The blinding flare of the engines dimmed as the ship settled into it's corrected course towards the now rapidly approaching dock. Corrective jets fired sparingly from under the overhang of the main decks, shifting the course slightly to line up with the target on the side of the bay. The target, a ring of three circles, white, blue and then red was worriedly scratched in places. Further inspection would have shown a greater range of damage expanding outwards from the target zone to the edges of the docking bay, however no one on the ship was paying much attention to previous damaged, more focused on any damage they were potentially about to create.
The maneuvering jets flared again, this time the rear port and the forward starboard engines were firing at all power spinning the ship in a left circle. The large, rectangular boxed warship was now sailing towards station backwards, the four main engines starting to fire at full burst. The pulse lasted twenty seconds, then thirty as the ship sailed closer and closer to the bay. The momentum finally started to bleed away as the count reached a minute forty and the engines shut off, leaving the ship now merely idling towards the station. The jets fired again, spinning the ship once more. It had now spun three quarters of a circle, the port side of the ship now angling into towards the scorched and scratched target. The arms of the docking bay had unfolded, moving to accept the ship ambling towards it.
All the port jets fired, then eased, to kill the remaining momentum as the warship eased slowly into the bay, the arms reaching out to connect to the side the ship and springing back as it took the last of the momentum. The depths of the airless void swallowed the groaning of the station as it took the force, before pushing it back slightly into it's proper place. As they settled together, fuel lines and docking runs reached out to the large warship, re-provisioning it before it's return to duty as soon as the resupply was over. Automated repair bots slipped off the station, hovering over the docked ship like a crowd of concerned grandmothers, welding and patching the damage and scars to its surface. The repairs were not pretty, but they were effective, and right now that's all the navy had time to do; patch it and get it back out there, in the dark murky asteroid field of the outer solar system.
The battle raged endless at what was now the final battle lines of this once great empire. At it's height it held over thirty colonies in nearby systems, now all it held was the home system. Even that was at risk, as the battle raged out beyond the reach of the local sun, the light struggling and eventually failing to piece the darkness beyond worlds. The fighting was blind, excepting the occasional explosion of downed warships that had been located in the murk. Ambush after ambush took place, a slow war of attrition that favored neither the attackers nor defenders. The fighting wouldn't until they came to the treaty table, and why would they? They had their enemy pushed back to their last system, their navy committed to defending the jump points into the system, or fighting in the interstellar waste between stars preventing slow travel between the stars. There was nothing now but to hold to the last, and hope for a miracle.
Trying a little something new, let me know what you think. Was written in scrivener, so a fair amount of the formatting and italics and such haven't come through, I have fixed any obvious stuff though.
The wind rolled quietly through the empty street, rustling the overgrown grasses as it swept eastward in off the coast, flowing gently into the ruined metropolitan areas ahead. The near silent wind was ignored by the Survivor as he watched his prey, one of the only living things left in the desolate waste of the City. Well, except for himself, of course.
The Survivor slowly raised his bow, a custom made crossbow and well used and looked after crossbow of some sort, taking steady aim as the head of the buck raise from its chewing in the tall grass in the circle it stood in. The buck looked left to right from its vantage point in what would have once been a round-a-bout in a society long past, yet somehow seemed to completely miss the figure crouched on the low fence across the way.
Just as it’s head lowered back into the grass the ‘thock’ of the crossbow rang around the intersection, followed by the whistle of the bolt as it speared into the eye of the buck. It reared, feet flailing, feet twisting as it writhed it’s death throes before it drew it’s last, final breath. The Survivor waited in his crouch for five, then ten minutes, waiting to see if They would be drawn by the scent of a fresh kill. Sometimes They came, and while the Survivor could handle himself in any situation, he never needed to be surrounded by them as they moved in around him again. Once Twice had been enough.
The Survivor quickly gutted his kill, leaving the unnecessary weight behind as he hefted the carcass onto his shoulders. His even, steady strides took him quickly from the area of the kill, avoiding the chance of any further confrontation, although he should be fine now. Several suburban streets had passed by, in a zig zag fashion before he allowed himself to stop for a moment, the blood of the carcass dripping slowly down the dull and faded leather of his jacket. Winter was starting to settle onto the city, and the sharp cold was starting to drive even the hardiest of survivors into their hideouts more and more as the days grew shorter. The Survivor dealt with those very rarely, more often than not it was only when he desperately needed supplies and even then he would wait until the last possible moment to make the trip.
