It was a stormy summer night when she came to my store. I had already closed it down, but stayed a bit to tidy up the place before going home, when I noticed a young woman outside. She stood there, banging on the windows, wanting to get in, as if she had no other place to go. I let her in, not even questioning her or asking her what she did out there.
“What a night,” I said. “Things were never this bad.” She remained silent. She didn’t have anything to protect her from the rain, not even a raincoat. All she had was a cloak and a basket, and I assumed the cloak didn’t really help that much. Apparently she didn’t seem to mind, but I did get a towel for her.
“You know, you’re lucky,” I said, “I was about to go home.” She remained silent. My place was just upstairs, so I wouldn’t have to go through the rain, and I didn’t really feel like sending her back out. I hesitated a bit. “I have a guest room,” I said. “It isn’t much, but at least you’d have a place to stay, at least until the storm passes.” Still nothing. I walked towards the front door. “Well, I’m about to lock this place up, so if you still want to leave, you should do it now, otherwise you’d have to wait until tomorrow.” She didn’t make any move towards the door. I decided to just let her stay, and locked the store. I then moved to the back, towards the stairs, where she followed me. I then showed her to the guest room. “If you want to take a shower, you can just take a clean towel from one of the cabinets. I’m gonna go and make some dinner, you can join me if you want, but it’s just some leftovers.”
It didn’t get any better the next day, and it seemed that the weather got a little worse. I wasn’t sure if opening my store would do any good, but I had nothing to lose anyway. The store, and by extension, my home was located at a high part of the city. If there would have been any flood here, it wouldn’t have affected me anyway. Still, the roads were quiet and almost no other shop nearby opened save for some stores, so I doubted anybody would come by. I would have been the only store still open.
After I opened the store I decided to go upstairs for a bit, to have some breakfast. I almost didn’t smell the freshly made pancakes, it was only after I saw her eating at the table, wearing nothing but a towel, that I noticed the sweet scent, the kind you would expect when visiting your grandma, cinnamon filling the air, almost tasting the vanilla flavor, not just of the powdered sugar, but of the pancakes as well. A plate was sitting there on the table, with servings just for me. She briefly glanced at me, as if she wanted to tell me to sit down and eat this breakfast. I could finally take a good look at her. She had long dark hair and blue eyes, and despite her relatively short size, I could see she was a young adult, at least no younger than eighteen.
“Did you make these pancakes?” I asked. She nodded. Even now she remained silent. At this point I wasn’t even sure if she could ever talk. “Well,” I said, “if you want, you can stay, at least until the storm passes.”
“It won’t,” she said. I honestly didn’t know what to say to that. On one hand, I was surprised that she finally decided to talk. On the other hand, I was curious about what she meant, and I guess that curiosity pushed me to ask what she meant with that.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather get dressed first,” she said.
I nodded, and said: “I understand.”
First few pages of the chapter The Calm, from my upcoming novel(la) Eldritch Fairytales
GROTESQUE SLAUGHTER AT SUNSET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, 4 CHILDREN SLAIN BY INSANE TEACHER, TEACHER FOUND DEAD FROM SUICIDE by Kathryn Perry
On the morning of April 2nd, a missing persons report was filed to the SFPD concerning the disappearance of 4 young students at the local Hilltop Elementary School in the Sunset District. After a thorough investigation of the school, the police made a disturbing discovery in the school’s boiler room. It was there that they discovered the dead bodies of Susan Richards, 9, Adrienne Black, 9, Rachael White, 8, and Mary Willis, 8. Susan Richards had her throat slit left to right with a barber’s razor blade. Adrienne Black had been repeatedly stabbed in the eye with a pair of scissors to the point where the left eye had the consistency of soup. Rachael White was strangled to death. Mary Willis had been disemboweled and (I apologize for the true horror the reader is experiencing right now) partially cannibalized. The murderer, believed to be a teacher named Bob Merrick, 42, was found in the boiler room, along with the bodies, his wrists slit by the razor he supposedly used to kill Susan Richards. Found within his mouth were pieces of a human liver, which led to the conclusion that he had indeed ripped open Mary Willis’ abdomen and cannibalized her. The parents of the deceased children refused to give comment, although their reactions were pure horror. According to the principal of Hilltop Elementary, Nathan Broderick, 43, Merrick had worked at Hilltop Elementary for six years and had never before that shown any signs of mental instability.
“What happened here is something that nobody will ever forget or get over,” stated Broderick. “I doubt the school itself will be able to survive the reputation it will no doubt receive for this awful and heinous crime. My prayers go to the families of those poor children, who are suffering in a way I could never imagine.”
As the investigation into the source of Merrick’s sudden and unexplained insanity continues, award-winning psychologist Alexander Becker from New York City gave an interview to the Chronicle concerning his thoughts on the atrocities:
“Mr. Merrick’s insanity was most likely caused by the fact that, and yes, I did look in to this, his father used to beat him as a child. As we all know, traumatizing childhood incidents always leave some sort of stain on the psyche of the victim. Clearly, the main reason for these murders was that he had indeed suffered from an intense psychotic breakdown. Those children possibly reminded him of how his childhood was, and the result was he, mentally, became his ‘father.’”
The rosary for the victims will be held at the St. Peter and Paul’s Church in North Beach.
Everyone leaned over their sides of the small vessel, watching as the gray sands loomed ever larger. Sure enough, as the mists parted, the gray shores becoming ever clearer, they were able to make out bodies strewn out along the sands. There were not two or three there, not even ten or twenty, but hundreds, laid out one on top of the other. Pale flesh and elongated, ghastly claws were tossed like dolls atop each other, like garbage laid out on the street. Their inhuman features, gaping jaws angled upward to the skies, lifeless, were the marks of the Abominations. Streams of them ran up the shore and into the distance, over the visible ridge of the beachhead, which sharply angled upward from the shoreline.
Christopher shook his head, confused. “What happened here?”
Eldagard smirked, speaking confidently from his place at the back of the boat. “What do you think, captain? The girl has already won the battle for us. The force of her weapon has devastated the sorcerer’s forces, leaving us with no glory to be won, no battle to carve our legends from.” He seemed curiously disappointed. “We have only to march upon the castle itself.”
Little else was said as the boats shoved up onto the beach, their lengthy bows digging into the discomfortingly gray sands, knights quickly hauling themselves out of the wooden frames and into the shallow waters. All along the coast this action was repeated, with cannons and horses deploying as well. Eldagard’s eyes went down the shores, looking at the expanse of their forces. “It’s going to be a pain having to clear away these bodies. We’ll need to organize our cannons, our horses, the Pyromancers, and what not.” He looked to Christopher. “I assume I can trust you to round up the men? Use your officers to organize our forces.”
The Ivory Knight bowed his head slightly. “Of course. Are you intending to establish your command here on the beach?”
“Seems the safest place. We’ll keep messengers moving between our lines. I want you to set up defense points intermittently along the route you take to the palace, sturdy enough to defend in case anything happens that requires us to fall back. Though…” His eyes drifted up the shores, a frown crossing his face. “Judging by what’s before us, I doubt we’ll have much trouble in regard to that. That Pyrolith Cannon your girl used has to be the single most devastating weapon witnessed in the history of this world.”
“I might be inclined to agree.”
“Make sure you assign at least a few Pyromancers among our numbers to reinforce the knights, and keep a reserve force of cavalry at your rear.”
“I’d already planned to do so. The princess and her friend will be with me, and the main force of our cannons will be dispersed at the rear of our lines as well, so that we may establish a proper high ground for them to fire from.”
Eldagard nodded, shaking his head absently. “Yes, yes. You’ve always been a fine warrior and commander, Christopher. I apologize if my fiery blood got the better of me before.”
“You had reason for your concerns,” the Ivory Knight returned with a smile, spinning about as he left to make his preparations. He quickly found his horse, brought ashore from one of the LaGuna vessels, and sped off to rally his commanders, the task of organizing their great numbers before him. Boats were already being sent back to the ships to pick up even greater numbers of troops, and before the day’s end, they’d have tens of thousands of men gathering on the great, gray beach.
The weather there was unusually brisk, the winds coming off the waters a frigid temperature that shook them in their clothing. Max found himself brushing at his nose a few times as the wind whipped it raw, his lips chapping in the breeze. His mood was not helped by the ashy sands that sifted beneath his boots, the cliffs that rose far in the distance a menacing, black bookend on the dark coastline. The hazy mists that seemed to linger on Deja’s Rock tainted everything with a grey touch, and though there was no scent in the air, Max began to wonder what the beach would reek of as the countless bodies of the Abominations were left out to decay.
A little extract from a story I wrote for an English assignment over 15 years ago
The three of them stopped at the edge of a great cliff which lead into an enormous valley. The strange building was half-way along the bottom of the valley. Bart sat down on a handy rock and started to think. "Rope. All we need is some rope. It's not fair. In all those adventure films where they are in strange worlds they always find what they need. It just happens to be there." He looked up at his two other companions. Chrissie was gabbing away to Dave although he probably wasn't listening. "What a pathetic pair." he thought to himself, "I mean, did Indiana Jones get stuck with these two? No he got some beautiful woman to go around with. These two would be hopeless if it came down to a challenge of wits, brain and cunning." He looked away from the group and at the floor where something caught his attention. It was a coil of sturdy rope. He turned back to the others. "Where on earth did this rope come from." They both shrugged.
"I told you before, we are not on Earth." said Dave
"Well," said Chrissie "at least we can get down the cliff and get to the building."
"Yeah," said Bart "so lets do it!"
The trio of them tied the rope to a jutting out piece of rock and let it hang down the cliff. After they tested it, they went down it. Bart had put knots in the rope so they could get down easier. Bart went first who was followed by Chrissie and last of all was Dave. When they where past half-way down, Dave sent a message down to Bart to tell him that he had heard and seen the rope fray. Dave looked up and saw it was fraying very quickly, then looked down to see how far they were from the ground. It was a long way down. He shouted a message to the rest of them to get down as fast as they could because the rope won't hold for very long and at that moment it was no longer true. The rope snapped! The three of them were bracing for the impact of the fall but it did not happen. When the rope snapped, a porthole appeared in the ground. It was a blue, purple, green and grey mixture of rings getting smaller, nearer to the center. A bright white band was coming down the rings followed by, five rings behind, a deep black band. When a band reached the center it appeared on the first ring. There were twenty-five rings all together and the two bands were getting faster and faster as the three got nearer and nearer. When they entered the porthole, all was black.
GROTESQUE SLAUGHTER AT SUNSET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, 4 CHILDREN SLAIN BY INSANE TEACHER, TEACHER FOUND DEAD FROM SUICIDE by Kathryn Perry
On the morning of April 2nd, a missing persons report was filed to the SFPD concerning the disappearance of 4 young students at the local Hilltop Elementary School in the Sunset District. After a thorough investigation of the school, the police made a disturbing discovery in the school’s boiler room. It was there that they discovered the dead bodies of Susan Richards, 9, Adrienne Black, 9, Rachael White, 8, and Mary Willis, 8. Susan Richards had her throat slit left to right with a barber’s razor blade. Adrienne Black had been repeatedly stabbed in the eye with a pair of scissors to the point where he left eye had the consistency of soup. Rachael White was strangled to death. Mary Willis had been disemboweled and (I apologize for the true horror the reader is experiencing right now) partially cannibalized. The murderer, believed to be a teacher named Bob Merrick, 42, was found in the boiler room, along with the bodies, his wrists slit by the razor he supposedly used to kill Susan Richards. Found within his mouth were pieces of a human liver, which led to the conclusion that he had indeed ripped open Mary Willis’ abdomen and cannibalized her. The parents of the deceased children refused to give comment, although their reactions were pure horror. According to the principal of Hilltop Elementary, Nathan Broderick, 43, Merrick had worked at Hilltop Elementary for six years and had never before that shown any signs of mental instability.
