McNurglestein
First time out of the vault
(Note: I had this up before, but deleted it because I added too much notes. I will add, though, that I know nothing about the medical profession, and did no research whatsoever. Suspend your belief, duder, this is a sci-fi story.(that goes double for the theory of the boiled oceans and the french chick thing))
Anyways, tell me what you guys think so far, I'm curious to see if the words I have written can inspire images in the reader's mind similar to the images I see in my head. This is my first attempt at writing anything serious, and I have no schooling beyond high school english classes, so I'm just winging it.
Based on the time line, plot and character complexity, amount of random notes, and a random number generator written in C++, I calculate that the finished piece will have around 900-1200 pages. This is about 25-35 pages.
The Saltlands
By: Me
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CHAPTER ONE: The Salty Blue Yonder
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Blue...
The stranger stared up at the blue. Blue with white fluffs suspended in time and space. He felt suspended, caught in some mysterious fourth dimension, the dimension only seen by the insane, the dimension of werewolfs and vampires, of ghosts and fairies, of angels and demons. He felt like a bug, frozen in time within a rock of salty blue amber, tossed and toppled end on end, rolling down a hill. He laid on the warm salt and tried to make sense of it all. Fortunately, he could not.
He had been stung by a slither. The slither was a mutated snake with a head on each end, caused by radiated water from the Great Purification: the boiling of the oceans with atomic power. He remembered the slither, thought about it as he laid on the salt that now covered ninety percent of the earth. How could he forget the creature that stung him, bit him, fed him, ate him, split him, spit him? It ran through his mind like an obsessive thought while he could only lay there and watch the scene with no control, for what felt like months. It was like all those nightmares he had as a young child, the ones where he was being chased by a monster, usually one of the stars of one of his uncle's true but not true I-Once-Saw-A-Creature-Yay-High stories, but he couldn't run. His feet had been planted firmly in the salt, sucked down as if the ground were covered in sludge, and he had felt as if he were running with lead boots dragging him down while a monstrous entity chased him with intentions too horrible to imagine. That was how he felt now, being chased by an obsessive compulsive thought with no rest and no way to stop the pain as the three foot long slither stung him in the leg over and over and over in his mind.
Only this time the monster was real, and it was the man that was just a dream. He felt somewhere behind the scenes of his mind, the place he could always feel but could never know, that the slither was going to eventually wake up and think what a horrible dream that was and then his pain will be over, and the man will be the winner because his father told him to never give up, you will never die as long as you keep on fighting. What a nice father, to give out good advice like candy. Why couldn't dad ever follow his own advice? Maybe that is why dad was dead.
The dream took on an awful ambiance when the hazy pictures in his head were no longer intelligible and his dreams were just a rushing nauseating blur of colors. He knew he was still alive when he rolled over onto his side and vomited bitter liquid. No chunks, the chunks had made a similar exit long ago.
Maybe months.
But after being sick he was thrust back into the hazy rush of colors. Bright, annoying, horrific colors that made his head spin. He thought about the thought of giving up and dying, but his father appeared in his mind, in the part he could feel but could never see or know, and told him that he will never die.
He will never die.
His father had died, but that was different. His father had been a fool. His father fell in love. And the wandering stranger knew that once you fell into true love you would eventually reach the point where you would give your life for the woman you love, and at that point your life becomes not your own, and if you do not use your life for yourself then the woman you married will throw that life away, she has her own selfish needs and worries and concerns and will never love you the same way you love her, she forgets about you even though you are by her side constantly. And his father taught him two important lessons: Never give up on life or stop living it, and never give your life to a woman who has no intention of giving you hers in return. The stranger had fallen in love once, despite his father's teachings. He paid for that mistake. Now the monsters have come.
The stranger floated on for months and months, sometimes in intense pain, sometimes in savage pain, sometimes in horrible pain, but he will never give up he will never die. He floated sometimes, and sometimes he flew, and sometimes he fell: fell for hours at a time, stomach rotating in the opposite direction of his body and he was sick but couldn't roll over. He choked on his sickness for a few months while falling but managed to gain enough air in his lungs to not die. He could tell that this was it, something was about to end soon.
He was determined to not make it his life. He fought on.
(~wake up you are alive that is all that matters wake up if you are alive that means the world the real world is out there somewhere now listen to me before it is too late shut up and listen you are dying you are about to die and that would be horrible now wake up fight you have to fight dad is dead because he gave up but you still have a chance do it do it now open your eyes OPEN THEM!~)
He opened his eyes for what he felt was the first time in a year. It was the middle of the night, but the moon was full and enough light reflected off the salt, just enough to hurt his eyes. He tried to breathe deeply but he could hear his ribs cracking audibly, and there was probably more salt in his lungs than air. He was burning from the inside out, and he was freezing. He didn't even try to sit up yet, not until he got his bearings. He clenched his eyes shut against the light, he already knew that his eyes still worked, curse god for small favors.
