Sebastian's Awakening II

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...unaware of the oddity occurring. The room fuzzes out and Sebastian topples over. His head slams into the floor and he immediately begins to seize. His body shakes and rattles. His eyes are focused on the brightly lit wall before him.

He feels trapped inside his head, unable to move or speak. Unable to anything.

And then it stops.
And the wall comes into focus.

“What just happened?” he asks, checking his arms and hands. He’s not glowing anymore. And he sort of remembers a man forcing him to eat a fruit before passing out. And the man on the floor.

Sebastian turns to the man, startled he backs into a wall and just stares.

There’s a hole in the man’s...

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Sebastain's Awakening I

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...radiate their orange flame against the walls of the lobby. They twirl and spin, flickering when Finn walks by.

A nearly inaudible hum echoes through, never ending, but always faint. Finn slows his pace when he hears it. “They’re definitely here,” he says. At the end of the lobby a door leads to a final chamber. The closer he is the louder the hum. “It’s definitely coming through there.” Clearing up it reveals to be chanting. They’re opening a gate. “No! This needs to stop before more come through!” Finn yells, lunging to the chamber and down its spiral staircase.

Bottom level, a celestial is bridging a gap to his dimension. Finn walks in to hands held high, reaching for the ceiling. A tall toothpick in a suit. White feathery wings tucked in against his back. He’s facing a large blue floating orb. The wormhole to their world.

From the corner of his eye the celestial sees Finn walk into the room. His focus is taken away from the orb. The orb shrinks and...

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Celestial Hunt

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...Seraphial retracts her wings, appearing just human. A yellow aura begins to surround her. Her bare feet lift from the street. She raises her hands high above her head and makes fists. As she drags those fists down against the air a large bolt of lightning pierces through the heavens, then the atmosphere and land right on Sebastian. Where it lands it explodes and launches him half a block down right into the 20th story of a sky scraper. A hovering start, she releases her wings and takes off after Sebastian while he’s still midair, catching up with him as he slams through the building. She grabs him by the ankles and tosses him further into the building. Then repeats this until they’re on the other side and she flings him through a window right down to the street below...

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Going Dark

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...explode from every direction. His back vibrates each time a bullet hits the brick wall he’s against.

Derrick was separated from his group in the middle of a supply run. The stricken force them to split up.

Trying to get back he came across these pure bloods eager to steal what he’s scavenged and do who knows what to him. It’s never good. And he needs to deliver the loot. Crucial medicines are in his bag. Medicines someone back at camp needs immediately.

Many times the monsters of this world aren’t the stricken but rather the pure bloods. The people who’ve managed to escape the plague of the stricken have only done so through aggressive brutality. The stricken are small potatoes to the thinking pure bloods. People who torture for what they want. Without a moral compass. They kill indiscriminately. They rape and steal whatever, whoever, whenever.

After the fall of the government the law dissolved. Survival of the fittest began but was overtaken by survival of the monstrous.

Derrick is cornered. Wedged into the gap in a brick wall. There’s nowhere left for him to run. His pistol is dry. Panicked, he...

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Staying Alive II

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...shrieking of screamer ghouls buries the whimpering of the grumblers. It hits Alex like nails on a chalkboard, amplified by the migraine. They’ve caught his scent. He opens one eye to assure his lead pipe is nearby. He’s kept the pipe since it first saved his life and remained the one reliable weapon he can use. He tried others, but they didn’t go too well. Like the time he tried to use an easier to wield kitchen knife, but was forced to get too close to a screamer and almost died.

The pipe is there, but fizzy. The migraine makes it hard for Alex’s eye to focus or gather the right amount of light. Things turn out to be fuzzy, nearly shapeless blobs that are too dim or too bright. He grabs it from the edge of the bed where he flung it. His grip tightens around the base of the pipe. “I could do this,” he tells himself.

Alex’s only chance for survival now lies in getting out of the building and away from the horde before they reach him or see him. They’ll inch closer tracking his scent. As long as they don’t lay eyes...

 

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Mirror on the Wall

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Loud machinery wakes me up. Can’t see a thing. There isn’t enough room to spread my arms too far out. There’s almost nowhere to move my feet. Panic immediately consumes me. I frantically attack the inside of the container.

The walls.

Floor.

“AHH!” Slips from my lungs, bursting through my vocal cords and out my mouth. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!”

Images of coffins and the movie Buried raced through my mind. Poor Ryan Reynolds was fucked straight through that film!

Nothing budges or moves. This box is static.

A deep breath calms me enough to organize all relevant thoughts. Understanding my environment becomes priority number one.

I’m cushioned in by walls to my back and sides. A surface frictionless smooth before me. Increased resolution reveals glass.

The padding inside is whiter as I see more. A grey featureless wall twenty feet away appears. It stretches the entire view on the other side of the glass.

Out of sight shines an electric blue light. It’s barely there. The wall is just bright enough to…

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On The Edge

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...stand closer together and merge into one observer. A living shadow obsessed with the nearest star. Dozens of ballet dancing fireflies twirl out of the woods. Spinning and dancing around this bigger deformed shadow.

