RuneScape Forum Archive | ~~English's Forgotten Tales~~

Englishkid62

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He stood up, without a word he went inside the office and immediately began to pack, leaving the boy dismayed, standing alone in the midst of the piercing laughter in the playground.

The boy and the teacher were reported dead within the next three days, only minutes after one another.

* * * * *

I was walking home from school that day because my parents couldn't give me a lift – I hated walking, for I was in no need of exercise – but nothing could spoil a day as beautiful as this.

I was set the task of many homework assignments today and I was eager to complete them. I was a high-achiever and I adored getting full-marks all the time. Maybe it was about time I should acquire a girlfriend, I thought to myself, after all, life gets boring sometimes and I was in much need of amusement.

‘Interesting,’ I mumbled to myself. A black spider an inch wide was in a ready position on its web, ‘…never seen this species before...’

I puzzled. Having a decent knowledge of natural spiders I then decided to give it a test. I found a stick and I immediately began to destroy this lovely home of the poor creature. The spider made a beautiful twist in mid-air so that it would not fall, and it was safe again, hidden from my view. ‘What an interesting species,' I thought, and I walked off, leaving the stick behind on the grass and the spider – homeless.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:29 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:17:16 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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I didn't forget about the spider for the whole afternoon, and there was the news: ‘Spider kills boy and teacher.’ ‘The weeping widow,’ the reporter said, ‘is a genetically modified species of spider that can both hunt with a web or by itself. It can travel up to forty miles per hour. These deadly creatures have deadly, contagious poisons. When bitten, the victim will die and they could spread this poison amongst others around them via coughing. This species also hunts with its unique echo-location which sounded exactly like finger lightly tapping a table...this spider is announced loose a week ago from the National Generic Research Association, and if you discover this spider, please contact…’

Recognising the spider, I called that number. Soon this whole business would be over and the spider would be destroyed humanely. Poor boy and teacher! How unfulfilled their lives must have been! Sleep was impossible for me that night as I kept reminding myself of this dreadful creature now on the run. It was an hour later, when I detected a small noise making its entrance into my room not four meters away.

‘Echo-location,’ I thought. ‘It sounding exactly like a finger tapping the table... which means...?’

I sat up on my bed, looking around in the dark. I knew it, one bite, and all would be over. The clicking noise had stopped, as if a predator had found its prey. It was obvious that I was much easier to be detected with echo-location when I was sitting up on my bed, rather than lying down. I turned on the light quickly. I saw a creature an inch big blurred its way (for I couldn’t distinguish between its legs at all) towards me and stopped just right under my bed. I was trapped, and I dared not to leave.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:30 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:15:56 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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Humans couldn’t be trapped just like this, so easily, could they? They are intelligent animals! Where is this intelligence when I needed it? Right now, my mind was consumed with only the natural instincts to survive – I realised there was only one way to escape...

The creature was not oblivious to my plan. It climbed up the side of the wall from the corner and then made its way onto my bed, now speeding towards me on my blanket – one bite and all would be over.

I threw my blanket towards it, trapping it inside and jumped off the bed and ran for my life, followed by my own nightmare at its full speed.

It took me forever to reach my parents’ room. They might be able to deal with this monstrous thing...

I felt a sting on my ankle, but I kept running. When finally I reached my parents’ room, my mum screamed at the sight of the spider, realising what it was. My dad didn't do or say anything, he just sat on his bed and stared at me as if he resented my entrance. Appalled.

Unwanted, I kept running, out of their room and towards my sister’s.

It was still following me.

I jumped on her empty bed with full force and I examined my dirtied left foot.

Yes. There was a big black spot on my left ankle – it was ugly and angry-looking. I was blank: it was all over. My life was over. I was to join the teacher and the boy, and many others in death.

The spider was playing games again; it knew I was bitten, and it waited for me quite far off the bed, lifting its legs high up into the air, playing dead. I was not stupid.

Moments later, my sister came into her room, surprised at the fact that I was sitting miserably on her bed. She came near me kindly, and as she saw my face so blank and white she decided that we needed to talk. She sat closer, oblivious to the disease I now carried.

‘Don't come near me!’ I screamed.

‘No...' my sister whispered. ‘I want to help you, what's the matter?’