“What happened here is something that nobody will ever forget or get over,” stated Broderick. “I doubt the school itself will be able to survive the reputation it will no doubt receive for this awful and heinous crime. My prayers go to the families of those poor children, who are suffering in a way I could never imagine.”
As the investigation into the source of Merrick’s sudden and unexplained insanity continues, award-winning psychologist Alexander Becker from New York City gave an interview to the Chronicle concerning his thoughts on the atrocities:
“Mr. Merrick’s insanity was most likely caused by the fact that, and yes, I did look in to this, his father used to beat him as a child. As we all know, traumatizing childhood incidents always leave some sort of stain on the psyche of the victim. Clearly, the main reason for these murders was that he had indeed suffered from an intense psychotic breakdown. Those children possibly reminded him of how his childhood was, and the result was he, mentally, became his ‘father.’”
The rosary for the victims will be held at the St. Peter and Paul’s Church in North Beach.
To Be Continued...
Interesting. It's hard to pull off this format of story but I like the general tone of it.
It was a stormy summer night when she came to my store. I had already closed it down, but stayed a bit to tidy up the place before going home, when I noticed a young woman outside. She stood there, banging on the windows, wanting to get in, as if she had no other place to go. I let her in, not even questioning her or asking her what she did out there.
“What a night,” I said. “Things were never this bad.” She remained silent. She didn’t have anything to protect her from the rain, not even a raincoat. All she had was a cloak and a basket, and I assumed the cloak didn’t really help that much. Apparently she didn’t seem to mind, but I did get a towel for her.
“You know, you’re lucky,” I said, “I was about to go home.” She remained silent. My place was just upstairs, so I wouldn’t have to go through the rain, and I didn’t really feel like sending her back out. I hesitated a bit. “I have a guest room,” I said. “It isn’t much, but at least you’d have a place to stay, at least until the storm passes.” Still nothing. I walked towards the front door. “Well, I’m about to lock this place up, so if you still want to leave, you should do it now, otherwise you’d have to wait until tomorrow.” She didn’t make any move towards the door. I decided to just let her stay, and locked the store. I then moved to the back, towards the stairs, where she followed me. I then showed her to the guest room. “If you want to take a shower, you can just take a clean towel from one of the cabinets. I’m gonna go and make some dinner, you can join me if you want, but it’s just some leftovers.”
It didn’t get any better the next day, and it seemed that the weather got a little worse. I wasn’t sure if opening my store would do any good, but I had nothing to lose anyway. The store, and by extension, my home was located at a high part of the city. If there would have been any flood here, it wouldn’t have affected me anyway. Still, the roads were quiet and almost no other shop nearby opened save for some stores, so I doubted anybody would come by. I would have been the only store still open.
After I opened the store I decided to go upstairs for a bit, to have some breakfast. I almost didn’t smell the freshly made pancakes, it was only after I saw her eating at the table, wearing nothing but a towel, that I noticed the sweet scent, the kind you would expect when visiting your grandma, cinnamon filling the air, almost tasting the vanilla flavor, not just of the powdered sugar, but of the pancakes as well. A plate was sitting there on the table, with servings just for me. She briefly glanced at me, as if she wanted to tell me to sit down and eat this breakfast. I could finally take a good look at her. She had long dark hair and blue eyes, and despite her relatively short size, I could see she was a young adult, at least no younger than eighteen.
“Did you make these pancakes?” I asked. She nodded. Even now she remained silent. At this point I wasn’t even sure if she could ever talk. “Well,” I said, “if you want, you can stay, at least until the storm passes.”
“It won’t,” she said. I honestly didn’t know what to say to that. On one hand, I was surprised that she finally decided to talk. On the other hand, I was curious about what she meant, and I guess that curiosity pushed me to ask what she meant with that.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather get dressed first,” she said.
I nodded, and said: “I understand.”
First few pages of the chapter The Calm, from my upcoming novel(la) Eldritch Fairytales
Don't know if you need the colon in that sentence Nice appeal to the sense of scent, authors normally forget that.
A little extract from a story I wrote for an English assignment over 15 years ago
The three of them stopped at the edge of a great cliff which lead into an enormous valley. The strange building was half-way along the bottom of the valley. Bart sat down on a handy rock and started to think. "Rope. All we need is some rope. It's not fair. In all those adventure films where they are in strange worlds they always find what they need. It just happens to be there." He looked up at his two other companions. Chrissie was gabbing away to Dave although he probably wasn't listening. "What a pathetic pair." he thought to himself, "I mean, did Indiana Jones get stuck with these two? No he got some beautiful woman to go around with. These two would be hopeless if it came down to a challenge of wits, brain and cunning." He looked away from the group and at the floor where something caught his attention. It was a coil of sturdy rope. He turned back to the others. "Where on earth did this rope come from." They both shrugged.
"I told you before, we are not on Earth." said Dave
"Well," said Chrissie "at least we can get down the cliff and get to the building."
"Yeah," said Bart "so lets do it!"
The trio of them tied the rope to a jutting out piece of rock and let it hang down the cliff. After they tested it, they went down it. Bart had put knots in the rope so they could get down easier. Bart went first who was followed by Chrissie and last of all was Dave. When they where past half-way down, Dave sent a message down to Bart to tell him that he had heard and seen the rope fray. Dave looked up and saw it was fraying very quickly, then looked down to see how far they were from the ground. It was a long way down. He shouted a message to the rest of them to get down as fast as they could because the rope won't hold for very long and at that moment it was no longer true. The rope snapped! The three of them were bracing for the impact of the fall but it did not happen. When the rope snapped, a porthole appeared in the ground. It was a blue, purple, green and grey mixture of rings getting smaller, nearer to the center. A bright white band was coming down the rings followed by, five rings behind, a deep black band. When a band reached the center it appeared on the first ring. There were twenty-five rings all together and the two bands were getting faster and faster as the three got nearer and nearer. When they entered the porthole, all was black.
So you wrote Portal Not bad for an assignment written so long ago. A bit verbose but interesting.
So you wrote Portal Not bad for an assignment written so long ago. A bit verbose but interesting.
Heh! I just found it again tonight, weird looking back at something I wrote when I was around 14/15. In my opinion the whole thing isn't very good, and the style goes from dialogue heavy in the beginning, with short character introductions then quickly setting the scene and getting into the story. Later on it progresses to lengthy descriptive paragraphs while also trying to invoke fast paced action. That mixture doesn't work!
I'm gonna stick the whole thing up somewhere, probably on my blog (might as well make some use of it!).
I was glancing through some of the older stuff I've written and found this little gem. I just can't seem to stop myself from making hard-boiled detective type characters.
*********
Viridian sat at his desk, staring woodenly ahead. He should’ve raged, should’ve written furious letters, should’ve...done something! But his opponents in the Council were too persuasive. Even the fact that he’d done the impossible and found a way to track Alpheratz hadn’t improved his case.
His case. Not anymore.
Also, his glass seemed to be getting rather empty.
Almost subconsciously, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the bottle that had almost magically appeared there. Maybe it had been left by the previous chief. Made sense, really.
He poured a little of the liquid into his glass. Not too much... it wasn’t even noon yet and the last thing he needed was for that damn Council wizard to come in at the wrong time and get him fired for incompetence of some stupid bullshit.
Ha! Incompetence! Let the Council look for Alpheratz for a few weeks and they’d realize the meaning of the word. They may have their fancy contacts and special high-level spells and enchantments, but they didn’t know Prock like he did.
Prock would dance rings around them.
Of course he would. He had to.
Maybe it was the whiskey thinking, but Viridian realized with a start that he was actually on Alpheratz’s side in this matter. Just this matter, though. Guy still needed to be locked up somewhere safe...just...
The Council had overstepped its bounds. Gone above the Law. Viridian rather hoped Alpheratz would make them pay dearly for their transgressions.
On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for Prock in the first place, none of this would have happened. Yes, yes. When it came right down to it, it was all Prock’s fault.
Viridian glared straight ahead. One day... one day he’d wipe the smirk off that bastard’s-
“So, who's this, then?”
Viridian sat up far too fast, reeling with the sudden change in altitude. Maybe he’d poured himself a tad bit too much in retrospect. And here... here was his second least favorite person in the world and he was holding-
Oh Lord.
Somehow the insufferable son of a bitch had noticed and picked up that picture. The one he usually kept face down on his desk. He did that for a reason. Couldn’t the biserable mastard... er... miserable bastard just keep his goddamn hands to himself?!
Very carefully, so as not to betray the fact that the room seemed to be gently rocking, he stood up and snatched the picture back.
“It’s none of your buish-business!” he snapped.
“So it is true! I figured you were always protecting that two-bit thief-”
Viridian slammed the picture frame down on the desk. Even when Prock wasn’t around he still managed to make life difficult!
“Shut up!”
All right. Not very eloquent, but Viridian was beginning to feel that perhaps he had had slightly too much whiskey.
The other man seemed to notice this as well.
Damn his eyes.
“A little early, isn’t it?” he remarked with a raised eyebrow, “Better hope the Council doesn’t find out...”
“It’s lemonade,” interrupted Viridian, immediately feeling stupid. If he’d been slightly more sober, he’d have probably thought of something better to say. Or at least more believable.
The other eyebrow joined the first, “I didn’t know they made lemonade eighty proof...”
Oh. Right. He’d left the bottle on his desk.
Quickly, he replaced it into it’s proper drawer, vaguely noticing how very empty it had become. he was fairly sure there had been quite a bit more in it this morning...
But for now, the damn Council wizard.
“So, did you come here just to gloat or do you actually have some business with me, Magister?” he spat.
“Actually,” the magister began, “do you mind if I sit down?”
Viridian nodded at one of the chairs across from the desk.
“Thank you,” said the wizard, taking a seat, “As I have just begun my investigation,” Viridian winced, “And as you were the previous investigator,” another wince, “I was wondering if I might have your file on Alpheratz Procyon. It would speed things up immeasurably.”
No. Absolutely not. Did the man not know how fucking long it had taken to compile that thing? How many hours he’d spent collecting stories and hearsay? What it took to get any information at all on the most elusive man in the world? Did he?
And to expect him to just hand over that wealth of information just like that! It was a humiliation worse than being pulled off the case in the first place! Viridian knew he was being unreasonable, but damn it! He deserved to be allowed the odd moment of... of... unreasonableness! If that was even a word!
But, then again, the magister had very pointedly not mentioned that one word from him could send Viridian into a very early retirement.
Best step cautiously. It would probably help matters if the other wizard thought him too drunk to be tricky.
“Of course,” he said, finally, “but there’s some... uh... formalities that need to be followed before I can give you that information. It’s the only source of data, after all.”
“So what? I need to sign some things?” asked the magister.
