Authoress Update: I Nearly Killed My New Computer! I haven't been quite the same…still stressed and depressed. Sob!
For the record, the 2 extras in the Crowning chapter were Granny and Shaggy. Could u tell? Did u bother to try?
As I've said before-I have no idea what I'm doing. And all my creative bursts lately have been at work, far, far away from my computer. :(
Neffie: "I can't think of a darned thing to put her, can you?"
Road Runner: "Beep Beep! "Nope!"
Neffie: " Groan …Dang writer's block. Sigh I'd hoped it wouldn't have to come to this…grabs gold and blue pompoms GIMMIE AN AYE!"
RR: "Beep!"
Neffie: "GIMMIE AN ESS!"
RR: "Beep!"
Neffie;: "GIMMIE A DEE!"
RR: "Beep Beep!"
Neffie: "GIMMIE AN AYE!"
RR: "Beep!"
Neffie: "WHAT DOES THAT SPELL?"
RR: "Beep Beep! Beep!"
Neffieblushes: "I ain't even gonna touch that one…"
The Future Is Wild!
By Nefertanya dragongurl Ahhotep
Chapter 5: A Tale of Two Bunnies"Huuuooouhhh!"
Lexi bent over the smooth, cold, white porcelain, retching. When she was finished emptying her stomach, she collapsed against the cracked tile wall. It was cold and clammy, a comfort against her feverish skin. Slowly, the nausea eased and her temperature regulated itself. But she felt heavy, like someone had thrown a lead blanket on her shoulders. No, more like that time she and some girlfriends went to the carnival and went for a whirl on the 'Devil's Pit'1. She really couldn't remember how she'd made it to the lavatory after witnessing the terrifying events just minutes ago-just that she'd felt like someone had thrown her into a blender and hit 'liquefy'.
Staggering to her feet, she flushed the toilet and made her way over to the sinks. A few splashes of cold water (and a vigorous session of rinsing and spitting) later, Lexi felt more like herself again. Tired and drained, but herself. Her lipstick was probably smeared all over her white fur. Hopefully it wasn't too bad. She looked up into the cracked mirror, and screamed like she had never screamed before…
Pink. Every square inch of the face looking back at her was pink in varying shades. From the tips of her ears to the hollow in her neck. From fingertip to shoulder. And every strand in between. Girlie-girl pink.
"No. No, no, no, that's not me!" Lexi wailed. She turned from the malicious visage and tore out of the lavatory, through the empty gym, and flung open the doors she had opened earlier. The doors that would lead her back to the real world. There she stopped as suddenly as if she'd hit a brick wall.
Before her, the immaculately manicured campus lay in ruins. Slabs of stone and concrete were strewn about the lawns and walkways. The central fountain was severely damaged by a statue of some old professor, but clean water still flooded outwards. It would be a boon for the survivors in the next few weeks, but for now it was nothing more than a growing mud puddle. The odors of smoke, gasoline, and other nasty burning things filled her nostrils. The sky was a psychotic display of colors, and terrified screams and siren wails filled her ears to a painful degree. Oddly though, the sirens seemed to be coming from far away…or at least, there weren't any emergency vehicles where she was…
"I'm dreaming…I'm dreaming. That's all, this is all just a bad dream. I'm just having a bad dream." Lexi kept up her mantra as she stumbled her way back to her dorm. In her fractured, numbed state of mind, it was the only destination she could focus on. If she just got back to her room, she'd see herself sleeping. Then she could make herself wake up, and she'd find nothing more dramatic than the possibility of being late for her morning class.
"I'm dreaming…Ahhhahahaha! I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming!"
Lexi turned around-that wasn't her voice. Someone else was hysterically repeating her mantra. But who? Lexi moved towards the sound. It was so clear to her. But why? She was walking quite a distance from where she'd started. Except the voice was wheezy and conversational in tone. Surely it was a sound too low for Lexi to pick up, even though she'd always had good ears.
Finally, halfway to the stadium, Lexi spotted a blonde figure writhing under some twisted metal, sobbing. It was Catherine! Lexi quickly came out of her stupor as her mind grasped itself around the fact that someone needed help.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey." The rabbit cooed softly to the human as she stroked the blonde's contorted face. "Catherine? It's Lexi. Lexi Bunny? Do you remember me? It's okay now, it's okay. I'm here to help, okay? Don't cry, Catherine."
The blonde sniffed and hiccupped and stared up blinking at the pink creature for a moment. Then she wailed in despair. "OH, GAWD! This is like, a total punishment, isn't it!"
"What are you talking about Catherine?" She asked as she began to push at the metal sign that pinned the human's legs. It was heavy, but she found she could lift it a little if she tried her best.
"Gawd, I'm Sorry! I didn't let you win the tryouts, so now you're haunting my subconscious! I just wanted to be the best! It's all I haaave!"
Lexi paused. A wave of anger flashed over her. So it hadn't been her routine! It hadn't been her species! It was just politics as usual! But, just like a wave, it subsided. Catherine was helpless, hysterical-completely beyond her safety zone. A pitiful creature indeed. Suddenly, the cheer squad didn't seem to be important to her life anymore.
"Pull yourself out. I can't hold this forever. That's a girl. C'mon, Cath." The rabbit lifted Catherine's arm over her shoulder and tugged at the bruised waist. "Can you stand? Good. You're too heavy for me to carry, y'know! Er, that was a joke? Okay, now. We're going to go find a nice, safe place and relax, okay? That's a girl. We'll get you a nice cup of tea and we'll both have a nice shower and patch up those little cuts…"
Catherine leaned heavily over the smaller creature wordlessly, a bewildered expression on her face. Lexi struggled under the dead weight, but miraculously managed to get them both moving along and back to her dorm room. Funny, she absently thought as she bundled the blonde into some blankets and helped her sip some cold, strong tea, how helping someone else could take your mind off your own pains, your own fears. Maybe…Maybe this was the outlet she'd been looking for all along….
