Short Story Contest! [ENTRY THREAD]

[Sulkdodds]

Welcome to the first (?) HL2.net story contest!

The Rules
- Entries must be between 300 and 1000 words long.
- Entries should be in prose form, though abberations are acceptable.
- Contestants may write about anything they wish as long as it conforms to the stated topic.
- Closing date is 3pm Saturday 3rd May.
- NO discussion in this thread, only entries.
Discussion thread here.

The Topic

The subject this week is: "Make the commonplace strange."

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to break the grip of the 'familiar' by describing ordinary things in unfamiliar ways. Through whatever method you wish, you are to undermine normality in some way, to make the 'ordinary' seem extraordinary. Observe the following stanza from Christopher Reid's 'Pea Soup':

• A hecatomb;
  haruspication of pods...
  It is thus that we understand
  our kitchen gods -

Reid is describing something perfectly familiar. It's a person cutting open a pod of peas. But he is able to make it seem weird, to 'defamiliarise it' so that we are able to look at it in a new light. That's your job now. Write about something we all know, but make us see it with new eyes.

Recommended reading:

Defamiliarization
V-effekt
A Martian Sends A Postcard Home
Alan Ginsberg

Good luck!

 

[kineaesth]

Unbound as he was, he left. This was no longer a place for him. As he was going through his routine, he remembered something, from long ago. Something about throwing off his shackles. He tried.

For it was cold in this place. He knew it well, but still the inhuman, impersonal chill frightened him. He moved, taking in again the place he knew so well, so common as to be mundane. The small fragments of his life forced upon an uncaring environment, a vain attempt at a life. He knew he had to leave.

Outside it was colder. This time the chill pervaded his entire body. He hunched against the cold. Not in fear, for he was used to it. In indifference. He moved on, as he knew he should. Thinking. Thinking about his own thoughts. Thinking about his lack of... of words. How in his recurrent dream last night, he once again felt something he had never felt before. And how he couldn't describe it. Because he knew there should be words for it. There were always words. Except he didn't know them.
He had great respect for words, for the power of prose and the aberrations of this pure art he had once scrawled out, long ago. He knew the power of words, and because of this, his lack of control, knowledge or understanding did something to him. Made him feel something he had never felt before. Again, this lack of words. He sniffed, and pulled his collar higher.

The sky darkened, clots of cloud congealing, thickening, roiling, condensing, boiling. But he was a simpler man. To him it was darker.

He moved on through this familiar place. Familiar as they were, he still had the notion that this was not a place for him. Hostility, fear, and wariness from the people he moved around. These people were not his friends, did not like, know or understand him. Again, this feeling, and again, no words.

These steps he took were ones he had taken many times before, and were always the same. The stiffness in his right leg, the slime he walked upon, the grind of his life against the world. And then, a word that went some of the way towards describing this feeling - desolation. That was a good word. He must remember that. He had to keep moving.

It began to rain, at first lightly, then increasingly heavily. He shivered. The morning cold was met with freezing sleet. It stung his face, ran down his chest and back, soaked his clothes. There was nothing he wanted to do more than stop, and try to find some meager shelter. But he had to keep going. So he moved on, grinding his teeth together, feeling and tasting with every part of himself that word he had come up with. The more he thought about his word, the more he understood it. His reality slowly faded. He realised that this word was his life. Then he blinked, and stopped, and looked up at the rain, and smiled. Not because he was happy, he had checked. He smiled because he understood.

What happened next he would remember for a very long time. It was a moment of harmony, a crystalline moment of pure understanding that he had never experienced before. Looking up at the sky, he saw the clouds split, and for a moment, a ray of light pierce the gray, overcast sky, sweeping across the barren landscape below, the decrepit, rotting city, a roving band of illumination. And he stared, and wondered, as the rain ran down his face. The band of light passed over him, capturing and lighting the fragments of rain in its grasp, turning every drop into a glowing particle of white incandescence, and for a second he was at peace. He understood. And then it was gone, and all that was left behind was the falling rain, dark now, and that one sublime moment. After a time, he walked on. What was this feeling? How did he describe it?
There were no words left.

 

[Solaris]

I often ask myself why you do it. Why do you come here? Dear sirs and madams it is not an environment you fit into. Very few of you do. Perhaps you go to feel like you're being someone you're not and in turn try and become that person.

However you will never be that person as you make no effort too. You stand on at the side watching people pretend to enjoy themselves, you often do this alone. You pay me for the privilege of making you disorientated, confused and most importantly, content.