Heavens be praised, a newcomer to bureaucracy.
“You might say that,” he started carefully, “There are also some forms that need to be filled out. And since we’ve never had an information transfer this large before...” a lie... well, sort of a lie, “there is no specific protocol for this sort of thing. But I’m sure we can work something out.”
Oh, yes they would. Already, a plan was forming at the back of his mind. This... this must be something similar to what Alpheratz felt all those times he’d used his twisted genius to squirm out of impossibly tight situations. Maybe he should drink more often.
But now, his mouth was moving faster than his reason.
“Well, now. We’ve got our standard II1B, that’s just for you to fill out,” with a flick of his hand, he summoned the appropriate form from one of his filing cabinets. It was a good start, a twelve page beast that featured a full background check and a number of awkward questions. Viridian couldn’t even remember what it was for, only that it took nearly a half an hour to complete.
“This is just so that we know precisely who is making the withdrawal. Contact information, background, reasons for request... you get the idea.”
The wizard was flipping through the form, “Is it really necessary to list my beginning school instructors? And what size pants I wear?”
Viridian tried not to grin, “Essential.”
“So after I fill this thing out,” the magister did not look like he was anticipating the action, “do I get to view the file?”
“Does this look like a public library?” asked Viridian in a shocked tone, “This is just for us to verify that you are who you say you are. After you fill this out, then I’ll send it out for processing. That will take about a week... “ as if just noticing the wizard’s expression, Viridian leaned forward and added conspiratorially, “Of course, I know you are who you say you are, but the paperwork has to get done. Nothing I can do about that. But, I can speed up the process a bit...”
“How?” asked the wizard hopefully.
“Well, normally, we’d have to wait for the results from this form to come back before going to the item retrieval forms. But since we already know what the results will be, I can get you started on those right now and you can get them filled ahead of time!”
Viridian watched with satisfaction as the wizard’s shoulders slumped a little in dismay.
“So what do I have to sign?” he asked wearily.
Viridian was on a roll. As quickly as he could, he began to summon form after form to his desk, careful to choose the longest and most complicated that he could remember, the ones with the most writing, the intimidating ones. He’d see if the snarky bastard was quite as snarky when he left.
And of course he was as sickeningly helpful as possible all the way through it. He even highlighted the portions of the forms that needed to be filled out.
“So, we’ve got the 516B, that’s for basic item retrieval, and the 516B28C, which is the extension for rare or restricted items. Don’t worry, most of that is just explaining the differences between different types of items. You can just skim it to fill out section 6B here,” out came the highlighter, “Then, there’s the NIK23, NAK42, and the PADIWAK3B12. Those are Naval regulations and restrictions-”
“Wait. Why do I need to fill out Naval regulations and restrictions forms?” cut in the bemused wizard.
Viridian let out a long-suffering sigh, “This is a large file, magister. Some of the information of Alpheratz’s incursions encroaches on the confidential activities of various government branches. It is necessary to accept the terms for each of these just to be safe.”
Viridian knew he was spewing bullshit now, but the wizard seemed to buy it.
“Oh,” the magister said in a small voice.
Viridian started up again, “We also have the ETC36a, which is for traffic regulations in cities with populations of one hundred thousand and above...”
Viridian grinned inwardly. If that wizard could walk out of his office by the end of the day without the assistance of a wheelbarrow, he wouldn’t have done his job properly.
He wasn’t going to give up that file without a fight.
Don't know if you need the colon in that sentence Nice appeal to the sense of scent, authors normally forget that.
Actually, I was hungry when I wrote it, and then my fingers started to type out my thoughts as I fantasized about pancakes. That sweet, delicious taste of vanilla sugar, mixed with what was once a fluid batter, basked in the creaminess called butter, until the butter completely dissolves, leaving only the pancake and the pan itself.
Right, it's now up on my blog for better or worse. Before I give the link here's another preview, this time of the start.
******
Bart Conrad, a lively young American 10 year old, was with a group of friends playing baseball. Bart was in bat, and needed a home run to win the game and the Little League. He hit the ball, and made a run for it. He did, he ran for it! He was past first base, second, third. He was running like mad to home base. He dived for the base, then suddenly it was all black.
Dave Bennett, a 12 year old English boy, was getting ready to save a goal that could win the match and the league. He was in goal for Roseheath School (who were playing Henley Comprehensive School). The ball was coming towards him, then their striker took a shot. It came speeding towards Dave, he dived for it, and then he suddenly vanished!
Chrissie Howard, an headstrong 11 year old was playing a netball match in Darwin, Australia. She was lining up for an important shot. She took it, but before she knew where the ball ended up, she too vanished into oblivion.
Interesting. It's hard to pull off this format of story but I like the general tone of it.
I’m basically starting it off with bogus newspaper articles concerning all the shit that went down at Hilltop Elementary and it will progress into a story.
Anyway, I took DAISHI's advice and replaced the colons with regular commas in the actual manuscript.
As a bonus, here's some more from the first chapter:
===
I looked outside. Despite it already being fairly late in the morning, the sky was almost as dark as the night, only the faintest of sunlight was visible, which had an eerie green glow to it. Thick streams of rain was pouring from the sky, and this time, I could even hear the faint sound of thunder. The wind howled stronger than before.
She was ironing her still moist clothes, so I decided to clean the shop a bit, in case any customer would enter. After a while, I could hear her come downstairs. She had all her clothes back on, including her red cloak.
“So,” I said. “What brings you here?”
“Stuff,” she replied.
“Right,” I said. I felt like asking more about it would have been pointless. “So, I didn’t really catch your name,” I said.
“It’s because I didn’t give one,” she said.
Not wanting to give up that easily, I asked her, “Well, what’s your name then?”
“You can call me Diana,” she replied. “You’re Edgar Howard, right?”
I was kind of surprised. “How do you know my name?” I asked.
She wasn’t phased by that question though, and replied, “I saw your first name on some of your unopened letters, and I assumed this was a family business, so I took it the ‘Howard’ in the name was a last name.”
“That explains a lot,” I said. “Now, about earlier, what did you mean when you said the weather wouldn’t get any better?”
“I just assumed it by the clouds getting darker,” she replied. “Just take a look in the direction the wind is coming from. Near the horizon the clouds are getting darker and denser. This by itself wouldn’t be an indication, it might just mean that there would be heavy rainfall, but the fact that the air outside is still relatively warm says something. The storm will get worse.”
“Wow,” I said. “So I guess it means you’re staying for a while. That is, unless you have some other place to be.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Well, don’t you have a place to go home to?” I asked. Even though she visually didn’t express it, I could see sadness in her eyes.
“As far as I know I don’t have a home,” she said.
I knew she didn’t want any, but I took pity on her. “You know what,” I said. “You can stay as long as you like. But you’ll have to help out in the store. I can’t pay you much for it, but I hope providing you a roof and food would compensate that.”
For the rest of the day, she did help out in the store, but as there wasn’t going to be a lot of people coming by anyway, I let her roam around the building. It wasn’t as if there was anything of value in the house, and for some reason I trusted her. In fact, she did nothing to break that trust. I could even go out to do some groceries.
After I closed up the store, I went upstairs to heat some leftovers, when I noticed that Diana had already prepared dinner. It smelled delicious, and I didn’t have a real good meal in a while, so I was a bit excited.
“This is really good,” I said after taking a bite. “What is it?”
“It’s a stew I made using both leftovers and some vegetables you still had lying around,” she said.
“Well, this is really good,” I said. “Where did you learn to make this?”
“Let’s just say that you’ll have to be creative if you don’t have a lot of food,” she replied.
“You won’t believe how happy I am having you around,” I exclaimed, only afterwards just realizing what I had said. She didn’t seem to mind though, and even though she didn’t say much or show it, but I could see she was happy to hear that.
===
If you guys really want, and if you are really nice, I could give you a sneek preview of the sample preview that will be released when I publish my story. The sample will be the first three chapters of my novel, which will be about 32 pages (excluding the first few pages with information about my book and the table of contents). I'll publish the novel once I finish chapter four and my brother finishes the front cover.
Don't have much more, but the story of a dude who was kidnapped by fairies only to escape and find himself entirely made out of porcelain. Like he can move normally and stuff, but is super breakable. How would someone live like that? I'm kinda intrigued.
I guess it would be a bit like that, but it's not like he'd be able to heal naturally or anything. He'd have to, like, glue himself back together. And hammers would be his worst nightmare.
But yeah, he ever goes against Guybrush, I think we all know who's winning that one.
After a five month hiatus of my novel after I finished college (my man writing time was on the bus to college, and work meant and still means I have little time for it), I tried to go back to it and found that I couldn't. The characters weren't that great, and everything felt a bit rushed, as a result of poor planning and wanting to go through everything too quickly.
So after 70 pages, I made the very painful decision to delete the whole thing and start afresh. I'm keeping the same title (The elementals) but I'm completely changing the core mechanics and storyline. It's now based on a sort of game my friends and I played as kids. We used to pretend we had powers. I had Ice, my friends had water, fire and electricity.
The book is aimed at people just finishing primary school and starting secondary. It's a kid who uncovers one of these powers and he and his friends have to find the rest to fight an ancient darkness that threatens the land. All whilst balancing school life.
I'm doing it properly this time. A detailed plan certainly helps a lot. Even so, I've. Decided already to rewrite the first chapter (It is intended to be a prelude, a back story to the origins of the powers, but I found that I was giving too much information , and making it seem that it WS the story. I'm going to swap to that chapter being narrated, and made a lot less detailed.)
My original novel idea isn't gone forever. I'm still toying with the idea of writing some sort of doctor who fan-fiction around it. It would convert nicely, I think.
Reminds me of that character in Amelie that doesn't leave his house and has padded everything up because his bones are so brittle.
Yeah, it would be something like that. Though from playing with porcelain dolls, it's not a completely fragile substance. You don't want to smash it against something, but it can take a little punishment, especially if it's thick. But being dropped or any great force would be a bad thing to have happen.
After a five month hiatus of my novel after I finished college (my man writing time was on the bus to college, and work meant and still means I have little time for it), I tried to go back to it and found that I couldn't. The characters weren't that great, and everything felt a bit rushed, as a result of poor planning and wanting to go through everything too quickly.
So after 70 pages, I made the very painful decision to delete the whole thing and start afresh. I'm keeping the same title (The elementals) but I'm completely changing the core mechanics and storyline. It's now based on a sort of game my friends and I played as kids. We used to pretend we had powers. I had Ice, my friends had water, fire and electricity.
The book is aimed at people just finishing primary school and starting secondary. It's a kid who uncovers one of these powers and he and his friends have to find the rest to fight an ancient darkness that threatens the land. All whilst balancing school life.
I'm doing it properly this time. A detailed plan certainly helps a lot. Even so, I've. Decided already to rewrite the first chapter (It is intended to be a prelude, a back story to the origins of the powers, but I found that I was giving too much information , and making it seem that it WS the story. I'm going to swap to that chapter being narrated, and made a lot less detailed.)
My original novel idea isn't gone forever. I'm still toying with the idea of writing some sort of doctor who fan-fiction around it. It would convert nicely, I think.
Too long a break really hurts your ability to keep up with continuity of your Story, so sometimes it hurts it to leave it for too long.
I still remember all the plots, characters, settings, and motivations of every book I've never written.
