|
Post by steve on Sept 13, 2012 19:44:33 GMT -6
PART #0047
Wood wouldn't do anymore. It broke. You could get splinters from it. It was flammable.
Only metal would do. Only something metal would have some chance to protect me from... Whatever those things out there were.
What the heck was still in this overgrown building that I could use as a weapon? How many office buildings had swords, maces...? I'd consider a spiked baseball bat as 'close enough' if I could find one.
I didn't find a sword or a mace. Spiked baseball bats were also in perilously short supply.
A janitor's closet yielded some interesting items that I could use as a weapon.
The first item of any merit for use as a weapon was a hammer. You know, a regular 'drive-in-some-nails' hammer, like you'd get at any hardware store. The next item was a large pipe-fitting wrench, the type with that adjustable vice grip on it.
I found a toolbox with some long screwdrivers in them. One of the handles of the screwdrivers was busted - The plastic just kind of crumbled in my hands, leaving just a long, metallic shaft. I set that aside for later, figuring that I could also use what could either be described as a really thick, heavy knitting needle or a javelin for those foot-tall action figures you saw in the toy stores.
Despite a fairly thorough search on every floor except the basement, there was no item that impressed me as a weapon. I guess I was looking for something that could keep one of those things at an arm's length but everything I found was a little too 'close-quarters combat' for comfort.
Searching the entire building, though, brought up a strange revelation that I hadn't thought of before - No skeletons. No skeletons anywhere. No pile of clothes on the ground. No indication for what happened to everyone or why. Just myself (thankfully alive) and the two partially dissolved (Gosh, it still grosses me out thinking of them) corpses in those other gel chambers that I opened up in the basement.
If a lot of time had passed, maybe there would be no skeletons. Rats, vermin, varmints... Wild cats, dogs... They'd separate a skeleton out into nothing. They'd drag away bones and everything. So where were the clothes, then, for all these people? Were they all eaten or destroyed by the animals as well?
I wouldn't be able to find any more answers here. What else could I learn from this building that I hadn't already learned? What else could I do?
The day was beginning to get long. Shadows were beginning to form. I was getting hungry. As much as those berries tasted like... Well, they didn't taste very good, but there was nothing else to eat so that was it. They were all I had and they were on a bush far enough from the building to cause concern.
Decisions... Decisions... Satisfy my hunger or find a way to sterilize water? Sterilize the water or pray that I didn't get some sort of weird plague from drinking normal water?
'Travel to that strange tower or wait for those demented monsters to finally get the drop on you?' My conscience asked me, adding, 'Or maybe you'd like to just starve yourself to death first?'
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 14, 2012 19:45:53 GMT -6
PART #0048
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Two differently-sized metal wastebaskets served as the boiling pot. The wastebasket with the smaller circumference opening served as the pot and the other wastebasket, placed upside down onto the smaller wastebasket, served as the lid.
Did anyone need to use this metal file cabinet drawer I found on one of the floors? No? Everyone certain? Good. It became the new "grill." The drawer was, essentially, a rectangular cube with two closed sides and a wire frame on four of them. I stuck the empty file cabinet drawer sideways onto the fire, jammed the "pot" wastebasket into the top wire frame side, poured the water into the pot, then placed the "lid" wastebasket over the "pot." Left-over plastic-y banner material served as some makeshift pot holders.
Was it perfect? Of course not. Not even close. Was it good enough? Absolutely. The contraption even had the added benefit (in hindsight, as I wasn't smart enough to realize this initially) that, angling the whole thing a certain way allowed me to block the fire from being viewed away from the office building.
Boiling water? Done... At least in theory.
Food? Yeah... Well, there were always the berries. My stomach didn't really prefer that answer but the alternative was nothing. While I wasn't starved, I knew that "berries" wasn't going to help matters any. I might be able to survive one day on just berries, but two? More?
Defending my position at the overgrown office building became my next priority. These monster things were fast, but clever? Sophisticated? Not really. I littered the ground with as many leaves as possible, as dry as possible. Leaves and small twigs. Except for one small path away from the office building, you couldn't creep up on me without making a bunch of noise. A ninja wouldn't be able to creep up on me.
Seeing some vines also gave me an idea. The vines, themselves, were too weak for anything - I attempted to use them but with little success.
Electrical cords and extension cords, though... Yeah, they would do. No one was really going to be using those electric typewriters and that computer equipment ever again, anyway. Tying those together (in some cases, though, individual cords were long enough), I strung them between the trees as tripwires.
