Three penguins. Sticking out of the barren plain of snow; ash black shells with a pool of snow in the centre. It sqwaddled into Alex's mind they they were really rather cute.
Until they grew the extra legs; matched in time by the slavering warty skin which clambered up to welcome their bodies home.
Not to mention the abundant bulbous heads, which were puffing up like direly oversized zits. The oozing stuff, they could summon from the stumps where hands should be; was another giveaway to their not so cuteness. Especially if it was squirting toward him at great speeds.
Like it was right at that moment.
Luckily he'd already prepared the 7 up/Worcester sauce concoction in his spray canister; grimacing as the browny-greyey indescribable gunk acquainted itself with his jacket. The scene transformed instantly; the penguins- come- whatever they were, froze along with the entire scene. Following multiple seconds in limbo, his eyes began to pick up a slight tinge of blue in the wash of surroundings. In a burst of light, sharp enough to permanently blind the average human, well, the average of any species really, he coughed consciousness.
Whitewashed, barren walls echoed the silence; no, the calm; peacefulness. Automated machinery eased away the projection helmet.
Reality, the real world!! as ancient human texts would put it. Three weeks in the imaginations of some far off boffin... He could just lie there forever and...
“Greetings, my young but tall apprentice” uuuuurrrrrrgggghhhhh!!! As per usual, majesty was eked out of every pore coating his lacking figure. Politely, Alex chuckled, like it was a original quality joke. There was possibly a time, when it just might have passed into a subcategory approaching the status. After a few weeks of every time they happened to bump into each other, the stubby dwarf inflicting the same greeting on him, it started getting tedious. This was five years after that.
“What do you want master?” trying to intensify wilting levels of energeticness, not helping was he'd had to finally opened his eyes, forcing himself into a state of savage blinking. He was unable to fathom the point in bothering, his 'master' lived on his own little planet. It was quite probable that the beard embossed midget never so much as set his eyes on Alex; in-fact, his perfect vision was almost definitely a result of never actually observing anything. Coupled with this feature, was the ability of drawing everything stretched out as far as possible.
“I am certain, that you will be glad to hear, you passed the examination in the subconscious illusion suite.” Alex nodded speedily, wishing fervently the blundering man would dematerialise so he could quench three weeks worth of hunger. After a gaping pause,either much longer than deemed normal,or elongated by Alex's impatience, the standing figure yawned towards the door.
There isn't much point in saying Alex was,is, a ordinary guy (though he is). If someone's writing about him (as I seem to be) then he's not exactly gonna fit into the 'norm' is he? He manages to fit into, the weird, run- of- the- mill way that most books attempt to focus on commonplace characters. Oh! He just works for the intelligence service/is a wizard/solves mysteries. Ypu get the idea.
In a realm of action addicts;average, sticks out like a sore thumb.
NE-way...
Alex.
I suppose I should tell you what he's like. In personality he is, as established above, ordinarily, not ordinary ( or unordinarily ordinary),he enjoys the classical music of the Strawberryicecreamwithafewmeaslychocchips tribe. Hates lectures by Renni Orfess. He doesn't always do what's right, but he does usually.
If you want to know how 'nice' he is and stuff like that, well, get stuffed. I don't know wether you'd like him.
Giving up on massaging the cramps, he fumbled for the remote and lounged into the bliss of the music. He allowed his whole body to float on the surface...nothing could touch him,harm him, harm the moment...
“I'm going up to the main decks. They've got the singing cows again. Wanna come?” Alex didn't need to look up to recognise the stale tone :the closest thing he had to a friend.
Jerrii was a Fizzytwitch (a kind of enormous, see through rabbit), and nothing seemed to ever alter his dull, yet not unhappy mood. He couldn't comprehend the emotions of others,so Alex didn't really know if he understood friendship. If any companionship existed, it was based on Jerrii giving Alex half his water ration.
“No thanks. Me legs are playing up again”
It's mouth opening twitched into an apologetic...something. By the time Alex mustered the effort to lift his head, Jerrii had already recoiled.
Via pure coincidence, this was also the precise moment Alex's world spasmed into madness-
The first rocket clattered into the Vittiori .
He leapt up.
A maneuver which awarded him only a sharp pang in his legs, before he helplessly collapsed straight back onto his bed.
Okay then. Slowly does it.
