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Stranger Fiction Than Life (Chapter 2)

YuffietheGreat — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:16:51 CDT

The Awakening of Maxwell Devonshire

After all I went through to get to this point of my life there is no turning back.I know what I must do ... But I'm still confused. It seems all too dream like still.And most of all ... why me?... Why couldn't I have a normal life.

It's been two months since I landed in this damn trailer park of freaks. The only normal one here is the little girl who I swear at times is an 80-year-old woman in disguise. A babbling scientist who wants to pick my brain apart, an alien queen who apparently for years been trying to kill me and when I thought my end was near. I find out she wasn't trying to kill me ... her twin sister was and they have been struggling for dominance on this planet we call earth for years but found the perfect opportunity to cripple each other by sowing their own seeds and raising them on Earth. Confused yet? It gets better.

Since i got here, it has been the training camp from hell. If its not the blonde munchkin riding my back like a used circus pony to play with her, its the scientist cackling about my brain and its potential scientific possibilities and the Black Queen Chimera practically beating the history of her people and abilities into my brain. I miss being growing up thinking I was a normal human teen striving to be myself. I didn't have to sleep in enclosed spaces to keep the scientist from probing under my skull cap which still hasn't completely healed despite the bad stitching job and every time I fall or laid down the skin pulls on the stitches and it hurts.

But soon, it became so norm, that's when it was my time to practice my unusual talents. I was building up my muscles, my peak physical fitness and profile. That was two months ago.

Two months has passed since the truth has been revealed to me and Ive been working with Chimera and my side kick of a scientist on how to use and control my...'Powers.'...It's getting hard to get use to living your whole life as a 'normal human being' as apposed to waking up in a bad sci-fi movie.

At the crack of dawn I'm rudely awaken by the munchkin alerting me that it was time for me to train with Chimera. Training begins with meditation ... which I have no patience for but for some god forsaken reason I must meditate in order to concentrate on whatever powers she hopes I possess. Today's lesson I'm told by the munchkin is the ability to transform my shape. Please. I can barely keep my skull in one piece let alone change into something completely different.

The child was adamant about my participating in today's lessons. Who knew an kid could be such a slave driver.

"Yes master!" I teased. "I'm coming... I'm coming."

Her little nose crinkled and she gave me a sour face before storming off, probably to tell on me. So I pulled on a pair of jeans and a raggedy t-shirt one of the residents gave me. This ought to be interesting, boy won't they be pissed off when they find out I'm just a regular kid ... so what if I have the ability to amplify my thoughts. If I knew I had that ability years ago, my aunt's wouldn't have rummaged through my home for my mother's belongings ... those damn vultures.

The scientist greeted me before my feet could cross the threshold of the door. His face was awash in goofy delight, in all it's glory. He softly clutched on my arm, like a overly sexed prom date. ('If another person touches me, I'll hurt them.')

As we walked I just couldn't deal with it and exploded.

"BACK OFF!" I shouted and brushed his hand off my arm. "What are you?! My girlfriend?"

The scientist stood there confused ... it was something he was unfamiliar with.

"What? What do you mean? I'm very heterosexual young man! What are you insinuating?"

He looked at me with a sad hurtful look.

"Look. I'm ... tired of being poked, prodded and handled ... I'm sorry. Just ... don't touch me like that again ... okay?" I responded. The scientist turned with his head lowered and walked ahead of me towards the training area.

It was a long silent walk to the training site, the Black Queen was sitting there ... waiting.

"Max ... I see your awake," she asked. "Come ... let's begin where we left off yesterday."

The Cherry Blossom Chronicles

Kos-Mos'sLover — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:15:22 CDT

".......DAVID!!!! So help me, I'm going to reach you!"
"That's something....that's not going to happen."
"...But..." Kos-Mos sighed, took a deep breath, and turned her back to him, "You're going to go, regardless of the fact, that....
"....don't say it."
"She's dead, David. This is not like Mary and Yeshua, you and her....you're not in those circumstances."
"I realize that. It's more like Shion and Kevin, except we will not be trying to save this world. We will, in truth, see it destroyed."
"But, you don't have to. You can stay here....with me, by my side, in Paradise. For years, isn't that what you wanted? or does the thrill of sin pull you so."
"....Nothing...."pulls" me anywhere. I am pushed...."
"...."
"by your love and by fear of your love, I am pushed to oblivion. In a desperate attempt to be clean, I'm pushed to oblivion, the cleansing phase of life through death, otherwise....my filthiness, the uncleanliness of this soul will not be able to bear your love's constant pressure amongst it. The..guilt....the guilt is too great. The resulting pressure is like that of Tartares's darkest chambers, those horrid chambers of punishment for angels, your love....is the darkest chamber, the most-horrid torture room, the most terrifying pit of brimstone. Please...Kos-Mos..."
"David..."
"Don't destroy me any further....please....have mercy."

It's been over 20 years since I last had that dream. My name is David Saverem, at least...the human side of me, retains that name. The other side...is Tarvos. But, that's a long story and no need in telling it now. More importantly, I've met a little girl by the name of Aoi Sakura. Though many words can be used to describe her, only one is needed. That word...is Hyper.The girl NEVER seems to run out of energy. She swears up and down to me, "David, I'm the perfect cherry blossom!!!!!!!!!" And my response is always the same, "I know that. (Tch...you only told me thousand times before I even knew who you were.)." I've also manage to maintain a friendship/rivalry with my longtime running mate, Janson Maxwell. He's been with me since we met at a basketball camp on Corelea'n, he met Sakura the day I did...and hasn't been able to get her to shut up any more than what I have.

Another person I've met thanks to Sakura is Lana Divine. Honestly, Janson and I thought she was porn star, but that's her actual name. A lesson, those bruises we received for our curiosity, will never let us forget. If I remember correctly, she was once a hotshot hacker, now turned computer technician. In her spare time, she works with Vector. Sorta like a side job, and payback. The year is A.Z. 2769. No one knows if the years are taken right from the date that planet Abraxes disappeared or when Momo and the people at Vector fixed the U.M.N. Lana was determine to find out. Hacking her way through encryption after encryption, she said she came across something strange. An image; showing the upper bodies of what appeared to be nude man with a wing for the right side of an angel's body. A nude woman with long hair, her chest showing, with a wing for the left. And the oddest image of two red eyes seeming to overlap the man and the woman. He had no body, no definite shape whatsoever, he just had his eyes and, what she was able to make out, some hair. After that, she was caught. She told us what seem like a entire hour of staring at the pic, was actually a few seconds. She hasn't re-hacked Vector since, but we can all tell she contemplating how. Moving on, another character we met was Marisa Ikari.

Marisa does that Eureka Seven thing...she lifts. We don't have trapers or anything like what that anime has, but we do have boards that are capable absorbing and pushing out tons of air in seconds, thus achieving elevation. Think of it as a surfboard on roids. Marisa's a champion on every level of lifting. Having got to the point where she become board with competition, seeing as none was ever there, she decided to take up freelifting and a delivery service. She lives with Lana (who has decided to move in with Janson and myself...without either one of our consent.), so as one can guess, their room is littered with technology. Marisa's lift board, itself, is a product of illegal modification. Equipped with a shield transmitter, it is capable of breaking through the atmosphere and traveling in space. Marisa even has a special suit designed for outer space travel, though she can't really travel that far from a host ship or planet. The suit is designed to provide 24hrs. of oxygen to the wearer, to adjust the temperature when she breaking through the planets atmosphere into the coldness of outer space and for her break back into the planet, and to adjust to her body size; meaning if she gains a few extra pounds, the suit adjusts itself, accordingly. Another illegal mod she has on her board are the front-side weapons and the backside "supersonic" engine. The front-side lasers give her the ability to take on, even the military's mechs in firepower. And her engine, mixed with the shield for cutting through the wind while she's laid upon the board, enables her to much speeds with even some of the faster capital ships.

Lastly, the board has some sort of mechanism that enables her to place heavy, though not incredible heavy, but heavy packages to and fro for her customers. Needless to say, most are illegal. I don't know how many times we've all had to cover for her. I forgot to mention, Sakura lives with us as well. We adopted her as soon as she finished telling us how she's the perfect cherry blossom (whatever it took to get the girl to shut up, even for just a little bit.). With those two, and Lana's decision to be the head woman of the house (we wouldn't let her be head mother.), Janson and I haven't had a chance to be the lazy dudes we wish to be in our apartment, not even on a Saturday. Women, especially in three different age groups, keep men working and moving. Well...while we could complain, we don't. The way we see it, if it wasn't for them, we'd be bored to death. So, at least now we have some incentive.

It's been this way for 5 years now, hectic, but peaceful. However, that peace is about to be shattered, I feel. Although slight, people have been reporting Gnosis sightings all over the place. According to estimates, there's been at least 1 or 2 sightings of them, every two weeks. So far, just sightings. There's been no reports of violence...yet. Something has been left undone. I've been studying Shion's, and what has become known as the Xeno crew, expeditions. From what I've learned, she and her friends were able to destroy a machine that had the ability to, from what I understood, avoid the Apocalypse by restarting mankind's time. As for how many times this circulation was performed, no one knows, but apparently it has happened before. More importantly, with it's destruction, mankind has been left to the last days. Left to our fates, there is no Shion nor KOS-MOS to save us. So...who will guide us away from this death. I'll be honest.....I think it will be the perfect cherry blossom, the so-called "daughter of Amaterasu", the one girl who's energy is that of the Zohar.

I haven't told her, but I do believe that Sakura is a proxy of The Saviour. And that she will lead people into Paradise, the land where Kos-Mos lays.

Chapter 1- Sakura

As the days fade in and out, Sakura seems to grow more and more energetic.
"This is the FIFTH TIME, I've had to pick you up from school this week! Why are causing mischief over there!? Why can't you be good, SAKURA!!!?"
Sakura, mumbling under her breath, "The same reason you can't stop having lesbian sex with Marisa."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY!?"
"AH! I said the same reason you can't stop messing with Vector, hee hee."
".....are you surrrrre you didn't say something about my nights with Marisa..."
David, sitting in the hallway of the apartment, was listening to the entire conversation. "Damn, Lana....just come on out with it. I mean...how could that Possibly have an effect on Sakura" , he thought to himself.
Sakura, now looking at Lana curiously, asked a question that neither Lana or David thought her capable. "You and Marisa are really lesbos, huh...wow...it all makes sense now."
"What makes sense?", Lana asked as she began to drink her warm tea.
"Well...", suddenly her faced blushed, matching her pink, twin ponytails. She giggled a bit and the question busted from her lips, "Why haven't you given David any playtime!? We all know you want him and he wants you too!!!"
Spitting out her tea from shock, Lana was caught completely off guard, "WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
She wasn't the only one, David had to refrain from slamming his head in the wall. "Damn it,Sakura!!! That was going to happen tonight, but not now!!! ....Oh, well. I guess it's for the better. I mean...I can go without sex. I've done so for a while now. Resilience, David...that's the key."
"C'mon, Lana. You're like my mom and David's the dad. A key for a healthy relationship is intercourse. Why aren't my parents making love? How am I going to get a younger sibling for me to push around, if you guys don't get at it? Go in his room, Lana. No one's here, but me. I'll make sure no one interrupts you guys while you're getting a more complete fami..."
"Alright, Sakura, that's enough!"
"You guys could even get married! That would kick soooooo much ass!!! I know the perfect dress."
"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!"
"Lana-san..."
'I...I don't mean to yell at you Sakura, but...it's...not like I haven't thought of those things.
David was surprised to learn of this. "She thinks...me!?", now that was a delightful thought. As far as he was concerned, he was the one Lana hated the most out of the two.
Lana, now laughing with a smug look on her face, bent down to Sakura's ear and whispered, "To be honest..."
"Yeah?"
"I was gonna work him crazy, till he couldn't take it, haha. But, now that you've shouted all those things, I think it's better if I make him suffer."
"oooooohhhh, how deLIGHTfully...eeeevillllll."
"Yeah, but not like Marisa, though."
"Oh....how so?"
"Marisa broke Janson off hard! ....And she hasn't done any more since than give him a kiss, here and there."
"So Janson's caught!? She caught the guy voted best sexpot in town!? WHY!? I mean...does she know how a guy gets that title?"
"Yeah. And I asked myself the same question. But, she says it's too prove that he's not the man the world makes him out to be. Know what....I believe her. David swears up and down that Janson's a good person. I always thought of him as just a big playboy. But...I think I finally see what David and her see."
"Wow, I like Janson, but who would've thought, eh. Anyhoo....what about David...what do you see in him?"
Lana's smile faded. She spoke more solemnly now as she fixed herself and Sakura some tea. Sitting at the table, tears began to form. "Sakura...."
"......."
"I see a man....who's more concerned with being your father than being my husband. A man of determination. Someone...who has very deep wounds, that I cannot heal."
"Don't say that, Lana. David, he always tells me to believe in myself. NO MATTER WHAT!!!"
"He always tells me...."Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."..."
He almost sunk, David had no idea the effect he was having on Lana. Never once did he take into account her feelings. He'd play with her and everyone else, but other than Sakura, he never once thought of anyone else's care.
"..it's like he doesn't believe that I can help him, that I'm worthless. I do a few nights with Marisa, but...I much rather just lay in his arms. Just...lay there. We don't have to do anything, he doesn't have to try and impress me...I just want to be held."
Sakura, hearing this, showed another side of her. One David already knew, but one that was rare, regardless; her maturity. "Lana," she said as she pointed in the direction of the small hallway. "...in that room of his, that he let me have....he's right there. Get up, undress, and lay right there by his side. Don't worry, he probably be a bit pervy, but that's because you're a naked woman. Plus, your cups are pretty big, you're no small woman, so don't let his staring at you turn you away. Woman up, go in there, and lay in his arms.
"There will be no need for that." David finally spoke.
"David?? ...You don't....want me.."
"I want you, it's just that..."
Sakura picked this as the perfect time to intervene. "Go ahead, you twoooo. Aoi Sakura is on the job! Nothing will get in this house! ...And, for the ultimate privacy, I'll be wearing the earmuffs so that your 'oooohhhs' and 'ahhhhhhs' and your 'Oh, baby, F.." She cut off for a moment, seeing both Lana's and David's faces staring calm daggers at her, just waiting for the word to slip. "Well...you guys get the idea. Earmuffs...for your privacy (and my sanity. Hearing your parents go at it drives kids to therapy sessions for life.)"

David and Lana just looked at each other. They lusted for the other's flesh to the point where it was becoming an obsession. David spoke first, a bit nervously, but only a bit, to Lana, "Lana...I don't know if there's a...proper way to say this, but...."
Lana, smiling serenly, didn't let him finish, "Yes, David. I would love to give Sakura a younger brother or sister."
"REALLY!?! I mean....Lana."
Sakura, briming with pride over her success, began to walk out the door. "I'll just leave you two right where you are. When I come back in, I expect the room to smell like sweat and funk, and I want to get the sense of man and woman as one within ecstasy. ...Have a nice afternoon."
They both responded to her, sarcastically, "Yeah, we will. You too, Sakura."
"Alrighty, then. PEACE!!!!!!!!!"
Once Sakura left, David immediately picked up Lana and sat her in his lap as he took her chair. She rubbed his face with her right hand and played with his manhood with her left. "David, should we tell her? Should we tell her that we've been trying to get a child for her, but..."
"Lana...don't even think about it."
"How can I not think of it...not being able to have a child."
"We'll get one...alright?"
"Plus...."
"(Don't say it Lana.)"
"You're still in love...."
"Lana, Please...."
She grabbed him tight and stuck her tongue in his mouth. "You're still in love with Eve...you're still in love with Kos-Mos."
"...."
"And she still loves you...doesn't she?"
David didn't say a word. He simply held Lana tighter and started kissing her more and more. Eventually, they were into making love, healing each other's wounds; emotional wounds with physical passion. Sakura was right outside the door. She thought to herself, "I hope Kos-Mos never comes back....we're a perfect family, right here." She walked towards their apartment's balcony and looked up at the setting-sun colors of the sky, thinking even deeper. "Don't take this away from me...my dad...and mom...don't take them.....like the darkness took my real parents." The thought of the figure in black that seemed to have swallowed her birth parents caused feelings of hurt and anger to form. "I won't let you or ..That thing, do again....not without a fight next time. If anyone tries to split this family apart......I'll split them!"

-----Meanwhile-----

"Adam....Adam....How many moons have pasted since your departure from me? Do you lay with the whore now? Oh, damn you, my cruel love. Damn you. Torture me, you will no more." Rising from her bed of blood drenched roses, a woman made her way to a window to peek outside a temple that appeared as stone. Suddenly she went through the window and stood at the edge of small platform, behind her the temple had disappeared. "David....you can no longer hide from me. I will be coming to get you."
"KOS-MOS, get in here. We're getting ready to jump into the U.M.N to meet Momo and Ziggy."
"I will be in, give me moment to scan the area (where are you, where... are... you?)
"(Scan the area?", Shion thought to herself, "Are you looking for Gnosis?"
"No, there are none here. Coming in now, Shion. The target is out of range."
Shion simplied looked at Kos-Mos as she walked by. Kos-Mos never acted strangtely for no reason. She was looking for someone. "Was she sleep walking again? Who is this Adam she keeps talking about?"
"You worried about her too, huh Chief?"
"How can I not be. This is the 5 time this week, right on cue", she said as she took off her airsuit, "She gets up, walks to airlock, opens it, goes out and just stands there saying, "Adam...Adam". And after that, she starts speaking a language that even she can't understand." They had recorded her words and played them back to her, but Kos-Mos couldn't understand the language as well, despite having mastery over every language.
"Allen...if she keeps this up and does this for the next 3 days...It'll mark the 7 month she's done this."
"It'll be the 7 month, on the 7th, at 7:00 pm, Miltia time."
"Doesn't those numbers and the way they're coming into play, through Miltia time, strike you as peculiar?
"They do, but what do you suggest, Shion?"
"I don't know Allen, " she said while looking at Kos-Mos hard, "I really don' not."

The 10th Wolf Brigade (continued)

YuffietheGreat — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:29:09 CDT

Chapter 5: The journey into manhood (continued)

The day of the trail arrives and the boys gathered by the village gates and waited for Lokena's words. As Lokena arrived, the villagers a few steps behind him, he raised above his head a spear decorated with leaves, wrapped with vines from the jungle andfeathers from the local birds.

"I hold in my hand the spear of destiny," he said holding it out in front of Aki'bo. "This spear is passed to those boys leaving on a journey to manhood. This spear will provide you food, protect you and strike fear into your enemies only if you put your trust into it and into yourselves. At the end of your journey you will come across a great beast of the jungle who will determine if you are worthy to become a man of this village. Those not worthy will be devoured and those he feels confident in will be tested. The victor will return with his gift of life. Honor him when he offers it and quickly return to prove your worth."

Aki'bo bowed his head as he received the spear. He often saw his father working on it, preparing it for this day and now his father is handing him the spear and sending him on his journey to manhood. Yet Aki'bo can't help forcing back a tear when he waved to his father as they left the village ... a dreadful feeling that this was the last time he'd ever see his father alive.

Shaking off his feelings of dispair Aki'bo led his pack into the thick jungle holding his head high as his father would have wanted and kept his eyes forward. His body began to shake with sorrow and his skin cold. One of the other boys patted him on the back to let him know they felt the same way.

The group walked for what seemed like hours, the light through the branches of the tall leafy trees and vines began to fade and the boys knew that soon they needed to find shelter from the night stalkers. Those sleek black panthers, ocelots and other flesh eating creatures who would not hesitate to take one of them down as their evening meal. But in the midst of their journey into the jungle they were so absorbed in their sadness that they've neglected their body's need to feed. Remaining silent to avoid attracting predators, Aki'bo signaled two of the best hunters in the group to quickly find a quary in the area and two others to find some greens growing in the underbrush beneath the roots of the thick vines while he and the remaining boys tried to find a small cave or suitable area to set up camp and light a fire.

After the last rays of sunlight disappeared and the restless night stalkers wake from their slumbers. Aki'bo and the boys quickly eat the remaining meat from a monkey the hunters flushed out of the canopy and swallowed the last of the wild roots they've found near the camp. Once they've picked the bones clean they took it away from the camp and buried the remains and carefully walked around the flames and entered a small burrow Aki'bo dug into the base of a tree. Using the flames at the mouth of the entrance to guard them as they slept. Placing a few loose stones against the base of the fire the boys leaned against the cold dirt wall to sleep. Aki'bo waved the others to sleep and took first watch to keep the flames burning for warmth and protection.

Somewhere in the jungle a creature stirs and moves into the shadows.

Chapter 6: The Badge of Unity

After what seemed like days, the boys stopped as they approached rubbles of what appears to be an ancient ruin then froze. Something wasn't right in the jungle. The birds have stopped calling and the monkeys satfrozen in the branches. It was as if something sileneced the jungle, the boys stopped and listened.Nothing but silence.

As they looked around, Aki'bo couldn't help but feel a little jumpy when he backed into one of the others. It was as if their instincts were telling them to huddle together and they slowly put their backs against each other and waited. Looking over the landscape and into the canopy above them the boys listened, smelled and felt their surroundings. Something was very wrong in this area.

A small bird flittered between trees and a loud roar sounded close by, sending the animals screaming as they ran for their lives nearly trampling the boys as they rushed past. Then fear began creeping down their spines as they held their ground when a rather large tannish creature bounded towards them and pounced on one of the monkeys. The monkey screamed and howled as it pulled on the creatures whiskers trying to get it to release him. Managing to yank one of the whiskers out the giant cat-like creature spat him on the ground. As the monkey tried to get up and ran, it couldn't. Screaming as it tried to pull himself away from the creature. It's hindlegs crushed and mangled from the creatures poweful jaws. In a second attempt the creature scooped the monkey into its jaws head first. As the monkey struggled to pull himself out of the creature's jaw it suddenly stopped. It's body went limp and dangled from the creature's lips.

Aki'bo knew this was the creature his father meant for him to challenge. Tightening his grip around the spear he focused on the creature, in his mind he could see his father's nod of approval and then he roared as his body tensed and thickened. The creature looked up at the strange boy running towards it and took a defensive stance.

The two stood their ground waiting and anticipating one another's next move. As the creature's shoulder twitched and its claws digging into the ground Aki'bo squeezed the speargrip tightly. His muscles also twitched with anticipation wondering when the creature will leap and which direction should he roll out of the way. Soon he didn't have to wonder, the creature didn't leap ... it ran ... straight at him.

Aki'bo's muscles tensed as he jumped into the air as the creature neared then with his spear drove it into the creature's back as deep as it can go and held on tightly. It seemed like the fight was taking forever as Aki'bo held on for dear life. Part of him afraid to let go and be devoured by the beast and the other feared disappointing his father.

After what seem like hours the beast began to tire. The blood that seeped from the wound began to slow and finally it laid down on the ground and with a sigh its head fell to the ground and with its last breath gave its death roar and closed its eyes.

