City of IF

[GodinJeans]

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED

Prelude


He has a scar. It stretches from ear to ear. A jagged, a red, a blaring smile that dares you to ask how he got it. But you don’t. They don’t. Years of bad experiences teach them not to talk to scarred strangers in subways.

So he sits in his seat, leather coat wrapped tightly around his wiry frame and his cotton hood pulled low over his head. All you can see is his smile. His violent smile.

You watch him closely. He moves with the train, vibrating as the train flies over tracks. It sends sparks everywhere and the unlucky someone tied and placed in the middle of the rails ahead squirms and tries to scream. You don’t hear his bones snap and his head pop.

That man is you. That disfigured creature with dead eyes and cracked fingernails is you. A wonderful creation of God, his perfect and deformed will. You can feel everyone staring.

The couples whisper while the occasional businessman and woman unconsciously touch their jaws and wince. You’re used to this. This doesn’t affect you. This doesn’t make you feel like a freak. Unwanted. An animal. Not at all.

The train stops with a jerk. And people around you file out, glancing back at you with disgust. Keep moving. Sheep to the slaughter except them all know it. They can feel it the moment they step out of the train. A sudden stillness of breathing and racing of heart. One curses, another screams.

Then everything is drowned out in a hail of gunfire. Blood splashes against the small train windows and bodies smash against the thick steel frame and crumble to the floor. Mothers fall like fathers; single, lonely people sink to their knees along with the couples. At this moment, at this second, everyone is the same.

No one is ugly, no one is pretty, no one is fat, and no one is a freak. The paycheck in the mail doesn’t matter. The hooker in the hotel room doesn’t matter. The little boys and girls at school no longer exist and no one gives a fuck about the economy. Everyone just wants to breathe again.

Then it ends. And seven men step onto the train and the doors slide closed. The joy of automated transportation. The cybernetic driver just doesn’t give a fuck.

It hurts to laugh. But you do anyways.

[Phang]

Glasgow grins, moi-da and cybernetics.

Fick yes I like!

Beyond that, this is also well written and intruiging; I hope to read more.

But wait who cares when someone has a Chelsea smile, and that's you, that is!

*ahem*


~Rule of Cool Dept.

[Phantomfan]

heh... I f5 Phang entirely- this is awesome!

Just one suggestion.... I would put up a warning at the beginning of the post just saying something about the violence and bad language contained in the following.

Apart from that... brilliant!!!!

*is waiting (im)patiently for the first chapter*

[GodinJeans]

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND STRONG LANGUAGE. READ DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Chapter 1
Trains

They smell like sweat and blood. A combination that is familiar but it still makes you wrinkle your nose ever so slightly. They take this for fear. These hard, war torn veterans turned mercenaries take your disgust of their smell for fear. One grins and plops down in the seat across from you.

“I never saw the point of all that,” he says with a smile. “Was their any point?”

You glare at him. You didn’t hire monkeys with guns to talk to you. You hired them to shoot. To kill. To die. It’s what they were paid for. You examine his face while fingering the blade hidden up your sleeve.

There is a large scar right below his left eye. Probably self inflicted. Maybe he believes that hurting himself will make the pain inside go away. The blood that flows down his cheek will fill up the emptiness. He can’t handle the pressure and the things he’s done, so he resorts to knifing off scraps of his flesh. Pussy.

The others. They look just like him. Tall, muscular and scarred. All with that dead look in their eyes. Except one, he stands a little taller. Has a little spark in his eye, it twinkles slightly. Not a baby killer. Not yet.

“Hello?” The one sitting reaches over.

You pull your arm back. “No touching.” Your voice is raw. You haven’t drunken anything in four days.

“Well, the money?”

The knife inside your sleeve seems to be slipping out. Whether by your will or its own. “Your job isn’t done.”

He snorts. “Yes it is. We painted that symbol of yours on the back wall near the exit. Then we slaughtered them people. We did our job.”

His voice has taken an edge to it. “The money.”

You sigh. “You’re not finished ‘et.”

There is muttering in the back and the biggest one that resembles an oak tree shifts in your direction.

“What’s the next thing then?” this voice is high pitched. Like a small child’s. You stare at the speaker. A thin man with a bald head. A swastika has been tattooed on his scalp. Primitive little shit.