He rubbed a finger against the abrasive salt underneath him, then again with the other hand, then made a fist with both hands and relaxed. He could already tell that his skin was badly burned from the sun, but the pain was different, better, more tolerable. He bent each arm, one at a time, at the elbow, and both seemed to work more or less the same as they always have. A wave of nausea and dizziness overcame him, and his vision started to fade. He held his breath
(~no don't do that you need to breathe or you will pass out and who knows what will happen after that if you don't breathe you can't fight you will die just breathe dammit BREATHE!~)
for a moment, then exhaled and breathed deeply while fighting for control of his vision, and the spots before his eyes gave way to the sight of the moon.
(~remember that time with mommy she said go outside then i went outside and made an angel because mommy was a demon and yelling and drinking and i made an angel and looked up and saw the moon and felt all warm and fuzzy inside~)
He moved his arms up and down as if he were making a salt angel, and found that his left shoulder was hurt very badly, maybe even partially dislocated. He was about to wiggle his toes in his boots, but then a hundred years of pain and torture under the hazy dreams of a three foot slither flew past his mind's eye in a rush of colors that reminded him of a movie he once saw. He decided to wait on his legs, they could wait, he couldn't feel them at the moment but if they still exist then they can wait. He just imagined that they were perfectly fine, and he left it at that, the important thing being he was still alive, and he was certain that he was alive.
Of that he was certain. He was certainly alive.
He rotated his neck to the left and saw the remains of a breakfast of saltlizard eaten a few months ago, looks like. He remembered waking from the dreams of the slither to vomit and then the slither went back to sleep.
(~what a nice slither to wait on me like that~)
To the right and a little more of the same, but less of a memory flash. He tensed the muscles of his stomach and found them to be quite sore, but still functioning. He suddenly realized he had to pee and had to pee now. He moved his good arm down and felt for his penis. It was still intact, thank god for large favors. He thought about just letting it run freely but then remembered the survival training he received in his past life, that there was barely any water to be found in the wild saltlands. Drink your own pee if you have to.
The stranger
(~who am i what am i what am i doing out here i forgot better remember...later gotta pee gotta drink or ill die get the canteen unhook it from my bag where is my bag it is under me still on my back get the canteen there is a leak~)
discovered there was a crack in his canteen on the side. It was a round flat canteen like a thick pancake, and as he lifted it up to his eye level he saw the crack and the water that was left when the poison took hold
(~yes poison a slither i was poisoned not a monster just an animal i am still alive~)
leaked out of the crack, but it did not take him by surprise because the part of his mind he could feel but not see or touch or smell had deduced in its own little world wherever it chose to hide when he needed it the most that due to the wet ground the canteen had leaked water, only the little world chose the hypothesis that the cap had unscrewed it is alright just recap the canteen it will be ok you will survive...no, it was wrong, the canteen had a crack in it. It would not hold much liquid, but if he held it at just the right angle the liquid stayed in
(~good gotta pee loosen the belt unbutton unzip where did it go oh there it is it was hiding maneuver it into the canteen let loose do your stuff little man no now is not the time for jokes just go or ill die no i wont die just do this and live and go on and survive shut up quit thinking just go there you go~)
for the time being. He drank the warm salty liquid, which tasted like a strange concoction of salt water and very strong chicken broth and battery acid and bleach, and his stomach heaved
(~no if i don't drink this i will die there is no doubt about it i still have some strength left i can make it i am strong i can make it argh my leg my leg MY LEG MY LEG MYLEGMYLEGMYLEGMYFUCKINGLEG~)
and his leg reawakened from its slumber and started wailing like a baby in need of
(~milk or a strong drink or maybe a good shot of morphine anything just TELL THE BABY TO SHUT UP IT HURTS SO BAD~)
its mothers love.
Once his leg quieted down a little bit he risked a look at it, and was glad he did. It had swollen up about four sizes and bulged his pants out; and from the cuff of the ankle of his pants he could see the greenish black flesh of his calf and knew he needed to cut off his leg and this thought did not worry him because finally he was in control he could do something he could survive but how much needed to be cut?
He got a knife from the other side of his backpack than his canteen
(~where did i put the canteen when i drank the pee doesn't matter cut the leg you can do it~)
was on, and cut the pants on his right leg starting mid thigh and going as far down as he could. He cut his leg in the process and green sludge
(~oh great an infection this is lovely just great wonderful~)
gushed through, but he barely felt it. He found what he was looking for. He located the place where the infection started, went two inches higher, and made a small reference cut to remind him where he needed to do it and he needed to do it fast or the infection will spread.
He managed to get a shoddy medical kit out of his backpack, took off his shirt and spread it out on the salty sand, and placed the necessary tools
(~bottle of rubbing alcohol three rolls of gauze a hacksaw~)
on the shirt. First he cut a small section of gauze and soaked it with the isopropyl and generously applied the liquid to the area to be cut, careful not to move the leg too much. Then he took off his belt and tightly wrapped and fastened it to his leg a few inches below his groin, then sterilized the saw and began cutting without hesitation. It was mostly tingly and weird than painful at first, his skin was like tough leather without feeling, but the pain was almost unbearable as he broke through to the meat. He stopped and put a wad of gauze in his mouth, bit down and screamed while he cut. He screamed, and he cut. He never stopped screaming, and he never stopped cutting.
