I have been having a good summer so far so at least that's a positive.

I will (hopefully) start writing a bit more, mainly focusing on these two other stories I have been playing around with. One is a fantasy set in an old and medieval country which uses "runes" and "sigils" to deal with everyday hazards. The story follows a trio of friends as they deal with a mysterious sigil which finds its way onto one of them after a night of heavy drinking. The other story is the one with the eyeglasses which I'm still working on...

Basically every time I think up stories...

Till the next time I find myself on here, enjoy this amazing video about Joe Rogan talking about what he thinks "Reality" is!!!

"Key to the Void" Ch.1, Revision 2

2012-05-02T21:12:00.001-05:00

Soo... sorry about the lack of posting this last month. I was busy with school (big surprise) and other things which I'm not gonna mention on this blog. Anyways, during the last month I have been able to get some writing in when I wasn't cramming for tests or being distracted by Mount and Blade: Warband (seriously... it's like a drug). I had been thinking a lot about what I'm gonna do with my story and I finally came up with a general "where I want this story to be at the end of it" paragraph which has the future events that I haven't even written about or even thought about how I'm gonna be getting to them. I do very much like where I'm going to point the story and I hope you all will enjoy it as well.

Due to the amount of changes and additions and corrections I made from the first draft and the first revision, I decided to just post the first chapter again. I feel like it flows a lot better and reads a lot easier than the first revision.

Anyways, enjoy!

"It's Science! I ain't got to explain shit!" This picture is actually more relevant than you may think and if you know where it's from then you'll have a good idea where I'm gonna take the story. <3

Key to the Void, Chapter 1

I write this as a last ditch effort to get the truth out there about the amazing and terrible secret which can undo the very fabric of civilization at the mere mention of it. Why should I try and get this information out in the open when it might in fact end the world as we know it? Well, that is somewhat of a long and mostly boring story, but I do suppose that it would explain the truth in a somewhat simpler fashion than me just telling you all I know. It’s a story of inspiration, adventure, love… loss… terrifying creatures from other dimensions, strange yet horrible ruins on remote islands, things not going the way they were planned, and last but not least… me.

We start our little story with a simple phone call. Yep, just a phone call. Nothing really special about this part right? See I told you all it would be boring, anyways back to the phone call. I was phoning a friend of mine from a few years back about a missed call and a 17 minute long voice mail with nothing but static on it. You see, right after I graduated high school I did the whole college thing, but messed up a lot and ended up going to a bunch of different colleges before finally finding one that worked for me.

This guy I knew was from the second college I had attended and I hadn’t seen him since I transferred. When we both used to hang out, we talked about all sorts of subjects from physics, history, politics, and most importantly (to the story at least) the more esoteric topics like the secrets of the world and how to access them. When we talked about the secrets we both had uncovered over the years, we found out that some things seemed to be too convenient or too well planned for something to have happened at chance. Of course I never thought too deeply into the subjects because I was busy with other things (girls for example) so when I transferred I kind of lost contact with him.

From people who I still talked to from that college, it seemed like he really withdrew and became something of a hermit you might say. There was one thing that everyone kept on repeating about my old associate: that he really got into the more taboo subjects of the magicks and he always seemed to be looking over his shoulder for something that wasn’t there. I never said anything about the fact that I may have gotten him more interested in those subjects than I should have, but I did feel kind of bad when I heard about it. Kinda….

Back to the phone call I was still making. Three rings and he still hasn’t picked up, which I found very strange since this guy never went anywhere without his phone. I had been to his apartment a few times to hang out and get drunk so I knew where he lived and I was a little worried at this point. Though I try to come off as a cold, uncaring person, my true personality is one of the “I can’t leave you alone” types where I would always go out of my way to help random people. It’s somewhat of a problem which occasionally ended with me in the hospital for who knows what reason. This time though, I felt that I had something to do with his withdrawal from society and that made me really want to help him out.

So after another three calls and four texts, I grabbed my coat and jumped into my car to drive the short distance over to his apartment. It was pretty close by car anyways, like only 20 minutes. While in the car I called him one last time and said that I was coming over whether he wanted me to or not and to make sure he has pants on when I get there (long story, even longer than this one). I pulled into the parking lot in front of his apartment complex and climbed the three floors to his door and knocked a few times. After a few long pauses I knocked again and yelled through the door that I knew he was in there and that he should just answer the damn door already. Getting a little mad since I drove all the way over here (I just don’t really like driving) I tried the door handle to see if it was open, and low and behold it was!

I yelled into the dark apartment that I was coming in and that he should make sure he was actually wearing pants this time. I walked into the dark room and fumbled around the wall for the light switch and eventually found it after much groping. Even with the light from the hall, I could barely see into the mess that was his apartment so I wasn’t expecting anything close to what I found. Tables, couches, chairs, and random other furniture just thrown around his place along with strange books, pictures of some kind of black mass/blobby thing and other magick-related materials. I thought to myself that he really did get into this stuff, and massively from the looks of it.

Still looking around the mess I stumbled into the kitchen where I found the only clean section of ground covered in all kinds of different glyphs and symbols which I had never seen before. They were arranged in somewhat of a spiral pattern which covered a great bit of the ground. Around the spiral were more magick-related items along with a few candles which looked like they had just recently been lit. Not wanting a potential fire to erupt in my friend’s apartment I blew them all out and then continued to wander through his increasingly macabre place of living.

Whatever it was he was doing it just didn’t feel right¸ if you know what I mean. Just stuff that I had never seen before was just strewn across his apartment and relics which looked like they were close to a few thousand years old just lying about everywhere. Where the hell did he get the money to buy these things? We were both just college students just a few years ago and he now had enough money to buy 2^nd century manuscript on the… “Proper Rituals for Summoning the Void”? The hell is the void and why was it in this apartment? Now not only did I want to find my friend, but I wanted to ask him what the hell is up with all of this stuff. He had a pretty big apartment for a guy living on his own, but I never thought it polite to ask where he was getting his money from. The place looks like it could have easily gone for a few thousand a month at least.

I finally was working my way into the back room where he usually slept when I remembered that I should try to call him and see if his phone was still there. Taking out my phone, I called him one last time and heard the faint sounds of a phone going off in his apartment and it sounded like it was coming from his room. I walked over to his door and knocked a few times, and then said screw it and walked in. I see the phone on the ground covered by some scrolls or something and then look around the room to see if he was actually there.

Nope. No sign of him in here, or anywhere in the apartment. I guess he was going to go and do something, somewhere and wanted me to come along… or something. Whatever the case, he wasn’t here and I wanted to leave. I’m usually ok when it comes to the darker esoteric stuff, but this place just felt wrong for some reason. In fact, I have been feeling as though there were a pair of eyes watching me ever since I blew out those candles around the spiral. I just wanted out of there at that point and decided I would try to call another. As far as I was concerned, my work there was done….

Or so I thought. You know that feeling when you know without a shadow of a doubt that someone or something was watching you? Yeah, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing at attention pretty damn quickly as I heard the front door shut and saw the lights go out all over the apartment. Wondering what the hell was going on, I called out for my friend which I had thought just got back from where ever he went. No response, which was in a way freaking me out at that moment. It was about 7:00 or so PM and the sun had mostly set at this point so the inside of my friend’s apartment was pitch-black. I got out my cell phone and used it as a light to try and get out of this horror house of an apartment. I made my way into the hallway and noticed the dense blackness which was now in the way of my exit. I nervously called out to my friend in the hopes that it was him, only to be met with a pair of glowing red eyes. I shined the light from my phone over in the direction of the scary pair of eyes to see something that was… impossible… or should I say close to impossible?

The thing just was looking at me, maybe studying my appearance as well and was deciding on how it will feast upon my flesh or something morbid like that. For what seemed like an eternity, we just stared at each other, not making a single movement. Suddenly the creature began to back up, into the darkness and slowly disappear into the void. The last thing I saw of it was the pair of red eyes and the glint of light coming off the things contorted smile full of sharp teeth. Then, as suddenly as it had arrived (and almost made me have an accident in my pants), it was gone, and I could see the door which the thing had been blocking till just now. Not giving the thing any time to decide that it was in fact going to have me as a snack, I bolted for it and dived for the exit. Landing with a thud on the wall across from the door, I hurriedly closed the door shut and flew down the stairs to my awaiting get-a-way car.

What the hell was that thing? Did it have anything to do with the random bits of magick-related things around my friend’s apartment? Oh right! My friend! I wonder… did he get eaten? Or killed or something? That would really suck, but I didn’t see any blood or body or anything of that sort so he might still be okay. I hope he is, because the next time I see him, I’m gonna kick his ass for bringing something like that into our world. I mean really, there is a limit on what you can and can’t get away with and summoning a creature from the “void” is definitely something one should not do, at least without parental supervision.

From the whole ordeal, I was tired… really tired. I closed my eyes and soon found myself in the world of dreams. Only, I knew it was a dream, which I guess isn’t too strange, but the man in the nice suit waving me over the have a drink with him is. I don’t recognize this man, and hell, something about him just doesn’t seem human. Whatever it is, I rarely turn away good alcohol so I joined this well-dressed gentleman in my dream which I was awake in.

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to the land of your dreams!... but you already figured that part out now didn’t you?” the man asked me in a very energetic, almost playful way.

I told him that yeah I knew this was a dream and I was wondering who he was, since I once heard that dreams are fragments of memories and I had never seen this man before in my life.

“Ah, well, you must be wondering who I might be right about now aren’t ya?” again with the playful questions, he seemed as though he had read my mind. “Oh I didn’t read your mind, I mean, we’re inside of it after all. Your thoughts are just floating around everywhere so it was pretty easy to see what you were thinking. Well then, how about I introduce myself… hmm…. What should my name be…. Hmmmmmmm…… AH! Yes! I know what my name is! It’s Dave. Just Dave. Nothing more, nothing less. Mostly likely at least.”

Well, now I know who I’m talking to, this shouldn’t be to hard from now on, but Dave? Seriously?

“What? You have a thing against the name “Dave”? I think it’s pretty cool…”

Yeah whatever, so “Dave”, what are you doing hanging out inside my head and why the hell am I so ok with this?

“Ah well, that’s probably because even though you know you’re sleeping, you’re still calm and everything from being asleep. Anyways, on to business! Will, you did something you really shouldn’t have now didn’t you?” his eyes narrowed while asking this question to which I responded that I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Oh Will… Willy Willy Will… You really don’t know what you got yourself into now do you?

“Well of course I don’t know what “I have gotten myself into”, why don’t you explain to me what it is that I have “gotten into”. “Well… you see there were these candles which you blew out, probably to prevent forest fires like Smokey the bear says, but what you didn’t know is that by doing that you forever made yourself a prime target of the void. Don’t know what the void is now don’t ya?”

Nope, not at all.

“Well… the void is… hmmm…. How should I explain this to your underdeveloped brain… hmmm… well think of it as a place of non-existence… or something like that. In this place of “non-existence” there exist beings which call that place their home. Now, you can’t have things existing in places of non-existence now can you? I’ll answer that for you. No, you cannot. So how do these beings exist in this place? Paradoxes; a whole truck load of them. Anyways, they reason why the are there and why the exist is not really important to you, but what is important is that these “Void Beasts” have been interacting with your plane of existence for a while now and have occasionally made their way over to here. The thing is though, they can’t interact with your plane yet. They don’t have enough power to phase into this reality and can only do so with a certain artifact… which now exists inside of your soul…”

…..huh?

“Just like you heard, you now have what amounts to a “key of dimensions” lodged right up in there in your soul. Those candles you blew out? They were the things that were keeping the Void Beasts out of your plane and when you blew them out, which by the way was ingenious, the “key” jumped into your soul.”

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, since I can see it floating around everywhere, “The hell is this well dressed badass talking about?”… ok maybe I exaggerated that last part, but it is all the truth. So now that the key exists in a human soul, all the void beasts have to do is kill you and destroy your soul and then the last barrier between the Void and your lovely dirt ball will be broken apart and then say hello to the end of the world kid!”

So… not only do extra-dimensional creatures exist, but they are trying to enter our plane and the only thing stopping them now is… me… I felt almost sick. I’m the only thing standing in between the world and doomsday? To think, the only thing I wanted to do was make sure my friend was ok.

“Fret not young Will! I’m apart of… a group of mostly like-minded individuals and would not like it if these Void Beasts rampage across your world, so we decided we are going to help you. Kinda…

”What do you mean “kinda”? Are you gonna help me or not?! I was getting irritated now, I didn’t want any more bullshit. I just wanted to know what I would have to do to stop this “end of days” scenario from happening.

“Ah! Good! You learn quickly! That is very good, considering what is about to happen to your real body.”

Huh? What do mean?

Suddenly I see what looks like a giant screen appear out of nowhere and it shows me sleeping on the couch. I really look like that when I sleep? Damn… oh… wait a minute.. I thought I saw something off to the corner of the screen..

“Ah! Good! You saw it too! Well, that my little mortal friend is that Void Beast who was eyeing you earlier. It seems to have come to finish the job when you are most vulnerable.”

Well.. shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT! Wake me up! I have to fight it right? Oh shit, how can I even fight it..

”Ah, it looks like it would be too late anyways even if you did wake up.”

The creature was moving towards my helpless body, with me powerless to do anything but watch as the monster ripped me to shreds and then destroyed my soul. I’m done.. I’m finished... Good bye cruel world!!!..... Wait a minute… Is someone else there?

“You really do have some good eyes, or senses or whatever. Yes, there is someone there who is about to save your defenseless ass. Thank her when you do finally wake up”

Her?

I said before I was suddenly snapped back into my body with about a second before the beast rips my face off. I turn around to try and jump over the couch when I saw her. Dressed in some kind of armor and wielding what looks like a spear, this mystery woman jumped out from behind the couch and delivered what looked like a finisher on the beast.

“Sooo you’re the one they are having me protect and train at the same time… you look pretty weak… no offense.”

It’s true that I don’t work out that often and my metabolism handles my food pretty well, but being called “weak” by a girl my age felt humiliating.

“My name is Alex Aice and I’m gonna be making sure you don’t get killed or anything. At least till we figure out what we are gonna do with you.”

I looked up to the girl, who seemed like she was shorter than me, but seemed so much bigger in some way I couldn’t describe.

“My name is Will Kenwal, I guess I should say “thank you” or something for what you just did so, thank you.”

She stares at me for a few seconds before breaking eye contact with me to look in some other direction. “Don’t mention it. I mean, it’s my job to keep you safe till you can do it on your own.”

She looked a bit embarrassed, which really just made her become all kinds of attractive to me. I should mention I haven’t had a girlfriend in… well let’s just say “a while”.

“So Miss Alex, now that you saved my sorry ass, what are we going to do now? You said something about “training” me. What was that all about? Dave in my dream said something like that too.”

She looked a bit confused by what I had just said, “Dave? Who’s Dave? Anyways, we need to get out of here. The smell from this dead one is gonna attract scavengers and if they find you then you’re pretty screwed, but then again so am I, so let’s get the hell out of here!”

With barely enough time to gather my thoughts, I’m pulled up off of my couch and rushed out the door.

“Can’t I even pack anything? Where are we even going? Hey! Answer me!”

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my stomach.

“Just shut up and follow me, I’ll tell you everything you need to know when you’re safe” *Cough*

“Yes… ma’am...” Dammit, that hurt like hell!

“Follow me, hurry up now!”

Well isn’t she bossy, “Well do you mind telling me how one second ago we were walking down a sidewalk and then the next second we are in the middle of this field?”

Annoyed, she said “Just shut up and follow me. I’ll tell you how I did it once we get to our base camp.”

I thought about what she said for a second, “Base camp?”

When she said “base camp” she meant a small, hidden entrance to an abandoned bomb shelter. It looked like it was well supplied and could make do with what it has for a long while if ever someone drops a nuclear bomb on our heads. Along with the random assortment of supplies that were lying around in some unknown order, there were also a wide variety of weapons set up on a wall. From guns to swords, this collection had everything. It was almost disconcerting considering I just followed this girl on a whim and don’t even know who she is. I mean, she could be one of those would be assassins who want me dead because of this key thingy lodged inside my soul. All this thinking is reminding me of my friend’s apartment and the large creature from who-knows where attacked me. What the hell did he even get himself caught up in anyways? Not only that, where the hell was he? Was he dead, on the run, or being held captive in some otherworldly prison? I haven’t a clue, and trying to think about it is gonna get me nowhere real fast. I have to somehow take control of the situation and find out what’s going on from this girl, or at least get some basic knowledge about the things that are now after me since ‘Dave’ was a little sparse on the information regarding that. All I know is that they are not from this dimension and that they want me, or my soul, gone.

“Ummm… so when you said “base camp” you meant this well supplied and armed fallout shelter in the middle of nowhere?” I asked this just to avoid the awkward silence which I could feel creeping up on us.

“Yes, this is where we will live and train until I can feel safe that you can take care of yourself. Till then, this is your new home.” She sounded almost cheerful when she said that last part, but I’m pretty sure I was just imagining it.

“Follow me and I’ll show you around the place.” I thought for a second about what she just said…

“Show me around? Isn’t this it? I mean I don’t see any doors that lead anywhere except for outside…”

With my sentence finishing, she pulled on a concealed leaver located somewhere behind some pipes. Mechanical sounds filled the small area as a previously sealed part of the wall suddenly came out a bit further from the wall to reveal a small, hidden passage. Alex motioned for me to enter before her so I proceeded through the small entrance. This small passage way went on for about 100 feet before opening up into what looks like a waiting area. Confused, I went to ask Alex what this place was when the large, multi-layer doors began to unlock themselves and pulled away revealing what looked like an underground city.

