Chrysalid
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Well, here is the very beginning of a fan-fic I have begun to write in the past few days. I would appreciate any comments. I would also like to remind that my grammar might not be perfect, as I am not a native English speaker.
---
Chapter 1
If you could call an old and scruffy five by five meter room a home, then I was sitting in my home, along with a rusty tin can half-full of beans and a bottle of water. That was all I had been doing since last October. I wasn't actually sure if it was October when first ones of the missiles fell upon Earth. Three long weeks, listening muffled screams and gunfire coming from downstairs and outside. It almost made me insane - I just stared my home's detiorating walls and tried to pretend I didn't hear anything. People were taken away every day, for ”routine investigation due to illegal activity”.
They never came back.
After listening to the voices for another two hours, I decided to move around, even though it was a bit dangerous these days, plus it was almost midnight. The wooden floor gave a loud squeak as I got up from the blue armchair my dad had left me, and I jumped a bit to remove the stiffness from my limbs. Then, I peeked outside from the window, although I knew what was going on.
An another raid. The awfully familiar greyish armored vehicle rolled down the street and stopped in front of Block E. I saw men wearing white gas masks running out of the vehicle and smashing in the front door. The same routine was repeated almost daily. I didn't get to watch the show to the very end as I was interrupted by a friendly, deep voice.
"They aren't coming here, are they?"
Old man Ellison had entered the room. I was a bit surprised as I hadn't heard him coming in.
"Who knows. Maybe my last can of beans is illegal and they beat me up for that "
In fact this was true as I had stolen the can of beans from an abandoned warehouse.
”I can't believe how you can be so calm while those... monsters are storming down at Block E. It's our turn next, sonny.”
Ellison's eyes were filled with emotion; you could not tell if it was fear or disbelief or both of them, but he was really scared. The old man had literally been falling apart in the past few days. I knew he had heart problems, too.
"You should be sleeping, Richard", I told him.
"I'm not too tired. Besides, I couldn't sleep anyway with all this noise and... well, you know, the unrest in the air"
Unrest. Now that I thought it, unrest was generally rather a rule than an exception nowadays. And I couldn't remember the time I last slept well myself.
"Look, we really should --"
Ellison was about to take a step forward when a deafening rumble almost made him fall to the floor. I quickly turned around and looked out of the window again.
The rumble got louder and louder, until I realized it was the sound of a helicopter's turbo jet engines and propellors. I wondered what was going on - heavy combat units were unusual at this part of the town. Then, all of a sudden, I saw the helicopter approaching from the east.
For a few moments I thought it was going to tear down the whole building. The walls started to resonate.
"My god, what on earth are they doing!" Ellison shrieked but his voice was overrun by an echoing announcement, broadcasted by the helicopter. An electrically enhanced, generic female voice.
"Attention. This is a Class B operation. Escalating unrest in this community. Initiate compensation procedure. Attention Citizen. You are to stay at your residence and await further orders from the law enforcement. Attention. This is a..."
The helicopter flew by my window and I could even see the disturbing amount of weaponry it carried. Enough to blow up this house, an useless chunk of steel, concrete and wood into pieces, twice.
Further orders. I wondered what that meant. They had never used that expression before. Something unusual was definitely going on.
The sound of the helicopter faded away and Ellison stood up again.
"Another one of those, and I'm gonna have a goddamn heart attack!" he mumbled and walked out into the hallway. Once he had left, I crouched, dismounted one of the loose, wooden floor boards and made sure my... negotiator was there. It was, and it was in as good shape as it were on the day I left it there.
The Beretta 92 FS was one of the few items ( along with the armchair ) that my father had left me. ”Should you ever run into trouble”, he had said. And this definitely qualified as 'trouble'. I wasn't sure how many soldiers I could take down if such trouble got too close. I listened carefully for any indication of a raid, but none was audible, so I laid down the weapon and attached the floorboard again.
This simply wasn't a good day to die.
