new story (original)
I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while now, but never got around to starting it. Now, since Sora's asleep, I haven't slept yet, and I can't concentrate on my school work, I figured, "what the hell?" XD So, here you have it:
Title: Gender
Rating: R to be on the safe side
Genre: sci-fi/futuristic, horror
Summary: Do you know why the human race as two genders? (I have a much longer summary, but it spoils half the story XD so screw that)
Notes: This is SO out of my comfort zone ^^;;; I've never been comfortable with first-person, I do NOT write futuristic settings, I BARELY tolerate sci-fi, and I suck at horror. so... this oughtta be interesting. XDDD
I will never forget the day my brother left and didn't come back. The day the Nightmares took him. I have no proof of this, of course, but I know in my heart that that's what happened. Nothing else would have forced us apart.
But I start in the middle, when I suppose I should start at the beginning.
My name is Phi, and my brother, Xiah, and I were humanity's last hope. I suppose that falls to me, now, but that's another matter entirely...
----
It was cold. That was the first thing that tipped us off that something was wrong; Earth hasn't been cold, anywhere, since the Fall. You see, by the time my twin brother and I were born, the human race had already ripped apart the ozone layer, far beyond repair. It fell away, leaving our world exposed and dying. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Earth had been nudged slightly out of its old orbit, and while we weren't close enough to the Sun to burn up, it did eliminate those pesky "winters". It eliminated all the seasons except summer, really. The Earth's temperature never went below eighty degrees Fahrenheit again.
Those who were smart enough to go underground were the only survivors.
Eventually, the scientists created a dome on the surface. I'm not sure how. No one is, really. It's part of ancient history to us, and as it was never well documented, its origins are just as much a mystery to us as the Pyramids and the lost city of Atlantis are to you. All we know is that it started with one, under water, in a place that used to be called "Japan". From that sunken island nation, all but annihilated by the waves that came when the Earth shifted, came our world's salvation.
Their idea caught like wildfire, and the ancient people all over the world erected domes of their own. How they heard about it is another mystery, since as far as I know, all forms of electronic communication had long since died. Anyway, eventually, these domes were improved upon and connected, and by the time Xiah and I came into the world, it was already protected by an artificial ozone; a glass bubble that allowed us to resume life as if nothing had happened.
Human beings were still amazingly resilient then, before the Nightmares came.
As I said, first came the cold. To people in the old days who lived in what my text books called "temperate" areas, it probably wouldn't have been that bad, but when the temperature dropped to sixty-five, I wanted to cry. I was so cold. My brother tried to warm me up, but his hands felt like icicles to me, and for the first time since our birth sixteen years previous, I shied away from him.
"Z," I whined, using a nickname I'd forced on him when we were small, "why is it so cold?"
He shook his head, golden eyes sad, and stroked my hair. "I don't know, Pookie."
I hated that nickname. But he hated being called Z, so I supposed it was fair, and I never complained. Now, I would give anything to hear that silly endearment again.
There was a horrible wail outside, and I immediately leaped into Xiah's arms, trembling from far more than the sudden temperature drop. Damn it! It wasn't supposed to be this way! I was always the strong one. I protected him. In that moment, though, as the wail gave way to screaming, seeming to roll against our tiny apartment like the waves that had swallowed Japan whole in the old days, I was afraid.
Fights, I could handle. Bugs, wild animals, criminals who tried to take advantage of us... They were easy to mop the floor with. I had never been very good at keeping up my bravado in the face of the unseen, however, and that first wave was exactly that.
They came at us from inside our heads, clawing their way out. The weak ones were the first to go, and the things that came out of them...! If I was afraid of this onrush of pain and fear that ripped our neighbors apart from the inside, it was nothing compared to what I felt when the first one took shape.
These were things that shouldn't have existed...but did. Creatures that once only took shape in the twisted imaginations of mankind were suddenly given life, flesh...and nasty, terrifying claws and teeth. I cried out and my brother and I shrank back from the window as the thing charged us. It came straight through the wall, as if it wasn't even there, and I wanted to run, but I seemed to be rooted to the floor.
Xiah was in a similar predicament; I could feel his muscles twitching against my back as he fought to free himself from the invisible shackles that bound him. The freezing cold chains of fear. The thing loomed over us, fangs dripping with something that ate through the floor when it made contact, and its single red eye watching us hungrily.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared up at what I was sure would be my doom. This thing was going to swallow us both whole, and would probably still have room to spare.
Suddenly, I felt Xiah's big hands on my shoulders, and a fire spread through my chest. I wasn't ready to die yet. There were too many things I hadn't done... things I'd never said... All our lives, I'd never even told my brother that I loved him. It just wasn't something we said in our family, but the crushing need to do so swelled up within me as I drew myself up to my full height of 5'5" and boldly gazed straight into the creature's eye.
