Well, it's Monday, August 6 at 2:00 in the morning. I'm unable to sleep, and dreadfully bored...
Anyway, I've been taking a break from Zombi Siege to work on some more original pre-owf ideas.
This story is close to seven years in the making, and I've finally finalized the plot.
Anyway, here's the thread where I'll post all of th drafts, updates, etc. of the first chapter.
For those who are curious this is the product of (yet again) a collaboration between my friend Colby (Mitsur) and I (Real name's Chris, nice to meet you). Only this time, he's been there since almost the beginning. So as you could imagine, he plays a huge part in the development of this tale. Thanks Colby!
That being said, here's the first few pages of chapter one I have completed (But not finalized).
I'm leaving the details on characters, events, etc. foggy to work on the backstory.
Anyway, it's the story of a renegade soldier's suffering after being discharged due to... unnatural reasons.
Something has happened to him during the prime of his life, which is preventing him from loving those close to him, craving what's sought after... He has been left with only one memory: To hunt and kill the one responsible...
And with this, I give you...
MEMORANDUM
Chapter One: The Second Assault of Carbine-VII
The true product of our memories could be the power that defies reality itself
***
I know creation. I’ve seen Destruction. I’ve smelled the putrid odor of death. I’ve even witnessed a man defend what doesn’t exist. I’ve walked this road for what seems like decades, but after taking several steps backward into my past I have discovered that the cause for my dissolution was what empowers me, the powerful force that slowly corrodes and deteriorates my humanity.
I had fought so many battles… countless victories, countless losses… I’ve lost so much, what do I have left to gain? All I know is either dead, or on the brink of death…
I sought out the cause for this phenomenon, and have transpired through my journey with little result as to my origin. Ever since my days of solitary confinement of the Alveron Prison world, my humanity has slowly crept away from me.
I remember almost nothing before this sickness began. I remember strange fleeting emotions, but no real memory… I remember feeling Love… I can love… such an elementary thing means so much to me… Love…
I remember… remorse… loneliness… confinement…
But what do I feel now? I would know… what is this strange feeling that has been building inside my innermost soul… Vengefulness…
Why am I seeking revenge? I feel that love and revenge are somehow intertwined in my memories… What has been taken from me that makes me vengeful?
I remember…
…Death… Her death…
Now I know what makes me vengeful… If I try, I almost feel her in my arms… I can feel her warmth. Her… love.
Everything: war, death, sickness, friendship, darkness, even love, is stitched together like a puzzle in my mind…
I remember…
***
I was overjoyed to see them. My friends, my family, all of them were there to meet me for the first time in years.
I remember feeling so happy… but all I wanted was to find her.
My friends all in tears to see me alive after four years, but I only wanted to feel her warmth again. I seemed rushed, or at least I would to anybody else besides her, I searched everywhere for her, but couldn’t find her.
I felt so cold. What happened? I felt an emptiness, as if something was missing... No, it was someone... Her...
I went to her home, and knocked on her front door. It was open. I ran inside shouting her name. No answer. I ran to her room, and bolted in without a second thought. I couldn’t find her anywhere.
I was on the verge of tears as every possible fatality flashed through my mind.
A cold robotic arm pressed against my back as the voice of my closest friend sounded in my ears.
“You can’t find her,” he said “but that’s just because you aren’t looking hard enough.”
I turned around and looked into Dan Tomahawk’s pale grey eyes.
“Is she?”
“She’s fine.” Dan said assuring. “She went up to… I’m guessing it’s where you guys used to go every night.”
“The observatory.” I sighed. “God, I can’t believe I didn’t look there.”
My face lit up with eagerness as I ran down the stairs to the front door.
Dan shouted “No need to thank me!” from the top of the stairs. I gave him a simple smirk, without stopping to leave.
I sprinted with all my might up the old trail in our neighborhood, eventually reaching my destination atop the mountain. I was panting by the time I reached the Observatory, only knowing I needed to get to the top of the tower.
I was legally dead by the time I reached the top, no air to breath, no lungs to fill, just exhaustion. I heard my name being called in a soft, beautiful voice. I was almost brought to my knees when I lurched my head up.
There she was, just a beautiful silhouette against the azure sky of Carbine-VII. She was wearing a skirt, which I had never seen her wear before. I took note of her glasses, she was reading. Her hair was tapping back and forth in the July breeze, and her soft skin was lit up when she looked at me.
She collapsed by the ladder, which I was still climbing, and threw her arms around me, smiling.
It felt so right just being there, despite how awkwardly positioned I was on the ladder. She helped me up onto the tower, and gazed into my eyes.
I looked back into hers. They were almost hypnotizing pools of crystalline blue. Suddenly she punched me in the gut so hard I nearly fell off the tower.
“Four years?!” She screamed. “Where the Hell were you for FOUR YEARS?!”
I couldn’t think of anything to say in response to that question. I was just speechless, that after four years in a dark celestial prison, I was home with her.
She had begun to rant and yell, but I wasn’t able to listen, all I could do was just stare at her with that odd, stupefied expression melted onto my face.
She was cursing and asking me what I had to say for myself. She pointed a finger at me, which I brushed away. I scooped her up into my arms, and I pressed my lips against hers.
I stayed like that, with her in my arms, lips pressed together, blushing for what seemed like days. I let her go after I felt complete, and she was smirking.
“You still aren’t off the hook.”
