hello again.
now, i've already got this whole thing written out and finished, i finished writing it before i returned to OWF properly, so it was completed around January 2009. seeing as it is part of a very slowly progressing collection of shorts set in Rupture Farms, it didn't have chapters, just 'breaks' marked with symbols. but, as its now apparent, these 'breaks' are not the best thing to judge a short chapter suitable for posting by, so i'm using my initiative to break it all up into bite-size chunks.
in other words; if an ending to a post seems to be a bit anti climatic or a pointless cliffhanger, its just me trying to make each post more reader-friendly.
also; seeing as this was written in Jan 2009, that should explain my grammatical errors that pop up occasionally (eg: your/you're, and also excessive use of '?!' rather than just '?' or '!'). i've surprisingly learnt a lot from other members grammar-wise since i wrote this, so i cringe whenever i reread it and find those amateurish, glaring errors. too tired/busy/drunk to edit the whole story before i post, too. sorry! hope it isn't too irritating.
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Joe and Relb reached the hole soon enough, and were the first there. They ate the scrab meat and started on the remains of the unknown alcohol. They both sat down on a crate and Relb poured them a tin cup each to drink, Joe sipping his once he had received it.
“Ah…that’s strong.” Joe reminded himself.
“Well,” Begun Relb, his eye purple and puffy. “We certainly showed them!”
“I wasn’t any use. All I did was jump on his back.” Joe denied.
“Rubbish! It takes a mudokon with real guts to get involved during a brawl!” Relb praised.
Joe accepted this, and sipped his drink again.
“You got here quick, didn’t ya’?” A mudokon voice said from the entrance to the hole.
Joe turned around to see Muller standing above them. He jumped down and said,
“I see you’ve started on the booze without me!”
“Yep! Time waits for no mud!” Relb answered, pouring some of the liquid into the last tin.
“Good thinking, Relb. Crob’ll go mad if he knows your using his glass cup.” Joe informed.
“Too right I will!” Crob said from behind them, jumping down into the hole to join them.
“What you been up to?” Joe asked.
“Couldn’t of been worse than me.” Relb said, pouring some of the colourless juice into the glass cup.
“Weren’t that bad, cleaning out the weapon storeroom. You should see the guns they got in there!” Crob told them.
“I’m surprised they let you do that.” Muller said, taking a sip of his drink and exhaling once the potent liquid had passed down his throat.
“Me too.” Crob replied. “I think the slig that got me to do it couldn’t be arsed, so he got me to do it for him. There was all sorts of shit in there! Pistols, rifles, sub machineguns, and loads of really old weapons that I haven’t even seen before! And I mean really old! Like antique!”
“Fuck.” Relb remarked.
“Oh no…what you been doin’ Relb?” Crob asked Relb once he noticed his black eye.
“Oh you should of seen us!” Relb began excitedly as Crob sat down on a crate, picking up his glass. “Me an’ Joe had a fuckin’ brawl in the canteen! This mudokon said I stunk so I-”
“Oh, I wondered what that smell was.” Muller interrupted. “Been cleaning out the barrels?”
“Yeah,” Continued Relb, looking slightly annoyed at Muller for butting in his story. “Well anyway, he said I stunk, so I punched him in the face, and then this big bastard of a mudokon, I’m talkin’ built like a brick shit house, started on me as well! Joe was there! He saw it! Didn’t ya’ Joe?”
“Oh yeah, yeah.” Joe answered, hoping he’d leave out the part where Joe just stood and watched.
“Well, he tried to give me an uppercut, but you know me, lightening reflexes an’ all that. So I dodged it, and kneed the fat bastard between the legs! He fell down like a sack of shit!” Relb described in detail.
Joe started laughing at the fact that Relb had left the bit out where he got punched in the stomach.
“What?” Relb said, looking bemused.
Muller and Crob looked at Joe, also looking baffled at Joe’s reaction.
“Nothing. Its nothing.” Joe said, trying to hold back his laughter, and sniggering because of it.
“Err…yeah,” Relb continued, diverting Crob and Muller’s attention once more. “So the other mudokon got lucky, and whacked me in the face. That’s how I got this.” He said, pointing at his eye.
“Hang on, what was Joe doin’ while all this was goin’ on?” Muller asked suspiciously.
“I’m getting to that. As I was saying, he got lucky, and caught me in the eye, so Joe leapt on his back and started ridin’ him like an elum!”
Crob and Muller roared with laughter. Not the reaction Joe had hoped for, but still, at least it didn’t expose Joe’s cowardly side.
“Yeah! Its true!” Relb said, laughing. “So I punched the mud in the face and knocked him out. Then we left before things got heavy.”
Muller and Crob quietened down, and Muller was wiping his eyes, still silently cackling.
“Ha ha…heh, what…what do you mean ‘before things got heavy’?” Crob asked.
“Well, Joe can tell you that.” Relb replied, taking a swig from his tin cup and looking at his feet.
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not much of a cliff hanger, but like i say, i'm just having trouble splitting this thing into sections.
by the way, i have noticed by reading through the whole thing that at times, due to all the talking, it resembles a script more than a story. i apologise for this, and it even confuses me at times. i really don't know why i didn't simplify the talking scenes as i wrote them at the time. this'll be an example for me, anyway.
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