Thread: story chain A

I was walking down the street when....

....I suddenly realised I had left my library card back in my apartment. Considering that I needed to take out some books for research Iwas doing on the city of Seattle, it would be a good idea for me to have the damn thing.

I turned to walk back to my apartment building and collided with a stocky guy built like a fireplug. His clothes were rumpled as if he'd slept in them and his bald head was shiny with sweat.

"Here, buddy...hold a sec while I tie my shoes, okay?" he muttered and thrust a paper bag into my hand. But instead of tying his shoe he bolted like a greyhound across the street. Two seconds later, two men burst from the front entrance of my apartment building and pounded after him.

I could only look on in amazement. I looked at the brown paper bag in my hand and slowly opened it...

A tiny black box, a bit of money and a stark reminder. Nothing good ever happens this early in the morning.

It was right about then, after I looked into the bag and then across the street to where the man had disappeared, that things started to happen a little faster than I could comprehend. The everyday hustle of 24th and Ames got a little softer, a little more subdued in the moments that followed, streaking past my vision in blurred blue-gray hues that reminded me of the sky that morning … heavy and tired like the sinking feeling in my gut that threatened to blossom and take hold of my knees.

I don’t remember exactly what I said or if I said anything at all, but I guess it didn’t really matter. One of the men pointed in my direction and started running.

It was right about then that I decided I really didn’t need my library card after all.

I did the only thing my body knew how to do at that moment and started running.

I took off running into the ocean, the edge of my heels pressing into the sand, dragging against the ocean floor..being knocked back by the giant fish and societies debree. Atleast that's how it felt when I realized the men who grabbed hold of me were undercover cops.

What else can you do when the ones who you call to stop a crazed gunmen from blowing the head off of your local bank teller are the same guys who are pointing their guns at you. I really could use a crazed gunmen right now because this wasn't how I wanted to die today. I knew that in some book somewhere, there had to be a better way to live and if not, a better way to die.

I was trying to change which was why I was going to that damn library. But It seems that I'm a magnet to a ship of cruel circumstances and no matter where I swim, it floats above me...pushing me down while it tries to drown out my anger.

"Are you going to tell us or do we have to take you to jail?" said the man who seemed to be in charge.

All I could think was, there has to be someone somewhere who had it worse than me and how I wanted to be that man.

A crowd formed around us as they pressed my face against the cold concrete..trying to find what they were looking for. All they found was...

my wallet, the contents of the old paper brown bag the old guy had from earlier, i couldn't help but wonder in all of the choas, if he had deverting them from himself, thus giving him an easy get away, whatever had happen to him to get him into this situation i was facing, had to be something big, the next thing i knew i was being bustled into a big black car. i tried to ask where we were going but after the big bang to the head i had expierenced from earlier, it had knocked me senseless and even trying to make some sort of logic sentence was hard to do, the car stopped with a jolt and...

ran toward nowhere I could see. It was really hard to picture with my eyes blindfolded. I guess the driver thought I might have something of theirs.
Suddenly the car stop and sounded like it turned around and then I heard police coming faintly.
"Waht was going on,"I yelled. Then I was fainted again from the bang earlier in the day. Gee, what a day this is, I thought to myself. All I want to do is take a long hot bath, I thought when...

..all of sudden I heard a string of gunshots. It was my first time hearing what people say in the moments before they die. With the blindfold over my eyes I took off running nowhere fast. I felt like a man who had just freed himself from the trunk of a car.

I thought the only people that would try to kill me were the cops, but apparently I was wrong.

"He's going that way, get him!"

I managed to free my hands to remove the blindfold right before I nearly collided face first into a giant oak tree! I wasn't in Kansas anymore and there wasn't no f****ing yellow brick road. Luckily there was a shop ahead. I ran inside darting toward the back of what could had only been a novelty magic shop where a fortune teller hid me in the basement. The basement looked to be converted into an old study area filled with books on magic and sorcery.

I was holding the fortune tellers crystal ball in my hand that I grabbed as we ran into the basement thinking I could throw it at one of them.

I could hear the guys yelling above through the cracks in the wooden floor as they tried to catch their breath. "Where is he!"

i stayed as perfectly still as i could, i steadied my breathing, hoping that they couldnt hear me, after a while it all went quiet, but i didnt know where the guys had gone, i didnt even know how i had got here. all i knew was that i had to find somewhere to stay, otherwisely they are looking for me now, but what was it they wanted so desperately

'' look in the box my child''
i looked to see where the creeping strange voice had come from, but i couldnt see anyone in the room, i glanced over at a tiny little door, i didnt see before, it slowly began to open and..

AND then I woke up. Whew. Just a dream.


And then I woke up again! Because the first time I woke up was a false awakening into a second lucid dream. Thank goodness. What a queer dream! Auntie Em and Grandpa Joe were there, watching over me.

"Thank goodness you woke up, Dorothy. You were having such a bad dream." She said with her always comforting tone.

"I was!" I replied "Goodness me, it was the strangest dream I ever did have! There were bald men and paper bags, there was a car... and I was in the back!"

I continued to recount to them my spectacular and frightening dream, untill Grandpa Joe interrupted.

"Well, Dorothy, we were afraid that you were so sick you were going to die, so we sold your future corpse to the cat food factory in town. I'm afraid that they're comin' to the farm collect you now. You see, well... we already took their money and bought a new daughter from Bangladesh, her name is Kachigwobong. Im afraid we have no choice but to give your body to the meat collectors."

