“8BALL Chronicles” - Book 1 “WAKING UP” - ch 1 “BLINKOVER” (opening excerpts)
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8 B A L L; I didn't name it, the participants did (volunteers by loose interpretation)
and not just any sentient beings either; specifically ones that thought they had nothing left to lose or live for. The same thoughts I had when the idea came to me as I contemplated the choice I was facing: Kill myself or kill the world as I knew it.
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SECTOR D7: AKIAN ILLIAK, EAST DUNE PENINSULA PIER
One second his car was forced off the only bridge that crossed the Ohio river toward the frozen city of Cincinnati, the wide nose of his Buick Wildcat tipping like a hammer toward the foot of ice below, his brain in overdrive calculating his options and running through nothing-left-to-lose dialogue-- the next, during the would-be impact of the antique bumper, he blinked to a balmy climate, sweating inside his thermal gear, the ocean kissing shores all around him, and a bright blue sky for his hazel eyes to squint at through his goggles.
Akian's gloved hands sunk into dry sand as he sat up, drawing his gaze to the ground, briefly distracted by the heat felt through his gloves from the sun baked beach that made him wonder how far south he was. It was a thought that darted his eyes off the sand to the surrounding area stammering to his feet, pulling off the extra clothes; goggles first. Between the unraveling whip of his scarf he spotted the lush green land mass he was on the sandy extended dune of. To his right was a large swooping bay with a small island in the middle of it and what looked like the hint of a house further in from the center shore.
Through the discarding flap of his jacket and sweaters, he saw the long stretch of beach to his left, overhung by a jungle-wrapped mountain ridge that stretched back across the terrain. None of it looked familiar. Yet something about the place felt familiar to him. As he unbuckled the belt that held his arctic-pants over denim, he turned around in a small circle, making note of how turquoise the water was; sea to the horizon in every direction but the jungle behind him. A weight in those pants snapped his attention to the left rear pocket, it felt like a large cell phone, yet became more apparent it was more like a data pad, upon inspection.
There was one file folder icon on top of a grid-map of an island he didn't recognize at first glance across the screen, the rest of it matte-black with no manufacturer marks or insignias, no data ports or obvious means of charging it. When he looked to the screen again he realized the map was of the land before him. The extended dune he was standing on, pants around booted ankles, was the only land in the D7 grid-box of the map.
As much as it relieved Akian to have a map, it also deeply concerned him who put it in his pocket, how he got here, and where exactly here was in the first place. The file folder had a name, "Loken Brax," which didn't seem to him like a promising lead on real answers but he fingered the folder with his index anyway and watched as several pages of information layered over one another until he was looking at a dossier of this Loken Brax woman; lust worthy appearance and stats weren't ignored but there was one sentence that gave him a chilling pause, "The full extent of her genetically mutated capabilities remain unknown" mutated by a nuclear radiation he hadn't heard of...
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SECTOR C4: SIXIA SOTO, CENTRAL FOOD BARN
Beyond the steady time-keeping cadence of her heart, she could hear the clash of metal, cackle of fire, hiss of steaming rain and the widespread screams, grunts, growls and taunting commands of the raiders ripping through to claim what was left of her village; her corporeal body limp under the floorboards of a flattened burning tent while her incorporeal consciousness was watching the mayhem helplessly-- until she snapped back into her body like an over-stretched tendon being involuntarily released... then everything was different.
The air was salted, not smoked. Humid, not dry. Crisp and clean with the waft of fresh baked bread, sliced fruits, pungent cheeses and rotisserie meats she immediately prayed weren't human flesh. There was cushion under her, luxurious, no sound of fighting anywhere, just birds and trees singing and whispering like she'd found sanctuary at last! Suspicion crept in though. The nape of her neck felt like someone had rubbed a minty lotion or oil there, going deeper than topical application, and in her hand was a warm hard narrow block she couldn't see with her physical eyes.
Sixia rolled over, laying a cheek on the cushion and holding the block atop the upturned palm of her right hand as her left moved her hair off her neck. With only a little extra effort she left her body just enough to see, which was almost like half-ghosting from her own back. The first thing she noticed was how dirty and grungy her deer-skin tunic was compared to the vibrant pristine colors she was laying on, then the green ink on the back of her neck resembling a snake around what seemed to her like a ritual chalice; the whole thing no bigger than a mans thumb. Her astral gaze shifted to the block with information in a previously unknown dialect of her own language she somehow now understood.
"Akian Illiak - 6'2" - 210 lbs - hazel eyes - sandy brown hair (long)-" the information went on, labeling the man a criminal, listing off skills she didn't understand with charges just as confusing to her as how the information was in the block, and what he had to do with her, or why she was here-- a place of dream-like foreign familiarity. Perplexities aside, she used her half-in-half-out state to move her finger and probe the downward arrow she'd deduced would allow her to read more...
