Chapter 2: Here there be Dragons

Hi all! Another week of Inking eh?! I've read a few pieces and the Indie gets better and better each week. So much talent in one place is a beautiful thing. 
This week I challenged Michael Webb who blew me away with: How Do You Sleep. If you haven't checked out his work please do, the man is an AWESOME writer!


On the flip side the one who adorns a red cape swooped onto the 'Final List' and challenged me with what made for the title of my story which is a continuation of last week's 'short', if you prefer to do things chronologically, you can find the first instalment here. Thanks SuperMaren! ;-)

It was true ... it had already begun.
The night was too young for the sun to be rising. Something about the distant glow looked artificial.

Two moons ago Ilya's grandfather had felt the bitter cold of the smooth trinket, a change from its natural state and an early warning that they were in danger. Fortunately the enemy had touched down far, far away. Their carnage evidenced by a burning line of destruction along the outer territories, a wide unyielding strip of fire and pain.

Ilya, along with a scout team had travelled half a day to get a rough estimate as to what they were up against. Though fearless and ready, each scout halted when the first plume of fire and smoke that followed a deafening 'BOOM' rose up to the skies and scorched the clouds.
It was still early morning, but as dark as the deepest night.

Though cautious, they needed to get a better look and the closer they ventured the louder the screams of those left alive could be heard. At a crawl they ascended a hill looking out onto the Gild Plains where the Hune Tribe reside.

The earth below was shattered. Crops and fields, beautiful, rich and fertile; were gone, replaced with blood and bodies. Off in the distance heading east Ilya could see their machines, so many of them rolling away, crushing the very breath from the land. Men walked alongside the rolling beasts holding weapons that spat hot needles of fire that cut down those that tried to fight. For every one human that went down; ten tribesmen fell. Their forces were overwhelmed by the superior and unrelenting force upon them.

Ilya and the others backed away on their stomachs staying low, hoping that their movement was slow enough to go unseen. Once a little ways down the slope Ilya rolled on his back and let out a long deep breath.
The scout team’s oldest member had seen several more winters than Ilya and was shocked by what he'd witnessed too. Both boys looked at each other dreading the report they would have to deliver to the village council.

---------------------------

"If what the scouts say is true, we must head south to the Darhcro Lands. We have good relations with the people there!" Chancellor Hodo shouted over the raucous assembly in the Speakers Hall. His suggestion was met with mixed emotions from the other council leaders.

"We have lived in these lands from the time of the first Great War, to leave would shame our ancestors who fought and died for our right to be here." Said Bahad, captain of the guard.

Delivering the news didn’t change the fact that scouts were forbidden to enter Speakers Hall. They climbed quietly onto the roof, although, against the noise from inside; being light footed wasn't a necessity. Through a door they'd fashioned some time ago when they were very young they all poured in, spreading themselves silently across the beams and supports in the darkness above.

Ilya's grandfather had heard enough. "No! We are made up of warriors. Every man woman and child of age knows how to fight, even you Chancellor; whether or not you've grown weak from wasting your breath. We must send for help if we are to succeed against such an army."

The hall fell silent.

"Help from whom, a myth?!" Chancellor Hodo demanded.

"Hodo, don't act the fool. Even you were told the stories, and once, you believed them to be true."

The Chancellor glared at the old man with more contempt than disbelief that he still had any say in council matters. Though he'd once been a reliable warrior, he was not and never was on the council or qualified to advise on their politics, but the people listened to him and Hodo despised him for that. "So, old man, who will be our emissary to carry this message of 'help', surely a mission so important is worthy of only a brave select few? You understand old man that if there is any truth to those misguided stories, then this is a suicide mission?"

Chancellor Hodo's sarcastic and irreverent attitude was so tangible Ilya could've shot arrows into them. The other boys in the rafters were communicating using hand signals but Ilya didn't find the joke funny. He shifted position for a better view.

"That is the decision of the council," the old man addressed the assembly. "That is unless such a mission is deemed fruitless?"

Seated either side of a wide stage were rows and rows of men and women, among them warriors and council leaders, scribes and runners. Each looked around the room as a murmur rose like a tide carrying the question of who should be the chosen ones.

"They should go." The old man said looking up into the shadows.

"Show yourselves!" Shouted Tanu; a fierce and uncompromising warrior with a reputation for impatience.

The shadows above stirred and several boys made their way to the stage in a show of stealth and acrobatic brilliance. Ilya was the first to land, bowed in humbled shame for being discovered.

Placing his hand on the boy's shoulder, Ilya's grandfather regarded the rest of the boys solemnly and addressed them as one.
"By accepting this task you forfeit your very lives for this is not a mission we expect you all to return from. Do you understand?"

As one, the scouts looked up for the first time, their faces giving no trace of emotion, and placed their daggers on the floor as a sign of their acceptance.

"Ha! You see!" Said Chancellor Hodo; gesticulating to the rest of the council. "These boys are ready to die on a whim, is this who we have become? A people who blindly follow an old storyteller?!"

Ilya's grandfather shifted uneasily but only because he was fishing something from his robes.

"Look, what is this bumbling old fool doing now?" The words had barely left the chancellors lips when the oversized razor sharp tooth landed by his feet making a heavy thudding sound that betrayed the old man’s real strength for a fleeting moment.

This time the room fell into a much deeper silence than before, as if the very life had been sucked out of the space they occupied.

Though no one had seen one, they all knew what it was and what it was once attached to.

Somewhere, over the rainbow ...

Greetings 'Inkers'! This week I was given the opportunity to challenge K. Syrah, who totally destroyed the prompt I gave her with her piece: Toes in the Sand
I was challenged by, Sunshine who just happens to be an important element that binds my story together. Her prompt is actually the title of this piece. Hopefully I stepped outside the box a little on this one, I hope ...?

"Long before the chaos and killing began there was peace, tradition and harmony. The world - though not perfect - was beautiful, fertile and full of possibility. Squabbling and fighting was unavoidable and other than battling for love or power, wars were raged for pride, against tyranny and dictatorship and soon, wars became distant memories and once again peace reigned for hundreds of years. There was balance ... for a while."

The story that Ilya's grandfather told him always began the same way: "Long before the chaos ..." The old man told tales of battles and wars, fought only a stumble from where they lay their heads at night. He always told the boy of the beautiful land he had no memory of, for the boy was born into the turmoil that began much more than fifteen winters past.

