Post by Evan on Jul 14, 2010 1:28:48 GMT -6
Note: I haven't proofread this or anything, and this is just sort of a weird idea I've had floating in my head for a while, so I decided to do it. What I am posting is all I have so far, written in random bouts of free time when I'm in the mood. Some of the editing and transfer from my word program to this may have screwed a few things up, but I'm too lazy to deal with it right now.
Darkness Mind
(A SHORT STORY)
by Evan Bittle
Chapter 1
IN THE BEGINNING, there was only pain. It was a flash of light, a twisting of metal and flesh. In the sudden shock, she felt the breath leave her lungs, her heart stop a moment, and then a deafening crashing in her ears. There was a warmth growing in her heart, in her lungs, and then as quickly as it came, would disappear. It was cold, and then it was nothing. The sound of raindrops - or was that blood? - trickled next to her ear. But then even that stopped. Met with only silence, she floated idly in nothingness.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing alone in a green field. There were no people, not even trees in sight. Her only companions were the rolling green hills and, in the distance, a crimson horizon. Slowly, she became conscious of the tension in her jaw and opened her mouth slightly. She remembered her hands, her arms, her shoulders and the white dress hanging over them. She could feel her bare feet against the grass, lightly wiggling her toes to assure they still existed. She reached up to touch her hair and felt the softness of it against her hand. It was shoulder-length and blonde with a touch of brown within. Part by part, she was remembering her body, but her mind was a story of its own.
This is that story.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there in that field. As even more time passed, she started to feel a numbness in her feet, and wiggled her toes once more. She blinked as her nose twitched. How long had it been since she had first arrived in this place? How long was she standing here with her eyes closed, unaware that this field even existed? It felt timeless, this place. There was no sun or stars, only the golden-white of clouds against blue, seeming to light to themselves. An unknown distance away was still that bloody horizon.
Somehow all of this felt like a dream. Somehow she wasn’t sure if she was actually experiencing any of it.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me?” a voice rang in her head. It was deep and masculine, but sounded very, very far away.
Suddenly, a figure ran past her. During all this time, she had only blankly stared ahead. As the figure, human-like in appearance, sprinted in the grass away from her, she turned her head to look at it. It had the basic features of a human with two arms and two legs, but there was an oddness to its proportions. In addition to this, it was completely naked.
A second figure ran past her, then another. Soon, she was hearing the padded footfalls of dozens of creatures all around her, all identical to the first, human-like and nude. From them she heard heavy breathing, lamenting sighs, and in some, screams of terror. Something was thundering behind her…
“Run!” a high-pitched voice yelled from one of them. Another nearby cried, “We’re all going to die!” Still another: “Why is this happening?!” The thunder was growing louder.
She felt a hard impact against her back, the blow of which knocked her down to her knees. She caught herself with her hands before tumbling to her side, having been pushed out of the way by one of these creatures. Caught off balance, the creature itself stumbled and tripped, falling onto the ground as well. It started to pick itself up quickly, turned to look at her, and screamed, “Get out of the way!” With horror, she looked into its face.
Inhuman, the creature grimaced at her. It had neither eyes nor nose, with only the smallest of ears and a massive, monstrous mouth taking up its entire hairless head. She looked quickly to the others running by her, and they too had the same features.
“I’m not going to let you kill me again, you bitch,” it said to her, its voice low. Then, in terror, “I don’t want to die!” It scurried back onto its feet, joining the others in its rush away into the distance. She was left with only confusion.
Beneath her hands, she felt the grass and the rumbling of the earth. The thundering was becoming even more intense… Slowly, she turned and looked behind herself. In that moment, she understood these creatures’ terror.
Surging forth, the Darkness looked like a strange amalgamation of shadow and flesh, lined with writhing tendrils and oozing black ichor. In gusts of smoke, it rumbled forward like a thundercloud with black, jagged lightning flashing back and forth along it.
Quickly, the Darkness threatened to overwhelm her. With the sunless glow of the sky fading rapidly, she pulled herself back up onto her feet and began running with the creatures. She put past her confusion for the sake of saving her own life.
