Scratch

@bananaman99 I don't like anything I write so I try and write something better each time
(So far this hasn't worked)

Last edited by Wickimen (2012-02-22 21:06:19)

I like it

Wickimen wrote:

luiysia wrote:

He was around fifteen, unattainable mature age it seemed to all the Usuals who had forgotten they had once been older.

That sentence seemed kinda weird.

Most sentences involving the omgsosecret concept do

Maybe edit it so it doesn't seem like an error?

I like it!  Can't wait to see where this will go!

Here it is, unreworked, so it's still terrible as of right now

"That's odd," said Will, frowning. "It's never been locked before. It can't be locked. It's never been before." He rattled the handle, which stayed put. "Can't it...?"

"Maybe if we go for a walk and come back, it'll be open when we get back," Eyre said hopefully.

Quick interjection from me--I know, horrible awkward-sounding repetitive dialogue, this will NOT be in the final reworked version, I wrote it while half-asleep. Don't bother editing it if you are editing, I'm already in the process of that

"Maybe," Will answered, with a troubled glance at the door.

They were both quiet as they went. Walking through town always did bother him. Besides the Arcade, in all its glory, and the dilapidated little library, there was not much to see: only the Cinema, where movies--two-hour long thrilling slaughter-fests--were shown occasionally; a few deserted little dirty buildings that might have been in use before the disaster; and the apartments where the inhabitants of the city all lived in their own rooms.

The apartments, especially, he hated: those neat cream-white cubes with floral-patterned curtains in windows and green lawn outside. Normal apartments, it seemed, but the windows were never dirty, and the curtains hung like stiff ramrods. The lawn was cut painfully short and untouched--it had none of the familiar worn places where shoes were commonly tread, no muddy gaps.

And he hated them. He thought of a little blue house with white trim, overgrown grass and weather-beaten muddy boots out on the porch. The porch--he thought of a saucer of milk always left outside there, for a stray cat with charcoal gray fur and bright lemon-colored eyes, and a funny little half-smile flitted across his face. Thumbs, he had called her, because of the extra toe on each paw...

He jolted, realizing he had remembered something, but at once the rest of the memory faded away and he was only left with the horribly perfect apartments in front of him.

"Let's go back to the library," Will said, glaring at the apartments with distaste. "Maybe it's open again."

"Okay," Eyre agreed, tugging on the tip of her aviator cap. "I hope so." She was preoccupied herself and barely noticed the harsh edge in his voice.

They turned back around the corner of the road and made their way past the Cinema again. Will walked ahead, his pace suddenly brisk. Something was wrong. Smoke, a bit like the repugnant odor of cigarettes he had recalled many years ago, but different, thicker, it stung his eyes and throat... His eyes widened in shock.

The library was burning.

Obviously, the Administration had knocked it down beforehand, reduced it to a crush pile of bricks and wood and roof tiles, but they couldn't leave that dreadful mess there, so they had attempted to burn it. If only bright flames had consumed it hungrily, leaping and around and taking it quickly. It might have all been over by the time they had arrived. But the morning's rain had left the wood damp and it just smoldered there, slowly being charred beyond recognition. The books and shelves had already, for the most part, been reduced to piles of ash.

"Stop!" Will yelled, and took off at a run towards the ruins, Eyre close behind. A group of Usuals were milling about watching the library burn. One caught Will's arm.

"Hey, what're you doing, moron? Don't you know that's a demolition site?"

Will struggled to get his arm free, but the boy was scowling impatiently at him now.

"What's the matter with you? It's been on the Arcade bulletin for hours."

"Has it?" Will said bleakly.

"Will," Eyre began.

The Usual boy let go of him. "This is boring, anyway. It's nothing like fire in the movies. Wait, hey!" he added in surprise, as Will took off at a run. Second time I used 'took off at a run', I know. I was half-asleep. I'll edit later

A few weak flames that had been sputtering out had gotten stronger and were uncomfortably hot and close, but he ignored them, scanning the ruins for any books, anything left behind. The smoke made his eyes stream and hacking coughs expel from his throat, and he knew it was not possible to burn to death, but asphyxiation was another matter altogether.

