Tell Me A Story...

[Razor One]

The following is a story I wrote about 4 years ago now. I'm putting it in here to gain some feedback before I begin fixing a few niggling issures that I've identified recently. Enjoy.

--

A cold wind blew over the icy terrain. From a clear blue sky, the sun did little warm the apelike creatures struggling into the relative saftey of the mouth of a cave. The family was small, it consisted of a mother and her sisters, a father and his brothers, and several small children.

After resting only for a little, the men quickly grabbed their spears and left for the hunt. The family was hungry, and sitting about would do nothing for them. As the men disappeared into the whitewashed blizzard, a child began to mewl and howl. It's mother desperately tried to console the child, firstly by crooning it, then by singing. Finally, she made up her mind. She would tell the child a story. She collected the smatterings of language that she knew and carefully told the story to her child.

The child stopped crying and listened carefully to what she was saying. The other children, intrigued gathered in a semicircle around her in a fashion that would be transmitted down the ages by the eternity of instinct.

The hair on the childrens neck and backs stood on end, their hearts raced and their guts fell through the ups and downs of the story, until finally it concluded. When the female finally finished her story, the children were all sleeping. She marvelled at the work she had wrought for the rest of the day, until the men came back with meat from the slaughter, food for another day...

***

The child ran along the rocky shoreline. He often played along the shoreline, he lived not far from here and the gentle water was always warm. The harvest season was almost over, and the warmth of summer had begun to dissipate in due time, but at this particular moment, it was still pleasent enough to play along the shoreline.

The boys father began calling him. It was time to go to bed, night was soon approaching and wild animals were always a hazard. His mother often told him of the fabled Bohey which would eat small children his age if they werent within their home before nightfall.

The boy ran to his father, telling him of a sea shell he had never seen, and a creature with claws that had snapped at him that day. The father lifted up his child and hugged him fiercely with the love that only a father can have for his son.

As the father carried his son along the path leading from the village to the sea, a strange smell tickled his senses. The smell of burning. The father dismissed it at first, perhaps the village had slaughtered one of the wild beasts and were having a community supper. And yet, as the father approached the village, it seemed less and less likely. Flames licked the roofs and makeshift walls of what had once been his home, the entire village aflames!

The father was shocked, how could such a thing happen? No one in the village was careless with fire. And, as the father looked on with his scared son, he saw people, not of his village lighting yet more fires amongst the buildings that hadnt yet been set alight.

The father changed his direction, he knew instinctively that the people that had burned his village would surely kill him and his son. He made a run for the forest, his son hanging on tightly, the branches cut him and his son in places but that could be tolerated to get away from certain death, the father ran well into the unforgiving night.

Finally, he dashed into some shrubbery and exhuasted from the pelting run he had made, at last he came to rest with his son drowsily letting go. Sleep did not come easily for the both of them, they were still in shock from their village being burned to the ground, where on earth were they to go now?

His son, restless, crawled up and hugged his fathers sprawled body tightly. Neither of them could sleep under the brilliant myriad stars. The father then remembered a way to get his son to sleep, a way his mother had used on him, and presumably his brothers and sisters as well. The father began to tell his son a story. It was the same story his mother had told him all those years ago when he was a child, he remembered every word of it, and upon reciting it for his son, the hair on his neck stood on end, he felt his stomach dip and his heart beat faster with the ups and downs of the story and goosebumps splayed themselves up and down his body. Finally, he finished the story, and as he drowsily looked at his sleeping son, he was filled with a sense of, something, but he fell asleep before he could put a name to the indescribable feeling he felt.

***

The teen walked along the cracked footpath dejectedly, alone and lost in his own world in which no one could sympathise. He often felt like this when his parents fought with each other, or his father beat his mother, or when his mother was drunk, or when his father abused him. In short, he felt sad and dejected eternally, his whole life seemed to be a long dark tunnel with no end.

He hopped into a KFC joint for some lunch. Although it did cost him, his stomach felt better for it, but it did nothing to improve matters. He thought that getting out had been the best thing to do, that getting away from the abuse, the hollering and misery would have been better then staying. And where was he? Jobless, homeless and now nearly penniless.

It was at his lowest point that he remembered his uncle. His uncle wasn’t really his uncle, just a man that was one his father’s friends from a long time ago, before his father had lost his job and become the alcoholic idiot that he was today. He remembered his uncle’s name, and, after a quick search in the phone book, he was soon on a train speeding it's way to the small town in which his uncle lived.

