Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND]
12-22-2011, 02:42 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.
-------
Maria’s arrival in the midst of a particularly grisly crime scene hadn’t really been appreciated by the sunglasses clad detectives who were trying to make puns, and also maybe if the fancy took them they might also try to solve the crime perhaps. She was gently, but firmly, escorted from the crime scene. The detectives involved probably assumed she was an opportunistic photojournalist looking for a good shot for the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. She’d hung around the police barriers for a while, anxiously trying to catch a glimpse of Sarah or Darren or Mister O arriving on the scene. Eventually she accepted that they weren’t coming. While someone else might have feared for their lives especially bearing in mind the ever encroaching static, Maria was certain they were fine, even though she could not really articulate how she knew this.
All of which left her alone in an unfamiliar world in the middle of a battle to the death against beings which were much more suited to the task at hand than she was. The best thing she could do in this situation was look for help from the other contestants; she had to assume that at least some of them would object to being pulled into this thing as much as she did. Logically the first choice in a situation like this was someone who had been introduced as a superhero, even though she’d probably stand out the least out of all of them. Other than that there was no obvious choice for allies, the only clear cut decision she could make was that the guy with the flies (Ablender was it?) was not going to be up for working together. The Announcer hadn’t really given them much in the way of information… take, for example, the jellyfish thing.
Maria wandered through the miserable rainy streets her hands jammed into the pockets of her longcoat. Everywhere she went there seemed to be another crime scene being investigated by another pair of wisecracking detectives. Eventually she came across a shopfront behind which was a wall of televisions; windows to worlds too numerous to count.
--------
Strands of angry static clung to the inn as it slammed down into the ruins that made up the program The Ambulant Corpses. The tangles of black and white nothingness quickly dissipated into the air of the ruined city. Anyone taking a look at the former bed and breakfast, now a dilapidated hotel, would have a hard time telling how much damage had been inflicted upon the structure, and how much was simply the result of it blending into its new surroundings. It was not the smoothest of landings though it didn’t really matter as most everything appeared to be broken anyway. They were in the middle of a large dining room filled with broken tables and chairs and the shattered remains of piles of crockery. The television set retrieved from one of the guest rooms sat upon the only table still in tact, though now it broadcasted only static.
Mister O glanced around at the scene of destruction, his face a mixture of relief and disappointment. With little more than a moment’s hesitation he was stumbling over Darren and Sarah as he ran to door leading into the lobby, which was in a similar state of dishevelment. He ran to the door and standing in the doorway he looked out. Outside he saw death, crowds of the dead, their minds vacant but their bodies grimly refusing to succumb to death’s grip. Their bodies were putrid, in the middle of a slow and awful decomposition. Their eyes were vacant, their mouths surrounded by thick gobs of dried blood. Bones protruded painful through pale grey skin. Organs spilt out through torn skin. The zombies, even to Mister O it was clear that that was what they were, dotted the landscape; an undead horde only held at bay by the virtue that their feeble consciousness had not yet noticed the Traveller’s Rest hotel.
For a moment the hotelier did not react, a frown was upon his face as he surveyed the gathered masses, but he made no moves towards movement. As heads turned his way desperate for fresh meat, he slammed the door shut, and quickly searched for something to barricade it with.
--------
A crowd cheers as the lights come up. The set is very minimalist and is coloured mainly white and red. Though this is completely intentional there is a portion of the white plastic flooring where it has slowly stained a pale red. Though after each episode the studio is wiped down it is pretty much impossible to keep it from staining forever. On stage there stands a machine, a robot in a pinstripe green suit with a head shaped like a die. Flecks of blood mar his otherwise impeccable appearance. He greets the audience amiably.