Once he got to the bone it started to feel very weird, a strange deep throbbing pressure, the whole leg vibrating as the teeth of the hacksaw chewed a hole into the bone. He put his free hand on his knee and pressed his weight on it to keep the leg steady while he cut. It was more bearable when he got to the bone marrow, but once he was through the bone it was just a straight shot through more meat. During the last part, the home stretch, he only had two clear, intelligible thoughts through the unintelligible pain: One was how little it hurt now, as if his leg had given in, had submitted, had resigned to the fact that it was about to be dead, and therefore
(~will i be that way soon gosh i hope not wow it looks so peaceful stop it shut up you will not die you will never die whats next~)
had died to prevent the process of dying. The second thought was that there was very little blood. Lots, but not as much as had been imagined by that little part of his mind that he knew about but never ever knew.
He continued cutting, even though he was through the leg. He cut deeply into the salt, sand, and dirt under his leg. He stared off into space, looking at everything and at nothing, while his mind was off to a place it hadn't been for a while: the closest place his mind had ever been to the little place he could feel but not see or touch or hear. His mind hadn't been this close to that place since childhood.
Shapes, colors, streams of consciousness, what thoughts looked like before they took form, before they became thoughts. He saw one such thought forming right in front of his eyes. It was dark at first, but ran up the spectrum to green with blue in the middle on a brownish white background. It terrified him, it mystified him, it enthralled him, what was this thought? It came into his focus and he jumped with a start when he was yanked back into reality and staring at his leg. He didn't want to be near it, it was evil and he was good he'll run away yeah that will work this isn't a dream it is real I can run
(~not enough legs doesnt matter i have hands i will crawl away ill drag myself i feel so sick i feel like im floating no not floating falling~)
away now.
He dug his palms into the salt and pushed with all his might and the evil leg was getting longer crawl faster even longer and bigger it will eat me help me leave me alone help me help me help me help FOCUS! his focus went down the leg and he remembered cutting the leg the flesh the meat the bone the saw was still in his hands he threw it away far away no more pain the saw took the pain and gave some in return but now it served its purpose now it must die it took the evil with it no... the leg... wait a sec...
He sat in his own grownup body as the child he once was and saw himself grab a handful of salt from the ground and rub it onto the end of a stump of his leg then arch his back in pain but only for a second then he did it again but no pain this time and again and he was done. The child he once was and was again saw its future self grope around his waist and remove a red cylinder from his belt. He watched as the grownup him held the small part against the ground and did something to make the big part shoot a fireball into the air. Then after the bright light and loud noise, all was dark.
Yellow...
The adult awoke to yellow. That was the first color that came to mind, even before he opened his eyes. He wasn't sure if he was dreaming or blind or dead, just yellow. Delirium and dizziness and death were all he could feel. He was floating under a ton of bricks with a thousand needles poking into his back. And he couldn't breathe. And the whole damn world was now yellow.
Yellow.. was this the color of death? Not black, not red, but yellow. Not white. Not blue. If this is death, then
(~am i in hell am i in heaven if this is heaven i want out if this is hell i want out if this is limbo i want out if im not dead please kill me please god i want to die so badly the pain the sick the dizziness the confusion please god if you exist please kill me now i dont care anymore i cant take it~)
what is next? Is this it? Yellow for all eternity while suffering an eternal death? Life seemed so far back, probably a couple hundred years or so. Maybe even closer to a thousand.
He made an attempt to open his eyes. One of them was taped shut, but the other slurched open to see a yellow cloth with a bright light shining on it. The light was bright enough to be the fires of hell.
He closed his eye, regretting that he ever opened it, regretting he had ever had eyes. He was just as confused as ever, but now his head pounded. He needed water. He needed alot of things, but water was the most dominant of the needs. It covered all of the rest as if it were one of a dozen babies in a playpen and it was screaming the loudest. He wanted to shoot the thirst baby, he wanted to shoot his pain, he wanted to shoot himself. He knew he was not dead. He knew he wanted to be. But he couldn't move. He tried to, but nothing would work. Not his arms, not his head, not his neck, not his left leg, not his right stump, he couldn't even lick his lips. If it weren't for the intense pain in every part of his body, he would have believed he was paralyzed.
He laid there for probably three hours, simmering in his pain, simmering in yellow, nothing to do but think. But he couldn't even do this very well. The pain came in cycles. Little jolts every thirty seconds; large, painful seizures every twenty minutes, and an ever present tingling and throbbing and burning and
(~dying i am dying i am dying i am dying i am dying i am dying i am~)
pain.
He thought about his mother. The way she would always wake him up at dawn and feed him a breakfast of saltlizard eggs and brushweed when he was little. The way she would sing
(~that song the most beautiful song in the world i can hear it i remember like it was yesterday maybe it was yesterday yes it was yesterday this is just another dream i am just a young boy back in the loving arms of my mother maybe all the pain and evil feelings that came with the memory of her was all just a bad dream i am a young boy again and love my mother~)
as she did her chores. After breakfast he would help her wash the dishes
(~the ones she threw at daddy that time when she was drunk and peed her pants and blamed daddy because he had a small weenie~)
and clean the house. It was never as clean as she wanted it. Maybe that was why she was miserable and started to drink and then abandoned her husband and child and ran off with a nomadic adventurer.
