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Post by Tobey on Apr 21, 2006 11:50:49 GMT -5
(I just finished writing this for my own roleplaying website, and I liked it so much that I figured I should show it to you guys, too. First, though, I should explain a bit about the Paleoen; they're a race that are kind of like centaurs, except that instead of human and horse, they are a melding of two prehistoric creatures (the upper body is usually anthropomorphized a bit), and each Paleoen is different. Therron, for instance, has a Diplodocus lower body, and an anthro T-rex upper body. A more thorough description of him can be found at www.itheia.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=characters&action=display&thread=1144674907, because I didn't really feel like copying and pasting. Anyway, enough babble. On to the backstories!) It was a sunny day in the Paleoen Realm, a day like any other. Young Therron had just left his family's thatched straw hut to go find a friend to play with. He stopped as he heard footsteps coming towards the hut. It was a messenger, carrying a note for Therron's parents. "I have terrible news," the Dimorphodon-upper-bodied, Plateosaurus-lower-bodied creature said, as he entered the hut to greet Therron's mother and father. Therron, curious, rested the side of his head against the dry, yellow-tan stalks of the wall of the hut, listening. "Is your son here?" the messenger asked. "No," a deeper voice that Therron recognized as his father's, said. "Good. You should probably break the news to him yourselves." There was a slight rustle of paper as the messenger handed them the note. Then he left the hut, galloping so he would be on time for his next delivery. Therron was always amazed that the messengers never got tired, constantly running from place to place. But he turned his attention back to the hut when he heard a voice only slightly higher than the other two; Paleoen male and female voices were not nearly as distinguishable as they are with humans, but Therron could recognize the new voice as a female; in fact, his mother. "This is terrible." There was a pause as his father read the note. "But there's nothing we can do. We can't go against the high priests," he said. "We have to do /something/, he's our son!" Therron's mother retorted. "I know, and I regret it as much as you do, but if we stood up to the high priests, they could easily kill us." "They wouldn't do that. And this . . . this is ridiculous. Therron's only a child! How is he going to survive in the outside world? There are knights out there who make a living slaying creatures like us." The outside world? Therron was confused. Why would he leave the Paleoen Realm? He listened some more. "The high priests know what they're doing," Therron's father said in a scolding tone. "If they banish Therron, it must be for the best." Banish? He was banished? He knew his parents had been worried that something like that might happen to him, with the way he simply refused to respect the Dragons; refused to memorize the ancient prayers, refused to leave offerings for them, he was even hesitant to befriend a dragon, for fear that his friend would ask for the same kind of respect. He believed that everyone should be equals; why did some think that they should be so high above everyone else that they demanded so much respect? And Therron knew that the high priests did not like that attitude. But banished? Even the word itself was such a horrible, hateful word. No. He would not be banished; he would run away. Then, maybe he could pretend he had never known he was banished, and then one day, when all was forgotten and forgiven, he could come back. With that thought in mind, he ran. He ran the way the messengers ran, not stopping for anything, dodging trees, leaping nimbly over fallen logs and streams. He skirted around the villages, afraid of being seen. After what seemed like hours of running, the small village-clans began to grow sparser and sparser, until he was sure he was no longer in the Paleoen Realm. This was the first time he'd ever left his home, and already his heart ached. But he could not go back. He kept running, not even stopping when the trees began to thin into the scattered foliage of the main Wooded Valley. His legs grew sore, but he refused to acknowledge the dull, thudding pain. If he stopped, the pain would only force him to rest. So he galloped on, running on the energy of fear, anger, and sadness, until he could not even feel his legs under him; they simply kept moving because they had the memory of movement etched into their muscles. Therron kept running, until he felt the golden grass of the Savannah under his feet. Finally, exhausted, he collapsed.
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Post by Tobey on Apr 28, 2006 16:05:15 GMT -5
The Future of Evolution (Part I) The sun was just rising over the yellow-green grassland, a grassland that completely covered all evidence of a once-great former empire. It was too cold to be a savannah, too warm for tundra; it was simply grassland. A vaguely lionlike creature stretched, flexing its front limbs, then its hind limbs. It, or perhaps I should say she, could have been mistaken for a lion at first glance. But instead of tawny, golden fur, her fur was more of a light brown. She also had no tail, making her look a little like a bear. Her claws weren't retractible, and if you looked closely at her paws, you could see that one of the digits was farther apart from the others than a normal cat's paws; a fading testament to the opposable thumbs of her ancestors. Scilla, of course, knew nothing of empires or ancestors, only that it was morning, and she was hungry. As the sun hit her face, it was revealed to be disturbingly familiar, somehow. Her amber, catlike eyes showed a flicker of human intelligence, and the fur on top of her head was longer than the rest, almost seeming to suggest human hair. She yawned, showing off her impressive fangs, and sniffed the air for prey. Finding none that way, she decided to prowl her territory, to see what she could find. Above her, riding the air currents, was another creature with that disturbing air of human intelligence. But the resemblance between him and Scilla ended there. This creature was small, to enable him to fly, and had wings like a pterosaur's, with one elongated finger supporting the wing membrane, and an eerily humanlike, clawed hand at the apex of each wing. The rest of the creature was batlike; a face stretched into a doglike muzzle, ears positioned at the top of his head, and beady little black eyes looking oddly out of place in a disturbingly humanoid face. The creature was covered head to toe in fine, black fur. The winged creature circled over Scilla, making sure his shadow fell over her so that he would be noticed. He knew what she was looking for, and he knew how to find it. The feline creature looked up, and immediately knew what the winged one wanted, and followed him. He flew above, knowing exactly where he was going, and led her right to a herd of deerlike creatures, all of whom had that same undefinable human quality as Scilla and the winged creature. The creatures ignored the winged one; he had been pestering them all day, and they had finally stopped paying any attention to his presence. Scilla crouched in the tall grass, instinctively searching for the weakest member of the herd. She found it; and attacked. The chase was short. "No!" the creature screamed as she bit its neck, but she paid no heed. Once it was dead, the winged creature landed. "What do you want, pipsqueak?" Scilla asked, obviously annoyed by the creature's mere presence. The winged creature replied, trying to sound unfazed, "You know perfectly well what I want. My share of the kill." He was a scavenger, feeding off of the kills of others. But he wasn't always content to wait for a predator to make a kill; so his kind had developed this method of leading predators to their prey, in exchange for the leftovers. "You get whatever's left, got it, pipsqueak?" Scilla growled, not in the mood to have to put up with those lower on the food chain than her. The winged creature flapped back a few feet, in case she decided to add him to the meal, which she was eating hungrily. "Why do you keep calling me pipsqueak? That isn't my name," he said, starting to get fed up with her attitude. Scilla decided to play along, and said between bites, "Alright, what /is/ your name then?" He opened his mouth, like he was about to speak, then looked down and said, "I don't . . I don't have one." Scilla laughed loudly, the sight of her bloodstained teeth causing the winged creature to back up another step. "Well, then, I'll just call you Pipsqueak. Unless, of course, you would prefer Carrion Breath, or maybe Batty." The winged creature managed a fake-sounding, nervous laugh, and did a mock bow of his head, saying, "I should be honored to be accorded such a noble name as Pipsqueak." Scilla laughed again, this time without humor, and growled, "Good." Scilla finished her meal, leaving only a few scraps for Pipsqueak. He ate them hungrily, and they were enough to fill him up, without weighing him down and hindering his flight. He took off again, enjoying the view of the wide open, grassy expanse that had once been Illinois, USA.
