rambler
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this is what i enetered for the ND fan fiction contest, i tried to do more than just plain action, hard though as the word limit is 100 words and you have to use one of their opening para's.
well here it is (takes about 2 mins to read), the first paragraph is written by the ND team:
Starter B
You aren't supposed to be here. You're out of bounds, out of your depth. You've got no-one left now, your friends are all dead. Perhaps you'd better turn back now before it's too late, before they find you. And then you'll be dead, too.
- The words rattled around in my head as I stood there at the top of the old monolith, outside the city quarantine zone, just the words of a deranged old man picking his way through the ruined outer-city. How could we turn back? There’s nothing left but me now, me and the unit.
The wall vanished in a blink. Blowing out towards us, punctuating the silence with a deafening bang. Instantly everyone in the room was up, firing their incendiary rounds wildly into the breach, retreating, running up the stairs. Too late.
The three men on the stairs vanished in the blast, blood turning to a thick red vapour. Bones and muscle and sinew smashed violently into the surrounding walls. Torsos collapsing on the stairs like broken puppets.
I looked back at the breach - plaster and mortar blown away, the metal framework bent inwards. Then I saw it, the stubby, plated leg stepping through the fissure. A tank.
‘Here’, I tossed a round to one of the new recruits curled in the corner. – A pretty Chinese girl, probably from the slums.
‘It’s armour piercing - nothing else will dent it’ – I lied. I watched as the scared girl fumbled with the thing, eventually pushing the fat shell into the back of the guns barrel, before snapping the thing shut.
‘Wait’ I said. ‘Wait for my signal’
She nodded, her dirt smeared face painted with tears, like streaks of war paint.
The tank edged further into the space, its head finally jutting through the gap.
‘NOW!’ I screamed.
The girl’s shot hit its leg, exploding in a shower of blue sparks. Barely any damage, but it served its purpose.
The tanks mechanical head swung round, weapon pods cracking open, its guns screaming to life. That was the chance I needed. I ran for the stairs – the only way up. The last thing I heard was the girl’s scream, for a hundredth of a second, before that deafening cacophony of gunfire cut it off abruptly.
The city looked different from the distance. You aren’t involved out here, not part of the chaos and panic. Out here the screams blend in chorus with the air raid sirens, clouds of smoke drift away like huge, billowing stage curtains, revealing an opera of mayhem underneath. The carcasses of the old skyscrapers bow, buckled and broken; windows blown out, skeletons exposed, their flesh falling from some kind of gargantuan ribcage to rot with the rest of the rubble below.
And the fallout from the ongoing bombardment, falling like black snowflakes, like petals drifting down through the city levels.
I don’t know why it hit me then, but just then, at the top of that building, looking over the dark city, it all came back to me. - The streets. The festivals. The people. Uniclothe, Easyburger. All those meaningless things. Dinner deals. Twenty-nine cent hotdogs.
Lying on the grass at night, watching the stars. Amy.
The new recruits had arrived today, angry, scared. – trained from birth in the wasteland camps. All with their shaved heads. Clones. Not even new people, just copies, carbon copies of the dead.
I met her again, a long time ago. We looked at each other for a long time. I thought she remembered me, but she didn’t. Just a copy. And who was she now? It’s a strange thing. To think a new person has stolen the body of someone you loved. Someone you love.
After a time she looked away, embarrassed – I couldn’t help staring.
She moved just like her.
The tank crept up the stairs steadily, its six fat legs supporting its giant body, bracing the wall on either side. The ominous monotony of the tanks gears as its legs pinned the walls with every step. Coming relentlessly closer.
It thudded onto the broken landing below, wood and mortar breaking, crumbling in protest under the weight. All we could do now was retreat, climbing further and further up the old skyscraper, hoping the building would at one fragile point not be able to support the things mass.
It was there on the top level of the old building, at our final point of retreat that I saw it. Too late. A giant, black plane sweeping down on us like a giant raven, drifting quickly towards us in a huge accentuated arch. It was barely visible against the night sky. Black on black. It’s fringed wings rippling in the cold air.
The Mechanised Airborne, our reinforcements sent to take out the tank. We of course would be casualties of war – expendable, a calculated loss.
Then they saw it too, staring in disbelief they took off their helmets, and there she was.
Amy, my Amy. Her head shaven, more muscular, and much thinner than the Amy I remembered. God, she looked just like her. I stared at her. That hardened face, hardened body.
Hardened minds, all of them.
Not her mind. Not my Amy’s mind. She was someone else. An impostor. A clone. A carbon copy. But it didn’t matter, not any more
She looked up. Up to the heavens, just as it detonated. Just as beautiful as I remembered.
