Monster - Part Three
DeepShadows
Join Date: 2003-02-11 Member: 13408Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-02-11 Member: 13408Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">The first writer "along for the ride."</div> <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=23045' target='_blank'>Monster - Part one</a>
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=23747' target='_blank'>Monster - Part two</a>
This is semi-actiony, I'd suppose. The next installment will have lots of action. Promise!
For the sake of all the children, please leave me comments about what I can change or do better on.
Oh, and if anyone has/knows of a site where I can put this story on for happy net viewage, please tell me. Thanks:) Here you go --
<b>Beast</b>
An adult would say that darkness scared them as a child.
Ask the child. They?ll tell you the stories of monsters behind their closet doors, or creeping around inside the ventilation system. It wasn?t the dark; it was those <i>of</i> the darkness. Not so well poetically stated, monsters.
Before Darkens and the others left, I had a sense of comfort in the lights. All of this would be simple. I knew my place: I was the one who built things. I stayed back in the base while everyone else left to scout the station.
I was a little burned at first. I?d come in hopes of seeing the Frontiersmen in action, but instead got stuck hanging back groping machines. What fun.
I didn?t miss much, however. Mr. Samsa, first squad leader, reported in after sweeping a potential hive location. It was completely empty. Same with Darkens, who?d taken over third squad after Johnson accidentally killed a rat. Nobody but the commander blamed him though. Nobody cared to remark that even animal life had always been terminated in all previous recorded infestations. Usually, if it moves by now, it?s an alien. However, that didn?t seem to be the case here.
As a matter of fact, it didn?t seem to be the case at all. Second squad locked down three resource nodes without a single Kharaa report. We?d already secured two of the hives, and none had seen any action.
I might need to explain why this is odd, for those who did not read <u>The Frontier</u>. In all documented cases, the Kharaa maintain a few characteristics. The species are created from hives, each hive donating the creation capability of a higher species. There has never been a documented case of more than three hives functioning on a facility at once. The battle ends up being control for these hives. Sometimes, if the Frontiersmen are fast enough, they can secure a hive without even seeing a Kharaa. However, there is always some confrontation before the marines proclaim control over the second.
Except in this case.
The squads chatted quietly to one another. Though they had not come across any Kharaa, they treated the situation carefully. More so than I?d overheard in previous missions. This wasn?t normal for them. There hadn?t been so much as one sighting. Not so much as a scamper, a prattle, or a crawl.
My hand was against an arms lab, towards the corner of the great room. We had an armory, observatory, phase gate and a turret factory up. No turrets, however. Most of the comm.?s money was heading toward the outer projects. There were pipes and vents all over the ceiling. Somewhere in the overhead mesh, metal shifted against metal.
I heard a clicking sound echoing above.
I noticed something fall, rather rapidly, in the corner of my eye.
What happened next will forever be the most frightening moment of my entire life. I?ll let you guess why first.
You were wrong.
As I turned, I expected in every sense of my being to be instantly destroyed. I didn?t think a thing however, not for a good moment. A second passed, yet nothing happened. My brain raced, trying to make sense of what was going on. I wondered in my panic if I?d seen anything at all. I didn?t even recognize the Skulk on all fours directly in front of me. The idea that it had not attacked me yet was unfeasible. A good five seconds passed before I realized what was happening. I stood, weaponless, in the main control room, the commander blaring orders at me in a hectic panic, staring at the beast...
...And it stared right back at me.
That was the scariest moment of my life.
The beast?s muzzle showed something of whom it was. He looked like a veteran, an old man who knew the game far too well. He was strong, yet careful. He stood before me completely relaxed, looking into my eyes. I felt his thoughts behind his gaze. Inside those yellow eyes, there was a definite being.
...And it was looking at me.
...And it was thinking about me.
A shotgun ineptly dropped into my hands. Immediately, the beast sprinted at me. In the rapid moment between then and his arrival, I gathered all my thought into two single actions:
Raise the gun.
Fire.
<i>I remembered once when I was young. I had seen my reflection in a tub of oil. To my dismay, it was clearer than it was in water.</i>
- Edan Koch
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=23747' target='_blank'>Monster - Part two</a>
This is semi-actiony, I'd suppose. The next installment will have lots of action. Promise!
For the sake of all the children, please leave me comments about what I can change or do better on.
Oh, and if anyone has/knows of a site where I can put this story on for happy net viewage, please tell me. Thanks:) Here you go --
<b>Beast</b>
An adult would say that darkness scared them as a child.