“It is time to meet today’s first contestant… Maria Roberts!” A woman with blonde hair and, interestingly, a matching green pinstripe suit, steps out onto the stage. Strangely her attention does not seem to be fixed upon the host of the show but the studio audience who are cheering her entrance. “Maria is twenty three and until recently worked as a receptionist at a cosy little bed and breakfast in a sitcom called ‘The Friend Zone’.” Maria and the robot exchanged pleasantries as the crowd reiterated its applause. “So, let’s play Dice of D-”
“In a minute.” Maria interrupted. “If you don’t mind I would just like to ask, and if anyone in the audience can help me out here don’t hesitate to shout out, if you’ve seen this kid known as Freefall? She’s got long black hair, tied back last time I saw, and she was wearing a full body suit of like lycra or something like that… oh and she has this black eye thing. I really need to talk to her.” As she concluded she looked out across the sea of confused faces, hoping one of the identikit audience might raise a hand and help her out… unfortunately not. The host of the gameshow eyelessly glared at her, affixing her with an accusatory stare which despite the lack of facial features quite clearly said ‘I am the one who asks the questions around here’. “Ummm… I guess if you haven’t seen her…” Maria bit her lip and looked thoughtful for a moment. “How about a guy in a blue robe, dark hair, has a cloud of money floating around with him?”
The sound of a buzzsaw whirring into life prompted Maria to flee the stage in a hurry.
--------
Darren held Sarah in his arms. She’d passed out, overwhelmed by the nothingness she saw staring into the static, into the bottomless abyss of consuming nothingness. The pair were now wearing clothing more practical, more suited towards surviving in a zombie apocalypse. The only indication that this sensible clothing could be considered uniform was a small Traveller’s Rest logo. Even had Darren not been preoccupied with the sleeping maid he would not have noticed the changes in his clothing, or in the room around him. This was how The Traveller’s Rest had always been. He brushed hair away from Sarah’s sleeping face. Her eyes fluttered and Darren could not take his eyes from her. He did not understand where this wellspring of emotion was coming from.
Mister O hurried back into the large dining room and straight to the television that had brought them there. The dull crackle of the static it displayed was drowned out by the distant groaning of the zombies, who to their credit had not taken all that long to notice a building where a building should not be. Slowly the group of undead shambled towards the building. It would not be long before they were clawing at the hastily barricaded door, attempting to climb through any windows that might have been left hanging open. Fighting zombies is rarely a good option. Though they may be slow, they may be dumb, they’re usually not all that strong and not massively resilient if you know where to land your blows, the one thing they have in spades is numbers. Kill one zombie and there are about a hundred more waiting to take its place. Zombies are weak individually, but en masse you can fight them off forever and you can never win. Sometimes the best option is to get the hell out of there as quick as you can. Mister O slammed his fist down on the television. All that was accomplished was a slight change in the patterns of the static. Desperately he flipped through the channels, trying to find just one that was not the angry fuzz of static. No such luck.
“Darren?” Mister O tried to get the chef’s attention. “I need your help; we’re sort of out of the frying pan into the fire here.” Darren managed to tear himself away from Sarah for a moment and looked up at Mister O. This was perhaps the first time that Darren had seen him anxious since they’d been dumped into this battle.
“What’s up Mister O?” He asked, trying to keep a hold of himself.
“Zombies.” Mister O said simply. “This channel is not exactly hospitable and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. So till we figure out what to do we need to go and make sure all the windows and doors are barricaded.”
“Zombies really?” Darren asked with a grin. In response he got a stonefaced stare, under which his enthusiasm quickly withered. “Yeah I mean it’s totally different when it’s real, I guess… I’ll get right on it.”
--------
Doctor Genius M.D. sat in his office, a look of deep concentration etched upon his face as he idly twirled his cane through his fingers. The blinds were closed, the sounds of the hospital far away. He stared at the whiteboard at a list of symptoms that just didn’t seem to add up to any diagnosis. Moments before his best and only friend (Doctor Jack Weston) was due to walk in about bother Genius over the subplot of the week, a woman with long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail and a pair of green scrubs suddenly appeared from nowhere. So lost was he in his thoughts that it took Doctor Genius a couple of moments to notice Maria’s arrival.
“What do you want?” He asked abruptly.