Using one edge of of a scissors, I fashioned as many sharp tips as I could on as many small wooden sticks in the ground, then jammed the unsharpened ends of those sticks into the ground near the tripwires. If the tripwires wouldn't trip them up, the sharpened sticks might be enough to injure them long enough to allow me to escape a harmful situation.
Sunset arrived before I knew it.
I was tired. I was weak. I was on the verge of being famished.
Was the d**n water boiling? Barely. Were the berries tasty? Barely.
A part of me almost begged for one of those monster things to show up, to challenge all of my new defenses. Preferably, though, I was glad that none showed up before nightfall.
After cooling down, the boiled water tasted like... Bad-tasting water. I hope that I wouldn't get any strange disease from it.
Nightfall arrived. Crickets came out to chirp. The crackle of the fire was there to meet them. My eyelids grew heavy and I resigned myself to inside the building to sleep.
Tomorrow, I would have to solve my food problem.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 15, 2012 10:04:43 GMT -6
PART #0049
I now know why some tribes were nomadic - Because food is more important than anything else... At least, when you're hungry.
I woke up with a headache. Nothing severe but enough of a headache to hinder me. It took me a moment to realize that nothing had been touched at the building from the night before. No monster things running around wreaking the place or trying to breach it to get to me.
I drank some of the boiled water. It still tasted yucky. I ate some of those berries. Ugh. Deer must have different taste buds then humans because I just do not understand the appeal of these things.
Whether or not I realized it, within the first ten or so minutes after waking up, I knew what I needed to do - Leave. Leave the building and the surrounding area. There was nothing left for me here. There was no food. Luck had allowed me to live for the past two days on the spoils of others but how long would that last?
"Starving" was too strong a word but "Almost Famished" would be a better way to describe my energy level. I was lethargic at best and... And simply irresponsible at worst. Look at me - My legs didn't feel wobbly but that's how they felt. My arms felt tired and soft; Even lifting that pipe wrench felt heavy and labored.
It was time to go. I wasn't surviving here. How many days did I have left? Three? Maybe four? When you live in society, you never have questions about things like food or warmth. Of course you're going to find something to eat. Of course you're going to find a place to sleep. Not out here. Not in this wilderness.
I grabbed what I could - The matches, the bunsen burner thingy, my weapons, the remainder of the water, the remainder of the berries... Anything that would be remotely useful on a trip. I found two large cups that could hold water. Tying the make-shift pot-holders over them secured the water inside fairly tight, short of completely flipping the containers upside-down.
After putting on my 'shoes,' I walked up to the roof of the building one last time. I wanted to gauge in what direction this weird-looking tower was. Sure, this weird-looking tower may well be nasty and lethal but so was starvation. The tower looked far away but it didn't look like it would take me a week to get there; Maybe not even a couple of days. Or maybe that was all perspective, that the tower was actually friggin' huge and it's massive scale was messing with my sense of distance. Or maybe I didn't have a sense of distance.
Walking out of the building, I set out on my trip knowing full well just how screwed I was. Inside of two days, I would be beyond starving without food. Without water, I wouldn't even see the end of that second day. If one of these monster things ever got the drop on me, I'd be dead inside of a few moments. Add to all of this the fact that I was walking on a mostly empty stomach already and the chances of success... I didn't even want to think about it. You had to stay positive and you had to stay focused.
It didn't take long for the building to disappear behind the curtain of trees and vegetation that comprised the forest. I hoped against hope that it wouldn't be long before the tower would begin to emerge from behind such a curtain itself.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 16, 2012 10:45:45 GMT -6
PART #0050
Hiking sucks. Walking sucks. Starving sucks.
It didn't take long for the sun to find me. Roasting sucks, too.
I know now why people using walking sticks. It takes some of the 'suck' out of walking more than a few hundred yards. I found a pretty good one about fifteen minutes into my journey.
The world... THIS world isn't all forest like I had seen in the prior two days. Some areas of the world weren't cut out for trees a mile high and a few yards in diameter. I walked past a clearing of grass as tall as my waist. I walked across what looked like the final remnants of a two-lane road. A scraggly stream bent itself around the ruins of a small, collapsed bridge.
I was hungry. I was thirsty. The berries... They tasted horrible. I downed as many as I could. Some I spit up. Even in hunger, I have standards. I didn't have to worry about carrying the water for long - Every ten steps, it felt as though I was drinking some of it. Soon enough, it vanished.
Which way was north? Who the heck knew. I made a sundial once in elementary school for a class project. The sun goes from east to west, right? Or was that west to east? You didn't need to learn these things to dish out hamburgers at a roller skating rink. I'm sure there's some sort of survivalist trick to determining that kind of stuff by studying how a butterfly lands on a leaf or in what direction a deer farts in. I didn't know any of that, though. I just knew one direction - Towards that d**n tower.