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Post by Tobey on Apr 28, 2006 16:05:51 GMT -5
The Future of Evolution (Part II) Another sun rose over the land that had once belonged to humankind, and now was inherited by its descendants. Pipsqueak had forgotten his encounter with the feline hunter, but had kept the name Pipsqueak. He didn't want to bother himself thinking of a different name, and he figured it might someday be useful to have a word to use to refer to himself. So Pipsqueak he was. He flew over the grassland, exploring the fringes of the land he knew. His stomach was full, and he had nothing else to do. A breeze blew in his favor, letting him glide effortlessly while watching the landscape blow by beneath him. In the distance, he saw a black speck, which glinted in the sun. Curious now, he flapped his wings, flying faster. Scilla, his forgotten accomplice, was hunting down below. Her prey saw Pipsqueak and bolted, thinking that he might be bringing a predator in tow. Scilla cursed, and decided to follow the one who had robbed her of her meal, out of anger, yes, but also out of a mixture of instinct and curiousity. Pipsqueak came closer to the black speck, and saw that it was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was as black as his fur, yet it shined, like water. It stretched up to touch the sky, like a tree, yet there were no other trees for miles around. It was perfectly smooth, except in gaping holes where the black material had been broken away. There were other holes, too; holes that were perfectly square, and seemed to be waiting for someone to go inside. These holes had solid ramps of the blackness leading up to them, ramps that stretched long distances away from the ponderous tower, lending more oddness to the structure's appearance. The edges of the structure were sharp, and perfectly straight. Pipsqueak slowed down as he took in the strange appearance; it looked new, almost, like it had just sprung out of the ground. Or maybe like it was created to defy the ravages of time. But at the same time, it was crumbling; even as Pipsqueak watched, a piece of the shining blackness broke and fell. Pipsqueak landed inches away from the black surface, and stretched out a hesitant, clawed hand to touch it. It was hard, and cold, like ice, but not as cold. Within the black were patterns of a dark grey, looking like the veins in Pipsqueak's own wings. Curiosity driving him on, he took off again, and landed inside one of the gigantic square openings. It was a gigantic hallway that stretched completely through the structure, smaller windows letting in light from the outside. Pipsqueak was normally leery of any enclosed space, as is any creature of the air, but this hallway was so large so as to not seem enclosed at all. But the hallway was not what drew Pipsqueak's attention; it was the walls. The walls were covered with pictures, so real that Pipsqueak was having a hard time comprehending the fact that they were only two dimensional. Pictures of a strange, two-legged, pink-skinned race, with ponderous sharp-edged structures in the background, and even stranger things in the foreground. There were brightly colored objects that hovered off the ground with the pink-skinned creatures inside, there were silver-colored likenesses of the two-legged creatures, and the ground they all walked on was grey and black, and had the appearance of stone. The creatures were all smiling in the pictures at the beginning of the hallway; pictures of cities, pictures of grass and trees surrounded by giant bubble-like shields, and pictures of a building, with a red cross on it, which had a line of sick and injured pink-skinned creatures going into it, and a line of healthy ones coming out. Then there were more pictures, unhappy ones. There was a picture showing the line of sick and injured getting longer, and there was a picture of a mother holding a baby in a cloth, a baby that was hideously deformed, and the woman was crying. There was a picture that Pipsqueak couldn't begin to make sense of; it looked like a pair of blue, vertical vines, twisted around each other without touching, with straight sticks of many colors connecting the vines horizontally, and the sticks were breaking, and the vines were unraveling. There was a picture of a brown-skinned creature similar to the pink-skinned ones, and he seemed to be saying something, and he was addressing a crowd of his fellow creatures, and you could still feel the energy of the scene, how the crowd had felt the deep truth of what he had been saying, and had fervently agreed. There were words under the picture, words that Pipsqueak could not read. "We have lived in comfort and peace for too long, and have forgotten what it means to suffer. Now we are paying the price; no survival of the fittest, no testing by fire to eliminate the bad genes from our DNA, we have ceased to evolve. Our very genetic structure is beginning to fall apart at the seams. The time for action is now. There is only one way to save ourselves; undo everything we've accomplished, and go back to where we began. Only then can the miracle of evolution save our miserable souls. From the wilderness did we come; to the wilderness, return!" Then there were pictures of the ponderous, sharp-edged, silver structures, glowing red and orange with flame. There were pictures of the two-legged creatures crying, huddled in caves, mourning their losses. Then, there were changes, guesses by the painters as to what the new humans might look like. The pictures shifted slowly from human to something else, telling the story of evolution through imagery. Pipsqueak stopped, looking intently at a winged creature that truly didn't look so different from . . . him. Scilla followed Pipsqueak into the hallway, taking longer because she had to climb up one of the ramps. She too, looked at the pictures, and began to understand what had happened, all those years ago. She snapped out of her daze when she heard a loud crash, and the hard blackness beneath her shuttered. She rushed to the source of the crash, to find that a giant block of the hallway's ceiling, three times as big as Scilla, had broken off, and had landed right on Pipsqueak's wing, which was now bleeding, and splinters of bone poked through his skin. He had been whimpering, struggling to get free, but upon seeing Scilla, and realizing how vulnerable he was, his eyes widened, and he said, "Please, please don't eat me!" Scilla laughed her villainous, booming laugh, and said, "You're of no use to me with a broken wing, nor are you of any use to anyone. Not even yourself. And besides, if I don't eat you, some other predator will. So why-ever shouldn't I eat you?" Thinking fast as Scilla drew closer, Pipsqueak said in the calmest voice he could manage, "Because. If you eat me now, you'll only be hungry again within an hour. But if you help me, protect me from other predators, I will be indebted to you. Think of it! Never having to look for prey again, only having to call out to me, and tell me what you wish to eat, and it will be done. Why, with a little more practice, I could even learn to hunt, and you wouldn't ever have to do anything. With a suitable cliff, I could easily trick any prey into falling to its demise." His voice was smooth, calm, and convincing. He was good at manipulating others to get his way. But Scilla didn't quite buy it just yet. "How do I know I can trust you?" she demanded, having lived her life in a world where there was no such thing as trust. "Because, even with two healthy wings, I cannot fly forever. Even if you could never actually catch me, you could make my life utterly miserable by never giving me a chance to rest," Pipsqueak said, in a voice usually reserved for confiding a secret to one's close friend. Scilla thought it over, then threw her weight onto the boulder, trying to push it aside. Thanks to the smoothness of the floor, the block slid, and once Pipsqueak's wing was freed, Scilla picked him up in her jaws by the nape of the neck, like a mother cat would carry a kitten. The pair of them walked by the last picture, without even a sideways glance, having already begun to forget that which did not matter for their survival. The picture showed a bright sun, half-obscured by the horizon, surrounded by a glorious crown of purples, reds, and oranges. It was impossible to tell whether it was a sunset, symbolizing the fall of humanity, or a sunrise, celebrating the beginning of something new.
