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@f3nix's beginning:
Awakenings
The hoverbike lay abandoned on its side, the engine still warm. The fine black dust carried by the incessant wind was a snake that crept in every small recess.
From the top of the dune the Tesseract 19 could be seen with the naked eye. The column pierced the black sea of graphite and challenged the dark crimson sky. The awareness of his distance made him wince. That construction was enormous. That impenetrable artifact, Moloch's sharpest tooth.
Intertwined with dust, the warm wind brought an imperceptible howl: the bark of the monolith, an omen of death.
The man waited, a stiff exoskeleton bent over the black sand. The helmet lay abandoned beside him. Soon the team would have arrived.
"Soon you will arrive too and everything will be accomplished, one way or another."
He thought of her smile, her courage, her strength. "My life, how could I've been so reckless to have you involved in all this?" The tears were already kneading blackened as the memories of their happy normality swept over him.
"I can not let them find me like this". He stared at himself from outside: another tower on a dune, far more uncertain than the one that howled his feral wish.
These and other demons echoed within the chambers of his soul, when his eyes met a green sprout. The man stared that little miracle that, against every odd, was striving to affirm its existence. In the midst of that sea of bottomless despair.
The tear finally found its way lingering and bathed a leaf. The man managed to pull himself together and, now smiling, he put on his helmet.
"This Moloch will tremble, time has come for an awakening."
@raj808's ending:
A Change Gonna Come!
A whispered breath of life clawing its fingers from the earth. A zombie of a bygone age emerging. This green and growing thing signifies hope, but hope is a dangerous thing. Nothing has sprouted in over 100 years. Could the lies be true? Could the planet have moved far enough for a recovery? Could the promised time be starting? What the hell, time for some death and destruction.
Cold metal on hands, sun-sparks piercing eyes, intense flecks of diamond pain leaving ghosts across the retina. The reflected reminder of this scorched earth. The visor snaps down, the tang of salt sand as the wind whips up in the hoverbike's fury. Whistling wind and the heat of the day diminished. That black pinnacle of Tesseract 19 piercing a crimson sky, weighing down the clouds. Purple shrouds of gaseous death, suspended where creatures of the air once wheeled, once upon a time.
Forget the stories, I’ll stick to what I know. Heat, sand and thirst. Nothing grows, nothing wheels and calls in that crimson field. All legends of a past invented by weak, weary folk of the dark. People who can't take the reality of the underworld.
Fuck, let them come up into the light and see how long they'd last.
But... that green sprout, the shape of a leaf. Sublime lines like the capillaries in well-worn flesh. Stem and stalk. I remember the books she used to read. Not worth thinking about, just a mirage, just a trick of the mind.
Fuck, let them come up into the light and see how long they'd last.
But... that green sprout, the shape of a leaf. Sublime lines like the capillaries in well-worn flesh. Stem and stalk. I remember the books she used to read. Not worth thinking about, just a mirage, just a trick of the mind.
Hot wind scorches the space between visor and scarf. I grab the material, tuck it up behind my mask before engaging the suit’s unit. The sickening smell of Perspex air from the filter. The burn of scorched skin where boiling wind scolded flesh. Deafening rush of air, thoughts electric marbles ricochet around my skull, Tesseract 19 looms large in my visor. A pattern of wheeling specks rise from the crest of the tower. It's party time.
Jagged screaming metal. The flash of scrap propelled by plasma, hunks of iron flashing bright lines of molten flare through dry air. I tug the hoverbike's handlebars left then right, zigzagging a blotchy slipstream in the wake of the anti-grav.
That sack of shit, Cornelius is right on my tail. Traitor to the tunnels, he sold his soul for a place in the clouds and a VR lie. Thousands died for his treachery. The end of the resistance as we knew it. I only saw it once, from far away. The great cloud city at the peak of Tesseract 19. Glints of sunlight reflecting from buildings of some translucent material. The hint of green from who knows what infernal machinery and the endless blood boiling sky. Just as much a mirage as that sprouting leaf, it was the only way to explain it away. The only way to make sense of her death.
A brief roar then endless howling. The wind ripping and raking the suit as the earth spirals up to meet me. I twist painfully in the suit, that sack of shit follows in the blazing line of plasma leaking from the bikes femoral arteries. The engine croaks a last breath. I twist the effector, slamming it into reverse as the ground rears up to greet me. Jolting pain. Pressure bursts a blood vessel as g-force pulls my stomach into my throat. That wonderful, beautiful machine spits its dying breaths to save me. The bike's momentum slams sidelong into the desert and I leap and roll. Bones jarring, blood mixing with acrid vomit in the space between face and visor. I rip off the helmet and taste sand in my mouth. The reassuring grit of the scorched earth. I dive deep into blackness, before emerging into the sun.
A hum from a hoverbike idling. A black visor slashed across with a red bolt, the sign of the city. My finger twitches for my gun. The visor lifts. Her blue eyes shed tears of living light, one, two, three role down freckled cheeks, kissed by the sun.
"Garrett, my love. They were right all along. There were no lies... only the confused legends of a thousand year war. Turn your head. Look and see."
A green sprout waves in the breeze, backed by the column of Tesseract 19 erupting with azure luminescence. The sky slowly fades from red to green.
"It has begun Garrett. The time of awakening!"
The end.