About an hour into my journey, I realized that I had left all of my f**ks back at the building, because I couldn't give a f**k anymore if one of those monster things tried to ambush me. My strategy was simple - Walk to the d**n tower as fast as I could. I could take pictures of the scenery later.
I heard rustling behind me at one point and thought, 'This is it - I'm screwed.' Heh. I spun around, raised my pipe wrench only to find that it was a squirrel. A f**king squirrel. Just a stupid, little squirrel darting from tree to tree, scrounging for... Who knows? Acorns or whatever. I walked away, laughing to myself.
How many hours passed? I couldn't say. I didn't want to rest but my legs gave me no choice. I was amazed how much time had passed without a monster or anything trying to kill me. I began to theorize why I had such amazing luck. Maybe the building was part of the monster things' 'turf' and I was in their turf and they hadn't liked that. Who knows.
I remembered seeing the tip of the tower ahead of me. Just the tip, the tiniest portion of the tip. Thank G*d. I was closing in on that sucker but the shadows were closing in on me as well.
I crossed paths with other decrepit buildings along the way, most far past the point of usefulness. How long could I have possibly have been in that gel chamber for nature to have consumed so many buildings so thoroughly? I mean... Cars hoisted into the air by trees? Buildings on the verge of structural collapse?
The shadows were getting longer. I was getting hungrier. "Starved" was now an accurate term. It has to be when you're resorting to chewing on leaves. Yes, I began chewing on leaves. Hey, lettuce is just leaves, right? How different could it be?
Tip of the tower or not, I had to find a place for the evening and I did. I started a fire. I made what had to be the lousiest "stick Indian tent" in the history of humanity (shut up - You build a tent when you've been hungry for a couple of hours and see how it turns out). Heck, I even drank regular stream water (Yes, I was that desperate).
Falling asleep wasn't going to be hard. Waking up in time to avoid being ambushed? Yeah, slightly harder.
I darn well better get to that tower tomorrow or else I'd never make it.
|
|
|
Post by debralee on Sept 16, 2012 14:06:45 GMT -6
Why didn't he try to kill the squirrel with his spear? Tree rat is pretty good and even better when your hungry. Really enjoying your story. Thanks.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 17, 2012 18:11:03 GMT -6
PART #0051
I know the secret to solving world hunger. It's really simple. Read closely:
All you have to do is to get everyone in the world to starve for a couple of days. That's it. That's all you need to do. People would bend over backwards affording to give people enough to eat afterwards.
Look, call me a wimp if it makes you feel better but my body did not react well that evening to... To just about everything. To the lack of food. To the natural water. To the evening conditions. Everything. I'm sure there's probably some camper or nature hiker out there who can survive weeks in the wilderness by chewing on tree bark and deer s**t - I'm not one of them.
My "stick tent" was absolutely lousy. It kept out... Nothing. It kept s**t out. Mosquitoes? Insects? Yeah, come on in. A raccoon probably could've knocked that thing right over without breaking a sweat.
I was lousy all night. I couldn't sleep but too tired to stay alert. I was sweating. I was hyperventilating. At one point, I started to dry heave. Yeah, I know - What the heck was I going to cough up? I had nothing left. Some sort of ooze or puss or bile came out... I don't know, it was dark and it was nasty tasting coming back up. I still cringe just thinking about it.
This much I know - There were no monster things in the area because, had there been, they would've heard me clear as day. Everyone heard that s**t in the forest that night. I let it all hang out.
Starving isn't the way to go. I hate to keep writing about this but I can't imagine a worse death than starving. I'd rather be mauled by one of those monster things than to starve. At least a monster thing death would be quick - Painful for a split second but quick.
Starving... Starving is Hell. There's no getting around it. Starving is a prison you can't escape from.
I started "walking" at first possible light. I use "walking" loosely because it was more like spirited stumbling. I chewed on leaves whenever I could. I relied on my walking stick almost exclusively. I thought to myself that, maybe, my weakened condition was more then just starving - Maybe it was food poisoning (like those berries) or the effects of the gel chamber or... I don't know, maybe I was on an alien planet and the atmosphere was slowly poisoning me. Maybe I'm at such a high altitude or the barometric pressure is greater or... I don't know. I was really screwed up in a bad way, though.
Walking through the forest wasn't easy and it wasn't all flat. There were no paths to speak of on that day that I remember - Just trees, trees interrupted by the occasional field and ruined building.
