Erutuf

by Umbrakinetic Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:36 pm

Erutuf
Prologue
All of this chaos and misery and war was caused by one group of people.
The doppelgangers. They are a fiendish group of opposites. Opposite personalities, opposite weapons, but the same appearance and elements.
In the future they will take over our world. The world we have worked to create and keep happy. Or so we think. They have been hiding in remote locations for years, waiting for our weakest moments to come.
Nepal. The Sahara. Antarctica. You name any remote place on Earth, and I guarantee you that a doppelganger will be there. The story starts in an ordinary middle school. Five high-schoolers.

Lenne B’Nargin. Revan Camrean. Mike Sparks. Rikku Rhine. Last, but definitely not least, Ian Connors. They weren’t the most popular kids around, just a ragtag few friends struggling to get along until they can buy lottery tickets.
One day, though, they are offered a choice. A choice that could, no, will affect the history of the planet. All they wanted was to finish school and get an ordinary life. They ask for more time to decide, then Revan starts having visions of what the future would yield, regardless of their choice. Ruins of the major cities of the world. The Statue of Liberty gone. The Great Wall of China. People dying at the hands of soldiers.

Innocents. Millions. Billions. Why even bother if that is what the world will be like? Only one answer. For the sake of the future people. I bet you’re saying “This guy’s is crazy, saying that the future will be doomed.’ I’m not saying that this will actually happen, this is just a fantasy/mythological tale of what would happen if the world rested in the hands of five high schoolers turned heroes. When they go into the future, and age appropriately, what will happen when lies become death, death becomes genocide, and genocide becomes love?

ooc: I have about five more chapters written up, so I'll put each up when I get some feedback for each.

by **Artemis F.** Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:27 pm

Awesome, I can't wait to read more! *winks* Pretty good, seeing thats how the world might end.

by **Moonlite Knight** Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:56 pm

Wow, that's amazing! I really can't wait to read more!

by **Hazel** Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:40 pm

I agree that was really good. And very interesting! Very Happy

by Umbrakinetic Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:47 pm

Erutuf
Chapter One: Blackout
A simple loss of consciousness caused all of this. The death and destruction. The worldwide chaos was at the access of our fingertips, and we chose to use it. Well, not us. Them. The doppelgangers. They are opposites of us. The same face, but everything else became twisted. Their personalities were greedy and cold. Why did all of this happen? Because we got a little overzealous, a simple human emotion that they lacked. We are the rebellion against the doppelgangers.
We are few and they are many, yet we have what they do not understand. Courage. They fight for power, and we fight for a better tomorrow. I am Revan Camrean, and the other four of my friends and I make up the founders of this rebellion, and are the most valiant people I have ever met. Lenne B’Nargin. Michael “Mike” Sparks. Rikku Rhine. And lastly, but certainly not least, Ian Connors. Why are we so special? My story will tell you. It was quite simple, really.

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My icy blue eyes closed instantaneously as my body went limp. It simply released the tension which kept me standing and gave up. I had sunk into a moment of peace and understanding, not unlike what Buddhist monks have described enlightenment as. My head fell to the ground, me not knowing the events going on outside of my body. I was seeing something else. Five figures stood side by side. One of them waved an arm and a tsunami plunged from the sky like hail toward the soldiers below.
Another lashed out into the air and a tornado materialized in front of them. One of the remaining people lifted a hand, palm forward to blast out a fireball, which swirled about in the twister. An uprooting of the very earth beneath their heels hovered ominously above the army, while the last person expelled a lightning bolt zooming toward the thousands of people. Then there was a river. I heard the peaceful sound of water trickling down a stream.
It was a stream carrying the blood of that battle. None but the five generals of the rebellion stood alive. Reality returned to me in a flood, my vision being returned first, then my ability to hear and so forth. “Revan, are you alright?” Lenne whispered into my ear worriedly. The others sat near my hospital bed chatting with each other. The female tucked a sandy blonde hair behind her ear as her lips moved and sound miraculously came out. Sound. What was sound again? Oh, what Lenne was making. My mind easily formed the answer, yet my mouth refused to say “Yes.”
Her lips twisted into a grin as my mouth struggled to find an appropriate answer. Rikku was the first to realize I was awake. The white blonde bounced up to my bed and said, “Morning sleepy head.” Rikku was bipolar, you see, and she was in her manic state most of the time, but what could you do? The first thing out of my mouth was, “Morning?” Her shoulder length hair bobbed sideways as she nodded. “You were out since yesterday afternoon.” Lenne explained before the words were out of Rikku’s mouth.
The dream had seemed to take mere seconds… but was I out for much longer? Apparently I was. Or perhaps they had taken that long? Impossible. Or was it? No one knew exactly why we dreamed what we do. “What happened?” I questioned once the dirty blonde Ian and hazel-eyed Mike gathered around me to hear my story. “Remarkable.” Rikku had simply commented. “How weird.” Mike remarked. Ian just stared and Lenne was speechless. “What’s wrong, Lenne?”
“I think you’re psychic.”

