(no subject)
finally, after months of leaving it alone, finished writing that story. i dont like it as is, so i might change it later. right now i want to move on to other stories i have runnign around in my head. it is based on a dream i had. in fact, it essentially is the dream i had in story-form and made tangible for those of you who arent me. please note that while the dream was in first person, i have put the story in third person, with no name given to the main character, he is simply refered to as he. i tried to be as clear as possible with this, but it may still get a little confusing. please, don't think of him as me, i wanted to avoid that by putting it in third person. spaces between lines indicate a jump in time, as my dream did. the first is only a matter of days, during the fall while everything is going to shit and collapsing. the second is on the order of years, the fall having passed and humans living as small tribes. a final note about the "things", they appear to be based off "the dwellers" of chronicles of riddick: escape from butcher bay, if any of you happened to have played that game. if not, you are lucky. i hated that part of the game. scary as shit.
The Fall
It was slightly cool out on the hill, typical of an end of summer night. It was getting towards fall and there was a slight chill in the air, but not enough for him to mind. He had always prided himself at mentally withstanding temperatures others felt too cold or too warm. Besides, if he ever did catch a chill he could always move closer to the fire.
Smoke rose from the top of his own and the tops of several of the rolling hills around him. It was a party, peopled by college students. They had taken these rolling hills, surrounded by forests on all sides, with a parking lot nearby, to have a party of legendary proportions. Music drifted in and out on the wind from one of the hilltops. To have that sound carry over the noise of everybody talking and laughing must have meant it was blasting wherever it was, somewhere to his right. Stupid, he thought. He couldn’t stand music that loud. There was no reason for it. It only makes you deaf.
He looked around. The hills stretched on forever, it seemed, and so did the party. There must have been hundreds of people there. He saw people dancing on top of one of the hilltops far off, silhouettes against a fire. He guessed that was where the music was coming from. There were small bonfires on several of the hills, people standing around them, making out, talking, laughing, dancing…
I wonder where she is…
There was trash everywhere, and he looked at it with disgust.
As was the case with all college parties, there was beer. Lots of it. He had no idea how they managed to get that much. Everyone was drunk, or close to it. It seemed liked the only reason this party was thrown was to get people drunk. He hated people like that, people that went to these parties for that reason, people whose only goal was to get plastered. Now that they’re off on their own, they don’t have to listen to that thing that was beat into them for years on end. Unfortunately the more it was beat into them, the more they wanted to do it, the bigger the backlash later. Yeah, alcohol. So what? What’s the big deal? He thought of saying to every person there, in as sarcastic a manner as he could, whoopidy-doo-dah, you’re drinking, underage I might add! Wow, you must be cool. You must feel all grown up!
Instead, he decided he didn’t want to be there any longer. These people disgusted him, this whole party disgusted him. He wondered why he was there in the first place, with these people he hadn’t liked before, and now despised. None were close friends, and he only knew a few from classes. But, she had dragged him here, hearing of this party through her own friends, and decided to see if it would be fun. She was like him, not so big on the drinking and was here to mingle with friends. She had taken him along, trying to get him to know some of the people she knew. He wasn’t at all impressed. He knew that she knew that, and would apologize later. He didn’t care about these people, didn’t consider how it reflected on her, didn’t matter any of it, so long as he knew her.
Where is she?
He suddenly realized that, although he had been standing in the circle of conversation, he hadn’t paid any attention to what was said in the past few minutes. Not that much of it was worth listening to. He said goodbye and, not waiting for an answer, not really wanting one, he turned and left. He wouldn’t throw his cup on the ground like everyone else; he would carry it to the parking lot and toss it in the trash, his own little resistance. Yes, he did have some to drink, but he knew his limits, and knew that he’d have to drive home.
He wondered as he walked back how he would find her. He had no idea where she had gone, hadn’t seen her in hours; she could be anywhere. So he resolved that she would turn up on his walk back to his car, and if not, then he would call and work things out then. She probably wanted to stay, and so he’d leave, hoping she got home all right. He had confidence in her: she was a big girl, smart and independent. She wouldn’t let anyone drunk drive her, so she’d probably just drive herself in one of her friends’ car.
