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Post by Dragonfox on Apr 7, 2012 22:02:54 GMT -4
The darkness surrounded her as if submerged in an endless vat of black ink. There was nothing - no light, no air, no direction. She existed where nothing else did. A body floating in a void. She knew nothing. She was nothing.
An invisible, formless force latched onto her. Light, pain, sensations familiar yet foreign assaulted her dormant mind. She was aware of the nothingness for only a moment before it began to fade, as if waking from a dream.
She laid amidst rubble, tossed aside like an unwanted plaything. She was aware of another near her, she could hear them. Her mind was muddled. Slowly, she became aware of things around her and of herself.
A small spark of instinct kicked in. She felt her body shift from a somewhat formless blob into a doll-like parody of a human form. Her mind tried to grasp and remember something but her memories were like smoke. Instead of what she wanted to remember, she remembered something else. Running on four legs, flying though the sky, vanishing into forests. Her mind latched onto the form and her body responded.
She became a fox, long and lithe, but with two arching horns sprouting behind her ears and bat-like wings on her back. A ridge of small spikes ran down her spine.
Slowly she opened her eyes, greeted by the sight of the other she had sensed. The fox tilted its head at her and gave a soft whine.
Kurama. The name resurfaced instantly, and she knew the little fox. It was her pet and best friend. Beyond that, however, was nothing. She didn't know how she'd met Kurama or when.
Sitting up, she put a paw to her head and tried to clear the fog in her head. For a moment, she didn't know who she was until it began to return to her, slowly. She remembered her own name, at least.
Rising, Taela looked around. She didn't recognize any of the ruins nor did she remember how she got there.
"Let's go, Kurama." She said quietly before walking along what appeared to be a road. Perhaps if she found another person, she could remember more.
The little fox was just as confused as his mistress, but happily lopped alongside her. If all he knew was that he was her guardian, then that was fine with him. To Kurama, the past held no value, only the future.
(( Open to anyone who feels like coming in ))
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Post by Guido Carosella on Apr 10, 2012 13:08:58 GMT -4
Cheers. Shouts. Screams. Bright lights.
"Winnah! An' still champeeeeeennnnn....."
Guido raised his blood and gore-spattered hands to the heavens and roared in victory. The crowd, hidden behind bright lights, screamed and gibbered in bloodlusted response. Already the shattered dozen or so wrecks of humanity were being dragged out of the ring by some of their enslaved brethren.
Guido barely deigned to notice as his valet scrubbed the blood out from under his fingernails. A stunningly beautiful Asian woman with dark purple hair slipped a cigar between his teeth. A match flared, and the smile on her face was full of promise. He grinned slyly in return and winked.
Tonight should provide a lot of highlights for SportsCenter, right after the Stupid Human Tricks segment. The ratings were always good when humans were made to look like dancing monkeys. Speaking of stupid, where was that intern with his smoothie?
Wait, no. That wasn't right. Was it?
Sheila McCann was the prettiest girl in the eighth grade. Long brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that lit up the whole room. In short, she was terrifying.
Guido waited outside the school with throngs of his classmates, waiting for the bus home. He turned suddenly to perform a routine wedgie check when Shelila walked by with a couple of her friends, giggling like middle school girls do. Guido froze and watched them pass by. Oh, how he liked it when they walked. Sheila turned to Guido, smiled, and winked. Guido's eyes glazed over, his mouth dropped open, and he said something cool, smooth, and debonair that melted the girls' hearts and set their eyelashes a-flutter.
Unfortunately, whatever he said didn't make it past his swollen tongue that was lolling and slobbering outside his mouth. Sheila's smile dropped and her eyebrows went up.
"Yo dawg, that dork is mackin' on ya girl!"
Guido didn't have time to remark how ridiculous an urban inflection sounded coming from a white mid-upper class suburbanite whose mother picked him up in a Lexus on her way back from the day spa. All he had time to register was a massive fist attached to what looked like a side of beef wrapped in a letter jacket. A bright flash of white light, then nothing.
Guido cracked an eye open to the sound of laughter. Spitting out grass, he staggered to his feet, his knobbly knees wobbling. The entire crowd was laughing.
Even Sheila.
Guido clenched his tiny fists. He had never been in a fight in his life. Was a punch supposed to hurt this bad? His entire body seemed to be burning, especially where he was hit. What can only be described as nerd rage took over, and Guido flexed his sticklike arms and launched himself at his adversary. He tried a fearsome roar, but his adolescent voice screeched and cracked as he flailed wildly.
It didn't take long before Guido was curled up in a ball on the ground, fending off a rain of punches and kicks with his arm. It hurt worse every time they hit his arm...
Shrieks. Screams. The punches and kicks stopped.
Guido pulled himself up to his knees, cradling his throbbing arm. He sobbed openly, he had never hurt so bad in his life. His arm was trembling, veins were popping out, something was wrong, it was TOO big...
The arm kept growing. It was huge. Muscles rippled like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this arm alone was bigger than Arnold. The crowd immediately parted, and cries of "Freak!" mixed in with the "Oh my God!" and "Are you all right?"
Guido panicked. He ran. Straight into the street. Ignoring the cries of warning.
He never saw the bus.
That was familiar. Red letter day, that was.