by **Artemis F.** Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:59 pm

Interesting. I like it.

by **Moonlite Knight** Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:38 am

I agree, this is really interesting! Happy

by **Artemis F.** Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:04 pm

A bit straight-forward on the psychic thing, though. Otherwise, nice detail.

by **RitsukaofLoveless** Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:27 pm

Yup. Cool, though.

by Umbrakinetic Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:08 pm

Erutuf
Chapter Two: Breakout
Why bother even faking the understanding I did not possess at the time? My jaw dropped and I felt… rather puzzled. How did a strange dream fit into the ESP category? I had absolutely no idea. A tinkling sound erupted, a laugh that came from nowhere. My vision blurred, and it cleared almost immediately. A nurse rushed in, with something in her hands labeled “Morphine”. Ian ran forward, his lips moving in slow motion. Lenne rushed forward, eyes disturbed. What was happening? Blackness came, devouring
the light that blessed my eyes with vision.

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My heartbeat echoed in my ears, the tinkling laughter still cursing my eardrums as I panted, running, but from what? Fear alone was enough to restrain my need to look behind my shoulder and discover the thing pursuing me. I was not in control of my body, as though I was a visitor invited to watch a movie of myself running from an unknown creature. I met the end of a cliff, dark water looming below, and the mysterious creature threatening me with its mere presence. Did I dare take my chances with this thing, or plunge into the water?
I figured I would dive into the water, and leaped, hovering above the dank water for a split second, seeing my reflection, although it seemed evil. Corrupted, a pale face with veins easily visible beneath its twisted visage. The iciness of the liquid hit me like a punch to the gut, shocking, yet expected. How could something be the two at the same time? My mind was blank, floating in a tank, not under my control. So this was what a coma felt like, an eternal prison, the key well out of my grasp.
I felt as though my senses were in a detainee locker, available after a thorough inspection to make sure they hadn’t seen too much. What had happened to me? It was all foggy. The mist of my mind was not making anything more clear; on the contrary, it was getting to be a step above a nuisance. Step. Step. Laughter. Rinse and repeat. That laugh was stuck in my head, embedded into my consciousness. It all came back in a flood, the blackout, the hospital. The assumption that I was psychic.
Where did it come from? My vision returned to me, out of nowhere. The lights had been extinguished, and a familiar voice whispered, “Don’t move, I’ll get you out of here. I have to take out the needle, so it’ll probably sting.” The promised sting came, and I groaned, and a slender finger came to my lips. “It’s me, Lenne. We have to get out of here, you’re under powerful sedatives disguised as morphine. Try to sit up.” She nudged me to sit up. I straightened up slightly, my body and mind alike still groggy from the drugs. Lenne stepped into view, dressed in all black leather.
I almost laughed, unaware how serious she was being. Her sandy hair was in a ponytail, and somehow her rubber sneakers didn’t squeak when she tugged me out of bed. I slipped in and out of consciousness for a few minutes, piecing together what I remembered. Mike, Ian, and Rikku helped pick me up and carried me down to the ground floor. How they didn’t fall down was beyond me. They gently set me down and a cold sensation made its way across my face. I stifled a yelp and sat up against a wall.
They were already working something out with the night receptionist. “I’ll distract him, and you guys get Revan out. I’ll come running after I see it opening.” Mike had been the one to volunteer, and he ran around in the lobby, and the receptionist had no choice but to get up and chase him around, muttering curses under his breath. The rest of my friends gestured to run outside, so I ran with the small amount of energy the sedative had left me. I ran like I had never ran before.
They were chanting something. I think it was “Ahrum, sahrem.” After a few chants, a dark portal rushed down to earth, sent by the moon. Mike came outside, diving into the portal, the rest of us trying to shake off the receptionist. We pushed him back, the force sending him bowling backwards. I never saw the impact, as I was dragged into the black and purple portal, being swallowed by it.

