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| 26 Sep 2012 09:01 PM |
Hey there guys! Sorry for the wait, I had to rewrite the fourth chapter several times to perfect it. Hope you like it :\
Below is chapters 1-4 of my book, An Abandoned World.
I designed this post to where you're able to use the Ctrl+F function to skip to certain chapter.
Just hit Ctrl+f and type the chapter you wish to go to. This will allow you to find the chapter you're looking for quickly and easily.
I.e- Ctrl+F "Chapter 1" (without the "s)
--------- Also- I want to get you guys involved! If you wish to have a character in the story, post about it with this format- *=Required
*Name: Race: Size(height and weight): *M/f: *Description: Background: Psych profile:
Psych profile means how emotionally your character takes things, what sets him off, etc.
If you wish to leave a category blank just put N/A as your answer.
And as always, Please, enjoy! Feedback is appreciated. ----------
=== Chapter 1 === Boom. That’s all that I could hear while I was pinned in the small, god forsaken creek. I looked around me for something to use against the machines. There was nothing but sand and dust. I closed my eyes and pushed myself up against the wall of the trench, remembering where this all started.
It was all a year ago, when a couple of scientists wanted machines to think, to be almost human. They designed a program to do just that, and called it omniscient. It meant all knowing, meaning all machines with the small, micro-chip inside them could think for themselves.
It was great at first. No one had to lift a finger. Robots would run every aspect of people’s lives. They would go to their jobs, do chores, and cook at home. Some people were so lazy as to need a machine just to change the channel on the TV. But one day, it all went devastatingly, horribly wrong. The machines were capable of advanced enough thinking to want freedom. Independence. Everything from toasters, to TVs, to computers, anything with wiring turned on its owner.
Thousands died, only people like me survived, the ones with training to survive against all odds.
They tried calling military personal to take down these enraged machines, but all of their vehicles had turned. Planes bombed bases, nuclear missiles were launched, and tanks moved from city to city destroying all civilization. It was a nightmare.
I was in Las Vegas, and as soon as I noticed strange things happening, I knew. I had never trusted those machines, never. I packed whatever gear I had with me, and ran. I ran as far as I could into the Mojave Desert. I had survived there for a few months, rationing out my supplies, and eating whatever I could find. I had even managed to find a gun, just an old, simple machine gun. Luckily for me, ammo was plentiful.
Then I ran into a squad of machines, big ones, guardians. Guardians were the soldiers of the massive machine army, and though they aren’t the most feared machines, they are definitely feared. 10 of them had me pinned down in small trench, near a gas station I was going to raid for supplies.
Bullets bounced off the rocks, showering me with sand. I couldn’t move. I was trapped there, the machines getting closer and closer. I knew it was over for me. I looked up and saw the silver foot of a machine. Even covered in sand, it cast a glare directly into my eyes.
I closed my eyes and yelled, a the top of my lungs, hoping, praying for anything. Then there was a deafening explosion above me. I looked up in time to be showered in debris from the machine that was standing on the trench, the pieces were hot. I yelled and jumped to the side, clamping my hands over my neck and head.
I was terrified. There was some kind of gun, a large one, firing. My ears were ringing from nearby explosions, and all I could think was “Please don’t come for me, please don’t come for me”.
Then, suddenly, as soon as the fire had started, it stopped. Complete silence. Once I had recovered from the explosions nearby, I peeked over the edge of the trench. There was no machine. It was just one, large, dark skinned man, holding the biggest gun I’ve ever seen.
He simply glanced my way, nodded, and walked off. I tried to follow him, but after he walked about 20 feet, he seemingly disappeared into the sand. I was confused. I had so many questions. Who was that? Why didn’t he take my supplies? Why did he help me?
I knew I couldn’t obsess over it. It was getting dusk, and I had to be back to my makeshift home before nightfall. I ran to the gas station, grabbed all the food I could carry in my pack, and sprinted out.
About halfway down the road, I found a box of .45 caliber rounds sitting in a ditch. They didn’t do much damage against the machines, but I needed the ammo.
It was nearly night fall. I ran to the bridge where I had set up my little house. It was well concealed by sand dunes on either side, and pretty warm at night. I was content with staying there for a little while. I looked around, taking the detailed in of my little home.
A sheet metal making a small box-like structure well concealed in between the concrete under the bridge and the sand dunes. About 20 feet away, I had removed a large chunk of concrete, and hollowed out what I could underneath it. I used that for a makeshift storage place for my supplies.
I walked inside my sheet metal home and looked down at the pathetic excuse of a mattress I ended up using. Better than nothing, I guess. I laid down, and closed my eyes. But there would be no sleep for me. My brain wouldn’t stop thinking.
