Discovering Ashes 16

“Oh, you must f’give me, Jack! Where are m’manners today?!” He said cheerfully. I felt the ropes holding my wrists loosen until they were free. As I sat up, I muttered my thanks. It was then that I saw my surroundings - truly saw them - for the first time.


A dingy, dark brown chamber, like the kind you’d find in some fuckin’ video game or castle dungeon or something, was really the best way I could describe the room I was in. All around me, though, electronics of all kinds were jerryrigged into working with the old-as-shit bricks and mortar. The light that had blinded me earlier I now saw to be a single incandescent bulb hanging from a loose cluster of wires that ran the ceiling and wall into another area where I could see a generator. On the walls were monitors, each showing different images of statistics, videos, and photographs of city leaders.


“What the…”


“Welcome to mah innuh Sanctum, Jack Carnegie. Very few are allowed in here, but the ones I let in always leave with a better… understandin’ of what my organization does.”

 “And, that is…?”

“Why, we run things of course! Your precious  ‘Phoenix City’ is kept in check by yours truly! Y’see, Jack, We - that is t’say myself - keep the crime in this fair, fair city in check!”

 I chose that moment to look behind me to see my captor, Viper. He must have been pretty sure of himself, since from what I could see, he had no way of defending himself in case I wanted to just scream ‘Fuck you!’ and deck him right then and there. Admittedly, he had this… air around him, this charisma that made me listen, made me want to hear more. Maybe it was the navy blue suit with red tie and white undershirt that reeked of a time gone by. Maybe it was the crow’s feet or the slight wrinkling of his skin in various places on his face and hands. Maybe it was the white hair that for some reason screamed with a wisdom I hadn’t seen or experienced before.

Hell, I never paid attention to anyone’s hair! But this guy… everything about him oozed a kind of… demanding presence. This was the guy who’d sent that kid after me?

“So your riddle,” I started. “It wasn’t just a riddle, was it?”

“Ha ha, you are a smart one, Suh! Yes, I admit it, it was a test, son!”

Discovering Ashes 15

When I came too, I was met first with a blinding light in my eyes and second with immense pain in the back of my head that spider-ed its way to the front and down my spine. Everything was fuzzy, hazy, and my mind refused to work correctly. The only thoughts I could really comprehend were ‘Where am I?’  and ‘What hit me?’. The first option I must’ve said at some point, because no sooner had I thought it, someone responded.

“Take it easy, Jack, You’re safe and sound! Well, safe anyway!” The voice crooned above me. The slight twang of a drawl made it very comforting in an odd way. Hell, even the laugh that followed it made me feel safer!  

“Wha…?” was all I could squeeze out before the voice cut me off again.

“Ah-ah-ah, Jack! You got yo’self a nasty bump dere! I’d take you upstairs, but ah tink yo’ friends might be a tad bit… upset at poor ol’ Vipah here”

“Vi…per?”

“De one an’ only, Jack! Y’see, ah been followin’ you fo’a long time. Long’ah den you could know! You’re special, Jack Carnegie! An’ ya pal Vipah gon’ tell you why.”

I tried to move, only to find my hands bound to whatever I was laying on - from the feel of it, it might’ve been a concrete slab, but as the light above me started to dim I don’t think it would’ve fit with my surroundings. Viper must’ve noticed my discomfort from how much I kept trying to get my hands free.

“Oh, you must f’give me, Jack! Where are m’manners today?!” He said cheerfully.

I felt the ropes holding my wrists loosen until they were free. I muttered a thanks as I sat up and started truly looking at what was around me.

Discovering Ashes 14

I reached for the radio on my shoulder. It was probably best if I let everyone else know just what I saw, instead of blundering further inside by myself; besides, I didn’t have a hammer to tear down the wall. Pressing the side of the radio, the familiar cracking sound of the button and the speaker were a bit comforting.

“Hey, uh… Dex? I need some help down here,” I whispered before releasing the button. It was silent for a moment.

And then another.

And then another.

My heart kicked it into high gear as thoughts of why no one was answering me flooded my mind. Breathing suddenly became a chore as my body started shivering and shuddering from the cold and from something else entirely. The air, while oppressive before, was thicker and more menacing, like it was trying to choke me. The memories of the stories came back in a flash, and I found myself hearing sounds and smelling things I hadn’t heard or smelled when I’d first entered the dank, decrepit basement. Normally I would chalk these things up to just my adrenalin making me a bit more sensitive to my surroundings or some bullshit like that most people found out through the Discovery Channel.

But not now. Not this. I’d had adrenalin pumping through my veins the moment I stepped from the stairs, so to only just now smell and hear the sounds and odors told me one thing.

I wasn’t alone.

Turning on my heel, the flashlight shined brightly into the darkness all around me, shaking and bobbing with my hand’s own dance of fright and paranoia. I couldn’t see anything new or remotely odd - relatively speaking - around me, but I could still hear the sound! It sounded close, closer than I would’ve liked! It was oddly familiar, but in this wasteland it was entirely alien to me.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhpt

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhpt

The sound started to get shorter and louder, and I found myself looking everywhere at once while keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground beneath me. Crumbling noises started to follow each moment of the sound, and I started to get a picture in my head of just what the hell it was I was hearing. In my mind, I saw metal, and really the high tone of the noise would probably back me up.

