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vaderssidechick · 5 years ago

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FIC SNIPPET: The Voice Of Blood, Chapter 5

Summary: Prince Luke Vader’s arrival to Alderaan.

I shake awake. Air hits my throat too fast, sending me into a coughing fit. I groggily and clumsily reach for the bottle of water. The shudder of breaking out of hyperspace alerts me even before the ship does in its oddly feminine voice.

Imperial Highness, we have re-entered real space. Destination: Alderaan in four hundred thousand kilometers, it says in a soft, soothing tone. In the same strange, Mid-Rim accent as Tevas’s medical droid.

But the dream still echoes through my head. It’s only now I feel the cold sweat under my clothes. I wipe a sleeve across my brow as I rise to my feet. I grasp my cloak and the water bottle as I head to the cockpit, a sleepy stagger in my step.

I shrug my cloak back on-- but stop halfway when I see it out the viewport. I have to blink a few times, making sure what I’m seeing is actually real. Of course I’ve seen images of Alderaan many times. But those images, I see now, never did the planet justice.

It’s like a snow-phire gemstone laid on a black velvet bed, sparkling in the Alderaani sunlight. White clouds swirled over swaths of blue oceans, with just slivers of vibrant green peeking through. Yet something seems odd about it… until it hits me. It’s not surrounded by junk! Its near-orbit is as pristine as can be, with only a few tiny flashes of satellites catching the sunlight here and there. One of her moons is just rising off her far-side, a pale yellow crescent in phase.

It’s the most beautiful planet I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. It’s just so… clean.

But my awed half-smile fades when I see a speck move toward the ship, growing ever larger by the second. I don’t even need to verify it through the ship’s system to know who it is.

“Alderaani Security Patrol has identified this vessel as Imperial make. No Imperial vessels are on the itinerary on this date. Identify yourself and your business here.”

I raise an eyebrow at the pilot’s tone. She spat the word Imperial like it was dung in her mouth. Her--- and that of her co-pilot’s-- suspicion that flared through the Force was only slightly cooler than the hatred that simmered underneath it. Good. Hate is an easy lock to pick.

I reach out my hand toward the ship outside. I never tried this at this kind of distance, or through space before. But there’s a first time for everything. “You will contact ground control and allow me passage.”

In the silence, I feel the pilot’s resistance. Hmm. This pilot is either more mentally sound than your average stormtrooper, or mind-tricking is definitely harder at this distance. But I push on, immersing myself in the Force, using her own confusion against her. “I’m just a piece of space junk from another system. I’ll just burn up in the atmosphere.”

It’s a long moment before she responds. “Yes, just space junk.”

“So get on your com and tell them to pay no attention. I’m harmless.”

A heavy breath comes through the speakers before she mutters, “ASP One to Aldera Ground Security… all clear. It’s just a piece of junk. It’ll burn up in atmosphere.”

“Copy that, ASP One,” comes the reply.

The patrol ship turns keel and heads back toward Alderaan’s surface. I blow a breath as I sink into the pilot’s seat and switch the system to manual.I set my holocom into a housing on the control panel, and the 3D holographic map to my rendezvous point with Leia spreads across the viewport.

Engaging the sub-light engines, I begin to steer toward the point when, on an impulse, I change course. Straight to Aldera first. I want to see Leia’s home, where she grew up.

I hit the stratosphere, then descend into a bank of white clouds. When my ship breaks through over Alderaan’s capitol city, my first sight of the planet pales in comparison to what I see now. My mouth drops fully open, my eyes bug, and for a moment I don’t breathe.

I… can’t find the right words. Like a city built from the dreams of sleeping giants. Set in a vast valley of the mountain range,, white marble towers rise into the blue skies, obviously hewn from those very mountains themselves. A winding river cuts through a forest and grassy tableau right to and through the entrance of the city. It sprawls and yet it’s functional, not a centimeter of space wasted, but seeped into the mountain range itself. And all of Alderaan’s nature flew, bloomed, and swam around it. It’s unlike any city I’ve ever seen before. Magnificent. Pristine. Staggeringly ancient yet lightyears beyond Imperial eco-tech at the very same time.

I dip the nose and fly over the reaching white fingers of the towers to look over the rooftops. Almost every roof that isn’t a spire has a garden as well as landing pads, bursting with every color imaginable. Just… so beautiful.

When I finally look up and out, I see it in the near distance. Leia’s palace, her home. I push the lever forward and gun the engines.

The Royal Palace of Alderaan unfolds before me. While there are a few towers, most of the place is only two or three stories. But like every other building, it is white, even whiter than the city itself, like it’s power-scrubbed daily. And by the Force, it’s huge, sprawling across the valley! It’s even bigger than the Palace on Imperial Center!

And then… I see them. The lilac trees Leia talked about. Hundreds of them, everywhere, surrounding the palace. And the colors! Like a sunset growing from the ground itself-- purple, blue, pink. Everything she said they were.

I feel a strange pang in my throat, and realize that I’m actually quite jealous. I was raised on a Star Destroyer-- and what little experience I have with nature was mainly from worlds that… well, they didn’t look like this. Tarkin’s homeworld of Eiradu is hardly what I’d call ‘beautiful’-- hostile, humid, swampish and cloying, with flora and fauna that would more likely kill someone than strike them with awe. My Force, what is it like to wake up every morning and see all this, everyday? What is it like to smell this air, fragrant with these blooming trees and rushing rivers?

It’s only now that I think I’m beginning to understand why Leia is so adamantly opposed to Tarkin strip-mining those worlds in the Western Reaches. I can’t imagine beauty like this could ever be replicated by any other hands than those of nature’s herself.

But I shake myself alert when I see, far below me, a human-- a gardener, by the looks of the shears in his hands-- look up at the strange ship flying overhead with a startled expression.

Shavit.

I punch the engines again and veer off in the direction of our rendezvous, leaving the lushness behind me.

#star wars fanfiction #the voice of blood #dark luke skywalker #prince vader

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insomniac-dot-ink · 6 years ago

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The Breakdown Ch1

genre: supernatural gay ghost story

rated: M

words: 4.3K

summary: What do you get when you combine an urban legend turned real, a psychic hick, and bunch of ghost hunting Yankees? A bad time.

All Kevin Lampton wants to do with his summer is stop The Lady in White from killing anymore road trippers in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. Unfortunately, a group of ghost hunters looking for answers makes his job a lot more complicated.

Chapters: One, Two

Website⭐Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress⭐Twitter

Prologue

Technically, no one agreed on its name. It had no name and no place on the maps- faceless as a cliff smoothed over by time and as anonymous as a stranger in a New York City subway at rush hour.

The dirt road peeled off highway US 68 halfway between Lexington and Springfield in the dusty empty guts of Kentucky. There was no hint of its existence except a dinky gas station on the corner that didn’t even sell hot dogs and required a pair of clunky keys to enter the fly-infested bathroom. The turnoff itself was only indicated by a little green arrow on a rusting metal pole.