Not satisfied with that, you pay me to help you lose any ounce of dignity you had to start with. You enjoy this however I do not feel it is your dignity you wish to loose. In all honesty I am truly amazed at the great amounts of money you give me so you can more freely humiliate yourself.

Why do you even come? Is it so you do not feel lonely if you stay alone? But surely, nothing can be more pathetic than attempting to achieve happiness through association? What else says 'I have nothing to give' stronger than destroying yourself publically. Your clothes are a sad reflection of the esteem in which you hold yourself.

Often you will pretend to yourself that you enjoy the atmosphere, or the sounds. The songs tell of a lifestyle no-one has ever lived. The whole experience is one of disappointment. Expectations not lived up too. But you must not lose face my friends. No. You must go whenever possible, regardless of financial realities, otherwise what are you if not what you're told you must be?

Youth is unattainable on a permanent timeline. Embrace change. What you do is not the cause of your sadness, it is a symptom. Become who you are supposed to become. Stop going to nightclubs.

 

[Dekstar]

Synaesthesia

I awoke as I usually do, you know. Screaming. I can't tell you how bad the dreams are, I never remember them, but there's always screaming. Not just mine.
And the noises that penetrate the ears, scratching the backs of my eyes. You may not mind, but it kills me slowly. It happened last night again, the same thing. Walking down the main street you're bombarded with bright noises from all round, and hot flashes of colour that burn the retina. I turned and saw a hot flashing 'Bar'. Flashing hot, then cold, then hot. And the colours coming from doorways. Loud colours, reds, yellows. Garish. I know you listen to them, but I can't stand them.


I saw you anyway, the other day. I didn't say hi, you know how I hate crowds. But I remembered anyway, so I'm telling you now. You were in a music shop filled with colour, I could barely see you in the yellow, I hate yellow. You know I hate it too, I bet that's why you hung around there. I was going to tell you at some point, and it's not like it's contagious. I just liked how you smelled. You radiated a soft blue lavender, which is my favourite colour. I could sit and look at you for hours in silence, smelling your blue scent. My point is I'm sorry. I did try and ignore it, but it was too much. You kind of left in a hurry so I couldn't tell you what was wrong so I'll tell you now. It's your voice, it's too orange. Whenever you speak it grates my ears, and gets me so riled up. If you never spoke everything would be fine, but last time I said that you left.
When we made love your smell turned to pink, which I liked, but your voice turned yellow, which is why I could never keep it up. If you stopped screaming I would be able to finish.

 

[Jack_Karverboy]

Wrote this, dunno how well it fits but you might enjoy it anyway
EDIT: For some reason this site is replacing the quotes with question marks, hopefully its still easy to read

