Guy's Oddysee

[Shrink]

Let's try a new story. Hoping for the best:

Guy’s Oddysee

C h a p t e r O n e
The Night of MisFortune

Life was very strange. At least, it has always felt strange. Something has always seemed … wrong, misplaced, as if some Creator had made an accident when forming the Cosmos. Perhaps too much Oxygen was added, or maybe not enough. Whatever the cause, something was most certainly wrong, and it was something that could really use fixing.

I can see the night it began quite easily. Tom and Ian are having another of their spats, but this time it will escalate into a much more permanent area of memory.

‘You know, Ian, you didn’t need to offer if you hate it so much,’ says Tom. ‘Why don’t you just stop complaining – for one bloody night?’

‘Hey Guy,’ I was leaning against an unusually protruding pipe which was similarly unusually comfortable. ‘You’d think he’d be grateful that I do offer and actually do the work.’

‘He’s got a point you know, Ian,’ I say, ‘Why not give it a rest? I’m ever so sure he won’t take up your offer again in a hurry.’

‘Give it a rest?!’ Ian’s voice had risen. ‘Why doesn’t Tom actually do some work for once?! A little more action on his part would stop all of those injuries, and maybe then, I’ll stop helping him out! I’m sorry for helping a friend!’

‘Oh, shut up, Ian’ says Tom, ‘I’m glad you helped me out, but we could do without the constant moaning about back pain… leg pain… arm pain… It’s every time!’

‘I don’t moan! I just like to give you an idea of what you’re missing out on!’

‘Well, I don’t need to hear it. We’ve got what? Four hours? I’ll be grafting again soon and while we have this brief interval, I would appreciate being able to keep my mind off machinery, levers and scrubbing.’

‘What if I’m angry? What if I think you don’t give me enough gratitude for all the hours I put in for you?’ Ian gets angrier.

‘I’m really not bothered,’ sighs Tom. ‘Look, just don’t do my work for me again, but please! Just shut up for one night!’

Tom is almost lying down on the floor, head resting and lolling against his nearby bed. After he managed to break down the entire cycle a couple of Zulags away, he has literally been unable to work for the beatings he took. They don’t care about that, though, and so Ian has been forced to do double the work. At least it made Tom’s absence unnoticeable.

Ian is standing up and pacing. He looks thoroughly worn out. He had been back in the rather cramped bedroom (which the three of us share) for around ten seconds before they started bickering, but the grime covering Ian’s body, the obvious bruising swelling his left hand and the definite red of blood in his eyes tell me he has reached the end of the line.

‘Ian,’ I say, in what I hope is a voice to calm him down, ‘Tom’s still recovering, all right? Just give him a while, yeah?’

I stand up, but Ian doesn’t listen. Instead he swings his right fist through the air, and throws himself downwards onto Tom. It’s almost comical, and looks as if Ian has fallen. The second I hear the double gasps of the pain and cracking of multiple bones, I know comical is the last thing this situation could be equated to.

Tom immediately jumps to his feet, and with a bloodied face in his hands, he barges out of the door.

‘Why did you do that for?!’ I demand, but to no avail. Ian has broken his hand and my anger is quenched instantly, to be replaced with shock. He stands, and I help him, while looking at the hand. The hand he uses for most of his work – the hand he needs. On the surface it looks barely damaged. There is a slight bump down the side where his little finger is, which I can only assume to be the broken bone. Ian doesn’t say anything, however; his face is white with shock and he can only stare at his hand.

‘Go… Go get it checked out,’ I mumble, ‘you know where to go.’

‘No,’ he objects, equally mumbling.

‘Yes,’ I say much more forcibly, and even push open the door and edge him outwards into the dark.
As I do so, I hear the familiar ‘Oi!’, and pull the door shut in fright, leaving Ian.
He will be okay; injuries are allowed to be healed. They have to be. What could that guard do?

The door bangs open, one of its two remaining hinges breaking loose and falling feebly to the floor. What is it doing in here?!

‘Oi!’

‘Y… Yes?’ I splutter, petrified to the spot.

The creature in front of me doesn't reply. Instead, it thr0ws its arm over its shoulder and returns with the standard automatic firearm.

It makes its signature noise; one that would sound more at home amongst the swamps, amongst the slime and creatures that dwell there. I had heard it a million times: before a beating, after a beating, before a shooting and after one too. I should guess that it will shoot me, but I don’t. Instead, my mind is numb, frozen, unable to think. Unable to even acknowledge the gun.

I stare blankly at the nozzle pointing towards my chest. I can’t think.

The guard drops the gun, and it clatters resoundingly on the floor. What? I stare at the gun as the guard does similarly. It appears it also couldn’t comprehend what was happening, though I would liken that more to its small brain than shock of the moment. Instantly, it turns and storms out of the door, knocking the last hinge clean off.
I am left stupefied, but I still cannot concentrate on the moment. Instead, I wonder how exactly those round metallic feet can turn three hundred and sixty degrees on the spot, seemingly without moving.

[Dave]

Know what?

This is great.

I love it. You totally made no reference to a plot or story of any kind, save the characters' interactions with each other, and I am hooked.

I hope this fic goes far. I want to see where you take it.

[Shrink]

I appreciate your comment very much - thanks.
I'm not too keen on this chapter, because it didn't get as far as I'd like. I didn't want to make it too long, so Chapter Three will have to include some Chapter Two material. Too much dialogue, I guess. Anyway;

C h a p t e r T w o
Unwanted Treasure

The gun sits before me, immobile, vacant, nothing. My mind slowly begins to breach the subjects of the why and how. Why did the slig drop its gun? Why did it abandon the room? I crouch down, adrenaline coursing through my muscles. After briefly prodding the gun, I look away.

I can’t have a gun.
They’d kill me.
I better hide it.

I don’t hide it, though. I stand, looking around the room and trying to focus on something else. The bedroom I, Ian and Tom share is a boxy, almost square-like room. Perhaps it would be square if various pipes and ventilation shafts didn’t jut out of every available area.
There’s one bed against each of the three sides where there is no door. Each bed is rusted, crooked and mine has somehow lost a leg and thus tilts annoyingly downwards. Inches above each bed are separate pipes that round up and go through the low ceiling. I sometimes wonder if it was purposely designed like this, so we would have to squash ourselves between bed and pipe when trying to sleep. There are other pipes as well, such as the one I tend to choose as my point of comfort. The floor is flat, coppery orange and covered in everything dirty. Blood, mud, rust, dust and miscellaneous scraps of wood are just a few of the things that lay strewn around.
The ceiling is a mere half a foot higher than my own head, and from it dangles a weak orange light bulb, continually turned on. In the far corner, above Tom’s bed is a strange security camera which often emits odd noises.
I have no doubt that it can easily penetrate the many pipes that would otherwise obscure its vision of the room.

‘What to do, what to do…’

Before I can contemplate any further, I hear the unmistakable slapping of feet outside the room. Tom suddenly appears stricken in the doorway as I quickly and instinctively grab the gun to hide it behind my back.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, taken aback at me crouched oddly at the floor.

‘Nothing. Uh, are you okay?’ I’m particularly thankful Ian isn’t here right now; the middle of Tom’s face is wrapped in yellowed and untidy bandaging. A lot of blood is splattered across the rest of his face and his usual lush green colour has paled.

‘Of course I’m not okay! Look at me! What’s happened to the door?’ his voice lowering immediately.

‘Well, there was a little disturbance…’ The door flat on the ground, sticking into the dark corridor beyond the room; it was obvious it has been forced that way.

‘Go ahead.’ Tom’s voice is forceful; suspicious, ‘I suppose it was Ian?’

