It Begins

Visit my new website at www.morbidtoybox.com to read the continuation to my original #sciencefiction #horror #bassysbasilica

Clinch (Sports Fiction)

This story came from a 1000 word "prompt" challenge that I participated in a couple weeks ago. I have since added some words, and changed a few things. I had a lot of fun writing this one, especially being that when I first heard the prompt I was immediately inspired as I knew exactly what I wanted to write, which doesn't normally happen so easily. Usually it takes me a few hours, sometimes even days to land a solid idea. But the beauty about this challenge is that you only get three days to think it up and write it down. Makes you use parts of your cold brain that you normally don't. A great exercise. Well here is my story...

Prompt: Matchmaker
from the Fiction War contest of Winter 2019

Hecklers jeered raucously in the back. Another adrenaline-fueled fan taunted them, and a barbaric contest of unruly language erupted in the audience. Andy Brooks went to the podium that separated his featured fighters to staunch their bleeding passions. Spectators of combative sport were always the most spirited sort. More often than not a simple press conference could just as soon become a sugar-frenzied day care center in desperate need of a tranquilizer gun. 

     Their balding host was a robust man with a flat nose and a rich taste for foppish attire. His broad shoulders came high around his thick neck—lingering features that hung on to him from a time when he was a boxer and weightlifting enthusiast. But now he looked like a pretentious Humpty Dumpty that let a few too many jabs slip past his guard. Andy whispered to the muscled athlete seated stoically to his right. He was dark of complexion, sporting black sun glasses that were beyond gratuitous in this low-lit setting, a spongy black beard trimmed neatly, and a black shirt emblazoned with the logo of his training camp. He listened closely and chortled at what was shared, apparently enjoying whatever quiet jest his boss had to share. More likely he didn’t give a fuck, but good business is often sold with good humor and amiable relations. Andy then returned his attention to his guests and selected one to share a question for his fighters. 

A vivacious young journalist stood up with a jolt of alacrity and said, “Kendra Felix, Clinch-Zone.Net. My question is for Axel.” The burly black man on Andy’s right reached lazily for his microphone to ready himself. “You are called the Bad Boy of MMA for your witty commentary and indecorous disposition.”

The fighter grimaced as he scoffed, “Indecorous?”

“…Now that you have earned a title shot, I wonder: will you be more inclined to act as a better role model for the young kids that may look up to you.”

Axel paused, rubbing his chin with pensive consideration. Then he sucked his teeth and said, “Man, who letting these kids up so late to watch cage fighting? I ain’t no role model, ya know what I mean? I’m just a dude from the street tryna get paid.”

A surge of laughter rolled through his audience, as well as some more taunting mixed in. 

Andy quieted them and then picked another.

A tall, lanky gentleman wearing business-casual denim pants and a loosely worn plaid shirt took the microphone. Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, he said to the challenger and star guest left of Andy, “Fight News Media, Ryan Holt. There are some who seem to believe that you have returned to the cage, a different fighter from your golden days. Are you?”

The wrestler opposite from Axel and Andy glared at him darkly. He had a blond goatee, close-cropped hair, and cruelly callused cauliflower ears, and protruding brow marked with indelible scars. He offered the reporter a long thoughtful gaze. It was a bone chilling gesture. Then the muscles in his square jaw flinched anxiously, as he seethed through his gnashed teeth, “Am I what?”

“A different fighter?”

The pale beast of a man glanced over at his boss. Andy set an unhappy glower on him in return, remembering.

     Mark Stroeman was only five minutes alone in his locker room at the end of a rigorous judo session when Andy Brooks stormed in. He snarled at his prized heavyweight contender—newly redeemed after serving a yearlong suspension that had marred his once perfect reign over the division. Andy hurled a file of papers at his wide chest. The haughty fighter spared only a perfunctory glance through its contents. Recognizing exactly what it was and knowing all too well what devil was in those details, he tossed it aside and went back to disentangling his wrist raps. 

     Blithely, he said, “A mistake.”

     “A mistake?”Andy’s eyes were just about bulging out of his red face. “After everything you went through…why would you do it?”

     Mark dropped his heavy arms in his lap and asked, “Do what?”

     Andy could only gawk at him, nonplussed.

     “If I am not mistaken, the anti-doping agency is in your pocket, is it not?”

     “You expect me to just sweep this under the rug?”

     “Yes, I do,” Mark said coldly, peeling his gi-top off his stout shoulders. “You can’t afford another blow like this. You are praised as the king of money matches. You know exactly who should fight who and when. That is your talent. Yet somehow, your brand is fading. Youneed this fight. You need me. I made well enough to live out three lifetimes even with my lofty penalties. And I have no doubt this admonition is only for show, as I am sure you’ve already paid the right people to make this unfortunate setback go away.”

     To this he could say nothing. He was absolutely right. There was no point denying it. Still, “Why then? Why come back?”

     Mark gave an insouciant shrug and said, “Because I like to hurt people. Here is the only place I can do it. Butcutting weight is hell. So, there’s your answer.”

     “So is prison, Stroeman.”

     The big man chortled and said, “Well then, best you make sure it all goes away well and good.

     The next three weeks before competition were spent smiling on television with Andy’s top man at the Anti-Doping agency assuring the world that their fighters were clean, healthy, and ready to battle with no qualms.  

     The champion wrestler sneered at this reporter in the denim pants and loosely worn plaid shirt as he answered him at last, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

***

     What they would see in time is a record-breaking attendance, with spectators fired up to see the most popular martial artist in the world reclaim his long lost title. 