Kevin had tried several times to kick down that green arrow and put up construction cones across the mouth of the road. That had worked a couple times before “Destruction of Public Property” letters started showing up in the mail. He tore up the letters first and then the next green arrow.

The unnamed road eventually breached the tiny town of Reginald. Its long bumpy neck skirted around the boxy houses with battered tires out front, ownerless dogs barking at the burnt sky, and dried grass the color of eye-crust. After Reginald it breached into “nothing land,” land that could be anywhere at all in its tired and timeless way.

It raced for thirty straight miles after that- no bends, no twists, no turns. It was as a straight as khaki pants at an old navy sale and guys in bars who would rather sleep on concrete floors than even brush the skin of another man.

It surged perfectly lonely toward Hillsboro. Hillsboro, population barely 100, was like Reginald except with the aftertaste of even more broken satellites on each roof and burnt trash since the garbage trucks wouldn’t come out that far.

Some people called the road between the two towns “Hillsboro Road” or “Reginald Lane,” each town denied such names and spat on the ground at the mention of it. An old man with a handsome nose half the size of his face and a bite for every other word called it “Catpiss Trail.”

It was yellow in the sunlight, and tinted brown in the night, ground that took on whatever color suited its mood. The dirt was loose and dried, easily sludgy in the rain, and a scourge to tires everywhere as the rubber flung stones into the air like rapid-fire projectiles. It was the type of road that was just another nameless dirt road in a nameless corner of the world.

Nevertheless, someone swore on their mother’s grave that there used to be a sign next to it, just a wooden post with white lettering. The post had read “Sumpter Road.” Kevin agreed on it being Sumpter Road. It was a thirty-mile lick of dirt that connected the very empty bits of a middling world. Sometimes a field or two bordered its edge- owned by men in ties that had never stepped foot in Kentucky. They grew grain or corn or somebody’s next sandwich. But mostly, it was grass, dry grass the color of yellows-lesser-cousin, a decayed yellow that had given up on its goals a long time ago.

You could drive for miles and miles alongside that wilting yellow, across flat plains with only tiny white shacks off in the distance and rusting red pickup trucks abandoned off to the side. It was junk and nothing all at once. Empty, lonely, ugly Sumpter road.

Locals of Reginald and Hillsboro used different options other than Sumpter. They knew not to travel on that road, not at night, not during the full moon, not during the crevice moon or no moon, and especially not during the summer. There was a conscious little heartbeat that traveled from mother to cousin to old great aunt back down to second cousins twice removed: don’t go on the dirt road off highway US 68, you know the one.

They knew not to go there, Kevin knew not to go there, and despite their collective best efforts, somebody wasn’t listening. People in Subaru's and Honda’s and family minivans, always in the lean months of summer with the faint smell of sweet heather and somatic cow filling the air.

They appeared as the sun roasted the dry earth and sucked the color from the sky until it was such a fragile, wilting thing you wished to drag your finger across the silken bottom and taste it.

Kevin knew those summer’s well, and he was sick of them.

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Chapter 1: The Blue Toyota

Seven miles from the highway, fourteen minutes from the closest house, twenty miles from the nearest public restroom, Kevin Lampton snapped open a folding lawn chair. The chair had been his roommates, but his roommate claimed it had been left in their backyard from the previous owner.

Strips of worn cloth draped across it from one metal limb to the next, the stripes had probably once been bright teal and red and clean white. Now it was just a faded peach and wheezing blue, it was rusted around the screws and held his weight with a reluctant groan.

But it had been free which was perfectly within his budget.

The headlights of his shitty 1990 Hatchback blew up his lumpy shadow across the ground and was the only light for miles except the teetering mix-drink stars up above. The headlights streaked valiantly across the dark ether and cut out a little life there. I’m wasting so much fucking battery, he reminded himself bleakly, but it was better than waiting in the dark.

He used headlights since flashlights always made him feel like an amateur that was just asking for someone to knock it out of his hands and kick him in the nuts for free. He wasn’t an amateur.

He slouched in the chair and the hungry heat crawled across his flushed skin, it was technically May, but it had the teeth of July- beating down on his brow and dripping long damp fingertips down his spine. He had on a white tank-top, one that made him look like he stored a shotgun in his trunk and didn’t know how to give his consonants any backbones.

Which was all true. But usually he didn’t want to show it. However, summer didn’t play by any judgement structured by how much PBR you drank or how much army camo print you owned. It was too hot for t-shirts and he settled.

He remained in his ragged slouchy jeans though, not even the murderous undead deserved the sight of his knobby gawky knees in shorts.

Kevin blinked up at the night sky, a vast unreadable thing, and listened. Crickets chirped in all directions and a few coyotes cried woefully to each other in distant places, but nothing more. Sometimes he thought he spotted blinking lightning bugs just above the tides of grass, but he usually chalked up to his imagination.

He slipped the cracked screen of his Samsung phone out of his pocket and just barely registered the time: 10:32. He sighed again. Kevin Lampton was big subscriber to sighing, he renewed it every year and regularly added: wrinkling his mouth into a tiny scrunched frown and running a hand pensively through his shaggy brown hair.

He needed a haircut. He needed to clip his nails. He needed to get back to his tiny motel room and throw out the milk in the mini fridge- it was at least five days old. He needed music.

He sighed again and instead craned his neck back and went over notes in his head: perfectly inelastic: the price stays the same regardless of the quantity demanded. Demand curve is a vertical line.

Elastic: if price elasticity of demand is greater than 1, quantity reacts to price…

He traced the vocab words on the arm of the plastic chair and occasionally mumbled to himself. He lost track of time, there was no other choice at that point in the night but to lose track of it.

11:00, 11:30, 12:00, coffee break, piss break, cursing at his cellphone as its battery drained, 12:20.

Kevin got all the way up to his anthropology notes and classifying primate bones. Orangutans: lesser apes, globular head, longer forelimbs.

It was 12:22 and the night split open like a ripe melon bashed with a baseball bat. A horrifying guttural scream pierced the air. He didn’t exactly hear it with his ears, which always seemed stupid if he thought about it too hard, but it pierced through his mind in a flurry of sickening bites. Yellow jabs, cloying blows, gut churning, and body seizing sensations.

Kevin let it hit him once, twice, before bursting to his feet and digging his hands into his stuffed pockets and patting the contents. He extended his senses outward: sending soft feelers toward the bleak oceans of anyone nearby. “Shit.” They were two miles up the road, further up than he expected, but ghosts were dreadful about being reliable.

Another shriek bristled from behind him and Kevin tossed his chair aside and dove back toward his car, “Shit!”

He hopped into his shitty hatchback, stalled the ignition in a reckless moment, and then backed all the way up. His tires threw up dirt as he accelerated with the devil on his heels and he took a U-turn that as more of a V-turn.

His car groaned for a moment, but had enough soul left to take off with a high-pitched growl and dramatic skid. He gunned the gas and fishtailed across the night, “Come on baby.” He sped, there was no speed limit out there, but he had no way of knowing what ‘fast enough’ was going to be.