It was a good five minute walk back to the parking lot, made slower by the fact that he was constantly looking around to see if he spotted her. He stepped on to the pavement between an SUV on his left and a chopper on his right. He paused in his search for her to admire the nice black motorcycle next to him. He gave it the once-over, and returned to scanning the area for anyone who looked like her. Unfortunately, his hopes made just about everyone resemble her from behind. He shrugged, and started to move away towards his car.
He heard stumbling footsteps come from between the cars to his right and saw a drunken kid emerge carrying a box of Krispe Kreme doughnuts open in his arms. He walked, or rather tried to, right up, glanced at the chopper and said, “Nice bike...It yours?”
“Nope. Those your doughnuts?”
“Yeah.”
Reaching into the box and pulling out a doughnut, he brushed past the intoxicated kid.
“Hey!” was all the response he got. He guessed right that the kid wouldn’t really care or do anything if he took the doughnut. He resumed his scan for the girl. She was nowhere in sight.
Just then he noticed the change in background noise. It was no longer the constant sound of kids talking and music playing, the underlying crackle of flames, the sounds of a party, the party he had just left disgusted. It had shifted. There was still music being played from the speakers somewhere in the clearing, but they were barely noticeable over the screams that grew louder with each passing moment as more people added their voices to the chorus.
He turned around to see what happened and froze in place. The boy in front of him dropped his box of doughnuts and started to turn and run.
Off in the hills, a mass of people were turning and running towards the parking lot. It seemed like whatever caused it came from the woods, and pushed a wave of screaming people in front of it. More and more people stopped what they were doing, turned, saw the mass of people running and screaming, saw what was causing it, and joined. The ocean of scared college kids grew in size as it swept up all who it passed in its mad race to safety.
He didn’t ask questions, he would find out later. Whatever it was was serious and he wasn’t going to stick around and be swallowed by the rush of people. He turned and raced back to his car and prayed that she would be safe, hoping that she would somehow appear at his car and they would get away from it together.
The catwalk was barely wide enough to hold two people standing next to each other. The stone walls and curved ceiling were dank and cold. Pipes ran along the walls, carrying who knows what into the dark. Through the grating of the catwalk he could see the darkness obscure the depth of the tunnel, making it impossible to tell the height of the catwalk. However, judging from the echoes, it was fairly high up.
People were shoving past him in their mad dash to get away. He was turned into the crowd, an island in the middle of a flowing river of people. Their frightened faces flashed past, all conveying the simple fact that if they did not move they would die. He was doing all he could to stay standing and not be trampled under them.
He had heard she was part of this group. She must be here somewhere. They told me they saw her here.
As more people flowed past, and the end of the crowd drew closer, the screams became more pronounced. They were no longer screams of fright; they were the screams of people in pain.
He could barely see over everyone’s running head, and stood as tall as he could without becoming unbalanced and shoved to the floor. The light faded out at an intersection where two catwalks crossed. The group had come from the left catwalk, and had split up at the intersection. He hoped that she had turned his way and not run off in a different direction with a different group.
Then he saw them. They leaped out from the left catwalk where the people had run from and took down a few stragglers. They looked like dogs. However, he knew better, they may run on all fours, but they were bipedal, their skin leathery, their features sunken. They hunted like dogs, too. They traveled in packs of more than a dozen. He saw the pack split up to chase the three separate groups of running people.
He watched as person after person at the tail of his group screamed and was pulled to the ground by another of the things pouncing on them, digging their claw-like fingers into their back. He saw a few of the things stop and tear apart the tackled prey, but more came up behind and continued the hunt. They killed as many as they could then came back and eat the bodies. He decided he didn’t want to be food that day and turned with the crowd.
He sat down by the fire and pulled the black and red blanket that they had given him tighter. It was an open campfire in the middle of what appeared to be an old factory. A twenty foot section of the wall had crumbled and exposed the street outside and the roof was nonexistent. The “inside” of the building was no longer inside, but loosed to and blended with the “outside”. Trash can fires burned in the street like substitute streetlamps. The street ended on one side with an impassable pile of rubble, making it so that there was only one way in. Easy to cover; can’t be taken from behind.