I think it really depends on how much of yourself you put into it. For myself, whenever I come up with an idea for a story, I can't stop thinking about it for weeks, sometimes months, or even years. Sure I can do other things since I'm a decent multitasker, but it's always at the back of my mind, sometimes several at once. When you spend that amount of time thinking about something, you don't forget it easily.
Reposting my pitch for feedback. Adequate, not adequate, at delivering the overall plot in a few sentences?
"I'm looking for maps of worlds that don't exist."
Maxwell Douglas was a dreamer, an underachieving high school student who preferred to focus on his art and fiction writing. It wasn't until an laboratory accident left him capable of opening a portal to another world, simply by looking at a map drawn from an old fantasy book, that he was able to live out the adventures he'd only read about. Aided by the science of his best friend Heidi, and the protection of a blue fire wielding princess named Katherine, he embarks on an epic sea voyage to arouse an ancient alliance of dragons. Armed with the blades of knights and the fantastic weapons created by the science of his own world, Max and his friends hope to drive back an awakened sorcerer whose ties to the dragons seem to reach beyond the borders of the dimensions. Along the way, he learns that war is far more terrible than anything he has read of in books, and that the greatest weapon he possesses is the affection he has for his friends.
Affection for your friends doesn't sound like a very good weapon. Unless it's a verbal one ("I love my friends more than you!").
Now I'm just remembering the comic where the heroine's primary attack was kissing her demon buddy to give the demon superpowers for a limited time. So I guess that could work.
As for the science, is it just "science!" or would they be in a specific field? I'd suggest something with big machines (but not an electron microscope because it lacks star potential. But a diffractometer looks like a ray gun and has a cool name)
Affection for your friends doesn't sound like a very good weapon. Unless it's a verbal one ("I love my friends more than you!").
Now I'm just remembering the comic where the heroine's primary attack was kissing her demon buddy to give the demon superpowers for a limited time. So I guess that could work.
As for the science, is it just "science!" or would they be in a specific field? I'd suggest something with big machines (but not an electron microscope because it lacks star potential. But a diffractometer looks like a ray gun and has a cool name)
It's not hard science fiction. It's young adult fantasy.
Affection for your friends doesn't sound like a very good weapon. Unless it's a verbal one ("I love my friends more than you!").
Now I'm just remembering the comic where the heroine's primary attack was kissing her demon buddy to give the demon superpowers for a limited time. So I guess that could work.
)
That kind of reminds me of an idea I had once about a regular guy who's best friend has ungodly powers that could destroy the universe.
However since this friend has to put so much concentration into controlling his power subconsciously, his concious state has been reduced to that of a blithering idiot. One that only responds to said protagonist, making him duty bound to this raving loonatic.
(I always thought it would make a good manga. (I wish I could draw sometimes... ))
Started writing a Batman story I had in my head, in comic book script format. I recognize it's not going to be ultra-professional, I just wanted to get some ideas out of my head. Hope somebody out there enjoys this, if I even stick with it. Sticking with things isn't my strong suit, but I would appreciate feedback.
BATMAN - SUPERSANITY
BY MICHEAL CROSS
PAGE ONE
PICTURE ONE
EXT- ARKHAM ASYLUM - DEAD OF NIGHT
The night is still, and crickets are chirping. Musical notes drift from the large, stone structure. There is nothing sinister about the place for perhaps the first time in it's existence. It is completely serene.
PICTURE TWO
INT - ARKHAM ASYLUM - DEAD OF NIGHT
A record spins on a gramophone, letting some odd measure of beauty flow throughout the walls, into the ears of people who can't understand it. Under the gramaphone, a record titled "Ennio Morricone - Finale" rests.
PICTURE THREE
A long panel on the left of the page, under the previous two. The notes of Morricone's work drifts throughout corridors, soothing uneasy guards. The guards are armed to the teeth, in large armored uniforms, carrying batons, stun rifles, and pistols.
PICTURE FOUR
A guard sits at a security station, dozing off in his chair. Coffee sits on a counter, and papers are scattered around file cabinets. Each security monitor, glowing with bright-white static, is trained on a cell.
CAPTION - "MAXIMUM SECURITY"
PAGES TWO - THREE
SPLASH PAGE
Musical notes drift over the cells of Arkham's "finest". Two-Face. Riddler. Scarecrow. Hatter. And Joker. They all sleep soundly, in uncomfortable positions on their small bunks. Except for one.
Joker.
Joker doesn't sleep. Joker never sleeps. He lies on the floor of his cell.
PAGE FOUR
PICTURE ONE
A closeup of Joker's face. Drool escapes the corner's of his mouth. Tears form in his frozen eyes. His body can't keep up with his mind, and goes into a catatonic state.
PICTURE TWO
A small spark ignites in Joker's mind, and air escapes from his throat in a sickening wheeze.
PICTURE THREE
His bony-white arms move upwards in an arc around his head, and his legs follow suit.
PICTURE FOUR
His arms and legs move in the opposite direction. Snow angels.
NARRATION - I GET MY BODY INTO A PATTERN SO I DON'T HAVE TO CONSCIOUSLY CONTROL IT.
WEEEE. THE MOVEMENT AND THE BEATS OF MY HEART SLOW MY MIND AND ALLOW IT TO CALCULATE. WOWEE.
PICTURE FIVE
The view switches, putting Joker on the left, upright, the floor a wall, and the wall a floor.
NARRATION - THE WHITE CEILING MAKES MY EYES GLAZE. I CAN PAINT ANY PICTURE THERE. I KNOW IT'S TRUE FACE...ITS TWO FACE...TRUE FACE....TWO FACE...AND EVERYTHING FALLS AWAY.
PAGE FIVE
PICTURE ONE
Joker leaps out of his body, ballet-style, in what looks almost like an out of body experience.
JOKER: I'm free!
PICTURE TWO
Joker dances through the walls of the mentally-constructed cells of the other maximum security inmates, stopping at the end of the panel to blow a raspberry at a mental projection of Edward Nygma.
JOKER: Free to plot and plan and scheme to my little heart's content....and not even you with all of your gray cells can pull this off, can you?
Can you?
PICTURE THREE
Joker walks through Edward's transparent cell window and down the outside corridor toward the secure iron doors.
JOKER: What am I saying? Of course you can!
PICTURE FOUR
The wrought iron door in front of Joker disappears down another long corridor, this one made up of strong brick and rusty, iron fence. There are balloons everywhere, and plastic sheets hang down throughout the halls. The pale, blue light that shimmers and floats throughout the area is eerie and unpleasant to behold.
JOKER: Not that you would. You're too busy dreaming of conundrums for this sort of fun to interest you. But you're not the only one who dreams.
PAGE SIX
PICTURE ONE
From the viewpoint of the Joker, plastic sheets part around the man. Red light glows behind them, shining like a demon beacon. In front of his eyes is displayed a gurney, with a black, cloth sheet draped over it. Behind the gurney, the wall is a giant record with the label "The Strong - Ennio Morricone". The record is spinning, but the label is legible. A projection of the music that is being played over asylum loudspeakers in the real world.
PICTURE TWO
The Joker's face leers down at the gurney, red light reflecting on him, shadows from the record flickering across his harsh crimson skin. The music is loud, and would be unbearable for any normal man. Joker's hand pulls away the black sheet, and everything else begins to fade slightly, so intent is he on the subject underneath.
Joker: What do you dream about, Batman?
PICTURE THREE
The corpse of Batman lies across the gurney, spread naked, a Batman symbol carved into his chest. There is a frown carved across his face, and his head has been sliced down the middle, his nasal cavity shaped cruelly to look like the nosepiece of the Bat-cowl. His brain matter is splayed out above the crater in his skull, arranged to look like a flattened cowl behind it.
Joker: Oh, I hope it's me!
PICTURE FOUR
A pale brow wrinkles in an emotion quite the opposite of glee or anger. Instead, the eyes that behold the sight show terror and horror. They gleam, reflecting what's left of the face of the man below in their sickening pools of red.
PAGE SEVEN
PICTURE ONE
Commisioner Gordon turns away from the gurney, his hand over his mouth to stop any flow of vomit that might come forward. His eyes are squeezed shut, his brow wrinkled, and his facial skin deep red from the pain he shoots into his own forehead to shut out the image of what he has just seen. Red reflects off of him from behind, and green reflects off of him from the front.
Thought Bubble: NO! NO!
PICTURE TWO
Joker walks by the construct of the Commissioner, placing a reassuring hand on his should as he passes by.
Joker: Don't worry, Commish. If you don't like that corpse....
PICTURE THREE
Joker walks into an intersection covered in Batman corpses. Mutilated, decapitated, stabbed, shot, poisoned, and more all litter the walls and floor.
Joker: I've got hundreds more!
PICTURE FOUR
A larger image shows the intersection from another angle, in green lighting. Batmen and Joker fight on all sides, some Jokers dying and some Batmen meeting their end. Others are discovered by the Bat's allies. Gordons and Robins lament over Batmen dead and gone. There is blood everywhere.
NARRATION: EVERY SINGLE WAY I COULD KILL OR HUMILIATE HIM...I'VE THOUGHT OF THEM ALL. I'VE LITTERED MY OWN LITTLE WORLD WITH THEM. I CAN RELIVE THEM OVER AND OVER AND OVER. IT'S GLORIOUS.
MAYBE I HAVE. ON NO. I CAN'T REMEMBER. WHO CARES?
PAGE EIGHT
SPLASH
Joker stands amidst gargoyles and stone, outside the Asylum, hands raised toward the dark, stormy sky. The courtyard before him is like a battlefield. There is also a pink demon rabbit that is feeding on corpses.
NARRATION: I consider each and every scenario. Some way to get him to see the joke. To give up his moral code. To take a pie in the face. He never changes. Maybe that's why this is so easy.
I have days...weeks.....months...years to discover new eventualities. Sometimes I test them out on the real thing, if the old football injury isn't hurting the next day. Heh heh! I can recreate this asylum and every scenario that could occur within its walls.
(next to the rabbit) Sometimes I embellish a little.
Since you guys asked nicely (read: Since I'm basically an attention-seeking person) I've decided to let you read (read: I'm posting) the sample chapters (read: the sample chapters) here (read: on this link: [Download]).
Note that it's not in any way the final version so anything can change (for example, I might rewrite the beginning of chapter three, and add stuff to chapter two), and, since I'm using lean publishing, I can publish the story while writing. Until I send it out to print.
EDIT: BEEEEEEEEEH, the download link isn't that clear.
Ok, I’ve begun plotting my western story. This is what I got so far.
