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Author Topic: Another... what's it called again? [open!]  (Read 914 times)

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Anonymous

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Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« on: January 26, 2009, 07:04:50 am »
Bugs were going to eat his eyes.  Avahma could feel them sitting on his cheekbones and waiting for him to close his eyes again.  Why they were waiting for him to go to sleep when he was lying still on the floor of his latest haunt was beyond him.  They were there, leaning up and drooling down into his eyes.  Their insect spit made his eyes itch.  He couldn't move anything but his eyelids, so he couldn't try to shake them off.  The only thing he could do was stare at the dark ceiling and listen to the silence.  A hundred years passed in between each thump of his heart and his eyelids got heavier with each.

Who needed eyes in this darkness.  Avahma slept.  The ends of his hair, long enough to touch the ground when he was standing, twisted into curls where it wasn't pinned to the ground under him.

The moment his eyes closed, they opened again, the eyelids stuck open with dried sweat until he blinked them free so they could get caught again.  To Avahma's regret, the bugs left his eyes alone but, they burned like he spent the entire time he slept scratching them.  As bad as it was, his throat felt worse.  Like it'd been plucked from his neck and replaced with a chunk of granite charged with lightning.  Cigarette.  Had to find a way to get it out of his coat pocket, lit and up to his lips.  Nothing wanted to cooperate with him.  Even his eyelids wouldn't stay closed.  All he could do was stare up at the ceiling with wide eyes turned black in the dark.

Time went by slower when he was awake to feel it creep by.  Eventually his body got tired of doing nothing and his arms began to tingle with restlessness.  Avahma clawed the peeling linoleum, dragging himself up and swaying through the wave of dizziness that washed through his ears once he was sitting upright.  When the room stopped rolling, Avahma crawled to the wall and rested against it.  The cigarettes were in one of his pockets.  Unless he smoked them all.  A horrible thought.

Avahma patted the pockets of his faded black coat, brushing away the tendrils of white hair that got caught and curled in the fabric around the thickest one.  The pocket was the one over the knife at his belt, but there was something in there.  Avahma pulled it out and held it against the tip of his nose to sniff it while he stared.  It didn't look like a package of cigarettes and smelled sweet.  There wasn't time to figure out what it was.  It went back in the pocket and Avahma climbed up the wall so he could pat his pants pockets.

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Well, nothing but his lighter and the sweet thing in his coat pocket.  Avahma flicked the lighter and ran a finger through the flame, looking around the floor for a scrap of anything.  Aside from a few shriveled filters and a small, clear bag it was empty.  Avahma traveled light, anything you couldn't carry here was going to be stolen once you left.  Maybe even stolen when you were still around, along with all the flesh on your bones.  No cigarettes... Avahma groaned and pushed himself off the wall, tottering forward a few paces with his hands braced out.  His knees buckled, but he stayed on his feet.  Somehow.  Avahma stood still, waited to fall down.

He kept standing, took a little step, wobbled and slowly made his way to the frame where a door once stood.  The rest of the floor was easy after that, until he got to the stairs.  He hated them.

Note to self, no more choosing resting places that involve stairs.  It is a bad plan.

The stairs were an ignominious ordeal, clinging tightly to what remained of the rail and tip toeing down, making sure both feet were on one step before moving down to the next.  There were two... pieces (?) of stairs before he was on ground again, Avahma could see the ground from a broken window after the second.  Following the wall brought him to the door.  Avahma batted the handle, then remembered that it needed to be pushed.  Push.  Free.  

Avahma stood in the threshold and slowly looked left and right, squinting until his eyes seemed closed.  He couldn't remember if he decided to settle in any place that others lived in.  All he could remember was walking by a pool of still water trying to find this building.  Water would draw life.  Water would be nice now.  A few sips might make his throat feel better until he could get more cigarettes.

Avahma crept forward on tip toe.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2009, 07:20:35 pm »
The building might have been empty when Avahma entered, or perhaps there might have been a number of things in there that he ignored.  Nevertheless, at some point during the man’s sleep, not long before tiny beasts began crawling over his eyes and face, a young woman came in with a hand full of dead rats.  She sat on the floor and started to skin them, to get at the delicious meat inside.  They were laid out in front of her, one after the other, and her rifle, a primitive slug thrower, was placed on the floor on her left hand side.  One of the rats was lifted up, a knife came out of a small sheath on her hip, and it cut open the rat’s stomach.  One after another, the small dead beasts came up, were gutted, had their flesh cut off, and were thrown to the side.  All seven of the bodies met the same fate, their bloody carcasses in the corner and a pile of meat in front of the girl.  It was all still bloody and red, good enough to eat, but she had time, since the building seemed to be empty, even if there were some slight sounds coming from above her.