On the fringes of the light he could see people eyeing him. They stood alone or in small groups, spaced all around him. Their faces were intent; they watched him not so much curious as defensive, making sure he wasn’t trouble. Their faces were smeared with dirt and grime, and it was obvious they led rough lives out here in this burned out and deserted city. He knew that there were more people around him than the ones he could see. He sensed others in the shadows thinking themselves hidden, watching him.
Warming his hands was a mug of hot liquid, tea-like, probably scavenged from the ruins of an old store. His hosts held similar cups. They were a man and his wife, obviously the alpha couple of the tribe he had found. The man was in his late 20s or early 30s. It is difficult to tell since the years of struggle had aged his face and made it gaunt. He was muscular and had an angular face with short blond hair. He wore a reddish brown leather jacket, a black shirt, and black leather pants, the last clothes he’ll ever need or wear.
His wife was wrapped in a blanket, once white, but now dirt stained with holes burned into it. She sat on a piece of debris with her elbows on her knees, bent over with a cup of the tea in her hands.
He knew that the girl (No. Woman. So much time has passed, he thought) had been here. He had tracked her to this city, to this tribe of people. Years had passed, and he had crossed many miles following her, always seeming to be one step behind. He recalled dead cities like this one, empty woods, desolate plains, sleepless nights, and fights, oh so many fights. He had run into so many of those things, had had so many close brushes with death, that he was desensitized to it all by now. They no longer frightened him, even in large packs he knew he could hold them off. A snippet from a fight brought itself to his attention.
It was dark like it was that night. There was one of those things on top of him trying to gnaw at his face, clawing at his body trying to rip him to shreds. Its hideous face inches from his while he struggled to throw it off him. He couldn’t recall the rest of the fight. He just knew he had gotten away.
When he had met the tribe, he found out that she had been there, but had left. So he would continue his search and follow her trail. He was glad to have some assurance that she was still alive at least a little while ago. They, of course, had questioned who he was, where he was from, and how he survived the fall, like everyone else he ran across.
“So, how did you survive the fall? How do you get along now?” he asked of the couple.
Just then someone let out a warning shout from the street. He jumped to his feet, dropping the cup as he did so, letting it shatter into a thousand pieces as it hit the ground, the black and red blanket falling from his shoulders. His sword was already out of its sheath. To call it a sword was an overstatement. It was not a very long sword, in any case; more like a machete or a large knife. He would die to find a real katana, but this sword of his had saved him numerous times before. He would have gone for the pistol with its barrel shoved down the back of his pants, except it was out of ammo. That’s why he carried the sword: ammo was hard to come by. At his hip also was a handy Bowie knife in a sheath, but that wasn’t as good as a sword for close combat.
The woman seemed to be already standing, the blanket thrown from her shoulders. He noticed she was holding a shotgun, obviously having concealed it on her lap as she sat hunched over by the fire just as a precaution, in case he turned out to be trouble. He also noticed that she seemed to have set down her mug without breaking it. Her husband was already giving out orders to his people, telling them to take cover here or there, set up on this side of the street or that. The people sensed before lurking in the shadows emerged to take positions.
“Someone, get him a gun,” the husband said, motioning towards his sword.
A shotgun was shoved in his hands right away by one of the people taking their positions, pulling out a pistol as they did so. For a band of survivors, they sure have a lot of weapons. Their reaction, the practiced ease with which they took their positions told him that they were used to this sort of thing. They were able to respond to an attack within seconds. They obviously had sentries posted far out to give them time. It was all very military-like.
He and the couple walked out into the middle of the street. With the rubble it was just wide enough for them to stand side by side. He stood in the center with the wife on his right and the husband on his left. All three of them were carrying shotguns.
After a second they heard it. The unmistakable sound of the leathery feet and hands of one of those things scraping across the ground as it ran towards them. They could hear its snarling come from the darkness beyond the trashcan fires. The noises it made bounced off the stone walls, giving them a disturbing echo. They knew that not far behind was the rest of the pack.
The sounds of more of the things running and snarling joined the first. He guessed that the first one was about twenty feet ahead of the pack, a pack which sounded like it consisted of dozens.
Suddenly the lead creature burst from the darkness beyond the trashcans, the fires casting eerie shadows across its grotesque visage as it rushed by them, so intent on making a kill that it was on all fours. It kept charging, not caring that there were about a dozen guns pointed at it, oblivious that it was staring three shotgun barrels in the face. It closed to within firing range just before the rest of its pack entered the light.