Five grueling rounds of merciless punishment feasted their primal hunger. Axel evaded near certain defeat three times early in the contest, but Stroeman was unstoppable. Every moment that Axel had him well out of gas, he unchambered another burst of tainted energy. He frustrated the kickboxer in a tight clinch before slipping under and suplexing him as though he were weightless. In the third round Axel caught the dexterous wrestler in a corner, seemingly depleted of vigor, and undone. He snuck in a gorgeous combination that sent his wayward opponent careening. Stroeman was beaten bloody and panting heavy. But he survived. Somehow, he always survived. The next two rounds he was like a man possessed with rage. Slam! Trip! Slam! Axel was good at getting back to his feet in bad situations, but mortality was in him. He saw the light drain from his eyes when Stroeman trapped his back and snaked an arm firmly beneath the chin. He held on until the man in his clutch went limp. Then the referee intervened. But Stroeman would not let go. He squeezed on, gnashing his teeth like a feral creature possessed by a species of wild anger. The referee tried to separate them by force but could not break them apart. Hard muscles vied for control. When he at last loosened the hold, it was too late. They pulled the thrashing monster away from the still body of his opponent. The ravenous spectators were no longer cheering but fell silent with disillusion. Then a trumpet of boos filled the air. Cups and balled up cards were hurled into the cage. Stroeman writhed violently on the canvas floor, as officials poured in to restrain him. Axel was dead, and Andy Brooks was on his feet staring with stunned eyes. The color had gone from his face. He was finished—the matchmaker made his last match and gambled away his life for one final money fight that would cost him everything.    

Cauldron of Forever (a fantasy)

a Fantasy

for ages 17 and older

Inspired by Celtic Welsh, and Irish mythology.

3470 words

#amwritingfantasy

#celtic

for my Pagan friends

Cauldron of Forever

Long ago before even time its self, there was a cauldron of power. It fell from the sky and stirred the heavens, its potion brewing on the fires of the firmament. A golden tail flagged in its wake like that of a spirited stallion, charging across the clouds. Sent by the Gods, the cauldron traversed the vast reaches of a great Sunless Sea from the shores of Avalon for a year and one day. The waves carried it, filled it, and delivered it to a world called Annwyn, where a war was soon to come. 

     Fire and ice clashed beneath the shadow of the tumbling cauldron. Smoke and steam whorled, dancing like lovers—like warriors. A sword of light pierced a great stone, sending a wail of sorrow across the earth, lacerating her icy flesh, drawing forth massive pools of smoldering blood. Her crystalline lands turned to ponds, lakes, and oceans, encapsulated by great hills, and peaks. Soon the abyss mounted a titan of wind that called a challenge, and so lead in a joust with the fury of Earth’s fire. The impact of her great lance struck hard and true, sending a splash of crimson-rock and water high, just as the cauldron whisked by. The blood cooled, and a mountain was born, then another, and another. As sure as the potion in the cauldron brewed on the heat of the battle, the oceans of the earth boiled, cooking life into her crest. A new dance began upon the alps and lands: a wrestling of elements. They summoned new partners, who too brought with them lovers, and singers, and other patrons of dance. They would forever revel around a hearth that would forever feed the cauldron with living flame. 

Once long ago there was a race of Men born on war, as so was the life before them born in an endless tangle of limbs, caught in an endless dance at the call of a cauldron said to be the source of eternity. Undry, it was named by the ancients, and it would turn hearts to stone, as so it had once summoned life from ice. And it would begin under a cloak of darkness.

     A comely young man sat alone in the night. His hair was black, his eyes bright and kind. He had a heavy jaw with a thick beard, and lips that sang with a voice as sweet as they tasted in the mouths of the many women he had bedded in his young years. Promiscuous he was; for as a warrior of Men there was no end to battle quite as lovely than that which came from a woman’s touch. Stripped of his armor he relaxed in the warmth of the fire, wearing only his tunic, boots and breeches. His sword was set aside with his pack, as he played a gentle song on a wooden harp. Somewhere off in the distance a raven cawed from the trees. He answered the bird’s song with a sly grin that curled at the corner of his mouth as he played on. He knew who was coming. He wanted her to come. He was summoning her. 

     Before long more birds were squawked and crooned, they liked his playing. A rustling came from the woods all around him—a tumult of woodland creatures in frenzy. His smile widened as he quickened the tempo. The forest became garrulous, talking louder and louder. Branches trembled, bushes stirred, the green canopy that enveloped him was wild with activity. Then suddenly it all came to a still. The forest fell silent, and a soft loving sigh floated on the wind. He knew that sound well. It was one he heard many times before, but never from a goddess. A curious, feminine voice then chimed, “That song—what is it, dare I ask?”

     His deft fingers finished the song. Then he peered intensely through the whipping flames. There he saw the light of the fire reflecting from a pair of big, wonderous eyes floating weightless over the shadowy silhouette of the trees before him. Intrigued, he laid the harp aside and answered, “My dear sweet stranger of the night, forgive me for my impertinence, but I am forced to answer your inquiry with a question of my own—that is, does it truly matter?”

     The mysterious eyes shifted from he to the magical harp, and then she answered dolefully, “I suppose not. Tell me then, how is it you—a foreigner from the Southern realm—come in hand with this ethereal gift of The Gods?”

     He turned to admire it a moment. Then, with a coaxing, handsome smile he answered, “The Uaithne—it was called by its previous owner… He paused a moment, as to consider how to put his next words. “’Twas given to me as a reward in a tourney when we first arrived here some years ago. I was chosen to battle with a great warrior of the Fomorians. That was long ago. I have long since forgotten his name.” 

     “The Dagda, I know you,” there was suddenly contempt on the stranger’s lovely voice, the way she said it. The glowing eyes set a stark glower on him. “The Fomorians are my people. You would do well to remember that, Sir Dagda of The Worlds Beyond.”

     “I am known by the title of The Protector by my own,” he said arrogantly. 

