Sain
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So... I didn't know whether this was the best category for the thread, but it felt right. I have been trying to get into writing for some time now, and while I love it, I can't stick with it because the more I write, the worse it looks, and I end up dropping it for months at a time. Recently, I've been giving it a try once more, and I thought writing short stories based on prompts and posting them every week would maybe force me to keep it up, so here I am. ?
Week 1 prompt: “A Vampire's appearance will shift to resemble that which they feed on the most. Trust not the ones who are visions of human beauty - for friends they are not. Instead seek those with a monstrous countenance such as that of rats, lizards or even insects because those are our true friends.”
Original location of the prompt: Reddit, u/Lorix_In_Oz, wasn't sure I could post the link.
Week 1: Sewer Vampires.
“It’s getting late, we should get back before the roads close.” A hand placed on the shoulder woke him up from his thoughts. Turning around he saw the burly man who had just spoken and their two companions getting ready to move, lazily toying with their flashlights scouting the way back through the old tunnels.
Taking a few moments to come back to his senses, he couldn’t help but silently curse at himself for allowing his mind to wander in such a place before shaking his head at the other man.
“You go ahead, I’ll stay for a while longer here. This area has been secured by other teams anyway, so it should be fine.”
“Are you sure?” The man looked at him once more, waiting, although his tone showed he didn’t really have much hope of getting a different answer. “It’s been two weeks, you shouldn’t push yourself like this…”
Two weeks… Has it been that long already? The mere thought almost crushed him before he managed to shake It off. So what? The first guy they pulled from here had been missing for over a month. A couple of weeks is nothing.
He nodded to them and watched as they started to tread through the murky terrain before turning back and taking in the obscure path ahead of him, tapping the stock of his shotgun nervously.
Several months ago, a group of construction workers clearing a collapse discovered the underground network of tunnels and opened up an entrance thinking it to be some old sewer system forgotten over time, ignorant of the string of disappearances this would unleash in the following weeks, causing panic amongst the population and forcing the local government to secure the area and begin tentative expeditions to try and ascertain who or what could be behind these events.
It didn’t take long before these teams came into contact with the dwellers below, beast-like creatures with disturbing humanoid features crawling out from their burrowed dens. The vision of piles of small, mangled vermin bodies, some with disturbingly similar features to the creatures themselves, lying everywhere in their nests was enough to bring forth a one-sided purge which decimated their population, yet failed to produce any information on the missing persons or the origins of this place.
All sort of conspiracy theories surged around that time, from those who believed the creatures to be a demonic plague symbolizing the end of the world, to those who claimed them to be no more than inoffensive vermin and attributed to disappearances to opportunistic individuals who saw in this an opportunity to cover their own crimes.
At first, most people seemed to agree with the latter, and even the government loosened the control over the tunnels and focused on other lines of investigation, but the sudden return of a bloodied worker who was amongst the first to disappear, with tales of a swarm of the small creatures dragging him to their nest and just to be abandoned to die threw all the theories out the window and brought waves of volunteer teams into the tunnels, who eventually managed to find and rescue several others.
He, who originally had no interest in any of these events, had joined one of such teams when his fiancée, a first responder working in the area aiding some of the injured, had suddenly gone missing and had yet to find any trace of her. No matter, a week is nothing, there’s still hope.
Wading through the muddy tunnel, he came across several cave-ins of the walls filled with corpses of the creatures and vermin, a clear indication of other teams exploring this area, with the only notable exceptions being one of the openings transmitted low squeaks from inside, probably missed or simply ignored before his arrival, and with good reason, for simple scouting of the interior showed only one creature cowering against the wall. A few hits against the wall with the stock of his weapon were more than enough to send the creature running away. I still can’t understand how such cowardly creatures can cause so much chaos outside.
After several twists and turns, some lantern light made its way into the tunnel from what seemed like an intersection. As he approached, another team resting over there, presumably the ones clearing the path he had arrived from, caught sight of him and started gesturing for him to approach.