With a deafening bang, he and the couple opened fire as one.
edit: this is the dream in its entirety. why doesn't it have a clean ending? becasue where i stopped it is where i woke up. everything is where it happened in the dream, everything i thought, everything i noticed, every description is placed where i first looked/thought about it in the dream.
The Fall
It was slightly cool out on the hill, typical of an end of summer night. It was getting towards fall and there was a slight chill in the air, but not enough for him to mind. He had always prided himself at mentally withstanding temperatures others felt too cold or too warm. Besides, if he ever did catch a chill he could always move closer to the fire.
Smoke rose from the top of his own and the tops of several of the rolling hills around him. It was a party, peopled by college students. They had taken these rolling hills, surrounded by forests on all sides, with a parking lot nearby, to have a party of legendary proportions. Music drifted in and out on the wind from one of the hilltops. To have that sound carry over the noise of everybody talking and laughing must have meant it was blasting wherever it was, somewhere to his right. Stupid, he thought. He couldn’t stand music that loud. There was no reason for it. It only makes you deaf.
He looked around. The hills stretched on forever, it seemed, and so did the party. There must have been hundreds of people there. He saw people dancing on top of one of the hilltops far off, silhouettes against a fire. He guessed that was where the music was coming from. There were small bonfires on several of the hills, people standing around them, making out, talking, laughing, dancing…
I wonder where she is…
There was trash everywhere, and he looked at it with disgust.
As was the case with all college parties, there was beer. Lots of it. He had no idea how they managed to get that much. Everyone was drunk, or close to it. It seemed liked the only reason this party was thrown was to get people drunk. He hated people like that, people that went to these parties for that reason, people whose only goal was to get plastered. Now that they’re off on their own, they don’t have to listen to that thing that was beat into them for years on end. Unfortunately the more it was beat into them, the more they wanted to do it, the bigger the backlash later. Yeah, alcohol. So what? What’s the big deal? He thought of saying to every person there, in as sarcastic a manner as he could, whoopidy-doo-dah, you’re drinking, underage I might add! Wow, you must be cool. You must feel all grown up!
Instead, he decided he didn’t want to be there any longer. These people disgusted him, this whole party disgusted him. He wondered why he was there in the first place, with these people he hadn’t liked before, and now despised. None were close friends, and he only knew a few from classes. But, she had dragged him here, hearing of this party through her own friends, and decided to see if it would be fun. She was like him, not so big on the drinking and was here to mingle with friends. She had taken him along, trying to get him to know some of the people she knew. He wasn’t at all impressed. He knew that she knew that, and would apologize later. He didn’t care about these people, didn’t consider how it reflected on her, didn’t matter any of it, so long as he knew her.
Where is she?
He suddenly realized that, although he had been standing in the circle of conversation, he hadn’t paid any attention to what was said in the past few minutes. Not that much of it was worth listening to. He said goodbye and, not waiting for an answer, not really wanting one, he turned and left. He wouldn’t throw his cup on the ground like everyone else; he would carry it to the parking lot and toss it in the trash, his own little resistance. Yes, he did have some to drink, but he knew his limits, and knew that he’d have to drive home.
He wondered as he walked back how he would find her. He had no idea where she had gone, hadn’t seen her in hours; she could be anywhere. So he resolved that she would turn up on his walk back to his car, and if not, then he would call and work things out then. She probably wanted to stay, and so he’d leave, hoping she got home all right. He had confidence in her: she was a big girl, smart and independent. She wouldn’t let anyone drunk drive her, so she’d probably just drive herself in one of her friends’ car.
It was a good five minute walk back to the parking lot, made slower by the fact that he was constantly looking around to see if he spotted her. He stepped on to the pavement between an SUV on his left and a chopper on his right. He paused in his search for her to admire the nice black motorcycle next to him. He gave it the once-over, and returned to scanning the area for anyone who looked like her. Unfortunately, his hopes made just about everyone resemble her from behind. He shrugged, and started to move away towards his car.
