Scratch

bananaman114 wrote:

Forgive the necrobump, young gents
but I have something to write and I wish to write it here


He had cried himself to sleep that night. His dreams were littered with the dying faces of his friends, their screams seeming to echo through the dim room. 'Soon', he thought, 'everyone in the country will be dead. Including me. And Andrea. I wonder what it's like to die?' His thoughts were all over the place.  They came and went as they so chose, and he wasn't entirely about to try and stop them either.
*Darren White was just an ordinary boy, who lead a very ordinary little life, and had a crush on a very ordinary girl named Andrea. But with a sweeping red cloud came a change in his life- and a drastic one at that. This cloud would soon expand into a fiery mass and destroy everyone in the country.
   'I shouldn't have slept.' He thought sadly. 'Only few more hours on this miserable Earth, and I spend them sleeping. Mum should have woken me by now. She's probably out in the crowds.' He looked at the window at the sea of people who had flooded into the city square, placed conveniently in front of his house. 'Why can't they just die with their families like any normal, self respecting person?'
  When it had been revealed to the general populous that they would die in less then a days time, some people had gone into the city square to spend their last hours with the community. 'Together united, forever united' they had said. Over the last few hours the crowds had grown to an immense size. Almost all of the city was there.
  'I'm sure as hell not dying without her', *Darren jeered as he left the house to find his mother. 'Maybe I'll even find Andrea- you only have few hours to live, and you think of Andrea? Aren't you the moron. ' *Darren had found himself arguing with himself more then he would like within the past few hours. Maybe it had to do with stress.
  He had found his mother in little time at all- she could barely move through the crowds away from her door. The view of their doom was alright from here anyway. Streaks of light darted across the clouds above, and one boy was daring enough to think what was on all of their minds. 
  'We only have minutes to live.'

The crowd had gone silent, watching their dazzling last spectacle, and so everyone heard this boy quite clearly. He was only about 9. He could hardly understand death yet, yet he had acknowledged that it was imminent. One woman began to cry. The boy  darted through the crowds to find the crying woman. When he had found her, he whispered to her softly 'Don't cry. It's okay.'
And then be began to sing.
It was a beautiful little song. The crowds lost their nervous rigidity, and began to slouch back. They were relaxing. This little boys song had calmed the entire city.
A middle aged man joined in. It was a very repetitive and catchy song, it seemed to be a lullaby, and he had no problem finding the lyrics.
More and more people began to sing as their deaths became imminently close.
This song had made them forget all of the horrors in life, the majority created by man.
The city would spend it's last hours singing, remembering instead all of the feats they had accomplished in their simple lives. Darren briefly forgot Andrea. Instead he remembered when his father had taught him to ride a bike. How his mother had taken him to the beach to learn so swim. His thoughts widened. He celebrated all of the feats of humanity as a whole in his final breaths- inventing fire, creating the wheel, everything that had brought our society to it's end.
'We've done it. We've done it together.' He muttered.
Society had prospered, and only in it's dying hours had it crumbled.
Together, this dying city redeemed itself.

The cloud exploded into a sea of flame, engulfing everyone from the center out.
Darren barely had time to think- 'I wonder what it's like to die'.
It wouldn't matter.
Soon, he would be to dead to notice.

*Darren White is a working name. I couldn't think of a better one.

This is great.
The crush on Andrea seems a bit like a pointless detail in the scheme of things however, but I understand why you included it. (He had to "give up" some unimportant thing when he started to sing)

Also, perfect signature you have for this story!

Last edited by soupoftomato (2012-05-24 23:35:00)

Oh, well thanks! :>

I don't like the first half of it though 

Garr8 wrote:

Yall i need help. I have a couple of novel ideas. I dont know if i should do a fantasy novel or a pirate novel. Plz help me decide

It would depend on your interests and your writing style.

Garr8 wrote:

trinary wrote:

Garr8 wrote:

Yall i need help. I have a couple of novel ideas. I dont know if i should do a fantasy novel or a pirate novel. Plz help me decide

It would depend on your interests and your writing style.

i like both evenly, that is why i am asking.

Pick pirate

soupoftomato wrote:

Garr8 wrote:

Yall i need help. I have a couple of novel ideas. I dont know if i should do a fantasy novel or a pirate novel. Plz help me decide

Is not the obvious solution fantasy pirates?
I mean seriously.

Enchanted pirate ships and undead pirates, etc/

Or even scifi/fantasy pirates who are accosted by Sirens who are actually medical robots
Yes that would be adequate

jslomba wrote:

Wickimen wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

Is not the obvious solution fantasy pirates?
I mean seriously.

Enchanted pirate ships and undead pirates, etc/

Or even scifi/fantasy pirates who are accosted by Sirens who are actually medical robots
Yes that would be adequate

yes
pirates of the caribbean will fail in comparison to a genius idea like that

Obviously

bananaman114 wrote:

Wickimen wrote:

jslomba wrote:

yes
pirates of the caribbean will fail in comparison to a genius idea like that

Obviously

Captain Hook with a lightsaber
 
Luke Skywalker on a pirate ship


Wicki I want you to reed wat i rote

i did its rlly gud 
no surprises ther

soupoftomato wrote:

Yeah I realize the idea is horribly cliche. ;_;
But no more cliche than either genre separately!

Oh no
I was just making an obscure reference

Wickimen wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

Yeah I realize the idea is horribly cliche. ;_;
But no more cliche than either genre separately!

Oh no
I was just making an obscure reference

Assuming I have guessed right it is hardly obscure.