The memories came faster, more staccato, and a bright light in the distance grew closer and closer.
Standing at the end of a Westchester driveway, gazing at the biggest house he'd ever seen.
Being scowled at by a short, hairy man with a cigar. A much larger (and blue) hairy man shaking his hand.
A door. Something about a door that annoyed him to no end.
Giant robots. Children crying in terror. A shining metal skeleton engulfed in flames. A grief-stricken woman with white hair screaming at the rain.
A dark-haired woman with a guitar and a sassy smile that made him think of a certain Buckcherry song.
Laughter. Fellowship around a large table. Pranks and jokes. Good times.
The light was upon him. Guido cracked open an eye. He shut it immediately. He didn't care for this part of the dream.
He snorted, and sucked in a mouthful of dust. He thrashed to a sitting position, coughing and sputtering.
He looked around. Nothing looked familiar. There was evidence of civilization, but the landscape was virtually destroyed. Buildings were wrecked, the trees were scorched, and there was absolutely no sign of life. It looked like something out of a Fallout game, and Guido glanced at his wrist, half expecting there to be a Pip-Boy 3000.
He looked around again. He had no idea where, or when, he was.
"Now what?"
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Post by Dragonfox on Apr 11, 2012 2:44:38 GMT -4
Taela carefully picked her way through the rubble, occasionally poking her head into a ruin. Despite the desolation, there were no human remains. It bothered her, as she attempted to figure out what had happened. If it was a warzone, there would be casualties of some form.
Kurama sniffed around with her, reacting to her caution with caution of his own. He listened carefully, but heard little. There wasn't even a bug for him to chase.
Kurama's ears perked up at a sound. Taela looked up in time to see him dash off and ran after him. She spotted what looked human sitting off to the side. The man was far more muscular than she'd expected, yet he seemed somewhat familiar. She approached cautiously, keeping her wings up and spread in case she needed to make a quick getaway.
Kurama was too excited to be cautious. He ran up and skidded to a stop a little further than arm's-length from the man and yipped happily.
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Post by Guido Carosella on Apr 11, 2012 13:02:16 GMT -4
It didn't take long for the usual throbbing, burning pain to resume after Guido regained consciousness. Gritting his teeth, he folded his shaking, cramping limbs into the lotus position, closed his eyes, and focused on even, deep breaths.
As he calmed himself, he tried to make sense of the world around him. He honestly had no idea where he was or how he had gotten here. It was more than a little creepy how there was nobody else around him, and his imagination started to run away.
What if he was dead? Was this hell?
Guido had a strict Catholic upbringing, but considered himself lapsed more often than not. The thought made him shiver a bit. Guido was very much a social creature, and the thought of being completely alone horrified him.
Is this what my personal hell is? Being totally alone?
After several minutes, the pain had subsided. He blew out a deep breath, took off his goggles and rubbed his eyes.
He heard a yip.
One eye popped open, but without his goggles, he could barely see past the end of his nose. There seemed to be a couple of shapes standing before him that weren't there earlier. He quickly slipped his goggles back on and frowned.
A fox? Of all things, a fox? Nothing else moving in this place but a yippy little fox. He thought roaches were the only thing that could survive nukes.
More movement caught his eye. At first he thought it was another fox, which would have been strange enough. No, this one had what appeared to be horns and bat wings. It strolled up next to the first fox, and cocked its head at him.
Guido sighed. No, hell was apparently Japanese anime. He should have known.
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Post by Dragonfox on Apr 12, 2012 19:02:10 GMT -4
Taela couldn't shake the feeling that she knew the muscular man, but still his name eluded her.
A few scattered memories returned instead. A mansion, glimpses of events with people, a man with red glasses. They were like ghosts in her mind, there yet not there. Still, enough was there that she realized she must have met him at the mansion in her memories.
"Quiet, Kurama." She put a paw on Kurama's back to get him to settle down. The fox sat down, but was still obviously excited to have found someone else in the wastes.
"You look familiar, but for some odd reason I can't seem to remember anything. Do you have any idea what happened here, or how we even got here?"
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Post by Guido Carosella on Apr 16, 2012 7:47:23 GMT -4
And now the crazy bat-fox-thing was talking to him. He glanced around, wary of any sudden appearance of tentacles. He'd seen enough of those videos to know where this was going.
"You look familiar, but for some odd reason I can't seem to remember anything. Do you have any idea what happened here, or how we even got here?"
Guido had been clean and sober for some time now. But even in his deepest, darkest, alcohol/painkiller haze, he never remembered seeing a talking bat fox. All sorts of other things, sure, but never that.
He was tempted to ignore the odd pair. If he started talking to them, he'd then have to admit that yes, there was such a thing as a talking bat-fox.
On the other hand, there wasn't anyone else to talk to.
He clambered to his feet with a groan, stretched, and made a big show of scanning the horizon. Here goes nothing.
"Well, can't say that I recognize ya. As far as where we are, I got no idea."
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Post by Dragonfox on Apr 18, 2012 2:18:18 GMT -4
Taela shook off the momentary disappointment. She'd hoped the man knew her and would trigger more memories to return.
"My name is Taela Tavington, and this is Kurama." She gestured at the fox, who had wandered a few feet away to sniff at the ground in an attempt to locate more people. "That much I remember at least."
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