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A siren-like bell reverberated over the still, windless grass where an occasional odd flower peaked up. A single antenna arose from a flower’s center and the petals arched and encased the stem before rooting into the ground; they could appear to be an incipient form of many trees in the area. The trees soared only as tall as a single person and their teleological membrane-like leaves tore into the soft ground. However, the bottoms of the leaves were often tattered and shriveled, despite any authority’s displeasure, from their impressive appearance as a young child’s play thing.
Students gathered in small groups and made their way toward an immensely large grey building consisting of four cylindrical parts collecting around a larger and flatter pyramid. In one group of five companions, four of them absurdly chattered loudly in an effort to defeat the siren in its own game. However, there was no interesting subject in play, so the four of them discussed a wide variety of random nonsense. Shade all but shouted, “What Did You Eat For Breakfast!?” With his dark clothes and hair, which covered almost every trace of skin, he could appear to be nothing more than a shadow by the untrained eye, as his name suggested. Krayne screeched in reply, “YARD CLIPPINGS!” Her fluffy brown hair came to her back and her bangs swooped, nearly covering one of her dark green eyes. She carried a small green bag by a strap almost as thin as a single thread of string. The bag was rumored to be as empty as her head. Two dark grey, round hemispheres issued from atop her head as ears. She sported a grey tail with three thick, black stripes and a variety of greens, oranges, and purples in her clothes aside from the gold lace trimming her skirt. She would almost appear to be a proper lady. It was not uncommon to see many people with animal characteristics dating back from evolution before a single soul could recall the creatures freely mingling in the planet's atmosphere. Gale bellowed, “DRY WALL!” His tangled, silver hair nearly covered his eyes and he wore black and white attire. Black ears peeked curiously from atop his head and his white tail hovered cautiously above the ground. Flame yowled, “MAGNESIUM PILLS!” Her spotted grey and brown hair, blending with her feline ears and tail, hurled untidily in the back. She wore black sleeves attached to a constant stream of blues in her top. The three individuals yelled in perfect unison so that not a single word among them was discernable.
Their fifth and more forced companion merely acquiesced obediently and occasionally mumbled a word or two regarding their actions to himself in omission. His light hair contradicted his dark clothes. His presence only gruntled of a successful scheme from half of an age earlier in which they had coerced him into their company.
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The bright bank of the sun had been nowhere to be found in the sky, nor any revolving moon. The only comfort of light was the constant shining of artificial lights emitting from houses, roadways, and larger buildings. A large grove of wide trees huddled nearby, casting a long pool of obscure abyss. Younger children shrunk from the darkness and traveled only warily in the shadows of light in apprehensiveness.
The schedule proceeded as mundane as always, and the four companions felt a need to change the pace when they caught sight of a lonely stranger. One-by-one, they began chasing after him, calling, “Guy! Hey, guy!” Zeth had been walking briskly when he became aware of their voices and glanced back. Slightly panicky of what these strange people were up to, he walked faster and tightly clutched a dark bag containing a decent number of books at his side. Nevertheless, they easily caught up and Zeth halted to wait for the punch-line.
With no true experience in how to make normal friends, the four of them stood singular and silent for a moment, failing to articulate their actions. Breaking the tension, Krayne abruptly grasped Zeth’s bag, tore it away from him with one arm, and questioned, “Is this yours?” Feeling almost violated, Zeth leered suspiciously, “Why?” Without answering or turning from him, she hurled it with, still one arm, far into the grove of trees while she held a peacefully wicked smile on her face. It quickly evaporated from sight as the color of the bag merged with the black chaos of the dark. Zeth erupted in his first sign of emotion, “What did you do that for!?” Gale, who had been using his hands as binoculars, flew to his side and stopped him before he had a moment to search for his belongings. Gale spoke with fake maudlin, “Awww you lost your stuff?” Flame coolly and cheerfully chimed, “We’ll help you look for it!” as they edged him into the grove of luminous green hostilities.
