How to Begin Toll Forest
So that I have a record written down of a couple ideas I've had lately, here's how I'd begin the first tale from the Toll Forest universe:
And when it was over, no one was left who remembered exactly how it began. And in truth, not many were left at all anyway. Possibly only a few thousand huddled together in the shadows of former empires and empty cities waiting for commerce. Without the manpower to maintain any global infrastructure, silence fell upon humanity and all of its accomplishments. In a short matter of years, Earth went from polluting outer space with countless radio waves to being just another quiet rock spinning helplessly around the sun.
Our planet had survived humanity. Nature retook cities with new plant growth. Creatures once hunted by man now lived comfortably on the streets of every metropolis. The Earth seemed to scold us as if to say, "I told you so. You can't destroy me." Indeed, North America, for example, once again became a vast, million-square-mile forest. Some believed our loss of all that was once civilization was our price to pay. It could be called karma, that we deserved this and it was inevitable. This toll would set us back tens of thousands of years in development as a species. As such, the world waiting to be repopulated and reclaimed by man came to be known as Toll Forest.
What did survive of mankind waited and thought amongst themselves. They were many, small groups scattered around the globe talking to each other in quick blips over deteriorating satellite communication networks. They plotted and planned and talked about hunts. Some shared stories of monsters in the forest; nameless herds of deadly beasts that threatened their kin. Expeditions sometimes went into the forest to secure and retrieve resources and old technology. Most never came home. Nature was left to run wild, but one by one, we were coming back.
Chapter 1: Sunburn
Once upon a road in the midwest, near dawn, the birds were barking their songs from their perches in the tallest oak trees. It was loud and sufferable with the road sticky from the mild night and morning dew. The asphalt had its typical yellow and white stripes running fast in both directions for dozens of miles but showing the decay of time. Weeds broke through in places, a green starkness against the obvious artificiality of the road itself.
Suddenly, the birds became calm and silence claimed the fields aside. A figure appeared from the sky. Slowly and completely without a sound, it approached and came lower to the surface of the street. It appeared as a floating mass wrapped in a cloak of tattered cloth stained brown with dirt and mud. A foot descended from the robe and contacted the road. Weight was shifted around as the other foot landed. The figure began slowly walking the center yellow line toward the west, away from the sunrise. Periodically, the creature would stop and move around beneath its sheet as if it could see through but kept it on as protection.
After a few short minutes of walking only fifty yards, a head emerged from the cloak. A young man with rough skin and short, bleached white hair took a shallow breath and sighed. He cautiously removed the cloak completely, revealing his tattered clothing consisting of several layers of dingy cotton shirts and camouflage-colored pants. He rolled up the cloak and slipped it into a shoulder-riding pack from which he then removed a clean plate of glass measuring 5 inches by 10 inches. He sat on the pavement and quickly wiped the glass with a spare leaf of clothing. After holding it up to the morning sun, checking for cracks or damage, he tapped a corner of the glass. Immediately it began glowing with vapors of light and shadow on its surface. Colors sharpened and solidified showing text and photos. The man touched another section of the glass and a word appeared: "RECORDING".
He broke the morning silence and spoke into the tablet as if it were listening...
More later if not sooner!
And when it was over, no one was left who remembered exactly how it began. And in truth, not many were left at all anyway. Possibly only a few thousand huddled together in the shadows of former empires and empty cities waiting for commerce. Without the manpower to maintain any global infrastructure, silence fell upon humanity and all of its accomplishments. In a short matter of years, Earth went from polluting outer space with countless radio waves to being just another quiet rock spinning helplessly around the sun.
Our planet had survived humanity. Nature retook cities with new plant growth. Creatures once hunted by man now lived comfortably on the streets of every metropolis. The Earth seemed to scold us as if to say, "I told you so. You can't destroy me." Indeed, North America, for example, once again became a vast, million-square-mile forest. Some believed our loss of all that was once civilization was our price to pay. It could be called karma, that we deserved this and it was inevitable. This toll would set us back tens of thousands of years in development as a species. As such, the world waiting to be repopulated and reclaimed by man came to be known as Toll Forest.
What did survive of mankind waited and thought amongst themselves. They were many, small groups scattered around the globe talking to each other in quick blips over deteriorating satellite communication networks. They plotted and planned and talked about hunts. Some shared stories of monsters in the forest; nameless herds of deadly beasts that threatened their kin. Expeditions sometimes went into the forest to secure and retrieve resources and old technology. Most never came home. Nature was left to run wild, but one by one, we were coming back.
Chapter 1: Sunburn
Once upon a road in the midwest, near dawn, the birds were barking their songs from their perches in the tallest oak trees. It was loud and sufferable with the road sticky from the mild night and morning dew. The asphalt had its typical yellow and white stripes running fast in both directions for dozens of miles but showing the decay of time. Weeds broke through in places, a green starkness against the obvious artificiality of the road itself.
Suddenly, the birds became calm and silence claimed the fields aside. A figure appeared from the sky. Slowly and completely without a sound, it approached and came lower to the surface of the street. It appeared as a floating mass wrapped in a cloak of tattered cloth stained brown with dirt and mud. A foot descended from the robe and contacted the road. Weight was shifted around as the other foot landed. The figure began slowly walking the center yellow line toward the west, away from the sunrise. Periodically, the creature would stop and move around beneath its sheet as if it could see through but kept it on as protection.
After a few short minutes of walking only fifty yards, a head emerged from the cloak. A young man with rough skin and short, bleached white hair took a shallow breath and sighed. He cautiously removed the cloak completely, revealing his tattered clothing consisting of several layers of dingy cotton shirts and camouflage-colored pants. He rolled up the cloak and slipped it into a shoulder-riding pack from which he then removed a clean plate of glass measuring 5 inches by 10 inches. He sat on the pavement and quickly wiped the glass with a spare leaf of clothing. After holding it up to the morning sun, checking for cracks or damage, he tapped a corner of the glass. Immediately it began glowing with vapors of light and shadow on its surface. Colors sharpened and solidified showing text and photos. The man touched another section of the glass and a word appeared: "RECORDING".
He broke the morning silence and spoke into the tablet as if it were listening...
More later if not sooner!