It is essentially about a man named Walter Shackler, who was once a gunslinger known for specifically carrying a Colt Patterson, which he lost in a gunfight long before the story began. After he reaches the age of 35, he hears that gold is being found by the plenty in Alaska, so he travels up to the mountains there and builds a cabin outside a large lake surrounded by stones. He heads into the nearby town of Red River one day and stops in the Dawdson Saloon and Cathouse, where he almost gets into a fight with a drunk named Big Johnny Jameson. Jameson intimidates Walter to the point of where a brutal fight ensures between the two of them, in which Walter gouges one of Jameson’s eyes. Walter comes very close to killing him before he is stopped at gunpoint by Deacon Miller, the sheriff of Red River. Deacon’s brother, Osias Miller, is the leader of a group claim jumpers who have been killing anyone who refuses to cooperate with them, and Jameson happens to be one of his cronies. Walter rides out of town to find Osias waiting for him on his front porch. Osias offers Walter money for his land if he gives it up and moves elsewhere, but Walter refuses. Osias throws a tantrum, threatens to come back with his gang and force him off before Walter pulls up a shotgun and tells Osias is he doesn’t get off his property, he will kill him. Osias then rushes out the door. The next day, Walter is mining by a creek leading from the lake and discovers a large amount of nuggets in the river. He rides into town to buy new clothes and equipment when an outlaw recognizes him and challenges him to a duel. Walter reluctantly agrees, pulling his old Colt Navy 1861 revolver out his saddlebag. Walter kills the outlaw in the duel, and a deputy comes along and gives him a reward for killing him. Shackler then places his revolver in his side holster and walks into the General Store, where he goes to buy supplies. A young man, who also recognizes Shackler, comes in and starts asking him about what he did when he was a gunslinger. Shackler humors the boy by telling him of a time he was in Dallas, Texas and how he killed three men in a gunfight after one of them brutally beat a child in the streets. The boy is mesmerized, and reveals that he works for a newspaper, and offers to write a story about him in a later edition.
So I've been reading my book on creative writing some more, and mulling over the activities, and at work I thought about Jack some more. Specifically his past
I concluded that Jack was the son of who he believed for a large part of his life to be a trader.
He learned the way of life from his father as they travelled around the galaxy doing business.
(Which explains his good knowledge of the various species and cultures that inhabit the galaxy, and of trade routes and other transaction stuff (though he doesn't think too deeply about it))
He did not really bond well with most children. Only the children of certain traders they came across more often.
The major turning point in his life was when he was about 14, where he got his first taste of fighting when he wondered a little to far into the back allies and got into a fight with some older teens.
Naturally he was scared at first, but was exhilerated like a dog unleashed at a park, and fought unhinged and dirty, badly hurting one of the youths.
He then realised after the battle his dad would be furious with him and he took a long time getting back.
His father had already heard what happened and was waiting for him.
But instead of anger, he saw for a brief moment a look of disappointment, and then a laugh.
You see, his father revealed to him that night that he was one of many fighters in his family, and that the man he had thought to be a simple trader, had once been a soldier in the war.
(Who he later found out had been a general)
The next day he wakes early to a serious stern face, and some clothes are thrown at him.
"Hmmph... I promised your mother the night she died that I would keep you safe. Its a promise I intend to keep till the very end. If youre going to go out there and fight, then we need to make sure you good enough to get to that point"
And for the next few years they trained when the time was spare.
Well... Until the old man died from choking on a nut.
(Something his father loved to eat all the time.)
A death that could have been recovered from even then, but despite Jacks frantic scrambling, he couldn't get the money together to pay for the revival, and it was too late.
(You see certain deaths can be prevented as long as the body is still fresh and enough brain and nerve tissue is there for the augments to work. However its a luxury for the rich, and particularily more difficult for humans)
So with his father dead, and the trade being hard without him, Jack drifted from place to place, and often drowned his sorrows in bars.
And one day he met a man that reminded him a little of his father, and with a fellow trader friend who itched for action, signed up for bounty hunting.
Thats just off the top of my head. Needs loads of refining but its a good sign Im making some progress.
Also I've been thinking of alien species and I came up with two interesting ones.
OK so the first isn't so interesting. Like a kind of cowardly and sly kind.
(That's all I got)
But this one is very interesting.
So it plays on the idea of humans being an invasive species.
We have throughout time accidentally tampered with nature and this time we interacted with a species that have thrived in this galactic scene.
OK, so they are humanoid, usually sleek, and dark. Not exceptionally intelligent but some have become very sly due to human influence.
You see their DNA is very malleable. They can shape shift and hybridise with other creatures and of course exposure and encrouagement from humans caused a rapid change inthem.
They became cultured within two generations, (which are shorter than humans, about 40-50 years), and unlike humans operate on a more basic need level.
They make for good labourers, but even better criminals, and espionage.
Some have even learned to overcome their imperfect speech with neural augments.
His old man taught Jack to always be cautious around people and aliens with neck augments, because there's a good chance its a very sly Doppler in disguise.
(Doppler is a temporary named BTW. All of these are...)
There was a house, it hasn't been lived in for a long time. Two friends bought it as a sort of college bachelor pad. One would live in the living room on the couch, the other in the bedroom. The house needed some reconstruction. The garage especially. It was in a lower income neighborhood. Part of the garage was sealed off by wooden frames, like where a wall had once existed. Through the gaps in the wall they could see what looked like an old vinyl record in its cover. The exterior was a misty gray. A girl with a panicked expression, with her hand facing the viewer as if he was pressed against glass, stared out from the mist, waist up, so she was pretty near the front of the cover. Across the too of the record cover, which say propped up on the ground, the title said "Jessica Whildon's Numbers". It was a confusing title. They didn't know what it meant. At night they began hearing scratches on the walls. In their dreams they saw a recurring series of numbers. One day a police officer outside struck up a conversation with the pair. The last owner of the house suffered from extreme obsessive compulsion and delusional visions. At night they began to see a creature in their dreams, walking the halls of the house, something like a massive broad elephant drunk forming most if its body so It had no distinguishable head, short stumpy feet and hands emerging from the trunk, a pair of eyes at the top, it's body covered in a tattered brown cloak. It dragged its hands along the walls, nails scratching them, a low guttural voice speaking a series of numbers. They began waking up drenched in sweat, hearts beating hard, the face of Jessica Whildon the last image they saw before awakening.
Living without ending the life that never dies, Jessica Whildon speaks from life that's not alive.
Comments
“What a night,” I said. “Things were never this bad.” She remained silent. She didn’t have anything to protect her from the rain, not even a raincoat. All she had was a cloak and a basket, and I assumed the cloak didn’t really help that much. Apparently she didn’t seem to mind, but I did get a towel for her.
“You know, you’re lucky,” I said, “I was about to go home.” She remained silent. My place was just upstairs, so I wouldn’t have to go through the rain, and I didn’t really feel like sending her back out. I hesitated a bit. “I have a guest room,” I said. “It isn’t much, but at least you’d have a place to stay, at least until the storm passes.” Still nothing. I walked towards the front door. “Well, I’m about to lock this place up, so if you still want to leave, you should do it now, otherwise you’d have to wait until tomorrow.” She didn’t make any move towards the door. I decided to just let her stay, and locked the store. I then moved to the back, towards the stairs, where she followed me. I then showed her to the guest room. “If you want to take a shower, you can just take a clean towel from one of the cabinets. I’m gonna go and make some dinner, you can join me if you want, but it’s just some leftovers.”
It didn’t get any better the next day, and it seemed that the weather got a little worse. I wasn’t sure if opening my store would do any good, but I had nothing to lose anyway. The store, and by extension, my home was located at a high part of the city. If there would have been any flood here, it wouldn’t have affected me anyway. Still, the roads were quiet and almost no other shop nearby opened save for some stores, so I doubted anybody would come by. I would have been the only store still open.
After I opened the store I decided to go upstairs for a bit, to have some breakfast. I almost didn’t smell the freshly made pancakes, it was only after I saw her eating at the table, wearing nothing but a towel, that I noticed the sweet scent, the kind you would expect when visiting your grandma, cinnamon filling the air, almost tasting the vanilla flavor, not just of the powdered sugar, but of the pancakes as well. A plate was sitting there on the table, with servings just for me. She briefly glanced at me, as if she wanted to tell me to sit down and eat this breakfast. I could finally take a good look at her. She had long dark hair and blue eyes, and despite her relatively short size, I could see she was a young adult, at least no younger than eighteen.
“Did you make these pancakes?” I asked. She nodded. Even now she remained silent. At this point I wasn’t even sure if she could ever talk. “Well,” I said, “if you want, you can stay, at least until the storm passes.”
“It won’t,” she said. I honestly didn’t know what to say to that. On one hand, I was surprised that she finally decided to talk. On the other hand, I was curious about what she meant, and I guess that curiosity pushed me to ask what she meant with that.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather get dressed first,” she said.
I nodded, and said: “I understand.”
First few pages of the chapter The Calm, from my upcoming novel(la) Eldritch Fairytales
From the San Francisco Chronicle, 1931
GROTESQUE SLAUGHTER AT SUNSET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, 4 CHILDREN SLAIN BY INSANE TEACHER, TEACHER FOUND DEAD FROM SUICIDE by Kathryn Perry
On the morning of April 2nd, a missing persons report was filed to the SFPD concerning the disappearance of 4 young students at the local Hilltop Elementary School in the Sunset District. After a thorough investigation of the school, the police made a disturbing discovery in the school’s boiler room. It was there that they discovered the dead bodies of Susan Richards, 9, Adrienne Black, 9, Rachael White, 8, and Mary Willis, 8. Susan Richards had her throat slit left to right with a barber’s razor blade. Adrienne Black had been repeatedly stabbed in the eye with a pair of scissors to the point where the left eye had the consistency of soup. Rachael White was strangled to death. Mary Willis had been disemboweled and (I apologize for the true horror the reader is experiencing right now) partially cannibalized. The murderer, believed to be a teacher named Bob Merrick, 42, was found in the boiler room, along with the bodies, his wrists slit by the razor he supposedly used to kill Susan Richards. Found within his mouth were pieces of a human liver, which led to the conclusion that he had indeed ripped open Mary Willis’ abdomen and cannibalized her. The parents of the deceased children refused to give comment, although their reactions were pure horror. According to the principal of Hilltop Elementary, Nathan Broderick, 43, Merrick had worked at Hilltop Elementary for six years and had never before that shown any signs of mental instability.
“What happened here is something that nobody will ever forget or get over,” stated Broderick. “I doubt the school itself will be able to survive the reputation it will no doubt receive for this awful and heinous crime. My prayers go to the families of those poor children, who are suffering in a way I could never imagine.”
As the investigation into the source of Merrick’s sudden and unexplained insanity continues, award-winning psychologist Alexander Becker from New York City gave an interview to the Chronicle concerning his thoughts on the atrocities:
“Mr. Merrick’s insanity was most likely caused by the fact that, and yes, I did look in to this, his father used to beat him as a child. As we all know, traumatizing childhood incidents always leave some sort of stain on the psyche of the victim. Clearly, the main reason for these murders was that he had indeed suffered from an intense psychotic breakdown. Those children possibly reminded him of how his childhood was, and the result was he, mentally, became his ‘father.’”
The rosary for the victims will be held at the St. Peter and Paul’s Church in North Beach.
To Be Continued...
Christopher shook his head, confused. “What happened here?”
Eldagard smirked, speaking confidently from his place at the back of the boat. “What do you think, captain? The girl has already won the battle for us. The force of her weapon has devastated the sorcerer’s forces, leaving us with no glory to be won, no battle to carve our legends from.” He seemed curiously disappointed. “We have only to march upon the castle itself.”
Little else was said as the boats shoved up onto the beach, their lengthy bows digging into the discomfortingly gray sands, knights quickly hauling themselves out of the wooden frames and into the shallow waters. All along the coast this action was repeated, with cannons and horses deploying as well. Eldagard’s eyes went down the shores, looking at the expanse of their forces. “It’s going to be a pain having to clear away these bodies. We’ll need to organize our cannons, our horses, the Pyromancers, and what not.” He looked to Christopher. “I assume I can trust you to round up the men? Use your officers to organize our forces.”
