She Has A Pretty Face Though (Part XLIII)

Posted on March 13, 2014 by R. Richardsson

Disclaimer

The following is one of many installments for a story designed specifically for my blog. While it does step out of my usual genre, there are some things still not suitable for a younger audience. Violent/Graphic descriptions, strong language and sexual situations may be found through different sections. Each entry will tell a small portion of the story during different times and may not directly follow the one prior to it.

This story follows the direct interactions, as well as the deteriorating thoughts of a young man who is struggling not only with the relationships he has with those around him, but with the relationship he has with himself as well.

Finally, all work is strictly fiction and does not reflect the views of the author. Any resemblance to actual person(s) is only a coincidence.

If this isn’t your cup of tea, then avoid these excerpts and hopefully I’ll see you around my other posts and webseries!

———

It hadn’t taken him long to get to the secret entrance. After leaving the shed, he followed the alley to the end of the block and cut across the back yards of two houses before coming to where the door was buried. With a groan, he bent down and swept away the leaves covering it. He hoped that the grease in the hinges was still active, or getting in through here wasn’t going to be an option.

With a quick look around, he began to pull. At first, nothing happened. An unintentional “oof” slipped past his lip. The tape on his midsection crackled, and fresh waves of pain lit up every nerve on the way to his brain.

The muscles in his arms shook. A tendon stood out on his neck, and just when he was about to give up, it gave. It gave with a ‘crack!’, sending him stumbling backwards when the door suddenly flew up in front of him. His eyes bugged out in surprise, half expecting his mom to jump out of the hole screaming, but the only sound was that of the birds overhead.

A full minute passed before he pulled himself to his rebellious feet. Somewhere deep inside, an internal struggle was wavering. The strength of the other faltered for one brief second and he nearly fell head first into the darkness below.

“Perhaps for the better,” he thought to himself. At least then this terrible nightmare would be over.

But once again, it was his feet that took control of matters. Even as he pondered the events of the last twenty-four hours, he descended into the darkness below, pausing only to pull the rope on the underside of the trapdoor. Once it had settled into place above him, only then did he flip on the light switch.

An electrical buzz filled the silence of the tunnel, chasing away the ripe bits of imagination that were forming in his mind. The bulbs weren’t very bright, shining only forty watts into the darkness, but it was enough for him to see his destination.

As his began to close the distance between him and his den, his thoughts traveled back to the last minutes in the shed.

……….

“All I ever wanted was to be your friend, Scott. Was that too much to ask?”

“Fuck you Arnie. I never wanted your friendship. I just wanted to be left alone. Don’t you get it? We never hung out. We didn’t have any classes together. For fuck’s sake Arnie, why the hell do you even care?”

He continued to stand at the exit to the shed, head lowered with his open hand against its wood frame. He didn’t dare turn around. The old rage was returning. He could sense the ‘other’ tensing up inside of him and already, there were dark thoughts manifesting about the various ways he could use some of the tools around him.

“I… I lost my father once, too, Scott. Like you, I was alone. Everyone had turned against me, even the ones who professed to being my friends. I couldn’t understand why he would bring me into a world like this, teach me to be the way that I was and then seemingly abandon me.”

Arnie’s voice was soft, but full of passion. He could feel the tenderness coming from it, spreading over him as if a blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders and for just a moment he began to doubt his actions.

“I could have easily gone the same route as you.”

“Why didn’t you,” he had asked, near resignation.

“Just as I was about to give up, I found someone to confide in, and he reassured me that it wasn’t too late.”

Scott laughed bitterly, a dark sound completely devoid of humanity.

“And what about me? Is it too late for me,” he asked with a voice full of sarcasm.

“It’s never too late to ask for forgiveness Scott.”

……….

As he approached the entrance to the den, he shook the thoughts from his head. A small frown appeared on his features as he tried to remember the last thing that happened before stepping back out into the world, but either he had blocked it from memory or the ‘other’ wasn’t allowing him to recall it. Either way, it didn’t matter. Slowly, he flicked the latch that would allow him to push open the hidden wall.

The Box (Part XIX)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by R. Richardsson

Joeshan’s eye narrowed and he grinned mercilessly when the dragon countered the sorcerer’s magic. He could only imagine the helplessness that the man was feeling and he prayed it was ten times the horror as when he had lost his other eye. Malifgorranaka possessed about it an aura of power that he could feel even from this distance.

It terrified him beyond words. His body shook with fear and a light perspiration had broke upon his skin. It was as if the wrym had placed one of its mighty claws upon him, pinning him where he lay.

From across the cavern, the Great Flame had launched an attack of its own. Its spine arched, much like that of an angry cat, and there came the sound of a large intake of breath being taken. It was drawing upon the instinct of its race to attack with the strongest weapon in its arsenal, the fiery breath of the Red, a flame so hot that it could melt through the most stout of magical protections.

