Viewing Thread:
"SSC6 - Away We Drift"

No idea if word limit/etc.

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Away We Drift

Death bubbled on the horizon. Small patters of dust tore upwards and unearthly worlds collided. The clouds covered the sky. Rearing, terrible, anything but the summer spirits of old. Touched by the suns fire in the heavens, torn by the flames below. Burning, bruised and choking. Ever going. Ever running, from them, we were. Or rather they were. I couldn't run. Away we drift.

Canvas colours brushed my closed eyes that night. I couldn't sleep. The wounds in my leg and side were
making sleep impossible - It had torn through our refuge, taking some others, in yet another random yet numbingly effective storm. I'd been lucky as such, I was outside, caught in the fine and lethal dust in the clouds that had torn up my side as I got under cover. Sergei's face as he studied my side was unreadable, as ever.

It. It. Rather 'them', but it was always It. It was all and one. Revenge it took. Revenge for endless, endless pain and agony. Not just us, no. Everything. Every tiny abbhoration. Wipe the slate clean. Some said it was God. Others the Devil. Others, in some nod to redundant, burning fiction, a madman. I think it's the very Earth itself. You find that odd? I don't. Imagine the world as being alive, finally breathing after all those millenia of silent growth. And somehow, it is sentient. Or at least, part of it is. The part that took the world, literally, by storm. Someone said there was another part, or even more. I've never seen them. Once I'd seen right uup into the storm though. Past the lowest darkness, I'd seen a tear, once whihc had just disgorged hellfire onto the ground below. There was an endless golden light, and a shadow that swirled, span and cried inside.

Well, that night. That night. It was warm and windy - washed out and bleakr, dry air, clear beneath the roof of dark cloud. Far away, lightning trembled and thunder flashed on some distant hills. As I've said I couldn't sleep. I rolled over onto my good side and dozed for a bit. We were lying in some abandoned house, somewhere up north. Word was the storms were moving west, towards the sea and then onto Ireland. I contemplated this for a moment, before hearing a crackle. Alice was fiddling with the radio. She'd fixatedly been trying to get it to work for weeks now. The most she got was a crackle, and once some faint and toneless laughter. Wind ruffled the windows. Mickey had found some good food in the house, and we set about a little feast, the five of us. Me, the unfortuante injured sod, Sergei the Russian student, Alice, his (temporary she assured me in her apparantly fearless style, with a flash of eyes to Mickey) girlfriend, Mickey, a rather intelligent native they'd found nearby amongst the wreckage of a warehouse. And of course, the implacable Dane, who was in some ways our leader. We'd eaten about all the good food, and were left with some distinctly old remnants. It had been quiet. Mickey had joined us a few days before, and we'd looked about. People came and went - there was no massive holocaust. There were still people fleeing, but there was no order. I let my sense droop, happily feeling some painkiller at last kick in, when the radio crackled again. This time, something else emnated - the crackle cut, and moment of deathly silence ensued. A whistle, high pitched, rose as it came, and suddenly, I stared at the bit of Sergei I could see from my cocoon of shadow, pain and blankets - his arm where, Alice had her hand daintily and almost disdainfully rested. It was clasped, white, white as snow, and Sergei's arm trembled and went whiter. Somebody, probably Mickey, made a sharp hissing noise behind me, and all of a sudden Dane was up, his hands to his ears, desperatly lolling about and I looked out the window, my ears dead and my hands clutching nerves and dead air. There was no noise but the whistle, and even as I looked, I saw a great tongue of fire reach the sky and tear the dark and volcanic clouds open, even as they drifted west. A shaft tore through the darkness, like the one I'd seen before, and down It came. Dust and flame, dust and flame - Ashes to ashes. The shriek reached higher - Dane was now crashing into a wall, blood trickling through his fingers, and then It had me. That primal, carnal fear of utter terror. I shrank, contracted, the room span, and I fell away from the world, the terror was so complete. The wounds flared, and I disappeared.