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Post by Tobey on Oct 8, 2006 23:19:48 GMT -5
No Way But Up (I'm planning on writing at least one backstory for each of my ATL characters, including the ones I haven't entered yet. Anyway, here's the first one; Dakota's) The lab was still dark. It was too early for the lights to be on, but Dakota was already up. She had always been an early riser, and she hated it. There was no time worse than early mornings; everything was so dark, and so quiet. A perfect time for her to reflect upon the many horrible things she could think about. But she couldn't get back to sleep, so she would always spend this time in her thoughts. This morning, her restless mind hit upon a terrible thought. She shivered, even though it wasn't cold. Across the hall from Dakota's cell, another experiment heard the slight rustle of her skin when she shivered. "Dakottha, you okay?" he whispered in the darkness. His voice was high for a male voice, but still unarguably masculine, and it sounded smooth, even though he had a detectible lisp, as though there was something in his mouth that was impairing his speech. He didn't question why Dakota was up; he was used to her sleeping habits by now. And his weren't so different from hers; he had, after all, already been up when he heard her shiver. "I was just thinking, Hunter," Dakota answered him. "I was thinking about the fact that so many of us have been here in these cells for so long, in some cases all our lives, that this is really all we know. I've only been here ten years, and I'm starting to forget what freedom is. What if it isn't as wonderful as we think it is? What if we get out there, and we . . . what if I can't leave? This is the closest thing to a 'home' I've ever really known. What if I can't find the strength to leave, but can't bear to stay?" The Hunter was silent as he pondered Dakota's words. He knew what she meant; like her, he had been spliced with a territorial creature, and that part of him couldn't imagine leaving what had become its 'territory.' As he was thinking, the darkness of the morning ended; the lights came on. His form was revealed as a saber-toothed cat splice. He looked to be about nineteen, with short blond hair and sharp yellow-brown eyes. He was covered in sort, golden fur, with orange spots plainly visible on his back, since he didn't wear a shirt. His tail was as short as a bobcat's, so he didn't even need to let it poke through his shorts. His hands were pawlike, complete with claws, and his ears were rounded like a lion's, and poked up through his hair. But the most noticeable of his features were his teeth. His canines were huge, reaching down past his chin, and making it nearly impossible for him to speak. He had gotten used to them over the years, and could speak almost normally, but he still had trouble with t's and s's. Finally, after a long pause, he answered Dakota, "I may not know what freedom isth, but I can tell you what it isth not. Freedom isth not iron bars and concrete floors. Freedom isth not a cold, unfeeling Pit filled with scientisthtsth who dicthtate your every mofve. And mostht of all, freedom isth not fear. Freedom isth the abscence of all thosthe things. That'sth good enough for me." "That's a nice little speech, but what if you're wrong? What if freedom is fear? I've heard it said that you can't be safe without giving up certain freedoms. And what of the uncertainty of the outside world? We know so little of what's out there, and the world is so big, and we're so small. Familiarity is comforting, and uncertainty . . . well, what is fear except a reaction to the unknown?" Hunter opened his mouth to answer, but Dakota put a finger to her lip to shush him. She had seen, out of the corner of her eye, scientists coming down the hall to give the experiments their morning injections, and Dakota and Hunter were both on the morning shift. Two scientists stopped, one in front of Hunter's cage, one in front of Dakota's. They each held a long rod, with a syringe mounted on the end of it. Dakota's scientist threaded the rod through the bars of her cell, and carefully aimed for a vein. At this point, Dakota knew better than to resist; she presented her arm willingly. She felt the red-tinged off-white liquid enter her bloodstream, and braced herself for the pain. The changes with each injection were very small, only becoming noticeable over the course of weeks, but each injection was laced with a tiny bit of Christina's trademarked Blood Red Serum. She was one of the scientists who ran things at The Pit, and she liked to give her subjects a constant reminder of who was in charge. Dakota flinched as the Serum started to take effect. It was something you never really got used to. In fact, it had been specifically formulated so that victims would never build up any sort of resistance to its effects, no matter how many times they were exposed. Dakota felt the familiar sensation of pain spreading through her arm, although she knew from experience that it wasn't as bad as Blood Red Serum in its pure form. Still, it was enough to make her hold her arm, trying to will the pain away. Then it spread to the rest of her, and she had to lie down, shaking, until the pain wore off. It wasn't like any normal pain, but like all kinds of pain at once; dull, aching, throbbing pain, like a headache, except your entire body; hot, burning pain, that feels like it's eating your flesh away; sharp, biting pain like the sting of a thousand paper cuts. Dakota closed her eyes, and tried to focus on the rhythm of her own breathing. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, but in reality may have only been seconds, the pain subsided. Across the hall, Hunter went through a nearly identical procedure; injection, pain spreading through his arm, collapse to the floor, and finally, blissful release from the torment. After it all, neither he nor Dakota saw fit to continue their previous conversation. They hadn't forgotten about it, but the mood had been lost; the early-morning stillness was gone. The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. Come mealtime, Hunter noticed that Dakota wasn't hunting her prey (a small, live deer that the scientists had hastily shoved through the cage door before closing it again) with as much enthusiasm as she usually did. Playfully stalking her prey (even though such antics were useless in such a small cell) was usually the highlight of her day, but she seemed off today. Like she was just wanting to kill the deer and get it over with so she could eat. She went straight for its neck, and it was over quickly. She ate, with a distant look in her eyes that indicated that her mind was somewhere else. She's probably still thinking about what was bothering her this morning, Hunter thought. Another deer was then shoved into Hunter's own cage, and it was pretty much the same story with him; no games, just a quick kill. Then again, he had never gotten as much in the way of predatory instincts as Dakota had, so for him, killing his prey was more of a necessity than entertainment. Once again, nothing of interest happened, not until later that evening. The lights had been turned off for the night, and Dakota was asleep. Hunter wasn't, though; for some reason, he was having trouble sleeping tonight. Then, his sensitive nose picked up the acrid smell of smoke. Mere seconds later, a screaming alarm went off, and the lights immediately came on; the normal, flourescent lights, but also flashing, blindingly bright red alarm lights. Dakota, of course, jumped up from her sleep. "What's going on?" she asked Hunter, raising her voice to be heard over the sirens. Even as she asked, she smelled the smoke, too. "I don'tth know!" Hunter yelled back. Almost as soon as he finished speaking, there was a whirr, as of electronic malfunction, that seemed to come from everywhere, and the cell doors opened of their own accord. Neither Dakota nor Hunter needed any more prompting than that; they ran. The smell of smoke was getting stronger and stronger; it smelled like the whole lab was on fire! Hunter led the way down the hall; he had the better sense of smell, and sight was useless in hallways that all looked the same. Dakota and Hunter were soon joined by other escaping experiments, and even the occasional scientist, their enmity forgotten amidst thoughts of survival. They began to see flashes of flame down some of the hallways that they ran past. Dakota looked up; there was smoke above them, covering the ceiling. The light from the flames began to overtake that of the flourescent lights, giving everything a flickering orange glow, and the flames began to get closer and closer, until they were running between, not white-walled hallways, but tunnels of fire. Hunter had to work harder and harder to tune out the smell of smoke, but finally, the most wonderful scent hit his palate; the smell of fresh air, and the mixed smells of the orphanage. "This way!" he shouted over the footsteps of the crowd of experiments and the persistant sirens. He led them down a hallway, then around a corner, and he could see the stairs! The entire crowd began moving even faster, with their freedom in sight. The stairway was mostly free of flames, but the ceiling there had begun to burn. Hunter and Dakota hit the stairs, and a wave of heat greeted them. Unfazed, they began climbing the eternity of stairs, oblivious to the fire that was beginning to eat its way down the walls from the ceiling. Oblivious, also, to the experiments who jostled past them in their rush to escape. The pair was only focused on making it to freedom, and not getting separated in the process. They were about halfway up the stairs, breathing heavily from the effort, when a huge, heavily muscled gorilla experiment shoved his way past Hunter with such force that Hunter was knocked down. He rolled down a good distance before he was able to stop himself, putting him back in a stretch of hallway that was now surrounded by flames. Before he could get up, a metal beam fell from the ceiling, landing right on his leg, and pinching his leg painfully between the beam and the corner of a stairstep. Hunter's fur sizzled as the flame-heated beam welded to his skin, and he screamed in pain. Dakota yelled, "A**HOLE!" to the gorilla experiment, who had not even slowed down when Hunter had fallen, and she backtracked to where Hunter was. She gasped in horror when the beam fell, her lips silently mouthing the word "No"; she smelled his burning fur, and winced when he screamed. She immediately went to his side and tried to move the beam, ignoring the pain as the superheated beam seared her hands. But it was no use. It was far too heavy for her to move. The smoke was now almost choking her, and the heat was becoming almost unbearable. But she didn't care. She couldn't leave Hunter! Hunter, her best and only friend ever since she had known him; since she was moved to a solitary cell for dangerous experiments, a cell across from him. Hunter gritted his teeth against the dual pain of his leg being both crushed and burned, and looked up from the floor of the staircase at Dakota. "Dakottha, you hafve to leafve! Listthen to me! If you don't leafve, you'll either suffocaitthe on the smoke, or you'll die from the heat! If you sthtay too long trying to free me, we'll both be dead before we can getth out!" She wasn't listening. There were still a few straggling experiments coming up the stairs, and one of them tried to grab Dakota's arm and pull her up to freedom. She would have none of it; she growled at the experiment and jerked her arm away. She had her foot on the beam now, leaning on it with all her weight, trying to move it. She coughed, and her eyes stung from the smoke, but she wasn't leaving. "Dakota, remember whatth you were saying earlier aboutth freedom? Don'tth let your life end here, when you don'tth remember what it wasth like. Go see which of us was rightth, Dakota. If, by some incredible chancthe we ever see each other again, I want you to be able to tell me whether you've changed your mind." At first, Hunter's words didn't sink in. She kept at it, pushing stubbornly at the beam with her foot, but Hunter just waited. Finally, Dakota stopped trying to move the beam, as the smoke surrounded her and obscured her vision, filled her lungs, and her body pumped out sweat to combat the ferocious heat. She knelt next to Hunter, held his hand in hers, and said, "I will," as though she believed she really would see Hunter again. Quietly, in a broken voice that was lost in the crackle of the fire and the droning sirens, she said, "Goodbye, Hunter." She dropped his hand, and ran up the stairs, trying to dull the pain in her heart by outrunning it. She looked back over her shoulder to see, though a gap in the smoke, Hunter, curled up in a ball with his hands over his head, trying to hide his defenseless flesh from the merciless fire for as long as he could. Eyes tearing from the smoke and the grief, Dakota ran. Finally, she burst into the cool darkness of the old orphanage, and ran past the now-frightened children into the frigid night air beyond. She curled up in an alleyway, close enough to the warm orphanage for comfort, and, exhausted from all she had been through, fell asleep. The next day, when Dakota awoke, the sun was already rising, and she was surprised at finding herself on rough asphault instead of smooth concrete. Then she remembered everything that had happened, and got up wearily. She had to go back, see if maybe he was still alive. Common sense told her that was impossible, but she didn't want to listen to reason now. She went back into the orphanage, through the door that had been literally torn off its hinges by experiments escaping the night before. She went inside, and was greeted by the frightened looks of children, right before they retreated into safer hiding places. She also passed by an adult whom she didn't recognize, who greeted her with a look not of fear, but of sadness. This woman knew what went on at The Pit, and couldn't help but feel guilty for what it's victims had gone through, even though she had no part in it. Dakota quickly found the secret entrance to the underground lab, which had now had its secret entrance burned away, exposing the staircase that so many experiments had scrambled up in their bid for freedom, just the night before. The staircase was exposed by light from above, as most of the ceiling had burned or crumbled away, and it was charred black in many places, but it was covered only in concrete debris, except for an indistinct black figure that Dakota couldn't quite make out. She went down the stairs until she could see it, then immediately wished she hadn't. It was a human skeleton that had been charred completely black, curled up in a ball with its hands over its head, and with a leg caught between a fallen beam and the corner of a stairstep. She walked around him to see his 'face', and there was proof positive that it had been Hunter; the blackened skull had saber-like canines that reached down past its chin. She stayed down there for hours, crying, apologizing to Hunter for leaving him, and remembering everything they had been through together. Finally, well past noon, she took his final words to heart. She would go taste freedom, and prove him right. She made her way up the stairs one final time, and set out to find the House.
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Post by Tobey on Nov 27, 2006 22:29:56 GMT -5
(I'm writing what I'm hoping will become a full-length book. And I thought the prologue was too good not to share with you guys. More chapters will be coming soon, in theory.) The Omni Dragon (Prologue) Somewhere in a nameless forest, illuminated by the fiery light of a setting sun, a circle of dragons gathered around one dragon that was different from anything any of them had seen before. She stood in the circle’s center, guarding a plain-looking black egg. Her egg. The feathers of her birdlike wings glimmered in the orange light of the setting sun, feathers the hue of brilliant gold. The rest of her body was a midnight blue, with an occasional pale blue pulse of light across her smooth skin, like lightning that can be seen flashing from behind a cloud. Her body was long and snakelike, and her limbs were short. Her skin was taut, the outline of her skeleton clearly visible, and the top of her backbone was completely bare of skin, forming a ridge of bone on her back. From her sleek forehead extended a spiraling, opal-colored horn, much like a unicorn’s, and her catlike, slitted eyes were a beautiful sky blue. She had talons like a hawk, her inner claw much bigger and sharper than the others, reminiscent of a velociraptor’s killing blade. She was a crossbreed dragon, but no ordinary one. The blood in her veins was that of eight of the sixteen elemental dragon clans. This in itself was a miracle, for crossbreeds of more than four Elements rarely survived into adulthood. By another miracle, a second eight-Element dragon had also survived to breeding age, and the two of them had complemented each other precisely, giving rise to a perfect hybrid of all sixteen Elements. This miraculous hybrid was inside the nondescript black egg that was drawing so much attention from the dragon clans. The mother dragon looked with suspicion at the other dragons, as if they might take her precious egg away from her at any moment. “Now, Avael, you know that none of us mean any harm to your egg,” one of the dragons in the circle said cautiously to the protective mother dragon. The dragon who spoke was no crossbreed, but a pureblood Death Dragon. His left eye was missing; leaving only an empty eye socket, but his remaining eye was blood red. His scaly flesh was the pale grey color of death, and his skeleton could easily be seen beneath his skin. His black, batlike wings were so tattered and torn it was a wonder he could fly. “Of course you don’t mean any harm to my egg. You don’t want anything bad to happen to your precious prophecy,” Avael spat back viciously. “But regardless of whether or not you mean any harm to this unhatched dragon, you will bring him harm. You intend for him to be raised as a soldier, to fight in the most terrible war this land has ever seen. How is a mother supposed to react to that?” Another dragon stepped forward, the sunlight reflecting off of her opalescent feathered wings. “What Fate has given us, we must accept, my dear. If we do not prepare him for the war, the war will come to him. It is very clear what we must do. We all know the prophecy. ‘When the Final War approaches, the Elements will unite. Upon the Perfect Hybrid’s shoulders the burden of peace shall rest,’” the speaker said, quoting a line from a prophecy made long ago. The one who spoke was a Luck Dragon, her opal-white feathers covering her angelic wings and a good portion of her back. Below her feathered region, her lower body was black and sinister, a ridge of swept-back spikes down her tail, and cloven hooves that ended in clawlike points. Avael looked ready to respond to that comment, but an Elf stepped into the circle. She had been hidden among the towering forms of the Dragons, who were as tall as the trees, with wingspans of twenty feet or more. She was a friend of the Dragons, and one of the few outside of their society who knew of the ancient prophecy. She was old, even for an Elf, but, like most Elves, she did not look much the worse for it. Her hair was blond, and her eyes green. She wore simplistic brown clothing, and carried only a bow and a quiver of arrows for her own protection in the dangerous forest. She said, “ ‘But the Omni Dragon will not fight the Final War alone. The Pure Ones born of the sixteen Elements will aid him, each bearing a chosen comrade into battle,’” quoting the next line of the prophecy. “Yes, we all know it. I propose that we wait for Avael to think all this over. In the meantime, might I be so bold as to suggest that the eggs of the Pure Ones be found? We Elves have a spell that would allow them to stay in their eggs for as long as they need, until their ‘chosen comrades’ come. There is no bond like that between a Dragon and the being for whom they hatch.” The Elf looked fondly at Avael as she spoke the last statement. Avael seemed to have no qualms about the Elf’s proposal, and nodded her agreement. Anything that would let her keep her egg a little longer was alright with her. A Light-Metal crossbreed came forward. Her smooth metal skin was hinged like a suit of armor, and was the same golden color as Avael’s feathers. A shining opal sail of skin extended from her forehead to the tip of her tail. “Agreed, Rakara. But how will we let the four nations know of this? So few outside of the Dragon clans know of the prophecy, and even of those that do, many do not know that an Omni Dragon has been born. What if none come to hatch the Pure Ones?” The same Luck Dragon that spoke earlier briefly spoke up again. “Those who are destined to come, will come.” An Earth Dragon stepped forward next. His underside was a sandy tan color, blocky and rough, as if he were fashioned from stone. His back was the color of rich soil, and from his skin grew tiny crystals of white, blue, purple and green. “If we tell the four nations about the prophecy, that the Final War is coming, and that we have sixteen Pure eggs that need companions, the nobles will rush to claim the eggs, and probably will try to stop their subjects from even attempting to hatch them. They will want all the fame and glory for themselves.” He made a noise of disgust, then added, “I refuse to see the Pure Ones handed over to the political system of any nation.” Finally, he made a slight nod towards the Luck Dragon and said, “She’s right. If the prophecy is to be believed, then Fate has been very kind to us by giving us everything we need to survive the Final War. Certainly we could trust Fate to come through for us one last time.” The other Dragons considered everything for a few minutes, then slowly began to nod in approval. “Alright, then,” Rakara said. “Tell your clans what has happened, and tell each of them to find their egg with the purest lineage. Tell them to take the eggs to the Elven city Tiaem to have the spell cast on them. The eggs can be kept safe and hidden there until you can procure a more proper hatching ground for them.” Even as she spoke, the other Dragons began to take off, eager to return to their clans before nightfall. Within moments, the Dragons were mere specks on the horizon, leaving Avael alone with Rakara. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be?” Avael said, with a fair amount of hostility in her voice, hostility that was there to hide her grief. “I thought it would be safer to spend the night with a Dragon than to spend it in the forest alone. But if you wish, I will make good what daylight I have left,” the Elf said. Avael said nothing, but wrapped her snakelike body around her egg, laying her head next to its black shell. Rakara understood the unspoken message, and left the mother alone with her child. In the darkness of the night, a speck of moonlight reflected from the drop of water held in Avael’s eye. She was crying. For all of her life, she had been expected to die any day. A crossbreed as muddled as she couldn’t possibly make it to her twentieth year. Her egg’s father had already passed away, long before the egg had been laid. And now she knew why both of them had lived as long as they did. They had had a purpose to fulfill. The greater powers of this world had seen fit to keep them both alive long enough to give rise to the Omni Dragon, the one who would end the Final War. Now that she had fulfilled her purpose, what would those greater powers do with her? They would let death finally take her, she decided, and with this realization she raised her head and screeched a cry full of grief and fury to the cold, unfeeling moon.
