thanks to uncle kenny, i've been inspired to start writing again.
This is my "Misplaced Fortunes" concept, which is supposed to be a sci-fi adventure for the most part, with drama elements appearing here and there.
chapter 1:
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It was coming close to midnight. All was silent and the stars were out in full, defiantly flickering against the still black canvas of the sky. The moon was shining proudly, and its rays shimmered brilliantly upon the calm surface of the tranquil lakes. Quiet and beautiful scenes like this made Peacekeepers Park of Bentreford City the perfect place to relax for Trey Barnes, a 16 year old school boy who loved nothing more than to relax and stargaze. Trey was 6ft in height, had short dark brown hair, and constituted a subtle-but-sturdy build thanks to his physical activities and hobbies. He received many offers from trainers and clubs to try and follow a career in professional sports, but he turned them down in the hopes of continuing his grandfather's work as a craftsman and engineer. He was a simple boy with simple needs, and he was perfectly content with his place in life.
'What a gorgeous sight!' Trey exclaimed, stretching his arms and resting himself against the wooden bench behind him. 'If only the night could last forever, then I'd be able to gaze upon its quiet beauty any time I wanted to!'
Trey let out a deep sigh and tilted his head back, staring up at the grand, sparkling map in the sky. It was a little cold that night, but he didn't care. He was musing. Trey could never stop thinking about how the human race takes natural beauty for granted, and how they would all benefit from appreciating the finer things in life a little more and pulling their fingers out when the time comes to help others. Thinking deeper and deeper into the subject, Trey slowly started to close his eyes, losing himself amidst his own mental ramblings.
*
Trey slowly stirred and mumbled, gradually regaining consciousness. To his initial surprise, he couldn't feel the cold anymore. Quite the opposite in fact. He slowly opened his eyes, squinting hard at an annoying brightness that impeded his vision. After recovering from the initial daze Trey realised that the bright light had been coming from his bedroom window, the sun seeming brighter than usual. What am I doing back here? He pondered. Did I accidentally fall asleep while I was faking it a few hours ago, and simply dream this latest outing?
After gathering himself for a few minutes and dispelling his confusion, Trey sat upright in his bed with a large yawn. As he was about to swing his legs out of the bed and get some breakfast, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was a large piece of paper taped to his bedroom door. There was a message written on it in fine black marker pen, so Trey hopped out of bed and stumbled towards it, deciding to investigate.
To: Trey _Your friend Luke was kind enough to drop you off at our doorstep last night.
I don't know what on earth you get up to after dark, and I don't really care
because I trust that you aren't doing anything that you shouldn't.
But you need to be more careful, fool! We'll discuss this later.
- Granddad._ Although he wasn’t in trouble, Trey started to feel guilty about deceiving his surprisingly supportive grandfather and sneaking outside behind his back. This was the same kindly old man that had single-handedly raised him from an early age, while battling and defeating several cancers, as well as being able to provide both daily meals and a roof over their heads when the economy took a massive tailspin.
Realising the time, Trey sighed to himself. He gathered up his school bag and black jacket, grabbed a cereal bar and briskly walked out the front door. It was time for school, and he was even less motivated for it than usual. The weather was very hot and humid, but Trey didn't mind due to the strong breeze that would prevent him from sweating too much. He looked up towards the clouds and let out a stressed groan, before eating some more of his bar.
A couple of minutes into his walk, something in the corner of Trey's eye caught his attention. He titled his head, squinted hard, and identified something resembling a very small black sphere high above the city. Puzzled, he continued to stare. The sphere wasn't moving, and he was absolutely sure that he had never seen that kind of aircraft before.
Trey took a few more steps and he suddenly felt himself falling, almost like the ground had disappeared. He threw his arms out forward and caught a mounted ladder with his hands, realising that he'd almost fallen down a large sewer hole.
'Okay, that was too freaking close…' He gasped to himself.
Though without warning, Trey suddenly felt a heavy force collide bluntly with the small of his back. Mouth agape, he was pushed forward at such an awkward angle that his right arm was heavily crushed against the rungs of the ladder. Unable to keep his grip anymore, Trey limply fell backwards down the hole. The lone cyclist responsible looked down into the darkness in horror, but he was naturally quick to flee the scene.