Apparently, this team had been here for days, making every intersection they found into a base camp of sorts, with this one being their stop for the day. Some of their members had stayed behind, with the rest scouting one of the branching paths towards the south.
“I heard some other group took the western path before us, so you should probably go east if you want to scout on your own.”
Acknowledging with a nod, he treaded inside without much hope of finding anything today. Only when a low, raspy, murmur reached him from deeper into the tunnel did he shake the depressing thoughts off and readied his weapon, moving steadily towards the noise.
Another turn revealed a bloodied man in work clothes slumped against the wall, barely breathing. Bites of all sizes covered his body with dried blood creating a dark crimson crust over them. This is it! He must have been taken here before!
Shouting towards the intersection, he charged deeper as soon as he could hear the sound of boots coming his way. Fear and anxiety overtook his caution as he saw a particularly large den in front of him and started sprinting, hoping he could get a jump on anything inside before it would get a jump on him.
To his surprise, the only other living being inside the macabre cave was a small, bedraggled woman on the ground. Lana!
Rushing to the side of the woman, he propped her up, trying to feel for a pulse. A look of confusion appeared on her face as she opened her eyes.
“Lana, it's me! Are you okay?! Let’s get you out of here!” The lack of recognition from the woman did not damp his excitement as a weak yet bright smile showed on her face.
Carrying her in his arms, he left for the opening of the den, leaving the gory scene and two seemingly larger, mangled, inert forms behind.
Week 1 prompt: “A Vampire's appearance will shift to resemble that which they feed on the most. Trust not the ones who are visions of human beauty - for friends they are not. Instead seek those with a monstrous countenance such as that of rats, lizards or even insects because those are our true friends.”
Original location of the prompt: Reddit, u/Lorix_In_Oz, wasn't sure I could post the link.
Week 1: Sewer Vampires.
“It’s getting late, we should get back before the roads close.” A hand placed on the shoulder woke him up from his thoughts. Turning around he saw the burly man who had just spoken and their two companions getting ready to move, lazily toying with their flashlights scouting the way back through the old tunnels.
Taking a few moments to come back to his senses, he couldn’t help but silently curse at himself for allowing his mind to wander in such a place before shaking his head at the other man.
“You go ahead, I’ll stay for a while longer here. This area has been secured by other teams anyway, so it should be fine.”
“Are you sure?” The man looked at him once more, waiting, although his tone showed he didn’t really have much hope of getting a different answer. “It’s been two weeks, you shouldn’t push yourself like this…”
Two weeks… Has it been that long already? The mere thought almost crushed him before he managed to shake It off. So what? The first guy they pulled from here had been missing for over a month. A couple of weeks is nothing.
He nodded to them and watched as they started to tread through the murky terrain before turning back and taking in the obscure path ahead of him, tapping the stock of his shotgun nervously.
Several months ago, a group of construction workers clearing a collapse discovered the underground network of tunnels and opened up an entrance thinking it to be some old sewer system forgotten over time, ignorant of the string of disappearances this would unleash in the following weeks, causing panic amongst the population and forcing the local government to secure the area and begin tentative expeditions to try and ascertain who or what could be behind these events.
It didn’t take long before these teams came into contact with the dwellers below, beast-like creatures with disturbing humanoid features crawling out from their burrowed dens. The vision of piles of small, mangled vermin bodies, some with disturbingly similar features to the creatures themselves, lying everywhere in their nests was enough to bring forth a one-sided purge which decimated their population, yet failed to produce any information on the missing persons or the origins of this place.
All sort of conspiracy theories surged around that time, from those who believed the creatures to be a demonic plague symbolizing the end of the world, to those who claimed them to be no more than inoffensive vermin and attributed to disappearances to opportunistic individuals who saw in this an opportunity to cover their own crimes.