My brother squeezed my shoulders lightly, and then his hands dropped to hold mine, and it suddenly felt as if the fire exploded out of me, through me, from both of us. We would not die like this! Not by the hand - or rather, warped claw...thing - of this beast! I will never be sure what gave us the strength, but we stood our ground out of bravery in that moment, not bound to the spot like frightened deer, and something passed between us.
The heat soaked into my body from Xiah's, gathered in my chest, and then raged outward in a brilliant light that nearly left us both blind. I flinched, feeling my brother's hand cover my eyes before my own could, and listened to the creature let out a howl that rattled my bones and made me shake again.
When it was over and we could see, I glanced around fearfully, waiting for the beast to attack, but it was gone. Dead. All that remained was a smoldering scorch mark on my bedroom floor that I distantly registered I did not want to try to clean up.
"Wha-" Before Xiah could finish a single word, there was a rustling from behind us, and we spun, instantly on guard.
It was our mother.
"Xiah! Phi! Thank goodness you're alright!" She looked frazzled, which was a state I'd never seen the stately woman in before, but I didn't care to dwell on it. I ran to her, needing to feel her arms around me, even though I'd outgrown such a childish dependence on my parents years before.
"Yuma!" I cried, clinging to her.
To her credit, my mother only held me, stroking my hair. "Shhh... It's alright, Phi. My sweet, darling baby girl. It's okay. I'm here." I felt, rather than saw, her glance up at Xiah. She was taller than me, but at nearly 6'3", Xiah easily towered over both of us. "What happened? I thought for sure one of those things out there got you two!"
"So did we," he replied softly, sounding perplexed. "I don't know what happened..."
"I don't care what happened!" I whined petulantly, giving up on my pride altogether for the time being. "Just as long as it doesn't happen again!"
My mother sighed faintly, and I stiffened. She only sighed when she was about to say something she knew the other party didn't want to hear.
"...What, Yuma?"
"Those things have overrun the city," she murmured, and I was shocked to hear fear, grief, even the onset of tears in her voice. My mother was my pillar of strength, the idol from which I'd learned to stand on my own and never give in to my emotions. She couldn't break down! "Y-your father..."
"What about him?" Xiah was tense. I didn't need to look at him or even be near him to know that. Even before he spoke, words clipped and voice subdued, I knew he was frightened, and for his sake, I struggled to pull myself together. If Yuma was barely composed and Xiah was near his breaking point, someone needed to be the strong one for them.
"He's dead."
Whatever composure I'd managed to gather was slaughtered by those two simple words, and as my mother finally gave in to tears for the first time in my life, and my brother slumped bonelessly to the floor in shock, I turned away from them both and vomited.
Looking back, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I'd known then that it was only the beginning.
Title: Gender
Rating: R to be on the safe side
Genre: sci-fi/futuristic, horror
Summary: Do you know why the human race as two genders? (I have a much longer summary, but it spoils half the story XD so screw that)
Notes: This is SO out of my comfort zone ^^;;; I've never been comfortable with first-person, I do NOT write futuristic settings, I BARELY tolerate sci-fi, and I suck at horror. so... this oughtta be interesting. XDDD
I will never forget the day my brother left and didn't come back. The day the Nightmares took him. I have no proof of this, of course, but I know in my heart that that's what happened. Nothing else would have forced us apart.
But I start in the middle, when I suppose I should start at the beginning.
My name is Phi, and my brother, Xiah, and I were humanity's last hope. I suppose that falls to me, now, but that's another matter entirely...
----
It was cold. That was the first thing that tipped us off that something was wrong; Earth hasn't been cold, anywhere, since the Fall. You see, by the time my twin brother and I were born, the human race had already ripped apart the ozone layer, far beyond repair. It fell away, leaving our world exposed and dying. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Earth had been nudged slightly out of its old orbit, and while we weren't close enough to the Sun to burn up, it did eliminate those pesky "winters". It eliminated all the seasons except summer, really. The Earth's temperature never went below eighty degrees Fahrenheit again.
Those who were smart enough to go underground were the only survivors.
Eventually, the scientists created a dome on the surface. I'm not sure how. No one is, really. It's part of ancient history to us, and as it was never well documented, its origins are just as much a mystery to us as the Pyramids and the lost city of Atlantis are to you. All we know is that it started with one, under water, in a place that used to be called "Japan". From that sunken island nation, all but annihilated by the waves that came when the Earth shifted, came our world's salvation.
Their idea caught like wildfire, and the ancient people all over the world erected domes of their own. How they heard about it is another mystery, since as far as I know, all forms of electronic communication had long since died. Anyway, eventually, these domes were improved upon and connected, and by the time Xiah and I came into the world, it was already protected by an artificial ozone; a glass bubble that allowed us to resume life as if nothing had happened.
Human beings were still amazingly resilient then, before the Nightmares came.
As I said, first came the cold. To people in the old days who lived in what my text books called "temperate" areas, it probably wouldn't have been that bad, but when the temperature dropped to sixty-five, I wanted to cry. I was so cold. My brother tried to warm me up, but his hands felt like icicles to me, and for the first time since our birth sixteen years previous, I shied away from him.
