white rabbit wrote:Recognized by name...interesting. The real question, of course, is exactly who's got enough of a coherent civilization or at least an oral tradition left to remember that.
Well, an oral tradition isn't too hard - there's still literate people about the DROP, but without access to computers or paper, the only way to pass on information to others/the next generation will be orally. Of course, if you're asking who started the tales, it would be survivors (and the descendants) of the incident in the prologue.
Night stalker wrote:Yes actually that was the definition that I was using
I bring this issue up in the next chapter, but the long and short of it is: oppurtunistic vs staple.
Lady Tevar wrote:You know it's both of the above. You've seen a Broodmother. Blood is only the start of that monstrosity.
Let me have my blessed willful ignorance...
I'm afraid to ask what the former-Cop did to weasel his way into the tribe. Since he was interested in Emily before, I'm sure there will be a scene upcoming where he tries again. Be a bit Ironic if his actions gives Shannon and Abigail their break.
He offered and they accepted... what he offered, though...
I'll have to defer comment on the latter, only to say that Killion's presence and actions will have some long-term ramifications...
I've got the next chapter's rough draft finished now, but I have to edit it, though it should be up shortly. As an advisory to all: the upcoming and following chapter will be some of, if not the darkest material to date so gird yourselves appropriately. However, when/if the heroes and heroines get through this, they should Spoiler
have some breathing room and some unexpected assistance.
In this chapter, the right's fears of Obamacare and the left's fears of HMOs get together for a really groovy time. And by 'groovy', I mean '...the fuck?!' (But the important thing is that fears are getting it on and hatching a bumper crop of nightmares)
Next chapter, days 6 and 9 come around; Emily gets some attention, Shannon gives some and an old acquaintance turns up.
WARNING: this chapter contains graphic violence, above and beyond the normal levels. Please bear this in mind and if it's not your cup of tea, there'll be a spoilered summary below for your use.
Chapter 27:
This particular part of the facility wasn’t on the Elysium-class DROP schematics that Artemis had been using, but it was on the map Shannon had downloaded. Originally marked as a breakroom off the storage section’s lowest level – a large central chamber with three branching nodes: two for storage of personal gear and one functioning as a unisex lavatory – it had been... considerably modified.
All of the adjacent chambers had been repurposed into dungeons and the central chamber was now a macabre trophy room. Tables were ringed throughout the room, each of them stocked with weapons and debris from decades of battles. Most had been destroyed or damaged by the fights that had led to their capture, whereas others appeared to be in working order. Rifles and ammo clips, broken bits of armour, crude weapons presumably taken from other ‘lost’. Bones flensed of all flesh: elongated talons, mutated skulls as well as bits and pieces from ordinary men and women who’d died at the hands of one of the Masks.
A gauntlet and half of the right forearm of some ancient set of power armour. Rifles with chainblade bayonets, long-depleted energy weapons. Personal effects, idols and fetishes taken from the dead – lockets and rings, necklaces and bracelets. Their own weapons had been set aside on one of the other shelves, along with St. Cloud’s cherished ‘Betsy’ and other Artemis-issue arms. Shannon supposed there should have been some sense of reverence about this place – these artifacts were clearly well-guarded and important to the feral tribe, but the knowledge of what they’d done to gain these trinkets dulled any sense of enthusiasm Shannon might have otherwise had.
As did knowing that they were the newest additions to this macabre collection.
It was why she, Abigail and Louis had been left in their armour – for the same reason that defeated enemies of the Roman Legions were paraded through the streets in their own armour or daubed with appropriately terrifying and barbaric war paints. Look how cunning, how ferocious and mighty we are, to overcome such terrible enemies. They were supposed to impress and awe the rest of the horde and once that was over with...
Her people – what else did she call them now? – were looking to her, watching for a signal, a command. Something to indicate that she’d figured out the most oppurtune time to fight back. She’d seen those looks before, knew what they meant. That trusting assumption that the Halo will figure things out. She wished it was that simple, some magic ‘instant-win’ button in her head she could push to instantly know what to do, but it didn’t work like that. Especially now.
Shannon was grateful for Abigail’s presence; the other woman was more adept at reading these situations and if she hadn’t seen any possible turning point, it made the younger corporal feel better about her own failure to do so. But whatever else these ferals were, they couldn’t be called stupid. Several guards formed a barrier between the survivors and the trophy weapons (some of them did work, then), and the way they moved, the way they carried themselves – they were malnourished, sick, twisted and broken from what the Mists had done (were doing) to them, but they knew how to fight. How to kill.
Primal’s crew had remembered that, too. It takes pieces, Dead Man’s voice played over in her mind. And puts them back together. Patchwork people with patchwork flesh and minds. They’d lost their souls, but remembered how to strip them from others.
The survivors were led into one of the cells; chains hung from the spikes pounded into walls, and lay pooled on the ground, anchored to tines driven into the floor. The bulkheads and deck were stained with centuries of horror and blood that nothing could ever wash out. The room stank with years of accumulated urine, blood, sweat and chemical cleansers, the mixture of disparate odours acrid and cloying. It was as awful a place as any could be.
One by one, they were chained in place, arms above their head and ankles together, feet on the floor. There was some give in the chains over their heads, enough that the position of their arms wouldn’t cause them to suffocate, but not enough to allow them to make a grab for the guards or try to pull the spike out of the wall and free themselves that way. As they were locked into their shackles, the ferals’ guns remained levelled to ensure that any last, desperate attempt at freedom would end in nothing but a broken corpse collapsing to the floor. No, whatever else they were, these people hadn’t forgotten how to kill.
As the bindings around her feet were fastened together and the masked figures withdrew amidst unpleasant chuckles, Shannon knew how she and the others were going to get out of here.
~
The birth was getting closer. A handful of days, no more. Perhaps even less. The attendants and reaver packs had both harvested well recently; the last birth had occurred a month ahead of schedule and this one was already seven weeks premature. If one or two days could be shaved off that, it would be good. Not every birth could be as efficient – the attendants could only work with what they were given and the reavers’ predations must – must – remain discreet.
-hunt and slay, tear them open and feed-
Most of the New Ones had been accounted for, but even the recovered records couldn’t tell them who had been dragged off to a garden, or taken by the Lost Ones. There were always survivors.
-kill them all-
Frustrating, but there it was. Fortunately, any possibility of the New Ones interfering with the birth was already remote and as long as any organized response was crushed, that possibility grew slimmer still.
-blood-
However, they would not repeat the previous team’s lapse. Remaining in the unsecured portion of the cairn was always a risk, but one worth taking if it insured that the birth went as planned. No interruptions. No witnesses. No new stories for the Lost Ones.
-warm and quivering in your mouth, red and running down your chin-
It wasn’t the Mists that whispered and beckoned, taunted and tempted with these promises. If only it were that simple... if only...
-find the prey as they shiver in the darkness-
Yes.
~
I’ve sparred with you, remember. I was also right there with you in that brawl in The Black Locker.