On the fourth winter the boy began his training with his uncle and father and by the eighth winter he was strong, fast and as clever as any of the warriors bred before him.

When the fourteenth winter came, the boy was ready.

---------------------

Ilya flipped the knife by its hilt, caught and sheathed it in his belt in one continuous motion that ended with pulling another knife from his belt with his idle hand, throwing it dead centre into the human’s heart. The blade went in, right to the hilt. It was a move his father had taught him: 'appear to disarm yourself while attacking' his father had called it, Ilya preferred to call it 'the whisper'.

Before the man fell he tried to speak, what he said came out in a painful gasp of air, and all Ilya could make out was a partial of a word; beginning with the letters - LEP.

The other boys on watch had slain the rest of the men almost as quietly, and had already begun dragging them away through the forest.

There had been more this time. Only last week several humans had tried to attack the village and steal more younglings, something they had been doing so long that it felt almost normal. And like most other warriors Ilya kept watch during most of his waking hours, only resting to train with the elders in the barracks before heading back to guard duty or a hunt.
Ilya and the other boys took the bodies to the cliffs and tossed them to the waters below. Even after the rest of the boys had left, Ilya stood at the edge of the sheer drop listening for sounds and smells in the wind. The village was never safe as far as he was concerned.

On this particular night Ilya's grandfather took him aside from the rest of the family leaving them to talk, eat and keep warm around the fire. He brought Ilya up to Teachers Hill and sat next to the boy under the stars, and they stayed for some time, not saying a word just looking down on the flickering fire-lights of the village below. Ilya, as always, kept an eye on the village perimeter.

"Ilya, there is something I must tell you, something I think you are ready to know."

"What is it grandfather?" Ilya asked, gently sharpening his favourite throwing knife on a piece of smooth sandstone, still watching the village below.

"We are not what we seem."

"What does that mean?" Ilya asked pausing his work as if to ponder what his grandfather just said before continuing with the blade.

"It means that we were once a peaceful race of people, playful even! We had magic a long, long time ago."

"Magic! Really grandfather?! Have you been eating Deena's squirrel tail soup again? You know how that makes you get after a bowl or two."

"Listen boy!" The old man scowled, rummaging in his robes, pulling out an egg shaped object that reflected the starlight and moon-shine from above.

"This was made by magic, our magic." He gave it to Ilya.

"What is it?" Ilya asked reluctantly looking at it.

"It was your great-great-great-great-great grandfathers, he made it with magic. It gets cold to the touch when humans enter our world."

"How grandfather?!" Ilya asked putting down the stone and knife. The thing was heavier than it looked and smoother than anything he'd touched before.

"If I knew how; I'd make one of my own, boy! In order to survive we had to adapt and over time our magic grew weaker, no one knows why but our powers began to fade a few hundred years ago. That's when the wars began and warriors were needed, warriors like you, Ilya." The old man picked up the knife and balanced it by the blades point on his index finger. "We have been making warriors so long," the old man continued, "we have forgotten how to fully harness our powers, this may have proved useful many years ago but as the power faded so did any hopes of getting it back. The humans found a way to get to our lands, all they have are the stories of our ancestors told by their own storytellers, they believe we still have magic and this is why they target our young."

"I was fortunate then, grandfather?" Ilya asked, placing the object on the ground by his grandfathers feet.

The knife had been balancing on the old man’s index finger the entire time. He flicked the knife in the air and with surprising speed for such an old man, hit the bottom end of the hilt. Ilya watched the blade impale into a thick tree maybe fifty metres away. "They did try to take you," his grandfather said looking up at the full moon, "but I was babysitting you that night."

"So what were their stories?"

"They believed and still believe we are very powerful, clever, playful, and quite small. They're correct on two counts but we've always been the same size as the humans, I suppose they made us small in their minds to make us appear inferior and give themselves confidence.

"They also believed that we had money and gold, lots of it too. This was only true if we decided to create the stuff, but in those days we preferred to invent things and always used a tiny bit of magic when our creations were too difficult to figure out."

"You talk as if you’ve used magic before, grandfather!"

"No, but I did have an excellent storyteller when I was boy, your great-great grandmother. She would talk until I fell asleep at night and leave me to dream about how we used to be. I often dreamt I had powers beyond comprehension, ahh ... the things I could do in a dream."

Ilya's grandfather picked up the sandstone and threw it without looking into the back of the blade, burying some of the hilt into the tree.

"Grandfather! It'll take me forever to get that out; I may have to cut down the tree!"

"Sorry boy, I was just thinking aloud."

Ilya sighed and flicked a few pieces of dirt off his sandals. The old man looked at him, his long white hair and beard, the frown lines on his forehead and wrinkles around his lips, and the scars on his neck; were in contrast to the intensity and youth in his eyes. Even though his grandfather was old, very old, the man hid his speed and strength well. To a stranger he looked frail and non-threatening but Ilya knew better.

"They, the humans that is; come from a far away land, hard to get to for us but for them it's relatively easy to cross over. Do you know how they do this, boy?"

"Yes, grandfather."

"Tell me."

"In their lands, when it rains followed by sunshine; a bridge is formed. All they have to do is locate the beginning of the bridge and cross before it disappears."

"And they attempt this dangerous journey because they want to harness our magic, and believe when we are still very young we have the potential to give them what they seek."

"I've heard father say such things, is it all true then?"

"Yes, when we are very young we possess a tiny amount of power, our training to be warriors begins early too and we are forbidden to cultivate magic in case it falls into the wrong hands."

"I like things the way they are."

"Because that is all you know, boy. What you need to know is that their world; where the humans are from is dying and a great storm is upon them. That storm will submerge their world under water and anyone left will use any bridges that will inevitably form once the storm clears. We expect an army like none we have seen before, and it will come, mark my words. We must be prepared!"

"But when!" Ilya asked anxiously.

The old man looked out beyond the village and far off into the distance where he knew the sun would rise the next day, and prayed for the night, this night, to never end. The object by his feet was no longer warm to the touch. "Boy ... it has already begun."

£110.20

Greetings! Yet another opportunity for some fiction provided by, Sally Laine of the Facebook ‘Laines’. I think they’re a rich family possibly responsible for some of the major breakthroughs in 1950s British aviation, but I could be way off the mark, you’d have to ask her yourself.