--o0o--
The screams weren't stopping. They bounced off the walls, echoed thru the alleyways, and mixed with the rumbles of distant explosions and infernos that reddened the night.
"Why can't they just shut up!" Ace snarled internally as he pulled a stupefied doe out of the middle of the street seconds before a heavily-laden ambulance screamed through. Fifteen minutes after the explosion, Greater Los Angeles2 looked like a sadist director's version of Dante's Inferno. The shockwaves from the explosions blew out the plexi-vinyl windows of the dozens of skyscrapers. The deadly shards fell from the sky, with bloody results. Metal frames twisted as the rotation sped up. Cracks and fissures formed in the heavily faulted region. Highways collapsed, crushing hover cars between the layers. One horrified journalist, in a later interview, would tell how in the morning light, one strip of heavily populated causeway reminded him of an overloaded jelly sandwich-matter of all types oozing from the sides. Light poles, telephone poles and transformers fell over as the ground heaved, dragging down snapping, sparking wires with them. Scalding steam and water exploded out of sewer holes, water taps, and toilets. The famous LaBrea tar pits also boiled and exploded, launching globs of the thick molten goo for miles. Landscaping caught fire and quickly began devouring what it could. The heat caused chemical tanks to explode. And throughout it all were the screams of the trapped, the dying, and the damned.
Ace had been 'fortunate' enough to live on the outskirts of G.L.A. Nearly all the buildings in his neighborhood were concrete, stone, short, and had little in the way of flammable landscaping. Even so, there was quite a deal of damage from the earthquakes and exploding plumbing.
Ace had been on his fire escape when the world ended. The shockwave slammed him into the concrete wall behind him. He'd hit his head hard-he remembered that much. He figured he'd gotten a concussion-why else would his eyes be burning, or that everyone he came across had some sort of glow around them?
But that wasn't enough to keep Ace down. Innocent, frightened people were in trouble. He was still capable, he was still compassionate. So, with little thought to his own safety, he ran towards the infernos, stopping here and there to rejoin a lost tyke with his parent, help load an elder onto a packed truck, or pull a citizen, like the doe, to safer settings. It was exhilarating. Like being the star of the action film he'd always dreamed of doing. He was the hero! The world needed him! He was its only hope!
"You thar! What's yer name, varmint?" Ace turned to see a short man with a massive red handlebar mustache standing on a tank that was slowly rolling towards him.
"Ace! What's it to ya, doc?"
"We need capable hands, varmint! You reckon you can find yer way to Hollywood an' Vine?"
Ace blinked at the question. After all, he was an actor! How could he not? "Eh, yeah doc. I think I kin manage dat!"
"Then get'cher fluffy tail over there, rabbit!"
"And do what?" Ace was confused-had he missed a line? Wait, his self-preservation instincts told him, this isn't a gig! Remember you could die doing this!
"Ta hell witcha's." He thought back.
"Help, Gol'durnit! Do something! We got people dying in this here city, and I can't get any more dag-gumbed troops in cuz ev'rything's gone ta kingdom come! Get as many survivors as ya can onto them thar rescue vehicles! NOW GIT!"
Ace nodded and ran off, getting closer and closer to the raging fires of the business district. With every step he lost himself into the role he preened in secret since he was a toddler. Ace Bunny, Action Hero. He idly thought of his ancestor and his star on the Walk of Fame. Would it survive the night? Would he? Would any of them?
His eyes burned more now than before. They watered and he wiped his sleeve against them. Was it from the intense heat? The chemical vapors in the air? Ace tried hard to ignore it. He was needed. People needed him, they were depending on him. A strange sensation of contentment, of fulfillment, washed over him. The missing puzzle piece of his life had just exposed itself, and he wanted to hold onto it forever. But damn these itchy, watery, burning eyes….!
"GaaaRRghhhH!"
Ace's eyes suddenly felt like they really were on fire! Instinctively his hands lifted to cover them, but almost as soon as they made contact with his face he pulled them away. They felt like they were being burned-he could smell the singed fur. All he could see was red! No shapes, no shadows, just a solid red light wherever he turned. He heard explosions all around him, just feet away. Somehow he knew, he knew he was the cause of them. With as much strength as he could muster, he forced his eyes shut. Gasping and sweaty, he forced himself to meditate, to focus, to clear his mind. After what seemed like another eon, he dared to crack one eyelid. When he saw the asphalt below him, he heaved a breath of relief.
He didn't know or understand what happened. He didn't care at the moment either. There was no time to figure it out now anyway. A block away there were innocent civilians who needed direction, a Shepard to guide them to safety. And Ace Bunny, Action Hero, would be damned if he turned away from his duty…
'Devil's Pit': I'm pretty sure most of you are familiar with this ride. This is the centrifuge type of ride where you're spun so fast u stick to the wall, and heaven help you if someone else loses their lunch. And for the record, no, I've never been on one, but I remember watching people on it at Fantasy Island….
Greater Los Angeles: Obviously, what we now know as LA, but more. GLA refers to LA proper and most of Southern California.
Gaa! Ok, was that too much? Too choppy? I hated the last version. I should never have posted it. I don't know what I was thinking. Then again, maybe u liked it better? Lol, I dunno. But I gotta get to the others now…