Ducking into the nearby lane-way, he awaited sign of any pursuers, buck still pressing heavily on his shoulders, yet being ignored for the simple sake of preparedness, being ready to go as soon as They showed their… faces? Hearing nothing after a few moments he moved forward again, strides growing in length as he started to hurry. Darkness was coming, and it didn’t pay to be out in the night, not in these days. The long strides quickly brought him to where he wanted to be, a large green shed with a faded yellow sign with only a few letters remaining in place. Probably once a mechanics or such, the sign now only read ‘& so__’. Regardless, the shed was obviously well known to the Survivor as he threw the buck over the fence that surrounded the place on the two sides facing the street, before jumping it himself.
He unlocked the door before he dragged the corpse into the darkness and bolted, locked, and dropped a bar across the doorway. The Survivor was never a careless one, especially not tonight, knowing They will surely track the scent of a freshly ended kill. They didn’t only track in the dark, but it was the time that the packs tended to run, and thus, was a time to avoid being in the open. Hefting the buck up and onto one of the meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, the Survivor turned to check the surroundings of his little ‘butchers’. Old, dessicated carcasses hang from other hooks around the room, flies buzzing quietly around them, subdued by the cold of the approaching night. The smell of the rotting meat in the room could nearly be tasted on the tongue, and would turn even the strongest stomaches away from the shed, leaving the odor of death and decay clinging to anyone who walked in. The Survivor took all this in stride as he slipped on some disposable surgical gloves, un-holstered the knife from his belt and proceeded to skin deer and quarter the deer, cutting it into more manageable chunks of rare, life giving meat. Things had been tight this year. They had been hunting down the remaining humans and adding them to Their man-farms. It appeared They had either greatly miscalculated how many people They would consume over time, or maybe They were just tiring of having lose ‘rebels’ alive and in the streets. Either way, it had certainly not become easier to survive over time.
Just as he finished up his work, in the midst of bagging the last quarter to take back to his home, the Survivor heard the scrap of fang on steel from above him. Freezing, he bent and slowly put the bag down, making as little noise as possible. Standing, the survivor drew the sawn-off double barrel from his right hip. While he couldn’t kill Them with it, even with the cold iron pellets withing the cartridges instead of lead, it would certainly hurt. Moving slowly, the Survivor moved to the door, patting his left waist to ensure his blade was still at his side. No further noises had come from above, but if they were going to come, it wouldn’t be long now before the steel door exploded into shards, and the Survivor would be left to fight his way out.
I've been re reading the Dark Tower, and I wanted to try and write in a style similar to the first half of The Gunslinger. It's pretty short, but I think it turned out ok. I'll see how I go, I might expand it later into the full story if I get the time. Lemme know what you lot think.
*edit: goddamned formatting never copies into this shithole of a website.
**edit 2: OMG TUMBLR! Y U NO PAY ATTENTION!
***edit 3: you know a website is bad when you need to edit it in fricken HTML to get a simple line break to work.
The dead, wispy grass cracked apart as the boot-heel landed steadily upon it, squashing it into the dust below. The Mage had long since stopped looking where he was headed and now concentrated firmly on his boots as they continued onward, further in the dead (or dying, it depends who you ask) plains. An thought came to the fore of his mind, when had he last drunk?, yet he carried himself on wards regardless. The answer wasn’t important, so long as the sanity remained to continue asking the question.
The dirt (or was it dust?) beneath his feet might be called red in some places, but here it was nothing more than the colour of dried blood, whistling around his ankles in the wind. It rarely changed, maybe giving way to the odd clump of stiff, razor sharp grassy patches, but even that seemed struggled here.
The Mage had been told this was the edge of the Red waste that he now travelled, but if this was truly only the edge, he had no desire to see the center, in whatever hellish form it may take. The legion of dusty footprints leading him on-wards into the west changed slightly, causing him to raise his eyes. The sun had dropped some time ago, and now the angry, burnt-orange ball of fury was nearly of equal height to the Mage, as if tauting him to try and defy it. Pull his eyes away he dropped his vision just below the fires of heaven, finding the figures he sought. Hazy in the distance it was hard to make out any details, and for all he could tell they were five hundred meters ahead or five thousand.