He heard stumbling footsteps come from between the cars to his right and saw a drunken kid emerge carrying a box of Krispe Kreme doughnuts open in his arms. He walked, or rather tried to, right up, glanced at the chopper and said, “Nice bike...It yours?”
“Nope. Those your doughnuts?”
“Yeah.”
Reaching into the box and pulling out a doughnut, he brushed past the intoxicated kid.
“Hey!” was all the response he got. He guessed right that the kid wouldn’t really care or do anything if he took the doughnut. He resumed his scan for the girl. She was nowhere in sight.
Just then he noticed the change in background noise. It was no longer the constant sound of kids talking and music playing, the underlying crackle of flames, the sounds of a party, the party he had just left disgusted. It had shifted. There was still music being played from the speakers somewhere in the clearing, but they were barely noticeable over the screams that grew louder with each passing moment as more people added their voices to the chorus.
He turned around to see what happened and froze in place. The boy in front of him dropped his box of doughnuts and started to turn and run.
Off in the hills, a mass of people were turning and running towards the parking lot. It seemed like whatever caused it came from the woods, and pushed a wave of screaming people in front of it. More and more people stopped what they were doing, turned, saw the mass of people running and screaming, saw what was causing it, and joined. The ocean of scared college kids grew in size as it swept up all who it passed in its mad race to safety.
He didn’t ask questions, he would find out later. Whatever it was was serious and he wasn’t going to stick around and be swallowed by the rush of people. He turned and raced back to his car and prayed that she would be safe, hoping that she would somehow appear at his car and they would get away from it together.
The catwalk was barely wide enough to hold two people standing next to each other. The stone walls and curved ceiling were dank and cold. Pipes ran along the walls, carrying who knows what into the dark. Through the grating of the catwalk he could see the darkness obscure the depth of the tunnel, making it impossible to tell the height of the catwalk. However, judging from the echoes, it was fairly high up.
People were shoving past him in their mad dash to get away. He was turned into the crowd, an island in the middle of a flowing river of people. Their frightened faces flashed past, all conveying the simple fact that if they did not move they would die. He was doing all he could to stay standing and not be trampled under them.
He had heard she was part of this group. She must be here somewhere. They told me they saw her here.
As more people flowed past, and the end of the crowd drew closer, the screams became more pronounced. They were no longer screams of fright; they were the screams of people in pain.
He could barely see over everyone’s running head, and stood as tall as he could without becoming unbalanced and shoved to the floor. The light faded out at an intersection where two catwalks crossed. The group had come from the left catwalk, and had split up at the intersection. He hoped that she had turned his way and not run off in a different direction with a different group.
Then he saw them. They leaped out from the left catwalk where the people had run from and took down a few stragglers. They looked like dogs. However, he knew better, they may run on all fours, but they were bipedal, their skin leathery, their features sunken. They hunted like dogs, too. They traveled in packs of more than a dozen. He saw the pack split up to chase the three separate groups of running people.
He watched as person after person at the tail of his group screamed and was pulled to the ground by another of the things pouncing on them, digging their claw-like fingers into their back. He saw a few of the things stop and tear apart the tackled prey, but more came up behind and continued the hunt. They killed as many as they could then came back and eat the bodies. He decided he didn’t want to be food that day and turned with the crowd.
He sat down by the fire and pulled the black and red blanket that they had given him tighter. It was an open campfire in the middle of what appeared to be an old factory. A twenty foot section of the wall had crumbled and exposed the street outside and the roof was nonexistent. The “inside” of the building was no longer inside, but loosed to and blended with the “outside”. Trash can fires burned in the street like substitute streetlamps. The street ended on one side with an impassable pile of rubble, making it so that there was only one way in. Easy to cover; can’t be taken from behind.
On the fringes of the light he could see people eyeing him. They stood alone or in small groups, spaced all around him. Their faces were intent; they watched him not so much curious as defensive, making sure he wasn’t trouble. Their faces were smeared with dirt and grime, and it was obvious they led rough lives out here in this burned out and deserted city. He knew that there were more people around him than the ones he could see. He sensed others in the shadows thinking themselves hidden, watching him.