Wickimen wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

You realize if I posted everything I'm writing I would give you 7816 posts of content and then some?

Something like that
I juggle 3+ ideas at a time and have unaccounted for hundreds of stories I've started and neglected... I am so responsible

But anyway
I posted a topic for that *another* scifi thing I was working on

Yeah same here. I don't know why, but I can never figure out what to write next, then it ends up just sitting there, not getting any better. It's so frustrating.

Agg725 wrote:

BatterToast wrote:

BlatantToast wrote:

That's an oxymoron but I'm not sure about the oxy

That's the spirit, Bitter! Well...almost.
Oh, Blatant, that's unnecessary.
You know he's sensitive about this kind of stuff.

How many toasts are there!?!

It's just one guy I think

I'm writing a program:

public class hi
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        System.out.println("This is a really lame, useless program");
    }
}

Wickimen wrote:

Thing I made the topic for and yeah

Chapter One: 13

It seemed to Will that that number, 13, had followed him around like a curse for bad luck as long as he could remember. 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. Interesting. I like the way this story is going He had to keep many things hidden, including his pale blue eyes, an unlucky and unwanted defect, beneath 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. Great description. I can picture it in my head   Arcade, read the dull red flickering letters on the sign of the building. Even in the downpour, none of the group waiting outside left; they jabbered incessantly and waited impatiently to be let inside. Will only watched them, lingering near the long-forgotten library.

To the casual observer, it would seem that this group was a mishmash of cultures, their clothing a jumble of coats and shoes of all sorts. People wore Victorian top hats, neon t-shirts, battered sneakers and vintage trench coats all at once. But if one looked closer, they would see only young faces, vapid brown eyes of the same shade and expression, the same pale complexions, brown hair of about the same length, and the same accents. For everybody was completely alike.

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

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

"Hello, Eyre," said Will.

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

They pushed through the doors and walked inside, their wet shoes clicking on the old hardwood floor. Dripping water from Eyre's soaked duffle coat collected a puddle on the ground. Inside, the library smelled strongly of dust and old paper. It was hard to believe that a little over half a century 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 old life was to Will like recalling the vaguest memories of somebody else's life. He couldn't remember anything past the age of eleven, or even if he had once been older than eleven, and his memories even then were very limited. Books were important; their names and knowledge came from books; but a book did not live forever, and Will and Eyre were careful to preserve them.

All of the books were important. Will liked Shakespeare's writing, and Eyre liked Charlotte Bronte's, but they read them all. Sometimes they helped Will remember things from his old life. Strange, alien-sounding words, phrases, descriptions of both familiar and unfamiliar somehow connected in his mind. He had never in his current memory, for example, smelled cigarette smoke, but the word 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, mentioned in several books--a day called Christmas.

Even the dictionaries and encyclopedia had to be read; 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 occasionally about strange words starting with the letter q. She had unfastened her aviator's cap and goggles, and her close-cropped red hair stuck up haphazardly in all directions. 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 half a century. And why should they? Next to the Arcade, with all of its gleaming brilliance inside, a library was nothing. The Arcade was a paradise. You would play incredible games all day and there was no work or school to care about.

Being Unusuals, as was the popular, uncomplicated term, Will and Eyre were not allowed in the Arcade. In the beginning, when it wasn't such a big deal, they used to sneak in anyway with caps and sunglasses, but a third Unusual with whom they did not associate--his number was 16--was caught and turned in to the Sovereign's Administration. He was never seen again. After that they were more cautious.

They did not know where the other Unusuals went, or even if there were any other Unusuals. There had been at least ten others to begin with, but they had all gradually vanished throughout the years. Unusuals had simply been turned in for the crime of a strange 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 this time, that everyone remembered everybody else's number. He knew that before, people must have remembered others' names, which, said the Administration, was very confusing. Some people had the same names. Names were dull and used; a number was unique. A number only applied to you.

That was true, thought Will, but somehow names seemed better and different in a way he couldn't explain. The characters and authors in books never had numbers instead of names.

He settled himself into a musty, sloped chair with a copy of Hamlet and began to read. The words were magic in that old library. He was limited to the physical, emotional and mental capacity of an eleven-year-old, even one who lived in the library, and stumbled over a few gnarled, complicated sentences, but gradually was swept up in the story. He hardly cared about the confusing parts; the story caught him within its pages like only the best authors could do. It allowed him to forget, for the time being, that the Sovereign had ever existed.

"Quid pro quo," Eyre called out, interrupting Will's reading.

"Interesting," said Will, though he felt a slight jab of frustration with her for cutting Hamlet short. "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 Shakespeare's play afterwards.

Pale light was seeping in through the shuttered windows, but the rain still fell thick and fast. Eyre extinguished the candle she had been reading by and shoved the remaining stub of wax deep into the pocket off her duffle 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 where paperback copies of Shakespeare's works rested. By accident he bumped the book against the back panel, which caved in too far and revealed a dark space behind. He froze. "Eyre?"

"What?" she said, glancing up.

"Look at this." He pushed on the panel with his finger. It fell down. Lying down inside were big flat glossy pages stapled together, like magazines but too big, like picture books but too thin. He pulled one out. "Who's Franz Liszt?"

Eyre stepped closer to look at the booklets. "I don't know."

Will gingerly lifted a stack of them and flipped through one of them. He was greeted by a 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 another panel with old maps inside, but they hadn't discovered anything new after that for several years. He scrutinized the pages further 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. It's the piano, he realized.

"It's sheet music."

^^That's not the end of the chapter btw
But if someone has the time to go through it that'd be great