by **VampireYuuki** Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:00 pm

Whoa!! Coolio!! Dude, you need to publish this!!!

by **Moonlite Knight** Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:18 pm

Wow, really cool! I agree with Yuuki, you should really try to get this published! Happy

by Umbrakinetic Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:19 pm

Erutuf
Chapter Three: Realization

The realization of what we’ve done was so sudden it was sickening. It was as if the story of what happened between our time and 2020 was being told to me. Once the ozone layer was all but eroded, and the sun baked the surface of the earth, there was only one place that was a source of water. The everlasting swamp, mostly known as the Swamp. The world around me stayed the same for a few seconds, but then it drifted away, into ruins and refuge for those who had lost their homes. The hospital was known as the Center now, as it was one of the only buildings that still had air conditioning. We were supposed to be heroes.



It reminded me of that Nickelback song, Rockstar. Well, we all just wanna be big rock stars, live in hilltop houses, driving fifteen cars. The girls come easy, and the drugs come cheap, we’ll all stay skinny ‘cause we just won’t eat. Oh, the irony. Then the changing image grew cloudy, and the growing nausea came to a peak, and I emptied the contents of my stomach into the portal I was in. I was essentially blind, as I saw no one except myself, no Lenne, no Mike, no Rikku. Sweet Lenne. Brave Mike. Hyper Rikku. Where were they? Were they trapped in this portal, merely shielded from my eyes?

I didn’t know. For once, I did not know. Then something came to me. What had happened to my family? As I thought it, the mist cleared, and it showed a picture of my house. A small, limp body was shoved into the corner by my mother, and my father was trying to fight them off with a gun. A gun was no match for the power they had at their disposal. The smell of burning cloth seeped into my nostrils, and I knew he had been killed. The face of a doppelganger jarhead appeared in the doorway of the closet where my young sister and my mother were.
I never saw what happened, but the screams rung in my ears. They stayed there, refusing to leave, reminders of my family. My face twisted into a snarl of pure hatred. My parents willingly gave their lives, but what of my sister? What of young Claudia? Did she perish that day also, or did she live to see many more days? I would never know. I would only know the sight of her limp body in the corner of that closet. It would torture me. It already was. My thoughts were of pure, unfiltered vengeance. I had to kill all of them. They had to pay. Some how, some way, I would slaughter every one of those doppelgangers.

My feet sunk into the portal, sinking deeper into the darkness. Drowning in it. I was no longer Revan. I was a general of war. And I liked it that way. I had an army at my disposal. My face aged abnormally, and I wasn’t the teenager I was a few minutes ago, a day ago when I was in school, learning advanced algebra. I had to learn war strategies, interrogation techniques. I slumped to the ground, falling asleep almost instantly. The realization of the future was too much to handle. I slept blissfully, until another vision came.

My vision was only focused in the center, peripheral vision fuzzy. Mangrove trees absorbing the swampy water, teeming life shuffling about in the trees, avoiding the outside desert, and the tampering of their environment. Something being poured. Boiling. Bones snapping in two, unnatural roars, stomping. Cackling laughter joined the final screams of my mother, torturing my mind. It was unbearable. “Revan!” Who was calling my name? “Revan!” White-hot heat spread across my face, and normal vision returned. I opened my eyes, a woman leaning in front of me. She seemed familiar….