With every footfall she felt the ground grow harder beneath her. Despite her haste, the Darkness was growing closer and every inch it gained the world changed around it. The beautiful, green grass was dying. The sky changing to an empty gray. Her lungs burning, she kept running, passing a few of the exhausted mouth-things. Like before, they continued their lamentations.
“I can’t go on!” one screamed. Then another: “Why is this happening? Why did it come here!?”
“He hates us, I know it!” a third stood out over the others. “Hates, hates, hates us!”
It was then she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder once more. The Darkness was even closer than she realized, its black tendrils reaching out like an octopus hungry to consume its prey, tearing away at the earth beneath it. It was like an angry, ever-hungry and terrible beast - a wall of hatred, never content until nothing but itself remained. It filled her heart with unspeakable terror.
“Why am I doing this?” one of the creatures shouted before crumbling to its knees. “Why am I doing this to myself?” In moments he was writhing within the Darkness’ maw, suddenly ceasing to exist after a brief cry of agony.
As she continued to run, that odd redness in the horizon seemed to be growing closer. A stench of something horrid filled her breath. She could hear what sounded like an ocean lapping sand along the beach. And indeed, an ocean she would find, but this one red like blood.
Pooling at its surface were the rotting corpses of fish and other fantastical creatures. One of the mouth-things was swimming in it, out into blood nothingness, choking and screaming nonsensically. She felt herself grow sick at the very thought of entering, but felt she had no other choice. As quickly as she could, she began wading out into it, her elegant white dress becoming stained in blood.
She could taste copper in her mouth as she submerged. Somehow, the warmth of it against her body was chilling. But she felt safe from the Darkness here amongst the filth. She forced herself to dive deeper, feeling the thickness of coagulated blood with every stroke.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” she heard the man’s voice again. “I’m just drowning in work right now.”
She was choking on it. Deeper and deeper, she could see a light filtering up through the darkness.
“That’s what you always say,” she heard her own voice in her head. It sounded soft, but distressed. “I can’t remember a time we…” and it trailed off. Or maybe she said, “Stop! No!” Her thoughts pulsed with pain, but the light was growing closer.
His hands were around her throat. Metal was piercing through her heart.
No, she thought, diving deeper. It was something else. He would never do that to her, despite everything that was wrong. But who was he?
- - -
UNEXPECTEDLY, a young man who looked about her same age approached her as she waited, meandering in the hallway outside of one of her professor’s office. Just before he spoke, a draft from a nearby open door caught her with a cool gust. Outside the glass doors she noted it was bright and sunny.
“Hey there,” he said to her. His voice was deep and confident. “How are you?”
She looked at him, looking unimpressed. “I’m good.” She watched his blithe expression flicker when she didn’t ask the complementary, “How about you?”
Still, he smiled at her. “So, I was down the hall and I saw you standing here. I’ve heard that ugly people always have hot friends.” She lifted her eyebrows, feeling insulted, and he continued quickly, “Well, I noticed your ugly friend wasn’t with you, so I thought maybe I could keep you some company.”
Her eyes narrowed, not so charmed with his self-deprecating humor. She bothered to give him a look-over, thinking momentarily, “Well, he’s not so ugly. Actually a bit cute-” She cut off her thoughts, shook her head and looked at his stoic expression with frustration.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said. His expression still didn’t change. She blinked. “So… Leave me alone.”
Finally, he only smiled, then leaned closer to her. She recoiled slightly, wondering what he was about to do.
Softly, he said to her, “Alright, I’ll leave you alone. But, even if you don’t admit it, you’re going to secretly wonder why I’m so aloof about being rejected by you. You’ll think something may have been wrong with you. Is it your hair? Are you out of style?” He mock gasped. “Maybe you’re gaining weight.” And with that, he was gone, walking down the hallway away from her. She watched him, dumbfounded, as he approached another girl and gave her the same pick-up.
“So I thought maybe I could keep you some company,” she heard him say. The other girl, a year younger than her with long legs and auburn hair, laughed at his apparently original wit, shifting into a flirty, almost seductive stance. Reaching out, the other girl touched his arm, and she reeled internally.