The Ivory Knight bowed his head slightly. “Of course. Are you intending to establish your command here on the beach?”
“Seems the safest place. We’ll keep messengers moving between our lines. I want you to set up defense points intermittently along the route you take to the palace, sturdy enough to defend in case anything happens that requires us to fall back. Though…” His eyes drifted up the shores, a frown crossing his face. “Judging by what’s before us, I doubt we’ll have much trouble in regard to that. That Pyrolith Cannon your girl used has to be the single most devastating weapon witnessed in the history of this world.”
“I might be inclined to agree.”
“Make sure you assign at least a few Pyromancers among our numbers to reinforce the knights, and keep a reserve force of cavalry at your rear.”
“I’d already planned to do so. The princess and her friend will be with me, and the main force of our cannons will be dispersed at the rear of our lines as well, so that we may establish a proper high ground for them to fire from.”
Eldagard nodded, shaking his head absently. “Yes, yes. You’ve always been a fine warrior and commander, Christopher. I apologize if my fiery blood got the better of me before.”
“You had reason for your concerns,” the Ivory Knight returned with a smile, spinning about as he left to make his preparations. He quickly found his horse, brought ashore from one of the LaGuna vessels, and sped off to rally his commanders, the task of organizing their great numbers before him. Boats were already being sent back to the ships to pick up even greater numbers of troops, and before the day’s end, they’d have tens of thousands of men gathering on the great, gray beach.
The weather there was unusually brisk, the winds coming off the waters a frigid temperature that shook them in their clothing. Max found himself brushing at his nose a few times as the wind whipped it raw, his lips chapping in the breeze. His mood was not helped by the ashy sands that sifted beneath his boots, the cliffs that rose far in the distance a menacing, black bookend on the dark coastline. The hazy mists that seemed to linger on Deja’s Rock tainted everything with a grey touch, and though there was no scent in the air, Max began to wonder what the beach would reek of as the countless bodies of the Abominations were left out to decay.
The three of them stopped at the edge of a great cliff which lead into an enormous valley. The strange building was half-way along the bottom of the valley. Bart sat down on a handy rock and started to think. "Rope. All we need is some rope. It's not fair. In all those adventure films where they are in strange worlds they always find what they need. It just happens to be there." He looked up at his two other companions. Chrissie was gabbing away to Dave although he probably wasn't listening. "What a pathetic pair." he thought to himself, "I mean, did Indiana Jones get stuck with these two? No he got some beautiful woman to go around with. These two would be hopeless if it came down to a challenge of wits, brain and cunning." He looked away from the group and at the floor where something caught his attention. It was a coil of sturdy rope. He turned back to the others. "Where on earth did this rope come from." They both shrugged.
"I told you before, we are not on Earth." said Dave
"Well," said Chrissie "at least we can get down the cliff and get to the building."
"Yeah," said Bart "so lets do it!"
The trio of them tied the rope to a jutting out piece of rock and let it hang down the cliff. After they tested it, they went down it. Bart had put knots in the rope so they could get down easier. Bart went first who was followed by Chrissie and last of all was Dave. When they where past half-way down, Dave sent a message down to Bart to tell him that he had heard and seen the rope fray. Dave looked up and saw it was fraying very quickly, then looked down to see how far they were from the ground. It was a long way down. He shouted a message to the rest of them to get down as fast as they could because the rope won't hold for very long and at that moment it was no longer true. The rope snapped! The three of them were bracing for the impact of the fall but it did not happen. When the rope snapped, a porthole appeared in the ground. It was a blue, purple, green and grey mixture of rings getting smaller, nearer to the center. A bright white band was coming down the rings followed by, five rings behind, a deep black band. When a band reached the center it appeared on the first ring. There were twenty-five rings all together and the two bands were getting faster and faster as the three got nearer and nearer. When they entered the porthole, all was black.
Interesting. It's hard to pull off this format of story but I like the general tone of it.
Don't know if you need the colon in that sentence
So you wrote Portal
Heh! I just found it again tonight, weird looking back at something I wrote when I was around 14/15. In my opinion the whole thing isn't very good, and the style goes from dialogue heavy in the beginning, with short character introductions then quickly setting the scene and getting into the story. Later on it progresses to lengthy descriptive paragraphs while also trying to invoke fast paced action. That mixture doesn't work!
I'm gonna stick the whole thing up somewhere, probably on my blog (might as well make some use of it!).
*********
Viridian sat at his desk, staring woodenly ahead. He should’ve raged, should’ve written furious letters, should’ve...done something! But his opponents in the Council were too persuasive. Even the fact that he’d done the impossible and found a way to track Alpheratz hadn’t improved his case.
His case. Not anymore.
Also, his glass seemed to be getting rather empty.
Almost subconsciously, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the bottle that had almost magically appeared there. Maybe it had been left by the previous chief. Made sense, really.
He poured a little of the liquid into his glass. Not too much... it wasn’t even noon yet and the last thing he needed was for that damn Council wizard to come in at the wrong time and get him fired for incompetence of some stupid bullshit.
Ha! Incompetence! Let the Council look for Alpheratz for a few weeks and they’d realize the meaning of the word. They may have their fancy contacts and special high-level spells and enchantments, but they didn’t know Prock like he did.
Prock would dance rings around them.
Of course he would. He had to.
Maybe it was the whiskey thinking, but Viridian realized with a start that he was actually on Alpheratz’s side in this matter. Just this matter, though. Guy still needed to be locked up somewhere safe...just...
The Council had overstepped its bounds. Gone above the Law. Viridian rather hoped Alpheratz would make them pay dearly for their transgressions.
On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for Prock in the first place, none of this would have happened. Yes, yes. When it came right down to it, it was all Prock’s fault.
Viridian glared straight ahead. One day... one day he’d wipe the smirk off that bastard’s-
“So, who's this, then?”
Viridian sat up far too fast, reeling with the sudden change in altitude. Maybe he’d poured himself a tad bit too much in retrospect. And here... here was his second least favorite person in the world and he was holding-
Oh Lord.
Somehow the insufferable son of a bitch had noticed and picked up that picture. The one he usually kept face down on his desk. He did that for a reason. Couldn’t the biserable mastard... er... miserable bastard just keep his goddamn hands to himself?!
Very carefully, so as not to betray the fact that the room seemed to be gently rocking, he stood up and snatched the picture back.
“It’s none of your buish-business!” he snapped.
“So it is true! I figured you were always protecting that two-bit thief-”
Viridian slammed the picture frame down on the desk. Even when Prock wasn’t around he still managed to make life difficult!
“Shut up!”
All right. Not very eloquent, but Viridian was beginning to feel that perhaps he had had slightly too much whiskey.
The other man seemed to notice this as well.
Damn his eyes.
“A little early, isn’t it?” he remarked with a raised eyebrow, “Better hope the Council doesn’t find out...”
“It’s lemonade,” interrupted Viridian, immediately feeling stupid. If he’d been slightly more sober, he’d have probably thought of something better to say. Or at least more believable.
The other eyebrow joined the first, “I didn’t know they made lemonade eighty proof...”
Oh. Right. He’d left the bottle on his desk.
Quickly, he replaced it into it’s proper drawer, vaguely noticing how very empty it had become. he was fairly sure there had been quite a bit more in it this morning...
But for now, the damn Council wizard.
“So, did you come here just to gloat or do you actually have some business with me, Magister?” he spat.
“Actually,” the magister began, “do you mind if I sit down?”
Viridian nodded at one of the chairs across from the desk.
“Thank you,” said the wizard, taking a seat, “As I have just begun my investigation,” Viridian winced, “And as you were the previous investigator,” another wince, “I was wondering if I might have your file on Alpheratz Procyon. It would speed things up immeasurably.”
No. Absolutely not. Did the man not know how fucking long it had taken to compile that thing? How many hours he’d spent collecting stories and hearsay? What it took to get any information at all on the most elusive man in the world? Did he?
And to expect him to just hand over that wealth of information just like that! It was a humiliation worse than being pulled off the case in the first place! Viridian knew he was being unreasonable, but damn it! He deserved to be allowed the odd moment of... of... unreasonableness! If that was even a word!
But, then again, the magister had very pointedly not mentioned that one word from him could send Viridian into a very early retirement.
Best step cautiously. It would probably help matters if the other wizard thought him too drunk to be tricky.
“Of course,” he said, finally, “but there’s some... uh... formalities that need to be followed before I can give you that information. It’s the only source of data, after all.”
“So what? I need to sign some things?” asked the magister.
Heavens be praised, a newcomer to bureaucracy.
“You might say that,” he started carefully, “There are also some forms that need to be filled out. And since we’ve never had an information transfer this large before...” a lie... well, sort of a lie, “there is no specific protocol for this sort of thing. But I’m sure we can work something out.”
Oh, yes they would. Already, a plan was forming at the back of his mind. This... this must be something similar to what Alpheratz felt all those times he’d used his twisted genius to squirm out of impossibly tight situations. Maybe he should drink more often.
But now, his mouth was moving faster than his reason.
“Well, now. We’ve got our standard II1B, that’s just for you to fill out,” with a flick of his hand, he summoned the appropriate form from one of his filing cabinets. It was a good start, a twelve page beast that featured a full background check and a number of awkward questions. Viridian couldn’t even remember what it was for, only that it took nearly a half an hour to complete.
“This is just so that we know precisely who is making the withdrawal. Contact information, background, reasons for request... you get the idea.”
The wizard was flipping through the form, “Is it really necessary to list my beginning school instructors? And what size pants I wear?”
Viridian tried not to grin, “Essential.”
“So after I fill this thing out,” the magister did not look like he was anticipating the action, “do I get to view the file?”
“Does this look like a public library?” asked Viridian in a shocked tone, “This is just for us to verify that you are who you say you are. After you fill this out, then I’ll send it out for processing. That will take about a week... “ as if just noticing the wizard’s expression, Viridian leaned forward and added conspiratorially, “Of course, I know you are who you say you are, but the paperwork has to get done. Nothing I can do about that. But, I can speed up the process a bit...”
“How?” asked the wizard hopefully.
“Well, normally, we’d have to wait for the results from this form to come back before going to the item retrieval forms. But since we already know what the results will be, I can get you started on those right now and you can get them filled ahead of time!”
Viridian watched with satisfaction as the wizard’s shoulders slumped a little in dismay.
“So what do I have to sign?” he asked wearily.
Viridian was on a roll. As quickly as he could, he began to summon form after form to his desk, careful to choose the longest and most complicated that he could remember, the ones with the most writing, the intimidating ones. He’d see if the snarky bastard was quite as snarky when he left.
And of course he was as sickeningly helpful as possible all the way through it. He even highlighted the portions of the forms that needed to be filled out.
“So, we’ve got the 516B, that’s for basic item retrieval, and the 516B28C, which is the extension for rare or restricted items. Don’t worry, most of that is just explaining the differences between different types of items. You can just skim it to fill out section 6B here,” out came the highlighter, “Then, there’s the NIK23, NAK42, and the PADIWAK3B12. Those are Naval regulations and restrictions-”
“Wait. Why do I need to fill out Naval regulations and restrictions forms?” cut in the bemused wizard.
