Author Topic: [NaNoWriMo] Coincidence  (Read 2802 times)

[NaNoWriMo] Coincidence
« on: November 02, 2011, 05:09:23 AM »
Yes it sucks so far. I'm kind of just winging it as I go. But here it is anyway.

 ?Father??

 The pointed tips of Alraune?s four insect-like legs made of scraps of wood and metal ticked and tacked against the tile floor as she walked through the halls of her creator?s mansion. The faint whirs and clunks of the gears in her joints echoed against the hard, dark, empty walls. The legs attached to a small chassis of wood and metal just below her hips, replacing what was once flesh and bone. The bandages that served as her makeshift clothes were barely visible on top of her eerily pale skin, wrapping briefly around her stomach and covering her well-developed chest.

 ?Father, Alraune?needed to ask something.?

 One wrapping continued along her slender, delicate neck as it turned her head this way and that, glancing from side to side with her dead blue eyes. Her long, pitch-black hair fell over her shoulders, where flesh gave way to machinery again. A motley upper arm of wood and metal lead down to a geared elbow, leading to a lower arm, and then another at the end of that, finally terminating in an intricate mechanical hand with long, gently curving claws at the fingertips. The claws scraped nervously over the back of the other hand as Alraune held them close to her chest, almost as a shy child would. Bolts of electricity leaped between the four small Tesla coils bolted to her back, two on each shoulder blade.

 The mansion was quiet, save for the constant thrumming sound of the large engine the owner, Dr. Klemens von Kaufmann, built deep in the basement to power his experiments. There were very few lights in the building, save a candle here and there and the sparse lights flowing in through the high windows.

 Alraune glanced at a clock as she passed it. Eleven forty-eight. She wasn?t sure if it was almost noon or midnight, though. It had been weeks, maybe even months since she saw sunlight from the windows. Ever since that black cloud came, the sky had been pitch-black day and night.

 ?Father,? she called one more time, rounding a corner to the dining room. She placed a hand on the doorframe as she peered inside, glancing here and there. ??where is Father??

 Her soft voice held a hint of worry. This was not like him. She had been searching for a good hour now and there was still no sign of her creator, her ?Father?, Dr. Kaufmann. She stepped into the room, her footsteps dull against the soft, red rug. The curtains were open, but of course there wasn?t anything particularly noticeable. Just the pitch-black darkness outside. That foreboding darkness, hanging over their lives for however long it did. Dr. Kaufmann had been researching where it came from, that much Alraune was certain of, but the scientist never told her. After the hours he spent holed up in his laboratory, the place where she had been brought back to life after her damaged limbs were replaced, he would simply join her for dinner looking more and more haggard, more worn and drained. She always wondered what progress he was making, but any questions were met with a stubborn refusal to speak.

 As she walked further into the dining room, she saw a sheet of paper lying on the table, scrawled all over with black ink and?blood? She paused as her eyes locked onto it, limbs frozen like a chameleon in mid-stride. One second. Two. Then she moved again, turning to face the table, reaching out a long arm to pick up the paper and read it by the light of the candle in the middle of the table.

 ?You need to leave. Now. I know what that black cloud does, and it is going to put you in danger. Whenever someone dies under the cloud, they are brought back to life as a monster, a demon, a manifestation of their worst qualities.

 ?I am so sorry, Alraune, but I am dying. An accident in the lab. There is no time to explain further. Take Caliban and leave. He can help defend you. Find somewhere safe, and whatever you do, do not put yourself in danger. Do not trust anyone. I am beyond rescue, and I have locked myself in the basement. I only hope that whatever I turn into will be unable to escape there.

 ?Don?t lose your light.?

  ?the pains started again. She grasped her head in a mechanical hand, eyes squeezed shut against the stabbing, crushing force her brain was putting on itself. The paper fluttered to the ground, the fresh blood staining the hand that held it. A dull ringing slowly grew in her ears, blocking out the sounds of the mansion around her.

 It was all too fast. Happening too fast. Why was this happening so suddenly?

 The sound of wood cracking and splintering broke her out of the pains. A low, rumbling groan shuddered through the mansion. Something large ran up the stairs behind Alraune and crashed through the doorway.

 She turned to see Caliban behind her, the odd feline made of whatever pieces of metal and wood were on hand, like her. The rounded metal plate where the head would have been turned a bit to face her, groaning and nuzzling against her shoulder to push her behind him. She stumbled back as he stepped between her and whatever creature was approaching, its arrival heralded by multiple thudding, heavy steps coming closer and closer to the door at the other end of the dining room.

 Her heart pounded in her chest, crashing against her ribcage one second after another. Electricity leaped between the coils on her back as if it were alive and panicking as much as she was. She looked over at the shadows at the other end of the room, where the sound of wood groaning and stretching as if under some slowly encroaching force oozed out like a grating slug.

 And then came the darkness. The darkness of the abyss, beyond that of normal shadows, the darkness of a world utterly devoid of any light or goodness. It crawled out from the cracks around the door like a creeping mold, eating away at the structure around the frame, poisoning its surroundings and spreading like a plague.

 Alraune looked to the window. She couldn?t stay to see what would open the door. She wouldn?t. She had to run from the creeping darkness to the lesser darkness of the outside. Like Father told her to.

 She turned and ran, back through the door she came from, down the hall as fast as her legs could bring her along. She turned her head to see Caliban not far behind, running on the knuckles of the mechanical, human-like hands that served as his feet. She heard the crash of the door splintering under what was once Dr. Kaufmann. She ran past rooms, some of them her own. She abandoned everything she had as that crawling darkness lurched after her, hell-bent on corrupting her just like the rest of the mansion, trapping her under its soul-crushing weight.

 Dr. Kaufmann had always seemed like such a sad man.

 The hallways turned and curved, leading through larger rooms. The entrance to the mansion was in sight.

 Caliban dashed past her, slamming into the double doors with his shoulder. They flew off their hinges with a resounding crash, bounding off the ground. He spun around and ducked his head through Alraune?s legs, swinging her onto his back where she clung tightly as he ran.

 She looked back at the large, dark mansion, slowly filling with that utter blackness. Soon it would be engulfed by the sorrow that Dr. Kaufmann held inside for all those years, that crushing blackness that slowly ate away at his emotions, his humanity. That sorrow that he struggled to keep inside him all his life, but which finally broke free of its prison upon his death, threatening to engulf everything he had.

 His worst quality.
All lies and all sin, all dreams and all majesty, Everything rots in this ruined hell

[The Perfect, Elegant Maid] [Pathos of the Hated People] [Music, Projects, and Art]

Esifex

  • Though the sun may set
  • *
  • It shall rise again
Re: [NaNoWriMo] Coincidence
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2011, 07:52:37 AM »
Yes it sucks so far. I'm kind of just winging it as I go. But here it is anyway.

You realize, that's the whole point of NaNoWriMo? To just write and write and write and write and write just so you actually HAVE something. When you're done, THAT's when you go and touch it up.

Re: [NaNoWriMo] Coincidence
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2011, 02:15:30 PM »
You realize, that's the whole point of NaNoWriMo? To just write and write and write and write and write just so you actually HAVE something. When you're done, THAT's when you go and touch it up.

I know! But I have standards!

Unrealistic standards, yes, but standards nonetheless.
All lies and all sin, all dreams and all majesty, Everything rots in this ruined hell

[The Perfect, Elegant Maid] [Pathos of the Hated People] [Music, Projects, and Art]