Aki'bo couldn't help but feel sadness for this strange creature and even more so when a young cub came racing out to mourn for its mother. 'This must be the gift father spoke of,' he thought to himself as he gently reached out to pet the cub. It ignored Aki'bo's touches and continued mourning for its mother. Aki'bo soon lifted the cub and held it. The rest of the boys lifted the body as a group and pulled it towards a giant table at the base of a statue and together lifted the body onto the table.

"Tonight we pray for its soul to reach the stars and mourn its death as well as celebrate our completed mission," Aki'bo announced as he left the group to hunt some deer and a few monkeys for the cub to eat. Even though it is the creature's cub its still the size of a goat and must eat. As he walked away, the cub followed with its head hung low. "You don't have to follow me little one, I owe your mother a ritual and a promise to see that you're taken care of."

As if it understood, the cub sat down and waited, whimpering as Aki'bo disappeared into the jungle.

Chapter 7: Village of Dispair

After what seemed like weeks of walking through the jungle, Aki'bo had an uneasy feeling as they neared the village and he knew the others felt the same.

As the boys approached an open area where their village once stood the cub began to growl and back away from the area. Aki'bo wanted to do the same but needed to investigate what happened to their village, but there was nothing to investigate. No pits smoking with fresh meats, women chattering and men boasting their day's hunt while the children played. Not even a hut is standing.

"Aki'bo!" shouted one of the boys as he runs into the center of the village.

"Lan! No!" Aki'bo screamed as Lan fell into the earth revealing the trap beneath the lightly covered ground, his eyes grew wide with horror as he counted the bodies of villagers impaled on poles beneath the ground staring up at them with bodies twisted and contorted faces. "Who ... Who has done this!!!!"

The boys fell to their knees in anger and screamed, their faces slightly changing as their muscles began transforming their bodies.

"Aki'bo?" a shy voice called out from the jungle.

The 10th Wolf Brigade

YuffietheGreat — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:10:01 CDT

"From chaos comes clarity,
I tell ya what you appear to be,
you ought to know glycerin tears don't fool me,
I tell ya delusions plaguing everybody..." - From Chaos by 311

Prologue

It is the year 2008, the government has grown tired of the war in the middle east and began their campaign to impeach the president. Once the president had been forced to step down they ordered all the troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. All the work they did left behind along with the people who grew close and began to trust them. The government promised the people they will be fine as they have grown and is capable of stopping the terrorists on their own without military assistance. The debate about cloning has become the main focus as research facilities around the world began looking at the possibilities of using cloned animals as a food source and the idea of playing with the DNA to create disease free children for parents with plenty of money to invest, designer pets and clones for body parts in medical research. The public soon became disgusted and opposed to the idea that soon the government put a stop to cloning worldwide.

While the government was putting a stop to the cloning scare ... or so they told the public ... a laboratory was established in Antarctica to continue its cloning research. After trying different animals, the first wolf-human clone was a success, using the DNA obtained from prisoners, hospitals and abortion clinics for the experiment. After months of failed births, 10 children were finally born in the lab with 15 more still in the process of completion. But as the middle east and other power hungry countries became restless, the government that funded their research were displeased with the scientists. They didn't want babies, they wanted full grown trainable adults to be able to quickly fill the ranks of its military and be able to take on missions when necessary without having to sacrifice a normal human life for any outbursts or wars.

And it didn't even take long before the Iraqi government began falling apart. Without the reassurance and guidance and protection they once received they began taking any easy way they can to get out of their situation. An opportunity the terrorists took to infiltrate the government take over from the inside out placing their own people within the ranks. By April 2009, the terrorists have taken complete control of the Iraqi government and threw the citizens back into the dark ages from once they came. Killing families who did not enlist their sons into the new terrorist-led Iraqi Army when they turned 13 and murdered them should they be caught trying to cross the borders or leave their villages. Soon by January 2010, the Iraqi Army was complete and while the United States remained oblivious by what is going on in the middle east they planned on the biggest war of their life time. They planned to wage war on American soil ... and three years later they came by the billions and waged their war.

Chapter 1: The Alpha and The Omega

As General Borshteen ordered his men to get the scientists out of the Antarctica Laboratory he grabbed his walkie-talkie and barked out orders to his re-con team hidden in the snow.

"Men! Get ready to initiate operation Omega!" he barked as he gritted his teeth and watched his men shove the last group of scientists out of the facility.
Lori Thorn was nervous as she hugged the children good-bye, she didn't want to leave them behind but knew she was not allowed to remove the human-hybrids of the Alpha project. Especially her own creation shenamed Matt after her own 10-year-old son who waslost in an incident at his elementary school while she was stationed at the lab. Alpha looked so much like the son she couldn't save when a drunk driver drove his semi-truck through a small elementary school in a rural town in Georgia. As she walked down the cold vacant hall towards the others she began having second thoughts. But the Soldier stomping his feet behind her was relentless and kept shoving her to hurry.

"Ma'am, we don't have time. Omega team will be released soon. Time to evacuate," he ordered. Lori began weeping as the cold air brushed past her face stinging her cheek where tears have already begun to freeze in place. As she was lead to a truck waiting outside. As the vehicle pulled away from the facility her heart began feeling heavy as she rocked back and forth from the truck moving over the snow and suddenly leaps from the back and began running back to the facility ... back to Alpha the one she lovingly named Matt.

"Damn it!" shouted one Soldier as he grabbed his weapon and was ready to jump out when the driver stopped him. "What?"
"Don't. Omega was just released," he said with a sad expression on his face. "Only God can save her and thosemutant kids now."

Lori ran as fast as she could through the thick banks of snow. She wanted to save the kids ... she wanted to save Matt, but as she stepped on something soft, it moved and she fell on her butt. As she struggled to get up a dark looming shape burst out of the snow and landed before her. It's huge muscular shape and snarling wolfish grin was unmistakably Omega. Her second creation after the Alpha project was scraped.

She knew what the government wanted was unstable and dangerous, she argued that it would be dangerous and pleaded with the government to let her finish the Alpha project. But they wanted an instant Army and she reluctantly gave them the unstableclones they demanded.Knowing she wouldn't make it inside in time,she ran for the door anyways ... she had to try. Omega smiled as if he knew what she was up to and let her have a head start.

Lori ran as fast as she could with her badge in her hand towardsthe door. As she swiped it across the readernothing happened. The door didn't respond and she began beating on the door screaming.

"Alpha One! Matt! Get your brothers and sisters and run away! The bad men are here!" She screamed then all was silent as Omega grabbed the back of her neck and squeezed. Turning her so that she faced him. He smiled at Lori, the womanwho foolishly thought she could be mother and watched her squirm in his powerful grip. Drawing his muzzle close to her lips he extended his long tongue andlicked her lips. Lori stopped struggling ... ready to face the inevitable and held still for her creation. She didn't blame Omega for the way he acts, this was her fault and she knew it ... she gave the government a killing machine cloned by her own hands. She accepted what Omega was about to do and as she called his name, "Omega" he bit into her throat ripped out a chunk ofsoft flesh into his mouth. The smell of fresh blood drove him into a frenzy as he fed on her. Soon the blood drove his pack into a frenzy and they circled him waiting their turn. Once Omega was satisfied he threw the limp body of the scientist like a rag doll to his pack. They were hungry ... for blood ... and would enjoy their first flesh meal before taking on the occupants of the facility.

Omega wanted more ... more blood ... more flesh, but as he began losing himself he let out a sudden bark and the others stopped. Snarling he turned towards the security door behind them and began pounding on it. His brute force began putting dents into the center of the heavy metallic door.

Inside the back of the lab where Alpha One and the others often played, the children began running around the room in a panic looking for a way out. He wasn't sure what was going on, but by instinct he knew he had to leave this facility. Looking around Alpha One found a vent that was large enough for children to fit through yet small enough to keep anyone larger than a 10-year-old childout. After sliding his fingers around the sides he found a loose corner and pulled the vent open. Pleased with himself he smiled and turned to motion the others to go through the vent tunnels. When the last child pushed themselves through the vent he entered and followed.

Omega finally dented the door enough to pull it open and ripped them off its hinges. He looked around the facility and sniffed the air. Barking as if giving a command his pack split up and began tearing the facility apart. Omega leaned forward and got on all fours, sniffing the ground he looked beneath the desks and lab tables. Then he caught a scent ... a scent not much different from his own ... a hybrid ... this is what the general wanted. Omega knew he had to kill and bring the body of the hybrid to the general or he would receive no drugs for the pain in his head. That was all he wanted now ... fresh blood ... fresh meat ... painkillers.

Chapter 2: Flight of the hybrids

As the sun broke the horizon and the frozen wastelands of Antarctica glowed with brightness as far as the eyes can see, a head pokes out of a mound of snow and looks around. Alpha lifted himself from the mound and sniffed the air. Nothing but white frozen snow as far as his eyes could see. Not even the facility was standing. He looked back down into the mound at his pack shivering as they slept. The only thing keeping them warm was their bodies huddled closely to one another. But soon they must leave this place or die in the elements.

Nudging one of the pack members Alpha crawled out of the mound and looked around. His stomach growled from hunger. Normally their caretaker would have brought them some breakfast by now. But all that was gone and they had to find food for themselves. Looking around again scanning the bright snowy landscape Alpha began howling in a daring attempt to locate the others from the lab and listening for any replies. Nothing returned. The others were already awake and crawling out of the mound. Alpha gave them a quick grunt and began running across landscape towards the North, the others followed.

After what seemed like days they found the edge of the continent. Nothing but a wide blue ocean as far as the eye could see. The others began whimpering as they huddled together for warmth. Alpha was upset, his instincts tell him to go north but he doesn't know how he'll be able to cross the water. That is until he spotted something moving in the distance, a small icy island moving along the edge and out towards the North. Alpha grunted and took off after the moving island. As they neared, one by one they leaped onto the island of ice and quickly huddled for warmth.

Chapter 3: A brand new world called home

It has been three years since Alpha arrived to the new continent. His instincts led him to the shores of a vast jungle covered land. Freezing and sick, the pack huddled together for comfort and warmth. It wasn't long before they were discovered by an old man and his son. It was that day he and his pack were renamed and given homes where their new family taught them how to survive the jungle, gave them a language to communicate with and trained them to protect themselves should a need for it arises. Alpha was proud of his new name, "Aki'bo." He never had a real name and can't remember what the scientists called him before if they had a name for him at all. He does remember one scientist who would hold him when he was sad, read to him as he fell asleep and fed him when he was hungry. But he also remembers the scientist who tried to save him from the Omega team.

"Aki'bo!" shouted an old man beneath the tree. "It's time to go hunting, son!"

Aki'bo loved to hunt, he was very happy to be taken in by his adopted father Lokena, the village leader, and his tribe. He knew the others were happy also and enjoyed learning new things from these people untouched by modern technology, greed or wants. He loved that despite their subtle differences - long canines, longer tongues and their inhuman strength - they adopted him and his pack willingly. For once Alpha, a.k.a. Aki'bo was happy. He never forgotten the incident at the laboratory but never missed it either.As he climbed down the boys from his pack greeted him at the base.

"Come on Aki'bo! Your father said he would teach us to hunt also," said a rather robust child with scruffy hair. The other boys laughed as they surrounded Aki'bo and patted him on the shoulder. Lokena smiled as he watched the boys show their love to his son. "Besides. Jimboa and I have a bet going to see who is the better hunter. You or Din."

With a huge grin another scruffy looking child puffed his chest and beat it as a smaller child patted him on the shoulder.

"If you say so," Aki'bo replied with a grin of his own. "What do you think father?"
"Now Aki'bo, you know hunting is not a contest," Lokena said with a stern voice. "It is about survival. We take what is needed to feed the village and no more. While we hunt the women gather the spices and vegetables to make the meals."

As if on cue the women walked past them followed by the girls. Aki'bo smiled as Aria walked past him. The two exchanged smiles as they looked into each other's eyes from a distant. Until Lokena slapped his back, "Aki'bo you must concentrate. I'm sure Aria would only want to take a strong hunter for a husband."

Aki'bo coughed in embarrassment as he turned to see his comrades laughing at him andsnarled at them for taunting him.Lokena waved for the boys to follow him as he was ready to lead the boys into the forest to catch up with the other hunters already stalking a deer nearby.

As they got closer to the other hunters, Lokena signaled for the boys to sit still behind the bushes and watch. Aki'bo watched with excitement as did the other boys watching as the hunters slowly approached a rather large deer with long antlers. When the deer's head shot up quickly as a distant noise spooked it. The hunters crouched with their spears ready and waited. Something echoed in the distance and suddenly all the animals were silent.

Chapter 4: A village shattered

As the hunters waited for the deer to settle down they looked around quickly to see what was making the animals nervous. Then from the brushes a hunter screams in pain as dark figures leapt down from the trees and attacked them. Aki'bo looked on in horror asfamiliar shapes from his past emerged from the shadows. His muscles tensed as he heard the soft thud behind him and his father scream.

In the distance the echoes of the village women screaming in the distance followed by the rumbling growl of a creature. Aki'bo watched in horror as the creature lifted his father by the throat and opened its mouth waiting to consume his flesh. Something in his mind took over and Aki'bo's muscles began tensing up and tightenedas well as those of his comrades as they took on the beast who now held his father above its head and prepared to break him over its knee.

"NOOOOOOOO!!!!" Aki'bo screamed as he rammed into the beast's stomache and bit into its soft flesh. The beast screamed as it dropped the old man behind him and looked down at the boys. The creature was shocked then smiled as its voice crackled beneath the drool.

"Finally ... a challenge," it growled.
"Leave my people alone!" Aki'bo growled. "Din! Save the others! Aria and the girls can look after the village women."

Din nodded as he and a few other boys took off towards the other beasts. As if something possessed Aki'bo his muscles continued to transform until he himself was beast-like. His strength nearly doubled as he and the boys took down the intruder. His father looked on in horror as he held his dislocated shoulder to his body. Holding his hand up he looked on in horror as his son transformed into a beast and challenged the larger beast. Within a few minutes the boys took down the beast and moved on towards the next.

After what seemed like hours, the boys made short of the intruders. Two laid dead in the long grass and the third near death moaned on the ground as the boys ran back to the village in their new form nearly spent in energy but fear of what they'll find at the village motivated them to move quickly.

"ARIA!" Aki'bo screamed as he entered the village. The women were surrounding a small fragile looking body on the ground crying. Next to them a fallen beast laid dead on the ground. "Aria?"

As he approached the women his form returned normal by the time he broke the circle and looked down. Relieved it was not Aria but saddened when he recognized the form laying on the ground barely breathing.

"No ... Li'na ... " he moaned as he fell to his knee. He felt a warm touch on his shoulder as he recognized Aria's touch and the hands of the other boys as they leaned in to comfort him.

"Aki'bo?" she whispered and slowly turned her head to face him. Her face torn to shreds from a powerful claw and her left eye barely hanging as she gasped. Using her last strength to speak. "It was Omega from our first home ... (gasp) ... he has changed ... more powerful ... more animal than human ... (cough) ... I tried to save the village ... (gasp) ... did I succeed?"

"Yes ... yes you did Li'na. Every one is safe," he said fighting back his tears. "Sleep now Li'na, go in peace. We'll stop Omega's blood feast."

With a smile Li'na passed away with a smile. The boys were upset and as if instinct was driving them they howled in unison, the girls joined him as they wept the loss of a close friend ... one of the pack. After what seemed like hours Aki'bo and the others looked up and noticed that the villagers were afraid of them. All but Lokena who stood there and watched.

"I knew you were special," he said holding his shoulder still with his left arm. "I knew the jungle gods have brought you here for a reason ... but we never knew that you were of the wild also."

"Father," Aki'bo said reaching out to him with his fingers spread open. Lokena could see the others were frightened and had to calm them down. Lokena loved Aki'bo as a son since his own had left long ago to participate inthe rites of man and never returned.

"Aki'bo," he said reaching out for his hand and held it firmly in his own. "You are my son. Nothing will change that. If the jungle gods call upon you to protect this village. Then protect it you must, son."

Aki'bo released his father's hand and hugged his waist. Lokena was hesitant at first but hugged him back. The villagers slowly walked forward to claim their own child. Except for those who adopted Li'na, they claimed her body and carried her to their home to prepare her body and soul for its journey to the spirit realm.

That night Aki'bo and the rest of the village walked in silence to the shores carrying a small token in their hand and them men carried Li'na'sbodyin a small boat on their shoulders. Once on the shores just outside of their jungle they laid the boat in the water. Each villager whose life she's touched stepped forward with a handmade token to lay at her side so she wouldn't have to travel alone.

When it was finally the children's turn to pay their respect Aki'bo approached with a small hand made doll in his likeness beside her.

"You were a great friend Li'na. A great friend to us all," he said wiping a tear from his eyes as he smiled. "Good journey Li'na. I will do my best to protect your family as long as I live."

Aria walked softly up to Aki'bo and gently squeezed his hand as he walked away hiding his sad face. Looking into the boat Aria smiled and laid a doll in her likeness beside Li'na and whispered, "we all will protect the village we all love."

Once everyone has paid their respect, the boat was shoved into the water where the waves carried it out to sea. Once it was a few feet away the hunters lit their arrows and sent them flying out to the boat. Aki'bo found his way to his father's side and squeezed his hand. Lokena looked down at Aki'bo and squeezed his hand back before pulling him near to hug his shoulders for comfort.

"You did well," he whispered. "But do not let this moment keep you from your duties and your promises."

Aki'bo knew what his father meant and tried to hold back his tears as he watched boat go up in flames. He looked at his pack as they stood there crying while the villagers though hesitant hugged their shoulders in comfort. Li'na's adopted parents mourned on the sands of the beach watching the boat sank into the rolling waves breaking the boat apart as it swallowed the flames.

Chapter 5: The journey into manhood

Two years have passed since the attack, the villagers seemed at ease with Aki'bo and his pack once more. Aki'bo knew it wouldn't be long before the wolf soldiers came back and he knew they would attack when the villagers least expected. It was almost time for Aki'bo and the other boys to go through their trials into manhood. Aki'bo looked forward to the trials but still, something worried him. Afraid to leave the village on their trek into the jungle for fear that Omega's wolf soldiers will strike while they were gone. But he knew his father would not hear of either him nor the other boys refusing to go.

Shock Tech:Inside the darkside of gaming,Anime and sci-fi

YuffietheGreat — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:24:48 CDT

360 MMA Game of Death

Finally after six horrid months of saving and living like a crack head, Wallace finally has enough to get his hungry hands on the coveted XBox 360.

Oh yes,for this piece of hardware eye candy he was willing to do anything ... Anything.Including allowing his lights to be nearly shut off, his studies to fail because he refused to buy the texts needed for most of his classes, giving up his lusty-shapely-over sexed girlfriend, because he no longer desired to waste the money he was saving on trivial dates (and it had taken him a full year to get this girl into his wanting arms, it had taken him eight months on a waiting list to get his apartment and it had taken him everything his mind could hold to finally get into M.S.U. the college of his dreams.)

But none of that stuff mattered now.As long as he could get his hands on that 360 everything in his dying universe would fall back into place, he just knew it would.After all he was a gamer, and gamers knew how to play a game to work to their advantage.

Yes he would find a way to get back on the right track with his studies,yes he would be able to pay his bills and get back into his relationship with his buxom girlfriend. But first he needed to finish his goal ... He needed to get that XBox in his hands, it was all he could think about for the last torturous six months.

Wallace Anderson had been attending M.S.U for two years now. He chose this college because it offered him a feel of comfort because of it's small class sizes, seeing how he hated over populated closed in classes. The easy going small class size that this college offered was a dream come true.Soon after graduation Wallace moved to Michigan to enroll in M.S.U. Using the funds his parents gave him he rented a small apartment until he could find a job that would pay the bills.

Once excepted to M.S.U he found a job as a waiter in a cheap diner to make ends meet ... all was working out for the moment. Weeks later, after the stress of work and studies he would unwind by playing his beloved Xbox, and this what his reward was ... Gaming. What a way to end a day filled with striff and BS. Wallace couldn't ask for anything more. Gaming was better than even sex, which he wasn't getting any of until he met Kimmie, a class mate of his that he spent long days and hours trying to impress, before he finally got her into his bed ... which sealed the deal for her and now she tries to use him for what little money he had. All that ended when he herd about the release of the Xbox 360.

He had to get his hands on that system, everything else could go to hell, he just had to own it. Gaming was his addiction and it was an addiction that was vastly powerful in all it's glory. The price for that baby was a little over $600.00, Wallace had saved close to a thousand. With the cash he had left over he would spend the rest on a game, (what else), and a little food to lastuntil next pay day. He was thankful that it was friday, seeing how he didn't work weekends and he only had classes four days out of a week, Monday throughThursday. He had all weekend to break this machines cherry and he'd love every minute doing it.

Wallace awokenearly, havingheard that the local gametime would be flooded to the hilt with people waiting to get their hands one one like himself,he had to be the first in line to get this bad boy. He started off his morning with a nice hot shower and a lite breakfast of Ramon noodles. (Remember he was sucking the blood out of every penny.)

After he grabbed his jacket to protect himself from Michigan's early morning autumn chill, he was out the door. Since he didn't own a car he had to walk two miles until he reached Gametime. He finally arrived at 7:35 a.m.just two and a half hours before it opened.

He was amazed to see that a line nearly a mile was already waiting outside the place. These people had camped out to make sure they'd get a copy before the store sold out. Wallace felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach ... 'Why didn't I consider that?' He silently complained to himself. In his mind he crossed his fingers in hopes that the place wouldn't sell out before he got his hands on a 360. Three hours had passed before Wallace found himself within the store staring at what he'd been waitingsix months for in his arms. When he finally reached the counter to pay for it he even found himself shaking a little. At the counter the cashier offered him a deal on one or more of the new next generation graphic XBox 360 games. Wallace's eyes scanned over the titles until he found one that caught his eyes. The title of this game was M.M.A Game of Death. A co-op or two person fighter that featured polygons in mixed martial arts matches beating the crap out of each other, Wallace asked for that one. Seeing how he loved fighters, it was icing on the cake. And with it's updated graphics it was a whole new world to explore, this is what made it the more thrilling.

Wallace nearly broke his neck as he struggled to open his apartment door. Once inside he didn't even bother with the task of taking his coat off, all of that would've taken him vastly too long to do ... seeing how he waited six months for this damn thing. He quickly ripped the box open to get a look at his little mechanical virgin. And she was beautiful. Wallace slowly and lovingly rubbed his fingers across the smooth skin of his new toy. She felt delicious, electric currents raced through his body. Enough of this fore-play crap, time to play.

With in seconds Wallace found himself in front of his 19-inch television in a subcultural world of digital heaven. The graphics were so real that for a second he thought that the carnal action that unfolded before his green eyes was real. His heart felt as if it were about to explode. He felt as if he were ten years old all over again, ten was his first discovery of an arcade ... Ever since then he had been a video game addict. The game it's self featured men in a savage battle of mixed martial arts style of fighting that was more brutal then the real thing. The game featured moves and combos that allowed the player to preform death moves that could only be featured on a faces of death video. You could do everything from rip the arms out of some poor dudes sockets, rip eye balls out of skulls to actually ripping the guts out of someone ... It was total carnage. By the tenth hour Wallace had already completed the game two times. He would stop once in a while to use the bathroom or get a drink of water ... But one thing he forgot to do was eat.