     The woman then stepped into the light. She was so very striking with her long and silky black hair, creamy pink skin that was almost blue under the moonlight, and her piercing blue eyes. She wore a long garb of black lace threaded into the shape of flowers; they moved as she did, like they were nodding in the breeze. The gauzy dress formed to her hourglass body, only covering some parts from the wan light, but not all. Her petite frame accentuated her sinuous curves and made her a mouthwatering feast for the eyes. The dress she wore fell down the length of her body like a close-fitting gown, bearing most of her womanly glory. Her scowl darkened on the knight called, Dagda, she offered, “A protector ofyour own—as am I.” Boldly she sauntered around the hearth, closing in slow with her bewitching hips swaying seductively. “Why have you summoned me here, O’ knight of the peoples of Tuatha Dé Danann?” 

     “Why,” he said with a pause that only seemed to entice her even more. “To know you, my sweet Lady Morrígan. I have heard the stories. I lust to know your truth. For I am yours; since the first I heard of your claim from the lips of my fallen enemies, I have always been. They call you their shield; they call you their‘goddess of war.’ And so, I am naught but a man of war taken by love.”

     “You are naught but a man of lust taken by desire.” She spat in return.

     Suddenly he was standing, wrapping his arm around her full hips. A startled gasp slipped from her lips in his presence, a task not easily achieved from her by any mortal man. But in his touch, she knew then: this was no mere mortal. His sangfroid composure cooled the fire in her wrath, and fueled the fires of her passion. His mouth only moments from hers, he breathed a tantalizing whisper that said, “My desire only takes what it needs. And I need you.” 

     He went for a kiss but paused, testing her. She shuttered, but did not pull away; her wanting lips parting ever so slightly. When he pressed himself against her, his strong hands seizing her at the small of her back, she told herself to turn and flee, but her legs only opened more, and more. And then when he kissed her, she told herself something else, though she couldn’t quite recall what it was her conscience had said—something of treachery; something of a lie, but it mattered not. She was lost. Caught in his lover’s tryst like a fly in the tangle of a web he ensnared her, and that night he took her. He gave her his seed. In turn, she gave him her love, and on the morrow she would give him his victory.

     Long after, as they lay together naked under the stars, he told her what it was that he truly wanted, and with his sure victory to come she knew she would give it willingly. There were many treasures that the old peoples possessed; treasures like The Uaithne. Some were of great power. Others were for wisdom. But there was only one that could fill a cup as empty as Dagda’s: The Cauldron of Forever. And his was a covetous need to lay claim over it. He will have it all, or he will destroy it all. The notion left her with a fear that would swell in her heart. But her love was once a powerful thing, as so often did it dabble in the affairs of Men and War. It blinded her from what he truly was: a deceiver.     

     The war ended with a mighty blow to the aboriginal forces of the Fir Bolg: the Old Tribe of the Fomorian peoples. Dagda took them by storm, leading a host of thousands into their camps while they slept. It was a slaughter. Indeed, they invited the masters of their adversaries to inspect their arms for a fair battle only a fortnight ago. However, the manner of their attack would never be unveiled until their blood was long spilt from their wounds. With The Morrígan at their side, she summoned a great fog by which blinded the watchers of the Fir Bolg, thus availing Dagda’s advance into their lands. She sang a song to call on the wind, filling his sails and bringing his ships to mast on the beaches of Ireland where the war had began. Before long he and his brothers followed their King into a malicious onslaught that the Morrígan was not sure to forget. She had betrayed her own for love, and as she watched her lover put the sword to her kin, she was taken by despair. Her guilt brought tears to her eyes—tears that rained from the sky to cleanse Dagda’s armor of her people’s blood. And the rain lasted for days and nights. And it filled the banks. And begot her an offspring—a rival paramour. The Dagda looked upon Boann as she stepped out from the swollen rivers of the land and was seduced. The Morrígan soon fell scornfully from his favor.  

     His King Nuada fell victim as well, but he took up the crown and finished the deed, driving his enemies into the river to drown. He razed their kingdom and stole it all for his Tuatha Dé Danann. At the weeks end he claimed all of Ireland his own by conquest, and so he decreed that all men and women of the land show him fealty or perish. Boann drank the blood of the defeated greedily, and fat with her meal she made the country fertile again. 

They who would not bow down to their new king were left for Boann to feast upon. The many nights to follow were soon filled with dreadful screams, as no man, nor woman of the Fir Bolg were so craven to submit to his demands. They were a strong, and proud race; even until their end. Morrígan would watch sorrowfully as the last of her people were whist away by The Dagda’s latest love.

     Soon a celebration was had. To honor Dagda’s ascension as King of Ireland his men seized the Fomorian cauldron, and of its magic they summoned a great feast of soup and wine, lamb and mead, boar and ale; the generous cauldron never failing to answer their ravenous needs. For days and nights the revelry carried on as lively as ever. The King indulged in a surfeit of food and drink until his gluttony became him, and he was so fat he could scarcely fit into his own breeches. Drunk and mad with lust he took Boann against her wanting. She thrashed, and roiled, but in the end, she could not deny him. He would lay with her and bear a son, and he would lay with others and bring forth bastards. His men joined him. Without a sense for humility they took harlots and robbed the innocent young of their maidenhood right there in the open before the Great Hearth. The Morrígan watched it all, weeping until she could cry no more. She had herself become well with child, but the father had abandoned her. Her god of Men betrayed her, and his deception turned her heart to stone, as was the nature of those who lust for the Cauldron of Forever.