Or maybe father was right. Women are all lying, cheating, Whores of Babylon who can never love a man as much as he can love her, that the only way to keep a woman is to do the same thing you do to cattle: throw a yoke over her and keep her locked up. But if you do that, you may as well just let her go. Or better yet, just accept women for what they really are, just a need, something that does not deserve love, something that is to be used and discarded, because she will do the same to you.
They all will.
They are all the same.
Deep down, they are all the same.
A sound of shoes scraping against salt shook him out of his delirium. A person, another person. He tried to call out, but his throat felt encrusted with salt
(~water please i need water~)
and his lungs felt weak. He hadn't eaten or breathed in months. Maybe even decades.
But the shoes found their own way to him. A shadow fell over the yellow, and brought minor relief to his eyes. But then the yellow was lifted away and the blurry face of a thin, elderly man was looking back at him. He heard the man say something reassuring, but the injured stranger couldn't hear it. He was too busy trying to scream. Through the delirium and the tired eyes and the mind made weak with hunger and savage by pain, he could see a look of pity in the old man's eyes. The yellow was replaced, and after a few seconds of rustling sounds he felt something cool touch his arm. Then the cool touch started to burn his sunburn. It was a minor pain, though, compared to all his other aches. After the cool burning, he felt something, a dull piercing, over where the cool touch had burned his arm. The stranger realized that this has happened once before, that the old man was putting in an IV. The man was a doctor. He would help. He was an angel. He was a god. No more worries. The old man was god. I should worship this old man. He will save me.
He felt the same burning coolness on the other arm, in the exact spot as the other one; right below the inside of the elbow. Another IV. The stranger felt a strange warm coolness enter his body from both arms now. A soothing warm coolness. A nurturing warm coolness. Perhaps he was being placed back into the womb. Maybe he was dead, and this was heaven?
The soothing warm coolness made him tired. He rested his eyes, rested his mind, untensed every muscle in his body
(~wow i was tense but now i am better i will be fine i am dead i am in heaven i am dizzy i was falling but now im flying maybe im in the womb again soon to be reborn into something beautiful like a baby or an angel or maybe a graceful swooping eagle...
Red...
The stranger awoke in a red room. He was in a womb, but not in heaven. He was in hell. His mother really was a demon, and he was placed back into her demonic womb. He was burning with a fever he knew was eternal. Abandon all hope, ye who rest in the womb of dried blood. He would have chosen an eternity of miserable yellow over a thousand years of blood red. The air was hot and unbearable. Every inch of his body ached and screamed.
He screamed.
He scared himself when he did. But he was quickly thrown back into reality. He was expecting the same thin raspy whisper that had plagued his salty lungs for the past hundred years, ever since he was stung
(~i was stung? i was stung! im not dead im alive i was stung!~)
by that slither. He also found that, despite the intense pain, his thoughts were now coming quickly and clearly. He knew
(~i am alex?...my name is alexander?...i am a wanderer a drifter what did i do what am i doing maybe i am looking for something... looking for what?~)
who and what he was. His only question was where was he, and how did he get there. His neck was still stiff and sore, but he could move it around slowly to get a look at where he was.
Alexander was in a small metal room. The walls, which looked suspiciously like they were coated in dry, crusty blood, were just sheets of metal that had been severely weathered into rusty, dented shapes when the oceans boiled. He could see that some kind of dark cloth was covering the holes in the walls. He came to the conclusion that the old man that rescued him had an iron shack, probably in a dead city of some sort.
He saw that he still had an IV connected to his left arm, probably water or, if the old man knew what he was doing, saline solution. There was a bandage on his right arm that covered another IV hole. Alex's guess was that it was for an anti-radiation solution. Good thing, too. The inside of that bomb was hot as blazes, he remembered.
It had been a little over sixty years since the dictator of the New French Order had placed seven nuclear submarines in various places on the ocean floor and set off an atomic weapon in each one, as part of a mad scheme to "purify" the world. As a result, all the reactors went super-critical, and the oceans started boiling. And they did not stop boiling for three days. Entire continents were swallowed. Billions died. Only a small handful of human beings remained. Alex had heard stories of England having a nation-wide underground shelter system for its entire population, but has seen nothing to support that theory. He heard it from a crazy old man in Hardknoxville named Clark. Apparently, thirty years after the oceans boiled, a bunch of wackos from a traveling freakshow circus came across a silo that housed a very large nuclear bomb and decided to take all of England hostage. What a strange new world this is. Nothing like the pre-boiling movies Alex often lost himself in as a young child in the NAG.
In his lifetime, Alex has probably only seen a thousand people other than those of the shelter he was born in. A thousand miserable, lonely people. A thousand tired, weak, defenseless, bored people. People in need of(~in need of what?~)someone(~someone?~)to come along(~someone to come along?~)and take away(~who...what?~)all their pain(~pain? not like mine, but still pain)and misery(they are miserable like me~)and sorrow(~i will help~)and be their savior(~i can save them~)and return(~the world to its former glory~)their(~life will be better i will save them~)happiness(~i can do it i can save the world I WILL DO IT...