“The city of Helgat, or as some others call it “Hell Gate”. This city was built to manage and maintain a sort of balance between here and the void. There are about 23,000 residents who all work for the people who run this place. It was initially built in the 1300’s as a last resort against the end times which people back then thought was coming at any moment. Over time it began to serve a new purpose, which is the training and educating the Gate Keepers who fight against the Void and the chaos it brings. In fact, I’m a Gate Keeper and you are gonna be my first student!”

While I was being taken for a crash course down the history of the city I guess I’ll be living in from now on, Alex slipped that little bit at the end before the gates to the elevator finally opened up revealing a bustling city street with all manners of people walking around doing whatever they needed to. Alex set off and with me in tow; we began to make our way through the massive city towards who knows what.

We walked for what seemed like an hour until we came to a stop in front of a well decorated church-like building. I’m guessing it was sort of an official place of business judging by the people walking in and out. We headed up the steps towards the entrance where we then walked right in and through the main lobby area. We stopped in front of another elevator and boarded it along with a few others.

“Can you press B32 please?”

Alex asked the man in front of the display showing the current floor and the many, many others. It looked like this elevator headed all the way down at least 100 or so stories. It didn’t take long before the door opened to the 32^nd basement floor of the building and I was greeted with a few people standing by the door. Alex showed them some papers and then took me to a room somewhere on the floor. I walked in and was told to sit down at a small desk, which I did without question. At this point the excitement of seeing this underground city all but disappeared and was replaced by a creeping sense of danger. Alex then left, along with the two guards and closed the door behind them. I was all alone in this room with no windows or other furniture except for the chair and desk I was sitting in. What seemed like an hour passed before I noticed I wasn’t alone in the room any longer.

“So I see Miss Alexandria got you here in one piece. You have to hand it to the kid considering she’s the same age as you.”

In one of the 4 dark corners of the room I see a long, slender woman appear out of what appears to be nothing casually walking towards me. She was dressed in professional, business attire which made me think of a person in power, which was accurate.

“My name is Natalie Davis and I’m… well… just know that I’m in a pretty high place of power here. If Alexandria didn’t already tell you, we are going to begin training you to become a full-fledged “Gate Keeper” in order for you to protect yourself from the many dangers which are on their way. I’m going to say this as bluntly as possible; we cannot have you die, under any circumstances. You now hold the only thing which will keep the Void from consuming our world. The training is going to be harsh, and you’re going to wish you were never born. You will start training tomorrow morning at 5 AM. Till then, I’m going to have Alexandria show you around the city a bit just so that you can get familiar with the layout. And…. That just about does it! You can go now, your keeper is waiting out in the hallway for you and you shouldn’t keep a girl waiting too long.”

Just before she disappeared into the shadowy corner in which she came she turned around and asked me the one question I had been hoping for since Alex and I entered the city, “Do you have any questions?”

“Yeah, I do have a few which I would very much like to have answered, if you don’t mind.” I was turning on the charm I had worked many hours on perfecting. Being the calm, polite, and charismatic talker was a life skill that I’m very glad I spent time on.

“Go right ahead; though I can’t say anything about anything classified, I’ll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.”

She didn’t seem fazed at all from my charm. Defeated, I began to ask my questions.

“What am I gonna be learning from Alex? Basic combat techniques or something?”

“Basically, that is exactly what she will be teaching you. She will also brief you on the different armors which we use and the weapons that go with those armors. Since you have such an important artifact locked away in your soul, I wonder how much power you can syphon from it…”

“From the way you talk about them it sounds like the armor I’m thinking about and the armor you’re talking about are not exactly the same thing.”

“Correct! When you think of armor, you probably think of something like what you would see in a museum or in history books. We have long since discarded those armors of the past and have since incorporated innovations from the military you know of, along with applying ancient designs to the armor we use to boost their effective combat strength against the void beasts. You’ll learn more about them tomorrow when you begin your training, anything else?”

“Is there any way that I can get this thing out of my soul? I feel that if I got this thing out of there it would make this situation a lot easier. I had been just “going with the flow” up until now and I finally want to know whether or not I’ll be able to go back to my “real” life any time soon.”

“That’s… a difficult question to answer. This is the first time in recorded history where a “key” latched itself onto a human’s soul. We can’t even begin to know how to fix it until we gather more information about the incantation which bounded it in the first place. So… what I’ll tell you is this: As of right now we have no idea how long it might take or even if we can remove the “key” from your soul. That is the situation we are all in and because of it the walls… Oops, almost said too much. I think you have had enough world shattering realizations for one day. No need to add another one on top of the already large pile.”

“What about a “wall”? What does a wall have to do with this situation?” I was getting aggravated from the lack of real information that she was giving me. There was definitely more going on than she was telling me and I wanted to know about it.

“No. I already have said too much already and we haven’t cleared you for any of this information. You have to remember, if you want to live, you’ll have to do what we say. If that means going through hellish training to make you close to unkillable, then so be it; any other questions?”

Stunned by the information she just dropped into my lap I told her “No… that’s fine for now…”

“Good! Well I think I’ve taken enough of your time. I’ll be contacting you soon, till then good luck.”

With that, she faded back into the shadows and I was left alone in the room, by myself once again. So much information was just given to me, and I have almost no idea how to handle it. Yesterday I was sitting in my apartment watching some TV, today I’m located hundreds of feet below ground in some sort of soldier training program which will make it so I’m not as killable as I am right now.

“Took you long enough, I was just about to leave without you.”

“Yeah, I guess you are gonna show me around tonight?”

“That’s right, just the basic places since we had a long journey and I’m beat.”

“Sounds good.”

“This is it, your room. Now, I suggest you get some sleep since I’ll be training you early in the morning tomorrow. I expect you up by 4:45 and ready by 5:00. If you’re not up… well… just make sure you’re up.”

With that she gave me a somewhat sinister smile which told me that I better make sure I got up when she wanted me to.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some things to take care of. Good night.”

With that she turned around and left, heading down the stairs which brought us up to the 3^rd floor. I looked at my key and fit it in the lock hole and turned it till I heard a satisfying click telling me the door was now unlocked. I entered the room and found it very plain, with everything just about the same color and nothing interesting anywhere. I noticed a package on my bed along with a few boxes of random stuff which I might need. I removed my new uniform from the bed and fell onto the hard mattress. If I wasn’t so tired, I probably would have never been able to get to sleep on such a terrible bed, but after everything that has happened to me today, my eyes started to get heavy and not before long, I was asleep on this strange bed, in an even stranger city.

Morning came way sooner than expected and I found myself being able to get only a few hours of nightmare interrupted sleep. I had been this tired only a few times before and those times were after nights of insane amounts of drinking. Hell, I feel like I even have a hangover even without the drinking. The only way I was able to remove myself from the hard bed was with the incredibly loud alarm going off on the other side of the room. I reached for the light switch near my bed and quickly turned off the annoying sound of my early morning wake-up call.

Half-asleep, I slowly got dressed into the clothes they gave me which were similar to some military fatigues I had seen once before. They were stiff and hard to move in, but after stretching them out for a minute or two they felt almost alright. I grabbed the boots and put them on as well, and with that I was dressed.

It was only 4:40 when I finished getting dressed and splashing water onto my face a few times to wake up my tired mind and body. While drenching my head under the water faucet I remembered that Alex never actually told me where to go when I got up. All she said was to be up by 4:45 and if I wasn’t she would… I actually have no idea what she would do, but the way she said it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. When I was sufficiently awake I decided to look around and maybe find Alex somewhere rather than waiting around doing nothing till she came to find me.

I opened the door and looked down the lighted hallway and saw an excited Alex running towards me. The second she saw me an almost disappointed look appeared on her face which makes me glad I was able to get up on time, no matter how early it is.

“Well I see you’re up, that’ll make things easier. Today we start your training, and the very first thing we need to do is improve your stamina. So, to accomplish this we are going to run, a lot. I hope you’re ready for it.”

“I’m not, but that doesn’t really matter now does it? Let’s just start this thing so I can sooner get some breakfast and maybe take a nap.”

Alex led me to a deserted track near the building I slept in. It was still dark out (no surprise there considering this city was underground) and no one in sight. Lights from overhead came on and from the way Alex was telling me to come to her I guessed it was time to start running.

“So, Alex, how many laps are we gonna do? Four? Maybe six?”

“You’re going to run until I say you can stop. Don’t worry about the amount of laps you’ll be doing, since it’s gonna be a lot.”

Now, I’m not the most out of shape person there is, but I’m also not the healthiest. About 30 minutes into our run around the track I was out of breath and on the ground. Alex was yelling at me to “grow a pair” or something, I wasn’t really listening all that much since I was doing my best to keep from throwing up. In the time since we started running, more and more people started showing up. I hadn’t really been paying any attention to them since I was more focused on this hellish run Alex was making me do. On the ground, while Alex was still yelling at me for being pathetic, I looked around at the other people that had shown up since we started.

Immediately something amazing caught my attention and I regained my composure to ask Alex about it.

“Hey… what are those things over there? Are those the “armors” I was told about?”

Alex looks in the direction I pointed her to and she saw a group of people doing maintenance on what looked like giant suites of ancient armor. Except for the fact that they looked modern while maintaining the oldness of whatever armor they were designed from. From my great vantage point on the ground I could see that the people working on them had taken off the external armor and were working on its innards

“Ah, those? Yes, those are what we call A.V.A.’s, or Anti Void Armor.”

“Can you tell me a little about them?” I felt like my strength had returned by looking upon such incredibly cool machines that were just there like it wasn’t a big deal.

“Well… alright. You can rest for a few minutes while I tell you about the AVA’s. There are three very different types of AVA’s we deploy in missions. The first is the Light class AVA “Delta” which is what we issue to recruits as well as our police force. The second class is the Medium class AVA “Beta”. This class is much larger and heavier than the “Delta” class of AVA. It uses cutting edge technology fused together with ancient spells to create an AVA which could be considered a “power armor” because of the incredible strength and speed increase brought on by it. Its main use is for fighting the larger types of void beasts in enclosed spaces along with supporting the lighter AVA class in battle.”

“The last class of AVA’s has only very recently been rolled out and applied to our battle strategies. The Heavy class AVA “Alpha” is the largest and deadliest of the AVA’s which we have. While the “Beta” AVA only increases height from around an average of 6 feet to around 9, the “Alpha” increases height to around 17-20 feet depending on the model. Rather than “worn” like the other models, the user of the “Alpha” AVA essentially “rides” it rather than wear it. It carries our most powerful anti-void weaponry and is the most destructive out of all of our AVA’s.”

“The problem with the “Alpha” AVA’s is that rather than a traditional power source it draws its energy from the pilot through a state-of-the-art void-syphoning system. Without getting too far into the details, what it does is tap into the natural connection to the void and draw power from it. The only way it can do this is through the pilot, and even then unless the pilot is extremely well trained to open the connection to the void to its fullest the “Alpha” might not even move. It’s very temperamental, but with the right users it can be a game-changer.”

…did she say what I think she said? What she was just describing was a bipedal robot!

“I’m looking forward to seeing your results, considering you have the void key inside you. If I were to guess, you can probably draw out more power than anyone else here. Though that is just conjecture, I’ll have to wait and see.”

“Alright, rest time is over! GET BACK TO RUNNING YOU SAD EXCUSE FOR A MAN!!!”

… that last attack kind of hurt… my pride…

Freedom Lies Ahead!!! The Metallic Hardcore update

2012-03-30T17:55:00.001-05:00

So last weekend I went to "Frontier Fiesta" at University of Houston to catch a show some of my friends were putting on. They play in the band titled "Freedom Lies Ahead" and are a "Metallic Hardcore band hailing from the Houston area".

And turns out they're pretty good.

Anyways, I recorded 3 of the 4 songs they performed and posted them to YouTube and thought that I might as well post them here too. If you like what you hear, go "Like" them on Facebook so you can get updates on when they release new songs or when and where they will next be performing.

Anyways, enjoy!

"Freedom Lies Ahead"

"Failure Turns to Bliss"

"Porcelain Throne"

Moans From the Factory

2012-03-28T00:50:00.000-05:00

So here is a little something I wrote because I rolled and got "Zombies/Living Dead" in a game. Before I rolled this one I got "Presidents/Prime Ministers" which I had no idea how I would write. I then re-rolled and BAM, Zombies!

Hope you all enjoy it!

"Moans From the Factory"

A guy I once knew used to tell this really strange story about loud noises coming out from a supposedly abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. He always went on and on about how he one time went there at night to try and capture on film whatever it was making those noises. He said that he climbed through a hole in the chain-link fence surrounding the place and then somehow navigated his way up to an open window. After having a little trouble fitting through the small opening he was finally in the building, alone, at night.

He got out his camera and began to snap pictures of the room he crawled into. It seemed like the place was once a lab of some sort based on the old equipment left to rust. There were a few un-opened filling cabinets spread around the room so he decided to be a "detective" and bust open one to see what went on at that place. After looking over the 4 or 5 that were there, he chose the one which looked most beaten and began to pry it open with a piece of rebar he found in the hallway. After a little struggling he finally got it open and started to shift through the old and moldy papers which were left.

He actually showed us some pictures of the papers he found so we do know he wasn't completely full of shit. The papers seemed to be medical files on patients which were held at that location. This seemed really strange since whenever we hear someone talk about that place they always mention how it’s been always abandoned and in dire need of being torn down. No one ever said anything about it having patients of some kind at one time or another. The papers were relatively normal for patients that would be admitted to any other hospital, but each and every one had an extra piece of paper stapled onto it with the title "Subject (#) observation of unknown viral infection".

Then the paper went on to talk about various points in time after the person was infected with “something”. It was kind of unbelievable, but we did see the pictures and they did seem to be real. From what we gathered after looking at all the pictures he took was that after the subject was infected they would soon develop a strong fever which resembled a cold. This would worsen; all the while areas around the body would begin to develop an odd coloration of the veins, and that was they would turn black. After a random amount of time the patient (depending on the person) would fall into a coma and then soon after expire. At least, that's what the machines the doctors used said. Anywhere between 5 minutes after expiration to 5 hours the subject would "come back to life" as one of the doctors had said in almost illegible writing.

Zombies? Really? We didn't believe him, and he knew we wouldn't until he showed us the last set of pictures he had. They were attached to the back of the files and had the subject’s number located on the back. It was a time-lapse progression of the onset of whatever was infecting these people. Every single one of them had this terrified expression on their face which progressively got worse and worse. Each and every one on had a single picture which had the time of death written on the back and showed the now peaceful faces of the victims. The next picture... showed something that I still really don't believe.

On the back of each and every picture after the one which had the time of death on it had "Re-animation at ----". The peaceful face was now contorted into a hungry snarl with black fluids leaking from everywhere they could. It looked like they became extremely violent after they "re-animated" and luckily were still tied down from the time before they died. The last picture for each subject had them again lying peacefully on the table they were tied down on, except for the large spike which was then protruding each and every subject’s heads. We guessed that they killed them, like you would any zombie.

We still had doubts about what he was telling us so we wanted him to show us exactly where he found them. That night we all hiked out to the abandoned factory. It was a long hike, one which most of us didn't expect, so when we got there finally we took a quick breather. Our friend who told us about the place said he was going to go check the place out, just in case there was security or something lurking around. We watched as he crawled through the almost invisible hole in the fence and start to scale the wall to the still open window. He climbed in and then we lost sight of him.

Not wanting to go follow after him until we were sure it was safe, we decided to hang around until he got back. After about an hour of waiting we were starting to get worried. He was only supposed to climb in and check if it was safe or not then get back to us, but too much time had passed already. Just as we were about to go in to look for him the moaning started. It first began as something you could mistake for a strong wind, but then it started to increase in volume until it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. Needless to say, we were shitting our pants. While deciding on whether or not to just leave him there and run, we saw movement in the window.

We could barely make it out, but it was definitely him with his flashlight in hand. It seemed like something was wrong from the way he was slowly moving towards the window while holding his arm as if it was hurt. To put it simply, it looked like something had happened to him. Just before he got to the window we lost sight of him again. I guess he fell down or something, but we never did find out. Just before we were about to go see what had happened to him, army helicopters appeared overhead with search lights scanning the ground between the fence with the tree line and the side of the building. Sirens started going off and we could hear people running around the perimeter of the building.

And so we ran away with our tails between our legs. We're not proud of what we did, but what else do you expect from a bunch of teenagers? We ran back to town as fast as we could and reported what had happened to the police. We were afraid of what might have happened to our friend, but more importantly we were afraid of what might happen to us. The police held us there until our respective families came to pick us up. The next day we learned that the police had went to the factory and searched it, but didn't find our friend.

They told us they would continue the search for our friend for a while, and they did. They really did seem to want to find where we had disappeared to. It was around a week later that a fisherman found our friend floating down river, bloated and torn apart from what they tell us "animal bites". He was quickly cremated and buried and within a month of this happening the town went back to normal. We couldn't believe what had happened, especially since we were all right there when we saw him disappear from the window that one last time before we bolted.

We all decided to go back to the factory to see if we could find anything, or maybe we wanted some closure of some kind. Many of us felt like this was somehow our fault and wanted to remove the blame in some way. After hiking back to the place where the factory was we were met with a huge pile of rubble and signs placed on the newly put up fence saying "Construction Site. Keep Out". This place had been abandoned for close to 20 years, so why now did someone finally decide to buy it and tear down the old building?

It was all too weird for us to get our heads around. With the factory gone, most of us who felt some kind of guilt moved on and the others kind of just forgot. I occasionally head up to where the factory once stood and try to make sense of what happened. Something had happened in that factory that night which killed our friend. The only reason why I haven't moved on is because I can still hear the moans from the night, loud and numerous, all around me... closing in... Until they seem to be right on top of me.