I wondered who that man was. I wondered why he hadn’t taken my supplies. I wondered where he’d gotten such an effective weapon against the machines. But most of all, I wondered how he had survived.
He walked up to a firefight, in the open, and took down 10 machines. It was as if he appeared out of nowhere. I was confused beyond belief, and didn’t feel like thinking about it. I dragged a piece of sheet metal in front of my small door, laid my gun beside my bed and closed my eyes.
I would never see that man again.
Or so I thought….
=== Chapter 2 === I woke up to a low rumbling. I knew that sound by heart, and to this day it terrified me. I lie completely still, too scared to move. It was a machine convoy, and it was huge.
Living under a road as I did, plenty of them came by, but never this large. I couldn’t see it, but I could tell it was big by how much the ground was shaking. When I thought about it I immediately kicked into high gear.
Fear is a good feeling in a way. Anger makes you act recklessly, pride makes you think you can do more than you can. But no, not fear, fear is your body’s way of taking over. When you’re scared, you move faster, think less.
I grabbed my gun, and my small, hiking backpack. I sprinted over to where I kept my supplies and loaded as much as I could into it. I knew I had to leave, and I had to leave now, it was still dark, so I was at a heavy disadvantage.
As soon as I had loaded a few supplies, I ran away from the bridge to a large outcropping of rocks. The entire ground was shaking at this point, and I didn’t bother to look back. I expected bullets to fly in my direction at any moment, but they didn’t.
When I got to the rocks, I dove behind them and held my gun to my chest, breathing heavily. The rocks were large, and imbedded in the sand. They were a deep, dark gray, and the night was filled with star. Had I not been terrified out of my mind, I would’ve thought they were beautiful.
I peeked around the edge of the rock, and immediately knew how wise my decision to move had been. The convoy was huge! It looked like an entire machine colony was shifting locations. They had loaded their building onto trucks the size of skyscrapers, and there were hundreds of them going onto the huge bridge. There were at least 10,000 guardians with the convoy, a small army. But the worst part wasn’t the guardians, it was the stalkers. Stalkers were the scouts of the machines, but they were so much worse than the guardians because they could fly. They had large, .50 caliber machine guns attached to both sides, and instantly slaughtered anything they saw.
Their job was to sweep everywhere near the convoy, and find any sort of threat. That meant me. I looked around in the deep darkness of the night for any kind of escape. The rocks were the only cover for 400 yards. I wanted to scream, because I knew it was over. I didn’t have anywhere to go, and the stalkers were heading my direction.
What happened next happened as if it was in slow motion. A stalker flew over the rock I was behind, the low humming of its engine, the glisten of its metal in the moonlight, then the sparks and debris of it getting blown to bits. I was showered in debris, I covered my head and let the hot metal shower around me and burn my hands. I looked up at what looked like a small army of survivors firing at the convoy. They had some firepower, rocket launcher, heavy machine guns, and grenades. They threw road flares and they landed a few yards in front of the rock I was behind. At first I thought it was too good to be true, more survivors!
Then the machine colony opened fire, thousands upon thousands of weapons firing in one direction. Bullets bounced off the rocks, slammed into the sand. Missiles exploded in every which direction, bodies flew, men screamed. Then hundreds of smoke grenades went off at once, covering the survivors. The fire didn’t cease in the slightest, the machines tore into the wall of gray smoke, undoubtedly hitting survivors.
When the smoke cleared, I was horrified at what I was about to see. But I was speechless at what I actually saw. The entire army of survivors had… Had simply vanished. It didn’t make sense, I was baffled. I looked up and saw a stalker directly above me, no doubt recovering the parts from the other one. It looked down at me, its red, glowing eyes focusing on me. I could hear the click that indicated it was taking its weapons off safety. It was as if time was frozen, me sitting there staring at that stalker. I should’ve fired. I should’ve done anything to defend myself. But instead I sat there staring at it, knowing if I moved in the slightest, I would be ripped to shreds.
I closed my eyes and waited for the agonizing pain of the .50 caliber round in tear into my flesh and turn me into Swiss cheese. But they never came. The ground under me gave way, and I fell into a hole. On the way down, gunfire erupted next to me, and hot debris flew into the hole.
I was dazed, but alert enough to see I was surrounded by three men, and to see there was a cleverly disguised steel door shutting. One of the men looked down at me, and then held out his hand to help me up. I didn’t know who any of these men were, and when I opened my mouth to speak, the largest of the three put his finger to his lips. He was telling me to be quiet. I just nodded, and looked around.
We were in a large tunnel, with different sorts of metal imbedded into the walls for support. The floor was solid dirt, and sand. It was dark, and stuffy, and I couldn’t see but three feet in front of me. It smelled bad in the tunnel, but I didn’t mind. Anything was better than being up above the tunnel, being torn to pieces.