At first, most people seemed to agree with the latter, and even the government loosened the control over the tunnels and focused on other lines of investigation, but the sudden return of a bloodied worker who was amongst the first to disappear, with tales of a swarm of the small creatures dragging him to their nest and just to be abandoned to die threw all the theories out the window and brought waves of volunteer teams into the tunnels, who eventually managed to find and rescue several others.
He, who originally had no interest in any of these events, had joined one of such teams when his fiancée, a first responder working in the area aiding some of the injured, had suddenly gone missing and had yet to find any trace of her. No matter, a week is nothing, there’s still hope.
Wading through the muddy tunnel, he came across several cave-ins of the walls filled with corpses of the creatures and vermin, a clear indication of other teams exploring this area, with the only notable exceptions being one of the openings transmitted low squeaks from inside, probably missed or simply ignored before his arrival, and with good reason, for simple scouting of the interior showed only one creature cowering against the wall. A few hits against the wall with the stock of his weapon were more than enough to send the creature running away. I still can’t understand how such cowardly creatures can cause so much chaos outside.
After several twists and turns, some lantern light made its way into the tunnel from what seemed like an intersection. As he approached, another team resting over there, presumably the ones clearing the path he had arrived from, caught sight of him and started gesturing for him to approach.
Apparently, this team had been here for days, making every intersection they found into a base camp of sorts, with this one being their stop for the day. Some of their members had stayed behind, with the rest scouting one of the branching paths towards the south.
“I heard some other group took the western path before us, so you should probably go east if you want to scout on your own.”
Acknowledging with a nod, he treaded inside without much hope of finding anything today. Only when a low, raspy, murmur reached him from deeper into the tunnel did he shake the depressing thoughts off and readied his weapon, moving steadily towards the noise.
Another turn revealed a bloodied man in work clothes slumped against the wall, barely breathing. Bites of all sizes covered his body with dried blood creating a dark crimson crust over them. This is it! He must have been taken here before!
Shouting towards the intersection, he charged deeper as soon as he could hear the sound of boots coming his way. Fear and anxiety overtook his caution as he saw a particularly large den in front of him and started sprinting, hoping he could get a jump on anything inside before it would get a jump on him.
To his surprise, the only other living being inside the macabre cave was a small, bedraggled woman on the ground. Lana!
Rushing to the side of the woman, he propped her up, trying to feel for a pulse. A look of confusion appeared on her face as she opened her eyes.
“Lana, it's me! Are you okay?! Let’s get you out of here!” The lack of recognition from the woman did not damp his excitement as a weak yet bright smile showed on her face.
Carrying her in his arms, he left for the opening of the den, leaving the gory scene and two seemingly larger, mangled, inert forms behind.
Week 2 prompt: “It's common knowledge that the faces we see in our dreams are those we've seen in real life. In your case, however, every person in your dreams is someone who has (or will) significantly influenced your life path.”
Original location of the prompt: Reddit, u/musclemermaid, wasn't sure I could post the link.
Week 2: Dreamy Mentalist
“Wake up…” Murmurs, whispers, flashes of shapes and shades of faceless people walking roaming the streets of a dim city. “Wake up…” A park, the swing swayed unimpeded, a small shape turned within the crowd, a child looking at him. Red bag hanging off his shoulder. “Wake up…” A door, plain and gray. A window, one shutter off its hinges. A yellow glint. “Wake up! Find me!” A face he would not forget.
With a gasp, a bedraggled, middle-aged man woke up, trying to make sense of where he was. He brushed his hands across his face and to his here, running his fingers through his now shiny hair from the grease of last night’s dinner. A doorbell had been ringing somewhere else in the apartment without much success. Cursing at it with the sluggish voice of someone who would rather be dozing off, the man tried to sit up, knocking some of the half-empty beer bottles piled around him in the process.
“Fuck!” Catching the few still spilling on the floor, he tried to mop the puddle which had just formed with the first thing he could find, a used shirt with a Bulls logo on it.