The four strange individuals continued to drag him into the forest until the shadow of trees shut out the last glimpse of artificial light. Though fully adjusted to the darkness, their eyes failed to see hardly a thing in the intense absence of light. Several times, Gale nearly faltered Zeth into a tree. Zeth warily broke into, “I don’t think it could have possibly come this far.” When he realized the others slowed their pace, perhaps from fright. Still awaiting the punch-line, he nevertheless traveled patiently with them.
Shade reassuringly sighed, “The only wild animals that could possibly be in here are gogats and-”, before he could finish, Krayne let out a yelp, “Gogats!?” Flame mumbled matter-of-factly in response, “They’re harmless, I think.” picturing the domestic form of the shy, pearly blue creatures draped in yellow and black stripes. They stood firmly on two legs, medium height with a misshapen skull, looped tail, and small, boney arms attached to a thick, sharp membrane. Krayne emotionally defended, “That’s what they want you to think!” She continued postulating before the others had a chance to question who they were, “The domestic ones are small and harmless, but have you seen the wild ones? They’re huge and they’ll trample you to dust just as soon as look at you!” In an effort to restore order, Gale calmed, “I’m sure they’re not too much bigger than the domestic ones.” His effort played in vain as a thud immersed from the distance, escalating the neurosis.
In an instant, with all aspiration drained from his voice, he jumped, “What was that!?” Without an answer, each crept nearer to one another. With no light to give them a sense of direction, the four of them stumbled and fell over each other. Confidence partially restored, they began to laugh and giggle at their own stupidity. The light air thickened in an instant as another thud illuminated the darkness, much closer and louder then the previous one. With no further questions asked, their cries ricocheted through the grove as they scattered like insects away from the parlous area and into safety.
Zeth stood alone and bewildered for a moment. His heartbeat quickened as he mobilized himself in oblige for a logical answer. He fumbled through the darkness in a state of moderation with his hands outstretched. He felt foolish until his hand caught a soft layer of skin, no doubt belonging to a species of plant known as Opascious, which reconciled the darkness. Opascious grew as trees and bushes with an outer layer more similar to skin than bark. Unlike most plants surrounded in bright green and yellow, Opascious obtained a red-orange hue and was prone to dropping its large berries as it conserved its energy on dark days.
Satisfied with his answer, he invisibly grinned with a sense of attainment until he remembered the reason he was there. He stumbled back into the direction the others had fled, searching for the first source of light. He conducted a tactic as he traveled. The force of the falling bag would have caused damage to the fragile canopy. A gap in the canopy would be far more noticeable than a gap of darkness around darkness. In hopes of finding this gap, he gazed upward instead of down as the first few glimpses of artificial light came into view. As he predicted, a small hole of damaged membrane came into view, a source of the end of his toil. The fragile, green stalks of trees and their lighter, umbrella-like, leaves could be torn apart easily, for they had grown to withstand long periods without sunlight, not pressure. His bag patiently meditated underneath the gap, light trickling down and soaking into it. Zeth stubbornly yanked it off the ground and strolled onward. He broke the shield of silence around him for comfort as if responding to a bad joke, “I don’t get it.”
The following day, the four companions intruded upon his peace again. Shade exclaimed, “Heyyyy, you got your bag back!” Zeth growled irritably, “Thanks for helping me look for it.” Krayne, oblivious to the sarcasm, spoke almost in a sing-song tone, “It’s no problem at all! If you need anything else, just let us know and we’ll help you out!” Help me right out of sanity, you will. Zeth could only imagine them dragging him out of the safety of society and into the sarcophagus of wilderness where only the rare exile was sent.
Discovering a newly formed bright green smear on Zeth’s dark bag, Gale cheered all too quickly, “You know, I can get the whole thing to match if Krayne throws it in there a few more times.” In a last desperate attempt to abscond from the onslaught of intruders, Zeth braced through the grounds ever faster. His shoes scuffed the ground as his shadow sped up, yet, despite his efforts, four other shadows never strayed behind.