"Will, get out of there!" yelled Eyre.

I'm working on the dialogue got it
I didn't get much sleep the last couple of nights and this was written lateee ish

" 'Will'?" someone repeated.

Oh the plot thickens

The tip of his pant leg caught fire and he batted it out with his own bare hands. The pain was horrible, charring his flesh and spilling blood, but almost at once the skin cells rapidly sealed over, healing the burn and leaving the skin only slightly whiter than normal. He stood shakily, his breathing a sharp rasp, and looked around with blurred sight for a book--any book--

One of the Administration team yanked him away. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

Will shook him away.

"You're insane."

Will walked back to the group. He knew the people from the Administration team were still staring after him.

"Are you okay?" Eyre said nervously. "That was crazy. You can't save any of the books, you know. It doesn't matter... we've read them all anyway... we'll..."

But he ignored her. Books, the only thing that he felt could be considered real after the disaster, were gone. Completely. And as far as he knew, forever.

Wow, that was dramatic.
Okay... major train wreck of a first chapter. This is what goes through my head as I read it:
Derp random tirade about the number 13 what was that about
Oh ominous we've got some great unneeded descriptions there
Children who read at the library and we find some random sheet music, bad hints about later things to come that make absolutely no sense
And now there's some very blunt concise stuff no one cares about, skim through that, and then whoopdedo they're late for breakfast my my who cares
And now the door is locked how ominous, so they go for a walk and Will has some violent feelings toward some apartment buildings and yay he remembered something for the zillionth time! What's wrong with him? Isn't he supposed to be eleven, as I had to keep pressing upon everyone
But what's this, Will gets all emo and runs into a fire to rescue books
And I sort of reveal the concept but not exactly
It makes no sense and leaves the reader blank
If you don't know what the concept is from my spoilers post were you able to figure out they can regenerate? (Lizardlike DNA.) Probably not. I did a horrible job executing that.
Now he ends up with this dramatic line about books being gone forever and ladedah no one cares and I never returned to the whole unluckiness of 13 thing because I felt it would make it worse than it already would be
I am aware of all the stuff above
This is a very rough draft of horribleness
Anything else? Edits much appreciated

Last edited by Wickimen (2012-02-23 19:14:07)

What if he realizes that he regenerates and starts sorting through all the rubble?
And what if they get punished for being late for breakfast and someone notices their eye color?
Just trying to answer some of your plot twists above. 

What if the address of the library was 13 (Road Name)?

Wickimen wrote:

Wow you have ESP O_O
I was actually considering that

Dang 60 second rule

AHAHAHA I HAVE TELEPATHiC ABILITIES.
No, not really.    I was just trying to figure out how 13 could come back into it.

veggieman001 wrote:

i bet he has thirteen fingers on his right hand or something !!

Totally

Right this chapter was so terrible I could hear it screeching as it careened over the edge so I'll be doing lots of rewriting
Stay tuned

jslomba wrote:

have something weird happen on chapter 13

Quite possibly

PlutoIsHades wrote:

Oh, what if the music is like Mozart's 13 something and Beethoven's 13 something?

Nice idea - maybe you could have the story progression kind of like Beethoven's 13th?

THE REVISED COMPLETE FIRST CHAPTER. ZOMG. 

13

It seemed to Will that that number, 13, had followed him around like a curse for bad luck for almost two hundred years. It was said, of course, that there was no need for any sort of fear anymore, but old superstitions never did seem to fade. Everyone had a number; that was the way of things. They were so much simpler and more structured than cumbersome names. He himself was not actually called Will, but 13, if anybody besides Eyre talked to him. Names were not forbidden but discouraged, so he kept his own borrowed name, William, hidden. He had to keep many things hidden, including his pale blue eyes, an unlucky and unwanted defect, under the brim of an old gray cap.

The morning was rainy and dark. A pale orange glow from the streetlights spilled down the wet cobblestone pavement. Arcade, read the dull flickering red letters on the sign of the dingy bring building, alongside the number 10 in glowing yellow. Buildings were also numbered. Even in the torrential downpour, none of the group waiting outside left. They jabbered incessantly and waited with impatience to be left inside. Will only watched them, lingering across the alleyway.