He got close enough to recognize the robust shape of a car pulled off crookedly to the side of the road, headlights splashing across the ground and two pale figures sitting rigidly in their seats. The sound of someone twisting the key in the ignition with careless jamming motion crackled through the air.

Waves of spiky sticky fear pierced Kevin’s stomach and knew he was in the right place, obviously. That’s also when all the life went out of his car.

It didn’t stall or sputter or curse at him in any known electric language, it simply rolled to a perfect limp-boned stop. As it always did when he got this close.

Kevin scrambled out of the car and locked it just in case, you know, just in case.

“Stay calm!” He shouted across the way as they kept revving the engine and going absolutely nowhere. He started running. It was a shiny dark blue Toyota with a handsome finish, the plates were from out of state.

A woman with chin-length stiff red hair sat in the passenger seat, wild-eyed and chest heaving, all the blood drained from her face and hands braced on the dashboard. She was wearing a college t-shirt and looking at nothing.

A man with black glasses and a dark stubble beard sat next to her, eyes on the steering wheel and muttering curses in jagged uneven breaths. They looked like a young couple that were either lost, wayfarers, or their GPS had general murderous intent. It didn’t really matter at this point.

Kevin swung around to the passenger side door. This was the tricky part.

“What was that?” The woman’s voice was shrill, frantic and formless. “What the fuck was that Robert? Tell me you saw that Robert.” Robert did not respond.

Kevin hesitated; he had tried this part before with varying results. Quickly he decided on a new combination of methods, first tapping on the glass lightly and then simply opening the passenger door and hopping inside.

She always left the doors unlocked by that point.

The woman let out a shriek like bloody murder and jumped to the side, and the man looked up with empty-eyed terror.

“Don’t worry folks!” Kevin put his hands up and realized maybe ‘wife beater’ wasn’t the ideal outfit in this situation right then. He cut to the chase. “When’s the last time you saw Her? One minute ago, five?” “Ahhhh!” None of his methods seemed to work very well.

The man snapped out of his stupor and balled his fist up, “Get behind me Julie!” He put his arm out in front of the woman’s chest and offered impractically. He was plastered to the back of the driver's seat and Julie wasn’t getting behind anything. Kevin raised his hands up even further, “I’m here to help.” He winced as Robert raised his fist, “Wait, wait, you don’t want to punch me! I promise. I’m your lifeline.” They both stared at him, dumbstruck, the girl hyperventilated, “WHAT the fuck is going on?”

“Is this some sort of sick prank?” The man’s face bubbled red hot, “Tell me if you think this is some sort of practi-” “Not a prank,” Kevin’s eyes roved around the back of the car and an inconspicuous cold gently seeped through the air like mist rising off early morning grass, “I swear.”

“Don’t tell me...” The woman wrapped her arms around her body and shivered- she felt it too. “Don’t worry,” Kevin explained quickly, “You’re lucky I got here in time, now… when’s the last time you saw the lady in white?”

“What, what are,” the woman stammered. He was too late. There had been too much talking. Kevin was too late.

He was still working on this part.

He saw the movement before he saw the shape itself. Skin as white as crushed daisy petals, hand small and childlike one moment and then tendril thin and clawed the next. Kevin’s breath stalled in his chest, the white hand slithered out from the backseat, just by the driver’s side window and hovered for a moment.

It stalled in place, like the second before a giant metal airplane with no feathers or hollowed bones or thousands of years of aerial evolution pressed off the hard earth and into the sky anyway: a certainty of the impossible.

The hand lunged, fingers spreading impossibly wide, impossibly quick, and it clenched around the man’s neck with no ceremony or preamble and squeezed. His head hit the headrest with a swift jerk and his glasses slunk down to the end of his nose.

“Sir!” Kevin barked, but the hand was already latched on. The blood drained from the man’s face like there was straw attached to his neck and sucking. His skin squished in like silly putty being molded and the smallest of choking noises escaped his parted lips, barely a noise at all.

The woman didn’t move, Kevin internally complimented her for not pissing herself… yet.

Kevin reached into his large pockets. He was getting better at this part. When he first started, he used to quote bible lines like “the power of Christ compels you” and “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, be gone.” However, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

“Fuck off!” He shouted in its place and didn’t turn around; he knew better than that and continued yelling. “Get back!” He dug out salt rocks from his pocket and tossed them wildly into the back, flinging them over his right shoulder with abandon. A guttural growl answered, like a barely rumbling thunder cloud or the echoes of a tumbling rock fall in a canyon. A warning.

He caught her eyes in the rear view mirror.

He wouldn’t dare turn around, but he could do this much. She was positioned in the middle seat perfectly so and staring unblinkingly ahead.

Her skin was as pale as bleached bone and tendrils of lank black hair fell around her face. Her eye holes were surrounded with ragged black eyelashes, burnt ground around white, a white with no irises, a white with no pupils, a gaping emptiness with bruises underneath. Deep shadows and sagging skin, unslept and unwept.

The eyes themselves were nothing, empty fissures, otherworldly, but the bags under her eyes spoke of something human, something real, skin gathered and drooping mundanely. A suggestion of a person in the worst way, and it made his stomach heave.

“Fuck off!” He yelled again and threw another handful of salt, a hissing came right by his ear like the hiss of pipes just about to burst, animalistic and inhuman.

He reached into his other pocket and silently apologized to the upholstery. The man was choking, gasping, eyes bulging out of his head and spit dripping down his chin in glistening strings. The woman Kevin was squished next to remembered to scream.

“It’s got him, it’s got him!” She babbled and twisted around in her seat to look. The second she turned a new scream etched out of her insides, primal and broken. He took note for future reference: shoulda told her not to look.

He held up a pouch over his right shoulder.

Kevin squeezed the cold plastic bag furiously and aimed without looking, like he was trying to splatter abstract art somewhere and hated the canvas itself. The blood squirted out of the little tube in a perfect arching stream and the sound of liquid hitting fabric followed. He waved it back and forth until it sagged empty and deflated in his hands.

Kevin’s arms goose-fleshed and the overwhelming scent of bog rot and frost flooded through the car’s vents, a hissing like rattlesnakes and tortured cats joined it. Julie stopped screaming to cover her nose and mouth and she gagged on the waves of rank air.

Robert on the other hand started hacking and drawing desperate breaths of air, the type of sound you hear in the wards of newborns or from ailing vacuum cleaners.

Kevin braced himself, grabbing the handle above and shoving one shoe against the car door and the other against the dashboard. “Hold on.” He advised, but it was lost to the violent gagging of the woman and the man besides her attempting life.

The car shuddered like it was going through turbulence, rocking forward and backward as a bucking bronco trying to dislodge them, tipping wildly in some unseen ocean.

Kevin squeezed his eyes shut as their impromptu roller coaster trip shook the life from them like rag dolls in the hands of a vindictive toddler. Julie crashed into his side while the man gasped for air with a certain reverence and loving devotion.

Kevin exhaled from somewhere deep within himself when the tipping settled and the temperature in the car quickly climbed like a morning birdsong at dawn.