The gun in my hands feels cold, oily, and surprisingly heavy. I keep my arms behind me,

‘Oh, no, no. There was this slig. For some reason, he came in, and broke the door.’ I say, but then add, for Tom looked suddenly scared, ‘Don’t worry, it didn’t do anything. In fact, it went pretty quickly. I guess it was just trying to find out why you and Ian had just left.’

‘Ian left? Where is he?’

‘Oh, he broke his hand. Not used to punching people, that boy. Anyway, he went down to the healer, didn’t you see him?

‘No… I didn’t go directly… well, I got distracted. He wasn’t there when I got there, anyway.’

After a moment, in which my arms begin to strain under the gun, he adds, ‘Is he okay?’

‘Yeah, as I say, just broke his hand; looked pretty shocked. Well, you can imagine. He’s not one for violence, our Ian. The day must have really took it out of him.’

‘I suppose…’ and I see that Tom doesn’t want to press the subject.

I edge backwards and sit on the bed, carefully avoiding the thick piping, and letting the gun rest on the hard mattress.

‘What’s that?’ says Tom quickly; suddenly aware I am hiding something.
Damn. I think of trying to push it behind my bed onto the floor, but know the clatter of metal on metal will only rouse him more.

My hands begin sweating, but I keep them on the oily gun and say, ‘Well, that slig that came in, he kind of left something behind…’

‘Something? What something? What is that?’ The nozzle has protruded from behind my scrawny frame.

‘Well,’ I say, bringing the gun round into full view, ‘it left its weapon. A gun.’

Tom doesn’t react quite like I think. Rather than fear or repulsion, he simply says, ‘Does it work?’

‘What?’

‘Well, does it? Why would it leave it behind?’

‘How the hell should I know?! What do you think we should do with it?’

‘We? There’s no “we” here. You’ve got the gun, it’s yours. I don’t know.’ Tom suddenly appears flustered, and he begins pacing in much the same manner as Ian did previously. ‘I think we could use it. You know, these things are powerful. We could get out of here!’

‘Umm, no. We need to show some of the others. Hop will know what to do.’

‘Hop wouldn’t see us; he doesn’t even know who we are!’

‘All the same, he needs to know about this. Should we wait until Ian comes back?’ I ask.

‘Nah, we wouldn’t want to force him into more inconvenience… Where is he anyway?’ says Tom.

‘You know I don’t know, I thought he went to the healer. You check if there are any guards nearby. We can’t be caught.’

Before I can even stand up, Tom says, ‘Well, there’s none on this floor. We would hear them with no door. Rowdy bunch.’

‘Oh… right. Okay, let’s go.’

I lift the gun and try to discretely cover it as we both edge out of the room, fumbling over the fallen door, and into the near pitch black of the outside corridor.

[Dave]

Spectacular!
I wish I knew what was happening ...
I hope to find out soon.

[Shrink]

What's happening? Well, there's these mudokons, and they've got this gun, see.

[odd chick]

Great couple of chapters you've got there! I hope this story will do better than your previous one-this one's just as good, if not better, than your last one! Keep it up!

[Shrink]

Thank for your compliments, guys. I prefer this one to Chapter Two, I think it works better and sets up the following couple of chapters very nicely.
And Dave, don't fear, there is definitely a proper plot with all the essentials being set up.

C h a p t e r T h r e e
Visits in the Night

Miserable was just about the most fitting word to describe the zulag. The bedrooms were dire, with their decrepit age-old furniture, but the corridors were dreadful. As soon as you left a bedroom, you were enveloped in blackness. Nobody really had any idea of what a corridor looked like, the lights from the rooms are weak, and never, ever, lit up anything past the small door frames.
The guards knew what they looked like. They did, after all, have night vision equipment. I’ve always assumed, as I stumble down it in the evenings and mornings, that it must be very similar to the rooms: pipes and shafts jutting everywhere, perhaps the odd closed-up natural well that nobody could use or open, and covered in just about every type of article that could constitute as “dirt.”

We move down the corridor tepidly, for fear that one of the guards will come back to this floor. As Tom slowly moves ahead of me, I now notice that the slight outline of his form seems to be limping. He obviously still hasn’t fully recovered from his most recent screw up.
After just a couple of minutes of silent walking, through which all we hear are the light voices of workers in their rooms, hurriedly silencing as we near and go past their respective doors, we finally get the correct door.
Well, in the darkness, we guess it’s the right door, but there’s really nothing to distinguish it so.

A small square of faint light becomes visible in the middle of the door. It was the right room. They had evidently heard the footsteps coming.
We linger for a few more seconds, and then hear the strained voice of one who has done this too many times. ‘Yes?’

‘We need to see Hop,’ replies Tom.

‘We have something important to show him.’ I add, but I already know it is useless.

The voice behind the door disappears as abruptly as it began, and the square of light is immediately covered over.

‘Told you.’

We drudge quietly back to our room, where Ian’s absence becomes even more obvious.

‘Where is he?’ I ask again.

‘No idea.’ Says Tom, evidently resigning himself to his weariness, and the fact that Ian would turn up when he wanted to. He doesn’t bother to change his dirty toga-like rag as he squashes into bed, and I do similarly, shoving the gun under the frame.

The next few days pass without much event. Ian remains absent, and Tom is being extra careful with his work. We discuss what has happened to Ian each and every night, but Tom seems to think that Ian is just gone, and he won’t turn up at all. Our minds are too preoccupied with labour and Ian to be concerned with the gun, and it remains hidden under my bed, ever oily.

Possibly just four days later, and again in the depths of night, but towards the beginning of our “sleep break”, Ian unexpectedly appears in our door frame.

I stare. Tom stares. Our conversation had just moved to the gun, and we had quietened ourselves when we heard the running footsteps.

Ian is a state. His head is newly bald, and he is completely naked. He appears in the doorway with wild eyes, redder than ever, and his body is dirtier than ever. His hand hasn’t been treated, by the look of it: it’s swollen and without bandage.
Tom stands slowly, but remains gaping. I have no idea what to do. What happened to him?
Ian doesn’t speak, or do anything. He just seems to be staring at the corner of the room, unfocused and is shaking uncontrollably.

Finally, he opens his mouth, but still looks at neither Tom nor me. I realise it is probably the security camera he is trying to see, and I begin to stand alongside Tom.
‘You--‘ he gasps, but says no more. In the corridor we hear the signature throaty noises, and before us Ian crumples against the doorframe.
I register this image a good many seconds before I ever register the loud echoing sounds of too many gun shots, or the mechanical legs being put back into action.

I notice I am sitting on the bed, and the guard that killed Ian is standing in the doorway. Where’s Ian gone? The guard must have pulled him into the black corridor.

‘Get a door,’ is all the guard says, in its creepy sub-mechanical voice.
I think I hear Tom whimper. I notice he is also now sitting on his bed.

I stare at the guard, utter shock and revulsion etched into my mind. Why, why, why, why did he shoot Ian? Where had Ian been? What the hell has just happened?

Why isn’t the slig moving?

‘Get a door,’ it repeated, as I realise my breathing has become short and quick. Why am I out of breath?

I reach down, and feel the hidden gun. Arms numb, yet aching, and straining under the weight, I pull the gun over the bed. The slig isn’t even looking at me. What is it looking at? The visor-like screen on the front of its mask was impossible to decipher, but I guessed it was looking at Tom. Tom was completely white and some of his bandage has come loose.
He lets out a kind of croak through which I guess he is trying to speak.

I have no idea what I am doing, but I shakily pull and keep hold of the trigger. Immediately, a thousand holes appear from floor to ceiling. The recoil had caused the gun to hit just about everything on that side of the room, and yet again, I see the image before I hear the sounds.
The slig is crumpled on the floor. The echo of my gunshots resounds jarringly, and then Tom’s voice.