In fact he had forgotten to buy something to consume due to his heated rush to get home to play his 360...Alas, hunger was about to kick in on his moment of glory; He needed to get something to eat.It was already night time(12:34 A.M...At this hour all supermarkets are closed.)

The chill of autumn softly kissed his face.Wallace made a quick stop to the gas station for some snacks. A healthy selection of Pop tarts,orange faygo,sun chips,skittles,slim jims and chocolate milk.The girl at the counter eyed him coyly,as if she wanted to make a comment on his health.Wallace paid for his junk food and rushed out of the gas station. Back in his apartment Wallace sat in front of his television munching away at his snacks and gaming like a kid would.He played the game over and over again until the sun cried morning.Finally when his brain couldn't take anymore he sat the controller aside to get some much needed sleep.In his bed he tossed and turned thinking of the game. Unconsciousness was refusing to pay him a visit. Wallace rolled out of his bed and stood in the middle of his room ... And that's when he herd his television turn on all by it's self.

'What the hell??!!' Was the only thing his mind could summon to speak. Thinking only the worse Wallace braced himself to face the notion that someone was inside of his apartment. But he had heard no one enter. After five minutes of silent panic, Wallace found enough confidence inside to finally will his legs to move. He slowly strolled into his living room to find it empty. The calm that washed over him was swiftly replaced by confusion as his eyes made their way to the television screen. On it was one of the fighters featured in his game. The bold tattooed one, he found himself playing as earlier in the game.

Wallace was transfixed by the image. The image was just standing there in the middle of the screen watching him.It stood in the middle of the ring covered in carnage surrounded by various body parts ... A leg here and an arm there. By now Wallace was trying with all his might to place logic to this uncanny scene. He found himself walking to his television to get a closer look. He dropped down to his knees and put his face closer to the television. Without blinking he looked back into the eyes of this digital man. It haunted Wallace how real it appeared ... Ever inch of it. He could see that it was breathing and he could make out every curve of his body in shocking detail.

Wallace lifted his left hand to touch the screen.When he was about to make contact the digital man sprung to life by screaming and banging on the television screen from the other side. Wallace leaped back so far from fear away from the television that he hit his head on the back of the coffee table.

"Help me please...Help me please." It begged. Wallace could not find a way to understand what he was witnessing...All reason was fading into a fog of insanity fast. The digital man kept pleading with him.Wallace wanted to answer it but he feared if he did so he would only give in to the downward spiral of insanity.

Forsaken Library

YuffietheGreat — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:44:01 CDT

New Section! Check it Out!

Shock Tech: Inside the darkside of gaming, anime and sci-fi

A song for Larissa by Lisa Moore

The Cherry Blossom Chronicles

Forsaken Arcade Room

Thegothgamer — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:05:34 CDT

Stranger Fiction Than Life

YuffietheGreat — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:34:46 CDT

(Rules of posting on this page: Stay with the story line.
DO NOT deviate from the original story line or your posts will be deleted to prevent a paradox in the time line.)

The Abduction of Maxwell Devonshire

Recently I began staring at the sky, it began the day I watched two lights in the sky moving back and forth like two little birds playing happily on the wind. That was two years ago while on my way home from work at the local grocery store. Funny how life plays cruel jokes on people. Me. Once the local High School's Star Foot ball player! And now. The only job I could find after graduation is stuffing vegetables into grocery bags for little old ladies. All because I was never good at math. They threatened to kick me off the team if I didn't pass math with a satisfactory grade.

I remember begging coach Ruckles to let me stay on the team and was even willing to ask my teacher for a tutor to help me. But my father lost his job during my senior year and mom, well she became depressed and distant as she watched our once middle class family status dwindle and soon we were poor. When all her upper class snobbish friends began to speak ill of her behind her back and even call her names to her face. My mother began to drink ... heavily ... anything to make her forget everything she's lost until one day she began having serious headaches and stress attacks. We couldn't afford medical care, my father and I tried to take her to a so call free clinic but even that had a price we couldn't afford. My aunts finally stepped in to take care of mother ... after my father begged them to help ... yeah ... they took care of mother alright. They gave her their unwanted pills from their medicine cabinets and one day while I was at school and dad was out looking for a steady job while doing small odd jobs on the side her headache became worse and she tried to drown the pain by swallowing more pills than the bottle recommended and chased it with a bottle of whiskey.

Dad found a quick-fix job shoveling cow manure over the highway to help the grass and bushes there grow as part of the city's beautification project. He was so happy and proud of himself when they cut him a check the same day that when he came to pick me up from school we went to pizza hut to pick up dinner. Of course, dad gave me the money to go inside and order two large pizzas for dinner. It was a joyous occasion for us that he found some work that paid well. But to play it safe, the second pizza would most likely be away put in the refrigerator in case he was unable to keep the job or it turns out to be a short-term job so that we would have something to eat besides 99 cent macaroni and cheese.

Well, pizza and all, we came home and found her laying on the sofa as usual. We thought she was asleep, so we wanted to surprise her by fixing everyone a plate of pizza and glass of soda. But the surprise was when we realized she was really dead, it must not have been to long ago as her body was still warm to touch and the soft peach colored skin she always prided herself on. It didn't take long for the police to arrive, then the medics came soon after and then my so called aunt's disappeared after they announced her dead on arrival and as usual ... the hospital sends us a bill for taking her body away to a morgue. Then they sent us bills to take her out of the morgue and put her into the ground. Then if that wasn't enough, we got bills just to buried at the church we used to enjoy going to on Sunday. The same church who offered to help us turned cold, the same families we would greet and even invited over for dinner turned away. Even at my mother's funeral all those who claimed to be her friend never showed up, her sisters ... my aunts were still missing ... it was just me and my father dressed in our Sunday best mourning and praying for God to take care of her.

After that my father began falling apart. Working one lousy job after another to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads. He also became depressed and started to drink the bottles my mother left behind. The kids at my school have begun showing the same coldness as the church, my aunts reappeared and offered help after spewing excuses as to why they didn't come to their own sister's funeral.

They often say when a love-bird loses his mate, he will soon fall dead as well from a broken heart. I thought it was only a saying ... until the day my father died. It was bad enough we used every penny we owned to bury my mother. Luckily some relatives from my father's side of the family helped pay the funeral and burial costs. But soon they came after the funeral and ransacked our house and took what they wanted ... often fighting with my mother's family over heirloom items ... forgetting all about me ... leaving me with nothing.

No money for college, no money for rent and no where to go. Just me left in a vacant run down house stripped of its contents by vulturous relatives.

After spending two weeks in an empty house crying, screaming and cursing the world I decided to drop out of high school and found a job at a local grocery store restocking shelves, bagging groceries and cart maintenance. If the wheels squeaked, rattled or fell off it was my job to fix it. The manager, Dave Spencer, was a strange person to hire me on the spot but I didn't care because he took me in after I fed him my sad story as to why I want the job. In fact, he offered to let me live in an old run down apartment down the road if I worked as the maintenance man there. I could have cable, heat ... works for half my salary at the grocery store. I practically lived for free with the exception of food which wasn't a problem if I shopped at the store. After figuring out what I'm really getting in exchange, I barely got 100 bucks a week to spend on what I want. Videogames, movies and other comfort items and since I walked to and from work. I didn't need a car so any money I had left I opened up a savings account and kept the money there. Soon Dave started getting antsy about the rent and decided he would let me stay for free if I did other odds and ends jobs. But then he stopped paying me, I had to eat so I began checking the newspapers the old folks in the building let pile up outside and found an add about this gig downtown that paid you for singing so I started practicing and when I thought I was good enough. I went downtown and started singing in my free time for money. All I collected was $90 in 8 weeks but I think its enough for now ...

Soon even the extra $90 couldn't help me when Dave began asking me to pay him rent but with what? I was practically volunteering at the grocery store as it took all my paycheck to pay the rent and all the odd jobs I'd do for him at the apartments was getting ridiculous. I was so angry when he told me he had to raise the rates and ask that I pay him somehow or find another home or job. But what can I really do? It is his apartment complex and I never really filled out an application. Man I need to get out this town, but how? I'll figure it out soon ... I hope. And who knew that it would happen sooner than I thought?

It was after one of my shows downtown that it happened. It was a bad night, not very many people came to hear me sing and all I earned that night was $10 which I spent on a pint of beer and a bowl of pretzels. I was pissed and down on my luck. Had I passed math and graduated I would be the one on the big screen with cheering fans and hot babes drooling over me as I ran the football down to the field goal for a touch down. After finish my beer and taking a trip to the bathroom for a whizz, I grabbed my leather jacket ... a leather jacket my mother bought me a few months before dad lost his job. It was all I had left of my parents. It made me think of my parents and how much I missed them. So, after leaving the bar with barely enough money for a bus ride I decided to visit my old home.

As I walked over to the bus stop across the street from the club and sat down on the bench something caught my eye. I looked up and there they were, two perfect lights swinging back and forth. I must have been staring for hours when I suddenly felt the hairs on the back of my neck began standing up and tingling.

What the ... Are those U.F.Os ... ha ha ... I quickly chuckled to myself, it was the first thought my tormented mind could conceive. No it couldn't be, maybe it's just space gas or something ... What the heck is space gas? I pondered to myself, man I sound crazy. If I am crazy, I'll blame it on all those alien stories my gramps used to tell me when I was a child.

But as I watched the lights moved back and forth in my trance I suddenly got the strange sensation that something was happening to me but I couldn't figure out what, my mind filled with a sound as my body grew numb and realizing that I can no longer move. Everything was frozen in time as my eyes began searching for the source of my discomfort. Then it happened. One minute I was at the bus stop and the next minute I'm in a strange white room floating.

At first I thought, maybe, I was shot by a thug which would explain not being able to move and I'm dead which would explain why I'm now floating. That's it. I must be dead and I'm in limbo awaiting judgment. As I looked around, I noticed another person floating in the room. A beautiful woman that looks to be my age with long flowing blond hair and icy blue eyes. I must be in heaven, I thought to myself. As I floated closer to her I noticed she was naked and suddenly I realized I was naked also. When she smiled, oh god how she smiled. It was inviting and when she opened her arms to receive me I couldn't help myself it was like ... like ... I was drawn to her smile, her body and oddly her eyes.

She then hovered two inches above me, I could feel her icy breath touching my face like cold dead thin fingers. And to my amazement her crystallized blue eyes began to shift between colors ... From blue to white, from white to green, from green to auburn and back to that hypnotic electric blue. Is this non-sublime creature floating above me really an angel? ... Did I really deserve to be in the majesty of an angel that holds this much beauty? Was I really good enough to cross the gates of heaven ... Oh who cares ... all I wish to do is stay lost in the concave of this moment in my soul.

But as I kissed her rosy lips and closed my own eyes taking in her every passionate movement it was like I was in heaven and soon it was only natural to part her legs and make love to her. But when I opened my eyes I realize it was now daylight and I'm standing at the bus stop butt naked, the police have me surrounded and a frightened old woman was shouting obscenities to me from behind an officer. What just happened I asked myself, how did I get here and then there's the feeling of sheer panic.

"Okay, get down on the ground nature boy" A rather large officer shouted at me. Aiming his pistol straight at my confused head. I wasn't going to argue with him, it seemed like he'd wrap me in plastic, throw me in his freezer and save me for breakfast.

As I laid on my belly on the hard cold concrete of the sidewalk the officer began reading me my rights as another handcuffed me. It was very uncomfortable and the only thing reminding me that I was not dreaming was the feeling of a police officer's knee in my lower back hovering over me as he locked the cuffs. Soon with another holding open a blanket the officers lifted me and wrapped my body before leading me to a police car. The old woman still screaming obscenities at me, her hair a mess and then I couldn't help but think the worst. Did I attack her? Was the woman from the night before really a helpless old woman trying to get her groceries home? What have I done? Suddenly I felt sick.

On the ride back to the police station I listened to what the officers were saying trying to find out what really happened. Praying that the old lady wasn't a victim of my perversion, as the officer spoke over the radio it was aggravating as he spoke in codes to the operator. What happened I must know. As I closed my eyes I could still smell the fragrance of that woman with the icy blue eyes. Once at the station they removed the cuffs and I was made to sit in a chair inside an interrogation room. Minutes have passed before a detective entered the room and tosses a folder on the table in front of me. "Son ... do you know why you're here?" he asked. How could I, I have no idea what the hell transpired last night.

"No I haven't the slightest clue why I'm here" I said ... honestly. He looked me over for what seemed to be an hour, finally he spoke.
"You haven't a clue?" ... "No I don't" I retorted.
"Are you taking any medications for depression? ... Or are you on any narcotics?" He asked. Ha, I was openly shocked by that question. "No ... I haven't taken a drug a day in my life" I answered. More minutes have passed, he eyed me coyly. And before my eyes the interrogation room became dreary. The lights faded out and cracks began to form in the white walls ... I jumped away from the table as the detective transformed right before my eyes into a long raven hair woman ... She floated towards me. I bolted towards the door ... I turned the knob but ... Damn!!! locked. I was trapped in this small room with this thing, this woman. I screamed for God in heaven.

As I looked back over my shoulder expecting to see the dark haired banshee behind me and screamed in panic at the detective standing there with his eyes accusing me of lying. "No drugs, huh?" I could do nothing but cry, there was no way in hell I can explain this and I knew the minute I mentioned what happened last night that would only end up being another nail in my coffin.

"Okay pal ... It looks like we're going to have to place you in a nice little cell so you can sleep off you're high ..." And with that I was booked and placed in a small cell. "Get a good lawyer ... you're gonna need it." The detective said as the iron bars closed behind me (Ah!!! ... That's the worse sound in the world ... Hey wait,why did he say get a good lawyer ... what's going on here?)

As I slept silently in the dark cell I was awoken by laughter, I woke up to see I was no longer alone in the cell. A drunkard who smelled as if he pissed himself sometime during the night was curled up in the corner laughing at nothing. Trying to ignore the bastard the smell became worse, as I looked over my shoulder he was there. "I know who you are! I know what you've done ... " he laughed as he hovered over me. "You raped that girl, it's all over the news." What girl? What is this maniac talking about? "So sport, tell me ... was she worth it? Was she all that and a bag of chips? C'mon. You can tell me." I panicked, what the hell is he talking about?

The drunken piece of crud finally backed off and looked me over. As if I were a piece of meat and he a ravenous hungry wild thing. He slowly rested his broad back on the bars of our cell (man did he stink). His eyes followed my features ... What the hell was this creep doing? Was he trying to fish me for information of some kind? What did he want? The moment of silence was broken by the low life's crooning voice. "So you like raping poor helpless girls huh?" The words rolled off my brain like scalding hot water splashing on my back like the first moments when you step into a shower. "What are you talking about?" was all I could summon out of my brain. This is outrageous, I'd never hurt anyone ... I considered myself a decent man ... what the hell? The bastard folded his arms and chuckled. "Stop pretending you have no idea about last night pal. C'mon ya know you can tell me ... Who am I gonna tell? ... I've got a few skeletons in my closet too. Better yet let me tell you why the man put me in dis place ... I killed a man last night ... Yeah I did ... I had to. Besides he found out too much," the ripe bastard said. All I could do was look at him in amazement. I mustard up all of my fading will and stood to face him like a man. "Ok ... Enough of this bull, I have no idea about what you or these stupid cops are talking about. And I don't wanna know a damn thing about what you did last night ... And why are you telling me?" After I retorted the piece of crud asked "So you don't remember anything?" The next thing he did was leap across the small cell, grab me by the neck with his massive fingers and lifted me up in the air like a rag doll. Terror raped the core of my soul ... Was I going to be his next victim? I began to scream for dear God ... "Help, help, oh God help me" I closed my eyes waiting for him to snap my neck like a twig. "What the hell is your problem?" I opened my eyes to find myself on the floor of my cell, an angry cop standing outside my cage looking down at me with rage written all over his ugly face. Confused I quickly searched my cell ... It was empty. "Hey what's your problem man?" The cop inquired. I didn't bother telling him about what just happened. 'I must be going out of my mind' I thought ... what the hell. "Nothing ... Bad dream" I answered. Satisfied with my lie the cop walked away ... I could see him walking straight down the pathway, the whole time he looked over his shoulder at me until he opened the locked door and entered the front of the station. I know I'd better get some answers soon ... or I will go over the edge of insanity.

As I walked back to the bed I smelled it, that stench from the old drunken bastard was here. He was here ... but where did he go? I sat down and let my head dropped to my knees as I cried. Asking myself over and over again, what the hell is going on. Then the room began to spin and suddenly a bright light flashed through the barred windows and for a moment. I saw those electric blue eyes and that wonderful smell that seemed to neutralize the stench of the cell. As I kept watching the room turned bright white and suddenly I'm in the room with the beautiful woman. "Please, what's going on!" I called out to her, knowing she was the only one who could testify where I was the night before. The only one who could testify that I was with her enjoying her embrace, her smile, her eyes and her love. As I reached through the bars for her the light became blinding. When it dimmed I was floating in the same room as before, I made my way towards her as she held her arms open for me. "Please, tell them I was with you the other night sweetness." Her voice echoed through my brain like leaves waving in the wind, it was like a sweet refreshing breeze flowing through my brain. As I looked at her I noticed her lips were still, barely moving except to smile. Perhaps we are so connected that we can speak to each other telepathically like the lovers I've read about in the tabloids.

At this point I didn't care about the smelly jail cell, the obnoxious detective or the ugly cop. I just wanted her to love me like the evening before and this time I didn't want to miss a thing. I refuse to close my eyes as she leaned forward and kissed me. My hands began to roam as I took the same ritual as the night before but this time I kept my eyes open. Then to my surprise her tongue seemed to stretch deep into my throat as she kissed me harder and deeper. As she kissed I pulled her closer to my body and then shear panic as strange worm-like things began wrapping around my head, I looked down and saw the same worm-like things wrapping around my body and merging me within her own. I tried to pull away but with each struggle her skin overlapped mine as it wrapped me. Is this the same embraced she had for me the night before? I remember the warmth and her fingers exploring every inch of my body causing it to explode with passion. But were these the same fingers? Oh God No! Who is this woman? This isn't the sweet angel from before! As I looked into her face, gagging as her tongue went deeper into my throat her every changing eyes were now deep vacant black holes often associated with the grey men of UFO hunters. God please! What is happening to me! Save me!

Just as the shock of it all overwhelmed my brain. I blacked out. When I woke up the next day I found myself alone, naked and sick in the middle of a desert somewhere on the planet.

Now wait a minute hold everything ... What the hell is going on? Am I completely losing my mind? How did I end up in this place? I took in my surroundings with utter amazement. I franticly searched for some sign of clarity ... none was found. All I took in with my eyes was this vast plane of blowing sand clouding my vision. It was making it impossible to see further ahead of me. I held up my right hand in front of my face to block the sand beating my face ... But it was pointless. I lifted my left leg to make an effort to walk, I found it almost impossible. I had to actually pull it up out of 12 inches of sand ... My feet were completely buried. After ten minutes of struggling and only two paces later, I wanted to lay down in the sand and let whatever is tormenting me to just take me and end it. But what kept my legs moving forward was her ... After everything I've been through, the only thing that was on my mind was this ... 'woman'. Before I was magically teleported to this place somehow I remembered her ... 'it' whispering something into my ear and I can't remember a word of it. All I can remember was that moment in the cell clearly. I had to keep moving, I had to keep going. But was it my own will pulling me and some unearthly force pushing me. Soon my legs began to move through the thick sand as if it were water and my vision cut through the cloud of earthly mist. I could clearly see in front of me and I effortlessly moved across the desert. Oh how the cloud filled twilight sky was beautiful ... It held a reddish auburn hue, as if the sky was set ablaze ... It was beyond beautiful, like her. Maybe that's what's pulling me ... Her. I feel that she is apart of me, and she's pulling me to her ... So maybe she's here.

I can't remember how long I've been walking but I know it had to be for hours and my legs didn't even fell worn. Suddenly I stopped as if I ran slap in the middle of an unseen brick wall. By instinct my arms clawed in front of me to see if something was there ... Nothing was. I stood in the same spot for what seemed to be an hour. Twilight melted away into night and the sand storm passed. Everything was still, frozen in complete silence. There was not a cloud in the sky ... only the stars of all colors and a perfect full moon hung in the black sky. The sand glowed as it reflected cosmic light from above and I mean this sight was breath taking. For that moment I was lost in a maze of wonder ... My moment was broken by something silently rising out of the sand some five miles away from me. It was black and massive and shaped like an outrageously erect pyramid. It finally came to a stop when it reached 80 stories in height. I stood there transfixed by this thin black pyramid.

Tossing all caution aside I ran to it. When I reached it, I placed my hands on it. The feel of it was smooth and black and it had strange writing carved into it. It looked as if it were hieroglyphics. I traced them with my fingers and I felt energy seeping into my skin until it became too overwhelming and I pulled back holding onto my right hand. I slowly backed away from it and into something soft. I swung myself around and my eyes met ... A pair of crystallized blue eyes ... It was her ... I couldn't utter a sound. She put her finger to my mouth and softly whispered ... "You don't remember?" After she spoke those words something wild with long black hair grabbed me from behind. I peeped over my shoulder to see a pale white face, black eyes and sharp fangs ... It pulled me down into the sand. Before my face disappeared into it I could see her reaching as if to save me and then darkness. When the darkness faded I was back in my cell.

Too afraid to fall back to sleep I waited till morning when the guard came through with cups of coffee and a plate of stale cold pastries. But it didn't matter, I was too confused and frightened to eat. I want to know what's happening and I want to know now. Soon the detective came in, he looks pissed. "Grab your crap! Your moving to the psycho-lodge you freak."

"What now! I have yet to be told what I'm being held here for! I've done nothing wrong and I've been missing work since you're people brought me here! I want a lawyer!"
"You should have done that on day one. Now you're too psycho and unfit to ask for one. So one will be assigned to you after the doctors deem you sane enough to take you to court for the murder of Missy McGee."
"WHAT? What the hell did you say?"

But before I knew what hit me, life just seemed to have flashed before my eyes and the next thing I knew, I was strapped into a gurney. As I struggled thugs in scrubs entered the room and held me down as a nurse injected some strange chemical into my veins. "What is this?" I shouted and suddenly everything blacked out.

As the blackness fades new surroundings greet my eyes ... I'm standing in an old barn, I see three men in solid black suits hovering over a young man sitting in a chair nervously puffing on a cigarette ... Wait a minute the young man is my grandfather, what the ... I'm I dreaming this? I walk over closer to hear what they are saying but the only sound I hear is dead silence ... As if I'm watching a movie with the volume turned to mute. My grandfather repeatedly shakes his head 'No' then 'Yes' as the three shadowy men talked ... If only I knew what was being said. I walked over a little closer, hiding myself behind a box. I could see my grandfathers young handsome features clearly ... Suddenly he turned his attention away from the men in black to look at me, crouched down behind a wooden box. My eyes couldn't move, they were held fast and I gazed into his eyes to watch them turn black, whites and all. I blacked out and awoke in a solid white room.