Anyhooob! Sally’s writing prompt is: Does happiness always come at a price?

I have no idea what I’m going to do with this one and I’m writing this brief introduction you’re reading now prior to writing the story, so I’m literally ‘free-writing’ right now (not Automatic writing), Google it if you’re a little confused.

So ... here goes:
 

£110.20

Monday morning queues are usually something that Brian tended to avoid. For obvious reasons he made a concerted effort to steer clear of them completely, in case during the process of waiting he lost the last remaining echoes of his sanity. He was still in possession of the little portion of patience that kept him on from crossing that thin line called, crazy; but the imaginary rope used keep him at bay had become a frayed line of thread.  

“Next please.”  

Brian’s eyebrow twitched involuntarily as he let the bank clerk’s voice repeat over and over in his head. The ‘Next please’ to signify it being his turn wasn’t about to happen anytime soon. The bald headed man in front of him had held his interest for less than a minute, his tattoos – detailed and intricate and inked onto his smooth dome – made for light reading mixed with pictures, kind of like a children’s book without any edges.  

“Next please.”  

That call was slightly quicker than the last but the old lady at the front of the queue moved with a great deal of difficulty. Several people behind her shifted uncomfortably as they assumed she was not only mostly immobile but also partially deaf and with any luck, suffering with glaucoma. Everyone’s suspicions were confirmed the moment she was asked: “Morning madam, how can I help you?”

The old lady craned her unusually long skinny neck toward the holes in the glass divider and placed a freckled ear against it.  

“Sorry Deary, can you say that again please?” 

A low murmur filled the bank foyer. Brian pursed his lips and wrung his hands together to stop the primal scream that was making its way along his vocal chords. Instead he compressed it into a sigh, felt a bead of sweat run down his back and clenched his fists by his sides.

The old lady still hadn’t explained what she’d come to the bank for but the young girl behind the glass seemed well trained and apparently, extra patient. If Brian was a volcano he would have erupted and wiped out an entire village by now.  

“Are you okay?” Someone behind Brian asked. 

He turned enough to see it was a woman about the same age as his ex-girlfriend. She even looked like her, long brown hair, light brown eyes and make-up erring on the side of ‘too much’. He imagined strangling her first, then changed it to throwing a bucket of water over her face to clean off the excess paintwork. When he came back to reality he realised he’d been staring a little too long and turned around but not before tilting his head left to right in the universal ‘I’m so so’ reply developed for people that chose not to use their words. 

She smiled showing the same kind of teeth his ex has then pulled her phone out of a bag and started texting someone, probably someone with as much make-up as she had on currently. 

Brian looked back at the occupied clerks and mentally made a note to try not to be rude when it was his turn. The last clerk, a round middle aged woman looked a little like his ex’s mum, he would make doubly sure he was not rude to her, but that, if it happened, would be very difficult. He could feel something like a headache working its way around his skull, picking up where it’d left off a few days before. His right eye began to twitch and the left one started to sting. Only a massive amount of concentration and the subtle breathing techniques the doctor had taught him were preventing his mental dams from bursting. 

He’d come to the bank before work to sort out something important, something that would determine the course of the rest of his life. Anxious not to be late, anxious that the doctor had diagnosed him with mild depression, anxious that his bag was very heavy, anxious that he was anxious; Brian didn’t appreciate all the clerks suddenly apologising to their customers before pulling down their blinds that read, ‘Closed’. The entire queue as one vocalised their disgust at the sudden turn of events as what appeared like a manager or supervisor stepped out into the body of the bank and walked towards the queue. Just before he was about to speak an alarm went off. 

“I am terribly sorry everyone, but the bank is being closed for several minutes while an engineer resets our security systems. In order to do this we need everyone to vacate the premises and wait outside. I have cards with numbers on them so when we open again everyone will be seen in the order they are currently waiting. Again, I apologise for the inconvenience.” 

Although it was an inconvenience most of the queues inhabitants took their numbers and reluctantly made their way to the exit. When the manager got to Brian he looked at the outstretched hand, the number ‘23’ written on it, and as he did; the little cogs in his brain jammed and halted. The stress of trying to make them start up again was too painful and in a last ditch effort to reboot the system, one of the cogs broke in half. The dam collapsed.

Brian put his hand into his bag and pulled out what appeared to be a remote trigger. The manager stepped back at the sight of Brian’s sweaty face and the black thing that could have been an old mobile phone with a big red button attached, in his hand. The people that had received their tickets – the ones that were savvy enough to notice a bad situation get worse – walked a little bit faster past Brian and the manager who remained frozen to the spot, neither of them saying a word, Brian had said more than enough. “Lock the doors please?” Brian asked. The manager noted the wave of calm in Brian’s voice which made him more scared than when he’d seen what he was holding.

Brian turned around and addressed everyone still in the foyer. “Could everyone please stay where they are? I’m asking nicely but I don’t actually have to.” 

The old lady hadn’t heard much apart from a faint ringing noise on the edge of hearing, so she was still trying to figure out why the lovely little girl had closed the blinds down on her, which she thought was very rude considering she’d not even been told why.  

Brian turned to face the people still in the bank edging closer to the exit and placed his thumb on the red button. Like lemmings they all froze and a beautiful silence poured from them. “Lock the doors.” Brian told the manager. 

As he was instructed the manager pulled out a set of keys and when the automatic door slid shut he disabled and locked it, top and bottom. Without being told he dropped the keys and slid them to Brian. The jingle of keys against the hard floor broke everyone out of their individual nightmares and a few of them began praying. 

 

Unsure of what to do next Brian told everyone to stand against the doors and windows looking out onto the high street. He deposited the keys into his pockets and breathed through the chakra located in his forehead. It didn’t make him feel any better. 

Brian took the heavy bag off his shoulder, zipped it up and slid it to where the other customers were standing. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were any of you.” He said, with a complete measure of intimidating calm. The bag stopped a few feet from where they were standing. One very tall man fell to his knees and began sobbing like a child. No comfort came from the other customers who were trying to put as much distance between them and the bag which meant pushing themselves even harder onto the glass separating them from the street and freedom. 