“I’m looking for a woman named Freefall.” Maria said. “She’s like a superhero. She has a black eye and this weird thing where she can control her own mass.” The response she received was silence; Doctor Genius just stared at her, a look of unexpected comprehension in his eyes. Without a word he snatched up his cane and walked out of the room.
“I’ll take that as a no then.” She called after him irritably.
--------
In the Ambulatory Corpses there was a montage of time passing for the survivors who were the focus of the story, and so, time passed for the residents of the Traveller's Rest as well.
The abandoned hotel was made secure. The zombies continued to try to make their way into the building. And Mister O continued to attempt to make his way out of that channel. Every day he would bang on that television in the hope that the static had cleared. Every day he was disappointed.
Sarah continued to sleep. Reluctant to trust the old hotel to hold out even with the reinforcements he had made, Darren had set up a bed right there in the dining room. It was here that he spent most of his time, watching over Sarah, desperately wishing she would awake.
Sometimes he would catch Mister O staring down at Sarah when he thought he wasn't looking. He looked concerned. Though not concerned the way one would be concerned about a person, but perhaps concerned the way one would be concerned about a patch of rot that had formed in their house. It concerned him.
It was not the worst week or two a person could have spent in a battle to the death, though neither found it particuarly pleasant. They rapidly fell into a dull routine and Mister O fell into the same malaise that was typical of him. Luckily something was about to change. The survivors were on the move.
--------
Maria found herself rushing from one channel to another, largely at random, though trying her best to avoid anything that looked potentially dangerous after a close run in with that robot on that crazy game show. She briefly found herself a special guest on a panel show where her enquiries about Freefall and subsequent exit became a running gag that continued for several shows afterwards. She was dumped into an anime in the midst of a battle between a robot in a baseball cap, a massive purple tentacle monster and a punk princess with pink hair and a chainsaw gun. One very confusing channel had her starring in a reality dating show where for some peculiar reason all of her potential suitors were dressed like Freefall.
Eventually, after searching through more channels than she would care to name, she found herself in a relatively quiet backroom on a science fiction show called Galaxy Guardians. For the moment free of anybody bothering her she thought it would probably be a good time to rest up for a minute. Though it was all space age silver and minimalist, the room was quite clearly someone’s bedroom, probably someone who did not spend a lot of time in here. Maria herself was wearing a dark blue/purple uniform; a sleeveless shirt/skirt that was only just covering her modesty, a pair of black boots and tights. She sat down on the end of the bed and thought about her efforts so far; so much trouble and channel hopping and all for nothing. How was anyone supposed to battle one another in a television network so vast? Maybe luck just had not been on her side and the rest of the contestants had been fighting one another right since the get go… then again all things considered if that was the case maybe luck had been on her side after all. As if in response to her wonderings Kriok appeared in the room. The nerrin emerged bodily from a flatscreen television that took up the bulk of one of the walls.
“My, you look awfully tired, don’t you?” Maria asked. Honestly the alien looked like she felt, but that was perhaps a little on the nose. For a long moment the alien stared at Maria, who was only trying to be helpful, and then sighed.
“This is an incredibly elaborate commercial for beds.” She said wearily.
“Why not sit down, take the weight off your um… feet.” Maria said scooting over on the bed.
Kriok looked at her critically. The strain of this deathmatch was already wearing upon her. The stress of her encounter with the static possessed child and not to mention the relentless mocking that had taken the form of advertisement, it had her nerves frayed. This, whatever this was in aid of, was at least not actively mocking her and she could use a rest, if only for a moment; a pause perhaps before she regrouped and found her way out of this situation. “Fine.” She said, taking a seat next to Maria.
“I would like to talk to you about an alliance.” Maria began. Kriok eyed her warily. “I’m not suited for a battle to the death, and while I obviously don’t mean to imply that you are, I don’t believe it is a stretch of the imagination to say you are more capable than I.”
“Ha ha.” Kriok said flatly, getting to her feet. “I let my guard in one for one second and you start mocking me again!” She drew her javelin launcher and levelled it at Maria. Her expression was a confused mixture of bewilderment and terror. She couldn’t understand exactly what had she done to elicit such a response? “Come on then,” Kriok snapped angrily. “Get to the punchline. Are you the last of your species as well? Do you want to sell me some kind of bodyguard service? Ugh.”