"Good News Everyone!" The Update

2012-03-26T21:56:00.000-05:00

So, I have been increasingly busy with school lately and, along with my own laziness, have been neglecting on providing updates.

NOT ANY MORE!!!

I now have that wonderful "spark" back in me and I have been writing more and more. Soon, I'll be updating some of the previous stories I posted with lots of editing since I failed to do that the first time around. I will also be posting new, short stories on a *hopefully* regular basis so that it doesn't seem like I fell off the Earth.

I have nothing to give you all tonight, so I apologize for that. I can say that within the next few days I'll be making a lot of posts regarding the stories I'm writing, whether they be new or old. If everything goes great I may even have updates to my longer stories after months of avoiding them like the plague! (Editing is a real pain you know...)

And just because I can!
Enjoy this video, a gift from me... to you!

Sunrise in a Unique Moment of Time

2012-03-07T12:04:00.000-06:00

Sorry about the lack of updates. Real life stuff likes to attempt to overwhelm me from time to time and I have to focus on it to make it through the day. I have a few new stories in mind which I think I'll write about, and if the real world doesn't try to distract me any more than it already has I'll actually get to typing them up and post it for everyone to see. This short story "Sunrise in a Unique Moment of Time" came to me when talking with a very close friend of mine when she and I were talking about something... I think it started with miso soup? Anyways, it then grew into a fantasy which we both agreed would be amazing to experience some day, depending on how life treats us. I hope you enjoy it as well!

Sunrise in a Unique Moment of Time

Indian Creek, Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon

I awoke early one morning to see something I had only dreamt about before. I walked out onto the porch of the cabin we had rented and sat in one of the few chairs left for us to use. It was still dark out; the sun had yet to peak over the mountains to the east. It was chilly, so I was glad I had brought out a blanket to warm myself in the meantime. I wished to see the sunrise, something truly wonderful to behold with your own two eyes.

It was calm, and incredibly dark all around. I left the lights off so I wouldn’t wake the sleeping princesses curled up in our bed, and so I could appreciate the degree of isolation which we had resigned to ourselves for the week. We just wanted to be alone, separated from the hectic world for just a bit. We had been together for a while now and even though things got occasionally rocky, we really did love each other. This was our first of many trips we would take to escape the world, just to be together without any distractions. Those would be my favorite memories later on when life finally caught up to us.

My eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness of this one early morning and I could see the vast sea of trees which surrounded both us and the lake down in the valley. I could also make out the outlines of the mountains which acted like a border, to keep the world out for the time at least. The 100 million year old formations caged us in, as if to keep us from going back; trying to make us abandon all of which waited back in the world we left. I wouldn’t mind if it did succeed in trapping us here. In fact, I would love it.

I hear a sound to my right coming from the sliding door which led to the bedroom. The goddess of my life emerged with only a thin blanket to cover her exposed skin. I wondered if I had accidently woken her, roused her from her slumber when I made my way to the balcony. It was still dark, but I could see her beautiful smile, half-asleep and as pretty as ever. Without a word being said she glided over to where I was seated and gestured to me to let her in on the warmth of my body, and of course the heavier blanket which I used to cover myself. She sits on my lap and curls up, like a kitten in a way, enjoying the warmth that I give to her. We get comfortable and then sit in silence, an enjoyable silence, one which you can have only with someone who truly understands you. There was nothing to say, so we didn’t try to ruin the moment by filling the noiseless void with meaningless words and banter.

Sitting there with her, so close to my being, surrounded by a vast sea of calm darkness created by the trees, I would not be surprised if I were told this was heaven since it definitely did feel like it. Enjoying each other’s company, the surroundings began to take on more shape and more colors began appearing every second. The sky to the east turned a dark blue which contrasted nicely with the still dark sky above our heads; the colors of the new day began to appear over the mountains like ripples in water. From the darkness, the cold, and the isolation we craved, we were thrust into a world of color and sounds made by the various animals which called the forest home. In the valley which led to the lake hung a thick fog which blanketed the entire area like covers for a bed. It was an amazing sight which still stays with me to this very day.

Finally, we watched as the sun birthed a new day into the world and we smiled to each other, happy that we got to share this moment in time together; a moment so unique and singular, which will never happen again in the same way it did for us.

Tests, tests, and HEY more tests.

2012-02-19T00:43:00.000-06:00

So all week I have been increasingly busy with school work along with getting sick which completely sucks. I had a test on Thursday over random Geology related stuffs which I really didn't study for, at least not as much as I should have. I have another test next week in Calc 1 and then another test the week after next in Economics. Fun times!

Anyways, I'll try to do something a little more substantial in the coming weeks depending on school and stuff.

I will however leave you all with something I find very emotional. For those of you who have been keeping up with Doctor Who you should know this episode. For everyone else, basically the plot of this episode was about Vincent Van Gogh and how the Doctor and Amy went and met up with him. There was also this other thing with a monster which only Vincent could see since he perceived the world differently or something. ANYWAYS, for those of you who don't know, Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide because of the massive amounts of depression he had throughout his life. In the episode, Amy was trying her hardest to make Vincent want to live on and not take his own life. At the end of the episode, after taking care of the monster, the Doctor and Amy took Vincent with them to the future to an art gallery of his works. He is literally shocked at the fact that his works have survived this long. They then get the guide to tell them about how he feels about Vincent's work and essentially says that he believes that Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most talented artist to have ever lived. If some of you don't know, during Vincent's life his art was not appreciated at all and he barely got by.

I hope you enjoy this video, just as much as I did.

"WHAT YEAR IS IT?!?!" aka Thoughts on TERA: The Exiled Realm of Arborea

2012-02-13T17:04:00.000-06:00

So after not posting an update all weekend I decided that I should let you all know what happened. So on Friday I got into playing Tera's beta test and that ended up taking away my entire night. I had a ton of fun playing since I went into it with little to no expectations of what it would be like and left entirely satisfied. The lower levels are definitely grindy, but it's a Korean MMO so what would you expect? The devs are doing something about the lack-luster lower content by revamping the 1-40 leveling content which is going to be released in Korea later this month and onto the beta test when it hits the Open Beta phase.

Just look at him and the amount of fucks he does not give.

Initially when I started hearing about the game I was thinking about a human or Aman character, but then the other day when I finally started to really look into the game I found myself thinking how much of a badass the Popori are. So I made my character, a Popori Slayer named "Katz" and went off to do whatever it is you do in MMO's. The newbie island wasn't that bad, it introduced many of quest types and had many different tutorials which helped new players gain their barrings. It did seem to be kind of dragged out in a way, but that might just be the whole grind-aspect of the game. At level 10 I finally got off the island as a badass furball who does flips and shit and doesn't afraid of anything, along with swinging around a sword taller than my character. Needless to say, I was entertained. The flipping animation for when you want to dodge an attack is essentially the Popori pole-vaulting over the other guy and landing right behind him. Much fun was had doing this.

"City of Wheels", Velika is pretty damn pretty if you ask me.

So after traveling around the main city of Velika, I was tasked to help lumber guys which had some fey problems. So, as you always do in these kinds of games, I slaughtered hundreds of fairies who where getting mad about something (can't remember exactly what it was now, but I think it had to do with the forest or some other kind of hippy thing). After this I was sent to another place where I did more killing and gathering and then when I was done there I was sent to one more place where I did even more killing and gathering. I eventually got to the point where I was level 22 and a furry ball of death with a big sword that needed more things to kill. I then was sent to a place which I had been to previously, but not that exact area and was tasked to kill 5 Basilisks for their eyes. I'm thinking, "This is gonna be soooo easy!!!".

I was wrong...

Sooo wrong...

"You thought you could kill me like any of the other mobs you faced before? HAHAHAHA"

Basilisks are one of the first BAM's that you can fight in game. BAM stands for Big Ass Monster and the title fits it well. This is where I really started to have a ton of fun in game since it was the first time there was a challenge that I could no longer beat with a full bar of health left after the fight was over. The first time I fought one I ended up having to run away because my body was not ready for that fight. I regrouped and healed myself and then went back out to fight it once again. This time I was ready; emergency potions in the hotbar, new skills that I forgot to purchase, and my instincts which I honed in Monter Hunter. I was ready for the bastard. I charged and fought very bravely, and in the end won after almost dying twice. It was incredibly satisfying and really reminded me of my days of playing Monster Hunter over and over again.

This would be the time to move the hell out of the way...

I then healed up and tried again to kill another, but this time it was ready for me and I ended up dying for the first time in those 22 levels. I eventually did kill it a couple of more times before the beta went down and had a blast doing it. My fuzzball of death will be ready in two weeks when the beta reopens, till then I shall wait...

In other news I no longer have access to my kitchen since I'm getting the floors redone and have no food to eat in my room except for peanuts and vodka. I think I may need to start on some homework as well... Meh...

The Majestic Bread

2012-02-09T21:15:00.002-06:00

So this morning while I was in my Geological Resources class I started writing a random opinion piece about the whole situation in Syria right now and thought it was amazing. Now, after having the rest of the day to think about it and let it sit in, not to mention type it up, I come to realize I hate it. Well... "hate" is not the correct word, but whatever feelings of pride I had in it this morning disappeared as the day wore on. I am about half way done typing it up so I may end up finishing it and posting it if I feel like it isn't actually that bad, but I don't know right now if I will. OH! In other news, my life will be completely consumed by playing the "Tera" closed beta this weekend after impulse buying it just to get into the beta. I'm not regretting it though since I had a lot of extra money laying around that needed to be spent. I am really interested in this game and with what it's promising it sounds like it will be amazingly fun.

Also I got a recipe to bake bread from this one girl I know. I may end up trying to do that tomorrow because why the hell not.

Finally, here is a little video which I really enjoy... I think it's "enjoyment" I get out of it... meh. Decide for yourselves.

Enjoy...

Spoiler-infused review of the movie "Chronicle"

2012-02-08T23:31:00.002-06:00

Spoilers ahead, just to let you all know...

Because blowing shit up with your mind is awesome.

So the other day I found myself watching a movie which I had really heard next to nothing about. What I do remember about the movie before actually watching it is that the characters in the movie could move objects with their minds and... that was about it. I did hear good things about it so I decided to sit down and watch it and was left pleasantly surprised. The title of the movie "Chronicle" relates to how the movie is shown, in a series of captured videos from the main character's camera and other random recording devices strewn about where they were. They use these devices to "chronicle" the beginnings of their powers and how they develop and train them over time. What makes it different from other "Blair Witch Project"-like movies is how the characters manipulate the cameras to float around, catching many different angles which makes for a very interesting take on the whole "found footage" style of story telling. The cameras also play another role in the movie as a way for the main character "Andrew" to put something between him and the world since he feels already like an outcast. The cameras are used throughout the story and I believe there is only one shot where they were not used.

From the left: Matt (Alex Russell), Steve (Michael B. Jordan), Andrew (Dane DeHaan)

The movie starts out when "Andrew", a socially awkward teenager who's life is kinda the worst, gets a camera and starts filming whatever he sees just for the hell of it. In the first scene we see Andrew setting up his camera for the first time and playing around with it when his father comes bashing on the door, most likely drunk, yelling at him for whatever reason. The relationship between Andrew and his father is developed as the story progresses but right now all you need to know is that is dad is really abusive. We also see his mother, lying in bed sick from what I gathered was cancer and was really close to death. Andrew loves his mother and hates the fact that she is so weak and how he has to put up with the drinking habits of his father.

Andrew says good bye to his mother and leaves the house and jumps into his friend/cousin's car. The cousin's name is Matt and they have an okay relationship, not the best of buds but at least they don't hate each other. I do believe that Matt was Andrew's only friend at the beginning of the movie and Matt really wanted to help Andrew which he does try to throughout the movie. They go to school and while here we see how Andrew is treated daily, with bullies torturing him and people avoiding him, he just is miserable. We also see the other main character Steve in a flyer for his election to student council president. We also see that Steve is freaking popular in school and most everyone loves him.

Anyways, we fast forward to a rave Matt invites Andrew to. We see Andrew be really awkward most of the time while there, ending with a random guy splashing a drink on him and his camera, possibly even punching him(?). We then see Steve running up to the camera as Andrew dries it off while sobbing a bit and we see the first interaction between Andrew and Steve. Andrew doesn't believe Steve when he says that he should follow him because he and Matt found something awesome. After a little more persuasion, Andrew follows Steve to where Matt is and sees a big hole in the ground leading to an underground passage of some sort with a strange sounds emitting it. Feeling adventurous, Steve and Matt want to go down into it and peer pressure Andrew to follow as well because they needed the light. They travel through the tunnel a bit till they find what looks like a meteorite which is glowing blue and making a really weird noise. They walk up to it, having no idea what it is and think it's the coolest thing ever.

I should also mention that Steve and Matt were kinda... really high at this time so they were just enjoying the adventure.

"Mmmm, I love me some Pringles!!!"

After almost touching the meteor, it begins to emit louder and louder noises and then turns red. Last shot before the video cuts out is of Steve getting a nose bleed and then all of them running and yelling till the video dies. The next scene apparently happens after Andrew gets a new camera since his old one got caught in the cave-in as they were running out. This is where we see them using their newly found telekinetic powers by throwing baseballs at each other and making them stop in mid-air. Wondering how they got their powers, they went back to the hole in the ground to find that it had collapsed in. The next few scenes have them testing and playing around with their powers like by building a lego tower and eating Prinlges with no hands (look ma'! No hands!). Then after Andrew pushes a car off road by accident, the three friends decide to set some rules on the use of their powers since they were getting stronger. Then in a very awesome scene, the three friends discover that they can use their abilities to fly and have an amazing time with it. After this we see them in a library eating some food and talking about where they should go with their new found flight. Andrew suggests Tibet because of how peaceful it sounds, which Matt agrees would be a good idea.

Hell yes flying!!!

As the three friends get closer, both Matt and Steve want to help get Andrew out of his shell and Steve asks him to join the talent show and use their abilities to make it look like they are doing magic. The crowd goes wild and suddenly Andrew is much more popular than he was before. He even gets a girl up into a room to do the horizontal mambo (if ya know what I mean?), but kinda throws up on her. Humiliated, Andrew becomes increasingly withdrawn and hostile which makes his friends worry about him. Then after being almost beaten by his father again, and using his powers to show who is stronger, Andrew is shown crying in a thunder storm on top of a building. Steve, who is concerned about him, tries to talk to him but is only met with hostility, and then the scene ends with a lightning flash and the video cutting out.

The next scene shows a funeral (which is then revealed to be Steve's who apparently died in that storm) and Matt getting angry at Andrew because he knew he had something to do with Steve's death. Andrew denies this, but is then seen later lamenting over the fact that he was to blame for Steve's death. At school Andrew is once-again made unpopular with the death of his friend and the now public knowledge of what happened with that one girl from the party.

Andrew begins to abuse his powers by killing a spider with them and ripping out a bullies teeth. He also becomes increasingly concerned with his mother's condition and the lack of money to pay for her medication so he turns to crime. His first hit was on the neighborhood thugs and kicks their asses and takes their money. Seeing as it wasn't enough, he then goes and robs a gas station and almost escapes, but when the owner runs out with a shotgun he sets off the whole station in a massive explosion when he knocks away the gun. He is next seen in a hospital bed under police guard for the impending investigation into what had happened. His father appears and sits at his bedside and tells the supposedly unconscious Andrew that his mother had passed away and that it was all his fault. His father then grabs Andrew and just before he hits him, he wakes up and causes an explosion.

Andrew crushing a car... WITH HIS MIND!!!

We then see Matt at a birthday party with his new(?) girlfriend and sees the explosion on TV and gets a massive nose bleed. From this, Matt knows that something terrible has happened to Andrew and takes his girlfriend's car to the scene. He gets there just as Andrew appears out of the smoke and drops his father, hoping to kill him. Matt uses his powers to catch him and bring him down which then leads to a whole series of scenes showing Andrew and Matt's fight as Matt tries to calm Andrew down. Eventually after realizing he had failed he uses a spear and throws it through Andrew, killing him instantly. Just before the police can grab him too, he flies away and escapes.

"Sup bro, I heard you like taking BUSES TO THE FACE!!!"

The last scene is of Matt flying over various landscapes, eventually stopping at a snow covered mountain peak. Matt steps out in front of the camera and begins to speak as if talking to Andrew, telling him how sorry he was, but it was the only thing he could have done at that point. He then says that he (Andrew) finally made it to Tibet (meaning that's where he was filming this part) and that he was going to find out where his powers came from and use them for good. Matt then flies off leaving the camera trained on the peaceful and calm scenery of Tibet.

"Chronicle" is a movie which not only brings together the awesome makings of a scifi/superhero flick, but also touches on some of the various social issues many teenagers have to deal with these days. It also shows how much fun it would be to get powers like telekinesis and use it randomly throughout our daily lives. Finally, it shows the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" moral thing which we all must know very well by now. All together it was a fun movie which I highly suggest anyone who wants something to watch and enjoy the hell out of.Oh, and also if you wonder what it would be like if when you were a teenager you got powers like the ones in the movie.

Oh the things I would do with those powers....

All pictures stolen from Google.

Interlude of Dreams...

2012-02-07T21:08:00.000-06:00

Random, yet amazing picture I found on the internet which might be something I see in a dream.