     One day in the forest where she had first met him, her Dagda, The Morrígan was lying alone on her back, writhing in agony. She tore away at her garb of flowers, allowing the tattered pieces to hang from her waist like the branches of a willow, flapping in the frigid gales. She heaved a scream in the grating voice of a banshee, arching her back skyward. Suddenly a mass of heavy chains sluiced out from her womb and whipped wildly about her like the slithering arms of a squid. A storm gathered above, and lightning streaked across the sky, as her once beautiful blue eyes faded into nothingness. Again she wailed, spitting up blood, black as tar. Then she heard the cry of a babe and she suddenly fell silent. Her lip quavered as her jaw hung in awe. She was screaming, but without a voice. The only sound being that of the keening song of a newborn infant. Then there was no pain, nor sadness—only hatred. A flock of ravens gathered around her, alighting on her, covering her, and then they took to the air, The Morrígan gone with them. 

     Dagda and his men tarried for a time at the Great Hearth, their carousal never ending. He quaffed a tankard full of ale when a queer sound came bubbling up from the cauldron. He sent his exhausted bride from his side and went swooning his way after it. Something like boiling pitch was gurgling sickly inside. His haggard face turned ashen at the acrid stench of it, a putrid smell that wafted densely at him. He drew back just as a loud pop came from within, and two black feathers floated out. All eyes were on the hearth—curious and terrified. For a moment, all of the cheers and joyous laughter came to a sudden end. 

Then a creature rose from the cauldron, the black liquid lathering her long, stringy black hair. The woman stood with a mass of black feathers hugging her body. She opened her wings, and the expanse stretched over all in attendance. Men and women stirred with fear, cowering away from the hearth; their king joined them. The woman was clad in black armor, and dripping mail, with rusty chains snaking out of the cauldron, possessed with terrible life. Resting soundly in her arms she bore a new born babe, ensconced by her coiling chains and tattered lace: it was a girl. 

Her canopy of feathers then broke apart, transforming into many thousands of screaming ravens that dove for the patrons, chasing them from Dagda’s royal camp. The king gave a startled look to his Boann, but she paid him little mind as she went scurrying off with their son cradled to her breast. Standing before the nightmarish faerie he went for his sword. However, before he could draw the blade from its scabbard a deafening voice boomed, “You dare take your greatsword to your own?”

A mysterious force sent the bulbous man tumbling, his golden crown skittering across the dirt. Fear unmanned him as he stared up at the beast with widened eyes and his pleading hands trembling before him. 

The Morrígan glared down at him through the strands of dripping hair that fell over her face. Black blood ran down the length of her neck from her sliced lips—scarred by his traitor’s kiss. Her glowing eyes flashed as she said, “You are a fool, King Dagda of The Worlds Beyond. You are no protector!You are a liar and a fraud. You slay your own to gain your prize. You spoil the fruits of Undry to poison your soul. You are a blind fool. Do you not see this Cauldron of Forever as the gift that is Annwyn—your generous mother earth? Do you not see how you take from her as you have taken from my land? Verily, you do not!” She looked down at the sweet child in her arms. The babe awoke, yawning innocently. She smiled her way. Broken, her mother spoke sadly, “As so, you do not know the like of your own flesh and blood: your daughter and all that was once my love.” 

The king looked to the girl in her arms. She was beautiful. She was Light—the very same Light he had once seen in The Morrígan on that first night. The Light that had been extinguished from her now steely eyes. 

“She is the exalted one!” The Morrígan decried, her voice booming again, echoing across the heavens. “She is the fire of dreams, and she is the bridge betwixt the Fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann that will return the strays of Men back to The Light. She is the hearth, which burns through the night, and the forger to mend all things broken. She is the banshee that will keen for the fallen. She is the milk from the breast of goodness; the honey to sweeten the sour hearts of the exiled. She is life, love, sorrow, and joy. Behold, she is Brigid, and the sun stands still in her name.”

The king crawled to his knees. In the sky, the curtain of the heavens parted to show down upon them the brilliance of a lost sun. Its loving warmth upon him, its swimming light igniting a glow of shimmer in the tears that filled his eyes. His voice cracked with emotion as he prayed, “Dark Queen, forgive me. I shall take her, and rear her as only a good father can. I shall show her the love and care, I wish only I could have shown you. For she is all I could ever dream a princess of my own blood. My daughter. My sweet. My Brigid. Forgive me…”

He reached out his arms to accept his child, but The Morrígan hesitated, staring at the girl with her cold eyes. She was all that was once human in her, and soon she would be forever gone from her touch. Though the shell of The Morrígan was to never again know sadness, nor joy, nor love, somehow, she felt the last flicker of her humanity inside as it faded. She gave him the child. An icy tear broke from her rigid lashes, but it soon turned to steam against her fiery white skin. Then without another word, she vanished into a black shroud of retreating ravens, leaving Brigid and Dagda alone for the rest of their living days. 

Many moons after, a desolate Morrígan found herself wandering a beach at the edge of the world. A curious song on the southern winds had called her there—a beguiling song. She soon found herself at the break of the ocean where the waves plumed like warring clouds. A faint shadow was moving abreast the shore under the waters. It swam with the elegance of a porpoise, but she could see it was a woman. The submerged stranger had long green hair and a scaly body marked with dancing streaks of light from the sun’s rays. The creature came to the surface but did not peer out. Instead, she launched her silky, lissome arms out from the water, her clawed hands closed around the golden hilt of a longsword with a crystal pommel. The droplets ran off of its perfectly crafted blade like glittering diamonds falling from a beaming silvery steel. The Morrígan marveled at it for some time, her breath stolen by its beauty. She knew well what this sign marked, and so she saw the coming of a great war on the horizon: a war to shatter lands and mend them as one—a war that would call forth a new King—a child king. The Cauldron’s work was far from done, its ever-turning waters driving an ebb and flow through the waves of life toward. Pushing them all toward another chapter waiting anxiously to be read. A chapter to come. A song to sing… a Dream yet to be dreamt.    