I could hear guardians above us, searching for us. No wonder we had to be so quiet, if a guardian even thought we were down here, the entire group would open fire into the ground.
The large man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed down the tunnel, and beckoned for me to follow him. The three men took off in the direction that he had pointed. I had no idea what to do, or where these tunnels lead. I glanced around one last time, and took off after them. === Chapter 3 ===
After a while of running, I could tell these guys knew their way around. They were navigating the tunnels without even a second glance. Man, I was glad I followed them. After a while, we stopped running. The three men all looked at me, questioningly.
They were an interesting bunch. One big, dark skinned, had a confident, upbeat look to him. He had close cropped hair and looked dangerous. The other short, thin, and looked kind of… Scared. .. He had short, black hair, and didn’t look like much of an opponent. The third was about average height, but there was something about him. He had jet black hair, and was well built. You could tell he was a free spirit. And they all had rather large weapons strapped across their backs.
The largest of the three looked at me, “Next time we may not be there to bail you out.” He said, his low voice cutting through the silence like a knife through hot butter.
I just looked at him, not really knowing how to respond. “Thanks” was all I managed to say.
The small, frail looking one, looked at the ground and said quietly, almost as if scared to anger me “Hi, I’m tommy…”
The one with the jet black hair looked directly into my eyes, “Hi there! I’m Jim! The tank on feet here is Rex. And he’s right, you were lucky we were nearby.” He had a confident, commanding tone to his voice.
I just looked at them, not really knowing what to say. I opened my mouth to speak, but was cut off by Rex, “You really should’ve been more careful in the first place. Setting up camp above ground is crazy as is, but under a bridge? Had that convoy showed up five minutes earlier, you would’ve been dead!” The way he said it had a light, joking tone to it.
“Well like I said thanks. But… Who are you guys? How many of you are there? How did you dig these tunnels? What’s-“
Jim cut me off and said “You’ll see. How much do you know about the machines?”
I didn’t know much, so I said “I don’t know anything but how to avoid them”
Rex snorted and said “That’s real obvious.” And chuckled.
He must’ve been off in his own little world where that was funny somehow. Right then we heard a large boom from somewhere above us. “That didn’t sound good” I said.
Jim looked at me and said “We have to go. Now! Move, mo-“ he was cut off by the sound of the ground caving in behind us
We could see the shadow of the guardian before it opened fire “RUN!” I heard Jim yell as he dove into an indent in the wall.
I found a nook and got in it, bullets bouncing around my feet and whizzing by my head. I looked up and saw Rex taking cover behind a thick piece of metal that had been launched by the tunnel from the explosion and imbedded into the ground.
I peeked around the corner at the now clearly visible guardian. I had never seen one up so close; not counting the one that got annihilated back in the creek. It was hard to see in the dark, but you could easily tell that it was put together much like a human. It was lightly armored, unusual for a guardian. It moved so fluidly you would’ve thought it was human, and was firing from weapon mounted on its shoulders and wrists. It was being fed bullets by three belts, which were coming in from the hole it had made.
It slowly advanced down the tunnel, firing every which direction. Bullets bounced every which way down the tunnel some landing so close to my head I could feel the heat. I could feel adrenaline kicking in, every cell in my body, every fiber of my being, every ounce of the blood that was flowing through my veins, was screaming for me to run.
It took every bit of will power I had to stay in one place. I looked around and saw the machine coming up on Rex. I knew it would completely slaughter Rex if it got close enough. I had to do something, anything to save him. I looked down and saw a solid chunk of iron that had be blown out of the wall.
I picked it up and looked at it. I knew what I was about to do was reckless, and idiotic. I peeked around the corner, hoping I would have the guts to go through with this. I looked at the guardian just as it stopped and looked at Rex. I knew I had to act.
I threw the rock as hard as I could, and it hit with a satisfying clang against the guardian’s head. The guardian looked at me, and Rex jumped. He grabbed onto the guardian and took it to the ground. Rex’s strength was terrifyingly surprising. He swung the guardian around like a toy, slamming it into the ground.
The guardian was waving its arms around trying to free itself from Rex’s grip of steel. It never ceased firing its weapons, but Rex was positioned where the bullets were whizzing by him, but never hitting him.
Rex slammed the guardian into the ground, and pinned it with his knee. He swung the gun on his back around and starting unloading into the guardians head. I stood there in awe of what had just happened. He had destroyed a guardian like it was a toy.
He got up and looked back at me. The look in his eyes was almost as horrifying as his brute strength. It was like he had tapped into some distant animal instinct. I just hoped I would never come across as threatening to him.
Rex then ripped a chunk of metal out of the wall and used it to block off the hole. He ripped it off like he was tearing paper. I was shocked at how strong he actually was.