He delicately shifted his weight onto the crude metallic flooring. Hissing to loosen the pressure of the moment, he began to lurch forward. Blanking the ricocheting frame, shock-wave after shock-wave.
Depending on how you look, it's luckily unlucky that the rubber ducks (not what your thinking!!!-they're an alien race) had flooded the main chair of the council's bath the night before. Due to the un-watery properties of the watery substance, it had taken bang on 14.76543 hours to soak through the floor. The left hand side of the bath sank like the titanic,hitting Alex's head with a defiant clang.
Something was tickling his neck.
“sto.......”he groaned and tried to roll over, only to find that he couldn't. He was vaguely aware of voices.
“Ameii!! this ones waking.”
“You sure Ronald? He had no life signs a minute ago!!”
“Well he's a zombie then”
“Wh..wh...wh” but forming a word was impossible. His throat was a crackling, charred mess. There was a faint tingling smell too, reminded him of something.
“Ameii, I need some water! He's trying to speak”
Though hearing was only increasing from slurryness gradually, he could make out a mans voice tone, together with Amy? Amee?'s Female one.
A warm gush of liquid was spilled over his face, he gulped what clashed his mouth greedily.
“More!” He gasped.
And more came, fueling the capability to shake off sleep. After three more splashes of relief, he thrust himself into a sitting position. He proceeded to shifting the colossal weight of his eyelids.
Black straggly hair...a beard...the... man?
“Hi, my names Ronni. Do you speak English?”
Alex nodded.
“Good. This is Ameii” he pointed to a woman with equally straggly hair.
“Greg...”
The strange man might of said something more but Alex wasn't listening. He had begun to cast an eye around. Dank, rotting brickwork, Bars, shit coated floor.
Littered with bodies.
It way surpassed enough to set his head off reeling again.
“Whoa”Ameii snatched him back up before he managed to flop over.
A drip from above smashed down. Greg whisked a bucket from nowhere and slotted it beneath the leak, before it could waste any more,
“Where am I?” Alex asked, mainly to stop himself thinking about where the water they had given him came from.
Ronni smiled, emptily.
“If we knew that, life would be a lot easier”
“RON” a squeal echoed from further in the gloom. Ronni sprinted towards it. No-one else seemed bothered. Alex gazed curiously at the other two, both still eyeballing him.
“Melissa” Greg, through an impressive feat, managed to spit and chuckle at the same time.
“Clumsy useless bitch.”
“Hey! That's my sister your talking about!” Finally something had distracted Ameii.
Greg shrugged.
“Aye, as I said,clumsy useless bitch.”
Fortunately, Ronni chose that moment to come striding back in, pursued by an attractive blonde.
“What you been up to now? Eh, Mel?” Greg making himself heard.
Melissa appeared even more fed up than the rest, the trademark bristles sweeping her shoulders.
“We're gonna have to furnace the lot. Seems they were ruthless. There's a deck full of humanoids;all slaughtered”
Ronni put his arm around her.
“It was to be expected. They were getting cranky, haven't had a haul in ages.”
Alex could hear the words, but they were out the other ear before he had a chance to comprehend.
“What exactly...” He instinctively realized no-one was paying him the blindest bit of attention anymore. The distraught female was whispering to her sister. Ronni was almost in tears.
Greg wasn't as sensitive.
“Oh dear, darling, Melissa, what is it now??”
The three exchanged nervous looks.
Greg's eyes widened.
“Phillp” he feebly Sigh/hissed.
Melissa nodded.
“NO!! But it was flawless, he promised, he...”
“We would all rather die in escape than down here, he was reaching the end...” Ronni's patronising voice was a knife to the atmosphere. The cave man look-a-like released Melissa and had one hand on Greg's arm. It was barely a millisecond before Greg's opinion of this was shown. It included a fist, and a broken nose.
“HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF IT WAS YOU?...IF PHIL WAS YOUR...”
Melissa draping her arms around his stomach silenced him. To Alex's shock, he hugged her back.
“Are you certain?”
Greg succumbed to tears.
By this point, totally understandably, Alex was overwhelmingly disorientated. More than that, he was intruding. He adverted his gaze to well...tried too...but there was nothing to see, he concentrated on passing his line of vision through the countless corpses.
“Reckon you can stand young man?” His head swished around madly. The others were all gathered around Greg (apart from Ronald who was still splayed on the floor).
“I don't know about you, but I find it rather rude when people ignore me.”
Eventually the hamster had to bite his ear before getting a reaction.
“I'm Drevin, I'll show you the ropes.”
All 13 universes united in one putrid clot. The Vertiiisluphis would settle for nothing else. Absolute dictatorship.
The cause came unconditionally before all things. This had quite a few drawbacks,the most major being they didn't have time to find fuel, they managed to overlook this- it had a simple solution.
Corpses.
The one thing that could be collected, without diverting course, in abundance.
Drevin's lecture was mainly on how to use the furnace. If it went out, the ship would stop, that couldn't be aloud to happen. The job's Alex would do included manning the fire , scrounging for any available edible substance and 'employing' new 'workers' .
The tour drew to a close with the hamster quickly displaying a basic map clinging to the wall. The ship was gigantically, enormously, big. The area where workers were aloud was half the size of the whole Vittiori. This included the living quarters, the furnace and the stores. In total there were around 10 workers at one time. All foraged off ships, all humanoid, but virtually no pure bloods. The ones that weren't privileged enough to be picked for work, were slaughtered. The ship needed the furnace to keep going.
“Life ain't easy,but your better off than them lot” he cast a paw over the mounds of deceased.
“If you'll take advice, you won't fuss. The others'll despise a moper”
Endeavoring to not tear a chunk from his lip, Alex skulked back into the expanse he started in. He now understood why they chose this spot. There was at least a dribble of florescence from someplace. It was still a hellhole, but something made it marginally more bearable, less somber than the rest of the bloody place. You could hear a faint hum from around the corner. First glance reported Ameii conversing with a bald, skeletal man. A few more people were scattered around that weren't there before. Greg was warthogging on the floor. Melissa wasn't there, Ronni wasn't to be seen either. Alex watched as Ameii pointed. Realizing they were both observing him, he strode over.
In a perfect Mexican wave mimic, the area was hushed. Suddenly he was immensely nervous. It was the baldy that broke the lull.
“So... a newbie eh?” too-thin lips echoed a guttural, authoritative resonance.
With everyone clearly staring at him. It was all Alex could do to nod.
He raised a stick-like arm as he smirked. Alex backed off, constantly aware of the eyes boring into him.
“I'll see you later” He slid to face Ameii.
“Darlings”
You could see the greasy shield, bubbling around him; thickening, yet curdling.
From behind, Ameii pulled an obscure face. Alex strained to stop laughing. They met each others peep and burst into a fit of giggles. Somewhere along, everyone went back to their conversations.
“You seen Drevin?” she questioned.
Alex nodded. She replied in the same way. Then moved off.
Nothing much else happened. Drevin had already told him all he needed to know, the others didn't have to talk to him any longer . Clumped together everyone seemed to know everyone else; by far not for the first time in his life, Alex felt a spark of loneliness fire up. Giving in to something he had been desperately trying to avoid, he permitted his mind to blunder backwards. The adhesive images instantly surfaced.
Pulsations course downwards. Waking up, Carcasses,heap upon stack, upon heap,puke. Transparent outer, smashed, waves below screaming, surging towards the ladder, escape,freedom. Thrown into darkness, spewing. Still the screaming, revulsion. Death. Horror, bloodbath. Missiles. Murky light, more piled in.
He tried to tear away, but he was transfixed. Facts began to piece with memories.
Screaming, throbbing ,the carcasses, thousands,no millions. The Vertiiisluphis, attacked? Shot at Vittiori... but everyone would have been spread out...how did I...The cows! Of course... everyone was on deck watching the show! There must have been some people below deck... had no chance... Pick them off too...the main deck had only a thin outer... completely clear for the views...stupid fucking council... no cover... utterly exposed. The dead... carried away...me with the rest of the bodies... Jerrii, Maru,everyone. All the people I know...knew.
Nothing to the Vertiiisluphis.
Up to 1000 stiffs each 24 hours. The furnace. Whoosh! In less than a day and a night, the entire Vittiori crew: gone, spent, vamoosed.
“Try not to ponder too long on it” Alex's eyelids jolted wide. He couldn't recall closing them. Bent over him was a woman. Not Ameii or Melissa. She was older, dark hair. She lent back into a standing pose- tall too.
