Lost with internity
This story is copyrighted to Vassago/SHaDoW-WHiSPERER any reproduction in part or as a whole is strictly forbidden. Usage of coined terminology, events, people, places, etc,
without explicit, official written permission to do so is strictly prohibited. Aside from this enjoy!!! Do not complain that character details are sketchy as I am still developing such information.
CHALLENGE SHORT STORY
Lost
Nemo was never one for elements of the superstitious but its confidence wavered. Having never been lost before struck what we will call him as an odd sensation. Every dead tree appeared the same as the last. At one point he even took pictures to confirm his suspicions. To his utter surprise, he was disturbingly almost right! The only sound in this desolate forest of unnatural stillness was his own breath in the climate-less region. Stopping for a moment to examine one of the massive trees, he blew a mass of dust from the surface of one of the trunks. The minute particles flew gracefully through the air before dissipating with surprising speed leaving no element of existence behind. Frustrated with no success, Nemo leapt an unmeasured distance vertically with the full intension of leaving the forest in his tracks. Landing on a thick branch of a pleasant circumference, compressing his muscles Nemo launched horizontally rather than vertically through the thick shrouds blocking the night sky. As the branch expectedly, broke mysterious beneath his feet as before, falling, falling, falling.
Thud!
The impact upon the gargantuan roots that dominated the floor did not hurt in the least, but none the less, felt incredibly unpleasant. Frustrated further, Nemo fought gravity with a comical emphasis of flailing limbs as a pale figure soared suddenly at him. Vanquishing before the inevitable impact. Recognizing multiple symptoms of mental deterioration and fatigue, he reached into his pocket, producing several stim-pills, consuming them before continuing onward. Having left the safety of the mobile artillery base to locate his sister's missing helmet forced him through sheer sympathy to help her. Without it, Sinn's damaged senses would overwhelm and thus immobilize her. Feeling that less weight on his shoulders would enhance his performance, Nemo dropped his pack and satchels to determine unnecessary weight and hindrances. His basic and most necessary supplies included the Gauss Rifle, stim-pills, ammunition, food, flares, side arm, toxins, grenades, anti vehicular mine, and a one use flamer. Less important were mechanical objects of moving parts and/or electronic devices, all having broken down immediately in this place. Chains, nadda, camera/thermal goggles, I have no need, night vision goggles, nope, and what else is electronic or already broken? Everything else that I left on the ground.
I felt compelled to at least assure myself that my Gauss rifle still properly operated, thus I discharged several tungsten depleted uranium core sabot spikes at roughly 2400 kps. It did indeed work, a single round out of three was sufficient to render a two meter hole in the trunk plus two more, yet it remained upright and sturdy. Looking away and looking back again... the holes were gone.
"That element forces any form of hope marking my trekked area useless."
Frustrated ever more...
"ACK"!
It became worse with the sudden appearance of the strange creature in my wake. Fully described it was a featureless child, no facial, bodily or fashion features to determine it as male or female. All that showed on its face were a pair of dark oversized eye holes dominating its pale mouth less complexions. A doppelganger of my thoughts. They are not truly a physical entity but rather a solid illusion generated by concentrated mental stress and environmental influences, taking utterly nonsensical and even sometimes humorous appearances. Science could not explain them, but I can just as easily describe as any scientific breakthrough that their indestructible structure served the ultimate bullet shield. I am now quite scared knowing that my mental stability in this depressing and dark setting is crumbling, I do not even know how to escape this infinite loop of a terrain. Though not actually moving, the doppelganger reasserted a new location every time I cared to witness its antagonistic presence.
"What ho, A foe?"
Not actually one but an unsettling phenomenon none the less. A unusually proportioned skeleton of a dog. CHINK, BOOmoooo, BOOmoooo, BOOmoooo, BOOmoooo, BOOmoooooooooooo!!! Semiautomatic sniper bullets and tracers grazed inches above my head. I quickly dove behind my doppelganger allowing it to take 2 shots before rolling under a tree root as fear replaced anxiety effectively dissipating the illusion following me.
"Come out freak so I can shake your hand!"
BOOmoooooooooooooooooo! That explains the second ganger. I realigned my digitigrade joints allowing quadrupedic movement thus an advantage in attempting to flank the hair-trigger sniper. Bk-bk-bk-bk-bk-bk-b-kb-kb-kb-k-bk-k--k-k-k-b-k-bk-b-kb-kb-k. Automatic fire destroyed the section of wood where instants before I revealed my muzzle. No good, there were clearly eight of them, all hell bent on their zealous religious belief that anything techno was a no-no.
"Come out little demon, I have some holy water, you m..."
"Cybermorph! Or is simple terminology beyond your uneducated intellect?"
The verbal distraction allowed me to relocate the anti-tank mine beside the mouthy one. "What the hell? Oh damn it!" BFFFFFFFFF! The sound was below my decibel range of hearing and thus I only felt the massive blast. The unarmored, plain dressed fanatic's skin along with four others were rendered pink mist as a single Gauss round impacted the mine as he tried to throw it elsewhere. The shot was eased with the addition of a mirror at the end of my rifle and a small laser pointer plus duck tape, thus only having to expose the gun. I noticed two others were out of commission as the blast apparently super heated ones lungs hiding in a tree. I fired and both halves hit the ground with sickly wet slops. As for the other, his body hit a tree so hard that the rib cage almost broke free of its chest. I unleashed two more rounds, all directed at him leaving nothing recognizable behind. The eighth and final would be assassin was a severe problem. I would not be able to maneuver my weapon into and appropriate firing position without exposing myself. Earlier tests when I first arrived revealed that when you place an object into a hole thst you made in a tree and look away, even with it sticking out in your view but not the hole. The object itself has been rendered a wooden branch of the tree and the part that had been previously seen when not looking at the hole. Looking back that part too has been rendered part of the tree. A hole I make cannot be seen by another which means that their gaze cannot hold it open. Also someone may shoot a looking hole through the tree and I would not be able to see it!!! And trying to tunnel through a tree would be suicide as you cannot see what is behind you unless you are an andalite and wooooo! I am getting myself confused and that is quite the opposite of what I need to be at the moment with a sniper on my ass.