Inside the solid white room, I could see the three men hoovering over something behind a curtain. I looked around and grabbed a scrub from the rack and walked closer. As I neared them my stomach felt like it was twisting into knots inside as the men were taking apart a real live alien. They had no regards to its feelings or anything, the poor creature screamed and moaned in pain as its hands balled into fists and pounded the table around its hips. Finally my guts burst as I threw up on the floor and ran through the double doors and down the halls of a strange hospital.
My mind raced as I made my way franticly down the hall. Behind me I heard three sets of feet braking into a run, I looked behind me to see the three men who were in my dream with my Grandfather (And seconds ago, doing God knows what to the creature) chasing me down like an animal.

As I neared the end of the hall my feet lost traction and I slid into the wall and as I tried to keep the momentum of movement by running I slipped and fell down. Soon the three men were on top of me, one punching me in the stomach, another punching me in the balls and the third struggling to grab my arms and force me to turn around. I was in every since of the word pain until one of the men put something over my nose and mouth. I tried to hold my breath when another pair of hands squeezed my throat and I gasped. Then ... slowly ... I'm out like a light.

What seemed like hours later I woke up to catastrophic amounts of pain as I tried to lift my hand to my face to rub it awake and noticed.... I couldn't feel them. As my eyes adjusted I looked around. I'm alone in a white room, I looked down and I can see all my insides pulled out and strewn over my body and I wanted to scream but nothing came out. Something cold was blowing across my neck and I looked up. There was a mirror hanging above me and I was terrified. My throat had been slit open and my larynx down to my stomach had been slit open and the contents strewn across my body.

Now this really is an infringement on my sanity. My mind split as I was trying to put together the pieces of logic - How was I alive? I could see something move out the corner of my eye ... I couldn't move so my eyes searched the room franticly trying to catch the phantom that just appeared.

As my eyes struggled to search something dark came towards me. It was the woman from the interrogation room and she was with those men in black. Oh God! She's fiddling with something on the surgical tray ... what is it? No.... NOOOOOOO!!!!!! I screamed as my head began swirling with terror and anticipation of this being the last chapter of my life's story. As the men hovered over my slaughtered body she came floating closer with some strange device. My eyes stung from stress as I continued willing them to follow the dark woman.

Soon she was over me, I can see her lips move to form an evil grin as something is pushed against my skull. I had to see what was happening as my eyes shot straight up at the mirror and saw her make a line across my forehead and as she pulled the scalp back ... Oh GOD! It was a clean cut! My skull and skin came off like a high-school graduation cap and is handed to one of the men. My eyes watered as I begged for it to be over quickly and asked God why he would let this happen to me. Soon there was pain shooting through my body as the woman probed my brain searching for something. Digging deeper into the lower cerebellum area just shoving brain matter aside as she looked and as I watched the mirror my eyes widened with horror and began tearing from the pain as i made a fist and began pounding on the table by my side.

I awoke handcuffed to a bed in what seemed to be a nut ward ... It looked like hell. The walls were not painted white but strangely enough ... Demons were painted on them. All the walls looked as if William Blake went on a painting frenzy. And the nuts in this place walked about the halls like they ran the place. And violent sounds of cannibalism could be herd in one of the rooms down the hall. I even witnessed a little girl bouncing a head down the hall way like a ball. Where am I now? ... and where are the doctors? I was strap into this bed sitting in the middle of a hallway in hell.

As I looked around the smell of flesh wafted through the halls as what looked like nurses came for me. Finally some care, but as they came closer they looked zombified. Their Rosy cheeks looked patted on thickly with powder as they took control of the bed and pushed me towards the double doors at the end of the hall. As they pushed the sheets snagged on passing patient and the cool breeze on my body sent chills up my spine. My face reddened with embarrassment as my nudity was exposed. I shot a glance at the nurses who were giggling to each other as they strutted down what now seems like an endless hallway. Then suddenly we were through the double doors and was placed in a line of other beds awaiting our doctor on the other-side of the curtains. As my bed was pushed forward by unseen hands I looked up at the ceiling and noticed a mirror. My faced blushed again staring at my own nudity, embarrassed yet by the sudden erection caused by the cool breeze blowing over my body. But soon pure terror came over me as I saw the bed in front of me pulled forward and mine next in line. A giant of a creature grabbed the man in the bed ahead of me by the neck and held him up for inspection. I began to scream in horror as I witnessed what happened next. The giant grabbed the flesh from the man's chest and ripped it clean off. The man screaming and squirming in the giant's hand was now only mere muscle, sinew and bones flailing about. His blood pouring on the floor as I struggled to free myself, no longer embarrassed by my nudity and some how I manged to loosen one of the straps and pulled my arm free. Quickly undoing the straps on my other arm and across my body. As the bed was pulled closer I could see the giant's face clearly. It looked like an abstract painting of an alien ... a freaking gray man with a snout for a nose. I screamed as I finally freed my legs and took off down the hall. All the crazy inhabitants were now focused on capturing me, as I pushed through a double door I tripped over an inhabitant chewing on an arm. The sinew and flesh stretched in its mouth.

The crazed man looked up at me with an infra-human look in his eye, he dropped the arm he was chewing on and stood ... My heart froze as he advanced towards me. I backed up against the wall like a scared little girl. He smiled, pieces of flesh coated his teeth with chucks in between. "You wanna know what's going on?" My horror drifted away at those words ... It was the words I wanted to hear ever since this nightmare began. Please ... Anything to end this masquerade.

But as the strange crazy man came closer to me I realized I'm suddenly in a psychiatrist's office as he looked into my eyes with a pen light. "Detective, this is going to take more than a few days to determine this one's sanity." I can hear the detective spewing obscenities as he kicked a chair. But soon after the shrink calmed the detective down two orderlies came into the room and grabbed me. "First you must be cleaned before we can do any testing."

"Testing? What kind of testing?" I asked and then silence as the fluids from the orderlies syringe quickly flowed through my veins and I was unconscious again. As I drifted into the blackness of my subconscious mind I felt pain in my skull. Soon on the horizon a pale blue moon began rising an illuminating a dark dismal swamp and suddenly something slimy began crawling across my ankles. At first I wanted to scream and find the closest tree to climb but then in an odd way I became calm. "This is but a dream." I kept telling myself. "Soon this will be over."

As I stood there in the dismal swamp something crawled around my ankles and up my leg. I didn't want to look down, I was too afraid to look down. I didn't want to know if I was dressed, naked or cut into pieces anymore. I just want this nonsense to end and as I stood there I felt something pierce my thigh. I looked down to see a snake of some sort biting into my leg. The pain was so great I grabbed the serpent and squeezed its head. I smiled as I heard the cracking of its skull in the palms of my hands and then a sudden scream similar to the women of horror movies. I opened my hands and looked at it. It was the beauty of the white room. It's electric blue eyes beginning to fade. "Oh God! I'm sorry! Please ... get me out of here."

Soon a voice called out, "Maxwell? Is that you? Get your ass over here! We need to talk!" The voice was familiar, it sounded a lot like my grandfather. But lately it's been hard to determine what is real and what is illusion.

"Maxwell get your ass in here" I followed the direction of the voice, it was coming from behind a tree. I treaded the mud at the bottom of the swamp effortlessly. The tree was only inches away, yet I could still hear my Grandfather's call. "Maxwell ... Get over here." As soon as I reached the old crooked tree ... My Grandfather stepped out from behind it. His voice held the tone of an old man but he didn't look a day over thirty.

But as I reached out to hug him, he disappeared and soon I'm floating in the white room again, his voice speaking to me from within my own skull.

"I don't have much time to explain every detail Max. But listen carefully ... you are in a dream-scape, a dream-scape where all our darkest fears and deepest worries can take form. Shhhhhh! Don't speak with your mouth, they will know I am helping you."

Shocked that he would know I was about to say something, I clammed up quickly and looked about the white room. Then I saw her, she floated there unaware that I was there.

I was confused and frightened as many thoughts racing through my mind as my ears began ringing and soon I swore I could hear my grandfather gritting his teeth. "That sound is your weapon, I know you can't control it. But learn what causes it, we can not tolerate certain sound frequencies of the human mind." There was a long pause before he spoke again. "I don't have time Max."

I was getting frustrated and the longer I stared at the beauty floating before me, the more I wanted her. Then suddenly grandfather's voice echoed in my skull.

"Stop being an ass! I don't have time for this Maxwell ... okay. You see that woman there? The one you already know? Stop lusting for her. She ain't human and she doesn't love you. You're an experiment."

Like a hammer smashing into glass, I could see my beautiful object of passion turn into a strange alien creature. "Listen up, Max. That is the princess. The woman with black hair you've been seeing lately is the queen and she's pretty pissed off at you. You were meant to mate with the queen and help produce humanoid-alien breeds for the future of our people."

But as I listened in silence, afraid to move or speak ... afraid to merge with the alien now floating in front of me. "Where am I? How long have I been here?"

"Focus! Boy! You have been trapped in a dreamscape for two years. You are still a part of an experiment! You must fight them both mentally and physically if you want to get out of this alive. Max....your special in more ways than one, but I can't tell you more. You have to trust your instincts and find out for yourself."

"Oh this is bull gramps...How am I going to figure out a nightmare. For all I know this could just be a nightmare, or maybe I am crazy like those cops said." I dropped my head in shame.

"Look boy, you must hear me ... Something is about to happen and you are all that stands in its way."

"Special? How?! How am I standing in its way when it's chasing me and trying to kill me?"

But as soon as I said that ... he was gone.

Now the delima sets in, do I make my way over to her? Run like hell? There has to be a way out of here. As she sat there floating something from the corner of my eye flickered. Turning I can see a window of sorts and I moved my way towards the window. Looking out I can see another white room and as I pulled myself closer I can ... see something .... pushing closer to the glass ... its .... its me!

I wasn't sure what to think. Everywhere I turned since I landed in this motherfucking nightmare was out to kill me and yet. There she was floating nearby waiting for me and here I was looking out the windows of the room at myself strapped to some god forsaken table like a slab of fresh meat waiting for one of the four beings hoovering over my body to make his move. My mind began to swirl ... pulling away from the window things in the room began to change. The white walls were now bleeding, oozing down to the floor and spreading into puddles at my feet. My stomach begins turning as my throat tightened. I don't know what's going on ... my head begins to spin. The beautiful alien woman floating nearby is now a strange grey being with tools of some strange purpose whirling and he's coming right at me. I can't .... take it any longer.

With a loud yell followed by screams of rage I began beating against the windows with all my might. I wanted out of this nightmare and I wanted out right now!

She picked up an object that reminded me of a circle saw from hell. The blades on this thing were outrageously over sized,and they were rusty and jagged. She twisted a switch at the bottom of it and it horridly buzzed to life. She turned around to look at me banging on this glass ... I stopped right after she flashed me the most malignant grin. And it was a grin that made my soul turn cold. She turned her attention to ... 'me' strapped to the table. I was screaming for dear God as she slowly brought the saw close to my scalp ... I watched as she cut into my hair line. I heard the bone being cut into ... And it's a sound I'll never forget.

As the room vibrated with the sound of the saw cutting into my skull in my waking life, my ears began ringing as I shouted in pain, gripping my head as if my subconscious self could ever hold my skull together. 'What did grandfather tell me earlier?' I thought to myself trying to remember his words. As the sound of the saw grew louder so did the ringing in my ears and then ... All was silent, I looked around the room and it was bright red almost pink from the blood staining the white walls. I glanced out the windows and I could see four forms retching and falling to the ground out of view, I turned towards the woman I once thought heaven in my arms and the ugliness of her soul peered back at me in pain.

Once more I slipped into the blackness ... When I awoke I found my real self this time, strapped to a table. I jumped and squirmed with a start ... fear took control of every cell and attachment of my body. I remembered my last phantasm and thought that it was about to become a horrible truth ...And thats when I noticed the blood cascading down my face ... 'What the hell?' I said silently.

The realization that my head was cold, the blood dripping down my face and into my eyes were cold and beginning to clot. 'What the hell did they do to me?' I thought to myself as I continued to squirm, kick and move as hard as I could until something began to give. The strap across my chest began to loosen as I struggled. My head began feeling strange as my ears began ringing louder, I had to escape I wanted out of this nightmare and as I lifted my head something sharp dug into my brain and I screamed. As the strap loosened more I freed my arms and felt around for some sort of device with my left hand and reached for my head with the right. Oh God No! I pulled my right hand down and screamed as i pulled back my hand covered ... covered in the blood and fluids of my brain. I can't give up now ... I don't want to die here ... please god ... if you can hear me ... please don't let me die here. Hesitating at first i continued to find the device and when found pressed it and my entire body was released from that bed, but then the pain from my head. I reached both hands up and felt ... my open skull ... and that metallic object keeping me in place. I felt it and followed it with my fingers and ... Oh god ... please help me ... I pulled on it and the pain of the object being pulled from my brain has triggered several uncontrollable motions. But ... I'm still awake. I began remembering my past ... remembering how I really got here ... the different experiments these bastards have done to me and I wanted to cry. Those bastards toyed with my body, they've taken me apart and put me back together searching ... for something.

As I slid down the bed holding my brain in place I took one hand and reached around for the top of my skull. In the window it was still attached to my head by the flap of skin. My hair shaved completely off and many other devices along my neck, behind my ears and skull. I must have pressed a lobe or something as I felt my leg twitch and the color of my world turned black and white. Massaging my brain gave me an erection as it was soothed and ... this is gross .... i don't have time for this... I need to leave ... I need to escape now! Finding my skullcap I pressed it down on my skull and slowly sat up.

I took in my surroundings. The walls of this strange room was so metallic black that you couldn't even make them out. If it had not been for the neon blue lights tracing the walls, in perfect lines I might add ... You wouldn't believe that this was a room, just a black void. I pulled myself to what seemed to be a door made of what seemed to be light ... a blue neon light. I placed my shaking hands on it and it opened it. I stuck my head out the opening to find a vast hallway that seemed endless. Reluctantly I stepped out into this hallway ... No one, or nothing was around. With each step my unwilling legs took, the evermore faster my heart raced. The hallway looked the same as the room I was held captive in, and the cold notion of not being on earth anymore over took me.

As I traveled down this long cold black hallway I had to stop for a moment. My head ... felt light ... and awkward as my poor brain sloshed in the fluids left by the monster's who held me prisoner. I could feel my skullcap shift as I moved with nothing fastening it to my skull and yet. For me to do it would be too painful, but I must escape. I'd rather die in the vastness of space than on some alien operating room table. Though my body is tired, my poor brain stabilized by a poorly shut skullcap dangling by a small sheet of flesh I must escape. As I slowly continued down the hallway I could hear something behind me. My enemies, my captors are stirring and will soon discover I'm no longer pinned to their cold slab of a table.

As I neared what seemed like a dead end I panicked and began pushing against the wall until something moved and a light appeared.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I began to make out a vast area ... It seemed to be a large hanger of some kind. It was mesmerizing in it's size, but even more amazing was the countless number of strange crafts that were (It seemed) not of this world ... The crafts looked like it just sprang from a sci-fi writers dream.

I made my way into the area and heard an infra-human voice call out ... "Hey? ... There he is." I didn't see where the voice had come from, and based on it's tone ... I knew it's intentions were malevolent ... And I wasn't sticking around to see what the hell it was. I ran forward to find a hiding place, it was useless. As I made my way around one of the grounded ships ... Something greeted me on the other side of it ...

"Hey! What are you doing here? This is a restricted area! Security!" Screamed a nerdy looking man pushing his thick glasses up his nose and backing away from me. His white lab coat flapping as he ran towards an open door. I looked back and saw the beings dressed in black. I held my head down with one hand and ran after the scientist. The scientist is my only hope now in this strange surrounding, as I ran after the scientist I tried to stop as the door flung open and Soldiers ran in with guns pointing. My right foot wanted to move forward while the left froze in place causing me to trip myself. As I did I fell backwards and screamed in pain as my skull cap flipped open and my brain fell to the floor dangling by the nerves connected to my spine. I heard the Soldiers running forward to assess the area when suddenly I heard one of the weapons firing off a few rounds past my body. I cried out in pain as I slowly reached up with my hands to move my brain back into my skull. I could feel most of the fluids have escaped onto the dusty floor.

As I collected myself the things in black took aim once again. In that instant something began to summon from deep within. With all my anger, hate, and rage over being tossed into this endless nightmare ... I opened my mouth and produced a scream in the direction of my tormentors that almost made my eardrums burst. The creatures in black exploded into what seemed to be a billion tiny little pieces. After it was all over I stood in silence. A foggy mist of blood hung in the air, I was amazed, thrilled and horrified all at the same time. I turned to find the scientist as well as a few soldiers had curled into a little ball on the floor, like a little coward.

As I looked at the remains of what could have been a nasty war, I took a deep breath and collapsed on the ground. I looked up to see the trembling scientist watching me in fear.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I just didn't want to die on that damn spaceship," I said hoping my words would reassure the scientist and the others I meant them no harm. But soon my brain began to ache as it tries to function with no more fluids to run on and then ... I let go of my head and fell on the floor. I knew my brains would fall out and it was okay. I was ready to die. I just didn't want to die on that damn ship.

The scientist looked at the mass of my grey matter on the floor, his face was twisted in a number of expressions, most of them I could read the others I guessed ... confusion, fear and trying to understand what the hell was he witnessing. He turned his hypnotized glance away from my drying brain and looked straight into my eyes, questioningly.

"Oh God I know what you are," he finally said looking over me as if I was some sort of freak show in a damn carnival side show. My patience was wearing thin, I could feel my head ache, my memories flash as if I were about to die. But I'm still breathing, I'm still thinking even though its fading.

"Well if you know what the hell I am ... then tell me something useful ... like how do I get out of this nightmare?" I shouted ... finally, maybe this nerdy looking scientist could point me in a direction that could shed some light on this twisted saga. Or so I thought when he finally spoke again.

"I don't know anything about your situation, but I do understand what you are ... And the reason why you're still thinking and moving with your brain out of your skull."

I gazed into his eyes as if I knew he was reading my silent questions ... Yeah that was something that crossed my ... 'Mind' ... which was now on the floor. How can I still function without a brain surrounded in fluid? There's nothing in my skull yet I'm alive and thinking. Wondering which idiot guard would step on it and end my life as I know it.

"Look this is something big to me. I've never met one of you before and I feel if I don't help you get out of here, I'll lose my proof that there are people ... hybrids like you around," he said while grabbing me by the arm in a forceful manner. Careful to scoop my brains back into my skull. A new light shined in his green eyes. He no longer looked like the wimpy nerd I ran into ... he actually looked more like a mad scientist now and he was clutching tighter to my right arm as if clinging to life. He wildly looked side to side and all around.

"I don't see anyone in site so I believe it's safe.'Look I'm going to help you get out of here ... I'll tell you what I know."

I looked around and noticed the guards still poking at the dead alien bodies with other scientists having conniption fits about damaged specimens. Then looked at the scientist ... can I really trust him? Right now I had no choice. We quickly moved to the door where he swiped his security card and rushed me to an enclosed lab.

"Quick. Get on the bed," he ordered as he threw a thin sheet around my waist and lowered the table so I'm sitting eye to eye with him. He threw a thin cotton sheet over me and reached for a few tubes of fluids from the shelf behind him and began pouring it into my skull. I don't need a mirror or the reflections on his glasses to tell me that. As if it were a sponge in a bucket of water my headaches were going away, the haziness was slowly going away and my memories. What's left of it begin replaying as if making sure everything is there.

"Now lay back and hold still," he said with a slight giggle in his voice as he held my skull cap in place as he helped me lay back and began reaching for a needle. "You shouldn't feel anything with the many times those creatures must have taken you apart."

After what seemed like an hour I heard the snip of surgical scissors and bandages being wrapped around my skull. As the doctor urged me to sit up my head felt heavy and as I reached up I could feel the wraps completely covering my head.

"Come on," the doctor urged. "We don't have much time, move over to this gurney and moan like your on death's door."

I did as he ordered, even though I had to admit that I felt foolish moaning as if I were at death's door. I felt myself being pushed down the hallway, I believe (at the rate he was pushing me and judging by the movements I was making on the gurney) the mental picture I painted was of a child in a supermarket pushing a shopping cart ... That's how he seemed to me. I felt him slow down as I herd voices closing near . He came to a stop and said, "Hello gentlemen." With that famous giggle of his ... 'Man this guy is a dork,' I thought to myself.

After explaining the incident in the hangar the scientist began to explain I was his lab partner caught in the grotesque battle that happened and needed to move me to the sick bay for examination. Soon the men rushed off for a chance to be heroes and take down aliens, then the doctor started pushing again. After what seemed like hours I heard a door being opened,then shut.

"Get up," he whispered. "Come on. If you want to live get in the back of the van and lay low."

I did as he said. The brightness of the sunlight blinded me as I reached my hand out to feel a metallic handle and pulled on it. As soon as I crawled into the back of the van the doctor sped off and crashed through a security gate. It wasn't long before the security officers gave chase through the desert.

I made my way up to the front to sit in the passenger seat, at same time hitting my head on the roof of the van.

"Hey watch your head! I don't want you to bust your head open again and getting brain matter all over the place ... And I don't want any of that shit on me that'll forever stay plastered in my memory."

The scientist said with that same damn giggle as I situated myself in the passenger seat. Looking up at the rear view mirror I could see that we were still being chased by the government security officers. All that didn't matter to me at the moment. At that particular moment I just wanted to hear this geek spilling his guts like he promised.

"So. Now tell me what you know." I asked and then a puzzled look painted my features at his response.

"What do you mean?"

'What do you mean?' Why was this asshole playing dumb now for some reason. "What-do-you-mean?!? You said that you would tell me everything about this whole mess when you got me out of there." I shouted ... He giggled again. "Oh I see ... Well we're not out of the woods yet pal, I'm just worried at the moment on how I'm going to get rid of these guys. After that you can ask me anything you want oh great one," he said with that damn giggling again. It was starting to piss me the hell off.

Just as I sulked in my seat growing impatient something in my body began stirring again. Almost like before except stronger. I tried to control it until a round shot the mirror just outside my window and left a crack. The mirror was shattered. The scientist cursed under his breath and began driving erratically. Those security guys were getting serious this time. More rounds struck the van, shattering the back window and ricocheted through out the back of the van and embedded itself somewhere. Taking a chance I moved towards the back as these strange feelings began swelling up inside like a kettle just about to boil over and threw the back door open.

I don't remember exactly what happened next, it was like a wave moved from my body and rushed across the desert floor and created a sonic wall of immense proportions and knocked their vehicles into the air and tossed them aside like toys.