To the casual observer, it would seem that this group was a jumble of cultures, their clothing an assortment of coats and shoes of all kinds. People wore Victorian top hats, t-shirts, battered sneakers and vintage blazers all at once. But if one looked closer, they would see only young faces with noses and foreheads curved in the same way, vapid brown eyes of the same shape and expression, the same pale complexions, the same brown hair of a common length, and the same accents. For everybody was exactly alike.

In the distance the Bell tolled six times, signifying that it was six o'clock. The doors to the Arcade opened, allowing the group to shove their way inside, laughing and exchanging conversation with increasing rapidity.

When they had all disappeared into the Arcade, Will was joined by a girl whose hair and eyes were concealed by an aviator's cap and goggles.

"Hello, Eyre."

"Hi, Will." She wiped away the fog and rainwater smearing her goggles. "Let's go, then."

The library was a considerable distance away, along the line where the road met the railing separating the city from endless ocean. The walk through town always did bother Will. Besides the Arcade and the dilapidated little library, there was not much to see: only the Cinema, where movies--two-hour long thrilling slaughter fests--were shown occasionally; a few deserted little buildings that might have been in use before the disaster; fields of wheat; the ugly factories; and the apartments where the inhabitants of the town all lived in their own separate rooms.

The apartments, especially, he hated: those neat pale-cream cube blocks with floral-patterned curtains and green lawn outside. Normal apartments, it appeared, but the glass window panes were never dirty, and the curtains hung as stiffly as rods. The lawn was cut painfully short and was untouched--it had none of the familiar worn places where shoes often tread, no muddy gaps.

And he hated them. He thought of a little blue house with white trim, overgrown grass and weather-beaten muddy boots out on the porch. He had always left a saucer of milk outside on that porch, for the stray cat with charcoal-gray fur and bright lemon-colored eyes. A funny half-smile flitted over his face. Thumbs, he had called her, because of the extra toe on each paw...

He jolted suddenly, realizing he had remembered something, but at once the rest of the memory dissolved and he was staring at the sunken library in front of him.

They pushed through the doors and walked in, their wet shoes clicking on the old hardwood floor. Water dripping from the slick surface of Eyre's brown leather coat collected in a puddle on the ground.

Inside, the library smelled strongly of dust and old paper. It was hard to believe that a little over two centuries ago, many people had gone to libraries almost as frequently as they did.

Those books were the only window they had into how life used to be, before the disaster. Recalling his own memories was to Will like recalling the vaguest memories of someone else's life. He could not remember anything past the age of eleven, or if he had once been older than he was now. His recollections even then were very limited. Books were important; their names and knowledge came from books; but a book did not live forever, but Will and Eyre were careful to preserve them.

All of the books were needed. Will liked Shakespeare's writing, and Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's, but they read them all. Sometimes they helped Will remember things from the time before the disaster. Strange, alien-sounding words, phrases, descriptions of both the familiar and unfamiliar somehow connected in his mind. He had never in his current memory, for example, smelled cigarette smoke, but the term stirred something in his brain and allowed the ghost of a burning sensation to enter his nostrils. While reading a thick little brown volume by Jack London, another, more pleasant smell resurfaced: pine trees. It was associated with what he supposed was a happy day, a day mentioned in several books--a day called Christmas.

Even the dictionary and encyclopedia had to be carefully perused. Though they were considerably duller than most of the books, they contained by far the most knowledge. At the moment, Eyre was poring over a copy of the dictionary, and commented aloud every so often about strange words starting with the letter q. She had unfastened her aviator cap, and her close-cropped hair stuck up in all directions like a bright red porcupine. Anybody could plainly see that her eyes were green.

Will didn't bother to warn her about being more careful. Besides them, nobody had entered the library for about two centuries. And why should they? Next to the Arcade, with all its gleaming brilliance inside, a library was nothing. The Arcade was a paradise, full of incredible games to play all day with no work or school to care about.