“It’s me, Rev, it’s Lenne.”

by **Artemis F.** Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:33 pm

Whoa. What happened?

by **Moonlite Knight** Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:52 am

Wow. That's all I can say.

by Umbrakinetic Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:36 am

Erutuf
Chapter Four: First Battle
Lenne? Of course, we must have aged while the portal teleported us to…. whatever time it was. I lifted my hands to eye level. They were older, and with calluses. I suppose that it had aged me according to what would have happened if I had grown up in this reality. “Rev, are you there?” Lenne asked, waving her hands in front of my eyes. I blinked, and sat, paralyzed. It had to be a bad dream. It just had to be. I had hit the concrete and was in a coma, refusing to wake up.

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“We have to get ready, a riot is going on. Here.” She stood up and threw something crescent-shaped toward me. Blades! My desire to live was greater than my paralyzation, and I grabbed them. They were wrist blades… I slid them around my wrists, and looked up at my friend with a questioning gaze. Why was I receiving weapons when I had the mind of a teenager? The answer came to me as soon as my vocal chords decided to release the words. I was considered a savior to the soldiers.

“How?” I had to ask, and who was I to resist myself? “Not now, we have to go. Not to fight, but to watch.” Lenne was already hurrying to leave the infirmary where I was. There were other beds, and tanks of blue liquids. I stood up, groaning in pain. I was wearing some kind of metallic armor, that felt like a second skin. I moved quickly, following Lenne. She was sprinting down a plain white hallway, and made a few turns that ended in a gigantic observation tower.

A circular conference table rested in the center of the room, and there were my four friends, filling all but one chair. I was the leader of an army, an entire faction, fighting for peace and justice, and all that stuff, like Superman and Batman. Eight eyes drilled into me, scanning me for something, leadership, or some kind of physical quality. What did I need that they were searching me for? Ian pointed to the room wide window a few feet away. I walked over to the window, placing my palms against the window.
Chaos reigned supreme in the barren desert below, crimson blood matching the plain orange-brown soil of the landscape. It was irony at its finest. I had never seen a dead body, and nor did I ever plan to, but there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corpses laying down there, being stepped on like they were nothing, mere dirt compared to the boots of the living. Dozens lived still, and someone was killing more than anything. One that looked familiar, but was completely foreign. Déjà vu.

Jet black hair and piercing blue eyes stared at me, as if they were looking at me, and the eyes widened, as if they had seen a ghost. It was exactly like looking in a mirror. He was me, I was him. We were exact opposites, yet we were the same being, the same entity. My fellow generals sat calmly, watching the rampant death as if it were as common as taking a bath. The unnerving stillness of it all, amid the destruction. Limbs flew freely and blood seeped into the cracks into the earth.

I could not sit idly by and watch this happening as if it were a movie. I remembered the blades hanging from my wrists. I grabbed the handles and drove them through the glass that separated us from the soldiers and fighters. Rikku and Ian stood up, crying in unison, “No!” If I was to die, I was going to take out some with me. I turned my head to face them, and nodded my head, before falling into the void that was nine stories high. Rushing air whistled in my ears, and my heartbeats spread out to accompany my thoughts. How was I going to survive this? I didn’t think that I would die, and I would hit the ground with maybe a sprained ankle.

I closed my eyes as I neared the ground, and wished I could just float in the air, and drop gently to the cracked soil below. A minute passed, but seemed to take an eternity. I opened an eye, all eyes on me, some filled with raw, uncensored fear. I stepped forward, testing the ground, seeing if I died. I was very much alive, and didn’t question how I lived. Several of them charged, and the one that was a replica of me retreated to the back of his troops.

I charged into them, having the blades slash wildly, wondering if I was hitting any. I glimpsed a lifeless head rolling like a soccer ball, and knew I had taken at least one to the cliff of death, and pushed him over. It wasn’t exactly a battle, but it was pretty close to simulating one, and that was exactly what I needed. Why bother with the pleasantries of witty banter when I could rush into the small armies and decapitate random people? Wait, I was killing random people, and that was exactly the problem. I had to stop and think of what I was doing. I could do that, I supposed.