It wasn’t something that they advertised, but Halos were strong. They didn’t really understand why themselves, what usefulness that particular trait could have possibly served in the Primaries’ vision. Like the rest of her planet – perhaps more so, given her training and chosen field – Shannon was quite physically adept. She didn’t like others to know. It... embarrassed her, made her feel... wrong. Ashamed. Halos weren’t supposed to fight and even though she’d joined a mercenary company, that unease had remained.
She wasn’t a short woman by any means, but she wasn’t the biggest, either and the squadmates who’d seen her heft an injured soldier in full body armour wrote it off as adrenalin. In sparring matches, Abigail had told her that she had a “pathological” tendency to pull her punches. The Darkknell had tried to break her little sister of that habit, with only partial success. Before this mission, the incident in The Black Locker had been the first and only time that Shannon had hit someone with full force.
His name had been Ryan Fortell, and he’d been one of the station’s maintenance crew. Just a nine-to-fiver, celebrating a friend’s birthday in a merc bar and he’d taken an interest in the quiet, red-haired young woman sitting in a corner booth, waiting for her own friend to finish her drinking and pass out.
He hadn’t taken ‘no’ for an answer. On the cusp of alcohol poisoning and egged-on by his equally drunk friends, he’d gotten aggressive. Abigail had been drunk herself, but she’d eager to teach the ‘duct rat’ some manners. Rather than let it come to that, Shannon had tried to get the Darkknell out of there, so that everyone could cool down. Fortell had grabbed her and in an angry, inebriated attempt at seduction, put his hand down her pants.
She’d hit him.
Shannon hadn’t been wearing her armour. Hadn’t been using combat drugs. Hadn’t had a club or brass knuckles; she’d just hit him with her fist, and only once.
She’d broken that side of his face. No, not just ‘broken’. Shattered. She’d crushed his cheekbones, knocked several teeth out and dislocated his lower jaw. Multiple fractures: simple, open, multi-fragmentary... that entire side of his face had been all but caved in. If she’d hit him in the temple, she would have crushed his skull. In return, she’d skinned her knuckles and gotten clean, closed fractures on two metacarpal bones. He’d been on the ground, writhing and mewling, clutching at his ruined face as Shannon stared in shock. There’d been so much blood.
Then the brawl had started, as Fortell’s friends pushed themselves up from their table and the mercenaries – whether Artemis or not (one did have to defend one’s position in the pecking order, after all) did the same. In the aftermath, she’d been sick with what she’d done to Fortell, what she’d started. Shannon had gone to see him in the hospital, where his gushing contrition had hardly let her get her own in. He’d been so desperate to apologize for his actions that he’d strained the healing muscles and bones of his face and started bleeding again. No, he hadn’t been a bad man, just one that had made poor choices. And she’d almost killed him for that.
That incident had almost convinced her to leave Artemis and returned home, but Abigail had talked her into staying – in her own way. “That guy was an ass and he got what was coming to him. If you hadn’t been there, hadn’t put him down hard, maybe he’d have set his sets on some other girl. Maybe he would have done the same thing and because she couldn’t or wouldn’t do what you did, things would have been worse for her. He’ll live. Surgery’ll fix his face, and he’ll remember to keep his dick in check in the future. So what’s the problem?” Quietly: “You did better than I would have, Shannie. If he’d done that to me, I’d have put a knife in him.”
After that, she’d found it a little easier to accept her strength. Now, she was grateful for it.
The tine that her arms were chained to was secure. Rusted, worn and thick with the build-up of dust, grime and filth, it was welded into the bulkhead so well it seemed to be a part of the station’s superstructure and it didn’t so much as shiver as she tugged at it.
The pike pounded into the deck wasn’t had give to it. She could feel the welds straining as she pulled – it would have held anyone else just as well as it was supposed to (well, probably not Abby either, but the Darkknell was fixated on getting her arms free – she probably wouldn’t noticed the minute give in this tine). But they’d put her here. One mistake, that one slip-up. She’d found it.
“What...” Louis licked his lips and tried again. “What are they going to do to us?” He was on Shannon’s right; Abigail was chained up on her left. Emily and Ramone were past Hernandez – Salvador was farthest from Hayes. Relative to the entryway, this was the left-hand prison. Shannon had no idea if the center (the former bathroom) and the right-side dungeons had prisoner-trophies as well. She hadn’t heard anything from them.
Abigail tugged furiously on her own chains, cursing under her breath. “What do you think, Nine? I’m sure this is just their version of hazing. Once we hang out here for a while, they’ll break out the brews and then we’ll all have a good laugh about our new frat’s wacky initiations. Won’t that be fun?” She swore again, still fighting with her shackles.
Shannon wished the binders on her ankles were looser, or at least had more slack. She might have been able to pull off her boots. The hard way it is, she thought, giving her legs a powerful jerk. The tine twitched. “Do you want to know?” she asked quietly, turning her head to look out the door. There was a small window-and-shutter cut into the door to allow those outside to look in without coming into the cell themselves. There were overhead lights, but they were so dim as to be useless – the only light that came into the prison was through the open window from the fires and glowpanels that lit the main trophy room.
She could see Dead Man through the opening; his back was to them as he lifted St. Cloud’s armour off and reverently set it down on one of the trophy tables. He was thin but muscular and his back and arms were a criss-crossed nightmare of scars and burns. A survivor.
His hair was light brown, scraggly and sweat-soaked. Someone in a gas mask, their gaze turned away from Dead Man’s naked face, passed the pack leader a ballroom mask, the inside reinforced with metal. He put it on, canting his head towards the cell.
His mask was a male peacock, with a nose guard that extended down almost past his upper lip – this was the neck, head and beak of the bird, with the rest of the mask – from cheekbone to temple, the flirt of its open tail feathers. Though his lips were expressionless, their scars formed an abhorrent, leering smile as he stared back at the women. Abigail made a kissing noise. “See you soon, sweetie.”
Dead Man strode forward, glaring at the prisoners through the slot on the door. He touched two fingers to just beneath his eyes, then pointed them back at Abigail. I’m watching you. He slammed the viewing hatch closed and Shannon heard his footsteps tromp off. No, they weren’t stupid.
“Yes,” Louis said quietly, raising his voice to catch Shannon’s attention. “Yes, I want to know.”
“Okay,” Abigail kicked her feet again. Another infinitesimal movement of the spike. Little by little... “What kills small populations?”
Louis’s brow furrowed for a moment, then went slack. “They’re going to eat us?”
“Oh God,” Ramone breathed. Emily’s head twitched, a minute shake. Her eyes met Shannon’s. She knows, too.
“They might,” Shannon conceded. “But remember the size of the population. There were dozens – and these were just the people closest to us when we were brought in. Many children, several pregnant women. There are hundreds in this entire complex. They’ve got enough food for all of them – they can’t rely on ships to provide enough sustenance, not if cannibalism’s a staple of their diet.” That didn’t mean that they weren’t oppurtunistic cannibals, though, but she didn’t mention that part. “They probably hoard MREs. Maybe they’ve got a hydroponics garden. Certainly they’ve tapped the water system – maybe a cistern grows algal. So they’ve got a constant source of food and water. Not enough to keep them all healthy, but enough to keep everyone alive.” She bit her lip and pulled on the chains again.