The woman clawed at the dashboard in a move Kevin could only wonder at and she twisted in her seat to look behind them again, teeth clenched and whole body trembling. A vein popped out of her forehead like a rather elegant blue engraving in her skin.

Kevin released the tension rippling through his nerves and exhaled. It was over.

He shifted in place, he was now positioned directly on top of the plastic middle island between the seats and tilting his head up toward the ceiling. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened. It was quiet except for crickets chirping. The scent of blood seeped through the air, but that was his fault.

“Where is she?!” The woman said louder than strictly necessary. “Where the fuck is she?!” She reached for the door, ready to do the logical thing and bolt.

The man felt at the red-marked puckered skin on his neck and wheezed in response.

“Don’t worry,” Kevin remembered he had to do this part too. “She’s gone. Don’t get out, she’s gone for the night.” The couple in the car both turned to him at once, as if seeing him for the first time and clearly not being pleased.

“You,” the man spoke first, still laboring for the breath and his voice faint as a crushed soda can. “You,” he seethed, “What is this?” He spat, “Who are you?” The guy who just saved your life.

“You can try the car now,” Kevin said instead, “it should start.” They both eyed him warily, mutely trying to process the existence of the evil undead and also this sunburnt white kid in a wife beater sitting in the center of their car. “I’m Kevin,” he looked between them, “I stop stuff like this.” He didn’t elaborate or add only on this road and with this particular ghost. “I came to help.”

He could still feel the anxiety and adrenaline rolling off the couple. It was a vivid electricity that clogged his chest and made his teeth ache. However, they hadn’t tried to hit him again- which was a fabulous perk for that night.

“Are you,” the girl poked at his cheek the way you might poke a strange stray dog collapsed on your porch, “are you real?” Kevin knit his brow together. “Yeah, I am,” he struggled to explain, “I, uh, she’s the only other thing on this road.” That didn’t seem right either. “In Kentucky.” He frowned, “Okay, maybe just on this road.”

The man mutely grabbed for the keys and tried the ignition, the car easily murmured to life with no complaint, you’ll want to check the shocks later. Kevin didn’t add that yet.

The woman held her chest and stared off into nothing, “What was it?” She finally whispered.

“Was that real?” The man had turned the car on but was still feeling at his abused neck. At least he dropped the idea it was a prank, you know, the murder kind of prank.

Kevin realized he was stuck between the both of them in the car, a dinner party he was not invited to nor wanted to attend. “You shouldn’t drive on this road ever again.” He said darkly, “Not ever. She might remember you.”

“What is this road?” The man asked, tasting the weight of each word and staring at Kevin with an even keel.

Kevin nodded, because that was the right question, “Sumpter. Just try to remember it.” Kevin said plainly as exhaustion finally peeled off him like soggy tree bark from a dead oak. They looked back to him, “What did you do?” The woman asked, flatly and not particularly kindly.

“I just stop stuff like this,” he repeated, “with a little lamb’s blood and salt.” You’ll need to get the back reupholstered- he didn’t say that yet either. “You’re okay now, really, like I said she won’t come for you again tonight.” He met the woman’s eyes and managed to extend a small scrape of reassurance toward her. “It’s over.” Kevin glanced over to the door handles to indicate his job here was done.

They both were still looking at him, “And what the fuck is it?” Robert growled.

“Ghost.” Kevin stated flatly. He waited for their disbelief, their rejection, their grappling with wild powerlessness and the simply thought of something more to all this. Kevin pushed out another wave of reassurance and another long moment passed. He cleared his throat, “The Lady of the Road. The Strangling Demon. The Lady in White depending on who you ask.”

Julie’s entire body shuddered at that and she curled inward like a roly-poly poked with a stick and buried her face in hands. It was a long fertile moment, hanging in the infinite, and then she started crying softly, without any pretenses or filter.

“Uh,” Kevin scratched the back of his neck, “I should go.” He didn’t look over to her; he already felt enough of her trembling shock waves of mortal despair. “I’m just… yeah.” They ignored Julie as she had her private moment and Robert turned to him with strangely piercing dark eyes, “How did you find us?” Kevin licked his cracked lips, “I’m from around here. I know she sometimes attacks people on this road, I come out a few times to stop it.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but he needed to get out of here. “I should get going.” The man was frowning so hard it might as well have been an indent in his lower face, he reached for his door handle and silently stepped out. This was the point where some people gave Kevin cash or a hug, but it wasn’t one those nights.

“Wait,” the woman’s hand strangled the back of his shirt and stopped him, “How do you know she won’t come back?” Kevin didn’t turn to look back at her, “I just know. It’s the rules, it’s only on this road and only once, promise.” A long silence stretched thin, the man’s eyes shifted outside the car and the woman’s weepy voice clung to him. They focused on him, “Where does the road end?” Kevin just pointed, “When you reach the highway, then you’re out.”

The man and woman exchanged a glance. “And you get rid of her? That’s your job?” The man asked steadily, feeling his neck again.

“I mean, yeah, kinda. It gets rid of her for a little while.” This was Kevin’s least favorite part.

The man got back in the car and closed the door, “I’m Robert, that’s Julie,” he grunted, “Show us the way from here?” Kevin sighed deeply, and sometimes they asked him to stay with them. “Sure.” He would have to walk back to his car later. It was going to be a terrible night.

The couple didn’t say anything more with the scent of lamb’s blood drying and the air-conditioning left off. He rode silently to the highway with them in the blue Toyota, his thoughts dripping out his ears and falling to the ground like unfolded laundry. He didn’t bother pick them up again.

They’re alive tonight. Another car is going to be okay. He reminded himself gently, now just 90 more days of this.

Ninety more days, another summer, and however else long it took to make sure no one else died because of The Lady in White.

Kevin would make sure of it no matter how many times it took.

Next Chapter =====>

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Hey! Being a writer is a tough business and I put the “ah” into st-ah-rving artist so if you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or subscribing to my website or patreon

#ghost story #supernatural story #mlm #urban fantasy #original story #urban legends #novel #my work #original writing #the breakdown #LGBT fiction #original novel

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the-resident-wallflower · 8 years ago

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Beta Readers Ahoy!

This is for everyone who wanted to give feedback!

The start of the alliance between the humans and the Jarthinark happened quite on accident. The Jarthinark being of a species of hive mentality never imagined that they’d come across a species that was so individualized; one that prided themselves on being such. The humans were on another ‘official’ mission to their moon when they were intercepted by a Jarthinark ship. The exact nature of their discourse was never revealed to the public of either species, but it was decided for the people of Earth and the Jarthinark of Jarark that their allegiance would be beneficial to both species. And thus it began.

The Jarthinark are what humans would refer to as giant Praying Mantis/Spider-esque creature. They were several feet taller that the average male human with four clawed forearms and five pitch black eyes. They had evolved thousands of human years from a prey species. They could change their outer armor’s color on command and even change its texture if necessary. The humans caught on to how the Jarthinark behaved and what their culture was like a lot quicker that that of the Jarthinark to the humans. Who could blame them? There were thousands of different types of humans and hundreds of thousands of cultures and their varying customs that these newcomers had to learn them all. Jarthinark of being of one culture and one mentality, it was easier to adapt.

