I just wrote this draft chapter over a period of 1 hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. Meaning I haven't done much with it. Not sure if I'll do anything at all. Just wanted to know if folks could take a peep at it and give some thoughts. Not sure if its going to be connected to anything or not though the idea is that it will be one of several chapters that occur before LitRPG systems pops into existence.
Edit: Also, it's not letting me indent paragraphs, so the format is screwy. Don't know how to fix that.
Majorian scowled as the inside of his boots sloshed with cold water, squelching with each and every step. It was already cool, on the verge of being outright cold but not quite. His thick dark green jacket that hung nearly down to his knees, was barely adequate to keep the very early morning chill at bay. The jacket itself, with more than a few patches sewed on to cover the numerous tears earned from a couple of hard years living, probably wouldn’t last another year. Majorian wasn’t sure what he would do about next year’s winter.
The homeless shelter in Jacksonville, North Carolina wasn’t in particularly good shape funding wise. There used to be two of them, but one closed and the other had been forced to cut back to giving only one meal a day instead of two. What the civil war hadn’t scarred physically, it was still draining economically even though the fighting had been over for a few years now.
The street lamps in the parking lot of the Greyhound bus station emitted their pale yellow light, which somehow made the mist clinging low to the ground even pronounced. It unnerved Majorian, standing so close to such bright lights in such a starless and moody night. He tried to cling to the fence as he passed by the parking lot, but he was sure if one of those armored military trucks passed by and was paying even a modicum of attention, he’d be spotted easily.
Oh well. No help for it. I’ll just trust myself to Lady Luck once again. That bitch owes me anyway Majorian thought as he bit his bottom lip and broke out into a quick jog to cover the last few steps before his feet his the asphalt. He spend up to get across the street where the KFC fast food restaurant was located. It was dark inside now, and closed. Earlier than it normally ever would be, but the city-wide curfew of 7am to 7pm couldn’t be disobeyed, not when it was enforced by the military from the nearby Camp Lejeune.
He kept low as he circled around the restaurant, keeping to the shadows as best he could, until he reached behind the store to where the dumpsters were. Fast food restaurants always threw out food at least something at the end of the day, not because it was bad or old, but because it wasn’t sold and they had some policy against simply giving it away.
“There waste is my dinner” Majorian whispered mostly to himself as he slid the metallic latch on the side open, taking extra care to do it slowly so as to limit the amount of sound metal sliding on metal could cause.
He took one last look around, and then climbed inside and let himself fall.
As expected, it was filthy. Majorian didn’t mind however. He was pretty sure he smelled even worse than anything in the dumpster. Once again, he took nearly a minute slowly sliding the latch to the dumpster back shut just to make sure it wasn’t heard. He was being absurdly cautious and he knew it, but he had seen what happens to people who broke curfew when caught by soldiers. They weren’t killed or anything. But a rifle butt to the jaw was certainly a possibility.
In hindsight, it was probably because that guy had been mouthing off to fully armed soldiers who were bored and annoyed that they had to do such late night patrols following too little sleep. Still, it never hurt to be overly cautious when you had the option to.
Once the latch was shut, he took out a yellow and small pocket-sized flash light he kept in one of the millions of pockets his jacket possessed, flicked the switch and started his search. Disappointment set in immediately. The good stuff, if there had been any, would’ve been on top. It wasn’t.
With a sigh, he set about digging. He found a box with a biscuit that had to be at least a day or two old. It was cold and had started to harden, but it was edible. He also found a small container of cole slaw. It wasn’t good and Majorian hated cole slaw, but it was edible. He found a box with part of a chicken thigh, a little meat and some of the crispy fried skin still attached, though the crispy fried skin was soggy and cold. Still, it was edible. He devoured it all with a ravenous gusto, smacking his lips as he finished and wiping the chicken grease onto his old jeans with a hole in one of the knees.
He mounted one last brief search via the flashlight, hoping to find a little more before he returned to what he called his “camp”, and found nothing to eat, but rather something to read.
It was a newspaper and it was dated to the day before: March 2nd, 2003.
Nearly half of it was unreadable due to what he assumed was mash potatoes and gravy being smeared on it and soaking through. Still, there were parts that could be read.
The header of the front page was:
“Already? That was fast,” Majorian muttered to himself as he read.