The scientist brought the van to a complete stop. The vehicles had stopped rolling a few feet ahead of us. Two officers emerged from the twisted metal of one of the vans and began advancing with guns drawn. I swiftly jumped down from the van on impulse "Stop!" I ordered ... but they kept advancing, pointing their weapons in my direction. "I said stop."

Now I began marching in their direction, as they had been in mine. I felt that same wave again and my anger was overflowing like lava from a restless volcano.

"I SAID STOOOOOOOOP!!!"

And with the release of those screamed words came that sonic death wave. I could see it drawing ever so closer to the officers in slow motion. When it reached the men they both burst into a reddish mist right before my eyes ... reduced to nothing but vapor. I watched in amazement as the last vapor melted away into the dry-hot- desert air. I stood transfixed, lost in a maze of wondering' what the hell I'm I?'

The scientist broke my trance. "Come on! We've gotta go ... I have a place around here some where you can hide out."

As we arrived to this camp of his, I was a little disappointed yet not surprised at the same time. We arrived in an old abandoned trailer park. Screen doors falling off its hinges, the trailers themselves resting on huge cinder blocks and grass up to my knees. I even laughed at the little kiddie pool thrown on the roof of one of the smaller trailers. As the van stopped I kicked the door open and jumped out.

"Damn. A real ghost town ... er ... trailer park," I said trying to be polite as I noticed something in the windows of one of the trailers. "We're not alone."

The scientist giggled, "it's not completely empty but don't worry. We call this a little village of the damned," he said as he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. It wasn't long before a small girl ran across the sandy park and hugged the scientist's leg. "Hello my sweety? Where's mommy?"

The child pointed to the trailer with her knobby little fingers. I was stunned as four more people came out of the trailers. Each looking like an abstract painting, one more disgusting looking than the next. But when the little girl hugged my leg and asked my name, I felt sorry for her and picked her up into my arms.

"My name is Max. What's yours?"
"Alice ... are you from the lab too?"
"Lab? What? What do you mean?"
"Do you work at the lab with my dad?" The child asked.

Before I could utter a word the scientist answered for me. "No sweety ....."
He took his gaze away from the child and began looking at me, with a creepingly sardonic smile on his face ... It sent chills down my spine.

"He's one of the ones I've been telling you and your people about." The child turned her head towards me and said. "Oooohhhhh..."

Just what the hell was going on here?...What else is about to happen?

After setting the child back down on the ground I raced after the scientist, "what have you been telling these people?!"

I wanted to know, I demanded to know the truth now. I grabbed the scientist's shoulder and turned him completely around. "You told me .. no promised me that you would explain the nightmare I've been living. Now speak!"

The scientist became agitated by my aggressive behavior.

"Let go of my arm or you'll draw back a stump that'll never grow back," he said.

For some reason I did as he ordered. It felt as if I were being mentally controlled by his icy words.

"Do you think I can just tell you everything in my own words?...Things that took my mind years to wrap around,almost finding myself at the edge of insanity."

He paused. His eyes glanced over my head as if to look beyond me.

"Do you really think I can tell you in one day of things that have been going on since modern man waged his first war?... Are you seeking comfort in what I tell you ? ... Which could be anything ... Or do you trust me that much? Its best to see for yourself."

Best to see for myself? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn't like the tone he was taking with me but what choice do I have. I want to know who or what I am.

"Look, I'm sorry. I just ... its been rough inside that stupid spaceship. It was a living hell," I admitted. I wanted to cry but fought it back. "Now I'm not only lost ... millions of miles away from home. Not sure what time I'm in with a bandage holding my head together and you want to play games with me."

I was so angry I wanted to kill this man, but decided to walk away and collect myself.

"I'm ...I'm not playing games with you? I'm just trying to protect you ... That's all," the scientist said with that same careless sardonic grin.

My annoyance was reaching a boilling point now as hecontinued on.

"Look around you ... Look at the people here, they are the future of this planet. 'They arewhat I've been protecting for years now ... What they intrusted me to do, and I do it with sure goodness in my heart," the geek of a lab rat said as he pointed his finger into his flat chest with all the conviction of a politician throwing out the fish hooks to unknowing victims.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked, resting my hands on my hips ...looking almost like I was mimicking Gary Colemans most famous line 'What you talkin' about Willis?'

"You have no idea!?!" he asked then said. "Let me spell it out for you. A-l-i-e-n B-i-o-e-n-g-i-n-e-e-r-e-d human beings living here, right now. Waiting to take the place of all humans living today."

"So you mean to say that alien bioengineered humans are here now?" I asked.

"Why is that so hard to believe, when you're one of them? One of the black queen's offsprings," the scientist answered.

"Who's the black queen?" I asked knowing the answer in my heart.

"She's from the other world, their dying world ... they came here along time ago to save their species ... From what I've researched, they'vesearched for centuries to find a place that would be capable of holding their DNA until they found a suitable planet. This went on until they found earth," he explained. "Apparnently we share a chromosome and a few strands of DNA. They finally reached that goal in the 40s .... Your grandfather was the first one to be engineered inutaro. A human-alien hybrid."

I couldn't handle the answers ... my head began spinning ... alien .... hybrid ... I ... don't want to know the answers ... wish none of this ever happened. The next thing I knew, I hit the ground hard and blacked out.

Here it is again, the darkness. I already know where it's going to lead ... To that same dream world; That unknown phantasm that has taken me down so many dark corridors of what I believed to be insanity.

Wait, here it comes ... The light; When the darkness fades away to a parady of reality. What will I see now? It's coming, my vision is getting clear, I see a room. What's this? ... Everything is in black and white, like in an old movie.

The room that I've found myself locked in looks like an old empty bed room. The paint on the walls seem to be a greyish white. The walls have massive cracks running across them like spider webs. Black iron bars cover the windows. What the hell am I doing here?... Wait, I hear a soft voice coming from inside the walls. The sound of it makes my blood burn with coldness within my veins ... Oh shit what next?

As I stood there in my dream world waiting for the nightmare to begin, the one that will reveal where my body lays in the real world spread open and probed by scientists I hear nothing. The soft voice is no longer speaking to me, thisdeadfreezing silence is chilling my spine. As I stood there staring at the emptyness of the room expecting my body to appear in the cold freezing death bed. Instead I begin hearing the sounds of a child crying behind me.

I turn around and saw a small boy hugging his knees in the corner of the room, crying. I felt compelled to comfort the child, "there, there sport."

As those words left my lips the child looked up and my eyes widened. I know this child ... I know this child very well. It was me."

The child ... or the younger me ... looked up into my eyes. A sardonic grin washed over it's face.

"Hello Max ... Wanna see something cool?" He asked. To be honest, I really didn't want to see anything.

"Watch this." And with those words the little boy, me, began growing into a beast right before my eyes. I jumped back out of pure shock as the skin on the childs legs began rip, blood pooled around the kids legs and he showed no signs of pain. Then with a popping, crackling noise the legs began to grow. Next the kids hair started to grow longer and his face began to take on the looks of a full grown woman ... I remember those features ... It's her. The so called black queen.

"What do you want this time!" I screamed. This woman, this witch ... this BITCH! Who has made my life a living hell! I wasn't sure what came over me but I was angry, I wanted this to end ... this nightmare she created.

She looked at me with hurtful eyes but a menacing grin.

"You know what you did to me?!? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO MY LIFE?!?" I screamed.

Then in a soft voice in my head in the voice of the child.

"I did nothing you didn't accept."

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked. She said nothing, she only watched me with those empty eyes. "It's your blood that accepted it. Like the other half breeds like yourself."

I was so angry I could scream ... half-breeds ... like myself. Just who the hell does this bitch think she is? But as my head began throbbing I went into a rage, grabbed her by the throat and threw her to the ground and began wailing on her. As I smacked her she looked up with that same expression ... the more I hit the realization that nothing I can possibly do would effect her. Then I blacked out.

I came to with the scientist standing over me.

"Someone's here to see you max." he said. I was layed out on a bed only a trailer park could've given birth to. I sat up, my eyes met hers ... The black Queen...She was here, standing right before me. I leaped to my feet with all the grace of a wild animal.

"What is she doing here??!!" Anger burned the pit of my soul.

"Relax Max, she's the least of our worries." The scientist said so calmly.

"He's right Max ... ,just relax and the answers will come," answered the black Queen ... strangely not in the voice I've grown accustomed to and hated. The voice was different, nothing that I recalled in those living nightmares ...If you could call them that.This time her voice sounded vastly different ... almost angelic and it was not the same ... It calmed me ... I found my self wanting to listen to her. "Max ... I understand that you do not trust me and you have every right not to. And after what you've been through you have every right not to."

Without blinking she continued,"it's the 'me' you've been seeing in your visions isn't it? ... Well I asure you that it wasn't me."

All I could do was look at her for what seemed to be a life time.More confusion was under way I could see,and what did she mean by 'it wasn't me.'...And she dubbed my nightmares as 'visions'.

"What are you saying?" I asked confused. "The women in your visions is really the Queen of the Monolethians and her generals who come from a war like government that spawned from the shadows of my fathers ancient temple billions of years ago on our world Octavion. My father was a great king on our planet. He was loved by all ... or so we thought. My sister Ochimera and I were his pride and only blood that he had ... We were the only oneshe could truly trust ... Seeing that as a leader, he was tormented by the deep paranoia of betrayal. Which only grew worse after the death of our Mother during child birth. His fears were realized by his own Daughter Ochimera."

The queen took a deep breath as she paused and continued,"Ochimera was always a little trouble maker... there was something evil about her since the first breath drawn into her lungs. She envyed me ... Envy because little Chimera, myself ... seemed to be our fathers favorite daughters. And so her envy grew into hatred as time passed. We learned that she desired to be the only one in our fathers universe ... The only one he loved, so she couldcoveted his love. Butwhen she herd of our fathers plan to expand our race across the galaxy, she became consumed by rage." She paused once more.As if reflecting on something painful.

"You see Max ... Our world was once full of beings such as myself who had gifts ... Gifts of power, wisdom and long life ... But it was all about to end. Soon an illness threatened to wipe out our people. A sickness that caused our powers to fade and in the end shorten our life spans. We had no idea where it stemed from and we couldn't cure it. So the only salvation was to take our D.N.A to other worlds, to save our race. My father sent out scouts to comb the universe. The scoutssearched for centuries. But as time went on,Ochimera placed the final blow of betrayal upon our father and waged war upon him by an army she built from the criminals of our world ... So the white queen fell from her grace, the queen that onced ruled in the light of the morning while I slept ... You see, I'm dubbed as the black queen because I rule the night. It was an order that was meant to remain in our world as always ... But fate happens to all. During the conflicts the scouts returned with good news. They found a world that would sustain our people. Thought, it wasn't that new of a world ... and it already had primetive life forms dwelling on it. But their D.N.A. was comparable to our own and we were able to survive by combining our D.N.A."

The queen paused and then added, "my father was pleased and made plans to move on with the project quickly, but Ochimera discovered the location of this planet and arrived here before my father could and mixed her own D.N.A with these life forms ... with plans of making this world her own. Sadly she didn't realize this until it was too late ... that she also carried this same virus."

Max couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was strange but in his heart he felt she was telling the truth. He got up from his bed and wandered towards the shotty windows of the trailer.

"I have been living here with the occupants of this trailer park ... I've been caring for those my little sister has cast aside, it was her idea of perfection that has led these people to cast these children aside, call them 'freaks' and punish them for being different," the queen explained. "From this day forward, the only one you can truly trust is your heart."

Poems by Parrish Powell

Thegothgamer — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:39:49 CDT

Feeling anoid by this soul numbing void, sweet little outlets you've employed. Alone in your room,welcoming the gloom You ponder all the things you've destroyed. Love,solace,hope,kinship,peace,self. All things you've tossed away and toyed with-And placed away on a shelf for safe keeping,a reminder of the void. The chemical calm invades time and space. Now all fades to her icy embrace, alas,she shadows your impassive face. Now no one remembers who you are... you've become as distent as a dying star- Who'd wish upon something so vastly far? Do you remember your loved ones? Believe me everyone has tons, well they are the souls you now avoid, as you delve deeper down the void. Rest now in your gloom,in your grave. Forget all those who love and save, but you can't can you?,for they gave you a reason to live...They've given your hope to remain driven. Sleep now,walk in the shoes of slumber. The high is as heavy as lumber, holding you down to a new earth. Away from the one you've awaken to the moment of your birth. Everything has been taken, Void your solid foundation shaken. You fell asleep lost and anoid, only to a wake within this void. (This Poem is named Void.It is a poem of loneliness and addiction.It was writen for an old friend of mine in Michigan who found himself cought in the horrors of what drugs can do.Hollywood makes drug use look fun in some films but they're truely missing the point.)

BForesaken

YuffietheGreat — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:40:19 CST

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Antediluvian Contagion

YuffietheGreat — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:27:16 CST

Chapter 2: Paul Credence the Scientist

Paul Credence rubbed his forehead in frustration as he looked over the results of his latest experiment, it wasn’t good.
'What the hell is missing? I need something to stabilize the cellular breakdown.' Leaning back in his chair, Paul looked up at the ceiling tiles, his eyes watering from fatigue and frustration of trying to come up with a cure for his daughter's cancer. 'What the hell is missing, damn it. There’s gotta be a way to slow this thing down.'
Looking across his desk his eyes fix on a large colored photograph of a beautiful woman holding a smiling toddler in her arms. The photograph was framed in one of two slots inside a gold-plated frame. In the second slot was a red heart with a black arrow drawn through it, it was one of many drawings Nadine had done in crayons for him and across the bottom she scribbled her name with the help from her mother so it would stay on the paper. Beneath Nadine's name his wife signed, love always, Rebbecca. 'Nadine … Daddy’s working on the answers, hang in there, baby.'
Tracing the heart with his eyes he remembers the day his daily role at the Chapel Hill Research Facility became his passion, working long hours, forgetting his wife, Rebbecca, and missing his opportunities to visit his daughter at the Duke University Children's Hospital. His job used to be boring and held no meaning, the routine was always the same. Take the cancer cells and play with the chemicals until you found something that slowed it down.
It was like the old Dunkin' Donuts commercials he used to laugh at with the exhausted baker waking up early in the morning and walking through the streets like a zombie. 'Gotta make the donuts,' he would moan all the way to the donut shop. But now that his work had found new meaning for him, he wasn't willing to rest while his daughter laid sick in a hospital bed.
Even if he himself became the workaholic zombie. It's been three years since the diagnoses was made. After months of going from doctor to doctor searching for the more acceptable answer, they ended up going to the children's hospital after all and now his little five-year-old sunshine is becoming an 8-year-old vegetable growing weaker every day. Along with her fading life, he was not only losing his daughter, he was losing his wife who hasn't spoken to him for more than two years. He knew it was unfair to hide in his lab and leave the burden of Nadine's chemotherapy appointments and other medical treatments solely on her shoulders. They were both tired, tired of cursing god for trying to steal their daughter from them and cursing each other for not finding the answers. But instead of being their for his wife, he chose the easy way out. He stayed in his lab.

****

A rather tall and thin man in a white coat walked into the waiting area of Chapel Hill Family Practice Center carrying a neon green plastic clipboard. Clinging to his leg was a small 5-year-old girl giggling as she sat on the doctor's foot.
"Mr. and Mrs. Credence ... You might want to follow me to the conference room down the hall," he said. "We have some things to discuss about Nadine's health."
'Oh god, what is it this time? More medicine? More appointments? Come on, doc! She had a tummy ache! Give her some tummy syrup and she'll be fine!'
Paul was ready to leave the hospital and as he looked over at Rebbecca he could tell she wanted to leave also. They had just spent more than $100 bucks in medicine for the poor child who just wants to play. As the couple followed the doctor down the hall giggling child and all.
As they walked by several rooms filled with parents waiting on results for their own children, Paul noticed the children weren't as playful or patient as Nadine. A few of them were crying and throwing tantrums because they wanted to go home.
'I feel your pain kids.' It seemed like minutes before they found the conference room and sat down. Except for Nadine who was already running in circles around the table and playing with the stuffed animals scattered on the floors. 'Okay doc, just get to the point and let us go home okay?' Paul thought as he squirmed in the small uncomfortable chair. The room was decorated with clowns and other kiddie pictures and furnished with child-sized furniture.
"I'm going to get to the point," he said setting the clipboard down on the table. 'Yes...that's the way to do it doc!' Clearing his throat the doctor started. "I'm afraid Nadine has brain cancer."
Both Paul and Rebbecca gasped at the news. Tears began swelling in Rebbecca's eyes as she watched Nadine hug a giant pink teddy bear and smiled back at her while Paul sat there with his mouth open.
"How? What? Your kidding right? Right, doc?"
"Mr. Credence. Please lower your voice so we don't frighten your daughter."
"But ... but..."
"Sir, its still very small and so far hasn't spread so its still treatable through chemotherapy. But we can't do it here unfortunately, the best place with all the facilities available is Duke University's Children's Hospital. They have been researching cancer for years. And if money is the issue, they will not turn you away. I'm sure they can tell you all about the programs they offer to help pay for her treatments."
"No...no way...not my Nadine," Paul shouted at the doctor. He was angry about the news and unable to accept the doctor's answer. Rebbecca quietly took the now frightened toddler's hand and walked out of the room.
"I know your upset, please think it over. I'll be here all night if you need to talk," the doctor replied and held out a business card with his cell phone number scribbled on the bottom.
'No ... no more talking....if you talk to me right now I'll kill you, doc.' Paul wanted to scream, "Sorry. Didn't mean to scream but I simply can't accept this answer."
"That's fine, many parents often seek a second opinion which you are entitled to, sir."
Instead of a reply Paul simply nodded, wipe a tear from his eyes and rushed out of the room to catch up with his wife who was already sitting in the hallway comforting their daughter.

****

It was after the life in Nadine's eyes had started to fade that he began hiding from his family and worked late hours as well as weekends in his lab, trying to come up with a cure rather than a vaccine to slow the cancer down like the scientists at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center in California. 'This is the triangle research center, one of the best on the east coast. Not gonna let some egghead from the west coast show us up,' he thought to himself then chuckled. 'Egghead...that's what Jack calls me. Hmmmm. Eggs. Isn't that what we used to call brain food?' Paul looked at his report then at his copy of the Science Daily report featuring UCLA's discovery. "... An experimental vaccine for brain cancer has shown promising results in preliminary investigations at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center. The results were published in his copy of the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Research. ... The vaccine at UCLA is designed to boost the immune system's response against brain cancer by exposing the antigens, or specific proteins, that brain tumors produce."
'That's gotta be it ... the brain needs food to fight off the cancer ... yes!' A small smile crossed Paul's face as he looked at Nadine's drawing again and reached for his microscope and a box of slides. As he pulled a purple latex glove over his right hand, he felt refreshed as if the answer just popped into his head. 'Hang in there, baby. I know it hurts, daddy's gonna try to make you all better.'
Putting the reports aside he walked over to the refrigerator where cancer samples were kept and took out a box of sterilized test tubes, a tray of chemicals and a raw egg that he meant to boil for lunch. 'The answer is in here, I just know it is ... I wonder if I not only added cells from this egg that if I increased the strength of the solution ... would it work?'
Opening a new pack of sterilized syringes he reached for the first slide and a small tube of cancer cell samples. After extracting the cell samples into the syringe and carefully pushed it into the center of the slide he gently places it under his microscope.

Chapter 3: Nadine in Never-land

Nadine slept in her hospital bed, barely able to move or even show a facial expression for her mother who was sitting in a chair next to the bed reading her a story. It was her favorite book, Peter Pan, she wanted to smile when her mother would lift the book to show her the pictures. She could tell her mother had been crying by the redness of her eyes and how her lips trembled as she forced a smile. 'Where's my daddy? Doesn't he love me anymore?' she thought to herself as she tried her best to stay awake to hear the happy ending of her book. But soon she drifted off into her dreamworld, where she often goes when she's tired. But lately, her dreams have become a little dangerous and a bit scary.

****

"Hello, Nadine!" called out a voice as a handsome boy wearing green came down from the sky to greet her. "You've come back to visit us? Wow, your parents must not miss you much for you to come visit us often."
"No. My parents miss me and I miss them. I just can't find my way out of here, Peter. Can you help me find my way home?"
"I don't know. I'm not good with directions. Let's go ask Tinkerbell, she may know where to go."
"Oh, no thank you. Tinkerbell is starting to scare me. Last time we went somewhere she tried to hit me."
"Who? Tink? Nah. She just gets playful sometimes. I'm sure she didn't mean it. Let's go talk to her."
"Oh ... okay, Peter."
"Here ... hold my hand and let's go."

Nadine reached up and took Peter's hand and the two of them flew over the woods of Never-never-land towards the dismal swamp where Tinkerbell has been hanging out more and more recently. Nadine was scared but as long as Peter Pan was holding her hand she didn't care. As they neared the area where Tinkerbell was found sprinkling her pixie dusts on a few frogs a loud noise rang through the area. Frightened she squeezed Peter's hand and looked around. Not far beyond the dismal swamp was a huge pirate ship.

"Peter! Peter! It's Captain Hook! Look!" She shouted as a huge canon ball came flying right at them.

****

A loud noise woke Nadine up as her eyes flew open and looked around. She saw her mother standing in the door, but she couldn't see past her mother to tell who she was talking to. Then she heard his voice, it was Uncle Jack. She loved her uncle but he always seem to show up at a bad time according to her mother. 'Uncle Jack! I'm in here! Come play with me, like we used to!' Nadine waited a few minutes before her mother would let her uncle into the room. They always seemed to be talking about her daddy who she hasn't seen for a few months. She misses her daddy very much, but she knows uncle Jack will play with her and tell her how much her daddy loved her.
After a few minutes, her uncle finally came into the room.
"How's my favorite niece?" Jack shouted holding out a stuffed unicorn in front of her and laid it beside her. 'I'm fine uncle Jack! Have you come to play with me?' "I'm sorry your daddy hasn't come by yet, but I know he loves you very much, kiddo."
'That's my uncle Jack. If anyone knows if my daddy loved me he would.'
Nadine tried to force a smile but nothing happened, as she watched her uncle make goofy faces that would normally make her giggle something caught her eye. Her uncle had a huge red scar on his arm and for a moment it looked like it was bleeding. 'What's that uncle Jack? Did you get a boo-boo?' As if he could hear her, she listened as Jack explained the cut on his arm. He must have seen her stare at it. She watched as he talked about all the artifacts he found and things he's seen. She always loved his stories. As he explained she kept her eyes on the scar, 'there it is again. Uncle Jack why are you bleeding on me?' Her eyes moved between Jack's arm and her mother who obviously doesn't see the blood dripping on her covers. 'Mommy! Uncle Jack is bleeding! Help him!' The blood was making her nauseous as she had to deal with seeing nurses draw her blood almost every other day for testing. As she watched Jack turn his attention to her mother she noticed a shadow on the wall but before she could make out what the shadow was she fell asleep again.

