Thursday, July 4, 2013

Random beginnings....

A little something I've been contemplating and working on, as in researching and considering...constructive feedback is appreciated. I won't give a synopsis, as I'm still working the whole of it out.

Hope you enjoy.


The pain raging in her head had escalated into a white-noise, blaring crescendo, then...it just stopped. The silence was deafening. It was very nearly worse than the noise and pain...it was nothing...nothing...bloody fucking nothing.

They had been beating her before she was so unceremoniously tossed into this oblivion. At that point, she had bones protruding through her skin, loose teeth, splintered ribs, and at least two dislocated fingers. She had fought, sure, but she had been dehydrated, weak, drugged, and broken before it even began. Widgers will at least remember they were in a damn fight, at least.... Then, the bastard on her right drew back for a direct hit to her skull, his hands already bloody and broken from striking her, and she felt his connection. It was as though a quarter-tonne of TNT had detonated in her brain, blasting behind the backs of her eyes.

That wasn't half of the torment. It was this damned quiet and nothingness that really chafed. What was she supposed to do? What the fuck was happening? What she in hell?

She had long given up any faith in a god or heavenly refuge...it was just childish to wish for some divine purpose or reward for being a prig, to her. Life was hard, and waiting for some mythical sky-man to pluck a person from misery and pain was a tosser's game. Better to pick yourself up and slog on, sod everything else, only a person's own will and strength would get them through. Despite that, and this was what made her seem "hard" to devouts like Grandpère and Abuelita, she did believe in hell. Maybe that was just appealing to her vengeful side, the side that took pleasure in seeing the bastards get theirs, that maybe, maybe, though the weak would never find their heaven, the unjust might get at least their comeuppance on behalf of those they oppressed.

Stupid git.... This is what you get for your sense of justice.

She spoke to the nothingness, not hearing or seeing anything to speak to, but, why the hell not give it a go?

"Where am I?"

Silence. More damned silence.

"What's happened to me?"

No answer, of course.

Did she have a body here? She couldn't tell...she certainly couldn't feel anything corporeal. If she had, she might sat down to mull it over. But really, what was there left to contemplate? Most likely, this was it. As with many people, she had never really thought about it, outside of the contract that she had to sign for her work, of course. She was young, fit, and, though she worked on the dangerous side of things, it never occurred to her that it would come so soon...and not this way.

All things die, chile. Jus' a matter of time. Don' wait fuh it. Live.

Grandpère's admonition to her after Mama's death had been taken a little too literally, she supposed. And that was why she had plowed ahead with everything left in her...even after Papa's following demise five years later. Only fifty-five, but it was the stress and strain that had done him in...and the booze, probably. Losing Mama was the first blow, his business, the next...but Tec's death had been too much, one loss too many. Maybe being Papa's only son and twenty had made it worse...but then, she had seen it coming.

Papa...what would he say now, with his two daughters joining that line of dead? Would he have scolded them, all properly and British, as fools, getting in over their heads? Nita had not calculated the odds properly, for sure, not giving her a full scope of the danger that they were really in. She had insisted that they leave the team behind, demanding only Reyna.

I should've trumped that call. Stupid, stupid Reyna, to let your starry-eyed sister make that judgment. You always knew she was naïve. Just a bleeding milk run, sure....

Alone, she continued to mutter to herself in her own thoughts. But, of course, there was no one to hear, no one to contradict her rantings. She lost sense of time, only hearing her own angry, troubled musings. Who would take care of Phoenix Services now? Gabe had was the next in line, and he was savvy enough to take the reins...it was Gary that she worried about, he would try to pervert what they did, contracting out to who knows, and they'd be no more than hired guns and thugs. Who would visit Grandpère? None of the other ten cousins and grandkids, scattered about the Americas, seemed to give two shits. Only she, Tec, and Nita had been present since Abuelita passed, the rest making excuses and waxing poetic about how they missed him so, but they just couldn't make the time.

It was all fruitless worry...she could do fuck all at this point.

But anger was easier. It was more satisfying, if this were all that was left to her, she'd have plenty of eternity for despair. Fighting was always easiest for her, just like Grandpère, You jus' like I am, ma petite-fille, ratha fight than cry, ratha move than stop...but sometime, you got to listen to da win', dem trees, de eart', dey speak...an' you mus' listen fuh it.

Sod it all...I'm not giving up.

"Hey! What the hell am I doing here?! Answer me! If I'm fucking offed, just dump me off somewhere, heaven, hell, or just stop this altogether! I don't give a toss! END...THIS...NOW!"

And, from nowhere, the answer finally boomed through her consciousness.

THEN COME!

More agony assaulted her, drawing out a scream louder than her previous command. Every nerve was being ripped apart and hurtled through time, space, and dimensions. Starlight, clouds, the blackness of space, and the piercing green and blue of the Earth below was spiraling fast towards her. Had she been among the stars? Or was that just a desperate hallucination? It didn't matter, because she was falling from such a height and so fast, every speeding foot moving closer to the land increased the pain and the pressure.

And then, she was thrown against something soft and yielding. She passed through flesh, injected like a drug. The blood pumped, the heart raged and crashed against the rib cage. Her salty tears flowed from eyes that she could barely feel. Her clotted blood was like a cascade of stones through her veins and arteries. Bones popped and reformed, the marrow alive once more.

Not knowing how, she reached up, and slammed tingling hands into hard metal. She was still raging and screaming, the banging of her fists against steel mocking her pitiable screams for release. She punched harder, her feet finally getting feeling, and she used the rest of her body to thrash. Oh, it bloody hurt, but she could feel, she could move, she had a body, she had a form. What state it was when she exited the damned encapsulation was no matter.

"Please! Someone let me out!" Oh, shit, don't let me be buried...don't let me be under....

When her cries went unanswered, before her throat became raw, she stopped for a moment. She was surrounded by metal...in the rider that she signed with her attorney, she had specified cremation. So...was this some sort of sick joke? Did her attackers toss her into this manky tin can to die? Or...was this the morgue? How could they believe her dead?

No, this has to be a dream....a coma, my injuries would have bloody healed. I feel pain...but not like I've just had my skull caved in by some wanker.

But voices drifted to her, echoing off the walls and even into her metal prison.

"Listen, you'll hear strange shit down here at night...that's just work here. It's almost like you want to, just to break the monotony. Really, though, don't let the deadders scare you."

Oh...no....








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