The War
June 20, 2006
“But sire, isn’t this a fruitless war? We fight and fight and no grounds are gained. What good is a war without a just cause? Are we so blinded by our hate that we continue killing each other without realizing what we’re doing? I have seen countless patriots on both sides marching bravely into face of mightier warriors only to be slayed like mere beasts. Is this not a terrible waste of life?”
“Young warrior, your words are wise for your young age. Even as the King, I cannot undo the will of those above us. This war has gone on for hundreds of years and will wage on hundreds of years more until a decisive victory can be made. We have won battles. The enemy has won battles. After so much fighting we have neither lost nor gained ground. We must fight on to avenge the fallen! March on young warrior! Perhaps our victory is at hand!”
With these words, the order was declared:
King’s pawn to e4.
An idea from a long time ago
May 06, 2005
Here I lay, defeated and humiliated by the one I hate the most. By all accounts I should be dead already. I misjudged and underestimated him. I overestimated myself. And here I am on death’s door, not even worthy of a warrior’s death.
How dare she stop it. How dare she interrupt the natural course of a fight, defeat, finish, and death. Who is this peasant girl to think she can have a say in my life and death? I watched as my beloved princess and my children die before my eyes and this peasant girl has the gall to believe she knows how to run my life? The insolence. All the anger and rage inside only yearn to avenge my family. I swore I shall destroy them all or be destroyed in trying. How dare this peasant disturb this.
At the brink of the end, when the deathstrike was near, she races out and pleads. Pleads! She pleads for MY life? Having dealt out so much destruction and death and hearing so many others plead for their lives, she now thinks it’s necessary to plead for MY life? Life is an ironic bitch.
My honor is gone but my vengeance burns fiery red inside. I will recover. Even with a busted body and deplated lifeforce, I will recover and refocus my will. I will hunt down the fool whom I underestimated. I will destroy him and destroy all that he holds dear. I shall have my vengeance.
As for this peasant girl, I should destroy her in one swift blow. But… I have no need for that… I… I shall spare her. For now. She will nurse me back to health. She will prepare the necessities.
Happy Halloween
October 13, 2004
In the halls of stone lays a man
For crimes he must atone
Of blood he imbibed and imbibed he did
A man of blood and bone
In the plains of sand a man must sleep
For envy and lust his pain
His body lies within the sand
And worms rot in his brain
In the woods of blight a man grows frail
For cursing the right and innocent
His soul grows colder everyday
Eternity his contrition
In the seas of madness a man counts sand
For stealing what didn’t belong
He’ll count the grains until the end
Until he rights his wrong
In the streets of blame a man must endure
The looks upon his face
For blame did he the people his own
And corrupted the entire race
In a world so wrong how can we sleep
When many go on and ail
When we are one and one is all
Clearly we must have failed
The Chronicles of Arthanus Silvertome
August 27, 2003
So ever since my mentor Gorion tragically passed away, I have been entrusted to protect his fake son Jimmy. Now, Jimmy is a nice lad but he sure is a handful. First of all, he struts around like he owns the place. If it were up to me, I would’ve spanked that boy more often and with more force. Still, I know on another plane somewhere, Gorion is wishing for me to make sure young Jimmy doesn’t get in trouble
A clown like Jimmy is hard to keep out of trouble. He doesn’t just ask for it, he begs for it.
So we were standing outside an Inn… I think it was the Burning Wizard. Bah, it’s not important where. What is important though is that as Kagain, Khalid and I were stepping through the door, a scoundrel started attacking us. Well, really, he wanted to kill Jimmy. Jimmy probably owed him a shiny nickel or two. Well, seeing how if we didn’t stand in the way, Jimmy would’ve been trampled and gutted like a fish, the three of us stood valiantly at the door, defending Jimmy and attacking this interloper. As fate would have it, my good brother-in-arms Khalid was brutally slayed by the fiend’s battle axe. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t believe we didn’t defeat him… the six of us combined should’ve been able to defeat him very quickly. I turned around and then I knew the answer.
Jimmy and the two ladies were outside counting four leaf clovers and had just bothered to step in as Khalid was being slain. If they had followed us like we told them to, maybe brother Khalid would still be alive today. I can’t blame Jimmy though, he’s still a child and he needs a strong presence beside him. Someone who can show him the way of the sword, instead of the way of the harp. Show him muscle, not smooth silky hair. Show him heroism, not hedonism
Before you can say “Know a Gnoll who can gnaw through a gnome?” Jimmy was at it again. We were on our way to return some girdles we found when I told Jimmy. Be careful there Jim, one of them is cursed but the other one is a treasure. It’s a Girdle of Piercing and it just might save your life when someone is sticking some spears into your groin area. I blame myself for telling Jimmy that I didn’t know which one was which but apparently the old lady did. She took the girdle of piercing and left Jimmy with the cursed one. Jimmy, being Jimmy, thought he had bested the old woman. He thought he held in his hand the very girdle of piercing.