“Then what?”
“What kills small populations is allele fixation. Homozygosity. When there’s no more gene flow coming in, and little diversity in the population.” She had to use the these terms, had to build up to it. Stay detached, don’t think about it. “Deleterious mutations and physiological defects build up. It’s called a ‘mutational meltdown’ that leads into an ‘extinction vortex’. Inbreeding destroys small populations over generations. If you sleep with your sister or your cousin, it won’t matter that much for your kid. But if they do the same, and those offspring do it too – then you get spinal deformities. Autoimmune disorders. Defective sperm. Birth rates plummet as the fitness of the surviving adults drops and fewer and fewer embryos, let alone children, survive. The only way to prevent this is to bring in new genetic stock. Emigrants from other populations.”
As she’d been talking, Louis’ expression had changed from one of confusion to dawning comprehension, to revulsion and shame. “I’m... I’m... sorry,” he stammered, gritting his teeth. “I won’t... I won’t let-”
“Before you let pitying chivalry eat you up,” Abigail replied, “I’d just like to point out that you’re here with us brood hens too.”
Louis’s expression slackened for a moment as the implications of that hit him, then he shook himself. “But then, why haven’t they...”
“We’re trophies,” Shannon nodded towards the door. “Something that has to be earned. The man wearing St. Cloud’s armour – it wasn’t his usual garb. It was something he was allowed to use.” The fear bubbled up inside her and her clinical detachment faltered. “The same with us. There’ll... be some kind of proving and the winners...” she let that thought hang in the darkness, interrupted by clatter of desperate tugs upon unyielding chains.
~
They came for Ramone first.
The viewing hatch snapped open, a spar of light shining into the cell, two faces silhouetted briefly before the hatch closed just as abruptly. The door’s hinges squealed as it was pulled open and a pair of women sauntered in. Both of their masks only covered their noses and eyes; one was of cat’s whiskers and ears. The other was a cracked porcelain ballroom-style affair. Both them wore surgical masks over their mouths and filthy nurses’ uniforms that had been unbuttoned to show off a fair amount of cleavage and trimmed to be as short as any miniskirt. Cat wore knee-high leather boots; Porcelain had ankle bracelets. Behind them, Shannon could hear squeaking as something was slowly wheeled closer.
Ignoring the women and Louis, the ‘nurses’ sauntered over to Ramone, stroking his face. “A doctor...” one of them began in an eerie singsong.
“...needs a staff,” the other finished. “That’s why...”
“...we’re here,” Cat amended.
Ramone swallowed. “That’s, uh, it’s, uh...”
“Hush...” Porcelain purred, pressing herself up against him. “Just let us...”
“...take care of you,” Cat said.
It was if the doctor’s brain had short-circuited and he couldn’t formulate any coherent response. He stammered, getting out half-sentences, mentioning a wife, but the feral women didn’t pay any attention to his protestations, nor the imprecations and demands coming from the other survivors. Cat was rubbing her rear against his hips and Porcelain sunk down to her knees, pulling the doctor’s pants down. “Isn’t that...”
“...so much better,” Cat purred huskily. Then, like flipping a switch, the ‘nurse’ whipped around to glare out the door. “Now!” she screamed, high-pitched and fierce as a banshee.
A man in a rebreather rushed forward, fumbling a set of jingling keys in his hands, pouring out an all-but-unintelligible rush of apologies in the local dialect.
The squeaking grew louder as the man unlocked Ramone’s bindings. Porcelain’s hand was in his underwear, stroking him. The doctor’s eyes pinched shut and his face was contorted in disgust and shame. “Now, now,” a new masculine voice interrupted. “There’ll be time for that later.” It was the feral doctor, pushing a surgeon’s cart. Dented stainless steel, there were bindings for wrists, elbows, ankles and thighs. “First, the procedure.”
“What-what procedure?” Ramone’s mind re-asserted itself as the ballroom-masked woman’s hand withdrew, each of the nurses taking one of his arms and leading him out of the cell. “What are you going to do? What are you going to do to me?” His panic rose as he dug his heels in and he was pulled out of the chamber and strapped down to the cart.
Shannon could see another man in a broken gas mask holding something... No. No, God no. Don’t let this happen. Please. “Leave him alone!” she shouted, pulling at her bonds, only dimly aware that the others were doing the same. “Don’t do this! You don’t need to!”
Cat looked up at her and in a petulant, child-denied-a-treat voice, said: “But we need a doctor.”
“What are they going to do?” Louis demanded quietly.
Shannon closed her eyes, trying to will the nightmare away. “You don’t need legs to be a doctor,” she said, the words hollow and sick-sounding in her throat. “But you need them to escape.”
Ramone had caught sight of his feral counterpart. “What are you doing? No! No, get away!”
The ‘doctor’ was holding a reciprocating saw, sliding a fire-heated blade into the machine. “Nurse,” he said. “Prepare the patient.”
Porcelain withdrew a dose of painkillers – one of hers, Shannon realized – and injected Ramone with it, then tightened the straps on his thighs. They were just above his knees. Tourniquets. She stroked Salvador’s face and whispered in his ear, before looking to the other man. “He’s ready, doctor.”
“Excellent. Orderly, are the prostheses ready?”
The man carrying the false legs – one of wood, sculpted to look like a real lower leg and foot, the other of black metal and plastic, intended only to be functional – nodded. “Yes, doctor.”
“Then we’ll begin.”
“What? No! No!” Salvador screamed as the feral doctor started the saw. “No! Please, somebody! Help me! Help meeeeee!” he shrieked as the red-hot blade was driven through his skin, just below his right knee, ripping through bone and muscle. He thrashed, but was held too securely to accomplish anything.
Louis vomited, pink bile spattering down his lips and splashing his cuirass as the stink of cooking meat and bone filled the air. Shannon had her eyes squeezed shut, unable to watch. Hearing it – smelling it – was enough. Her breath was hot and heavy in her chest, muscles tensing almost painfully. Abigail was silent, with that look on her face. Emily had her head turned away. Like Shannon, she couldn’t bear to see this. They didn’t even bother to take him out of here.
The whine of the saw abated. Leather rasped and buckles clicked as the amputated limb was taken away. Mumbling as the tourniquets above Ramone’s knees were checked, confirmed for tightness. The clack of the blade being ejected from the saw, followed by the click of a fresh heated, crudely sterilized blade being locked into place. There was a whiff of medicinal alcohol, the wet splashes of it being doused over the amputated end of Ramone’s leg, the clothy rasp of bandages being drawn. Whimpered prayers and pleading: “No more. No more. No more. No more.”
Then the machine growled back to life.
When it was over, the cart squeaked as they wheeled Ramone away as ‘orderlies’ cleaned up the mess, closing the door to the cell and leaving four survivors, awaiting the sounds of their own guests.
In the darkness, Shannon found that she was feeling something new. Something she’d only tasted in the hall as she’d struggled against the gravity plates and a voice whispered to her, telling her to stop fighting. Something dark and raw, red and violent. It frightened her, but after what she’d seen, she wanted more. She... wanted to share it.