Being Unusuals, as was the popular term, Will and Eyre were not allowed in the Arcade. In the beginning, when it didn't matter very much, they used to sneak in anyway. With hats and sunglasses, they could pass for being Usual while wearing hats and sunglasses--the genetic alteration had worked on them for the most part, freezing them at about eleven or twelve years old forever, but leaving their eyes and hair the same.

Then a third Unusual--16--with whom they did not associate, had been caught and turned into the Sovereign's Administration. He was never seen again.

After that, Will and Eyre were more cautious.

They did not know where the other Unusuals went while the others stayed in the Arcade for hours. There had been at least fifty to begin with, but they had all gradually vanished throughout the years. Unusuals had been turned in for the crime of a different eye color, without violating any other rule. Will and Eyre had gone unnoticed by the carefree Usual people, who did not know or care why the two of them no longer visited the Arcade. 13 and 29 were not missed.

Will found it funny, even after all these years, that everyone remembered everybody else's number. He knew that before, people must have remembered others' name, which, said the Administration, was very confusing. Some people had the same names. Names were dull and used; a number was unique and only applied to you.

That was true, thought Will, but somehow names were better and different in a way he could not explain. The characters and authors of books never had numbers instead of names.

He settled himself into a musty, sloped chair with a copy of Hamlet and began to read, as he had dozens of times before. The words were magic in that old library. He was limited to the physical, emotional and mental capacity of an eleven-year-old, and stumbled over a few gnarled and complicated sentences, but soon was swept up in the play. He scarcely minded the most confusing parts; the story caught him within its pages like only the best authors' words could go. It allowed him to forget, for the time being, that the Sovereign had ever existed.

"Quid pro quo," Eyre called out abruptly.

"Interesting," said Will, though he felt a slight stab of frustration with her for interrupting Hamlet. "What's it mean?"

" 'One thing in return for another.' Cool."

"Yeah...," he said absentmindedly. Try as he might, he couldn't quite return to Hamlet after that. Instead, he focused on the windows. Pale light was seeping through the shutters, though the rain was still bucketing down. Eyre extinguished the candle she had been reading by and shoved the remaining stub of wax deep into the pocket of her coat.

"It'll be eight o'clock soon. We should go."

"All right." Will closed his book and returned it to its proper place, a lonely shelf reserved for the few paperback copies of Shakespeare's works. He had done this perhaps thousands of unaccounted-for times, but this time he accidentally pushed the book against the back panel too hard and too far. It caved in and revealed a hollow dark space behind.

He froze. "Eyre?"

"Yes?" she said, glancing up.

"Come look at this." He pushed on the panel with his hand. It fell down. Lying down inside were stacks of booklets--big flat glossy covers stapled over paper. They were like magazines but too big, like picture books but too thin. He pulled a few from one stack.

"What's Franz Liszt?"

"I don't know," Eyre said, stepping closer to better examine the booklets.

Will gingerly lifted a whole stack of them and flipped through one. He was greeted by the inviting rustle of crackly yellow pages and rising dust. The pages were covered with interesting titles, lines and odd symbols. He didn't completely recognize them, but...

"Beethoven," said Eyre, reading aloud from the books. "Mozart."

The words struck him as familiar. Will thumbed through more pages. Once, Eyre had found a drawer full of maps, but they hadn't discovered anything new for several years. The booklets were an exciting find. He scrutinized the pages and had a sudden mental image of long fingers--his own?--flying across black-and-white keys. Disjointed soft sounds floated through his mind. They were part of the same song, but he only remembered bits and pieces.

He became conscious it was called "piano".

"It's sheet music."

Eyre's eyes lit up. She seemed to understand. "Really? I don't know any music notes," she said with regret.

"I... think I know a few," Will said hesitantly. He placed a finger on one line, tracing the notes and humming as he went along. The notes came to him with shocking ease, and he was amazed he had not remembered them before. He was able to figure out what the song may have sounded like--almost, almost--but it was not enough, he would need a piano just to come close.

"Hey, what's that?" Eyre's hand in its black woolen glove blocked Will's view of the page.