"Z," I whined, using a nickname I'd forced on him when we were small, "why is it so cold?"
He shook his head, golden eyes sad, and stroked my hair. "I don't know, Pookie."
I hated that nickname. But he hated being called Z, so I supposed it was fair, and I never complained. Now, I would give anything to hear that silly endearment again.
There was a horrible wail outside, and I immediately leaped into Xiah's arms, trembling from far more than the sudden temperature drop. Damn it! It wasn't supposed to be this way! I was always the strong one. I protected him. In that moment, though, as the wail gave way to screaming, seeming to roll against our tiny apartment like the waves that had swallowed Japan whole in the old days, I was afraid.
Fights, I could handle. Bugs, wild animals, criminals who tried to take advantage of us... They were easy to mop the floor with. I had never been very good at keeping up my bravado in the face of the unseen, however, and that first wave was exactly that.
They came at us from inside our heads, clawing their way out. The weak ones were the first to go, and the things that came out of them...! If I was afraid of this onrush of pain and fear that ripped our neighbors apart from the inside, it was nothing compared to what I felt when the first one took shape.
These were things that shouldn't have existed...but did. Creatures that once only took shape in the twisted imaginations of mankind were suddenly given life, flesh...and nasty, terrifying claws and teeth. I cried out and my brother and I shrank back from the window as the thing charged us. It came straight through the wall, as if it wasn't even there, and I wanted to run, but I seemed to be rooted to the floor.
Xiah was in a similar predicament; I could feel his muscles twitching against my back as he fought to free himself from the invisible shackles that bound him. The freezing cold chains of fear. The thing loomed over us, fangs dripping with something that ate through the floor when it made contact, and its single red eye watching us hungrily.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared up at what I was sure would be my doom. This thing was going to swallow us both whole, and would probably still have room to spare.
Suddenly, I felt Xiah's big hands on my shoulders, and a fire spread through my chest. I wasn't ready to die yet. There were too many things I hadn't done... things I'd never said... All our lives, I'd never even told my brother that I loved him. It just wasn't something we said in our family, but the crushing need to do so swelled up within me as I drew myself up to my full height of 5'5" and boldly gazed straight into the creature's eye.
My brother squeezed my shoulders lightly, and then his hands dropped to hold mine, and it suddenly felt as if the fire exploded out of me, through me, from both of us. We would not die like this! Not by the hand - or rather, warped claw...thing - of this beast! I will never be sure what gave us the strength, but we stood our ground out of bravery in that moment, not bound to the spot like frightened deer, and something passed between us.
The heat soaked into my body from Xiah's, gathered in my chest, and then raged outward in a brilliant light that nearly left us both blind. I flinched, feeling my brother's hand cover my eyes before my own could, and listened to the creature let out a howl that rattled my bones and made me shake again.
When it was over and we could see, I glanced around fearfully, waiting for the beast to attack, but it was gone. Dead. All that remained was a smoldering scorch mark on my bedroom floor that I distantly registered I did not want to try to clean up.
"Wha-" Before Xiah could finish a single word, there was a rustling from behind us, and we spun, instantly on guard.
It was our mother.
"Xiah! Phi! Thank goodness you're alright!" She looked frazzled, which was a state I'd never seen the stately woman in before, but I didn't care to dwell on it. I ran to her, needing to feel her arms around me, even though I'd outgrown such a childish dependence on my parents years before.
"Yuma!" I cried, clinging to her.
To her credit, my mother only held me, stroking my hair. "Shhh... It's alright, Phi. My sweet, darling baby girl. It's okay. I'm here." I felt, rather than saw, her glance up at Xiah. She was taller than me, but at nearly 6'3", Xiah easily towered over both of us. "What happened? I thought for sure one of those things out there got you two!"
"So did we," he replied softly, sounding perplexed. "I don't know what happened..."
"I don't care what happened!" I whined petulantly, giving up on my pride altogether for the time being. "Just as long as it doesn't happen again!"
My mother sighed faintly, and I stiffened. She only sighed when she was about to say something she knew the other party didn't want to hear.
"...What, Yuma?"
"Those things have overrun the city," she murmured, and I was shocked to hear fear, grief, even the onset of tears in her voice. My mother was my pillar of strength, the idol from which I'd learned to stand on my own and never give in to my emotions. She couldn't break down! "Y-your father..."
"What about him?" Xiah was tense. I didn't need to look at him or even be near him to know that. Even before he spoke, words clipped and voice subdued, I knew he was frightened, and for his sake, I struggled to pull myself together. If Yuma was barely composed and Xiah was near his breaking point, someone needed to be the strong one for them.
"He's dead."
Whatever composure I'd managed to gather was slaughtered by those two simple words, and as my mother finally gave in to tears for the first time in my life, and my brother slumped bonelessly to the floor in shock, I turned away from them both and vomited.
Looking back, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I'd known then that it was only the beginning.