Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Writing Challenge: Manga / Wolves / Cosmic

"Remember this: The wolves are your friends, your companions, your family. They will not abandon you, and neither should you abandon them." The Instructor eyed all the new graduates of the academy, boys and girls no older than 13, decked in their dress uniforms, their wolves sitting beside them. "There are worse things out there than the simulations can ever produce, and when you face them, your wolf if your only ally. Remember this, and we can all hope to see you when you attain your citizenship at your sixteenth year of life."

The Instructor saluted the recruits before walking out of the room.

Shiro breathed a sigh of relief. The Instructor had always make him nervous. Sascha, his wolf, looked at him and cocked her head sideways, a question in itself.

"Ne," Shiro chuckled, crouching down to rub Sacha's silver-gray fur, "Don't worry about me, I'm just a little nervous." The bionic headband he wore twitched it's two side mounted "wolf ears" to make up for the human lack of non-verbal communication, properly conveying the internal undertones even as Sascha's psycho conditioning processed the human speech. The wolf, nuzzled Shiro's hand in reassurance, even as the other graduates and their wolves began to file out of the room.

----

The sound of the transdimensional disruptors hurt Shiro's ears, but between physical discomfort and being torn apart like his companion, Shiro preferred the former. He and Sascha advanced, followed by several other of their packmates towards the hill. It was a starless night, and only their night vision lenses allowed them to progress and keep up with their wolf companions.

On top of the hill stood a figure drenched in blood, a knife in his hand, and a bloody mangled corpse beneath him. He cackled even as strange things shifted into this reality. Sascha growled as she pounced on one of the things, biting down into it's flesh with her fangs. Shiro didn't exactly know the explanation to how it was possible, but wolves were the only creatures on earth that could fight and hurt transdimensional creatures. In this case, Shiro was more than thankful that Sascha was with him. Shifting his own transdimensional disruptor in his hands, Shiro advanced even further.

Their packmates has cleared out most of the other monsters and the bloodied figure fell to his knees. Sascha ran beside Shiro then, her muzzle splattered with green ichor. "Good girl, Sascha!" he said looking up to see that the clouds above began to swirl into a massive circle, the sky above red and alien, with several moons and stranger colors that his human mind could not contain...

Shiro stopped, watching in a mixture as he heard something barely out of earshot. A chanting that grew larger even as massive tentacles reached out from the portal above...

"Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!"
"Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!"

----

Okay, so it wasn't my best work. :p But I was hitting my head on so many barriers like how to incorporate anime/manga influences into the story without the visuals. Anyway, enough with the excuses... check out Andrew's Brass Buddha Machine to see what he did with my challenge to him: "The autoiography of the color Purple as it pertains to politics" Dunno if it's up now, but I'll be waiting for his entry.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i dunno what the heck u talk about

good stuff keep writing

-piggy

Jay Steven Anyong said...

Hey thanks, piggy.

I just felt that this particular piece had very little cohesion. I blame it on lack of sleep. :p

andrew dr!lon said...

yo jay! good work! the ending was rollicky fun!

check out my blog for my side of the challenge; it's been up since the other day pa, i'm just waiting for your comment.

Take care, see you around!:D

Vin said...

I agree, this was so much fun. And incorporating mighty Cthulhu was a bonus. Nice work Jay! :)

Jay Steven Anyong said...

Thanks guys! I'm pretty sure that Cthulhu put a smile on your face, Vin. ;)

Marc Ambrosio said...

That piece you wrote reminds me much of an old story by Cordwainer Smith. Its a story called "A Game of Rat and Dragon". It follows the idea of human-animal interaction with the background of space with the threat of extra-dimensional entities that the human-animal team-up can thwart. Still an interesting that needs further development since you say that lack of sleep was the fault in its cohesion.