That’s the main thing that the Jarthinark took in about the humans. Their ability to adapt and preserve when all seems lost or pinned against them, was astounding. They would be an asset to the Jarthinark no doubt. They’d just never know how much they would come to rely on these small, armor-less predators.

……………………………………………………

As Captain Smoig of the Jarthinark finished his briefing, the entire ship was in chaos. We were going to allow a predator species aboard the ship? They were going to travel with the Jarthinark? There’s no way these creatures are real, Zorgk thought. Apex predators with no perceivable armor are the masters of their realm? Not possible. The Jarthinark had never come across predator species in their explorations and that’s how they liked it. Predator species are odd and usually violent. Violence is not something they need in their quest to map out the Expanse. Capt. Smoig assured them that they have agreed to a pact and that these Humans could prove to be useful.

The impending visitors worried Zorgk and their partner Eeberbot. The mechanical team didn’t need three Humans to get in the way. The ship ran just fine without nosey intruders. But it wasn’t their decision. Captain Smoig had spoke with Queen Menance on Jarark, and she approved the mission. The captain informed them of their impending doom only one cycle before the Humans were to board. They were instructed to prepare the bay and await the visitors.

When the first Human boarded, the tension left the air. They had been provided with a guide to the Humans but it only brought out skeptics and deniers. The Humans were many different colors and genders, none of them had an outer skin like the guide had assured. And these ‘predators’ were several heads smaller than the Jarthinark and they looked frail in comparison to the five eyed multicolored species that inhabited the ship.

Captain Smoig introduced their captain, Senior Commander Lee, to the crew and then introduced Zorgk and Eeberbot to his mechanical team, Human Judy, Human Bethany, and Human Robert.

“Come this way.” Zorgk said gruffly, attempting to lead the way to the Tech Room.

The second Jarthinark ignored Zorgk and turned to the newcomers, “I am Eerberbot and this is Zorgk,” Eeberbot stated, introduced themselves, “We are the Mechanical Leads.”

“Hello,” The one categorized as ‘Bethany’ stepped forward extended her appendage, ”I’m Commander Bethany MacDonald, this is Mission Specialist Judy Smith and Mission Specialist Robert ‘Rob’ Kandl.”

Zorgk looked at her outstretched appendage with apprehension “And?”

“I’m sorry. I forgot myself for a second. I was attempting to shake your claw in greeting.” She stated. “It’s a traditional sign of greeting and respect among individuals on Earth.”

“Greeting? Shaking our appendages together is a greeting? And show’s respect?” Zorgk shook his head, clearly agitated. “Please follow me.”

Beth brought her hand back to her side with a shrug and motioned for her team to follow the giant bug-like alien.

The Tech Room was similar to that of an engine bay on a human ship but the humans were fascinated. Immediately, they dispersed throughout the room and starting analyzing the controls.

“Zorgk, where is the fuel?” Judy asked.

“We do not utilize a liquid fuel. Our energy comes from what you call ‘stars’” Eeberbot responded. “The gas is very effective and prominent.”

The humans shared a look about Eeberbot answering for Zorgk but they didn’t have a chance to comment on it as an alarm starting to sing. Immediately, the demeanor of the three humans changed.

“Zorgk, what do you need us to do?” Commander Bethany asked.

“Nothing. Stand clear while we work.” Zorgk responded moving to the main screen to determine the root cause of the alarm.

Ignoring Zorgk’s precious statement, Bethany motioned for Robert to follow the giant and looked to Eeberbot, “Eeberbot, what do you need us to do?”

“Human Bethany, please come here and reach that nozzle.” Bethany obliged and twisted the nozzle to the left, while Judy called out the pressure.

“Okay, Commander, you’ve hit your mark!” Judy shouted over the alarm as the gauge returned to a normal range.

The siren silenced and Zorgk stared at Bethany with all of their five eyes. “How did you know to loosen the nozzle? Or that you would turn it in the right direction?”

“It’s not our first rodeo.” Bethany laughed, “Obviously, the pressure was too high. The gauges were off the chart.”

“Okay,” Zorgk conceded, confused at her reference to a ‘rodeo’, “But how did you know what direction?”

“Some instinct and a mnemonic device.” Bethany said, “Right-y tight-y, left-y loose-y.”

Zorgk huffed and turned his back to the three humans. Eeberbot, however, was intrigued at these mnemonic devices.

“I will show you to your quarters. Please tell me more of those devices.” Eeberbot asked as he lead the humans from the Tech Room.

…………………………………………………………..

There first mission was in Sector 3. They were visiting a realm called Quarth, it contained what humans refer to as water as well as various forms of life. Zorgk and Eeberbot were prepared to maintain the ship and they were prepared for repairing the cruiser that would descend into the atmosphere. They were not prepared for the humans in their specialty who were planning on traveling to the new planet. Not only were the planning for it, they were eager. This confused the Jarthinark to no end.

“Human Beth, why would your team want to leave your designation?” Zorgk questioned.

“I’m not only an Engineer. I’m also a Biologist. Judy is a Botanist while Rob is a Geologist. Anyone planning on going to space must have at least two specialties.” Beth explained, “That way we can all do each other’s jobs should it be necessary.”

“But why would it be…oh.” Eeberbot stopped.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Beth laughed, “It’s just a failsafe. Anyway, why wouldn’t you want to leave the ship?!”

Zorgk just rolled their eyes. “Jo! Help me out!” Beth cried.

Before ‘Jo’ could respond Eeberbot spoke up, “Human Bethany, who is this ‘Jo’ you are speaking to?”

“Jo? It’s Judy.” Bethany laughed. “It’s a nickname.”

Now Zorgk was intrigued in their conversation. “Nick name?”

“Yeah,” Judy piped up, “They call me ‘Jo’ because there’s two other Judy’s under Commander Lee. And it’s short.”

“Right. Commander MacDonald is a mouthful and Bethany is too long. So, they call me Beth.” Beth added.

“They call me ‘Rob’ but I really don’t care.” Said the third human. Jo and Beth glared at him unamused.

“Would you provide us with nick names, Human Beth?” Eeberbot asked.

“Oh, of course! It’ll be helpful in a crisis. The quicker you can address your crew, the less likelihood of a major catastrophe. How’s ‘Z’ and ‘Bot’?”

Eeberbot adapted the teeth bearing form that he’d reviewed in their guide to human emotions. It was supposed to be a smile.

Beth smiled in return and then clapped her hands together loudly, “Okay! Back to the issue at hand! How can you not want to explore the planet?”

“Human Bethany, we do not have visions of grandeur. We serve our purpose and move on.” Zorgk replied in an effort to discontinue the discussion.

“Haven’t you ever been to a new planet before?” Eeberbot asks.

The trio shook their heads.