I woke, sharply, as if I'd just dreamt of hitting a floor from a great height, and didn't breathe for several seconds. I was on a rumbling surface. I shivered with remembered fear, then leant up slightly to pear about me. I was in the back of a van. Dane was lying before me, head nestled in his hands. He was no longer crazed with pain and fear. Mickey was sitting hunched at the side, his sleeping head resting on the small window that allowed view to the driver and passenger. Alice was driving, a fiercly indefatigable look on her face, Sergei was in the passenger seat, warily surveying the skies and the road ahead. I flimsily called out, and Sergei turned around, a weak smile on his face. 'We got you all out', he said in his good English. 'Thank you' I mouthed back. Somehow, nothing else needed to be said. The shriek and the storm had seem to be so obviously connected, there was no need for any more. Nothing needed much explaining these days. In any case, I couldn't talk without inciting small, sharp pains, so I leaned back down, nestled up, and fell asleep, at last. I didn't notice at the time that I was drenched in sweat, and that Dane was covered in blood, nor that Mickey had bloody bandages all over his legs.

When I woke next, the van had stopped. Indeed, I was out of the van, lying in some scrub grass. I peered out upwards, at some of It passing over. I smelled fire, but not the great swathes of burning people and buildings, of rubber and fuel, but of wood smoke, and of some food cooking. I rolled over dully, and saw Mickey gingerly wiping blood off his bandages, next to a small fire, burtning coarse grass and gorse. 'What happened?' I asked.
'You just freaked' he retorted.
'And you?'
'So did I' he readily admitted.
'And?'
'And Dane did too. Alice and Sergei flipped, but had the sense somewhere to pull us out and get into that van we saw in the next door house. We only had so much fuel, so that's why we're here. Dane's in a bad way. As is the little town we were in. Gone. Anyway, we're here and not there now'.
Here was, as I saw, a road layby, on one of the great roads that ran accross the country, up and down, east and west. Deserted except for the pitiful sight of a girl on a bicycle, riding past us on the other side of the barrier. She ignored us and was swallowed up into a large bend away to my right. Dane was lying just behind me, his head bandaged, as I could see by straining my neck to the right. His face was shadowed.
'He's blind' Mickey informed me, sadly.
'What?! How?'
'From what we can tell, he did it himself. Alice says he pushed his fingers into his face so much in his fear that he must have blinded himself, rather than covering his ears.' Mickey's false voice betrayed the horror he felt. I turned back to Mickey. 'Let me talk to him - turn me over, please'.
Mickey got up, and I immediatly saw his legs. 'You..?'
'Dust' he grimaced. 'Nothing much.'
He came over and lifted me up. He was strong (I was heavy), as I'd guessed from the shape of his shirt on his body. He strode over Dane and layed me down on the other side of him. I closed my eyes to hide the sight of Dane's face. Dane was on his back, and I was now looking towards him. Mickey limped back to the food. Sergei and Alice were nowhere to be seen.
'Dane?' I whispered.
He sighed loudly.
'Dane?'
'Yes?'
'I'm sorry'.
'Don't be, I'm lucky. Now I cannot see It. It's half gone for me now. '
'You really cannot see?'
'Not at all.'
I still had not dared to look at his eyes. The shadow had gone, but I was gazing at his stomach, at the yellow, scrubby grass.
'You won't look?'
'No, of course..I'
'Don't worry. It...it was the noise. I'm sorry, I should have acted better'
'What?! You are not responsible. The noise..It, the storm. It's all far too powerful. The thing I've found comforting is that we cannot stop it. It's not my fault, and it's not yours. Soon, it'll end.
He grunted, and turned his head slightly towards me.
'How?'
'I don't know. But it will. And that's good.'
'Indeed.' That was a trace of Dane. Formality in any situation.
Dane sighed again, loudly and carefully. His clothes were still covered in blood. I layed my head down and looked up at the sky again. The clouds were higher now, the oppressive gloom somewhat lifted, but it'd never go. It'd end alright, soon, but not, I knew and feared, in any good way. Dane's eyes were a putrid mess. Dust and blood.