The End

Avrio (science fiction)

Genre: Science Fiction/fantasy

Age Restriction: Parental Discretion

Editor’s Note:

This story features a dark theme, and contains imagery that may be psychologically disturbing for some audiences. This particular story was intended for all ages to enjoy, though it may require a level of parental discretion concerning some elements presented by the author whose primary audience are of a mature age: 

18 and older.

Happy Autumn (FALL AND ENJOY!)

Avrio

By Jeffrey Arce 

aka 

Jarce ArtThor

She was walking in the shadow of death, but she wasn’t afraid. Here, she was quite comfortable.

The docent prated solemnly on, but Avrio could barely listen. He expounded some drivel about how their excessive output of greenhouse gasses will have ultimately short-circuited their environment, thus searing a path for the inevitable rise of The Sentients. What once devastated the world—paralyzing her organic ecosystems—was eventually recycled into an essential resource for continued sustenance. And from death sprang life. It was funny how some things evolved. 

The panoply before them was so strange, yet so intriguing. Inside the writhing electromagnetic barrier were items from that extraordinary world long before, carefully arranged. Avrio melted in with the crowd, wanting to have a better look. The ethereal group closed around her in the exhibit hall of the museum, coalescing densely at the display window. It always tickled her how the swell of wonder could quicken in the minds of even her most stringent of peers. They scrutinized the curious items with bewildered astonishment. Together they imagined a primitive world where complex life still needed to kill lesser organisms for their nourishment, pulling stores of solar energy forged deep within the threading of immanent proteins. The elders named it a barbaric ritual, denigrating them as blood lusting savages, but Avrio thought they were fascinating, gorgeous creatures.  

Their tools were so far removed from the modern mind it was hard to accept the raw truth that they were made from this world at all. They had crafted such things as ladles, knives, bowls, chalices, and weaponry—terribly dreamed and abundantly supplied. They made things from flesh, bone, and wood, from rock and ore. They designed tools to make other tools. It was by these special instruments they would establish a power to grow their race exponentially. But such vain self-preservation to this degree by which they had achieved would prove in time quite fatal. Their sins enervated the ecosystem, and drove their people toward a swift and complete extermination. Tools gave them life and took it all away. 

Sentients did not require any of these things. They drew energy from the carbon dioxide and methane that was in the air. They manifested power from the fierce winds, which gusted vigorously across the plains. They constructed subterranean hives to avoid conflict with the wicked jet propulsions naturally produced by a recovering planet. They had no need for towering edifices, save for the fields of massive windmills they had erected from salvaged material. There was no good reason for war, or for monetary trade, or government. They lived only for knowledge. They built communities on all corners of the globe to feed their study, and advance their race. A Sentient could explore the acidy oceans, and the starry abyss of space without a vessel to take them there. Beyond the firmament of their carbon rich environment, their cells were made to create fusion by pulling from the sun’s eternal radiance. There was no reach that a Sentient could not explore—no boundaries. They could manifest anything that was requisite for their survival, and they could adapt to even the most virulent of conditions. They did not need carnal faculties for reproduction, though, at times two Sentients could become one, and one could become many. They snowballed from motes and particles and transmuted like living molds of clay. They were formless and beautiful.

A mysterious river of consciousness had seeded their race—an enigmatic nursery, burgeoning out from a cavernous chasm like a great womb of blue fire. No scholar could agree on the make of its origin. Most have simply placed it as a kind of nursery with divine roots, though, none of them truly believed in a higher entity forged by way of intelligent design. Hypocrisy might one day prove to be the eternal plague destined to doom all forms of intellectual life. Sentients were an ascetic culture—stolid, analytical, and meticulous. They eschewed overindulgence of emotion almost to the point of overindulging in apathy, but they did lust for some things, such as learning.

Avrio was different. She was compassionate, and she loved the past, where most only anguished for the future. She frequented all of the geological institutes established throughout the solar system, trying to decipher how and why The Ones Before lived as they did. There were fragments of them spread out everywhere, as if they had exploded like some fertile flower attempting to seed the heavens. But they did not go too far. They could not even pierce the threshold of their own system with all their impressive technology.

It has been estimated that their global population peaked at an astronomical rate of ten billion souls before at last came a definitive purge. How anything could survive so many ravenous mouths was far beyond Avrio’s understanding, as clever as she was in nature. Yet still, she admired them, even at their worst.

Researchers studying samples from orbital debris have reconstructed their final decline. They have surmised that fifteen hundred thousand divisive sovereigns had abandoned their kingdoms, leaving an inundated civilization to implode behind. They stole refuge onboard a secret vessel with a callow space colony for a time. But like a cell separated from its host, these impetuous refugees and their under-prepared bodies rejected the malign effects of an artificial environment, and they deteriorated. None were immune to extinction.    

Theirs was a story of poignant demise. Avrio often wept for them when she learned more. Is it so fair this erudite species could be reduced to the moldering scraps excavated from their vast landfills of waste, which had failed to dissolve? She couldn’t know for certain. Scholars had only conjecture beyond what could be studied from their leavings. Nothing they had ever wrought in their time was indelible. The earth took it all back, but for plastic—an exceptionally perennial artifact. Everything else was erased.

Once a lush and verdant world brimming with life, the Sentients have come to know it as a sweltering, toxic wasteland, though it was still home for them. The planet could spare only a meager palette of tenuous biology as she convalesced from her geological wounds. But Sentients were an auspicious people. They have transcended the archaic fauna and flora feeding rituals, providing much needed respite for an exhausted environment.

Avrio followed their guide absently, wishing she could know more, and why they destroyed themselves. They were warned, but they persisted with their rotten habits nevertheless. It was so strange.

They were her favorite obsession. She even tried to form her walk in a way to imitate how experts have determined they might have ambulated. According to Avrio, they were the most inspiring creatures to ever have lived on the planet, and they were all gone. A wistfully tragic end to a great species.