It was a bold move for something so straight forward. The money was a means to an end and he only wanted enough to get the job done, get a little piece-of-mind and put an end to all the speculating. The fact that he was now in a bank trying to think like a hostage taker was purely down to acute (not mild as the doctor had said) depression. Things would feel a lot better once he had the cash. Going about it this way was stupid, silly – he knew that – but the clock ticking on the wall nearby, the girl on the phone, the old lady, the smell of the really tall man’s sweat and the lack of fresh air had done their job and gently sent him sailing into an abyss of his own making. 

Brian hadn’t hated his ex, even when she cheated on him several months ago, stole his car and locked him out of his own house. They were all things that could be dealt with regardless of the pressure he was under, but finding out he might be a dad and knowing for sure, was the only thing keeping him going.

The paternity test wasn’t as expensive as he’d thought and he’d done his research online, found a company he could use and noted the cost attached. After being refused ‘online banking’ the only other way was to transfer the money into his dads account and get him to pay for it. That was all. That was why he’d tried to endure the Monday morning queue at the bank, endure the people and the waiting. It was too much.

Standing in the middle of the foyer with a remote detonator gave him carte blanche over everything and everyone present. “Hey you!” Brian motioned to the manager, “Get one of the tellers hiding out back to open up and help me, please?” He finished politely but mildly agitated. The manager walked over to the door he’d come out of earlier and knocked it several times. It didn’t open. “Try again.” Said Brian.

“It’s me, David. Open the door, please.” He pleaded. David noted that the three seconds prior to the door opening were the single longest moments of his life as well as the few drops of pee that wet his underpants as he stood waiting.

“Don’t go in, just tell one of them to go to their station and open up.” Brian was so preoccupied with getting the money transferred that he failed to notice the flashing blue lights outside or the sounds of a crowd building as the police cordoned off the area. He was focused on a single task, but not enough to realise that what he was doing was wrong and may have bad consequences. He needed to complete the task he’d come to do and no one was going to prevent him doing it. 

The walkie talkie in his hand that looked remarkably like a remote detonator of some kind beeped once and every person in the bank dived to the floor apart from the old lady who looked around in general bemusement.

Brian quickly turned the walkie talkie to it’s ‘off’ setting and kept his attention on the set of blinds slowly rising to reveal one of the clerks from before. As luck had it, it was the one that resembled his ex-girlfriend’s mother. This made him walk towards the glass window with the walkie talkie outstretched toward her threateningly. The woman reeled backwards in her chair, a vivid tapestry of fear plastered all over her face.

It wasn’t until this point that Brian began to sound like someone who’d done something like this before. “Get back to the fucking desk and make a transfer to this account!” Brian shouted, slamming a piece of paper from his trouser pocket onto the counter.

“Ca- can, can, you pass it through the s- slot please.” The woman stuttered and moved back to the desk. A few beads of sweat made her hair stick to her forehead just the way his ex’s mums hair did when she walked to the shops and back. Fat bitch, Brian thought.

He passed the paper to her and she began punching his request into her computer. 

“Erm, how much should I send, sir?”

“£110.20.” 

The woman looked at him momentarily confused and remembered her current predicament. Through force of habit more than anything else she began to ask if he wanted anything else and stopped herself.

“Is it done?!” Brian asked, his finger trembling over the red button.

“YES, yes! It’s been transferred.” The woman blurted out fearfully. More sweat trickled down her forehead now and the young girl that was helping the old lady stepped out and put a reassuring hand on her colleagues shoulder. She looked up at the walkie talkie then at Brian with a mix of fear, compassion and disgust. Brian couldn’t help notice now he was closer that she looked a little like his ex’s sister who had helped in stealing his car. Sods Law, he thought. 

“Take your friend and naff off!” He said and turned to the rest of the foyer.

The manager was still standing with the door ajar in one hand and the other slightly covering his genital area as Brian walked towards the exit and for the first time noticed all the commotion outside. “This doesn’t look good.” He said more to himself, and stepped over a really long person who’d apparently passed out.

The people flattened against the doors parted and got flat on the floor without being asked, outside there was a semi circle of police cars and police covering the bank, scores of people behind looked on in amazement. Things like this didn’t happen much in their town and a few of the offices looked understandably scared. Brian couldn’t see a few faces, the ones perched behind open car doors who looked like they were looking down the length of their truncheons right at him.

Brian let the view wash over his eyes for a moment or two. He hadn’t planned to do what he did, or use the expensive walkie talkie he’d bought for his nephew to hold up a bank, but he’d gone in with one purpose and getting what he needed done meant piece-of-mind, piece-of-mind meant a little break from feeling depressed and experiencing some closure sometime soon meant; a little break from his personal demons that the doctors had recently told him were a manifestation of his apparent bipolar disorder. 

The blue lights didn’t matter; the crowds and the commotion meant nothing at all. The important thing was getting the job done, he was happy, and the means in Brian’s mind were justified.

Brian took his phone out and called his dad. “The money’s in your account.” He said on hearing the old man answer on the other end.

“I’ve already paid as I knew you were at the bank, and be a good lad and don’t forget to bring me back a copy of The Daily Mail would ya son?” 

Brian was about to say goodbye when he noticed a wisp of a crack in the glass door that hadn’t been there before. He ignored it and said goodbye but no words came out. Confused, he looked at the phone and it read that he was still connected and could hear his dad’s voice asking if he’d heard his request when another small crack appeared. This time he heard the glass fracture around the tiny hole.

A few police officers surged forward, they were holding more than truncheons but Brian couldn’t tell exactly what. When they got near, a lance of pain surged through his shoulder and hand. The walkie talkie had exploded taking a few of his fingers with it. His shoulder felt like it had been dislocated and cut off, but it still seemed to be intact. 

Brian fell to his knees and the pain subsided before the broken ends of his fingers touched the floor. Unable to support his weight he slumped forwards in a heap hitting his head on the glass in front of him. The inhabitants of the bank had been screaming; their cries muffled by the rush of blood and adrenalin as he tried to stay conscious. The last emotion he was able to latch onto was the feeling of short lived happiness; he hoped he’d feel that again soon.  

Kreative Randomnezz: Marian

They say the best things – yada, yada, yada! I’m sorry for keeping people waiting but sometimes it’s good to take a minute or two to get something done. This is just one of those times. Plus I’ve had quite an emotional week and took some time away from everything ‘network related’.