“Why not? You managed to get to us. What was stopping you…wait, have you not stretched beyond your sector?” Zorgk questioned in disbelief. “How have you not left your sector?”

“We don’t have the technology to last extended periods in space.” Replied Beth simply.

“How did you get here?” Eeberbot asked, “You obviously didn’t ride a rocket, those explode.”

“Actually…”Judy started in an high pitched singsong voice.

“You rode a combustible. To get to the Expanse.” Zorgk looked to be experiencing pain, astonishment, and fear all at the same time. “How has your species come to survive and be the dominant one of your planet?”

“We are not talking about us. We’re talking about you.” Beth stated ignoring the insult. “Why do you always stay on the ship?”

“We have one purpose, one ability. We need to stay with the ship.” Bot said.

“But what if the machinery breaks while the crew is on the planet?” Judy asks.

“We’d send another.” Zorgk answers curtly.

“That’s so wasteful!” cried the Commander.

“And stupid.” Rob comments.

“Rob!” the two women scolded in unison. “Apologize!” Demanded Beth.

“My apologizes, I did not mean any offense.” MS Kandl said testily.

Beth was about to comment on his half assed apology when an announcement sounded off. The Human Commander and a Jarthinark of each team were needed in briefing for the upcoming mission.

…………………………………………………

It was supposed to be a short and sweet type of mission. They were to take a cruiser and descend into the atmosphere, land, collect specimens to analyze, and shoot back up to the ship. That’s not what happened. From the very start of their day, everything went wrong. The Jarthinark were unhappy to note that Captain Smoig had taken the suggestion of Commander Lee and they were now required to accompany the cruiser to the surface. He assured them that it would be good for the Jarthinark to experience new things. The Humans were always learning and they could perform many skills. Why shouldn’t the Jarthinark also have that ability?

The cruiser had to drop an entire team so that the Jarthinark in the mechanical team and those from the biological team could fit. They dropped the medical team as the mission was only supposed to be for twelve hours. Descend, collect, return. Quick and simple. Except it wasn’t. The Jarthinark are twice as heavy as the average human and four of them outweighed the three humans that were on the medical team. The extra weight caused an issue with the cruiser that wasn’t foreseen and instead of landing on the surface of Sector 3 subsection B, what the Earthlings referred to as Zaldar, they crashed.

The landing gear had failed with the extra weight and it sent the cruiser tumbling across the surface into the brush of Zaldar, like a boulder in a canyon that ends up in a cactus bush. When it finally came to a stop, the team was sprawled across the cruiser, bruised and battered.

“Tim! Team! Count off!” Commander Beth called out.

“One!” came Jo’s rough cough

“Two!” a groaning Rob sounded

“Three!” Came the call from Rose of the Biological Team.

“Four!” Tim, the Commander of the Biological Team called out.

“Z! Bot!” Came the sharp command from Beth.

“Human Beth?” Came Zorgk’s respond, “We have survived.”

“What the hell?!” She shouted as she took in the state of her team. “You have to respond! Tim, where’s your Jarthinark, Chuz and kGindo?”

“Accounted for!” Came his reply.

Immediately the humans on board starting taking stock of the supplies on board while the Jarthinark sat around, dumfounded at the accident.

“Zorgk, Eeberbot, Chuz, kGindo,” Called Tim, “See if you guys can pry open the door, it’s stuck.” The Jarthinark were revitalized with something to do.

“Okay,” Started Jo, “We have enough supplies to get us through a week. Zorgk, who’s the highest ranking Jarthinark?”

“Highest ranking?” They questioned.

“Who’s in charge of you guys?” Beth asked, she had no time for nonsense.

“Well, you are.” Zorgk responded. “Captain Smoig made our orders clear, Commander. You are our Captain until we rejoin the ship.”

Beth nodded and addressed Tim. “Take your team out and make a parameter. We’ll stay here, we need to assess the damage, supplies, and make this place livable.”

He nodded and motioned for his team to follow him out the freshly opened door.

Beth turned around and addressed her team, “We need to clear out as much debris as possible and take an assessment of the damage. Bot, you and Rob are to go out and assess the outer damage.” They nodded and left the cabin of the cruiser. “Zorgk, I need you to run a diagnostic on the system and tell what we have and what we don’t” He nodded and approached the main computer. “Jo, we need to document what we can and ration out the food and supplies. Let’s get to work.”

It was an Earth hour before the Bio Team returned from their excursion.

“Beth,” Tim called into the cabin, “We need to talk.”

She looked up from the list she and Jo had compiled. Rob and Bot had reported that the homing device had been damaged but the hull would provide shelter. Zorgk had also given her bad news stating that the communication systems were inoperable. From the sound of Tim’s voice, it was about to get worse.

She hopped down from the opening and walked over to the other Commander. “Tim? What’s the verdict?”

His mouth was a straight line as he thought about his next thought. “We’re in the middle of a forest. These trees,” he gestured to the tall tree like fauna next to them, “They’re like redwoods. Huge and ridiculous.”

“Okay..?” Beth raised her eyebrow, “What does that mean for us?”

“Our communication system isn’t working because the trees are blocking the signal. And without the homing beacon,” He slowed, “I don’t know how they’re going to find us.”

“Oh.” Beth said grimly, “I guess we’ll have to make this hellhole our new home.”

Tim grinned, “I knew I married you for some reason.”

Beth laughed and they made their way back into the cruiser to deliver the bad news.

“Guys, listen up. Our comms are down, the homing device is destroyed, and we have a week’s worth of food.” Beth addressed the group, “Our mission has changed radically.”

Rob snorted and Rose smacked his shoulder. “We all have loved ones on the main ship and I am going to try like hell to get us back to them.”

“Commander?” Eeberbot stopped Beth, “What is a ‘loved one’?”

“Bot, it’s someone that you care deeply for. Like your life partner. For example, Rose’s wife, Mai, works on the medical team with Jo’s husband, Rick. Rob’s parents are back on Earth. And Commander Tim is the other Commander MacDonald.” She continued with a smile in Tim’s direction, “It’s the people we love that give us the strength to get shit done.”

“Your purpose?” Zorgk asks.

“Yeah, Z,” Jo answers them, “Something like that.”

The marooned team set up their camp using supplied from the cruiser. The humans created a fire and sat around it for fun, which confused the Jarthinark to no end. Why do they seem to enjoy dangerous things? The Jarthinark joined the Humans under the premise of research. That is, until they felt the heat from the flame. It was many years ago that the Jarthinark had experienced heat from a combustion up close, it was gloriously warm and although it appeared dangerous, there was a calming effect it had over the entire crew, as if they were what the humans referred to as ‘camping’.

“Okay. So, Tim was telling me that you guys spotted some wildlife?” Beth prompts.

“Yeah,” Rose responds, “They were small, four legged creatures. This planet seems to be Earth-like. However, I think we should be careful. I’m going to get a vial of the ‘water’ we saw and test it. And Rob,” She turned to address the outcast, “I’m going to need help tomorrow.”

“With what?” He responded flatly.

“We need to identity as much as well can and you’re the geologist. You can really help me with my research.”

