forums.rs

Forums

Darkest Secrets—Story Contest

Quick find code: 49-50-523-63770340

of 26
[#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

Posts: 341 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
#December 30, 1944
I rose early in the morning and dressed hastily. After packing my belongings into my suitcase, I walked out to get something for breakfast. The waitress brought me my food – eggs and sausage. I picked at it, but realized I couldn’t eat and left the plate mostly untouched. I checked my watch. The train would be leaving in an hour. I walked down to the station to wait.
As I stepped on board, I gave a sigh of relief. A Gestapo officer had been poking around the waiting area and gotten a little too close for comfort. To him, I was just one more faceless civilian, but there was always a chance something would give me away…
I found my seat and tucked my luggage into the overhead compartment. Just as I was settling into my seat, I looked up and my blood ran cold. The Gestapo man was boarding the train as well, casting appraising looks over the passengers. Occasionally, he would stop to ask a question. I tried to look as insignificant as possible.
My efforts were in vain. The officer stopped and glared suspiciously at me.
“I am looking for a soldier by the name of Otto Stahler. He has deserted. Do you perhaps have any information?”
I tried to let just enough of my fear show that he would be convinced that I was only a citizen nervous that he was being interrogated, but with nothing to hide. In response, I only shook my head and averted my eyes. The officer scowled and paused for a moment, but turned and moved on.
I did not relax until he left the car and the train lumbered out of the station.
I arrived in Emden about midday. Walking purposefully through the streets, I found the building I was searching for and entered. Inside, several men sat at a dusky bar, drinking themselves into a stupor. The woman behind the bar caught my eye briefly, before walking into a back room. I sat at a table for a moment, reading a copy of the newspaper, before rising and moving toward the bathrooms.

29-Jun-2012 03:22:01 - Last edited on 29-Jun-2012 03:24:05 by [#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

Posts: 341 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The woman caught me as soon as I was out of sight of the customers in the front of the building. I did not know her real name, only that she was another British agent under the cover name of Carla Schulfelder. “Did you find anything?” She asked. I only nodded and handed her the report I had written. Carla would radio it to England before destroying it. “This is big. It needs to go out *now*.*
Her face turned pale, and she copied my nod. Silently, she went deeper into the building to send the message, and I returned to the bar. I would need a drink myself.
#January 1, 1945
Once again, I stood in the same bar. This time, it was even less busy, having seen a mass of people late the previous night celebrating the New Year, even though there seemed to be little about it worth celebrating. Maybe being alive was enough. In any case, the usual customers were sleeping off hangovers instead of acquiring them, and probably spent all of their money the previous night.
I walked up to the bar and ordered a drink from Carla. There was only one other person at the bar, and he seemed to be asleep. He would intermittently wake up, take a few swigs of beer, mutter to himself, and go back to sleep. Carla spoke to me directly at the bar.
“They’ve recalled us.”
“Figured,” I replied. “I thought they’d want to see the pictures for themselves before they acted. When?”
“Two days from now, at 0130. Come here a half hour before that, I’ll take you to the pick-up point. A destroyer will send a boat in, and she*ll take us back across the channel.”
I threw the tankard back, finishing off the stout and thinking how much I would miss it. Without another word, I left the dark little room. As I stepped back into the light, I saw soldiers patrolling. Civilians walking up and down the street seemed to avoid them, as if they could be arrested simply for getting too close. *That,* I thought, *I will most definitely not miss.*

29-Jun-2012 03:22:09 - Last edited on 29-Jun-2012 03:24:45 by [#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

Posts: 341 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
#January 6, 1945
Prime Minister Winston Churchill watched the agent leave his office. He cradled his head in his hands. It was almost too much to take in. Looking up, he lifted the pictures and shuffled through them. They were blurred and grainy, but it was clear that the object was nothing from this world. The very possibility that the Nazis could get their hands on some sort of alien super-technology was the stuff of nightmares, and yet it was real.
He called for his secretary to get him the RAF Director of Bombing Operations, Air Commodore Bufton.
This information, he decided, must never be allowed to get out. The Germans were keeping it secret, or at least trying to, for obvious reasons. If it ever got out to the Allies, though…Military and civilian morale would plummet. The populace would be clamoring for peace, and Parliament would insist that he open negotiations with ******. That outcome was unacceptable. It would waste the deaths of every soldier who had died fighting the Nazis, and probably end with the fall of the free world in five, maybe ten more years, after ****** got these weapons fully operational. He resolved to destroy all documents, as soon as…
His secretary interrupted his thoughts. “The Air Commodore is here to see you, Prime Minister.”
Churchill waved him in. The man stood rigidly at attention before speaking. “You wanted to see me, sir?*
*Yes, Sydney. Please, sit down.* Churchill waited as the man sat. “I have a target for your bombers, and it is imperative that it be destroyed.” With that, he laid out what the agent had found…and how critical secrecy of the real purpose of the raids was.
On February 13, 1945, the first Allied heavy bombers took off from England, loaded with incendiaries and conventional bombs. The crews never knew that they had been lied to about the primary target located in the city.
By February 15, the city of Dresden, Germany lay in charred ruins.
END STORY.