Five days prior, so February 25th, there had been two separate but certainly linked attacks against local Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune. One had been on the campus of Coastal Carolina Community College, and the other had been in the parking lot to the local Jacksonville Mall. Two soldiers had been killed in all, as well as others. The one at the community college, had been an officer visiting his niece who was attending classes. Some other man, a civvy, had been visiting with him. Two women had apparently blew the officer away, but not before the officer was able to put down one of the two. The officer’s civvy buddy managed to somehow put down the other though he was grazed or something.
Another homeless vagrant like Majorian, an old man who called himself Albus though Majorian was pretty sure that wasn’t his actual name, had told him the officer had been either a First or Second Lieutenant. Majorian suspected this was the slaying that bothered the rest of the military personnel at Camp Lejeune the most.
The other shooting had been aimed at a man, his wife, and their four year old daughter. All three died when an unknown number of men approached their parked vehicle with the whole family still inside, and more or less gave it several dozen new holes. Albus claimed that soldier in particular had been a Lance Corporal on official leave with his family.
Albus also claimed every single one of the killers was from New Jersey, which at the time had made Majorian snort. How the old man knew any of this, was unknown and Majorian didn’t ask.
“Fucking Up-North Crazies” was all Albus said about the killers.
The college shooters had been killed. The mall shooters had vanished, but apparently not too far. According to the paper, there were four of them, and three of them had been captured in the parking lot of a rural gas station in the outskirts of the small beach town of Kill Devil Hills, while the fourth shooter was believed to still be somewhere in Jacksonville.
Odd was Majorian’s only opinion about that.
Since the shootings, the whole city had been under a tight curfew. Nothing opened until 7am and everything closed at 7pm except for emergency services. There were several armed checkpoints throughout the city, but only on the roads that led out of Jacksonville. Half a dozen armored and .50cal mounted Humvees cruised the streets in the day, and a dozen more did the same at night, all equipped with bright searchlights.
Officially, the Second American Civil War was over. It had ended in a stalemate in which a compromise was enacted that only barely satisfied all parties involved. But some people didn’t care what had been agreed to during the peace talks held in Canada.
Some didn’t give a single flying fuck what was declared in the Treaty of Winnipeg.
Majorian frowned when his ability to read through the smears on the paper caused by spilled gravy reached their limit, but then he shrugged and tossed the sheet aside. It didn’t matter. Not to him. The war was over for himself. He’d given enough. He hadn’t been rewarded yet, not that he was looking for one.
He was out of the dumpster quickly and had just finished sliding the latch shut when a loud bang popped off at the car wash next door to him.
It all came back to him in a second. It came back so fast. Too fast.
One moment he was on his feet, the next he was hugging the asphalt, spider-walking along the ground to put the metal dumpster between himself and the direction the sound came from. There was no thought. No recollection of his movements. Instincts took over. He took a deep breath trying to calm his heart as it slammed against his rib cage.
He only heard it once, but he knew what it sounded like. He hadn’t heard the sound of it connecting with anything. Perhaps it hadn’t been aimed at him.
Doesn’t matter Majorian thought as his hands reached into one of the larger pockets in his jacket, his grip closing around his M9 Beretta service pistol, the only remnant remaining of his experiences. He flicked the safety off as he eased it out of the pocket slowly, listening for possible sounds of movement or anything at all.
That was when the other parts of it all came back. They too came back fast. Too fast.
Sweat pooled and cascaded down his face as his breathing grew uneven. He was burning up now despite the cool air. His hands shook even as his fingers gripped the gun in a white-knuckled deadlock.
He heard the whistle, the one demanding he leave cover and surge forward at the enemy. You couldn’t disobey it. Cowards died a million deaths. That was what they told him. That was what he believed too. He did right?
A cool breeze picked up, and the early morning mist hanging low on the ground seemed to thicken to his eyes.
He could hear his sergeant screaming for him to move. Sparks from gunfire crackled behind his eyes and the heavy thudding of his heart in his ears mimicked the concussive thumps of artillery shells being lobbed at the enemy, giving the infantry a brief screen to close the distance with their entrenched enemy counterparts.
Majorian bit his lip, the taste of iron forming his mouth as he prepared to move.
As he prepared to fight back. He was crouched low, his knees bent and tensed in preparation to spring forward to the closest bit of cover nearby, but before he did so, the sound of a car engine rumbling to life stopped him.