She looked at the black spot on my ankle, and puzzled.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:31 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:17:32 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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‘You wouldn't be...?’

I frowned at her, and puzzled at her words. As if it was a necessity I had a sudden urge and I coughed at her lovely face. I couldn’t help it.

Her face became blank and pale as the cough glided gracefully past her cheek, her black hair swayed lightly by her ears. She blinked at me slowly and emotionlessly, as if I gave her a present from hell.

‘There it is, pretending to be dead...’ I pointed at the upside down creature a few yards away.

She stared at it.

I wasn’t sure how I was feeling. It was as if the world had confiscated your identity, and you now ceased to have feelings for anyone around you. Suddenly, there was no more hatred in the world. Everything you see will die from your memory, along with your own self – everything you were was but a cruel, meaningless dream. All your life, no matter what had you achieved, what qualifications, what fame, what riches... everything you had was but as unreal, as ethereal as life itself. What is life? What is death? You die, and people may speak of you in years to come. You die, and you may be remembered for the next fifty years or so – you would be forgotten sooner or later, mentioned no more as if you had never existed. It didn't matter what you did with your life. When it came to death you are but a dream. I had but three days to live, and I must try not to cough at people, and to spend my last days isolated. No friend, family or relatives would dare to visit me...

It felt as if everything I ever was was leaving me...

At this moment my sister gave a slow sigh – she left the bed and on her way she grabbed her favorite book. In one sickening crush she hit the demon spider with all the strength she had left. Ruthlessly. Determinedly.

I stared at the black grease on the back of her book.

‘You're not...afraid?’ Overwhelmed, I asked with uncertainty and a shaking voice.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:31 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:18:01 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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‘I'm dying anyway, aren't I?’ She replied as she returned my gaze. There was no smile in her eyes; there was not a sign of life in her face – only a blank look that seemed to say, ‘Might as well be useful. Nothing matters now, does it?’

I was not comforted by her bravery. I was about to die and I brought her down with me. I was ashamed. Perhaps she prevented further deaths of other unfortunate people that day, by killing this creature. I didn't care. It was not fair. It shouldn’t have to be me. Death was for those on the news – on TV only. I will soon die and I will watch myself become nothing...ever since birth I was bound to meet this end, sooner or later. What difference could I make?

It was hard to let yourself die in this way, isolated, when you don’t even want to die. I didn't deserve to die. I had but forced a spider out of its own home. I had but perhaps wronged a few people in my life. Who hadn’t? And then I felt like a total coward, unable to face death when I wonder how everybody else before me managed to die. I was different – I didn't want to die.

Did anyone?

It was the truth and it was hard to convince myself that my life had been nothing – it meant nothing. My sister and I would fade like all the others before us, and we would never appear again in the world – all this in our minds. We were silent, sitting on my sister’s bed, while we cuddled each other in the sake of death.

~~End~~

12-Feb-2011 16:29:32 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:18:40 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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Notes on Nightmare

This was perhaps the first piece of creative writing I had done that was not also an English assignment for years, and the inspiration, or rather, the urge to write this down was completely because of a dream that I thought I shouldn’t forget, the dream that was outlined above in the story.

In a very interesting way, I’ve never had to confront my own mortality in a dream before. And why was I crying at the end of it, when I asked myself, if I were to die tomorrow, what would I miss?

As dark as it may be, it also featured things that didn't make sense, because it was naturally, a dream, stories made up as it goes along. The introduction with the primary school kid was added as an after-thought, however. And after my sister’s read it she said she definitely couldn’t do what she did in the story

As a work itself I began to include a bit more ‘action’ in the story, using different sentence structures aside from just narrating a string of events in the past. But technically it sucked, characterisations were too obvious - it’s clear who the author wants you to like, and dislike.

With this however, I put creative writing aside for a few months, before returning to it again later that academic year before the exams.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:32 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:31:26 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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~~Market~~

(May 2007)

The intense smells of decaying animals, year-old filth and dirt are almost unbearable for the inexperienced market shoppers. Dead, hairy pigs are hanged upside down in the butcher's, their teeth bloodied and they swing loosely with the slightest movement of air around them. The shopkeeper - a widow in rough working robes, bloodied apron and golden teeth, asks you, 'Sausage...?'