Little does it matter, he accepted to himself, no matter how far ahead they were, he would keep pace, until the day ended. They knew he was back here, those men in black, they knew he was trailing them. They respected him for it. Hell, they even feared him a little because of it. No man should be able to endure this wasteland like he could, walking mile after mile with no pause or stutter. Each day, every day, he walked behind this group, acting a rear guard, giving warning when attack came and helping those in front who fell. He wasn’t the strongest, or most able-bodied person for this job, yet he had one unique skill that made him near perfect for it: He was stubborn.
He considered thousands of men and women in-front of him to be the last of his family, they who had been through so much together, yet still nothing to compare to the likes of this. He remembered standing on a tall stone wall on a mountain edge, blowing deeply into a horn crafted from some massive beasts tusk. He couldn’t at this moment remember why he was blowing into that horn that day, but he could remember what he was thinking while he did. He was thinking I never want to be this cold ever again in this life or the next three.
The tides of fortune continue to turn against the Great Lords of Darkest Night, their champions scattered and drained, pushed to their last, with no sign of relief. Morrowdorn's soul further ruptures with every rebirth, denied the simple period of rest it needs to recover, instead it is thrown back to the mortal worlds to be born and raised to fight at the head of the Dark armies as they fight across the stars. The Lord of the Stricken has turned his back on the night, joining the Balance Maker himself, and giving the Final End to one of his Dark brothers in the haste to join his new master's nefarious plans to conquer everything, and to reset the very Balance itself. The remaining lords fight, but they tire to the state of despair. Instead of blessed cries of euphoria reverberating throughout the Halls of Night as souls return from life, tortured cries of agony and despair echo the space, as they try in vain to avoid being reborn into the hell that awaits. The armies of the Dark, splintered not only by the defection of a champion, but also a Great Lord, fall back on most every front, pursued and pushed by forces of the Alliance of Light. The consistent loss of hard won worlds, that had been flooded in the blood of lords, mages and the mighty demons and angels of night and light, left the Great Lords desperate. All hope rests on either finding their missing brother, and bringing his might back the fight and righting the Balance again, or the push of forces through the tattered, backwater Echo Worlds, to cut behind the supply lines of the light, and buy some time. As it stands, Darkness sits on a precipice, as the very bedrock breaks away, fighting to their last breath, waiting for the miracle they need. It's that, or let countless worlds see the end of Darkness itself, and bask in the never ending days of Light, til the very end of time consumes all.
I've been a bit directionless as of late, just drifting in the ocean of life waiting for something or someone to point me in the right direction. The constant turmoil of relationships hasn't helped me in this field at all, but I get by. I don't know what I'm here to write today, just writing for the sake of writing as nothing has really grabbed me to blather on about yet.
I have attachment issues, that I never seem to get around to doing something about. I grow attached to people much too easy, and then grow disenchanted when they dont feel the same way. It can annoying for both parties, but much more so for them than me, I believe. The problem is the timeframe that this happens in, which is roughly around a week lately. The root of it isnt really hard to find if I look deep enough. Past Experiances.
The way I see it, I've been through multiple failed long term relationships, that really looked like they were going to go the whole distance before fell apart and ended. Now I just want to get it over with, take the quick way out, find out if its going to fail sooner rather than later. Maybe that means I'm not over my Exes, but I doubt it, as I havent thought about any of them in quite a while.
Sometimes I still take it the slow way, and it ends up the same as the quick way. I'd start to suspect I was picking the wrong type of girls, but it's not as though I have a 'type'. I've had the smart ones, the bimbos, the party girls and the stay at homes. The self conscious and the confident and all the rest. The only common factor in those relationships is me. Kinda highlights the root problem, right?
So its me. I'm the problem here. It's not like I haven't known for a good few years now, but in that same respect, it didtake me a lot longer to figure it out than I'm willing to admit. At least we all know the central point of failure and move on (and now I have a title!). Honestly, I'm actually quite happy with the idea of being alone long term, it just kind of suits me. I'm not looking to have chrildren, well not for a while at least, so theres no real need to have a partner, just a desire to have one, so the world doesn't seem so empty.