The vehicle kept a low hum for a few moments, and then slowly pulled out of the parking lot to the next door car wash and slowly drifted down the road with the headlights. The vehicle was black, and with the headlights off, it was obvious they were trying to avoid being noticed.
Whoever the driver was, was playing a very dangerous game with the Humvees driving around.
It took Majorian another few seconds to realize the sound he heard, was the muffler to the car backfiring. A mixture of relief and exhaustion drained the adrenaline and terrible anticipation that he had been flooded only seconds before, and it left him feeling weak. He sat down for a second as his heart slowly but surely calmed itself. Still, he couldn’t rest long. Searchlights on Humvees could easily pick him out where he was.
His knees wobbled as he stood, still weak. His hands trembled as he fumbled to put his gun away after flicking the safety back on. His entire body was slick with sweat and a dull headache had begun to form.
He needed to get back while it remained dark enough for him to have some cover. It wouldn’t be too long before the first rays of light formed. He needed to move. Now. He did so. He was re-crossing the Greyhound bus station parking lot, his frown deepening as he stepped in the same damned puddle of water that he had stepped in earlier when heading out. He wasn’t focusing. He couldn’t.
He kept hearing ghost whistles and very distant but incoherent shouts somewhere in the back of his mind. The crackling sound of distant small arms fire seemed to tease that terrified part of his brain and his heart would lurch in his throat for a second. He caught himself moving at a very low crouch twice before he forced his posture back upwards again. He only just barely could tell that all of what he thought he was hearing wasn’t real. Only just.
That didn’t stop the ghostly sounds though. That didn’t stop his teeth from gritting hard enough that he was amazed he hadn’t chipped a tooth already. That didn’t stop his gaze from searching for potential enemies using the dark to ambush him. That didn’t stop his eyes from burning from the smoke that he didn’t actually see, but could somehow smell.
By the time he made it to the back of the bus station, followed the edge of the small pond with a fountain that didn’t work, and then quickly crossed into the small patch of woods that separated the bus station from a few dilapidated and empty houses and abandoned warehouses. Within, was a small brown tent just big enough to fit two average-sized people, and inside of that was his sleeping bag. He quickly shed his jacket, zipping his tent closed, the pistol within easy reach, and shivering his way to sleep even though he still felt unbearably warm.
Sleep came fitfully.
Edit: Also, it's not letting me indent paragraphs, so the format is screwy. Don't know how to fix that.
Majorian scowled as the inside of his boots sloshed with cold water, squelching with each and every step. It was already cool, on the verge of being outright cold but not quite. His thick dark green jacket that hung nearly down to his knees, was barely adequate to keep the very early morning chill at bay. The jacket itself, with more than a few patches sewed on to cover the numerous tears earned from a couple of hard years living, probably wouldn’t last another year. Majorian wasn’t sure what he would do about next year’s winter.
The homeless shelter in Jacksonville, North Carolina wasn’t in particularly good shape funding wise. There used to be two of them, but one closed and the other had been forced to cut back to giving only one meal a day instead of two. What the civil war hadn’t scarred physically, it was still draining economically even though the fighting had been over for a few years now.
The street lamps in the parking lot of the Greyhound bus station emitted their pale yellow light, which somehow made the mist clinging low to the ground even pronounced. It unnerved Majorian, standing so close to such bright lights in such a starless and moody night. He tried to cling to the fence as he passed by the parking lot, but he was sure if one of those armored military trucks passed by and was paying even a modicum of attention, he’d be spotted easily.
Oh well. No help for it. I’ll just trust myself to Lady Luck once again. That bitch owes me anyway Majorian thought as he bit his bottom lip and broke out into a quick jog to cover the last few steps before his feet his the asphalt. He spend up to get across the street where the KFC fast food restaurant was located. It was dark inside now, and closed. Earlier than it normally ever would be, but the city-wide curfew of 7am to 7pm couldn’t be disobeyed, not when it was enforced by the military from the nearby Camp Lejeune.
He kept low as he circled around the restaurant, keeping to the shadows as best he could, until he reached behind the store to where the dumpsters were. Fast food restaurants always threw out food at least something at the end of the day, not because it was bad or old, but because it wasn’t sold and they had some policy against simply giving it away.
“There waste is my dinner” Majorian whispered mostly to himself as he slid the metallic latch on the side open, taking extra care to do it slowly so as to limit the amount of sound metal sliding on metal could cause.
