Shellacked
Shellacked
by Christopher Marlowe
Shel stood on the concrete stairs and slowly ran her eyes up at the enormous marble doors. She couldn't believe she was suppose to be able to push through them. They looked like they haven't budged an inch since they were built. She wanted to curse loudly and frequently, but somehow, being in a graveyard after midnight wasn't conductive to swearing, so she settled for just berating herself mentally.
How did I get into this mess? A crypt in a cemetery is not where I wanted to be when I grow up, Shel thought to herself.
Shel was just a normal girl with normal problems: school, boys, a ridiculous curfew. Until she started getting these freaky dreams a few weeks ago, even during the day. And then there was that little problem of finding herself able to punch through walls and kick butt like Blade The Vampire Hunter. She had no idea what was happening to her. Far as she knew she wasn't from Krypton, no magic ring appeared before her, no mysterious alien bestowing power upon her. Just BAM and she could kick it up a helluva notch.
What was really the straw was when she was walking home from school one night and some pale dude tried to attack her. She almost thought she 'felt' him before she actually saw him. Almost by instinct she looked for something pointy and almost before she knew it, he was a smattering of dust in the wind.
Not that Shel objected to having the super-sized abilities now. After dusting that guy, she felt great. It's something that made her more special, more different. She loved being the odd girl out to begin with and now she could really stand out. But she didn't want to simply be able to knock out bullies or overturn cars. Shel always felt she wanted to do more, be someone, do something and getting the juice just amplified that.
The visions were a different thing though. She kept getting images of other girls from other times. Some Chinese girl, a black chick all kicking arse and stabbing at people with stakes. She heard of psychics and seeing into the future. But she was getting a bit of youtube on the brain, and she wants to know what it it was all about.
Shel was not about to let herself freaked out by this, she didn't cultivate the tough punk chick so she would get the willies over something weird. She was into yoga, though and she figured that the visions she was getting were being sent, same as the abilities she just got. So she thought she might as well hit 'reply' so to speak.
She did the whole bit, candles, yoga mat, Yanni. As she relaxed her mind she tried calling to the visions. One image came back and almost knocked her flat. It was the very same doors she was standing before now. The only difference was that in her vision, the doors had writing carved in them that said 'Centerview Cemetery'. That seemed to be a pretty clear indication that she was supposed to 'go here'.
She walked up the steps and tried touching the doors, but her fingers went through it. So the doors themselves, while looking like they would stand for eons, didn't really exist at all. Shel would have actually preferred that they be solid, then should could at least have the excuse of not being able to go further.
Shel found herself in a cavernous space. The marble floor was certainly solid enough, and the cold and the darkness were very real. There were torches to the far right and left of her, their tiny flickering's a indication of the massive size of whatever 'room' she was in. They formed a sort of corridor, but the torches didn't give out enough light for her to see much.
Suddenly something flickered in the air in front of her, but she couldn't tell what. The flickering became more frequent and she could discern colors, images, figures. She realized that she was seeing a floating screen of sorts. Like an image was being projected on an invisible screen before her. With a start, she recognized that the visions that were plaguing her were materializing before her eyes. She reached out and touched the screen and felt resistance. She quickly realized she could feel the magic screen, which wigged her out a bit. Stepping back a little, she tried to make out what she was seeing. From a bit of a distance, the screen looked like it was composed of little squares of pictures. The arrangement looked familiar until she realized it was a sliding block puzzle, where you had to rearrange squares in the right order. Instead of numbers, the 'tiles' were parts of a picture. And judging by what she could tell, the final picture matched an image from one of her visions.
She was familiar with playing with these kinds of puzzles and had no trouble sliding all the tiles around. Soon she completed the picture. Which was exactly what she thought it was. The black female fighting a Billy Idol-wannabe in a subway. She didn't know quite why they were fighting, but she knew they were both just the latest combatants in a long war. The screen dissolved and everything was exactly as it was before.