So since some time in January I have been keeping a journal of whatever dreams I can remember from the night before and reading back through some of them I find myself very, very confused. I suppose dreams do that, take random bits of the waking world and mash them together to get some strange land of possibilities. The whole reason why I started the dream journal is because I wanted to attempt lucid dreaming since it sounds freaking amazing to actually succeed at it. In fact, "The Dream City" was based on the concept of lucid dreaming and what might happen when it works, both the amazing parts and the horrifying ones. Just the unlimited amount of possibilities stemming from lucid dreams makes me water at the mouth.

World-building inside your head while you sleeps.

In one of the first dreams I become lucid in I hope to just test out everything I can do, like how physics affects the dream world or if it doesn't, how I can create things out of nothing in the dream, and if I can summon random people to be there with me in this dream. Then I would see how much intelligence these constructs have, if they know anything I don't or if they are just playing off the many random scenarios which get created in my head all the time. I also want to explore the dream lands, take in all the sights which my sub-conscious creates and experience everything that world has to offer.

Honestly, I just thought this looked cool.

I suppose all I'm trying to do is test my limits when it comes to creating worlds, how "alive" I can make them and experience them and the people of those worlds before I write them down on paper. All in all, it just sounds like too much fun to not try, so I will. I mean, it's not like I'm doing anything else while I'm sleeping. Might as well try and become lucid in my dreams and have amazing adventures with the random folks my mind thinks up.

Another update before I start posting some actual stuff!!!

2012-02-07T01:48:00.000-06:00

So over the last... week and a half(?) I have been writing out the outline for the next story I'm gonna post up here. I finally finished it this morning and now all I have to do is write the bastard and do all the editing it needs before I post it up here. I also started working on a review for "How I Met Your Mother" since I freaking love that show. That will probably be posted after I finish the short story and work on it a lot more. I have a long list of things I'm gonna review ranging from books to movies, games to VN's, anime to manga. I want each one to actually be a decent review so I'm going to put the work into each and everyone of them. Along with the short story I'm writing now, I'm gonna start on another one once I get to a point where I'm satisfied with this one. I'm thinking it's going to a short, yet sweet story about a man and his liquid silver... oh! And the silver is sentient and wants to take over the world! (s)He's also really... um... "dickish"? Yeah, that'll have to do when describing him. If not this story then I'll look through my list of ideas and come up with something interesting yet short.

As much as I want to rush all of these things out to here, I do have school to worry about and other matters to attend to so it might take some time. I do want to have the short story I'm working on now out by next week, at least I hope so. Along with writing all of these things I'm still reading random books. I picked up "The Hunger Games" a week or so ago and have read half way through it casually. It's pretty interesting and I like the scenario (Battle Royale anyone?) and the mythos for the setting is pretty sweet. Meh... I'll probably write a review once I finish it. I do hear the sequels are not that good at all though, but that's just what I've heard.

Now, not to leave you all without a little something, here is a song by Yoko Kanno which is a different version of the song "Genesis of Aquarion". It's really amazing and I suggest you all check it out!

An update and Superpoints!

2012-01-26T15:57:00.000-06:00

So I have been busy with school these last 2 weeks and decided to give you all a little update on what's going on. School is going well and im getting to all of my classes and taking copius amounts of notes. I'm also in a intro to fiction class which is pretty cool and I get to write and read some interesting short stories. Also Skype is a wonderful, wonderful thing and I only learned how great it is last night. Oh, also I turned 21 and bought alcohol for the first time legally! I got some Svedka which was a great purchase. Also I got money, but that's another thing...

Also I wanted to let you all in on a invite only service which allows you to make money off the internet pretty easily. If you're interested, sign up and start making money! I have a few invites to give out so take them while they're hot!!

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A break for a bit.

2012-01-20T14:28:00.000-06:00

With the start of this week school began again for us University students and because of this fact I will not be able to update as often as I want. I'm still writing random things here and there, but now I'm actually planning out how these stories will proceed. Also, rather than doing chapters of whatever future stories I write, I'm just going to do short fiction rather than what I have been doing thus far. I need to get better at writing and to do that I need to write a lot, and in many different ways. If anyone has a suggestion on a topic I should write about, please do leave your suggestion. I'm looking to write about anything and everything, nothing is off limits. If it sounds like it'll make a good story, leave it in the comments. Anything helps.

Aside from this, I'm also starting to read more fiction to help with my writing ability. Last Friday I went to a discount bookstore on a whim and bought a few: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card, "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin, "The Last Wish" by Andpzej Sapkowski, and finally "Contact" by Carl Sagan. I finished "Ender's Game" the day after I bought it and really enjoyed the story but at times it was like I was reading a story about teenagers, not children like it was supposed to be. Either way, it was enjoyable and I'm thinking about buying the next few books in the "Ender" saga. After I finished "Ender's Game" I started reading "A Game of Thrones" and have been enjoying it since the beginning. I also watched the first episode of the television series "Game of Thrones" which is essentially the TV adaptation of the book. It was incredibly faithful to the book and will be looking forward to actually watch the rest of it after I finish the book.

As a little preview of whats to come I'll tell you all a little about the next short story I'm going to write. It's set in a modern day city and has a mid-twenties protagonist named Henry Anders. One day while walking on the street he gets bumped into and gets his glasses broken. With him being the poor, freshly out of college guy he is he decides to wait a bit before getting a new pair since his eye sight wasn't even that bad. A few days later he begins noticing strange sights which makes him think he was seeing things. Not long after that he comes into contact with something that shouldn't be there and shouldn't exist but does. Creatures not visible to other people with strange other-worldly bodies now populate Henry's vision and his fascination. What are these creatures and why can Henry see them? The answers will come when I finally get around to writing the damn thing.

Till then, here is something you all may enjoy.

A new story! "The Floating Island"

2012-01-12T17:22:00.000-06:00

On New Years, just before I went out and had an awesome time, I decided to right a little because of how awake I was. This ended up being something that seems like it's really interesting if I do all the right things while writing it. A floating Island? Knights with power armor and magic weapons?! What kind of craziness is this?! The only way to find out is to read, so get on it!

The Floating Island

I was running. Running as fast as my shoeless feet could take me from what would surely be my death if I was ever caught. The forest tried to stop me with all the trees and bushes which impeded my retreat. The fact that it was raining and night time didn’t help my situation either. Cuts and scrapes appeared everywhere as I tore more and more of the clothes they put on me. I had no idea how I ended up here, the only thing I did know is that I didn’t want to stay and no one would stand in my way of escaping.

Suddenly the earth was taken out from underneath me and I found myself tumbling into the darkness of a valley which seemed to appear out of nowhere. After cursing a few times I shut my mouth and listened as they went by. Apparently my run of bad luck was over with this impromptu hiding place and so I watched as the strange people in suites of armor walked right on by. I hadn’t really looked too closely at the people who were chasing me since, well, they were chasing me. Now that I was well hidden I could see what they were wearing. It looked like a combination of fantasy and futuristic armor with what looked like the same kind of combination weapon. Long, skinny rifles with a blade running along the length of the barrel with a tip coming out right below the muzzle. Even though they looked like they were wearing around 50 pounds of armor, they were still moving pretty damn quickly through the under-growth in their attempts to locate me. Eventually they gave up and went on to some other place when they heard some movement behind them. Luckily, that wasn’t me so I was home free to escape and end this annoying nightmare.

I made my way towards what looked like a clearing after walking for the rest of the night. I was exhausted and hungry, and just wanted to be home in bed eating some delicious home cooked food. My clothes were even more torn up than they were before and my feet were bloody and bruised from not having any shoes on. I didn’t know what happened to my clothes since I ran at the first chance I got. This seemed like one of those bad horror movies where some people take you from your home and drug you to be a sex slave or something. I don’t even remember how I got here. The last thing I remember was being at home, and… I think I had just made myself some dinner when… lights. That’s all I remember. Lights… Next thing I know I’m in what looks like was a set for some monster movie and me being in a completely new set of clothes with weird knights chasing me with strange weapons and armor… and…

What I saw as I exited those dark woods into the clearing was something I would never forget for as long as I get to live. Just something about it was so amazing that I would have never been able to believe it existed unless I saw it for myself. That was my first night in this crazy land filled with things I could never have guessed were real until I saw them first hand. That was the day I found myself on a land which was not on any map and didn’t belong in the natural world. The view I was presented with when I exited those dark woods was that of a ledge, a ledge which led into the clouds, which lead into the horizon. I found myself on a floating continent, one which was lost to the world but never left its side. I had somehow woken up in what I would have to say the strangest place I have ever woken up in, and trust me; I have woken up in some strange places. I blame tequila for that.

Overcome with the sight before me, I failed to notice the figures exit the tree line just as I did. They noticed me and began to run in my direction. Not only were these people running towards me, but others began to appear from the tree line into the clearing, blocking my only possible escape. I didn’t know what I should do at this moment. I had been running all night long and could barely think straight, let alone stay awake. Resigned to whatever fate they may have for me, I collapsed onto the ground with a thud and slowly lost consciousness as the men in the strange armor finally got to me.

I woke up in the same room which I had escaped from earlier, only this time with me being restrained to the bed. I had been dressed yet again in the strange clothes and most of my scratches and bruises from the night of running seemed to be gone. Not understanding what was going on, I began to struggle against the restraints without them yielding at all. I decided that I would just listen for a bit and maybe find a little more about this place since I seemed to be stuck here for the time being. I closed my eyes and began to focus on any little sound which found its way to my ears. It wasn’t long till I heard movement from outside the door moving towards it. I guess they finally were going to see me and maybe tell me what was going on.

Sure enough, the door opened and a person with what looks like a doctor’s coat walked in along with 2 guards. He looked a bit aged and seemed that way too by the way he was holding up the clip-board he had close enough to his face to kiss it. After examining it for a minute he set it down and looked directly at me.

“That was not the most intelligent thing to do last night, but I’m sure you understand that perfectly well now.”

“Well, waking up in an unfamiliar place after not remembering how I got here kinda makes me want to run away.”

“True, so let me say this first of all; Welcome to Avalon. Now I’m sure you have a lot of questions regarding how you got here and more importantly why, but those will have to be asked and answered at another time. For now, please enjoy your stay and get some rest. Someone will come and talk with you tomorrow once you’re more acclimated to the higher altitude.”

With that the old man turned around and walked through the door with the two guards following closely after him. Finally someone had spoken to me, which was great, but he really didn’t say anything really important. I suppose by “getting acclimated to the higher altitude” means that I really am on a floating island somewhere in the sky. Deciding that struggling was probably not the best course of action, I spent the rest of the day in bed trying to remember what had happened to me before I woke up here. Other than the light everywhere, nothing new came to mind. Still feeling exhausted, I feel asleep soon after I got tired of counting the clouds.

My dreams were nothing but fragmented imagery, some of it I recognized, some of it I didn’t. I woke up feeling refreshed and more alive than I had ever been in my previous life down on the ground. It was a strange, yet wonderful feeling like I could go run a marathon if I wanted to. However remembering my previous experience with running I pushed my thoughts away from that subject. Soon after I woke up I was greeted by a nice lady in what seems to be a nurses uniform. She had with her a variety of food which made my mouth water and my stomach growl. Noticing this, she laughed a bit and set the food down on the bedside table. With her task completed, she turned around walked away with the guards following suit.

The restraints they had me in were long enough so that I could reach over to the food without getting much further than that. I had been so preoccupied with everything that has been going on that I didn’t even notice the emptiness in my stomach until I saw some food. With almost animal-like ferocity, I tore into whatever edible thing they brought me and almost felt like crying because it tasted so good. Everything about the food just blows my mind when it comes to taste. The way the foods were cooked made it so that the flavors complimented each other in such a way that I didn’t think possible. This was truly something the gods would make and eat if they had their way.

While I was busy stuffing as much of the food down my throat a man dressed in military garb with medals and all walked in and sat down and began to watch me. I finally took notice when I thought I was choking. With the realization that I had a mouth full of food and a new person to talk to (and maybe figure something out) I finished swallowing and turned to him. The man had a smile on his face like he had just seen something funny and I was just going to guess that that was me.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your meal since you looked like you were enjoying it so much.”

He said that in a way where it almost sounded “cheerful” which, coming from the very militaristic man in front of me, was kinda awkward.

“Well thanks I guess…”

Not really knowing what to say, I let the man lead the conversation.

“Now that you are more used to this place I suppose I’ll tell you a little history about it. Centuries ago, using the powers that I’m not even sure about, a group of people created this island in the sky and with it they hoped to watch over the world as it grew, but never have any part in it. They wanted the rest of us to grow on our own, without the use of magic, so that they could watch how people developed. As time went by, technology began to make its appearance everywhere in the world. Science was more accepted than magic and people began to even forget that magic once was a powerful force which existed all around the world. The people here were looking for exactly that. They had realized that they were at a dead end, that they could only go so far with magic and were placing their hopes on the rest of mankind to create and innovate.”

“Today, we have an entire civilization up here which has access to magic and technology. Amazing things have happened over the course of the last 100 years, and with all the advancements made here, we can finally move onto the next phase of our plan. This involves you, but as to what you’ll be doing we’ll be keeping that secrete for the time being. As to how you got here… Well that’s also a secret that goes along with why you’re here. So until we feel like you’re ready, I suggest you do whatever anyone tells you to do. Know this, we are not your enemies, we are your friends. I know it’s difficult to ask such a thing when you don’t even know why or how you’re here, but just know that we don’t mean for any harm to fall on you.”

“There are things in this world we need to protect you from, so please let us do just that. What you’re about to go through will be tough, but needed for what lies ahead. In a bit a few people will come and take you for a tour around the city and island. They’re good people so they’ll treat you right. After that… just follow what they say and that will be good enough.”

As he finishes his sentence, the man stands up and begins to walk out the door.

“Oh! One more thing, don’t make your guides angry. Just trust me on this one.”

With that and a small chill through my spine, the man left. With all of this new information to digest, I almost don’t think my brain can take it. After hearing all of this and eating earlier my eyes begin to get heavy and soon enough I fall asleep. This almost feels like a dream, but I know that when I wake up I’ll be back in the strange, yet interesting world for whatever reason they are not telling me. Till then, sleep is nice.

A short story titled "The Dream City"

2012-01-12T00:27:00.001-06:00

So after a while of not writing and just generally having writers block, I decided to write something that might give me some inspiration down the road. "The Dream City" is what I ended up with and it's pretty short, just over a thousand words long but kind of interesting to write. Dreams have always interested me, and the prospect of having a lucid one was something I'd love to have. Anyways, for my other stories I'll have the next chapters up probably by the end of the week, but more likely early next.

Enough of that, here is "The Dream City"

Bored with what he was doing in life a young man stumbles onto the subject of lucid dreaming and decides to try it out. He sets himself up one night and uses a technique others have used to successfully enter a lucid state.

He fails the first night.

Craving the possibilities of a lucid dream, the man tries again the next night with mixed results. At one point in his dream he almost became self-aware before the dream imploding. It was this, the fact that it was becoming easier to lucid dream after more than one night that drove him to try one last time.

This time it works. He becomes self-aware in his dream and decides to go crazy with anything and everything he wanted to do. Running through the city-scape which his sub-conscious generated, he begins to try everything in which he always wanted to do in the real world but never had the courage to do so. He tried imagining fantastic cars and other vehicles which drove him through the city at break-neck speed; he also tried his hand at creating buildings in the sky, only to have them plummet to the ground. The world was his oyster and he was having the time of his life and nothing could get him down. After playfully running away from some of the dream women he had imagined up, he found himself at a dead-end in an alley-way. Puzzled, he turned around to go look for those lovely women which he had been running away from.

When he exited the alley, he noticed the large buildings had become much darker than they were before. So much so that he felt an unnaturalness about the way they were presented. Something was wrong and he started to notice it. The once bright, vibrant city had changed into a dark, gloomy city which held no happiness what so ever.

As he walked onto the street a sudden feeling of despair and terror rain through his entire being, he had stumbled onto something that for some reason had taken up residence in his mind. This was no longer a dream in which he could control, but a nightmare which he was painfully aware of. He began to run in the direction of where he first entered the city but found the maze-like layout confusing and found himself helplessly lost.

For what seemed like a few hours, the man ran and ran through the city, hoping to find "something". He didn't know what he was searching for, he just knew that if he found it then everything would be okay. He first thought that it was a way out he was looking for, but ended up realizing that if he really wanted to leave the city then his mind would allow that to happen. It was evident that this was not the case so he ran through the streets looking into the store windows.

As he ran the city became more and more dark and distorted, spiraling and curving at unnatural angles, the city was becoming something that could never have been designed by a mortal. Never the less, he continued his search until he found a street which had a dead-end. Considering this was the first street which finally had an ending, he concluded that it was time to find what he was looking for and began to search the surroundings.

He looked into the shop which blocked his way to find a dust covered store which looked like it had not been touched in years. Nothing decorated the shelves nor were there any pictures of what must have been sold there at one point, just the dust which covered every surface. Just as he started looking around he noticed a slight disturbance in the dust on the ground. It looked like something had dragged a dry mop or something from the front door to one of the back rooms. He felt like this was what he was looking for and ran to the room that led to the back room and tried the handle. It was unlocked and opened easily when requested.

Inside he saw a small glimmer on a counter and went over to it to inspect it, what it looked like was a small set of keys which had many different shapes and colors. It had been placed there only recently from the lack of dust on it, by what the man did not know. All he did know is that whatever had overtaken his dream was about to be ejected. He took hold of the keys and was now in a room with innumerable doors which stretched endlessly down a hallway.

Realizing that the keys in his had been for the doors he began to look at the keys, one by one, to try and find the right one. After looking through a few of them, he noticed his gaze gravitating towards an ornate looking one which looked like something his grandparents might have used back in the old days. Taking the key in hand, he went over to the closest door and put it in and turned it. With a click, the door became unlocked and he found himself in his dream which he began in.

