Steel and Starlight

I walk up to the gate. The darkness peals away as I step into the projector’s glow. The guards notice me. This area is already meant to be accessible only to personnel. I breathe in slowly. They point their rifles at me. The mechanical elements slide and click as their weapons are armed. The First yells a warning, the Second takes aim. I keep walking.

Focus.

The Second fires a bullet. It easily penetrates through my jacket and tee-shirt, but bounces off my metal skin, now visible through the bullet hole. I keep walking towards them, unharmed. The guns are lowered. The two men share a moment of surprise, confusion, quickly followed by panic. Another warning, though now, the guard’s voice is shaking, unsure. I take another step. Their eyes widen as they realize who I am, what I am. I stop, planting my feet firmly into the ground. They point their deadly tools towards me once again, barrel points trembling.

Ignition.

I take my hands out of my pockets and quickly cross them in front of me in an X shape. Moments before the rifles spit their deadly fire, I turn all of my skin to metal. The two guards are now but scared children. They empty their clips on me, tearing through my sleeves, blowing my hood off of my head, and dotting my jean’s fabric with holes. Muzzle flare illuminates the night, synchronized with the crack of the guns. Compressed bullets sing and chime in symphony as they fall around me.

Void.

Her face surfaces into my consciousness. Her laugh echoes in my ear. A spark of anger resonates through my body. I push it aside. Emotions aren’t useful right now. I grow small, elongated fragments out of my arms. Projectiles. Sharp. Deadly. In front of me the guards are fumbling with their guns, trying to reload them. They are clearly inexperienced. New. Young. Guilt whispers to me. I push it aside, just as I did the anger.

Alone

Time slows to a stop. I swing my arms outwards. At the peak of the swing, I detach the shards from my metal skin. They hurl through the air like deadly feathers, reflecting the projector’s lights like a Disco ball at an old fashion club. Instantly they connect with the bodies of the two men. They fall backwards as the momentum of the shards converges into their bodies. Their weapons clatter across the concrete. I walk up to and then past them. They are littered with shards. A dark pool of blood is quickly spreading around the bodies. Their expression is that of a frozen scream, terrified and lonely.

I push pity aside with the rest. Emotions aren’t useful right now.

………………MetalHEART//ReleaseEMOTION:……….princessisinanothercastle…………dots……………………

It’s been a whole year since I last submitted to the Speakeasy! I’ve seen new faces and familiar ones while glancing around the site a few days ago, and it’s all very exciting. I’m also trying a lot of new things with this particular piece. I’m curious to see how it came through. Comments, criticism and feedback is much appreciated. I’ve experienced with these characters before. If you so wish, feel free to read more here and here.

 

DS- Sand, Dust, and Blood

The night was plagued by the orange glow of the sodium vapour lamps. The spots of light illuminated a street contained between two compounds. The rammed earth walls seemed brittle. Garbage was piled up in a corner. The cloudy sky concealed the stars. A thin layer of sand and dust coated the dirt street, making his footsteps silent. The young man wandering through the dark alleyway seemed out of place. He was a young European man wearing an expensive Italian suit, walking quietly in one of Morocco’s poorest neighbourhoods.

If it was brighter, or if he stepped directly under a lamppost, which he purposefully avoided, one could have seen the anger concealed beneath his tense features, and the hard, piercing look of his eye. This was the face of a man whom had been betrayed for one too many time. He was sick and tired of the false promises, the worthless vows of protection, and the hypocritical speeches that, in the end, turned out to be driven by self-interest. Since childhood, he’d been chased by the shadows. Everywhere he had sought protection, those he met either used him as a tool for their own agenda, or tried to turn him in to those who wanted him in their hands.

He was sick of being seen for what he was and not who he was.

He was interrupted in his inner ranting by whispers from behind. He turned around quickly, only to find five dark figures lined up in the dark street. Some were carrying led pipes and one had a baseball bat. “Petty thugs”, he spat. The five men were nervously chatting amongst themselves. He recognised the word “money” and “stranger” amongst the muffled voices. They were going to mug him.

The young man sighed.  The thugs were surrounding him, and proceeded to take off his jacket. He wasn’t planning on handing it over, though.

He threw the suit jacket towards the wall on one side of the street. He immediately stretched his palm out towards the jacket. A metallic sound was heard, and the jacket was instantly pegged to the wall by a dark, crystal-like shape.

Unaware of what had just happened, one of the man holding a led pipe charged him, yelling. The young man spun around and thrust his hand into his assailant’s stomach. Instead of a muffled thud, the distinct sound of metal cutting through flesh arose from the man’s stomach. The man’s arms went limp, and the led pipe fell with a thud. The young man pulled his arm out. Where his hand was, there was now an oblong, xiphoid shape, a prolongation of his arm, orange light running down it with a deadly metallic wetness.