His hair lifted from his scalp as it was pulled toward the head of the dragon. The clothing on his skin began to flap lightly against his skin, rippling as if he where enveloped by the fierce winds of the Great Northern Pass. Worse still was the feeling that the air around him was growing thin, making it hard for him to breath.

There was no need for him to continue watching the battle unfold. He knew enough of the stories to know what was going to happen next. Even so, it took a tremendous amount of will for him to turn his attention back to the box.

It sat atop a small pedestal, an evil looking piece of stone decorated with countless screaming faces. Each image depicted a different state of agony so lifelike that for a brief moment he wondered if the sculptor had used a living model for each likeness. The box itself was just as the stories had told.

There was no lock. Each side of the box was a transparent crystal, surrounded by thin platinum bars that locked into each adjacent side. Behind the crystal, the interior of the box was filled with a clear viscous gel, floating inside of which and regarding him without emotion, was the Eye of Necrodemus.

Just as the intake of the dragon’s attack pulled the air away from him, the eye’s pupil drew him in. He could feel his mind slipping, not so much moving to the side as it was being obliterated. The longer he stared into the pupil of the artifact, the less of him there remained. His hands clawed at the melted gold beneath him, pulling on the fused gems and treasures as if he were scaling the world’s most horizontal wall, quickly closing the distance between himself and the pedestal.

There was no fanfare. No angelic chorus filled the air as his hand lifted on its own accord and touched the small enchanted prison. There was only silence, because at that exact moment the dragon’s boilers were full. As the dragon god expelled its mighty attack upon sorcerer, the shell of Joeshan mindlessly lifted the box and crushed it between his small hobbit hands.

She Has A Pretty Face Though (Part XLII)

Posted on March 10, 2014 by R. Richardsson

Disclaimer

Finally, all work is strictly fiction and does not reflect the views of the author. Any resemblance to actual person(s) is only a coincidence.

If this isn’t your cup of tea, then avoid these excerpts and hopefully I’ll see you around my other posts and webseries!

———

The shed was quiet for the next several minutes. He had nothing to say and Arnie seemed content to sit in silence, which was fine by him. He felt weak. He was hungry, and worse yet, he felt like he had to go to the bathroom. There was no telling what was going to happen in that department, considering the extent of damage to his insides.

He also knew that there wasn’t much time left. Even with the ‘other’ influencing its control over him, he was still nothing more than flesh and bone. He was beginning to feel the pain more acutely by the minute and it was only a matter of time before he wasn’t able to go on.

He thought about the project he had been working on in the den. Would it be enough? More importantly, would he be strong enough to wear it?

He thought again to the secret entrance his father had built to the den. It wasn’t anything fancy. It was nothing more than a short tunnel one had to crouch to get through, but it was stable enough that it had lasted all these years. While he hadn’t been through it recently, he was confident that it was still usable.

The tunnel itself was four-foot tall by three feet wide. There were supports placed every few feet, and the blandex ceiling kept the dirt from caving in. Two light bulbs had been strung along the middle of the ceiling, with a switch being at either end of the tunnel. Since he had stumbled across it, he had begun to use it as a place to hide things he didn’t want his mom or sister to find, such as his porn collection, fireworks, and various other things of value.

He slowly turned and regarded the nerd in the corner, who seemed to care so much for him but hadn’t said more than a dozen sentences to him over the years. Arnie sat exactly as he had when Scott had first come to, on an overturned bucket in the corner. He was holding the butcher knife between his right thumb and forefinger in offering, which only added one more strange thing about him to the list.

He didn’t say anything as Scott reached out and took it from him. He only continued to cautiously regard him as he tucked the knife between his belt and jeans, where it had been before he’d blacked out.

“Why are you so interested in me, Arnold? I’m just curious. I don’t think you’ve said more than two words to me since…”

His words trailed off in mid-sentence as he drifted back into his thoughts. There was something at the edge of his memory that flirted with him, teased him with some piece of truth he had long since forgotten. Was it something about him and Arnie? He shook his head to help clear the cobwebs inside, but it was no good. There was too much going on up there for him to focus on any one thought.

Arnie didn’t answer, he didn’t even move from where he sat on the bucket. He only continued to watch him with the same apathetic expression that had come over his face as of late. Something about the way he was acting scratched at the rage that was continuing to build inside of him and he turned his attention back to the crack in the door. Now wasn’t the time for a silly argument with someone he didn’t really give two shits about in the first place.

He pressed his face against the warm fibers of wood, positioning it so that he would be able to see as much as was possible from where he was. From outside the shed, the world was abuzz with life. He could hear the sounds of cars driving by. There were people talking somewhere in the distance, but they were far enough away that he couldn’t make out their words. A dog barked. Birds chirruped in the trees above and the occasional cricket brushed its legs together at it attempted to get the attention of another.

There didn’t seem to be anybody outside, at least as far as he could tell, and he didn’t waste another minute. It was time to go. He reached down with his right hand, flicked open the latch and slowly pushed open the door to the outside.