Feeling entirely too exhausted from the little adventure he had, he decided it was about time to wake up. As the world around him began to slowly dissolve away he saw a shadow appear on the horizon. This shadow was running towards him with all its might for reasons unknown. Just as the shadow was about to attack the young man woke up in his bed, with the feeling of cold sweat on his skin. He had seen what the shadow looked like up close, and decided from then on not to try and lucid dream. Some things from the unknown are better left undisturbed, lest he finds himself in the dream once more, only this time to have the shadow which looked of death and made of nightmares to finally catch him.

"Key to the Void" Chapter 2: The Underground City

2012-01-06T17:59:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I haven't updated in a while, sorry. I was totally busy doing stuff that was important and I was totally not playing Tribes: Ascend at all. Anyways, I finally sat down and wrote the second chapter to KV and introduced the setting in which a lot of the future chapters are going to take place.

Chapter 2: The Underground City

When she said “base camp” she meant a small, hidden entrance to an abandoned bomb shelter. It looked like it was well supplied and could make do with what it has for a long while if ever someone drops a nuclear bomb on our heads. Along with the random assortment of supplies that were lying around in some unknown order, there were also a wide variety of weapons set up on a wall. From guns to swords, this collection had everything. It was almost disconcerting considering I just followed this girl on a whim and don’t even know who she is. I mean, she could be one of those would be assassins who want me dead because of this key thingy lodged inside my soul. All this thinking is reminding me of my friend’s apartment and the large creature from who-knows attacked me. What the hell did he even get himself caught up in anyways? Not only that, where the hell was he? Was he dead, on the run, or being held captive in some otherworldly prison? I haven’t a clue, and trying to think about it is gonna get me nowhere real fast. I have to somehow take control of the situation and find out what’s going on from this girl, or at least just get some basic knowledge about the things that are now after me since Dave was a little sparse on the information regarding that. All I know is that they are not from this dimension and that they want me, or my soul, gone.

While I was busy being deep in thought about what I was going to do, a sharp prod to my side reminded me that I really don’t have a choice in what I do right now. I’ll follow Miss Aice and figure some things out along the way. “Ummm… so when you said “base camp” you meant this well supplied and armed fallout shelter in the middle of nowhere?” I asked this just to avoid the awkward silence which I could feel creeping up on us. “Yes, this is where we will live and train for until I can feel safe that you can take care of yourself. Till then, this is your new home.” She sounded almost cheerful when she said that last part, but I’m pretty sure I was just imagining it. “Follow me and I’ll show you around the place.” I thought for a second about what she just said… “Show me around? Isn’t this it? I mean I don’t see any doors that lead anywhere except for outside…” With my sentence finishing, she pulled on a concealed leaver located somewhere behind some pipes. Mechanical sounds filled the small area as a previously sealed part of the wall suddenly came out a bit further from the wall and revealed a small, hidden passage. Alex motioned for me to enter before her so I proceeded through the small entrance. This small passage way went on for about 100 feet before opening up into what looks like a waiting area. Confused, I went to ask Alex what this place was when the large, multi-layer doors began to unlock themselves and pulled away revealing what looked like an underground city.

This place was huge, massive, and sprawling. I couldn’t believe a place like this existed somewhere underground. It looks like we entered from a side entrance which was located near the top of the cavern which the city was built in so I could see almost all of the way across the city towards the other side, but my vision is obstructed by one of the massive columns which are supporting the roof. The buildings themselves look like a combination of modern and gothic architecture so they looked like they were almost too odd and strange for them to exist, but in here they looked like they just belonged. I guess I had been staring at the underground city for a little too long when Alex decided to begin pulling me towards what looked like an elevator. After a few presses of some buttons we were off, slowly descending into the splendor of the city. “The city of Helgat, or as some others call it “Hell Gate”. This city was built to manage and maintain a sort of balance between here and the void. There are about 23,000 residents who all work for the people who run this place. It was initially built in the 1300’s as a last resort against the end times which people back then thought were coming at any moment. Over time it began to serve a new purpose, which is the training and educating the Paladins who fight against the Void and the chaos it brings. In fact, I’m a Paladin and you are gonna be my first student!” While I was being taken for a crash course down the history of the city I guess I’ll be living in from now on, Alex slipped that little bit at the end before the gates to the elevator finally opened up revealing a bustling city street with all manners of people walking around doing whatever they needed to. Alex set off and with me in tow, we began to make our way through the massive city towards who knows what. I was just about to have my brain explode with all the information which had been thrown my way since earlier today and I don’t think I could take much more craziness.

We walked for what seemed like an hour until we came to a stop in front of a well decorated church looking building. I’m guessing it was some sort of an official place of business judging by the people walking in and out. We headed up the steps towards the entrance where we then walked right in and through the main lobby area. We stopped in front of another elevator and boarded it along with a few others. “Can you press B32 please?” Alex asked the man in front of the display showing the current floor and the many, many others. It looked like this elevator headed all the way down at least 100 or so stories. It didn’t take long before the door opened to the 32^nd basement floor of the building and I was greeted with a few people standing by the door. Alex showed them some papers and then took me to a room somewhere on the floor. I walked in and was told to sit down at a small desk, which I did without question. At this point the excitement of seeing this underground city all but disappeared and was replaced by a creeping sense of danger. Alex then left, along with the two guards and closed the door behind them. I was all alone in this room with no windows or other furniture except for the chair and desk I was sitting in. What seemed like an hour passed before I noticed I wasn’t alone in the room any longer.

“So I see Miss Alexandria got you here in one piece. You gotta hand it to the kid considering she is the same age as you.” In one of the 4 dark corners of the room I see a long, slender woman appear out of what appears to be nothing casually walking towards me. She was dressed in a professional, businessy way that made me think of a person in power, which I guess she is. “My name is Natalie Davis and I’m… well… just know that I’m in a pretty high place of power here. If Alexandria didn’t already tell you, we are going to begin training you to become a full-fledged Paladin in order for you to protect yourself from the many dangers which are on their way. I’m going to say this as bluntly as possible; We cannot have you die, under any circumstances. You now hold the only thing which will keep the Void from consuming our world. The training is going to be harsh, and you’re going to wish you were never born. You will start training tomorrow morning at 5 AM. Till then, I’m going to have Alexandria show you around the city a bit just so that you can get familiar with the layout. And…. That just about does it! You can go now, your keeper is waiting out in the hallway for you and you shouldn’t keep a girl waiting too long.” With that, she faded back into the shadows and I was left alone in the room, by myself once again. So much information was just given to me, and I have almost no idea how to handle it. Yesterday I was sitting in my apartment watching some TV, today I’m located hundreds of feet below ground in some sort of soldier training program which will make it so I’m not so killable as I am right now.

Sighing, I get up and head towards the door which will lead me to some really, really unknown future with a girl who is now going to be my instructor? I open the door and find Alex leaning against the wall looking rather bored. When she notices that I left the room her face brightens up a bit before changing back to her usual look of annoyance. “Took you long enough, I was just about to leave without you.” “Yeah, I guess you are gonna show me around tonight?” “That’s right, just the basic places since we had a long journey and I’m beat.” “Sounds good.”

With that last note we made our way towards the elevator and then to the street level once again. She dragged me around from place to place for about an hour before she led me to the place where I’ll be living in for the foreseeable future. It was a smaller building on the outskirts of the city and seemed a little worn down. We entered and I followed her up to the third floor before stopping at room 332. “This is it, your room. Now, I suggest you get some sleep since I’ll be training you early in the morning tomorrow. I expect you up by 4:45 and ready by 5:00. If not, well… just make sure you’re up.” With that she gave me a somewhat sinister smile which told me that I better make sure I got up when she wanted me to. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some things to take care of. Good night.” With that she turned around and left, heading down the stairs which brought us up to the 3^rd floor. I look at my key and fit it in the lock hole and turned it till I heard a satisfying click telling me the door is now unlocked. I enter the room and find it very plain, with everything just about the same color and nothing interesting anywhere. I noticed a package on my bed along with a few boxes of random stuff which I might need. I removed my new uniform from the bed and fell onto the hard mattress. If I wasn’t so tired, I probably would have never been able to get to sleep on such a terrible bed, but after everything that has happened to me today, my eyes started to get heavy and not before long, I was asleep on this strange bed, in an even stranger city.

"End of the World: Made Easy" Chapter 2: Part 1

2011-12-29T22:46:00.001-06:00

Ok guys, here is chapter 2 of "End of the World: Made Easy" with a little more back story on our two main characters and a little more action than the first chapter.

>mfw editing this monstrosity after writing it in a single 4 hour period

Anyways, enjoy...

Chapter 2: The Night Terrors and my unpleasant experience with them.

After reading the information coming out online about what was happening around the world and what was happening in my own area, I went back downstairs to see what everyone else was doing. The place I live in is a dorm building with 4 floors, but only 3 full size ones. The fourth floor is about half the size as the other and also has fewer rooms, but that’s pretty obvious. In total, there are probably over 100 people living in this building alone. The dorm is also coed so there are guys and girls sharing the same floor, but that’s not important.

When I get down stairs I’m met with the same scene I left about 3 or so hours ago. The only difference is that there were even more people crying and more people looking like they had given up hope. There were some people that were actually being useful, mostly just barricading the doors and windows that lead to the outside on the first floor. Our building is set up so that the first floor is a few feet off the ground, so the infected really can’t like break the windows and climb in, but just in case anything were to go even worse, people were going to be staying on the second floor.

Rather than just sit in a corner and feel bad or cry or whatever, I decided that I should help out too. Though by the time I offered to help, they were mostly done with securing the ground floor so there really wasn’t much for me to do. I did however get the job as first watch for when night came. All I’d really be doing is standing by the front doors with some kind of weapon and watch them until my shift was up. As for the weapons we would be using, we fashioned something like a spear from extra beds and desks. It didn’t look all that great, but it would do the job it was made for pretty well. The students here in this building were really getting creative with weapons which made me feel a bit safer with all the weapons they were fabricating from the random materials we had here in the building.

Speaking of the weapons, we had our first chance to use one of them when the guy who was attacked earlier died and came back. When he finally went silent, the people in the room at the time knew he had expired and was about to come back from the land of the dead. Sure enough, after about 5 or 10 minutes, he started to move again. The people who were there at the time said it looked so “odd” at how he was behaving, which what they really meant was that he didn’t seem to have even a sliver of humanity left in him. He was a soulless husk of a person with only one thing on his mind, to try to fill the empty void that was created when his soul left his body. Anyways, once they had made sure he wasn’t the person he had once been, the put him out of his misery with a spear through the skull. (I should also mention that there had been a lot of information on how to deal with turned infected. The one way that kept on popping up was to destroy the brain or sever the head and then burn the body. Sounds like something straight out of a horror movie right?)

So at around 7 PM I went downstairs with my newly made spear after talking to a friend of mine who lives up north. Apparently shit was insane in the cities, military gunning down infected, but getting overrun anyways. Panic in the streets, fires, explosions, ect..ect… My friend was fine for the time being, she said that the people of her building had sealed off themselves from the rest of the city and were in the process of gathering supplies. They also had some military people there too; they were helping direct the civilians and were creating a defense network for their building and the ones around it. It sounded like they are a lot better off than us college students with makeshift spears and low supplies.

Anyways, I started my shift as the sun was going down. I didn’t think anything was going to happen that night since we had sealed ourselves off pretty damn well. If anything, there would be some infected that would try to get in, but get bored and wander away in search of their next meal. One thing that did worry me was the reports of the strange creatures. Even if they were made up by someone, today when the dead are walking and attacking the living, I felt like it could actually be possible.

I took my place at the front door and sat there with one other guy, the RA of my floor, and had a cig just to pass the time. It was around 10 PM or so we heard some strange noises outside. At the time we had thought that it was some infected trying to get in, so we went to the windows and took a look outside. It was pitch black for some reason outside, like there was some sort of mist just blocking off all light that tried to penetrate it. If I were to guess how far I could see, I’d say less than 5 feet. Though the lights from the other buildings were barely visible, everything else was shrouded in the mist. Me and the RA just stared outside, straining our eyes trying to see if anything was moving around. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see something so I tell the RA about it. We both look in that direction when the thing that looked like it climbed out of my nightmares appeared before us.

It looked exactly as what the internet had described it. Though it was way too dark, we could make out the outline of the creature and worst of all see its eyes. The glowing red eyes were scanning the area, looking around for something. Slow, steady and what looked like intelligently, it looked around the area when it saw us. We locked eyes with it, and it started walking towards the doors. At this point we realize something was really wrong and alerted the other people on watch. The creature took its time to walk over to us, moving in a way that just looked like it didn’t belong or something. All I know is that it just looked like it didn’t belong in this world. Its long legs carried it closer and closer to the front doors and as it came closer, we could make out more of its appearance. It looked… wrong…

It walked up to around where the edge of our light from the front doors would travel and stopped. It then just stared at the doors for a while, just looking at them. Maybe it was trying to find some weakness in the structure and then try to break in and kill us all, or maybe it was just interested in what strange thing this door was. After around 5 minutes of it just standing there, it suddenly looked off to its right as if someone or something had caught its attention. Then, with unimaginable grace, it ran off to one of the other buildings. Since it was so dark, we couldn’t see what was happening, but then the screams started.

We guessed that the other building didn’t barricade well enough, or one of the creatures found a weak point and exploited it. Either way, they were in the building and sounded like they were slaughtering every living thing in it. The sound of people yelling, screaming, and crying went on for a little less than an hour, then complete silence fell. We knew at this moment that the other building had been broken into and everyone inside was killed. We knew this, but didn’t mourn just yet, instead we made sure that everything was locked down and got more people to stand watch. We now had more than half the building taking turns on watch with the other half either sleeping or making weapons. There were even a few still trying to get in contact with the police, but to no avail. If the police were going to come and save us, they would have by now. If anything, they were all dead or held up at their building as well. Either way, we were on our own, and for many of us it was the first time we were actually alone.

Many people were now praying also, since they thought of this as the end days, but I didn’t believe that. I still had too much to do in life for the world to end just now. I went back to my room on the third floor and looked out my window to see if there was anything to see. It was just as black as it was in the front, with maybe a few lights here and there from the lamp posts. For a while, I just stared out into the blackness, and felt something strange… Like it wasn’t the first time I had seen something like this. Of course that’s just impossible and tried to disregard it, but the idea that for some reason I had seen this before kept popping up. Then I remembered why after looking at my computer screen.

A long time ago, before I moved to this area I lived in a place that was old. When I saw old, I mean that people had been living on the land for hundreds of years and that there was a lot of history there. My family too had been living there for generations, being born there, living a full life, and then finally being laid to rest in the family cemetery. Anyways, this was not the life for me. I wanted to expand out and see the world, form my own opinions and live my own life. I got my chance when my father moved us away because of a job he had gotten. Even though I wanted to leave, I had a friend there which I had promised to stay in contact with, but eventually we lost each other. Her name is Alexandria Aice (but she really only likes to be called Alex) and it wasn’t till years later in an online game that I finally met her again. She had also moved away, but only for college. She had spent her whole life growing up in that isolated town and was not used to the big city yet. We started talking, and became best friends again, talking almost every day.

Anyways, the whole reason I bring up my childhood friend is because she is also involved in this memory. It was about a year before I left when I started having these dreams. In them, I was floating in a vast nothingness. There was nothing around me and I couldn’t see a thing. I had this dream almost every night before I left and when I told my parents about it, they said that everyone in the town had those dreams. I asked my friend if she had the same dreams and when I brought it up, she looked surprised with me asking that question. Yes she had been having the dreams and was amazed that we were having the same ones. Though we were young, we asked around about the dreams and eventually found our way to the old library which had been with the town since its founding hundreds of years prior. A kind old man was the librarian and told us about the supposed “origin” of our dreams. He told us that when we sleep, our mind drifts from dimension to dimension, without even realizing it. We, as in the town, eventually lost that ability. We can still sometimes have regular dreams, but most of the time it was just us floating in the nothingness.

He then told us how it was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because we then could see things from the outside looking in, but also a curse because it exposed us to the horrors which lurked in the nothingness. At the time we thought that he was just playing around with us, telling us these scary stories to make us be good kids or something. Looking back on it now, I think there was more truth to what he was saying than I had originally thought. Maybe those “horrors” he talked about were these creatures now terrorizing the world… Maybe this infection was something these creatures did to people… I didn’t have any answers.

Tearing myself from the window, I went to the internet to research my home town a bit. After putting the name into a search engine, a bunch of web pages popped up about mysterious occurrences happening the town. No one knew what was causing them, but the main explanation was from the town’s people. They gave some weird explanation which didn’t make any sense at all, but believed in it completely. They said something along the lines of “It was the voids interference in our world, and we took care of it”. No one knew what they meant, but I think it had to do something with the dreams everyone from the town has. Even years later I still have those dreams every so often, but recently I had been having them every night. I thought it was strange, but it had happened before so I wasn’t too concerned about it.

Looking back out over the blackness which is enveloping the view I notice something on the ground near the street. There was still power and the street lamps still somewhat worked even with the black mist. After watching the area around the lamp, I notice movement, and a lot of it. I was like the ground was alive and about a foot off of itself. I watched for another 10 minutes and then decided to head back downstairs to tell everyone about what I had seen. I was just about to turn away and go when suddenly the movement stopped. Thinking this was entirely too strange, I delayed my heading back downstairs to watch for more of the movement. It was only about 10 seconds after I had started watching again when pairs of glowing red eyes, by the hundreds, turned and faced my direction. Of course they were probably looking at the building, but for some reason I felt as though they were all just staring at me.

