A taste of things to come

[RpTheHotrod]

I've been working on a personal project for awhile now, and I figured I might as well leak a little scrapbook writing I did for it. Let me know what y'all think!

This is a scrapbook writing...which means it really hasn't been proofread or anything. I'm just tossing this out there for now to get some opinions.

Thanks!

*** Scrapbook Writing 1 ***


The moonlight covered the empty streets as the city slept. Curfew was in effect. Down every alley, down every street, and around every corner not a single person could be found. There was no traffic, and the only sound heard throughout the cold corridors of concrete and metal was the eerie wind. It was night time. With all the lights still on, everyone was safe from dark sickness while being asleep indoors in the residential areas throughout the city.

The silence was then broken by the sounds of the patrol trucks as they each came to a stop to their assigned sectors. The doors of the trucks opened and the night patrols exited with their gear already prepped. Five armed troopers checked each other’s armor to ensure the internal lights were fully functional before setting out on their patrol. These patrols were not meant to be subtle or sneak around, as the lights peaking out of the armor cracks between joints gave their position away from a good distance.

As the patrol moved out on foot, they carefully watched every street and checked every corner of their sector. As they went along, they placed scanner posts in line with previous scanners set. Bene, one of the patrolmen, looked around nervously.

“Have any of you guys ever actually seen an Ekrahd while out on patrol?” he asked.

The other four patrolmen stopped and look at him. The leading officer finally spoke up and asked, “You’re fresh out of the academy, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir, I am.” Bene looked back at them as if he had said something wrong.

“Look kid, Ekrahd is their ‘official and scientific’ name.” with obvious sarcasm in his voice. “Out here on patrol, we just call ‘em Darklings.” He paused. “…and yes, we‘ve seen them. Just keep your wits about you and you’ll do fine. They are normally just stragglers. It’s not too often we see them in packs. Those are the ones you have to watch out for.” Bene did not feel any more confident.

“All right men, let’s get these scanners online and see what’s out here.” The team lead dropped down on one knee and began unpacking some gear. “I’m going to set up the grid now. Johnson, give me a hand here.” One of the patrolmen put away their weapon and began bringing each scanner, one by one, online. The other three patrolmen stood guard.
“Hey, kid…relax…I don’t want you getting us killed.”

Bene looked at the fellow patrolman in response. “I’ll feel a lot better once we get those scanners online. I feel like we’re sitting ducks out here.” Bene readied his rifle again and carefully kept watch.

“Okay! Scanner 5A online…5B…5C…5D…and 5E are online. I’m not seeing any movement other than us.” Bene gave a quite sigh of relief.

“This is squad five. Our sector’s scanners are up for the night. We’re currently reporting no movement in the area. We’re moving to the residential sector.” The patrol grouped back up and continued on their patrol.

As the patrol continued, one of the devices the lead patrolman carried started to give off a persistent sound that would echo every few seconds as if it was alerting the team.

Johnson quickly but quietly spoke up, “Hey guys, we have movement up ahead. Keep your eyes peeled.” Everyone raised their weapons ready to fire and quickly moved towards the source of the reading.

“Stop, get to the wall!” the leading patrolman whispered. “Up ahead, right there…” Off in the distance, someone was scrounging through something on the ground. “That’s no Darkling.”

Johnson replied with a sound of concern in his voice, “Who would be crazy enough to be out here in the dark? There’s barely any light in this area. Might be a rebel.”

The officer in charge continued where Johnson left off. “Yeah, and he’s just on the outer perimeter of the scanners. If he goes any further, he’ll be out of sensor range.” Hearing that, all five of the men prepped for a rush.

The officer in charge readied his weapon. “On three. One…two…three!”

Without warning, all five of the men jumped around the corner and opened fire towards the lone person. As the area lit up from the sparks of the bullets, the target quickly ran as fast as he could. “He’s making a run for it through the alley! Centre, we are in pursuit of someone out at curfew. It’s a possible rebel!” Four of them rushed forward, while Bene covered their flanks. The target darted in and out of alleyways in his best effort to escape the patrol. The man leading the charge shouted, “Keep your eyes and ears open for any more of them. He’s out of sensor range. We don’t know where he’s headed!” Turning another corner, the patrol came to a sudden dead end.