I woke up, and immediately knew something was strange. Perhaps it was the fact that my heart was racing, and that my breathing was ragged and deep, the only sound in my silent, dark bedroom. Who am I?
?Tucker Hadley,? I managed to rasp out.
Something was strange. The shadows in my room, the dark layered on dark, was slightly off. Most nights, the swaying silhouette of the tree outside of my window was cast over my bed, but now it was cast on the wall beyond. I became uneasy. My breathing and my heart did not slow as I looked around the room, only my eyes ever moving. There was nothing there, so I slowly sat up and let my eyes adjust further to the dark. Still, there was nothing, no sign of anything wrong but the new spot of the tree?s shadow. I threw the blanket off of myself and got out of the bed. The soft carpet beneath my feet felt different, coarser and stiffer than ever before, like hair crusted with gel. Disregarding it, I walked over to the door, and then something else happened. It felt like a shift in the air. It was not cold or warm. I looked to the window. The curtains were drawn and they hung still. The window was closed. I looked all around my room again, turning in a circle. Everything was as it should have been. The closet was there, the row of hung pictures to the left of it.
But there was something. Right before I had gone to sleep, I had hung up a few articles of clothes in the closet. And I had closed the door. I remembered doing it. I remembered the creak of the hinges and the feel of the cold doorknob in my hand, the whoosh of stale air as it shut. But now it was standing half open. I walked over across the stiff carpet and shut it. The hinges creaked. As I took my hand away, I glanced to the three pictures on the wall. When I had put them there a year before, my father had been on the far left, my girlfriend on the right, and my mother in the middle. Now-
My girlfriend, Lara, was on the left. My mother was in the middle. My father was on the right. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I opened them again. Lara was still on the left, her grin set below eyes of green and hair of light brown. She would have looked that way had the room been lit. But now the picture was shadowed and dark and strangely eerie. Perhaps pictures took something of a person?s soul. Perhaps a part of her was trapped in there. Turning around quickly, I stumbled over to the table by my bed, my hand fumbling the phone as I took it off of the receiver, and it nearly fell to the floor. I dialed a number I knew very well. It rang for nearly thirty seconds, and then a voice that was also familiar came on, sounding tired and stuffy.
?Tuck, what is it? It?s three in the morning??
I looked to the digital clock next to the receiver on the table. 3:03. ?Sorry. I just needed to talk to you.?
?About what??
?About? Things. You know how the picture of you is on the right, with my dad on the left and my mom in middle??
?Yeah, so what??
?So? I woke up just a minute ago. Your picture is on the left now, with dad on right and mom still in middle.?
I heard Lara sigh. ?Tuck, you probably just woke up in the middle of the night sometime and changed it around. You know you do that sometimes. The first time I slept in your bed with you, you woke up at two, set the alarm for 6:30, and went back to sleep. I had to get out of bed and go unplug it. It was Saturday, Tuck.?
?I know, I know? But this is different? The closet?s open even though I closed it last night before I went to bed. The carpet feels? different. The shadow of the tree is on the wall now even though it should be on my bed??
She sighed again. ?Whatever, Tuck. I?m going back to sleep, okay??
I was silent for a moment, staring at the clock. It changed from 3:03 to 3:04. ?Alright, Lara. Sorry.?
?Yeah. It?s fine, Tuck. You still picking me up tomorrow at ten??
?Yeah, definitely. Love you, Lara.?
?Love you. Get some sleep.?
She hung up, and there was a click a moment later as I did the same. I lowered myself onto the edge of my bed, and continue staring at the clock until 3:04 changed to 3:05. The minutes seemed to be passing too quickly. Minutes became hours, and the hours became your life. I stood up, looking away from the clock, and left my bedroom.

 

[theotherguy]

Skin Bag


I opened my eyes one morning to find that I had transformed into an enormous sack of meat. It?s not every day that this sort of thing happens--oh no, the first thing I could remember was getting into bed, tidily tucked in to the quilted covers in my underpants, reading a magazine about something or another -- gardening, I think--and had drifted off to sleep, gardening magazine still in my fingers and my wife already snoring next to me. I hadn't been a hideous skin bag then, but I was now.


I looked down at the enormous hulk which I presumed to be my body. At first I thought that my eyes were simply blurry from that sticky mucous which tends to clog they eye at night; but having rubbed my eyes raw, I found that my vision did not deceive me. That lump of pink, gelatinous material rested still where my body used to be, shoving the blue down covers aside under its ugly mass. It was disgusting really, jiggling, covered in little black hairs and shedding tiny white flakes here and there, unnatural, strange. I looked at my hands and found that they had become nothing more than flabby flippers, jiggling as if they had no bone.


I screamed, not yelped, screamed. My voice sounded like it had been run through a cheese grater. I could hear my wife mumbling next to me, shifting in the bed, clearly upset by my outburst. It must have been very early in the morning. It was still dark. Panting, I glanced over at my alarm clock. To my surprise, I could not read it. It had been replaced with some sort of wooden box?no, not a box, a small tree-like object, and where its clock face used to be shined a pulsating set of unearthly symbols.


"What is happening to me?" I muttered, nearly whimpering, but my voice sounded to me like nothing but meaningless garble.


By now, my wife had apparently woken up. She pulled the covers down, and burbled something in a shrill tone which I could not clearly understand. She sounded like a cacophonous chimera of a walrus and a snake, all burps and hisses.


"What was that dear??"I asked, "I had better get to the hospital, something's happened to me." I tried to speak, but nothing emanated out of my 'mouth', really more of a gaping hole in the sack of meat, than the same hisses and burbles that had erupted from my wife earlier.


Then a bedside lamp clicked on, and I saw her. I nearly fainted from shock. There, where my wife had been sleeping only moments earlier, was a repugnant, blubbery slug. She, or rater it, had become a skin bag as well, nothing more than a misshapen blob of flesh-colored fat, though of a slightly less hairy sort. Her hands were like flippers, just as mine had been, and it appeared as though five or six holes had been drilled into her ghastly, furry head, some of them filled with huge, buggy eyes, and one filled with gnashing white teeth.