by Sirch Hanom Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:07 am

*Claps slowly*
Excellent work. I like your writing style, for the most part, and admire your inclusion of a bipolar character; I hope that you will include little gems such as this in the future. Problems are present, however:
1. A post-apocalyptics rebellion led against an irrevocably evil enemy. Some fine stories have been made of this plot, such as Lord of the Rings, the Matrix, and V for Vendetta. I hope you make your evil empire unique, as well as the circumstances of their appearance. Otherwise, this turns into a rehashed drama, with 'brave' characters fighting for truth, justice, etc. and dying hackneyed deaths to save humanity. Right now, your story is in-between an interesting new twist, or just another fight for the survival of humanity.
2. We don't know your main character. We are thrust into the situation with little knowledge of it, which is acceptable. All we do have, however, is the narrator's Fourth Wall word that Revan is a high schooler, psychic, and a robot. Oh, not a metal robot, but a story-robot: Throughout the rescue from the hospital to the jump out the window, your character seems to have no real emotions. Moments after arriving in this situation, Revan jumps into a fight, with no previous experience in wrist-blades, and without knowing what's going on.
Don't make your character a flat cardboard cutout 'hero' who just does things because they're 'right'. Real people have motives, fears, confusion, questions, anxieties, ways of dealing with stress. So far, you main character has fit the normal 'hero' stencil: 'Brave', 'talented','moral', and good in a fight. There's nothing special about Revan's personality, and I don't empathize with him.
3. Point of view. First person, diary format, speaking to the reader, are all hallmarks of blatancy. I don't like it when the main character speaks to the reader, even in little prologues; it interrupts the magic and fantasy of the story. A more appropriate avenue for the char's thoughts would be a physical diary, being read by a later character, or a page from a memoir written by the char.
4.The vision of the char's family being killed and the subsequent vow of revenge needn't be revealed. It's sort of like shouting at the reader "Hey! This is Revan's motive!" 'Family's death at the hands of the evil entity and revenge' is a motive we've seen from Star Wars to Eragon. A unique motive would be a great step forward.
5. I don't like that your char's been thrust into a leadership position to command a massive army. No person can grasp all the tactics and strategy, logistics and so on without already having studied it, or without being a prodigy already. Such a char is not relatable, which may have been your goal in making Revan a high schooler. If you plan to have Revan recall how to lead, based on future memories, or magically assume control without problems, I do not advise it.
Similar to Neo's programming kung fu skills into his head, these choices are a cheap way to keep the story moving, without having to address those issues. Why not make your character gradually tutored and advised by their friends, apparently accomplished generals? Or make mistakes, costing thousands of lives, making the char seem more human to the writer?
6. An extension of 5., why do chars always know how to fight, lead, know just what to say? Shawn of the Dead was a good example of 'real people' and their dealing with zombies; in all zombie movies, everyone knows how to use a machine gun, machete, drive cars well, and knows just where to go. When your character magically kills enemies with writst blades, you kind of shake your reader; "How would they know how to to that?" The 'instinct' card cannot be dropped too many times, or else your char will lose their personality
Your char has the oppurtunity to be human, make mistakes, learn the reality of the new world. The poignancy of learning that cities have been deserted, people enslaved, a shadow police, will not be lost on the reader. Everyone was shocked by the contrast between Neo's life in the 'normal' Matrix and the ugly, foreign, real world. Use that to your advantage.
7. You better make the ultra 'evil' dopplegangers, whatever they are (I'm not quite clear), disgustingy, disturbingly twisted. I mean like Mr. Teatime from 'Hogfather'. Something that really freaks people out. Teatime, after killing an entire household down to the children and pets, checked if a man was breathing holding a mirror over the man's mouth and seeing if there was condensation. But the man's head was eight feet from the body. Shibaggen like THAT. Otherwise, they're just the normal, evil race that takes over humanity.
THe mirror-version-quality of the dopplegangers seems...blatant as well. I can sort of see Revan being disturbed by confronting his mirror self. Lord of the Rings did that with Galadriel, after being offered the Ring. I hope you didn't make mirror-Revan the leader of the doppleganger army; it's just too predictable. Unless I'm wrong, this might be a large cliche, and a major turn off to the reader.

On the whole, I think your writing style, grammar, structure, and imagination is well developed. I do not say this lightly.

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