short stories by Metal Gear Gorillaz

[MoonRaven]

Metal Gear Gorillaz
Gorillaz Snake


Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 3094
Location: Outer Heaven

PostPosted: 01 Feb 2008 11:32 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
I like to write, so I'll post some stories of mine here. Unless something comes up or I don't wish to share the week's results, I'll usually update once a week.

I am not being pretentious or self-glorifying (this time). I made this topic upon request. Any criticism is welcome, whether scathing or praiseworthy.

Here's my first work. I touched it up very slightly from my posting earlier.

Sanctuary

The silver necklace slowly tumbled out of his hands and splintered spectacularly over the neat white streaks on the highway pavement. It did not pain him to see the regal insignia which he had so proudly accepted at his inception ceremony shatter beyond recognition. If fate was kind to the man, he would never see another sinister charm like it in his lifetime. After carrying out his entire life as a hired gun, he now wanted nothing more to do with the Crimson Fang. The necklace, and all that it stood for, could burn in hell for all that he cared. Generations of hired assassins, brainwashed since birth to carry out the mafia’s agenda, ended with his cursed blood. Washing his thoughts of the wicked organization, he ritualistically turned the unsprouted flower bud over in his hands.
Tares had never known any thing else but death since childhood. The man had never questioned his purpose; he had always known that it was simply to complete his mission. Any other notion seemed incomprehensible to him. He did not feel. He did not think. He lived in the moment. The hit man had known nothing else in his entire life but to kill. No lullabies had ever coaxed him off to slumber, but only the groans of the dead and the smell of gunpowder. He did not mind; it was all that he knew. The periods in between assignments were merely torturous waiting periods. Tares could not think of any thing worse than to sit and wait for his masters to give him his next target. To be without a mission was to be absent of a purpose, to be absent of his very identity. He was not a person when he did not have a target; he was not alive.
It was on one of these gaps that Tares found himself absentmindedly wandering the busy metropolis. The city streets meant nothing to Tares, but he wandered them any way. Why? He did not know. He neither contemplated nor felt remorse. He simply pervaded the crowded streets because he had nothing else to do. Tares’s eyes were fixated downwards, refusing to look any single person that he was not allowed to kill. His mind was an empty cloud, devoid of a single thought. Focused on the ground below him, Tares did not even notice a fragile hand arrest him at his shoulder.

“Excuse me sir! Would you like to buy a flower?”

Tares did not avert his eyes from the cobblestone below him, but was confused nonetheless. He replied as if he had been brutally shaken awake
from a deep sleep.

“Huh? Wha—?”

“A flower, silly! You wanna buy one? Huh huh huh?! They’re really cheap!”

With childish playfulness, she stuck her head right in his. He paused and beheld the woman’s smiling face and cheery features. He could not understand why she was so happy. Her tiny frame was bouncing up and down with excitement. Unable to comprehend her, he decided to appease her in hopes that she would leave. Carelessly tossing her whatever money he had in his pocket, he barked,

“Sure.”

The woman’s eyes grew wide with astonishment when she beheld what Tares had given her.

“Thi—this is a lot of money! They don’t cost this much!”

He reached out his arm in penance.

“Would you like me to take it back?”

She snatched back her arm and emitted loud forced laughter. Meanwhile, she stealthily hid the money in her basket, keeping it out of his reach.

“No no! That’s quite all right! Here’s your flower!”

The woman then handed him a wilted tulip, and he placidly acted as if he were marveling at its beauty. Seemingly satisfied, the lady once again brandished the same wide smile from earlier. Although unsure why, he found it pleasing to behold.

“I’m Dahlia! What’s your name?”

“Name? What is that?”

She eyed him for a minute or so, suspicious as to whether he was delivering a most sublime lie to her not.

“What? Are you kidding me? EVERY ONE has a name!”

“Not me.”

The woman’s demeanor darkened significantly, but picked back up within an instant.

“Well fine then! If you don’t want to tell me, then I’ll just call you Tares! Alright?”

He was unsure whether he should be offended or not.

“Tar…es?”

Dahlia looked somewhat annoyed as she turned away from him to rummage through her basket, pulling out a small object that he could not discern.

“Yeah! Like the White Tares! It’s my favorite flower! I’ve got one right
here!”

Ecstatically, she showed him what looked to be nothing more than a pale stem. Pondering this query for a few moments, Tares taciturnly replied,

“It’s just a bud.”

Dahlia put on a new expression of distress and stamped her foot at him.

“So? It’s my favorite!”

“Why? It’s not a flower. It’s nothing.”