Wait….

Turning round back to the small hole, I caught a glimpse of A hand before a sharp pain went through the back of my skull and everything went black.





This makes 25 pages in Word Processor the story's gone on for. Not my longest work, but certainly the one with the most happening and development in such a short timescale! 

I dunno anymore...

I thought my life was at its worst a few years or even months ago, when my search for a job hit the 6 year mark and my mom officially had to borrow my student loan to pay the heating bill.


But then the past month happened. Let me run this down for you, saving the worst for last.


Recently, I've had a falling out with one of the best friends I've ever had. She decided to ignore my advice on many, many occasions and after the slightest bit of criticism she's now talking about me behind my back on her Facebook. This is something I found out about through mutual friends who thankfully(?) alerted me to this miniature smear campaign being run by her, and to be frank, I'm not sure what to do. All I'm sure about is that I'm upset and saddened at the lost of a very good friend over something as stupid as a slight criticism of her actions.

Now for the worst of it.


We found out my cousin Eric has had a brain tumor for at least the past six months. This is all tragic news by itself. But then we found out that it's the size of a golfball behind his left eye. Okay, that sucks. We can get it out right? Yeah, except for the fact that it's extremely fast growing and has spider-webbed it's way into the majority of the left side of his brain and his brain stem.

On Wednesday, they're going in to a 17 hr surgery to try and remove it and only 7 things are for sure. No matter what happens, he'll never see out of his left eye. He'll always be deaf in his left ear. He'll never taste again. He'll never chew again since they have to remove essentially the entire left side of his skull to get to the thing. He'll never look like my cousin again. And he'll never, but NEVER speak again. Now factor in the fact that apparently he's only the 2nd case of this tumor in the US and despite having the best brain surgeons in the country being flown in, he still has a dismal chance at making it out of the surgery. And I just found out he'll be on a feeding tube for the rest of his life afterwards.

So yeah. I'm at the end of my rope. The cousin who's been a little brother to me has a tumor that'll kill him if it's not removed, and if it is removed, he'll never be the same kid I've grown up with again. Either way, I'm essentially losing a brother.


Is this an away notice? I dunno. Is it a "I'm not posting until further notice" notice? More likely than the previous option, but again - I dunno. Right now, I'm not sure of much in the way of what I'm gonna be doing here or anywhere else for that matter. Hell, i've missed the past three class dates for my Speech class because of it all. I may miss the one tomorrow, too. I dunno.

All i know is this; My life, as of this moment, is my own personal Hell.

Discovering Ashes 13

In the distance, I could hear someone talking. Echoes made it hard to tell just where it was coming from, be it above me, below, or any direction in between. One thing was certain, though; it wasn't Dex's voice. The thought crossed my mind that maybe it was one of the other officers who'd had the same "bright" idea I'd had, but if it were, shouldn't I have seen some kind of light other than my own? Besides that, it didn't sound like any officer I'd known! Hell, what kind of officer just started talking to themselves anyhow?!

Still, there was always a chance.

"Hello?" I called out into the darkness. I didn't dare move an inch from what little light was coming from busted windows on the floor above me.

For a while it was completely silent. For some reason, the silence was even more terrifying than it should've been. Normally I find the quiet to be nice and relaxing but now? Now it was like my worst enemy or a nightmare come to life or some bullshit like that.

"Hey, if anyone's down here, lemme know, alright?"

Still no answer. I mumbled a few choice words, trying to calm myself down. I still had a job to do, even if I didn't exactly find the situation I was in to be 'fun' or 'safe' or anything you might remotely call 'good'. Sometimes, I hated being a Cop.

"No sense just stickin' around, eh Jackie Boy?" I mumbled as I took my first steps into the complete blackness. The light from my flashlight cast way too many shadows for my liking, and in the corner of my eye, I swore I saw something move every time I looked away. My heart started racing while my imagination started to go wild! I started to think back to my High School days, in American Lit, when we would read all sorts of stories that would keep me up at night. Was it ironic or just stupid that the only one that ever gave me any comfort was Mask of the Red Death? Hell if I know. All I knew right then was all the stories came rushing back into my head, and I could've sworn I heard voices saying things that just sounded alien!

I shook my head once, trying to clear it. Lucky for me it was enough to get me to keep moving through the pitch black hole I was in. I must've spent a good half hour down there just searching every nook and cranny I could find for anyone who might fit the description of 'fucking insane'. I found it a bit funny, since the fact that I was down there by myself was, to me at least, just that.

What I didn't expect to find, though, was a hole in a brick wall. It looked ancient, like it had always been there, before the train station had ever been thought of! But on the other side, I saw a light in the distance. Not too far off, but enough so that it didn't really make much of a difference in the basement I was in.