‘No, no, no, no,’ he murmurs, ‘you can’t do that. No, no, no, no.’
His face is in his hands and I drop the cold object. It clatters still noisily to the floor.

[Dave]

Cripes!
Someones in trouble ...
This is fantastic. I've totally gotten over my need for a prelude or a backstory. It's quite insightful ... if that's even the right word ... in any case, this chapter makes it very clear what Tom and Guy's attitude towards their positions are, and that this will be quite a serious story, and there are going to be some intense trials ahead of Tom and Guy. You aren't screwing around with this story, and I dig that.

[Shrink]

Hehe, thanks. I'm happy with this chapter here, it's number 5 that I'm having a lot of trouble writing, and I'll probably never be happy with it.
Anyway, enough about chapter 5 when we've only got to number 4!

C h a p t e r F o u r
Fooba

I could barely walk and barely talk when I witnessed my first death. Perhaps it was then that I realised something was wrong with the world, or maybe it was the memory of the time that spawned the thought in a considerably more coherent self.

My entire group had been removed from the Nursery early, or so I was later told. Apparently, there was a sudden mass shortage of workers, which were a “necessity for production”. I don’t know why many workers would suddenly be no longer there, and I’ve never really thought about it. It’s never really interested me.

There was a mudokon named Apell who would be our instructor. As he walked forwards on my first day of work, I noticed he walked differently to anybody else. He seemed more energetic, straighter and moved much more carefully. I could tell, even then, that he was important. He was dressed differently to everybody else as well; he was wearing a crisp black suit that complimented his dark green skin in a way workers’ rags never could. His head was also strange. Different to any mudokon I had ever seen, he was wearing a pair of rectangular glasses with a very thin metallic frame, and on the top, any hair was obscured by a rather tall “top hat” – also in silky black.

‘You look stupid!’ I seem to remember myself saying, though he took no heed of any of our comments.

‘If you could all follow me, I will briefly introduce you to your quarters before escorting you to your place of work. I think you’ll find everything in order. I ask you to leave any questions to the end of the tour, or to take a short look in the “Information Kiosks” as we pass near them. They are distinguishable by their paw-print interface along with white signs. Any information that is not supplied will undoubtedly by filled by our guards or the many scrolling signs across the walls of your workplace.’

I don’t think I really took any of what he said in. There seemed to be more long words than I could get my head around.

‘Hurry up!’ squeaked one of us impatiently.
Again, Apell took no heed. Instead, he turned and began to walk. I remember noticing a black cane topped with a gold sphere in one hand, which he twirled around his fingers lazily.
‘If you would just follow me…’

A couple of nearby guards, who had escorted us from the Nursery area, made an odd noise and pointed at the instructor. We took that as our cue to move.

Getting shown the quarters was a long and boring feat. We walked from “Zulag 19” to “Zulag 72”, there being so many of us. We all were allocated rooms on the top floor, in the pitch darkness (aside from a strange glowing implement that lit up Apells face and little more). My room was in Zulag 26, and he explained that our work areas were all in the Zulags in which we lived, though sometimes we would swap and work in different Zulags for a few days at time – ‘mostly to give you young boys a change of scene’, as Apell put it.

I was told to wait in my room until Apell could show me my point of work, and found myself confronted with Ian and Tom, who, at the time, I had never met. Apparently, all three of us had lived in entirely separate areas of the expansive Nursery.
We didn’t say much, being completely confused by the situation, scared and disgusted at the state of the Zulags, and not having a large enough vocabulary to speak anyway. I simply sat on my hard bed, which even had its leg broken at that time… probably by the previous occupant…

Before we knew it, Apell lurched into view of the open door.
‘Boys,’ he said, ‘if you would kindly join your friends – I’m about to show you some of the workings of Zulag Twenty-Six.’
‘Do enjoy,’ he added. Around this time I noticed that he had a very pronounced accent, as if he had practised speaking for hours at a time in order for his words to come out refined and up to personal expectation. His voice was all deeper than the average mudokons, and it had a strange throaty feel to it. Nonetheless, we followed, and this time I dropped into place directly behind him.
He seemed very tall, but then, I was very small.
I thought I could perhaps fit entirely in his hat.

‘Why do you wear that funny hat?’ I asked. He didn’t answer.

He led us down a remarkably long ladder, then down a couple of dozen more floors in a rickety lift. As we passed them, I could see many adults working through the large windows and wondered if I would be doing what they were doing. It didn’t seem like fun work.

When we stopped, we entered a large metallic, yet cavernous room. In the middle was an enormous cylinder, at least fifty feet in diameter, in which there were a thousand tiny holes of fire. I remember seeing about a dozen older workers, and they shovelling rocks into the holes.

‘This-’ proclaimed Apell, ‘-is your workplace! You won’t be doing complicated work, being such youngsters, and there is more that enough to getting on with for the amount of you. All you have to do is take one of the many shovels, which you can find on hooks of the outer wall, and then take all of these small rocks into those small furnaces. You are helping the running of this factory! One day, you will be proud of this.
‘Now, as you can see, there is an Information Kiosk against the wall to the North of the room. I think you’ll find it more than answers any of your questions, though I am willing to answer any preliminary ones that may have formed in your half-developed heads.’

He looked expectantly at us all, then added, ‘Any questions?’ to our looks of plain confusion.
Nobody spoke. I doubt anybody knew we were supposed to be asking questions. I still didn’t know why I was in a very large and very hot room.

‘Okay,’ said Apell. ‘Our guards will take further care of you. If you are not one hundred percent clear on the instructions you will be fulfilling for a good three years, please feel free to ask one of them. Do try not to disturb your fellow workers with pointless chit-chat, and do try to visit the Information Kiosk only once. Using it is a privilege I can and I will remove at any time.
‘Chop chop!’

He turned on his heel and re-entered the elevator, which moved sideways before moving upwards and through the ceiling. Two guards immediately moved to the spot where it would later return, while another couple began pushing shovels into peoples’ hands and then forcing them into digging at the rocks.
We all soon caught on.

After just ten minutes, in which I had only reached the furnace once, I saw one of the workers being shouted at by a guard. I couldn’t understand the guard; it made very odd noises which sounded highly animalistic. I think I giggled. The worker he was shouting at was crossing his arms over his chest and not doing any work. I remember wondering why. He was the same age as me, even from the same area of the Nursery. I think his name was Fooba, but that was probably just the way I falsely pronounced it in my primitive young tongue.

The guard reached down, grabbed a piece of wood and hit Fooba (for lack of a better name) in the back. Immediately, the boy fell face down on the ground, and began to cry loudly. The guard pulled him up and I noticed grazes across his chest from the rocks strewn across the floor.
His face was crying into his hands but he still didn’t pick up the shovel. I wanted to call out to him to pick it up, but noticed others, those who were closer and they were already shouting at him:
‘Come on Fooba!’
‘Work Fooba!’
‘Don’t cry. You always told me not to cry!’

Fooba didn’t listen, and the guard hit him again. It was about to pick him up again when another guard moved closer and shouted a command. Immediately, the first guard desisted.
Fooba was still crying loudly on the floor when the second guard moved directly over him. It swung its arm over its shoulder, produced a gun, and then shot Fooba around ten times in the back.

The sound was so loud, the blood so vivid in colour, that everybody had stopped working and most people had gasped or whimpered. I can’t remember how I reacted, but I remember dropping the shovel I was holding. The shovel that was twice as tall as me.
The guard who had shot Fooba gave a short horrid laugh, before dragging him behind a nearby rock hill and out of sight. A blood trail remained there for a good many months.
Everybody was soon back at work.