As her group sauntered on with equanimity, they descended toward the final exhibit on the tour. She made sure to put herself in front of the crowd before they got there. The underground museum was one that she adored most. It was special. Here, every tour ended with a grand finale. It was here, deep beneath the surface where The Ones Before had retreated in their final hour.

The light opened brilliantly in the capacious hall, and a pitted rocky sepulcher materialized. Through the electric transparent veil they found a mass grave. Primitive skeletons were clambering at an ancient device that still loomed from rigid, centuries-old stone. Hollowed, dejected eyes gazed up at it, reaching for it with arachnid fingers. The fossils depicted a vast mural of bones vying to gain passage. Some were tangled together, caught in an eternal struggle for refuge, and others were folded over their knees, frozen forever in prayer. Their faces were melded into the dirt, and their arching spinal columns were suffused with igneous clay.

Avrio was ensorcelled by it, her translucent crown churning with incandescent azure like stirring embers as she marveled at the exhibit. Transfixed on the spectacle, she wondered what they were fighting for. In this place where the last of their species would recede from existence, after all they had achieved, what great mystery could have drawn them down like an inescapable eddy whirling over the drain of annihilation. At an axis in the protruding relic of stone there were two intersecting arms, outstretched like a man poised to enfold a lover into his final embrace. It was a massive cross, and it marked ground zero, where the former world past away.

Afterward, they were bustled out through the lobby, each one of them receiving a customary souvenir to enjoy as they went. Avrio glowed upon taking hers: an artificial replica of a Human skull. She stared lovingly at the gift for a time that felt like an eternity. Avrio envied their mortality, but Avrio was a Sentient, and Sentients could not die so easily.

Cradling the skull in her amorphous grasp, she cherished her prize with grateful bliss. She ensconced herself inside the empty chamber of its brain cavity. There she would study and sleep, wanting to peer through its eyes, and feel with its hands, and sample flavors with its tongue. She wanted to be human… She wanted to know how they knew, how simple and poetic they made all things that they did not know. But most of all, she wanted to taste mortality. She wanted to know death. There wasn’t anything in the world Avrio wanted more. 

#avrio

 

Human

When I lived, I could never die. 
From the deep abyss to the heavens above, there was no realm I could not claim. 
I shaped mountains into my image, I built spires to challenge the gods, and I subdued even the fiercest of beasts. 
When I lived, everything was mine. 
I bled the earth. 
I despoiled her. 
I told her that my gluttonous intrigues were sacrosanct. 
I told her that I was divine. 
She did not listen. 
I could not cozen her. 
When I lived, my hubris deceived me. 
But that was when I lived, long before my decline.

Jurassic Caricature (a fanfiction)

(((The following is a fanfiction not meant for reproduction. It is simply made as to honor a franchise that I love very much, and for free fanboy entertainment. The story features mention of iconic characters created by Michael Crichton, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and brought to life by legendary directors Stephen Spielberg, Colin Trevorrow, and J.A. Bayona. Enjoy!)))

#fanfic

#dinosaurs

#raptor

Even the helicopter ride there felt exotic to Jared.

Since the spectral silhouette of the island began to materialize across the hazy horizon he had his face pressed eagerly against the passenger window and never dared to miss a single moment of this very special moment. The dense forest that threaded over the island came to him like the opening of clouds toward the gates of heaven. He always dreamed of having the chance to work there. As a kid, paleontology was an obsession for him. He drank up every book he could on the subject, especially the ones that focused on the Cretaceous period, but he never dreamt in sixty five million years that he might actually get paid to perform only moments away from any of those ethereal creatures. 

Jared was an artist with big dreams. Those thirsty ambitions led him to a comfortable career drawing as a caricature artist in the carnival circuit. For years he has spread his talent across the country, earning for himself quite a respectable reputation along the way. But OtherWorld caricatures... they say OtherWorld caricatures was impossible to break into. They were the leading contracting company in his profession, serving the art Shoppes at some of the most high profile locations across the planet for many years. And though they began as a small seed, pushing their roots in the same industry that Jared had come up in, they have grown prominent to enjoy such a powerful position in the industry that he just knew applying for this particular park, with his meager status was a dreamers fantasy. But apparently it was enough.

He got the return letter in the mail in surprisingly expedient timing. Seeing the celebrated logo of OtherWorld, and the ever more iconic brand of the most famous Park in the universe emblazoned on the heading of the letter, he was certain it would be a rejection. But it was not. He unfolded the letter and read. It simply asked: “Is this your work?” And then there was a photograph of an artfully exaggerated caricature drawing. He was pretty proud of that one and knew it well. Indeed it was his: a Cartoon illustration of the late and great John Hammond. So he wrote back simply, “Yes it is.”

His invitation came with an emphatic phone call from the manager of operations at the OtherWorld Art Shoppes, who asked him quite dramatically, “we like your stuff, and we are very interested in having your talent with our team. So this said, I must ask you: How soon can we welcome you to Jurassic World?”

The answer was “Immediately!” And the flight was the next day, all expenses paid. 

Jared wasn’t really sure what he was getting himself into. All he knew for certain was the acclaim OtherWorld got in his line of work, and that the park was the notorious home of living, breathing dinosaurs. That was all he needed to know. 

He never flew in a helicopter before, but it was no more dangerous of an experience than half of the things he naturally ran into in his business as a transient artist. OtherWorld was offering gracious accommodations. They provided him fancy dining and housing for free just to have his slightly famous sketch at their park, and he was quite flattered by their generosity. They did let him know that it would only be for a few weeks until he was on his feet without assistance, but it was all so much more than he could have dreamed to ask for. 

The helicopter ride was long and grueling at times, but the reward was far too big to pass. There was so much to earn and nothing to lose. He bragged about the opportunity with his peers, and knew with an ounce of over-confident certainty that none of it would ever turn around to bite him in the ass. At least he hoped for that. God forbid if any of those things stepped out from their cage to run amuck. 

