Neo Chronicles: Black Void
Episode 16: Kids These Days
Table of Contents
I can't believe my eyes when I see it. It? No, not an “it.” It's a he. It's a he that looks just like me, but it's not me. He's a person—a human. And he's just chillin' in the back with Ran. She did tell me she saw another human before, but the way she let on—I thought he was dead.
Shoulda known better. More lies. More deceit. I really can't trust no one out here.
“Da-rai-us,” I hear my name being mispronounced. It kinda sounds cool that way. It's got like a kingly ring to it. This kid—looks like a plush animal. He's two feet tall, green fur, pink claws for toes, big eyes. Not one for callin' things cute, but he is kinda teddy bear lookin'.
His name is Juun-Met. One of the aliens on this planet. Oh, that's right, we're on another planet. Ran brought us here about a day ago. It's a nice place. The ground is purple, the sky is like a sea salty lookin' blue. We landed in like a rural type area. There're patches of red grass around. They've got these dome shaped houses scattered about, too. That's where we are now—inside a dome shaped house.
Juun grabs me by the finger and tugs on me to go outside. He says he wants to go on adventure. Says there's monsters out terrorizing everyone's homes and we're the only ones who can stop it.
Oh yeah, that's another thing. Carlos Ford—that's the other guy's, the other human's name—when Ran introduced us, he noticed the translator I had on my wrist. “Yo ese,” he said. “Whatchu doin' wit' that retired old piece of caca.” Carlos is an interesting character. He's old. He could actually be my dad. I'd say he's in his mid to late thirties. Obviously of Hispanic decent—Mexican probly. Dark skin, nappy lookin' hair, and he's wearin' a space suit sorta like mine.
“Lemme hook you up wit' dis realness,” he said. And then he brought out this thing that looked like a watch. Told me that with it, I'll be able to hear, read, and understand what everyone around me was sayin'. Something of a universal translator.
Thanks to it, I can hear what Juun is sayin'. I can pick out an accent, recognize a vocal pattern, discern the words from the non-words. I've never realized how much I took language for granted until now. Like this lil' dude is obviously a lil' dude. He's in the process of learnin' whatever language he's speakin' for himself. And that's cool. He's like every lil' dude that I know. And trust me, I know a lot. My mom runs a daycare for a livin'. So I can tell every word that Juun is strugglin' with. I can correct him when he misspeaks or mispronounces something. It's amazing.
Ri'lar told me that the way these translators work is by taking whatever I hear and broadcast the meaning directly into my brain. Something like telepathy—TP—but his only worked between two people and they both had to be wearing it. The one Carlos gave me looks like it works with everyone, whether they're wearing it or not. Juun understands what I'm saying, and I understand him. When I get some time to myself, I'mma have to play around with this and see what else it can do.
Juun and I make our way to a cave some ways away from the house. We fought off invisible—and partly imaginary—monsters along the way, and now we're kinda tired and hungry. In the cave, we sit down, relax, and unpack the snacks we brought with us. Carlos assured me that this stuff was edible, and Juun seems to like it a lot.
I peel off the wrapping and inspect the dark, brown, bar-shaped thing. Tastes like chocolate, which is cool. I'm not much of a fan for sweets, but it's the closest thing to earth food I've had in—how long have I been out here now? I'm sure it's at been at least a lil' over a month.
Juun's already done with his share, so I offer him the rest of mine. “Naaah! We gots more monsters ta fight!”
We start to head back outside, but we stop and look up at the sky. The strangest thing I've seen all day. It's raining, but not regular rain. No, regular rain is done with water. This spectacle happens with fire—or fireballs, or—they might just be comets or meteorites. Either way it's weird, and it's happening a little bit too close for comfort. One such object lands some ten feet in front of us. Even makes a huge crater, in spite of its golf ball size.
“Is this normal?” I ask.
“I haven't seen this a-forr,” Juun replies.
We just sit at the foot of the cave watching the light show happen. Great balls of fire filling the atmosphere. It's super cool looking. The colors meshing together. Contrast against the sky's backdrop.
Juun can't be bothered to sit still for long, though. The kid's short attention span gets the best of him, so instead of running off to fight monsters outside, he decides it's better to run off looking for trouble inside. I'm the older brother here, so it's on me to go after him. Not complainin' though. He's a cool dude. I'm down for some more play time.
When I catch up, I see he's stopped—frozen where he stands, looking intrigued, looking surprised, looking scared. I look ahead to see what he's staring at. It's a big ol' somethin' another. Big, furry, monstrous lookin' behemoth kinda dude. Razor sharp teeth and claws, elongated snout, down on all sixes—like a furry lookin' polka dotted dinosaur.
We see it open its mouth and let out a fierce roar. Without even thinkin' about it, I grab Juun, and hightail it outta the cave. I can't remember any other time I've run this fast in my life. Then after what feels like a mile, I stop to catch my breath. I'm kneeling down, panting like a fiend, Juun is patting me on the back, and then we hear this loud roar again.
I'm thinkin' “dang, that's messed up.” The dino done chased us all the way across the land. Then I stop to think if I keep runnin', I'm just gonna end up leadin' it back to the house. That can't happen. So again—without thinking any more to it—I draw my sword. I draw my sword, and I tell Juun to head back home right now and don't look back. Thankfully, he listens.
Another one of those fireballs crashes down close by. Sadly, it doesn't take out the six legged freak, but it does make a cool sound effect in the background. Yeah, it's the little crazy things like that that peak my interest. I'm weird like that.
So I get all ready to fight. I try to loosen up, but instinct causes me to tense up. That's one of those things I need to work on. When Ri'lar was around, he made that comment to me once. When you fight like a robot you can't react like a person. So I try real hard to let it go, chillax for a bit, treat this like it's just business, and when the dino lunges at me, I jump up so fast, you'da thought I was standin' on hot coal.
The dino sorta just flops towards the ground. It doesn't go down gracefully like a runner sliding into home plate, or a—something else being graceful—it just collapses. I stand there ready for it to get up and make its next move, but nothing happens. It just lies there on its belly, motionless. I creep up on it, inch my way closer to it and don't even see it react. I poke it, I prod it, and there's still no response.
The dude is dead, and—well, that's kinda sad. I'm kinda sad. I didn't want this to happen. Too much of that goin' around.
I look it over one last time and say a short prayer. It's not like I don't know that death is supposed to be this natural part of life, but the killing—the senseless killing—we could do without it. I don't care what planet you're on, where you come from, who you are, it's just not cool.
Then it's like the devil was listening in and thought it'd be real funny to spit in my face with what happens next.
I start to head off and trail Juun, but instead I'm greeted by another dino. It's bigger, more apish, standing on two legs with big, overgrown muscley arms. It's got green fur, pink claws, big eyes—first thing that comes to mind is Juun. I'm hoping he got out okay and didn't run into this guy.
The dinoape runs in flailing its humongo-arms every which way. I do my best to stay out of the way, but for some reason, it's got it in its mind to be bum rushin' me. Did it know the other dino? Does it think I killed it? Maybe it's lookin' at me as food.
I'm not the most nimbly quick reactionary type. That was always Chris's forte, but when I'm jumpin' around for my life, I can get up quick. It tries to pound me into the ground, and each missed smash results in another new addition to the landscape.
A big hole in the ground.
The beast is relentless, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I have to do something to defend myself. My mind switches over from flight to fight, but somewhere in the transition, I get hit—hard. And it hurts.
The thing punched me through the ground. When it lifts up its gargantuan fist to see what it's done, I just sorta lie there looking dumbfounded. How far did it bury me, seven feet? Eight? Ten? Completely took the wind out of me. Nothing's broken. Nothing's bruised. Once again, I can thank my ST for that—or my aura, or whatever the world it is that makes me who I am.
Dude decides to throw a tantrum and keep thrashin' all over me. I've had enough, and decide to meet its next punch with one of my own. Takes the beast by surprise and gets it to back off. I climb up out of the now twenty foot deep bed I was in, groggy, grumpy, and cranky.
So let's go. Dude wants to go crazy, I can go crazy, too. I hop in and deck it across the jaw. Yeah, I know to hold back, I've been punching things long enough to control my strength. It's still enough force to lay the fool out across the floor.
Now I'm thinkin' we're done. The monster should be sleeping now, but for some reason it doesn't want to. It staggers. It stumbles. It sorta dances back up to its feet. It's obvious the thing is ticked off. It growls in my face. I just stand there staring at it, face to ugly face.
“Da-rai-us,” it says.
The manner, the expression—it all hits me like a bullet train. I look into the monster's eyes and see the image of the little kid I befriended. Juun-Met. What happened to you? It howls at the meteorites falling from the sky and collapses right in front of me.
I run up to him, check for a heartbeat, check for breath, check for signs of life—and it's just like the first dino. Juun's not moving. He's not moving at all.
Dang.
Episode 16: Kids These Days
Table of Contents
I can't believe my eyes when I see it. It? No, not an “it.” It's a he. It's a he that looks just like me, but it's not me. He's a person—a human. And he's just chillin' in the back with Ran. She did tell me she saw another human before, but the way she let on—I thought he was dead.
Shoulda known better. More lies. More deceit. I really can't trust no one out here.
“Da-rai-us,” I hear my name being mispronounced. It kinda sounds cool that way. It's got like a kingly ring to it. This kid—looks like a plush animal. He's two feet tall, green fur, pink claws for toes, big eyes. Not one for callin' things cute, but he is kinda teddy bear lookin'.
His name is Juun-Met. One of the aliens on this planet. Oh, that's right, we're on another planet. Ran brought us here about a day ago. It's a nice place. The ground is purple, the sky is like a sea salty lookin' blue. We landed in like a rural type area. There're patches of red grass around. They've got these dome shaped houses scattered about, too. That's where we are now—inside a dome shaped house.
Juun grabs me by the finger and tugs on me to go outside. He says he wants to go on adventure. Says there's monsters out terrorizing everyone's homes and we're the only ones who can stop it.
Oh yeah, that's another thing. Carlos Ford—that's the other guy's, the other human's name—when Ran introduced us, he noticed the translator I had on my wrist. “Yo ese,” he said. “Whatchu doin' wit' that retired old piece of caca.” Carlos is an interesting character. He's old. He could actually be my dad. I'd say he's in his mid to late thirties. Obviously of Hispanic decent—Mexican probly. Dark skin, nappy lookin' hair, and he's wearin' a space suit sorta like mine.
“Lemme hook you up wit' dis realness,” he said. And then he brought out this thing that looked like a watch. Told me that with it, I'll be able to hear, read, and understand what everyone around me was sayin'. Something of a universal translator.
Thanks to it, I can hear what Juun is sayin'. I can pick out an accent, recognize a vocal pattern, discern the words from the non-words. I've never realized how much I took language for granted until now. Like this lil' dude is obviously a lil' dude. He's in the process of learnin' whatever language he's speakin' for himself. And that's cool. He's like every lil' dude that I know. And trust me, I know a lot. My mom runs a daycare for a livin'. So I can tell every word that Juun is strugglin' with. I can correct him when he misspeaks or mispronounces something. It's amazing.
Ri'lar told me that the way these translators work is by taking whatever I hear and broadcast the meaning directly into my brain. Something like telepathy—TP—but his only worked between two people and they both had to be wearing it. The one Carlos gave me looks like it works with everyone, whether they're wearing it or not. Juun understands what I'm saying, and I understand him. When I get some time to myself, I'mma have to play around with this and see what else it can do.
Juun and I make our way to a cave some ways away from the house. We fought off invisible—and partly imaginary—monsters along the way, and now we're kinda tired and hungry. In the cave, we sit down, relax, and unpack the snacks we brought with us. Carlos assured me that this stuff was edible, and Juun seems to like it a lot.
I peel off the wrapping and inspect the dark, brown, bar-shaped thing. Tastes like chocolate, which is cool. I'm not much of a fan for sweets, but it's the closest thing to earth food I've had in—how long have I been out here now? I'm sure it's at been at least a lil' over a month.
Juun's already done with his share, so I offer him the rest of mine. “Naaah! We gots more monsters ta fight!”
We start to head back outside, but we stop and look up at the sky. The strangest thing I've seen all day. It's raining, but not regular rain. No, regular rain is done with water. This spectacle happens with fire—or fireballs, or—they might just be comets or meteorites. Either way it's weird, and it's happening a little bit too close for comfort. One such object lands some ten feet in front of us. Even makes a huge crater, in spite of its golf ball size.
“Is this normal?” I ask.
“I haven't seen this a-forr,” Juun replies.
We just sit at the foot of the cave watching the light show happen. Great balls of fire filling the atmosphere. It's super cool looking. The colors meshing together. Contrast against the sky's backdrop.
Juun can't be bothered to sit still for long, though. The kid's short attention span gets the best of him, so instead of running off to fight monsters outside, he decides it's better to run off looking for trouble inside. I'm the older brother here, so it's on me to go after him. Not complainin' though. He's a cool dude. I'm down for some more play time.
When I catch up, I see he's stopped—frozen where he stands, looking intrigued, looking surprised, looking scared. I look ahead to see what he's staring at. It's a big ol' somethin' another. Big, furry, monstrous lookin' behemoth kinda dude. Razor sharp teeth and claws, elongated snout, down on all sixes—like a furry lookin' polka dotted dinosaur.
We see it open its mouth and let out a fierce roar. Without even thinkin' about it, I grab Juun, and hightail it outta the cave. I can't remember any other time I've run this fast in my life. Then after what feels like a mile, I stop to catch my breath. I'm kneeling down, panting like a fiend, Juun is patting me on the back, and then we hear this loud roar again.
I'm thinkin' “dang, that's messed up.” The dino done chased us all the way across the land. Then I stop to think if I keep runnin', I'm just gonna end up leadin' it back to the house. That can't happen. So again—without thinking any more to it—I draw my sword. I draw my sword, and I tell Juun to head back home right now and don't look back. Thankfully, he listens.
Another one of those fireballs crashes down close by. Sadly, it doesn't take out the six legged freak, but it does make a cool sound effect in the background. Yeah, it's the little crazy things like that that peak my interest. I'm weird like that.
So I get all ready to fight. I try to loosen up, but instinct causes me to tense up. That's one of those things I need to work on. When Ri'lar was around, he made that comment to me once. When you fight like a robot you can't react like a person. So I try real hard to let it go, chillax for a bit, treat this like it's just business, and when the dino lunges at me, I jump up so fast, you'da thought I was standin' on hot coal.
The dino sorta just flops towards the ground. It doesn't go down gracefully like a runner sliding into home plate, or a—something else being graceful—it just collapses. I stand there ready for it to get up and make its next move, but nothing happens. It just lies there on its belly, motionless. I creep up on it, inch my way closer to it and don't even see it react. I poke it, I prod it, and there's still no response.
The dude is dead, and—well, that's kinda sad. I'm kinda sad. I didn't want this to happen. Too much of that goin' around.
I look it over one last time and say a short prayer. It's not like I don't know that death is supposed to be this natural part of life, but the killing—the senseless killing—we could do without it. I don't care what planet you're on, where you come from, who you are, it's just not cool.
Then it's like the devil was listening in and thought it'd be real funny to spit in my face with what happens next.
I start to head off and trail Juun, but instead I'm greeted by another dino. It's bigger, more apish, standing on two legs with big, overgrown muscley arms. It's got green fur, pink claws, big eyes—first thing that comes to mind is Juun. I'm hoping he got out okay and didn't run into this guy.
The dinoape runs in flailing its humongo-arms every which way. I do my best to stay out of the way, but for some reason, it's got it in its mind to be bum rushin' me. Did it know the other dino? Does it think I killed it? Maybe it's lookin' at me as food.
I'm not the most nimbly quick reactionary type. That was always Chris's forte, but when I'm jumpin' around for my life, I can get up quick. It tries to pound me into the ground, and each missed smash results in another new addition to the landscape.
A big hole in the ground.
The beast is relentless, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I have to do something to defend myself. My mind switches over from flight to fight, but somewhere in the transition, I get hit—hard. And it hurts.
The thing punched me through the ground. When it lifts up its gargantuan fist to see what it's done, I just sorta lie there looking dumbfounded. How far did it bury me, seven feet? Eight? Ten? Completely took the wind out of me. Nothing's broken. Nothing's bruised. Once again, I can thank my ST for that—or my aura, or whatever the world it is that makes me who I am.
Dude decides to throw a tantrum and keep thrashin' all over me. I've had enough, and decide to meet its next punch with one of my own. Takes the beast by surprise and gets it to back off. I climb up out of the now twenty foot deep bed I was in, groggy, grumpy, and cranky.
So let's go. Dude wants to go crazy, I can go crazy, too. I hop in and deck it across the jaw. Yeah, I know to hold back, I've been punching things long enough to control my strength. It's still enough force to lay the fool out across the floor.
Now I'm thinkin' we're done. The monster should be sleeping now, but for some reason it doesn't want to. It staggers. It stumbles. It sorta dances back up to its feet. It's obvious the thing is ticked off. It growls in my face. I just stand there staring at it, face to ugly face.
“Da-rai-us,” it says.
The manner, the expression—it all hits me like a bullet train. I look into the monster's eyes and see the image of the little kid I befriended. Juun-Met. What happened to you? It howls at the meteorites falling from the sky and collapses right in front of me.
I run up to him, check for a heartbeat, check for breath, check for signs of life—and it's just like the first dino. Juun's not moving. He's not moving at all.
Dang.