“I WILL BE THEIR GOD!!! I WILL SAVE THE WORLD!!! I WILL BE GOD! I WILL SAVE THEM!!! I WILL DO IT!!! I WILL...
Anyways, tell me what you guys think so far, I'm curious to see if the words I have written can inspire images in the reader's mind similar to the images I see in my head. This is my first attempt at writing anything serious, and I have no schooling beyond high school english classes, so I'm just winging it.
Based on the time line, plot and character complexity, amount of random notes, and a random number generator written in C++, I calculate that the finished piece will have around 900-1200 pages. This is about 25-35 pages.
The Saltlands
By: Me
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
CHAPTER ONE: The Salty Blue Yonder
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Blue...
The stranger stared up at the blue. Blue with white fluffs suspended in time and space. He felt suspended, caught in some mysterious fourth dimension, the dimension only seen by the insane, the dimension of werewolfs and vampires, of ghosts and fairies, of angels and demons. He felt like a bug, frozen in time within a rock of salty blue amber, tossed and toppled end on end, rolling down a hill. He laid on the warm salt and tried to make sense of it all. Fortunately, he could not.
He had been stung by a slither. The slither was a mutated snake with a head on each end, caused by radiated water from the Great Purification: the boiling of the oceans with atomic power. He remembered the slither, thought about it as he laid on the salt that now covered ninety percent of the earth. How could he forget the creature that stung him, bit him, fed him, ate him, split him, spit him? It ran through his mind like an obsessive thought while he could only lay there and watch the scene with no control, for what felt like months. It was like all those nightmares he had as a young child, the ones where he was being chased by a monster, usually one of the stars of one of his uncle's true but not true I-Once-Saw-A-Creature-Yay-High stories, but he couldn't run. His feet had been planted firmly in the salt, sucked down as if the ground were covered in sludge, and he had felt as if he were running with lead boots dragging him down while a monstrous entity chased him with intentions too horrible to imagine. That was how he felt now, being chased by an obsessive compulsive thought with no rest and no way to stop the pain as the three foot long slither stung him in the leg over and over and over in his mind.
Only this time the monster was real, and it was the man that was just a dream. He felt somewhere behind the scenes of his mind, the place he could always feel but could never know, that the slither was going to eventually wake up and think what a horrible dream that was and then his pain will be over, and the man will be the winner because his father told him to never give up, you will never die as long as you keep on fighting. What a nice father, to give out good advice like candy. Why couldn't dad ever follow his own advice? Maybe that is why dad was dead.
The dream took on an awful ambiance when the hazy pictures in his head were no longer intelligible and his dreams were just a rushing nauseating blur of colors. He knew he was still alive when he rolled over onto his side and vomited bitter liquid. No chunks, the chunks had made a similar exit long ago.
Maybe months.
But after being sick he was thrust back into the hazy rush of colors. Bright, annoying, horrific colors that made his head spin. He thought about the thought of giving up and dying, but his father appeared in his mind, in the part he could feel but could never see or know, and told him that he will never die.
He will never die.
His father had died, but that was different. His father had been a fool. His father fell in love. And the wandering stranger knew that once you fell into true love you would eventually reach the point where you would give your life for the woman you love, and at that point your life becomes not your own, and if you do not use your life for yourself then the woman you married will throw that life away, she has her own selfish needs and worries and concerns and will never love you the same way you love her, she forgets about you even though you are by her side constantly. And his father taught him two important lessons: Never give up on life or stop living it, and never give your life to a woman who has no intention of giving you hers in return. The stranger had fallen in love once, despite his father's teachings. He paid for that mistake. Now the monsters have come.
The stranger floated on for months and months, sometimes in intense pain, sometimes in savage pain, sometimes in horrible pain, but he will never give up he will never die. He floated sometimes, and sometimes he flew, and sometimes he fell: fell for hours at a time, stomach rotating in the opposite direction of his body and he was sick but couldn't roll over. He choked on his sickness for a few months while falling but managed to gain enough air in his lungs to not die. He could tell that this was it, something was about to end soon.
He was determined to not make it his life. He fought on.
(~wake up you are alive that is all that matters wake up if you are alive that means the world the real world is out there somewhere now listen to me before it is too late shut up and listen you are dying you are about to die and that would be horrible now wake up fight you have to fight dad is dead because he gave up but you still have a chance do it do it now open your eyes OPEN THEM!~)
He opened his eyes for what he felt was the first time in a year. It was the middle of the night, but the moon was full and enough light reflected off the salt, just enough to hurt his eyes. He tried to breathe deeply but he could hear his ribs cracking audibly, and there was probably more salt in his lungs than air. He was burning from the inside out, and he was freezing. He didn't even try to sit up yet, not until he got his bearings. He clenched his eyes shut against the light, he already knew that his eyes still worked, curse god for small favors.
He rubbed a finger against the abrasive salt underneath him, then again with the other hand, then made a fist with both hands and relaxed. He could already tell that his skin was badly burned from the sun, but the pain was different, better, more tolerable. He bent each arm, one at a time, at the elbow, and both seemed to work more or less the same as they always have. A wave of nausea and dizziness overcame him, and his vision started to fade. He held his breath
(~no don't do that you need to breathe or you will pass out and who knows what will happen after that if you don't breathe you can't fight you will die just breathe dammit BREATHE!~)
for a moment, then exhaled and breathed deeply while fighting for control of his vision, and the spots before his eyes gave way to the sight of the moon.
