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this is just a little story I helped a friend of mine write that i thought might fit the materiel pretty well given a bit of tweak and polish. Easily expounded upon, but otherwise i can just use it as a general showcase, if anyone is particularly interested.
Burning, a searing and hellish wasteland burned in an otherwise quiet and dark world. Large tongues of flames accompanied by thick smoke that choked the life out of the cold night sky and followed by a wave of shrieks and yells from the damned. The small town was no more than a burnt wasteland with its buildings little more than skeletal husks and the ground itself blistered and split from sheer heat. Things, not people any longer, staggered across this hellish land, disfigured and mutilated beyond belief to the point it was a cruel miracle that they were still alive and moving. Sitting on the tallest building like its king was a creature much worse than any below him; a skeletal frame with thin and well knotted muscles covering it, eyes like darkness itself that absorbed all light cast on them, thick bloody claws topping its wrists and ankles rather than hands and feet, even its face was inhuman as its jaw split in two from the center and had many rows of razor sharp teeth; This horrible mass was all framed well by jagged bone wings with a thin and nearly transparent membrane webbed between the wing's digits.
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Jerking from his bed, Raphael cupped his head in his hands and breathed deeply, the dream had gotten to him and left him alone in his dark room in a film of cold sweat. Shaking his head slowly, he shakily looked around to see not the hellish town but rather his sparsely decorated room; the room consisting of a bed, a wooden chair, and a squat dresser with a small television perched on top.
Most times when he cant sleep, Raphael turned the television on and kept the sound muted as a form of comfort so he could drift to sleep again. With a minute click the television came to life and flashed infomercial, leaving the room in dull alternating colors that let Raphael drift uneasily back to sleep.
Raphael slept soundly after that until his alarm woke him up at six in the morning and looking to the TV for the news. The images before Raphael froze him in place, he was seeing a burnt and slightly smoking version of the town in his dream, so he turned the volume up and listened closely; "- what seems to be the remains of a small town just off Spirit Lake Highway, police officials have yet to determine what caused the fire, but they believe it was a brush fire that got out of hand-" with another click Raphael turned the TV off to collect himself.
Brush fires were common in washing ton, sure, but fall was kicked off early and the dry months were far too off to be a brush fire, all these were running through Raphael's head as he got dressed and left his small apartment to get a jump on the commute to Seattle. The major things on Raphael's mind then was only to reject the possibility his dream was anywhere close to what had really happened and trying to find a viable explanation.
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Seattle was like most major cities; filled with heavy traffic, large buildings that were mostly glass with steel separating the panes, big businesses and large groups of people trying to go everywhere. One particular building stuck out more, which shone in the light thanks to its massive windows dominating most of the building, this was a print journalism building which Raphael was an employee at who wrote a 'digest' of daily news events and even personal opinions.
The list for the day was for Raphael to make an article about resent highway renovations, chase opening up around Washington and closing Washington mutual, and finally the odd brush fire that he saw on the news in the morning. Like usual Raphael walked into his own private office, which was little more than a closet, and began tackling the article from the top of the list to the bottom.
The highway renovations were from the need to repave and re-enforce the highway itself, many people were petitioning for it and they finally got what they wanted, the article mentioned it with positive notes that would go well with most readers. Chase was big in other states but had very mixed results because of them overtaking Washington mutual whom had always made their customers happy, this part of the article noted distrust of the change but clearly stated that no hard testimonies could say chase was bad. The final part was what Raphael was stuck with, he couldn't write much into it before his nightmare flashed to the forefront of his mind, so he typed what he honestly felt as a rational and logical man.
'The small town engulfed in the blaze was unfortunate and we all know its much too late for it to be marked as a simple brush fire, though its highly doubtful that it could be called a terrorist attack, it was probably some teenage punks trying to mess around in the backwater town and accidentally got a fire going, ditching before they could get caught. Bottom line is that this is a poor and sad event as of late and should be marked as one regardless of what really happened, if your out that way pay your respects' was the stub of the digest about the fire, but it occurred to him he never heard of what happened to all the people who had lived in the town, he shut the television off before he could hear the body count or how many had died.