This murder has always stayed with me. I remember wanting to run over at the guard, to hurt him. How dare he shoot Fooba?! Fooba was dead. Why was he dead? I didn’t attack the guard though. Instead, I picked up my shovel and tried to dig into the pile again.

[odd chick]

Those chapters were fantastic! That last one was really sad, too. Poor Fooba!! I love the characterization you've done in this story-they all seem very real and I'm sure some people can even relate to them. Well, keep your story going-it's amazing!

[big bro boogie]

I love this story. Really. It is totally well written, and makes sense. (Erm... I mean like, the harder way which I like... Aww never mind. It's great.)
Keep it up.

[Dave]

This story is too great for words.
...

[Munch's Master]

Yes, tis a great fic. I've just rea it know, and it is very good. It seems to have a dark and sinister plot without telling what the plot is, which is great. I'm intrigued by the Sligs who act weird, like in chapter 1 and chapter 3, and this mudokon Apell. I have a suspicion as to what may be under that hat, I think he may be hiding an Ocktigi under it. Probably not though, this fic has probably got something even more imaginative and mysterious going on. I cannot wait for more!

[Shrink]

this fic has probably got something even more imaginative and mysterious going on.

I wouldn't bet on that. I hate to get expectations up.

Anywho, I left the longest gap between Chapter 4 and 5, and what happens? I get the most replies after Chapter 4! I think there's a message in there somewhere.
Thanks again for all the compliments and encouragement!
The main reason I haven't wanted to post this one so quickly is that I'm simply not too happy with it. I had an idea of splitting it into 5 and 6, but I wanted to get these events over pertty quickly. What happens here has to happen, I'm just not keen on it.
It's also unnaturally long, but to compensate, 6 and 7 are probably the shortest yet.
So, without further ado, let us rejoin Guy and Tom...

C h a p t e r F i v e
The Unclean Mudokon

‘You’ve got to help me,’ I whisper, staring at the body.

‘What?’ Tom looks at me, revulsion on his face. ‘You… You killed it. No, no, you can’t kill it… We’re both going to be killed…’

‘It was you who said we should use it on them.’

‘No, no, no, that was a joke… just a joke…’

‘Please, Tom, I need your help.’

‘Help with what?’ he also lowers his voice to a whisper, and now looks more suspicious than anything.

‘We’ve… we’ve got to hide the guard. And Ian… we’ve got to get Ian as well.’

‘No. No way. I am not helping you with this.’

‘Please Tom…’

‘Look! Can’t you see – they already know you did it. Look behind me, Guy. Stop being stupid.’
I look; fear and dread fills every inch of my body – I had forgotten about the security camera. It’s making that weird noise as well. I should have seen it earlier. I should have thought about it.

‘You’ve got to help me, Tom.’

I notice that Tom has edged further away from me. He looks scared, petrified. He seems to be shaking, and most of his bandage has come loose, showing a somewhat deformed and bloody nose beneath.

‘Tom?’
I move closer to him, but he moves even further away, now holding his legs in his arms. He looks like he’s swallowing sick, for he gulps a few times. Why aren’t I feeling sick? Hadn’t I seen my best friend die, before killing someone else?

‘Okay’, says Tom, seeming to find enough courage, ‘I’ll… I’ll help you, but… but we need to see Hop first.’ He rearranges his bandage, recovering the wound.

‘W-why?’ I ask. I didn’t want to see Hop. I knew how the others would react: just as Tom did. They would be frightened, they wouldn’t help me… us.

‘He’ll know what to do, that’s why. We can’t stay here anymore.’
I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to find out what happened to Ian. Where had he been for the last few days? Why was he shot? What happened to him? Why was a guard chasing him?

‘Okay,’ says Tom, replying to himself. Standing up shakily, he says, ‘Come on! We best be off!’
I gape at him, but climb slowly to my feet. He must have pushed the events out of his mind. I try to do the same but I can’t. The image of those two collapsing bodies will very probably haunt me forever.

I bend down, and lift the gun up. We’ll need this.
Tom recoils backwards involuntarily, fear etched once more over his face. It lasts but an instant, however, and he is soon composed once more.
‘Yes… good idea. We’ll probably need it. We can’t come back here.’

Completely ignoring the body of the guard in our doorway, and keeping our heads held high for fear we will see Ian’s body, we move into the corridor and head along the zulag.

I had only seen Hop once, which is weird in itself seeing as we sleep fairly close to each other. He had become somewhat deified inside my own zulag, though I have heard that he is just as respected across all the zulags. Apparently, he holds some type of spiritual power. I knew for a fact that the sligs fear him, for when I did see him, it was because they were running away from him. I don’t know what Hop does. I doubt he actually works with the rest of us, but the room he lives in is nothing special – I’m told it looks just the same as all of ours.

This time we get to Hops bedroom much more quickly, either because our thoughts are entirely focused elsewhere, or because all sense of caution was lost. The small patch of light is already open, waiting for us, and the same voice as before says, ‘Yes?’

‘We need to see Hop,’ I say.

‘Now,’ Tom says, ‘open the door, Nile.’

The patch of light disappears.
‘I knew this would happen,’ Tom says wearily, and then he kicks the metal. Instantly, the door flings open, one of its many hinges breaking off.

‘You’re not to come in here!’ screeches the mudokon I assume is called Nile, but we ignore him.
Looking over the room, it does indeed seem very similar to ours. There are pipes all over the place, but, I notice, none directly over the beds. A mudokon who I recognise as Hop sits on the bed that would be Tom’s, while Nile moves and sits on his own bed, the bed that would be Ian’s. The third bed is empty, and looks unused.
I look at the faces on the two mudokons; they are both contorted in fear and outrage. They look me and Tom down, lingering their eyes upon my gun and ignoring the blood that had splattered us both with disdain. Looking to Hop, I see that he has pushed back right against the wall, fear still contorting his features.

‘Hey,’ says Tom conversationally, ‘we came to speak to Hop – you must be Hop,’ he adds, looking towards the more frightened mudokon at the end of the room.
‘We have this problem, and we were looking for some advice. You know, your reputation precedes you.’

Hop doesn’t react. Instead, he keeps his eyes fixed on me and barely whispers, ‘you’re bloodied… impure. There is purity you can never return. You have murdered somebody.’

I suddenly grow uncomfortable and the gun feels heavier than ever. I had heard Hop was spiritual, even mystical, but how could he know this? Unless, of course, he heard the gun shots and put two and two together. Now I think of it, everybody must have heard those shots.

‘Yeah, that just about sums up our problem. Got any ideas for what we should do?’ asks Tom.

Hop seems to just notices that Tom is there, and looks startled at his voice.
‘Ideas? He has killed someone… He’s a murderer… No one can help you. Get out of my room!’

‘Yeah, I think we better go,’ I say, grabbing Tom’s arm.

He doesn’t budge, however, and says, ‘Look, we’ve heard you have powers, you know, that you can use against the guards. I’ve heard stories. Can you teach us? Can you help us?’

‘NO!’ shouts Hop. I see that Nile looks more fearful than ever. He has moved and now sits next to Hop on Hop’s bed.

There’s a glint in Hop’s eye that I don’t like the look of.
‘Come on...’ I mumble, once again pulling Tom’s arm. This time he complies, and as I swing the heavy gun round to leave the room, the room’s inhabitants whimper in fright.
They’ve both edged even further away.

We head towards the door, but somebody walks in the room: another mudokon, undoubtedly the owner of the remaining bed. It takes only a second; he looks at us, spots the gun, and is last seen recoiling out of the room in fright.
It would be like this with every single person we met… repulsion, fright, horror.