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Post by Tobey on Feb 1, 2007 17:15:09 GMT -5
Betrayal [/b] A thin, stereotypically nerdy-looking boy, about twelve years old, sat in the library, reading a book about quantum physics. It wasn’t a hard read, really; it was one of those books that had been designed to get across complex concepts to ordinary people. And the boy was only twelve, after all. He had disheveled, mousy brown hair, and silver-rimmed, rectangular glasses over his sea-green eyes. He had the look of one who had just had a growth spurt; he looked as though he had been aged a few years in the past week, and there was that sense of awkwardness about him, as though he was not yet used to his own height. “Hey, little bro. Ready to come home yet?” asked a girl who had just come into the library, and whom the boy didn’t seem to have noticed until she spoke up. Even though she referred to the boy as her brother, the two didn’t seem to have any family resemblance. She looked about seventeen, and had long, pale blond hair down to just below her shoulder blades. She had a soft-featured, mature face that gave the distinct impression that she was a kind and gentle person. Her dark blue eyes always made her look like she was happy. “Of course I’m ready, silly Emily,” the boy said affectionately, tucking his book under his arm. School had been out for an hour, but Emily's job prevented her from picking up her foster brother on time. That was okay with him, he liked having some time to sit and read. And he loved talking to his foster sister on the way home; he wouldn’t have traded that for anything. The boy went up to the counter and handed the librarian his book and his library card. The brown haired lady looked down at him with a smile as she scanned in the card and his book. She gave both back to him, still smiling, and said, “Have a nice day,” to which the boy replied, “You too, ma’am.” They both headed out of the school, walking side by side. “Anything exciting happen today?” she asked him. “Nick was caught with a rubber band in class again. That’s the third time this week, I think. Oh, and in math class, we learned this great song. It goes, ‘Area is pi ar squared, pi ar squared, pi ar squared! Area is pi ar squared, circumference is two pi ar. Or pi-i deeeee!’” the boy sang. “And also in math class, we learned today how to find the surface area and volume of a sphere. Volume is four thirds pi r cubed, and surface area is four pi r squared,” he recited proudly. Emily rolled her eyes as she got into the car, a sky-blue station wagon. “Does anything ever happen in your other classes, besides math? Or do you spend all day in the library, and skip all your classes except your favorite?” The boy fidgeted a little as he sat down in the passenger’s seat of the car, and said nervously, “I’m not skipping class,” as if he had just been accused of doing something wrong. The girl laughed and said, “Oh, Harry, you always take everything so seriously. I was only kidding, you know.” The boy grinned sheepishly and said, “Oh.” He considered saying that his name was Harold, not Harry, but he would only be proving his sister right about him taking things too seriously. So he let it slide this time. The girl started the car, backed out of her parking place, and once the car was on the road, she asked, "How's that science fiction story you're supposed to be writing for english going?" "I finished it," Harold said proudly, but didn't go on, instead waiting for Emily to show interest in what he had to say. "Well, don't keep me hanging! What's it about?" "It's about an alien named Deltar. He's trapped on earth because his family had to leave him. And while he's on earth, he has to get used to all the weird things that humans do. I think maybe his parents would have been some sort of interplanetary scientists, and maybe they were studying earth, and Deltar wants to continue their work. But anyway, Deltar knows his family is coming back, because they love him. Just like mine." Emily put an arm around Harold's shoulders and said, "That sounds like a wonderful story. I can't wait to read it." Harold leaned his head on Emily's arm, contented and comfortable, before going on about his story. "I saw a documentary the other day on really ancient life, back from the very beginning of the Cambrian period, and I thought it would be really cool to base what Deltar's alien race looks like on one of those things. They were really weird." It would have been hard to notice it if you weren't looking for it, but right then, Emily's hand tensed on the steering wheel, as if alarmed or surprised by something Harold had said. But, just as quickly, whatever had come over Emily was gone, and she asked casually, "What Cambrian creature did you pick? I saw part of that show too; some of them definitely did look like aliens." "Opabinia," Harold responded, remembering and pronouncing its name perfectly; he had an almost abnormally good memory for scientific-sounding names. "That was the one with the trunk, and the five eyes. If that thing wasn't an alien, then I don't know what an alien is." Emily laughed amusedly, eventually fading off into a bemused sigh. A few moments of silence ticked by, before Harold got the conversation going again. He asked, "How was work today?" "Oh, you know, same old, same old," Emily said nonchalantly. "Somebody knocked over the display stack of Campbell's soup. Again." Harold gave a little shrug and replied, "Well, at least you're not the one who has to pick them up." A few minutes later, the blue station wagon pulled up in the driveway of a nice, modern-looking house. Not quite a mansion, but definitely an upper-class dwelling; nice and big, two floors, and lots of room between it and the houses on either side. Harold's parents were already standing out on the front porch, waiting for him and Emily to get home. Harold's mother, Sara Burke, looked a lot like Emily, except older, and with more wavy, red hair. Harold's father, Joseph Burke, was a rather handsome-looking man, with shiny black hair that formed a slightly wavy, thick layer on the top of his head. "Hey, kids! We both got off work early today, so what say we do something as a family?" Harold's father announced as Harold and Emily unloaded from the car. Harold bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet; this was the kind of day he lived for. For as long as he could remember before meeting the Burkes, he'd been shuttled from family to family; from one family who barely acknowledged his existence, to another that abused his frail body with rods and belts, to another that would cut away at his self-esteem with vicious words until there was almost nothing left. Finally, a year ago, he had found a family who actually cared about him, and he was determined to never, ever, let anything happen to change that. Every moment spent with his newfound family was a moment treasured. "Yeah, we should play frisbee again!" Harold said enthusiastically as he ran up to the door of his home, and smiled as his father ruffled his hair playfully. Then Harold darted inside the house, immediately being greeted by a white and chocolate-brown border collie, which he petted on the head, telling her, "I'm glad to see you too, Hestia." Then he headed off to the closet to find the frisbee. He loved frisbee; it was one of the few sports he was any good at. It didn't take too much effort; just enough to get a moderate workout, and the disc stayed in the air long enough that Harold could usually catch it. Emily and her parents followed Harold into the house, where he preceded them to the back door. He waited for them, and they all went outside. It was a perfect day. The sun was bright, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and even the grass looked greener than usual. Hestia bounded outside, obviously excited about the prospect of any kind of outdoor activity. Harold threw the frisbee to his father. As it flew through the air, Hestia bounded after it, but Joseph made a big show of jumping into the air to catch it. "Quit being such a show-off!" Emily called from the sidelines; she was standing in the shade of a tree, having decided that it would be more fun to just watch the game than to participate. She had never been very interested in athletic type games. Typically, neither was Harold, but he liked playing frisbee. "Okay, son, go long!" Joseph called as he threw the frisbee, making it look like he had thrown it with all his might when really he hadn't. Harold jogged backwards, and caught it in his outstretched hand. Joseph was the first man ever to call Harold 'son,' something that still always managed to bring a smile to Harold's face, even after hearing the word hundreds of times. The game of frisbee lasted about an hour, only interrupted by Harold's mother having to go inside to take care of something. Harold was about to throw the frisbee again when he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye; coming around a stand of trees were three men in uniforms. Harold's first reaction was confusion. Surely the Burkes hadn't done anything that was so bad that they had attracted police attention, had they? Then, Harold began to feel afraid. What if they were here to