The teen felt better now, for the first time since he left home a day ago, he felt that he had a purpose. He had to get to his uncles, who knew; perhaps he would accept custody of him that would be great. Then again, he might just send him back to his beating. Bugger it, he thought, he should have thought of that before he bought the train ticket with the last of his money, his uncle was going to be make or break with him, weather he liked it or not.

+++

Time had passed since then. His uncle had taken him under his wing, helped him consoled him. Now was his big day in court. He stood outside the concrete house of law, smoking with his uncle and they talked of how the case was going. They couldn’t afford the best lawyer in town, in fact, his uncle had to call in quite a few favours. And yet, the case wasn’t going very well. His father had a strong case against him, but then again, so did his uncle. A Chime sounded, the judge was about to make his ruling.

The teen lay on his bed that night reflecting upon the days events with utter depression. His life was a void blank dark of seething sorrow, not even worth living. For many hours the teen argued with himself weather or not to kill himself, and if so, how. The judge had been heartless, utterly heartless, completely rejecting his uncles case in favour of the Teens father.

The Teens uncle walked into his room, carrying a coke for his nephew. It broke his heart to see him like this, utterly shattered it into oblivion. This was as rough a time for him as much as it was for his nephew, it did no good for them to both be depressed about their lot in life. The teen stared blankly at the ceiling, ignoring his uncles proffered coke, and utterly void to the world. His uncle slumped against the teens bed, at his wits end, and he began to tell his nephew a story. At first, he was dejected, but as the story progressed, the hair on the back of both their necks stood on end, their organs did somersaults, and they felt their skins prickle with excitement. Finally, the teens uncle drew the story to it’s conclusion, and at the end of it all, both felt better about their lot in life.

***

A desolate blood-curdling scream rattled through the entire station. The sole survivor, with her daughter ran from the menacing creature that was making a lunch of the carcasses strewn about the Alamo in the command center. If only they had known that the creature would be hostile, they would never have revived it from cryo-sleep. Was it a traveller? Was it a prisoner? Perhaps it was an ancient menace that could not be destroyed, it certainly seemed that way, not even the stations most powerful weapons systems could slow it down as it tore through six foot bulkheads like a hot knife through butter.

Desperately the sole survivor, with here daughter in tow, hoped that it would be contented until the rescue ships came. She made a duck at Station Access Beta, a right at Beta Reactor systems, a left Central processing. Finally, she dragged herself and her daughter into what she hoped was the relative safety of the ventilation system, shaft 3QC7X5F:34451, a barren cold metal box that was a hub are for two interconnected vents. It was protected by several large titanium grates, and it was these she was counting on to keep that creature away, despite it’s ability to tear through bulkheads like they weren’t there, they would block any view of her from any angle except from right where she was huddled with her daughter. The child began to whimper, The sole survivor tried to console her, but it only increased her whimpering and crying. She begged her daughter to stay quiet for their sake and still her mewling and howling increased. Finally, in sheer desperation, The Sole Survivor cupped her hand around her daughters mouth and began soothing her frayed mind with a story.

As she told her story, the childs hair stood on end, her skin prickled, she soon stopped mewling and crying and eventually fell into a blissful sleep. Her mother had also been strongly affected by the story, she had had it told to her as a child, and presumably so had her mother, and they both dozed off into sweet oblivion.

A sweaty breath caressed the sole survivors skin, she dragged herself into consciousness, only to scream one last time as diamond hard teeth savaged her into a meaty red pulp…

***

Blackness and eternal dark encompassed all things for what seemed like all of time. It may as well have been all of time, the universe had been dark for countless aeons, and light was but a memory of the afterglow of the big bang. And yet, amongst this dying darkness, the last two great intelligences of the universe grappled with each other, agonising about the end of all things. One entity was older, and wiser, the other, younger, and more energetic. They both discussed the end of all things, the universes accelerating expansion and how the myths and legends of the deep past seemed so obsessed with describing a fictitious flapped and folded form of energy called “Matter”.

Finally, their time came. The universe could no longer support intelligent life any longer; it was time to consign themselves to the abyss of consciousness. Before the younger Entity committed himself to eternal night, he gave pause. A new though, or an incredibly ancient one depending on ones point of view flowed through his steadily fading energy matrices. The younger entity asked the older what the oldest known story was. This gave the older entity pause to reason. Finally, after much consideration, the older entity began to tell the oldest story known. It was truly harrowing, it quickened the pulsations of energy in both entities, their consciousnesses brightened and many other namelessly instinctive biological reactions took place to demonstrate how very moved they were by the story. Finally, it came to an end, both entities felt at peace, as their last thoughts reflected over the very same story that an ancient cave woman had concocted countless aeons ago...