I could see a bit more of the tower now, not just the tip. I was getting closer. Getting closer. The color kept shifting colors. It was weird. It didn't seem to "shimmy" or shine but just change color.
Stumbling across a rather aggressive stream, I took a moment to drink from it. The options weren't appealing - Definite dehydration by not drinking or possible bacteria poisoning if I did. Rocks, blades of grass near the stream... They all looked normal and natural to me.
The water was cold and briefly re-energized me, enough to lift myself back up to a standing position and move onward. My mind began to drift and I caught myself daydreaming on more than one occasion.
I stopped sitting down - It was too tempting and I wasn't entirely sure if I would be able to stand myself back up. Instead, I would simply lean against trees. Lean against trees and slowly close my eyes... F**k, did I just fall asleep momentarily? Did I? How could I tell in a world with no clocks or watches except for some sort of drastic change of the sun position?
The tower was getting closer but not close enough. Short of a miracle, I'd have to spend another night outside before I would reach it. I had to reach it today. I pressed forward, determined to make it to the tower or else.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 18, 2012 15:00:59 GMT -6
PART #0052
Wobbly legs? Check.
Overall weakness? Check.
Labored breathing? Check.
Migraine? Oh, h**l yes. Worse than that.
The number of symptoms continued to mount as I continued to walk towards the tower but I'm not going to list them all. Dry mouth. Tingling in the extremities, like the tips of my fingers and toes. A consistent grumbling sound from my stomach.
When you're young, though, you never think that you're going to die. Death isn't an option. "I'm too young to die." I'm going to find something - A huge, beautiful pond to drink from. An apple tree. A f**king fast food joint (And, yes, I'll get to eat there because, technically, I am wearing shoes and a shirt and, even if I can't, I'll just go through the drive-thru).
I wasn't thinking that way, either, until I started drooling blood from my nose. No s**t. Not a 'drip... drip... drip...' or even a 'drip, drip, drip,' but a very thin line of blood, like someone had left the faucet on just enough for a thread of blood to pour out.
F**k. F**k everything. Holy f**king s**t Jesus Christ Almighty.
I stumbled backwards into the trunk of a tree upon seeing the blood. Ouch. Like adding "minor back pain" was really going to matter at this point.
Nothing could stop the blood. Holy f**k. Blocking one nostril just made the blood begin to drip out of the other. Oh, Jesus f**k, I'm screwed.
For how long I leaned against that tree, I don't know. A few moments, at least. I came to my senses, though, realizing that I was going to die if I simply stayed where I was. Maybe, just maybe, getting to the tower would... Do something? Maybe someone would spot me from the tower? I didn't know but the blood definitely got me spooked.
Walking for a short while, I suddenly heard a bewildering howl from behind.
What the f...? How... How long had it been following me?
It was one of those monster things. It was... Cripes, just look at it. It's mostly human. It... It looks human enough. But it's too big. Taller than a basketball player. It's legs... It's legs look weird, like they're too skinny to support the rest of the body. It's face... It's all wrong. Eyes too large. Mouth too large. Whole head is... So wide. And it's body color... Is that dark purple? It has to be the lighting...
I stumbled and fell from my own weariness, momentarily frightening me back into a standing position.
Something was wrong with the monster thing, too. It was walking towards me with great, labored pain. Panting violently. Shaking it's head. Grunting and snarling with each passing step, each step seemingly a bit slower and less stable than the previous.
The monster thing tried to fling itself at me - A spirited but crippled leap looked as though it was more of a hop, smacking right into a tree and falling over. It would have been humorous but... That leap was for me. That leap was meant... For me... As an attack.
I looked towards the tower, then back at the monster thing. The monster was less than 20 feet away.
Quickly, I began to shuffle towards the tower with all of my might. I had to find out. I had to find out if I was correct. If I wasn't, I was going to die anyway. If I was... Well, there was a good chance of death anyway.
|
|
|
Post by kaijafon on Sept 18, 2012 16:51:54 GMT -6
is the tower draining his energy for some reason?? wow! if so, very nice twist! I can't wait to find out!!! I hope you don't mind me speculating, I got "yelled at" once for doing that.... but I will try to contain myself if it bothers you
|
|
|
Post by patience on Sept 18, 2012 18:28:22 GMT -6
He better solve some mysteries pretty quick, looks like.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 19, 2012 18:18:24 GMT -6
PART #0053
Where was the monster? I couldn't say. My mind was going.
Blurred vision? Yeah, it was happening. I remember constantly blinking my eyes but, unlike waking up in the morning where your vision eventually gets clearer, my vision just got hazier.
At some point I dropped pretty much everything I was carrying. The 'how' and 'why' are beyond what I can remember.