(~remember that time with mommy she said go outside then i went outside and made an angel because mommy was a demon and yelling and drinking and i made an angel and looked up and saw the moon and felt all warm and fuzzy inside~)
He moved his arms up and down as if he were making a salt angel, and found that his left shoulder was hurt very badly, maybe even partially dislocated. He was about to wiggle his toes in his boots, but then a hundred years of pain and torture under the hazy dreams of a three foot slither flew past his mind's eye in a rush of colors that reminded him of a movie he once saw. He decided to wait on his legs, they could wait, he couldn't feel them at the moment but if they still exist then they can wait. He just imagined that they were perfectly fine, and he left it at that, the important thing being he was still alive, and he was certain that he was alive.
Of that he was certain. He was certainly alive.
He rotated his neck to the left and saw the remains of a breakfast of saltlizard eaten a few months ago, looks like. He remembered waking from the dreams of the slither to vomit and then the slither went back to sleep.
(~what a nice slither to wait on me like that~)
To the right and a little more of the same, but less of a memory flash. He tensed the muscles of his stomach and found them to be quite sore, but still functioning. He suddenly realized he had to pee and had to pee now. He moved his good arm down and felt for his penis. It was still intact, thank god for large favors. He thought about just letting it run freely but then remembered the survival training he received in his past life, that there was barely any water to be found in the wild saltlands. Drink your own pee if you have to.
The stranger
(~who am i what am i what am i doing out here i forgot better remember...later gotta pee gotta drink or ill die get the canteen unhook it from my bag where is my bag it is under me still on my back get the canteen there is a leak~)
discovered there was a crack in his canteen on the side. It was a round flat canteen like a thick pancake, and as he lifted it up to his eye level he saw the crack and the water that was left when the poison took hold
(~yes poison a slither i was poisoned not a monster just an animal i am still alive~)
leaked out of the crack, but it did not take him by surprise because the part of his mind he could feel but not see or touch or smell had deduced in its own little world wherever it chose to hide when he needed it the most that due to the wet ground the canteen had leaked water, only the little world chose the hypothesis that the cap had unscrewed it is alright just recap the canteen it will be ok you will survive...no, it was wrong, the canteen had a crack in it. It would not hold much liquid, but if he held it at just the right angle the liquid stayed in
(~good gotta pee loosen the belt unbutton unzip where did it go oh there it is it was hiding maneuver it into the canteen let loose do your stuff little man no now is not the time for jokes just go or ill die no i wont die just do this and live and go on and survive shut up quit thinking just go there you go~)
for the time being. He drank the warm salty liquid, which tasted like a strange concoction of salt water and very strong chicken broth and battery acid and bleach, and his stomach heaved
(~no if i don't drink this i will die there is no doubt about it i still have some strength left i can make it i am strong i can make it argh my leg my leg MY LEG MY LEG MYLEGMYLEGMYLEGMYFUCKINGLEG~)
and his leg reawakened from its slumber and started wailing like a baby in need of
(~milk or a strong drink or maybe a good shot of morphine anything just TELL THE BABY TO SHUT UP IT HURTS SO BAD~)
its mothers love.
Once his leg quieted down a little bit he risked a look at it, and was glad he did. It had swollen up about four sizes and bulged his pants out; and from the cuff of the ankle of his pants he could see the greenish black flesh of his calf and knew he needed to cut off his leg and this thought did not worry him because finally he was in control he could do something he could survive but how much needed to be cut?
He got a knife from the other side of his backpack than his canteen
(~where did i put the canteen when i drank the pee doesn't matter cut the leg you can do it~)
was on, and cut the pants on his right leg starting mid thigh and going as far down as he could. He cut his leg in the process and green sludge
(~oh great an infection this is lovely just great wonderful~)
gushed through, but he barely felt it. He found what he was looking for. He located the place where the infection started, went two inches higher, and made a small reference cut to remind him where he needed to do it and he needed to do it fast or the infection will spread.
He managed to get a shoddy medical kit out of his backpack, took off his shirt and spread it out on the salty sand, and placed the necessary tools
(~bottle of rubbing alcohol three rolls of gauze a hacksaw~)
on the shirt. First he cut a small section of gauze and soaked it with the isopropyl and generously applied the liquid to the area to be cut, careful not to move the leg too much. Then he took off his belt and tightly wrapped and fastened it to his leg a few inches below his groin, then sterilized the saw and began cutting without hesitation. It was mostly tingly and weird than painful at first, his skin was like tough leather without feeling, but the pain was almost unbearable as he broke through to the meat. He stopped and put a wad of gauze in his mouth, bit down and screamed while he cut. He screamed, and he cut. He never stopped screaming, and he never stopped cutting.
