Alright, so this is my first attempt at fanfiction. I've had the account sitting around for a while and suddenly decided to give it a shot. The first chapter is a little slow, and bears a lot of resemblance to the original, I know, but I promise it gets better the later it goes…well, at least I think so.
Please review my work, I really appreciate your feedback, whether it be positive, or constructive criticism. Any opportunity to improve my writing is a good one. Thank you for reading, and I hope you like it!
EDIT: Sorry, just updated this chapter so it wouldn't expire~ Nothin new yet, though there are some tiny tweaks~
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LORD OF THE FLIES: APOCOLIPTICA
CHAPTER ONE: THE SOUND OF THE SHELL
The boy with the fair hair examined the blown-out remains of yet another building, looking up and down its spine to see how tall it went, how tall it used to be. He was quite a ways up now, and the ground below him, along with the debris and mark of the bombs, was still visible. Turning back to the gaping hole before him, the boy lowered himself into the building, testing the floor with his feet before fully enlisting his trust in it. A cloud of dust blew upward, and he coughed violently. A crow cawed at him from one of the broken windows, and then flew back into the backdrop of red clouds.
"Hey." A voice called from the shadows, "What are you doing here?" The boy turned to the voice curiously. He watched as a rather fat, short boy untangled himself from a bunch of snaking, sparking, thick, multicolored chords and made his way over, picking across the filth and holes. "What's your name?"
"Ralph." The boy named Ralph said nothing else, but removed his jacket to reveal a clean, grey T-shirt. He moved on, to another room. Trails of light flooded in from the holes in the wall, making clear the swirling air, full of litter and debris. The fat boy kept on behind him.
"What are you doing here?" He repeated, "Isn't there anyone else you passed?" Ralph shook his head; tendrils of blonde hair neatly wove together.
"No. I couldn't see anyone else. That's why I came here. It's the only tall building still standing." Ralph answered.
A steel door was at the end of the hallway ahead. He made his way over, squinting his eyes against the darkness and the dust. Luckily, it was ajar. Ralph pushed it open with his hand, and dropped his jacket in the corner. The boy behind him kicked it into a corner as he followed Ralph into the room.
"Whoa." Ralph breathed, taking in the room with teenage eyes, "This is wizard." The room was large and circular, and got deeper as you got closer to the middle. There was a platform of some type, or at least the remains of it, near the far side of the room.
"Do you know where you are?" the fat boy asked. Ralph ignored him and bounded into the center of the circle. When he got there, something caught his attention. There was another doorway, near to the platform. He sneezed once and walked tentatively over to it. Something was glowing inside. "You can't go in there! Wait!" Ralph paused for a moment by the entryway.
"Why not?" He asked angrily. There were no adults here. He should be able to do whatever he wanted, in theory of course.
"SHELL is in there. That's what protects this building." The other boy answered, "I'm its guardian; that means it likes me best." He added proudly. Ralph looked back into the room quizzically.
"SHELL?"
The guardian nodded. "It's like a living, breathing computer. That's how this company used to call its soldiers in." he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and continued, "It also supports the AI network that runs throughout the city." An image of his old AI came into Ralphs's head. Of course, why didn't he recognize it earlier?
Every household in London was assigned an AI, but only one. They kept track of your well-being, like a doctor or nurse, and helped you compute problems, like a calculator. Their lifespan wasn't very long though.
"We had to shut down the individualistic household AIs, unfortunately." The guardian sighed, "They took up too much energy. The only thing online now is the soldier AIs and GlaSIS." Gladiator's Sentient Intellectual Server, or the mother AI. It helped the SHELL software run properly. Ralph pushed farther into the room. The temptation was just too strong. He had to see the one thing that had made life average for modern London. The protests of its guardian grew fainter behind him.
Finally, Ralph came to a room, small in width but extremely tall. The only thing it contained was a cylindrical tube that filled the entire height of the room, and glowed blue. Ralph laid his hand on it. The thing grew warm, and started to hum. There was heavy breathing behind him.
"Huh. It likes you. It wants you to stay here." The boy behind Ralph said in surprise. "Do you think we should call the soldiers?"
"Dunno."