God help me, I do.
She tugged on her chains again, feeling something give a little more.
God help me.
*** Spoiler
The survivors are imprisoned and Ramone is taken away to become the tribe's new doctor; his legs are amputated to prevent him from escaping.
Shannon is working on an escape attempt, but it hasn't come to fruition yet. She reminisces about the incident in 'The Black Locker' that led to her severely injuring another person and watching Salvador's mutilation has triggered something in her; it's not a nice something.
Last edited by Bladed_Crescent on 2010-06-06 06:03pm, edited 3 times in total.
Night_stalker wrote:OK, the DROP has got to be running out of Horrors to toss at the protagonists, right?
They haven't even reached the core of the station yet. There's plenty of monsters left to go, hell we haven't even seen one of the gardens yet.
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
Darth Nostril wrote:They haven't even reached the core of the station yet. There's plenty of monsters left to go, hell we haven't even seen one of the gardens yet.
I have the impression the "gardens" refer to the human tribes; as in they're being farmed to feed the monsters or as a source for new ones (or something similarly unpleasant).
Junghalli wrote:Awesome story, I'm looking forward to more.
Thanks - glad you're enjoying it.
Night stalker wrote:OK, the DROP has got to be running out of Horrors to toss at the protagonists, right?
Ah heh.
Ah he heh he he heh heh.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
[wipes tear away] Oh, I wish I had a camera to immortalize moments like these.
Junghalli wrote:It could have been worse. At least they anaesthetized him when they cut his legs off.
That version did occur to me, but then I remembered all those shark attacks where people lost a limb or two and died from shock before blood loss, so I went with giving him painkillers. I try to keep the technowhatsis to a minimum where I can. Heh.
Night stalker wrote:I was speaking about the possible fate for Shannon and Abigail.
Two of my readers want me to create a spin-off series entitled Abigail Beats Up Everyone.
I've got more to subject everyone to, oh yes. Both good and bad. Yes, good things can happen! I've got at least three such things in mind.
Darth Nostril wrote:They haven't even reached the core of the station yet. There's plenty of monsters left to go, hell we haven't even seen one of the gardens yet.
Junghalli wrote:I have the impression the "gardens" refer to the human tribes; as in they're being farmed to feed the monsters or as a source for new ones (or something similarly unpleasant).
Themightytom: I don't mean to cut you off at the knees, but I don't think your puns have a leg to stand on...
The Vortex Empire wrote:I wonder what they'll do to the rest of them, or if they'll escape first. Whatever happens, it certainly won't be good.
It'll be good for someone. It's all relative, man. Siiiimplifyy, duuude! Like, embrace the good out there!
And not, you know, the screams and horror.
Junghalli wrote:Come to think of it it's interesting that they know enough about genetics to realize inbreeding is a problem.
Not really - as xt828 mentioned, you don't need to know high-level genetics to know inbreeding is bad. And the Masks have people who know how to keep machines running, maintain weapons, plan ambushes. At some point in their history, they'd surely have had someone who knew more than 'sticking it in your relatives is bad, mm'kay?'
xt828 wrote:Sweet. I like not being totally sure where each update is going, other than somewhere I'd rather not be.
Heh; thanks... I think.
A fairly tastefully done bit of gore there, too - you didn't trivialise it, but neither did you linger on it.
[Warning: authorial wankingdiscussion detected. Proceed with caution.]
Thanks again; I wasn't too sure about this chapter (I even added the warning up top because one of my other readers said it was so visceral that she might have to stop reading here, and got a little paranoid), but it and the next are 'darkest' in tone to date and should remain so for quite some time. I'm not averse to grimdark, but there's having it for a legitimate literary purpose, and then there's having it just for the sake of having it. I do tend to write darker stories, but I also try to avoid making them utterly hopeless (although given the number of times questions about a happy ending have come up, I may need to work more on that... ), or making them dark just for its own sake. Bleah to that.
Likewise with violence. I absolutely detest "torture porn" movies, where the gore is there just for the sake of having it (you may notice a pattern). There's no plot, no point - it's just HEY WATCH ME RAM THIS POWER DRILL INTO A GIRL'S BREASTS AND CASTRATE THIS DUDE WITH A CIRCULAR SAW! ARE YOU SCARED YET! NO? OKAY, LET'S GET THE ACID AND THE KINDERGARTNERS!
Since SDN doesn't have a D: smiley, you'll have to settle for your imagination and these two:
I've said it before and I'll said it again: Eli Roth is the enemy of all mankind horror writers.
I have no objection to the portrayal of violence (be a pretty big hypocrite if I did), but I think it should serve an purpose in the story instead of "lookit all this blood! You scared yet?". I didn't include this scene with Ramone just for shits and giggles or to be "edgy" and "dark", but because there's method to my madness (usually). It gives us a clear look at the attitudes and mindsets of this particular feral tribe, and (hopefully) builds tension. Ramone was a doctor, a very valuable commodity in this place, and this was how he was welcomed into the tribe. It puts paid to Barnes' warning about the knife symbol and what it means, raises the stakes for the survivors... I could go on.
And exactly; I wasn't trying to trivialize it - something awful just happened to this man, but by the same token, we don't need to linger on it, nor does every lurid detail need to be captured.
Hopefully all that was coherent. I do go on sometimes.
Nah the chapter was great. it served to reinforce the pragmatic reality faced by the ferals, who have long since dispenses with cultural imperatives. they need a doctor, who won't escape, the solution is pretty straightforward. there's apparently no room for PTSD on DROP 47. Also the fact that another legless doctor was doing the cutting spoke volumes. I was kind of surprised they used pain killers actually.
I guess the ladies won't be calling Ramone "Tripod" anymore.., it seems there was no forgiveness for his shins? In becoming a prisoner, he's taken his final steps?
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
If you don't intentionally write stories to be grimdark for the sake of grimdark and hopeless, you certainly do a good impression of it.
Themightytom wrote:
I guess the ladies won't be calling Ramone "Tripod" anymore.., it seems there was no forgiveness for his shins? In becoming a prisoner, he's taken his final steps?
At the risk of adding to the wankfest... Awesome update mon It's nice seeing a story that can get into the technical details without spiraling into mindless technobabble.
Themightytom wrote:I guess the ladies won't be calling Ramone "Tripod" anymore..
Actually, with the legs cut off below the knees lie that...
"Siege warfare, French for spawn camp" WTYP podcast
It's so bad it wraps back around to awesome then back to bad again, then back to halfway between awesome and bad. Like if ed wood directed a godzilla movie - Duckie
Bladed_Crescent wrote:And exactly; I wasn't trying to trivialize it - something awful just happened to this man, but by the same token, we don't need to linger on it, nor does every lurid detail need to be captured.
I largely agree. I generally don't go and see horror films, because they tend to go with the cheap option - the jump-scare, or the gore-out. Jump scares make me cranky because they're cheap and nasty and do awful things to my blood pressure, and gore is either silly or an uncomfortable wallow in sadism. The kind of thing that has always appealed to me has been the stuff which is scary by virtue of a genuinely creepy story. As a result of that, I'm much more likely to read horror than watch it.