find him a new family? No! He was happy here! He looked at Emily with a look of apprehension, hoping she would do something to allay his fears. But she was focused on the police officers. "Excuse me sir, but might we go inside the house? You aren't in any trouble, but you could be in danger. I'll fill you in when we get inside," one of the officers told Joseph. Harold was still nervous, though. He shot another glance at Emily, and this time she met his gaze, and gave him a look that was meant to reassure him, as if to say that everything would be fine. Harold's father led the policemen into the house. "Would you like something to drink? We have plenty of sodas to choose from." Two of the police officers asked for Coke, but the third said he would be fine. Joseph stepped into the kitchen to get the drinks, but he never made it to the fridge. Chuh-click. The sound of a gun being armed. Hestia heard it too, and began to growl and bark at the officers. As Harold's gaze locked on to his father, and he registered the fact that a gun was pointed at his head, Harold's breath caught in his, and he began to feel dizzy. Joseph slowly turned around, and his eyes widened as he, too, realized the severity of the situation. Not taking his eyes off the barrel of the gun, he slowly raised his arms, his face showing nothing but fear. Chuh-click. Chuh-click. More guns. Harold whipped around to see his mother and sister, both with armed guns aimed at them. At this point, Harold's head was spinning. This couldn't be happening, this couldn't be happening, it had to be a dream. No one could take his family away from him. No one! Suddenly, a swell of anger overrode his fear and shock. "Let them go!" he screamed. "What did they ever do to you?! You are not cops, you are crooks!" But he knew he was powerless. Hot, angry tears welled up around his eyes, and he began to simply scream, just for the sake of screaming. Hestia was still barking at the officers, trying to protect her family. She looked right up at the man aiming his gun at Emily and growled, looking like she was about to bite him. The man took his gun off of Emily in a fast, fluid movement, and with a loud BAM, Hestia fell to the floor, blood pooling around her head, soaking into her fur. Emily took advantage of the distraction, thinking she could kick the officer in the groin, but immediately the gun was back on her, and before her foot connected, BAM. The shot that destroyed Harold's world. Nothing seemed real, as blood oozed from under his sister's shirt, and she fell lifelessly down the wall. Harold watched, but it was like he was watching from a distance, seeing the entire spectacle through someone else's eyes. His world was spinning; everything had an unreal, dreamlike quality to it. Numbly, he fell to the floor and just lay there, shaking and shivering. He heard the other gunshots, but it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. The officers dragged Harold to a van, his shattered mind not even comprehending what was happening anymore. Two of the officers got into the van and drove away, taking Harold to the lab where he would be changed forever. The third officer stayed there. He waited until the van was completely out of sight, then said, "It's okay. He's gone." Emily opened her eyes, got up, and smiled, removing from underneath her shirt clear plastic devices that were still leaking the fake blood they had contained. Sara and Joseph got up a few seconds later. "Excellent," Joseph said. "Everything went precisely according to plan."
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Post by Tobey on May 5, 2007 23:39:46 GMT -5
This Little Light Of Mine [/b] The hair on the back of Kelly's neck prickled as she felt that odd feeling of someone watching her. The twelve-year-old firefly experiment turned her freckled face to see who it was, her dark, red-tinted brown hair shifting slightly to momentarily reveal the antennae that the girl worked so hard to keep hidden. As she brought a hand up to adjust her hair, she saw her observer through the bars of their respective cages. It was the boy known teasingly as 'Psyc Mike' due to his psychic powers, and he was looking at Kelly like she was some sort of enigma to be solved. His gaze didn't even waver when the girl returned it, and soon Kelly began to feel his presence in her mind. That was odd. According to what most experiments said about the psychic boy, Mike almost never went so deep into someone's mind as to alert them of his presence there. Kelly continued to return his gaze, arms crossed, imitating the dauntless confidence she had learned from her friend Jordan, even though inside Kelly was confused and a little bit scared. It didn't help that Mike had a reputation as one of the nastiest bullies in Camp Sunshine; more abusive than a few of the scientists, even. Finally, after what seemed like forever to Kelly, Mike retracted from her mind with a sudden burst of audible laughter. It was the kind of laughter you have when you've just realized that the solution to a problem that had been stumping you was in fact ridiculously simple. A few of the other experiments turned to see what the noise was all about, and their faces showed the same confusion that Kelly was feeling. "What's so funny?" Kelly said, in a defiant tone that she had picked up from Jordan, her voice at odds with her inner feelings of confusion and nervousness. Mike looked at her with a giddy, perhaps slightly malicious grin plastered on his face, and sang, "Kelly's got a cruh-ush." A few experiments leaned forward in their cages, interested. A few others turned away with looks of disgust at Mike's tactless invasion of Kelly's privacy. Kelly's confusion was growing too great to be kept from her expression at this point. "What?" she said, her head tilted to the side, her incomprehension made obvious by the odd angle of her mouth. "That's silly. I'm too young to be interested in boys." "I never said it was a bo-oy," Mike said, still using that giddy, irritating sing-song voice. The experiments who were paying attention gave small gasps and adopted expressions of surprise as they realized what Mike meant. Comprehension was a little slower for Kelly. "Quit goofing around. I'm a girl, stupid. Girls crush on boys," she sounded exasperated now, like she thought that Mike was just wasting her time. "Oh really?" Mike said, his giddy, light demeanor quickly shifting to a meaner, bullying tone. Kelly seemed to ignore the change; verbal abuse was commonplace at Camp Sunshine. Mike went on, "Then why do you try so hard to be just like your friend Jordan? Why do you look forward so much to winding up in a cage with her?" He lowered his voice and added, "If girls only crush on boys, then why do you /love/ it when Jordan touches your skin?" A good number of experiments were following Mike and Kelly's conversation now. Kelly, however, wasn't letting any of what Mike was saying sink in. "She's just my friend, psycho. Friends are supposed to care about each other." She wasn't about to let herself see the truth that was there in Mike's words; in her mind, the idea of a girl falling in love with another girl was simply ridiculous. "Sure they are, but not like that," Mike responded, becoming more and more determined to make Kelly see that he was right and she was wrong. "Do you suppose that Jordan watches /you/ when you go to sleep at night?" Kelly opened her mouth a few times, as if about to say something, but each time she closed it again. Try as she might, she couldn't find a single self-redeeming reply to Mike's question. It was hard to find a comeback to the truth. Finally, she hung her head and said, "No." Mike smiled. This was precisely the opening he was looking for. "So you are a lezzie!" he said accusingly, laughing cruelly. "A what?" Kelly said hesitantly, not at all sure she wanted to know the meaning of the word based on Mike's tone. "A lesbian. A queer. A f***ing f*g," Mike spat back. "Those aren't nice words," Kelly said. She didn't know what any of them meant; she only knew that her mother had told her not to use most of them. "Oh, ex cuse me. You're "heterosexually challenged." Is that better?" Mike said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, making quote gestures in the air as he said 'heterosexually challenged.' "What's that supposed to mean?" Kelly shot back, reflecting a trace of the bullying tone Mike was using. "It means you ain't straight. And if you ain't straight, you're gay." "No, I'm not!" Kelly said, finally hearing a few terms she recognized. "I'm not a . . . whatever," she said, her voice finally breaking just a little bit, letting her hidden feelings of distress show for a brief second. "Les-bian," Mike sang. "Don't let him get to ya, honey," a woman's voice said. The voice came from Kelly's own cage; its owner had awoken from a nap just moments ago. Kelly turned around to face a woman of obviously strong African descent, who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with a gentle, motherly face and smooth black hair. She was a skunk experiment; a luxurious black and white tail curved around her body, and black fur fringed the woman's face, a triangle of white fur adorning her forehead. Her arms were open, ready to