Viridian let out a long-suffering sigh, “This is a large file, magister. Some of the information of Alpheratz’s incursions encroaches on the confidential activities of various government branches. It is necessary to accept the terms for each of these just to be safe.”
Viridian knew he was spewing bullshit now, but the wizard seemed to buy it.
“Oh,” the magister said in a small voice.
Viridian started up again, “We also have the ETC36a, which is for traffic regulations in cities with populations of one hundred thousand and above...”
Viridian grinned inwardly. If that wizard could walk out of his office by the end of the day without the assistance of a wheelbarrow, he wouldn’t have done his job properly.
He wasn’t going to give up that file without a fight.
Actually, I was hungry when I wrote it, and then my fingers started to type out my thoughts as I fantasized about pancakes. That sweet, delicious taste of vanilla sugar, mixed with what was once a fluid batter, basked in the creaminess called butter, until the butter completely dissolves, leaving only the pancake and the pan itself.
I think I should stop typing while I'm hungry.
******
Bart Conrad, a lively young American 10 year old, was with a group of friends playing baseball. Bart was in bat, and needed a home run to win the game and the Little League. He hit the ball, and made a run for it. He did, he ran for it! He was past first base, second, third. He was running like mad to home base. He dived for the base, then suddenly it was all black.
Dave Bennett, a 12 year old English boy, was getting ready to save a goal that could win the match and the league. He was in goal for Roseheath School (who were playing Henley Comprehensive School). The ball was coming towards him, then their striker took a shot. It came speeding towards Dave, he dived for it, and then he suddenly vanished!
Chrissie Howard, an headstrong 11 year old was playing a netball match in Darwin, Australia. She was lining up for an important shot. She took it, but before she knew where the ball ended up, she too vanished into oblivion.
******
If, for some reason, you want to read more then go here: http://corruptbiggins.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/story.html
Can someone see if this links?
Yeah I can see all that just fine. It'll take time to read though...
I’m basically starting it off with bogus newspaper articles concerning all the shit that went down at Hilltop Elementary and it will progress into a story.
As a bonus, here's some more from the first chapter:
===
I looked outside. Despite it already being fairly late in the morning, the sky was almost as dark as the night, only the faintest of sunlight was visible, which had an eerie green glow to it. Thick streams of rain was pouring from the sky, and this time, I could even hear the faint sound of thunder. The wind howled stronger than before.
She was ironing her still moist clothes, so I decided to clean the shop a bit, in case any customer would enter. After a while, I could hear her come downstairs. She had all her clothes back on, including her red cloak.
“So,” I said. “What brings you here?”
“Stuff,” she replied.
“Right,” I said. I felt like asking more about it would have been pointless. “So, I didn’t really catch your name,” I said.
“It’s because I didn’t give one,” she said.
Not wanting to give up that easily, I asked her, “Well, what’s your name then?”
“You can call me Diana,” she replied. “You’re Edgar Howard, right?”
I was kind of surprised. “How do you know my name?” I asked.
She wasn’t phased by that question though, and replied, “I saw your first name on some of your unopened letters, and I assumed this was a family business, so I took it the ‘Howard’ in the name was a last name.”
“That explains a lot,” I said. “Now, about earlier, what did you mean when you said the weather wouldn’t get any better?”
“I just assumed it by the clouds getting darker,” she replied. “Just take a look in the direction the wind is coming from. Near the horizon the clouds are getting darker and denser. This by itself wouldn’t be an indication, it might just mean that there would be heavy rainfall, but the fact that the air outside is still relatively warm says something. The storm will get worse.”
“Wow,” I said. “So I guess it means you’re staying for a while. That is, unless you have some other place to be.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Well, don’t you have a place to go home to?” I asked. Even though she visually didn’t express it, I could see sadness in her eyes.
“As far as I know I don’t have a home,” she said.
I knew she didn’t want any, but I took pity on her. “You know what,” I said. “You can stay as long as you like. But you’ll have to help out in the store. I can’t pay you much for it, but I hope providing you a roof and food would compensate that.”
For the rest of the day, she did help out in the store, but as there wasn’t going to be a lot of people coming by anyway, I let her roam around the building. It wasn’t as if there was anything of value in the house, and for some reason I trusted her. In fact, she did nothing to break that trust. I could even go out to do some groceries.
After I closed up the store, I went upstairs to heat some leftovers, when I noticed that Diana had already prepared dinner. It smelled delicious, and I didn’t have a real good meal in a while, so I was a bit excited.
“This is really good,” I said after taking a bite. “What is it?”
“It’s a stew I made using both leftovers and some vegetables you still had lying around,” she said.
“Well, this is really good,” I said. “Where did you learn to make this?”
“Let’s just say that you’ll have to be creative if you don’t have a lot of food,” she replied.
“You won’t believe how happy I am having you around,” I exclaimed, only afterwards just realizing what I had said. She didn’t seem to mind though, and even though she didn’t say much or show it, but I could see she was happy to hear that.
===
If you guys really want, and if you are really nice, I could give you a sneek preview of the sample preview that will be released when I publish my story. The sample will be the first three chapters of my novel, which will be about 32 pages (excluding the first few pages with information about my book and the table of contents). I'll publish the novel once I finish chapter four and my brother finishes the front cover.
Also, apparently I'm now writing a novel.
Don't have much more, but the story of a dude who was kidnapped by fairies only to escape and find himself entirely made out of porcelain. Like he can move normally and stuff, but is super breakable. How would someone live like that? I'm kinda intrigued.
But yeah, he ever goes against Guybrush, I think we all know who's winning that one.
After a five month hiatus of my novel after I finished college (my man writing time was on the bus to college, and work meant and still means I have little time for it), I tried to go back to it and found that I couldn't. The characters weren't that great, and everything felt a bit rushed, as a result of poor planning and wanting to go through everything too quickly.
So after 70 pages, I made the very painful decision to delete the whole thing and start afresh. I'm keeping the same title (The elementals) but I'm completely changing the core mechanics and storyline. It's now based on a sort of game my friends and I played as kids. We used to pretend we had powers. I had Ice, my friends had water, fire and electricity.
The book is aimed at people just finishing primary school and starting secondary. It's a kid who uncovers one of these powers and he and his friends have to find the rest to fight an ancient darkness that threatens the land. All whilst balancing school life.
I'm doing it properly this time. A detailed plan certainly helps a lot. Even so, I've. Decided already to rewrite the first chapter (It is intended to be a prelude, a back story to the origins of the powers, but I found that I was giving too much information , and making it seem that it WS the story. I'm going to swap to that chapter being narrated, and made a lot less detailed.)
My original novel idea isn't gone forever. I'm still toying with the idea of writing some sort of doctor who fan-fiction around it. It would convert nicely, I think.
Yeah, it would be something like that. Though from playing with porcelain dolls, it's not a completely fragile substance. You don't want to smash it against something, but it can take a little punishment, especially if it's thick. But being dropped or any great force would be a bad thing to have happen.
Too long a break really hurts your ability to keep up with continuity of your Story, so sometimes it hurts it to leave it for too long.
I think it really depends on how much of yourself you put into it. For myself, whenever I come up with an idea for a story, I can't stop thinking about it for weeks, sometimes months, or even years. Sure I can do other things since I'm a decent multitasker, but it's always at the back of my mind, sometimes several at once. When you spend that amount of time thinking about something, you don't forget it easily.
"I'm looking for maps of worlds that don't exist."
Maxwell Douglas was a dreamer, an underachieving high school student who preferred to focus on his art and fiction writing. It wasn't until an laboratory accident left him capable of opening a portal to another world, simply by looking at a map drawn from an old fantasy book, that he was able to live out the adventures he'd only read about. Aided by the science of his best friend Heidi, and the protection of a blue fire wielding princess named Katherine, he embarks on an epic sea voyage to arouse an ancient alliance of dragons. Armed with the blades of knights and the fantastic weapons created by the science of his own world, Max and his friends hope to drive back an awakened sorcerer whose ties to the dragons seem to reach beyond the borders of the dimensions. Along the way, he learns that war is far more terrible than anything he has read of in books, and that the greatest weapon he possesses is the affection he has for his friends.
Now I'm just remembering the comic where the heroine's primary attack was kissing her demon buddy to give the demon superpowers for a limited time. So I guess that could work.
As for the science, is it just "science!" or would they be in a specific field? I'd suggest something with big machines (but not an electron microscope because it lacks star potential. But a diffractometer looks like a ray gun and has a cool name)
It's not hard science fiction. It's young adult fantasy.
That kind of reminds me of an idea I had once about a regular guy who's best friend has ungodly powers that could destroy the universe.
However since this friend has to put so much concentration into controlling his power subconsciously, his concious state has been reduced to that of a blithering idiot. One that only responds to said protagonist, making him duty bound to this raving loonatic.
(I always thought it would make a good manga. (I wish I could draw sometimes...
BATMAN - SUPERSANITY
BY MICHEAL CROSS
PAGE ONE
PICTURE ONE
EXT- ARKHAM ASYLUM - DEAD OF NIGHT
The night is still, and crickets are chirping. Musical notes drift from the large, stone structure. There is nothing sinister about the place for perhaps the first time in it's existence. It is completely serene.
PICTURE TWO
INT - ARKHAM ASYLUM - DEAD OF NIGHT
A record spins on a gramophone, letting some odd measure of beauty flow throughout the walls, into the ears of people who can't understand it. Under the gramaphone, a record titled "Ennio Morricone - Finale" rests.
PICTURE THREE
A long panel on the left of the page, under the previous two. The notes of Morricone's work drifts throughout corridors, soothing uneasy guards. The guards are armed to the teeth, in large armored uniforms, carrying batons, stun rifles, and pistols.
PICTURE FOUR
A guard sits at a security station, dozing off in his chair. Coffee sits on a counter, and papers are scattered around file cabinets. Each security monitor, glowing with bright-white static, is trained on a cell.
CAPTION - "MAXIMUM SECURITY"
PAGES TWO - THREE
SPLASH PAGE
Musical notes drift over the cells of Arkham's "finest". Two-Face. Riddler. Scarecrow. Hatter. And Joker. They all sleep soundly, in uncomfortable positions on their small bunks. Except for one.
Joker.
Joker doesn't sleep. Joker never sleeps. He lies on the floor of his cell.
PAGE FOUR
PICTURE ONE
A closeup of Joker's face. Drool escapes the corner's of his mouth. Tears form in his frozen eyes. His body can't keep up with his mind, and goes into a catatonic state.
PICTURE TWO
A small spark ignites in Joker's mind, and air escapes from his throat in a sickening wheeze.
PICTURE THREE
His bony-white arms move upwards in an arc around his head, and his legs follow suit.
PICTURE FOUR
His arms and legs move in the opposite direction. Snow angels.
NARRATION - I GET MY BODY INTO A PATTERN SO I DON'T HAVE TO CONSCIOUSLY CONTROL IT.
WEEEE. THE MOVEMENT AND THE BEATS OF MY HEART SLOW MY MIND AND ALLOW IT TO CALCULATE. WOWEE.
PICTURE FIVE
The view switches, putting Joker on the left, upright, the floor a wall, and the wall a floor.