You stand. The knife falls from our sleeve and you grip the swathed handle loosely.

The leader has noticed but he pays no alarm. He has the gun. He’s the big man, the main honcho, the proverbial tip on the dick.

“The last thing is-”

“Wait, wait, wait.” The skinny one steps forward, his sweaty bald head becoming the goddamn sun in your eyes. “We jus’ shit on Sleether territory. And painted your little,” he waves his hands for emphasis. “Symbol. Gang sign. Whateva’. I think we should get paid extra.”

Voices mutter in agreement.

“Don’t interrupt me,” you say. Skinny boy smirks and the oak stiffens.
“Your last job is…simple.”

The leader cranes his neck forward to hear, standing as he does so. His gun’s tip slowly lowers to the floor. Away from you. Away from man with a knife. The devil unlocks his doors.

The jaw is regularly a rock hard place. You punch it, you break a few knuckles along with the jaw but it rarely shatters. But under it, the fleshly part right behind the chin is beyond sensitive. A few strands of muscle and a layer of skin is all that separates your tongue from your neck. The knife goes up to the hilt and pins the tongue to the roof of his mouth.

He gurgles and some blood drips onto the floor, down the blade, down your clenched fingers, down your wrist. His pretty blue eyes roll to the back of his head as he goes into spasms. Then he stiffens and falls over, blood gushing from the gaping hole.

“What the hell!” Skinny boy raises his gun and squeezes the trigger. You’re already diving to the floor. The bullets put breathing holes where you just were. You roll up, your feet kicking out and his ribs make love to his lungs. Blood already starts to leak from his mouth as he falls over.

Hell breaks loose and you’re back home. The knife flies from your hand and buries itself in the big one’s throat. He topples like a tree. Four left.

They curse and scramble to fire. Steel punctures cheaper steel as they miss. Everything is slow now. All sluggish and dawdling. The second knife comes out to play.

Your little friends are helping you. Aren’t they lovely? The way they find home?

The blade shimmers and sleeps in between rib two and three. The spark in the boy’s eyes go out. Three left.

"Blast the fucker! Kill 'im!" In situations of panic, people tend to state the obvious.

Your shoulder shudders under an explosion of pain. It threatens to blossom and consume you. And then you bitch slap it and the agony cowers in a corner. Only the weak feel pain. And then they’re dead.

"Watch the knife!"

"Go to sleep."

Does spraying blood have a certain sound? Can you put it on paper? Can you sound it out or can it be just describes as water spraying from a burst pipe? A machine that had once been running suddenly acquires a leak and its life's blood, its oil, spills out in gallon? I don't know.

The three fall easily. Not knowing what is happening. They have always been in control. Maybe because they were the few that had working guns while everyone else had knives and metal bars. They had never been this close to a victim. Two fall with second mouths below their first. The third and last screams as your fourth knife bites his knee cap.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“Is that you’re god?”

“Fuck you!”

You smile without moving your lips. You’re always smiling. Always happy.

“You should really pray now.” Whispers in your head. They always pray. Chanting and singing hymns. Hallelujah. Praise the God that abandoned his ever fucked up creation.

“Go to hell!” his voice is steel. Never moving unless someone bends it. Or melts it. Which one will it be?

The fifth knife is tracing a line down his cheek. “Have you looked around, child?” You lean in close. Your breath washes against his face and he doesn’t even move to avoid the stink. “You need to loosen up a bit.”

You choke him with the tattered skin from his arms.

They already are starting to stink. You let the last knife clatter to the floor, it’s blade a scarlet color. The train has stopped and the doors have opened. You walk to the exit and you can here breathing outside. Someone is waiting.

[Crunchyfrog]

So, I guess the DP is what to do?

I think let him make the first move.

Your character's reactions are quick, and he's pretty self assured - I think he'd be confident enough in his own abilities to wait.

That was well written stuff, there, Gij.

[Harvester]

Good story!

I think the character should roll a severed head out of the doorway, and then stroll casually out, ever aware of his knife, and its hunger.

[DeadManWalking]

Nice story.

Well.

I think the best thing to do is, if there's a door, use a knife to fasten one of the bodies to the inside, then nudge the door open.

If things go well, either they'll reveal what weapons they have by attacking the body reflexively, or shout a bunch and start talking, thus giving you an accurate idea of how many they are and what they can do.