"It wants you to decide." Ralph thought for a moment, and then decided that it was probably a good idea. The Soldiers that protected this building were usually the sons of the people who worked here, and this strange boys company was getting tiresome. Plus, working with a group was better than working as a pair…or one person. Right as he decided, the tube came to life beneath his hands. A holograph board lighted up before him. Faces and names started to scroll down the screen. Some had red X's over their faces. "Choose the teams you want to fall in."
Ralph looked carefully at the teams. The Recruits were younger, a lot younger. It looked like they had just graduated from kindergarten into battle school. Then there was The Black Caps, the most elite team, led by a boy by the name of Jack Merridew. They were bounty hunters. And they were all at Ralph's fingertips, at his very command. There were other teams, but it looked like they were mostly deceased.
"Call in all teams." Ralph ordered. The holo-screen retracted and a female voice repeated the order.
"CALLING IN ALL TEAMS." There was a brief pause. "WOULD YOU LIKE THE AIs OF THE DECEASED SOLDIERS TO BE TERMINATED?" Ralph looked to the guardian of the device for help.
"What should I do?" He asked.
"I recommend immediate termination. We have limited power supply, you know. By the way, you can call me-"
"-Piggy. Your name is piggy." Ralph turned back to the super-computer. "Yes, please." Then he turned away and started out, back into the platform room. The humming stopped. Piggy kept a steady pace behind Ralph.
"Where'd you hear that?" He whined, "Only the superiors call me that."
"My dad ran the over-seas division of this company. He's probably over in America right now, and when he hears about what happened here, he'll send a whole army to rescue us." Ralph answered.
"What if they don't think anyone is alive here?" Piggy asked.
"We'll find a way to let them know."
Ralph and Piggy sat on the edge of the platform, with piggy chatting away and Ralph in tense silence as they waited for the returning Soldiers. They trickled in eventually, starting with the smallest ones, and the occasional older boy. Piggy started to take names.
"Henry." He called up to Ralph from where he stood in front of a small boy, about six years old. A pair of boys walked in together, looking exactly the same. They tricked the eye into thinking one was seeing things, or that one was sick. Their hair was a mix between brown and blonde, like a plant that had withered and was on the brink of survival. Four yellow-brown eyes peered up at Ralph with a curious playfulness. These two appeared to be a part of the Black Caps, bearing the long, dark togs and the silver cross of an elite soldier. Ralph wondered briefly if they were born or made.
"I'm Sam."
"And I'm Eric." They said as Piggy made his rounds. They smiled one uniform smile, embedding the thought into Ralph's mind that they were clones.
"Sam, Eric, Eric, Sam, Sam? No, you're Eric." Piggy repeated as he pointed to each one.
"No, I'm Eric!"
"And he's Sam!" They laughed in unison as they both pointed to one twin. Ralph laughed with them, because it was so obvious how they were pulling the guardian's leg. A disturbance in the hallway took his attention soon after, There was a black mass of shadows moving through, making their way into the de-briefing room with a trained step. The leader of the pack jumped down to the center of the circle, sending his black cloak fluttering. Jack Merridew.
"Who called this meeting?" He demanded, "Where's the chairman? He's the only one who can control GlaSIS, where did he go?" Jack looked up at Ralph with a furious light blue glare, like fire, only hotter. The rest of his group stayed in two lines where the hallway met the room. They were coughing and sneezing in complaint. Ralph saw one in particular start to swoon.
"Merridew, sir, can we please sit?" A boy up front asked plaintively.
"Shut up. Not until we find out what's going on here." The fiery-haired leader barked. Ralph adjusted himself so that he was facing the red-head and spoke up.
"I called it." He answered. Jack Merridew looked incredulous.
"Impossible. Why would it listen to you? It doesn't listen to me!" He growled. Behind him, the line broke up as one of the members collapsed into the dust. Jack turned around at the sudden commotion and sighed.
"Simon's throwing a faint again!" one soldier shouted.
"Handle that. You can sit down now." The Soldiers happily perched around like ravens, while two carried the small boy who had passed out and placed him unhandedly in a space near to the platform. Jack turned back to Ralph. "What do you want?"
Ralph thought for a moment. "I think we are the only ones left in this city."
"No duh." Jack snorted, "Me and my soldiers combed over every little bit in London. No adults are alive, we know that for bloody certain."
"So we should work together to survive. We'll have our own little civilization." Other kids picked up what this implemented and joined in with excited voices.