This is another Facebook prompt from another Facebook friend ………….

The prompt is: Common sense would have told you that. It came from Rosalind Ming and might not be what she expected to read, but it’s where the sentence took me and I couldn’t control the genre of the piece.

Let’s see how I got on below …

Marian

Dr Marian Noel looked out on the desolation and ruins a few feet from her laboratory window. Apart from a few sections of the once titanic facility, all that was left were the armoury and science block where she stood on the 15^th floor.  

Taking off her white rimmed oval glasses the sharpness of what her spectacles delivered became dull, hazy; maybe this was a good thing? She thought. Her eyes immediately began to sting with the strain and she placed the glasses back on, bringing back the vision she could do without.

A lot of the destruction was her fault. Knowing that there was a window of time where all of this could have been prevented made her feel several times worse than knowing so many lives were snuffed out on her watch.

The lab had no edges or corners and its shape made it ideal for several teams of scientists to work in clusters without running into each other. The layout made her feel dizzy for the first time since working in the sci-block for 12 years. The white and grey sphere of a room felt lonely in the way a hospital would if you woke up on a ward to find you were the last person on Earth.

Dr Noel looked down at her lab coat, the blood was still there, and it wasn’t hers.

The workstation she usually occupied was covered with inconsistent results and failed clinical trials printed out, for her own personal torment. She had persisted in light of the glaring facts, the multitude of reasons not to advance, and she had done so knowingly.

Pushing the boundaries of science was something regularly done in the sci-block but not by her, she was the careful one, the one who towed the line, kept to the rules. Got teased about her OCD when it came to discussions on quarantine procedure and yet, the blood on her lab coat was still there.

A coffee stain reminded her how powerful the blast was. She resisted the urge to clean it off. The cup had been a few feet away but its contents had leapt out and splashed over the screen positioned nearby. That was the only thing she’d seen before losing consciousness, a perfect stream of black/brown steaming liquid flying in mid air and stopping for the briefest of moments then continuing on its predetermined arc.

What bothered her almost as much as the whole debacle being avoided was the moment where time appeared to pause and then as though it hadn’t … carry on.

No one else was in the lab, an eerie silence loud enough for her to worry filled her ears. Where had the blood come from? Where was the rest of the science team? Dr Jerrod, and his group, Major Dunkley and his personnel that doubled as an elite group of soldiers as well as scientists, an often arrogant group of individuals acquired as a security team by the E.D.G.E Corporation.

Dr Noel pushed stray bits of paper off her workstation, they appeared to move a fraction slower than they should have but she failed to notice and began tapping on the keyboard until the on-screen display changed and what appeared like random code flicked across at high speed, her eyes keeping pace with strand by strand of letters, numbers and symbols until she found what she was looking for and hit the space-bar. The strands stopped abruptly like a kid running down a corridor that’d suddenly been told off by a teacher. Noel pushed her glasses further up her nose and gazed at the obvious discrepancy in the format of the encoded set of instructions. It would have taken moments to rectify, seconds to change and would have spared so much destruction had she not completely missed it. Not missed, she thought – totally glazed over like it was unnecessary.

Her actions had proven fatal, but for who? All she knew was everyone in the lab had disappeared, fled, died, vanished; who knew? Most of the city had been levelled and somewhere along the line someone had been injured inside the lab but it wasn’t her, that - she did know.

A sensation she wasn’t prepared for cradled her in its embrace. The computer screen blurred for a moment even though her specs sat neatly on her face and a noise like a massive generator filled the spherical space she was occupying. The stain on her lab coat began to grow as the sound got louder. Voices could be heard as though they were in the room with her. A dizzying feeling gripped, took hold. She leaned back in the chair trying to figure out what was happening.

The noises got louder, closer.

Labs were built for various reasons often unbeknownst to the people that worked in them and this one began to spin, slowly at first then kicked itself up a few gears until the walls became a blur of grey and white. The centre of the room remained still. Dr Noel lost consciousness.

"She's back!" Major Dunkley said to Dr Jerrod. Both men looked at their colleague suspiciously, having materialised right in front of them.
"Is she d- ?" Asked Jerrod as Major Dunkley cut in.
"Well her wound looks fatal. It must have happened when she set off the device and vanished."
"Where did she go?"
"I'm the head chief of security, I also do a bit of thinking but you're the smarter one here, Dr Jerrod. Hazard a guess?
"It looks as though she ordered the mainframe to shunt 200% more power down the spatial conduit, see the break in the code there and there?” The doctor said pointing at Noels workstation. "That's why she appeared to vanish, although she didn't go anywhere if you can think four dimensionally?"
"She ripped a hole in time?!"
"Theoretically yes but, more of a cut than a rip. Her equations were precise enough for it to be smooth sailing, that is, apart from these two strands here and here. The event was localised to three inches either side of where she is now."
Major Dunkley looked closer at the sequence Dr Jerrod was referring to and, not a man 'engendered' to being surprised and showing it, he sucked in a breath of air as his brain did the math. “If this formula anything to go by, wherever she went, she disturbed not only the timeline but may have destabilised gravity within a 300 mile radius.”

Dr Jerrod had been working out the results as Dunkley verbally put it all together. He surmised that the nuclear reactors some 150 miles away must have been damaged with such a sudden gravitational shift and caused a massive explosion, maybe minutes in their future. Dr Noel had suffered an injury in the process. He lifted her lab coat and found a small piece of shrapnel sticking out of her upper abdomen. On further inspection it wasn’t a small piece but part of a longer pipe that hadn’t completely gone through and left an imprinted bruise at the base of her spine.

Noels workstation went blank.

“What’s happening?” Major Dunkley asked anxiously. A command prompt appeared on the screen reading: ‘Y/N’.

“I didn’t get a chance to complete the equation to reverse whatever she’d put into motion,” Jerrod said staring at the workstation, “I can’t be sure which command is the right one, yes or no.”

“We have to make a decision don’t we? So let’s make it, and hope we don’t make the same mistake she did.” Major Dunkley offered, the soldier in him speaking finally.

Dr Jerrod’s hand hovered over the keyboard just as Dr Noel regained consciousness and made the decision for them.