Shel shook herself out of her reverie. She walked farther down the corridor, hearing the whispers own steps and in the almost total silence. As she continued further, she started running into strings or something criss-crossing the corridor. It almost seemed to her a giant cat's cradle. She tried moving them out of her way with her hand, but they were coated in some stinging substance. Not only that, but now she was being struck by small pebbles. Knocking them away didn't hurt her, but the strings did. Standing still made everything stop and the web-like thing disappear. The second she moved, it all came back. She stopped again and thought a bit. She could just barrel on through like a bull in a china shop, but since the puzzle appeared to be a challenge of some sort, this would be another challenge.
She resented it but also felt the powerful desire to show whoever the test-giver was that she wasn't gonna back down.
Shel had to use every bit of dexterity she had in order to avoid the strings, while batting away the pebbles. Bending this way and that way. Putting her body in positions she never thought possible. It was sort of like going through an obstacle course, being perpetually hit by a tennis-ball machine.
Finally she was able to get out of it, although she half-felt that 'they' could have stopped this at anytime and she was basically running in place like a hamster on a wheel.
Shel laughed weakly, realizing the first challenge was a mental game, the second challenge a physical one. She wondered what the third challenge would represent. She decided she would stop and rest for a while and prepare herself for the whatever would come next.
She sat down cross-legged on the cold floor and relaxed her mind, letting tension be released from her body. She reflected back that had happened to her since she got the juice, which was a short trip, actually. As she let her mind and body float a bit, she felt threads of connection with others similar to her that she never felt before. Younger girls, older girls, tall ones, short ones, ones with attitude and ones who were meek. The threads seem to be vibrating, sending strength to the others, while she felt strength being returned. Not so much a circle of life, but a web of life.
After she felt she had meditated enough, she got up off the floor and dusted herself off a bit. Jumping up a bit and shaking her arms and legs. A warm up of what was to come. Working the cricks out of her neck, she started forward once more. After a little while she wondered what was up, she figured she would have met her next challenge by now. No sooner than she thought that, then others appeared. With a start, she recognized these people. One was a friend of hers from school. Another was her mother. And still a third was the Uncle Tom, who she spend a wonderful summer a year or so ago. She would be happy to see them, if they hadn't looked unusually pale and somber.
Shel heard a clacking and saw that something had dropped to the floor. She bent down and picked it up and saw that it was a long, pointy stake. With horror, she realized that she would have to kill these individuals like she did the pale dude from a few weeks ago. No way could she stake her own mother, but Shel was given little choice, as they started attacking her. Shel's emotions roiled up within her. She started crying with every blow she had to give to her mother, her friend, her uncle. It was like every time she hit them, it was hitting herself in the face. Finally she dusted the her uncle and she collapsed sobbing to the floor.
Wiping her eyes with her sleeves, she glanced at the floor and it began changing. Sniffling, she scrambled to her feet and looked around. The long corridor with torches was gone. She was in a circular chamber and in the center was a table with something on it. Approaching it, she noticed that the object appeared to be a little square of cake or something. She remembered they were called a petit four. There was a toothpick stuck in the cake and some twisted piece of was tied to it. She slid the twisted paper from the toothpick and smoothed it out. It had two words on it. "Eat Me". Shel nearly laughed hysterically. Alice in Wonderland took a whole new meaning now. Getting control of herself again, she picked up the mini-square and popped it in her mouth. Almost immediately the chamber dissolved and she found herself inside another large room. But this room was a normal, house-type room. With furniture and stuff. She looked around and saw a number of other girls, who seemed to be about the same age as her.
One of them, who appeared to be just slightly older than her approached her. She was a bit on the small side, blonde hair tied into a ponytail. Shel felt like this girl could smack her down quite easily, although Shel was bigger and taller than her. Blondie extended her hand, smiled and said "Hi Shel, I'm Buffy. Welcome to the Club".