“Shit…” Throwing the shirt on the floor, he got up and went to the next room, where the bell was still ringing. “I’m fucking coming! Who the hell is it?”
Grumbling all the way through, the man made his way to the door and opened it without much regard to who it might be.
“Well, good morning! It’s about fucking time! I’ve been ringing for an hour here.” A lanky, blonde man with very pale skin which seemed to not have seen the light of day in months stood there, looking at him. He was wearing a three-piece suit under a hefty coat, as if trying to compensate for his thin, sickly appearance.
“You look like shit, Birch. You know that right?” Without waiting for an invitation, the lanky man went into the apartment and made his way to a room at the end of the corridor, a small space furnished only with a sorry excuse for a desk with an old chair attached to it, an armchair on the opposite side of it, a closet and some shelves filled with papers and cabinets sorted in some way only the one who organized it would understand.
When passing by the living room and witnessing the spectacle of beer bottles and half-eaten food on the floor, he could not but turn towards the other man with a reproachful look.
Birch groaned in response and closed the door of the apartment before following him.
“Why are you here, Larry? I have not called you.”
“We found your redhead thief from last week, had to bring your consulting fee.” Sitting on the armchair, the lanky man pulled a wad of bills from the coat and threw it on the desk.
“You could have sent someone to bring that. What do you want?” Birch made his way to the other chair and sat down, taking the stack of bills before putting them in a drawer.
“Someone has gone missing, have you seen anything?”
Massaging his temples, Birch got annoyed just from the hopeful look from the other man. The bastard isn’t even trying, I’m doing his fucking job for him.
“A kid? About this tall?” With his hand, he gestured a little over the desk, trying to recall the height of the small figure in his dreams.
“You have! Quick, what else did you see?!” Larry almost jumped from his sit and shook Birch with excitement over the desk. “You know how this works; every detail could be important!”
The wobbling didn’t help the dizziness and nausea from the previous night, so Birch made to break free from the other man’s embrace immediately before trying to settle himself down.
“I don’t know. Wasn’t much. Just a red bag on the kid, a park, and some window.”
“You have to come then!” The man clearly saw his urgency was not reflected on him, and almost dragged him out of the chair himself. “You know how important it is to be fast in these cases. Are you really just going to sit here with the kid missing?”
“Fuck….” He did know. In fact, he knew if Larry had the time to come to him, chances are it was already too late. But his dream made him uncertain. If only he didn’t have to relieve every detail of it… “Give me twenty minutes to wash up”
. . .
The patrol car brought them to the last location the child had been seen. Apparently, while he had been showering Larry had been busy, for several police cars were already waiting for them at the scene and police officers could be seen running around cordoning off the place.
The soak and the trip here had help sobering him up, but the dread from what he might find brought the nausea back, feeling the previous night’s dinner rushing to his throat, forcing him to gulp down to keep it inside.
“Anything?” Larry signaled the officer driving to slow down and looked at him from the front passenger seat. Taking another look through the window, Birch shook his head. No visions so far.
“Okay, let’s keep going, there are three parks from here to the kid’s school. We have already secured them.”
They had to visit all three before he finally managed to recognize the one he had seen in his dream. Only the swing was now frozen in place, the faceless shapes swapped for officers in uniform canvasing the place, and window with broken hinges facing them from the second floor of a neighboring building. A broken window looking down into the park closer to the school. Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one.
“Where does that window open to?” The moment he pointed to the window, a man who had been talking to Larry guided them to the street behind the park, where a crowd was gathering to watch with morbid interest.
A plain, unadorned door stood in front of him. And then he knew, even before the officers took it down and started rushing in, even before someone inside shouted to call for a medic. They were too late. Countless flashes flooded into his brain, memories which should not belong to him, or anyone else for that matter, evoked by the simple visage of the gray door.
As well as he knew, turning around towards the crowd, of the conspicuous greenish-yellow glint from the reflective vest on an officer, who stood there under the dim lights of the afternoon with a face which now inhabited all the shapes in his dreams, smiling at him.
