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23rd

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23rd

23rd

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Vox Populi

Part 3: Icarus' Parable

Chapter 13: The Great Fire of Porcorum

 

The smoke poured out of tent in such enormous volume, Marcus didn't think he could stay conscious. The three behind him sure couldn't, they passed out almost immediately. He couldn't pass out, though. He had to help Romulus stop Woren.. had to keep the citizens from dying. All around them pigs were screaming in panic, trying to find some way to escape the fire. But they couldn't. It was everywhere. There wasn't a way out of the village that didn't go through the thick forest that surrounded them, and right now every tree was catching fire at an impossibly quick rate.

 

He was barely holding on, and for a moment he thought he was hallucinating. He could see Woren, running from the tent, throwing the lighter to the floor. He was laughing, he was singing, and before Romulus could grab him, he disappeared into the bright orange flames behind his tent. Romulus immediately ran to gather as many citizens as he could. If they were all kept together they would be easier to manage, assuming they could survive this ordeal. Marcus fell forward, hoofs planting in the ground as he tried to catch his breath, fought hard to keep from passing out. Suddenly, a memory from long ago flashed in his head.

 

-

 

Marcus sat next to the firepit in the center of the village, listening to the old librarian talk. She had given up on almost everyone in the village, but for some reason he learned and listened when the others wouldn't. He'd learned many things from her, but this had to be the most interesting lesson of all. "It's called a controlled burn. If there was a fire that threatened to burn down your crops, you could create a second fire in this pit. If it's large enough it will suck the oxygen from the air, and without oxygen the other fire wouldn't be able to "breathe." Understand, Marucs?"

 

-

 

Amazing how your mind works just the way you need it to in times of extreme peril. Marcus threw open the front flap of Woren's tent, ducking his head low as the smoke poured out. Romulus yelled something at him, but he couldn't hear it over the sounds of crackling embers. His feet burned as he lumbered into the tent, pushing the flaming clumps of grass from his path as he made his way towards the throne. The large stone chair had been overturned, the holy items laying in the hole that had been underneath. There it was.. there was his salvation. Marcus grabbed the book.

 

Everyone Romulus had gotten together turned to watch Marcus when he emerged from the tent, and they quickly noticed the book over his head. The End Is Nigh. Marcus stared past them all, to the firepit in the middle of the village. The red book flipped open on its own accord, and bolts of lightening rained down from the sky, striking the logs within the pit. The other pigs squealed and cowered, backing away as Marcus tightened his grip on the edges of the book. Eventually the lightening stopped, and the fire from within the pit reached up higher than the flames that consumed the forest. The air grew heavier, and soon the flames that consumed the trees around them were beginning to fade, leaving behind charred black husks where there once was pine. When the last tree was extinguished, Marcus fell forward, unable to stay conscious.

 

-

 

He must have lost a weeks time. When Marcus woke up he found himself in the throne room, looking through the blackened holes on the front of the tent. The houses, all having burned to the ground on that terrifying night, were rebuilt and made from birch wood. He tried to stand up, but the exhaustion he felt was overwhelming, forcing him to slump back into the stone seat. He just began to notice the other around him. Then, from behind the crowd, Romulus came forward, carrying something large and white in his arms. "Marcus.. you saved everyone when Woren tried to kill them. We're all extremely grateful."

 

Marcus suddenly realized what Romulus was carrying. It was Woren's silk robes, the ends blackened and filled with holes from the fire. Romulus unfolded the garment, presenting it to a tired Marcus as he continued to speak. "If not for you, we would have all died slow and painful deaths. You helped our empire grow, you are the reason Woren defeated Them, and you are our savior. We want you to lead us."

 

Wordlessly, Marcus reached out and brushed a hoof along the robes. He began to rise from the stone seat, from the throne, and slipped his head underneath the burnt waist of the emperor's robes. Aside from the cool breeze he felt coming in through the small holes that had been burnt into random places, it fit perfectly. He looked out over all the adoring faces inside the burnt tent, and a weary smile came over his face. Marcus was determined not to disappoint his subjects like Woren had, he would make sure they were always cared for.

 

That morning, Porcorum gained a new emperor.

 

The End

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23rd

23rd

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For @Xjurwi.

 

WoodieMcCageNugget or Whatever, Man

 

Woodie had just wanted some chicken nuggets, in Canada. It had never been such a hassle before, in Canada! Now here he was, in Canada, running through a busy street and clutching a cardboard container of chicken nuggets to his chest like his life depended on it. Meters (Canada!) behind him, he could hear that guy who likes to overact in all his movies firing off a gun blindly into the crowd. "I'm going to steal your Chicken-ation of Indep-egg-ance no matter what it takes!" For a moment Woodie turned to yell back how that one didn't even make any sense, only to feel a bullet grazing the lobe of his ear. He decided to keep running instead.