****

"Hello Nadine, come to see us again?" called out a strange voice. Nadine looked around expecting to see Peter Pan and gasped when a tall balding man descended from the sky.
"Peter? Is that you?"
"What? You don't recognize me? I'm very sad that you don't recognize me," he said as he leaned forward and held out his hand. "Come on. Tinkerbell has been waiting for you. She said she has something important to tell you."
"Why are you all grown up now?"
"Me? No way. I'll never grow up! Come on. You know how Tink is when you make her wait too long."

Nadine held out her hand but as soon as she laid her hands into Peter's grown up hands, something felt different and frightening. As they flew over Never-land she saw that the dismal swamp had taken over much of the woods and everything was quiet. To quiet for comfort. As they landed her body began to tremble more and more. 'What's going on? Why is Never-land so dark now?' As they landed on the door step of a small cottage made of sticks and mud, Peter opened the door. "Tink! We're home!"

"Be out in a minute, dear!" a voice answered. It was the voice of an adult woman and she guessed right as a tall beautiful blond woman stepped out into the room. "Why hello Nadine, you've been gone a long time."
"What happened to everyone?"
"What do you mean? We're still in Never-land," she said motioning her arms in the air. "The lost boys began missing their parents and went home. Guess they didn't want to hang out with us anymore so over the years me and Pete fell in love and got married."
"Married?"
"Yep! So ... now I don't have to worry about you stealing my Peter cause your still a kid."
"What? You thought that? I'm just a kid!"
"I know... how foolish of me. But hey. We're friends right?"
"Sure. I thought you hated me."
"Oh...don't get me wrong. I do. But I need you to do me a big favor."
"What? Why? If you don't like me send me home."
"Can't kiddo. The new boss in Never-land wants you. In fact, let's go see her right now."

When Tinkerbell turned towards the door, Nadine gasped when she saw her fairy wings were now crumpled remains that looked like the wings of squashed locust in the windshield of her mother's car. 'I wanna go home.' Nadine was really scared now, she wasn't happy about Never-land's new changes.

Chapter 4: Jack the Bear

As Jack began telling his only niece about his trip to the Aztec temple he could see her fading in and out of consciousness. 'Poor baby, it will be over soon.' Jack kept telling his stories as if nothing bothered him, but the truth was he wanted to cry. He never had a child of his own, his last wife left him after years of trying to have a child. He was too afraid to talk to a doctor or even his brother about his little problem. So in his mind he adopted Nadine as his own daughter and always did his best to bring her a toy from every country he visited. If he happened to visit the same country again, he'd find her something different and unique. This trip he bought her a colorful unicorn he found in one of the tables at the bazaar in south America. But as Nadine closed her eyes and fell asleep, he sat back and watched. 'Where's Paul? Why isn't he here with Nadine instead? This isn't fair. Why am I sitting here watching her teeter on the brink of death and lying to her about her cowardly father.' But as Jack sat there thinking to himself the scar on his arm began hurting and he quickly holds his arm to his body. As he held his arm a strange voice begins whispering in his mind. "I can help the child," a voice whispered. Jack looked around and saw Rebbecca standing in the door.
"Did you need me? Sis?" he asked.
"No...I didn't say anything ... is she asleep now?"
"Yeah."

On cue Rebbecca started crying, muffling the sobs with a handkerchief as she walked back out into the halls to sit. 'Did I say something wrong? Rebbecca I'm sorry.' He wanted to say, but the throbbing in his arm was getting out of control.

"Take this fragment to your brother," said the voice as Jack's arm felt like it was going to split apart. "I can help this child. My Netta is already doing what she can, let's do our part."
"Who? What? I'm going crazy ... the stress is killing me. Sorry Nadine, I need to go see your mother for a few."
Jack shook his head a few times, making a silly noise as he did, and the pain stopped. Looking down at his arm he could see the scar was bright red and a clear puss has begun oozing out from under the liquid band-aid he bought from the drug store on the way to the hospital. 'I seriously should have this checked out.' Wiping the excess puss from his elbow he wiped it on his flannel shirt and walked into the hallway to comfort Rebbecca. Rebbecca has been his best friend since his divorce and he loved her for that. If it wasn't for his little problem he wouldn't mind filling in for Paul until he got his head out of his ass and took responsibility for his daughter. He would drive over to the laboratory if it wasn't for a little episode after Paul had disappeared for one month.

****

"Stop being a bastard!" Jack shouted as Paul continued staring into his microscope. As Paul continued scribbling on his clipboard Jack got mad and pushed the microscope towards the end of the table and grabbed his clipboard. 'This is for your own good big brother.' "What's this, huh? What are you scribbling! What are you using to hide yourself these days?"
"Look, Jack. Your not supposed to be here ... now get out!"
"No. You know what? No." Jack shouted throwing the clipboard on the floor. "You have run away from your problems ever since we were little."
"What? No I haven't"
"Yes you have egghead! You ran away from Mom and Lauren's funeral! You ran away from me and dad after he had his car accident that left him crippled! And now! Now your running away from Rebbecca and Nadine!"
"No I am not! Jack, if you must know what I'm doing. I'm trying to find a cure for Nadine. I can't find it being couped up in a hospital room every single night."
"You know what. You don't know what your missing."
"I'm doing what's best for my family."
Family? Family! You don't have a family anymore! Rebbecca is fed up with you running away and Nadine is turning into a vegeta ...."

Paul suddenly punched Jack in the mouth sending him backwards to the floor. 'Well, that got your attention.' Paul shook his hand in the air to dull the stinging and reached up to wipe a tear from his eye. Glaring down at Jack he turned and walked over to the lab door and pushed the intercom button.

"Security."
"This is Doctor Paul Credence in section B. I need my visitor removed."
"Be right there, doc."
"If it wasn't for the fact you were my brother, I'd kill you."
As a security officer opens the door and walks in with a night stick in his hand, he motioned for Jack to step outside. Jack stood up and as he got ready to follow the officer he turned and replied "No. I'm sorry. I mistaken you for the brother who on many occasions saved me from school bullies growing up and helped me get my life back together after my messy divorce. Your just a pitiful coward."

****

"Rebbecca? Are you alright?"
Rebbecca reached up and grabbed Jack's hand. '
Guess the news was pretty bad today.'
"They said she's not getting any better. The chemotherapy isn't working any more and the cancer is beginning to spread ... they don't think she's going to make it to her birthday next month."
Jack's body began to tremble as he sat down next to her and reached his arm across her shoulders. 'Oh dear god, why isn't Paul here.'
"Rebbecca. I know you'll hate me for this, but has anyone seen or call Paul?"
Rebbecca began sobbing uncontrollably as she buried her face into Jack's shoulder. He wanted to cry too, but he knew he had to be strong for Rebbecca and Nadine. He didn't want to, because this is where Paul should be sitting and doing the comforting. When she stopped, he gave her a quick hug and stood up.
"Where are you going, Jack?"
"Going to get that bastard of a brother of mine down here where he belongs."
Just as he got half way down the hall Paul rushed past him. 'Okay. What just happened?' Jack stopped and turned as if he saw a ghost and smiled when he saw that it was Paul. As usual Rebbecca turned away and let him do what he pleased because Nadine really wants to see her daddy.
"Is that?"
"Yeah. Go see what he wants. I'm going to the break room for some coffee, okay?"
"Sure, sis."

Jack watched Rebbecca disappear down the hallway to the elevators. He felt bad that she had to endure this hardship alone and was angry with his brother for letting his family fall apart. 'I would treat her so much better that this if she were my wife, egghead.' He heard a noise inside the room and ran inside to see Paul inject something into Nadine's arm. He could see Nadine was awake with fear in her eyes.

"Hey! What are you doing? Your scaring her!"
"I found a way to slow the cancer down enough to work on a cure."
"What?"
"Trust me! It worked on the experiments."
"Your just gonna inject that shit into your daughter without even talking to her doctor or her mother first?"
"She's my daughter, I'm doing this so we'll be able to play together again."
"That's great and all. But look at her. You scared her, she was just sleeping a second ago."
"I'm sorry baby, daddy thinks he found a way to cure you. I know it stings, but this will let you walk and play again."

After emptying the contents of his syringe, Paul returned it to his coat pocket and brushed Nadine's hair from her eyes.

"I'm sorry I've been gone a long time, I really missed you. But I wanted to make sure I had something that will make you feel better, baby."
"Bro, you better get out of here before I report this incident to the nurse."
"What? For finding a way to make her feel better again?"
"Paul, that's just wrong using your own kin as a guinea pig."
"I promise you. I ran the tests and it worked. This will make her feel a little bit better for a while longer."
"Give him the fragment. It will help the child." The voice called out and as if by some mysterious force, Jack reached into the chest pocket of his flannel shirt and handed Paul the fragment.
"What's this, Jack?" Paul asked taking the fragment and reading the inscription on it.

Chapter 5: Disappear

Anita sat her desk filling out paperwork for all the cases she had to mark closed, 'Standford kid, case closed. No leads ... no witnesses ... no suspects.' She spent weeks on each case with no results and she was furious, 'Another damn kid gone missing without a trace, and within weeks of the Credence kid, too.' She couldn't believe the number of missing children cases she had to close this month alone, the only case remaining open is the Nadine Credence case. Gone for three months now and unless she can get another lead besides her father the investigation will close along with the others. 'What is the connection? Are they still in North Carolina, even?' North Carolina was a huge place, especially in a city like Raleigh. Anita always laughed about Raleigh when she used to live there, but it was no joke. A person could get lost just crossing the street for a carton of cigarettes and a diet cherry cola. Anita was frustrated, she could use a cigarette and a swig of whiskey if she had any. But since her diagnoses for cancer last year, she promised her doctor while laying on the cold examination table that she would change her diet to help the chemotherapy do its magic. To her that was the ending of her good luck and soon the end of her career. She used to pride herself at being able to solve a case within two weeks. But she's off her mark these days and her fellow investigators are quick to expose her failures. Often coming to work with a yellow sticky on her monitor that read: 'It's 10 a.m. in the great city of Durham ... do you know where your children are? Detective Storms needs your help.' It wasn't a good year for Anita, she would take a bullet in the stomach over breast cancer any day. 'I'm still alive, which means I still have work to do, I guess. Shouldn't complain about anything but the pain.' She would lie to herself. But lately the pain has gotten worse, the doctor's offered surgery but Anita was afraid of being put under and refused to be operated on. As she leaned forward to finish typing and send her reports to the printer the phone rang. As she answered the phone she could hear the raspy voice of a man on the other line.

"Is this detective Storms?"
"Yeah? What can I do for ya, sir? Who is this?"
"Listen. I can't talk long ... my last name is ......Credence ......... shoot......they found.....me."
"What? Doctor Credence? Is this Paul?"
"No! ... Jack ... look, I'm in danger. Meet me .... at the Cracker Barrel in Smithfield ..... hurry .... don't have much time...."
"There he is!" a male voice shouted in the background.
"Jack? Where?" Anita asked as the phone suddenly hung up. 'Smithfield. Hmmmm. Oh, okay, I remember now. The factory outlet mall.'
Scribbling the name of the restaurant and town on her notepad she began looking for quick directions to the Cracker Barrel on map quest. 'Better get there soon before he disappears.'

****

Jack slammed the phone down on the receiver and took off running into the parking lot of the outlet mall. Hiding behind cars and making his way towards the Cracker Barrel across the parking lot. 'Shit. Go towards the mall ... go towards the mall.' He watched the zombified followers of Netta track his prior location, not caring who they shove out of their way they practically tore through the walk way looking for him. 'This is my fault. This is so my fault.' As he neared a pink Buick in the parking lot he followed the frame to the next car and ran as the car's alarm system sounded. 'Great.' he thought to himself as he quickly ran between cars towards the restaurant keeping his head down hoping Netta's thugs don't find him. 'Way to go dumb-ass.' Once inside he was greeted by a smiling waitress with her thick North Carolinian accent. Jack loved the southern ladies for their flirty ways, he always loved eating at southern restaurants because it made him feel like he was the one women would kill for when they flirted. His ex-wife hated it with a passion but would never complain, only glared at him over her salad. There was nothing like a freshly pulled pork barbecue, home-style mashed potatoes, sweet hush puppies and a mound of coleslaw piled on his plate to make a southern man like himself happy.

"Welcome to Cracker Barrel, sweetie! What can I do for ya?"
"Hi. I'd like a table for two and can we sit in the back where its darker?"
"Ooh... Plannin' to pop the question, sugar? *giggles* No need to tell me, I'm just being nosey ... of course you can sweetie pie. Follow me."

****

It took a bit longer than she expected but Anita finally found the Cracker Barrel, the route has changed from Raleigh to Smithfield due to all the construction. She looked around the parking lot for a frantic looking man, finding no one she went inside. Just as she stood there looking through the gift shop and peering around the corner into the restaurant area a robust woman approached her smiling ear to ear.

“Are you Anita?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oooooh. Right this way sweetie. Your fiancee is back over this way, dear.”
“What?” ‘What in the world did this moron tell the waitress?’
“This way sweetie.”

Anita followed the waitress to the back of the restaurant where a middle-aged man sat, his features barely noticeable. He quickly motioned for her to sit down and handed her a menu.

“Jack Credence?”
“Yes. Go ahead and order anything you want. My treat.”
‘Wow. This is sassafras.’ “Okay. Um, can I have the barbecue platter? With extra hush puppies?”
“Comin' right up darlin’”

Anita watched as the waitress winked and scurried away to get their plates. Anita cleared her throat and leaned forward to speak quietly to Jack.

“Look. You said you had something to tell me, what’s this all about?”
“My brother took my niece, Nadine. I can’t stay that long because they will eventually find me.”
“Who? Who’s after you? Your brother?”
“Yes and no. Nadine is after me too. It’s hard to explain.”
“Well. Your not going anywhere until I hear it all, mister. Quite honestly, I'm through chasing guesses and running into deadends. Ever since I took this case, strange things have been happening ... Nothing surprises me anymore, but I still want answers.”

Just as she was ready to barrage Jack with questions the waitress returned with two plates piled high with barbecued pulled-pork, mashed potatoes, coleslaw and hushpuppies. Giggling she disappeared back to the front of the restaurant to seat other customers.

"Look. My time is short, so, go ahead and eat your meal. I'm not going anywhere til the restaurant closes and I'll tell you everything that has happened til today."

Anita sat back in her chair and began pulling the barbecue from the pile. 'Damn good barbecue, I should come back when all the investigations are closed.' As Anita ate she listened to Jack's story.

Chapter 6: Strange Requests

Walking through the thick jungles of South America Jack did what he could to keep up with Paul. Paul had been acting strange since Nadine began her amazing recovery two months ago. Even Nadine has been acting strange, milking her father for every bit of his attention.

"Paul this is madness! Where are you taking Nadine?"
"We didn't ask you to come along," Paul and Nadine answered in unison like robots. "We would have been fine on our own."
"Paul this is madness ... please ... where are we going?"

Soon as they made it to a clearance in the jungle he recognizes the temple. And standing at its base was Degregory and his crew waiting like puppies for its master to toss it a treat. As Jack looked closely he noticed something different about them. As he continued to follow his brother and strangely behaving niece he became nervous, his arm began itching and the hairs began standing on its end as it usually does when he's frightened.

"Paul ... this is suicide man. I am totally against this," he whined keeping an eye on the strange people and children that now line the halls of this old temple. Each eyeing his every move like ravenous dogs licking their lips.
"You don't have to stay," the duo replied. "Ah. Home sweet home, come now Jack. Don't be such a wet blanket."

Jack turned his attention from the group of people to his brother and screamed in horror as the two seemed to melt into one huge creature.

*****

As Jack watched the detective finish her barbecue meal he was amazed that she hasn't slapped a handcuff across his wrists and dragged him out of the Cracker Barrel. But as he watched her something inside began churning, he knew what it was ... it was Nadine ... she is calling him to return to the temple and he was scared ... shitless. He has been fighting the transformation and the calling for two days just to be able to tell someone and now he's unable to continue. As Anita popped a hush puppy into her mouth Jack stood up trembling, his face began changing as he apologized as he threw his wallet down on the table and ran for the door. The waitress who was bubbly and friendly earlier was now sneering at her from the front door, as Anita looked around her she noticed others staring at her as well with devilish grins.

As Anita reached down under her coat and released the strap across her handgun and slowly stood up reaching for Jack's wallet. As she slowly walked towards the counter to pay for the meal she heard something snarling in the back of the restaurant. Turning around, her eyes grew large as a huge creature approached her and as she reached for her gun the creature swung its arm towards her knocking her into a table near the register. Her gun flung to the floor and slid behind the front counter. Quickly crawling for her gun the other customers screamed and moaned as a few began transforming into monsters while others ran in fear into the parking lot.

'Shit! Not here too!' Anita began to panic as she reached for her gun. She was getting rather tired of being attacked each time she came closer to finding the answers to her case. 'Where are these monsters coming from?'

Anita fired off a few shots at the monster, remembering to aim for the head based on her first encounter.

Chapter 7: The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out ....

Anita received a lead on the possible kidnapping on the Nadine Credence case. The mother claimed she suspects the girls' father took her from the hospital. She spoke with the landlord and got the keys to his apartment. As she opened the door a strange odor filled the room. It was so foul Anita had to back into the hallway for a breath of air. It was a stale rotten smell and some how she had to go in.
'Please lord don't let that smell be the child,' she prayed before covering her nose with one hand and held out her gun with the other. "Doctor Credence? Nadine?" she called out hoping to get an answer when something in the back room made a noise. Rushing through the dark apartment she felt the walls for a light and ran towards the back. "Freeze! Come out with your hands where I can see them!"

Out from the darkness a vile looking creature rushed towards her. At first Anita let out a scream which quickly turned into a shout as she pulled the trigger of her gun aiming for the creature's head. But the bullets didn't seem to stop it as it rammed her into the door frame hissing. Her gun fell to the floor beside her as she was knocked down to the ground. Her back throbbed with pain. 'Damn! What is this? A nightmare?' she said to herself as she braced its snarling muzzle away from her own face with her arms.

"What the hell are you?!" she shouted as she glanced around her to look for her gun. The creature snapped and snarled at her as it tried to ram her again. This time it succeeded in pushing her away from the door frame andsmash her into a dresser that was near the door. She let out a scream as she felt the raw burning of her skin where the corner of the dresser pressed against her spine. It hurt so bad she curled into a ball squeezing her fists when she found her gun. It had been thrown under the dresser.

A Song For Larissa ~ Chapter Three

Cihhe — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:46:23 CST

Chapter Three

If one had to summarize the village of Quaroth in a single word, it would surely not be an easy task. The closest that a person could possibly get and still be anywhere near to accurate would be curious. Then there are other words, such as: unique, unusual, out-of-the-ordinary, strange... These too, are closely appropriate. For example - suppose you searched through every villa and township and burg that you could find, and picked out those few people you found to be the most unusual* and planted them all in one place - that place would be Quaroth. That’s not to say that it didn’t have its share of normal people. The town was full of them, and to the casual eye, appeared to be as any other normal town, bustling with families and merchants and normal, everyday activities.

Nobody seems to know quite how the town had gotten started or where its name originated, though it is rumored that a strange little gypsy fellow, who just so happened to answer to the same name for a brief moment of time found his way to this very spot and attempted to settle down.**

Quaroth housed such people though: gypsies, wanderers, nomads, travelers, adventurers and an assortment of miscellaneous riff-raff that had wormed their way in, little by little over the years, til they had acquired a good-sized section of the strange, but somehow still somewhat charming and peaceful town. The normal townsfolk, being kind and generous people, welcomed everyone in, regardless of their nature. Sure, it had its share of problems like all towns, but the majority of its problems lay in one place. North Quaroth.

Noone walked the northern part of Quaroth without a sufficient number of bodyguards, a small army of miscreants, or a large, sharp-edged weapon of some sort or another. Night or day, didn’t matter much. The rogues and thieves seemed to have no particular preference for shadow or darkness, it just happened to be more convenient.

*(those people most fondly referred to as “eccentric”, “unique”, “a little different”, “a couple sandwiches short of a picnic”... you get the idea.)

**(It is doubtful that he stayed for long, though this cannot be proven one way or another, as his name was changed so often that all accounts of the man were eventually lost amongst the history of mankind, and most likely also lost, in time, to even himself.)

Dimensional Rifts: Atlantis

YuffietheGreat — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:21:05 CDT

Chapter 2: The mysterious child

On the horizon a large ship sails across the vast ocean of Atlantis. Aboard this ship a rather handsome man with the face of an angel barks orders to his crew of cat-like creatures. Strong, muscular and sleek black fur.

"Ahoy! Set up the main sail and bring the ship hard to port!" ordered Captain Xavier Kitty, as a rather large sea snake emerged from the waters and heads for the ship. "Engage the main mana cannons and prepare to attack!"

In unison his crew shouted "AYE! AYE! CAPTAIN!" Then quickly scurried to carry out their tasks. Kitty took out his spyglass to gaze at the sea snake as he waited for the snake to make its first move.

"Alright load the thunder cannons!" He shouted as the snake began moving towards his ship. "Alright ... hold steady! Take aim! FIRE!!"

As his men barraged the sea snake with electric cannon balls which shocked the creature. Killing it instantly Kitty quickly praised his men, "Good work men!"

As the crew's deafening cheering filled the air, another scream from the sea thundered back as a larger sea snake emerged and rams the side of the boat with its head. Crew members quickly braced themselves for another strike as Kitty stood his ground.

************

High above the island on the highest mountain overlooking the vast seas of Atlantis a light flickered and flashed from an old temple on top of the mountain. From the light of the dimensional gate as it opened Greed stepped out. Looking around he leaned against a wall to wait for his companion to appear.

Nene closed her eyes and reached a hand before her as the lights blinded her and she stepped through the gate. It was a frightening experience for her as this was her first time traveling through the gate. She had only seen the elder's use the gate and never dreamed that one day she would have to use it.

"That was .... very strange," she admitted but then her head began spinning and she flopped to the ground holding her head. She could feel her last meal turning in her stomach as she laid there. "Must lay down for a few ... I feel sick."

"You will get used to it after awhile," Greed replied. "We can rest here till you feel well enough to travel."

Nene let a small muffled growl escape her lips as she passes out on the floor. After what seemed like hours, Nene opened her eyes hoping the experience was merely a dream. But then she realized she was no longer on her mountain, she looked around and didn't see her new companion and panicked.

She called out his name but had no response so she roared his name from the mountain, "GREED!!!!"

But as she roared Greed descended from the sky and landed next to her. She looked on in amazement not realizing he had wings, then watched as his wings disappeared behind him as if it were the product of magic.

"It's alright Nene," he said trying to calm his friend's fear. "This is Atlantis. A massive island on a vast never ending sea."

"Sorry," admitted Nene as she turned to face Greed. "I didn't see you and thought I was trapped in some kind of dream. I take it you've been here before? Tell me about Atlantis." Greed did his best to describe Atlantis to Nene, till he heard her stomach rumbling and thought it was best to take her into town and let her enjoy a meal and see the different species that live here.

