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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Flickering Light [Part 1]


Run. Don’t stop. They can’t have it. Never trip. Run. Ignore the gunfire. Forget the pain. Keep going. Don’t stop. It doesn’t hurt. IT DOESN’T HURT. Run harder. I can hear them. Don’t let them have it. They’re almost-

A bullet found its way into his left ankle, breaking it. Cody faltered and slammed into the undergrowth. He was almost out of the surrounding forest, but fell short. There weren’t any other places he could run to, but he couldn’t let them have it. Bombs fell somewhere in the background of the woods, causing the ground to tremble. Cody painfully forced himself up with his one good arm, and stumbled forward. His left hand reached up to see if his other gunshot wound had reopened, and it had not. His shirt was lined with red streaks, from the makeshift cloth bandage on his shoulder down to his waist. The rest of him was covered with dirt and dried mud. The trees thinned out for the next 20 feet as Cody limped ahead. The adrenaline coursing through his body kept him on his feet and walking. He figured the shooter must have gone to fetch the colonel who had been on his tail for months. Cody wasn’t going anywhere very fast, that much was certain.

Slowly, Cody reached to the end of the forest. There was only a hundred feet of cliffside below, leading into a valley. His hopes fell to the ground as he surveyed the scene. The sky was a dull gray from the smoke of the airplanes above. From where he stood he could see a decimated town and several holes in the ground circling the place, all the way to the cliff’s base. Some of the pits looked like they were caused by bombing, but others looked peculiar, as if they were only made by...

A minefield. If Cody was lucky, there would be some just below where he stood. His necklace might survive the fall if he didn’t land front first into the ground, but a mine exploding, especially if it was one of the government’s, would definitely destroy it. He shuddered at the thought, but there wasn’t any other way. It was better to destroy it than to let anyone else have it.

The click of a cocked gun sounded behind him. The colonel and his posse had caught up.

“Come on, kid, hand it over. We don’t want to have to search your squashed body for it.”

Cody staggered around to face the pudgy, pig of a man. Medals lined his uniform, and fancy stripes lined his sleeve. Six or seven more battle-hardened soldiers stood around him grinning, all guns pointed straight ahead. Cody felt under his dirty, torn shirt collar and pulled it out for them to see. The chain connected to one of the tips of a clear octahedron. Eight equal triangles, four meeting together at opposite tips. On the inside, a small blue light was shining. The colonel’s eyes opened wide in the sight of a clear promotion and commendations from his superiors.

“You’re just going to kill me afterward, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Of course not. You’d make a great bargaining tool with your father. But if you resisted, then it wouldn’t be much trouble for us to throw your body into a river somewhere either. It makes no difference to us. Now give that to me before I have to take it from you.”

Cody wrapped his hand around the necklace. He almost couldn’t stand anymore. All his weight rested on his right foot yet pain still seared through his left. He silently wished for a shower, a meal, or anything to take him away from this. The colonel’s hand stretched out a few feet away. Cody showed a sad smile, knowing what he had to do. He shifted his weight backwards and let gravity take over. His feet soon had air beneath them. Wind whipped through his messy hair as he watched the colonel get smaller and smaller. Cody vaguely wondered about what happens after death. Goosebumps ran up his body as he looked above him to watch the ground rise up at him. The smell of spent bombshells and exploded mines surrounded him. He couldn’t tell if it was the wind tearing past his face that made his eyes water. The tiny shape on his necklace hovered at eye level. The blue light inside it began to fade...


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[Part 2]

Part one of yet another story idea I had the other night. I've actually had this mostly ready since last week but I'm trying to stick with pseudo-weekly updates so that I don't post too much at once then go for long periods of inactivity. I will not let this thing die, dang it! As a warning, the second part might seem like it has nothing to do with this first part. Don't ask questions.

Expect part two next week sometime. It's partially done, in that I've got the jist of it in my head. I noticed that I prefer to open a G-doc and start writing (that's a Google-Document in my own terms).

I'll be honest, though, I'm still coming up with half of the story myself, so don't expect perfection. If you do expect perfection then I don't know why you've cared to read this blog at all.

~Wes

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