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The official report was no bodies found, likely everyone fled, however both Raphael and his supervisor found that to be a crock so poor Raph was sent off to get the rumors from neighboring places and to see the place first hand. First stop on the list was Hillbrand; The small town of Hillbrand totaled about fifty people and all were spooked and startled by their neighboring towns sudden destruction, offering only tales that the screams of the town could be heard over the dozen or so miles to keep both child and adult up in their beds, that before the sounds and shadow of darkness were gone, a creature with massive skeletal wings took into the sky and left the town to smolder.
These rumors froze Raphael's blood cold in his veins, the town had experienced the same things that his nightmare had made him experience, but to a lesser degree, he wondered if he too heard the screams of the damned from his poor apartment on the edge of Lakewood. As a logical man and journalist, Raphael shook his mind clear of such absurd thoughts and stuck to the completely reasonable idea that a gang or other punks had started the fire and left the people to die, only to come back and hide their shame.
The next town told only the same story, though they were closer and were able to give more horrifying details. The rumors stated the smell of burning flesh and sulfur could be smelled from the small town, not five miles away but much too far for it to be true, it also stated the creature which took to the sky must have been more than 'three people tall' meaning about nearly seventeen feet tall, the details were as acute as 'bone wings' and 'gnarled limbs' but little else.
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Raphael had put the final part of his job off for as long as he could, now he would have to go to that town which was damned by flames with its residence nowhere to be found. It looked creepy, most buildings no longer even had walls, seemingly to split and crumble from the heat to leave only a sagged roof and the main structure standing at best. Everything was a shade of black, the fire was so hot the ground split and blistered down to rock, the only exception was one building, it looked like a town hall which may have doubled as a church at one point, it was scorched on the outside, but its walls still stood and the only real damage was the part of the roof which bore the simple metal cross, it had melted to be nearly unrecognizable.
To Raphael's surprise there were no police officers with caution tape all over, apparently everything was wrapped up with a simple 'brush fire' explanation, leaving him to snoop around as freely as he wanted.
every building he looked into bore the same signs, burnt and melted, charred and turned to ash where appropriate, much to Raphael's fear, it was identical to his dream, town to the smallest detail. The town hall, the place in Raphael's dream where the large creature had been perched, he had to go look inside, just to be sure he checked everything out and rid himself of his nightmare by even the smallest piece of logic.
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"I...Impossible...." the simple word was all Raphael could muster as he stepped inside the town hall. The building on the inside was immaculate, no scorching, no stench, nothing, not even heat damage on the paint or a cracked window in the back. Eerily calm from the stark contrast outside, human nature caused Raphael to react with goose bumps and hair raising along with the quiet playing tricks with his hearing to make him believe he was hearing whispers too quiet to understand but too loud to ignore.
A sudden thud and scratching noises across the floor, Raphael jumped and took a step forward despite all his instincts telling him to run. "Tch...I'm like one of those horror movie characters, too stupid to run back...I'm the guy who gets Nixed first" Raphael muttered in an attempt to snap him out of his illogical fear and to help him think clearly. Taking a few steps forward, all he had to do was look at the hallway and he would be fine, or so Raphael told himself as he picked up a metal broom as a way to arm himself.
Slowly, surely and carefully, Raphael made his way to the hallway to see what had made the noise. Another loud noise, this time a banging noise, Raphael jumped again and looked into the hallway on either side. To the left was a rather short hallway with a wide open door, and to the right was a single closed door at the end of a considerably longer hallway. The obvious and logical idea Raphael followed was if it was a banging noise, whatever or whoever it was had closed a door very fast and Raphael himself wanted to stay away from that situation.
Logic won, Raphael walked to the open door and peered in to the pitch black room and when he walked in it occurred to him only too late that the other 'person' could have just as easily kicked the door free and caused the same noise. Another slam and the path of light from the hallway vanished with a single resounding noise.