Birds glide away into the sun. They become silhouettes themselves and vanish between the sky and ocean.

The shadow divides into two and face the emptied forest...

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Staying Alive

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...in view, a small military unit and several civilians back up past the alley. Alex debates coming out and joining them, but before he could decide to do so they’re out of site on the other side of the alley. Following them is a horde of infectees. Hundreds deep. He figures keeping his silence is the safest bet. In all probability they’re going to die in a few short moments.

In the last two days Alexander has seen the infectees attract more of their kind. They travel in packs. The assumption is that the same situation is taking place. He devises a plan to creep away in the opposite direction of the horde. If done with good timing it might be clear enough to move unnoticed. To escape the area undetected. He’d be the ghost of the apocalypse...

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Watch Docs

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...one of them just died. The symptoms are identical in the one I’m watching and she has just begun to seize. No words describe the horror I feel. This patient that isn’t even mine. Dr. Krapovski left me in charge while he tends to his recently deceased other patient. I’m alone.

The nursing staff scrambles into the room with a crash cart. A couple of deep breaths and I focus. Pull back onto the game. The balls on my court.

A nurse hands me levetiracetam and I sent it right through the patients IV. She rapidly calms to a full halt before her monitor flat lines.

The nurse preps the defibrillator. I apply both paddles. “CLEAR!” I say. The girl’s body jumps, chest...

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Sniper

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...drop to my chest. Crawling to the vantage point reduces the chances of getting spotted. It's more time to get the shot ready..

Grains of sand find their way to my skin as my uniform presses against the desert.

The sniper is on my back, Remington M21. I draw the gun, put it on the bipod and move to the edge of the hill.

Endless white flashes pop in and out of the darkness below. The silhouettes of guns held by bodiless arms are briefly visible after each trigger is pulled.

All this has to go ignored. I’m here to accomplish a mission. The sniper across the path has to be dealt with immediately. They’ve taken the life of several American soldiers and this has to come to an end.

From this vantage point I should be able to locate the shooter. The night vision scope is equipped.

Commence scan.

Down on the path the convoy is still halted. Surrounded by the enemy. The American soldiers are using their vehicles for cover. Hostile vehicles are...

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The Circle

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...but he tries to relax. He can’t seem to stop kicking and flailing wildly.

As James struggles to hold himself up the rope swings left and right. Bounces up and down. Tightens as it twists and turns making it increasingly difficult to grip.

“How do I get out of this?” James tries to focus, “How do I pull myself up and over?” but he can barely keep it together. Images of family members and his children keep getting in the way. His mind wanders against his will. He rather keep it on solutions. Active and capable. But his rational mind believes it’s too late.

Struggling with which...

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Infected Journal: Entry #1 Happy Birthday: Part 3

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The fast food stop shops around me, shrouded in shadow and darkness, hid the screeching runner. It saw me, but I couldn’t see it. A unique situation, I might add, because I didn’t know where it would come from. The mall’s design laid the food stop in such a way that the food court itself was in the center and the “restaurants” surrounded it.

As the scream faded back into silence, I came down to the height of the tables. Crept steadily to the food court. Here I had more tables to move around. More sun blocks overhead illuminating the place both helped and hurt me. I’d have a better chance of spotting the infectee before he attacked, but it would have an easier time tracking me, as well. Assuming it was alone I could try to sneak around it and stab it in the head before it knew what hit it.

Nothing happened. The scream completely died off into nothingness and nothing else happened. Without interruptions I was making my way between the tables. I pushed chairs out of the way and moved tables as needed to make my way through, making some noise but....

 

By Jack Thomas

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What Daniel Did Wrong

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In my attempts to develop four characters for a novel, I will begin to experiment with them here as occasional "Blogs". With all hopes I'll find a couple of subjects and scenarios I like and they'll transfer to the bigger story if I ever write it. This is part one of this experiment to develop characters Daniel, Scythe, Prodigy and Cross.

By Jack Thomas

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The Pirate Joke

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During a conversation with my friend, Ellie,  I remember this hilarious joke I heard. I don't remember where I heard it, but I just had to share it. Ellie also had a joke to tell me, but I forgot and left.

Anyway, here is the story of the time I told her that joke.

By Jack Thomas

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Infected Journal: Entry #1 Happy Birthday: Part 2

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Now that our hero has gone deeper into the mall he will see more opportunity to find the first thing on the list, but he is also increasing his chances to come across infectees. He'll need to keeps his eyes peeled and his attention focused to avoid putting himself in a situation he can't get out of.

By Jack Thomas

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Infected Journal: Entry #1 Happy Birthday: Part 1

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After surviving the spread of an infectious plague a young man sets out to search the wasteland for Valentine's Day gifts for his girlfriend.

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After his adventures in Infected: The First Ten Days, a young man sets off to get his lovely girlfriend some gifts for her birthday. It just so happens to be that this is all taking place in the Post-Viral Outbreak world.

Follow this sarcastic romantic on his quest to get the gifts and exit the mall with his life in Part 1 of this episodic short story.

By Jack Thomas

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