Warming his hands was a mug of hot liquid, tea-like, probably scavenged from the ruins of an old store. His hosts held similar cups. They were a man and his wife, obviously the alpha couple of the tribe he had found. The man was in his late 20s or early 30s. It is difficult to tell since the years of struggle had aged his face and made it gaunt. He was muscular and had an angular face with short blond hair. He wore a reddish brown leather jacket, a black shirt, and black leather pants, the last clothes he’ll ever need or wear.
His wife was wrapped in a blanket, once white, but now dirt stained with holes burned into it. She sat on a piece of debris with her elbows on her knees, bent over with a cup of the tea in her hands.
He knew that the girl (No. Woman. So much time has passed, he thought) had been here. He had tracked her to this city, to this tribe of people. Years had passed, and he had crossed many miles following her, always seeming to be one step behind. He recalled dead cities like this one, empty woods, desolate plains, sleepless nights, and fights, oh so many fights. He had run into so many of those things, had had so many close brushes with death, that he was desensitized to it all by now. They no longer frightened him, even in large packs he knew he could hold them off. A snippet from a fight brought itself to his attention.
It was dark like it was that night. There was one of those things on top of him trying to gnaw at his face, clawing at his body trying to rip him to shreds. Its hideous face inches from his while he struggled to throw it off him. He couldn’t recall the rest of the fight. He just knew he had gotten away.
When he had met the tribe, he found out that she had been there, but had left. So he would continue his search and follow her trail. He was glad to have some assurance that she was still alive at least a little while ago. They, of course, had questioned who he was, where he was from, and how he survived the fall, like everyone else he ran across.
“So, how did you survive the fall? How do you get along now?” he asked of the couple.
Just then someone let out a warning shout from the street. He jumped to his feet, dropping the cup as he did so, letting it shatter into a thousand pieces as it hit the ground, the black and red blanket falling from his shoulders. His sword was already out of its sheath. To call it a sword was an overstatement. It was not a very long sword, in any case; more like a machete or a large knife. He would die to find a real katana, but this sword of his had saved him numerous times before. He would have gone for the pistol with its barrel shoved down the back of his pants, except it was out of ammo. That’s why he carried the sword: ammo was hard to come by. At his hip also was a handy Bowie knife in a sheath, but that wasn’t as good as a sword for close combat.
The woman seemed to be already standing, the blanket thrown from her shoulders. He noticed she was holding a shotgun, obviously having concealed it on her lap as she sat hunched over by the fire just as a precaution, in case he turned out to be trouble. He also noticed that she seemed to have set down her mug without breaking it. Her husband was already giving out orders to his people, telling them to take cover here or there, set up on this side of the street or that. The people sensed before lurking in the shadows emerged to take positions.
“Someone, get him a gun,” the husband said, motioning towards his sword.
A shotgun was shoved in his hands right away by one of the people taking their positions, pulling out a pistol as they did so. For a band of survivors, they sure have a lot of weapons. Their reaction, the practiced ease with which they took their positions told him that they were used to this sort of thing. They were able to respond to an attack within seconds. They obviously had sentries posted far out to give them time. It was all very military-like.
He and the couple walked out into the middle of the street. With the rubble it was just wide enough for them to stand side by side. He stood in the center with the wife on his right and the husband on his left. All three of them were carrying shotguns.
After a second they heard it. The unmistakable sound of the leathery feet and hands of one of those things scraping across the ground as it ran towards them. They could hear its snarling come from the darkness beyond the trashcan fires. The noises it made bounced off the stone walls, giving them a disturbing echo. They knew that not far behind was the rest of the pack.
The sounds of more of the things running and snarling joined the first. He guessed that the first one was about twenty feet ahead of the pack, a pack which sounded like it consisted of dozens.
Suddenly the lead creature burst from the darkness beyond the trashcans, the fires casting eerie shadows across its grotesque visage as it rushed by them, so intent on making a kill that it was on all fours. It kept charging, not caring that there were about a dozen guns pointed at it, oblivious that it was staring three shotgun barrels in the face. It closed to within firing range just before the rest of its pack entered the light.
With a deafening bang, he and the couple opened fire as one.
edit: this is the dream in its entirety. why doesn't it have a clean ending? becasue where i stopped it is where i woke up. everything is where it happened in the dream, everything i thought, everything i noticed, every description is placed where i first looked/thought about it in the dream.