I felt as though something wasn’t right, like I had forgotten something like locking my car door in a dangerous area or leaving the gas on at home. I just felt like I needed to do something, and soon. I finally made the decision to go and warn everyone downstairs and made a break for the stairs. The second I turned away I heard what sounded like a stampede closing in on the dorm, and with only seconds to spare, I made it downstairs to tell everyone what was coming the second before they started ramming the doors and windows.

It was a good idea that we barricaded the windows too because some of the smaller creatures looked like they were trying to jump into them, trying to break them, but instead hurting themselves in the process. The larger ones, which looked like they were about the same size as some of those bigger dogs were ramming the door with all their might. Fortunately for us they weren’t strong enough to actually break down the reinforced door. So, after about 30 minutes of trying to get in to our building, they left, defeated. Well, I should say that most of them left. Some stayed behind and still tried to get in, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle.

It was about 2 AM at this point and I was exhausted. Having another student take over my shift, I headed back to my room to try and sleep. Sleep right now seems like it is one of the most important things that I could do. I needed it, too much, with all that had happened today I was just mentally exhausted. I decided I’d research into the town more tomorrow and hit the sack for now.

As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered if I’d be dropped into the dark nothingness of that place that seemed to have come to my waking world. As I finally close my eyes to fall asleep, I thought about how my friend was doing, and how I hoped she was okay… but knowing her… she’d be…. Fine……..

...……..Another place, earlier that day, as the sun was setting on the city of chaos………..

“Shit, shit, SHIT!!!” I am not okay right now. After this whole thing started I had been essentially hiding in my room, trying not to make a noise with what is all going on outside. The sun had started setting and the city started to get real dark, like, way more dark than it should have been getting. It was like a fog of darkness had just rolled in and blotted out anything that wasn’t a few feet away from a light source. Since earlier I had been watching the outside of my window with my computer right next to me. I had been looking around on the internet for some kind of explanation of the zombies that were now rampaging across the city, killing and eating everyone. As usual, no one had any clue what was causing it so we were all back to square one.

First of all, zombies had appeared around the world and were wreaking havoc. Secondly, there was no explanation for what was causing them to come back from the dead and attack other people. Thirdly, there had been reports of strange creatures in areas where the sun had gone down. They said that they come with almost black mist or fog and attacked anything that wasn’t their own. Strangely enough, from what I’m reading online, the creatures don’t seem to be attacking the “infected”, and are instead ignoring them completely. This had given birth to a whole bunch of theories about how the zombies were somehow connected with these creatures and that maybe the creatures themselves had set loose this plague on all of us humans.

Even though I’m still hesitant on whether to accept the existence of these “creatures”, the zombies were now a fact and were doing a ton of damage across the city. It seems that the bigger cities are the ones being hit the hardest by the infection, but that only makes sense. If you do think of this as an infection, then the areas with the highest population densities will be the ones that take the brunt of it. At times like this one, and another where I got my bike stolen, I wondered why the hell did I ever want to move out into the “big city” and instead took up a job my parents had offered me back in my hometown. I think the reason why I did move out here for college is because I finally wanted to make my break for freedom, like Will did years ago.

“Hmmm….”, I wondered to myself, “why don’t I remember much about when Will moved away.. All that I could remember is that his dad or something got a job somewhere else where he would make a lot of money, and me being sad about Will moving away, and…. Something else.. What was it?!?!” This was getting frustrating and odd since with what everything that is happening, I’m trying to remember about the events around when my oldest friend moved away.

Annoyed with myself, I took another look out the window to see the nothingness which had engulfed the city. I could still hear gun fire every so often, but there wasn’t much noise except for a random scream here and there where someone had finally ran out of luck and became someone’s dinner. “Hmmm…. Nothingness?”, for some reason that word “nothingness” stuck out to me. I then began to think why it would, when I finally realized where this feeling was coming from. From my window I could see almost nothing, like if the whole city had disappeared before me and that there was only the void right outside. “The dreams…”, I remembered the dreams that I started having when I was a kid. Always the same, me floating in this endless void with nothing else around me, and I would always just float around until I woke up. It seemed that everyone from that town had the same dreams every so often, and that they were used to it.

I then remembered that when I started having the dreams, so did Will too. He told me about his dream and it shocked me, since I had been having the same one. We talked to some older people from around town about it and everyone said that they also had the dreams, but not to worry about them since they were harmless. Not satisfied with that ending, we both headed to the library to do some “investigating”. While there, the old man who was the librarian at that time told us about the legend of the dreams and why we have them. Can’t really remember what he said now, but for some reason we both felt like we had found out what we had wanted to know. My memory is pretty hazy until the day Will moved away, I remember it because I was crying pretty hard. Even though we said we would keep in contact with each other, he was still moving away to some unknown place (or at least to my young mind then) and that I would never see him again.

That was the last time I remember ever thinking about the dreams or the “nothingness” until just now. Looking out the window, I could see next to nothing in the thick, black fog/mist which had covered the city. Not seeing anything exciting outside, I went back to the internet when I saw a blog entry about the fog. It was talking about how the fog was like a physical representation of this extra-dimensional place where these creatures were coming from and that we should stay away from the fog at all costs. It also said that we should stay away from windows that lead to the outside, even in larger buildings. It said something about a “flying type which was extremely vicious…”, the second I read that I felt as though something was wrong..

It felt as though something was watching me and not taking their eyes off of me. Suddenly I felt extremely afraid, like almost to a primal level and took a look outside. Glowing red eyes were there, staring at me. Not looking away or even moving, just keeping still and watching me. The worst thing wasn’t just that there was now a pair of eyes looking at me, but that it was hundreds of eyes. All just staring at me and it felt like they were only looking at me.

I slowly got up from my chair by the window and started walking backwards towards my bathroom which didn’t have a window to the outside. I made it to the door, opened it up and as soon as I closed it I heard an animal-like screech from outside the bathroom door. There was noise, everywhere, just so much noise that it felt like my ears were going to rupture. There was also a large crash which sounded like either my window or another resident’s window had been shattered. I might have been right on both accounts since I started hearing yelling and screaming coming from everywhere around my room. What sounded like the beating of wings was coming from my room, along with the crashing of my furniture and (hopefully not) my computer.

I decided that I would just hang out in the bathroom tonight, you know, just chill’n. I didn’t think I would be leaving till at the earliest morning, so I decided to throw everything heavy that was in my bathroom in front of the door to make a barricade of it. Once I had felt satisfied with my handy work and once all of the sounds outside my door had quieted down, I climbed into my bathtub with all of my towels and made myself comfortable.

I was tired, exhausted, spent. I just wanted to drift off to sleep and forget the insanity which was occurring right outside my door. Remembering my dreams I sometimes have, I wondered if I was going to have them again tonight. Since moving to the city I haven’t had them as often as I used to, but occasionally I would find myself drifting through the nothingness of that place. I wondered what that place was, and what it meant to the people of our hometown. I wondered how Will was doing since I haven’t talked to him for a few hours and with everything that is happening, I can’t say that I’m not worried. He tends to throw himself in harm’s way to protect people and he tends to overdue things too. With everything happening around us, will he make sure to put himself first instead of caring about everyone around him? Probably not, but I can hope can’t I? I mean, he probably thinks I’m doing just fine right now, taking everything in stride and kicking ass while doing it. So much for that idea…

If my computer wasn’t totally destroyed and still working tomorrow I’ll try to get in contact with him. Well, that is of course that we still have power tomorrow morning. So many things to think about, so little time to actually sleep. Even with me feeling dead tired I still have the energy to worry about things… well… I guess that’s why he might think I’m doing fine. I was always the brains of our operations, not saying he wasn’t smart or anything, it was just that I could make better judgment’s in a shorter time than he could. He was just good at fighting and getting hurt. Honestly… that guy better watch himself… he might make a stupid…. Mistake…..

Sleep finally took me to unknown dreams of possibility. What would happen while I’m there? What’s going on in the waking world? Like I said, I think way too much, enough for both of us.

Part 2 will be coming tomorrow some time. For some reason I made chapter 2 really damn long so I decided to shorten it a bit. Hope you all enjoyed it!

Based on a dream I had last night, "Dragon State"

2011-12-22T22:16:00.000-06:00

So I had a dream last night which I can only remember one part about. There were dragons, lots of them. Not only that, but they seemed to come straight out of Monster Hunter so I thought it was pretty cool. Then I decided to write it down so that I could write something based on it later. However... when I started to write down what I remebered it started to turn itself into a story...

So here you all go, the first chapter to a story I'm gonna call "Dragon State"

Chapter 1: Boats and Dragons

So there I was, in a place where some people call "Dragon Country". I was here to talk with a local fishery about a string of dragon related attacks on his property and his thoughts on the government’s policy of "If they leave us alone, we leave them alone". The man's house was a far off the beaten track though so we had to take a motor boat to reach him. I was talking to my friend who was coming along to take photographs of the area and the places where the attacks occurred when I mentioned to him my fear of dragons.

"You're afraid of them? HAHAHAHA!!! Man... you are one funny bastard you know that? Most dragons are as peaceful as kittens and other small, yet soft creatures. It's like being afraid of a kitten. Are you afraid of a kitten? Well are you?!"

"Dragons are nothing like kittens. They are big and mean and can fly, at least a lot of them can. They are hunters which like to eat meat, and who is to say we are not that meat to eat? Hmm? Thought so."

"Still, dragons are not dangerous at all these days. With the Draco-Wright Accord the war with Dragons ended and peace returned. I know that a lot of people were killed by dragons in the early days of their return, but we killed a lot of them too. And remember the fact that their numbers are a ton less than ours because of their long gestation cycle and breeding habits. If we ended up killing no more than 30% of all dragons left alive today, they would go extinct."

"Good. No more dragons mean that I can rest easily at night."

"No, not good. The first actually intelligent species other than our own returns to earth and you want to kill them all rather than learn from them? Think of all the knowledge they have from their very VERY long life cycles. If I was you, I would love to get an interview with one of the great elders. They must have so many stories to tell... but I'm not you and I can't understand why you don't want to."

"Like I told you before, in the last days of the dragon war not only did I come face to face with one of those terrible lizards, but it took from me some very important people... and I can never forgive them for that. It's the whole reason why I started writing about the atrocities committed by dragons to try and get the world to realize once again the threat the dragons are."

"Well I can't say anything about who you lost, since I also lost some people in the war, but I didn't let it get me down to the point where I just want to kill them all. That would make me no better than the Nazi's and that would be terrible... Well anyways we can talk about this later. It looks like we're here."

As I looked up from our heated discussion about dragons in the modern age, I saw a small shack located near the ridge of the river a little ahead from us. With all our talking about dragons I guess I had forgotten how this place is known as "Dragon Country" since we hadn't even seen a dragon since we started off this morning. As we closed in on the dock however, I noticed a large amount of bubbles coming up from the depths of the lake when all of a sudden a large animal, more than 50 feet long, jumped out of the water onto the shore.

"A PLESIEOTH! AWWW SHIT! TIME TO GET ME SOME PICTURES!!!"

My friend said as he rushed to set up his camera before the Plesioth got away. A Plesioth is a kind of water dragon which can live in either salt water or fresh water and feeds off of fish and other creatures calling the water home. One good thing about Dragons is their small apatite and diets. Some scientists have said that they need about the same amount of food calories as humans a day because their bodies can metabolize it much better than our own. This was great considering how massive these beasts were.

"HOLD ON A MOMENT, I NEED A PICTURE!! DRIVER PULL OVER! COMEON I SAID PULL OVER!!"

Our guide was getting a little annoyed, but did slow down the boat just a bit so my friend could get a better shot.

"AND... DONE! Wheww~ that was awesome! I got an awesome picture too! Heyhey, wanna see?"

My friend was very enthusiastic about taking pictures of dragons and has always been this way. I guess that's why I wanted to take him along with me because of the kind of material I look for and his expert hand when taking photographs. I have known him for years now.. I think I met him just after I got out of high school and started college. I was in the journalism program and had to take a few photography classes for my major. I when I got to class the first day I sat near the front since I always wanted to get the most out of my time in class rather than having to re-learn everything from a book later that day. Next to me was this really fidgety guy who looked like he had a smoke of some kind of illicit drug before coming into class.

“Hey, my name is Dave, looks like we’re gonna be in the same class starting today. Nice to meet—“

“Shhhh, yeah… nice to meet you too.. just.. don’t bring to much attention to me alright?.. yeah…”

“If you didn’t want a lot of attention why did you sit in the very front?”

A sudden look of realization ran across his face. I guess he didn’t even know where he was in class. I wonder what he took.

“Oh… hahaha, man if you didn’t tell me that I would have never noticed. I think I should head to the back before the teacher gets here.” He said this as gathering up his stuff and getting up. “My name is Jake, nice to meet you.”

He stretched out his hand and we shook right before he bolted towards the back of the room just as the professor entered the room. That was the first time I met Jake and would end up talking to him a lot from then on. We shared some of the same views on issues, but differed on most which proved for great conversation. At the end of that first semester we moved in with each other and became roommates. Thus began a series of wacky and amazing years in college which I wish I could remember more of.

Back to the present,

“Not right now Jake, I kinda got soaked when that Plesioth surfaced. I kinda want to dry off first before doing anything else.”

“Oh.. right. Hahaha. Man that was cool. I wonder what other dragons we’ll see while out here..”

“Hopefully zero to none.” I said with a very dissatisfied look on my face. After being up since 4 AM to get ready for the trip out here, I was getting pretty tired and when I get tired I get annoyed.. easily..

After the whole episode with the Plesioth we continued towards the dock when we saw an older man standing on it waving at us as we approached. As we got closer I could see that it was the man who had contacted me about the story. He was an older man, in his late 60’s or early 70’s but still looked like he could take both me, Jake, and the boat driver in a fight and win. I suppose working out here in the wilderness for most of your life can do that to a man.

It was getting dark now. The sun had been going down for some time now and it was just at that perfect position right over the horizon where half was covered and the other half was adding to the amazing colors which plagued the sky at the time. I watched the sun set a little longer when I saw what looked like a large black spot on the sun. I squinted and then rubbed my eyes and didn’t see it any more. I wonder if it was just the sun playing tricks on me? Oh well..

“So I assume you’re Dave right? And this here is Jake? So nice to have you boys out here in the middle of nowhere to hear my story. Come right this way, come on.”

He herded us towards an old jeep which was parked nearby. I made sure I had everything and Jake was also making sure he didn’t forget anything. We were almost as far away from civilization as you can get out here and if anything happened we wouldn’t be able to make it anywhere fast. Seeing as we had everything, Jake and I headed towards the Jeep and through our bags in the trunk before climbing in.

“Mr. Green, I just wanted to thank you again for allowing us to come out here and interview you. I’m sure you are a very busy man so I’d like it if we started the interview tomorrow morning if that’s alright with you?”

“Sure is son, I just have a few chores to do in the morning before we can talk, but then I’m all your afterwards. In fact… if you two help I should be done in no time! What do you say?”

Jake and I looked at each other and nodded.

“Sounds find to us. Just let us know what you need us to do and we’ll do it. All for the story!”

Trying to sound fired up and said that enthusiastically. In reality I was exhausted and didn’t want to help the old man in the morning, but it was to get the story faster so we can leave faster. If that Plesioth was the only dragon we saw while here I’d be happy. Anything else to do with dragons is when the man shows us some places where the dragons damaged and that’s it.

“We have some time while we drive back to the house, so why don’t I give a little prologue to my story which I’ll tell you both tomorrow eh? Sound good?” Mr. Green was obviously trying to make some conversation with both of us and we jumped at the chance to get even a little bit out of the old man.

“Sounds great Mr. Green, we would love to hear it.”

“Okay then, well let me just warn you boys about what I’m just about to tell you. This story is very long, very complicated, and very dangerous. It’s about the Dragon War and what it caused in this part of my little world. At times I may need to stop and readjust myself or leave other parts out entirely. Just remember one ting.. Everything I’m about to tell you is the truth. 100% fact.”

He never mentioned anything like this in the letter, but damnit I’d be lying if I said this didn’t intrigue me.

“It all started on a cold December night, right before the Dragon War began….”

"End of the World: Made Easy" Chapter 1

2011-12-21T16:29:00.000-06:00

Since I just put out only the prologue I decided to post up the actual first chapter to introduce the two main characters. Also I just wanted to post more... ANYWAYS on to chapter 1 where shit hits the fan and the whole room starts to smell really really bad.

Chapter 1: The beginning of what might be the end.

There I was, a college student just minding my own business when everything went “odd”. I was in my dorm room, just trying to do some homework when I suddenly heard a scream outside my window. Now, I live on the third floor and the place outside my window gets a lot of traffic often so I didn’t think much of it. What I did find strange was the fact that the screaming didn’t stop, it just went on and on. Eventually my sleeping roommate woke up and asked me what the hell was going on. I still had not moved from my computer since I thought that it would stop soon, but it didn’t. Finally I got up and went to the window and looked outside, to see the women, covered in what looked like a combination of red and black, just writhing on the ground outside. Around this time, other people in the dorm were finally at their wits end and wanted the lady to shut the hell up. One of the more “bro” type guys went outside to tell her to essentially get the fuck out of there. The guy got outside and walked over to the lady, who suddenly, as if right when the guy walked out, went silent. Instead, she was now just staring at the guy. The way she was looking at him… just didn’t seem right. It looked as if… she was eyeing her prey…

Right when things couldn’t have possibly gotten more “weird”, they did very much so get “weird”. A girl who lives in our dorm let out scream, which distracted the guy who was having a faceoff with the lady outside. At this point the people here in the dorms realized that something was not right about this lady, and the girl who screamed realized what it was. It was around this time I also noticed what was so strange about the lady, and it had to do with the red and black liquid she was covered in. Even from the third floor I could see that this woman had multiple cuts and punctures all over her body and that the “red and black liquid” was actually her blood. At the realization of this, someone tried to call the police, but couldn’t get through which was really strange since the police department was only down the street a bit.