Once he got to the bone it started to feel very weird, a strange deep throbbing pressure, the whole leg vibrating as the teeth of the hacksaw chewed a hole into the bone. He put his free hand on his knee and pressed his weight on it to keep the leg steady while he cut. It was more bearable when he got to the bone marrow, but once he was through the bone it was just a straight shot through more meat. During the last part, the home stretch, he only had two clear, intelligible thoughts through the unintelligible pain: One was how little it hurt now, as if his leg had given in, had submitted, had resigned to the fact that it was about to be dead, and therefore
(~will i be that way soon gosh i hope not wow it looks so peaceful stop it shut up you will not die you will never die whats next~)
had died to prevent the process of dying. The second thought was that there was very little blood. Lots, but not as much as had been imagined by that little part of his mind that he knew about but never ever knew.
He continued cutting, even though he was through the leg. He cut deeply into the salt, sand, and dirt under his leg. He stared off into space, looking at everything and at nothing, while his mind was off to a place it hadn't been for a while: the closest place his mind had ever been to the little place he could feel but not see or touch or hear. His mind hadn't been this close to that place since childhood.
Shapes, colors, streams of consciousness, what thoughts looked like before they took form, before they became thoughts. He saw one such thought forming right in front of his eyes. It was dark at first, but ran up the spectrum to green with blue in the middle on a brownish white background. It terrified him, it mystified him, it enthralled him, what was this thought? It came into his focus and he jumped with a start when he was yanked back into reality and staring at his leg. He didn't want to be near it, it was evil and he was good he'll run away yeah that will work this isn't a dream it is real I can run
(~not enough legs doesnt matter i have hands i will crawl away ill drag myself i feel so sick i feel like im floating no not floating falling~)
away now.
He dug his palms into the salt and pushed with all his might and the evil leg was getting longer crawl faster even longer and bigger it will eat me help me leave me alone help me help me help me help FOCUS! his focus went down the leg and he remembered cutting the leg the flesh the meat the bone the saw was still in his hands he threw it away far away no more pain the saw took the pain and gave some in return but now it served its purpose now it must die it took the evil with it no... the leg... wait a sec...
He sat in his own grownup body as the child he once was and saw himself grab a handful of salt from the ground and rub it onto the end of a stump of his leg then arch his back in pain but only for a second then he did it again but no pain this time and again and he was done. The child he once was and was again saw its future self grope around his waist and remove a red cylinder from his belt. He watched as the grownup him held the small part against the ground and did something to make the big part shoot a fireball into the air. Then after the bright light and loud noise, all was dark.
Yellow...
The adult awoke to yellow. That was the first color that came to mind, even before he opened his eyes. He wasn't sure if he was dreaming or blind or dead, just yellow. Delirium and dizziness and death were all he could feel. He was floating under a ton of bricks with a thousand needles poking into his back. And he couldn't breathe. And the whole damn world was now yellow.
Yellow.. was this the color of death? Not black, not red, but yellow. Not white. Not blue. If this is death, then
(~am i in hell am i in heaven if this is heaven i want out if this is hell i want out if this is limbo i want out if im not dead please kill me please god i want to die so badly the pain the sick the dizziness the confusion please god if you exist please kill me now i dont care anymore i cant take it~)
what is next? Is this it? Yellow for all eternity while suffering an eternal death? Life seemed so far back, probably a couple hundred years or so. Maybe even closer to a thousand.
He made an attempt to open his eyes. One of them was taped shut, but the other slurched open to see a yellow cloth with a bright light shining on it. The light was bright enough to be the fires of hell.
He closed his eye, regretting that he ever opened it, regretting he had ever had eyes. He was just as confused as ever, but now his head pounded. He needed water. He needed alot of things, but water was the most dominant of the needs. It covered all of the rest as if it were one of a dozen babies in a playpen and it was screaming the loudest. He wanted to shoot the thirst baby, he wanted to shoot his pain, he wanted to shoot himself. He knew he was not dead. He knew he wanted to be. But he couldn't move. He tried to, but nothing would work. Not his arms, not his head, not his neck, not his left leg, not his right stump, he couldn't even lick his lips. If it weren't for the intense pain in every part of his body, he would have believed he was paralyzed.
He laid there for probably three hours, simmering in his pain, simmering in yellow, nothing to do but think. But he couldn't even do this very well. The pain came in cycles. Little jolts every thirty seconds; large, painful seizures every twenty minutes, and an ever present tingling and throbbing and burning and
(~dying i am dying i am dying i am dying i am dying i am dying i am~)
pain.
He thought about his mother. The way she would always wake him up at dawn and feed him a breakfast of saltlizard eggs and brushweed when he was little. The way she would sing
(~that song the most beautiful song in the world i can hear it i remember like it was yesterday maybe it was yesterday yes it was yesterday this is just another dream i am just a young boy back in the loving arms of my mother maybe all the pain and evil feelings that came with the memory of her was all just a bad dream i am a young boy again and love my mother~)
as she did her chores. After breakfast he would help her wash the dishes
(~the ones she threw at daddy that time when she was drunk and peed her pants and blamed daddy because he had a small weenie~)
and clean the house. It was never as clean as she wanted it. Maybe that was why she was miserable and started to drink and then abandoned her husband and child and ran off with a nomadic adventurer.