I actually only read this after reading the two Heavenverse stories I found here - they struck me as sort of 40k-style grimdark, but done by someone who cared rather than someone paid by the word to fulfil teenage self-insertion fantasies.
Night stalker wrote:OK, the DROP has got to be running out of Horrors to toss at the protagonists, right?
Ah heh.
Ah he heh he he heh heh.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
[wipes tear away] Oh, I wish I had a camera to immortalize moments like these.
It IS a good story, but remember your audience. As much as you hate torture-porn consider that its cardinal sin from a storytelling perspective is walking the viewer from one set-piece to the next like an audience in a freak show. You don't want to engage in the same kind of storytelling, but subsituting a parade of mysterious nemeses for gore shots.
My perspective is as the ghost story writer, mind you. To me, 'fear' is what the audience feels when recalling an event after the fact, whereas 'terror' is what the experiencers feel during the event. It's totally different from a horror story, where you're looking for audience to be immediately feeling revulsion and discomfort, not necessarily fear, and neither in retrospect (my experience is that people often laugh about horror movies when recalling them, but may feel the chills when recounting an actually terrifying movie).
That version did occur to me, but then I remembered all those shark attacks where people lost a limb or two and died from shock before blood loss, so I went with giving him painkillers. I try to keep the technowhatsis to a minimum where I can. Heh.
From above, the best rule of thumb is that horrifying experiences people faint or pass unconcious from, so there's a minimum of screaming and struggling. Terriying experiences, on the other hand, usually involve LOTS of screaming.
Thanks again; I wasn't too sure about this chapter (I even added the warning up top because one of my other readers said it was so visceral that she might have to stop reading here, and got a little paranoid), but it and the next are 'darkest' in tone to date and should remain so for quite some time. I'm not averse to grimdark, but there's having it for a legitimate literary purpose, and then there's having it just for the sake of having it. I do tend to write darker stories, but I also try to avoid making them utterly hopeless (although given the number of times questions about a happy ending have come up, I may need to work more on that... ), or making them dark just for its own sake. Bleah to that.
If I were to suggest anything, it would be to draw a link between experience and recollection. There's a 'breaking point' where good fictional characters simply snap - they either become resigned to their fates, kill themselves, or become emotionally desensitized and face the monster head-on. That falls under the category of knowing the psyche not of your characters - it's easy to create emotionally invulnerable people who witness horrific genocide and keep fighting - but it's much harder to propel people through a story who've hit bottom. The lamest thing horror movies do is demonstrate the futility of resistance, then either toss in a deus ex at the last moment, or otherwise kill off all of the protagonists anyway and end with the monster triumphant because they don't know how to make the monster scary except by making it defy heroics and sacrifice. J-Horror often does that and I can't stand it; I watched the Grudge, and came to the conclusion that the only rational course of action in that universe was suicide, since eventually the monster would unstoppably kill every living thing on the planet.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Bladed_Crescent wrote:
Two of my readers want me to create a spin-off series entitled Abigail Beats Up Everyone.
Now see, I would totally buy that.
You could even make a kiddies pop-up book version.
So I stare wistfully at the Lightning for a couple of minutes. Two missiles, sharply raked razor-thin wings, a huge, pregnant belly full of fuel, and the two screamingly powerful engines that once rammed it from a cold start to a thousand miles per hour in under a minute. Life would be so much easier if our adverseries could be dealt with by supersonic death on wings - but alas, Human resources aren't so easily defeated.
The mighty tom wrote:Nah the chapter was great. it served to reinforce the pragmatic reality faced by the ferals, who have long since dispenses with cultural imperatives. they need a doctor, who won't escape, the solution is pretty straightforward. there's apparently no room for PTSD on DROP 47. Also the fact that another legless doctor was doing the cutting spoke volumes.
[Jesse Ventura]I ain't got time for PTSD![/Jesse Ventura]
There's not a not of mental health professionals on DROP 47 (and if there were, would you want to go to them? I'm remind of that Far Side cartoon where a psychologist, in an attempt to cure a patient's fear of the dark, small spaces, heights and snakes locks him in a tiny cell filled with snakes dangling from a skyscraper). "This is for your own good!"
Also, the doctor who did the cutting wasn't legless - this one still had all his pieces. As we've seen with Killion, the Masks do get some converts...
phred wrote:At the risk of adding to the wankfest... Awesome update mon It's nice seeing a story that can get into the technical details without spiraling into mindless technobabble.
Thank you. I try to avoid technobabble whenever possible. If I must include descriptions of future tech (or any technical field), I either try to read up on the topic (i.e. when Shannon performed a hemothorax on Louis), or describe it in just enough detail that the reader knows the basics without having to go into distracting descriptions of technowhatsis.
"What's this?"
"A disruptor blade."
"What's it do?"
"Cuts through everything."
"How does it work?"
"Very well."
xt828 wrote:I largely agree. I generally don't go and see horror films, because they tend to go with the cheap option - the jump-scare, or the gore-out. Jump scares make me cranky because they're cheap and nasty and do awful things to my blood pressure, and gore is either silly or an uncomfortable wallow in sadism. The kind of thing that has always appealed to me has been the stuff which is scary by virtue of a genuinely creepy story. As a result of that, I'm much more likely to read horror than watch it.
Very true. I'm not one for horror movies myself, for generally the same reasons. That, and they tend to be as predictable as sitcoms in how things develop. I tend to prefer my horror in story or games format, simply because they're longer and you can take more time to see the world around you and bask in just how fucked-up it is/it has become.
I actually only read this after reading the two Heavenverse stories I found here - they struck me as sort of 40k-style grimdark, but done by someone who cared rather than someone paid by the word to fulfil teenage self-insertion fantasies.
Heh; I don't aim for grimdark, but I like to make things worse and worse for the protagonists so that when things get better... it's like being lost in a cave and crawling towards the light. You come out the other end dirty, scabbed and scraped, but by God, when that sun hits your skin, it feels better than anything else!
In a manner of speaking, anyways. And to reiterate, I don't include darkness just for its own sake, but because it serves a legitimate purpose other than 'ooh, lookit how dark and edgey this universe is!' I'd end up competing with Warhammer, which, as TVTropes points out, raises the bar by "painting itself black and throwing itself off the edge". Since this is a horror story, it does tend towards the dark end of the spectrum.
Lagmonster wrote:It IS a good story, but remember your audience. As much as you hate torture-porn consider that its cardinal sin from a storytelling perspective is walking the viewer from one set-piece to the next like an audience in a freak show. You don't want to engage in the same kind of storytelling, but subsituting a parade of mysterious nemeses for gore shots.
True; for what it’s worth, however, I have a very specific storyline set out in mind with very specific ‘encounters’. It’s not an attempt to constantly one-up the situation or the antagonists since even a very “basic” (whatever that can mean) Turned is a deadly threat, but simply an opportunity to demonstrate just how terribly things have gone wrong on DROP 47 and for how long.