"It'll be like the movies!"
"We'll stay up as long as we want!"
"No school!"
Ralph nodded and Jack Merridew squinted in thought. "We'd have to have a leader. Like a president, or a chairman, or a chief."
"I should be Chief." Jack insisted, "I'm head of the Black Caps, and I know three types of hand to hand combat. I was the best knife thrower in my class."
Piggy piped in. "But GlaSIS likes Ralph the best. Even better than me, and I'm the guardian."
"Shut up, fatty!" Jack sniped.
"His name's not fatty." Ralph muttered, "It's Piggy." Laughter echoed around the domed room. Shouts of 'Piggy' were bounced around like colorful balls between the raven-like soldiers. Piggy started to sulk. "Why don't we get names first?"
So they took names, and Ralph also noticed for the first time how each member of the Black Caps wielded a weapon; most just had pistols or SMGs. Like the crazy-haired Maurice, or the kid Robert, who couldn't be more than seven years old. But there were others too. The boy who had fainted, Simon, who had a swish of dark hair that almost covered his forehead and bright green eyes, carried a Gatling gun that looked way too big for him. The twins, Samneric, had joined their peers and started showing off what looked like precision pistols, complete with silencers. A furtive, dark boy held a sniper with a single hand limply by his side. He whispered that his name was Roger and was silent again. The innumerable boys kept changing in number.
"I think we should have a vote for leader." Ralph suggested, looking over the crowd. Most of the rest nodded in agreement.
"Alright, then." Jack said calmly, "Who says that I should be leader?" The Black Caps raised their hands obediently.
"And what about me," Ralph asked, "who wants me for leader?" The rest of the assembly raised their hands, enthralled by the boy who had control over GlaSIS, the entire SHELL mainframe. Jack had been outvoted, and he didn't look too happy.
"Alright, I'm leader." Ralph nodded, and smiled, then noticed Jack. "But you're still in charge of the Black Caps. They could be anything you want them to be."
"We'll be warriors." Jack smiled to for once, contented with his little seat of power.
"We should explore. The city's probably changed a lot. I know my house is ruined, smashed to dust." Ralph also reckoned that most of their parents were dead as well, but he said nothing. There were younger kids here. "I'll go, and…Jack, you'll come too."
"Why should I be Jack? I'm called Merridew. That's what everyone calls me, or they call me sir."
"Well, Jack is easier." Ralph once more examined the eager crowd in front of him; armed, dangerous teens and children. He looked around for an unintimidating youth and chose the young Simon, who just smiled meekly. They started out into the hallway and eventually came to the hole blown into the side of the building; the one Ralph had entered through. Piggy's labored breathing could be heard behind them. Ralph stopped, but Jack and Simon pretended not to notice. "Go back Piggy."
"No, I can come too!" he protested.
"We have enough people already." Ralph frowned, "Why don't you go back and count how many of there are? Find some paper and take it down, along with their names…" Paper. Ralph hadn't used paper since forever. They usually just had their AIs repeat the information to them whenever they needed.
"I'll ask GlaSIS." He sighed, downtrodden. Piggy scuffed the dirt with his shoe as he headed back. Ralph turned, and found that Jack and Simon had both waited for him. He fell into step beside the younger of the two, and the three explorers picked their way out of the seventeenth story, down the debris slide, and back onto solid ground. Simon walked between Jack and Ralph on the worn road, having to jump over cracks because he was too small to side-step them. It caused him to fall behind a lot, so most of the time he kept up a steady trot. Ralph started talking idly to Jack, who seemed to feel much more at home in the streets than in the stuffy buildings. All around them were the foundations of crumbled stores. Car parts were strewn about, and everything was coated in a thick layer of rusty brown dust, even the air. The sun was barely visible through the heavy cloud cover. Crows circled the air and lighted on whatever surface was available. Ralph noticed Simon and his stumbling.
"Do you want me to carry that for you?" He asked, gesturing to the too-big Gatling that the boy had to carry with both hands.
Simon shook his head violently, so that his hair flew back. He corrected it, and then shuffled a little to catch up with Jack. "I'm fine," Simon said in a tiny voice, not even turning to Ralph for his answer. Instead, his eyes were kept on the tedious scenery. "If it becomes a problem, I'll dissolve it. I just think I look cooler this way. Plus, if the bombs had some sort of nuclear substance within their core, there might be some side effects, like half-mutant, re-animated, non-living organisms." Simon said this as if everyone knew exactly what he meant. Jack threw him a sharp look.