Week 3: “The year is 2061. Technology is a must-have everywhere in the world. The amount of computers on your person have become indicative of social status and wealth. You are among the first to gain bionic eyes and are having a very rude awakening as to how much is too much tech..”
Original location of the prompt: Reddit, u/MissyTheMisc, wasn't sure I could post the link.
Week 3: Bionic Mishmash.
The world turned to gray, then blue, red, and some sparkly combination with every blink. The was something ridiculous in someone designing such a transcendent technology in the field of body modifications so someone could introduce a feature that allows them to see the world through real-time cartoonish filters belonging in a teen social page, and yet, she could not stop tinkering with it, placing silly hats and fake mustaches to everyone else in the room.
“Sam! Stop fucking around and pay attention!” The annoyance in the tone made such a contrast with the cowboy hat, googly eyes, and clown nose in a shade of red perfectly complementing the woman’s short hair that she had to force a chuckle down before blinking all the apparel away. The burly man on her right who had been riding backseat on everything she was seeing through his own modifications wasn’t as considerate, earning himself a stern look of reproach.
“I’m sure the client would be ecstatic to know his huge investment allowed you two to play around like children.” The woman snorted, looking at them.
Right, the client. Nothing like mentioning a huge debt to some shady guy to kill the mood.
She, much like everyone else in the room, was ex-military turned private security after the end of the war, and then gun for hire when the jobs dried up. It wasn’t what she had expected her life to be, but there wasn’t much someone of her profile could do about it, after all, people were very welcoming and grateful for the “service and sacrifice” but it was a whole different thing if you asked them to work next to someone with military-grade mods on them, and there was only so many personal a company could hire before being investigated for forming a private army.
Sam had joined the group a couple of months before, when her previous employer had dropped her after she had lost an eye from an accident during a job, and a mysterious new figure popped out of nowhere offering her the chance to get a whole new set of them as payment for joining a group he had been forming. Jack had joined the group at the same time as her while Kara, the red-headed woman, and the other two goons around her had been working together for some time and did not welcome the new additions, so when someone had to get the mods to connect with her eyes, it defaulted to him.
“Alright, let’s get this over with. Anything changes in expected surveillance?” Kara went back to sorting files in their shared computer, waiting for a report.
“Nothing. Everything as we predicted.” Jack spoke ahead of her. “The security station has set the new perimeter and has rotated personnel.”
They had spent the last couple of months breaking in every function of her new eyes, gathering as much intel on their target as possible. From thermal scans to alternate frequency mapping or even reading the identifying electronic signatures of every mod on a person, there was little which would scape her sight. It took some getting used to, there were some things she would rather not see and had already lost count of the number of disturbing sexual-oriented modifications she had seen just walking around the city, but she had to admit it was definitely a useful tool for her line of work.
“Good, let’s pack and reconvene in location.” Kara grabbed her bag and began clearing the table with her companions. Jack touched Sam’s arm and pulled her to the side.
“Here, grab this.” He lowered his voice, pulled a small injector with a murky vial on it, and passed it to her. “Keep it on you tonight, it might come in handy.”
“What is this?” An instant of panic came over her. “What are you trying to pull?”
“Trust me on this one. See you there.” Jack smiled at her before leaving for the door of their safe house. Shit, he is going to do something stupid.
At midnight the squad gathered on the south side of a fenced garden that surrounded a large, colonial-style villa. Flashlights could be seen dancing around inside every once in a while. At the sight of Jack, she couldn’t but give him a once over, trying to find something amiss with him, but he just smiled and nodded casually.
The operation went as smoothly as they had expected. They divided into two teams, with Sam, Kara, and one of the goons taking the east side of the villa and Jack and the other guy taking the west, easily avoiding all outer perimeter patrols and coordinating through Jack’s connection with her to take down both security postings in each side at the same time. From there, the security codes they had managed to provide for the mission gave them free access to the main building, gathering together at the rendezvous point on the second floor of the house, a small library that connected with the services entrances on each side.