Her eyes drifted off into the clouds and she serenely recited a speech Tares could tell that she had said many times before.

“Because…it only blooms once in a person’s lifetime. I found this flower when I was a little girl. Every day I sit and wonder how beautiful this flower will turn out one day. If I put all of my hopes and dreams into this one seemingly insignificant bud, it will surely grow up to be absolutely gorgeous, right?”

“No, you’ll just be disappointed.”

Dahlia’s expression then changed to something that he had not expected: Remorse. Gingerly placing the White Tares into his hand, she closed his palm and backed away, her eyes fixated upon his. He found that he did not like this new expression of hers, dropping his eyes again to the pavement. He could not meet her new face of pity.

“Here…keep it.”

“But you just stated how important it is to you.”

“Yeah, I know. Just keep it. Do…you…uh…want to come back here some
other time…just to talk?”

Tares did not answer her. He eyed the withering bud in his hand, and a wave of some terrible force that he did not understand came over him. The blank cloud in his head filled up with rain. His vision blurred and his feet would not support him. Desperately, he clutched the side of a building to support himself. His surroundings spun around him in a dizzying flash, and he feared that he would faint. Staggering away, he felt something apart from his own consciousness answer Dahlia in a barely audible murmur,

“Yes.”

After uttering this solitary syllable, the mighty killer immediately bolted away in fear, as a frightened horse.
Tares’s next missions came, and he gratefully accepted them. During his breaks, he would make attempts at filling up the void inside of him by visiting Dahlia. She continued to talk, and he hungrily listened, his mind gradually filling up with more questions that he could not answer. What were all of these emotions that he had never known before? Was their purpose outside of his mission? Why did he want to spend his time with a person who offered him nothing? Over a period of months, he continued his “education,” growing ever closer to the idealistic young flower vendor. The cloud in his head grew bloated with more rain, threatening to release its fury upon his conscious mind.
Then one day, he returned to Dahlia to find her on her knees, sobbing. He immediately ran to her, frantically questioning her as to what could have distressed her so. Between intermittent hiccups and slurred speech, she relayed her plight to him. Slowly, she told him how she had woken today to find her father lying in a bloody heap on her kitchen floor, brutally murdered. Slowly, like a serpent about to strike, he realized the horrible truth: That it was he, on his most recent assignment, who had murdered her father. Slowly, the cloud in his head grew to an immense storm that tossed his insides about like a salad bowl. He dropped his gaze to the dark streets, unable to bring his eyes up to Dahlia’s blinding face. Tares’s lips barely moved at all as he mumbled,

“…I…I want to go…with you.”

With this boding pact, the two decided to flee together. The assassin had never revealed to her his profession, so she could not possibly know. She could not possibly know that he was fleeing the Crimson Fang. She could not possibly know that he was disgusted with what he had become. She could not possibly know that he, without any thought, had murdered her only father.
Pulling his car up to the field where the two were to meet, he stepped out onto the welcoming grass as Dahlia’s smiling face greeted him. The sun illuminated her hair, and her delicate dress wafted in the convivial breeze. What had he ever done to deserve her friendship? Tares paused, leaning on his car to admire every inch of her stunningly bright person. Lost in time, he could not break his gaze away from her.
Without warning, this image of utmost beauty was marred by the laser sight of a rifle. His killer’s instincts fogged by his newfound emotions, Tares watched pitifully as bullets ripped through her frail body. Immediately he rushed out to her, but was halted by a flurry of shots at his feet. A gargantuan man bearing the same silver necklace of the Crimson Fang stepped out from a battalion of men.

“Return to us! Come back to the fang, and you will not suffer the same
fate as her!”

Tares looked over at Dahlia. As she lay gasping on the cold ground, she lifted her tender arms and reached out to him, silently calling out his name. More than any thing at that moment, he wanted to be there, by her side. Cautiously, he looked back over at the Crimson Fang betallion. All of the men's rifles were intently poised on him, ready to fire at their leader's command. His eyes locked on hers, Tares ran as fast as he could. He could hear the Fang operatives screaming out the order to eliminate him, but ran still. A bullet pierced his knee, but he continued his journey, limping desperately to her. Finally reaching his destination, he collapsed to the ground next to Dahlia. With some sort of strange stinging water welling up in his eyes, he slowly picked up the radiant seraph. Even though her fragile face was savagely besmirched by blood, he thought that he had never seen her look more beautiful. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted the White Tares that she had given him. When he tried to show it to her, however, a bullet rudely pierced his shoulder, and he dropped the flower bud onto the grass. Her hand trembling, Dahlia gently picked it back up, and the two both held it in together their hands. The pale stem then bore fruit, and the flower bud gradually spread into a beautiful white bloom. As Tares gazed upon the dazzling blossom, the great and terrible cloud inside of his head quickly dissipated. Dahlia put on her glowing smile again for one final time, and whispered,

“Dissapointed, Tares?”

