[[Author's Note: Although I intend to place these at the end from now on, I figure due to changing my name it's worth putting this at the start. This is Cypher Stormshard on the new handle I use pretty much universally, so it's nice to meet you again and I'm glad to be back writing Gorillaz fic, seriously.
Regarding the story itself: Summer Has Faded is the "new" Summer's Fading in Flames - I started writing the former when I was fourteen, maybe younger, and in any case I don't like it at all anymore. It lacked focus and direction past the first couple chapters, and more than that, I didn't like that I let it drop without ever finishing it. So, I figured that, as my comeback to and the general region of the internet occupied by Gorillaz fiction, I'd re-do Summer's Fading in Flames, and do it right this time.
That's basically the story behind this fic. Note: The story contained in these chapters is based on a very old status of the Gorillaz canon at this point, and is absolutely Alternate Universe. The events over the course of this fic are constrained by canon only up to the El Manana video, prior to the release of Rise of the Ogre, when it was revealed that Noodle was still alive.
So, without further ado and before I get the chance to prattle on further, I'll simply welcome you to my second attempt at this story, and hope you enjoy it.]]
It was a hazy summer afternoon, and the air was still save for the sound of the wind, the calming creak of the old windmill, and the subdued voice of a blind man, floating on the air. Feet and feet again in the air above an idyllic green landscape somewhere in the midst of England, Windmill Island continued its languid, never-ending journey towards the horizon, gently cutting through the clouds on its way. At its tip, a young, violet-haired woman sat, legs dangling out over the precipice. Neither height nor gravity held sway here - the only things of any significance were the peace of the afternoon, and the music, fruits of a labour long in the making.
Summer don't know me no more,
Eager man, that's all…
She had closed her eyes for a moment to listen to the wind and the music weave together, and lazily, she opened them again, looking out on the green beneath her cast in the crimsons of the time. There was a sound, gnawing at the back of her head - a thing that didn't belong in her temporary paradise. Like a buzzing insect, unpleasant but annoying. A mosquito sound. But for the moment, she ignored it, content in the ennui of a passing summer's day.
In the gap of her errant attention, they came.
Summer don't know me,
He just left me loathe in myself,
Cause I do know lord,
From you that,
Just die, yeah…
The mosquito sound became a hornet, angry wings beating discord into her afternoon. She frowned. She looked around, and saw black chrome and gun barrels. The music was forgotten, but it still continued to play, impetuous, unconcerned. For a moment, she was stunned.
I saw that day,
Lost my mind,
Lord I'm fine,
Maybe in time,
You'll want to be mine
Then everything was cacophony, and a super soldier was reduced to a scared teenage girl running for the only cover she could find.
For every step and every thud of her heart, she could hear behind her two, three loud, earthy tump-ps, as bullets kicked up dirt and anger. One scored the boombox that she had used for her soundtrack, leaving a deep scar in the plastic - but miraculously, the machine itself was uninjured and continued to play. But the roar of rotating machine guns swallowed the sound, and what wasn't masked by that was drowned by the pounding in her ears and the sound of panicked, gasping breath. She reached the brick-and-mortar safety of her windmill, ducking inside, instincts telling her to run. Keep running. Don't stop. She couldn't stop.
It was well that she didn't, as behind and above, fragments of lead tore the plaster to pieces. The brick might as well have been linen - it didn't even give them pause. Every bullet hole was a beam of light, and every beam was a prison bar. She was trapped.
Don't stop the buck when it comes,
It's the dawn, you'll see…
The sound faded, the hornet sound was a mosquito again. Smoke tickled her eyes. Unbecoming naivety suggested it might be over. She went out to check.
Money won't get there,
Ten years past it now,
You'll flee…
Her island was in shambles. Her windmill was on fire, and the grass was all torn and rapidly charring. The gears and mechanisms within her monument to a carefree existence groaned in protest at being forced to do their duty in spite of the damage. A battered, broken set of blades still turned in a rapidly blackening sky.
Two gunmetal gray dots taunted her vision, even against the distant storm.
If you do that,
I'll be sold,
To find you…
She ran again, desperate for cover, more than she ever could have been before. The thunder of the guns kicked up even as she turned, even as she printed for a safety she knew wasn't safe. A bullet tore through her hair, cut strands fluttering against her face for a moment, and then she was climbing stairs, running, trying to escape and knowing she couldn't. More beams, more bars, and it was getting hot and she couldn't see, and then she slipped on a damaged stair. She fell like lead in the ocean, and the impact of her head on the dirt-covered stone floor seemed to signal to the island that the time had come. It could give up.
Disoriented and bleary, her island began to plummet, and she with it. The helicopters circled like flies about a pig's head.
I saw that day,
Lost my mind,
Lord, I cry…
As it fell, the tinned roof of the windmill tore lose and fluttered upwards, borne on the wind as the island descended into a canyon below, a piece of desert in an English countryside. The precious cargo on this errant piece of metal spun about, g-forces testing her already hazy state of mind. Hastily fastened to her back was the lone parachute they kept in the windmill, miraculously undamaged. As the helicopters descended, she pulled the string, certain now that they had lost sight of her, focusing on the enticing pray beneath them.
The island struck the canyon floor with a force that reverberated through the air even as far up as she, the bass of the impact carrying with it both sadness and snatches of song. The gunmetal hornets descended to finish their work - a single black speck dropped from one, too far away to make out, falling on the remains of her island.
She would have cried, had the angry hand of god not descended at that moment to punish imagined transgressions. There was a hush in the air for a fragment of a second, and then an unimaginable roar.
There was red and smoke and wind, tossing her about like a rag doll, and such a terrible sound.
There was red and black bleeding into each other as her battered mind gave out. Her last feeling was of weightlessness. Of descent.
Maybe in time,
You'll want to be mine…