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Messiah
Failed Experiment
in Zocalo v2.0
This is the intro of a book Ive planned the last several years. I have to get to writing it sometime, so I guess encouragement is needed..
Its alternative history..
"It was early morning when he woke with a start. Had he heard a woman scream, or was he still dreaming? When he tried to sit up, his sight wouldn’t follow the rest of his body, ending up instead somewhere behind him, and the sensation caused him to retch. He watched with a child’s fascination as his body tried to empty, but he felt none of it. Then he rose from bed, and his sight was once again his own. As he started walking to the door, he noticed a coldness that felt so strange, so otherworldly, yet familiar, that he once again retched. And this time, blood fell on the floor. Suddenly, the room shifted. The walls came closer, and turned into cold, hard stones. Soon he was buried in them, and panic took over him, he fought against the torrent, crushing his fists against their remorseless onslaught. Worse than the pain he felt was the feeling of slipping away, falling into something immensely colder than what was around him. He felt his body numbing, but realized that it was not the cold that was causing it. Rather he was falling into the rocks, transforming into shapeless mist, drifting upwards until he stood atop a mound of stones, and that’s when he realized that he was dead."
Its alternative history..
"It was early morning when he woke with a start. Had he heard a woman scream, or was he still dreaming? When he tried to sit up, his sight wouldn’t follow the rest of his body, ending up instead somewhere behind him, and the sensation caused him to retch. He watched with a child’s fascination as his body tried to empty, but he felt none of it. Then he rose from bed, and his sight was once again his own. As he started walking to the door, he noticed a coldness that felt so strange, so otherworldly, yet familiar, that he once again retched. And this time, blood fell on the floor. Suddenly, the room shifted. The walls came closer, and turned into cold, hard stones. Soon he was buried in them, and panic took over him, he fought against the torrent, crushing his fists against their remorseless onslaught. Worse than the pain he felt was the feeling of slipping away, falling into something immensely colder than what was around him. He felt his body numbing, but realized that it was not the cold that was causing it. Rather he was falling into the rocks, transforming into shapeless mist, drifting upwards until he stood atop a mound of stones, and that’s when he realized that he was dead."
Comments
Ragnar was eagerly watching the sun go down over the mound on the hill. The mound was the burial place of the chieftain of Frosts’ great-grandfather, Gunnar Foebiter, and the relics he had carried during his life. Gunnar was Ragnars’ great-uncle, which made Ragnar as close to the Chieftains throne as he could be, except for his cousins, of course. His family had none of the riches, nor the power of his cousins, expecially the young chieftain Ewart, the spoiled brat. He had been made chieftain a month ago, and that was what spurred Ragnar into doing what he set out to do tonight. Ragnar was two years Ewarts elder, and mostly beat him in training. The only thing Ewart was better at was the spear, the soldiers’ weapon. Ragnar touched the sword at his hip, as if seeking assurance, and strode upwards. The sun was almost down, and he had promised himself that he would settle this early. Noone could stop him now, this was his destiny.
As the last rays of a feeble winter sun glinted over the horizon, Ragnar was on top of the mound, and started digging through the rocks. He moved them as silently as he possibly could, not daring to make a sound, lest he stir the village watchman into battle. He could clearly see the belltower from up here. There a single soldier would sit out the night, standing vigil over the northern sea, so that the threat of pirates would be averted, or the darker, unspoken threat of the Norsemen coming back from where in Hel they had vanished to.
Nearly two hundred years ago, the Gothic Union had managed to take back the last of their rightful homeland and driven the Norsemen into the northern sea. The last anyone had heard of their ill-begotten fleet was when the last ragged ships passed Iceland into oblivion beyond. Since then, every village on the west coast of Scandinavia had a sentry to warn them if they somehow managed to crawl their way back. The orders were to kill every last surviving Norseman. For 200 years, not a word had been heard of the fate of the Norsemen, but stories were still told of the threat they posed, and rumours told that many a village were supportive of the Norsemen claim on the land.
Ragnar was no such person. His family history stretched far back into the ancient trail of tears that wormed its way down the European continent and into old Rome. But that was before his forefathers had changed decadent Rome’s ways and came back. His family had been driven out of Scandinavia, but was here again, and noone would dispute his right to this land!