Sergei and Alice re-appeared a few minutes later. They'd managed to siphon fuel from a petrol station back up the way the little girl had cycled. Mickey filled the endgine up, and between them, lifted me and helped Dane into the back of the van. 'We're going south west' Sergei informed me. Alice was now in the passenger seat, her turn to look out for anything of danger. She only had to look up, endlessly in all directions. Death still flared here and there. Mickey was driving. I was strung up behind them, with a few of the road inbetween their heads. Dane sat where Mickey had before. Sergei sat opposite him. Mickey started up the van, and pulled out onto the road, already covered in a fine layer of the dust. Sergei talked to me as we drove.
'Your wounds, they healing?'
'I wouldn't say healing, but the stuff you gave me is making it easier'
'Good. You want to know why we are going where we are going?'
I didn't actually care anymore. Like I said, I couldn't see any good ending.
'Why?' I half sighed. Sergei ignored, or perhaps sympathetically took the sigh and elaborated anyway.
'Because it is closer to the sea. The sea lifts me up. Alice said she wanted to see it again. We thought it be nicer to be there'
'Good idea'
The van journeyed on, while all above, torrents of cloud, dark, boiling and hellish, swirled and journeyed with the van, south west and beyond, accross the speck of dust in space known as Earth.

We reached what was once a bustling town, all but gone now. Buildings all around, but so old, so tired and swaying. Suddenly, people were there, on the van, banging at the windows and sides. Desperation hung in the air, but the desperation knew no salvation was here in the van or anywhere. Mickey gave a hurried glance to Alice people banged his window, but Alice was staring at their bloodied and ravaged hands as if the glass between her and them was a television screen to a distant land. Mickey slowly pressed forwards, and I turned and watch Sergei casually survey the people behind us, who turned and walked back inside, or down side streets. I glanced past Alice's head, into a house window. A TV was on static, and I saw that a picture on the wall behind it had its glass frame smashed. As Mickey drove in, I realised that there was blood trickling down the TVscreen, from the painting. I shuddered, thought of my own wounds, and looked ahead.

Mickey drove us up the street, a few more people milled about, turning mournful eyes this way and that. Some people appeared to be perfectly normal, waving at us and walking purposefully around. Others seemed finished. They lay about, or shambled around. I'd, we all had, seen many people of both classes. Some gave up, others pretended. Some died, others starved and waited. All the while, It crossed and shadowed everything. Every tiny piece of shattered glass reflected It, every eye saw It, every thought was dampened by It. We all hated It and could do nothing. Sergei came forwads, past Dane who was now silently on the floor, and sat next to me and peered forwards. He reached forwards and touched Alice's shoulder, and she reached her hand to his. Some things were beyond fickle choice. Sergei spoke.
'We should stop somewhere and rest. Then we can go onto the sea'. Mickey silently turned the van down a side street, and the van moved down a slight hill, past some more houses with forlorn or brisk eyes, and down into a deeper shadow down into a valley where trees covered a stream. The road twisted ot the right and over a short stone bridge. Mickey cautiously moved over the bridge, and then stopped on a small grassy lawn to the right of the road, a few hundered metres on from the bridge, which became hidden by the twisting road and the dark. It was almost pitch black. My watch said it was mid afternoon, but the shadowed trees and the clouds above darkened everything into a pitch and cool darkness. It seemed better here than in the town.

Dane rested in the back, contemplating some dark thought. Sergei and Mickey lumbered wood together, and me and Alice walked. Ahe helped me down to the stream, where she put fresh bandages on my side. My leg was apparantly better. The stream was hardly moving, so choked it was in dust and gloom. I let Alice brush the bandages down, then looked upstream, back up to the bridge. Alice followed my stare and hissed. A man stood there, on the wall of the bridge watching us, but his gaze was more vile, more fearful than almost anything. It seemed that all that gleamed in the dark was the horror of his eyes, and he smiled viciously, and his arms, by his side, had their hands clenched. Alice stumbled and climbed up the bank, back to the fire. I stood and watched him, and he just glared back, his eyes a burning fury in the dark, and I trembled, a memory of the fear in the house came back and clutched my nerves. I scrambled up the bank, the terror of his eyes still on me, and I found Alice breathing heavily just by a tree. I fell down next to her, warily watching the direction of the bridge. 'Who is he?' she breathed.
'I have no idea, but he reminds me of It, of everything in the house that night'.
She nodded, then got up and ran back to the van. I heard her hurredly telling them. I crawled back to the little ledge above the stream, and peered back, all the while fearing and hoping the sight of him, and his eyes. There was nothing there. I breathed again, and crawled back. The relief was short, as soon all the trees had those eyes, all the world had that burning, passionate madness. I shivered uncontrollably and ran back painfully to the van. Alice was already imploring Sergei to get in - even the shell of the van seemed a good protection, anything. Sergei and Mickey however, not understanding the fear but sensing ours, were cooking some food and warily watching over their shoulders. We ate.