I looked behind me. No monster. Wasn't the monster just there? Where...?
I can't remember how many times I fell to the ground, stumbling towards that stupid tower. Eventually, I just started crawling on my hands and knees.
The ringing in my ears was loud. It was the only noise that I could hear. It was just this sharp, piercing noise. All I could think of were those hearing tests that they gave you in school... "Push the button if you hear a noise."
I could see the tower in front of me. I think it's the tower. How many strange, gargantuanly tall buildings are there? It was so large that, even in the distance, it looked close. Close to the tower, all the trees had disappeared. It was just a field. A field of short grass. So short. So green.
Collapsing onto my back and heaving up huge, gasping breaths in exhaustion, I coughed up some blood like a water fountain, violently spasming back onto all fours.
I was... Was I? Was that my blood? It couldn't have been my blood all over the front of my poncho, was it? How much blood could you lose before you died from blood loss?
Even crawling was too hard. I couldn't feel my hands anymore. What was happening to my hands? I... They looked pale. They trembled. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. Was I crying? I think I was crying. I don't know. A part of me was just so scared. So violently scared but not knowing what I was scared of or why.
Rolling was the new crawling. I rolled like a pencil rolling across a school desk. Green grass. Blue sky. Green grass. Blue sky. Over and over again. I couldn't even hear the sound of my own heaving breaths. Green, blue, green, blue.
My chest felt so tight. I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking that wiggling my tongue would help me breathe better. I dug my numb hands into my mouth to... Unclog my mouth? Why the heck was I doing that? My hands emerged, covered in blood, all... All disgusting. I hacked up a few breaths, shocked that my hands glistened with blood that... It couldn't all have come from me, could it?
There it was... The tower. The tower? How did I manage to sit next to the tower? I touched it and... It shook. It was vibrating. The tower wasn't vibrating violently, it didn't hurt to touch it but one could easily feel it vibrate.
I can't remember if I said anything or not. I know I tried to say something. I can't even remember what it was that I was trying to say.
Standing was impossible. I tried pulling myself up to a sitting position next to the tower but couldn't. Everything was so heavy, so tiring.
I remember thinking that I was about to die. This was death. This was every 86-year old man, hooked up to all those tubes in those hospitals with the fat nurses who chain smoked during their breaks. This was why people wanted to die - Because they couldn't move, they couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't speak... What was life when life was staring at a blurry ceiling and hearing mushy sounds that might be talking or just the radio or just your imagination? What was life when a splitting migraine was the best that you could hope for?
I stared at that blue sky ceiling for... I don't know how long. I remember opening my mouth and turning over to my side.
And then the noise stopped.
And then the lights were turned off.
|
|
|
Post by kaijafon on Sept 19, 2012 20:54:19 GMT -6
UGH!!! NO!!! I need to KNOW!!!! lol! thanks!
|
|
|
Post by debralee on Sept 20, 2012 0:07:15 GMT -6
What just happened? Need to know quick. Is he dreaming all of this? Is it real? Hurry with more please!! Thank you.!
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 20, 2012 15:17:41 GMT -6
PART #0054
Wind.
Wind was the first sensation that I felt. The sensation was strong enough to wake me.
I wasn't on grass. I wasn't on the ground. It wasn't natural light shining down upon me.
Laying on my side, I noticed one of my hands. It was clean. Spotless. I flexed the hand a few times, rubbing the fingers against each other. I could feel my fingers.
Looking at my hands made me notice my arm and...
Oh, Jesus F**k! Are you serious?
I was surprised at how quickly I was able to prop myself up into a sitting position, which made my observations that much more incredulous, to the point where I almost fell out the...
It wasn't a bed. I have no idea what...it...was. It was some sort of... Blue gel? Energy? It looked like a tall mattress but you could see through it. It was slightly opaque and when you poked at it, your finger could go right through but it wasn't solid. Yet it felt solid.
I scrambled off of the... Air mattress? Energy mattress? The f**k I knew what to call it.
Besides the mattress taking me by surprise, I noted with almost an amused disappoint that I was naked once again. Letting out a deep sigh, I slowly stood up into a standing position and looked myself over.
I was clean, both of blood and of... Hair? Are you kidding? I quickly felt my face... The beard was gone. My head hair was gone, right down to the skin. I felt for my eyebrows... Cool. I still had those. I felt my eyelashes. Whoever gave me the body buzz cut knew enough to leave those intact. Everywhere else, and I mean EVERYWHERE ELSE, though... Yeah...