Sparing you the gruesome details, Jimmy now boasts a very nice rack and white skin even the fairest elf princess would envy.
I had to teach him Rule #1 - never put on anything that has not been identified.
Sigh, Gorion… what should I do???
End Scene
July 08, 2003
So, it’s true?
He asked very slowly with a solemn tone and rocksteady expression. There was no time left to joke around. He wiped some beads of sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his Hugo Boss shirt. Not much use, he was sweating profusely. He waited for a reply.
Yes. They confirmed it. We can’t escape.
She tried to answer as sensitively and easily as she could but even she could see her own fingers, hands, and arms trembling. She could see the look of concealed fear on his face as it sunk in. Their lives were going to end soon.
He was a small time lawyer in her father’s practice. He mostly dealt with commercial implications. That just meant he had to defend lying, scumbag executives who embezzled and fraudulently took honest people’s money. He’s gotten creeps out of potential prison time and even let some keep their immoral earnings. He’s seen victims jump out of buildings at the thought of losing their retirement money or kids’ college funds. He’s dealt with pretty tough shit in these seven years but nothing in his premiere law school education has prepared him for this. He could taste the horror and pain that was inevitably coming.
She never imagined this could happen. Things like this just don’t happen to people like them. Not in their affluent neighborhood. Not in their town. Not in their freaking state. Maybe they happened in movies or maybe in Europe, she didn’t know. Her training as a legal assistant wouldn’t help. She suddenly wished she had stuck with the Girl Scouts instead of going tiara shopping with the other snooty princess types when she was young. She might have learned something useful for a time like this.
He took this very seriously. He thought, he processed, and he data-mined but all his speculation only came to one conclusion: the world as they knew it would end. There would be no more Martinis with the boys, no more Sunday polo with the clients, and worst of all, no more fooling around with his young secretaries while claiming to be on client visits. Hell, his Jag XK8 didn’t even seem so important and luxurious anymore. It’s just stuff now. He now realizes all the things that he missed while growing up and all that wasted time used to get to know those in the upper echelons of society. So what if he met the successful and rich lawyer? So what if he married his beautiful daughter? So what if he was named “Successful Citizen of The Year” in 1996? Every meal, every breath, and every little thing from now would be his last.
She blamed him. Then she blamed herself. Then she blamed everything else. The government should’ve done something about this. Or maybe the military. They can create billion dollar, radar-avoiding jets but they couldn’t do anything to stop this? That’s impossible! They lived in America! They lived in the 21st century! They had automatic vacuums rovers and platinum plated javacino machines! There was a Starbucks on every block! And yet, nobody could do a thing to stop this? No one could stop this from happening? Where?s the progress? The globalization? The space age creativity that fueled the nation? All bullshit. She briefly thought about suicide but she knew she could never go through with it. Maybe he could end her life but he’ll just say, “But who will do it to me after you’re dead?’
They both stood there in their tastefully decorated summer room. The double-whip chai lattes on the table were getting cold but they didn’t notice. The 12th century ceramic pottery on the 18th century ivory pedestal looked just plain old. They stared at each other and cowered in fear. Their lives were over. All the future dreams of real estate and country clubs and equity investments were now moldy and old-fashioned. There was no denying it. Their lives were over.
They were having a baby.
This was written awhile ago but I didn’t get a chance to edit it for mistakes until now. The idea was spawned after that cockroach story awhile back. Feedback highly welcome.
The Instinct
June 17, 2003
It’s time. The brightness has subsided and the rumblings have ceased. Only now will it be safe to come from the sanctuaries. I scurry along keeping my body close to the ground. Always aware. Always aware for any signs of trouble. I can never be too safe. It’s all too simple. I just need to survive. I don’t know why the urge is so strong but it fills my body with spirit and energy. I just need to keep going a bit more for as long as I can hold out. I feel it. There. Over there. I feel it. I smell it. I see it. I sense it. I know it. I quickly find my way there and feast. Every bite cheats the end a little more. Every mouthful enlarges the drive and enlarges the instinct. It’s all there is.
Others have come out too. They see me and I see them but neither they nor I will be distracted. We all need this feast. We all feel this urge to go on. None of us know the end but we all know the means. After the feast, some will procreate and continue the cycles. I will fade back into the sanctuaries and await for the next chrono cycle to occur. It’s not as consistent as before now. I must always be on guard and always be aware of the brightness and the rumblings. One drop of negligence and I will cease. I must be careful. I continue the feast. I am almost replenished. I know not when I will be able to feast again. It’s always a gamble.