He was settled in to his suite quickly. Every day between the hours of 9:am and 7:pm was prime time at Jurassic World, and they rushed him to work almost instantly. It was strange how easily Jared had slipped back into his work mode. He was in a foreign, unforgivingly oppressive climate, drawing in harsh, humid weather, on an island housing genetically reproduced extinct creatures as it’s primary attraction, yet he drew his guests as deftly, and comfortably as if he was back home in his own preferred environment. Everyone loved his work. His superiors loved having him. However, all that Jared could focus on was: just get through the day, and soon you’ll get paid, and you’ll get to see these things you’ve read in wonder about all through childhood. 

The Jurassic Park fiasco was an infamous story that began as an urban legend, which turned out to be a horrible truth. InGen had tried to cover it up, and that only made things worse for them. The mad-scientist genetics Mega Corporation would have since fell into darker works, focusing mostly on weaponry and other controversial intrigues. But as a bright shining star in the future of science, turned super evil villain deserving public scorn, they at least knew how to accept their new role with pride and success. The Ill-fated story of the fall of Jurassic Park was soon promulgated as a way to deter further advancements in the fertile field of genetics; also to keep people away from the islands. But instead, it only proved the opposite: genetic science boomed more fiercely than life had sprung from the Cambrian Explosion, and rambunctious paleontologists, and would-be explorers seeking a precipitous new high sought out the forsaken island resorts. After some time, and passionately fought legal wars, the corner stones for Jurassic World were at last set again, and the greatest enigma on earth was finally opened to the public. It has become the most profitable amusement part on the planet since those archaic days before, and now Jared has become a part of their growing legacy, even in his very small capacity. He was excited. 

His first shift went fast, but it felt like an eternity, anxiously waiting to reap the spectacular benefits. He must have drawn a hundred guests. The register read two thousand, fifty-three dollars in sales on his behalf, and his manager was quite pleased with his outstanding performance. Jared clocked out at 3:30 and saw that the market circle where his caricature station was located was still packed with giggling, querulous children wanting their cartoon image riding the backs of their favorite dinosaurs. Jared felt a pang of guilt he would leave all that potential money to his colleagues, but that was just hard-woven into his nature from years in the carnival business. Besides, he had monsters to see.

There was some wild rumor going around of a potential new dinosaur attraction being conjured up in the laboratories. Signs were plastered everywhere hinting at some clandestine beast that Verizon Wireless would soon unleash upon the world. “Something Is Coming,” the advertisement read, red demon eyes smoldering in the dark womb of a gripping green forest. “Something Of Nightmares will be unleashed from Verizon Wireless...” Everyone was wowing over its mystery on the monorail into the heart of the resort. He didn’t care, he was slipping his way through the crowded car to get to the nearest window so he could catch a glimpse at the most iconic gates built by modern Man. The massive doors were painted to look like weathered, and splintered wood. They flung open with a fabricated clamor. The soundtrack clashed from the speakers inside the train, imitating farcically the crash of castle doors banging open. Than an orchestra ran their intense strings, and a tribal drum line enraptured its new guests. 

One animal was on his mind most prominently: their genetically enhanced Velociraptors! As a kid he had fallen in love with the creature’s more famous fossil, as it was forever captured ensnared in battle with the horned Protoceratops. That was before anybody really knew much about what happened at the Jurassic Park facility. Then, the Raptor was known only to be about the size of a turkey, and experts were only beginning to suspect it to have been covered with feathers. But the geneticists at InGen changed all that. Their obnoxious DNA mascot at the visitors’ center claimed that the absence of some well established characteristics was the unfortunate side effect of splicing genomes in order to thread the missing parts in their genetic code. But that would soon be revealed as an embellished lie. They did not like the feathers, and their size didn’t seem menacing enough. They were looking to attract a new audience to dinosaurs, and so, they only wanted the biggest and the baddest, but the Raptor was too well loved to ignore. Some speculation arose to argue that the animal’s fossils were incomplete, and perhaps these creatures were in fact more robust in their size. Jared read an article adding fire to this debate, using the famed paleontologist Dr. Grant’s earth shattering discovery of a velociraptor skeleton that was almost eight feet in length to support their argument. But after careful scrutiny even this would be debugged, as the species he had discovered turned out to be some new beast more closely related to the Tyrannosaur than the Raptor. With a hefty reign of near two hundred million years, the genus of Tyrannosaurids was a big family that varied in size, shape, and weight. The bottom line was, Dr. Grant did not find evidence of a freakishly large Raptor, and the Jurassic World creatures were just man-made monsters with synthetic DNA flowing in their veins. Still, Jared wanted to see them. 

His illustrated map was hard to follow, but he found a tour guide that was leading the way he wanted to go, so Jared jumped in with her group. She was pretty, tall, smart, and a loquacious docent. She didn’t just know her Park, she knew dinosaurs, and she adored her raptors. Her eyes were a deep green, and her hair was thick, brown, and turning goldenrod along the edges from the sun. She spoke perfect English, sweetened with only a touch of her native Spanish accent. Jared was in love, but he kept that to himself. As a nomad artist he has lost his touch for social engagement. Outside of his comfort zone behind his easel he was shy and taciturn, fearing saying the wrong thing and making a fool of himself. But she saw it; he could tell by the way flush colored her cheeks ever darker. She flashed him a flattered grin, but continued their tour. He had questions about the animals, but locked them up behind tight lips, waiting for her to answer them naturally as she went on with her routine presentation. Most all answers will unveil themselves to those who are patient, and paying close attention. 