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Well, then, it's good. I was afraid that it would offend you if I didn't find your figure particularly mature. Big ego and a kind of breakneck courage, but it's not a beautiful and not a noble one, but an angry daring that makes others small to elevate himself to greatness and seemingly die a heroic death, not without pulling some cowards along.
But honestly, I'm glad it wasn't a lie after all and that your character let himself be blinded by his own pessimism and hopelessness. Well, that speaks volumes.
Your style is very powerful, and I didn't really read the words, but rather went into a kind of intoxication from them, which I tried to resist inwardly.
A quite dramatic birth, an equally dramatic awakening for this special man. May those who took care of their own be less strict with themselves. May he forgive himself for having lost his beloved.
Uhm ... amen ;-)
Really well told and very unusual how you let the "I-form" flow in.
Thanks for the interesting and insightful comment @erh.germany... and I think you are right. The main character isn't exactly complex (or mature). With more words to play with I hope I could have made him less one dimensional but I got swept away in the first person present perspective that I was playing with and spent a lot of my allotted words in the visceral descriptions of sensation.
I'm glad to hear that the I-form flowed well and brought an intensity to the story for you. It is encouraging as that's part of why I chose to use that POV. Now I'm thinking about redrafting/rewriting this with my own beginning to see if I can build a little more on the character. Cheers for your comment :-)
Oh, this character of yours - which I perceived as exaggerated - only would have been one dimensional if the story wouldn't have changed. The contrast you put on I liked and I was delighted that you did insert several dimensions by opposing the people who were hiding to your main character, just like the end of the story.
The fact that I was inwardly angry with the man and emotionally attuned to him does not change the fact that betrayal and powerlessness offend the ego. My comment reflected my world-weariness about it and that I let myself be infected by hopelessness, although I don't want that at all. Without the strongly drawn extreme in one character, the other side would also be less noticeable, and the symbolism we use in writing represents that.
Wow, what an insightful exegesis.
Never the cool reader, I am. I give you my subjectivity, what else should I do?
Don't wanna grease nor belittle a writer. But be authentic and not lie.
That's the way and thanks.
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I was also surprised for the first person you adopted, it came unexpected after the inner monologue. I liked this character: not necessarily they've to be noble or pure for them to be appreciated by the reader. Like everything around him, his soul has been eroded by that thin dark sand.
Absolutely, a man embittered by the dawning realization that everything he fought for, everything he believed, is a lie. A bit of a gung-ho soldier type but well there are plenty of those about in this world. Simple people can be the best at instinctual activities.
Ha ha, yeah. I was just experimenting and I also love that POV. When it is done right it is awesome. Thanks for reading and your comment f3nix :-)
The I-perspective, a pure focus of the I that it isn’t called every sentence! What blasphemy! Nah, I be a teaser now after finally being out of me tipsy state. For I (and yes screw you we all share this “I” as well) certainly felt the character as I could imagine the scenes and their development. To be able to act it out and see how each scene, even if they’re random to each other, neccesitated the next scene’s existence. How even if it is all illusory, that our little friend’s vision could facilitate the progression of the upcoming scenes and make them flow naturally. And with so much done in one area and in a slow pace to allow them to flow, you made a mere chapter that could end right there. (Like that period there and this period here.) Yet one where you can, and without the need to justify it, pick up on the story again and make another chapter right after it.
See this is where I probably could’ve been if I hadn’t been drunk, tired as shit, not cramming a story in two-three hours within 500-words and decided not to cut necessary padding. Albeit from there, I think my ending could’ve fared way better with a “jump-cut” to the breach inside the tower and had saved an extra 350+ words (yes I counted) to focus solely on the inside portion of the tower.
Ha ha, yes the I isn't all encompassing on this ending. I, or rather, me felt like the perspective was justified to give it that 'in the head' feel. Thanks for your comment theironfelix
Another good one. You have a way of taking a good story and making it better.
I love how these sci-fi stories come together. I've read this particular one several times by different authors and they're all good. Perfect stuff for the Speculative Fiction Writers of Steemit. I'm proud to have you as a member, @raj808.
#speculativefiction
Thanks blockurator... I really love writing sci fi, the more I practice. The 'finish the story' contest is something which suits my personality as a writing exercise. It always seems to do the trick in removing creative block. More so than any other writers prompt I've ever used. Thanks for the encouragement mate, and reading my ending :-)
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That is lovely, the way you picked up on the title and tied it in to the end of deception. The awakening is not just the green sprout, and life--but awareness. Sometimes (in your stories) you go really dark, and that can be hard to take (for me) but here there was darkness and then light. It's nice sometimes to find redemption. Maybe not realistic, but inspiring.
I liked your story and I liked the interior monologue.
Funny, I just read about finding salt water on Mars and the likelihood of oxygen and primitive life. I thought about that as your story ended.
Thanks agmoore. Yes I can go dark... quite often to be fair. It's part of my experience and personality. You know what they say, "write what you know".
I'm glad you saw the redemption at the end. I sit of wanted it to be an analogy for how many people live in this blinkered state of delusion, not seeing the hope that is all around them. Thanks for you comment :-)
I grew up in a quite dark universe--I think I've been rebelling against that darkness all my (very long) life. Always looking for green sprouts--think we have one in you. Keep writing. I'll keep reading:)