I have been concerned about the appearance of power creep in the ‘villains’ (so to speak), but I think most of it comes from the story being posted over such a long period of time; in-universe, it’s been less than a day, perhaps a little more, so the first encounters seem further back than they actually are. As well, I try to have ‘cooling down’ periods between each major event to allow the readers and characters to catch their breath, so neither are just being jerked from situation to situation without respite and to advance the storyline and background without being too disruptive.
I’m trying to avoid that same issue of walking from Terrible to Worse (and hopefully having some measure of success at it), because there’s more to the story than JESUS CHRIST A LION GET IN THE CAR – again, at least I hope there is. We’re learning a bit more about these nemeses and the station as we go and each of its three main ‘factions’, as it were. I haven’t gone into much detail about them because the characters themselves haven’t learned anything, but they will learn; it’s not going to be ‘oooooh mysteeeeerious’ for all the time (though hopefully that won’t make the situation any less scary when the truth comes out).
My perspective is as the ghost story writer, mind you. To me, 'fear' is what the audience feels when recalling an event after the fact, whereas 'terror' is what the experiencers feel during the event. It's totally different from a horror story, where you're looking for audience to be immediately feeling revulsion and discomfort, not necessarily fear, and neither in retrospect (my experience is that people often laugh about horror movies when recalling them, but may feel the chills when recounting an actually terrifying movie).
Your thoughts on fear/terror mirror my own, though I'd say that there's a distinction between horror movies and good horror movies; my own experience is that the latter tend to stay with you and are not as easily (if at all) laughed off.
If I were to suggest anything, it would be to draw a link between experience and recollection.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this – can you elaborate?
There's a 'breaking point' where good fictional characters simply snap - they either become resigned to their fates, kill themselves, or become emotionally desensitized and face the monster head-on.
True; we haven’t quite reached that point for these fellows quite yet. Just to reiterate, it’s been about one day so far, so they’re not at their limits yet. As we’ve seen, some of the survivors of Primal have reached theirs, but the survivors have some more to go yet. There will be some changes in them (as is expanded upon in the next chapter), but currently they haven't reached the point at which they'll snap. Give 'em a couple more days or a week and then we'll see how they're faring.
The lamest thing horror movies do is demonstrate the futility of resistance, then either toss in a deus ex at the last moment, or otherwise kill off all of the protagonists anyway and end with the monster triumphant because they don't know how to make the monster scary except by making it defy heroics and sacrifice. J-Horror often does that and I can't stand it; I watched the Grudge, and came to the conclusion that the only rational course of action in that universe was suicide, since eventually the monster would unstoppably kill every living thing on the planet.
Well, all I can say here is that what I’ve got planned won’t be a Deus Ex (I’ve already laid the foundations for the ending I've planned) and to reiterate that the story is not without hope and happy endings do happen in the genre, even in my works. Sometimes. Anything more would spoil the surprise, I’m afraid.
I do agree with you; I think the nihilistic endings of certain horror movies do the story and the audience no credit, because it renders everything the protagonists have struggled for and all their sacrifices completely for naught. If they just die at the end and the monster wins, what was the point of it? I remember seeing an ad for The Final Destination and I remember commenting, perhaps a bit more loudly than I should have, that the movie was just a dressed-up snuff film. I mean, honestly – they were up against death. How do you win? You don’t. You can't You just manage to survive a bit longer than the others. There’s no winning, because eventually you’ll die. You don’t make a heroic sacrifice to kill the beast and save your friends. You don’t get to escape.
Here, there most definitely is the ability/possibility to 'win' (dun dun DUN!). How, I won't say just yet.
Darth Nostril wrote:Now see, I would totally buy that.
You could even make a kiddies pop-up book version.
When you open it to the middle, a fist comes out and belts you one.
In this chapter, Shannon feels the pull of something that, in any other circumstance, she'd much rather have buried. Even the brightest halo can still be tarnished.
Coming up: old acquaintances make themselves known and Abigail honours a promise.
Warning: this chapter also contains a scene of violence that some readers may find unpleasant. As before, a spoilered summation is below.
Chapter 28:
They’d taken Emily.
One of the ferals – this one in a Hadley-Wright security officer’s jumper and the helmet of an engineer – had come for her, taking a set of keys from the lower-ranking Mask with the rebreather and unchaining the petite doctor. His vocalizer had buzzed and rasped with static with each heavy breath as he’d run his hands over Emily’s body, ignoring Louis’s demands that the Mask ‘take on someone his own size’ and ‘face him like a man’.
Abigail had tugged at her chains, all but hissing like some wild animal herself. It was something she’d seen before – other sisters – in name if not blood – taken by gangers and the other dregs of Darkknell’s, leaving her in the dark to wait her own turn. The chains strained against her strength and drool ran down her lips, her teeth clenched and gleaming wetly in the faint light. Less than a woman now, only some vicious beast straining at its leash, rabid and all but blood-mad.
Shannon hadn’t said a word; she’d just… stared at the feral man. No anger, no fear. There’d been nothing in her expression but naked curiousity, but curiousity without wonder, analytical and evaluative as she’d studied the man, no trace of her thoughts behind her blank face. I know how to hurt you. I do. I can hurt you so badly that you’ll always be in pain. You touch her… you hurt her and I swear I… Her heart was pounding in her chest, muscles twitching as something dark and ugly bubbled and clawed its way up from her gut.
“It’s okay,” Emily had said as she’d been pushed out the door, trying to give Shannon a reassuring smile. Her lip had quivered and her eyes... she’d been afraid. “It’s okay.”
“No,” Shannon had said into the darkness as the door shut again, hanging limp in her restraints. No. It isn’t.
The peg started to wobble as she tugged on it again, loosening it in its place. When it broke…
I’ll find you, Emily. I promise I will. I’ll...
No. It wasn’t ‘all right’ at all.
~
Can you hear me, Calvin? I can hear you. I can smell you.
Meyers jerked, turning around and letting his headlamps shine down the hall. Again, there was nothing. Every time he looked, Godfrey managed to...
No, no. Get a hold of yourself man. She’s not there. Not there, you hear me?
“Right,” Calvin clenched his teeth. “Right, I know. But she is out there somewhere.”
Yes, that’s true.
“I have to be careful. Godfrey’s just too damn fast. Always been that way, you know?”
Just watch out. You’re getting buggy, Calvin. It won’t do the people you’re supposed to protect any good if you wig out and accidentally gun them down.
“I know, I-” Meyers broke off the conversation as something squished under his foot. He looked down, letting the lights set onto either side of his helmet shine over the floor. Thin red-black cords – almost veins – wound their way up over the floor and bulkheads. Looking up, he could see that they were even on the ceiling. The grates covering nearby airvents were busted and warped where these strange growths had pushed their way through the metal slats. or pushed their way out under the frame. Several bulkheads appeared to strain at the seams, like building flagstones pushed up by roots and plant growth.
On the wall were several colour-coded directional arrows, all leading deeper into the overgrown part of the station, their lettering faded by time.