[Munch's Master]

Good chapter. You describe the characters' actions and emotions very well, and I doubt I can possibly be disappointed by thi fic. Keep it up Shrink. (I still want to say Esus)

[big bro boogie]

Good chapter. You describe the characters' actions and emotions very well, and I doubt I can possibly be disappointed by thi fic.

Yup, I also feel about it this way.
I also like the way how Hop refuses to help Guy and Tom out of fear.
Keep up the nice work.

Edit: and oh,

I get the most replies after Chapter 4! I think there's a message in there somewhere.

That's because I started reading it when you posted chapter 4.

[Shrink]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, it keeps me writing every day.
As promised, a shorter chapter. Tell me your thoughts.

C h a p t e r S i x
The Art of Zulag Hopping

We have moved along to Zulag 27, deciding to discover what happened to Ian that night. Here, unfortunately, there are guards still patrolling the upstairs main corridor. I feel vaguely surprised that a lot of guards haven’t yet reached Zulag 26 after seeing us murder one of them on their security cameras.

‘Could you take this for a sec?’ I ask, heaving the weighty gun up once more.

‘Oh, okay, sure. What’s the worst that could happen?’ Tom takes the gun, and smiles faintly. From what I can see in the dark, his eyes tell a different story.
‘Why’s it all oily? And so bloody heavy!’

‘Yeah… I don’t know why. It’s always been like that.’

We’re trying to get to the ladder, which happens to be directly in the heart of the bedroom-corridor. It would probably be quite easy if sligs couldn’t see in the dark.

As we creep, the sound of petrol-powered mechanical legs suddenly gets louder, and Tom throws me inside a nearby room

‘Cheers.’.
I briefly look around. Three mudokons are cowering in the corner, on the far bed that would be Tom’s, under the security camera. I take a second to muse if me, Tom and Ian would react similarly, under the same circumstances. I come up with no answer – the situation was preposterous.
I push my ear against the door. Tom does the same.

The mechanised sound gets louder … louder. As it does, my hands start to sweat and for some reason, I wish it was I who was holding the gun.
Probably thinking the same, Tom shoves the gun into my chest and whispers, ‘you better take it.’

I don’t bother to be offended that Tom thinks I’d do better with a deadly implement of horror; instead, I cling to it finding strange comfort from its oily coldness.

The nearby guard stops moving, ‘Oi!’
My heart jumps into my throat and I almost drop the gun. The mudokons in the corner whimper.
The slig isn’t referring to us, however, and we hear its legs set back into action, chasing something that must have shot into Zulag 26. Seconds later, we hear the burst of gunfire and once more I nearly drop the gun.

Throwing caution to the wind, and still ignoring the three mudokons we invaded, we discreetly push open the door and walk along the corridor. As always, the floor feels sticky, wet and grimy beneath our bare feet. Every few seconds one of us would half-trip over something – a pipe, a rat, who knows what.

We followed the procedure of occupying random rooms for brief periods every time we heard the oncoming mechanical legs, or the sharp shouts the guards would often emit, until we came to the ladder.
It wasn’t guarded by anybody. I don’t know why. In most of my experience, when there were guards in Zulag 26, they were almost certainly keeping guard over the ladder.

The ladder is long and winding. At various points throughout, rungs break beneath our feet, but we deal with okay. As I got to the bottom quarter, and another rung breaks beneath me, I begin to wonder how the workers get up and down here every day without breaking the ladder to pieces. Maybe they use a different route downwards…

I drop down to the floor, as Tom does behind me.

‘You’ve worked here before, right?’ he asks tentatively.

I shake my head. ‘Have you?’

‘Nope,’ he says, ‘where are we?’

The room is very large. On the ladder, we hadn’t passed any other rooms, we had simply climbed through this one room where hundreds of large… things… hung from the ceiling.
Being night, it was empty and darkened, and we couldn't see particularly high areas. The only light was coming from—

‘What is that?’

[Dave]

Oh, jeez. Way to keep us antici









pating the next chapter. Sheesh.

[Shrink]

Reposting Chapters 7-10.

C h a p t e r S e v e n
The Room with the Water

‘Looks like water.’
I put the heavy gun on the floor, and stretch my aching arms. Carrying the gun was hard work, I have no idea how the guards manage it.
The only light in the room is weak and green, and it’s coming purely from the centre of the room – where an enormous lake-like pool has been carved, or built, into the metallic ground.

‘How is it making light?’ I murmur.

‘Oh, I’ve heard of this place,’ says Tom, ‘There are lots of lights in the water, so the workers can see what they’re doing. It’s apparently pretty dangerous stuff.’

‘Well, this room isn’t going to hold any answers. How do we get out of here?’
Looking around, I see nothing of use. The ladder we used to get down goes no further (in any direction), and the floor seems entirely flat up to where the lake begins.

‘What about an elevator? A door? The workers down here must have some way of getting around.’ Tom says.

‘I don’t know. Maybe on the other side of the water?’ There was no way around the water; it went from wall to wall but I was pretty sure I could a similar stretch of land on the other side.

‘Hmm… looks like we’d have to swim. But I’ve heard it’s dangerous…’

I move to the edge of the bank and peer into the water. It was emitting all the light in the room yet I could barely see anything through its depths. The light bulbs dotted around the walls were barely visible, and the only beams I could see where ones that broke the surface and lit above the water.
‘Why can’t I see in it properly?’ I ask, stupidly expecting Tom to know some answer.

‘Guy,’ he said mockingly, ‘perhaps it’s dirty? – you know, dust and stuff.’

‘…Yeah. So, we’re going to swim across?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Why exactly is it dangerous? Did you ever find out?’

‘Well… no,’ he concedes. ‘It can’t be that bad, if people work in it every day, can it?’

‘No, I don’t suppose it can. But… if they work here every day, where’s the Info Kiosk? Where are the tools? Where’s the dirt on the floor?’

‘Hmm… Well, we don’t know what sort of work they do,’ and he peers down into the water, tapping the surface with his toe. ‘It’s pretty cold.’

‘You know what Ian would-’ I begin, but neither of us follow it through. The memory is still too hard to bear, but then it’s been less than an hour…

Maybe Tom felt differently about water, but the thought of swimming across an unknown and exceptionally deep pool in the middle of the factory didn’t seem at all welcoming. I still wasn’t sure what this factory did, exactly, but, well, water could hold anything. It could even be a test site for dangerous chemicals…

‘Can you see any signs on the walls? Danger signs? Anything?’ I ask.

‘Well, there’s one over there,’ points Tom.
I look. Quite close to the water and around mudokon height was a rather large rectangular white sign. On it was emblazoned a blue image of water, but nothing more.

‘Useful,’ I mutter. ‘I guess I better get the gun.’
I turn and look at it – all black and only faintly visible in the light. It didn’t look dangerous now; it just looked like a scrap of metal, like a feature of the floor in any other part of the factory.

Picking up the gun, I once again remark to myself just how heavy it is. How was I supposed to swim with it? I need to use both arms to hold it…

‘I’m not so sure about this,’ I say to Tom.

‘We’ve got no choice now, I’m afraid!’ he smiles, before jumping as far out as he can into the pool.
After a brief moment during which he is under the water, his head breaks the surface and calls, ‘Come on Guy! You’ll get used to the coldness!’

‘It’s not the temperature I’m worrying about,’ I mutter to myself as I get ready to run.

[Shrink]

C h a p t e r E i g h t
Shimmers in the Water

The gun was heavy. Too heavy. It was pulling me down, much too quickly, much too far. How could I stop this? I could use my arms-- but I needed my arms! Could I drop the gun? Would I really need it again? I know using the gun was the last thing I ever wanted to do, but I grown somewhat attached to it… I couldn’t drop it… I wouldn’t drop it.