The vegetable store next to the butcher's isn't much better. Some green lettuces has fallen off the display and people walk on them with little concern over the crops. The shopkeeper then gives the muddy lettuces a light wipe with her sleeves and are placed on display again. There are chattering and people hoping for a bargain on some Turnips that are somehow already licked by several hungry flies and insect during the day. By 12 o'clock the mid-day sun boils the place ruthlessly, the smell of sweat of a thousand people is added to the original smell of mud patches and the slime probably under your shoe.

'Despicable environment for trading,' mutters the fat-looking health-inspector but the public don't seem to mind much - at least not the experienced shoppers, they put up with anything. A woman with long brown hair screams and complains to her husband someone intentionally breaks her toe-nail by standing on it. The fight is quickly put down of course by the policeman who arrives 5 minutes later.

A little girl with a red balloon in her hand cries as a dead chicken falls from the hanging rod in the poultry shop, apparently the tie is too lose and the girl weeps over a ball of white feathers. Her mother - with a pair of thick glasses picks her up and give her a hug, reassuring her that she will have the best birthday ever.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:32 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:30:25 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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The pool of vomit on the floor stenches the whole alley like a skunk would when you squeeze its tail hard. Examining it closely you will find the diseased tomatoes on display are to blame. The live-geese in the poultry shop are sneezing like failed engines, most of them looks at the bloodied knife...born to die.

'Er...thanks,' as a young looking man purchased the best-looking onions from the vegetable store, the shopkeepers in the market freezes. Soon the young man is just another one of their victim, crush to death by forty widows, all with rough working robes and bloodied aprons - crowding up on him like ants seizing on a fallen butterfly; presenting him with all their stock they have on display, shouting their prices and deals and offers until the tiny shrieking voice is no longer heard from within the growing crowd.

~~End~~

12-Feb-2011 16:29:32 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:30:57 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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Notes on Market

Perhaps the first timed assessment I completed. It was on one of these mock English papers that we were asked to describe, in 45 minutes, a market. It wasn’t a bad effort at the time, because English was still foreign to me and so naturally description is my weakness because of my limited vocabulary. And I did*’t have a habit of reading.

The aim of this was to describe a scene without introducing a narrative, events or a story. Just people getting on with their lives and perhaps a hint of some back-story, but never obvious. I found that extremely difficult.

Like all my early works, despite the intention was to disgust readers, it was blunt and obvious the way I carried them out. I was asked to describe, and I did, without being creative about it, or at least, couldn’t be. But forcing so much description out of myself was a push already at the time, and so I have continued to improve on my description since.

As for the ending, it came out of nowhere, but I opted to have a Dr Who style ending, which would generate impact to end the whole thing. This perhaps creates a stepping stone for the series of Dark Stories later.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:33 - Last edited on 26-Feb-2011 13:38:00 by Englishkid62

Englishkid62

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~~Understanding~~

(June 2007)

Hi, future me. I’m feeling really bad at the moment because of my dad. I don’t understand him. I am fourteen this year and I don’t understand why my dad won’t let me tan myself or dye my hair brown. I don’t understand why my life was never really my decision – and I hate him for it.

I hated the fact that I got his attention whenever I turned my head to another direction, like I was all-so-special. He would smile and ask, 'Want something?’ Sometimes he would even miss his train to work just to get me a glass of water or a packet of crisps that I had every ability to reach it for myself. He would make up half of the applause in my awards-ceremonies and would congratulate me endlessly for the next whole week – just because he loved me. He would sit down next to me and explain my homework in such detail that solving quadratic equations would’ve seemed easy to an average eleven years old.

I hated the way he always treated me like I was still three years old. On average he gave me two to three hugs a day depending on his mood and he never got bored of cuddling me or patting me gently on the head, sometimes messing with my short, blond hair. I didn't like any of it. Being a teenager I wanted to get away from him as far as I could whenever he tried to hug me – but I couldn’t. He held me really tight, as if I was the very air he breathed. I wanted to tell him to let me go but I never did - NOT because I was scared of him.

12-Feb-2011 16:29:41 - Last edited on 05-Mar-2011 13:18:40 by Englishkid62

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~~English's Forgotten Tales~~

English's Forgotten Tales