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In the pitch black, Raphael took all his will into not yelling out from the horrible start and rather look for a light switch. No switch to be found, and when he felt around, for the doorknob next he couldn't find the door itself, as if he were in a room with no exit. Raphael bit his tongue to keep from screaming and took a deep breath as he pulled his hands away, calling all his logic to come to the conclusion he was freaked and he just needed a second try.
A second time, he found not even the wall and was met with a heavy push across his back, as if two massive hands were forced into him and sending him stumbling further into the darkness. This time Raphael let out his yell, only to find he had no voice within this darkness.
"Within the darkness I sleep, not the darkness of the world but the darkness of man, those who refuse to see such darkness turn to logic, and from such men I shall be whole again to baptize this world in my flames" a voice reverberated in his head as he looked forward for anything, only to see a form of darkness he had never known before, and yet floating within it were two orbs of something darker, more evil, like eyes boring into his own.
Suddenly before Raphael could make sense of these words, he felt a hand on each ankle, firm and crushing with heat that was searing into his flesh. Instinctively, Raphael had slammed the broom into one of the hands, but much to his surprise and pain, he had hit only himself as if the hands didn't exist. Shortly in retaliation to more hands came up, searing fingers digging into his shins and somehow pulling him down to halfway to his knee. Another strike only proved that the hands were not subject to physical attacks and also shown a sentient reaction as the broom was wretched from his hand and another set of hands grabbed his wrists and weighed them down towards the floor.
More and more hands piled on and slowly caused the floor to engulf him, his entire body was burning and such a demonic hand was pressed tightly against his mouth, causing every breath he took to feel like liquid fire was being poured into his lungs until the darkness took him.
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Loud rhythmic beeps caused Raphael to slowly wake up, pulling to consciousness as if moving through water, finding himself in a hospital bed with a nurse checking up on him. The room was an average hospital room, the window was pointed towards the bustling city and the night sky was unusually clear for the season.
"Mister.." looking at the chart at the foot of the bed "Adler, I'll get the doctor in here to explain you conditions and everything, but first you'll need a little pick me up" moving over with a syringe in hand and sticking the needle into the I.V. before going to fetch the doctor.
The dose of morphine helped ease his quickly pounding head and his burning throat as a doctor came in and stood at his bed side to tell him what happened "well Mister Adler, you suffered a mild concussion from a loose piece of scaffolding and you have your throat burned very badly....now I normally don't see this much damage unless the patient had very bad acid reflux or inhaled chemical fumes, but you have no case of either..." the doctor shifted around a bit "your head injury is no problem, you'd be good to go if it weren't for your throat, we'll have to keep you for another day, and you'll have to take special care for about two weeks to let the throat heal up enough to eat and drink most things....however...I'm sorry...the damage is severe enough that you have about a ten percent chance to be able to speak again, and even if you do fall within that margin, it would still be over a year before that happens..."
Furrowing his brow, Raphael closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened but all he could remember were the hands which seared into his body. Raphael tried to speak, but nothing came out, so the doctor leaned forward and handed a small dry erase board and a marker to help him. The first question the doctor was confronted with was 'did I have any burn marks' and this was answered with a confident but confused no, the second one was a statement mainly that topped with a question 'but the building wasn't touched by the fire, how did a piece fall and hit me?'
This one the doctor looked confused at "mister Adler...the ambulance reports clearly state that only the frame of that building was standing...maybe we should keep you in for a bit longer to examine your head trauma?" the doctor had looked at the chart and gave a subtle not "yes, I think that would be best, just to be safe" with a slight smile "don't worry, you'll be back writing your stories in no time, my wife always has to read your column in the mornings" and with that sentiment the doctor was off.
Five days in the hospital, and Raphael checked out with a near clean bill of health, all he had was sensitivity to anything other than mild food, non-carbonated drink, and the inability to speak. Raphael sent his report a day after he was in the hospital and was allowed to use a laptop while he stayed, though his digest seemed slightly off, his readers remained loyal as he was back to giving the digest of more mundane activities such as the pike place market pulling in record sales or a new exhibit opening at the Seattle museum of art.