My air was running out quickly, and looking down, I see nothing. All the lights are above me; I had sunk much too far. Where was the bottom? As far as I could see, the water went on forever in all directions.
Panic strikes my heart and lungs. I try to shout but only succeed in ridding my lungs of all precious air. I’m wilding thrashing my legs, the gun still clutched to my arms.

What was that?

I had just looked down. There’s something there. I barely saw it, it was quick… very quick. I squint even harder through the water, completely ignoring my lungs, which feel like they are being ripped into shreds, and completely ignoring the fact I’m falling further and further. There seem to be lights further down; against the walls near the bottom… very faint… is that the bottom? Perhaps it’s just the middle…

There it is again! What is it? This time it was more to the right. I could barely see it; I would guess it is very far away.
A glimmer! Slick, winding, but gone!

I spin in the water, but I’m still falling further. My eyes begin to droop… was that it again? Is it getting closer? Further away?
I struggle to stay awake, but my body is starved of oxygen. My hands begin to loose grip on the gun. In front of me, a white form appears. It looks like a mudokon… it’s moving though – definitely moving. Trying to speak? I want to see it properly, but my brain is even beginning to lose hold. Was that what I had seen before?
Can’t be. No.

From above, I barely register that hands have seized my shoulders. I feel the gun being prised from my highly loose grip, and I’m going up. Was this what I saw? I’m not moving fast, and that was very fast…

My eyes finally close.

They open. Where I am? I breath quickly, lungs screaming in new pain – I’m above water! I’m breathing! Tom? That’s Tom? Of course it is…

‘Guy, Guy, Guy, Guy…’ Tom says, ‘What were you doing?’

‘I was… I was sinking,’ I manage to say, spluttering out water.
We are still in the water, but by the edge so I don’t need to tread water. Looking over, I see it is the same edge we jumped from; we still need to make the long swim.

‘Why’d you get rid of my gun?’ I ask.

‘It was drowning you. We don’t need it.’

‘Yes we do!’

‘We’ll see… Why didn’t you drop it? Were you going to die for it?’

‘I saw something… deep in the water. I got distracted. Did you see anything?’

‘…No I didn’t. Tell me, Guy, before we go any further, where exactly are we going right now?’

‘Over the other side of this pool. As I’ve said, we’re going to find out what happened to Ian.’

‘Any starting points?’ he asks.

‘Well, remember that guy called Apell? Course you do.’ I add, after his look of disgust. ‘Anyway, I thought we’d go and talk to him. Every time I’ve seen him, he’s always seemed to know what was going on around here.’

‘I always got the impression he wasn’t on our side, but if you’re sure… Anyway, you seem to be okay now. Well, at least you’re breathing. Let’s swim across.’

We push off from the metallic wall and into the water. Once more, when in action, I am reminded of the sheer coldness of the water, of the massive aches throughout my body, of the pain still searing my battered lungs.
I wasn’t enjoying this swim.

I see it again; just a glimmer of black on black in the water – almost invisible. I continue to wonder what it is as we near the quarter-way mark.

‘What the-?’ I hear Tom say next to me, as, directly in front of us, an enormous toothed head bursts out of the water. “Was this what I saw?” I strangely have time to think, as a large wave pushes me many metres back. I try to look, but by the time my vision is clear, the water is calm again.

‘What was that?!’ says Tom to the side of me.

‘It’s what I saw!’

We go someway underwater for some sign of the monster, but we can find none. I think I catch another glimpse of a white-ish figure, but that’s impossible.
We decide to try swimming across again, and this time we get quite a bit further than before.

I’m once again feeling the aches all over my body when I hear a sound. It’s low, rumbling, and roar-like. And it’s coming from below the water.
Not daring to put my head under, I look through the surface. Bursting from the depths shoots the exact same head as before, directly underneath me. I have no time to move.

It launches perfectly vertical, screaming a deep, rib shaking, howl. Before I’m aware of it, I’ve been thrown way up in the air. The head is beneath me, snapping its massive jaws and roaring in frustration. Why haven’t I fallen into its quite open mouth?
I simply continue to rise as the monster below me does, but then, as the water from its mouth splashes around me, I think I see another white figure. It’s just on the side of the beast… but I can’t see properly, the thrashing of the creature keeps obscuring my vision.

Strangely, I find myself calm and utterly terrified at the exact same time, but yet again, before I know it, the monster has crashed back into the water and disappeared from sight.
But where’s Tom?

I look around, trying to calm myself. It couldn’t have eaten him, was he in the air with me? He wasn’t on the water anywhere. Panic yet again begins to grip as I take a deep breath, and dunk under the water.

There he is! I see Tom not far down below me. The monster is nowhere in sight, so I begin to trying to swim down to him.
It seems my perspective was skewed – he is actually past the lights and seems to be falling. His mouth is open.

‘Tom!’ I bellow, but words are designed for air, and in water they gargle, they are nothing.

I swim faster and faster, until I reach him. In the depths below, I catch sight of the monster – a shimmer of black against black. It’s circling below us menacingly.
I grab Tom’s arm. His face is stricken, drawn. There’s something wrong but we have no time! My air is running out fast and I’m almost certain Tom’s is gone. I pull upwards, but he doesn’t rise. He keeps falling. Why? There must be some cause. I look around, but it is very dark. Why would we be sinking?

Then I see it. Attached to his foot was a hand, part of an arm – ghostly white, much whiter than any of Tom’s newly pale skin. I pull harder, and the hand in turn pulls harder. How can an arm pull things? It’s not possible. Squinting through the darkness, as before, I realise the arm in part of a white mudokon. I can’t see him properly …but he looks extraordinarily injured.

I pull harder, and catch a glimpse of the black creature below again. It was much closer.
With no warning, it shoots through the water like a bullet, coming in from the side. Its massive jaws lock ahold of the white mudokon …the white ghost, and keeps on swimming past, as I scramble upwards wildly in fear.

I understand that we are going upwards again, and look down. I see that the ‘head’ is not just a head, but part of a large, very long creature. But then it is invisible to us. The creature, whatever it was, had taken the white mudokon ghost with it.

I take a deep breath of air as we hit the surface, and hear Tom do the same. I had purposely been heading towards our destination side of the pool; it was only a few strokes away.

‘Ah! Ah! Get it off of me!’ cries Tom. I look, and see him flailing in the water, still as pale as he was below!

‘What? What’s up?’

‘Get it off!’
His legs fly into the air in his panic, and on his foot I see the hand and arm of the mudokon below the water. The monster had merely ripped the body away from the arm.
I take hold of Tom’s leg as his head goes under water, and begin pulling at the fingers. They’re cold, slimy and incredibly thin. I look away, repulsed by what is happening.

After a few moments, the hand comes loose and Tom’s head breaks the surface once more. Taking hold of the disgusting arm, I throw it back towards the other side, where it floats on the surface.

‘What was that?!’ says Tom.
I can’t get the awful slimy feel off my hands, and I can see some of the bone through the white skin of the arm. There’s no blood.

‘Let’s go,’ I mutter, trying to get the horrid feeling away from my hands.

The climb up on the metallic shore is surprisingly easy. As we stand, I notice Tom is shaking, once more uncontrollably, and he is still unnaturally white. For some reason, I am quite steady.
‘Are you alright?’ I ask tentatively.

Tom simply nods, teeth chattering, and points over yonder.
On this side of the water, there was an Information Kiosk and two doors.
“Zulag Twenty-Eight” was written on one door, whilst the other had “Out of Bounds” scrawled across it’s locked surface.