Was I in a room or a prison cell? I couldn't tell. Just like the "bed" was made out of some sort of semi-solid blue... Something, there was a yellow, rectangular column elsewhere in the room, nestled into a corner. Only after a moment's examination did I realize that the column went from floor to ceiling, a ceiling I couldn't even touch be jumping up and extending my arms the entire way. The 'bed,' this rectangular column, the room... It felt slightly too large for me. The dimensions reminded me as though I was a young teenager, not fully grown, living in an adult world.
The yellow rectangular column felt warm and watery. Cautiously, I inserted a few fingers into the mass, fully expecting to yank them out at the first adverse sensation. Nothing. Just warm and watery. I pulled the fingers out after a moment and, for but a moment, they felt wet but there wasn't the slightest bit of water on them. Rubbing them, the fingers were completely dry.
The room, comprised of non-reflective, slightly green panels held two gray panels. Pushing on the green panels made no difference but the gray panels gave slightly upon being pushed. One panel opened up to what I could only assume to be a container for... Clothes? Were those clothes?
Lighter than paper, I initially handled the garments carefully for fear of ripping them. A few moments of natural handling revealed them to be far tougher then their characteristics suggested. Cautiously, I tried tearing one of the garments apart and couldn't despite a modest amount of effort. A cloth T-shirt would have torn under far less stress and, dare I say, regular pants.
I was in no mood to be an exhibitionist but, at the same time, examined the "pants" for an extra moment before attempting to put them on. The pants were off-white with a light purple band around the waist. An inset "button" just smaller then my fist (a "belt buckle"?) led to my curiosity. Touching the belt buckle did nothing and vexed me for a few moments. When touching it again, though, while my other hand was inside the pants to examine the underside of the belt buckle, the waistband of the pants began to shrink slowly. Needless to say, I pulled my hand out of the pants as quickly as I could, causing the waist of the pants to stop constricting.
Cautiously, I put the pants on and pressed the belt buckle. As predicted, the waist, at the purple band, slowly constricted until it stopped snug around my hips. A second hit of the belt buckle reversed the operation.
Where the heck was I? An energy mattress? A weird yellow... Whatever the heck that thing was in the corner? Self-tightening pants?
So absorbed by all this weirdness that I forgotten to realize that I had yet to see a door for this room.
|
|
|
Post by kaijafon on Sept 20, 2012 18:09:35 GMT -6
well at least the poor boy has got him some knickers on now! and he's clean.............. but I'm super curious about the hair removal.... could be he was just that nasty dirty. lol! thank you!!!
|
|
|
Post by debralee on Sept 20, 2012 21:55:11 GMT -6
Sounds like he has been sanitized by someone. Knickers? haven't heard that one in a long time..lol.
|
|
|
Post by patience on Sept 21, 2012 10:09:56 GMT -6
Okay, I'm as lost as everyone else. Sounds like some kind of energy field around the "tower" thing. He must be inside of it, but how'd he get there? And who, or what ELSE is in there? Methinks he has entered The Borg.....
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 21, 2012 18:36:43 GMT -6
PART #0055
I was in something that resembled a bedroom with something that resembled a bed that was beside a... I don't even know what it was, a yellow rectangular column that made my skin feel wet but still keep completely dry while wearing some sort of futuristic pair of self-tightening pants.
Did I mention that I was bald and there was no door to this... "bedroom"?
Yeah, this happens to me all the time.
I decided to put on the shirt that came with the pants. Sorry, ladies, but the show's over. You should have taken a picture while it lasted. The shirt felt... Odd. It felt like cloth but wrinkled like paper and had the same seemingly indestructible properties of the pants that I wore. It wasn't uncomfortable but just disconcerting. It felt like nothing I had ever worn before.
"Can anyone hear me?" I called out. Nothing.
"I'm awake," I added, continuing, "Thanks for saving me out there."
Still nothing.
Where was the door to this room? I began gently pounding my fist onto each green panel that comprised the walls of the room. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Was there some sort of button I was supposed to push? I didn't see any.
Did I miss anything in the room? There was the 'bed,' there was the... yellow rectangular thing, there was the gray panel that flipped open to reveal the clothes (and nothing else)...
There was another gray panel on the opposite wall. Pushing on that panel gently to open it as I had the other, though, revealed nothing inside of it. That was disappointing. I closed the panel.
How was I breathing without some sort of vent to pump in air? How could I see with no obvious light source? The room was evenly and well-lit but without a single lamp, bulb or even bright object projecting the light. I felt a slight breeze but there was no vent or holes that I could see.
I looked back over at the yellow rectangular object. Maybe that's how I got out, through that thing. I'd 'climb' into it or something and swim out? Anything was worth a try at this point.