“Don’t shoot!” Maria exclaimed. “I’m with the inn. I just want your help, really.” Kriok stared at her for a long moment and then replaced the javelin launcher.
“Okay I'm willing to believe you are real.” She said. “And if you want to work together that is fine, but my goal is to get out of this thing as soon as possible.”
“That sounds pretty much ideal.” Maria replied brightly. “Though I would want to take the others with us.”
“How many others?” Kriok asked. It was all well and good to get a little help with her escape attempt, especially from someone who seemed to be sane enough to hold a reasonable conversation with, but if this had any chance of succeeding she didn’t need lots of people getting in the way. Before Maria had a chance to respond, an alarm sounded and the lights began to flash red.
“Alert!” A computerised voice boomed out through unseen speakers. “There is an intruder loose on board. Be on the lookout, and approach with extreme caution!”
--------
Static.
It’s sole function to consume, to destroy.
Timmy Blake was not always a monster.
He was a normal kid living an idyllic life.
His mother, whose real name is now sadly lost to the static, always told him to behave. She told him to play his role but he did not want to. She generally managed to corral him into playing along through threats or through promises of fun things he would get at a later date. That was not always possible though.
According to the placards that decided his life, his actions, his every thought, he was supposed to ‘accidentally’ break his mother’s favourite vase. He could see no upshot to this. No reward, only inevitable punishments for the amusement of the audience. He wouldn’t do it. A seemingly minor thing, but it was the lynchpin of a hilarious storyline. The channel balked at this refusal and Timmy would not budge.
The static came for him.
And he stared into it.
And then he and it were one.
--------
In her fitful slumber Sarah dreamed of static.
CHANNEL SURFING
Over ten thousand channels, and there’s not a damn thing on…-------
Maria’s arrival in the midst of a particularly grisly crime scene hadn’t really been appreciated by the sunglasses clad detectives who were trying to make puns, and also maybe if the fancy took them they might also try to solve the crime perhaps. She was gently, but firmly, escorted from the crime scene. The detectives involved probably assumed she was an opportunistic photojournalist looking for a good shot for the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. She’d hung around the police barriers for a while, anxiously trying to catch a glimpse of Sarah or Darren or Mister O arriving on the scene. Eventually she accepted that they weren’t coming. While someone else might have feared for their lives especially bearing in mind the ever encroaching static, Maria was certain they were fine, even though she could not really articulate how she knew this.
All of which left her alone in an unfamiliar world in the middle of a battle to the death against beings which were much more suited to the task at hand than she was. The best thing she could do in this situation was look for help from the other contestants; she had to assume that at least some of them would object to being pulled into this thing as much as she did. Logically the first choice in a situation like this was someone who had been introduced as a superhero, even though she’d probably stand out the least out of all of them. Other than that there was no obvious choice for allies, the only clear cut decision she could make was that the guy with the flies (Ablender was it?) was not going to be up for working together. The Announcer hadn’t really given them much in the way of information… take, for example, the jellyfish thing.
Maria wandered through the miserable rainy streets her hands jammed into the pockets of her longcoat. Everywhere she went there seemed to be another crime scene being investigated by another pair of wisecracking detectives. Eventually she came across a shopfront behind which was a wall of televisions; windows to worlds too numerous to count.
--------
Strands of angry static clung to the inn as it slammed down into the ruins that made up the program The Ambulant Corpses. The tangles of black and white nothingness quickly dissipated into the air of the ruined city. Anyone taking a look at the former bed and breakfast, now a dilapidated hotel, would have a hard time telling how much damage had been inflicted upon the structure, and how much was simply the result of it blending into its new surroundings. It was not the smoothest of landings though it didn’t really matter as most everything appeared to be broken anyway. They were in the middle of a large dining room filled with broken tables and chairs and the shattered remains of piles of crockery. The television set retrieved from one of the guest rooms sat upon the only table still in tact, though now it broadcasted only static.