Captain Kitty felt his ship shake violently as one of his crew members is tossed from the crow's nest. He dives to catch him and sets him down gently. "All men man your battle stations!!" He runs over to man the wheel and slams a large button next to the wheel. "Prepare for launch!!" The ships main masts begin to lower and large propellors take their place. The ship slowly lifts itself out of the ocean. The ocean salt sprays up into his face as the ship displaces water. "To the cannons men! Wait for it to rear its ugly head!" He spins the wheel hard to the left causing the ship to turn and tilt to one side aiming towards the ocean. "Hold onto something!!" The ship turns nearly sideways and aims at the spot where the ripples of waves are coming from.

The crew braced themselves again as the huge seasnake’s tail appeared out from beneath the water and was heading for the main mast of the ship

Captain Kitty’s eyes widen as one of his propellers shattered and his ship begins to shake violently. "Damn!" He shouted as he sentsome of his crew out to try and fix the mast.

Following the creature's tail sink below the waters readying itself for another attack.

"All thunder cannons fire into that spot on my command!" Kitty shouted then spins the steering wheel around so that the boat is on its side facing the mana cannons towards the waters. Commanding his men to"FIRE!!" The cannon swelled and then bursts of lightening ripped through the water sending shockwaves throughout the area.

Kitty turned the wheel quickly in the other direction to level his boat out as he watches the beast flee to the bottom of the ocean. He hits the button and his ship sinks back into the water and the sails open up again. "Good work men!"

Cheering can be heard almost all the way towardsthe shore in the distance, which they were now sailing towards. He laughs and sets a course for port. A couple hours later they sight land and he grins.

"Land ho!" one of the shipmates shouted. Kitty carefully docks his boat to a vacant pier as the crew lowers the plank and begins rushing towards the town with Kitty not far behind them.

"Time to find a wizard to charge the mana cannons," he said to himself as he walked.

************

Entering the town from the forest Greed and Nene spotted an Inn near the town center. Upon entering Nene looked around while Greed went to pay for a room for them to rest in. She has never seen a building this large, but it wasn't long before she noticed the people in the Inn staring at her. This was quickly getting on her nerves, then tried to ignore it as she noticed there were no other cat-species living here. Once Greed paid for the room they were escorted up stairs by a slender quiet woman who kept her distance in front of them.

Once inside their rooms Nene laid her things down on the mattress and leaned her staff against the wall as she pushed on the bed. She has never seen furniture such as these and it was quiet interesting. But when she removed her hand she noticed the brown stain left behind.

"I need to bathe," she mumbled to herself and looked around. She opend a door near the windows of the room and found a pitcher and basin inside. Looking around she found what seems to be a shower of sorts in the back of the washroom. It was quite small but she could still stand inside with no problem and shower if she needed. Nene walked back to her bag and pulled out fresh clothing that haven't been worn in a long time and walked back to the washroom. Before closing the door she excused herself from Greed who had found a comfortable chair to sit in.

She removed her tattered clothing and placed them in the basin to wash and hung the fresh clothing on a shelf in the room with a few towels folded on it. After what seemed like hours, Nene was finally done. Her fur shiny and her eyes brighter, it had been a long time for a lot of things, bathing was one of them. But looking at the bathtub she became embarrassed as she saw the thick black muddy water left behind and began cleaning her filth adding another hour to her bathing session. When she was finished and was satisfied with the condition of the washroom she came out to let Greed know she was done. But as she moved her things to the table next to the bed and laid down she found the bed so soft and comfortable she fell asleep.

Greed pulled the chair he was sitting in next to the window and looked out, "I wonder what I will find here," he said taking off his coat and laying it on the back of the chair and then removed his sunglasses. Gently placing them in his pocket before laying his sword, Tenro, on the bed opposite of Nene and sat down in the chair. It didn't take long before he also fell asleep.

************

Nene woke up hungry, reaching into her old pouch she found some gil in the bottom of the bag. She scratched her head wondering how long it has been since she opened the pack. Curiously she emptied the bag on her bed and went through the items. She found an old charcoal drawing her daughter drew of them together.

"She was quite the artist," she mumbled to herself quietly trying not to distrub Greed. She stared at the drawing for a moment and then gently folded it back up and returned it to the bag. Picking through her sack of gil, she counted 300 gil total and took 100 for herself then before leaving to find a pub she placed 100 near Greed and returned the remainder to the sack.

As Nene left the room, Greed opened an eye lid revealing a reddened eye and looked over to a small table beside him and saw the 100 gil she left for himand scooped it up and tossed it into his pouch which he always wore on his belt. It was heavy with gil he took from his home before he left on a journey, in the darkened room he opened both eyes and stared out the window of their room.

As Nene walked down the stairs she could smell the sweet aroma of cooked meat and followed it down to a small tavern just inside the Inn where they were staying. As she entered the tavern she noticed a variety of strange species in the room. and they all seem to be staring at her as she walked towards a roomy both in the back. She knew she was different and tried not to let it bother her when she sat down. It was then she noticed a cat-species similar to herself weaving behind the patrons and making his way towards her booth.

As she watched the strange cat sneak between the tables and booths a young human waitressapproached her table and handed her a piece of paper listing the meals they offer. Nene tried to read what it said but could not make out what langauge was being used.

"I don't know your language well enough to read it," she admitted to the waitress and held out 100 gil in her hand. "This is all I have, what meal and drink may I have with this?"

The waitress smiled, "we don't charge much but that is more than enough for a large boar meal and a pint of meade," she replied. "It will only cost 90 gil, I'll bring it out immediately."

"That is fine and for your kindness, keep the rest as a tip," Nene purred as she leaned back in the booth and waited. The waitress smiled and disappeared immediately. Within a few moments she reappeared with a large dish of boars meat, potates and a pint of meade with a cold mug to drink from, and placed it on the table quickly then disappeared to tend other customers. Nene took in the sweet smell before grabbing the meat with her fork and ate her meal.

************

As Greed stared out the window he eventually grew tired of watching the town and reached for his sword Tenro and rummaged through his pack fora wetstone. As he thought of where they should go next on their journey hesharpen Tenro'sblade. Though he trust Nene would be fine, he couldn't help feel uncomfortable in his room.

************

As Nene ate her meal, she couldn't take the staring any longer and growled.

"If you want to know who I am just ask me. I don't like being watched while I eat," she growled showing her saber-like fangs. The patrons turned to tend to their own meals and brews. Satisfied with the response she continued eating her meal then noticed the cat-species standing at her side.

"May I help you?" Nene asked as she finished the last of theboars meat and reached for the baked potatoes on her plate.

"You ... are a cat-specieslike me ...but larger," he asked in a shaky voice. "What race are you? Where do you come from? Who is your master?" His black fur standing on end in fear with his golden yellow eyes widening as he waited for an answer.

"I am Creolian, a proud race of the mountains of Bankou," she replied drinking her meade. "And I serve no one but myself."

"I am Barger," he said with a meak voice, his fur began laying flat against his body. "I'm a Pantherian. Pantherians are all one color we don't havestripes or any other markings in our fur. Be careful not to get caught alone, most people here use us as slaves and if your fur pattern is different you would surely be a worthy prize to them."

Nene laughed at the comment and invited him to sit down.

"I'm a Creolean warrior, i'm not afraid of slave traders or fur collectors," she said biting into a rather large potato. "On my mountain we don't task others to do what we could not do ourselves. If they want me let them come, I'd rather die in battle than be someone's slave."

Barger was felt relaxed and entrallwed with Nene's words of freedom. The two talked for what seemed like hours before a rather large fat man entered the tavern, Nene continued eating as Barger hid behind her booth.

"YOU THERE!" the fat man yelled pointing at Nene with a smirk on his face. "You don't belong in here, come with me. Barkeep! Where's Barger."

The barkeep shrugged his shoulder with a nervous look on his face. The waitress motioned for Nene to run as descreetly as possible. But Nene ignored her motions and continued to eather meal and as she drank the last drop of meade a whip popped over her head.

"I SAID COME WITH ME! CAT!"

Nene roared shaking the tavern glasses and stood up.

"How DARE you interrupt my meal with your foolishness! I'm not a cat! I'm a Creolian and you will respect me!" She roared as she gently sat the mug on the table. Her fur standing up, her tail swishing wildly behind her.

Growling beneath his breath the fat man snapped his whip again, this time Nene caught it and jerked it away from him.

"If you wish to fight we should take it outside so we don't disturb the others," she suggested showing her huge fangs. The fat man snarled and made a fist and tried to strike her. Catching his fist she bent it upwards digging her claws into the top of his hand as she pushed him backwards. "You shouldn't fight in an establishment, what are you? An animal? Let's go monkeyboy!"

With that Nene stepped forward and grabbed his fat faceand dragged him outside with her tail swishing back and forth behind her. Once outsideNene threw the man into the fountain located just outside of the tavern. Many of the patrons were pressed against the window to watch the fight. A wagon filled with caged pantherians moved around and stared at Nene as she challenged their master.

Nene turned when she heard the noise and caught the scent of cat-species and grabbed the lock in her hand. With a roar she asked the fat man in a demanding voice, "why do you cage them?!"

As he climbed out of the fountain he laughed and replied, "because you are all good workers and don't require much to control!"

She looked into the cage and saw their dull yellow eyes and matted fur, they were malnourished and in spots fur was missing from where they were beaten. This angered her as she turned her attention to the fat man and roared.

"I can see you'll be a challenge, I have a special place for you after all this missy. A very special place ... yes Isure do," he sneered and reached into his belt for a dagger. "Your kind are all weak and pathetic. I'll take you down as I did their leader Barger and if you know where that loser went you'd better fess up if you don't want your whole clan taken down ... in fact I'll take them anyways."

Nene'sfur began standing on end making her appear larger, her eyes glowed as if on fire as she turned and pulled on the old lock breaking it. The fat man growled as he pulled his whip behind him ready to strike.

"Unfortunately, I'm the only one left of my family and if you wish to take me down," she sneered. "You'd better have more than a mere dagger as a weapon because I come from a long line of proud warriors and have taken down bigger things than you."

With that she crouched into position and as the fat man ran towards her she leapt into the air pounced on him, her mouth covering the back of his head as she grabbed his hands and squeezed them until he released the dagger. Her fangs digging into his cheek barely piericing straight through.

She felt something burning on her stomach and looked down nearly twisting his head in an awkward position. He had cast a fire spell, it must not have been a strong spell because it didn't singe her fur. She released him and leapt backwards away from him.

"Did that hurt the poor kitty?" The fat man taunted. Then got ready to cast the spell again.

Nene watched him closely and began mimicking his words and movement. His fire spell came flying towards her and quickly she dodged it and casted the same spell but stronger back to him sending him screaming and flying back into the fountain. As he wallowed in the cold water she turned and squeezed the lock on the cage until it broke and set the pantheians free.

"We are meant to be proud and free, go my brothers."

Barger ran out of the Inn and thanked Nene as he led his people back into the forest, those who could not walk were carried by some of the patrons in the inn and the barkeep.
greed didnt her the commotion outside, due to him mediatating. he was talking to the spirits of his people. they were giving him information of the atlantis dimension

After cooling himself off the fat man crawled out of the fountain screaming at Nene, when he noticed the cage was empty he snarled at Nene and ran at her with his dagger.

"You'll pay for this! You and the pesky pirate that has been a thorn in my side!"

Nene dodged his attack and smacked him into the ground.

"It took me three years to train these weaklings to do my work! Now you'll have to dig the mines for ore!"

Nene growled showing her fangs, as he lunged at her again she grabbed the back of his head and threw him back into the fountain. He stood up and began casting a spell. Nene quickly watched and began mimicking him.

"Take that!" he shouted casting a thunder spell at her.

Unable to avoid it she braced herself, but felt nothing. It missed. She stood still as if it struck. Tricking him into getting out of hte fountain and casted her thunder at him which sent him flying through the air and into fountain again where he floated on his back. Knocked out.

Nene felt a small hand on her arm, it was the waitress.

"Please, leave him to us. He's a horrible man who enslaves anything not human to dig his mine. You should return to your room until he leaves. Please."

Nene nodded her head and went back inside the Inn and up to her room where she noticed Greed laying in a trance of sorts.

A Song For Larissa ~ Chapter Two

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:11:45 CDT

Chapter Two

Larissa looked out through the window as she lay in her featherbed and gazed longingly at the stars. How peaceful it must be up there, she thought, nestled in the blanket of night, far away from the world and all of its troubles. The only care at all, the only concern, being to shine and be beautiful.

Larissa Rousseaux was now 17 sun-cycles*, and would soon be coming of age - on the 7th day of the new moon. But that wasn’t what was bothering her on this beautiful starry night. In fact, to most of the townspeople, it would seem that Larissa couldn’t possibly have a concern in the world.

Larissa was extremely lovely, standing 10 and ½ kalas tall**, and thin, but carried well the figure of her mother, who had turned every man’s head in town in her days. Her long auburn hair flowed past her breast to her waist, lying in soft shimmering curls that most of her girlfriends envied. Her face, soft and delicate of feature, and extremely feminine, was the perfect frame for her striking emerald-green eyes. The same eyes that hypnotized nearly every boy that got a chance to gaze into their unfathomable depths, every one of them certain that he saw his future in those nearly-magical eyes.

Besides her outer beauty, there was an inner beauty, undefined and immeasurable, and touching deeply, the spirit of anyone she met. Her father had told her often that she could charm the very fire out of a fevered dragon and leave him purring like a docile pussycat.

She did, in fact, have many suitors. The boys in town were constantly vieing for her attentions, and though she was always kind and polite to them, most of them were left in a wake of perfume with a broken, aching heart, as she went along her way with more important matters to attend to.

Those important matters were precisely what was troubling the young woman at the moment.

Larissa was an only child. Her mother, having died only a few moments after delivering Larissa, had left the girl’s father, Garyn, alone to raise and care for his tiny beloved child. This in itself, became an adventure for a young man that knew little to nothing about child-rearing, let alone babies, toddlers or worst of all, teenage girls. So Larissa was raised mostly on instinct and partially on the advice of every parent that Garyn had the pleasure of knowing. All in all, he had done quite well. Larissa was healthy, attractive, intelligent and kind.

She also had one thing her father did not teach her. Larissa was born with a natural ability. She “knew” things. She “felt” things. And somehow, she made things mysteriously “happen”. She never knew HOW she knew that something was about to happen. She just saw it in her head and it happened. Somehow, she seemed to know that certain people were bad or dangerous, and she knew how they were feeling, or rather, she felt what they were feeling, often to her disapproval.

Larissa was now under the proper tutelage of an old wizard who went by the name of Sarion. Sarion had a reasonably reputable “School of Sorceries and the Given Arts”, on the outskirts of town. Garyn had thought it wise after a particular incident when Larissa, a mere 4 sun-cycles, had decided that she was chilly and wanted to be warmer. She hadn’t done anything intentionally, but she had started a small fire in the cottage by the sheer thought of it, much to her surprise, fear and delight. Garyn had begun to clearly see the potential that she contained after the flames had been doused and the smoke cleared. Luckily, being young and untrained as she was, she had only caused only a very small fire and a bit of eye-watering, irritating smoke and Garyn had extinguished the fire and gotten them both out into the fresh air before any real damage could be done. Larissa had been both frightened and amused, unsure of what had happened, and a week later, she was enrolled in Sarion’s school of magick.

Right now though, Larissa was frightened by what she knew. For she knew that her father - her sweet, devoted father - was somewhere alone and in trouble, and she was beginning to fear the worst.

Garyn had left home on a mission for the High Council of Magick, one of the most prestigious and feared organizations in the realm. The council consisted of the greatest of wizards, sorcerers and alchemists known. Their work was highly secretive, and no one knew exactly what said or done in their council meetings. Those few that had tried to find out what went on inside their doors had inexplicably encountered strange accidents or hinderances that barred their even getting near to the stone quarters in which they met. For that reason, very few actually went out of their way to question their activities, and generally just avoided the whole area in general.

Larissa had never questioned her father’s work. He was a skilled alchemist and she had pushed him to teach her until she had learned all from him that he would allow her to know. She was quite adept at the craft herself, and used it to help the people in the town when she could. Her father taught her the use of chemicals and herbs, and persuaded her to practice her natural abilities as a healer that she had inherited from her mother, Leila. Larissa mended the injured and healed the sick as often as she could, and the townspeople adored her for it, as they had Leila before her. She made potions and other mysterious concoctions that her father had taught her, and her skill was growing with time and experience. But Larissa was beginning to question the missions the council sent her father on. He wouldn’t tell her what he was doing, only how long he would be gone, knowing she was old enough to care for herself when needed. When he left for the current mission, he promised her he would return in time for her coming-of-age celebration. “I will bring you back a glorious gift, worthy of a young woman ” he had told her, hugging her tightly and she had simply replied. “Just come home safely, Father. That is all I will ever need.” Even then she had a feeling of foreboding that she couldn’t shake.

It was late, and Larissa had class in the morning. She wiped a tear from her eye and tried for one brief moment to shut out the world, burying her head in her pillow. That brief moment was all she needed. Soon she was fast asleep.

And what Larissa dreamed about on that starry night frightened her more than anything she had ever known...

* ~ A sun cycle equals approximately 13 months standard Earth time
** ~Approximately 5 foot 7 inches by our current standards of measurement.

Dimensional Rifts: The Cursed Mountains

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:20:38 CDT

Chapter 1: The Ancient Returns

Stepping through the swirling dimensional gate, Lord Greed stretched and looked around. The ancient Shadow Rogue demon had just returned from the dimension of Frostmorne and it had been awhile since he'd been home to his once-mighty kingdom nestled in the foothills of the Southern Mountain of Bankou.

"It's been a long time..." he said to himself as he gazed at the remains of a japanese-style fortress, a frown on his face. "My kingdom, gone, along with everyone who once fought beside me here."

He continued to look around then entered his home. Somehow it had managed to withstand the battles that had been waged here. He did what he needed to do then made his way back up the Bankou mountain range to return to the dimensional gate.

Further up the mountain a creature sat motionless. A Creolean warrior, the last of a race of great cats, waited for a small animal to wander close enough for her to pounce. Her light gray fur and dark gray stripes made it easy for her to blend in with the stained snow, effectively camouflaging her. As the animal hopped closer, she leapt from her cover and pounced, sinking her claws into it and snapping its neck as it screamed. She glanced around, detecting an unfamiliar smell on the mountain, but shrugged it off as she carried her prey away to a nearby cave.

As the great tigress ate her meal, her ears twitched and perked up at the sound of crunching snow echoed up the mountain. She paid it little mind as she finished her meal. She slowly eased herself to the mouth of the cave and leapt into the snow to camouflage herself. She spotted a figure in the distance, walking up the mountain. The mountain that had been vacant for some time now, with the exception of a few peace-keepers and the occasional traveler.

As Greed made his way to the dimensional gate, further up the mountain a creature sits motionless. A Creolean warrior, the last of a race of the great cats, waits for a small animal to wander close enough for her to pounce. Her light grey fur and dark grey stripes made it easy for her to blend in with the stained snow. As it hopped closer she leapt from her cover and pounced on the animal, sinking her claws into it and snapped its neck as it screamed. Looking around she detected a strange smell on the mountain, but shrugged it off as she carried her prey to a nearby cave.
As the great tigress ate her meal, her ears perked as the sound of crunching snow echoed up the mountain. Slowly she finished her meal and eased herself to the mouth of the cave , leaping into the snow to camouflage herself. In the distance she could see a figure walking up the mountain. A mountain that had been vacant except for a few peace keepers and travelers.

As Greed continued his walk he heard a noise up ahead, not paying any attention to it he continued up the mountain, letting his jacket and the cloth attached to it flap in the wind behind him.

"Now to go to the other side of the mountain and find the portal," he said to himself, not aware of the Creolean watching him. As she sat perfectly still watching the strange human-like creature walk past her, her fur bristled as she stood up, sniffing the air to see if he was friend or foe. As she made very slow, precise movements toward him to get a better whiff of his scent, she realized she had exposed herself.

It seemed as if the man didn’t notice her as he walked, but as he reached up with his left hand to scratch his head, the two metal bracelets he wore jingled, and as he licked his dry lips she could see hints of large canine teeth. Nothing a human possessed.

By now she was curious as to what this being was and approached him as she spoke.

“What manner of creature are you?” she asked, sniffing at the air around him. “You look human, but you smell different.” Not sensing any hostility from the creature, he remained calm as he answered her question.

"I am a Shadow Rogue, an ancient demon race, and unfortunately there aren’t many of us left,” he said turning and pointing at his once prosperous city. “I don’t know if you have ever noticed the fortress down at the base of the mountain ... I was the ruler of that, until all the people that lived there with me died in an attack by Garuda's followers. But... that is a tale for another day.”

Turning back to the Creolean warrior, he smiled as he held his arms out, “Yes, I do have some human qualities, but I am not human.” he said, smiling. “You must be a Creolean ... What is your name? My name is Greed.”

The warrior stood there in silence, despite her self-mutilations, the stranger could still see who she was. Greed looked at her and thought [it occurred to him that] something was different about her. Many of the Creoleans he ran into in the past often traveled in groups and never far from their villages.

"Why are you alone? I thought your people always traveled together and never traveled alone ... why are you alone?"

“I am Nene ... Nene Tailchaser,” she stopped to think about what she should say next but the realization that she was the last of her kind struck her as tears began swelling up in her eyes. “I have lost my people to a horde of demons that also follow Garuda, but serve a demon called Sordor ... this is all that is left of my village ... I’ve lost my mate and child to the demons.”

She looked at her bare body and for the first time in years she remembered the jewels she once wore on her arms and around her neck ... the furs and bones that once lay across her chest and decorated her once flowing mane. It was now gone. She looked all around her at the blackened snow, the stained snow that covered an area where a lively village of warriors had once stood.

"I... I failed to protect my people. I am alone now. There are no Creoleans left on this mountain....so I cast away my pride." She suddenly realized what she was admitting to this stranger and ran back to the cave to continue mourning the loss of her people.

Once inside, she began to think, wondering how long she had been wallowing in her misery, that she had not noticed the empty mountain. Looking at the pads of her hands, she mumbled to herself.
"These hands are useless. They couldn't even protect Timbaku or Tara."
"These fangs" she said as reached to feel the dullness of them,"they could not bite the enemy. And these whiskers, failed to detect the enemies behind me. What I have been doing all these years, I know not." she thought, as she lay her head on the ground and cried, not realizing that the stranger had followed her.

"I know you don't know me, Nene Tailchaser, but perhaps you have heard of me? I am Lord Greed. I am the demon lord who used to run the fortress below this mountain, until all of my people died." the man said as he walked up to Nene. "So we are in the same conflict you could say."

Greed paused as he realized that the Creolean was sobbing quietly. Not sure what to do, he placed a hand on her shoulder to offer some comfort , not wanting to upset her further.
Thinking quickly, he replied “Everything will be okay eventually ... if it happened, then it was meant to be ... that’s what I always say.”

Nene paused to think about Greed’s words. Then, as if looking at her surroundings for the first time, she rose to her feet and held out her massive hand.

“Maybe. I don’t mean to be rude and I apologize.” she said.