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SECTOR D2: OSMARC VON'DOXNEN, WEST OCEAN OUTSIDE THE INLET
Helbos Ceeon he'd heard others call it, Hells Gate, the fleet-forge inferno of a tower that put hundreds of indentured slaves like him to work, making everything from cages to armor and weaponry for a warlord carving his way across the earth like wide-wedge razor-edged plow; Osmarc didn't understand the grim meaning behind the name until his Hexamen, he and the five other men on his chain, were all staring up at the unexpected sizzling drip of molten iron cooking its way through the floor above them, claiming the wails of fiery agony from the Hexamen directly engulfed by the spill-- in the blink of his eyes he was floating in saline water that iced his fully-exposed skin, bright-blues aimed at open sky warmed by a sun he couldn't yet feel.
For those first few moments he unleashed a joyous laugh he hadn't known himself capable of, gleefully hysteric over his turn fortune to be breathing air not weighted by the stench of laboriously dying men, raw iron and doom. He grinned through the chattering of his teeth and rumble in his chest as he reclined in the float to bask in the cold relief, blissfully unaware of the current pulling him toward deeper water. By the time the chilly water worked through leather skin to the brawny bulk of sinew, reaching for his bones, he felt the sea up-heave him as if a giant aquatically mystic hand saw fit to throw him elsewhere.
It was in being hurled in an arch toward the sky that he saw the island, riding a wave high enough to see over the modest mountain ridge he seemed to be headed right for. The buildings speckled in a spaced-out-spread within the tropical landscape were easy to see, yet the creepy shack directly in front of him was impossible to miss, albeit too far to see in much detail beyond looking utterly out of place on top of the stone surface. His arch was on the downward slope, uncomfortably close to the jungle to his left, the impossible swell of tide bringing him over the edge of that jungle and to the mouth of a cavern.
As his bare feet touched the stone shore of the cavern's mouth, he looked back to watch the water recede in a wild splash against the southern shore, leveling to reveal the inlet he'd been whisked over. His racing heart hurried him in taking in the view prior to forcing a turn back to the cavern to see what he'd been brought there for. His confusion was pure reflex when all he saw was a woven basket with folded clothes held down by a dark long square-edged block not a quarter as thick as a brick...
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SECTOR D6: CHARLIE JARDAN, EASTSIDE SUPPLY SHOP
It was a provocation party in the salt flats of Falcon territory, two rogue groups of nomadic outcasts just couldn't cross paths without a conflict. Her best mate, and leader of their team, even warned the others to just ride on by but they wanted otherwise, so, there Charlie was, ruining the rustic three-piece-suit she'd just had tailored for her facade as a man; going-grizzly was such a violently rapid transition that her clothes ended up in shreds, revealing the bi-pedal poised grizzly bear that was prone to killing and taking bites out of every threat in range-- mid rage-out growl, however, her contrasting brown eyes went from honing in on a target, to blinking at the inside of a circular, windowless, little hut supply shop she'd expect to find near the Aquatic's territory three suns from the flats.
Unlike such a hut, this one wasn't overgrown inside and out, or picked clean-- it had racks of suits just like the one she obliterated and shelves of camping gear uncannily similar to what was in the bags on her own horse. Her primal mind found it unsettling, convenient, and irresistible enough to bypass the first two feelings and shudder back to her naked six-foot human form; not sensing anyone in the shop to worry about being watched gathering the survival gear in the buff.
Opting for a duffle, in far better condition than her's had been, she stuffed it with extra items like a spare suit ensemble, flint, bandages, socks, soaps and rope. The only items she couldn't find were those she'd otherwise use intentfully as weapons. From packing, Charlie went to wrapping down her breasts and putting on one of the suits, surprisingly complete, with a version of her own modified under pants, shoulder broadening vest and overcoat.
Putting on the overcoat she noticed something in the inside pocket and delayed leaving to pluck the item out for a look. It was the kind of tech a beastbreed like her would've been hunted and killed for having; the only thing that stopped her from chucking it, was seeing the grid-map on the screen with a file for someone who's name she didn't recognize, "Osmarc Von'Doxnen" which was opened as she snatched up the duffle and headed for the only door she saw. Outside, briny tropic humidity assaulted her senses and spurred her into a run toward the sound of lazy waves splashing a beachfront.
Huffing on the shoreline it hit her, this wasn't known territory, so the map had purpose. Glancing at the file contents for clues, she caught movement on an extended dune she barely noticed, forcing a double-up-tick of her eyes to focus-- a man fighting with a second layer of pants he was trying to remove without taking his boots off. Charlie then eyed the picture of Osmarc Von'Doxen and could tell by his build, lack of head hair (like her,) and loin-cloth attire, the man on the dune wasn't the man in her file...
{written by Remmy Ar'emen}