29-Jun-2012 03:22:19 - Last edited on 29-Jun-2012 03:25:16 by [#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

[#9TN07P1F6]

Posts: 341 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Just in time!
HISTORICAL NOTE: In case anyone does not know, the city of Dresden was bombed by conventional (high explosive) and incendiary bombs Feb. 13-15 1945 by Allied bombers in WWII. The attacks resulted in high civilian casualties and extreme controversy after the war. According to W*kipedia, the official target was industry, as well as communication and transportation networks. However, some areas that contained these targets were not bombed, and some areas that contained no apparent target were. In all honesty, it was probably just human error, but for dramatic purposes I ran with the idea that there was another target there that was kept secret.

29-Jun-2012 03:29:47 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2012 15:39:26 by [#9TN07P1F6]

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Nice entries Sir and Yrolg and others. I hope that we'll get a few more.
Nice to see so many diverse entries. Well, since I noticed so many good stories, I decided to pop my own in to ruin the atmosphere. This is a retype of the story for the Halloween SC, the one I made a big issue about a year ago. I did not include a few things in the retype that I felt were too grotesque and inappropriate, but I'm still nervous about this.
Kinda feels cowardly and ironic to be posting my own story, but at the same time it also feels like a kind of repentance. I certainly won't make an issue this time, and I won't bother anyone with my blah blah blahs either, they're not important. If the story is off-putting and does not make a smile, then it's more than fair to judge it so considering the issues I sparked. I did not proofread the story, so there are avenues for criticism.
The story is 9,974 characters long with spaces, of that there are 1,748 words. It is stretched to six posts to prevent breaking sentences.
The story is titled "Mundus est Diabolis", I'm not sure if it's supposed to be included or not though. My entry is a surreal short story, so it may not be easy to find co-ordination to the contest's theme at first glance, but there are multiple points that illustrate the secret, its discovery, and its consequence.
Ok, here I go, y9u5mwj8i

29-Jun-2012 07:31:31

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
There was once a time when human beings lived in harmony. Without a doubt, they lived perfect lives, a life with no fears and no worries. Everyone was ugly, and in his or her ugliness, they had no reason to strive for perfection. In this, they were happy to be amongst their own hideousness.
During this time, there was once a great metropolis, with skyscrapers, theatres, coliseums and all the panoply of civilisation and enjoyment. This metropolis was an absolute forest of concrete, a skeleton of metal and technology. Now, the Neanderthals have long abandoned the city, though even in their absence the place continues to portray all the signs of enjoyment, for technology decrees that electronic pleasure can continue to work without navigators, and in this the civilisation of artificial people excel.

The night sky was as black as ever, and despite the sun beneath the clouds, no light was shining over the city. Somewhere in this great city was a church, one of many, its exterior decorated to the extremes, with gold and diamonds etched into the frame of religion. The holy building was open for any and for all to achieve eternal salvation, doors wide open to embrace anyone with a thought to enter.
Inside the church was emptiness. There were no pews, no altar, no people; it was a shell, the interior nothing but old, cracked wood and cobwebs dangling over blank stain-glass windows, even the creators of the webs, the spiders, died in their own nets, the patient hope of catching fish vain and useless.

Fortunately, there was a judge in one of the corners. This judge was a just man, and had decided the fate of many defendants. Many had met the death penalty in his name, and all those who had died hated the judge. In his home, the judge was a man who had beaten his twelve husbands to death, and on the road, he intentionally and legally caused accidents. He was a man who played with life and judged the lives of his fellow men.

29-Jun-2012 07:31:50

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Many times his actions caused the arrest of lawbreakers, and witnesses would stare at the lowlifes becoming arrested by policemen, hoping that the officers would simply shoot the parasites to prove their loyalty to the judge.
But the judge was now passed his zenith upon seeing himself in a mirror, and to hide himself, he wore a white mask made of paper, which was wet by his tears. He now sat in a coffin, back leaning over one end, legs spread apart over the sides, and he held a razor in one hand. He would place the razor near his groin and then slide the blade upward, and it cut through his black uniform, skin and flesh.
He continued sliding the razor upward until he cut his stomach open vertically. Blood soon began to fill the coffin. The judge needed a break, so he lowered his arms that soon began shaking uncontrollably, blood dripping form the razor, and the judge looking around as some blood began to leak out his mouth, some of the drops falling into his opened belly. He stared blankly towards the ceiling, mouth opening and closing repeatedly, teeth clicking against one another.
He continued cutting himself apart, until a slurry of organs appeared, bulging out in a nest of meaty tubes. He continued cutting nonetheless, blade slicing through the guts, which spilt undigested food as if the intestines were making a bowel movement, both items plopping to the bottom of the coffin where the puddle of blood was.
The judge, still shaking uncontrollable, dropped his razor, and then looked down upon his work. Arms weak, he put his hands beneath the pile of guts, fingers seeping through the lengths of fleshy pipes, and he lifted it up above his face. He stared into his work, his masterpieces, the sliced organs sliding to the sides and dripping down.
Watching his shiny and shimmering innards, he splashed the contents into his face, pushing his hands into his mouth and he began to eat his intestines, mask also having been pushed into his jaws.