It was the same as his right to the relics that rested below him right now. A smile spread across Ragnars lips as he imagined himself wearing the armour of Gunnar and wielding the blade “Snake biter”. The blade was even more a legend than the corpse that rested here. It was rumored to have been forged in the Ulfberth smithys of old, and passed down in his family for nearly six hundred years.
Ragnar started as a bird flew past him. A raven. This was not good. A raven meant either good luck, or bad luck, depending on who you asked, but never was an omen as potent. He lay down as silent as possible on the rocks and strained his ears to listen. Someone was approaching from the village. He drew his seax, and climbed down on the opposite side of the mound, careful to avoid tripping on the wet stones. When he was on the ground, he crept silently along the line of bushes that surrounded the burial hill. When he felt confident that the person was coming straight to the mound, and wasn’t going somewhere else, he felt a moment of panic. That person would easily see that someone had been here, and Ragnar would have no second attempt on achieving his destiny. Time was of the essence, and Ragnar quickly made the choice to attack.
He leapt for the person just a few yards from the mound and quickly beat whoever it was to the ground. Ragnar was heavier than his prey, and was prepared to either knock them down or slash their throat when he recognised the face of his little brother.
“What are you doing?” Stein cried out, and when Ragnar didn’t answer at once, horror came into the little boys’ eyes. “I’m sorry brother, I didn’t know it was you!” Ragnar replied, and after a moment of thinking, he added “What are you doing out this late anyway?”. Stein looked away, and shame crept over his face as he turned towards his older brother. “I followed you from our house, I thought I could scare you, but it was you who scared me instead!”. Tears crept into the little boys’ eyes, and Ragnar hugged him as he said “Just go home little one, this is no place for you”. Stein sagged against Ragnars’ chest, and seemed to have regained a little of his courage when his face suddenly turned pale. Horror crept into his eyes again as he pointed behind Ragnar.
Ragnar turned as fast as he could, and almost gagged as his eyes met an image gastlier than anything he had ever seen. Standing on the top of the mound was a bloated figure dressed in Gunnars garb and staring at them with lifeless eyes. His skin was black as death, the clothes rotten and the armour rusted, but his bloodless body was impossibly full of life, and an aura of hatred covered him. He advanced towards the crouching brothers as silently as fate.
Ragnar was panicking now. His pulse beat as hard as thunder and as fast as the fastest horse. He pulled his brother with him as he raced towards the village, but as fast as he ran, he didn’t seem to move faster than a crawl, the corpse however, the draugr, advanced slowly and swiftly at the same time, and was soon upon them. Ragnar screamed, and his lungs were filled with meaningless words of hunger and hate and ice-cold winter.
And then he woke up. He lay in a heap just a hundred yards from the burial hill, his brother lying within an armslength of him. He pulled himself up, an agonizing pain slowly spreading in his body as it regained human warmth, he took his brother in his arms and staggered towards the village where lanterns were being lit. The watchman had probably rung his bell and awoken the village, thankfully. Ragnar didn’t know how he would explain what had happened, but he needed to get his little brother home first. As he neared the village, he sensed a strangely familiar cold in his arms and suddenly dropped Stein to the ground. A blackness was spreading on the boy’s face and Ragnar knew it was too late. He could never go home now. “Stein” he wispered and touched his little brother on the arm, a tear escaping his eye to fall on the dead body before him. Then he stood up, turned from the village, listened to the din far below him, and started walking, broken, back towards the mound and beyond. When he had gone a few hundred yards from the mound, and the forest started obsuring the view of the sea, he looked back, and thought he could see fires burning in the village below. Tears formed in his eyes, and he ran headfirst into the dark forest. Tomorrow would have been his fifteenth birthday.
Just a thought I felt like something was missing donno what though...I could see everything but was wondering what the village looked like? And the forest maybe some of the surroudings. But yeah vivid as hell, The first part you posted? Is that from your cocaine experiences?
Cocaine? Nah, I get enough out of my dreams. Dont need drugs (I didnt like them anyway).. ;)