Ask the child. They?ll tell you the stories of monsters behind their closet doors, or creeping around inside the ventilation system. It wasn?t the dark; it was those <i>of</i> the darkness. Not so well poetically stated, monsters.
Before Darkens and the others left, I had a sense of comfort in the lights. All of this would be simple. I knew my place: I was the one who built things. I stayed back in the base while everyone else left to scout the station.
I was a little burned at first. I?d come in hopes of seeing the Frontiersmen in action, but instead got stuck hanging back groping machines. What fun.
I didn?t miss much, however. Mr. Samsa, first squad leader, reported in after sweeping a potential hive location. It was completely empty. Same with Darkens, who?d taken over third squad after Johnson accidentally killed a rat. Nobody but the commander blamed him though. Nobody cared to remark that even animal life had always been terminated in all previous recorded infestations. Usually, if it moves by now, it?s an alien. However, that didn?t seem to be the case here.
As a matter of fact, it didn?t seem to be the case at all. Second squad locked down three resource nodes without a single Kharaa report. We?d already secured two of the hives, and none had seen any action.
I might need to explain why this is odd, for those who did not read <u>The Frontier</u>. In all documented cases, the Kharaa maintain a few characteristics. The species are created from hives, each hive donating the creation capability of a higher species. There has never been a documented case of more than three hives functioning on a facility at once. The battle ends up being control for these hives. Sometimes, if the Frontiersmen are fast enough, they can secure a hive without even seeing a Kharaa. However, there is always some confrontation before the marines proclaim control over the second.
Except in this case.
The squads chatted quietly to one another. Though they had not come across any Kharaa, they treated the situation carefully. More so than I?d overheard in previous missions. This wasn?t normal for them. There hadn?t been so much as one sighting. Not so much as a scamper, a prattle, or a crawl.
My hand was against an arms lab, towards the corner of the great room. We had an armory, observatory, phase gate and a turret factory up. No turrets, however. Most of the comm.?s money was heading toward the outer projects. There were pipes and vents all over the ceiling. Somewhere in the overhead mesh, metal shifted against metal.
I heard a clicking sound echoing above.
I noticed something fall, rather rapidly, in the corner of my eye.
What happened next will forever be the most frightening moment of my entire life. I?ll let you guess why first.
You were wrong.
As I turned, I expected in every sense of my being to be instantly destroyed. I didn?t think a thing however, not for a good moment. A second passed, yet nothing happened. My brain raced, trying to make sense of what was going on. I wondered in my panic if I?d seen anything at all. I didn?t even recognize the Skulk on all fours directly in front of me. The idea that it had not attacked me yet was unfeasible. A good five seconds passed before I realized what was happening. I stood, weaponless, in the main control room, the commander blaring orders at me in a hectic panic, staring at the beast...
...And it stared right back at me.
That was the scariest moment of my life.
The beast?s muzzle showed something of whom it was. He looked like a veteran, an old man who knew the game far too well. He was strong, yet careful. He stood before me completely relaxed, looking into my eyes. I felt his thoughts behind his gaze. Inside those yellow eyes, there was a definite being.
...And it was looking at me.
...And it was thinking about me.
A shotgun ineptly dropped into my hands. Immediately, the beast sprinted at me. In the rapid moment between then and his arrival, I gathered all my thought into two single actions:
Raise the gun.
Fire.
<i>I remembered once when I was young. I had seen my reflection in a tub of oil. To my dismay, it was clearer than it was in water.</i>
- Edan Koch
Comments
Just read all three parts and I have to admit that I like your work.
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
After years of first-person shooters, I have concluded that most people are allergic to bullets... I'm tired, leave me alone. <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
Anyways, you seem to have a very good grasp on where you want this story to go, investing words in helping us the reader care about the plight of a nieve reporter. The quaking in his boots stuff as he realized the alien in front of him had intelligence was just gut wrenchingly good insight. You seem to be building towards some new morph or devilishly intelligent strategy of the Kharaa, and I'm really interested to see if you can pull off some new thing that doesn't **** NSplayers or, God forbid, Flayra off and still sufficiently surprise us that we think we are watching some epic struggle unfold. That said, not every struggle has to be epic, you could make it a personal struggle for the reporter where he comes to terms with something in himself, which seems to be what your first post indicated, where as the epic struggle notion seemed to occur to me with the "strange" Kharaa behaviour in this posting.
I can't wait to see what you come up with. Just imagine, what if we one day were able to publish short novels about the Natural Selection Universe with Flayra's (and other intellectual property owners) blessings? I think a good number of the stories I've seen here would be worthy of that.
Otherwise, very nice <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->