Suddenly the dark veil of safety is removed. The brightness returns as quickly as it left. The rumblings follow. The rumblings grow stronger and more in frequency. It can only mean one thing. I think twice about leaving this feast, knowing all too well that another chance may not come so easily. I turn and dart towards the dark sanctuaries. It’s the only way to continue this drive. No one that has faced the brightness and the rumblings has ever survived. Our only defense is the escape, the escape into the dark sanctuaries. The urge now is not about the feast but on immediate survival.
!!!
It is too late. My exodus into the darkness was for nought. I was not fast enough. I was not nimble and swift and agile enough. The brightness overwhelms me as the rumbling hits its peak in the ground surrounding me. The end came horrendously quick. The end was much quicker than me. It was faster. It was nimbler and more swifter and more agile. All that is left of me is but a mere shadow. I only hope the others can continue. Continue. The struggle. The brightness overwhelms but the darkness, it returns to me. It envelopes and protects. I can feel it. I can…
feel …
…
Dedicated to that unlucky cockroach.
The voices in my head
November 11, 2001
It started two days ago. After that planet-fall mission, the team collected several of those egg samples and packed them in Storage Bay 4. I was responsible for sealing the freeze containers that would hold those eggs until we get back to earth to let the, pardon the pun, eggheads in the UNN labs take a look at them. Zabarski, the science officer 3rd grade was the first to get infected. He must have poked the wrong egg because the next thing I heard was that idiot running around screaming that ‘it’ got him. We all ran to him to see what was going on. Oh boy what a site. The egg was opened up and there was a trail of some sludgy stuff running from the egg to Zabarski. When the med team finally sedated him, they found a rather nasty wound on his forearm. Something had gotten in
I’m no senior officer, but even us juniors know that in this kind of situation, you quarantine the whole damn storage bay and place everyone who touched those eggs in stasis. Strangely, no orders came down. In fact, a ship-wide was sent out saying a small explosion caused the injury to Zabarski. What the hell was going on here
The next day, my team was sent down to the Storage Bay to clean things up - Zabarski toppled over many boxes and other crap. About half an hour during our job, I noticed one of the freeze containers was open. This was not good. Another one of those ‘things’ might be out. I crept over to shut it. Oh shit. The egg was still there, but it was open, whatever was inside did get out. I yelled to Marcus to shut the bay doors and send an emergency alert to the bridge. He stumbled to the control panel but just as he was about to push the comm, something flew onto his chest, knocking him down. Shit! The next thing I knew, the whole team was being attacked by something, or rather, many somethings. My damn legs were frozen in spot as I saw everyone go down. That was when the thing got me. It struck me from behind
I remember feeling a very sharp poke in the base of my neck. It felt like a very fast jab of a pen. I toppled over and squelched in pain. Whatever struck me was now burrowing into my neck. Fuck. I awoke some time later in sick bay. They put me in one of those medical box bed things that resemble a coffin with glass coverings. I tried to feel my wound but my hands were tied down.
The corridor churned with blinking lights
November 08, 2001
As I slowly crept down that corridor, I could hear something around the corner. A slow muttering, almost inaudible, broke the silence of the flashing displays and computer terminals. I clutched onto my beretta tightly for I would be using it soon. I knew it. I held my breath as I backed up to the wall. Quickly! Check behind you! Good. Good, none of those damn walking corpses had snuck up. The one around the corner must be alone… hopefully. Shit! It heard me! The walking corpse limped around the corner and was quickly rushing towards me with a rusty looking pipe held in an attack position. With less than 3 meters between us, I quickly took aim and pulled the trigger. The bullet burned through its chest like a hot poker in a pile of flaming coals. The creature yelped an inhuman screech, tumbling backwards in the process. It dropped the pipe and when it fell to the metal grid floor, it gave off a loud clang. Shit! Others will have heard the clang and they’ll be here soon. I have to move fast. The creature, now writhing in pain from the gun wound, started to communicate with me. “Killlll me… killlll me….” I didn’t understand. Just a few seconds ago, this beast of a man was going to bash my head in. Now it’s asking me to kill it. I pitied the thing. I knew he didn’t want to become what he had become. It’s those damn monsters! They killed all of them. Whatever humanity this man still possessed was taken from him and now was oozing out of the tube-like thing poking out of his neck. I symphathized with this man, most likely a tech from engineering. I moved closer to him, pointed my gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. On his blood stained uniform was a tag with his name on it. Rest now Gary, you’re human again.
Sometimes we need to lose to be able to win.