Mister O glanced around at the scene of destruction, his face a mixture of relief and disappointment. With little more than a moment’s hesitation he was stumbling over Darren and Sarah as he ran to door leading into the lobby, which was in a similar state of dishevelment. He ran to the door and standing in the doorway he looked out. Outside he saw death, crowds of the dead, their minds vacant but their bodies grimly refusing to succumb to death’s grip. Their bodies were putrid, in the middle of a slow and awful decomposition. Their eyes were vacant, their mouths surrounded by thick gobs of dried blood. Bones protruded painful through pale grey skin. Organs spilt out through torn skin. The zombies, even to Mister O it was clear that that was what they were, dotted the landscape; an undead horde only held at bay by the virtue that their feeble consciousness had not yet noticed the Traveller’s Rest hotel.
For a moment the hotelier did not react, a frown was upon his face as he surveyed the gathered masses, but he made no moves towards movement. As heads turned his way desperate for fresh meat, he slammed the door shut, and quickly searched for something to barricade it with.
--------
A crowd cheers as the lights come up. The set is very minimalist and is coloured mainly white and red. Though this is completely intentional there is a portion of the white plastic flooring where it has slowly stained a pale red. Though after each episode the studio is wiped down it is pretty much impossible to keep it from staining forever. On stage there stands a machine, a robot in a pinstripe green suit with a head shaped like a die. Flecks of blood mar his otherwise impeccable appearance. He greets the audience amiably.
“It is time to meet today’s first contestant… Maria Roberts!” A woman with blonde hair and, interestingly, a matching green pinstripe suit, steps out onto the stage. Strangely her attention does not seem to be fixed upon the host of the show but the studio audience who are cheering her entrance. “Maria is twenty three and until recently worked as a receptionist at a cosy little bed and breakfast in a sitcom called ‘The Friend Zone’.” Maria and the robot exchanged pleasantries as the crowd reiterated its applause. “So, let’s play Dice of D-”
“In a minute.” Maria interrupted. “If you don’t mind I would just like to ask, and if anyone in the audience can help me out here don’t hesitate to shout out, if you’ve seen this kid known as Freefall? She’s got long black hair, tied back last time I saw, and she was wearing a full body suit of like lycra or something like that… oh and she has this black eye thing. I really need to talk to her.” As she concluded she looked out across the sea of confused faces, hoping one of the identikit audience might raise a hand and help her out… unfortunately not. The host of the gameshow eyelessly glared at her, affixing her with an accusatory stare which despite the lack of facial features quite clearly said ‘I am the one who asks the questions around here’. “Ummm… I guess if you haven’t seen her…” Maria bit her lip and looked thoughtful for a moment. “How about a guy in a blue robe, dark hair, has a cloud of money floating around with him?”
The sound of a buzzsaw whirring into life prompted Maria to flee the stage in a hurry.
--------
Darren held Sarah in his arms. She’d passed out, overwhelmed by the nothingness she saw staring into the static, into the bottomless abyss of consuming nothingness. The pair were now wearing clothing more practical, more suited towards surviving in a zombie apocalypse. The only indication that this sensible clothing could be considered uniform was a small Traveller’s Rest logo. Even had Darren not been preoccupied with the sleeping maid he would not have noticed the changes in his clothing, or in the room around him. This was how The Traveller’s Rest had always been. He brushed hair away from Sarah’s sleeping face. Her eyes fluttered and Darren could not take his eyes from her. He did not understand where this wellspring of emotion was coming from.
Mister O hurried back into the large dining room and straight to the television that had brought them there. The dull crackle of the static it displayed was drowned out by the distant groaning of the zombies, who to their credit had not taken all that long to notice a building where a building should not be. Slowly the group of undead shambled towards the building. It would not be long before they were clawing at the hastily barricaded door, attempting to climb through any windows that might have been left hanging open. Fighting zombies is rarely a good option. Though they may be slow, they may be dumb, they’re usually not all that strong and not massively resilient if you know where to land your blows, the one thing they have in spades is numbers. Kill one zombie and there are about a hundred more waiting to take its place. Zombies are weak individually, but en masse you can fight them off forever and you can never win. Sometimes the best option is to get the hell out of there as quick as you can. Mister O slammed his fist down on the television. All that was accomplished was a slight change in the patterns of the static. Desperately he flipped through the channels, trying to find just one that was not the angry fuzz of static. No such luck.