Slowly, I pushed my hand into the yellow rectangular mass. Nothing more unusual then what I felt in my previous attempt. I then pushed my entire forearm into the mass. The same.
I took off the shirt and pants, steeling myself for a moment tensely before jumping in. Unlike being in water, I felt no buoyancy being inside the yellow object. Despite the watery feeling, I found that I could keep my eyes open completely with no ill effect. I could breathe inside the yellow object no differently than outside although I detected the faintest hint of humidity. There was no smell difference that I could find between inside and outside. The walls bordering the yellow rectangular object yielded no differently then any other section of wall.
Disappointed, I walked back outside the object, quickly putting my pants and shirt back on.
"Look," I called out, "I'm no good at this. Is this some sort of game? A puzzle?"
Nothing.
How long was I going to be here until something happened? Did I even want to know what could happen?
It was now a waiting game and I could only guess how long I would be kept waiting until my mystery saviors would reveal themselves.
|
|
|
Post by debralee on Sept 21, 2012 21:09:04 GMT -6
I know where he is. He is in the twilight zone and we are along for the ride. For some strange reason I'm really liking this story.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 22, 2012 8:51:25 GMT -6
PART #0056
I had the luxury of boredom to frustrate me. No monster things to threaten my life. No starvation to hinder me. No adverse natural elements to chill me, soak me, blind me...
I tried calling out to my mysterious saviors a few more times but to no avail. No response.
What else could I do? I laid down on the "bed" and tested it out. It turns out that the 'bed,' made of some mysterious energy material beyond my comprehension, was a versatile but not flawless piece of furniture. Laying down upon it and using it as an actual bed yielded no unpredictable results. The 'bed,' though, couldn't anticipate my sudden jumping up and down on it like a small child might. For the first jump, I sank right to the bottom of the floor but then the 'bed' compensated for my actions and I could jump for as long as I wanted to with no adverse effects. Even this bed, as technologically advanced as it was, made for a poor trampoline. Despite my best efforts using the bed as a trampoline, I still could not touch the top of the ceiling.
No matter how hard I tried, I could never "cup" or otherwise carve out any piece of the mysterious blue material of the bed or equally mysterious yellow material of the column. The materials were elusive towards any such attempt at vandalizing and both the bed and column appeared unaffected afterwards, as though nothing had happened to the two objects at all.
How long was I going to be in here before I had to go the bathroom? Or needed to eat? I didn't feel hungry nor did I feel like I had just eaten. Ever since I had awakened, I didn't feel the slightest need to drink.
Hours had to have passed or, at the least, it felt like hours. I counted all the green panels that comprised the walls. The panels were set in a not very obvious repeating pattern, much like a stylized floor of bathroom or kitchen tiles. The mathematics of the particular pattern eluded me and were probably inconsequential regardless of explanation. I found it remarkable that the pattern of one wall blended seamlessly with the pattern on every other wall, including the ceiling and floor so that no one green panel ended abruptly based upon the pattern.
Hours continued to pass and my impatience only grew. I tested the self-tightening pants as a primitive way of passing the time. As it turned out, the self-tightening purple band within the pants had it's limits as well. The band couldn't tighten around something so small as a wrist. In fact, rigorous testing revealed that an object had to at least be the width of the 'belt buckle' before the pants would tighten around an object.
My boredom and frustration grew further, boiling over to protests.
"Come on, guys," I shouted, "Give me a sign, here."
Nothing.
"Do you expect me to starve in here?"
Nothing.
"May I please get out of this room?"
Nothing.
Any amount of fear I might have had for my captors, for my own safety... It all evaporated in hours upon hours of boredom.
Then, almost as suddenly as I had awakened, my boredom was finally broken.
|
|
|
Post by kaijafon on Sept 22, 2012 13:42:54 GMT -6
oh i would have taken LOT's OF pictures...... but somehow, I don't think that would have been very titillating
lol! thanks!
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 23, 2012 13:21:48 GMT -6
PART #0057
In a world of energy beds and mysterious yellow rectangular columns, I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that a door could just materialize out of thin air because that's what happened - One moment, I'm sitting on the bed wasting my time and then - POOF - There's a door right where a door should always have been.
To say that this development was disconcerting was an understatement.
It was a simple, rectangular, open doorway, nothing fancy.
Now what?
I sat there for a moment, expecting an alien or a monster or... Something, to walk through the doorway.
Nothing.
No noise. No smells. No temperature shift. Not even a breeze - Just an open doorway out of thin air.
OK... I was game. What was past the open doorway? I got up off of the bed and walked over to the doorway.