Or maybe father was right. Women are all lying, cheating, Whores of Babylon who can never love a man as much as he can love her, that the only way to keep a woman is to do the same thing you do to cattle: throw a yoke over her and keep her locked up. But if you do that, you may as well just let her go. Or better yet, just accept women for what they really are, just a need, something that does not deserve love, something that is to be used and discarded, because she will do the same to you.
They all will.
They are all the same.
Deep down, they are all the same.
A sound of shoes scraping against salt shook him out of his delirium. A person, another person. He tried to call out, but his throat felt encrusted with salt
(~water please i need water~)
and his lungs felt weak. He hadn't eaten or breathed in months. Maybe even decades.
But the shoes found their own way to him. A shadow fell over the yellow, and brought minor relief to his eyes. But then the yellow was lifted away and the blurry face of a thin, elderly man was looking back at him. He heard the man say something reassuring, but the injured stranger couldn't hear it. He was too busy trying to scream. Through the delirium and the tired eyes and the mind made weak with hunger and savage by pain, he could see a look of pity in the old man's eyes. The yellow was replaced, and after a few seconds of rustling sounds he felt something cool touch his arm. Then the cool touch started to burn his sunburn. It was a minor pain, though, compared to all his other aches. After the cool burning, he felt something, a dull piercing, over where the cool touch had burned his arm. The stranger realized that this has happened once before, that the old man was putting in an IV. The man was a doctor. He would help. He was an angel. He was a god. No more worries. The old man was god. I should worship this old man. He will save me.
He felt the same burning coolness on the other arm, in the exact spot as the other one; right below the inside of the elbow. Another IV. The stranger felt a strange warm coolness enter his body from both arms now. A soothing warm coolness. A nurturing warm coolness. Perhaps he was being placed back into the womb. Maybe he was dead, and this was heaven?
The soothing warm coolness made him tired. He rested his eyes, rested his mind, untensed every muscle in his body
(~wow i was tense but now i am better i will be fine i am dead i am in heaven i am dizzy i was falling but now im flying maybe im in the womb again soon to be reborn into something beautiful like a baby or an angel or maybe a graceful swooping eagle...
Red...
The stranger awoke in a red room. He was in a womb, but not in heaven. He was in hell. His mother really was a demon, and he was placed back into her demonic womb. He was burning with a fever he knew was eternal. Abandon all hope, ye who rest in the womb of dried blood. He would have chosen an eternity of miserable yellow over a thousand years of blood red. The air was hot and unbearable. Every inch of his body ached and screamed.
He screamed.
He scared himself when he did. But he was quickly thrown back into reality. He was expecting the same thin raspy whisper that had plagued his salty lungs for the past hundred years, ever since he was stung
(~i was stung? i was stung! im not dead im alive i was stung!~)
by that slither. He also found that, despite the intense pain, his thoughts were now coming quickly and clearly. He knew
(~i am alex?...my name is alexander?...i am a wanderer a drifter what did i do what am i doing maybe i am looking for something... looking for what?~)
who and what he was. His only question was where was he, and how did he get there. His neck was still stiff and sore, but he could move it around slowly to get a look at where he was.
Alexander was in a small metal room. The walls, which looked suspiciously like they were coated in dry, crusty blood, were just sheets of metal that had been severely weathered into rusty, dented shapes when the oceans boiled. He could see that some kind of dark cloth was covering the holes in the walls. He came to the conclusion that the old man that rescued him had an iron shack, probably in a dead city of some sort.
He saw that he still had an IV connected to his left arm, probably water or, if the old man knew what he was doing, saline solution. There was a bandage on his right arm that covered another IV hole. Alex's guess was that it was for an anti-radiation solution. Good thing, too. The inside of that bomb was hot as blazes, he remembered.
It had been a little over sixty years since the dictator of the New French Order had placed seven nuclear submarines in various places on the ocean floor and set off an atomic weapon in each one, as part of a mad scheme to "purify" the world. As a result, all the reactors went super-critical, and the oceans started boiling. And they did not stop boiling for three days. Entire continents were swallowed. Billions died. Only a small handful of human beings remained. Alex had heard stories of England having a nation-wide underground shelter system for its entire population, but has seen nothing to support that theory. He heard it from a crazy old man in Hardknoxville named Clark. Apparently, thirty years after the oceans boiled, a bunch of wackos from a traveling freakshow circus came across a silo that housed a very large nuclear bomb and decided to take all of England hostage. What a strange new world this is. Nothing like the pre-boiling movies Alex often lost himself in as a young child in the NAG.
In his lifetime, Alex has probably only seen a thousand people other than those of the shelter he was born in. A thousand miserable, lonely people. A thousand tired, weak, defenseless, bored people. People in need of(~in need of what?~)someone(~someone?~)to come along(~someone to come along?~)and take away(~who...what?~)all their pain(~pain? not like mine, but still pain)and misery(they are miserable like me~)and sorrow(~i will help~)and be their savior(~i can save them~)and return(~the world to its former glory~)their(~life will be better i will save them~)happiness(~i can do it i can save the world I WILL DO IT...
“I WILL BE THEIR GOD!!! I WILL SAVE THE WORLD!!! I WILL BE GOD! I WILL SAVE THEM!!! I WILL DO IT!!! I WILL...