Re: The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 4: Misty Swamp]
05-09-2011, 10:55 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.
Thinking didn’t hurt. But it did tire him out. He tried not to think too much, but he had never had these many blank spots in his memory before. It was just too tantalizing, in a dismaying sort of way, to explore the hole-ridden cloth of his mind, beyond the incredibly vague memories of ‘the machine.’
He remembered his sister…though he didn’t remember her name. Instinctively, he clicked open the locket around his neck but apparently he had lacked the foresight to carve in her name. Well…when he found her, maybe she wouldn’t mind if he asked?
He remembered lazy Saturday mornings and eating cereal that was ‘part of a complete breakfast’ in the same way that a dead bat or, say, a can of mold could be part of a complete breakfast. He remembered learning how to ride a bike, though he was never sure if he succeeded. He remembered the divorce and then he remembered meteors, or were they called meteorites? He remembered the walking. How could he forget the walking? He spent most of his life now, just walking past abandoned fields and cities. He remembered when the worm latched onto his head and then he made a few friends, ran away from a few enemies, and then things were a little blurry after that. Okay, definitely a lot of gaps, but how long and how many? It was impossible to know now. Losing precious memories was a bit sad, but just the fact of knowing you forgot a significant chunk of your life and would never know what it was like, would never relive it again, that was more than sad. It was depressing.
Oh yeah, he also remembered suddenly teleporting from some futuristic thing to a swamp. Mostly because a lot of swamp was currently covering him after that splash. What was up with that?
Algernon trudged through the swamp, managed to get lost despite not even having an idea of where he was going in the first place, struggled around in circles a few times, then headed back the way he came without realizing.
Hang on, when did he get a backpack?
Algernon immediately tripped over something and got a face full of swamp muck.
That something was an unconscious engineer, or he used to be unconscious before Algernon tripped over him. Now he was awake and very aware that his limbs were still very much broken. He was also very aware that if he opened his mouth to scream, he would likely suffocate because he was lying in a swamp.
Algernon pulled him up and he coughed out mud and gunk. “Um, sorry.”
The engineer let out the scream he had patiently held in. Algernon, not entirely sure what to do in this situation, slapped him. It was a very weak slap, but it silenced him for now, and the young man continued to just hold him up in a sitting position as he shivered and breathed heavily.
“Um. Are you, uh, okay?”
“No I’m not,” the engineer snapped back. Apparently that asinine question was enough to bring him back to some sort of functioning normality. “There’s four others here, we’ve been arranged in a circle. Go help them. I can sit up on my own.”
He was still shivering. But he did seem sure of himself. Algernon treaded carefully around, nudging things carefully. “…Why are you all arranged in a circle?”
He grumbled something half-heartedly and coughed up more mud as Algernon drudged up another engineer, this one who hadn’t been patient with his desire to scream and was now gagging on swamp mud. He didn’t gag for very long, that is, he threw up everything that he had accidentally inhaled so that there was nothing much to gag on anymore. When it was confirmed he could balance well enough on his own as well, Algernon moved on to the next one. And the next one. And the next. All of them he had to slap up a little. All of them were in varying degrees of traumatized. The last one (the muddied ID card that somehow managed to stay pinned onto his coat said ‘Chris’) gaped up at him after coughing out mud and said, “You’re the high guy!”
“What?” Algernon replied, a good response for an exclamation like that.
“You’re the druggie with the machine thing!”
“I don’t take drugs.” At least, not that he remembered. “Um. Who are you?”
“See? See? You don’t remember. ’Cause you were high.” Algernon decided to give up for now.
“Um. So, you guys can’t get up, right?”
The first researcher scowled at him and said, very pointedly, “Our legs are broken.”
Yeah. He couldn’t carry them all. And he didn’t want to create something just yet. Only if he had to. “Right. So. Will, uh, everybody be okay here? I think I’ll just, uh, find some help…”
It just so happened that nearby was what could definitively be called a man-made walkway. Very encouraging. Looking down, he could see a figure of a large man and he shouted and waved and slipped down the slope at him. As he slid his way closer, he couldn’t help but notice something about the man that he really should have noticed before and that was he had a ridiculously large amount of arms, all crowding his rather muscle-y torso, all of them occupied by a load of wood. The hundred-armed man squinted down at him. Algernon pushed himself up and grinned nervously. “Um. Hi. Sorry to bother you. I sort of just got here, uh, dunno how, but there’s like, five guys up that hill and they sort of got…broken arms. And legs. They’re really broken. Um. We could really sort of use your help getting into town. And stuff.”