SE T ON G
SE ON RY TR M SYS EM STA O N 3
AT OSP E IC P OCE SI G [ ORTH]
HYD O ON CS [N TH]
SEC RI Y C TR L [NOR H]
None of those places sounded familiar. Calvin brought up the station schematics on his HUD and frowned as he studied them. Either he’d gone too far past the intersection he’d been looking for, DROP 47’s layout was different from a standard Elysium, or... both were true and this was a worse mess than he’d thought. Meyers paused, thinking. He didn’t particularly want to go further down this hallway, but backtracking would only give Godfrey a chance to catch up. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he’d passed the junction he wanted. It would cut across several districts and take him back towards the center of the arm, where he was sure to find some survivors. The trick was getting onto the right corridor. This place was a labyrinth that would have done Minos proud.
Down the vein-grown hallway, he heard something call out in the distance, its strange unnerving cry echoing through the corridor, making the source impossible to localize.
He looked back down the way he’d come, but saw no indication of his pursuer. Devil in the dark, or the devil I know... She was waiting for him, he knew. Stalking him. Maybe even watching. If he turned around...
The tram tunnel would give him quicker access to the rest of the arm and if he’d missed his intersection, he’d be able to backtrack up the tunnel to it, or take the tunnel itself. That was what he told himself, what he thought made him take one step and then another down the hallway.
As he moved, his heavy treads crushed the glistening red sinews, causing dark liquid to ooze out of them.
~
She tasted blood.
He’d backhanded her when she’d talked back, thrown her to the ground. The floor stank. No surprise there; it was covered in a thin layer of filth and felt greasy and gritty on her skin. They were in one of the other cells; he’d wanted privacy, but he also hadn’t wanted to wait.
Emily wiped her mouth with the back of one hand and rolled onto her side as she looked up at her attacker. The corners of her mouth twitched. “Just couldn’t stay away could you, Artie?”
He hated that nickname.
~
The air grew more humid as he travelled deeper into the hallway; Calvin was now sure he was going the wrong way. Each step he took squished the substrate under his feet. No longer just the branching cords that had slithered their way through bulkheads and decks, it was now a fleshy carpet, spongy and moist, like diseased skin over blood vessels. This creeping ooze had bubbled through air vents and seams in the walls, eroding and rusting the metal around its pustulent boils where decades of pressure had yielded openings in the deck and ceiling, entrail-like cords of the stuff hanging down like fleshy stalactites.
Some throughfares – corridors and stairwells, elevators and rooms – had been entirely choked off with the stuff, grown over with quivering membranes and shivering, bulbous agglomerations of the strange organic matter, these structures trembling as he passed, some oozing the same blood-like fluid that had wept from the broken veins beneath his feet. The trooper knelt down and prodded the fetid carpet. No, not dead. Living tissue. But from what? What had made this? He couldn’t tell what the substance was – was it actually as fleshy as it appeared, or was it some kind of plant? A fungus or bacterial colony?
Flies and other insects buzzed about the strange biological matting and if he looked closely enough, he could see worms and other things squirming and crawling through it, like maggots through rotten meat. Had these pests been brought over by incautious ships, or had they been here since the station had been built? He couldn’t say.
There: just below a thin, translucent film of the gunk – another direction marking. Calvin brushed the layer of quivering filth off the wall, reading the words beneath it.
ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSING G2
WARNING: HARZARDOUS CONDITIONS. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
USE PROTECTIVE GEAR AT ALL TIMES IN DESIGNATED AREAS
DECONTAMINATE BEFORE ENTRY
And, in thick black ink that had almost been erased itself, one of the station’s other visitors had scrawled a new warning:
IT BREATHES
Meyers took a step back. He wasn’t sure what that meant, whether it was an actual warning or simply the product of another broken mind, but now facing Jane was starting to seem like the better of his options.
Calvin...
He froze. No, that was just his imagination playing tricks on him again. “Just my mind,” he whispered. “That’s all. She’s not here.”
“Calvin,” Godfrey repeated and Meyers started – that was her voice. She was on his comm. She was on his God-damned comm! “Where are you, little lost Eta? Don’t you want to come and play with me?” Through the channel, he thought he heard the snap-hiss of her disruptor unsheathing. “You shouldn’t go off alone,” Godfrey continued. “It’s very dangerous here. Where are you, Calvin? Don’t you want to be safe?” A beat. “I can make you safe. I have to. Come on Calvin. Come and play...” she whispered, almost pleading.
Meyers didn’t answer; she’d zero in on his position if he did. His own tracking software had given him a rough idea of her position... she was just one level and a few hundred meters away. If he fell back now, he’d run right into her. No, he’d find his way to the tram station and double-back while she was still chasing ghosts. That was what he’d do.
Keeping an eye out for any ambushes, he headed further into the darkness as the ground shivered beneath his feet.
“Calvin...” the Ghost trooper tried a final time. “This is the better way, I promise. It’ll be quick. You don’t want to be here. You don’t want that burden. Please, Calvin... Let me help you.”
~
His mask was of some bird – perhaps an owl, with brown and white feathers painted onto the cheeks, forehead and around the eyes, with a worn, once-yellow beak for a nose. His eyes were a vivid, but off-colour green, perhaps due to disease or some genetic quirk expressing itself. His clothes were from Primal’s stores, un-named and un-marked corporate jackets and trousers. His shoes were industrial workboots, and from a worn leather belt hung an ugly dark-bladed knife with a grip wrapped in duct tape. The ring of keys on his hip jingled as he moved, held to his waist by a small Velcro loop. His fingernails were short and chewed down and his fingers twitched and shivered in his excitement.
He stared at Shannon with naked, eager lust in his eyes, his dry, cracked lips smacking together as he licked his hands. “Hayes-Halo,” he mumbled, touching one hand to his mouth, like a child presented with a present they never expected to get. “Hayes. Halo. Angel…” he reached forward with one hand – it smelled like soap – and touched Shannon’s cheek. “Angel… angels fall into Acheron.” She watched him carefully, wondering if this was what it felt like to go mad. He stroked his hand down her flank, tapping the sides of her cuirass. “Angels fall into sin.”
She could hurt him. She saw, in her mind, each and every sick, debased thing that he planned to do to her. And she could just as easily envision what she could do to him. She could all but feel the crush of his bones, the wet pops of vertebrae and squishing of organs.
She wanted to do all that and more. All her fear, all her anger, all the terror and running and everything that had happened since she’d come to this place…
Her friends, butchered by monsters, hunted and killed by madmen.
One of the people she’d promised to protect butchered like meat.
Another taken away to be abused.
Her breath came faster and her right leg twitched. Her ‘suitor’ was so intent on her that he didn’t notice the rattle of the tine as she tugged on it. She was almost there.
She wanted to stop this.
Make it all stop. I can do that. I can.
He licked her cheek, planting slobbering kisses on her skin. Her heart pounded in her chest. She barely even heard Louis fighting to get free, red-faced and hurling obscenities at the feral, his voice muted as if from a great distance. He shouldn’t be straining himself. Abigail was furiously tugging at her chains, the shackles on her wrists digging into her skin. She could hurt herself if she kept doing that.