He was right. She wouldn’t be able to keep him out of her head.
Then, she remembered the blood.
- - -
FOLLOWING THE LIGHT, she felt her weight shift directions, as though the her diving deeper had somehow caused her to reach the other side of the world, and suddenly gravity changed. Quickly making her way to what appeared to be the surface, she swam even harder, desperate to free herself of his ocean of disgust, passing dismembered body parts and organs along the way.
As she broke the surface, she gaped her mouth open wide in search of air, only choking on the red stuff that had already filled her lungs. Coughing and choking, he spat it up, her searing eyes seeing what appeared to me dry land next to her. She fumbled through the thick waters, touching hard ceramic tiling, like a bathroom floor. She didn’t bother to think about it as she finally got her first fresh breath, holding herself up on the edge by outstretched arms across the tile.
She looked around, still breathing heavily. The ocean of blood, at this point, seemed to contact to a small single pool. Manmade, by the looks of it, and in a small room lit by a bright fluorescent lamp. It didn’t make much sense to her, but few things had so far, so she chose to ignore it. Painfully, she pulled herself up and out of the blood, sprawling out on the cool floor and feeling her heart start to slow. Her white dress was stained now with red in a myriad of different shades, some light, others dark and almost black, with the majority an almost elegant crimson. Her hair, however, was a horrid mess.
Laying on her back, she glanced to her left, seeing a sink and mirror. To the right, a perfectly white porcelain toilet. Oh, she thought. This is a bathroom.
The walls were covered in pale blue wallpaper, dotted with white clouds outlined with gold and silver, with a rolling green trim at the bottom apparently simulating hills. It seemed sickly familiar. Coughing once more, she brought herself to her knees, looking more closely at her otherwise unremarkable surroundings, other than a single wooden door that seemed to be the room’s only exit.
For now though, the sink was more important. There was no possible way she would go a step further without at least washing the filth and smell out of her hair, even if she was still forced to wear it. For a moment she feared the sink would not work and she would be forced to use the water out of the toilet, but thankfully this was not the case. She sighed with relief.
Now, it was only a matter of moving on.
Moving on, she thought. A new shudder ran down her spine, and she wasn’t quite sure why.
__________
Darkness Mind
(A SHORT STORY)
by Evan Bittle
Chapter 1
IN THE BEGINNING, there was only pain. It was a flash of light, a twisting of metal and flesh. In the sudden shock, she felt the breath leave her lungs, her heart stop a moment, and then a deafening crashing in her ears. There was a warmth growing in her heart, in her lungs, and then as quickly as it came, would disappear. It was cold, and then it was nothing. The sound of raindrops - or was that blood? - trickled next to her ear. But then even that stopped. Met with only silence, she floated idly in nothingness.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing alone in a green field. There were no people, not even trees in sight. Her only companions were the rolling green hills and, in the distance, a crimson horizon. Slowly, she became conscious of the tension in her jaw and opened her mouth slightly. She remembered her hands, her arms, her shoulders and the white dress hanging over them. She could feel her bare feet against the grass, lightly wiggling her toes to assure they still existed. She reached up to touch her hair and felt the softness of it against her hand. It was shoulder-length and blonde with a touch of brown within. Part by part, she was remembering her body, but her mind was a story of its own.
This is that story.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there in that field. As even more time passed, she started to feel a numbness in her feet, and wiggled her toes once more. She blinked as her nose twitched. How long had it been since she had first arrived in this place? How long was she standing here with her eyes closed, unaware that this field even existed? It felt timeless, this place. There was no sun or stars, only the golden-white of clouds against blue, seeming to light to themselves. An unknown distance away was still that bloody horizon.
Somehow all of this felt like a dream. Somehow she wasn’t sure if she was actually experiencing any of it.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me?” a voice rang in her head. It was deep and masculine, but sounded very, very far away.
Suddenly, a figure ran past her. During all this time, she had only blankly stared ahead. As the figure, human-like in appearance, sprinted in the grass away from her, she turned her head to look at it. It had the basic features of a human with two arms and two legs, but there was an oddness to its proportions. In addition to this, it was completely naked.
