The Story Dig: Part Two

Good day, everyone! I hope you’ve had a good week; I know I did!

Today is Part Two of the Story Dig, looking into my long-ago, horrible attempt at dystopian fiction. Let’s go, shall we?

You blink against the bright light of the Story Dig. Today is the second time you’ve shown up, and you’re still not accustomed to the bright desert light and the dreck laying everywhere.

“Hey there, trusty intern!” Grace is kneeling over some project a few feet away, bun sagging to the nape of her neck. She isn’t wearing a hat today. “Ready to go?” She stands. “We’ve got a real fun world today. Danger, monsters, some horrible character names, the whole lot!”

“Um, sounds…dangerous?”

Grace smile. “Fun is more like it! Come on!” She leads you to the bottom of the cavern, where only Sam sits, eating a popsicle. “Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, guys. Ready?” He gestures to the newly-excavated porthole. Grace smiles, crouching and cranking the mechanism on top to open it. This time you jump in right after her without any coaxing.

There’s the odd falling sensation before breaking through an invisible barrier into the blank canvas of words that quickly formed into a dingy world.

Wayde lay on his stomach and loaded his pistols. He could hear the snort of a beast nearby, too close for him to run without dispatching it. A second later, he could see the beast’s hooves. He fired into the monster’s front calf, and it roared as Wayde slid out from under the metal bed and ran for the fire escape. He could hear the roars of more monsters as he arrived at the top of the building where his cyborg friend, Spirit, was waiting. “Here,” she said, handing Wayde a jetpack. He strapped it on and powered it up, leaping to soar over the tops of buildings.

The two companions flew until they reached their base–an abandoned prison facility–and landed behind the fence. “Did you get all the supplies?” Spirit asked.

“Yep.” Wayde knelt, pressing his thumb onto the container’s lock. It opened, revealing all Wayde had managed to salvage from the abandoned hospital. 

“Great!” Spirit grabbed the container. “I’ll put these in the inventory.”

***

Wayde woke; he thought he’d heard something. Stumbling across the room, he flicked the light switch on, but the power must’ve gone out. Wishing he had Spirit’s night vision, he made his way to the computer room. “Spirit?”

Spirit was gone. Cursing, Wayde ran outside. Spirit was pointing a rifle at four intruders.

“Don’t shoot,” said one of them.

“Drop your weapons,” ordered Spirit, watching as the group followed her instructions. She gave them all a quick once-over. “You’re wounded.” She jabbed the rifle towards the one who’d spoken, and Wayde could see the hand pressed to the teen’s side. The boy nodded.

“Come on in,” said Wayde.

“Thanks,” said one as they followed her in. Spirit’s eyes glowed, lighting the dark room, and she began to examine the wounded boy.

Wayde’s eyes were drawn to a silver ring one of them was wearing. “So who are you?” He asked casually, sitting. The one with the ring spoke up.

“I’m Fyster, the wounded one is Nayel, that’s Coltin and Shaw.”

“And where do you come from?”

Coltin grimaced and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a deafening clang from the door.

***

Spirit activated her X-ray vision, looking through the door. “Death chimps. But how…” She smacked her forehead. “The fence doesn’t have power.” She glanced at Nayel. “They smell your blood.”

“Oh.” He grimaced. “Great.”

Spirit ripped a strip off the hem of her pants and pressed it to Nayel’s side, trying desperately to stop the blood flow.

“Uh, what’s a death chimp, and why aren’t we getting out of here?” Asked Coltin.

“Death chimps used to be American apes,” said Wayde, grabbing the rifle. “Spirit has to stop the bleeding and clean up the wound, otherwise they’ll just keep tracking us.” He passed the group their weapons.

Nayel was bleeding a lot. Spirit had already ripped her pants up to the knee trying to staunch the bleeding. Finally, she wrapped one arm around his chest and activated the jet thrusters in her feet, rising to the ceiling. Pushing away a tile, she hoisted Nayel in and passed him his jacket and shirt. “Use this to stop the bleeding.” He nodded and she fitted the tile back.

The banging escalated to fever pitch and the door began to buckle. “Wayde, I have to turn the generator back on.”

Wayde nodded. “Be safe.” Spirit slipped out the escape exit as the door crashed to the floor.