The paddock was a fortress, and perhaps the most uninviting exhibit in the whole park. But these animals were dangerous, intelligent, and required the highest security money could buy to contain them.  Watchtowers guarded all corners of the walled facility, and the personnel mounting those stations were armed with high-powered tranquilizer rifles. It seemed more of a maximum-security state prison than a tourist attraction. Jared was impressed. 

In the guest lobby, Laura—the pretty tour guide—first introduced them to the brave team that helped to keep the raptors healthy and happy throughout their young lives. The top man on the acknowledgment board was a rugged, handsome gentleman named Owen Grady. In his photo he had this kind of amused Mona-Lisa-knowing grin turning at the corner of his mouth; it somehow alluded to a potent charm rather than haughty arrogance, though Jared suspected he had some of that in him too. But what grabbed his attention was the man’s job title: Chief Specialist/Raptor Trainer.

They have a raptor trainer? He couldn’t help but to wonder what that could entail. Fetch, heel, don’t claw my guts out? Seemed a bit brazen to think a human could tame a quintessential killing machine. But of course anything was possible when animals that have been dead for sixty five million years walked the earth again. 

Laura brought them next to the nursery where the infant raptors had been raised to trust their captivity. All of them have been moved to the maturing stable, and all that was left there was some scattered straws of hay, and gnawed dog toys behind very thick viewing glass. There were pictures of the baby dinosaurs. They had big heads, bright and wide snake-like yellow eyes, and tiny, agile serpent bodies. They were strangely adorable, and hauntingly terrible at the same time. 

The primal stink of rotting decay was strong, venting through the walls to pervade their senses. It made all of them in attendance to wrinkle their noses. But that was a small price to pay to see the master-class of flesh-eaters in true beautifully brutal reality. 

Jared thought it odd how many kids were surrounding him at the exhibit. There were warning signs posted everywhere about what horrible things they might witness, but somehow when it came to animals, the imminent carnage waiting on the horizon was made a surreal experience, and parents practically pushed their kids in to learn a cruel lesson about humility. But these kids were smiling, and anxious to see, with a sort of sickening bloodlust. They were like snot-nosed pro-wrestling fans, cheering, and hooting for violence. No matter how civilized we think we are, Ancient Rome was never too far from our hardwired instincts. Jared couldn’t help them though, he was just as sick with gleeful anticipation. 

Genetic manipulation in some small way was sort of like caricaturing. An artist had to think fast to solve big problems. He has to capture very complicated shapes in a matter of only seconds, in order to finish a face in fewer than five minutes. The Cartoon is supposed to be exaggerated, but it also has to resemble his subject in some recognizable way. Jurassic World scientists with their gene splicing, and biology mashing have worked that same concept in to creating their prized beasts. But their raptors were something of a masterpiece, outshining what God had originally made in a few bold strokes that could melt Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. The revered chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm would probably designate it as the art of forcing order from entropy, and then he would go on to argue how such an approach is destined to collapse in extraordinary fashion. But that guy was a nihilist in Jared’s opinion: a rotten egg who just like to role in to spoil everyone’s fun. 

Laura’s voice was suddenly drowned out by his elevated heartbeat. He had expected the pack to tool with the guest some as they entered the main viewing chamber. But they didn’t. They weren’t hiding, or sneaking. They were right there in plain sight, waiting for them. They lined up, stalking the glass. Laura assured her group that they could not see them. But Jared could tell that they knew. The one with the blue stripes marking her hide crept in, sniffing with a wet snout, her sharp tail erect in attention. Flies buzzed over and around it’s blood stained jaws. Its serrated razor teeth curved inward, designed to hook in deep into leathery flesh so she could easily tear away at her meat. Her signature curled foot claw twitched, and she held low to the ground, like a wrestler coming in for a clinch. She slunk in, and bobbed her head. The others flanked her dutifully. The audience gasped. The palm trees and dense foliage swayed, and sang under a gentle breeze behind them. The group was mesmerizing. The way their tendons stretched and tightened in their long necks, the way their sinuous muscles moved beneath tough tubercle spotted skin, they were poetically graceful and brimming with alacrity. Their eyes shifted, inquisitively, calculating. It challenged the human spirit. Nature grew their roots, and stemmed their powerful brains, but human hands planted the seed. This intelligent monster understood more than we can possibly comprehend, and they were with a mind that was weighing its place in the world. Jared could see it thinking. It was painting a picture of her own what the creature she smelled through the glass was thinking. She could taste his fear. Slaver fell from her lips as she rolled them back to show those feral teeth again. As though entranced Jared drifted closer, staring wide-eyed. Perhaps it was their dangerous beauty that killed their prey. The Raptor suddenly lashed at the glass, snapping its teeth, smearing the transparent barrier with slaver. He jumped back. The kids erupted with laughter, and the beast’s dinosaur companions began bobbing up and down, trilling excitedly, like birds jeering at him. Jared got the impression they were toying with him after all.

Laura smiled ruefully at Jared and said, “ I think Blue likes you.” She winked at him, playfully. 

He blushed, and tried on a frantic smile even though his heart was screaming in his chest. 

Still, it was the most exhilarating thing he had ever experienced. The raptors went about their tribal animal business, hunting and coordinating. 

In private hearing with Laura, Jared remarked, “They need feathers.”

Laura fell in close beside him. She showed him an all-knowing grin and whispered, “yes, and they should be smaller... I know... you can ask me any time now.”

The group sprawled out to study some of the pieces of information hanging on the walls everywhere. 

Jared was nervous. “Ask what?”

She nudged him, that smile of hers never fading. “How about what time I get off tonight.”

He definitely wanted to ask just that, but his inquiry broke apart in his throat, “I...I”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m off at the end of this last tour. Meet me an hour after. Be dressed nice.” 

Then she went back to treat her guests. 

The tour moved on. Jared met with Laura for lunch and made a new friend. He was having the night of his life. He couldn’t wait to see the T.Rex after his shift tomorrow.