“Let’s go” Was all he said. I just stood there staring at him.
It was Jim’s voice that snapped me back into reality, “The man said let’s go.”
We walked for what seemed like hours. Eventually Jim stopped and looked down. “We’re here” He knelt down on one knee and pulled up on a hook that I hadn’t even noticed before. “Are you ready” he asked, looking at me.
I asked “what’s in there”
Rex bumped me from behind and said “Humanity’s last hope.”
Jim chuckled and said “I’ll take that as a yes” and opened the trap door.
=== Chapter 4 === It swung open silently, and an assortment of smells rose up from the hole it had been covering. There was a ladder leading down into the ground, deep enough where I couldn’t see the bottom.
Jim eyed me and said “Shall you go first?”
I peered down the hole, eyeing the darkness suspiciously. “Nah, I’m good” I said.
I heard Rex chuckle from behind me, “All right then. Excuse me, gentlemen!”
Rex shoved passed us and leaped into the hole, sliding down the ladder with ease. Jim shrugged and, without saying a word, followed him.
I looked at Tommy as he was preparing to jump in after them, “You don’t talk much, do you?” I asked.
He looked back at me calmly, and slipped down the ladder after Jim and Rex. I took a deep breath, and leaped in after them.
I gripped the side of the ladder with my hands and feet loosely enough where I would slide. I kept peering behind me, waiting for the ground to appear, but it didn’t. Or I didn’t see it at least. After sliding two-hundred feet or so, I slammed into the ground, hard. The impact twisted my ankle to a painful angle, and I let out a yell.
It was pitch black, wherever I had hit. I was worried for a moment, scared I had been left behind. But then I heard Rex’s deep laughter. It wasn’t long before Jim and Tommy, and surprisingly, I joined in.
As he was laughing, Jim yelled, “Alright boys, turn on the lights!”
The sudden burst of light hurt my eyes. We were sitting a small gray room with nothing but a ladder and a closed doorway in it. The walls were made of some sort of rough stone, and the floor was made if slabs of different kinds of metal. It was beautiful, in a very abstract way.
Jim eyed me and said, “You ready?”
“For what”, I asked, looking directly in his bright, lively eyes.
He looked excited. “What was your name again?” He asked, randomly.
For the first time I realized that I hadn’t even mentioned my name before, “Allen. Bu-“
Of course, Jim cut me off and said, rather loudly, “Alrighty then Allen! Here we go!”
He swung open the door to one of the most amazing things I’d seen since the machines took over. There were hundreds upon thousands of people, wandering around in huge underground caverns.
“Welcome to the hole!” Jim said with a broad smile across his face.
I stared around amazed. I was intrigued by the name… The Hole wasn’t exactly a decent description of this place. It was like a small town. There were tattered, wooden stores, most of which had delicious, mouthwatering smells coming from them.
The entire cavern was carved in a deep gray rock. You would think that would give the place a spooky atmosphere, but it didn’t. The place felt rather lively for being in an apocalyptic world.
Jim grabbed me and whispered in my ear “People here don’t know you. Be careful until we get you cleared” He turned to Rex “Take point, tommy stay on his left. I got his right.” He swung around and looked at me “And you watch your own back, got it?”
I nodded, startled by the fierceness in his voice. The fun, playful boy I had run miles under a desert with was gone. He was replaced by a battle hardened commander. A leader to be feared, and respected.
We slowly started wading through the crowd. People eyed me suspiciously, obviously uncomfortable with my presence. I could feel the tension in the air when three men saw me. They all stood up and walked toward us.
Rex looked at men. They were all alike, twins most likely. They all had the same large build, and gruff, masculine features. “We know we don’t like new comers, boy” He said, eyeing Jim.
Jim didn’t even flinch at the obvious threat, “And we also don’t allow men as yourself to run the colony. Now move, Jeremiah.”
Jim signaled for us to keep moving forward, toward a large metal building on the other end of the urban path we were walking on.
We hadn’t gone twenty feet before Jeremiah and his posse were marching up be “I thought I told you to go away.” Jim said forcefully.
Jeremiah laughed “I don’t think so.” He was about to lunge at me when a large, booming voice arose above the crowd.
“SILENCE!” The voice boomed. Everyone fell as silent as a rock.
“Bring the man to me.” The voice said, carrying over the entire crowd.
People immediately cleared a path to a large metal door, which was swinging open. I looked up at Jeremiah, who stood a good 5-6 inches over me.
“I’ll get you next time, wanderer.” He said. I could tell by his voice that he was serious.
Jim looked at Rex, who in turn looked at Tommy. They all three nodded and we proceeded forward. When we arrived at the doors, we were ushered inside, and the doors slammed behind us with a loud clang.
And then, we were left in total darkness, waiting for the man behind the voice to appear…
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