 

Nicolas Cage had been standing behind him in line, and wasn't too happy when Woodie got the last chicken nuggets in the joint. As he left, he could hear the American actor screaming about how "fowl" the service was and making other chicken-related puns as he yelled at the cashier. The poor girl. It should have ended there damn it, this was Canada! Stuff like this wasn't supposed to happen in Canada!

 

"GET BACK HERE MOTHERCLUCKER!" Nicolas Cage was gaining on him, with murder painted on his face. It was literally painted on his face, backwards. There was a festival for Stephen King one black over. After a few more kilometers Woodie could see Cage was finally beginning to grow tired, falling onto his knees. "This murder stuff.. isn't all it's.. cracked up to be." Finally, without that murderous psycho from Con Air chasing him down, Woodie could sit down and enjoy his chicken nuggets in the middle of the busy intersection in peace. There was just one thing he hadn't counted on.

 

Nicolas Cage was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and that meant he could handle anything.

 

That guy who gets his big scene in The Wicker Man posted on this forum way too much leaped twenty feet in the air, barreling down onto Woodie. The impact immediately destroyed the poor lumberjack, and while people honked and cursed Nicolas Cage sat atop Woodie's corpse, enjoying his newly procured chicken while making everyone late for work.

 

Fear the Cage. 

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23rd

23rd

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Return Fire

Prologue: The Factory

 

When Bruiser woke up, it was black. Pitch black. Cold, too. This wasn't his room back at the motel, and his first thought wasn't where, but why. He hadn't exactly been a good man his entire life, working for a New York gangster was a good way to make enemies out of the people on the street. The hard linoleum under his feet and the damp air around him told him that wherever he was, it sure as hell wasn't natural. "Hey." He had to squint when the dull light hit his eyes. It came from one of those new devices, "flashlights." A brass tube powered by what were no doubt dry cell batteries. It was held in the in the greasy hands of someone that looked vaguely familiar, someone Bruiser just couldn't place. "You're Bruiser, right?"

 

"Yeah, I'm Bruiser, who the hell are you?" The man on the other end of the room laughed like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world, climbing to his feet and tossing Bruiser the brass tube of a flashlight. "Walt." Bruiser caught the light, tightening his grip around the warm metal as he began to stand up himself, flicking the light around to get a good lay of the room. Some sort of enormous bathroom, grimy and forgotten by time. He just considered himself lucky he didn't wake up chained to to the wall. "Walt.. wait, I know that name." The other man nodded as he headed for an industrial sized door at his end of the room, and Bruiser finally got a good look at him. Muscled and toned, the man had clearly been going through intense workouts over a short, but recent period of time. His hair had been cut improperly, like a military haircut given by a drunk. When Walt had stood up his posture gave off an aura of authority, but as he picked the lock holding those giant double doors shut it became slouched, making him look frustrated in the dim light of the brass flashlight. "You were supposed to be a part of the gang.. but none of us ever got to meet you before.."

 

The lock came undone, chains unraveling from the handles as it fell to the linoleum with a loud clunk. "Before Witherstone disappeared. I know. Well, I'm going to get everyone together again." The doors gave way to show a cramped hallway with pipes running along the walls, barely lit by overhead lamps. "Someone's not happy about that. We've got to find a way out of here." Bruiser was just relieved he wasn't in this situation alone. The two of them explored what turned out to be an extremely bizarre run-down factory, all of the rooms had been cleared of whatever used to be in them.. but the strangest room had to the one with the furnace in it. The fire roared and spat from behind the bars of the furnace, lighting up the unfolded table that had been placed in front of it. On top of it, two hunting rifles and a note on top of a map that detailed the layout of their prison. The words were scrawled out in huge, blocky letters. Get out while you can. Neither of them needed to be told twice.

 

It was easy to get to the first floor entrance when they saw the layout. They must have passed it twenty times beforehand. Bruiser found himself almost firing at the leaky pipes and the sound of scuttling rats more than a few times on the way, but they hadn't met any resistance or even heard anyone the entire way up. Suffice to say, it was extremely eerie. But here they were, at the front doors, about to escape to their freedom so they could figure out who the hell put them here and why. When Bruiser flung open the front doors he felt the heat of the sun beating against his face, the bright light of the world outside blinding him completely. With Walt in tow, he stepped past the double doors, eager to feel the ground under his feet.

 

He only felt more metal.

 

A gunshot rang out in the enclosed room, and Bruiser's body dropped to the ground with a thud. "Walt" flung the smoking rifle he carried over his shoulder,  giving his victim a good kick in the gut to make sure he was well and truly dead. Satisfied, he walked Bruiser to shut off the blinding lamp that he had fixed to the floor earlier that morning. From his pocket, he pulled a crumpled list and the keys to the front of the building. As he twisted the key into the actual entrance and pushed the doors wide, he studied the list. Five names, all people who used to work for Witherstone. The name Walt had already been crossed out at the top, now he could take Bruiser off that list as well. The killer smiled, the scars along his face shining as they were revealed by the outside sunlight. "Two down, three to go."