TING!
"I see your tail"!
TING!
Two shots rang out from impacting the long spike jutting from the tip of my tail pressed against the curvature of my spine. I compressed it farther into my back to a painful degree, minimizing my silhouette. BOOmooooooooooooooooooooooo!
"I see you!"
I doubt it.
BOOmoooooooooooooooooooo!
I could not risk blind firing through the trunk for two lethal reasons. Number 1, I do not know where he/she is. Number 2, I do not want to chance the individual being able to fire through the holes I will make even if he/she cannot see them. *SIGH*. My only and most painful option was to go dark and detonate a grenade(s) in close proximity. I could not risk going dark and blind rushing the target as sustained weapons fire would quickly deplete my stamina. But I was sure that if I were to simply jump at the approximate location and detonate a HH-Incendiary grenade close enough to the target. I would escape the flame unscathed and hopefully kill or incapacitate (BOOmoooooooo) the sniper.
"I hate myself"... Like a switch had been flipped in my head, my perception of the world radically differed and distorted into a surreal blend of mental illusion and physical manipulation. My body became encased in the odd near indestructible substance simply said negative matter. Limited in strength and duration of manifestation by the power and reserves of the energy source.
"Ok" I thought to myself. "Time to die."
BOOmoooooooooooooooooooooo! CRUNCH! I blew through the upper park of the root as I sailed to the source of the obnoxious sound. Grenade in hand I pulled the pin and slammed head first into the same tree as the assailant.
"WHAT?!"
PHWOOOMPH.
AHHHHHHHHHH, ahah, AHHHHHHHHHHHH, CRUCH! The flames slid its fingers across my
eyeless retinas up into the high canopy of the tree. Before the appearance of a tangle of fiery flailing limbs failing down into the ground. I quickly dropped from the branch, kissing the ground before rolling unpleasantly fast from the scene. With all my mental energy spent my physical body returned to the land of the sane. I did not move at first, instead choosing to remain silent and still, forgetting that I am alive and still a breathing entity, as I was not a moment before.
"At least that is one problem out of the way." *Sighhhhhh*
"Did you ever possess one?"
"WHAT!?"
I quickly rose to my preferred bipedal state, setting my gun on the source of the voice.
"Who are you?"
"WHO ARE YOU?!" This time telepathically forcing the words into the head of the cloaked figure in front of me.
Still yet no reply. This being was unlike the illusion that had followed me earlier. I maintained an aggressive stance poised to fire then melee the figure if necessary, still it did not move.
"I am leaving and if you choose to follow, you chose your death."
Shouldering my rifle I trekked onward with my odd companion in tow. I allowed this for only so long before whirling a 180 falling on my right foot and tail with my left leg extended in .02 nanoseconds began firing full automatic at it. "IT" never moved but I did not hit it. Tossing the spent rifle aside, extending my claws, hand and foot, leapt. Every blow, every swipe, I can dodge bullets many times over (But eight? Give me a break!) and amazingly this creature could dodge me. A humans eyes operate at approximately 72.6 frames per second, artificially mine well over a hundred thousand times more, could not see it move. Only a few sparing kicks made futile contact with the cloak but nothing. Exhausted and no sun/moonlight to regenerate the nodes inside my body to go dark. I fell to the ground expecting a sudden attack but none came.
"You are a BITCH!"
All that was visible of the phantom was a bony foot expending slightly from underneath the flowing cloth. "Tyrannosaurus," I thought. Feeling lower then ever and facing an impossibly fast entity with a body structure I could not fathom at the precise moment shoved past it picking up my discarded pack and rifle before moving on. Disheveled and worn out, I walked further more followed by the clack, clack of claws behind me. I ventured a moment to look up... The way out!!!
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Screaming, I ran hysterical towards the way out only for it to slowly fade the closer I became. In eventuality, it vanished.
"DAMNATION! What are you laughing at?" I absentmindedly asked my silent stalker.
"DING!"
The sun dawned in my head. I do not find my way out, I come out. I was daydreaming and I came close to being free from this forest horror. I cannot look for a way out, I just walk.
"OK!" I do not recall the precise elapse of time it required to leave but it was the familiar crunch of snow and bright light emanating from the double moons that awoke me from my musing.
"YAH! I ammm freeeeeeeeeeee! YEEEEEEEEEE-oh hell!" During my jubilations I realized I had never accomplished my objective of locating and retrieving Sinn's helmet.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I clutched and tore at my muzzle in frustrated anger before falling on my back to soak up the ambient blue light. Recharging the nodes in my body before venturing back into the forest of a thousand idiosyncrasies. I noticed a chronometer but a few meters away where I left it to time my stay. "6 days, 4 minutes, 2 seconds" of agonizing mental torture in the stupid place. Picking myself up I checked my food and dark charge before re-beginning my journey into madness.
"You are not coming are you?" The figure actually nodded. "Crap! Here *I* GO." Popping a dozen or so stim-pills into my system, dilating my eyes and cranking my mind and body. Maybe if I do not look for it I will find the helmet!
"This doth not bode well in the slightest"