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Two weeks had passed, and Raphael was plagued by nightmares once again, this time it wasn't a small town that caught the wretched flames, it was a college, University of Washington in Seattle had found itself victim to the damned creature that had destroyed the small town and Raphael's vocal chords. The historical walls which stood for many generations, most places still holding the original wood from the scaffolding were now little more than rubble and ash, the many floors collapsed on top of each other which sank roof after roof of the college and associated buildings. The same immortal voice echoing off the inside of his skull mocked 'Speak no evil....Hear no evil.....See no evil, One has passed, one is hear, and one will come'
A scream, muted by his horrible burns, left Raphael unsettled by his nightmare and found himself with two irrational fears; The first being the darkness seeming to wrap around him and choke the life from him, and the second from turning his television to dispel such an illusion and find a news report about the school burning down in the middle of the night. These two fears playing off each other finally ended with one click of a remote and unending relief to see once more only infomercial. The familiar sights of the 'boflex' and the 'sham wow' eased him a little, and let him slowly slip back into an uneasy sleep.
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The constant annoying ring of a telephone woke Raphael up, causing him to clumsily fumble around for the phone to answer it. The person on the other end was his supervisor, apparently something was wrong and Raphael was supposed to write about it as soon as he could for the best insight.
"Hey! Ralph, I know its early and you cant speak back, but all you have to do is listen!" The supervisor spoke in a winded tone, like he had been running "U dub is a pile of rubble, jeezus, its like before but bigger...cars cant pass some streets because of the fissures" taking a deep breath and pausing "I'm standing here now, and this...this thing just shot into the sky and disappeared, oh...oh god man...there's still people in the building! I-" with that the line went dead, sending Raphael into a cold sweat, he couldn't handle something like that again.
Hastily, Raphael got dressed and sprinted to his door, but as he touched the knob, his head was swimming and his knees felt weak, something made him swoon and the last thing he felt before blacking out was his body landing hard against the floor with a dull thud.
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Slowly, things began to stir around him, the ever growing screams of the damned, crumbling noises and the feel of licking flames inches away from his skin, Raphael sat bolt upright and saw the horrors before him. Things he could only assume were people, now horribly disfigured and burnt, were writhing below the same creature he had seen from horrors past, as if their cries for anguish were satiating some deep hunger the beast had.
"The foolish follow only logic....Speak no evil.....Hear no evil.....See no evil....To ignore that which is before you, and you shall become evil......Two have past, one is here, all you fear is that.....the end is near" the creature said once more in its way of mental communication, for those mandible jaws never moved save to accept the flesh of the damned.
The massive creature stepped forward and easily put a hand around Raphael's head, the thumb and middle finger positioned so the points of the claws pressed into and through the ears, causing a powerful pain through his skull as the blood slowly seeped from his ears and left him deaf in such a nightmare. Almost all noise died out, except the ones he wished to block, the wails of the damned overcame such physical limitations and plagued him still, but he was robbed of a way to express this and fell limply against his torture.
Untold Hours passed until Raphael woke once more, finding himself once more in the hospital, this time his ears were bandaged and when he looked down he found himself covered in gauze and medical tape, apparently taken a bashing along with his second sense lost to him. This time no nurse nor doctor were there for him, only a stapled packet of papers with an explanation were on it.
'Mr .Adler, you were found deep in the rubble of the college, badly injured and now, obviously, deaf. Rescue Crews said you were the only one alive in the building and are wanted for questioning when you heal up, along with this string of bad news, your boss and a few students bodies were found in the rubble. You will be ready to leave the hospital tomorrow, you have slept soundly and were under careful watch for a week, good luck Mr .Adler, and remember the button on the remote marked in red is to call a nurse, just tap the button twice to let them know you need more pain killers'
all this was frank and hinted that he had a different doctor, but the news didn't hit him hard while his mind was whirring from the string of horrible nightmares ,unknown mutilation of his senses and what it all meant. First his voice, then his ears, if his nightmares were to be trusted then the final one was the last, and in that he would lose his sight to finish the old proverb 'hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil'
Silently Sighing, Raphael figured he could drown his situation in morphine and double tapped the nurses call button to get some right away.