“Darren?” Mister O tried to get the chef’s attention. “I need your help; we’re sort of out of the frying pan into the fire here.” Darren managed to tear himself away from Sarah for a moment and looked up at Mister O. This was perhaps the first time that Darren had seen him anxious since they’d been dumped into this battle.
“What’s up Mister O?” He asked, trying to keep a hold of himself.
“Zombies.” Mister O said simply. “This channel is not exactly hospitable and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. So till we figure out what to do we need to go and make sure all the windows and doors are barricaded.”
“Zombies really?” Darren asked with a grin. In response he got a stonefaced stare, under which his enthusiasm quickly withered. “Yeah I mean it’s totally different when it’s real, I guess… I’ll get right on it.”
--------
Doctor Genius M.D. sat in his office, a look of deep concentration etched upon his face as he idly twirled his cane through his fingers. The blinds were closed, the sounds of the hospital far away. He stared at the whiteboard at a list of symptoms that just didn’t seem to add up to any diagnosis. Moments before his best and only friend (Doctor Jack Weston) was due to walk in about bother Genius over the subplot of the week, a woman with long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail and a pair of green scrubs suddenly appeared from nowhere. So lost was he in his thoughts that it took Doctor Genius a couple of moments to notice Maria’s arrival.
“What do you want?” He asked abruptly.
“I’m looking for a woman named Freefall.” Maria said. “She’s like a superhero. She has a black eye and this weird thing where she can control her own mass.” The response she received was silence; Doctor Genius just stared at her, a look of unexpected comprehension in his eyes. Without a word he snatched up his cane and walked out of the room.
“I’ll take that as a no then.” She called after him irritably.
--------
In the Ambulatory Corpses there was a montage of time passing for the survivors who were the focus of the story, and so, time passed for the residents of the Traveller's Rest as well.
The abandoned hotel was made secure. The zombies continued to try to make their way into the building. And Mister O continued to attempt to make his way out of that channel. Every day he would bang on that television in the hope that the static had cleared. Every day he was disappointed.
Sarah continued to sleep. Reluctant to trust the old hotel to hold out even with the reinforcements he had made, Darren had set up a bed right there in the dining room. It was here that he spent most of his time, watching over Sarah, desperately wishing she would awake.
Sometimes he would catch Mister O staring down at Sarah when he thought he wasn't looking. He looked concerned. Though not concerned the way one would be concerned about a person, but perhaps concerned the way one would be concerned about a patch of rot that had formed in their house. It concerned him.
It was not the worst week or two a person could have spent in a battle to the death, though neither found it particuarly pleasant. They rapidly fell into a dull routine and Mister O fell into the same malaise that was typical of him. Luckily something was about to change. The survivors were on the move.
--------
Maria found herself rushing from one channel to another, largely at random, though trying her best to avoid anything that looked potentially dangerous after a close run in with that robot on that crazy game show. She briefly found herself a special guest on a panel show where her enquiries about Freefall and subsequent exit became a running gag that continued for several shows afterwards. She was dumped into an anime in the midst of a battle between a robot in a baseball cap, a massive purple tentacle monster and a punk princess with pink hair and a chainsaw gun. One very confusing channel had her starring in a reality dating show where for some peculiar reason all of her potential suitors were dressed like Freefall.