Nothing happened, but I slept as if those eyes were behind me, above me. Wherever, It was.

The morning crawled upon us, the poignant misery of a grey, colourless day approached. I was late awake. Alice was standing outside, surveying the now comparatively light area we were in, but she could not see anything. Dane was sitting by the remnants of the fire, and Sergei was asleep beside me. Mickey, I could hear, was in the front seat humming some forgotten relic to himself. Alice scrambled into the back.
'We should go. I hate it here. He's out there, I know it.' She motioned to me, and I half nodded back, knowing her thoughts. Sergei mumbled and then snapped awoke, and sat up, breathing a little heavily. 'I dreamed', he explained. 'What?' Alice asked.
'Eyes, eyes in the night, in It, in the storms. In the trees'
Alice clasped his hand and mine, and then suddenly her and Sergei were moving, lifting Dane into the van, and then I saw Him. He was at the edge of the clearing, and I saw He was not him, her or anything but the very image of It. Boiling, mad, lethal and horror incarnate. His eyes shone and Mickey, being implored by a whimpering Alice, started and drove. Sergei jumped in the back, all the while batting his hands around his head as if he could avert His gaze, and closed the door. We drove, fast, and away. Away we drift.

Nobody spoke much, for all new, even Dane, what had happened. The end was inevitable. That was one part of sentience, It. We'd seen a part of the world, a part of the very sentient Earth we used. It was painful and dark. We knew, somehow, every single other person had seen those eyes. That was the reason. Those people in the town, on the roads. They looked dully about. It wasn't It that had finally snapped them. It was Him. They'd seen and were lost. Then they died or looked for hope that never came. What if, somewhere else, another sentience came? That was my little hope. My tiny piece of dream. I already felt a dull sensation at the edges of my senses, and knew it wasn't long. Mickey drove us to the sea.

We all knew something would happen at the sea. Something drew us there.

As we neared the sea, it got darker. The look on Sergei's face as they pulled onto a road leading to a northern cliff was morose and macabre. Alice was asleep in Mickey's arms, but that was not the cause of Sergei's mood. As he drove, he surveyed the scene above. 'Forgotten' was all he muttered. Over and over again. The radio, discarded since the awful night in the house, further north, was lying on the floor by my feet as I sat in the passenger seat. Dane had not spoken one word since I spoke to him on the layby on the road. We pressed on. Sergei suddenly slapped the wheel and pulled the van up besides some abandoned cars. Some sandals sat forlonly by one of them, waiting with a small ball for owners long swallowed into night. 'Empty' Sergei snarled. I gave him a conciliatory look, and struggled out. I had to edge past a hedge that Sergei had angrily pulled to close too, twigs brushing my leg, and then opened the back of the van. Dane had sensed the stop and had sat up. He seemed to sense something, because he was alert, and suddenly, he'd sprung up and out of the van, swaying but also half smiling. Alice and Mickey followed, and the five of us looked down the way we were going. We didn't know why. I was beyond caring, and I think the others were too. Only Dane acted as if he knew. But he didn't say anything, again. Alice led Dane, and Sergei helped me. And we walked.

We walked to the edge of the cliff. Below, windswept, dust covered beaches sank into a grey, torrid sea. It swirled above, still, gloomy and violent. It reached off to the west, forming into some massive ball of fear and darkness, away, far away. Away we drift. Alice sat down on the edge. I lay down, my face out to sea. Sergei pondered some distant thought. Dane lay back, his ravaged eyes one of the few visible features of the gloom. Mickey stood and faced the torrents of storms heading west. Everynow and then, flame flashed down away, away. Away we drift. Alice had the radio on. It crackled and fell silent.