Edited by 23rd
23rd

23rd

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Return Fire

Part 1: The part where Victor dies

Chapter 1: The Inevitable Capture

 

Ever since Witherstone disappeared Victor had completely turned his game around. He used to be extremely eager to shoot holes in people, make headlines, get the public go into a frenzy. For all his bloodlust, however, Victor wasn't an idiot. He knew when to lay low, he had his priorities in order. Either he stay in America and deal with the enormous list of people out for his head now that the boss had disappeared, or take off and hide somewhere that people wouldn't recognize him. For the past year he'd etched out a good living in Canterbury, always keeping his head low, waiting for the day when it would be safe to rise to the top again.

 

That day would never come.

 

It happened on a chilly Winter morning. Victor had been walking along the streets, skinny arms shivering under the inadequate protection of his  topcoat, when he first noticed the man who was following him in the reflection of a shop mirror. Clearly an American, the stranger may have been able to hide his physical features under a thick scarf and derby but there was no mistaking the uncertainty with which the stalker walked. Each step betrayed his foreigner's discomfort, it was the same way tourists would walk when they wandered into crowded areas like these.

 

Victor walked briskly, his worn shoes clicking against the cobblestone roads as he tried to lose his pursuer in the busy streets of Canterbury. He kept his eyes to the windows, picking the foreigner from the crowd wherever he went. Yes, he was most definitely being stalked. A rush of adrenaline coursed through Victor's bones as his gaunt fingers wrapped around the shoulders of the person nearest to him, lacing his left arm around their neck as he procured a pocket knife from his right sleeve, holding it to his captive's neck. "Stop! Don't come any closer, or I'll end him right here and now!"

 

For a moment everyone moving through the streets stopped to stare at Victor, then the frantic screams began. People rushed in every direction, smacking into Victor and throwing him off balance. The man he'd taken hostage elbowed him in the gut, and just like that he'd lost control of the entire situation. Victor kept his grip on his blade tight, weakly reaching out towards his fleeing hostage, when he felt himself being lifted from his feet. It was the American who had been following him, suspending him above the cobble with just one thick and meaty hand. Victor felt his back smash against the brick wall of the shop behind him, and when he looked up he was staring into the infuriated gray eyes of the person who had followed him all afternoon. "W.. who the hell are you?" The grip around his collar tightened as blood began to drip down his coattails, bruises and cuts being made where his back was pushed into the brick. Before he passed out, a bellowing voice filled his ears. "You used to call me Adam."

 

The world went black.

Edited by 23rd
23rd

23rd

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Return Fire

Part 1: The part where Victor dies

Chapter 2: Victor's First Job

 

June 6th, 1904

 

Victor watched the loll by as Bruiser's car puttered down the quiet suburban roads, his tone casual and bored. "You know.. I think I should get a little violent with this guy." Bruiser rolled his eyes, sausage-link fingers squeezing around the wheel as he repeated what he'd been saying to Victor for the past several days, clearly irritated. "We're not supposed to just hurt people because we feel like it. You can't get money out of someone who can't even work." Victor let out an exaggerated sigh, leaning over the side of the automobile's carriage as it slowly came to a stop. The soles of his shoes hit the ground, left hand dismissively waving Bruiser off. "I'm not extorting money from him, I'm extorting money from his company! This is a lot different than writing illiterate letters to some dime-store magician, you oaf." Bruiser grunted behind him, the sound his car fading off behind Victor.

 

The door wasn't reinforced well, the doors to residential homes rarely were. One solid kick was all it took to make the thing splinter and break, and seconds later Victor was storming into the kitchen, grabbing one of the house's butcher knife as his mark rushed downstairs. Heavy footsteps followed behind Victor, throwing open the door to the kitchen as a large, short-haired man stepped in, face red and fists clenched. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN M-" The words stopped when the house's resident saw the gleam of the knife and the sadistic smile on Victor's face. "Hey bud, you don't know me, but I've been sent here to give you a "business proposition" by my boss. I'm not big on negotiating though.. I think I'm going to just take what I want." The sharpened blade sliced across the working man's chest easily enough, and in moments the man Victor had been sent to simply talk to was down on his knees, trying not to pass out from shock and blood loss. Victor rested the underside of his boot over top his victim's back, leaning down and whispering menacingly. "When I'm done with you, people will be calling you the Adam of my carnage."