A lighter came out of one of her pockets.  Clorinda flicked down on it a couple of times, the callus that had developed on her thumb from doing this exact thing pushing down on it, until finally a flame leapt from the end of the small metal box.  The still bloodied knife passed through the flames a few times, until she was satisfied with how clean it had become, before stabbing a small piece of meat, which she held in the flames until it had went from dripping with blood and red, to slightly charred, at which point the knife went to her mouth and deposited the small bits of rat meat on her tongue.  Clorinda always managed to fool herself into thinking the meat tasted good before eating it, but every time the rat meat tasted terrible compared to the delicious meats that she could steal in the actual city, even if it she did not really know what she was eating up there.  The process repeated itself with the second sliver of meat, and again with the third, each time the taste getting more and more acceptable as she got more and more used to it, and as her expectations of how good it was dropped.

By the time she was half-way through the pile, Clorinda could hear steps above her.  Not just the slight sounds that she had heard before, but full steps, there was obviously someone, or thing, up there moving around.  Something that she was sure she did not want coming down to see her eating on its floor.  She licked the blood off of the knife and shoved it down into its sheath and put the lighter, flame now gone, back into her pocket.  Grabbing the rifle with her left hand, Clorinda pushed herself up quickly and ran to the building’s door – or at least the wall that had a door in it.  Rather than waste time opening the door, she merely vaulted out of an open window and ran for a few minutes before leaping behind a small pile of metal that had been dumped from the city above.  She could recognize a few of the items, things she had only ever seen in her brief time in the city above, but all of them seemed to be burnt and crushed and ruined.  But still, it provided good cover, something to hide behind.  Her head popped up, just over the metal heap of machinery, to look over at the building, it was close, she thought that she had ran farther, and watched the door and window to see if whatever it was came out.  She held the rifle tight in her hands, ready to pull it out and fire off a few quick rounds if she had to, though hopefully it would not come to that.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2009, 05:52:29 am »
Sometimes a window was the best way to get in and out of a building.  That never stopped Avahma from hating going through them a little less than traveling down stairs.  If a door was available, he was going to take it.  Better a nice safe door than scrambling through a window or falling down the stairs.  Once he was sure the outside was secure enough, giving it a simple sweep with his eyes rather than a mental probe, Avahma stepped out into the street.

From a distance, Avahma looked human enough.  Another thin figment in a long, faded coat over threadbare clothing.  Didn't openly carry a weapon, but one hand hovered close to his hip rather than hang naturally.  Just watching him move was enough to make a person concerned with such a thing think there was something off.  Avahma swayed when he walked, his shoulders moving side to side rather than staying still or moving with his legs.  He crouched a little as he walked, back arched forward at a curve it shouldn't have been able to bend.

Avahma walked forward slowly, eyes drifting side to side.  This area was a good place to hide in, but walking around in it could make anyone start feeling like there were many eyes watching from every nook and cranny.  It was uncomfortable.  Avahma looked over his shoulder, which tensed, the hand hanging at his hip curling and uncurling reflexively, then bolted toward a pile of metal that looked like decent cover.

Something was coming.  Avahma heard the clatter of heavy feet over a piece of sheet metal.

Someone else beat him to the metal pile though.  Now that he was running toward it, he saw the head peeking up over the top.  Avahma's big eyes widened further and he stopped fast, sliding into a kneeling position and drawing a knife as a creature whose ancestors may have been pet dogs in the city above barreled down an alley into the street they were on.  It curled ragged lips over yellowed fangs, bristled the rust coloured fur on its shoulders and charged.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2009, 10:38:29 pm »
Someone, no, something, something that she could not quite make out, that was close enough to human for her to think him a man.  Her hand tightened on her rifle; she, hopefully, would not have to kill, though it would not be difficult and would result in enough meat for a couple of days.  She just watched him, ever ready should he seem like he was attacking her.  Her eyes followed his odd gait, the way his shoulders oddly moved about and how his body seemed to bend at odd angles.  He was probably just some sort of mutant or some such monster.

But, to her dismay, the man ran towards her, though he looked less and less like a man with each stride.  Clorinda took in a deep breath, one filled with fumes and poisons that would cause an outsider choke and cough in pain, before pulling up her rifle and taking aim at the thing.  She assumed words would be a waste, from the way he walked, she thought he might not be able to understand a normal human’s tongue.  Aiming was simple, she knew that she could take off his head, or a large part thereof, with one well placed shot.