The building buckled, brickwork blown away from its bowed metal frame, straining to stay upright. And we were in it, me and my Amy, birthed to our new life from this giant exploding chrysalis. We would be together now. Forever. Me and my beautiful Amy, with one another, into the light.
well here it is (takes about 2 mins to read), the first paragraph is written by the ND team:
Starter B
You aren't supposed to be here. You're out of bounds, out of your depth. You've got no-one left now, your friends are all dead. Perhaps you'd better turn back now before it's too late, before they find you. And then you'll be dead, too.
- The words rattled around in my head as I stood there at the top of the old monolith, outside the city quarantine zone, just the words of a deranged old man picking his way through the ruined outer-city. How could we turn back? There’s nothing left but me now, me and the unit.
The wall vanished in a blink. Blowing out towards us, punctuating the silence with a deafening bang. Instantly everyone in the room was up, firing their incendiary rounds wildly into the breach, retreating, running up the stairs. Too late.
The three men on the stairs vanished in the blast, blood turning to a thick red vapour. Bones and muscle and sinew smashed violently into the surrounding walls. Torsos collapsing on the stairs like broken puppets.
I looked back at the breach - plaster and mortar blown away, the metal framework bent inwards. Then I saw it, the stubby, plated leg stepping through the fissure. A tank.
‘Here’, I tossed a round to one of the new recruits curled in the corner. – A pretty Chinese girl, probably from the slums.
‘It’s armour piercing - nothing else will dent it’ – I lied. I watched as the scared girl fumbled with the thing, eventually pushing the fat shell into the back of the guns barrel, before snapping the thing shut.
‘Wait’ I said. ‘Wait for my signal’
She nodded, her dirt smeared face painted with tears, like streaks of war paint.
The tank edged further into the space, its head finally jutting through the gap.
‘NOW!’ I screamed.
The girl’s shot hit its leg, exploding in a shower of blue sparks. Barely any damage, but it served its purpose.
The tanks mechanical head swung round, weapon pods cracking open, its guns screaming to life. That was the chance I needed. I ran for the stairs – the only way up. The last thing I heard was the girl’s scream, for a hundredth of a second, before that deafening cacophony of gunfire cut it off abruptly.
The city looked different from the distance. You aren’t involved out here, not part of the chaos and panic. Out here the screams blend in chorus with the air raid sirens, clouds of smoke drift away like huge, billowing stage curtains, revealing an opera of mayhem underneath. The carcasses of the old skyscrapers bow, buckled and broken; windows blown out, skeletons exposed, their flesh falling from some kind of gargantuan ribcage to rot with the rest of the rubble below.
And the fallout from the ongoing bombardment, falling like black snowflakes, like petals drifting down through the city levels.
I don’t know why it hit me then, but just then, at the top of that building, looking over the dark city, it all came back to me. - The streets. The festivals. The people. Uniclothe, Easyburger. All those meaningless things. Dinner deals. Twenty-nine cent hotdogs.
Lying on the grass at night, watching the stars. Amy.
The new recruits had arrived today, angry, scared. – trained from birth in the wasteland camps. All with their shaved heads. Clones. Not even new people, just copies, carbon copies of the dead.
I met her again, a long time ago. We looked at each other for a long time. I thought she remembered me, but she didn’t. Just a copy. And who was she now? It’s a strange thing. To think a new person has stolen the body of someone you loved. Someone you love.
After a time she looked away, embarrassed – I couldn’t help staring.
She moved just like her.
The tank crept up the stairs steadily, its six fat legs supporting its giant body, bracing the wall on either side. The ominous monotony of the tanks gears as its legs pinned the walls with every step. Coming relentlessly closer.
It thudded onto the broken landing below, wood and mortar breaking, crumbling in protest under the weight. All we could do now was retreat, climbing further and further up the old skyscraper, hoping the building would at one fragile point not be able to support the things mass.
It was there on the top level of the old building, at our final point of retreat that I saw it. Too late. A giant, black plane sweeping down on us like a giant raven, drifting quickly towards us in a huge accentuated arch. It was barely visible against the night sky. Black on black. It’s fringed wings rippling in the cold air.
The Mechanised Airborne, our reinforcements sent to take out the tank. We of course would be casualties of war – expendable, a calculated loss.
Then they saw it too, staring in disbelief they took off their helmets, and there she was.
Amy, my Amy. Her head shaven, more muscular, and much thinner than the Amy I remembered. God, she looked just like her. I stared at her. That hardened face, hardened body.
Hardened minds, all of them.
Not her mind. Not my Amy’s mind. She was someone else. An impostor. A clone. A carbon copy. But it didn’t matter, not any more
She looked up. Up to the heavens, just as it detonated. Just as beautiful as I remembered.
The building buckled, brickwork blown away from its bowed metal frame, straining to stay upright. And we were in it, me and my Amy, birthed to our new life from this giant exploding chrysalis. We would be together now. Forever. Me and my beautiful Amy, with one another, into the light.