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The hospital released Raphael the next day, leaving him to go to his office and pick things up. Everyone in the office, those brave enough to venture to work in light of the college burning to the ground, mourned for their supervisor and tried to comfort Raphael when he walked in, seeing as he was hurt the most and still alive from this unlucky turn of events.
Raphael shrugged them all off, his mind completely absorbed in what was happening, still trying to cling to his failing logic as he walked to his office to gather his stuff, he ended up wanting to quit thanks to his boss's death and his mutilated senses. As he picked his things up and got ready to haul it out of the office, he heard the echoing voice which he knew all too well and took cover under his desk.
'the last sense of the senseless shall come to fall, your sight shall be lost to you and shall free me' the voice echoed within Raphael's head and continued to speak ' this spire of glass and steel shall be the throne in which I watch my new land burn and grow until the planet is cleansed in the searing fire of the underworld'
Closing his eyes tight, Raphael tried to wake himself, convincing himself this was nothing more than a dream, however when he had failed, he opened his eyes to see nothing had changed, nothing at all. He got up slowly, making sure he wasn't dreaming before walking out with his things to see his co-workers looking at him with sadness as they did when he walked in.
As Raphael started to walk through the offices, a co-worker put a hand on his shoulder but violently jerked his hand back and clutched his hand, causing the others to look at him and then to his hand, though Raphael could only see he was screaming and on closer inspection, the mans hand was red and blistered as if he touched a searing hot surface.
Quickly Raphael put his things down and moved to grab someone by the shoulders to try and ask what had happened, despite him being mute, but saw instantly agony and the smell of searing flesh. He let go quickly and looked, shirt burnt through and the skin basically melted to the point of exposing bone. Raphael could only see them screaming and scrambling away only to find the exits blocked completely by some outward force, even the glass somehow withstood desks and people being thrust against it.
Under Raphael's feet the floor burned, and as he backed up and pressed against the wall, the material splintered and cracked as if under intense heat, though Raphael could only now feel the welling fire within him. Fire, so intense within him, it felt like he would melt from the inside out, but worst of all was behind his eyes felt like a white hot brand was being forced forward from behind his eyes.
To everyone else, they saw Raphael on his knees, clutching at his face as the edges of his eyes slowly smoked and turned black, encroaching to his irises until his eyes were nothing but smoking black husks. To Raphael, he found a new height of pain, something he knew should have made him pass out or even die, but some cruel force kept him alive and conscious to such pain, his peripheral vision slowly faded to black, his sight slowly narrowing to small pinpricks of the world he knew falling apart before his failing eyes, and when the darkness finally came, his breathing quickened as he heard the voice once more.
"You all clung to pure logic, you refused to believe things which could not be explained, your race has forgotten and dropped its guard...and I live again!" the voice spoke, yet it wasn't in his mind, it was a physical voice, which he could feel...coming from him! his ears worked again, but better than before attuned to the screams of his co-workers which seemed to make him feel rejuvenated, and his eyes, his husky black eyes, found new sight in the way no mortal man could see, things had no name or meaning, but only an amount they could satiate hunger, only how loudly they could shriek before breaking.
Raphael was no longer himself, lost to and consumed by this unnatural entity which appeared only in dreams and could only operate under the guise of night and only effect one simple person had used this to birth itself in the new world in the body of Raphael like a vessel.
The clothing burnt away as the breathing stopped, the fat literally burnt away from the flesh and muscle and emaciated the frame in a gruesome show to the point one could see the spine from the front or back, and could count each bone in the rib clearly. Bones burst from the skin on its back, and these bones hollowed themselves by secreting a nearly clear liquid which webbed itself into a membrane. The jaw split and cracked sickeningly to create the mandible, and the soft flesh of the mouth and pallet were pierced to create rows of sharp teeth. The hands grew, became gnarled and became claws which could rend flesh with ease, completing the creatures look from nightmare to reality.
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It was not the end of the world, not immediately, however the flames of this creature did encompass the globe, it took three years for the world to be taken, and its inhabitants, man or beast, were turned into seared immortal prisoners that were tortured to quench the thirst of their immortal master...Raphael Adler.
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shujin