"The Queen's English, please." He asked.
"My calculations say that there is a point zero nine five percent chance that her royal majesty still survives. Warning time was less than…" With another angered glance from Jack, Simon closed his mouth. Ralph shook his head to clear it, wondering what all Simon's jab was about. These soldiers seemed barely human.
After a while, the boys started to head back to the Gladiator building, where they started from. They were loaded with food from a grocery market they found, abandoned like everything else. Simon had been right about the queen too. When they had checked by the palace, it wasn't even there. Even the deepest bunker would've been decimated. But the boys didn't care. They were too young to understand or have feelings towards their authority of the state.
They sat on the edge of a window on the outside of the seventeenth floor, unsure of what to do next. The food was behind them, in a messy heap.
"Let's go to the top of the building." Ralph suggested. Jack and Simon agreed.
There were no complete stairs, the trio found this out quickly. The elevators didn't work either. Ralph remembered the shining crystal elevators fondly. He always loved to visit his father on the top floor, because the view of the city from the top was absolutely wizard. Simon and Jack walked over to one of the barren elevator shafts and checked it over with trained eyes. So far, through stairs and debris slides, the group had only made it to the thirtieth floor. There were seventy in all.
"We'll have to go this way." Jack concluded. "It should be quicker than finding a way outside the building and climbing from there." The two dark soldiers started to step into the shaft. Ralph caught them by the arms before they jumped in.
"Hold on!" He hastily said, "The elevator doesn't work, what are you doing?!" Jack looked back at Ralph as if he had grown wings. Then he blew a weary sigh.
"I keep forgetting that you're a civilian. Look, it's not that difficult, and you'll have to learn fast anyway. Just keep close to Simon or me. Follow our lead." He shook Ralph off and Stepped backwards into the shaft with a devilish smile. There was a metallic clang. Ralph looked down, and saw that Jack had pulled out some sort of metal stick with lights on the end, and jammed it between the gears on the side of the gaping hole. There was a beep as the stick retracted into his sleeve and Jack started to trapeze up the building, using whatever was left of the elevator as handholds.
"Alright." Simon hopped once and swirled to face Ralph, speaking too fast for him to catch all the words. "Follow me; I can catch you if you fall. Don't look down, test each hand hold and foot hold. When you jump in, jump straight down and grasp the wall. Merridew jumped across because he's good at this. Now let's go." The small boy pulled a strap out of his cloak's pocket and attached it to the gun he held, and then slung it around his shoulder. Without skipping a single second, he jumped down the shaft. Ralph looked down. Jack was already at least five floors above them, not even checking his hand holds.
"It's safe!" Simon called reassuringly from ten feet below, where he hung precariously from a ledge. It didn't look to safe, but for some reason Ralph trusted him. He held his breath and jumped. "Put your hands out! No, that's not the way-!" The rush of air was unnaturally quick. Before he could react, Simon had him by the arm. "Be more careful." He warned gently. Ralph worked his way onto the ledge and the two had to catch up to Jack.
They never did though. Ralph kept slipping off whatever ledges he found, and Simon was held back by his bumbling. Jack looked down from the top floor with amusement as the double picked their way slowly up, with the occasional shout of surprise from Ralph. Simon was silent the rest of the way up. By the time they reached Jack, it was almost nightfall.
"You're awfully clumsy." Jack sniggered. Simon shrugged and whipped his gun off the strap it had been supported by on the long climb up. He surveyed the roof with caution as Ralph hauled himself over the final ledge and coughed up a lungful of dust. Jack laughed again. "You need to exercise. This world is going to be really hard for you."
"Shut it." Ralph wheezed, straightening his stance. Jack kept the sneer on his face as the two walked over to Simon. Jack leaned over so that he was level with the dark-haired boy.
"Why didn't you go up your way? It would've been faster." He asked.
Simon shrugged. "Ralph would've fallen over the edge. Plus, I don't want to freak him out." Jack groaned and pulled out the metal staff he had used before. The glowing tips buzzed to life.
"What's that?" Ralph asked. Jack brandished it proudly and jabbed at the air.