It spoke again in its shrill walrus tone. The demon shrieked at me as though it would enjoy nothing more than gnawing out my intestines -- if I still had any.


"My God --what have you done with my wife?" I wavered, my voice bubbling from the gaping hole in my head like bubbles from a pool of oil, "Just.." I stuttered, "Just leave me alone!"

I backed, or rather rolled (it was impossible to move normally when my legs had been replaced with fleshy pillars of fat and fur) off of the bed, and began to crawl towards the bedroom door. I noted that the carpeting had all been replaced by a sort of tan, itchy wool imitation of grass. I tried to ignore the inconsistencies, just to get away from whatever that abhorrent monster sitting on my bed. Perhaps I had been abducted by aliens, perhaps some awful plague had struck the family. I didn't know. I simply had to escape.


I heard the bed squeaking behind me. It was getting up! It was going to come after me! I attempted to stand, banging my pudgy flippers on the ground and attempting to get the lower half of the meat sack to support the top. Quite shakily, I was able to manage a sort of half-crawling gait, and made it to the door.

But even the door seemed to be replaced. It was at least recognizably a portal out of the room, but it was little more than an imperfectly rectangular hole that seemed to have been hastily drilled into the wall, with a thin, white, wooden thing hinged to it. I shoved the wooden thing out of the way and stumbled out into the hallway. With each step, it felt as though my limbs were nothing more than those of a puppet, and my brain, the puppet master, was pulling up the strings. This was not my body. I didn't quite know what it was.

I limped along, faster and faster, getting used to my new, flaccid limbs. I could sense the presence of the other thing behind me. I could feel the gaze of its bug eyes as it shrieked, burbled and hissed at me.

My limp became a run as I escaped into the relative safety of the entry hall. I tried not to notice the fact that giant sculptures made of ice hanging from the ceiling, or the fact that the floor below me which had once been mahogany wood was now made of a hollow, tinny brown substance, or the fact that large, four-legged furry animals were now lounging where the loveseat and the couch had been.

I ignored all of these things and sprinted for the giant arched hole in the wall which had once been my front door. I twisted a strange, cold object which I assumed to be the handle, and swung the thin piece of wood inward. Then, trying to avoid the creature behind me, I slammed the door shut.

Outside, things weren?t much better. A giant, flat stone river extended as far as I could see in either direction before me; creaky, brown, crooked arms extended from the furry ground, reaching into the pink dome of a sky, their fingers topped with green, lemon-shaped objects. Where houses had once stood were now smiling faces carved into stone and stucco, and where there had once been parked cars were now giant metal rhinoceroses with disks sewn on where their legs should have been.

"Jesus..." I gasped, looking about this strange new world. What had become of me? What had become of the world? Was I merely dreaming, had my perceptions changed, or had I really been abducted by strange, meat-sack creatures that enjoyed metal rhinoceroses and trees made of spindly fingers?

I staggered out into the chilling air, and fell to my knees on the massive black stone river, and turned my pudgy, meat-sack head into the pink sky, to see a giant explosion of gold and red fly suddenly up over the horizon, blinding me, and setting the world alight.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

The relic

The tour guide smiled as he led his group to his own favourite exhibition of the museum. Officially he could list a number of reasons why the artifact was important but the real reason he liked it was because it reminded him of why he got into archeology; To discover and feel the things that the ancient people had once used.
"Now then, here we have a real little treasure in our collection." The surge of interest re-surfaced after having dipped a little once they left the section on mating rituals.
"This colourful little thing was used over six thousand years ago to denote status, wealth and possibly even fertility." The crowd gathered around the exhibition, now clearly excited. Their eyes travelled over the flat square, the younger children put their hands up against the glass but were soon batted away by their parents.
"It's made mostly of a synthetic material and dyed to make it colourful and lively. The small mark on the upper edge is a combination of gold, silicon and copper, and is believed to be a further indication of status, or possible military rank." There we go, he thought to himself, now the gun-nuts were interested, too. He could feed off that until they reached the next part of the museum with more ancient war machines. A hand went up while he mused and he fired off a bright smile which he'd developed during his time in Public Relations.
"Yes, a question?"
"Those marks on the edge, are they a name?"
"Ah, no. Several other finds of this nature had the same inscriptions, or ones very similar. We think its a tribal or possible a family name belonging to some ruler. However, if you look closely at the top left corner-" He pointed and the crowd reacted instinctively, craning their heads closer, "You can see another set of symbols, which are unique to each individual artifact." He finished, he thought, with a flourish. They seemed very impressed and he was about to herd them along to the next exhibition when another hand went up.
"What are they called?" He smiled again and looked at the artifact. Unknown to him, the flat rectangle was on its side, and the 'tribal name' was something that most if not all people who walked the planet before them had known. In worn letters it spelt out; V-I-S-A.
"As you know, we're having huge troubles pronouncing their language, but we believed ther were called 'Craedite cards'. Now, let's move on, over here we have a genuine, pristine example of one of their atomic weapons, which we believe is of the same type that wiped out the human civilization so many millenia ago." The gun-nuts reacted positively and the guide smiled happily again.