I looked at her, and in my scratchy voice replied with a simple “Hey.”
She smirked again, and I did along with her. I kissed her again.
“Madison,” I said softly.
“Yeah?”
“You’re still too good for me.”
***
We laughed and talked the rest of the afternoon atop of that tower, atop of that mountain, overlooking the seemingly endless cityscape.
“Wow.” I said. “After four years, this place is still just a giant prison to me.”
“Well,” she said. “You still haven’t changed.”
“But you have,” I said. “and I’m not complaining.”
“Oh really?” She asked sarcastically.
“Yeah, you seem more… girly now.”
“After two years in the Marines with you and Dan, the whole tomboy thing starts getting stupid.”
I scoffed, and looked out over the city.
It was beautiful, but it was so vast it was threatening. I just couldn’t believe how long it had been since I had been here. The skyline was a crimson red, an unusual happenstance due to the Blue Sun. I soon figured out that after almost ten years, the smoke of the First Carbine Assault was still clearing from the atmosphere. After the First Assault on Carbine-VII, I joined the Marines, as did Dan and Madison with me.
We fought for two years, but I was captured. While Dan and Madison were home, I was trapped on an alien world for four years.
I was tortured, confined, and experimented on.
I eventually broke free, tracking down the scientist who made me this … monster I am now. The man who is still out there, watching me… I could feel him.
And as soon as that thought passed through my mind, I saw a flash in the Sky above. It was a beautiful black eclipse blotted out the Sun. I knew this pattern… I’ve seen this before…
I stood to my feet, and noticed several blue spots warp into the skyline against the dark background. It descended from the heavens flaring and sparking into life. I recognized the threat of the Hostilis Flagship, and just when I had begun to think that this was just a routine fuel run, I saw another beam to life. Then another, and another… It was an assault.
I turned to Madison, who had noted them as well.
Ten seconds later Madison and I found us both running down the mountain, with haste and adrenaline running through our veins. It was there we regrouped there with Mech, who was already aware of the situation. We were pressed for equipment, but Mech and Madison had the solution.
Since they were only on leave for a few years, they were granted permission to keep their Marine gear. As for me on the other hand, only had my new abilities and my father’s old sword from his days in the Corps.
I waited for them to finish suiting up, sweating and gritting my teeth. I felt my mind shift… I could sense a presence… the only one I am able to…
I could feel it was he, the one who had experimented on me at the prison. I knew it was Daetrix.
My entire body lurched as his name passed through my head. It seemed as if he was taunting me with this assault on my planet. As if he were telling me that trying to fight would cause me more pain.
But I knew I needed to fight back. It was my responsibility; it was my duty to defend my family from sharing my fate. I could never intentionally allow the innocent to e subject to Daetrix’s twisted reality, I would never let them be scrutinized by his immense power, and have their humanity… their souls stripped from them.
I had to eliminate his benefactors. This was my chance to remove his power from him, by destroying the Hostilis rulers from the inside out.
I planned how it would transpire, then I re-planned, and then I repeated the process.
I felt something brewing deep within my soul, a force I couldn’t stop. I turned to my friends, as they emerged dressed in full drab and armour. It was depressing, knowing that I only spent one day of grace with them before having to fight again.
Pain coursed through my veins, feeling a life would be lost by the end of this day. That was the spark that fueled my fire.
We looked at each other, feeling a sense of mortality we all knew we had a small chance of living through this day. Mech looked to me, and with his cybernetic parts, knew something had changed about me. Madison stepped off to the distance as Mech told her he needed a time alone with me.
“You and me both know that the chance of all three of us is slim.” I said.
Mech nodded silently, and looked to me. “Tell me, Zander…” he muttered. “Why exactly did you take so long to get back to us?”
My mouth dried, and knowing he would sense my heartbeat change, I explained my poison to him.
“When we had that Covert Op in the Alveron capitol… I was captured.” I replied. “They took seven months to process me before sending me to their PoW facility.”
Mech looked away, as if e had expected this type of answer.
“When I was in that prison,” I said. “I was subject to an experiment to take enemy assets from the field and convert them into a drone soldier. But I guess they weren’t expecting on my being the last Albatross. The drugs and mind games were rejected by my body, but not before taking a lasting effect on me.”
Mech looked back at me. “What ‘lasting effect?’”
I let my head peer down to the grass.
“You’d better brace yourself for what you’re about to see.” I said.
I removed my trench coat hesitantly, revealing my prison drab trousers, and my deformed torso.
I was coated in a black symbiotic substance, which made me appear to be covered in veins of some sort. It coated my torso and parts of my arms, giving me an appearance as if I had been scabbed, as if charred by a flame.
Although it all seemed the same to another person, parts of my person had actually been lit aflame by this strange Entity known as Mortem.
Normally the products of these sick experiments would kill a human being, allowing the Entity to reanimate and assimilate the body as it's own.
Normally... Apparently I'm not necessarily a normal human.
Another race exists, which is identical to humans. This race is known as the Albatross, or the Supreme Race... The ultimate being.
My Genetic Code was too powerful for the Entity to control. Exactly so that it has bonded with it, corrupting my mind, stealing my memories.
At times my mind will fade, and the Entity will take over my body as a vessel, displaying its power to the other of the Mortem.
I fear it's taking me over.
I fear I may have to spend my last moments of humanity fighting.
EDIT
Hello? Anybody?
Infection: Memorandum