While shaking Greed’s hand, she looked at the dark empty cave, then back to Greed. She knew he meant well by the words he spoke and thanked him with an empty cat-like smile.
“All that remains of my village is this cave,” she said, motioning in the air around her as she walked over to a backpack and a staff leaning against a wall. “There is nothing left for me here. Everything else, including the bodies of my people, have been burned and sent to the great elders of our ancestors. I owed them that much, despite failing to protect them. There are no other Creoleans on this mountain and nothing left for me here. May I travel with you?”

Greed looked at her and smiled. “I do not mind if you travel with me. I could use the company." he said as he turned to leave the cave.

As Nene pulled the backpack over her shoulder and grabbed her staff, she was suddenly overcome by fear and her hands trembled. Shaking her head, she quickly left the cave and rushed past Greed up the mountain.

“We must hurry, before the ghosts of my people drag me back into the cave,” she growled.

Confused, Greed paused to look back at the cave , then back at Nene.
“Ghosts? " he asked, as he caught up with Nene, who was still marching up the mountain. “What do you mean?”

Nene steadied her pace so Greed could catch up.
“Ghosts of my past and present dispair,” she said after they reached the summit and turned around. “There.” She said, pointing to where they were standing a few moments before. Where the snow turned as grey as Nene’s fur, was the outline of a medium-sized village, charred remnants of homes and hearths poking through clusters of snow.

She looked at Greed who stood still with a confused look on his face.

"The ghosts I speak of are not spiritual ghosts. They are my inner turmoil. A battle only I alone must deal with,” she said as her tail swung back and forth. “The ghosts are my past. and the longer I stay there, the longer I will be unable to free myself from my pain. I feel I'm no longer of this mountain and have decided its time for me to leave."

She turned and looked at the mountain she had called home for so many years. A small tear trickled down her face as her tail began curling around her waist.

"Although there were once many Creolians on this mountain, there was only one family for Nene, and that family is no more," she looked down at what was once her village. "The only thing left in that cave now are the failures I've carried for many years, until one person made me face it today. Now I can move forward, thanks to you, and I have no plans on returning here any time soon once I leave."

With that being said, she continued walking up the mountain in silence.

“You know, running away from your pain won’t solve the problem.” he said, walking alongside Nene as they journeyed to the dimensional gate housed within a shrine at the top of the mountain. He offered words of wisdom but knew she would not listen. The Creoleans he had known in his life had all been stubborn.Once their minds are made up, there is no more room for discussion.

As the two reached the ancient shrine of the dimensional gate, Nene reached into a pouch tied to a belt around her waist. She felt around and pulled out two ribbons made with special threads to make it them withstand the weather and elements. Smiling , she stopped to look back. It was a ribbon her daughter had made for her to wear in her mane. Turning back towards the shrine, she wove the green and gold ribbons into her mane, letting them fall down her neck like two pigtails. Turning to look at the shrine she weaved the green and gold ribbons into her mane and let them drop down her neck like two pigtails.

“I promised I would take her places.” she sighed as she turned to face Greed and the shrine. “Through me, I will fulfill that promise.”

The shrine was one place her people had never thought about using. They protected the shrine, as the Lorians protected the order of peace on the mountains, thereby earning the title of ‘Peacekeepers.’

As the two entered the shrine, they stepped through the portal and disappeared, unaware of the Grimlock Dragon demon, Sordor, resting on the other side of the southern mountain.

“What took you so long to find me, brother?” asked Soken, a fair-haired stranger. “Come, Sacred, you must be hungry.”

Pushing a pouch filled with food towards Sacred, Soken put away a flute he was examining and turned to engage his brother in conversation.
“Thanks,” Sacred said, pinching a chunk out of the bread he found in the pouch and popping it into his mouth. “The walk was fine brother. Why did you bring your pack here?”

Unaware of the Grimlock Dragon sitting above their encampment, the men continued their conversation. Sordor licked his beak-like mouth like a hungry wolf eyeing his prey and spread his long, leathery, black wings. With a leap into the air, he glided down the peaks of Bankou towards the two men as they ate and circled above them on the ice cold wind. Letting out a screech, he dove down onto the startled wanderers and grabbed Soken into his huge claws. He lifted him higher into the air and dropped him next to his brother. The sound of thunder could be heard as Sordor’s horde of demons, armed with clubs and axes, stampeded down the mountain towards the wanderer’s camp.

The two fought back to back for what seemed like hours until Sacred fell, overwhelmed by the horde. Just as Soken stood over his weakened brother to protect him, the demons stopped and stood motionless while Sordor landed on the ground. As Soken looked up at the humongous dragon his mouth dropped and his knees shook with fear. A small white rook flew down from Sordor’s shoulder and landed next to Soken and fluttered its wings. The demons stepped back away from him as the dragon moved forward.

With an evil grin, Sordor picked Soken up and squeezed him tightly so he couldn’t move, while he took a deep breath and inhaled Sacred’s soul from his weakened body. Soken’s eyes widened as he watched his brother’s soul scream and struggle to hold on to his own body before entering Sordor’s mouth. After a few seconds, Sordor sent a breath of fire to char Sacred's body. A tear fell from Soken’s eyes as he watched the demon horde peel the flesh from his brother's body and consume it.

“Enjoy your meal, my followers. Let Garuda bless this poor creature’s body and his soul keep us warm until our next meal.” He laughed as he watched his demons consume everything, flesh and bone alike, until nothing was left.
Soken began to panic. Freeing his arm from Sordor’s giant claw, he began to stab at Sordor’s fingers. Sordor smiled at the poor wanderer's attempt and leapt into the air, spreading his wings. The demons scattered back to the mountain and the glaciers below, as Sordor flew straight up as high as he could go and then barreled down towards the ground holding Soken in front of him. As he smashed Soken into the ground, he could feel Soken’s body being crushed then lying still, silently dying beneath Sordor’s weight as the dragon lifted his limp body and tossed him into his mouth. Deep in the back of the dragon’s throat, Soken could hear the screams of souls swirling in the dragon’s throat. As the dragon swallowed, Soken fell into the abyss of Sordor’s throat and felt the pain of being ripped apart by desperate souls fighting to possess his broken body. Then finally, as he took his last breath, closed his eyes and died.

As he walked up the side of the mountain, a flash of light, followed by a flow of energy, struck beside Sordor. He looked up and laughed.

“I see I got your attention, Bahamut.” He laughed as he faded into another dimension. Because Sordor didn’t really exist on any one plain of existence, he didn’t require a gate to move between worlds. “Enjoy your rule as lord over these mountains for now, for I will be back to clean this dimension of its inhabitants and take over. With the Creoleans gone, your days are numbered.”

A song for Larissa by Lisa Moore

Cihhe — Sun, 06 May 2007 20:48:12 CDT

A Song for Larissa

Chapter One

"You're an irrepressible busy body! One of these days, your curiosity is going to
get the best of you, and I for one, am going to laugh 'til I fall off my perch!"

With that said, the great owl Balin lowered his brows (if in fact, an owl actually has eyebrows) in his best scornful look, shook his head and flew up to a ceiling beam, where he was sure he had seen a tasty moth fluttering about.

"Where did that thing go anyway?" he muttered to himself, looking about the rafters. "I really could do for a mid-afternoon snack. "

Balin was still muttering to himself when the object of his scorn, a scrawny black leopard cub with bedraggled fur and a crook at the end of his tail, jumped over an assortment of jars and beakers and slid on a piece of parchment, sailing head-first into a sack of yellowish-white powder. Thud. Poof !

" Let me be the first to say I told you so." said Balin, chuckling to himself while the young feline stood and shook himself off, sneezing and snuffling, the fine powder yellowing his face and whiskers.

" Well" he said, still shaking his head "In case you care... " Trick paused to shake his whole body, creating a small dust cloud. "I'm...just fine." He stopped shaking and looked up at Balin. "And I'm still fine even if you don't care!" He pounced off to find something new and exciting to get into.

"And THAT Trick, is precisely what I'm talking about! One of these days, it could be your downfall." said Balin, who promptly went back to eye-balling new morsels for his snack. "Perhaps a bat...." he muttered quietly to himself.

Meanwhile, neither of the two had noticed that among the broken jars and beakers, something had started to bubble and boil and whatever that something was, it was beginning to smoke quite heavily.

Balin cocked his head. "What in blazes name....?" He flew down to Trick, picked him up by the scruff of his neck and swooshed him out the window in one motion.
Trick, who had been happily investigating a small mouse hole he'd discovered only a day before, began to squirm and wriggle. "Hey! Put me down!! Couldn't you see I was busy? Balin, are you listening to me?" he stopped wiggling. " Hey, Wow, I'm flying! Balin, can we fly over town? I'm sure if you just..." but before he had a chance to finish, Balin promptly deposited Trick feet first in the grass.*

“Hush fool . I knew something like this would happen sooner or later. Can’t you be content just napping in the sun like the normal lot of your fellow brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and so on and so forth? Must you ALWAYS cause a stir? I’m sure you’ll need all nine of your over-ambitious lives and then some ”

Balin was still reading Trick the riot act when an old man with long gray hair and an obviously aged, but dignified face (now a very startled face) came running and screaming at the top of his lungs. “MY HOUSE!! MY LAB!! MY BOOKS!! What in the name of the gods is happening here? ?”

Green-gray smoke billowed out from the windows and chimney. The old man opened the door and looked cautiously inside. A boiling green ooze had grown to cover most of the tables and was about to reach a large, black, leather-bound book, when the old man raised his hands, muttered a few words and the green ooze stopped bubbling in its tracks.

“Sarion, are you ok? It wasn’t my fault! It was an accident! ” Balin and Trick fluttered and bounced around Sarion, belting out excuses for fear of what punishment the old man could be considering.

Sarion peered around the house and sighed. Everywhere he looked, the place was in shambles. Smoke still hung heavily in the rafters as it seeped slowly out of the door and windows.

Dozens of glass jars and beakers that housed only Sarion knew what, were strewn across the table and floor in shards and gobs and glops of this and that, some of the gobs and glops still squirming, as if trying to slip quietly away unnoticed. Books and maps, scraps of parchment, and several interesting-looking items (one could only assume them to be some type of unusual arcane tools or an imaginative child’s antique toys) lay scattered in every direction, some covered in ooze, some in a mess of powder and debris.

Sarion sighed and scratched his head, shook his head again as if in slight disbelief and turned to glare at the two creatures. Balin and Trick had scarcely dared to enter the door, and when they caught the penetrating stare of their master, were considering a quick and quiet retreat, when Sarion spoke in a deep and somber voice.

“No need to back out so soon. I do believe an explanation is in order from the both of you ”

Balin and Trick simultaneously began an incessant chattering of ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘wells’ when the old man spoke again.

“Balin, my old friend, I thought I had left you responsibly in charge while I was out attending to more serious matters. How could you let this happen? What were you doing? Sleeping on the job? You know, you may be an old friend, but you’re getting a little too old. Maybe I should lessen your responsibilities, find a younger, more suitable fellow to fill your place and let you retire with some small amount of dignity before my entire HOUSE falls to pieces? ?”

Balin look at Sarion with large sad eyes (which is easy for an old owl) and tried to bury his head as far as he could possibly bury it into his breast down, when a weak little voice spoke up.

“It wasn’t Balin’s fault sir.” Trick mewed. “He tried to warn me and I wouldn’t listen, as usual. I did it all.” He lowered his eyes, then his head and, sniffling, mewed out a weak “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise.” in his best pathetic innocent tone, this being fairly simple as he was still merely a kitten.

Sarion had spared him from a rather cold, wet and uncomfortable night in a dark, rainy alley near an inn on the north side of town only a few weeks before and Trick had become instantly “attached” to the old man. Sarion pitied him and took him in, rather unable to get rid of him anyway. Trick had later earned his name. After watching Sarion do a few small, rather insignificant spells for his youngest students, Trick had jumped out of his hiding place beneath a desk, squealing “Wow What a neat trick Show us another one please? Can we see another one please? I wanna see a trick I wanna see another trick Please, please, please????”
Whereas Sarion promptly turned the cub into a rather harmless and quiet statuette til the end of his Wizarding 101 class. This, of course, caused many a giggle and snicker from the younger students, one of whom being slightly braver than the others, let slip a “Neat trick ”, which prompted the entire class to giggle and laugh with the humor of it all.

From that moment on, the precocious little character adopted the name Trick.

Sarion looked at the both of them quite severely, then his features softened as he smiled slightly. “Balin, my friend, I do apologize. I should know by now that you wouldn’t knowingly let me down. I do wonder though, Would you have let me continue and still have covered for the blatant guilt of that little fur-ball? I thought that was below you? Cats, I mean. I don’t recall you being too appreciative when I first saved him from the rain As a matter of fact, I seem to remember you hoping he’d sneeze himself into another dimension... the abyss, I believe it was?

Balin cocked his head, pretending not to notice Trick’s sad questioning eyes gazing up at him. “Maybe” He said, a slight attitude revealed in his voice. “The little irritant kind of grows on you after awhile.... a bit like a fungus.”

Balin turned to glare at Trick again. “Next time, maybe you’ll pay more notice to what this old fool has to say? If we’re both lucky enough to LIVE through the next time. I don’t have nine lives and I’m getting far too old to be flying your little carcass out of trouble all the time. ”

He looked around, shook his feathers, then said with a huff, “Now if you don’t mind, I think I shall take a much-deserved nap and rest my nearly-retirable eyes Hmmph ”

Sarion smiled and tried to contain his laughter.

“Go ahead, Balin, and rest easy. I have no intention of getting rid of you or retiring you. Please accept my apology.” he said softly.

“Very well.” the owl replied, and flew back to his place in the rafters, the smoke having thinned out some by now.

Trick bounced up and down playfully. “You DO like me! Oh Balin, I like you too. ”
He grinned and looked up at the owl.

Balin opened one eye slowly, cocked his head and glared ominously down at the little cub.

“Don’t press your luck ” he said sternly and closed his eye again, attempting to nap.

Sarion smiled to himself, then feigning to still be cross with Trick, turned to him and picked him up. He held him in front of his face and looked directly into his eyes.

“Behave Or you may very well get the chance to explore another dimension Or maybe...” he moved Trick closer to his face, glaring ominously at him “you’d like to go back to the alley and try to make friends with Borga? ”

Trick shuddered, his little body trembling at the thought of Borga’s massive jaws wrapped around his head. Borga was the innkeeper’s hound, and a rather formidable hound at that. He guarded the inn fiercely and no one questioned his authority.

“I’ll try to be good. Really, I will You’re not going to turn me into stone again, are you Sarion?” Trick asked nervously. “I mean, well, I really would understand if you did. It was just that I was, well... I was bored stiff. And I really don’t think I’d like it very much if you did that again. Least not for very long.”

“No, Trick. I will not turn you into a statue.” Sarion’s look softened and he ruffled the fur on the top of Trick’s head and set him down gently. “But please, try to stay out of any further mischief? At least for today ”

“I will.” Trick said apologetically. “Thank you.” said Trick, as he pounced out through the front door and went chasing after a butterfly who happened to chance by.

Sarion shook his head and turned back to the disaster. The next few hours were spent cleaning, arranging, rearranging, repairing numerous things, and retrieving the ‘gops and globs’ that had actually tried to leave and had merely succeeded in gathering together fearfully in a few crevices and corners. Sarion could easily have “swooshed” everything back into place with the proper words, a swish of his hand and a bit of magic, but Sarion was tired and magic took a lot out of him these days. He wanted to conserve every little bit of energy he had left. Besides, he needed to think, and keeping busy seemed to make that easier. So Sarion clean, and thought, and when all was clean and back in its intended place, he went to building a cozy fire in the small fireplace.

Mixing together various herbs and making them into a nice aromatic tea, he sat down in his favorite chair, a large overstuffed red chair that was tattered and worn and not quite as overstuffed anymore, as the stuffing seemed to be disappearing through a hole in the seat that never managed to stay mended for very long. He sipped his tea and relaxed into his chair, thinking.

Despite the exciting events of the day, he felt relatively at peace but an eerie feeling continued to tug at his nerves that he couldn’t quite identify. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

He sat back in his chair and soon fell asleep, exhausted from the day’s cleaning, but his mind did not rest easily.

Interview with Parrish and Lucy

YuffietheGreat — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 04:48:00 CDT

Story by Bforsaken staff

In this interview we are going to look at the brains behind this strange twist of fate story about an alien abduction. In reading this story you are put in the shoes of the abducted Maxwell Devonshire, following him through his living hell aboard the space ship.

With us today is Parrish Powell and Lucy Newman, the authors of this strange tale. So, tell me, who came up with this story? And how did you two get involved with this project?

Lucy: I sort of met Parrish in the G4TV forums. I can't remember what it was we were talking about. I think it was my disappointment in how G4TV has pretty much turned into Spike TV. So anyways, after spending almost half the year keeping up with each other on-line we finally found found time to sit and chat with each other on Chatzy. So, anyways, we started talking and he mentioned trying to start a story project. Something that could possibly become a videogame or movie and then as we were writing we saw this contest on films to die for. So we went for it even though the story is still in its raw format.

Parrish: Hehehe ... That's true we were talking for a few months over the G4 forums about being a little jaded by it's network. And based on her point of view, conviction and ideas, I said to myself that she'd make a good business partner in some of the projects I had in motion.

Lucy: Well we started brain storming about ideas and then it hit me. I was telling him about these things I saw one day. I thought they were flying saucers. To this day I can't explain it. So to start, we started talking about UFOs kinda like researching past abductions, news videos of actual phenomena and so on.

Interesting. In most stories you have the hero which is obviously Maxwell and then an enemy among its cast of characters interacting. Why did you two decide to write this story in the first person?

Lucy: It was sort of a way to make readers not only share the main character's adventures but to also read how he felt, what he thought and the questions that generally flood a person's mind when in a panic.

Parrish: Well for me first person is one of my favorite writing styles. And Lucy pretty much took the words out of my mouth as far as the reasons why it's used.

How long has it taken you both to write this story?

Parrish: Well it didn't really take us that long to finish this piece ... I think it was around three months, and it was a pretty difficult task keeping up with each other at times but it all came together.

Lucy: No. It didn't take that long to finish, it was just finding the time where we were both present to work on the project more than anything else.

What was the toughest part of the story to write?

Parrish: The toughest part of the story to write was the ending I believe. Because we couldn't decide on where to take our hero.

Lucy: Well. There were so many ideas about how to end the story and it was just hard to decide on one ending.

What is your favorite part of the story and why?

Parrish: Hmmmm ... I really don't have a favorite part to this story, to me the whole story has so many twist and turns that it would be very trying to think of a favorite part.

Lucy: For me my favorite is the moment Maxwell's dream was becoming a nightmare and he's trying to escape. He finally realizes he's not even awake and must try to get out.

What other projects are you working on and when will it be ready for publication?

Parrish: As far as publication we plan to publish around fall ... And we'll see what's next after that.

Lucy: Well. What Parrish said as the publication date sounds right and I don't want to jinx our work so you'll just have to wait and see for yourself.

Yuffie Speaks

YuffietheGreat — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:29:56 CDT

artwork by Lisa Moore

If you want your page reviewed just send e-mail to Yuffie.

Triple Triad Advance for the Final Fantasy Fan

Here's another site I enjoy playing online. It's called Triple Triad Advance.
If you ever played the card games in Final Fantasy 8 and 9, the game is pretty simular. The game curerrently features 18 playable card decks, featuring all your favorite characters from Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Lance and Dragon warriors all your favorite Triple Triad rules such as Same, Plus, Samewall, Pluswall, Combo and Elemental.

This site project was created with the intention of providing a free place for final fantasy fanatics and card players to gather and play Triple Triad online vs other players in real time since it opened in January 2003, starting with the Basic Triple Triad rules, adding new rules to the game as time went on.

I've been playing this game for awhile and believe me ... it's extremely addictive. Especially when you're winning. Because each point you earn allows you to buy more cards and you can also trade with others. Another way to gain cards is play in the online tournaments or create one for others for a challenge if you think you have what it takes to be a TTA master.

Me? I'm still working on the winning part. Log in and enjoy. If not the game, the rpg game in the card palace. See you there.

Gaia Online, an Avatar Community

I'm not big into playing games online or getting too involved in one website versus another and there are a few websites I will actually frequent over and over again because it's that enjoyable. One such site is Gaia online.

It's easy to use and a majority of the "gaians" are friendly and very helpful if your new to the community. When you first log in, you get the option of creating your own gaian identity with clothes and furniture for your gaian world home. You get gold you can use to purchase items for your avatar, if you don't like the way it smiles or the expression on its face you can change it at any time as well as your hair, clothes and items.

There's an interactive community called Gaia Towns where you can meet the gaians that live in this virtual world, shake the trees or kick rocks for more gold and hopefully soon random battles with monsters as demonstrated in a recent anime convention in California. On August 4th they will be featured in the upcoming Otakon convention which I'm sad to say won't be attending due to financial constraints. But I am looking forward to the new battle systems in the Gaia Towns. If your not into the whole virtual world ordeal there are forums and marketplaces where you can trade the items you no longer want or to have a text role playing experiences in the guilds.

There are strict rules to posting in guilds because everyone needs to respect other writers helping to create, form and tell the story of their adventures online. But once you understand the rules of each individual guilds it is quite the experience to live an adventure through text with other gaians, which is much more fun than trying to read a book you're not really interested in. In the guilds you help form the worlds of the story teller and change the outcome of the story with every move you make.

If your into games with more challenges than you can throw a stick at, Gaia has a variety of games from fishing, slot machines, card tables to a word bump game that will keep you occupied.

Although this is a free site for gamers, they do appreciate donations to keep the server running and to produce more quality games for all Gaians. I recommend this site to gamers surfing the web while waiting on the next new game to hit the shelves. *cough* Final Fantasy 12 *cough*

For more information about this game or to experience Gaiaonline for yourselves visit www.gaiaonline.com and register. If you need further assistance just find me YuffietheGreat on gaia or post a comment on my homepage and I'll get to you as soon as possible.

IMVU, 3D Chat couldn't get better.

I have found a 3D Chat Program that allows you to go one step beyond a screen name. I'm talking about www.IMVU.com.

You work on a point system much like the gold system on www.gaiaonline.com where you can buy clothes, furniture and so on for your avatars. You can be anything you want to be.

Although this is also a free site for gamers, they do appreciate donations to register your screen name to keep the server running. Once you register you also have the option to create new scenes, stickers and clothes for your avatar or sell it to others for more credit. I also enjoy that I can move around, fight with others, hug them, laugh and be expressive with my avatar.

For more information about this game or to experience IMVUchat for yourselves visit www.IMVU.com and download their chat program. If you need further assistance just find me YuffietheGreat on gaia or post a comment on my homepage and I'll get to you as soon as possible.

God of War Fan Fiction guild

AbstractedSoul — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:38:16 CDT

Welcome to the God of War Fan Fiction guild. Here you can post your God of War ( or God of War 2 ) related fan fiction, or if you want to discuss the game..you can also do it here in this forum.