NARRATION - THE WHITE CEILING MAKES MY EYES GLAZE. I CAN PAINT ANY PICTURE THERE. I KNOW IT'S TRUE FACE...ITS TWO FACE...TRUE FACE....TWO FACE...AND EVERYTHING FALLS AWAY.
PAGE FIVE
PICTURE ONE
Joker leaps out of his body, ballet-style, in what looks almost like an out of body experience.
JOKER: I'm free!
PICTURE TWO
Joker dances through the walls of the mentally-constructed cells of the other maximum security inmates, stopping at the end of the panel to blow a raspberry at a mental projection of Edward Nygma.
JOKER: Free to plot and plan and scheme to my little heart's content....and not even you with all of your gray cells can pull this off, can you?
Can you?
PICTURE THREE
Joker walks through Edward's transparent cell window and down the outside corridor toward the secure iron doors.
JOKER: What am I saying? Of course you can!
PICTURE FOUR
The wrought iron door in front of Joker disappears down another long corridor, this one made up of strong brick and rusty, iron fence. There are balloons everywhere, and plastic sheets hang down throughout the halls. The pale, blue light that shimmers and floats throughout the area is eerie and unpleasant to behold.
JOKER: Not that you would. You're too busy dreaming of conundrums for this sort of fun to interest you. But you're not the only one who dreams.
PAGE SIX
PICTURE ONE
From the viewpoint of the Joker, plastic sheets part around the man. Red light glows behind them, shining like a demon beacon. In front of his eyes is displayed a gurney, with a black, cloth sheet draped over it. Behind the gurney, the wall is a giant record with the label "The Strong - Ennio Morricone". The record is spinning, but the label is legible. A projection of the music that is being played over asylum loudspeakers in the real world.
PICTURE TWO
The Joker's face leers down at the gurney, red light reflecting on him, shadows from the record flickering across his harsh crimson skin. The music is loud, and would be unbearable for any normal man. Joker's hand pulls away the black sheet, and everything else begins to fade slightly, so intent is he on the subject underneath.
Joker: What do you dream about, Batman?
PICTURE THREE
The corpse of Batman lies across the gurney, spread naked, a Batman symbol carved into his chest. There is a frown carved across his face, and his head has been sliced down the middle, his nasal cavity shaped cruelly to look like the nosepiece of the Bat-cowl. His brain matter is splayed out above the crater in his skull, arranged to look like a flattened cowl behind it.
Joker: Oh, I hope it's me!
PICTURE FOUR
A pale brow wrinkles in an emotion quite the opposite of glee or anger. Instead, the eyes that behold the sight show terror and horror. They gleam, reflecting what's left of the face of the man below in their sickening pools of red.
PAGE SEVEN
PICTURE ONE
Commisioner Gordon turns away from the gurney, his hand over his mouth to stop any flow of vomit that might come forward. His eyes are squeezed shut, his brow wrinkled, and his facial skin deep red from the pain he shoots into his own forehead to shut out the image of what he has just seen. Red reflects off of him from behind, and green reflects off of him from the front.
Thought Bubble: NO! NO!
PICTURE TWO
Joker walks by the construct of the Commissioner, placing a reassuring hand on his should as he passes by.
Joker: Don't worry, Commish. If you don't like that corpse....
PICTURE THREE
Joker walks into an intersection covered in Batman corpses. Mutilated, decapitated, stabbed, shot, poisoned, and more all litter the walls and floor.
Joker: I've got hundreds more!
PICTURE FOUR
A larger image shows the intersection from another angle, in green lighting. Batmen and Joker fight on all sides, some Jokers dying and some Batmen meeting their end. Others are discovered by the Bat's allies. Gordons and Robins lament over Batmen dead and gone. There is blood everywhere.
NARRATION: EVERY SINGLE WAY I COULD KILL OR HUMILIATE HIM...I'VE THOUGHT OF THEM ALL. I'VE LITTERED MY OWN LITTLE WORLD WITH THEM. I CAN RELIVE THEM OVER AND OVER AND OVER. IT'S GLORIOUS.
MAYBE I HAVE. ON NO. I CAN'T REMEMBER. WHO CARES?
PAGE EIGHT
SPLASH
Joker stands amidst gargoyles and stone, outside the Asylum, hands raised toward the dark, stormy sky. The courtyard before him is like a battlefield. There is also a pink demon rabbit that is feeding on corpses.
NARRATION: I consider each and every scenario. Some way to get him to see the joke. To give up his moral code. To take a pie in the face. He never changes. Maybe that's why this is so easy.
I have days...weeks.....months...years to discover new eventualities. Sometimes I test them out on the real thing, if the old football injury isn't hurting the next day. Heh heh! I can recreate this asylum and every scenario that could occur within its walls.
(next to the rabbit) Sometimes I embellish a little.
Note that it's not in any way the final version so anything can change (for example, I might rewrite the beginning of chapter three, and add stuff to chapter two), and, since I'm using lean publishing, I can publish the story while writing. Until I send it out to print.
EDIT: BEEEEEEEEEH, the download link isn't that clear.
[Download]
It is essentially about a man named Walter Shackler, who was once a gunslinger known for specifically carrying a Colt Patterson, which he lost in a gunfight long before the story began. After he reaches the age of 35, he hears that gold is being found by the plenty in Alaska, so he travels up to the mountains there and builds a cabin outside a large lake surrounded by stones. He heads into the nearby town of Red River one day and stops in the Dawdson Saloon and Cathouse, where he almost gets into a fight with a drunk named Big Johnny Jameson. Jameson intimidates Walter to the point of where a brutal fight ensures between the two of them, in which Walter gouges one of Jameson’s eyes. Walter comes very close to killing him before he is stopped at gunpoint by Deacon Miller, the sheriff of Red River. Deacon’s brother, Osias Miller, is the leader of a group claim jumpers who have been killing anyone who refuses to cooperate with them, and Jameson happens to be one of his cronies. Walter rides out of town to find Osias waiting for him on his front porch. Osias offers Walter money for his land if he gives it up and moves elsewhere, but Walter refuses. Osias throws a tantrum, threatens to come back with his gang and force him off before Walter pulls up a shotgun and tells Osias is he doesn’t get off his property, he will kill him. Osias then rushes out the door. The next day, Walter is mining by a creek leading from the lake and discovers a large amount of nuggets in the river. He rides into town to buy new clothes and equipment when an outlaw recognizes him and challenges him to a duel. Walter reluctantly agrees, pulling his old Colt Navy 1861 revolver out his saddlebag. Walter kills the outlaw in the duel, and a deputy comes along and gives him a reward for killing him. Shackler then places his revolver in his side holster and walks into the General Store, where he goes to buy supplies. A young man, who also recognizes Shackler, comes in and starts asking him about what he did when he was a gunslinger. Shackler humors the boy by telling him of a time he was in Dallas, Texas and how he killed three men in a gunfight after one of them brutally beat a child in the streets. The boy is mesmerized, and reveals that he works for a newspaper, and offers to write a story about him in a later edition.
That’s all I got so far.
I concluded that Jack was the son of who he believed for a large part of his life to be a trader.
He learned the way of life from his father as they travelled around the galaxy doing business.
(Which explains his good knowledge of the various species and cultures that inhabit the galaxy, and of trade routes and other transaction stuff (though he doesn't think too deeply about it))
He did not really bond well with most children. Only the children of certain traders they came across more often.
The major turning point in his life was when he was about 14, where he got his first taste of fighting when he wondered a little to far into the back allies and got into a fight with some older teens.
Naturally he was scared at first, but was exhilerated like a dog unleashed at a park, and fought unhinged and dirty, badly hurting one of the youths.
He then realised after the battle his dad would be furious with him and he took a long time getting back.
His father had already heard what happened and was waiting for him.
But instead of anger, he saw for a brief moment a look of disappointment, and then a laugh.
You see, his father revealed to him that night that he was one of many fighters in his family, and that the man he had thought to be a simple trader, had once been a soldier in the war.
(Who he later found out had been a general)
The next day he wakes early to a serious stern face, and some clothes are thrown at him.
"Hmmph... I promised your mother the night she died that I would keep you safe. Its a promise I intend to keep till the very end. If youre going to go out there and fight, then we need to make sure you good enough to get to that point"
And for the next few years they trained when the time was spare.
Well... Until the old man died from choking on a nut.
(Something his father loved to eat all the time.)
A death that could have been recovered from even then, but despite Jacks frantic scrambling, he couldn't get the money together to pay for the revival, and it was too late.
(You see certain deaths can be prevented as long as the body is still fresh and enough brain and nerve tissue is there for the augments to work. However its a luxury for the rich, and particularily more difficult for humans)
So with his father dead, and the trade being hard without him, Jack drifted from place to place, and often drowned his sorrows in bars.
And one day he met a man that reminded him a little of his father, and with a fellow trader friend who itched for action, signed up for bounty hunting.
Thats just off the top of my head. Needs loads of refining but its a good sign Im making some progress.
Also I've been thinking of alien species and I came up with two interesting ones.
OK so the first isn't so interesting. Like a kind of cowardly and sly kind.
(That's all I got)
But this one is very interesting.
So it plays on the idea of humans being an invasive species.
We have throughout time accidentally tampered with nature and this time we interacted with a species that have thrived in this galactic scene.
OK, so they are humanoid, usually sleek, and dark. Not exceptionally intelligent but some have become very sly due to human influence.
You see their DNA is very malleable. They can shape shift and hybridise with other creatures and of course exposure and encrouagement from humans caused a rapid change inthem.
They became cultured within two generations, (which are shorter than humans, about 40-50 years), and unlike humans operate on a more basic need level.
They make for good labourers, but even better criminals, and espionage.
Some have even learned to overcome their imperfect speech with neural augments.
His old man taught Jack to always be cautious around people and aliens with neck augments, because there's a good chance its a very sly Doppler in disguise.
(Doppler is a temporary named BTW. All of these are...)
There was a house, it hasn't been lived in for a long time. Two friends bought it as a sort of college bachelor pad. One would live in the living room on the couch, the other in the bedroom. The house needed some reconstruction. The garage especially. It was in a lower income neighborhood. Part of the garage was sealed off by wooden frames, like where a wall had once existed. Through the gaps in the wall they could see what looked like an old vinyl record in its cover. The exterior was a misty gray. A girl with a panicked expression, with her hand facing the viewer as if he was pressed against glass, stared out from the mist, waist up, so she was pretty near the front of the cover. Across the too of the record cover, which say propped up on the ground, the title said "Jessica Whildon's Numbers". It was a confusing title. They didn't know what it meant. At night they began hearing scratches on the walls. In their dreams they saw a recurring series of numbers. One day a police officer outside struck up a conversation with the pair. The last owner of the house suffered from extreme obsessive compulsion and delusional visions. At night they began to see a creature in their dreams, walking the halls of the house, something like a massive broad elephant drunk forming most if its body so It had no distinguishable head, short stumpy feet and hands emerging from the trunk, a pair of eyes at the top, it's body covered in a tattered brown cloak. It dragged its hands along the walls, nails scratching them, a low guttural voice speaking a series of numbers. They began waking up drenched in sweat, hearts beating hard, the face of Jessica Whildon the last image they saw before awakening.
Living without ending the life that never dies, Jessica Whildon speaks from life that's not alive.