***

Wayde took aim and fired at the first screeching ape to run through the door. He desperately wished he hadn’t left his pistols in his room.

A small chimp began to climb the walls, most likely smelling Nayel’s blood. Coltin shot it down, but when he pulled the trigger again, his weapon just clicked. Coltin fumbled in his pocket, looking for something. While he was doing this, however, one of the chimps had taken advantage of the situation and leapt for Coltin.

Wayde couldn’t shoot at the ape without injuring Coltin. Dropping his rifle, he ran over and grabbed the monkey. Letting out a piercing shriek, the monkey turned and bit Wayde. He gasped and slammed the chimp to the ground, seeing if he could break its spine. The monkey yelped, and something raked across Wayde’s neck, leaving stinging marks. Wayde ignored the pain, keeping one hand on the monkey’s neck and reaching for the rifle with the other.

He could feel the chimps all targeting him. They bit and scratched and tore, as Wayde shot the monkey on the floor. Sliding the rifle to the other side of the room, Wayde rolled towards it, hoping to deter the monkey attacks. He grabbed the gun and sprang to his feet, firing wildly at the chimps, killing them all. The rest of the group finished up and stared at him “You look horrible,” said Shaw.

“Thanks.” Wayde wiped his forehead as the lights came back on.  He could hear Spirit walking through the door behind him.

“Wayde.” Spirit’s voice was tight, and Wayde turned. Spirit stood in the door, someone holding a knife to her throat.

***

“Don’t move,” said the young man holding Spirit. Wayde stepped forward and Spirit’s captor increased the pressure on the knife. “I said don’t move.”

“What do you want?” Asked Wayde.

“Shelter and supplies for me and my friend.”

“Alright, come on in. Just let her go.”

The young man did, shoving her. Spirit looked at Wayde. Should I take him out? she asked with her eyes. Wayde shook his head ever so slightly.

“Laddie?” A woman stepped in, next to the first intruder. “Did they agree?”

“Aye.”

“I’ll show you the rooms.” Wayde led the duo off. As soon as they disappeared, Spirit rose to the ceiling and pushed away the loose tile.

“What happened? Are they gone?” asked Nayel, who’d managed to stop the bleeding.

“Yeah, the chimps are gone. And, we’ve got two new guests.”

***

Spirit didn’t sleep that night. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up with the duo, so she stayed awake. To keep her hands and mind busy, she began storing the medical supplies.

She froze at a sound from outside. It was a faint jangling. Grabbing her stun baton, she stepped over to the door and opened it just a crack.

A slight figure was scaling the deactivated electric fence–Spirit hadn’t been able to fix it. Vaulting over the barbed wire coils, they slithered through the shadows until they were under a dark window. They tried to open the window, but finding it locked, pulled a cylinder from their pocket and pressed it to the window, beginning to trace a circle on the Plexiglass.

Spirit raced into the room the creep was trying to break into, hoping to attack them once they were inside and prevent them from running off. From her hiding place, she saw the circle in the glass complete, and the person used the cylinder to pull the cut-out portion away. The person climbed up and slipped through the hole. Spirit waited until the person’s back was to her, then pounced.

***

For the second time in as many nights, Wayde shot awake to a strange sound. This time it was loud banging in one of the rooms. He grabbed his pistols and ran down the hall, into the room. He flicked on the lights and saw Spirit wrestling with a stranger. “Freeze!” hollered Wayde, pointing his guns.

Spirit rolled over on top of the person, pressing her knee into the intruder’s back. Wayde ran and got a pair of handcuffs, tossing them to Spirit, who quickly locked them around the person’s wrists and pulled them up, removing the full-face mask.

The young woman behind the mask jerked, trying to escape Spirit’s grip, but Spirit didn’t yield.

“Who are you?” asked Wayde.

“The seventh intruder in two days, that’s who!” Spirit sighed. “When are we gonna get a break?”

***

Spirit was sitting in front of the intruder, a cup of tea in her hands. “What are you doing here?”

The girl didn’t answer, which was what Spirit had been expecting. “Fine,” Spirit said, sizing up the girl. “Nice gear.” Really, it was too nice. The clothes were not at all tarnished, and the gun Spirit had found on her was a model neither she or Wayde had ever seen, but had definitely been well-used.