Shade spoke up, “Hey, guy, do you have a name?” The others followed closely behind with a cheerful note, “Yeah, guy!” each in their own time and rhythm; the result was a train wreck. Zeth winced and reluctantly replied so they had to strain their ears to hear, “It’s Zeth.” Shade continued loudly, “Okay, guy!”, ignoring the new name and continuing, “My name is Shade and-”, following right on que, Krayne continued without breaking the sentence, “-my name is Krayne, but these two are-”, like Krayne before him, Gale finished with perfect timing, pointing to himself and the remaining member, “-Gale and Flame.”
It took Zeth several moments to absorb their words, and he realized that he still hadn’t quieted his pace. Despite the fatigue threatening to soon creep in, he considered scurrying quicker. With their perfect unison sketch, they reminded him only of a demented family; he began to question their sanity. Flame’s mouth hung open, ready to quote her part, but she instead used it to scold Gale, “You didn’t even let me introduce myself!” Her ears hung back in rhythm. Once the cheery air dissipated, Zeth let his guard down slightly, with the pursuers seeming more mortal and less alien.
Throughout the current and following days, they scarcely left his side, like parasitic leeches. He grew steadily accustomed to their appearance in acculturation, despite that they had distempered his everyday life in bouleversement. Though he participated as little as possible in their actions, he had now assimilated into them and turning away was no longer an option.
School schedules changed five times each day as tutors migrated from class to class every 21.46 hours. They trained themselves to teach and adapt to any age group. Governmental forces set the rules to make it harder for the students to become too familiar with their tutors. However, with a limited population and, therefore, a limited supply of teachers, students nevertheless became familiar with each tutor whether or not it was in their will.
Students were judged according to general age groups. The class holding the most contempt from the older groups generated around a middle class where the students were just old enough to begin to be a nuisance. A peculiar tutor, best known for trailing off into improbable thoughts and his own life was abruptly interrupted by a series of vociferous shouts from a crowd of younger adolescents. Zeth gasped half jokingly, “Savages!” Not hearing Zeth over the rambunctious commotion outside, the teacher replied in a disgusted tone, “Kids.” and continued, “Who wants to go out and gut stomp every single one of them?” in a motion as if stamping the life out of a much smaller being. Engaged by the proposal, the majority of the class enthusiastically arose from their bright seats with bloodthirsty looks in their eyes. Krayne, one of the few remaining seated, whimpered, “Give peace a chance?”
Shade had a reputation of spacing out near the beginning of class. He awoke from his current trance to discover everyone in a state of motion. Though unaware of the cause of the commotion, he excitedly arose with everyone else. Seats connected in a curved row in the middle of the dull room and made their way upward, giving life to more seats. Gale perched directly in front of Shade. Gale’s stillness being too slow and without a desire to go around or control his boundless energy, Shade leaped over Gale and clattered to the floor below. The instructor instinctively took quick control of the room and waited for Shade to gather himself and sheepishly return to a seat.
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Zeth rushed out of his thoughts when flame shouted, “Woa, Watch Your Step!” Still in a contest for domination over the siren, Flame attempted to continue the loud chatter by tripping Gale. He only stumbled far ahead and came to a complete halt upon catching his balance. He stood still for a moment until Flame was right behind him. He turned around abruptly in a single movement and leaned slightly as if speaking to a child. He recited slowly and loudly so every word was exactly clear, “YOU THINK YOU’RE SO COOL!” He stood again to full height and continued quickly and quietly in a devilish tone, “Revenge is always sweet.”
hehe... Well, this is a little longer and possibly a bit inaccurate, but that's alright cos I finished it XDD. Actually, it's been finished for a long time. I just never put it up and I wanted to change it anyway cos I had to change the epilogue and first part. so I'll edit them real quick like.
 Raven and the Virus Iris · Sun Jun 15, 2008 @ 02:27am · 0 Comments |
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