Success

If you're reading this I'm not dead, planning to die or have a death wish; I just felt like kicking the sentence off with - if you're reading this ... 
On Facebook the other night I put a status up saying: 

..'Maybe you've seen me posting blogs/shorts on FB ... cool. I need YOUR assistance. Give me a sentence/word - something that'll kick-off more stories and I'll blog them, tag you here, and credit you at my site 'Kreative Anythingz'. Thanks in advance.'..


This idea was inspired by the IndieInk weekly writing challenge that I have been taking part in since April. It's tons of fun and other writers giving you prompts for fiction/non-fiction really stretches my imagination - plus it's just a whole lot of fun. 
I'm calling this request I plan to put on Facebook at least once a month, Kreative Randomnezz. 

As promised to my Facebook friends I will tag & credit whoever gives me a prompt. The first has come from Remi LeBeau, he gave me a word, and that word was: Success ...


“They talk about it having a smell, about success having an undeniably exclusive aroma that makes the feeling of it satisfying, but the trick; as often many fall short, is first experiencing the smell, that sweet smell.” - Stefan Jeffrey (yes it's cool to quote yourself sometimes)

He woke up sniffing, cold, wet, hungry and angry. This wasn't the way things were supposed to be happening. He knew little about destiny and couldn't come to accept waking up behind an Indian restaurant covered in trash being part of his master plan. Who would?
His montage of trash and waste that he called a quilt tumbled away as he sat up bleary eyed, gazing at a harsh stain on the side of a large dustbin. There was a time when he would wake up to the sight of beautiful women in his bed, sometimes one either side of him, each resting a head on his broad chest, curling their legs around his to stay warm. Not even cats came near him now; he smelt rancid and knew it. An uncle had once said: "Boy, if you can smell yourself without making an effort it should prove effortless to smell good." 
Gary's hand squished itself into something warm and wet, the feeling was unbearably disgusting but he'd long ago lost the ability to make faces of annoyance in the blinding glare of things that would make the average person cringe. He was, by all definition, a complete tramp.
The backside of the restaurant was only used to toss out the trash. Staff there had become so adept at waste disposal they rarely looked at what they were doing, if they did it didn't matter, Gary was the human equivalent of a Where's Wally puzzle. Beneficial for him that on rare occasions they missed their target and this collection of errant garbage became, his home.

Feeling the pull of a new day, Gary got up, found his 10p Tesco's bag containing his life right now and stumbled out of his bed into the opening of the alleyway. Commuters, mums, children; they all avoided him giving wide berth to his pungent odour, screwing up their faces in that all too familiar scowl he didn't notice anymore.
The high street was a buzz of activity at 8.30am. The street vendors selling fruit, vegetables and other useful non food items were already shouting at the top of their lungs, coaxing in old ladies and the odd passerby who had no intention of stopping. Gary stepped past all of them, gradually feeling the old strength in his legs that he remembered when he wasn't sleeping in damp trash on chilly nights. His back felt considerably normal too; better than it had in a while. He noted mentally that last night he'd probably got the consistency of waste totally exact to the bend and shape of his spine, or it was a complete fluke and wouldn't last for more than an hour.

A path opened out in front of him. He never needed to weave though crowds they just moved out of his way.

Gary walked through the town centre unimpeded until the shops and commotion all around was replaced with flats, houses. One house in particular had its front door ajar. From inside the smell of a healthy fry-up wafted out on a slight breeze and blazed a path to Gary’s nose. Bacon and eggs stopped him in his tracks. Not eating anything freshly cooked for so long played on his mind. He stood still taking in more, trying to somehow convert what he was able to smell into tangible, edible treats. Failing, he noticed he was getting closer to the house, his legs moving on their own, on no orders issued from his brain.

From inside, the sound of dishes clinking together, water running and a radio kicking out a morning show could be heard.

The door opened silently. He wasn’t aware it was his hand that had pushed it open. Mesmerised by the aroma of a home cooked breakfast, Gary found himself in an impressive hallway. The walls boasted a beautiful shade of magnolia bordered by a dark pine skirting board with enigmatic patterns carved into them. At intervals framed pictures hung, one or two pictures of flowers, and an old couple still in touch with their good looks despite their advanced years.

The smell pushed Gary deeper down the hallway. Light poured in from the other end and the sound of someone, possibly a man, whistling; broke Gary’s aroma induced reverie. He realised where he was, what he was doing, and began to panic. He was too far into the house to get out before anyone coming out of the kitchen; at what used to be the far end of the hallway.

He froze.

His heart beat several steps faster than needed. Sweat made its way out of his pores and added a thin film of moisture to his already clammy skin.

The whistling stopped.

The light that bathed the hallway vanished. Gary was face to face with a young man holding a metal spatula. The man’s face didn’t change in the slightest. He didn’t flinch, turn up his nose or move away. They stared at each other for what Gary thought was a long time. He dropped his Tesco’s bag breaking the silence.

“I can help you.” The man offered.

Gary had heard: Can I help you? He backed away. The young man stepped forward, his face a picture of concern.

“Wait, don’t go.” There was something in the way he spoke that made Gary stop. He wasn’t scared or angry that a strange tramp was standing in his hallway, he appeared genuinely concerned. He really wanted to help.

Gary felt uneasy about several things, and wondered if the man lacked the sense of smell.

Another moment of silence allowed both men to look each other over. Gary noticed the salt and pepper hair, strong facial features and soft eyes of someone possibly in their mid twenties, but the eyes told a different story. What they gave away was that this person was at least ten years older, and seemed to possess surprising compassion for a trespasser in their home.

Slowly Gary calmed down. The man shifted, tilting his head toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry?” He asked.

Gary nearly fumbled the words leaving his mouth, his voice raspy for having not used it in a while. “Erm yes.”

“Come, eat with me,” the man beckoned, “I’ve just cooked, I have enough for two.”

At first Gary couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was the eyes that reassured him gave him that feeling this surprising person was being, sincere. He slowly followed as the man turned and headed back to the kitchen.

Steam kicked up from a pot on a hob, the kitchen was big enough to house a centre island. It looked like something out of a brochure. If not for the range of food already on the counter and a tea cloth tossed idly to one side, the room was immaculate.

“Please sit.” Again the eyes.

Gary found a stool at the centre island and sat struggling to resist picking at the stray bits of chopped fruit on a large plate. “Why have you- ?”