‘We don’t want to stay in the zulags, if we can help it,’ says Tom through still chattering teeth.

He’s right, we move towards the Out of Bounds area, hoping to reach a destination of use soon…

[Shrink]

C h a p t e r N i n e
A Sprinkle of Light

Crash. I stumble into the room clutching my shoulder, having just barged the door down.

‘You sure you okay?’ Tom still hasn’t stopped shaking; he’s still pale.

‘I think so… I guess tonight is finally catching up with me…’ His face looks more drawn than usual, and the black marks under his eyes tell me he’s tired. He sits down, just inside the room.

‘You could go back, you know. I can go alone, I’m sure it’s not that difficult.’

‘No way!’ Tom says, struggling to stand up and consciously trying to stop trembling. ‘I want to find out what happened to Ia--… If I go back, you know they’ll kill me. You know we’ll probably never be able to go back, right?’
I notice he stops mid-sentence after saying Ian again. It hit a nerve with me as well. Perhaps it was the look on my face that made him stop…

‘I suppose…’

I finally turn and look around. It’s dark but the little light from some unknown source shows me the entire room.
Surprisingly, it appears small and cluttered. As usual, pipes wind around the room in every direction like intestines, but, most unusually, there are large machines everywhere. The closest one to me is literally only two feet away, and they are positioned in rows on top of piping which connects them all. The lower area of the machine is a coppery half-sphere of metal and around six feet above is a large barrel-like mass of similar metal. This is connected to the relatively low ceiling. Each row is only a few feet away from another. There are no switches, levers or anything that would require manual labour.
Where are we?
Every machine is covered in dust so I can make out none of the stencilled-on pictures and words. Some are broken, fallen over or generally in disrepair, and cover the thin paths through the room, while others look in pristine condition.
I can see no one.

I begin to walk slowly down the closest path between rows, carefully stepping over each pipe connecting them. Again, there’s no Information Kiosk. It always seems that whenever I want one, they’re never in sight. Though, I think bitterly, I’ll probably find one at the exit... if there is an exit.

Up ahead, I see a tiny dot of bright white light shoot between machines, temporarily lighting them up more than normal, and then disappearing into the clutter. It’s like a star in the night sky, becoming obscured by a cloud.

‘Did you see that?’ I ask quietly.

‘Yeah… What was it?’ replies Tom.

‘Maybe it has something to do with why this room is “Out of Bounds”?’

‘Maybe…’
Tom didn’t sound convinced.

Another light flits between machines ahead of me. This time, it clearly lights up the floor and I temporarily convulse in shock. There’s a skeleton crumpled there. Not just any skeleton, this one still has flesh in places. A disgusting, dead, white flesh. In the brief moment of light, it looks slimy, or wet.
It was a dead body; a really, really old dead body that had been left to rot. I’ve never seen the management leave things like that lying around before.
The remnant of this poor mudokon reminds me eerily of Ian. He’s just lying there, right now, lost in the pitch black of the corridor. In the morning, workers will carelessly walk over his corpse, taking no heed as they step on his soft flesh; just another feature of the floor. Just another layer of muck.

We reluctantly fall into a creep. There’s something strange about this room that I can’t put my finger on.
The room is causing both me and Tom to be as silent as possible. We didn’t even comment on the body, and as we continue, I notice that the room is much, much longer than I initially thought.

A tiny light to the left. This one is level with me, and it’s close enough for its white steady light to cover my body, making me look positively morbid. It doesn’t move quickly like the other two, it seems to be almost lazily soaring through the air. It goes behind the closest machine, and reappears out the other side.
Both I and Tom have stopped tip-toeing to watch.
The light comes out behind the machine on my left, passes in front of me (so closely, I’m sure I hear the faintest hum) and then passes behind a machine to my right.

The floor in front of me is suddenly lit, with our shadows cast upon it. We spin around, and see five of the lights dancing in the air together, terrifyingly close to Tom.
For some reason, he edges backwards until he somehow manages to get me between him and the dots.
I feel like I want to touch them, to be where they are… to be with them. Another one arrives; I see it come from a distance, weaving between wreckages of machines across the room.
There’s another, but they no longer feel welcoming. A cold chill prickles down my spine. One comes from behind us, and Tom grabs hold of me. It doesn’t stay there; it swerves easily around us and joins its friends. They become particularly bright, but I can still see each individual one. We are both awash in the bright white.

Suddenly, the lights stop dancing randomly in the air, and burst forwards towards me.

[Shrink]

C h a p t e r T e n
Kumbolzee

The sky was dark and there was no sound aside from the chirping of bugs in the nearby foliage. The flapping of a dozen small grey birds overcame the stillness. They swooped in with a purpose, a design, and they all converged together. Where they joined together, a bright unnatural light overwhelmed them, and once they had all found the place, a loud musical note let the world know a mudokon had landed.

The person seemed to take note of where he was, peering around the gnarled purplish-green trees carefully.
The search was apparently useless, for there was nothing, no person, no animal; just the sound of a thousand chirping bugs.

The figure was holding was a long staff topped with a flowery assortment of petals. It seemed extravagant, large and bright. On his head were a multitude of bright features, in a similar design. He looked up just as the loud sound of wings began again, and from the dark recesses of the swamp flew seemingly hundreds of small grey birds, each one converging with another particular eleven before bursting into a mudokon.
Once they had finished, around 25 figures stood in the small clearing, each looking as bewildered as the next; some gazed around in wonderment while others trod softly in the strange earth. All of the newcomers were different from the staff-holder. While he seemed confident and alert, they seemed scared and confused. While he could be seen to be of purple and blue skin in the soft purple radiance that emitted from the trees, they were all uniformly green – some considerably paler than others. While he wore a long silky material, covered in colour, they wore dirty and stiff brown togas or loincloths.

‘Where are we? Airlia?’ ventured one from the crowd.

‘You will find out soon enough!’ replied the staff-holder. ‘Follow me!’ He seemed exuberant, cheerful, and a vast grin was spread across his face.

Airlia walked majestically forwards, using his flower-topped staff as a walking aid and heading straight into the tight-knit trees. The others followed him, tentatively at first, but gaining confidence and their bearings all the while.

After around twenty minutes of walking, in which all of the mudokons had quickly become experienced in climbing over massive curling roots, or crawling beneath them as they flicked in the air, Airlia called to the group, ‘Nearly there now! You’ll love it!’
A few groaned. Perhaps they had hoped they were closer.

The paths through the swamp were dark and wet. Many of the mudokons seemed to be frightened by much of the journey. There were no encounters with creatures; the swamp was utterly bereft of hostile life, but the mudokons could have simply been scared by the quietness, by the darkness, or by the eerie purple light, which was more akin to an unnatural glow, and haunted their every step.
Through the trees, tiny fast moving dots of bright white light could be seen. They flitted between trees, sometimes lighting up the trunks through the purple, other times just disappearing into the night.

Music began to be heard. Some of the more bored mudokons, who had been staring at their feet – refusing to take in their new surroundings – looked up into the night, heads suddenly held high.
The music was comprised solely of strings; it was slow, deep, yet welcoming and invigorating. Maybe the piece was being played specifically because of these newly teleported mudokons, but it seemed to mould to emotion. If you were sad, the music could feel sad and if you were happy, the music could only accentuate it.