“Sure.” He said as he rose to the standing position. “I’m gonna talk a walk.”

As he left the two commanders shared a look. There was definitely something wrong there.

Beth woke up to the snap of a branch. She slowly rolled onto her side and saw a sixed legged creature stalking it way toward the Jarthinark a few feet away. She reached under her makeshift pillow for the small hatchet she had placed there. The creature was so focused in on Zorgk that it didn’t even hear her change positions. It lunged toward Zorgk and Beth lunged towards it. She hit it with an angry battle cry and within seconds her hatchet was buried deep into the back of the intruder. It shuddered once and died.

Unfortunately, the commotion had woken the rest of the crew. Zorgk stared at Beth in shock. This Human had not only put herself in harm’s way for them but she had killed the creature responsible for it.

“Thank you, Commander.” Zorgk expressed, “I am in your debt.”

Beth smiled at his first acknowledgement of her title, “Please, it’s no problem. You’re still breathing and now we have dinner.” She said as she tied the creature to a branch several feet away.

“Commander, I am in your debt.” Zorgk repeated in a serious tone, “I pledge my loyalty to you for as long as you please.”

Beth smiled again at Zorgk. She patted his shoulder and made her way back to Tim. “Alright, team, we have to be up bright and early. Let’s get some shut eye.”

The next morning the team woke up to Rob missing. Immediately, Beth jumped into Commander mode.

“Bot, you and Jo go west. Zorgk and I will head North. Tim, Chuz, south. You two,” She pointed at Rose and kGindo, “east. Moveout!”

They searched until the planets three suns were high in the sky but with no luck. He had vanished.

“We’ll find him.” Beth said as they regrouped, “We just need to sit and talk it out.”

The Jarthinark didn’t know what talking out their ‘feelings’ would do but the humans all agreed and assembled around the remnants of the combustion.

“Rob was acting strange yesterday.” Rose started and the rest of the Humans nodded.

“Rose,” started Eeberbot, “What do you mean ‘strange’?”

“I don’t know. He was acting different. He’s usually sullen and nonconfrontational but he’s been more and more aggressive as our time in space goes on.” She answered.

“Exactly.” Judy continued the thought, “The other day when he insulted you? That was very unlike him. He’s never been disrespectful like that before.” And again the Humans nodded in agreement.

“You document how other Humans act?” Zorgk asked.

“No Z, we just work really closely with the same people. You’d notice if Bot was acting funny. We just have a larger scale of individuals to pay attention too.” Explained Beth. “Did you guys notice anything?”

“Actually,” Chuz raised his head, “Human Rob looked on the brink of violence last sun fall when you protected Zorgk. I assumed it was in the same manner that you looked. But his eyes were empty of good intentions. His fits were curled with rage.”

They set back out to search some more when Zorgk and Beth came across a small clearing. A great crashing sound sounded from the north end of their position. Rob emerged, covered in the varying fauna of Quarth, he walked with murder on his mind.

“What the hell, Rob?!” Beth started to approach him. He didn’t even acknowledge her; only the Jarthinark at her side.

“We’re stuck on this godforsaken planet all because you had to come! You stupid, fucking, dumbass bugs. You should all be exterminated!” He screamed.

“Hey!” Beth barked “It’s not their fault. We didn’t know that the landing gear couldn’t handle the extra weight!”

He switched direction mid step towards Beth. “And you,” his voice accusatory and dripping with malice, “if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut. We wouldn’t have to bunk with them!”

“Kandl! Knock it off!” Beth shouted. “That is uncalled for and you will be disciplined and ejected from this mission and on the first flight back to Earth.”

“Oh, yeah??!!” Rob lunged at Beth revealing a sharp piece of shrapnel. She cried out as the metal made contact with her shoulder.

Zorgk appeared at her side lightning fast and accepted the next wave of Rob’s rage. They clamped down on Rob’s body with all four of their clawed appendages immobilizing him. “Commander?” they questioned peering at Beth who was bleeding from her shoulder but otherwise unhurt. “What are your orders?”

“Bring him in to camp.” Came her reply dripping with rage.

The entire crew regrouped at camp and they were shocked to see Rob. But they were more shocked to see both Zorgk and Beth bleeding.

“What the hell happened?” Tim called out concerned. He jogged out to meet them.

“He happened.” She said gestured to Rob. She moved her shoulder a bit and hissed in pain.

The other three Jarthinark approached Zorgk to release him of his captive. “Tie him down securely. He did not come easy.” Zorgk spoke as he released his grip.

The remainder of the team set to work on thoroughly securing Rob to a chair on the ship using rope and good old fashioned duct tape. The Jarthinark were skeptical but had learned not to question the ways of the tiny Humans.

Tim set to work on stitching up Beth’s arm and consulting Zorgk on how best to treat the cut he had sustained.

“Do not worry about me. I will only need to cover it and it will heal.” Zorgk assured him.

“Tim?” Beth looked at him. He nodded and left them alone.

The unspoken communication was something the Jarthinark would have to study when this mission was completed but for now, Zorgk was content to relax and heal.

“Zorgk, I wanted to thank you for stepping in back there. I never expected him to try to hurt us. And I’m sorry he said those awful things. Please know that we don’t all think like that.” She smiled up at the giant creature.

“Commander, I am forever indebted to you and your kind. You have saved my life as well as those of my comrades. You have taught us more in this short time that we have learned in the many years of our existence. Please accept my allegiance.” “Zorgk crossed his two left claws and placed them over his chest, a traditional salute of the Jarthinark, pledging his respect and loyalty.

“As I am to you.” Beth raised her right arm gingerly as to not disturb her left shoulder and offered Zorgk her hand. He grasped it gently and shook it up and down, as Beth’s smile grew wider.

Their heart felt concession ended abruptly as a landslide like crash came from the west. Humans and Jarthinark alike storm into the clearing that the crash had made. Zorgk stopped, frozen with their mandibles gaped open in the most unpleasant manner, pure astonishment in their eyes.

“Commander?” They questioned. “What? How did they?”

Beth shrugs, “No man left behind.”

#Humans are weird #humans are space orcs #Feedback please!#emily writes stuff

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gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 7 years ago

Text

Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net

Once when I was small I went to the shops to buy an explosive - a tiny microdet designed for stage pyrotechnics. I've been fortunate that I've never really had blood on my hands when playing with fire, but that day I did get a lot of raspberry jam on them.

A school friend held a balloon open while I crammed in as much jam as possible before knotting it sealed. Then we pierced a small hole in a puppet's head and inserted the microdet followed by the balloon of clotted blood-like substance. I hooked the wires up to a 9-volt battery behind the camcorder, which was masking-taped to a makeshift dolly (a pram on rails). In exquisite anticipation I barked "Action!" But things didn't quite go to plan.

At that age, life only made sense when you were having fun. The freedom to play was why blood pumped through your veins. It was necessary to experiment and push boundaries, to test and meddle with the laws of physics. Teasing spiders, climbing trees, disturbing bee's nests, throwing snowballs at passing cars and building follies to set fire to. There was always a thrill to be had on the edge of mischief. That was instinctive, that... was boyhood.

