Writing from an icy day [S]

Rase · 02-11-2008, 08:30 PM

No school today thanks to two inches of ice and sleet, so I decided to randomly write. Just kinda started with an idea and went from there to see what would develop. Feel free to tear it to bits or what have you, you know, the usual stuff.

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Adam stared silently at the figure that was before him.

It was a humanoid creature, or so it seemed. It was rather hard to tell much about the creature’s physiology however, because it wore a long and ornate crimson robe that dropped down past where its feet should have been. These supposed feet would not have been touching the ground even if they did exist though, because the figure was floating about a foot off of the ground, making the figure’s height close to seven feet. The robe flowed up the theoretical body, hiding all of it from view except for the creature’s hands and head. These hands were large, covered with a tough skin-looking material that was rough, with a splotchy blue-green color over them. Both ended in three thick fingers and a thumb, which themselves were finished by an inch-long claw-like nail. These hands looked to be quite muscular, and the creature was constantly clenching and unclenching them, slowly and rhythmically.

The being’s head was even more alien looking than this. It looked much fleshier than the hands, though retained the same color scheme. Coming from the front of the head, where the mouth would have been (and maybe was) were a multitude of tentacles, all about a foot and a half in length. These were moving slowly around on crimson robe, looking almost sentient. Aside from this, the creature also seemed to lack any ears or a nose, and was fully bald. Its eyes were the last thing that Adam noticed though, and the place where he dwelled the most. The eyes were entirely black aside from the iris, which was a vibrant sea blue. Staring into the eyes for even a second made Adam entirely uncomfortable, even more so than one would tend to be when suddenly in the presence of this… creature. The eyes seemed to be infinite in depth, but should you get lost in them it felt as though you really were unable to get out. This was the creature that appeared before Adam on January 23rd, 2008.

It was a short time before Adam noticed he knew not where he was. He quickly got his bearings though, as soon he saw something that was a fairly obvious landmark; the Washington Monument. Now the last thing Adam remembered was entering his apartment on Vallejo Street San Francisco, after working his shift at the nearby Starbucks, but that hardly seemed important right now, as he stood before the collapsed form of the national obelisk. The massive stone tower was lying at an angle against a hill, its massive length stretching out into the distance as a hole in it emitted black smoke. Soon Adam noticed that this was not the only thing wrong however. All around him he noticed the sights of Washington D.C, only they were thrown in disarray, either collapsed or missing large chunks from their forms. The air was a burnt orange color, and smoke was quickly flowing into the atmosphere from various large fires throughout the landscape. For its part, the ground was scorched and burned, with little vegetation visible nearby or on the horizon.

All of this took Adam quite a few minutes to take in, and the whole time the creature floated silently there, waiting. Once Adam’s head was finally down racing with confusion the creature seemed to notice, and spoke out with a deep and loud voice. The sound seemed to come from the creature’s mind, as no noticeable movement of its mouth was able to be seen, yet the voice was definitely audible, echoing off of the landscape as it spoke.

“You cannot save this place.”

Adam’s eyes snapped back on the creature, staring at it with an uncomfortable mixture of awe, dread, and wonder. He wasn’t too concerned with how it had created sound or gotten him to this place, not at the moment at least. He found himself much more interested in what had happened in the now ruined city around him. Finding his voice and as much courage as he could he gazed in the general direction of the creature, avoiding its piercing gaze as he spoke up.

“What… What do you mean? What happened here?”

Gazing around as if just noticing what was around it, the creature paused before answering Adam.

“I have been here for many centuries. I have seen this before. I am Kushtan. You cannot save this place.”

Adam stood at a loss for a little while, trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean. Why hadn’t this creature, this… Kushtan, actually answer him. Why was he being so cryptic? Couldn’t these weird things ever just be straight forward?

“Where have you seen this before? Why did that happen then and why now?”
Floating forward, Kushtan stretched out his hand, palm up. A small orb appeared, morphing slowly to form a large meteor streaming through space. After a few seconds it changed form again, this time becoming a small city, its buildings burning and tiny citizens running for their lives from men on horseback. Then into a rat is changed, then to people dying from a plague, their bodies covered in large boils. This continued for a full minute, showing death, destruction, and terror from times throughout history. The last one was of a some missile, streaming across the ocean on its path toward its target.

“Man will rise to strong, and so will be kept in check by outside forces. There is nothing you can do.”

In an instant Adam found himself back at the door of his apartment, the very place where he had been prior to what had happened. Adam looked quickly around himself, closing the door and locking it before going through his apartment and turning on every light he owned. As we moved quickly Adam tried to rationalize what he had seen. Maybe he had just passed out or fallen asleep while standing and had some weird dream. Perhaps someone had slipped some sort of drug into the coffee he had grabbed before leaving, some prank loving co-worker like Richard. After getting on all of the lights Adam collapsed on his futon, grabbing the remote and turning on the television, trying to find something to distract his mind from the strange vision. Some infomercial for a all-in-one work out thing, 24 hour news, C-SPAN, Spongebob Squarepants… after going through his channels twice Adam gave up, tossing the controller across the room as he lay there and listened to some stupid commercial about a drug that made sex better or something. Though he hadn’t loved history throughout school, Adam was able to grasp what some of those things had been. The Black Plague, the sacking of Rome, the fall of the Aztecs and Incas. All of what he had seen kept rushing through his head, swirling around and making him nauseous. Grabbing his iPod from the floor and closing his eyes, he tried to zone to The Killer’s “Sam’s Town” album.

Somewhere around “When We Were Young”, Adam roused from his sleep to use the bathroom. Shaking his head and wiping the sleep from his eyes, he turned his head sideways, opening them to stare out at the skyline on the Golden City. He immediately regretted this decision, and soon found no need to get up and use the restroom anymore.

Kushtan was floating outside the window of his apartment, staring at him. Without a word he turned his head, staring at some business skyscraper. Slowly his right arm rose, pointing at the building. His hand looked limp, before suddenly straightening up, palm toward the distant structure. With no warning a massive explosion ripped through the center of the building, flames erupting into the night sky. The force was so great that the three large panes of glass that made up Adam’s window shattered into a hundred pieces, several flying into the room. Covering his face with a couch pillow, Adam felt a piece slash his arm as he waited until the sound of glass breaking stopped. Removing his shield, he saw that Kushtan had disappeared from sight, leaving the wreckage of the building in his wake. Adam jolted from his wet position on the couch as he looked left and right for the creature, trying to watch every side at once. From within his head he heard a voice, now far too familiar over the last hour.

“It is as I have told you. Do not speak of this, and do not try to stop the inevitable”.

His bladder now fully emptied, Adam stumbled his way over to where he used to have a window. He watched in silent horror as the building fell to the side, crashing into another one as it fell to the black streets below. This building in turn fell back toward the first, crushing the other half that had stayed standing. Dirt and debris rose in a massive cloud, with sirens and alarms ringing through the air. As two sky scrapers lay in a heap, Adam stumbled back to his couch, sitting on it in shock at what had happened. How could it have happened? It was all too surreal to be real, and yet he knew he was not dreaming. Whatever was happening, Adam knew one thing: he wanted no part of it. This creature had just destroyed a building, there was no way he was going to try and stand up to it. His palm on his forehead, he sat still as the cool night air swept through his apartment, bringing the smell of destruction and smoke into his life, and not for the last time.