He took one last look around, and then climbed inside and let himself fall.
As expected, it was filthy. Majorian didn’t mind however. He was pretty sure he smelled even worse than anything in the dumpster. Once again, he took nearly a minute slowly sliding the latch to the dumpster back shut just to make sure it wasn’t heard. He was being absurdly cautious and he knew it, but he had seen what happens to people who broke curfew when caught by soldiers. They weren’t killed or anything. But a rifle butt to the jaw was certainly a possibility.
In hindsight, it was probably because that guy had been mouthing off to fully armed soldiers who were bored and annoyed that they had to do such late night patrols following too little sleep. Still, it never hurt to be overly cautious when you had the option to.
Once the latch was shut, he took out a yellow and small pocket-sized flash light he kept in one of the millions of pockets his jacket possessed, flicked the switch and started his search. Disappointment set in immediately. The good stuff, if there had been any, would’ve been on top. It wasn’t.
With a sigh, he set about digging. He found a box with a biscuit that had to be at least a day or two old. It was cold and had started to harden, but it was edible. He also found a small container of cole slaw. It wasn’t good and Majorian hated cole slaw, but it was edible. He found a box with part of a chicken thigh, a little meat and some of the crispy fried skin still attached, though the crispy fried skin was soggy and cold. Still, it was edible. He devoured it all with a ravenous gusto, smacking his lips as he finished and wiping the chicken grease onto his old jeans with a hole in one of the knees.
He mounted one last brief search via the flashlight, hoping to find a little more before he returned to what he called his “camp”, and found nothing to eat, but rather something to read.
It was a newspaper and it was dated to the day before: March 2nd, 2003.
Nearly half of it was unreadable due to what he assumed was mash potatoes and gravy being smeared on it and soaking through. Still, there were parts that could be read.
The header of the front page was:
PERPETRATORS TO POLITICALLY MOTIVATED MALL SHOOTING APPREHENDED.
“Already? That was fast,” Majorian muttered to himself as he read.
Five days prior, so February 25th, there had been two separate but certainly linked attacks against local Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune. One had been on the campus of Coastal Carolina Community College, and the other had been in the parking lot to the local Jacksonville Mall. Two soldiers had been killed in all, as well as others. The one at the community college, had been an officer visiting his niece who was attending classes. Some other man, a civvy, had been visiting with him. Two women had apparently blew the officer away, but not before the officer was able to put down one of the two. The officer’s civvy buddy managed to somehow put down the other though he was grazed or something.
Another homeless vagrant like Majorian, an old man who called himself Albus though Majorian was pretty sure that wasn’t his actual name, had told him the officer had been either a First or Second Lieutenant. Majorian suspected this was the slaying that bothered the rest of the military personnel at Camp Lejeune the most.
The other shooting had been aimed at a man, his wife, and their four year old daughter. All three died when an unknown number of men approached their parked vehicle with the whole family still inside, and more or less gave it several dozen new holes. Albus claimed that soldier in particular had been a Lance Corporal on official leave with his family.
Albus also claimed every single one of the killers was from New Jersey, which at the time had made Majorian snort. How the old man knew any of this, was unknown and Majorian didn’t ask.
“Fucking Up-North Crazies” was all Albus said about the killers.
The college shooters had been killed. The mall shooters had vanished, but apparently not too far. According to the paper, there were four of them, and three of them had been captured in the parking lot of a rural gas station in the outskirts of the small beach town of Kill Devil Hills, while the fourth shooter was believed to still be somewhere in Jacksonville.
Odd was Majorian’s only opinion about that.
Since the shootings, the whole city had been under a tight curfew. Nothing opened until 7am and everything closed at 7pm except for emergency services. There were several armed checkpoints throughout the city, but only on the roads that led out of Jacksonville. Half a dozen armored and .50cal mounted Humvees cruised the streets in the day, and a dozen more did the same at night, all equipped with bright searchlights.
Officially, the Second American Civil War was over. It had ended in a stalemate in which a compromise was enacted that only barely satisfied all parties involved. But some people didn’t care what had been agreed to during the peace talks held in Canada.
Some didn’t give a single flying fuck what was declared in the Treaty of Winnipeg.
Majorian frowned when his ability to read through the smears on the paper caused by spilled gravy reached their limit, but then he shrugged and tossed the sheet aside. It didn’t matter. Not to him. The war was over for himself. He’d given enough. He hadn’t been rewarded yet, not that he was looking for one.