And if he had not have stopped, she would have taken off his head after he pulled out a knife.  But then, after taking her eye away from the sight and breathing a slight sigh of relief, she heard something, something that she had ignored while focusing all of her attention on the man that had been charging at her, the thing that was, she thought, a threat.  It was tapping of sharp nails on a hard surface coupled with the loud thuds that come when a paw slams against the ground.  Her gun pivoted to the side, but the monster was moving quickly, too quickly for her to even catch a good enough glimpse of it to know what it was.  After a moment, her sight caught up with the beast, and she even managed to fire a few rounds at it, nothing horribly accurate, but something that might hit or scare it off, unlikely as both might be.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2009, 04:35:05 am »
((Sorry for taking so long to reply here.  Work's been awesome fun lately @.@))

There was something about the bang of a gun.  The way the sound seemed to tear the very air the bullet traveled through that made Avahma tense up every time he heard one go off.  There once was a time he considered being shot to end it all, a single shot to the forehead.  The chance that the small handgun he had at the time wouldn't do much more than leave a bit of metal embedded in him kept him from pulling the trigger.  If he ever managed to dig it out, the slug would be useless.  The wasted bullet would be almost as bad as the failed attempt.  A gun like this one was bigger than what he found.  He didn't feel any pain, but still felt very much alive.  

The creature roared as one bullet tore a gouge in its shoulder and another sank into it, rearing up and setting its foot down gingerly.  Its eyes moving from Avahma to the woman, all the while picking its foot up and setting it down.  Then it took a few steps sideways, eyes still moving between the two.

Avahma sat up a little higher, knife still ready in case the creature decided to charge again, and tried to meet the creature's eyes when it was looking at him.  It was just a simple animal.  Hungry and looking for something to sate it.  Avahma couldn't get a good enough link to tell how hungry and desperate the creature was.

Then the creature held its head up, sniffed and began walking away from the two of them, curling its head down to lick its wound.  

As it walked away, Avahma tilted his head back to look at the person behind the pile of things, almost falling and steadying himself with his free hand.  He slipped the knife back in its sheath at his waist and set that hand beside the other to keep himself from falling flat on his back.  "Thanks," he croaked, his voice a little dry.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2009, 07:13:51 pm »
((It's no problem.  And I'll say, sorry, assuming that sarcasm is dripping from your words))

She was lucky to have hit the beast once, much less twice, given that she was a bit pumped up on adrenaline, and thus her hands were shaking, and that the thing was moving quite fast.  I’m better than I thought she said to herself, or that was an easier shot than I thought.  A few deep breaths of the dirty, poisonous Midhaven air filled her lungs as she attempted to calm herself, though Clorinda still felt her hands shaking from the mixture of excitement and fear that was behind the adrenaline rush.

And when the man looked over to her and spoke, the rifle moved from where the beast was to where he stood.  Pointed at, but jostling around, his head.  It was not until after the rifle had moved that what he said registered in her mind.  It was not something that deserved having a gun pointed at you for, but that did not matter – in the Midhaven, there was little reason to trust anything or anyone, especially when they were being kind or ambivalent.  Though, she did not yet have any reason to shoot him, her finger twitching on the trigger anyhow.

“Don’t come any closer.  What’dya want?” she shouted out to him, remembering what he said while she spoke, adding, “You’re welcome.”  Still, all he would have been able to see of Clorinda was her head and shoulders, since she was exposing herself as little as possible, taking every precaution with the more-or-less man that stood before her.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2009, 08:56:11 am »
Just a quick post to let you know that I still exist.

I got devoured by work... I'll fill this up with the real post soon!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

Anonymous

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Re: Another... what's it called again? [open!]
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2009, 02:10:26 am »
There was a time, long ago, that Avahma would have been offended at another creature acting hostile toward him when he wasn't acting the same.  In this time, in this place, Avahma just found himself grateful she didn't decide to shoot him now that the bigger threat was gone.  Here he was another competitor for water, for food, for space, for air, for life itself.  If she had any group to go back to, no one would blame her for shooting him.  They might think he tasted funny and might make them high if there was any chemical build up from all the drugs, but in the end he'd be a meal or two more toward living longer.

Mixed in with the gratitude was the lingering thought, that the bigger gun would be more likely to kill him.  If only he could dig out the bullets if it didn't work and trade them.  Then he might feel less squeamish about being shot.

In the Midhaven, it was a lot easier to find someone that would attack rather than talk.  Usually they were closer to the World Above.  Running into those few people was always a pleasant surprise.  It was hard to shake the fondness he had for being around humans.  Avahma slowly put his hands flat on the ground, inching them out where she could see them beyond the mound of white curls at his feet.  Turning around to face her might be more movement than she would stand, so he continued to talk to her over his shoulder.  

"I jwa-" he tilted his head toward his chest and coughed softly, mashing his tongue between his teeth afterward to see if he could work up a little saliva.  A little bit leaked out around his teeth, which he swallowed, nearly coughing again.  "I just want... to get to water.  There is some close by.  I mean no harm."
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 04:00:00 pm by Guest »

 

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