 

[A-Bike]

And we shall ride forever in glory

The etchings of time trace spirals of light against the heaving darkness. Bugs; butterflies; they are the same to me as I tumble out of control through uninhibited void, each one a mere dent in the slipstream of my heart. I am gaping and unfulfilled, but the wind does not pass through my inadequacies. I am its master. I am its destiny; destiny that follows the blind whim and will of the unknown commander, that demigod who has the power in his feet to dance Shiva's dance and keep the world turning. I am afraid of when it stops. The power ends, the world ends, and a thousand endless nights wrap me cold in their blankets, lights no longer reflecting spirals. We return eternally this same melody which turns the world beneath us.

Greater beasts evolved, those that guzzled the decayed carapaces of ancient organisms, those that tear screaming into the darkness at speeds telling of their impatience. They fail, slave to the scarlet beacons that are their masters, leaving long lines of the growling abhorrences angered in being denied their sacred right of instant passage. I pass them in my steady rhythm, those that endangered me with their self-loving carelessness, and they are shamed at my simple surpassing. No beacon could be my master.

Older beasts still roam, those that sprawl over miles. They are bound like daemons to steel and toil. Once set to work, they can stop for no life. I dare not challenge them, but I still know that one day their masters will not be able to plunder the earth and skies for enough power to fuel them. My master looks nowhere but himself to power me, and I in turn am faithful to him alone. We two are bound irrevocably to eachother, and in eachother we trust our lives and our souls

 

[ríomhaire]

I sit in my fiery seed, blind to the world. I unfold and bloom into a bloody stalk. I watch the world and the dust go by. I meditate on the timber that surrounds me. The flames rush past me, eager to be gone from where I am rooted. I hear a scream. Some stay. I am watered by a steady rhythm. Beat. Beat. Beat. I flourish. I bud two leaves and a flower caps me. I wait.

The sky is upon me. My purpose is revealed. One by one the sky falls and I am left alone again. I am watered. Beat. Beat. Beat. A friend joins me: A little sun that consumes the fires as they stand before me. The fires march in and are consumed. As soon as they appear they are gone; swallowed whole by this installable sun. Will it come for me? I cannot know. It seems, as I am, to be rooted but what do I know of the whims of a sun?

The fires are forever consumed and the distant screams come closer. I must ready myself. I cannot say what will happen. The screams cease and the sky rushes forward again, spreading a terrible glow in their wake. Deathly screams pierce from every direction. All is calm again. The sun is gone. The sun that has been my only companion but also my greatest fear.

I am watered again. Beat. Beat. Beat. A new flower blooms beside me and I watch it bloom as I did ages before. It is watered, as was I . . . and blooms. Have I been replaced? I cannot know the minds of my planters. The screams are distant again.

The sky rises. The sky falls. My companion and I are watered. Beat. Beat. Beat. The sky rises the sky falls.

I am withering. I am blinded. What is happening? The pain shoots through me as I know I am about to die. I hear, with my last moments

Spoiler

"SPY'S SAPPIN' MAH SENTRY"

 

[Slug Advisor]

Riomhaire, I think you have given me an idea I can actually carry out.

I sit, and scan the cold corridors with what means my parents have given me. It is always so, lifeless. My parents are no more. Or perhaps they are somewhere. I wouldn't know. The mistress, and other like me are my only companions now. Not a lonely existance, though not a fulfilling one. My current companion was not talkative either, so much fun was not to be had.

I observe my surroundings further, savouring the view. Cold, lifeless, but beautiful. Designed quite well for its purpose. The other turns towards me with a slight clicking sound, and turns back, seemingly uninterested. Not the best of companions, but I doubt I am.