He was out of the dumpster quickly and had just finished sliding the latch shut when a loud bang popped off at the car wash next door to him.
It all came back to him in a second. It came back so fast. Too fast.
One moment he was on his feet, the next he was hugging the asphalt, spider-walking along the ground to put the metal dumpster between himself and the direction the sound came from. There was no thought. No recollection of his movements. Instincts took over. He took a deep breath trying to calm his heart as it slammed against his rib cage.
He only heard it once, but he knew what it sounded like. He hadn’t heard the sound of it connecting with anything. Perhaps it hadn’t been aimed at him.
Doesn’t matter Majorian thought as his hands reached into one of the larger pockets in his jacket, his grip closing around his M9 Beretta service pistol, the only remnant remaining of his experiences. He flicked the safety off as he eased it out of the pocket slowly, listening for possible sounds of movement or anything at all.
That was when the other parts of it all came back. They too came back fast. Too fast.
Sweat pooled and cascaded down his face as his breathing grew uneven. He was burning up now despite the cool air. His hands shook even as his fingers gripped the gun in a white-knuckled deadlock.
He heard the whistle, the one demanding he leave cover and surge forward at the enemy. You couldn’t disobey it. Cowards died a million deaths. That was what they told him. That was what he believed too. He did right?
A cool breeze picked up, and the early morning mist hanging low on the ground seemed to thicken to his eyes.
He could hear his sergeant screaming for him to move. Sparks from gunfire crackled behind his eyes and the heavy thudding of his heart in his ears mimicked the concussive thumps of artillery shells being lobbed at the enemy, giving the infantry a brief screen to close the distance with their entrenched enemy counterparts.
Majorian bit his lip, the taste of iron forming his mouth as he prepared to move.
As he prepared to fight back. He was crouched low, his knees bent and tensed in preparation to spring forward to the closest bit of cover nearby, but before he did so, the sound of a car engine rumbling to life stopped him.
The vehicle kept a low hum for a few moments, and then slowly pulled out of the parking lot to the next door car wash and slowly drifted down the road with the headlights. The vehicle was black, and with the headlights off, it was obvious they were trying to avoid being noticed.
Whoever the driver was, was playing a very dangerous game with the Humvees driving around.
It took Majorian another few seconds to realize the sound he heard, was the muffler to the car backfiring. A mixture of relief and exhaustion drained the adrenaline and terrible anticipation that he had been flooded only seconds before, and it left him feeling weak. He sat down for a second as his heart slowly but surely calmed itself. Still, he couldn’t rest long. Searchlights on Humvees could easily pick him out where he was.
His knees wobbled as he stood, still weak. His hands trembled as he fumbled to put his gun away after flicking the safety back on. His entire body was slick with sweat and a dull headache had begun to form.
He needed to get back while it remained dark enough for him to have some cover. It wouldn’t be too long before the first rays of light formed. He needed to move. Now. He did so. He was re-crossing the Greyhound bus station parking lot, his frown deepening as he stepped in the same damned puddle of water that he had stepped in earlier when heading out. He wasn’t focusing. He couldn’t.
He kept hearing ghost whistles and very distant but incoherent shouts somewhere in the back of his mind. The crackling sound of distant small arms fire seemed to tease that terrified part of his brain and his heart would lurch in his throat for a second. He caught himself moving at a very low crouch twice before he forced his posture back upwards again. He only just barely could tell that all of what he thought he was hearing wasn’t real. Only just.
That didn’t stop the ghostly sounds though. That didn’t stop his teeth from gritting hard enough that he was amazed he hadn’t chipped a tooth already. That didn’t stop his gaze from searching for potential enemies using the dark to ambush him. That didn’t stop his eyes from burning from the smoke that he didn’t actually see, but could somehow smell.
By the time he made it to the back of the bus station, followed the edge of the small pond with a fountain that didn’t work, and then quickly crossed into the small patch of woods that separated the bus station from a few dilapidated and empty houses and abandoned warehouses. Within, was a small brown tent just big enough to fit two average-sized people, and inside of that was his sleeping bag. He quickly shed his jacket, zipping his tent closed, the pistol within easy reach, and shivering his way to sleep even though he still felt unbearably warm.
Sleep came fitfully.
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