While everyone was trying to call “somebody”, the women started to try to get up. It was pretty clear that she had some broken bones, including her legs. We could tell from the way her leg was bending in a way that no leg should be able to bend. She finally got onto her two legs, one bending in a way that was just sickening to look at, and started to make her way to the guy that was still outside. Instead of retreating like any sane person would at this point, the idiot held his ground. I guess he didn’t want to look like a coward in front of all the coeds now watching the situation outside. That would be his last mistake he would ever make.

The women suddenly let out a shrill scream and rushed at the guy still standing there like an idiot. Before he even realized it, she was on top of him. Scratching, biting, grabbing, pulling, and spiting… everything. Some of the idiot’s friends realized they should probably help their friend and ran out and pulled the bloody women off him. They threw her off to the side while they dealt with their friend, who was now also bleeding from many wounds just now inflicted on him. He did not look good at all, like the second the lady bit into him, all the color in his face just disappeared and he went pale as a ghost. They got him inside and closed the door behind them and locked it. The women was still screaming her lungs out, along with vomiting blood and this other black liquid which did not look natural at all. She rushed at the doors that were now locked and just started banging on them with all of her strength to no avail. Of course everyone else was paying attention to the guy they just brought in instead of the insane lady still banging on the doors. The guy got even worse when he got inside, still losing more color and blood. The cuts and bites didn’t even look that deep, but they were not healing like they should have been. One of the RA’s got the first-aid out while another tried to contact the campus PD again. This time they got a response, but not over the phone, but over the PA system installed in all the buildings. “Attention students and residents, this is not a drill, please stay inside and lock all doors and windows that lead to the outside. If someone has been bit, isolate them immediately. There is a virus that has been infecting people since last night and is transmitted by saliva and scratches from the infected to non-infected. We are still unsure what the virus is, but we do know what it does. Depending on the severity of the bite, the person infected has at most 2 hours till a full-on coma is induced. From there… they… wha-… what the hell? “They get up and attack non-infected?” what the hell is that supposed to mean?”.

While the announcement was going on, we all quietly listened to it, and realized we have an “infected” right here with us. Though many of us didn’t want to believe what was going on, we knew that we had to get the guy isolated as soon as possible. He didn’t look like he was going to last much longer and based on the announcement we decided to “secure” him to a table on the first floor in the lounge area. Though he still tried to treat his wounds, it was clearly too late for him. At this point what seemed like a fever set in since he was talking to himself and seemed very delirious, and then started crying saying that he didn’t want to die and was yelling out for his mother the entire time. The only thing we all could do is just watch him, nothing else. Once we had heard about how it’s an infection we decided to try not to touch him at all and moved him to the lounge with gloves and other things that would allow us to touch him, but not let him touch us.

After about thirty minutes on the table, crying and screaming his last words, he finally fell silent. We took this chance to make sure he was really tied down to the table and wouldn’t be able to get out of his restraints. The announcement cut off before it said how long they would be out before they would wake up, so we got at it quickly. As we were tightening the ropes around this poor guy, people were crying, getting mad, trying to contact their parents, trying the police department again, anything to try to get their minds off of what was happening around them. I took this chance to take another look outside from my room. I could see unmistakable towers of smoke off in the distance towards the city, and I could also see cars speeding by, honking their horns. The sound of gun fire was also prevalent, coming in irregularly, but often. I could also see people run in various directions; one unlucky soul ran too close to our building and drew the infected women away with them. Though the women had really only one “good” leg, she still was able to catch up to the person after sometime. Now without anyone to stop her, she “dug” in, literally. I almost couldn’t watch, it was just too disturbing and disgusting with all the blood and guts flying everywhere. The worst part though, was the screaming, the death scream of the poor soul that was now being torn apart for this sick woman’s meal.

Eventually the woman finished her “meal” and wandered off, now with her leg very noticeably just hanging on. The mess she left was something that still haunts me, but what really gives me the nightmares that last till today was when the person who was essentially just eaten, got up and started walking away. It was too much for me and my stomach so I retreated to the bathroom to puke up the little breakfast I had. Once done with regurgitating, I jumped on my computer to see if there was anything about this whole incident on the internet. Sure enough, the whole of the internet was alive with talk about the infected or “zombies” that had started to ravage the land. Some people were calling it “judgment day” and that this is our punishment for a variety of reasons and others were calling this an act of war by some foreign country (though this was happening everywhere, people still tried to blame other countries). On CNN.com they had a guide to what to do with the infected, and generally how to stay safe. It basically repeated everything from the announcement, but then continued on to more specific things like how to deal with the infected and how you should go to a treatment center.

Information like that was all over the internet, so much so it seemed like the just copy and pasted it everywhere. Not to say that it wasn’t good information to have, it’s just that that was all that we were given. Not satisfied with this amount of information, I started to read through a website I usually just hang out on. Sure enough, that information was there, but there was a lot more information there too. It talked about these “creatures” which had appeared in the areas of the world where night had already fallen. There were only a few reports of these creatures around the world and they had just started flowing in from so many people, especially here where it was still in the AM, thought that it was someone just trying to take advantage of a very bad situation to try to make it seem like not only were there “zombies” but these other creatures which never seemed to have the same shape. Some were small, like the size of dogs or cats, others were larger than “gorillas” and others which were even bigger. The largest was one that was over 30 meters tall and looked like it could run over just about anything it wanted to. Though all of these creatures seemed as different as other animals are from each other, they all had something in common which sent a shiver down my spine.

I should mention that I have this irrational fear of things with really pale skin, impossibly long and skinny limbs, with elongated heads, kind of like what an Alien looks like from those movies, but what really gets me is the eyes. They can be either sunken into the skull and black as the night, or glowing red and the only thing you can see of it in the night. Ever since I was a kid, even before I had seen those Alien movies, I had been afraid of those characteristics. Now then, how this relates to the current situation on the internet? In the light these creatures all have pale skin, limbs too long and skinny, elongated heads, mouths which look like a smile but only do so because of their sharp pointed teeth. One last commonality between them all, which I feel like is the worst, is that in the light all of their eyes look like they are shrunken back into the things head, and are black as the void. When in the dark, you can only see their glowing, red eyes and nothing else. Not the body or anything, just the unnatural glowing red eyes…

……. Another place, at the same time…….

“It’s November now…”, I say to myself as I look out the window and see the clouds which look as if they were just itching to drop a few feet of snow on this city. Still, these days are nice for when you just want to get cozy in front of the fireplace and drink some hot chocolate, unfortunately for me, my apartment complex doesn’t have any fireplaces nor do I have any hot choco to warm me up. All I have is the internet and the many friends I have made off of it. Though I still go to class every so often, I’m kinda a shut in who only talks to people he met on the internet. I don’t really care about what anyone thinks about it, nor do I care about how I should be out and about hanging with people my own age. All that matters to me is the internet and my friends which I made over it.

Though I made most of my friends from games I play or used to play, there is one who I actually became friends with in person. His name is Will Kenwal and he and I used to live on the same street forever ago. Best friends we were, that is until he had to move away. We tried to stay in contact with each other, but that was difficult considering our ages at the time. Years after I had lost contact with him I was playing a online game and started talking to this regular player who was pretty damn good at it. We eventually got in contact with each other out of the game and realized who we were talking to. I guess this is what you can call a “small world” thing. I found out that he had started college and was now in his Junior year, same with me. Though we lived thousands of miles apart, we found each other again and started playing all sorts of games with each other when we weren’t doing stuff for school.

Deciding it was about time to get on the computer and chill there for the rest of the day, I got myself some drinks and snacks and went onto my life on the internet. When I started my usual routine of checking the news and other random stuffs I started reading about this infection thing that was spreading all across the country. It sounded terrible, with how you do when you get it and then get up and attack other people, but for some reason I just thought of it as some elaborate prank. After reading those articles for a bit, I went to a website me and my friends frequent often and saw the same discussion about the infection, but also about creatures coming out at night and terrorizing people in places where it was already night. Again, I thought this to be too strange for it to actually be true so I kept on denying everything I saw, calling everyone “trolls” and what-not.

It was around the time I had started writing out a long explanation about what was really going on when I heard screaming and yelling from my hall. Not the normal kind with us college kids and all, but the kind where shit was going down. I got up from my computer and walked over to the door when I walked past my window which overlooks the city I live in. Something caught my eye while walking past it so I decided to take a look outside and what I saw was complete chaos. I looked almost like a war zone out on the streets, with National Guard troops gunning down what looked like people, and when I say the “looked” like people, I mean that they had the appearance of a person, but moved in a way that seemed way too alien to be natural. Usually you would expect the people with the machineguns to win this kind of confrontation, but unfortunately for the soldiers, the “people” had numbers and overran the blockade the soldiers had set up. What was worst was what they looked like they were doing with the soldiers. Though I was on the 14^th floor, I could tell that these soldiers were being killed in a very brutal way, one in which no one under any circumstances should die from.

Distracted by the scene on the street I had forgot about the yelling that was going on in the hall. Rather than be that one white person to go and check out what was going on, I checked to make sure my locks were all locked. I then headed to my kitchen to see how much food I had. Not as nearly much as I had hoped, but it would do, at least for now. Finally realizing that people weren’t making this up, I ran back to my computer and started reading everything I could. Again, I see the same stories about strange creatures popping up everywhere, but I felt that the whole “zombie apocalypse” was a much more urgent matter. After the initial shock of everything I decided to message my friend about how he was doing in all of this chaos, since I was kind of feeling more alone in my whole life at this point with everything happening and all.

It was around 5 PM when I sent that first message to him, and he responded pretty quickly, I guess he was already online. We messaged back and forth for a bit about our current situation before he said he needed to go and help out with the barricading of the dorm he lives in. He said they were going to barricade the whole dorm area which consisted of 5 buildings, so that they could get from one building to another without having to deal with the infected. My last message to him, and the last time I would talk to him for a while was at around 7 PM. Then, the sun started to set and one of the most terrifying nights of my life began.

"Key to the Void": My other story which I started on at the same time as EotWME

2011-12-21T16:25:00.000-06:00

So I decided to post up my other story which I started on after getting frustrated with how my other one was going. I wanted to make a more simpler story with fewer characters, but at the same time make it more exciting. If you guys end up checking out EotWME you'll notice that it shares a few of the same themes as KV, but as to not spoil it I'll let you all figure out what they are by your selves. For this story I had only written 1 chapter so far, but I'm probably going to continue writing it for a while since I like it a bit better than my other. Also, occasionally I'll post up other random ramblings of ideas which I would want to write about just because I can.

Anyways, here you go: "Key to the Void"

I write this as a last ditch effort to get the truth out there about an amazing and terrible secrete which can undo the very fabric of civilization at the mere mention of it. Why should I try and get this information out in the open when it might in fact end the world as we know it? Well, that is somewhat of a long and mostly boring story, but I do suppose that it would explain the truth in a somewhat better way than me just telling you all now. It’s a story of inspiration, adventure, love… lose… terrifying creatures from other dimensions, strange yet horrible ruins on remote islands, things not going the way they were planned, and last but not least… me.

We start our little story with a simple phone call. Yep, just a phone call, nothing really special about this part right? See, I told you all it would be boring. Anyways back to the phone call. I was phoning a friend of mine from a few years back about a missed call and a 17 minute long voice mail with nothing but static. You see, right after I graduated high school I did the whole college thing, but messed up a lot and ended up going to a bunch of different colleges before finally finding one that worked for me. This guy I knew was from the second college I had attended and I hadn’t seen him since I transferred into the one that I would eventually graduate from. When we both used to hang out, we talked about all sorts of subjects from physics, history, politics, and most importantly (to the story at least) the more esoteric topics like the secretes of the world and how to access them. When we talked about the secretes we both had uncovered over the years of being alive we found out that some things seemed to be too convenient or too well planned for something to have happened at chance. Of course I never thought too deeply into the subjects because I was busy with other things (girls for example) so when I transferred I kinda lost contact with him. From people who I still talked to from the college, it seemed like he really withdrew and became something of a hermit you might say. There was one thing though that everyone kept on repeating about my old associate: he always seemed to be looking over his shoulder for something that wasn’t there and that he really got into the more taboo subjects of the magicks. I really didn’t say anything about the fact that I may have gotten him more into that subject than I should have, but I did feel kind of sad when I heard it. Kinda….

Back to the phone call I am still making. Three rings and he still hasn’t picked up, which I find very strange since this guy never went anywhere without his phone. I had been to his apartment a few times to hang out and get drunk so I knew where he lived and I was a little worried at this point. Though I try to come off as a cold, uncaring person, my true personality is one of the “I can’t leave you alone” types where I would always go out of my way to help random people. It was somewhat of a problem which occasionally ended with me in the hospital for god knows what reason. This time though, I felt that I had something to do with his withdrawal society and that made me really want to help him out. So after another three calls and four texts, I grabbed my coat and jumped into my car and drove the short distance over to his apartment. It was pretty close by car anyways, like only 20 minutes. While in the car I called him one last time and said that I was coming over whether he wanted me to or not and to make sure he has pants on when I get there (long story, even longer than this one). I pulled into the parking lot in front of his apartment complex and climbed the three floors to his door and knocked a few times. After a few long pauses I knocked again and yelled through the door that I knew he was in there and that he should just answer the damn door already. Getting a little mad since I drove all the way over here (I just don’t really like driving) I tried the door handle to see if it was open, and low and behold it was!

I yelled into the dark apartment that I was coming in and that he should make sure he was actually wearing pants or else (… or else what?) I walked into the dark room and fumbled around the wall for the light switch and eventually found it after much groping. Even with the light from the hall, I could barely see into the mess that was his apartment so I wasn’t expecting at all of what I found. Tables, couches, chairs, and random other furniture just thrown around his place along with strange books, pictures of some kind of black mass/blob thingy and other magick-related materials. I thought to myself that he really did get into this stuff, and massively from the looks of it. Still looking around the mess I stumbled into the kitchen where I found the only clean section of ground covered in all kinds of different glyphs and symbols which I had never seen before. They were arranged in somewhat of a spiral pattern which covered a great bit of the ground. Around the spiral were more magick-related items along with a few candles which looked like they had just recently been lit. Not wanting a potential fire to erupt in my friend’s apartment I blew them all out and then continued to wander through his increasingly macabre place of living. Whatever he was doing, it just didn’t feel right if you know what I mean. Just stuff that I had never seen before was just strewn across his apartment and relics which looked like they were close to a few thousand years old just lying about everywhere. Where the hell did he get the money to buy these things? We were both just college students just a few years ago and he now had enough money to buy 2^nd century manuscript on the… proper rituals for summoning the void? The hell is the void and why was it in this apartment? Now not only did I want to find my friend, but I wanted to ask him what the hell is up with all of this stuff.

He had a pretty big apartment for a guy living on his own, but I never thought it polite to ask where he was getting his money from. The place though looks like it could have easily gone for a few thousand a month at least. I finally was working my way into the back room where he usually sleeps when I remembered I should try and call him to see if his phone was still here. Taking out my phone, I called him one last time and heard the faint sounds of a phone going off in his apartment and it sound like it was coming from his room. I walked over to his door and knocked a few times, and then said fuck it and walked in. I see the phone on the ground covered by some scrolls or something and then look around the room to see if he was actually there. Nope, no sign of him in here, or anywhere in the apartment. I guess he was going to go and do something somewhere and wanted me to come along… or something. Whatever the case, he wasn’t here and I wanted to leave. I usually ok when it comes to the darker esoteric stuff, but this place just felt wrong for some reason. In fact, I have been feeling as though there were a pair of eyes watching me ever since I blew out those candles around the spiral. I just wanted out of there at that point and decided I would try to call another day or something. As far as I was concerned, my work there was done…. Or so I thought. You know that feeling when you know without a shadow of a doubt that someone or something was watching you? Yeah, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing at attention pretty damn quickly as I heard the front door shut and the lights go out all over the apartment. Wondering what the hell was going on, I called out for my friend which I had thought just got back from where ever he went. No response, which was in a way freaking me out at that moment. It was about 7:00 or so pm so the sun had mostly set at this point so the inside of my friend’s apartment was pitch-black. I got out my cell phone and used it as a light to try and get out of this horror house of an apartment. I made my way into the hallway and noticed the dense blackness which was now in the way of my exit from the apartment. I nervously called out to my friend in the hopes that it was him, only to be met with a pair of glowing red eyes. I shined the light from my phone over in the direction of the scary pair of eyes to see something that was… impossible… or should I say close to impossible?

When the light hit the creatures flesh, the pure blackness of the creatures hide turned a pale white within seconds of contact from the light. Its eyes receded back into its sockets leaving a face which looked like it belonged in a H.R. Gigar painting. It was crouching since it seemed like it was too big for the hallway, so it must have been over 10 feet tall, at least when it stood up straight. It’s arms and legs were almost stick-like in their appearance and both of them seemed way to damn long for their own good. Long fingers and toes which very sharp looking claws attached to the ends of each and an almost sickly look in its body, like one of those starving African kids or something. Its neck seemed like it should break any second from the stress put on it from the head and how skinny it was, but it didn’t. Finally the head, which was elongated and had some very nasty looking teeth arranged in a smile in the front of its face. It almost looked like what a human skull would look like if you just added more to the back and installed some razor sharp teeth in the front. The thing just was looking at me, maybe studying me too and deciding on how it will feast on my flesh or something morbid like that. For what seemed like an eternity, we just stared at each other, not making a single movement. Suddenly the creature began to back up, into the darkness and slowly disappear into the void. The last thing I saw of it was the pair of red eyes and the glint of light coming off the things contorted smile full of sharp teeth. Then, as suddenly as it had arrived and almost made me have an accident in me pants, it was gone, and I could see the door which the thing had been blocking till just now. Not giving the thing any time to decide that it was in fact going to have me as a snack, I bolted for the door and dived for the exit. Landing with a thud on the wall across from the door, I hurriedly closed the door shut and flew down the stairs to my awaiting get-a-way car.