For the first time in his entire life, Tares smiled. His sordid and death-ridden features melted away in an instant.

“Not at all.”

And the two died smiling as a fog of bullets delivered them unto sanctuary.

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I am Gorillaz Snake, the fourth survivor of the "Les Enfants Terribles" project.
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MoonRaven
Bringer of dreams


Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 14957
Location: The darkside of the moon

PostPosted: 02 Feb 2008 10:04 am Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
It really is breathtaking....so sad.

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the_pig
Shrubbery of Golden Art


Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 5788
Location: the Finnish wilderness

PostPosted: 02 Feb 2008 10:43 am Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
beautiful.


You write really well.

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Diroslav
Blue dragon


Joined: 20 Nov 2007
Posts: 3768
Location: in the darkest basement

PostPosted: 02 Feb 2008 01:56 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
Man, I want to buy books from you now.

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Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep
Disorder, disorder, disorder!

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Metal Gear Gorillaz
Gorillaz Snake


Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 3094
Location: Outer Heaven

PostPosted: 02 Feb 2008 02:24 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
Thanks. And I just wanted to make a sad story this time. They won't all be like this.

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Charlie
Wishmaster


Joined: 02 Mar 2006
Posts: 5217


PostPosted: 02 Feb 2008 04:23 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
Touching.
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Tenebrion
Tenebrion Himself


Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 1910
Location: Omnipresent

PostPosted: 04 Feb 2008 11:29 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
I'll be frank, since you asked for it, and I'll be exhaustive since the story deserves it.
It was well written, although the revelation of the main character's profession was slightly disappointing at least to me, since the whole plot and ending then became quite obvious. Also, the flower blooming at the end was slightly over the top. I believe this story should be longer, since it involves a lot of character development. It would benefit greatly from adding in more dialogue between them, as well as one or two of his missions. His shock when his two worlds collide (Dahlia and his assassinations) would be stronger then, I believe.
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Metal Gear Gorillaz
Gorillaz Snake


Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 3094
Location: Outer Heaven

PostPosted: 05 Feb 2008 01:23 am Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
I agree with you, Tenebrion. The story was short, too much for my liking. Unfortunately, this short story was for a creative writing class, and I was three pages over the teacher's limit as it is. In the future, I'd love to write a full length story, and I'll let you know if I ever post something here that I have written outside of class.

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I am Gorillaz Snake, the fourth survivor of the "Les Enfants Terribles" project.
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Metal Gear Gorillaz
Gorillaz Snake


Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 3094
Location: Outer Heaven

PostPosted: 19 May 2008 02:50 am Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
My short story writing has hit a standstill, because I came to realize that my writing was terribly stereotypical and childish. Until I get things back together, I won't be posting much of those for a while.

I have worked on a good deal of poems, and I'm satisfied with a few. I'll share them here, if any one wants to read them.

This first one is a Shakespearean sonnet about wind rustling through a field of grass. For an explanation, see here, under "The English sonnet": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespear ... ish_sonnet

From the peak, I gaze upon a green sea
Pervading the large crowd, onward they march
Directing their gazes away from me
About me: whispers, I hear from my arch.

Out of the clouds, a deadly entity
Enveloped in the caress of the breeze
Lets loose his gusty specialty
Upon the green masses with careless ease

Like hailing bullets, the winds pierce the horde
The gusts ripple through them without a trill
Some fall; bow down to their blustery lord
Only to stand once more: placid and still

Then, with shining radiance of new dawn,
The losses are then cut; the grass lives on.

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I am Gorillaz Snake, the fourth survivor of the "Les Enfants Terribles" project.
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MoonRaven
Bringer of dreams


Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 14957
Location: The darkside of the moon

PostPosted: 19 May 2008 10:11 am Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
Not bad at all!

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the_pig
Shrubbery of Golden Art


Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 5788
Location: the Finnish wilderness

PostPosted: 19 May 2008 01:25 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
yup! Looking good!

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Tenebrion
Tenebrion Himself


Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 1910
Location: Omnipresent

PostPosted: 19 May 2008 03:16 pm Reply with quoteEdit/Delete this postDelete this postView IP address of posterBack to top
Writing poems can be great practice for writing better prose as well.