"Wh-Wha-What?!" I replied nerviously "H-H-how?" I had never felt so betrayed. After a few weeks of illness I was quickly replaced by some aborigine from another land! Not only that, the meat collectors were coming for me dead or alive. What could I do?

At that moment I did the only thing I could.

I glanced around the room and my eyes fell upon an open window - the only unguarded opening of the room. I ran towards it and jumped, hands grasping at my legs and feet, until I had entered the outside world - into a puddle. Disgruntled, I quickly jumped to my feet and ran away from my house, chased by Grandpa Joe and Auntie. Being old, they ended their pursuit out of exhaustion only a few feet away from the house. Using their rest to my advantage, I increased my speed and darted away before rolling behind a bush. Peering out from an opening, I saw my two aging relatives glancing around, confused. I smirked and crawled back from the bush, when...

...all of a sudden, they were behind me. How did they do that? My grandma's voice starts changing and I swear I've heard that voice before. Where??? Is it just me or are their faces starting to change too? Maybe it was that bump to the head... OH NO! It's them! Those guys!

I grab a handful of sand and chuck it in their faces, then I run like mad, but...

I forget the bush is still there, which painfully confront my face and harshly shoves a scream into my lungs. I scramble to my feet and dash off, away from them. I seem to run for an age, turning to look over my shoulder every several seconds. I just know they're still chasing, although there is nobody in sight.

I stop and rest on my knees, panting like an animal. Staring at the floor, I turn and look up and am greeted by the stinging view of headlights, heading straight for me...

It seems no matter how fast or far I run they are always only inches behind.

They. The faceless pursuers. The sinister, shape-shifting duo that first ran after me in the dream, and who now had taken the jilting guise of my grandparents. I couldn’t reason with them for they made only one silent demand; stop, let us take you away, away from the chase. It’s not so bad really, they’d say, being one of us is easier than you think. There’s no need to be scared when you’re the one doing the scaring.

I knew I couldn’t keep this up—my lungs felt like they were breathing in the very ashes of hell and my knees had long since given up their stability. All I could do was cling to the dried shrubs bursting from the arid ground, bracing myself for the ghastly monstrosity undoubtedly emerging from rusted pick-up that was blinding me with a hazy aura of yellowish light. Black spots obscured my vision, forcing me to clamp my trembling lids closed. With vision lost my ears moved in to take over the gap in my senses. I could hear the crackling pop of heavy boots upon the gravel-strewn road, a thin howl of wind as it ripped through the heavy fabric of night, and the rhythmic rattling of the archaic vehicle as it added percussion to the slow moving drone of aural dissidence.

The crunching stopped. I could feel a presence above and around me, surrounding my trembling body like an all to eager pall. My breath caught in my throat as if it had suddenly realised that it could be the last one I ever gave. Trying to clench my already balled fists I glanced up at my pursuers…

(Heh, not so bad for a first attempt at dark writing. I don’t think so anyway.)

My head rose slowly. So slowly. My eyes felt as if rusting, and my limbs seemed to grow impercetibly slower with each millisecond. I could no longer feel myself move, the slowness enveloped me, and I felt my vision tremble. Colour shattered, and sound vanished. The world took on a crystalline hue, smooth and textured like silk. My downpointed vision saw blades of grass cut like crystal in a mist of spectral wonder. All awareness of my body receded, and in the blue, eery light my thoughts themselves slowed. Tearful thoughts and images lost their pattern, and started floating. Reason vanished, and emotion lingered like a scared child. I felt a tear in my heart, welling like all my life distilled in this time, this space, this world. I hardly noticed my vision wink out, and my heart stop beating. All my world was but the tear, the crack of light that, as i looked in, contained a child, curled and weeping. I was without time, and without space and vision. I had no thought, and nothing to form one with. How long I looked I do not know, for such a description had no meaning. The child stopped then, after a time of no time. His head raised as mine had tried to do a lifetime ago, and looked at me, my non existence, with an empty expression. All the sorrow I had ever felt seemed mirrored in his eyes, and all the hurt of every moment rose like waves in his eyes. A single tear spilled from his right eye, and a smile shuddered from one side of his face to another, bringing light. I felt myself smile, and it all came back. Vibrations crashed in reverbations of infinity, and colour sprang like vengeance itself. Heat consumed everything, and I felt myself awake, like a pheonix borne of ashes.

"Alright Grandpa." I said, smiling.

The wizard looked back, and braced himself.

He stared right at me. A chill rose from my spine and creeped into my eyes. A blurred vision wrapped around Grandpa, and everything appeared seen between a surface of water. Grandpa's wavy countenance scattered like a vapor rising from a dark well of mystery. His lips twisted as blindness gulped my consciousness. I looked down at myself. My body was fading into an appalling absence. His voice cut through the air and wedged into my ears. "Have you forgot?"

I was too numb too feel any horror. Granpa's face now appeared as clear as ever, only a few inches from mine. "Have you forgot?"

"What?" my own voice felt soothing and distant, like reverberation heard miles away down the abyss, which took shape the whole time we confronted each other, between Grandpa and I.

"You know it." his face went blank, and slowly transformed into Grandma's.

"Have you forgot what you did 40 years ago?" She said softly, her wrinkles absorbed by her own skin. And there she stood--a young woman, almost dazzlingly beautiful.

What did I do 40 years ago? I am only 23...