“Please, accept my hospitality and enjoy this meal I’ve prepared, we can talk later. Ok?” The man cut in.

Gary nodded and looked at the plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms, beans and toast that had been placed in front of him. For a second or two he sat with the fork the man passed to him and drank the smell of the food in for one last time before tucking in.

Christmas morning ... the start of a summer holiday! That’s what the first few bites felt like. Through the dirt and grime on his face, Gary let loose a yellow toothed smile. His host smiled back, tucking into his plate of treats. Both men sat quietly regarding each other casually over breakfast. Gary had seconds.

The plates were cleared away but Gary felt as though he needed to return the favour if possible. When his host got up to pour drinks, Gary jumped up and brought the dirty dishes to the sink and began washing up.

“Hey, no need ... please.”

The tone in the man’s voice was polite enough to make Gary stop.

“Go upstairs. Third door on the left is the bathroom. There are towels on a shelf, take a shower. In the adjoining room is a set of clippers/razors, cut your hair and have a shave. Across the hall is a closet, you look about my size and build, take whatever clothes you like. When you’re done, come back down here and we’ll talk.

Gary couldn’t believe his ears. Why was this stranger being so generous? He couldn’t regard him with suspicion, he was effortlessly sincere.

A little shocked and mostly confused, Gary said nothing in case his host change his mind and left the kitchen through the door the man had motioned to. It wasn’t the same one he’d came in, which gave a clue to just how big the house really was. Outside it seemed like a smaller property.

A spiral staircase was situated on the other side of a plush living room that Gary barely paused to take in. The thought of taking a shower was a greater pull than the soft throw pillows, immense sofa and shimmering large flat screen TV.

The shower had a stone granite feel to it, like having a cleanse under a waterfall. It was divine and surreal all at once. It took a while before Gary felt clean. He’d lathered himself up with shower gel and rinsed more times than he could count. Thick layers of dirt ran down the drain, layers and layers of humiliation and pain. There was something pleasantly cathartic about washing that Gary wanted to cherish. He spent over an hour letting the warm jets caress his skin, applying soap and gel frequently.

In the adjoining room after Gary towelled himself off, he found the tools his host had mentioned. Looking in the mirror he fought to remember how his hair once looked and cut it as close to that style as he could manage. His face, a tangled mess of hair took a bit longer. He wanted to get it right, after a while he did. Choosing a smaller, sharper clipper, Gary lined up the edges of his beard framing his lips and chin in a short smooth style that looked sharp.

Gazing at his new reflection in the mirror he began to get a sense of the man he used to be, but he felt different, broken.

His face was still handsome, he’d not seen it for several years but it was a face worth looking at. His eyes had lost some of their sparkle, but as he stood there taking in the view, a glimmer of what used to be; could be seen on the horizon of his pupils.

Across the hall was a closet which was really a long, wide corridor full of clothes neatly hung, colour coded and laid out beginning casual, colourful, turning smart; then ending with some of the most expensive suits he’d ever seen. Gary back tracked and thought about going with the casual look and realised he may never get another chance and walked forwards selecting a single breasted Alexander Amosu, he’d heard the suit was threaded with 18 karat gold, the buttons - paved and set with diamonds; was proof of its £70,000 price tag. On a shelf above all the clothes was the widest range of shoes and trainers Gary had ever seen. He chose a pair of Berluti's to complement his suit and found an Eton shirt to round off the look. When he was dressed and back downstairs, his host met him in the living room with a satisfied smile on his face.

They sat and started talking. At first the conversation was about Gary and how he’d come to be in his current situation, then his host talked about what he did for a living and some of the philosophies his father had taught him that he holds true to, in life and business. Gary listened intently, recognising some of the things he was hearing as information he’d known once, only, not from the perspective his new friend was describing them.

Soon it all began to make sense and the more Gary listened the more he was inspired. Before long Gary had taken off his jacket and they sat in front of a laptop studying trends on the stock market, reading news articles and watching the way money moved around the various trading centres across the globe.

Gary learnt his hosts name was Tom, he was 26 and his father had taught him to trade when he was very young. He knew how to look at graphs/spreadsheets and predict which direction stocks were heading, and 90% of the time he was right. He’d owned a consultancy but got tired of being tied to a building by day so he traded from home, often for fun. It was his dreams that he chose to place ahead of work and the pictures on his laptop’s screensaver were evidence that he’d been doing a lot of dreaming. In one picture Gary was sure Tom was standing underneath the aurora borealis, wrapped up in warm gear, with a massive grin.

That was what it meant. Gary didn’t know what it smelled like until now.

It smelled of clean sheets, good food and nice surroundings. It also smelled like the love and trust a father has in a sons abilities and Tom’s wife and children that walked into the house as Gary closed the laptop.

“Thanks for reading – I don’t usually talk after a post but I really enjoyed writing this. I loved trying to tie in the sense of smells, linking them to attitudes and ultimately the premise of the story. I want to thank my Facebook friend Remi for giving me the opportunity to write this. I hope he likes where I went with it.”

A Memorable Evening

"This is a short story I wrote in 2009 'The Perfect Date', and posted it as a 'note' on Facebook. People liked it but I wasn't sure if it was good enough to really put it out there. I came back to it in 2010 and re-wrote it changing the name to: 'A Memorable Evening'. Since creating my blog I've built up some of the confidence I always dream of. I hope you enjoy reading this."

At first I was apprehensive about calling her. I hadn’t been on a date for some time, hell I hadn’t been out of my house after 8pm in months.

After some coaxing and a promise that she was really nice, warm and had a great personality by my friend, Rhea, I couldn’t help but become curious about how true her description was. What did I have to lose? If worst came to worst at least I might be out the house after 8pm for once. I could chalk it up as an achievement.

I make the call ...  we end up talking on the phone for over an hour, which is good.

Neither of us thinks to make a date in the diaries to meet up. Talking on the phone is so natural, comfortable even; secretly we don’t want to spoil it. I honestly believe we mutually agree to meet up, I can’t be sure. Our conversations are so rich and full it’s hard to keep track of who says what exactly. But the date is set...

Its 6pm and we’re at an art exhibition a friend of hers has put on. The decor minus the creativity on the walls looks as though it was inspired by a contemporary designer, and we find ourselves marvelling at the architecture behind the art.

