Author's note:
First off, forgive me if my English is lacking a few things...it is not my first language. This is work in progress of a futuristic adventure I have started working on. All comments welcome.
-Fedor T
After what seemed to be days of darkness the lights come on. Spooked by the sudden brightness a figure jumped back and crawled into a corner of an aged prison cell. There, it remained still bombarded by the shadows cast by the iron bars.
Blinded for a time being the figure awaited for its eyes to adjust. It turned its head towards the corridor where it heard the approaching steps.
“Will he remember anything when he wakes up?” A low voice asked from across the hall.
“Not for months to come” Replied the other voice.
“You should have seen all the stuff doc pumped into this one”
“What did this guy do anyway?” The first voice asked.
“Trust me; you don’t want to find out” a pause.
“You might end up in this hole your self if you poke your nose far enough”
A shadow, and than another swiftly appeared on the dusty pavement. It looked like they were carrying someone. Stopping for just a moment the first shadow reached for an object on the wall and made a series of movements with its fingers. As soon as it pulled its hand back, a loud screeching sound filled the corridor. Somewhere close, an old mechanism kicked in, triggering the movement of gears which began to work their way slowly to open the prison cell opposite to the already occupied one.
Two figures, one carrying the third one appeared in front of the cell.
“Keep away from that one” The first figure warned.
The cowardly looking figure in the shadows starred at them with fuzzy vision, unable to see their faces. The guards entered the cell, leaving the unconscious one on the floor.
“Is he clean?” The first guard asked.
“Yeah, I checked him three times already” Other replied.
“Ok, let’s go”
The two figures walked out and headed back down the hall, pausing in attention to the object on the wall again. Same screeching sound returned, and the door to the opposite cell slammed shut. Lights went back out a few moments later.
The cowardly shadow got up and walked slowly to the bars.
“Hey” It whispered
“Hey, can you hear me?”
No answer. The cowardly shadow retracted back and retired to the bunk. It just lay there in the dark, memories and thoughts streaming through its mind.
“How long have I been here?”
It seemed like it was ages ago, when he awoke in this place. It was not like it is now. The light was on for about eight hours a day, fresh food twice a day and they even brought him books to read.
“I must have been here about a year” he mumbled.
There are still no memories of how he got there, nor are too many memories of the past. It is still pretty cloudy, but it is getting clearer. In the beginning he could not remember anything at all, not even his name.
“Den Burdock” he spoke out loud.
The darkness started two weeks ago. It must have been an earthquake. The walls were trembling and the lights went out. It was pitch black for three days and he thought that was the end; that he was going to die in this dirty old cell. Nobody came, no guards came. Then suddenly light flickered on, and a guard brought him food. He tried asking what has happened, but the guard did not speak a word.
“They never did” He suddenly realized
“I never heard them speak until today”
Now he sits in utter darkness and the guard brings food only once a day. At least it is a way of telling when one day ends and another begins. Not like it matters now anyway, there is no such thing as days and nights anymore. The planet has gone nuts, there is no such thing as “normal” or “constant”.
It is funny how introduction of human element into what used to be a solid equilibrium on this planet. Or was it evolution turning on it self, how did humanity come to be so resistant to the laws of this universe? And it all happened so fast, and it kept gaining momentum until it was going so fast that it could not help but meet resistance. It is like building a world’s fastest car; developing and adding better and more powerful parts, then finally you go for the test drive and that is when everything goes wrong. The car goes so fast that laws of physics cannot help but resist…the hood flies off, framing gets stripped, windows pop out, engine catches on fire etc. until all that is left is a charred corpse of the driver in a seat surrounded by debris and ashes. So where in this scenario are we now? I would say the humanity is the charred corpse, but it is still breathing.
“We tend to push our limits”
rather interesting. Not quite sure where you are headed with this, but somehting encouraged me at the beginning of the story to read this. So far it seems good, of course, there are a few grammar mistakes in there, but seeing as you have said that English is not your primary language then I find that acceptable. So I won't go all grammar nazis on your ass, but, I will point out something; when writing dialogue, at the end of the speech a comma must be placed, for example:
