《Mother World》 Prologue: Arctic Anomaly Author note: Hey ya¡¯ll! This is my first story that is a combination of many different things and possibly some vague ideas from some books I¡¯ve read. However, the main story line is actually based off of a dream I recently had that culminated in the startup of this story. I have always toyed with the idea of posting a story here and I¡¯m proud as heck to finally do so. Currently I have roughly planned the full story. Weirdly enough there may be multiple protagonists in this novel. (Originally I tried to plan for only one but some of the characters were too interesting not to get in the limelight.) Tomorrow or the day after I may plan to launch about 6 or 7 chapter depending on if I can wrap up some loose ends and if I have the time. Anyways Enjoy! ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª The NOAA Sublime slowly crunched through the densely packed ice. The hardened hull allowed for safer research out in the arctic so the ice had no chance breaking through. After a while of plowing through the ice, the ship stopped in a spot that seemed to be completely the same as any other point for miles around. The Sublime was a oceanographic research vessel equipped with state of the art equipment manned by a crew of twelve who had braved these waters for a very specific reason. Long range sonar sent out from a nearby military base had detected an anomaly that kept appearing after multiple scans. ¡°The depth sonar¡¯s not working around here.¡± Greg, one of the crewman, said to the captain of the Sublime. ¡°It¡¯s like there is no depth or something¡­up until this area the depth sonar was spotting us at around 2038 meters. This must be what they sent us out here to survey.¡± Greg finished off with certainty to the captain. ¡°If none of the long range equipment can work we might as well send in our short range equipment. Contact home and see if we can get the go ahead to use the Calvin¡± the captain informed Greg. The Calvin had the ability to carry three people to depths well over 4,500 meters and the submersible could be sent down quickly using weights that would be dropped off at the bottom. 2038 meters was well within its ability to survey. ¡°On it¡± Greg responded back as got to work contacting home base. ¡°Also alert everyone to meet me in the bridge¡± the captain ordered Greg yet again and then briskly walked off towards where what could only be the bridge. Greg grumbled hoping yet not hoping that the captain would hear him. With a quiet ¡°must I do everything¡± Greg got to work. After contacting base, explaining the situation, and getting the go ahead to use the Calvin, he reached over to press the intercom button. ¡°*Ehem* This is your first mate speaking. All hands to the bridge. I repeat all hands to the bridge.¡± *Thankfully that doesn¡¯t also mean me.* He leaned back in his chair and scratched his growing port belly contentedly, finally having a moment to relax. Greg looked to the right of his desk where a few monitors sat connected to the cameras around the 270 foot vessel. He watched one of the monitors labeled ''the bridge'' in amusement. The ten crewman stood or sat while attentively watching the captain as he walked back and forth explaining the situation. *That guy takes his position way too seriously.* Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. A brief moment later and three crewman stepped forward. *Must be the people going down in the submersible.* Greg could hardly figure out who they were through the fuzzy monitor but from what he understood one of them had to be Ricardo who had previously piloted the submersible and was also an experienced mechanic. The two others should both be handpicked by the captain from the crop of researchers aboard. After thirty minuted of scrambling and testing to make sure the Calvin was ready for its descent, it was slowly lowered into the water. The three crew members entered through the open hatch in the Calvin and made sure to close the lid behind them. With a loud splash the submersible was soon lost from sight beneath the waves. Greg turned turned towards his laptop that was connected to the cameras attached to the Calvin. Crew members quickly began to show up behind him as Greg focused entirely upon the monitor. Just as the captain walked in the handheld communication device in his pocket was turned on and Ricardo¡¯s voice was heard over the static. ¡°500 meters over.¡± ¡°Roger over¡± the captain replied. Four more reports and Ricardo arrived at around 2000 meters underwater. The cameras broadcasting to the monitor turned down towards where the anomaly was detected. Through the murky gloom the seabed was eventually illuminated from Calvin¡¯s lights. Greg''s eyes opened as wide as they could as sight fell upon something he knew he would never un-see. The voices in the background faded away as Greg stared transfixed at what could only be perfectly spherical hole in the sea floor. The hole seemed to gather in all the light and Greg could barely look at the thing straight on. Whenever he tried staring directly at it his eyes started to smart. From what he could see it seemed to have a murky thin covering that looked gelatinous. The covering was bespeckled like an egg with tiny white spots that made it resemble the night sky. Trying to see beyond the covering seemed futile as only blackness was beyond. Suddenly the the point of view started to rapidly approach the hole. The screaming voice of Ricardo sliced through the haze that Greg had been in. ¡°IT¡¯S SUCKING US IN CAP¡¯N! THE PROPELLORS AREN¡¯T WORKING!¡± The situation had quickly devolved into a panicked mess of loud crewman and an even louder captain. Ricardo¡¯s voice that hurriedly transmitted to the captain was abruptly silenced and camera feed was lost. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Author note: Well that didn¡¯t take long for a cliff hanger to happen did it! xD Chapter 1: Vertigo Author note: I now have a much greater respect for all the authors out there after trying to write out my own story. Seriously, basing a story off of a dream is hard work. Especially when it always makes sense while your in the dream and then once it''s over it barely ever makes sense. Tying up plot holes is honestly half of the work I got ahead of me. And on top of all that, I haven¡¯t had access to a computer recently and have been writing on my phone and iPad. I¡¯ll soon regain control over a computer so don¡¯t worry about that. *Mini rant end* Anyways have a happy new year and enjoy! ______________________________________________________________________________ The moment seemed suspended in time. Grace''s coffee cup slowly fell out of her hands. Mike''s face was jammed against some of the many blinking panels and Ricardo still had a death grip upon the controls of the sub like it was his only lifeline. The moment was then broken as light violently flooded through the two small viewing ports inside the sub and everything including the still people were thrown against the top of the compact space. As gravity was temporarily lost, Mike managed to recover first. He maneuvered himself towards the front view port in an attempt to figure out what was going on. Fighting the rising nausea he focused his attention through the limited view. Ricardo and Grace then grabbed onto the ladder that led to the top hatch. A roaring sound began to resound throughout the hull as Calvin began to increase in velocity. "What is going on!" Grace screamed at the top of her lungs to the two bewildered scientists. "It seems we are currently free falling from the sky into what can only be a large body of water!" Mike yelled back over the noise. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The Calvin weighed somewhere around 17 tons so it sank like a rock as it fell from a great height. Mike, who was still glued to the viewing port, quickly distanced himself from it to where the two other researchers were. Absentmindedly licking some blood that rolled onto his lips, Mike grabbed some of the leftover space on the ladder for himself. "Brace for impact!" he yelled to Ricardo and Grace. *KASPLOOSH!* Following Mikes warning the sub lurched, tearing their grips from the ladder. Gravity returned crushing the three unlucky researchers like rag dolls into the floor. The sunlight quickly vanished and was replaced by a unnaturally dark, murky light.. Everything seemed quiet except for the shallow, panicked breathing of the three people who were currently sprawled across the floor. "Heh.. *cough* lucky the floors were padded or we''d be unconscious in a rapidly sinking sub" Ricardo croaked as he picked himself up off the floor followed by Mike and Grace. "I''ll go steer the sub, you go run a systems check on the Calvin" Ricardo briefly glanced back at Grace before continuing "...And Mike you patch up your head it''s looking uglier then it usually does." "Thanks" Mike replied sarcastically as he wobbled to a small box labeled ''medical supplies.'' After moments of struggle, Ricardo eventually managed to stabilize the vessel. Silence reigned throughout the interior of the personal sphere, occasionally being broken by the quiet beep of electronics. _____________________________________________________________________________ Author note: Yup this whole chapter was about free-falling sub. Deal with it. :p Chapter 1.5: Flash The scientists eventually decided on a plan: Using the long range sonar to determine the depth of the water, Ricardo would pilot the sub for as long as they could towards the direction of land. However, there was a deadline. The Calvin was built to last around 8 hours underwater and then it would start to lose power. Calvin had back up emergency power, yet it barely had the power to operate the turbines and lasted only another hour. They had nine hours to find land or else they''d be forced to activate the Calvin''s emergency separation allowing it to float above the surface without the turbines. (Author note: Based off of a real submersible here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSV_Alvin) Grace''s system check revealed that the bottom of the hull was slightly impacted and the relatively delicate parts of the sub have been damaged, including one of the two cameras and much of the mechanical arms used to gather samples from the bottom ocean. "Okay, Grace, now that you are done come check out this variable depth sonar." Ricardo patiently pointed towards the right at a small screen in the wall. "I can''t pilot this sub and monitor that at the same time so I need you to turn that on and tell me if our depth is getting less or more as we move forwards. Hopefully, by using the sonar we can get closer to land. I''ll try my best to teach you how to use it." He finished by staring into her rapidly blinking big green eyes and then pointing towards the monitor for emphasis. Mike''s head fell to the side and he gritted his teeth against the pounding pain in his head. His eyes then moved from where Ricardo and Grace were talking at the front of the sub to the bottom right view port. The outside water seemed strange and had an unnatural blackness to it. *It looks disgusting* His eyes gradually became unfocused as he thought back to an hour ago when he sat on his bunk smoking a cigarette. *That better not be my last* Mike sighed and was about to turn away from the port but not before he saw something flash by briefly being illuminated by the dim light. Mike sat up straight as the cig disappeared along with his sense of calmness. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Mike slowly, with his heart loudly pounding in his head, moved towards the viewport. In the background he barely caught Grace complaining about technical problems with the sonar. In the meantime he almost absentmindedly noticed three more flashes past by his viewport. *Bang!* Mike jumped back slamming his back into the wall. He jerked his head in the direction of where the pilot sat guiding the accomplished scientist. ¡°Hey, Grace! I need your help over here!¡± Mike tried to say as calmly as he could but was betrayed as his voice wavered slightly. Grace picked up on that with quirked thin eyebrow towards Mike before saying "Hold on Mike, I¡¯ll be right there. I can¡¯t seem to get this darn sonar to work correctly. It can''t get a read on the bottom with all these blobs covering the screen!" "Blobs?" Ricardo turned around to briefly glance at the sonar screen and then did a double take. ______________________________________________________________________________ Author note: I¡¯m sorry to any future fans of this novel (hopefully they exist somewhere out there) but I love making cliff hangers ....and also oddly enough chapter titles. Chapter 2: Escape? Author note: Forgot to add Chapter 1.5 to the last chapter title. If anyone knows how to change that please tell me so I don''t have to struggle for a while. Thank you for reading and enjoy!
"There''s something surrounding our sub." Ricardo didn''t seem panicked at all. "The must be countless numbers of them out there to create such a large sonar detection." Immediately following his amazed voice came the sound of muffled thumping. Calvin began rocking slightly off course. Through his one remaining camera, Ricardo briefly caught sight of a mass of writhing black bodies. *zztzz* The monitor then shut down as it was torn off by one of the many black writhing creatures. "Those things will tear our sub into scrap metal if we don''t escape!" Mike shouted from where he was now once again grabbing onto the ladder as the sub continually rocked within the swarm of creatures. "Gun it Rick!" "This thing only goes at the speed of a golf cart." Ricardo despairingly replied. "****, hold on guys!" Ricardo immediately sent all power to the turbines. Grace fearfully grabbed onto Ricardo''s shirt as the lights in and outside flickered rapidly. In what could only be the saddest escape attempt ever Ricardo slowly bullied his way through the writhing mass of unidentifiable creatures up towards the surface. Calvin began to rock more violently as the swarm reacted to the moving vehicle. ¡°Can the hull take this kind of beating?¡± Grace asked over the incessant banging sounds from outside. ¡°Calvin won¡¯t burst under 6000 meters over water. No way it can¡¯t deal with this swarm of creatures. From what I saw before they took out my camera most of these things vary between a meter or two. Nothing could possibly damage the personal sphere.¡± Ricardo replied reassuringly. Eventually, after about twenty minutes of slow going later one of the lift propellors gave out with a small sputter as the black creatures collectively started to become more aggressive. Through the front viewport Ricardo could see them them pressing their faces up against the glass. One particularly fat fish continuously opened and closed its mouth against the thick glass. The darkness around them gradually began to fade away as the writhing swarm began lesson. The group of scientists had almost gotten used to the constant muffled banging sounds as they became more sparse. Finally breaking through the last thin layer of fanged monsters and everyone was able to exhale exhaustingly as the tension finally seemed to leave the sub. The sub was now moving forwards very close to the surface. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Those fish were of no species that I had studied before and I¡¯ve majored in zoology and botany. From what I could tell they resembled something between a piranha and a dragonfish. And oddly enough they seemed to be schooling together. Without this submersible we would have been a quick meal for those man eaters.¡± Grace grimly contemplated aloud. ¡°Well whatever they were they did a number on my vessel. Grace I¡¯m sorry but I¡¯m gonna have you do another systems check.¡± Ricardo wearily replied as he turned his attention to the front view port that was now clear of writhing shapes. Mike slowly released his death grip from the ladder. His old fear seemed to be fast swallowing him as the desperate situation continued. Unfortunately, he held an irrational fear of tight spaces and constantly worrying and dealing with one strange situation inside the sub after another led to this panic attack. Going in this submersible was originally not included in his job, however he had been assigned to the Sublime at the last minute due to his vast experience in oceanography. ¡°Hey guys, I¡­I really need to breath *rasp* the fresh outside or else I¡¯ll go crazy..¡± Mike squeezed out as he shakily positioned himself in front of the ladder. Chapter 2.5: Weakness Author note: This chapter will help build upon Mike''s character... but don''t get attached to him too quickly lol... ______________________________________________________________________________ Mike¡¯s tan face scrunched up in pain as he tried to hide his suffering from the others. Sweat droplets began to rain from his forehead and coat his back as he slowly gripped the smooth ladder that led to his escape. He felt like he was drowning on air as couldn¡¯t get enough in. He knew he¡¯d pass out if he didn¡¯t get up that ladder quick. Unfortunately for him Grace and Ricardo didn¡¯t seem to of heard him as they were currently intensely conversing about what to do. ¡°¡­ and right propellor seem to of given out. The fish managed to severely damage the Calvin¡¯s main rudder. Rick it seems like the Calvin¡¯s on its last legs. How are we ever going to find land at this rate?¡± Grace¡¯s high voice seemed to annoy Mike in the wrong way as he was currently feeling horrendous. ¡°Without the precision depth sonar how are supposed to find land in about 7 hours?¡± Ricardo sighed and turned to look back at the slightly damaged viewport. ¡°Maybe we could perhaps fix the precision depth sonar as that to us is the most important¡­¡± Their voices slowly faded away as a ringing began to sound in Mike¡¯s ear. Mike didn¡¯t want show any weakness to anyone. Ever since he was young, Mike learned that showing weakness was bad. He believed that weak people were bullied and frowned upon in society. Weakness of the body, heart and mind. He strived to better himself in these three categories. The weakness of his body was something he had worked on throughout his whole life. He currently had an extremely buff body for a scientist. The weakness of his mind could be solved with self study, the gaining of knowledge and life experience. He originally liked marine life so becoming a oceanographer and pursuing science was something he did later on. However, he thought his heart was almost a lost cause. The guy was originally very emotional as a child and had a very kind heart. He was weak, or so he thought. Mike had been hiding behind an impassive mask for his whole life. However, today in this very moment Mike felt his mask crack. Tears stealthily flowed down his face as the all consuming fear he had began to override 34 years of impassiveness. His heart was heavy as he slowly raised his fist. ¡°Clang! Clang Clang!¡± Mike could barely speak by this point and he had began banging on the ladder for attention. Grace in the midst of conversation with Ricardo abruptly stopped and turned towards the sudden sound fearing for the worst. Her large eyes finally rested on Mike as she realized he was the source of the banging. However, her relief was quickly cut short as she noticed the state of Mike. His body was slightly cowering over and his large frame seemed to shake and tremble like a leaf on a tree. ¡°Mike? MIKE!¡± Grace hurriedly got up from her sitting pose. The quick pitter of her feet on the padded floor stopped as she arrived behind Mike. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. She quickly oriented her small body around the much larger frame of Mike. ¡°Hey Mikey, what¡¯s wrong?¡± Ricardo, the bystander in the background, almost felt like the voice she was using then could be used for small babies or pets. A hardly audible croak leaked from Mike¡¯s mouth ¡°Hatch¡­open¡­.please¡­¡± Grace nodded and then hurriedly yelled to Ricardo to open the hatch. Ricardo steered closer to the surface. With a quiet *slick * the hatch on top of the submersibles tail opened and cool sea air slowly flowed through the opening. Grace worriedly watched as Mikes frame slowly straightened and moved up the ladder. She glanced back at Ricardo and shrugged her shoulders not bothering to break the silence. She felt like this moment deserved some of it after witnessing the big man cry. Mike eventually reached the top of the relatively small ladder where he then began to rapidly gulp in many lungfuls of air. *Oh, I hope the poor guys okay* Grace quietly thought. She turned around and was about to head back to Ricardo before fate interrupted her. A horrifying sound straight out of a nightmare shut down all rational thought. It was quickly followed by a deafening howl of pain from Mike as he was pulled from the ladder and out of the sub by something unseen. Grace froze in place as she felt warm liquid splash on her back and dribble down the back of her legs. The sound of it dripping on the floor sent Grace off as she let a mortal cry fear. ¡°Shut the hatch¡­shut the hatch¡­.shut the hatch!¡± Grace hysterically called out repeatedly as she stumbled towards Ricardo. He could only numbly nod and press the remote hatch button. Chapter 3: Crisis ¡°I-It g-got Mike!¡± Grace sobbed uncontrollably as she blearily walked towards Ricardo. He sat in daze staring it the bloody footprints following Grace. None of these poor people had ever stared death in the face before. They were normal people and the most they had ever seen was perhaps a broken bone or two. Ricardo usually knew what to do especially whenever he piloted a submersible like the Calvin, but seeing Mike disappear in a matter of seconds left him blankly staring at the floor. His mind was like a skinned grape. Every peaceful rational thought he had before Mike¡¯s last moments were stripped away from his mind. Grace had almost arrived at Ricardo¡¯s side before whatever creature that was in the black water outside decided to come back for more. *BOOOOooom!* Ricardo and Grace was both thrown to the side as the creature rammed into the Calvin. Grace fell to the floor landing awkwardly in a heap. She immediately tried to get up before was once again thrown to the padded floors as the thing outside rammed into the Calvin a second time. *I¡¯ve got to crawl to Rick!* Grace thought as she placed her hands against the red floor. She could barely see anything through her tears as she attempted to crawl towards the only other human left in the sub. The personal sphere rocked every now and then as the thing outside seemed hungry. Grace eventually managed to bump into Ricardo. Surprised she looked up and wiped away her tears. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Ricardo was knocked out. His head lolled to the side and blood dribbled down the right side of his head and onto his polo shirt. Grace was alone now. The groaning of metal echoed from the back of the sub as the thing seemed to attach itself there. Grace, against her better judgement, slowly looked towards one of the windows with morbid curiosity. What she saw made her wish she hadn¡¯t looked. The window was covered in what could only be large octopus suckers. *Where the hell are we?! That thing must be enormous to have such large suckers!* Outside, Grace theorized, could only be a gigantic octopus. Red blinking lights started going off as the octopus slowly crushed the Calvin. In this moment of crisis Grace remembered Ricardo talking about the emergency separation that would force the titanium sphere they were in to separate from the rest of the sub. Grace, desperate and out of options, tried to push Ricardo out of the way of the control panel that had the emergency release button on it. However, another violent shake of the vessel threw here to the side again, knocking her heard hard against a protruding knob and sending her into blissful blackness. Chapter 3.5: Courage *Bang!* A noise abruptly woke Ricardo. He slowly sat up wondering what could possibly happen next. Looking around the sub through one open eye he splotted Grace lying unconscious against the side of sub. "Grace! Grace! Come on girl wake up! Please wake up!¡± Ricardo¡¯s voice pierced through the fog of sleepiness. Grace pathetically moved around after hearing his voice. ¡°What? *cough*¡­ what¡­how.. how are we even alive?¡± Grace slowly opened her eyes and saw Ricardo¡¯s bloody face leaning over her. ¡°I¡¯m not sure but maybe the monster forgot about us as it crunched up the back of the sub.¡± He pointed towards a small screen in pilot¡¯s control panel. The small screen kept flashing as words continuously scrolled across it. ''Emergency hatch released! Emergency hatch released!'' ¡°The thing must have forcibly activated the release switch as it squeezed the sub. I¡¯m not sure why it didn¡¯t pursue us as it probably could¡¯ve crushed this titanium personal sphere. But, that¡¯s besides the point! I heard another thing outside of the sub. It woke me up.¡± Ricardo finished hurriedly. 15 minutes of huddeling terrified and they heard significant. Grace slowly crawled to one of the viewports and saw something surprising. Deeply breathing in relief Grace spoke,¡± That¡¯s sand! We can get out of this sub!¡± She looked tearily towards Ricardo and he just nodded. ¡°Wherever we are these waters are completely infested with strange, dangerous animals. I can¡¯t wait to get to land. Hahah.¡± Ricardo laughed in relief. Ricardo looked into the front viewport. ¡°It looks like the sphere getting stuck in the sand woke me up. Unfortunately, the sphere won¡¯t get any closer to shore. ¡± He learned closer to the viewport and looked at the waterline. ¡°Looks like as soon as we open the hatch water will flood in.¡± ¡°We should probably gather supplies before we leave whats left of the Calvin.¡± Grace replied and they began to work in high gear. After about 15 minutes of thoroughly searching they came up with little more then the medical supply case and a two bags of food there were supposed to be for a peaceful lunch. Grace carrying the medical supplies and Ricardo carrying the food both turned towards the ladder and looked at the same spot on the floor. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ¡°Bless you Mike wherever you are.¡± A small dried pool of blood lay beneath the ladder and was the only thing left of him. ¡°It just¡­happened so fast. I couldn¡¯t even react ...the poor guy.¡± Grace sadly said ¡°Yeah, dam I didn¡¯t know what to do. I can¡¯t believe just over 12 hours ago or so we were just preparing to go check out a random anomaly. I¡¯d hoped it was volcanic vent that had just opened up as I¡¯ve always found them fascinating. Who knew it''d be an entrance to this scary place.¡± Ricardo added. *sigh* ¡°Lets go.¡± Ricardo walked towards the ladder and carefully avoided the blood. Grace followed him and they eventually ended up before the ladder. With a quick pat and whispered good job to the remains of Calvin, Ricardo twisted the pressure wheel to open the hatch. Water quickly flowed into the personal sphere and the two survivors exited the rapidly filling sphere. A wave entered Ricardo''s vision and he ducked under it. After resurfacing, he turned towards the white sandy beach. Ricardo was lucky enough to of participated in many swim clubs as a child. He began swimming strongly towards the beach and in his wild excitement, he began to outpace Grace. Halfway to the shore and Ricardo suddenly heard a desolate scream over the wind and waves. A brief moment of indecisively swimming in place stopped him before the image of a small bloody flashed in his mind. Ricardo swam on. Chapter 4: Food? Author note: This chapter was pretty weird to write just because I had to write from the perspective of something that had no language and basically had a different perspective on life then what a human has. I¡¯ll eventually perfect the creature but he/she¡¯s is a work in progress just like this fiction. ______________________________________________________________________________ P.O.V: Creature *inhale *exhale The sound of breathing resounded in my head as I lay on bottom trying to get some sleep. I¡¯d already managed to a snatch a fat red fish before the eyes of the lurker. Now I sat here in contentment after speedily escaping. My claws dug into my mud bed in the niche that I¡¯d found a while back. Out in the deep was the danger zone but the lurkers rarely ever liked to go into shallow areas. I learned that after many close calls. My cozy niche rested in the side of a large thin realm that connected to the danger zone. Ever since I was born I had slowly gained something of consciousness that didn¡¯t just rely on base instincts. Every denizen of my where I lived had black eyes and transmitted a scent that always meant, ¡°Im dangerous. Don¡¯t mess with me.¡± As above most of my fellow creatures in the water, I managed to outsmart most of them in a variety of ways. I had eventually been able to lay claim to this small realm that I now called home. Just after all eyelids had closed, (I had four, two for each eye. The first layer usually remained closed but was clear and protected my eyes; the second were only used to block light.) I managed to detect a faint smell that I was all too familiar with. Life red! However, this red was unlike any life red I had ever smelled before. It seemed more light, less smelly and dirty then most creatures I had smelled. Quite intrigued I quickly opened my first eyelids. It was not too faint, however it seemed like it led out near the danger zone. The bottom dropped down into the deep near there. Beyond laid much bigger and meaner creatures who I had only caught brief glimpses of. I knew I could out swim just about anything before there except for the lurkers and whatever else existed beyond the drop. Beyond curios I cautiously swam out of my home before rapidly and stealthily tracking the red trail. P.O.V: Grace Grace looks back to what can only the mouth of some species of shark chomping down on her leg. Through the incredible pain she wondered why a shark would try and drag her further out instead taking her leg then and there. Its rough tail kept slapping her small frame and head as she struggled to stay above the dark black water. Whatever species it was, it wasn¡¯t one that she had ever studied before. From what she could see it somewhat resembled something like a cross between a reef shark and a swordfish with a red and white tint instead of a reef sharks blue and white tint. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Grace currently could almost feel the grim reapers scythe hang above her soul. The terror it generated consumed almost ever rational thought and memory she had ever had and made her retreat into a tried to heard her into a tiny corner of her mind that allowed nothing in except what it wanted to leaving her body in autopilot. Suddenly a foreign thought broke through deaths reach into her mind. It held an abstract meaning that was not transmitted in any language she knew of. However, its vague meaning was somewhere along the lines of ¡°Food?¡± What a terrifying message to hear grace briefly thought as she resumed control of her body. The same vaguely understood thought was transmitted after getting no response. Grace quickly left her corner and was once again hit by the vast pain being transmitted to her from her left leg. However, the red shark had almost immediately let go of her when she heard the vague food thought. Almost more scared then she had been before grace realized that whatever could make the red shark let her go of her was probably much meaner then it! P.O.V: Creature I listlessly stared at the small flailing creature that transmitted nothing to me. Unlike every other creature I had ever met it was very unique. I was briefly reminded of a few of the creatures outside that where much different then those of my realm. I swiftly moved closer and got a glimpse of a fat red fish that was chomping on the limb of the weird fragile creature. Not wanting the strange creature to end I briefly sent out a thought that usually scared off any red one that heard me. It let go and started swimming around the frail creature. This red one seemed to be particularly stupid as it didn¡¯t flee on site as I¡¯d though it would. I immediately swam as fast possible towards the stupid red fish and rammed the things body. Its eyes opened as wide as they could and it quickly fled towards the drop. The small creature was now struggling towards outside. More red fish started to swim towards the creature but I sent out another signal and they smartly fled. I raised my head outside to look at the strange thing before angling my body down and quickly swimming back home. ______________________________________________________________________________ Author note: P.O.V. Switch O.P.! Also, thanks for reading and HAHNY! Chapter 4.5: Regret Fat tears rolled down Ricardo¡¯s face as he felt the sea breeze brush his black hair. Ricardo was feeling regret. It twisted inside him like an injured snake. He stared with his feet imbedded in the sand as he watched his friend die. Ricardo felt as though he were watching a train wreck happening yet he felt unable to do anything about it. Helplessness and regret all tied up into one strand. He regretted not turning back as he heard grace scream. He regretted whatever allowed this strange series of events to happen. He regretted¡­so many things. Deep in his mind he started believing that it was all his fault¡­ that he could saved her from whatever horror was dragging her further out. Through the crushing self inflicted pressure, Ricardo blinked his eyes and noticed something different. The red fin had gone away! The great change in events caught Ricardo completely off guard and he stared in wonder as Grace swam excruciatingly slowly towards him followed by a horrid trail of red. Ricardo stood there for a brief moment and then leapt into the water as fast he could. All sense of his usually calm composed behavior was left behind as he swam towards her and carried her to shore as best as he could. Ricardo finally dragged Grace onto the sandy beach. The damage to her leg was pretty bad. Ricardo, the untrained doctor that he was, could only do a measly job of patching her up. Everything seemed to be happening way fast for him and he felt like he was moving in quicksand. Grace was unconscious, the sub was still stuck where they had initially left it, and there was a dreadful pool of blood soaking through the torn up shirt he had wrapped up around her wound. He had little to no experience surviving in the wild but knew the basics from watching any survival show. None of the basics mentioned an ideal way of saving your friend from a life threatening bite like the one currently on his friends leg. Ricardo decided to do what he could and arranged a series of immediate goals for himself in his head. First he needed to find some way to stop her bleeding. At this rate she would simply die of blood loss in about an hour. Next would be finding or making a shelter¡­ Most of his basics included this. The third goal included finding food and fresh water. He couldn¡¯t do much without energy and they had already consumed whatever food they had in the submersible. In the mad swim for shore Ricardo had noticed that the ocean was actually fresh water as he accidentally snorted some water in. However unappealingly black the water seemed it would still let them get by. While wracking his brains in an attempt to find a way to immediately stem the flow of blood, Ricardo eventually came up with the idea of burning her wounds closed. He knew it would hurt her but it would her lot less then dying. (Author note: Death is painless right? Ricardo: She¡¯ll thank me later dammit!) Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Who would of thought he would need a lighter now ¡­ He definitely didn¡¯t bring one down in the submersible. In a race against time Ricardo carried the slowly bleeding Grace over towards the nearest tree. He carefully set her against the trunk upright and began gathering small pieces of driftwood that were scattered all along the beach. After quickly digging a pit and arranging the driftwood he had found into a tepee, Ricardo got to work twisting a reasonably sized stick against a torn up branch that looked like it would light easily. Thirty minutes of fruitless fire making later and Ricardo was starting to feel even worse then he felt watching her almost die. Before he felt like he was powerless to save her and now he felt like he was still powerless to save her even though he knew exactly what to do and how to do it. He looked over at Grace and noticed how pale she was compared to before which set off flames in his heart. "ARRRGH!" In a fit of rage Ricardo spun the branch with every fiber of his being. His eyes lit like glowing embers as he concentrating deeply upon the rapidly spinning stick almost willing it to burst alight. Eventually, Ricardo felt something sickening lurch in his brain and the next thing he felt was his own hands burning. The stick was completely on fire! _____________________________________________________________________________ Author Note: Oops accidentally released too many chapters :p Anyways, here we are at the end of the promised mass release. If any of ya¡¯ll have any tips on my writing or anything please comment. Honestly, if you have anything at to say I¡¯ll happily respond to it. Hopefully the pacing of events doesn¡¯t seem too drawn out. I just have read many fictions on this site and always noted the lack of detail and sense of realism. I also have always strongly disliked how some authors, when people when people were talking just write something like Sam- blah blah blah. For me at least it took away from the story. I can always change and edit it if need be. Also, in the future there will be more events per chapter instead of just a dude trying to climb up a ladder (also more blood.) I¡¯ll need some help from the viewers for some things like any plot points I happen to have trouble in the future or paths I should take in the story. P.S: You might of noticed something off about chapters 3.5 and 4 and that would be because I pulled a George Lucas and wrote those two chapters even before finishing the prologue! P.S.S. My future release schedule isn¡¯t yet certain¡­ however I feel like 1-2 chapters every 3 to 5 days seems about right depending on the popularity of this novel and how busy I am IRL. I may even release more depending on my mood and motivation. Chapter 5: Iron Bird Hey y''all! While reviewing some of my chapters I noticed some inconsistencies ... [th_015_orz-v2.gif] I seriously wish I could edit chapters. Speaking of the chapter I think I''ll try and consistently keep them longer as some of them were way too short for me. I''ll try and keep all of them above 1000 words. Story progression heck yeah! Anyways here''s the chappy~ enjoy! ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Juggling the stick and yelping Ricardo pushed it into the fire pit before the slight breeze could steal it. He threw as many sticks as he could into the growing fire as fast as he could. As the flames leapt higher and higher along with hope in his heart. Soon a roaring bonfire fought the wind in front of him. He grabbed two solid sticks and rooted around the bottom of the campfire in search of hot embers. Eventually he found a nice sized glowing ember and he carefully moved it towards where grace still lay helplessly against the tree. "We are going make it though this! Screw this world it''s just you and me girl!!" With the horribly done bandages off, Ricardo psyched himself up as he moved the red hot ember towards her bite wound. He could almost imagine her writhing in her mind as her body flailed a bit in her unconsciousness. *Tssssss....* The sizzling smell of flesh burning persisted for while before Ricardo finally let up and the ember fell into the sand. Ricardo had a pretty good internal clock and reckoned that about under an hour of earth time had passed by since they got out of the sub. From what he knew of cauterizing wounds closed, it was a pretty old method of stemming the flow of blood and he only managed to remember it from some action movies he saw. He never knew able to see what happened after the wounds were cauterized except that blood clotted and bleeding stopped. Unfortunately, during the attack Grace let go of the medical case that had important medicine like antibiotics in case her wound wasn''t completely healed. The only left was the clothes on his back and soggy food from the sub. (Author note: He did not lose those sandwiches as I may have previously mentioned.) Taking a breather from all the stressful situations that had continuously happened, he let out a great sigh of relief. Through the rapidly developing events Ricardo hadn''t exactly managed to look around at his surroundings. The sandy beach that he was currently on seemed to scretch endlessly to the left. The black body of water was most definitely an ocean. To the right a rock cliff seemed jut out out up and cut his immediate view of the beach. It looked like he could climb the cliff if he wanted. 20 meters inland from the water line lay a dense exotic looking jungle. It reminded Ricardo of some of the beaches he explored in Hawaii as a member of the NOAA. However, the jungle looked incredibly strange and had a large mixture of different types of plants. Some of them looked like they oddly didn''t belong in there or just didn''t even look at all like any plant he had ever heard of. What really made Ricardo surprised was the strange sky. The sun was currently at a twelve o''clock position. In the time that he had gotten out of the sub and now the sun had remained in the exact same position in the sky. It seemed stuck in the same position. After a while of observing the sky he noticed that it was slightly gray colored shimmered and rippled oddly. The sky seemed unnatural and gave Ricardo a sudden sense of foreboding. Ricardo knew that the soggy sandwiches would last him about a day before he would need to rely on himself to find food. "Damn, if only Grace were awake then I could figure out which plants seemed edible. We could have a breakfast of champions tomorrow.¡± Today he designated his time to building a crude shelter for himself and Grace. Without a suitable cutting tool like an axe Ricardo was forced to try and break off branches with his bear hands. As a mechanic Ricardo was relatively in shape so gathering material''s for the frame besides driftwood was no problem. Ricardo spent a large majority of the day building the crude shelter. He had no idea where he was even if the time worked differently, but eventually he managed to set up a shelter near the fire. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.(Author note: First time uploading an image here... hope it works. ) While he was tending to the fire, large beast howls started going off in the forest. The noise echoed throughout the trees and spooked Ricardo into almost falling in the fire pit. About an hour later of giving Grace water and TLC without any warning the sun abruptly and quite literally shut off like a light, leaving only a dim glow upon the world. There was no steady change between day and night. The night sky held no twinkling stars or a lonely moon, just the dim glow from sun was left to illuminate the night. Nighttime sounds occupied the airspace and Ricardo was just getting some sleep when he noticed a small white box that had just washed up on the beach. Knowing exactly what it could possibly be he stood up and darted out towards it. The night wore on as small insects created a background symphony for the sleeping humans. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The next day Ricardo was picking up on good survival skills. He trekked through the forest occasionally marking trees and making small piles of debris wherever he went as Grace the protective urge that Grace needed him. After a while of slowly and carefully adventuring he managed to stumble upon breakfast. Up in the trees rested a pretty large nest that probably contained bird eggs. Flexing and limbering up Ricardo eventually with a grunt leapt up towards the nearest branch. Doing his upmost to get to the eggs and not endanger himself in the process he was about to reach the top before he heard a sharp cry and the sound of wind being pushed aside. His word turned upside-down and felt sharp pain in his back. *ARGH!* Letting a roar pain Ricardo, now struggling on the ground heard another sharp cry and quickly rolled to the side. *Crunch* Something pierced the ground where his head used to lay. Looking over he spotted a strange brightly colored bird struggling to pull beak its beak out of the ground. (Author note: Is it a Pokemon?!) Ricardo tried to grab the things neck but was cut up by its feathers as the creatures feathers seemed as tough as iron and sharp as daggers. Swearing, Ricardo waved his hands around like a madman. Ricardo looked around for some tool and found a long stick. *This bird is dead meat!* he thought as he circled around the wildly flapping bird to stare in its eyes. The things big eyes stared back at him in complete unbrideled fury. Without any hesitation Ricardo jammed the stick into one of its accusing eyes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back at camp Ricardo looked down at Graces small pale face and reapplied some extra anti-bacterial cream to her wound. With the medical case recovered Grace was in much better shape. He carefully stored the eggs inside the makeshift shelter and turned towards the high rock cliff. Ricardo lugged the iron bird around on the end of the stick. It had a wingspan of that of an eagle and a hooked beak that looked like flying dagger. If it had been flying around and didn''t get stuck in the ground, he''d of been torn up by thing. Luckily its sharp peak got wedged in between a rock and a hard place. Unfortunately, the thing was way too hard to crack open and get at the meat. He tossed the bird into the fire pit, but after a while of no changes, Ricardo decided on another plan. He would bring the bird to the top of the cliff and drop it down onto the rocks below. Hopefully, the force would break the iron birds hard outer shell like an egg. Afterwards, he could use its feathers as weapons for whatever things he encountered here in the future. At the same time he could survey the land around him and hopefully see signs of humans. With one last indescribable look towards Grace, Ricardo slowly padded away away from camp. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Author note: This chapter was built around its story progression, eventually you''ll see a glimmer of where I''m taking this story, but for now watch as man fights wild. Chapter 5.5: Doppelg?nger Author note: Relatively weird chapter BEWARE..! Enter the rabbit hole...
Grace got up from her chair to explore the room she found herself in. It looked like the inside of a giant steel box. The muffled groaning of metal creaked out accompanied by the sound of waves slapping against something. It played in the background like a broken record. She slowly walked towards the cabin porthole that had appeared along the wall and stared outside. What greeted her eyes was an empty white canvas beyond. She had the distinct feeling of impatience as she waited for something¡­ or someone. Grace was back on the NOAA Sublime. The knowledge seeped into her mind like it belonged there and she readily accepted the fact. Grace, apparently satisfied with whatever she had seen through window, turned away and began to pace impatiently back and forth in the metal room. After she turned away from the porthole, it slowly closed like the mouth of a collapsing wormhole. The only thing left in the room besides her was the chair that rolled around on its wheels to the beat of the waves against the ship. Suddenly, over the intercom a blaring noise interrupted the ships talk. Slow gibberish accompanied by blaring noise spiked every now and then. Eventually, it stopped along with Grace''s pacing. She nodded her head somehow understanding whatever the entity had spoken over the intercom. Turning to the opposite direction of where the porthole used to be, she looked at the ship door that slowly opened and revealed the outside corridor. As she walked forwards her shoes hitting the floor echoed out as she as if she were in a cave. She briefly glances at a sign that has an arrow pointing down the corridor labeled '' -> Bridge.'' Walking past an open ship door she notices a man standing there. He has no face. In fact he lacked almost everything a human had. The mannequins head turned towards her and they briefly engaged in conversation. Grace angrily rebuked the mannequin for daring to do something like that. Eventually she completely forget about the mans existence and continued on her way towards wherever her destination lay. The hallway in front of her stretched on endlessly as she patiently tried to get to the end of it. After a long while the hallway ran out of room to grow letting her take a left turn and then a right. The corridor winded around like a maze, however Grace took every turn without any hesitation. Two large doors that would fit right into the entryway of castle appeared at the end of the hall. Grace walked up to the two towering doors without any apprehension and pushes them inwards with both hands. They abruptly caught on something unseen inside. *Blam!* With a superhuman heave the doors burst open allowing her to see what was obstructing them. Inside, sprawled across the floor, lay a life-sized stuffed animal. *Meow* It slowly got up off the floor with a soft meow. It was her old stuffed cat toy from childhood that she still hugged often on her bed at home. The thing reached down and picked up its bowler hat that had fallen of its head and walked past Grace. Grace ignored it and strolled under the sign above the large doors labeled ''bridge.'' She stopped inside and panned her head around the room like a fan. A large mahogany conference table sat inside the room. The table was surrounded by sitting or standing mannequins. From behind her walked the mannequin she had spoken to earlier. It found a seat near the head of the table and she mechanically followed the familiar mannequin. Abruptly, all sound faded and was replaced by a deathly silence. Something grabbed her attention and forcibly pulled it towards the opposite end of the table where only darkness coiled beyond. The darkness loomed towards the table breaking Grace from whatever state of being she been in earlier. Out from the gloom appeared a mirror image of her. The thing mirrored her small size of 5'' 2'' (Author note: Yes, she''s a Loli), long gray hair, big green eyes, button nose and small pink lips. Her copycat turned it''s head from the ship''s window towards her forcing out a gasp from Grace. A vertical third eye lay open and unblinking on top of the creatures face. The loli across from her had a mouth that horribly stretched across her face in an eerie almost chesire cat-like grin. The whole body of her copycat continously faded in and out almost as though it was on a T.V. having technical glitches. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Grace scrunched her thin eyebrows at the out of place creature that didn''t belong in her dream. After I while of being creepily stared at Grace tearfully yelled at the thing," What you do want! Get out of here!" Her copycat seemed to analyze her until it finally spoke in a incredibly deep gravely voice,"Accept it. You''re just fighting the inevitable." Grace jumped up and almost fell over her chair in an effort to get away from the smiling, unblinking devil. The devil abruptly lifted its hand and pointing at her leg. She felt an invisible hand grasp the back of her head and force it to look down at her left leg. There, like an ugly cancer sore, sat a poorly cauterized wound. Grace, confused and disoriented examined the bite wound. In roughly the middle of her wound, a very small dark green scale rose from beneath her skin. Along with her emotional state, the background became extremely chaotic almost like tornado had appeared in the room. Grace, feeling extremely terrified and alone with only her creepy copycat in the room grabbed her leg in horror. She watched as scales continued to bloom from beneath her skin around the initial scale. Grace could only scratch and wail as the creature stared down at her from above condescendingly. The green scales rose like rising water line, coating her body in hard unnatural scales. The boat ground and tore into pieces along with everything else in the room. The world was falling apart. The scales without any sense of slowing down grew closer and closer to her mouth. Grace let out another scream that seemed to hang in the air as the scales finally reached her mouth. The world without further ado collapsed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grace sat up gasping for breath and hit her head on something above her. Trying to calm down her racing heart and get a sense of the situation, Grace observed her surroundings. After minutes of scanning the surrounding through touch and site, she realized that she was inside a crudely made hut. "Ricardo..?" she mumbled softly as her ragmented memories surfaced unbidden in her mind. With a small tingling in her chest she realized he must of saved her life. Grasping onto that feeling she slowly got up, trying not to knock into the roof of the shelter she was in. *Ahh* A small shriek escaped her lips as a pain shot from her left leg. A glow faintly entered through the entrance of the leafy abode allowing her to exam the wound bandaged wound. It had become raw and puffy from the extensive cauterizing. Luckily it didn''t look infected at all. Right before she exited she noticed something tucked into the corner. Carefully placed on small shells and sticks, lay two speckled eggs. Grace crawled out of the shelter like timid rabbit. Slightly in front of her abode lay a fire that was almost out. It''s glowed pitifully and Grace quickly got to gathering the wood closest to her. *ROAR* As she was tending the fire a roar from some great wild beast broke through the still dark night from deep in the exotic forest. Thinking back to the octopus sucker covered window she shivered and moved closer to the fire. Fog existed slightly beyond the edge of the the forest boundary and she felt like something was watching her. From what she could see through the very weak light from the sun she tried to examine some of the trees sticking out of the sand. After looking at the leaves for a while she finally came to the startling and radical conclusion that she wasn''t even on earth. Her grumbling belly interrupted her disbelief and she got to work making a makeshift cooking pan with one concave stone and two sticks. After enjoying the slightly strange tasting bird eggs she decided upon what to do. Goal number one: Find Ricardo. He was perhaps the only human left wherever she was. Losing him in this dangerous environment would probably break her spirit. Grace lit a torch and after examining her surroundings a while she noticed two sets of tracks leading off from the campsite. She chose a random path and followed it. Chapter 6: Old Chevy Author note: Hey ya¡¯ll! I¡¯m back. I may or may not of gone crazy with the editing after I finally learned how to do so. Most of the things I edited only slightly cleaned up some scenes¡­ (like a word missing here or there or some clarifying information), probably most importantly was the fact that... *Important* I took out the feeling up being stared at by Grace in the last chapter and the fact that the creatures eyes in the water were all red which was noted by the creature and changed them to black. Also, the title of the novel was changed to something wa~y more fitting. *Important* Pretty seemingly minor changes (except the title) but were actually important for the future. The reason I changed the title was because after a bit of research I realized that my novels name is very similar to a movie (Possible future PR: You mean exactly...) This is not a fan-fiction of that movie! So after some thinking I changed the title to Mother World. Anyways, have a nice read! __ Ricardo was once again trekking through the jungle. To get around the the sheer cliff face he had to move through the forest. He''d already fallen once or twice in the dense underbrush. It was especially hard while still carrying the iron bird on the end of his stick. Luckily, he was good with his hands and strong from his 13 years experience of being a mechanic. He''d started when he was about 13 years old trying to fix up an old chevy with his dad. Eventually he''d gotten to the point where he could fix up just about anything he could get his hands on. On the side he''d tried piloting small airplanes as just a hobby. After he''d joined the NOAA, Ricardo had traveled on the Sublime to a variety of places like Hawaii, The Sea of Cortez and most recently the Arctic. Because of his skill sets he had eventually become the point man for whenever they had to operate the submersible that traveled around with the boat. The NOAA had recruited him when he was about 20 and he hadn''t regretted it yet. (Author note: You still don''t regret it man? Ricardo: Dammit I was getting to that!) For six years he had traveled around the world and loved living that type of lifestyle. His dad had always tried to drill a philosophy into Ricardo that he had carried around with him in life. "If it was worth doing, it was worth doing right." This was one of his guiding principles and he had only strayed away from it a few times. Of course, one of the other things his dad said was,"Do as I say, not as I do" but (hey) everyone has they''re faults. *I hope she makes it through!* Ricardo thought about grace lying like sleeping beauty in the shelter. Grace and him had been on the Sublime together for a while and he''d always just got along with her. Sometimes he made fun of her doll like proportions... along with everyone else. However, they were crew mates and that was all. Now however the importance he attached to her could not be any higher. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings."Why the heck is this jungle so damn thick here!" *Cra-cra-crack!* Ricardo swung the iron bird club to shred through the thick vegetation and stepped over a fallen tree. "This is taking much longer then I thought it would!" *ROOOoooaar!* A similar beast-like roar to yesterday exploded out from somewhere deep in the forest echoing throughout the trees. It rang out again but seemed to be interrupted halfway through its show of dominance. *It seemed...angry and in pain somehow on the second roar...Whatever could make that thing angry must be one mean creature!* Ricardo thought as he continued to plod through the forest. Eventually, he noted that he had began to climb in elevation indicating that he was going the right way. From the beach he''d barely been able to see the top of the cliff. But, from what he saw only small shrubs and other strange plants managed to root themselves in the rocky terrain leaving an unblocked view of the surrounded land. After about 30 minutes later of fighting mother nature, Ricardo finally broke through the jungle and breathed in a sigh of relief. *Huff* *Huff* he was bone tired after the hike. He had a vague feeling he was forgetting something important as he sat down against a small tree. "That took much longer then I thought it would... I got only one pair of clothes and in 2 days I''ve already managed to destroy it. Heheh" He had already managed to tear up the polo shirt and jeans he had on pretty good. Now was looking like a true survivalist now. After a brief rest Ricardo got up carefully keeping the iron bird away from him. He then walked over to the edge of the cliff and peeked over the edge. Beneath the cliff lay a field of mossy rocks that looked like it would do just fine for what he had in mind. Small waves worked around the edge of the field in an effort to get to the shore. With one last look at the strange thing, Ricardo unceremoniously whipped the stick throwing the bird off down below. A strange sound came out from the body of the bird as it hit the rocks at high velocity. It probably sounded somewhat like a can of spaghetti hitting something at max velocity. *Hahahah!! It worked!! I can''t wait to eat meat again. I feel like I''ve been here for a month.* After a long while of celebrating he eventually turned around to get a lay of the land. The jungle stretched beyond the horizon. On the opposite side of the cliff lay a winding river that entered the sea. The other end of it was lost somewhere in the infinite amount of trees and different elevations. After a while of getting a load of the view, Ricardo was about to hurry down the cliff and back to the iron bird, when something caught his attention from corner of his eye. Looking again he noticed that one of the highly elevated areas of the jungle terrain looked oddly unnatural compared to the other small hills. "What in the....It seems oddly reflective in the sun...?" Ricardo was reminded of the old chevy he had worked on in the past. Right after the first drop of rust removal had gotten to work, the sun had illuminated it in all of its tarnished glory. "Is that...metal? I''ll have to go get a look at it once Grace is better." Ricardo had this gut feeling that he had to go investigate it. (Author note: Or else the plot wouldn''t continue lol... xD) Eventually, Ricardo picked up the stick and turned towards the dense trees. As he was about to hurry and get dinner a thought surfaced unbidden in mind. A thought that was more important then he could possibly understand at the time. *Does that bestial roar happen every day around the same same time?* ...he was about to find out. Chapter 6.5: Bloody Bead Silence gripped the still night. Everything seemed to be holding its breath hiding away. Suddenly, the spell was broken by the passage of a mad figure followed by another. Ricardo was sprinting. Tearing blindly through the jungle he ran as fast as he ever had in his life. Fog billowed around him creating an exceptionally terrifying atmosphere. With no torch to light the way and only a muted sun to guide him he was in trouble. Excited hissing came from the shape in the fog behind him as it shadowed his every movement. He suddenly bounced off of a tree that didn¡¯t break under his forward momentum. --- 30 minutes before --- He quickly forgot the thought as he stepped back into the forest. Something seemed different in the air. Ricardo couldn''t quite place his finger on it, but something was different. *Ah.. thats it. The insects have stopped communicating.* A foreboding silence hung in the air even though everything seemed so safe with the sun high in the sky. "That tide, if there even is a tide may take the bird if I don''t hurry up. Speaking of which how can there be waves with no moon?" Only the unnatural silence answered his questions. "Aren''t tides created by the moon? I wonder if there are even any humans or intelligent species on this planet? And in the night how can there be no stars? Even if I was on another planet, which I could accept after seeing all these strange plants and exotic creatures, there would be stars at night right? ****, don''t even get me started about the lightbulb in the sky!" Ricardo filled in for the waiting jungle. Ricardo was starting to get on edge now. He felt something in his bones like the Sword of Damocles was hanging above his head. He hadn''t felt this much tension even in the submersible with 7 hours left to get to land. At least he was in his domain, his submersible. Currently, Ricardo was following his earlier path through the jungle so he was able to go much faster. Going down in elevation also helped. *Dap* He kicked a small pebble and the world went dark. Night had came without any forewarning. Fog billowed out from seemingly nowhere and Ricardo felt a sudden urge to flee. The sun which had offered so much security before took that away as if it had never existed. Ricardo felt like he was in a horror movie. *First rule of horror movies: Don''t go alone* "Oh....shit...." He murmured. Ricardo needed to get back to Grace. The thought of being with Grace near the fire, even though she was still probably unconsciousness, was much more important then doing anything else like recovering dinner. Squinting his eyes in a poor attempt to see, Ricardo used the stick in his hand feel where the path was as he tried to continue following it. *SSSsssss* A small hiss came from somewhere behind him, stopping him dead in his tracks. Ricardo slowly crouched down and lay prone on the ground. He peered through the fog looking for the source of the noise. Something was moving in the gloom. Its silhouette looked around for a while and then hissed some more. The shape of it was vaguely resembled a human. *Of course it''s coming closer...* Ricardo turned back around and began crawling as stealthily as possible. He had no idea where he was going and he knew the only way he''d get out of this forest would be through sheer luck or waiting it out until morning. However, getting away from some creature in the night was a priority. Small crunching noises moved closer towards him from behind and he managed to hear the small sound of sniffing. *What is it a dog?* Ricardo knew he''d have to make a bolt for it. Wherever it was. He gave one last glimpse behind him and felt his blood run cold. The creature was about 4 meters away from him and looked down upon him. All he could see were two completely black eyes staring down in the general direction of where he was. They seemed to radiate evil out like a constant rushing tsunami. Involuntarily, he let out small gasp of horror. Ricardo sprinted for all he was worth as the creature tried to catch up to him. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The hissing increased in volume as he ran through the dense foliage. *I can''t even outrun it!* The shadow seemed to be faster then the sprinting Ricardo. *Thunk!* He felt pain and then a sudden pressure in his head leaving a hazy feeling in his stomach. The next thing he knew was waking up disoriented. He felt his feet were dangling above the ground. Ricardo heard an extremely loud constant noise in his his ears as five daggers of pain dug in his face. He reached up and tried to remove whatever was causing the agony in his face. He felt a hand. The creature had grasped onto his face with its claws and was currently holding him in midair. Adrenaline pushed Ricardo out of the haze of his concussion as he tried to pull away the claws that were digging deeper into to him. In a last ditch effort to free himself Ricardo gripped both his hands to pummel the thing. Through his right hand he felt as he grasped onto something. The remain of the iron bird stick! *Donk* The club hits the shadow in the face catching it off guard. With a sickening squelch the claws left his face and it fell on its back. Ricardo felt his hands turn red hot and the smell of burning quickly entered the air as his survival instincts took over. He jumped on the thing and started beating its face into a bloody pulp. An indefinite amount of smashing later and Ricardo eventually stopped as he woke up from the haze that he had been in. The remains of the creatures head lay in pile of flat gore barely connected to the body of thing. It looked like a hairless stretched human with sharp claws on its hand and feet. It almost looked like it had had a large bucket of black paint recently dumped on it. Ricardo looked down at the ground to where the pieces of a club lay. They looked burnt and some were still on fire. While killing the creature he hadn''t been aware of what was going on so he hadn¡¯t noticed the random appearance of fire. *This has happened before hasn''t it...the stick that lit on fire had originally combusted just like this...* Ricardo was connecting the dots to the strange circumstance before that he had forgotten about afterwards. Ricardo felt an unknown compelling and has his eyes were drawn to a certain spot of remains of the creatures head. In the light of the burning stick pieces a small bloody bead rested slightly in the meat of the creature. It was slightly pale like a newborn and had very small black veins running throughout it like an eyeball. Involuntary, Ricardo''s hand moved towards it like it had mind of its own. *Gulp* Immediately, the strange lurching feeling he felt before appeared again in his head. A painful tingling sensation began to run throughout body and Ricardo fell to the ground. Eventually, the pain rose to a certain point and Ricardo lets out a muffled yelp. The painful sensation pooled at his fingertips. Through the torture he looked down at his fingers and noticed them glowing brighter and brighter. They looked like the tip of a metal rod that had been dipped in a blacksmiths forge. Almost unnoticed a small unintelligible whispering sound crept into Ricardo''s head. It rose in volume like it was being broadcasted from a television and the sound was being turned up. Before the whispering reached a certain volume, Ricardo manages to hear the sound of hissing around him. He pathetically rolled into the nearest bush and tried to cover his glowing fingers from the sniffers.
Author note: Sorry to break the tense moment but I''m starting starting school next week so updates may shrink down to one chapter every 4 days or so... I''m just happy I managed to get to this chapter up in so little time. Because... writing is seriously hard work! Chapter 7: Excitement Author note: First week back has been pretty easy so I had some time. Pretty excited to get to the actual plot of my story. Anyways, have a nice read!
Grace had made some pretty poor decisions in her life, but this had to take the cake. Walking into a creepy, foggy jungle with nothing but a torch in search of Ricardo was her first mistake. Stumbling and continuing on even though she felt the immediate sense of danger was her second mistake. (Author note: Cliche horror tropes ftw!) Not to mention that she¡¯d just had her wound recently cauterized. It was amazing that she was even able to walk on her left leg after two days. Back on Earth Grace had been valued for her smart, accurate ,and dedicated work on the job. She was prone to take her work outside of the job and research whatever she was interested in, in her tiny room aka The Cave. Outside of studying plants and animals she had lived a relatively lethargic lifestyle. Sleeping in and transforming into a coach potato were some of her favorite past-times. She just wasn''t cut out for making important decisions when it really mattered on the fly in such a dangerous place. Being assigned to work on the Sublime was really her first time traveling beyond the borders of her country and gaining real world experience. Finally, after a while she realized that just waiting at the campsite would of probably be for the best. She turned around without hesitation ready to get back to the comforting fire that had saved her life. Her eyes immediately fell upon three shadows that moved aimlessly in the fog. She could barely hear or see them through the gloom, yet their presences seemed to exude an aura of pure malevolence whenever her eyes swept past them. She slowly turned around to slink off as stealthily as possible. Grace moved quietly forwards leaving behind a trail of vapor in her wake. Wincing slightly she reached into her wrinkled and dirty lab coat to grab something. "Oh, fine" she whispered before she downed two painkillers from the medical supplies she had put on her person. To her right she managed to spot two more of the creatures. "What strangely terrifying creatures...They look almost mindless when they move through the fog." She turned left trusting in her poor sense of direction just to get away from the fog creatures. "They have a similar body shape to humans. I just hope they aren''t on the same level of intelligence as us." To combat her growing fear of the unknown she had decided to uncover the secrets behind the shadows that hunted her. She continued to creep to the right keeping her eyes on the two silhouettes. All of a sudden she heard a small hissing sound to her immediate left. Startled out of her scientific reverie, she glanced there only to see black eyes. She crouched in panic and searched for anywhere to hide. It was only about 3 meters away before she noticed a small hollow in a tree. The tree was extremely pungent inside and was filled with a wet rotting smell. Eventually, the black dripping creature arrived near her tree. The thing came close enough for her to reach her hand out and touch it. It swung its head around and continuously hissed and sniffed as if it knew she was there, but couldn''t detect her. After a while the black creature calmed down and wandered off in the direction of the others of its kind. "It should of seen me, however it seems to be as blind as a bat." *sniff* "And it probably relies heavily on its sense of smell and vaguely on its hearing. Their sense of smell and hearing probably aren''t as acute as a dogs or else it would be able to smell through the tree rot easily." Grace immediantly started searching around for any smelly plants that she could find. P.O.V: The Defense Chief *Ah, why does it have to happen tonight!* The chief thought as he looked at the encroaching fog. It followed and fought the air as it tried to move beyond the borders of the jungle. "Sir, all Nisse (Author note: Pronounced knee-say) of the guard division are in position." An approximately 1.5 meter creature reported in an extremely rigid tone. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. *hmmm* "Wait for my signal. We don''t know how many of those things will come out of the trees this time. If any of the infected come out we''ll be ready." The chief responded. He scratched his long beard and looked back at the diminutive creature. "Also, bring out some of the unique''s from the hunter division in case any powered infected''s come." "Roger chief!" The chief observed as the small Nisse ran off towards the beginning of a wide stone bridge that spanned across a calm black river. The small fellow eventually tapped onto the body of another of his kind and began rapidly talking. On the bridge assembled behind the two figures stood a group of roughly a fifty hardened warriors all armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons that had a distinct steam punk feel to them. They huddled behind torn up barricades made from metal and wood that looked they had seen better days. The messenger ran back to the Chief who stood on a raised platform of ancient stone. An uncomfortable amount of silence and desperate straining of the ears later and the first of many monsters came out of the fog hissing all the while. "Initiators, raise those shields! Here they come!" The chief of defense bellowed to the troops under his command. Grace P.O.V "This variant just won''t let up! Thank god it navigates almost as badly as me in this dense undergrowth." Grace limped through the forest followed by a crackling monster that occasionally ran into a tree. "This creature reminds me of the way hammerhead sharks detect their prey on the seafloor. (Author note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroreception) Luckily for them they don''t have any trees to navigate around. Hehe." She managed to wheeze out as she attempted to flee from the creature. "It must have some pretty strong electroreceptors in its head to sense me from so far off." Grace dodged a tree and continued her whispered banter to lighten the move from the reality of her situation. "Also I can''t believe how many electric organs it must have in its body!" Grace noted how electric currents seem to gather near its hands and some other parts of its body. Occasionally, an electric current connect outside of its body lighting up the surrounding darkness. She managed to outpace the creature that seemed determined to investigate the electrical signals coming from her body. Grace was feeling something she hadn¡¯t felt for a while. She knew she should be scared of some walking electric monster chasing her through the fog. Anyone in their right mind would. But, Grace was feeling something else. She was feeling excitement. She hadn¡¯t had this much excitement and curiosity when she had learned about the existence of dinosaurs when she was six. Her bubble was broken a brief moment later after her parents patiently explained that they hadn¡¯t been alive for millions of years. Twenty years later and she was being chased by strange creatures in foreign land. All she wanted to do study whatever hunted her. Grace hid her gleeful smile behind a frightened face. *Don¡¯t want to confuse the monsters in case they are intelligent and hear me laughing at them!* Grace thought as she outpaced the electric creature. Eventually she managed to outpace the creature to where she could only barely here its occasional thumping as it hit a tree every now and then. After a while of gimping through the smoke and something appeared in the distance through the trees. ¡°Light? Will I finally get out of this dark and dreary place?¡± She was half happy and half remorseful as she left the domain of the creatures. As she approached closer towards the light. The sound of yelling and bloodletting. It was the sound of battle. She broke through the tree line and immediately saw a stone bridge. Immediately afterwards, an extreme pain developed in the center of brain.
Author Question: Am I switching P.O.V''s too much or is it just fine?