It’s amusing that everyone is being so pretentious, trying to come across astute in some kind of semi-subconscious, I’m a better Art Interpreter than you are! competition. Our glasses are charged and the best thing about the location we can agree on is; our drinks taste fantastic.

It’s not long before we’re caught in a vicious conversation between two arty types, regarding a painting of blue people set against a green backdrop that, we happened to look at for a moment too long. Unfortunately for us, we’re standing between a badly dressed version of Russell Brand and a young woman that may have styled herself on every character Helena Bonham Carter ever played. The feeling of verbal suffocation begins to set in.

We’re asked questions but never given the chance to answer as Russell and Helena know the answers already, and merely crave the attention of people outside of their; disagreement. What’s more is, an audience is forming, people are watching with marked interest, looking at us as though we have everything to do with what’s going on.

“I can’t see any reason why blue people have any place at an exhibition such as this.” Russell barks, his face a picture of practiced shock and disgust.

“That’s because you clearly do not understand the representation of the piece. Maybe if you painted yourself blue and spent the day in a field, you might learn something!”

Apparently, no one but us can see how hilarious the pair look and sound, and we attempt to quietly slip away under the gaze of a portion of the rooms inhabitants. And as we suspect, Russell and Helena don’t even notice we’re gone.

Though I’d taken the time to compliment my date on her dress, shoes and hair; I hadn’t consumed the complete image totally. This happened soon after we left the exhibition and found ourselves in a black cab. I was close enough, it was quiet enough to pause and admire her sneakily.

We headed towards a book launch party. No one we knew. But we had invites all the same.

The events at the exhibition had given us something to laugh about and the veil of nervousness had vanished, replaced with a playful intimacy that suited both our personalities.

Black cabs provide such ample opportunity for great conversation!

As she shares a funny story from her school days, I take notice of the way her eyes light up when she gets excited and the unconscious flick of her hair when a really interesting thought pops into her head.

I sit there listening. Trying to figure out what cloud I’m on with this beautifully engaging woman who is enjoying my company more than I thought she would.

The party is somewhere in the heart of the capital and provides a change of speed. More drinks, but this time with literary-types, publishers, writers and yes, groupies. My date is having a great time chatting to a guy and his wife about a book the couple wrote on why marriage is futile. I leave her to bask in the irony of the conversation and make my way to the bar for a club soda.

The music is just loud enough for me not to hear exactly what she says in my ear but I catch the words: “Martini ... thanks ... nice shoes.” It’s not my date who’s across the crowded room laughing uncomfortably at a joke someone more interested in her cleavage just told her. Instead, it’s some children’s book writer, last name: Hinks, not married, and currently in London buying a two bedroom Victorian. I find this out without having to ask. Every so often I look across the room to catch my date making; save me eyes back at me. The married couple gone, replaced by sharks nearby; circling their prey, my date.

I cut the one sided conversation short by buying the pretty writer a Martini, thank her for her company, and leave her to be devoured by the, Great White wearing a dark blue suit and white rimmed glasses who'd been watching her butt for the majority of her oration. My date grabs my arm when I get close enough and whispers in my ear playfully but stern, “Don’t you dare leave me alone in here again!”

Warmed by her determination to stay close, we finish up talking to the author of a book called: The Subtle Art of Mingling, and get out into the cool night air.

Outside the scene is a myriad of lights and ambient city sounds. The glow of the Thames and the imposing yet sobering view of Tower Bridge casting reflections on the water are calming, reassuring. We’re relaxed even more now, helped by the serene feel of the evening. Talking, walking along the bank-side, drinking in the sight of other couples enjoying themselves, a lot of them wordlessly, as we stroll arm in arm on the sporadically placed cobbled paths and walkways all parallel to the quietly glistening waters.

Again the opportunity to marvel presents itself. Underneath her thin black coat, her dress clings to her body’s contours highlighting her slender and curvy frame. Her warmth, both in the way she carries herself and the temperature her body gives off; makes me cling tighter. My senses are smitten, but the time to admit that with a kiss is a long way off.

The water seems to call out to us and we find ourselves watching the boats drift along the surface.

“Do you think people take the time these days to simply slow down and enjoy the view?” she asks.

I can’t help but let my eyes linger on her for a brief moment, and return them to the picture she is referring to.

“It’s so hard not to miss all of this; you’d have to be extremely preoccupied to neglect it all.” My words aren’t really about the boats, the water, or the glow of the lights bouncing off it.

She looks at me; her words are subtle, slow, yet deliberate. “I totally, agree.”

Disengaging our arms from each other she shudders almost imperceptibly and I instinctively put my arm around her. The fit of her body. Head on my chest, arm around my waist, is perfect.

We talk some more about nothing much at all, and time is misplaced as we forget that there are other people nearby or the fact that the world needs more than just the two of us to keep it populated.

We walk some more until the London Eye looms above, its cargo a reflection of us.

It’s easy to see why tourists enjoy London, especially on warms nights like this. The city is either a buzz of pounding reality and energetic individuals searching for somewhere to blow their minds, or, sombre and relaxing, a perfect environment for lovers to explore and discover each other. We decided mutually there and then that London is definitely one of the best cities in the world, without saying it.

Between the exhibit, party and the stroll; we’d worked up an appetite and Wagamama’s had its glass door ajar, enough for the rich smells of pan-Asian food to waft out into the evening air.

Our seats are cosy and feel secluded, like the maitre d’ read our minds when finding us a table.

Not long after placing our orders the sweet aroma’s from Yasai Gyoza and Chilli Squid waft from our table. The main course of, Cha Han; one for each of us is brought shortly after our drinks have been recharged. The food is almost as fantastic as the company in my opinion and by the time we get into a black cab on London Bridge we’re tipsy, but not enough to quell our debate about why men and women get on famously provided alcohol is involved. Truth is we’d been getting on famously all evening. Even our phone calls to each other over the days prior were memorable. 

We end up somewhere in the Docklands on a balcony owned by a restaurant overlooking the river. I hadn't noticed until now how much closer we'd got to each other standing, looking out at the lights caressing the water's surface. She hugs me tighter as the cool air blows circles around us. I give her my jacket and hold her for some warmth. 

We don't say much, there isn't anything that needs saying. We just watch the night quietly step over the evening.