comfort Kelly if she needed it. Kelly nearly ran into Flower's waiting arms, and the skunk experiment wrapped her in a gentle, comforting hug. "It's alright, little Starlight," the woman said. Starlight; that was the nickname Flower had given Kelly. "I'm sure you know what Jordan would say. She'd say to do whatever you want, be whoever you are, and if anyone doesn't like it, they can just shove it." Kelly laughed a little; it was true, that was exactly what Jordan would say. Mike made a mocking "aww" noise at the sentimental moment, which Flower pointedly ignored. Kelly and Flower were both silent for a few moments, until Kelly, in a voice that quivered with sadness, said, "What do I do, Flower? What do I do if Jordan finds out?" Her words were an admittance that she had seen the truth of Mike's accusations; there was no going back now. Flower held Kelly tighter in her arms, while being careful to avoid crushing the firefly wings and wing cases that Flower knew were attached to the other girl's back. "Just tell her how you feel, and if I know Jordan, she won't think of you any the worse for it." Flower hoped that she knew Jordan as well as she thought she did, but sometimes it was hard to predict a person's reaction to something like this. She kept quiet about her doubts, though; she knew Kelly needed a little hope right now. Kelly finally broke down and cried, tears flowing from her eyes onto Flower's shoulder. "But I don't want her to know," she said, her voice coming out thin and weak between sobs. "Aww, she doesn't-" Mike began, but Flower quickly interrupted. "I'm sorry, honey, but it's probably too late for that. You know how gossip is around here. She may already know," Flower said apologetically, starting off somewhat loud to cut Mike off, but softening her voice into a gentle tone after the first two words. She hated to tell the young girl such a harsh fact, but keeping that particular truth from her would only make it harder when she found out for herself. Flower's honesty didn't do much for Kelly's mood. Her throat tightened with dread as she realized how utterly impossible it would be to keep Jordan from finding out, and the young girl's tears flowed with renewed intensity. Flower patted her back compassionately, letting the firefly experiment cry onto her shoulder. Kelly cried there in Flower's arms until a pair of scientists interrupted. It was time for Kelly's testing; she was roughly taken from her cage and dragged into a back room where she went through a series of tests, from a measurement of her antennae, to a test of how brightly she could glow as she forced her whole body to flash with yellow-orange light. She was quiet and complacent through all of it; she was in no condition to defy the scientists at a time like this. And the scientists, if they noticed that she had been crying, did an excellent job of pretending not to. At the end of maybe an hour or so of tests, she was led back outside and pushed into a different cage, occupied by two experiments, one of whom she recognized. "Jordan," she said, her voice a strange mixture of happiness and apprehension. Oh god, please let her not know, please let her not know . . . Kelly thought to herself. "What is it?" said the brunette, older girl, sensing Kelly's uneasiness. Jordan was one of the few subjects of the lab that was still fully human. Her experimentation was taking much longer for the scientists to prepare than most; a rather worrisome fact. "I . . . uh, you see . . . " Kelly stammered, blushing profusely. "Has the lab gossip mentioned anything about, um, me? Lately?" "Not that I'm aware of, but you know I don't listen to gossip," Jordan said, a bit of a sneer in her voice at the word 'gossip,' as if such a thing were below her. Oh god. She had blown it. Now she had no choice but to tell. She shouldn't have said anything, and Jordan would never have been the wiser! Kelly was silent for a moment or two, as if she wasn't going to say anything more on the subject, but Jordan said, "Come on. You know you can tell me anything." "I'm . . . well, they're saying I'm, um . . . they're saying I'm a les- . . . they're saying I'm not straight," Kelly said, talking nervously fast between shaky pauses. Then she tried to take a deep breath, and added, "And I'm in love with you." There was a terrible silence as Jordan absorbed this information. Kelly just wanted to crawl into a corner and die, the silence felt so awful to her. Oh god, I just made a total and complete idiot of myself, Jordan must think I'm a freak, she must hate me for dumping my problems on her, she must be terrified of me, why didn't I just make something up, or not say anything at all in the first place, or-?Kelly's frantic thoughts were interrupted by Jordan finally ending the painful silence. "And, is what they say . . . true?" she said slowly. She was trying to be understanding, really she was, but it was all just so sudden, and unexpected, and the idea of having someone in love with her that she couldn't ever care for in that way was frightening. Sort of like when the seriously unattractive guy or girl in your class tries to flirt with you. Suddenly Kelly decided that she liked silence better. The hesitancy of Jordan's question made it painfully clear that she hated the idea of Kelly having a crush on her. Kelly couldn't bring herself to answer Jordan's question through the tears that were welling up in her eyes once again. She tried desperately to hold them back. She failed. "Oh, god, I'm sorry, Kelly," Jordan said, immediately feeling guilty for her instinctive fears. She walked across the cage to Kelly, and put an arm over her shoulder in a sort of halfway hug. Kelly shivered as her grief became mixed with that odd feeling she felt whenever Jordan was close to her; a feeling she now knew must be love. The surge of emotion only made her cry harder. She furiously wiped the tears from her eyes, not at all used to crying this much; she wasn't typically this emotional. And to be crying like this in front of Jordan, of all people, made it all the more awkward. She was able to get a hold of herself after a few minutes, but stayed under Jordan's arm for some time after that, treasuring every second. Then she realized that she was cherishing Jordan's comfort, and the thought repulsed her. What was /wrong/ with her? The weeks passed, and not much had changed. Kelly and Jordan were still both shuffled from cage to cage, seeing each other only intermittently. Same as always. The rumors about Kelly bounced around the lab for a while, but they faded away quickly and were replaced with new rumors. Jordan never brought up the topic again, and Kelly, thankful for her friend's dismissal of the subject, didn't volunteer to talk about it again, either. But one day, something /did/ change. As Kelly waited in her cage for the noon meal, a man was dragged towards her cage who looked exactly like one of the scientists that was dragging him. That was just bizarre; surely a set of twins wouldn't be separated, with one as a scientist, the other an experiment? And the man was definitely being dragged towards Kelly's cage; this was perhaps even more bizarre, as the scientists at Camp Sunshine usually had the decency to keep males and females separate. The man was shouting obscenities directed at Christina; a scientist at Camp Sunshine whose name was often used as a curse. As the man was thrown into Kelly's cage, she noticed that tears of either anger or grief were welling from his eyes. This was perfectly understandable; he'd obviously just been betrayed by his own brother. "It's me, Jordan," he said through the tears. Kelly looked incredulous. Well, 'Jordan' could also be a male name, and he probably just thought he knew her. Seeing the disbelief in Kelly's eyes, Jordan continued. "They did something to me. Look," he said, touching Kelly's wrist. Immediately, the man's visage shifted into Kelly's, and it was as if she was looking into a mirror. "Jordan?" Kelly asked unbelievingly. Jordan closed her eyes, trying to shut out her own tears. "They made me turn into whoever I touch. And . . . I can't change back. They said I won't ever be able to change back and be myself again!" Kelly heard her own voice say, choking on grief and anger. Now it was Kelly's turn to offer Jordan comfort in her moment of hopelessness. But she couldn't move. Was it really true? Would she never be able to see Jordan's beautiful face again, hear her resolute voice? No, it couldn't be. Jordan had probably just pissed the scientists off one too many times, as she was wont to do, and they had just retaliated by telling her this lie to make her upset. She couldn't be . . . gone. Forever. "They're lying," Kelly said aloud. "There's got to be a way for you to change back." Jordan just shook her head. "I have to touch who I turn into. I'm not around anymore to touch, so . . ." she said, trailing off as her throat clenched tight. Kelly finally found the strength to move, and crawled towards Jordan, carefully embracing her, as if touching Jordan's skin again would permanently destroy any chance of her ever being able to change back. Tears began to glisten in Kelly's eyes, completing the illusion of the two girls being each others' reflections.