The feral licked her face, standing back and smiling. “You taste good.”
Shannon’s pupils dilated, the pittance of light in the cell becoming a glare of brilliance.
She knew how to hurt this man. She wanted to hurt him. It didn’t matter what he was, who he’d been, what had made him like this. She didn’t want to save him. She wanted him to suffer. A thousand different ways to do it flashed through her head and her breath deepened, her entire body quivering.
He was here and every part of her wanted it. Almost every part.
Inside, there was still some part of her screaming, crying out in horror at this… this blasphemous feeling, but it didn’t matter. She could crush his spine. Smash his ribs. Even out of her armour, she weighed more than he did. She was stronger, better trained. She could kill him at any time. But that wouldn’t get her what she wanted. She needed something more than simple violence. Knowing that, knowing what she wanted, what she could do... it felt good. Ugly and wrong, but... good.
Her mouth opened, her warm breath stirring the cool, dry air of the cell. I know what I’m going to do to you. Her cheeks flushed and warmth radiated to every part of her, tingling and lovely. This is wrong.
His hands ran down her body, gripping her rear. A lurid, ugly smile spread across his face as he started to tug at her pants.
She smiled in return. Yes, it is. There was no sadism, no eagerness in that expression. No sorrow. It was completely devoid of all emotion as she settled on a course of action and with one final heave, the spike snapped from its holdings, and Shannon’s legs were free-
-in the same motion, she drew them up to her chest, pushing her suitor back-
-the soles of her feet planted against his chest-
-sick green eyes widened behind his fanciful mask, but there was no time for him react, only that instant of comprehension-
-she pushed, throwing him back against the wall with stunning force-
-dazed but not downed, he shook his head, trying to come to grips with what had happened-
-he reacted as any of them did with presented with an immediate threat, he charged-
-she let him come, that same blank smile on her face-
-then her legs snapped out and wrapped around his neck, her thighs constricting his throat like a python’s coils.
The feral man made a helpless bleat of surprise and terror as his would-be conquest choked the life from him. His hands beat at her flanks, scrabbling uselessly at the armour plating there, but even if his dirty nails had found her unprotected skin, he wouldn’t have been able to force her to release him. His fingers clawed at the backside of her thighs, scratching for purchase at the bodyglove’s fabric and finding none. He gasped helplessly and gaped like a fish, his eyes bulging as capillaries burst within them.
Die, her mind pounded that single thought at him, an ugly cadence. I want you to die.
He tried to push his hands up between her thighs to pry them apart, but he wasn’t strong enough, her legs a vice around his throat. She tightened her own grip on him, feeling his vertebrae creak between her legs. His tongue stuck out between his teeth and he made desperate sucking noises as he tried to draw in air. His struggles were getting weaker and weaker as his body starved for oxygen.
Shannon’s own breath came in short, raspy gasps, beads of sweat forming on her skin, running down her spine, dripping into her eyes. Her entire body felt warm, felt like it was being caressed... Stop this! a part of her was screaming. Stop it! You’re killing him! He’s helpless, you’ve won!
But it felt… it felt…
Good. It felt good.
Less than a day ago, she’d taken her first life, gunning down Primal’s deranged personnel. It hadn’t been like this, hadn’t felt like this. Something silky and poisonous whispered to her now; that had been too chaotic, too random. This… this was something she’d planned. Something she’d envisioned and forged. This was what she’d felt in the hall, the fleeting desire to have the man who’d trapped her and her people at her mercy, to be able to visualize what she could do to him, to do it. To hurt another living being. To kill him.
No! that part of her howled again, overshadowed by the new feelings flooding her through her, her entire body reacting. Her skin was flushed and rippled with goosebumps, her nipples stiffened and that was not the extent of her arousal… No! NO!
This was sick. This was wrong. You can still stop this! the voice cried out in despair, begging and pleading. This isn’t what you are! You can stop this!
No. I won’t. Her lips drew back from her teeth in a rictus, starting to tremble. This... this feels like...
A weak death rattle escaped from the man as the last of his strength faded and he sagged against her, his head tipping to one side as his dull, glassy eyes staring sightlessly past Shannon. As she felt him die, she gasped, a high-pitched yelp escaping from her lips as her body bucked against the wall… Did I just…? Oh God. Oh God.
As her mind cleared, it was all she could do not to vomit in shame and self-loathing. She let the corpse fall to the floor, refusing to look at Louis or Abigail. She couldn’t face them. Not after what she’d just done. But she didn’t have a lot of time; sooner or later the dead man’s friends were going to realize that something was wrong, if they hadn’t already done so. Her feet were still chained together, but without the peg holding the chain down, she had more slack between them. Shannon pried her left foot out of its boot, reaching down and taking the key ring between her big toe and index toe, clutching it between them. That was the easy part. The next part…
Her arms were still chained and she wasn’t nearly dexterous nor flexible enough to reach up and unlock her own chains or those of her compatriots with just her feet. But she was flexible enough to ‘somersault’ up the wall, her booted foot pressed against the bulkhead, the keys dangling from the other just inches above her shackled hands.
“Easy…” she heard Louis whisper. “Easy, Hayes.” He was staring at her, eyes wide as she loosened her grip on the keys a bit more. They dangled just out of reach… No one seemed to breathe as she let them fall, but her fingers snatched the keys out of the air, clutching tightly to the filthy metal ring. Her feet swung back to the ground as she carefully tested each key on the chain until she felt one slide into the lock on her right wrist. She twisted it.
Click.
Glorious.
Shannon tugged the loose chain off its tine as she freed her other hand. Her foot thumped into something soft and warm. She ignored it; she didn’t have time for that. Hayes-Thief. Hayes-Saboteur. Hayes-Worm. I guess now you have a new name to call me.
“Abby,” she knelt and unchained her ‘big sister’s’ ankles, standing up to unlock Abigail’s cuffs. Tears ran down Shannon’s face, and she still refused to look Abigail in the eyes. I’m sorry. I don’t know what... I’m sorry. She didn’t know what to say, ashamed of what she’d done, what she was about to ask. “Hurt them.”
The Darkknell balled her left hand into a fist, wrapping the chain around it. She didn’t offer a pithy comment, no one-liner or crooked smirk. Her lips were twisted up into the adrenaline-fuelled rictus that she could never banish and her dark blue eyes were as warm as the crushing depths of the ocean. “I will, Shannie,” she vowed. “I will.” Spoiler
Calvin Meyers realizes he's lost, but is unwilling to backtrack and face Jane. He encounters strange growths covering the walls, thickening as he moves deeper into the station towards an atmospheric processing plant.
Killion returns and takes Emily away; when a feral tries to rape Shannon, she breaks free of her restraints and kills him, ashamed and sickened by how good it felt. She unlocks Abigail, who promises to make the ferals pay for what they've done.
), or making them dark just for its own sake. Bleah to that.
Those were bad, man. Puns are bad, mkay?
It's nice seeing a story that can get into the technical details without spiraling into mindless technobabble.
