skonen_blades (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skonen_blades) wrote2008-01-26 01:19 pm
skonen_blades) wrote2008-01-26 01:19 pm
Rising
The port was crowded with the usual stinking mélange of homeless adults, orphaned children, prostitutes, dockworkers and sailors.
It reeked of seaweed and pungent flesh.
Every once in a while, a man with a clean suit and walking stick of one sort or another would come down, holding a handkerchief to his nose, and check on his investments. These men braved the stench of everyday life before hurriedly concluding their business and leaving. They never returned, trusting these duties to their manservants after that first visit.
“Got to have a hand in.” they probably thought as their carriage made their way to the docks.
Some captain-of-industry’s son, no doubt, thinking that money or not, he still had a connection with the people. It was highly amusing to us. We would see these men coming a mile away and take bets on how long they would last and whether or not they would notice, before they left the dock, that they had been pickpocketed.
All manner of shipping containers came through this dock, some with no identifying markers. The dock was as lively by day as it was by night. A lot of greasy money changed hands on the floor in the darkness. Cops were paid, politicians were paid, guards were paid, captains were paid, and collectors and/or traffickers of valuable merchandise that wanted no questions asked were satisfied.
It wasn’t unusual to have greedy third parties end up in the drink, their bodies crushed silently between the giant ships, gurgling as the dank salt water rushed in through their slit throats and the gulls screeched hungry cries in circles above them.
Murders aplenty, secrets abounding, and a complete lack of morals. Anything could happen here. There was no law. It was the asshole of the city. There was a loose code of honour between the guild generals but for the most part, the weak died down here and the powers that ran the rest of the city turned a blind eye.
I supposed it was this kind of diseased social system that let Them invade. At first, we thought maybe it was an outbreak of leprosy. A few new people dressed with rags over their face and stinking more than usual.
Then a few more.
After a week, we noticed that half of the seagulls were gone and there were no rats.
Then a few more.
It took a week before we were sure of it and by then it was too late. It hadn’t happened during out lifetimes but there were writings and myths and bedtime stories passed down. Emergency manuals of sorts of what to do in case they rose again.
I remember grabbing one of the people dressed in rags. I tore off her head covering and the eyes of an octopus glared back at me. Air ventricles quivered above a human mouth. The stench was half human and half marine animal. The human mouth tried to speak to me but nothing came out except for bubbling salt water.
I felt the tentacles wrap around my arm. I jerked back and started hacking.
I’d recognized the lips. It was little Sarah Mulligan from Northdock. The fish-change was upon us.
Within a day, all of those that had been affected were dead and thrown into the ocean. The infection never reached the city, thank the gods, but our population had been cut in half.
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It reeked of seaweed and pungent flesh.
Every once in a while, a man with a clean suit and walking stick of one sort or another would come down, holding a handkerchief to his nose, and check on his investments. These men braved the stench of everyday life before hurriedly concluding their business and leaving. They never returned, trusting these duties to their manservants after that first visit.
“Got to have a hand in.” they probably thought as their carriage made their way to the docks.
Some captain-of-industry’s son, no doubt, thinking that money or not, he still had a connection with the people. It was highly amusing to us. We would see these men coming a mile away and take bets on how long they would last and whether or not they would notice, before they left the dock, that they had been pickpocketed.
All manner of shipping containers came through this dock, some with no identifying markers. The dock was as lively by day as it was by night. A lot of greasy money changed hands on the floor in the darkness. Cops were paid, politicians were paid, guards were paid, captains were paid, and collectors and/or traffickers of valuable merchandise that wanted no questions asked were satisfied.
It wasn’t unusual to have greedy third parties end up in the drink, their bodies crushed silently between the giant ships, gurgling as the dank salt water rushed in through their slit throats and the gulls screeched hungry cries in circles above them.
Murders aplenty, secrets abounding, and a complete lack of morals. Anything could happen here. There was no law. It was the asshole of the city. There was a loose code of honour between the guild generals but for the most part, the weak died down here and the powers that ran the rest of the city turned a blind eye.
I supposed it was this kind of diseased social system that let Them invade. At first, we thought maybe it was an outbreak of leprosy. A few new people dressed with rags over their face and stinking more than usual.
Then a few more.
After a week, we noticed that half of the seagulls were gone and there were no rats.
Then a few more.
It took a week before we were sure of it and by then it was too late. It hadn’t happened during out lifetimes but there were writings and myths and bedtime stories passed down. Emergency manuals of sorts of what to do in case they rose again.
I remember grabbing one of the people dressed in rags. I tore off her head covering and the eyes of an octopus glared back at me. Air ventricles quivered above a human mouth. The stench was half human and half marine animal. The human mouth tried to speak to me but nothing came out except for bubbling salt water.
I felt the tentacles wrap around my arm. I jerked back and started hacking.
I’d recognized the lips. It was little Sarah Mulligan from Northdock. The fish-change was upon us.
Within a day, all of those that had been affected were dead and thrown into the ocean. The infection never reached the city, thank the gods, but our population had been cut in half.
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but i am a metal one.
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sounds like a band name!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_(zodiac)
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Not by the HAAAIIIIR on my chinny chinny CHIIIIIIN!!! (wicked guitar solo)
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oh man! i want to be in that band!!
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mercury? is that a metal? a mental?
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i did not know anything about that.
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chippy and mouthy. as usual.
hey! that sounds like moi!
Re: chippy and mouthy. as usual.
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Pocket-protected scientists built a wall of iron and crashed a diamond car into it at 400 miles per hour, and the car was unharmed.
They then built a wall out of diamond and crashed a car made of iron moving at 400 miles an out into the wall, and the wall came out fine.
They then crashed a diamond car made of 400 miles per hour into a wall, and there were no survivors.
They crashed 400 miles per hour into a diamond traveling at iron car. Western New York was powerless for hours.
They rammed a wall of metal into a 400 mile per hour made of diamond, and the resulting explosion shifted the earth's orbit 400 million miles away from the sun, saving the earth from a meteor the size of a small Washington suburb that was hurtling towards midwestern Prussia at 400 billion miles per hour.
They shot a diamond made of iron at a car moving at 400 walls per hour, and as a result caused two wayward airplanes to lose track of their bearings, and make a fatal crash with two buildings in downtown New York.
They spun 400 miles at diamond into iron per wall. The results were inconclusive.
Finally, they placed 400 diamonds per hour in front of a car made of wall traveling at miles, and the result proved without a doubt that diamonds were the hardest metal of all time, if not just the hardest metal known the man.
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