But a back garden wasn't the only playground on offer in the mid to late 80s. Computer games were fast becoming portals into entire worlds with their own laws and abstracted physics. I was 11 years old and I was attempting to dock a rotating space station. Not Starbuck or Skywalker... me! I could barrel-roll a Spitfire, pilot fragile pods through planetary caves or hack into and fly remote-controlled robots. Exploring those digital playgrounds was my generation's undiscovered country and the thrills were intoxicating. Then at some point in those life-shaping years I found myself spellbound by an unusual game titled Exile, for the BBC Micro. And to this day part of me still hasn't been able to leave.

In 1988 games had to run in only 32k of memory. My phone now has 60,000 times that amount. And yet... there I was 30 years ago exploring a vast underground world simulating realistic physics with its own ecosystem, all running inside 32k of RAM. The wildlife and machines all had their own abilities and behaviours and even emitted digitised speech if you had the sideways RAM. This was absolute heaven to me, but it wasn't until I started making my own games that I came to fully appreciate how unlikely it was that all this ever came together in the first place.

Somehow the developers created a responsive 2D scrolling platformer with pixel-perfect collision, that worked in an engine where objects had properties and a mass effected by gravity, inertia, shock-waves and the elements earth, wind, fire and water. These days it's hard to appreciate now that physics engines are commonplace, but this was relatively new back then and Exile went all in to unprecedented lengths.

This was a new blend of platform game with true physical principles giving birth to a peculiar quality that sparked the imagination like nothing before - physical emergent narrative. It offered the player the ability to experiment and discover things outside the remit of whatever challenges the developer laid out for them. This alchemy for real tangible depth to interactive worlds can still prove painfully elusive for developers today. How can one offer the flexibility to experiment while maintaining a balanced ecosystem in which delicate puzzles have been woven? Maybe this is why it took so long for games like Minecraft and Disney Infinity to happen.

But even these days, how often do players find themselves trying to disarm a primed grenade that has escaped their grasp in a circular wind tunnel? How do you keep a flask from spilling water as you're caked by jetpack-clogging mushrooms thrown by cheeky imps? What do you do with a killer bee you've caught from its nest but stings while you flip through your inventory? What happens if you hold a frightened pink ball of fluff under red drops of acid jam? These just weren't the questions gamers were used to pondering. Equally important, it turned out nor were they questions a developer needed to contrive.

Exile.

The intelligence required for path-finding and strategy alone must have been a challenge in itself, but the indignance of that Darlek-esque sentinel as I landed politely on its head, the audacity of the villain Triax teleporting in and out to shoot me in the back, that endearing desperation whenever Fluffy clung to me for dear life... Was any of that real or did I imagine it? Advanced AI has often proved a poor investment in games. It can be so very clever but the bottom line is: if it's not noticed, it's completely wasted. The AI in Exile probably doesn't compare to what exists in today's games, but again... this isn't what's important. The secret is frequently staring right at us, through the eyes of a great movie star or even a wooden actor who knows when to exploit that unfortunate quality. Explicit emotional performances or Shakespearean monologues aren't necessary to immerse the audience in the mind of the character. Many actors have made the point that the power of ambiguity can be far more powerful. If there's drama in the situation, the audience can do all that leg work for the actor, who only has to project the illusion of thought. Artificial intelligence in entertainment is as much about anthropomorphism as it is about explicit communication or action. If it's done well it can be concocted in the eye of the beholder, emerging from situation, emerging from conflict, as an emergent... narrative.

Exile demonstrated a strong sense for crafting these natural unpredictable behaviour patterns, giving the illusion of a deeper intelligence and appearing to show changes in mood or temperament. Even if that sometimes just meant knowing when to hold still for a few seconds and do absolutely nothing, like when you give a spider a little poke to watch it play dead. How can something so motionless be so captivating? The AI was superb, but so was this pseudo AI.

For many reasons Exile was the game that made the biggest impression on me, and it wasn't long before I hooked up with school friend Chris Mullender to make our own game for the Amiga 500. What started out as a simple platformer inspired by Giana Sisters soon ballooned into our own sprawling world of bizarre creatures that followed their own laws and physical abilities. We realised then that we had both been heavily inspired by the land of Exile, even down to logistics such as memory management. It was literally impossible to store a map of that size into 32k. Chris' research uncovered how the map was constructed from selected procedural tile sets. This blew my mind, it felt like the big bang in reverse. Also, I remembered seeing the game played on an even less powerful machine, an Acorn Electron and noticed a large portion of the screen filled with corrupt graphics. It turned out this was no bug, but a technique that harnessed the screen buffer to store data. Genius! So we stored our game's hidden cave map data in the island's negative space - the sky. This instantly halved the size of our map data.

We learnt a lot regarding how so much could be put into so little space. It felt only natural to write a fan letter to the developers of Exile, and I was thrilled to receive a handwritten reply from Peter Irvin. However, it was in that letter I learned the tragic news of the death of his co-developer Jeremy Smith (who had previously created the much loved gravity game Thrust). Also sad was the speculation of what magic such a partnership would have gone on to create next.

In a strange mirroring of fate, a sequence of events followed that saw us releasing our game Odyssey under the same publisher as the Amiga version of Exile. My partner was hired to code for Peter's following projects and by the end of the next decade I had lost Chris, my co-creator and closest friend to a sudden illness. I was most touched when Peter reached out to console me, having been through the very same thing with Jeremy.

Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.

When I look back on the development of Odyssey, before it entered that tough phase to bring it to completion, I remember the joyful fleshing out on whim and self indulgence. We drew on what excited us and made us laugh. I ate lots of biscuits and Chris drank lots of tea. We were making it because we enjoyed the process. Who knew that making a game could be as much fun as playing one?

When the red light blinked on the camcorder, I dollied towards the puppet and triggered the microdet. But the jam didn't explode. There was a loud pop and sparks flew from its head but the balloon was so tightly packed that it launched intact, remaining lodged and bulging out of its forehead. We were mucking about... and we mucked it up, but it was hilarious fun. Much like the time we filmed a firework backfiring a cardboard bazooka, singeing the armpit of my brother's favourite teddy bear. Or when a friend painted his face silver and climbed into his mum's washing machine, snapping the door off its hinges. We weren't playing to win, we were playing to play.

Now I find myself in the role of a responsible parent, supplying the back garden and fencing in the boundaries for my own kids to push. But like a lot of games developers still under the spell, I'm really just trying to recreate the playgrounds of my own childhood. If I'm still mucking around at middle age where things make only less sense, then it looks like I'll remain forever in exile, playing happily with grenades, pink balls of fluff and raspberry preserves.

0 notes

gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 7 years ago

Text

Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net

Exile.

Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.

0 notes

gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 7 years ago

Text

Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net

Exile.

Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.

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gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 7 years ago

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Forever playing in Exile • Eurogamer.net

Exile.

Reece Millidge and Chris Mullender.

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