Empty or not, without a partner I know where I'm going, no distractions and no deviations. Finacial freedom and stability are on the horizon, which is something I don't think I could have pulled off even half this fast in any other situation.
Simply put, I'm accustomed to being alone. It works for me, and I work for it. Don't be hatin' just cause y'all need someone.
(I'm sooo ghetto)
Thank the almighty for the weekend. I truly don't know if I would have made through another day without collapsing this week. I've spent the last 6 or so hours trying to chill out, after getting home from happy hour, without much luck.
My jaw cracks every time I yawn, as though some demon of mine is trying to escape and only my self control holds the beast within. I will retire shortly, to prevent the world from experiacing the horrors that my be unleshed from within the dark abyss of my soul.
Things have been occuring to me all day today, flickering into my thought patterns as I struggle to keep up with events around me. I don't know why these thoughts are popping in (well, I do suspect slightly, but thats for me to know), but they are becoming somewhat annoying, distracting anything I was trying to do at the time. The realization of what it means is fairly obvious to me, and maybe it will help to say it out loud or something? I don't know, I just make this stuff up! :)
All I truly know is that Shattered is playing at the moment (By O.A.R, look it up), and it's suiting my mood perfectly right now. I pushed for the edge this week, the first time I've done it in a while, and hit that barrier and slammed through it and just kept on moving. 65 hours booked out in 4 days. Not a bad effort for me, not my best, but it is getting close. Bank balance is going to look nice though next thursday. Reminds me, have to pay my gas bill sometime if I can find it again. Interesting that they send you a text message when you dont pay, then again I don't think I've ever missed a single bill in my life up to this point, so maybe they do it back home too. Honestly, who cares!
That Demon is trying to get out again, I should probably go. After I do this anyway:
I love you. Always have, and you hopefully (probably) know it. I miss you, and I'll be home soon, hopefully long enough to lay eyes on you and remember what I'm missing.
Ni-Night Readers. Sleep well, and battle your own Demons.
Had an interesting disucssion this afternoon with one of my more long term friends who is also an ex girlfirend. While we were chatting she asked me why I had never said I was sorry. This was, confusing, what exactley was I supposed to be sorry for? Her answer was 'breaking up with me?' now I will admit to be somewhat taken back by that response, did she not remember how we broke up? Did she not remember why we broke up?
Turns out the answer was no, she didn't. After explaining exactly why I broke it off with her, she decided to ask that, if she was so terrible to me, why are we still friends? I think at this point she was actually genuinely confused, and my answer of 'I loved you, still do' just broke her brain. Either way it raises an odd point, if you spend so long in the company of one person, why can't anyone seem to still be friends with their ex spouses/girlfriends. I can, why can't you?
See, she pushed me into a situation where I had to make the choice what to do, because she wasn't going to. She was content to go to work, do her job, then come home and sit on a computer all day until she slept before going to work again. Maybe that doesn't seem so bad to this generation, but this was going on at my (parents) place, and I spent ALL DAY fixing and working on computers, I didnt want to spend the rest of the day either watching or joining her on the cursed things. So obviously, that really wasn't going to work for me.
Now, I want to point out, this wasn't just sitting there on facebook or anything, this was WoW. The evil beast itself. Every single waking moment she had was spent either playing that stupid game, going to work, or eating and maybe watching something on TV once a week. The only way I could get her to do something was to nag the living hell out of her to make it happen. At this point we had been together for four years, and supposedly breaking up was never going to happen. What a shock she had coming.
Either way, I was really nice about it. Told her my concerns and asked if we could work through it. She couldn't and we spilt. End of story, there is no romantic reason, she wasn't moving away or anything like all the stories she told our friends as to why I dropped her, this is what it was.
Any way, so that was my weird chat, she thought I just dumped her for no reason. Maybe because she is still addicted to MMOs (I think Tera or something now) she probably never fully realised why I did what I did, but so be it. She now has a boyfriend who is addicted just as much as she is, and it helps to see her happy with someone, at least I didn't screw her up as badly as I managed to wreck myself later on.