Trey groaned a little and shakily got up on his feet. The landing wasn't as bad as he had first expected; he had only slightly hurt his coccyx after landing on his rear. Cartoons have definitely exaggerated the depth of these holes. He concluded. Trey tried to grab the rungs of the mounted ladder, but after a jolt of agony coursed through his shoulder he was reminded that his arm had been bent backwards a little, bruised and swollen by the force of the first impact.
'Ow…ow...god damn it!' he groaned to himself, beginning to wander along the side-walk to search for a ground level exit.
Trey had been walking through the maze-like tunnels for what seemed like a good couple of hours, but there had been no signs at all of any suitable exits to the sewer. By now, Trey couldn't feel his arm at all, it was completely numb and limp. He was a little concerned by the purple markings appearing around his large swelling, but he decided that all time spent worrying about it was time wasted in getting it fixed.
As Trey approached a large corner on the sewer side-walk, a sudden cold shiver travelled down his spine, stopping him dead in his tracks. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and he started to tremble a little, rooted to the spot. Trey had felt this way only once before; the moment he saw his family murdered before his eyes. It was almost like he was sensing a cold killing intent in close proximity.
Suddenly, Trey's arm was violently yanked backwards. He turned around to see a huge sewer alligator attached by the mouth to his damaged appendage. This thing looked to be 25 feet long, a mixture of different greens, and mad as hell.
Panicking, Trey started to punch it in the snout, hoping for a quick escape. The angry beast responded by releasing his injured arm but it immediately clamped onto Trey's healthy arm mid-punch, viciously pulling.
'Fuck! No, no! Let me- ARGH!' Trey cried, feeling his limb snap out of place. Both arms were now completely useless.
The creature released its grip and Trey fell to the ground, writhing in pain. His arms were now both bleeding profusely due to the mauling, and he was effectively unable to help himself up. He kicked with his legs, trying to edge away from the alligator, but the monstrous animal lunged at his left leg, biting down hard, causing Trey's screams and the sound of his crunching bones to echo through the sewer.
Trey had soon ceased his struggling. He was resigned to his fate, trembling and gasping in pain as the relentless reptile continued mauling him in various areas and ripping into his flesh. As the assaults continued, Trey felt numbness starting to overcome his whole bloodied body. Feeling like death may well have been approaching, he closed his eyes and imagined that his family were standing over him, with warm smiles on their faces and arms spread wide in a welcoming glow.
'I feel better already…' He thought to himself, his consciousness rapidly slipping.
*
Everything was pitch black. Trey felt like he was floating, almost as if he were weightless. He could hear a faint humming sound that reminded him of an air conditioning unit, but that was all. Trey couldn't see, smell, feel, move, or talk, which made him feel very uncomfortable. It was like he wasn't even alive, stuck in some kind of limbo.
Suddenly, to his own surprise, Trey's sense of touch came back to him, and he instantly felt a wet sensation overcome his body, as if he was submerged in water. What the hell is going on? Did I fall off the River Styx boat or something? He wondered to himself, trying to make sense of what was happening. All of a sudden he immediately felt the sensation of a descending water current all around him, confirmed by the feeling of the leftover moisture dripping off his body.
Trey's eyes sprung open, all of his senses coming back at once. This stunned him for a few seconds, mostly because he could feel that all of his pain from before had somehow disappeared, along with his injuries. Trey used one of his newly repaired arms to pull a plastic mask off his face that he assumed must have allowed him to breathe in the water.
'Okay, this is really freaky…' he murmured, realising that he was in some kind of cylinder-like container.
Even with fully functional vision, Trey couldn't see anything in front of him except for a glowing wall of orange that was getting very annoying. He tried to kick at it, but a section of the cylinder slid to the side before he could connect, causing him to awkwardly fall forwards to the floor.
'Oh, for the love of- it was AUTOMATIC?!' Trey seethed, starting to get a little frustrated and confused.
Getting to his feet, Trey took in his surroundings. The room was no larger than an average school gym storage, and it smelled like fresh fabric conditioner. The walls were shiny and metallic, and there were orange cylinders scattered on each side of the room, much like the one that he occupied. Puzzled, Trey found his clothes in one of the many baskets lying around and pulled them back on, before starting to wander towards the automatic door at the far end of the room.
The door quickly flew open just before he could reach it, and Trey instinctively threw up his guard. He relaxed almost immediately though, as he saw that the only person in front of him was a smiling girl who looked roughly the same age as him. She had toned, dark red shoulder-length hair, her eyes were a bright jade green, and she was slightly shorter than Trey. She wore a simple cream coloured summer dress and open sandals on her feet, almost like she was dressed for the beach.
