Prompt 010
Title: The Future's so Bright...
Author: Always_jbj
Rating: G
Word Count: 555
Prompt: 010 (Your Town)
Characters/Pairing: Spike
Note: This is a slightly altered extract taken from one of my chaptered fics, and the only time I think I can (plausibly) get away with bringing any of the BtVS characters to my home town. lol
Set just outside Brisbane, Australia approximately 125 years in the future.
The Future's so Bright...
Days and nights passed; time spent exploring this new town. It was a small satellite town, which had risen over the last twenty years-two hundred kilometres or so west of the outskirts of Brisbane and its surrounding cities.
Australia, like most countries over the last century, had grown upwards. Nearly all Newtowns and cities were being built inland, in the more harsh and rugged terrain, leaving the lush coastal lands for farming and grazing. Many of the previous outer fringes of the once-sprawling cities had been reclaimed by the government years ago for food production. The populace choosing either to move to the newer satellite towns called Newtowns to the west, with their smaller apartment blocks and continued surface living, or into the ever increasing concrete jungles reaching high above the skyline and, more recently, far below the surface of the older cities.
These interconnected towering masses of concrete and steel-which meant that throughout the course of their lives, most people never needed to touch the outside air-formed a safe haven and virtual playground for the world’s vampires. Cities such as these had sprung up throughout the world. Such practices as cremation, which saved space previously taken over by graveyards, meant changes to the time-honoured methods of turning new vampires. Those being turned could no longer be left to rise from their graves but instead required the sire to take the corpse of their would-be childe to a safe haven to await their rising. Movement, however, was no longer restricted to the hours of darkness only. The artificial lighting, while still supplying the vitamin D required by humans, did not imitate sunlight close enough to be harmful to vampires, and the food supply was more than plentiful.
Sirius, however, was a Newtown. With paved footpaths and roads, grass and trees, and businesses out in the bright sunlight and fresh air. It even had an old fashioned graveyard as well as the usual indoor crematorium and memorial gardens typical of the big cities. Here children played in the parks and streets, travelled to school on the government provided electric buses, listened to the birds sing and the rain fall. The citizens had the option of either walking the streets or using the free public electric buses, or in some cases electric cars that were made available upon request to individuals for temporary use.
Spike explored; learning the best haunts for the local vampire population and seeking out the demon bars and seedy underlife that form wherever civilisation occurs.
When he spotted a vampire he removed it. It was a duty he carried on for those who were no more; no longer revelling in the violence, however, welcoming its relief.
Wherever he travelled in the world he fought against the forces of evil, forces of which he was once a member. The fight had once been a joy-a shared dance with a partner who anticipated his moves before he made them, a partner whose grace and beauty, strength and power had constantly left him in awe. Now he fought her fight for her, knowing that this is what she would want. He fought for her, for her watcher and her friends; people who had become his friends. For her sister, who was like a daughter to them both. For their memory, and for their descendants.
Author: Always_jbj
Rating: G
Word Count: 555
Prompt: 010 (Your Town)
Characters/Pairing: Spike
Note: This is a slightly altered extract taken from one of my chaptered fics, and the only time I think I can (plausibly) get away with bringing any of the BtVS characters to my home town. lol
Set just outside Brisbane, Australia approximately 125 years in the future.
The Future's so Bright...
Days and nights passed; time spent exploring this new town. It was a small satellite town, which had risen over the last twenty years-two hundred kilometres or so west of the outskirts of Brisbane and its surrounding cities.
Australia, like most countries over the last century, had grown upwards. Nearly all Newtowns and cities were being built inland, in the more harsh and rugged terrain, leaving the lush coastal lands for farming and grazing. Many of the previous outer fringes of the once-sprawling cities had been reclaimed by the government years ago for food production. The populace choosing either to move to the newer satellite towns called Newtowns to the west, with their smaller apartment blocks and continued surface living, or into the ever increasing concrete jungles reaching high above the skyline and, more recently, far below the surface of the older cities.
These interconnected towering masses of concrete and steel-which meant that throughout the course of their lives, most people never needed to touch the outside air-formed a safe haven and virtual playground for the world’s vampires. Cities such as these had sprung up throughout the world. Such practices as cremation, which saved space previously taken over by graveyards, meant changes to the time-honoured methods of turning new vampires. Those being turned could no longer be left to rise from their graves but instead required the sire to take the corpse of their would-be childe to a safe haven to await their rising. Movement, however, was no longer restricted to the hours of darkness only. The artificial lighting, while still supplying the vitamin D required by humans, did not imitate sunlight close enough to be harmful to vampires, and the food supply was more than plentiful.
Sirius, however, was a Newtown. With paved footpaths and roads, grass and trees, and businesses out in the bright sunlight and fresh air. It even had an old fashioned graveyard as well as the usual indoor crematorium and memorial gardens typical of the big cities. Here children played in the parks and streets, travelled to school on the government provided electric buses, listened to the birds sing and the rain fall. The citizens had the option of either walking the streets or using the free public electric buses, or in some cases electric cars that were made available upon request to individuals for temporary use.
Spike explored; learning the best haunts for the local vampire population and seeking out the demon bars and seedy underlife that form wherever civilisation occurs.
When he spotted a vampire he removed it. It was a duty he carried on for those who were no more; no longer revelling in the violence, however, welcoming its relief.
Wherever he travelled in the world he fought against the forces of evil, forces of which he was once a member. The fight had once been a joy-a shared dance with a partner who anticipated his moves before he made them, a partner whose grace and beauty, strength and power had constantly left him in awe. Now he fought her fight for her, knowing that this is what she would want. He fought for her, for her watcher and her friends; people who had become his friends. For her sister, who was like a daughter to them both. For their memory, and for their descendants.