Nobody talked. We'd all come an end, the personal end we alone knew. I remembered little of before. The wounds ached. We were all seperate in the gloom, the murky dust that pattered down. Dane, if such a word is applicable, stared out to sea. I followed the direction of his ravaged gaze. 'Blue Storm' he muttered. Sergei looked at him. Alice shuddered. This was the end, what all had expected. The radio snapped again, and crackled. And laughed. Then, for the last, it silenced. Everybody felt the dullness in their souls increase and the dark deepened.

Then, the sea dissapeared. In a flash, it drew back, far beyond the horizon, and the noise pulled every atom of the air along wih the sea, so we flailed about on the cliff, the very air pulling us towards the fall, Alice scrambling back from the edge. The seabed was hidden by the dark. Then, then, inexonerably, it came. Dane spoke.
'Tell me it, tell me it'.
I gazed out, and described to him what I saw.
'The sea has gone, and, and...there is a gleam. There is a murky, dirty gleam on the horizon, and...'
Words failed me.
A wind crashed into the cliff, and It, the omnipotent cloud, shuddered and wheeled and screeched in fury. Sergei held Alice, Mickey fell and sat alone. Dane lay still 'gazing' to the lost sea. I stood and gazed too. For the wind tore the sky. A crash of yellow, of gold, or incandescent glory fell upon the cliff, and the dust sparkled and swirled in the sun.....the sun! Such glory, such flippant and granted glory! And then Dane knew.
'I see it'

The sky was torn again, but this time, blue, endless blue and gold and we were lit again. Another had come, His time was over, and the hope so long a note was now a glorious spiralling song, reaching up and causing me to cry aloud in confused pain and joy.

It had flown away, fleeing behind us, the gloom, the violent, luminous death. The sun raised the dust away. Flame scorched the earth behind us, dust tore through trees and houses, but it fled.
And the sea came. Rising, rising, rising, we saw it come. A wave, a wonderous spiralling spirit, echoing amongst our heads, and finally, She appeared, and broke out of the wave in a glory of water, of sun, of crashing death. Death rose before us, but such a death. An end, but not the end we'd feared.

Genea.

She had reached everyone of us, all who had found a place to shrivel and die, and breathed us.

Then.

For one, final, marvellous moment, her wings, her water, her glory covered and lit the sun, and the wave towered above the world, blue, bluer than the deepest desires and hope, the cliff, my heart. Cavernous, imperious, the wall of water reached over It, the sun shining through and bleaching all the world in the light of a Blue Storm. I stood beneath, tiny, loved and loving, the cliff a speck amidst the redemption, wound forgotten, as the very world itself peaked, the crest trembled, She cried, the sun beamed through, and the wave hung on the kinfe edge of Her will.

Away we drift.

A very, very deservable win.

A small echo of my somewhat subdued feelings.

The Winnur!

Horny five dollah?

(That will never get tired)

Thanks.

Oop, I forgot to cut & paste this bit:

And a fantastic ending. God knows why you hate your stuff - you have talent.
Write more, I’m horny

I in fact added that middle bit in a tiny bit later (allowed?) as it seemed a little too abstract and not enough 'he did that, she did this'!

But I tried to add the man in. His eyes scare me. I wish I hadn't invented them.

I have to say I rather do like my ending descriptions.

[/pompous]

I think I’m in love.
You’re descriptive stuff is wonderful, some of the best - the beginning was totally enthralling, beatifully adstract.

Although that did mean the more solid actions in the middle (y’know - ‘he sat there, she did this’) did seem slightly out of place then - but neccessary, I know.

Yum.

Your way of writing strikes me as being more suited to long pieces rather than short stories. But this is good, nicely written, though I did drift a bit whilst reading (pardon the bad pun) - I get tired when staring at the screen too long.

Cheers for the double interest Strafio ;)

Interesting...

I can't think of anything more to say, but I mean it in a good way. :-)

nice one...

away we drift from this little tiny planet