A second figure ran past her, then another. Soon, she was hearing the padded footfalls of dozens of creatures all around her, all identical to the first, human-like and nude. From them she heard heavy breathing, lamenting sighs, and in some, screams of terror. Something was thundering behind her…
“Run!” a high-pitched voice yelled from one of them. Another nearby cried, “We’re all going to die!” Still another: “Why is this happening?!” The thunder was growing louder.
She felt a hard impact against her back, the blow of which knocked her down to her knees. She caught herself with her hands before tumbling to her side, having been pushed out of the way by one of these creatures. Caught off balance, the creature itself stumbled and tripped, falling onto the ground as well. It started to pick itself up quickly, turned to look at her, and screamed, “Get out of the way!” With horror, she looked into its face.
Inhuman, the creature grimaced at her. It had neither eyes nor nose, with only the smallest of ears and a massive, monstrous mouth taking up its entire hairless head. She looked quickly to the others running by her, and they too had the same features.
“I’m not going to let you kill me again, you bitch,” it said to her, its voice low. Then, in terror, “I don’t want to die!” It scurried back onto its feet, joining the others in its rush away into the distance. She was left with only confusion.
Beneath her hands, she felt the grass and the rumbling of the earth. The thundering was becoming even more intense… Slowly, she turned and looked behind herself. In that moment, she understood these creatures’ terror.
Surging forth, the Darkness looked like a strange amalgamation of shadow and flesh, lined with writhing tendrils and oozing black ichor. In gusts of smoke, it rumbled forward like a thundercloud with black, jagged lightning flashing back and forth along it.
Quickly, the Darkness threatened to overwhelm her. With the sunless glow of the sky fading rapidly, she pulled herself back up onto her feet and began running with the creatures. She put past her confusion for the sake of saving her own life.
With every footfall she felt the ground grow harder beneath her. Despite her haste, the Darkness was growing closer and every inch it gained the world changed around it. The beautiful, green grass was dying. The sky changing to an empty gray. Her lungs burning, she kept running, passing a few of the exhausted mouth-things. Like before, they continued their lamentations.
“I can’t go on!” one screamed. Then another: “Why is this happening? Why did it come here!?”
“He hates us, I know it!” a third stood out over the others. “Hates, hates, hates us!”
It was then she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder once more. The Darkness was even closer than she realized, its black tendrils reaching out like an octopus hungry to consume its prey, tearing away at the earth beneath it. It was like an angry, ever-hungry and terrible beast - a wall of hatred, never content until nothing but itself remained. It filled her heart with unspeakable terror.
“Why am I doing this?” one of the creatures shouted before crumbling to its knees. “Why am I doing this to myself?” In moments he was writhing within the Darkness’ maw, suddenly ceasing to exist after a brief cry of agony.
As she continued to run, that odd redness in the horizon seemed to be growing closer. A stench of something horrid filled her breath. She could hear what sounded like an ocean lapping sand along the beach. And indeed, an ocean she would find, but this one red like blood.
Pooling at its surface were the rotting corpses of fish and other fantastical creatures. One of the mouth-things was swimming in it, out into blood nothingness, choking and screaming nonsensically. She felt herself grow sick at the very thought of entering, but felt she had no other choice. As quickly as she could, she began wading out into it, her elegant white dress becoming stained in blood.
She could taste copper in her mouth as she submerged. Somehow, the warmth of it against her body was chilling. But she felt safe from the Darkness here amongst the filth. She forced herself to dive deeper, feeling the thickness of coagulated blood with every stroke.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” she heard the man’s voice again. “I’m just drowning in work right now.”
She was choking on it. Deeper and deeper, she could see a light filtering up through the darkness.
“That’s what you always say,” she heard her own voice in her head. It sounded soft, but distressed. “I can’t remember a time we…” and it trailed off. Or maybe she said, “Stop! No!” Her thoughts pulsed with pain, but the light was growing closer.
His hands were around her throat. Metal was piercing through her heart.