29-Jun-2012 07:32:17

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
He closed his mouth and pulled his guts down, hands clasped and stretching guts from his teeth until they broke apart. The judge swallowed and then continued eating his mask and guts, and inevitably died.

The coffin began to shake, breaking apart until two arms appeared, shooting out of the bottom of it. A pregnant woman had emerged, pushing herself out of the coffin and the man's body, corpse and casket bursting apart; the coffin had given birth violently.
The newborn pregnant woman crawled out of the coffin, covered with blood and loose organs. Some of the cavemen returned from their hiatus unexpectedly. They entered the church and grabbed the woman, dragging her onto the streets where they began to break and dismember her. When they had finished, they dragged her limbless torso down the highway, leaving behind them streaks of blood and red footprints.

Sometime later, they arrived upon another church, identical to the first, which they went into. Inside were numerous women, all of them missing legs and arms, strewn across the floor. At the centre of the church was a large cauldron above a fire, filled with blood that was beginning to boil. A female devil had been crucified against the wall.
The cavemen spread out and began cutting the women's stomachs open vertically, pulling the two halves apart to the sides so that they could grab the unborn creatures or the foetuses inside. Plucking the umbilical cords off, they tossed the tubes to the side and then carried the unborn babies or foetuses to the centre of the church, tossing the objects into the cauldron of boiling blood.
The cavewomen appeared, running to the cauldron and gathering around it, staring at the cooking items with such feeling that many began to weep with joy. Most of the cavewomen were pregnant, and so they took turns standing atop the cauldron in pairs, face to face, feet sizzling against the rim, and they gave birth in that position.

29-Jun-2012 07:32:39

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
More babies plopping into the pot, the young flesh was beginning to overflow. Some of the cavewomen died during their labour, but they passed away happily.

By the end of the day, when the cauldron's contents were thoroughly cooked, the men and women of the cave left their home and searched the city. Amidst silence and the aroma of boiled flesh, the devil nailed to the wall regained consciousness after an eternity's sleep. Noticing her situation, she pulled her arms from the walls, flesh ripping from the nails.
She had not realised her feet were also nailed, and with arms free, her body bent over, face and horns striking the floor. She crawled like an animal, feeling the nails in her feet pluck out her bones and flesh. Now free, she clawed her way across the floor, the smell from the pot a peculiar sweetness for her nostrils.
She reached the cauldron and picked herself up, leaning over the rim of the pot, palms burning, and she looked into the food. The foetuses were mostly translucent, faceless faces staring back up at her. In a fit of rage, she overturned the cauldron, the stew splashing over the floor. She then left the church.
She had not seen the outside world since the city was a straw village, and the concrete jungle was quite a shock for her. She wandered throughout the city based upon what she remembered, and stumbled upon the first church. She went inside, noticing the judge's corpse. She thought about how she overturned the cauldron, and decided to do the same to the coffin.
Coffin and corpse rolling over, lid closing and trapping the judge in his jail, the devil noticed something that was under the casket, a mirror. The mirror was large and triangular, simply a sheet of reflective glass. Being female, she grasped the ghost, lifted it, and looked at herself, for catoptrophobia did not affect her.
She liked what she saw, she somewhat of a narcissist, and realised that the mirror showed her what she had done in life.

29-Jun-2012 07:33:00

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Much attracted to her image, she left the church and returned to the second one. Upon her arrival, the cave dwellers were already inside, surrounding the fallen cauldron and mourning over their loss.
Chuckling about the sight, the devil outstretched her arms, mirror facing the creatures. The cavemen and cavewomen eventually noticed and they gazed into the mirror. The mirror showed to them their ways and cruelty. The power of the reflective lens revealed their sins so that all the dwellers could see and understand their own sins, as well as the sins of their companions.
Mesmerized, the dwellers did not notice that the fire was building all this time, and the flames rushed through the dry building. The church erupted into an inferno, setting alight all within the structure. The devil, which was used to the flames of hell, was unaffected. She left the church while the fire consumed those inside.
She still had her mirror though, and decided to visit all the churches in the city. She saw many acts of evils, such as people tied into an X upside-down and then sawed in half vertically, from the groin down to the neck, or victims being disembowelled before a fire so that their guts were licked by the flames. Others were impaled by multiple poles and then put on fire, and some were crushed by oversized bracelets they wore which never ceased tightening.
And every time the devil used the mirror to reveal the peoples' sins to them, and then destroyed their church with flames. However, the inferno grew wildly suddenly and covered the whole city, coating the entire skeleton of concrete with flashing red teeth.

The sight of the great flames was an eternal beauty for the devil. The echo of sinners' suffering was legendary, even for hell, and this was beyond heaven for the devil. Amidst the hell on Earth, like a tiny candle in the midst of a field of darkness, the flames dancing about playfully, the devil looked at herself in the mirror.

29-Jun-2012 07:33:21

Quick find code: 49-50-523-63770340 Back to Top