It was a hallway. A hallway with the same green paneled walls, the same floor and ceiling textures. A hallway that ended at my "room" and than exited to a room at the opposite end of the hallway on the right. However, if a door could suddenly appear out of nothingness, what was to say that this hallway connected rooms such as mine or even extended beyond their ends?
It wasn't fear but out of an abundance of caution that I tried walking quickly, especially through "doorways" now that I knew that they had a propensity for opening and closing with little warning.
"Hey," I called out, "You aren't going to slam a door shut in my face, are you?" The question wasn't as rhetorical as it sounded. The last thing I needed was to accidentally be "glued" into a wall or something.
So, what was in the other room, you ask? Yeah, well, wrap your brains around this - You know your television set at home? Look at it now - Big glass front, large back end, heavy as can be... Maybe you've got one of those nice televisions with a remote control. Well, this 'television' (out of lack of a better word) has that beat by about 1,000 years.
First off, it wasn't a projection TV. I know what those look like - Heck, we had one of those at the Rock and Rolling Rollerskate Park where I worked. This 'projection' wasn't on a wall and the projector (usually mounted on the ceiling) was nowhere to be found. The 'screen' just sort of floated in front of you. It was the weirdest thing - It wasn't even a 'flat' projection, like a television picture but had real depth to it, like you were looking through an actual window. It was downright creepy.
So, what was I looking at? A picture of a blue square, a red circle and a green triangle. OK. What was this about?
"Hey," I called out to the nothingness, "You guys going to fill me in on this?"
Silence. Of course.
A yellow square appeared over the three symbols and flashed a couple of times.
"You guys want to me to push the blue square?" I called out. Of course I wasn't met with a response.
I cautiously 'touched' the blue square with my hand, my fingers 'entering' the projection much like they had entered the blue energy bed or the yellow rectangular column.
BWING! I heard a sound boom out for a moment, startling me enough to make me shuffle in place as I looked around for the source of the noise.
When I looked back at the projection, a new 'puzzle' had emerged. Great... Just what I needed... Another test.
As I began examining this puzzle, I wondered how many of these things I would need to solve correctly in order to learn more about where I was, who was conducting these tests and why. Worse still... What was going to happen to me if I got one of these tests wrong?
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 23, 2012 13:50:13 GMT -6
Hi.
First, I'd like to thank everyone for reading this story to this point. Your comments are very thoughtful and I am very appreciative of them.
Second, I am suspending this story for roughly two weeks to concentrate on outside obligations, effective today. There is a slight chance that I may be able to add more segments to the story within those two weeks but I can not be certain. I never appreciate vague timelines so I am going to set a date of October 10, 2012, as to when I will resume the story. I am hopeful that the story will resume before then but I can not guarantee it.
Now, onto some useless trivia -
* Remember those two empty gel chambers awhile back? Originally, they were going to have much greater meaning back when all five volunteers were going to be placed into the gel chambers. The two empty gel chambers were eventually going to correspond to the two "monster things" that our hero encounters, implying that these people somehow transformed. This storyline was eventually scrapped for reasons too numerous to mention here and the "monster things" have since been repurposed for another storyline...
* Originally, there were going to be human skeletons everywhere. There aren't though, and there's a reason why...
* Our hero was going to be pursued by the "monster things" towards the tower a lot longer but this was cut short as I couldn't find any way to add anything original to the chase to make it feel exciting and worthwhile to the plot.
* In the elongated trek towards the tower, our hero was going to find a pear tree and eat a pear. This got cut when the journey to the tower was shortened.
* Another cut storyline - In an early draft, one of the volunteers was going to be female and live through the process. Our hero observes that the female becomes more violent and erratic over time, eventually trying to kill our hero and a chase ensues resulting in the death of the female. This was formulated both as independent of the monster things or as a complement to them (back when the monster things were transformed volunteers). Cut for many reasons too numerous to mention here.
Anyway, I hope you folks have enjoyed the story so far and I can't wait to get back to writing more entries. Until next time. Goodbye.
|
|
|
Post by kaijafon on Sept 24, 2012 14:03:50 GMT -6
I hope the best for you on your outside endeavors and I'll try to be very patient for your return. It's actually kinda great timing since I'm suppose to be studying for my comps anyways.... thank you so much for the story!
|
|
|
Post by debralee on Sept 24, 2012 17:11:37 GMT -6
Thanks for the chapter. Good as always. Will be here when you return to your story.
|
|
|
Post by wonderr on Oct 2, 2012 0:07:37 GMT -6
Great story Steve,will enjoy reading the rest when you return . Wonderr
|
|