With a silent gesture, the team moved as one to the study next door, where a small stairway would lead them to a private cellar in the basement, which would be empty at this time of day with the excuse of the owner not trusting his private wine collection to anyone. A quick scan on the western wall revealed the real trove of the place and their objective this time, a secret vault under retinal lock. Her time to shine. As the vault opened, the team took a look inside and were shocked and disappointed to find but a few physical documents piled on top of each other and several memory sticks.
“Wait, is this it?!” Apparently one of the goons was indignant, though she wasn’t quite sure who was that exploded there. At least he did so through the comms, and not aloud.
“There’s probably something of value in here, or else why spend such a fortune to get in here?” Jack’s voice sounded on the squad channel, as he made his way into the vault and casually grabbed one of the memory sticks, playing around with it. She kept observing him, waiting for a rush move, and yet it was her hearing that first alerted her of it. A quiet clink sounded on the ground nearby, followed by an electromagnetic shock that pulsed all over her, turning her world dark and her limbs numb. How did he…?!
“Consider your debt repaid. Good luck.” A whisper reached her ears, with footsteps rushing away. She mustered every strength she could find, patting herself blindly for the injector, before stabbing it to her leg with everything she had, a rush coming over her as the murky substance entered her bloodstream. Is it too late?
Alarms started blasting off all over the place as she made a run for it, reaching the gardens in a daze, traversing the path guided only by the sheer instinct to avoid all the flashlights rushing to the entrance she just left behind. It took her the better part of what seemed an endless night just to get back to the safe house, only to find Jack there, raising a glass to her with a smile.
The operation went as smoothly as they had expected. They divided into two teams, with Sam, Kara, and one of the goons taking the east side of the villa and Jack and the other guy taking the west, easily avoiding all outer perimeter patrols and coordinating through Jack’s connection with her to take down both security postings in each side at the same time. From there, the security codes they had managed to provide for the mission gave them free access to the main building, gathering together at the rendezvous point on the second floor of the house, a small library that connected with the services entrances on each side.
With a silent gesture, the team moved as one to the study next door, where a small stairway would lead them to a private cellar in the basement, which would be empty at this time of day with the excuse of the owner not trusting his private wine collection to anyone. A quick scan on the western wall revealed the real trove of the place and their objective this time, a secret vault under retinal lock. Her time to shine. As the vault opened, the team took a look inside and were shocked and disappointed to find but a few physical documents piled on top of each other and several memory sticks.
“Wait, is this it?!” Apparently one of the goons was indignant, though she wasn’t quite sure who was that exploded there. At least he did so through the comms, and not aloud.
“There’s probably something of value in here, or else why spend such a fortune to get in here?” Jack’s voice sounded on the squad channel, as he made his way into the vault and casually grabbed one of the memory sticks, playing around with it. She kept observing him, waiting for a rush move, and yet it was her hearing that first alerted her of it. A quiet clink sounded on the ground nearby, followed by an electromagnetic shock that pulsed all over her, turning her world dark and her limbs numb. How did he…?!
“Consider your debt repaid. Good luck.” A whisper reached her ears, with footsteps rushing away. She mustered every strength she could find, patting herself blindly for the injector, before stabbing it to her leg with everything she had, a rush coming over her as the murky substance entered her bloodstream. Is it too late?
Alarms started blasting off all over the place as she made a run for it, reaching the gardens in a daze, traversing the path guided only by the sheer instinct to avoid all the flashlights rushing to the entrance she just left behind. It took her the better part of what seemed an endless night just to get back to the safe house, only to find Jack there, raising a glass to her with a smile.
Or maybe I'll drop it for several months and only come back now...
Week 4: "You are stuck living in the void with a banished immortal. You don’t know why they were banished, but you try your best to make their days less lonesome."
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