 

-

 

Present Day

 

Victor had been unconscious for two days when he finally woke up. It had to have been at least two days, if his current condition was anything to go by. He felt filthy, extremely weak, and he stank like hell. Once the grogginess subsided and he stopped worrying about his stomach he realized his arms were bound by thick coils of rope, and the cramped, rumbling darkness he was trapped in had to be the boxcar of some sort of locomotive. As the train left whatever tunnel it had been in warm orange light filtered through the boards, lighting up the tiny interior and exposing the sleeping figure laying on the other side of the boxcar. Knife wounds covered what little of the man's face Victor could see, hair short and patchy.

 

Victor was Adam's prisoner now.. and he was terrified of what Adam would do to him.

HoneyHam

HoneyHam

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23rd, once you're done with this series I request a story based on this glitch and a post I made:

THERE NEEDS TO BE A MOVIE BASED ON THIS NOW. I WANT LOVECRAFTIAN DEEP ONES, MAGIC, TELEPORTATION, A SLIGHTLY ADVANCED TIME PERIOD AND TWO 22 YEAR OLD GUYS NAMED JAMES AND RYAN WHO DISCOVER ANCIENT MAGIC DEEP IN THE OCEAN OF LOS SANTOS. FALLING THROUGH WATER LIKE IT WAS AIR, INTO THE DEPTHS WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE A FEW INCHES IN FRONT OF YOU, AND THEN THEY SUDDENLY WAKE UP SOMEWHERE ON LAND. THEY INVESTIGATE DEEPLY AND DISCOVER THINGS NO HUMAN SHOULD.
Note: I don't know their actual age so yeah, I just chose a random one.
Edited by TooMuchHoneyHam
23rd

23rd

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Return Fire

Part 1: The part where Victor dies

Chapter 3: The Factory, again

 

The stench coming from Bruiser's corpse was overwhelming. "That's going to be you before the end of the day." Victor was shoved forward, forced to walk beyond the giant double doors at the end of the factory's entrance. He had expected Adam's life would become tragic, but he never thought he had the ability to break someone so thoroughly. "If you think killing us all makes you a good gu-" Victor's ears rung when the open palm smacked against the back of his head, raw pain vibrating through his skull. "I'm not looking for redemption, I'm preventing you all from spreading your evil." Victor's head sunk, the realization that there was nothing he could say dawning on him with the grim slowness that always does when one realizes the inevitability of their death.

 

The room Adam took him too had a furnace in it, everything was hot and sweltering. Victor knew what was going on. Adam wanted him uncomfortable, regretful, fearful of the hellfire he would soon be facing. But even when taking the last steps of his life it was clear that Victor had no remorse for what he had done. Adam beat him, choked him, burned him against the hot metal of the furnace, but Victor's eyes were as empty as they were when he'd carved the scars along Adam's face.

 

Thick palms slapped against Victor's shoulders, Adam's breath becoming furious and labored. He was waiting for an admission of guilt, pleading, anything that he could find some satisfaction and justification out of. But Victor gave him nothing. Instead all Adam got was a smarmy smile and five words. "Get it over with already."

 

Adam's world went red.

23rd

23rd

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Return Fire

Part 1: The part where Victor dies

Chapter 4: Destructive Priorities

 

When Adam finally regained control of himself he was horrified by the sight in front of him. He had accepted that killing Witherstone's former crew would make him a monster, but what he'd just done to Victor..

 

The organ clenched between his fists couldn't be identified. In his rage he had ripped and chewed it apart. Now it was just a pulpy, film; there was no way to differentiate it between a heart or a small intestine. And the body.. if it could even be called a body.. Adam let the slippery film between his fingers fall to the floor, scrambling out of the furnace room. The door slammed behind him, and as Adam tried frantically to wipe the blood off on his trousers he had trouble holding back the stinging tears. It wasn't supposed to go like this, he wasn't supposed to be like this. When the vomit came, it burned the inside of his throat.

 

It could only have been five minutes, but the burning made it feel like hours. Thick and chunky, the sickening fluid splashed around his feet. The stink was unbearable, but Adam was too much in shock to move. His whole body quivered, body propped against the wall so he wouldn't collapse in his own puddle of repulsion. He truly had become the Adam of Victor's carnage, a thing most foul and horrible in its actions. He could never come back to the factory, the hollow skeleton that had once been the center of his life, and he could never forgive himself for what he had just done to Victor's body. It was simply too gruesome for him to remember, lest he go mad.

 

Still, Adam had to finish what he'd started. No matter what happened to him, he had to finish. He stopped the shaking in his right arm long enough to pull out a tattered slip of paper, Victor's name in the middle. His thumb pressed against the paper, ink smudging as he ran it across the name. Head hung low, Adam made his way from the factory, swearing to never come back again.

 

Three down, two to go.

 

---

 

This was SUPPOSED to be some Pulp Fiction-y action story. Blugh.

Edited by 23rd

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