Fitting in might not be so bad after all, Shel thought.
by Christopher Marlowe
Shel stood on the concrete stairs and slowly ran her eyes up at the enormous marble doors. She couldn't believe she was suppose to be able to push through them. They looked like they haven't budged an inch since they were built. She wanted to curse loudly and frequently, but somehow, being in a graveyard after midnight wasn't conductive to swearing, so she settled for just berating herself mentally.
How did I get into this mess? A crypt in a cemetery is not where I wanted to be when I grow up, Shel thought to herself.
Shel was just a normal girl with normal problems: school, boys, a ridiculous curfew. Until she started getting these freaky dreams a few weeks ago, even during the day. And then there was that little problem of finding herself able to punch through walls and kick butt like Blade The Vampire Hunter. She had no idea what was happening to her. Far as she knew she wasn't from Krypton, no magic ring appeared before her, no mysterious alien bestowing power upon her. Just BAM and she could kick it up a helluva notch.
What was really the straw was when she was walking home from school one night and some pale dude tried to attack her. She almost thought she 'felt' him before she actually saw him. Almost by instinct she looked for something pointy and almost before she knew it, he was a smattering of dust in the wind.
Not that Shel objected to having the super-sized abilities now. After dusting that guy, she felt great. It's something that made her more special, more different. She loved being the odd girl out to begin with and now she could really stand out. But she didn't want to simply be able to knock out bullies or overturn cars. Shel always felt she wanted to do more, be someone, do something and getting the juice just amplified that.
The visions were a different thing though. She kept getting images of other girls from other times. Some Chinese girl, a black chick all kicking arse and stabbing at people with stakes. She heard of psychics and seeing into the future. But she was getting a bit of youtube on the brain, and she wants to know what it it was all about.
Shel was not about to let herself freaked out by this, she didn't cultivate the tough punk chick so she would get the willies over something weird. She was into yoga, though and she figured that the visions she was getting were being sent, same as the abilities she just got. So she thought she might as well hit 'reply' so to speak.
She did the whole bit, candles, yoga mat, Yanni. As she relaxed her mind she tried calling to the visions. One image came back and almost knocked her flat. It was the very same doors she was standing before now. The only difference was that in her vision, the doors had writing carved in them that said 'Centerview Cemetery'. That seemed to be a pretty clear indication that she was supposed to 'go here'.
She walked up the steps and tried touching the doors, but her fingers went through it. So the doors themselves, while looking like they would stand for eons, didn't really exist at all. Shel would have actually preferred that they be solid, then should could at least have the excuse of not being able to go further.
Shel found herself in a cavernous space. The marble floor was certainly solid enough, and the cold and the darkness were very real. There were torches to the far right and left of her, their tiny flickering's a indication of the massive size of whatever 'room' she was in. They formed a sort of corridor, but the torches didn't give out enough light for her to see much.
Suddenly something flickered in the air in front of her, but she couldn't tell what. The flickering became more frequent and she could discern colors, images, figures. She realized that she was seeing a floating screen of sorts. Like an image was being projected on an invisible screen before her. With a start, she recognized that the visions that were plaguing her were materializing before her eyes. She reached out and touched the screen and felt resistance. She quickly realized she could feel the magic screen, which wigged her out a bit. Stepping back a little, she tried to make out what she was seeing. From a bit of a distance, the screen looked like it was composed of little squares of pictures. The arrangement looked familiar until she realized it was a sliding block puzzle, where you had to rearrange squares in the right order. Instead of numbers, the 'tiles' were parts of a picture. And judging by what she could tell, the final picture matched an image from one of her visions.
She was familiar with playing with these kinds of puzzles and had no trouble sliding all the tiles around. Soon she completed the picture. Which was exactly what she thought it was. The black female fighting a Billy Idol-wannabe in a subway. She didn't know quite why they were fighting, but she knew they were both just the latest combatants in a long war. The screen dissolved and everything was exactly as it was before.