Eventually, after searching through more channels than she would care to name, she found herself in a relatively quiet backroom on a science fiction show called Galaxy Guardians. For the moment free of anybody bothering her she thought it would probably be a good time to rest up for a minute. Though it was all space age silver and minimalist, the room was quite clearly someone’s bedroom, probably someone who did not spend a lot of time in here. Maria herself was wearing a dark blue/purple uniform; a sleeveless shirt/skirt that was only just covering her modesty, a pair of black boots and tights. She sat down on the end of the bed and thought about her efforts so far; so much trouble and channel hopping and all for nothing. How was anyone supposed to battle one another in a television network so vast? Maybe luck just had not been on her side and the rest of the contestants had been fighting one another right since the get go… then again all things considered if that was the case maybe luck had been on her side after all. As if in response to her wonderings Kriok appeared in the room. The nerrin emerged bodily from a flatscreen television that took up the bulk of one of the walls.
“My, you look awfully tired, don’t you?” Maria asked. Honestly the alien looked like she felt, but that was perhaps a little on the nose. For a long moment the alien stared at Maria, who was only trying to be helpful, and then sighed.
“This is an incredibly elaborate commercial for beds.” She said wearily.
“Why not sit down, take the weight off your um… feet.” Maria said scooting over on the bed.
Kriok looked at her critically. The strain of this deathmatch was already wearing upon her. The stress of her encounter with the static possessed child and not to mention the relentless mocking that had taken the form of advertisement, it had her nerves frayed. This, whatever this was in aid of, was at least not actively mocking her and she could use a rest, if only for a moment; a pause perhaps before she regrouped and found her way out of this situation. “Fine.” She said, taking a seat next to Maria.
“I would like to talk to you about an alliance.” Maria began. Kriok eyed her warily. “I’m not suited for a battle to the death, and while I obviously don’t mean to imply that you are, I don’t believe it is a stretch of the imagination to say you are more capable than I.”
“Ha ha.” Kriok said flatly, getting to her feet. “I let my guard in one for one second and you start mocking me again!” She drew her javelin launcher and levelled it at Maria. Her expression was a confused mixture of bewilderment and terror. She couldn’t understand exactly what had she done to elicit such a response? “Come on then,” Kriok snapped angrily. “Get to the punchline. Are you the last of your species as well? Do you want to sell me some kind of bodyguard service? Ugh.”
“Don’t shoot!” Maria exclaimed. “I’m with the inn. I just want your help, really.” Kriok stared at her for a long moment and then replaced the javelin launcher.
“Okay I'm willing to believe you are real.” She said. “And if you want to work together that is fine, but my goal is to get out of this thing as soon as possible.”
“That sounds pretty much ideal.” Maria replied brightly. “Though I would want to take the others with us.”
“How many others?” Kriok asked. It was all well and good to get a little help with her escape attempt, especially from someone who seemed to be sane enough to hold a reasonable conversation with, but if this had any chance of succeeding she didn’t need lots of people getting in the way. Before Maria had a chance to respond, an alarm sounded and the lights began to flash red.
“Alert!” A computerised voice boomed out through unseen speakers. “There is an intruder loose on board. Be on the lookout, and approach with extreme caution!”
--------
Static.
It’s sole function to consume, to destroy.
Timmy Blake was not always a monster.
He was a normal kid living an idyllic life.
His mother, whose real name is now sadly lost to the static, always told him to behave. She told him to play his role but he did not want to. She generally managed to corral him into playing along through threats or through promises of fun things he would get at a later date. That was not always possible though.
According to the placards that decided his life, his actions, his every thought, he was supposed to ‘accidentally’ break his mother’s favourite vase. He could see no upshot to this. No reward, only inevitable punishments for the amusement of the audience. He wouldn’t do it. A seemingly minor thing, but it was the lynchpin of a hilarious storyline. The channel balked at this refusal and Timmy would not budge.
The static came for him.
And he stared into it.
And then he and it were one.
--------
In her fitful slumber Sarah dreamed of static.
Heaven Help Us | Make Room!!!! | I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
Hang 'Em High | The Only Hope For Me Is You | Zero Percent | Early Sunsets Over Monroeville | DESTROYA | Demolition Lovers | To The End
Surrender The Night | Disenchanted | The Ghost Of You | Party Poison | Vampires Will Never Hurt You | The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You