I never once asked or thanked god for anything before today, but with the speed I was going in my car in those residential districts, well let’s just say that I’m lucky as hell that a cop wasn’t there to bust me. In about half the time it took me to first get to my friend’s apartment, I arrived at my own home and ran inside, locking the door behind me. Safe, I thought to myself, and relaxed a bit after turning on every light in the house and collapsing on my couch. What the hell was that thing? Did it have anything to do with the random bits of magick-related things around my friend’s apartment? Oh right! My friend! I wonder, did he get eaten? Or killed or something? That would really suck, but I didn’t see any blood or body or anything of that sort so he might still be okay. I hope he is, because the next time I see him, I’m gonna kick his ass for bringing something like that into our world. I mean really, there is a limit on what you can and can’t get away with and summoning a creature from the “void” is definitely something one should not do, at least without parental supervision. From the whole ordeal, I was tired, like really tired. I closed my eyes and soon found myself in the world of dreams. Only, I knew it was a dream, which I guess isn’t too strange, but the man in the nice suit waving me over the have a drink with him is. I don’t recognize this man, and hell, something about him just doesn’t seem human. Whatever it is, I rarely turn away good alcohol so I joined this well-dressed man in my dream which I was awake in.

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to the land of your dreams!... but you already figured that part out now didn’t you?” the man asked me in a very energetic, almost playful way. I told him that yeah I knew this was a dream and I was wondering who he was, since I once heard that dreams are fragments of memories and I had never seen this man before in my life. “Ah, well, you must be wondering who I might be right about now aren’t ya?” again with the playful questions, he seemed as though he had read my mind. “Oh I didn’t read your mind, I mean, we’re inside of it after all. Your thoughts are just floating around everywhere so it was pretty easy to see what you were thinking. Well then, how about I introduce myself… hmm…. What should my name be…. Hmmmmmmm…… AH! Yes! I know what my name is! It’s Dave. Just Dave. Nothing more, nothing less, mostly likely at least.” Well, know I know who I’m talking to, this shouldn’t be to hard from now on, but Dave? Seriously? “What? You have a thing against the name “Dave”? I think it’s pretty cool…” Yeah whatever, so “Dave”, what are you doing hanging out inside my head, and why the hell am I so ok with this? “Ah well, that’s probably because even though you know you’re sleeping, your still calm and everything from sleeping like a baby. Anyways, on to business! Will, you did something you really shouldn’t have now didn’t you?” his eyes narrowed while asking this question to which I responded that I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Oh Will… Willy Willy Will… You really don’t know what you got yourself into now do you?” Well of course I don’t know what “I have gotten myself into”, why don’t you explain to me what it is that I have “gotten into”. “Well… you see there were these candles which you blew out, probably to prevent forest fires like smokey the bear says, but what you didn’t know is that by doing that you forever made yourself a prime target of the void. Don’t know what the void is now don’t ya?” Nope, not at all. “Well… the void is… hmmm…. How should I explain this to your underdeveloped brain… hmmm… well think of it as a place of non-existence… or something like that. In this place of “non-existence” there exists beings which call that place their home. Now, you can’t have things existing in places of non-existence now can you? I’ll answer that for you, no you cannot. So how do these beings exist in this place? Paradoxes. A whole truck load of them. Anyways, the reason why the are there and why the exist is not really important to you, but what is important is that these “Void Beasts” have been interacting with your plane of existence for a while now and have occasionally made their way over to here. The thing is though, they can’t interact with your plane yet. They don’t have enough power to phase into this reality and can only do so with a certain artifact… which now exists inside of your soul…” …..huh? “Just like you heard, you now have what amounts to a “key of dimensions” lodged right up in there in your soul. Those candles you blew out? They were what was keeping the Void Beasts out of your plane and when you blew them out, which by the way was ingenius, the “key” jumped into your soul.”

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, since I can see it floating around everywhere,”The hell is this well dressed badass talking about?”… ok maybe I exaggerated that last part, but it is all the truth. So now that the key exists in a human soul, all the void beasts have to do is kill you and destroy your soul and then the last barrier between the Void and your lovely dirt ball will be broken apart and then say hello to the end of the world kid!” So… not only do extra-dimensional creatures exist, but they are trying to enter our plane and the only thing stopping them now is… me… I felt almost sick. I’m the only thing standing in between the world and doomsday? To think, only thing I wanted to do was make sure my friend was ok. “Fret not young Will! I’m apart of… a group of mostly like-minded individuals and would not like it if these Void Beasts rampage across your world, so we decided we are going to help you. Kinda…” What do you mean “kinda”? Are you gonna help me or not?! I was getting irritated now, I didn’t want any more bullshit, I just wanted to know what I would have to do to stop this “end of days” scenario from happening. “Ah! Good! You learn quickly! That is very good, considering what is about to happen to your real body.” Huh? What do mean? Suddenly I see what looks like a giant screen appear out of nowhere and it shows me sleeping on the couch. I really look like that when I sleep? Damn… oh… wait a minute.. I thought I saw something off to the corner of the screen.. “Ah! Good! You saw it too! Well, that my little mortal friend is that Void Beast who was eyeing you good earlier. It seems to have come to finish the job when you are most vunerable.” Well.. shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT! Wake me up! I have to fight it right? Oh shit, how can I even fight it..” Ah, it looks like it would be too late anyways even if you did wake up.” The creature was moving towards my helpless body, with me powerless to do anything but watch as the monster ripped me to shreds and then destroyed my soul. I’m done.. I’m finished.. Good bye cruel world!!!..... wait a minute.. is someone else there? “You really do have some good eyes, or senses or whatever. Yes, there is someone there who is about to save your defenseless ass. Thank her when you do finally wake up” Her? I said before I was suddenly back in my body with about a second before the beast rips my face off. I turn around to try and jump over the couch when I saw her. Dressed in some kind of armor and wielding what looks like a spear, this mystery woman jumped out from behind the couch and delivered what looked like a finisher on the beast.

I rub my eyes in a pointless attempt to blame this all on an overactive imagination or something, but as soon as I’m done and open my eyes, there she is, standing there covered in the creatures black fluids. She.. looks young.. like my age young. The young woman was looking over her kill with satisfaction when she turned around towards me. “ Sooo you’re the one they are having me protect and train and the same time… you look pretty weak, no offense.” It’s true that I don’t work out that often and my metabolism handles my food pretty well, but being called “weak” by a girl my age felt humiliating. “My name is Alex Aice and I’m gonna be making sure you don’t get killed or anything. At least till we figure out what we are gonna do with you.” I looked up to the girl, who seemed like she was shorter than me, but seemed so much bigger in some way I couldn’t describe. “My name is Will Kenwal, I guess I should say “thank you” or something for what you just did so, thank you.” She stares at me for a few seconds before breaking eye contact with me to look in some other direction. “Don’t mention it. I mean, it’s my job to keep you safe till you can do it on your own.” She looked a bit embarrassed, which really just made her become all kinds of attractive to me. I should mention I haven’t had a girlfriend in… well let’s just say “a while”. “So miss Alex, now that you saved my sorry ass what are we going to do now? You said something about “training” me. What was that all about? Dave in my dream said something like that too.” She looked a bit confused by what I had just said, “Dave? Who’s Dave? Anyways, we need to get out of here. The smell from this dead one is gonna attract scavengers and if they find you then you’re pretty screwed, but then again so am I, so let’s get the hell out of here!” With barely enough time to gather my thoughts, I’m pulled up off of my couch and rushed out the door. “Can’t I even pack anything? Where are we even going? Hey! Answer me!” Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, “Just shut up and follow me, I’ll tell you everything you need to know when you’re safe” *Cough* “Yes.. ma’am..” Dammit, that hurt like hell!

Next thing I knew we were out in the middle of nowhere. How we ended up here, I couldn’t say. One second we were walking down the sidewalk towards some unknown destination, the next we were In the middle of this field. “Follow me, hurry up now!” Well isn’t she bossy, “Well you do you mind telling me how one second we were walking down a sidewalk and then the next second we are in the middle of this field?” Annoyed, she said “Just shut up and follow me. I’ll tell you how I did it once we get to our base camp.” I thought about what she said for a second, “Base camp?”

Story Time! "The End of the World: Made Easy" Prologue chapter

2011-12-21T12:07:00.002-06:00

I have decided to post up my really long story which I began writing for National Novel Writing Month, but finals got in the way and I failed to finish it. The way I'm going to post the story is by weekly chapters, or maybe 2 chapters a week depending on how people like it. I'm hoping with me posting this I'll find the inspiration to continue writing the story and reach the 50,000 word mark.

Without further adue, I present my longest story to date: "The End of the World: Made Easy"

Prologue to the End of the World

“Rain… again?...” I looked up to the clouds as they started unleashing their payloads onto my squad. We had enough trouble as is with the constant threat posed by our enemies, but rain? We really didn’t need something like that right now, especially since there was enough fresh water to go around with none of us being thirsty. Also, rain plus socks really, really, suck. I found this out when we first got to this remote island in the middle of nowhere. It looked like a nice island from the ship we were on, but as soon as we spent a day here we realized that this was no pleasure island or anything, but something you tell your children about to scare them into not doing something. This island was one of the many areas where they came through. I’m not too sure on the whole science behind it (since it’s barely science to begin with), but our enemies seem to be able to phase into our dimension at certain locations in the world and from those locations they send out their forces.

Since we got here we have only been in a few fire-fights with no injuries or anything so that was something. I mean considering what we are up against, the fact that we haven’t lost at least one person is almost unbelievable, but I’m not gonna jinx it more than I already have. Our Arcanotech weapons have been holding up well despite all the stress we have been putting them through and we have only needed to do some minor maintenance on them since we got here. These things are tough and very damn reliable, which is great considering we are not getting any back up if things get hairy here. They can’t afford to send anyone else to help us what with everything else going on. So like I said, we are on our own out here with only everyone else in the squad to back you up.

Looking down from the skies I see my fellow squad mates looking out for anything out of the ordinary while trying to get some rest. These were some of the best people the organization had ever seen, and I was a part of them since I had trained with them since the beginning. I guess that also makes me pretty damn good at what I do too, but I’m not gonna let that get to my head or anything. We have lost some very important people to us since we started training and since we were inducted into the organization and we were gonna lose a lot more if we didn’t strike back soon. That was the whole reason we came to this island. It was a staging ground for some of the air-type creatures which were always harassing our birds and even taking a few of them down. We needed to get rid of this place if we ever wanted to regain air-superiority again. It was only a few weeks after they arrived that we lost control of the sky’s to their unending hoard of monsters and we haven’t risked putting anything else expensive up in the sky without a damn good reason. Which is why we are not gonna get any back up if things go south, they can’t afford to waste anything more than what they already have.

I still couldn’t believe what these things actually were and how they personally related to me. It was a strange connection born from where I was born and from the history between our enemies and our protectors, the Beings of Light. Though that was not actually their real name, the soldiers who knew about them or had seen them in action could only describe them as such. I haven’t seen them personally but I hear that they are extremely efficient at dealing with the void creatures. I guess that’s because of how long they have been at war with each other. When we were first inducted as recruits into the organization we were told the true history behind everything that had happened which stretched impossibly long back to before our Universe had even existed.

What we were told is that the Universe has always existed and will always exist, it’s just a fact of reality. We were also told that even though the Universe will always exist that it doesn’t mean it can’t die eventually. What this means is that the Universe is a cycle of birth, life, and finally death with birth following closely after it. The Universe had gone through many of these cycles before and in each and every one there had been intelligent life-forms which had thrived in their own way. Sometimes these life-forms can overcome the death of the Universe by ascending to a higher plane of existence, like the Beings of Light did. Others took another path, one in which they lost their sanity to survive in a place of non-existence. The ones which lost their sanity were now trying to break into our reality and take over, by killing any living thing that presents itself in front of them.

There was a lot more to this story, but I really wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have. I was much more interested in learning how I can fight these things which we were eventually taught. Modern, conventional weapons were barely usable against the Void beings so we instead use weapons created through applications of Arcanotech. Our weapons are in a sense the physical representation of our will to fight given form. Though many people call them weapons or what-not, they are more like tools in which we can use to fight. By using a machine called a “Arcanoforge” our tools are created and once that is done we started training with them. The training to use the tools was incredibly difficult and many people had to drop out before they could actually get their real tool. The thing we trained with was a toned down version of what we would eventually be given since at the beginning of our training we didn’t know how to control every aspect of the magics which existed inside these weapons.

Deep in thought, I neglect to notice the low rumbling that had started. Luckily for the squad, my second in command had noticed it. “Will! Damn it Will why are you spacing out?!” I noticed the rumbling and then realized the worst case scenario was happening. When fighting our way through the island sometimes the enemies would escape and we would lose sight of them. What they then did was go back to wherever they were based and reported to whatever intelligence that controls them that there were intruders on the island. This intelligence would realize what we were after and didn’t want to take any chances, so with a single command the entire enemy force on the island were heading directly for us.

“Damn it… Everyone get ready. This is going to get a whole lot more difficult in a few minutes.” I was terrible at inspiring my teammates but I think they got what I was trying to say. We all took up a defensive position while one of our teammates looked for a place that we could hide in for a bit. She started on her spell-weaving and all the time she was doing this we were waiting for the hoard to appear from the tree line in front of us. “Found a place!” she said happily,” give me some time to get the transport spell ready. I’ll need only like 2 minutes and then we will be out of here.” “Two minutes?” I thought to myself, we really didn’t have two minutes. The creatures were getting closer and would appear any second from now and begin their attack. We set up some defensive spells, but our defensive magic was not going to last long with thousands of enemies ramming into it.

Then we see them. They appeared right where we thought they would which was at least one good thing. We waited till they got into our kill zone before opening up and sending a volley of magical energy spiraling towards the mindless beasts. Though we can all shoot energy balls from our weapons, each and everyone one is different and only a few members of the squad excelled in this kind of fighting. Me on the other hand really only used range spells when using my final spell which was way too damn dangerous. Instead, me and 2 others charged into the coming hoard. I rushed forward with my magically enhanced muscles and leaped into the middle of a large group of void creatures. I was surrounded with no way out and with no one around to help, just like I wanted it. The thing was, I wasn’t very good at controlling myself during battle and when people saw me fight they would later tell me I looked like a Berserker. I found that funny, but true. I never liked others fighting around me because I could never go all out without accidently killing them. In a situation where there wasn’t anyone around to get hurt I was able to go crazy, and I loved every second of it.

I swung my strange weapon around in wide arcs, killing those who would try to overwhelm me. My weapon was like a combination of a Mace, Spear, and an Axe which I used to smash, behead, and stab all any enemy which I came across. Out of all the tools that I have seen, nothing came close to the destructive power my weapon exhibited. I was great, the feel of battle, and getting lost in all of its glory. To be honest with myself, I enjoyed the hell out of killing the Void beings. Something inside me just craved it, to see the blood of my enemies flying after each and every swing of my weapon.

I wondered how much time had passed since I had flung myself into the middle of this group. It seemed like hours ago my squad mate began to conjure our way out of here. That’s when I heard over the comm “Will, get your ass back here. We are leaving with or without you so if you don’t want to be the Void Creatures food, get back here.” Ouch… My second in command never went easy on me. I guess it’s because we are childhood friends and have known each other forever. I decided that becoming the Void Creatures food was not in my best interests so I activated the spell sigils which I had placed on my legs. Suddenly I felt incredibly light, almost as if gravity didn’t have any hold over me anymore. I then pushed off from the ground, almost rocketing up 50 or so feet. The use of spell sigils to enhance our fighting abilities was incredible and saved my ass on more than one occasion.

I landed almost gracefully at the defensive line we had. Everyone was standing in the circle made of light which surround the one who had casted it. I was about to run over to them when I heard a large crash behind me. I knew what it was before I even turned around and realized that we really needed to get out of there fast. It was one of the behemoth-class Void Creatures which were known to be able to destroy entire buildings with ease. This one was barreling right towards us and I knew that we wouldn’t be able to teleport out of there before the thing was right on top of us. While still in the circle I activated the artillery mode of my weapon. I think everyone knew what I was about to do so they backed as far away from me while still standing in the circle. To use my most powerful spells I had to transform my weapon into something that could withstand the kind of magical energy which I was about to pour into it. If I didn’t then the weapon would crack under the strain and more likely than not I would be killed instantly.

A handle appeared near the center of the staff which I would use to stabilize the attack. I pointed my weapon towards the charging enemy and began to gather as much magical energy which I could into the stone in the middle of the front of my weapon. I concentrated, clearing my mind of anything but what I needed to do. I had only used this attack a few times in the past because it was really a last resort. My weapon then started to glow a bright white at the tip. I had finally gathered enough energy, and just in time too since the behemoth was right on top of us. To fire the weapon I had to use a special phrase which would unlock the firing mechanism behind the attack. It was a silly thing to do in my opinion, but it did make the whole firing of my attack spell that much cooler.

Compressing the power that had gathered in the tip of my weapon, I spoke the phrase. “Reality breaker… full charge… FIRE!!!”