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Post by Tobey on Aug 27, 2007 15:39:28 GMT -5
Hell's Recruits [/b] Christina sat alone in her room, as she so often did, staring off into space. Daydreaming. It was boring, up in her room, but it was worlds better than anywhere else in the house, where she would have to contend with her wretched family. But as she sat on her bed, listening to the angsty, harsh music that many eighteen-year-olds liked, she knew that she would be far away from them soon enough. For she was not only getting ready to go to college next year, but she had just landed a job; better yet, a job the news of which didn't make her mother give her that horrible, soul-crushing 'disappointed' look of hers. Training for the job, as an experiment discipline specialist at the Pit, would begin later that afternoon. And so, for once, Christina was happy. She would soon be on her own, free of her family forever! Free of their self-assured superiority, of their disappointment in her, and best of all, of the pain, physical and emotional, that they had caused her. As she began to think about the implications of going into experiment discipline as a profession, she recalled something that had happened many years before, but which she had often thought about since. It was the closest thing Christina had to a happy memory. Christina was only eight. Her father had brought home an experiment from his work at Smart Pet. It was essentially a golden retriever with near-human intelligence (but still a mostly doglike personality), the ability to speak, some limited ability to walk upright, and a human-like fluency of facial expressions. Christina's family loved the creature. Maybe it was all an act; after all, the client had wanted it to be brought up in a loving environment. Irene, at least, might well have only been trying to live up to the client's wishes; she was, Christina now knew, a superb pretender. But, in any case, Christina had been too young then to understand anything except the simple fact that her parents seemed to like the dog-experiment more than they liked her. It was silly, really. She knew that the presence of the creature didn't make them like her any less than they already did. But it was like a slap in the face, this creature that was so utterly inhuman, being treated more humanely than Christina had ever been. And she hated the creature for it. She refused to play with it, and would usually sulk in her room when it was around. So when, one day, the creature happened to find her alone, and asked the simple question, "Why don't you like me?", she lost her temper, and angrily lunged for its tail, and twisted it around until there was an audible series of cracks. The creature screamed, a sound that was somewhere between a human voice and a dog's howl, and Christina just laughed.Christina didn't like to remember the part that came after that. The horrible beating she had received from her father, how he had struck her with his belt until the welts began to bleed. Fortunately, a glance at the clock chased away those thoughts. It was time to go. Christina grabbed a small bag, already packed with everything she would need, and quietly slipped out of the door. "These are not humans," barked the experiment discipline recruiting officer, gesturing towards a cell. "They are the waste products of scientific research, corruptions of the order of humanity, made all the more vile because of their mimicry of our race. They delight in their own selfishness, doing all they can to impede research that will benefit mankind, merely for the sake of their own personal comfort. These creatures are nothing more than intelligent animals. You must not hold back from disciplining them, you must not show them compassion. It is when these creatures are allowed to believe that they are still human that they become unmanageable. Do you all understand?" Christina Payne stood at the back of the crowd of about twenty new recruits in one of the many cell-lined halls of the Pit, listening to a man with blond, crew-cut hair and a dark grey lab coat. The man had to talk loudly to be heard over the noise of the lab, and even with him yelling, the recruits had to stand as close as they could to hear him. This wing of the lab, in particular, seemed to be considerably noisier than the majority of the Pit, the air here thick with the din of yelling, crying, and screaming of unhappy experiments. The voices seemed to come from far away and up close at once as they echoed off the tunnel-like walls of the hallway, giving the cacophony an eerie quality. This hellish place was where the Pit's newest subjects were kept; these were the experiments that had not yet been beaten into silence. The cells that lined the hallway contained a mix of experiments, different ages, different ethnicities, boys and girls, but nearly all with some small detail of either their body or mind that made them not quite human. They watched the newest generation of scientists, with varied expressions of defiance, fury, fear, bewilderment, and apathy. Some cursed their captors, but others had already given up and simply sat silently, watching. The soon-to-be scientists looked back at them with expressions of disdain, curiosity, boredom, annoyance; or ignored them altogether. All the recruits were young for scientists, but Christina, at eighteen, was one of the youngest. She was listening to the officer, but she was looking at the experiment he had pointed out a while earlier, a thoughtful, almost concerned look on her face. The experiment was young, with unruly brown hair, and bright eyes that still gleamed with the hope of freedom. He wasn't one of the ones cursing and yelling and screaming, but he hadn't given up, either. He looked like he was ready to defend himself against anyone who wanted to mess with him. He wasn't at all like the Smart Pet experiments, like the dog whose tail Christina had twisted with such satisfaction so many years earlier. Almost all of those experiments were more animal than human, in form and in mind. But this one looked . . . human. Christina had, admittedly, known that the Pit's experiments had nearly all once been human, but being informed of half-human half-animal 'freaks' is a wholly different matter from having to look their humanity right in the eye. What was it about this boy, she wondered, that made him so despicable? The officer scanned the crowd, and his iron gaze locked on to Christina's, spotting what looked suspiciously like compassion in her eyes. "You there, in the back, what's your name?" he shouted over the heads of the other new recruits, having to shout loudly to make himself heard over the noise. Christina looked around to confirm that she was the one being spoken to. A few of the other recruits turned to look at her, letting her know that indeed she was. "Christina Payne, sir," she said nervously, as she wondered what she might have done wrong. Had he somehow read her thoughts, she wondered? Given the intensity of his stare, she wouldn't have been surprised. "Ah, a Payne!" the officer exclaimed, as if the fact of her name allayed any fears he had about the teenager's potential experiment-empathy. "You should do well, then. You're hereby assigned to Experiment 029, here," the officer said, gesturing to the caged boy. Then he faced the rest of the crowd. "Each of you will be given one experiment and one week. At the end of that week, I want these animals," he spat out the word like a curse, "to be as tame and obedient as dogs. You may use any means necessary, short of death. Those of you whose subjects show the most improvement will be hired." The recruits dispersed to find their assigned projects, aided by some older scientists, but the officer stayed behind with Christina. He stepped back to stand against a wall, and motioned to Christina to ignore him. He was only there to watch. Apparently, he still didn't quite trust her, or at least he had his doubts in Christina's capacity for cruelty. His gaze made her uneasy. Was she just supposed to start, well, disciplining her experiment, with him right there? After a few moments wherein the officer made no move to leave, it became obvious that the answer was 'yes.' "You there, what's your experimentation?" Christina asked of the boy in the cage, as harshly as she could manage, trying to imagine that the officer wasn't there. Trying to ignore the part of her mind that still thought that this was a human boy she was talking to. Slowly, but with defiance in his eyes, the boy raised his arm; on the underside was a row of spines, with webbing between them. They looked not unlike the fins of a lionfish. Christina looked rather sickened by the strange sight; her lips formed a repulsed sneer, and a disgusted groan escaped her throat, almost subconsciously. So, this boy wasn't quite human, after all. "What's your problem, lady?" the boy sneered at Christina's squeamishness, his tone sounding of righteous fury and savage sarcasm, too new at the lab to know better than to talk back to scientists. "Don't like what your buddies have done to me? What right do you have to talk about me like I'm an inferior, when you're the ones who made me this way?!" Christina impulsively glanced at the officer, almost by accident, trying to steel herself for what she knew she was supposed to do. The officer nodded back, letting her know that the boy had now earned his punishment. But still Christina felt uneasy. She remembered all the times she herself had been punished, hurt, by her mother and father. Could she really turn around and inflict the same treatment on another, nearly human, being? No. No, she couldn't, she could never, ever sink to the level of her parents. What had she been thinking, applying for this job? After all she'd been through at their hands, how could she even think of continuing the cycle? They had treated her like dirt for all these years, like she was worthless . . . just like this boy before her now was worthless. Worthless! . . . And even he, this human that was nothing more than an animal, seemed to think himself better than her. Christina's mind burned with that revelation, forgetting all about the officer's watchful eyes. Yes, even this pathetic little nothing creature considered himself somehow superior to Christina. He was just as evil as her brothers, talking to her in that tone; that superior, self-assured, wounding tone. But there was a difference, here. This creature could be made to pay for his words. And the words of those who had hurt Christina, their arrogance, their violence. Oh yes, this helpless boy could pay for it all! He could pay the price for all the times Christina had been wronged, because she had, at last, found a creature that was below her! And she would not let him forget it! Hardly even aware of what she was doing in the midst of these feverish thoughts, Christina had taken a leather whip from the rack of punishment devices, opened the cage door with an angry yank, and swung the whip fiercely at the fish-boy. He cried out in pain, again and again, but his cries only seemed to drive the young scientist deeper into her cathartic rage. At long last, when the boy was beaten, broken, and lay bleeding, his breaths coming out in pitiful sobs, Christina's anger finally burnt itself out. In its place was not regret; that filthy creature had deserved every last lash. But rather, a tired, burned-out emptiness overtook her body, and as the feeling threatened to make her collapse, she slowly closed the cage door. The recruiting officer took a step away from the wall, towards Christina, and with a wry smile, said, "Welcome to Hell."
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