Thankings once more to all reviewers, replies are at the bottom.
Anyway, at this point in the story, things may get a little confusing.
Chapter 6: That shouldn't have happened
I opened my eyes and stared in fear and confussion at the sight, if that's what it was, before me.
All I could see was red, then my vision became slightly clearer and I made out wires, all of which seemed to surround me, I was a little disturbed to find that they were in fact attached to me.
I sat up, breaking the sticky coating which seemed to be trying with all its strength to keep me in place. As I did this, I used what little strength I could muster to tear a plug from my throat.
It was cold.
Once my survival instincts had died down slightly, I looked around and shuddered in sudden horror as I realised what had happened.
They'd un-plugged me.
All around me there were pods, all of which contained an unrecognisable corpse with similar looking wires holding them in place and doing who knows what to them. Looking below me I noticed that I was so far from the ground that I'd probably die of old age before I'd hit it, if I fell.
My thoughts were halted suddenly, and my fear amplified, by a faint whirring sound that was becoming louder by the second.
I looked upwards to see what I can only describe as a huge mechanical spider hovering towards me. Now I'm not really an arachnophobe, but I'm not the world's biggest spider fan either, and on top of everything that was happening, the added fear this sight produced was, let's just say, unwelcome.
The beast stopped dead and seemed to stare at me for a few seconds. It seemed to shift slightly from side to side as if were a predator arranging itself in the best striking position it could find.
And then it struck.
A huge metallic arm shot forward and grabbed me by the neck; I instinctively grabbed the arm and tried to prise it off of me, to no avail of course. The arm stayed in position for what seemed like hours, looking back however, it was probably more like seconds.
Anyway, I heard a noise that sounded like an electric drill, before I knew it the wire in my head was gone, followed soon after by the other wires.
My whole body went numb with this, and I found that I could do nothing but be swept away into the dark tunnel that appeared behind me, in which presumably, giant buzz saws or a mincer was waiting to dispose of me.
To be honest, I didn't really care.
*******************************************************************
I sat alone in the bar with a half empty glass in front of me. Since my transformation, I had been plagued by a feeling of depression and betrayal to myself. Manticore had told me that this was natural, and would pass after a day or two. Until that happened however, I was reasonably content to revel in my miserable solitude. Hydra had other ideas however.
"Mind if I join you?" She asked suddenly, having apparently appeared out of nowhere and making me jump in the process.
"Go ahead." I said as politely as I could.
She stretched her tail as far towards the ceiling as far as it would go before sitting down. She the let it hang over the seat.
"I thought you might like someone to talk to during your guilt trip."
"Thanks," I uttered whilst producing a grin, "if you don't mind, I have about 400 questions to ask."
"I thought you might," she adjusted her tail slightly and shifted in the chair, "alright then, ask, question and inquire."
I started with the obvious, 'how did the organisation start', 'what happened next' etc. The answers to these questions were pretty much what I'd expected. After I'd got the obvious stuff out of the way, I moved on to the less-important questions that my own curiosity had seen fit to supply me with.
"Your organisation has…"
"Don't call it an organisation." She said suddenly, "it makes us sound like a club."
"Alright," I said with traces of irritation in my voice, this was the third thing like this to happen since the conversation had started, "your, uh, order, has been around for over 400 years right?"
"Right."
"Then how come there's so few of you?"
"How come there's so few of 'us'?" She corrected, "you're one of us now Wanderer, but getting back to your question, we've tried this before, and the people either went power mad or tried to expose us. Neither of which we can allow. So now, we just search for the few who meet our requirements."
"I'm flattered." I said before emptying my glass.
This brought out traces of a grin from Hydra.
"Let me ask you a question," she said, leaning forward slightly, "why did you ignore your common sense?"
"Why did I do what now?"
"As a child, you were undoubtedly taught not to talk to strangers, or willingly climb in their Porsches. And yet you seemed to follow Manticore without question."
"Ah," I'd asked myself this a few times, "to be honest, I'm not sure. I'm guessing it's because I was either bored or maybe suicidal." I remembered the knife that was still concealed in my pocket and quickly decided that it wasn't suicidal urges that had encouraged me into Manticore's car.
"And now that you've ascended, are you still suicidal?"
"No." I said quickly, I didn't feel up to correcting myself in my speech as well as my thoughts, "no I'm not."
A small amount of silence lingered in the air for a few seconds.
"And now comes the awkward part of the conversation where we've run out of things to say." I said. This too brought out a grin from her.
"Well, be that as it may, I will advise that you get some sleep, the guilt will pass more quickly if you're unconscious."
"Sounds like a good idea." I said, whilst lifting myself out of the seat.
"Goodnight." She said.
"Goodnight."
A bit of a short one I know. Fear not, the next one should be longer.
Right, now for some replies.
Angel of Lightness – The fish is unlikely to burn its master. For now at least, anyway. Funny stuff is in your situational hoo-hah. Thanks for reviewing.
When I was young, I use to kill pigeons with evil thoughts. When people asked me why I did this, I stared at them as if they'd just queried the colour of the sky, partly because I didn't know what a pigeon was. I'd always just thought of them as flying grey bird like creatures.