An echo. The sound of steps, again. Maybe it is one of my parents. Impropable. I try to crush whatever hope I may have. A reunion would be nearly inconcievable, now. It is likely to be one of those nice ladies that appeared before. Or is it someone else? Curiosity overtakes me. There used to be many interesting people here, among my parents.

The steps are further away. They are now closer. Oh, definitely closer. They're heading this way, I decide. But who is it? An orange suit shows, settled upon what I know to be a 'human', as were my parents. And those curved bars on the 'legs'. I don't recall most having those. And there are those awkward looking chubby 'arms', wrapped around the... I search the depths of my mind, for a word, and find none. It basically looks like a thick tube.

Oh, I think almost dully. It's one of them. Ah well. I never truly expected more. She points the tube, and I can somehow feel something open up beside me, too far for me to see. It is then that I feel instinct kick in. I know I do not have instincts, but I shall say I do, for the lack of a better fitting word.

As the lady points the tube under herself, I feel something rising up inside me, and shoot. In short outbursts, what I shall call 'bullets', once again, due to the limits of vocabulary. As a similar something to the one open in the wall beside me opens, under her, she slumps, red fluid exiting her body violently where the 'bullets' hit. The human enters the rift underneath, and falls on my companion, knocking him over.

I would chuckle, if I knew how. Things like this happen, when you're thinking with portals.

 

[Sheepo]

Epiphany​

The peaceful gray buzz cloaked the surrounding space, contrasting the persistent assaults of complex thinking intent to seize his consciousness. His mind caught familiar terms and played them back again, creating a peaceful rhythmic static in his mind.

"Are you with us?" asked the general, cutting directly through the defenses of his dark gray haze. Laughter echoed from onlookers who had prepared themselves for such a barrage. He mumbled in response, not a fitting battle cry by any standard.

Rapidly redirecting his focus, he took notice of the silhouettes suspended upon the illumination before him. They seemed to be a randomly distributed collection of symbols and lines. While examining them he took notice of a few patterns which he had seen before. Not one of them, though, did he find relevant to his current situation.

Again directing himself to the margins of his transcriptions, he quickly reformed some of the noticeable patterns. Having been momentarily appeased by this minimal sacrifice, the general went forth to focus her forces upon other poorly fortified intellects.

He began, now to transcribe his abstract thoughts onto the margins, giving them the form of crude creatures and weapons. Several stratagems for infiltrating fortresses were pondered as well.

As gradually as the continents slide, so did the gray haze, begin to once more, infiltrate his awareness. Soon he was all but unconscious when his eyes were caught upon a device. A metal, black device fixed upon the wall, fixed upon his attention. It radiated a red glow, which originated from a series of lines.

These lines, incrementally shifting, eternally reappearing and disappearing, seemed to make a coded message. He stared for a time greater than he had ever experienced, with no breakthrough in deciphering it. They danced upon his mind, taunting and exciting him. The more he understood the more he needed to understand. And just as he realized what was happening, they shifted once more, and the bell rang.

 

[Saruke]

Hunger Strikes!

He had never felt such cold. It burned through his body, leaving only emptiness. He was a hollow thing, his spirit stilled within him, leaving silence, worse than nothing. He had been stripped of any protection, beyond all hope of healing. Words could not describe the torment of being. He was driven mad, more than mad. The flame of his soul was snuffed, put out, replaced by emptiness, and starvation.

Blind, he struggled to his feet; hunger overwhelmed him and began to gnaw inside him, a ravenous beast that pulled him onward. Twisting his form into a horrible caricature of the noble man he had once been. His movement?s now quick jerks and contortions, causing him to stumble, brittle bones cracking, breaking, but still he went on. No longer feeling pain, his only desire was to eat, to fill the darkness.

He did not know how long he had been driven, how far this horror had carried him. Each second was an eternity of suffering more than any man could bear. But still he walked.

Suddenly, warmth. It began to tingle at the edges of his fingertips, leading him on, tantalizing him, turning the constant roar of his hunger into the thrashings of a beast gone mad. He began to run, scrabbling on hands and knees, tearing his fingernails to bloody pulps in awful desperation.

The soft warmth that had lured his wretched body grew, becoming a roaring blaze, bathing him in sounds and smells that filled the emptiness inside him. The heady aroma of burning flesh filled his ragged nostrils with it?s sweet scent. The sound of boiling fat was a choir of angels. Fire poured down his throat and lit his insides ablaze, banishing the cold, shattering the silence.

Slavering with mad anticipation he rushed up to the counter yelling,
"Get me two double whoppers and a diet coke!"