The hundred-armed man continued to stare dully down at him. Algernon’s grin faltered a little. “If, if you don’t mind or anything.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The five engineers were not very calm when they caught sight of the Hecatonchires but the big guy managed to get them down into a nearby town despite some of the more delirious deciding to struggle the whole way. They were all dropped off at a shabby little hut that Algernon supposed was what counted as the clinic around here. With a grunt, the hundred-handed one lumbered away to whatever job he had to do. Algernon waited outside, taking in his surroundings. He could have accepted a little town in the swamps. Those who didn’t have stupid little hungry worms stuck on them often had to hide out in weird places. But a man with a hundred arms? It was these sort of things that fired pistons in Algernon’s puny little head, pistons that powered an engine that spouted out the thought that, hey, maybe he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Though he couldn’t imagine where he had gone where hundred-armed fellows were the norm. And apparently scarab-headed men. And fishmen. And crystal people. Okay. He was probably in another dimension. Though he had no idea why he would be. If he did that himself, then that was stupid of him. Past-him should have known that other dimensions were freaky places.
“Sir?” A soft voice meandered its way to the dark-haired man. “Your friends will need a few weeks to heal up, but they should be fine soon.”
“Um,” Algernon said, a word he seemed to be using a lot lately. “Thank you, er—“ Once he turned around, he paused in mid-stutter. The doctor of the town was certainly too familiar. Older than she should have been, but familiar.
“You don’t look all too great either…would you like a check-up as well…?”
The question hung in the air. Algernon couldn’t help imagining a cloud of awkward tension slowly descending. He tried to dispel it by just giving a simple answ—
“You’re my sister!” he blurted out stupidly.
The doctor, who looked remarkably like his sister but his own age, stared at him. After a few seconds of silence, a dull feeling of dread bounded up to Algernon and subtly whispered to him that maybe he had just embarrassed himself in front of a woman who wasn’t his sister at all.
Thinking didn’t hurt. But it did tire him out. He tried not to think too much, but he had never had these many blank spots in his memory before. It was just too tantalizing, in a dismaying sort of way, to explore the hole-ridden cloth of his mind, beyond the incredibly vague memories of ‘the machine.’
He remembered his sister…though he didn’t remember her name. Instinctively, he clicked open the locket around his neck but apparently he had lacked the foresight to carve in her name. Well…when he found her, maybe she wouldn’t mind if he asked?
He remembered lazy Saturday mornings and eating cereal that was ‘part of a complete breakfast’ in the same way that a dead bat or, say, a can of mold could be part of a complete breakfast. He remembered learning how to ride a bike, though he was never sure if he succeeded. He remembered the divorce and then he remembered meteors, or were they called meteorites? He remembered the walking. How could he forget the walking? He spent most of his life now, just walking past abandoned fields and cities. He remembered when the worm latched onto his head and then he made a few friends, ran away from a few enemies, and then things were a little blurry after that. Okay, definitely a lot of gaps, but how long and how many? It was impossible to know now. Losing precious memories was a bit sad, but just the fact of knowing you forgot a significant chunk of your life and would never know what it was like, would never relive it again, that was more than sad. It was depressing.
Oh yeah, he also remembered suddenly teleporting from some futuristic thing to a swamp. Mostly because a lot of swamp was currently covering him after that splash. What was up with that?
Algernon trudged through the swamp, managed to get lost despite not even having an idea of where he was going in the first place, struggled around in circles a few times, then headed back the way he came without realizing.
Hang on, when did he get a backpack?
Algernon immediately tripped over something and got a face full of swamp muck.
That something was an unconscious engineer, or he used to be unconscious before Algernon tripped over him. Now he was awake and very aware that his limbs were still very much broken. He was also very aware that if he opened his mouth to scream, he would likely suffocate because he was lying in a swamp.
Algernon pulled him up and he coughed out mud and gunk. “Um, sorry.”
The engineer let out the scream he had patiently held in. Algernon, not entirely sure what to do in this situation, slapped him. It was a very weak slap, but it silenced him for now, and the young man continued to just hold him up in a sitting position as he shivered and breathed heavily.