“I did when I first arrived. It's best to just forget it”
“Forget what?” Alex stood up too, cringing at the crick in his neck.
“Exactly” perplexed but not wanting to mention it, he made an attempt at conversation. Then realized there wasn't really anything to say.
“Em...” She didn't help by covering him with an expectant gaze.
“Emmmm... who are you?”
“My name's Liza” And she was straight back in with that empty stare.
“I'm Alex”
“I know”
This was going well.
“Oh...”
“What exactly are you?”As a retort to his rigid with puzzlement face she chuckled:
“Species?”
“Oh...I...I don't really know.”
“Do you know the time zone?” She was faced with stunned confusedness for a second time.
“You really have the weirdest expressions!!”
He forced himself to produce some wording, while having a stab at not to seeming too confused.
“You mean now? I've only just got here I have no idea, you should ask...”
She was rolling her eyes.
“I mean where you came from, what universe, how far down the time-line etc?Or were you from a planet full of brainless morons?”
“I originated...look, I don't really know what the hell your on about. I was on a space centre, the Vittori. I was born there. I've never been on land before. No-one needed to know the time-zone or any of the rest of it”
“Okay”
She still wouldn't walk off.
Oh.
“Where do you come from?”
“I'm a pure blood human.” it didn't register. The humans were extinct.
“From earth.”
“Aren't they...”
“The Vertiiisluphis” he was seriously regretting asking. Even the thorny muteness was better than embarrassment.
“I'm sorry”
“No. It was a long time ago”
“What about...” Liza began at the identical moment
“How long...” Alex tried.
“You go first”
“How long have you been here?”
It probably wasn't the best thing to ask. Though if Liza had any, she managed to hide forboding feelings with a shrug.
“No idea, the shift really stuffs up any sense of time. About a month I reckon.”
Alex hmmmmmmed and nodded;before quickly changing the subject. It was only after he'd curled up on the sodden floor to (struggle for) sleep that he realized the obvious.
Earth had been destroyed 500 years beforehand.
-THIS IS NOT A DRILL
Alex among them, a gaggle of humanoids were loitering around the furnace. The loading had come to a close for the hour. Nothing was happening, for a change. They didn't even notice the squealing of the intercom, prodded into some action- Their ears had grown used to the garble, that sqidged it's way from the speakers every now and again. It actually made a half decent melody, compared to the constant background theme, of the racket from above.
The messages splurged through a few times a day, they never made any...
“IT'S IN ENGLISH!!!”
Sense.
Oh.
-BELOW DECK- WE NEED YOU TO PUT THE FURNACE OUT
The bottom of the ship, was so deathly quiet,( pretty deathly still too) that the next splurt hit with the voracity of a small/medium sized earthquake.
-THIS IS NOT A DRILL
What was with the that bit anyway? They'd never had a 'drill', no need: workers were expendable, they definitely could have done with the practise -most were running round madly with their hands in the air (or close enough). Not one is even attempting to put out the furnace.
Alex, Greg and Ameii: The three of them constructed an unnaturally calm island, just avoiding submergence from the sea of havoc.
It's Alex who says:
“You planned this didn't you?”
The girl nods. Greg stays fixed, eyes boring into his boots.
“Why?”
Her expression- bemused kind of half frowning actually.
“What and you've never wanted to escape?”
He rolls his eyes.
“Course, but how does this help?”
“Diversion”
A pause, then Alex nods, the other two following simultaneously a few seconds later.
The flames erupt from the furnace, swallowing another 40 meters of ship in one sweltering gulp.
“Now would probably be a good time”
Ameii set off first, Greg and Alex giving chase. Everyone else was either dead, injured or hiding, presenting them with a clear path. After only about 30 seconds of running, Ameii darted around, and to Alex's horror, began to sprint toward the furnace.
Greg had skidded to a halt, Alex followed his lead.
“What the fuck is she doing?!!?”
Greg never took his eyes off Ameii.
He stared along Greg's gaze, but Ameii had disappeared.
“Watch and copy, the next flare is in forty seconds”
Their eyes met, Alex watched as he gulped in any available air.
“This is for Philip”
He kept watching as Greg ran towards the chute, as he dived inside.
And as the ship was blasted to smithereens.