--
EDIT: Added the original .rtf version: http://www.ritke.fi/~jaakkoh/fanfic.rtf
---
Chapter 1
If you could call an old and scruffy five by five meter room a home, then I was sitting in my home, along with a rusty tin can half-full of beans and a bottle of water. That was all I had been doing since last October. I wasn't actually sure if it was October when first ones of the missiles fell upon Earth. Three long weeks, listening muffled screams and gunfire coming from downstairs and outside. It almost made me insane - I just stared my home's detiorating walls and tried to pretend I didn't hear anything. People were taken away every day, for ”routine investigation due to illegal activity”.
They never came back.
After listening to the voices for another two hours, I decided to move around, even though it was a bit dangerous these days, plus it was almost midnight. The wooden floor gave a loud squeak as I got up from the blue armchair my dad had left me, and I jumped a bit to remove the stiffness from my limbs. Then, I peeked outside from the window, although I knew what was going on.
An another raid. The awfully familiar greyish armored vehicle rolled down the street and stopped in front of Block E. I saw men wearing white gas masks running out of the vehicle and smashing in the front door. The same routine was repeated almost daily. I didn't get to watch the show to the very end as I was interrupted by a friendly, deep voice.
"They aren't coming here, are they?"
Old man Ellison had entered the room. I was a bit surprised as I hadn't heard him coming in.
"Who knows. Maybe my last can of beans is illegal and they beat me up for that "
In fact this was true as I had stolen the can of beans from an abandoned warehouse.
”I can't believe how you can be so calm while those... monsters are storming down at Block E. It's our turn next, sonny.”
Ellison's eyes were filled with emotion; you could not tell if it was fear or disbelief or both of them, but he was really scared. The old man had literally been falling apart in the past few days. I knew he had heart problems, too.
"You should be sleeping, Richard", I told him.
"I'm not too tired. Besides, I couldn't sleep anyway with all this noise and... well, you know, the unrest in the air"
Unrest. Now that I thought it, unrest was generally rather a rule than an exception nowadays. And I couldn't remember the time I last slept well myself.
"Look, we really should --"
Ellison was about to take a step forward when a deafening rumble almost made him fall to the floor. I quickly turned around and looked out of the window again.
The rumble got louder and louder, until I realized it was the sound of a helicopter's turbo jet engines and propellors. I wondered what was going on - heavy combat units were unusual at this part of the town. Then, all of a sudden, I saw the helicopter approaching from the east.
For a few moments I thought it was going to tear down the whole building. The walls started to resonate.
"My god, what on earth are they doing!" Ellison shrieked but his voice was overrun by an echoing announcement, broadcasted by the helicopter. An electrically enhanced, generic female voice.
"Attention. This is a Class B operation. Escalating unrest in this community. Initiate compensation procedure. Attention Citizen. You are to stay at your residence and await further orders from the law enforcement. Attention. This is a..."
The helicopter flew by my window and I could even see the disturbing amount of weaponry it carried. Enough to blow up this house, an useless chunk of steel, concrete and wood into pieces, twice.
Further orders. I wondered what that meant. They had never used that expression before. Something unusual was definitely going on.
The sound of the helicopter faded away and Ellison stood up again.
"Another one of those, and I'm gonna have a goddamn heart attack!" he mumbled and walked out into the hallway. Once he had left, I crouched, dismounted one of the loose, wooden floor boards and made sure my... negotiator was there. It was, and it was in as good shape as it were on the day I left it there.
The Beretta 92 FS was one of the few items ( along with the armchair ) that my father had left me. ”Should you ever run into trouble”, he had said. And this definitely qualified as 'trouble'. I wasn't sure how many soldiers I could take down if such trouble got too close. I listened carefully for any indication of a raid, but none was audible, so I laid down the weapon and attached the floorboard again.
This simply wasn't a good day to die.
--
EDIT: Added the original .rtf version: http://www.ritke.fi/~jaakkoh/fanfic.rtf