Shel shook herself out of her reverie. She walked farther down the corridor, hearing the whispers own steps and in the almost total silence. As she continued further, she started running into strings or something criss-crossing the corridor. It almost seemed to her a giant cat's cradle. She tried moving them out of her way with her hand, but they were coated in some stinging substance. Not only that, but now she was being struck by small pebbles. Knocking them away didn't hurt her, but the strings did. Standing still made everything stop and the web-like thing disappear. The second she moved, it all came back. She stopped again and thought a bit. She could just barrel on through like a bull in a china shop, but since the puzzle appeared to be a challenge of some sort, this would be another challenge.
She resented it but also felt the powerful desire to show whoever the test-giver was that she wasn't gonna back down.
Shel had to use every bit of dexterity she had in order to avoid the strings, while batting away the pebbles. Bending this way and that way. Putting her body in positions she never thought possible. It was sort of like going through an obstacle course, being perpetually hit by a tennis-ball machine.
Finally she was able to get out of it, although she half-felt that 'they' could have stopped this at anytime and she was basically running in place like a hamster on a wheel.
Shel laughed weakly, realizing the first challenge was a mental game, the second challenge a physical one. She wondered what the third challenge would represent. She decided she would stop and rest for a while and prepare herself for the whatever would come next.
She sat down cross-legged on the cold floor and relaxed her mind, letting tension be released from her body. She reflected back that had happened to her since she got the juice, which was a short trip, actually. As she let her mind and body float a bit, she felt threads of connection with others similar to her that she never felt before. Younger girls, older girls, tall ones, short ones, ones with attitude and ones who were meek. The threads seem to be vibrating, sending strength to the others, while she felt strength being returned. Not so much a circle of life, but a web of life.
After she felt she had meditated enough, she got up off the floor and dusted herself off a bit. Jumping up a bit and shaking her arms and legs. A warm up of what was to come. Working the cricks out of her neck, she started forward once more. After a little while she wondered what was up, she figured she would have met her next challenge by now. No sooner than she thought that, then others appeared. With a start, she recognized these people. One was a friend of hers from school. Another was her mother. And still a third was the Uncle Tom, who she spend a wonderful summer a year or so ago. She would be happy to see them, if they hadn't looked unusually pale and somber.
Shel heard a clacking and saw that something had dropped to the floor. She bent down and picked it up and saw that it was a long, pointy stake. With horror, she realized that she would have to kill these individuals like she did the pale dude from a few weeks ago. No way could she stake her own mother, but Shel was given little choice, as they started attacking her. Shel's emotions roiled up within her. She started crying with every blow she had to give to her mother, her friend, her uncle. It was like every time she hit them, it was hitting herself in the face. Finally she dusted the her uncle and she collapsed sobbing to the floor.
Wiping her eyes with her sleeves, she glanced at the floor and it began changing. Sniffling, she scrambled to her feet and looked around. The long corridor with torches was gone. She was in a circular chamber and in the center was a table with something on it. Approaching it, she noticed that the object appeared to be a little square of cake or something. She remembered they were called a petit four. There was a toothpick stuck in the cake and some twisted piece of was tied to it. She slid the twisted paper from the toothpick and smoothed it out. It had two words on it. "Eat Me". Shel nearly laughed hysterically. Alice in Wonderland took a whole new meaning now. Getting control of herself again, she picked up the mini-square and popped it in her mouth. Almost immediately the chamber dissolved and she found herself inside another large room. But this room was a normal, house-type room. With furniture and stuff. She looked around and saw a number of other girls, who seemed to be about the same age as her.
One of them, who appeared to be just slightly older than her approached her. She was a bit on the small side, blonde hair tied into a ponytail. Shel felt like this girl could smack her down quite easily, although Shel was bigger and taller than her. Blondie extended her hand, smiled and said "Hi Shel, I'm Buffy. Welcome to the Club".
Fitting in might not be so bad after all, Shel thought.