The man fell to the floor, dead, a dark pool of liquid spreading around the corpse. The four remaining thugs were momentarily perplexed, and the man used that to his advantage. The pent-up rage within him needed a blood-bath. The expensive leather in his shoes cracked as huge metallic talons pierced them, immediately digging into the ground, giving the man leverage. He burst onto one of the remaining assailants, burrowing his sword arm into his chest, pegging him against the wall opposite to his jacket. The hunter had become the prey.

He jumped from the wall and flew across the street, turning his other arm into a deadly tool identical to the first, and spread his lethal limbs like wings as his trajectory brought him between two of the remaining thugs.

Having just witnessed his four friends get cut down, the last of the muggers turned tail, dropped his led pipe, and ran away from the European man, his legs powered by terror and adrenaline. After a few moments, his curiosity got the better of him. He looked over his shoulder. The last thing he saw was the blurry outline of a metallic shard whistling straight towards him at subsonic speed, before it brutally vaporised his skull.

…………DESERT::SAND………………..MUTANT//BLOOD………………………………………………………………………..

Hey guys! I don’t post often any more, and this one is too long for the Speakeasy (Is it even called that now?) so I hope the few of you that catch it enjoy it. This is another vignette into a plot line I’m working on for my own enjoyment, but its place is up here with the great majority of my other pieces. There is already a vignette from this storyline on this blog right up here, which is chronologically later than this one in the overall storyline. Comments appreciated!

 

YeahWrite Summer 2014- Metal and Rain

The air around me was cold, yet I didn’t feel it. All I felt was fear. Fear, and the adrenaline pulsing throughout my body. I was out of breath. My shoes fell heavily onto the floor as I ran, accompanied by a cold, watery sound as they hit the wet pavement. He was hurrying me along, his hand in mine, his face invisible in the dark night, my sight further weakened by the heavy rainfall.

Through the constant sound of rain hitting ground, an engine, a big one, roared somewhere behind. He spat a cuss and ran faster. Just as my resolve wavered, headlights illuminated the street from behind, causing another pulse of adrenaline through my body.

Hearing the engine get dangerously close, he turned around, grabbed me, and leaped in a perpendicular alleyway. Too late. Being in front of him, I got through safely, but the side view mirror exploded against his left shoulder as the Hummer drove by, projecting the two of us to the ground.

After a few moments, I gathered the courage to stand up. Astonished, I found him standing above me, hand extended towards me. His shoulder showed no sign of damage. However, his jacket seemed to reflect light like the wet armor of a knight where the car had hit him. Failing to puzzle out the situation, I began to ask 100 questions at once. “How did you…. The car… Your shoulder… Are you OK?” Without a word, he pulled me up, and nudged me behind him. Just as he turned to face the alley, familiar headlights blinded us. Doors were opened and shut. Mechanical clicks echoed off the walls of the narrow alley. Guns.

Abruptly, the cold hit me. I was suddenly aware of being drenched to the bone. I fought the rising anxiety and tried to keep a cool head. We didn’t do anything wrong! What do these people want with us? This HAS to be a misunderstanding! Since when is going to the cinema a crime? Are these people even part of the police? Yes, they had gyros at the beginning. Why did he run away? What’s going on here??

My puzzled thoughts were interrupted by a booming voice ahead. “Alright, Shape-shifter, you’re coming with us. Come peacefully, and I can guarantee your safety, and that of the Telepath as well!”

Did he just call him a shape-shifter? Did he just call me a telepath?

I was about to voice my interrogations when he disappeared in a blur. The headlights went out, accompanied by a noise of shattering glass. It was instantly followed by the whistle of air flowing at high speed, and something that sounded like a knife cutting through meat. I ducked and closed my eyes instinctively. A moan of pain and a blind gunshot soon gave way to more brief whistles. I opened my eyes to find a silhouette landing on the hood of the car, crumpling the thin metal, triggering the alarm.

The orange blinkers lit up three figures collapsed on the ground, each with a rifle next to them, the metal shining in the night. I instantly noticed the eerie spike poking out of each body. It had the same metallic texture as the firearm. Pools of dark liquid were spreading around each cadaver, mingling with the pouring rain.

Frightened, I turned my attention to the car. I recognised his slender frame, yet…. Something was off. He stepped down from the hood and calmly walked towards me. That’s when I noticed the oversized talons on his feet, and the long, xiphoid shapes that prolonged his arms. They all had the same metallic texture as the spikes in the bodies, and his shoulder which, as it turns out, was his skin showing through a gaping hole in the fabric of his jacket, torn by the impact. He stopped perhaps a meter in front of me, avoiding my gaze, his expression nervous, almost tense.

His feet turned back to normal and the long blades gave way to five fingers that slowly lost their initial metallic texture. He began to speak, his voice hesitant, barely loud enough to overpower the falling rain.