Various streams and rivers washed across their path as they walked, and after a few more minutes, Airlia lithely hopped into one of the vast roots. He waited for a couple of minutes while the large crowd climbed up clumsily. When they were all up, some gasped in surprise and wonderment while others simply gaped.
The purple light of the trees lit it up perfectly: There was a city in the swamp. Houses, buildings and a plethora of bright orange-yellow lights could be seen built into the enormous trees and roots. The music was much louder, stronger, and it almost seemed to be nearing a climax. The main bulk of the town was inside an exceptionally wide hollowed stump of a tree. The area had a large rushing river gliding around it so the only way in and out of the city was on the giant roots curving and swerving inwards. In fact, so large were these roots that at least four mudokons abreast could walk across their tops.

The music began to run down softly, yet loudly, accompanying tiny little figures slowly making their way from the city down the winding routes towards Airlia. Their black silhouettes were starkly visible against the purple background.
Airlia began to lead them on once more, this time more slowly and taking more care with his staff. As they got closer, the beauty of the city began to be more fully revealed. The houses were round, but ornate with attractive decoration, and some were built higher than others up the sides of the utterly enormous trees – or the sides in the basin of the stump.

All the mudokons which had come out to greet them were dressed just like Airlia, with similar flowery-topped staffs. Somehow, they looked ecstatic, yet subdued at the same time – as if they were trying to hold in their happiness for the right introductory effect.

The notes of the music had got higher and higher, and as the two groups got particularly close to each other, near the city entrance, the furthermost mudokon stepped forwards from the well-dressed party.

His face lit up in a magnificent smile, before he boomed over the climaxed music, in a voice that writhed in happiness, ‘Welcome to Kumbolzee!’

[Munch's Master]

Hooray, the fic's bac up! Keep this up Shrink, this is a great fic, much better than mine, and I really want to see this reach it's conclusion and hopefully spawn a sequel.

[Shrink]

I'm somewhat disappointed that a lot of readers' comments have gone. Some were particularly good, and it was interesting to see who was reading. Especially when a lot of people who hadn't commented before started to after Chapter 8 or 9. Anway, this isn't asking for those people to comment again, it's just showing how annoying these forum 'crashes' are. On with the show.

C h a p t e r E l e v e n
One Dead Mudokon

My eyes flicker open. Where was I again? I try to see, but there’s only a blinding bright light.
Slowly, the light recedes, and I realise it is the small white moving lights – they’re moving away from me. What the hell just happened? It felt like a memory, like I was reliving the experience purely in my mind, with certain areas less clear than others, but I had no form, and no control. I was just watching it happen from some disembodied point that moved of its own accord. What was Kumbolzee? Who were those mudokons? How very odd.

I watch the lights with new-found interest and awe. They wouldn’t hurt me. They probably couldn’t hurt me.
What were they? They couldn’t be simple lights; light can’t move like that… they must be something else. Possibly alive…
Now they’re dancing in the air, in sharp flicking movements around each other. I begin to move closer. I want to know what they are, I want to touch them. I want to know where that swamp is, who those mudokons are, and what Kumbolzee is… well, I guess it was a mudokon town – only I’ve never seen one before.

‘Guuuuy,’ I hear Tom urge behind me.
I go to turn around, and notice all the small lights flit away in random directions into the shadow. It felt much darker, colder…

Tom looks strange. I guess he saw the vision… the memory… just as I did.
‘What’s up?’

‘I can hear something… something’s moving… shuffling. Over there. Can you hear it? What is it?’

I struggle to hear what Tom is talking about, but my mind is still living the music of my recent experience… It was very nice music.
I try a bit harder, and begin to hear it: a faint shuffling, a scraping against the floor. Certainly not a rat – it sounded more like a person who couldn’t walk very well.

Curse this darkness! I move forwards a little way, pushing against Tom as I do. It gets even colder – we’re both soon covered in goosebumps and shivering against our wills.

Ah! There it is. I can faintly see it. Or can I? I squint even more. Yes. There it is. Very faint. Getting closer.

Not for the first time this night, I recoil backwards in disgust and shock. It was impossible.
One of those small lights shoots past in front of it and I’m certain. How can this be?

Dragging one foot behind across the room comes the skeletal and rotted dead mudokon we came across before the ‘memory’ experience. It’s mainly made up of just bones, but there is white, disgusting skin hanging off all over the place. Many of the half-devoured internal organs are visible as the shuffling jogged the loose skin around. It was actually standing. Actually moving.
One leg appears to be broken, even for its dead self, and is dragged behind. There is no skin or flesh on that leg.

I want to cry – crying always made any situation better, but I can’t. I’m in shock. More shock. The loose jaw of the dead, moving mudokon hangs open, and it makes a strange low pitched moan. It only has one intact eyeball, but I don’t believe for a second it can see – the eyeball is nearly completely rotted itself, and covered in brown crust. It can’t be alive. It can’t be… so how is it moving?

As the mudokon slowly moves closer, a revolting stench meets my nostrils. So terrible is it, that I am almost violently sick there and then. But I won’t be sick. I will hold myself together.

Tom seems to be coping with a dead mudokon moving much better than I am. He moves and stands more in front of me, between me and the thing. Perhaps he thinks he was too cowardly before when confronted with harmless lights. I only hoped this situation was just as harmless.
From nowhere, one of the small lights appear behind the dead mudokon. It shoots forwards, jumps over its shoulder and heads towards us. As it does so, the mudokon makes a feeble attempt to swat it, but it can barely lift its own arms.
The light disappears as quickly as it appeared, flying behind me and becoming enveloped in darkness.

Neither me nor Tom do or say anything. We just continue to watch the strange phenomenon moving ever closer to us. Would it hurt us?
‘Tom?’ I say.

‘It doesn’t look dangerous. It’s slow – look at it. We could just go this way,’ he points to what is now our behind. ‘It’s the way we were heading anyway. Plus, our walk speed is considerably faster that this freaks. What do you think?’
How practical, is my first thought. He was right, though. We could just continue onwards. That is what we should really do. I didn’t want to look at the thing anymore, never mind attempt communication or combat. Yes, we should definitely get away from it.
Maybe it’s only up and moving because we annoyed it? Perhaps it wants to get us out of its room. I look up at the large machine next to me, shake my head, and then turn around.
Tom is looking at me curiously.

‘Okay, let’s just go. As quick as we can.’
We try to walk calmly, but we’re almost jogging down the dark aisle. Relief sets in as the shuffling sound becomes softer and the smell disappears.
I take a bit breath of relief as we come to two doors.

I spot two of the small lights flit around behind Tom as I turn to speak to him.
He gets there before me – ‘Through the one that says “Security Only”, then?’
He chuckles.

[odd chick]

Wow.....that last chapter was by far the best I've read in this story. It had the right kind of dark, creepy feel to it. I love it! I honestly have nothing to comment about with this story because it's already fantastic as it is.

[Dave]

*proclaims the joy he felt in reading a new chapter in this story*
*announces his encouragement for the author to continue said story*
*makes generic stupid "threat" if no new chapters come soon*

[Munch's Master]

Yes, another chapter of one of the best fanfics I've ever read. Great creepy, mysterious chapter. More questoions created, and none really answered! Do another chapter, and soon, my patience is wearing thin already., Type another one damn you! Please. Go on, this story is like breathing to me.

[LoboDiabloLoneWolf]

Oh no! I don't believe it, and here I was thinking I had more chapters to read! This truly is one of the greats. Sucked me in from the go.

More questoions created, and none really answered!

Yeh, my thoughts completely. There is nothing I could say to improve, it's brilliant just the way it is. I demand the next chapter Shrink!!!

[Shrink]

I realise that I have created a lot of mysteries, but none of them are just for the sake of it; they hold purpose in the plot.
Anyhow, most of it will be explain incredibly soon. Probably not the next chapter, but the one after.

[odd chick]

Great! I really enjoy reading stories where it all comes together in the end-those are the best ones to read. Well, we'll be waiting for your upcoming chapters.