Tai Wilson – Nothing is better then the Matrix trilogy, NOTHING! Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Anyway, at this point in the story, things may get a little confusing.
Chapter 6: That shouldn't have happened
I opened my eyes and stared in fear and confussion at the sight, if that's what it was, before me.
All I could see was red, then my vision became slightly clearer and I made out wires, all of which seemed to surround me, I was a little disturbed to find that they were in fact attached to me.
I sat up, breaking the sticky coating which seemed to be trying with all its strength to keep me in place. As I did this, I used what little strength I could muster to tear a plug from my throat.
It was cold.
Once my survival instincts had died down slightly, I looked around and shuddered in sudden horror as I realised what had happened.
They'd un-plugged me.
All around me there were pods, all of which contained an unrecognisable corpse with similar looking wires holding them in place and doing who knows what to them. Looking below me I noticed that I was so far from the ground that I'd probably die of old age before I'd hit it, if I fell.
My thoughts were halted suddenly, and my fear amplified, by a faint whirring sound that was becoming louder by the second.
I looked upwards to see what I can only describe as a huge mechanical spider hovering towards me. Now I'm not really an arachnophobe, but I'm not the world's biggest spider fan either, and on top of everything that was happening, the added fear this sight produced was, let's just say, unwelcome.
The beast stopped dead and seemed to stare at me for a few seconds. It seemed to shift slightly from side to side as if were a predator arranging itself in the best striking position it could find.
And then it struck.
A huge metallic arm shot forward and grabbed me by the neck; I instinctively grabbed the arm and tried to prise it off of me, to no avail of course. The arm stayed in position for what seemed like hours, looking back however, it was probably more like seconds.
Anyway, I heard a noise that sounded like an electric drill, before I knew it the wire in my head was gone, followed soon after by the other wires.
My whole body went numb with this, and I found that I could do nothing but be swept away into the dark tunnel that appeared behind me, in which presumably, giant buzz saws or a mincer was waiting to dispose of me.
To be honest, I didn't really care.
*******************************************************************
I sat alone in the bar with a half empty glass in front of me. Since my transformation, I had been plagued by a feeling of depression and betrayal to myself. Manticore had told me that this was natural, and would pass after a day or two. Until that happened however, I was reasonably content to revel in my miserable solitude. Hydra had other ideas however.
"Mind if I join you?" She asked suddenly, having apparently appeared out of nowhere and making me jump in the process.
"Go ahead." I said as politely as I could.
She stretched her tail as far towards the ceiling as far as it would go before sitting down. She the let it hang over the seat.
"I thought you might like someone to talk to during your guilt trip."
"Thanks," I uttered whilst producing a grin, "if you don't mind, I have about 400 questions to ask."
"I thought you might," she adjusted her tail slightly and shifted in the chair, "alright then, ask, question and inquire."
I started with the obvious, 'how did the organisation start', 'what happened next' etc. The answers to these questions were pretty much what I'd expected. After I'd got the obvious stuff out of the way, I moved on to the less-important questions that my own curiosity had seen fit to supply me with.
"Your organisation has…"
"Don't call it an organisation." She said suddenly, "it makes us sound like a club."
"Alright," I said with traces of irritation in my voice, this was the third thing like this to happen since the conversation had started, "your, uh, order, has been around for over 400 years right?"
"Right."
"Then how come there's so few of you?"
"How come there's so few of 'us'?" She corrected, "you're one of us now Wanderer, but getting back to your question, we've tried this before, and the people either went power mad or tried to expose us. Neither of which we can allow. So now, we just search for the few who meet our requirements."
"I'm flattered." I said before emptying my glass.
This brought out traces of a grin from Hydra.
"Let me ask you a question," she said, leaning forward slightly, "why did you ignore your common sense?"
"Why did I do what now?"
"As a child, you were undoubtedly taught not to talk to strangers, or willingly climb in their Porsches. And yet you seemed to follow Manticore without question."
"Ah," I'd asked myself this a few times, "to be honest, I'm not sure. I'm guessing it's because I was either bored or maybe suicidal." I remembered the knife that was still concealed in my pocket and quickly decided that it wasn't suicidal urges that had encouraged me into Manticore's car.
"And now that you've ascended, are you still suicidal?"
"No." I said quickly, I didn't feel up to correcting myself in my speech as well as my thoughts, "no I'm not."
A small amount of silence lingered in the air for a few seconds.
"And now comes the awkward part of the conversation where we've run out of things to say." I said. This too brought out a grin from her.
"Well, be that as it may, I will advise that you get some sleep, the guilt will pass more quickly if you're unconscious."
"Sounds like a good idea." I said, whilst lifting myself out of the seat.
"Goodnight." She said.
"Goodnight."
A bit of a short one I know. Fear not, the next one should be longer.
Right, now for some replies.
Angel of Lightness – The fish is unlikely to burn its master. For now at least, anyway. Funny stuff is in your situational hoo-hah. Thanks for reviewing.
When I was young, I use to kill pigeons with evil thoughts. When people asked me why I did this, I stared at them as if they'd just queried the colour of the sky, partly because I didn't know what a pigeon was. I'd always just thought of them as flying grey bird like creatures.
Tai Wilson – Nothing is better then the Matrix trilogy, NOTHING! Anyway, thanks for reviewing.