“I didn’t plan on telling you until I knew you a little better but…” He sighed deeply and looked straight at me. “I’m not what you think I am. Fact is, you aren’t what you think you are.” He pointed towards the car. “However, these people know, and they’re very interested in us…”

::……..SHAPE//percieved……………PURPOSE//assigned………….DETERMINATION//stateofmind………::

 

 

 

Speakeasy 167 – Table Turner

Turner could change things, she could will things to happen and she could, to some extent, change the past. But everything she did came with a price: the twin towers were hit when she saved her parents and little brother from a car crash they had died in, her neighbour died of a heart attack when she stopped a burglar from coming into her house and shooting her in fear trying to get away and she found a dead pigeon on her doorstep the day she undid the entire day and came back to the morning. The retribution was always disproportionate and unpredictable. That’s what made it so dangerous.
Turner was 25 years old though her mind was young and heavy. She would twitch her ear if she was annoyed by something or other and she lived alone in one of those big square bins except this one was stuck for everyone else who tried to open it an it was bigger on the inside. That had cost her three dead cats and a cholera outbreak somewhere in Africa. But she had stopped caring. That was the last time she’d used her “powers”, that sacred “gift”…
She lived scavenging the nearby bins and pickpocketing to buy the food she couldn’t get scavenging. She had ten water bottles she’d fill up at fountains. She had everything she wanted: a quiet life, where no-one would bother her. On the contrary, they seemed to avoid her.
Then she met Sam. She was sitting in the street with her back against the wall, enjoying people not talking to her, walking past fast, swerving to avoid her, even going so far as to cross the street. That’s when Sam came. He was ten years old. A street urchin, starving to death. He was the only one to come near her, to nestle against her, to not mind the smell and the absence of money or decency. And she fell in love.
She showed him her home, she taught him to scavenge and pick pockets and beg. Then she showed him other things, she only wanted him to be happy and she never thought her curse would actually affect her.
And it didn’t. But Sam got hit by a truck. She brought him back to life, but Sam was never the same again.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

Rememberer

Scowling, With that stiffness of walking fast because I don’t have much time but reluctantly because I know I won’t like what I find. Looking scornfully at the lampposts I decide whatever happens tonight I don’t care, I’m going straight home after to forget about it, watching a film, singing in the shower, going to bed. These gang fights get ugly.
Who would’ve thought a policeman’s job to be so alike to the undertaker’s. Or a policewoman.
The problem is that a new violent gang has arisen that we know nothing about and are therefore impossible to stop. All we do know is the horrible state they leave their victims in. Which is why right now, I’d rather be pretty much anywhere but here. But I have to stop them. That’s why I’m here and I’m determined to do my job. No one can mess with people like this and expect to get away with it. I hate this part of my job.
Suddenly I’m at the crime scene but a shrill noise is drilling into my head and blurring my vision.
As I hear my classmates rushing out I remember, this was the last lesson of the day. As I stagger up and pack my blank sheet and the pen that doesn’t work I think of the poor woman who doesn’t know she will never get back home, watch a film, sing in the shower, go to bed. And I don’t want to know who she was. Because I already have enough reasons to cry. I’ve already been enough people, discovered different lives only to find out it was their last moments.
And no one at school or at home ever knew why that boy’s eyes were so full of sadness
The only life I experience that doesn’t die is my own.
No one ever dared to approach him and they all thought it better to let him grieve in peace
But my own life is like so many last moments. I’m always alone.
No one ever knew if he wanted company, but sometimes on his own he looked OK, so maybe he wasn’t always so sad
At least I can never know when I’m about to die. And I feel such intimacy with the people I become for a short while that sometimes, just sometimes, it was worth being with them. To remember them.

 

Speakeasy 164 – Ghost Stories

There is no warning rattle at the door. There is no howling of the wind. There are no white sheets when they come. Ghosts. They just appear. Some take the form they had before they died, some alter it but it’s easier for them to take over animals, especially small ones, especially birds. Small birds. People don’t notice them, I think I’m the only one to see dead people. Of course at first I didn’t know, it was mainly kind people, worried about me but then I met a guy who hated to lie. So he told me the truth. And he told me how he died. Dead people are usually harmless but when they are angry they can appear near your bed and kill you. Of course that’s very hard for them to do.
My best friend is dead, I’m pretty sure she’s the first dead person I’ve known though I can’t be sure. She’s often near me and we talk a lot. At night she always makes sure someone’s beside me if she can’t be there. If she weren’t dead I would have married her later. She knows everything. She’s the only girl worth existing and sometimes I wonder why she sticks around a “little boy” like me. Of course I’m a big boy now but people often get it wrong.
People, living people I mean, say I’m weird. They think I talk to myself. They’re weird, why can’t they see ghosts? I don’t like boys my age. I don’t like girls. I don’t like grown-ups, I don’t like babies, I don’t like puzzles, books are boring, drawing is too long and I don’t like games that involve other people. I like talking to dead people. They know things. They tell me stories about everything. I want to be a pirate when I grow up. They tell me pirate stories and all sorts of other ones too. When I grow up, I want to be a dead pirate and my best friend can be my parrot.