Wayde walked in, followed by Kodyn. “He heard the commotion and insisted on–” Wayde began, but was cut off by Kodyn’s shout.

“You!”

The girl blinked. “Me?” She looked sincere, but Spirit could sense a sneer.

“Yes, you. I told you…” He rubbed his face. “I don’t owe your boss anything.”

Taera appeared in the door, yawning. “What’s wrong, laddie?” She saw the young woman tied in a chair. “Who’s she?”

“Nobody.” Kodyn turned to Wayde and Spirit. “May I have a quick word with her?”

***

Kodyn’s ‘quick word’ stretched to half an hour, and Wayde was suspicious. What could be so important? He was about to press his ear to the door when it opened and Kodyn strode out, giving Wayde a curt nod. “We’re done.”

Wayde peeked into the room and compared the prisoner’s smug smile to Kodyn’s tight expression. “Know her name?”

“Renaya.”

“So…do you know her?” Asked Spirit.

“Not really.” Kodyn made for the door, but Taera blocked it.

“Who is she, lad?”

Kodyn sighed. “We used to work for the same guy.”

“Who?” asked Spirit.

“He was a pharmacologist who tried to come up with easy-to-use, effective drugs. Pain relievers and stuff.”

“So why’s she lookin’ for ya?” Asked Taera.

“I didn’t want to work anymore and quit, but I owe our boss a small debt. She came to collect.”

“So do you have the money?” asked Spirit.

Kodyn grimaced. “No.”

***

“So what are we gonna do?” Spirit asked.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“It depends on how big his debt is. How much money do we have?”

Wayde pulled a notebook out from under his pillow and opened it. “Forty-three dollars and two cents.”

“Well that’s not very much.”

“How much do you think Kodyn and Taera have?”

“I don’t know.”

Wayde tucked the notebook away. “We might have to talk to Renaya.”

“Yes, let’s.”

The two slipped through the now-empty halls into the room where Renaya was tied up. “Hi,” said Spirit. “So, you work for a guy who makes medicine?”

Renaya regarded them with an iceberg stare. “Who said?”

“Kodyn,” said Wayde. “He said he had a small debt to pay.”

The girl smirked. “Oh he did, did he?”

“How much is it?” asked Spirit.

“Well it’s not as small as you might think,” said Renaya with a shrug.

Wayde sighed. “Enough already! Just tell us how much!”

“Alright, but you asked.” Renaya grinned and leaned forward. “He owes us fifty thousand dollars.”

You lean forward, intensely involved in the story, but invisible puppet strings yank you up, jarring you out of the world. As your view of it diminishes, you see everyone frozen in time.

“What happened?” you ask Grace after clawing your way out of the porthole.

“We were running out of WH1,” she said, pointing to a small container clipped onto her belt.

“Which is?”

“Writer’s Hand, a chemical developed by the Fictional Industry. It controls our strict third person omniscient POV, but after a certain time that effect diminishes. As such, the Industry developed a safeguard. If the amount drops below ten percent, this here–” she points to a blinking button on her belt, “–drops a bookmark and yanks us out of the world.”

“What’s a bookmark?”

“It’s a device that freezes the realm so we can revisit it after a WH1 refill. Let’s top up, get some lunch, and go back, huh?” she smiles and heads off.

***

I had to divide this into two parts, because it’s a long segment! Let’s talk about inspiration.

When I was a wee lass, I had to handwrite a page a day to both develop my cursive and my grasp of grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. I have always been a fiction writer, so I chose to write a serial story instead of essays. I’d never really written dystopian fiction before, so I chose that genre just to test the waters.

I don’t really elaborate on this in the story, but the reason the world is the way it is is because of something called the Hardening Year. This was a year where there was a catastrophe, most of the population was killed, and the animals–even the previously docile ones–were turned into hostile creatures.

Wayde and Spirit were born out of my desire to write a male-female friendship that didn’t turn into a romance. Wayde was based off of Sister, and Spirit off of me. Coltin, Nayel, Fyster, and Shaw were actually supposed to be based off of the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and Taera and Kodyn’s relationship was derived from the friendship of Gimli and Legolas, from the same fandom.

That’s all you’ll here from me today! I hope you enjoyed. Be blessed!

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