The stormclouds rolled back into the valley bowl formed by the surrounding hills, reclaiming the sky that they had been displaced from by the clash of energies below. Below the tumultous sky and threatening booms of thunder, in the eye of the vivid destruction around them, were two figures, one and standing over the other as it lay broken, looking at the desolation they had created for miles around.
"Why Brother?" He asked his fallen foe, still staring into the distance "Why did you cause me to unleash this upon you?"
The silence grew, eventually becoming uncomfortable enough to cause him to look down, directley into that hateful gaze.
"You brought this on yourself," uneasily looking away again "you knew how it was going to end. Challenging the Order was a terrible idea, so why did you stay?! You could have gone back to your Lord, Me-"
"You know... how I feel... about that name." The figure below cut in ragged, rasping breaths. "Stop... preaching... to me..."
"The 'Eagle' then, at least let me heal you some, Brother, to ease your passing?"
"No! I will... suffer... my own pain."
"Fine, you always were a stubborn fool."
Gesturing to the blackened plain, to the sounds of the battle from the pass to the east, and to the single figure crawling on the single rise left of what was once a series of rolling hills "Why did you do this to me?! You've abandoned me to be alone forever! We have stood together for thousands of years, born onto countless worlds to fight for the Dark! We stood together on the Starwall for three years! We fought in the Duskfall!" he sighed and turned back to point at the prostate figure "You! You and I, we spent nearly fifty years during the Coming of Dawn! Fifty Years! And you turn on me NOW?! As the night fails for the final coming, you decide to forsake us?"
The fallen figure, 'The Eagle' as it were, grimaced at every accusation, before struggling to his feet, his knees weak under him. "I think Brother, that you know exactly why this needed to happen. The Lords are fractured, the skys burn with ice and fire, and dead themselves rise from the grave. You know this, and you watch it happen! The Great Lords fail in their duties and The Light washes all! My Master watched this and decided He had seen enough. He stood for what matters to Him, even if it means fighting His family, and so will I!"
The air around then crackled as he straightend to his full height, well over sex and a half feet. "I think, Muixa, my dearest brother, that it is time for the second round."
A lord of Darkness, still stands broken,
atop the decrepid northern wall;
His love dying, another graphic token,
to document his long fall.
The end of days, they still approach,
Imepending terror shrouding the land;
the Dark Night, it still encroaches,
To where the Lost Soul will continue to stand.
His final moment.
Standing alone, no friends yet still live.
one last attempt made to acquire,
That which had been dormant.
With nothing left, for him to give,
The Lonely Soul of Darkness, Lord Maharvie,
Set the world afire.
In todays world, I find that the idea of being 'disconnected' is becoming more and more an outlandish concept as mobile devices become more popular and powerful.
I am actually at the point where I am struggling to understand why people want things like facebook messages, skype, and steam for gods sake, pushing to their mobiles when the app is not active.
If you're having a conversation, fine. Leave the app open, but when you're doing every other mundane task, living life, enjoying the weekend, cant you just enjoy what is infront of you, instead of what everyone else wants to tell you. Seriosuly, why?! Is it not just as easy to to check your phone occasionally when you want to talk to someone or something like that?
Probably just me. Must be getting old.
Want to clear up, not a dig at email for those who NEED it (like myself). I need that notification to keep my network going (and to keep my job), which is a whole different story to having someone saying hey popping up on your screen 15 times a day.
As SysAdmin jobs go, I have it really easy. Maybe one nights overtime a month, maybe two if shit hits the fan.
That aint so bad. Until you actually get used to not having to run updates at 3am, and suddenly you have a whole slew of them to do, and each server of the 60 or so can only be taken down one at a time.
So, yes, I've been to the pub in preparation, and yes, I have a couple of six packs in the fridge, and yes; I'll kill you if you call my phone before midday tomorrow.
Please dont tell the boss I was updating servers running sites worth millions while fairly drunk. Probably end up dead.
Hope everyones night is going better than mine, I'm gonna crank some three doors down and chillax for a few hours because no one is online. Peace! <3
P.S. Peace out Harry, you were a furry baller of mice, and your mum misses you more than you know. Personally, I never met you (allergies and all that), but I'm sure you were cool.
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