"It looks like someone owned it and wrote notes," he said. There were tangled masses of cursive in which the person had jotted things like, "Always get that part wrong" or "Dec 7, practice this piece for recital".

"Oh," said Eyre, clearly disappointed, but Will was fascinated. He leaned against the wall and searched for every penciled word, every dog-eared page, every strawberry jelly thumbprint. Eyre, chin propped in hand, watched him for a moment, picked up the dictionary, then grew bored and turned to the children's section for something more entertaining.

Upon the eight faint clangs of the Bell, Eyre hastily stuck the book back on the shelf, jamming her aviator cap and goggles back on, and Will brought the sheet music with him.

The gatekeeper stopped them as they went into the pavilion for breakfast. "Hang on, what's that?" he asked, gesturing to the booklets in Will's hand.

"Just something from the library," Eyre said shortly, looking up at him.

The gatekeeper, being part of the Administration, was about fifteen, much older than the general population. His blank brown eyes tinged on puzzlement. "I don't think those are supposed to leave the library, are they?"

"I thought we could borrow anything from the library," Will said, staring at the ground so that his eyes weren't noticed. Eyre's were obscured enough by the goggles.

"That is true, but..." The gatekeeper shrugged. "The Administration wouldn't like it. Hand them over. We'll take them back to the library ourselves after inspection."

Will knew better than to argue. He handed over the sheet music, not liking to see them passed into the gatekeeper's hands.

"What was that about?" Eyre wondered aloud, taking a tray of breakfast. The Administration had set up factories that produced nutritional, artificial food, which they ate for all three meals of the day. Will thought wistfully of hot apple pie and warm spaghetti, things he remembered from before.

"No clue," he answered, picking up a tray for himself.



The afternoon came, slate-gray and dreary. It was only raining lightly and the ocean just beyond the railing was no longer tempestuous. After lunch, a group of Usuals were milling around outside the library.

"What're they doing?" Will said, frowning. "Why aren't they in the Arcade?"

"I don't know..."

They walked up the crumbling steps, glancing uneasily at the Usuals, and tried to open the door. It was locked.

"What're you doing?" one of the Usual boys demanded. "Don't you know that's a demolition site?"

"A demolition site?" Will repeated, not fully grasping.

"It's been on the Arcade bulletin since after breakfast," the boy said.

"Has it?" Will asked bleakly.

"Well, yeah. Where've you been? And who are you, anyway? I don't think I've seen you at the Arcade."

Will didn't respond. He and Eyre exchanged glances.

"What did the bulletin say?" Eyre asked.

"I don't remember. It's gonna get wrecked sometime today though. They already took the books."

Will's mind raced. Took the books? Had the books been burned, or just moved away? It was impossible to tell with the Administration. Two hundred years and they had left the library untouched. But now...

He studied the moss growing through the cracks in the bricks. "Anything else?" he asked quietly.

The Usuals had no helpful answers. Instead they peppered Will and Eyre with inquiries concerning how they felt about the new shooter game's graphics. They both carefully avoiding directly answering these questions, and kept polite smiles pasted on their faces the whole time. Finally, the Usuals became tired of the lack of violent demolition, and trailed back into the Arcade looking disappointed.

Will and Eyre looked at the library, so old and weary. It had always been bound to happen, they knew, but they never really expected that it would happen so suddenly. They didn't say anything to each other, simple sat on the front steps and waited over the long hours as it grew dark and a tangerine moon shrouded in dark storm clouds rose over the last lonely town on Earth.

The team from the Administration came close to midnight and advised Will and Eyre to go back to their apartments. They stood far away on the street, knowing that it was impossible to burn to death, but asphyxiation was another matter.

First they crushed the empty library with a wrecking ball, reducing it to a pile of bricks and wood. Then they tried to set fire to it, to let bright flames leap over it and consume it hungrily, but the rain had left it damp. It smoldered there, slowly being charred beyond recognition. Will and Eyre watched the whole time, to the very last minute, until the library, building number 13, was no more.

Last edited by Wickimen (2012-02-24 21:42:31)

Thanks  ^^
Lolz, in a can?