'How are you feeling now?' She asked, following a long pause.
'I'm great thanks!' Trey smiled, realising what was going on. He stepped forward and hugged her. 'This is really strange, but whatever you did to me worked wonders on my injuries! I'm truly grateful to you for saving my life!'
The girl blushed slightly, separating the hug and turning away for a few seconds.
'It's not like I've done anything special...' she mumbled, suddenlysounding a little reserved. 'I fought off the alligator and brought you here, but my guardians are the ones who built this technology... all thanks for your life should go to them...'
Trey stood there for a second, stunned by what he had just heard.
'You... fought it off? How the hell did you manage that? And on top of that, who are these “guardians” of yours?'
'I'm not allowed to say...' the girl murmured, looking down and kicking the ground with her foot.
'Okay...in that case, do you know the way out of here?' Trey mused. 'I'd love to stay and chat a little longer but I’ve really got to be heading home with an insanely good excuse for being so late. Have you got a phone number, email address, or something along those lines?'
With this there was another long silence, an almost eerie one. The girl seemed to be thinking up something to say as she mumbled to herself while facing the floor.
'Hey... Are you sure you're oka-'
'Th-there's no point!' She interrupted quickly. 'You can't go home... not now. S-something terrible is about to happen.'
Before Trey could even ask what she was talking about, an almighty boom was heard, sending vibrations coursing through the room that were so strong they knocked the girl straight off her feet. Trey got down on the floor with her, holding her close while everything rocked violently amidst the deafening rumbling.
As the noise and shaking eventually came to a stop, Trey opened his eyes and stood up, surveying the room. A couple of baskets were tipped but everything else looked fine. He looked down towards the girl, who hadn't moved yet.
'Hey, are you- oh crap, you're bleeding.' Trey winced.
The girl appeared to have struck her head when she fell, knocking her unconscious. Upon failing to wake her up, Trey decided there was no other option and fastened her to his back with some spare towels. He then barged through the thick door in search of a way out. *
After aimlessly jogging for several minutes in what seemed like a totally endless metallic corridor, Trey was left hanging his head as a dead end stood in his path. He started to turn around but accidentally bumped into the wall. Trey felt something hard and small give way to his body, and the floor suddenly opened up below him. Just as he was beginning to scream, Trey and his passenger fell straight down into the opening.
Trey wasn't yelling for long, he calmed down a little when he fully realised what was happening. He and the girl were hurtling down some form of huge cylindrical chute, destination unknown.
Quickly analysing what he should do, Trey checked that the girl was still firmly attached to his back, and tried to slow himself down as much as possible with his hands. He didn't want to risk harming the girl with too much of a rough landing. Their velocity was already pretty high, so putting on the brakes was proving a little bit painful for Trey. It wasn't long before he backtracked and decided to just brace himself and mentally prepare for whatever would happen next. Though at that very moment something caught his eye and he raised his head once more.
Trey could see a bright white light source approaching, signalling the end of the ride. Wait a second… sunlight!? He exclaimed in his head. B-but we were underground! I…I...you know what, just forget it. Today has been crazy enough without me trying to over-think it. With that, Trey came shooting out of the end of the large tube, greeted immediately with a face-plant on some soil. Rubbing his nose, Trey lay the girl down and looked up into the sky only to see that there was nothing there at all. He slumped down again onto his backside and wondered why all this mysterious stuff was happening to him all of a sudden.
Trey tried to gather himself and to take some deep breaths, but as he did so he realised that something was wrong. The air tasted incredibly foul, and he could smell a lot of smoke. He turned his attention to his surroundings and simply gasped in shock as the horrible scene in front of him finally came to his attention. There were dust clouds everywhere and most of the city's buildings were gone, looking like nothing more than black mounds of smouldering scrap metal. There were tall and wide fires raging in many visible parts of town, and Trey was only just becoming aware of the human screams echoing in the distance.
At this point in time, Trey had only one thing on his mind. He checked that the girl would be safe where she was, and then immediately started to sprint in the direction of home, clenching his teeth and fists.
'Granddad…!' [/hide] Please excuse some of the awkward line placements, AP fucked it up a little when i copy/pasted T_T
