Showdown
Soul_Rider
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">A short story covering a 15 second battle from a game...</div>I hope you enjoy it.
<u><b>Showdown</b></u>
<b>A ritual showdown
Displaced by fear
Emotional bankruptcy
Inching ever near
What becomes of you
My elusive dear
What becomes of me
Your never here </b>
<i>(A Ritual Showdown by Ian Curtis)</i>
His eyes narrowed until they were little more than slices of deep, dark, death within a fragile fleshy mound and his teeth clenched together hard, grating and grinding slowly against each other as he stared fatefully down the full length of his battered and beaten standard issue Trans System Authority light machine gun. Peering hard along the sights, he tentatively took deadly, but surprisingly steady and careful aim. The sweat was running out of every pore in his body like it was an underground tributary breaking through to form the gentle beginning of a rampaging river, but he stood firm as he sent the last remaining bullet from his gun spirally perfectly through the air and into the head of the onrushing skulk.
There was no joy, no release and certainly no relief as it dawned on him that the skulk had not dropped dead. Still it came, on and on relentlessly towards him, getting closer by the second, the noise of it’s pointed claws rat-a-tat-tat’ing on the, once shiny, metallic floor, growing in loudness and intensity as the dog-like beast powered forward. His deep blue eyes, which until a few seconds ago were just narrow slits against the backdrop of his reddening skin, widened in sudden terrifying fear at the realisation of what was about to come. He began to slowly lower his gun, almost without conscious thought, and prepared to meet his maker, certain in his own mind that this was to be an untimely death, this wasn’t how he was supposed to go, and this wasn’t when he was supposed to go.
A hastily arranged and initially indecipherable montage of thoughts and pictures, colours and sounds, began to flash about in the swirling commotion created in his head and in no time he realised his life was flashing before his very eyes. This was no picture of joy or happiness, as he had always been led to believe, it was filled with all the worst parts of his life, all his regrets and mistakes, all the things he could have done, but didn’t, all the things he shouldn’t have done, but did. In a way death couldn’t come too soon, for at least it would relieve him of the thoughts that were sapping at his mental strength with each fraction of a second that passed.
Almost simultaneously two new sounds began to fill the recycled air of the cramped passageway, the main sound being the unmistakable whining, shrieking, increasing shrill of a skulk about to suicide. The second sound was almost playing in the background, a subtler almost unnoticeable sound, it was never the less permeating through the air, a gentle thrumming noise, the sound of cables fizzing and of power surging though the once quiet veins of the floating hulk they had found themselves in.
In an explosion of green coloured blood and fragmented, burnt out flesh, the skulk xenocide reached its crescendo, sending rippling sonic shockwaves out into the surrounding air, being reflected back from the metallic enclosure of the passageway and redirected in a multitude of directions, bringing destruction to all in it’s path.
He collapsed to the floor, numbed, physically shaken and weak, unable to understand how he was still alive, not even sure if he really was still alive. What if he was dreaming? Had he died and his soul was still left here lingering around the remains of his deceased earthly body, waiting for whatever afterlife was to come? Or was this it, the afterlife that people had dreamed so much about. Was it just a continuation of life as it was, with the only difference being in an alternative reality, where people could no longer die?
Slowly, or was it quickly, his muddled worldly haze began to shift, move, transpose itself, into something else, morphing as the walls changed, no hang on, they’re not changing, they’re moving, it’s not the haze that’s moving. He is calmed safe in the knowledge that it’s all over, he’s being dragged backward, toward, towards, towards…
<u><b>Showdown</b></u>
<b>A ritual showdown
Displaced by fear
Emotional bankruptcy
Inching ever near
What becomes of you
My elusive dear
What becomes of me
Your never here </b>
<i>(A Ritual Showdown by Ian Curtis)</i>
His eyes narrowed until they were little more than slices of deep, dark, death within a fragile fleshy mound and his teeth clenched together hard, grating and grinding slowly against each other as he stared fatefully down the full length of his battered and beaten standard issue Trans System Authority light machine gun. Peering hard along the sights, he tentatively took deadly, but surprisingly steady and careful aim. The sweat was running out of every pore in his body like it was an underground tributary breaking through to form the gentle beginning of a rampaging river, but he stood firm as he sent the last remaining bullet from his gun spirally perfectly through the air and into the head of the onrushing skulk.
There was no joy, no release and certainly no relief as it dawned on him that the skulk had not dropped dead. Still it came, on and on relentlessly towards him, getting closer by the second, the noise of it’s pointed claws rat-a-tat-tat’ing on the, once shiny, metallic floor, growing in loudness and intensity as the dog-like beast powered forward. His deep blue eyes, which until a few seconds ago were just narrow slits against the backdrop of his reddening skin, widened in sudden terrifying fear at the realisation of what was about to come. He began to slowly lower his gun, almost without conscious thought, and prepared to meet his maker, certain in his own mind that this was to be an untimely death, this wasn’t how he was supposed to go, and this wasn’t when he was supposed to go.
A hastily arranged and initially indecipherable montage of thoughts and pictures, colours and sounds, began to flash about in the swirling commotion created in his head and in no time he realised his life was flashing before his very eyes. This was no picture of joy or happiness, as he had always been led to believe, it was filled with all the worst parts of his life, all his regrets and mistakes, all the things he could have done, but didn’t, all the things he shouldn’t have done, but did. In a way death couldn’t come too soon, for at least it would relieve him of the thoughts that were sapping at his mental strength with each fraction of a second that passed.
Almost simultaneously two new sounds began to fill the recycled air of the cramped passageway, the main sound being the unmistakable whining, shrieking, increasing shrill of a skulk about to suicide. The second sound was almost playing in the background, a subtler almost unnoticeable sound, it was never the less permeating through the air, a gentle thrumming noise, the sound of cables fizzing and of power surging though the once quiet veins of the floating hulk they had found themselves in.
In an explosion of green coloured blood and fragmented, burnt out flesh, the skulk xenocide reached its crescendo, sending rippling sonic shockwaves out into the surrounding air, being reflected back from the metallic enclosure of the passageway and redirected in a multitude of directions, bringing destruction to all in it’s path.
He collapsed to the floor, numbed, physically shaken and weak, unable to understand how he was still alive, not even sure if he really was still alive. What if he was dreaming? Had he died and his soul was still left here lingering around the remains of his deceased earthly body, waiting for whatever afterlife was to come? Or was this it, the afterlife that people had dreamed so much about. Was it just a continuation of life as it was, with the only difference being in an alternative reality, where people could no longer die?
Slowly, or was it quickly, his muddled worldly haze began to shift, move, transpose itself, into something else, morphing as the walls changed, no hang on, they’re not changing, they’re moving, it’s not the haze that’s moving. He is calmed safe in the knowledge that it’s all over, he’s being dragged backward, toward, towards, towards…
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