“Um. Are you, uh, okay?”
“No I’m not,” the engineer snapped back. Apparently that asinine question was enough to bring him back to some sort of functioning normality. “There’s four others here, we’ve been arranged in a circle. Go help them. I can sit up on my own.”
He was still shivering. But he did seem sure of himself. Algernon treaded carefully around, nudging things carefully. “…Why are you all arranged in a circle?”
He grumbled something half-heartedly and coughed up more mud as Algernon drudged up another engineer, this one who hadn’t been patient with his desire to scream and was now gagging on swamp mud. He didn’t gag for very long, that is, he threw up everything that he had accidentally inhaled so that there was nothing much to gag on anymore. When it was confirmed he could balance well enough on his own as well, Algernon moved on to the next one. And the next one. And the next. All of them he had to slap up a little. All of them were in varying degrees of traumatized. The last one (the muddied ID card that somehow managed to stay pinned onto his coat said ‘Chris’) gaped up at him after coughing out mud and said, “You’re the high guy!”
“What?” Algernon replied, a good response for an exclamation like that.
“You’re the druggie with the machine thing!”
“I don’t take drugs.” At least, not that he remembered. “Um. Who are you?”
“See? See? You don’t remember. ’Cause you were high.” Algernon decided to give up for now.
“Um. So, you guys can’t get up, right?”
The first researcher scowled at him and said, very pointedly, “Our legs are broken.”
Yeah. He couldn’t carry them all. And he didn’t want to create something just yet. Only if he had to. “Right. So. Will, uh, everybody be okay here? I think I’ll just, uh, find some help…”
It just so happened that nearby was what could definitively be called a man-made walkway. Very encouraging. Looking down, he could see a figure of a large man and he shouted and waved and slipped down the slope at him. As he slid his way closer, he couldn’t help but notice something about the man that he really should have noticed before and that was he had a ridiculously large amount of arms, all crowding his rather muscle-y torso, all of them occupied by a load of wood. The hundred-armed man squinted down at him. Algernon pushed himself up and grinned nervously. “Um. Hi. Sorry to bother you. I sort of just got here, uh, dunno how, but there’s like, five guys up that hill and they sort of got…broken arms. And legs. They’re really broken. Um. We could really sort of use your help getting into town. And stuff.”
The hundred-armed man continued to stare dully down at him. Algernon’s grin faltered a little. “If, if you don’t mind or anything.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The five engineers were not very calm when they caught sight of the Hecatonchires but the big guy managed to get them down into a nearby town despite some of the more delirious deciding to struggle the whole way. They were all dropped off at a shabby little hut that Algernon supposed was what counted as the clinic around here. With a grunt, the hundred-handed one lumbered away to whatever job he had to do. Algernon waited outside, taking in his surroundings. He could have accepted a little town in the swamps. Those who didn’t have stupid little hungry worms stuck on them often had to hide out in weird places. But a man with a hundred arms? It was these sort of things that fired pistons in Algernon’s puny little head, pistons that powered an engine that spouted out the thought that, hey, maybe he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Though he couldn’t imagine where he had gone where hundred-armed fellows were the norm. And apparently scarab-headed men. And fishmen. And crystal people. Okay. He was probably in another dimension. Though he had no idea why he would be. If he did that himself, then that was stupid of him. Past-him should have known that other dimensions were freaky places.
“Sir?” A soft voice meandered its way to the dark-haired man. “Your friends will need a few weeks to heal up, but they should be fine soon.”
“Um,” Algernon said, a word he seemed to be using a lot lately. “Thank you, er—“ Once he turned around, he paused in mid-stutter. The doctor of the town was certainly too familiar. Older than she should have been, but familiar.
“You don’t look all too great either…would you like a check-up as well…?”
The question hung in the air. Algernon couldn’t help imagining a cloud of awkward tension slowly descending. He tried to dispel it by just giving a simple answ—
“You’re my sister!” he blurted out stupidly.
The doctor, who looked remarkably like his sister but his own age, stared at him. After a few seconds of silence, a dull feeling of dread bounded up to Algernon and subtly whispered to him that maybe he had just embarrassed himself in front of a woman who wasn’t his sister at all.