"It's called a cattle prod. It shocks you with those things at the end. That way, my enemies are rendered immobile for a few seconds. Cause, you know, that's really all it takes."
Ralph wondered silently at what Jack would do after his enemies were immobile. Horrid fantasies came to life before his eyes like some sort of sick slideshow. He shuddered. Then there was a thud, around a corner about ten feet away, and his companions were alert once more. After staying put for a few moments, Ralph copied their movements.
"Look over there, humanoid life." Simon pointed out a slouched form in the general direction of the noise. It was moaning, and something gross was spilling out of a gaping wound in its stomach.
"Simon, perform a Bioscan. I don't like the look of this." Jack ordered.
"Yes sir." Simon disappeared somewhere behind Ralph, probably to find higher ground, where he could get a closer look at the thing. Ralph started out of what little cover they had and made toward the creature.
"Hey!" Jack hissed, "Where are you going?" Ralph looked back at the red-haired leader through a screen of blonde tendrils.
"It's human," He answered, "and it looks hurt. We have to help it." Jack narrowed his eyes.
"Fine, leader; Go ahead, we got your six." He pulled out a silver pistol from his cloak. "Just remember that I told you so."
Ralph nodded and determinedly walked over to the crouched figure. The moaning grew louder and louder until it was the only thing he could hear. Upon closer examination, the form was skinny and sickly, bleeding jolly badly too. It crouched with its head and knees on the cement, cradling whatever wound was on its belly. A curtain of brown hair covered its face, and the moaning came forth now into words.
"My baby…my baby…" It was weeping. Ralph reached forward to comfort it, but as soon as he made the motion, the creature snapped upwards and screamed. Its face was horrid, ghastly. It had empty eye sockets that bled and dripped and spine-like teeth. You could see the point of every bone in its body. It lunged at Ralph, and knocked him to the ground. He panicked and started to kick and scream, trying to knock the horrible thing off. Quick, rapid pops echoed off the concrete and rattled Ralph to his core. The creature on top of him went limp. He pushed it off and stood up, breathing heavily. Jack ran over and checked that the creature was dead. He kicked it with his lace-up leather boots and let it lie.
"Thanks for helping me. You were right." Ralph gasped between each ragged breath. Jack looked incredulous.
"That wasn't me." He scoffed. "It was Simon." Ralph stood up and looked up at the younger boy, who stood on top of a water tank. The many barrels of the Gatling gun spit acrid smoke into the already dusty air. Simon's eyes were glowing brightly.
"Analysis complete, sir." He droned, "Unfortunately, specimen was destroyed in my efforts to save the new chairman."
"Report." Jack ordered gruffly.
Simon jumped down from his perch, his black cloak fluttered around him. His landing was solid. "Humanoid in appearance, deceased at 02:00 hours, re-animated due to radioactivity. Retains the most disturbing memory it processed during its lifespan. Blood clots completely after the fifth radioactive stage…processing…processing…proc..ess..." His eyes fluttered slightly and he listed sideways onto the concrete.
"Simon's always throwing a faint." Jack complained. "Both him and Roger…I hate it when they throw me the defects."
"A defect?" Ralph inquired, "Isn't that called a sickness; he's a human not a machine." Jack cocked his head a bit and looked at Ralph with questioning. Then he realized something and chuckled.
"I'll explain to you later all the sixes and sevens. Until then, we need to get back to the de-briefing room. The rest should know what we found." Jack said.
Ralph looked back at the dead creature. It was pretty sad actually, with its hollow eyes and gaping mouth. At one point, it would've been human. It had a life, a family.
"Why didn't you kill it, Jack?" He asked, "You have that pistol."
"I…err…I don't like killing with distance weapons." He stammered. Then he tossed the gun in the air. It arced through the sky and Ralph caught it without thinking. "You can keep it. I'll stick to knives and my cattle prod." When Ralph gave him a funny look, Jack flushed red. "Next time though, I'll do him in. You'll see!"
As if daring Ralph to protest, Jack reached into his cloak and swung his arm out. Chunks of concrete were dislodged from the ground as four deadly looking blades took their places. They imbedded up to the hand-guards, which were engraved with Jack's initials. In reply, Ralph hoisted Simon onto his back while Jack took the Gatling and worked the knives out of the ground. They made their slow progress back to the seventeenth floor.