No, she thought, diving deeper. It was something else. He would never do that to her, despite everything that was wrong. But who was he?
- - -
UNEXPECTEDLY, a young man who looked about her same age approached her as she waited, meandering in the hallway outside of one of her professor’s office. Just before he spoke, a draft from a nearby open door caught her with a cool gust. Outside the glass doors she noted it was bright and sunny.
“Hey there,” he said to her. His voice was deep and confident. “How are you?”
She looked at him, looking unimpressed. “I’m good.” She watched his blithe expression flicker when she didn’t ask the complementary, “How about you?”
Still, he smiled at her. “So, I was down the hall and I saw you standing here. I’ve heard that ugly people always have hot friends.” She lifted her eyebrows, feeling insulted, and he continued quickly, “Well, I noticed your ugly friend wasn’t with you, so I thought maybe I could keep you some company.”
Her eyes narrowed, not so charmed with his self-deprecating humor. She bothered to give him a look-over, thinking momentarily, “Well, he’s not so ugly. Actually a bit cute-” She cut off her thoughts, shook her head and looked at his stoic expression with frustration.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said. His expression still didn’t change. She blinked. “So… Leave me alone.”
Finally, he only smiled, then leaned closer to her. She recoiled slightly, wondering what he was about to do.
Softly, he said to her, “Alright, I’ll leave you alone. But, even if you don’t admit it, you’re going to secretly wonder why I’m so aloof about being rejected by you. You’ll think something may have been wrong with you. Is it your hair? Are you out of style?” He mock gasped. “Maybe you’re gaining weight.” And with that, he was gone, walking down the hallway away from her. She watched him, dumbfounded, as he approached another girl and gave her the same pick-up.
“So I thought maybe I could keep you some company,” she heard him say. The other girl, a year younger than her with long legs and auburn hair, laughed at his apparently original wit, shifting into a flirty, almost seductive stance. Reaching out, the other girl touched his arm, and she reeled internally.
He was right. She wouldn’t be able to keep him out of her head.
Then, she remembered the blood.
- - -
FOLLOWING THE LIGHT, she felt her weight shift directions, as though the her diving deeper had somehow caused her to reach the other side of the world, and suddenly gravity changed. Quickly making her way to what appeared to be the surface, she swam even harder, desperate to free herself of his ocean of disgust, passing dismembered body parts and organs along the way.
As she broke the surface, she gaped her mouth open wide in search of air, only choking on the red stuff that had already filled her lungs. Coughing and choking, he spat it up, her searing eyes seeing what appeared to me dry land next to her. She fumbled through the thick waters, touching hard ceramic tiling, like a bathroom floor. She didn’t bother to think about it as she finally got her first fresh breath, holding herself up on the edge by outstretched arms across the tile.
She looked around, still breathing heavily. The ocean of blood, at this point, seemed to contact to a small single pool. Manmade, by the looks of it, and in a small room lit by a bright fluorescent lamp. It didn’t make much sense to her, but few things had so far, so she chose to ignore it. Painfully, she pulled herself up and out of the blood, sprawling out on the cool floor and feeling her heart start to slow. Her white dress was stained now with red in a myriad of different shades, some light, others dark and almost black, with the majority an almost elegant crimson. Her hair, however, was a horrid mess.
Laying on her back, she glanced to her left, seeing a sink and mirror. To the right, a perfectly white porcelain toilet. Oh, she thought. This is a bathroom.
The walls were covered in pale blue wallpaper, dotted with white clouds outlined with gold and silver, with a rolling green trim at the bottom apparently simulating hills. It seemed sickly familiar. Coughing once more, she brought herself to her knees, looking more closely at her otherwise unremarkable surroundings, other than a single wooden door that seemed to be the room’s only exit.
For now though, the sink was more important. There was no possible way she would go a step further without at least washing the filth and smell out of her hair, even if she was still forced to wear it. For a moment she feared the sink would not work and she would be forced to use the water out of the toilet, but thankfully this was not the case. She sighed with relief.
Now, it was only a matter of moving on.
Moving on, she thought. A new shudder ran down her spine, and she wasn’t quite sure why.