“Where did he go?” shouted Johnson.

Bene heard an unfamiliar sound of rustling, scratches, and clicking. “Uh, Sir, I think there’s something here.” Bene slowly backed up wiping the sweat from off his face and hastily got into a sloppy defensive position.

The team lead grabbed an extra sensor. “Johnson, set this thing up quick. Don’t waste any time.” Johnson quickly deployed sensor 5F and stood back up. “Centre, this is Squad 5 team lead. We’re picking up several contacts outside of our main scanner perimeter. They are moving too fast to be rebels.”

The radio crackled to life, “We hear you. Activate SensorVid visuals. You have enough sensors to determine exact positions. Out.”

Each patrolman flipped down a visor over their eyes to be able to clearly see what was coming at them. “There’s so many of them…” whispered Bene as he continued to slowly back up.

“Centre, we are far outnumbered by Darklings. We need assistance right now!” From every corridor of the alley, the grotesque creatures of the night, looking more like rotting corpses than living creatures, started to crawl towards the patrol, giving off growls and screams as they do just before a kill.

“Open fire!” The night lit up bright as the barrels of the guns grew bright red, and the silence broke with the ripping sound of bullets flying through the air. As they concentrated their attention from in front and behind, a Darkling jumped down from above and grabbed one of the men, quickly dragging him a bit of a ways from the others.

“They’ve got Johnson! Shoot it!” Bene quickly steadied his hand with his sidearm and made a spectacular shot at his target’s head piercing the outer shell and lobbing inside of the brain. The creature went flying backwards onto the ground its body lying lifeless, but not before it was able to do some serious damage to Johnson’s suit. Johnson started to frantically flail around.

“His lights are offline! Get that armor off, quick! Someone keep a light on him! We need back up right now, Centre!” With one man down, and Bene trying to keep light on Johnson, the remaining three stood their ground in defense. As more and more Ekrahd crawled out their hiding places, it was only a matter of moments before the silence of the night returned after the patrol team, battered and broken, was completely overwhelmed.

Just off in the distance, the a figure hiding among the buildings looked back one last time to ensure it was safe before continuing on, jumping from light to light, to deliver a message of great importance for his cause. He was taking a great risk traveling at night, but he had no choice. He had to push forward.




*** Scrapbook Writing 2 ***

As he descended down the dimly lit stairwell, trying his best to ignore the stench and scrawled writings on the wall, the eerie claustrophobic feeling started to overtake him. It was as if the walls themselves were breathing loudly and were very displeased with his presence.

His foot came down at last onto the ground level. Strangely enough, it was dead silent once he moved away from the stairs. Ahead of him was nothing but a dark void that chilled him to the bone. He attempted to use the small light he had with him, but the darkness itself seemed to engulf its radiance. Clearly, the light was not nearly enough to keep him safe. He moved his hand along the wall as he hoped to find any type of light source while keeping just enough light on his hand to keep him protected. Feeling something slightly extruding out of the wall, he pushed in and heard a distance sound of what sounded like sudden thunder down the corridor. For every echoed sound, a ceiling light revealed itself closer and closer to his location. After but a moment, the entire corridor was lit up. The underground passage appeared as if it would go on forever - a maze going to wherever one might need to go. These were the tunnels the people of the city would use to go about their business when the rare event of the acidic rain would come to their grand city.

As the surface was no longer safe for him, he stepped forward into the corridor. As the lights flickered, he could merely hope that the lights would maintain themselves long enough for him to safely pass through the tunnel network. If they were to fail, his only hope was the small light he had on his person - a hope that would fail to keep him alive.

[MrWally]

Looks pretty good so far, especially for a first draft!

I like the way you introduced the name of the first squadmember, Johnson, but I felt as if when Bene was introduced I should have already known who he was. Does that make any sense? I think it's because the first name is given through dialogue and the second is made known to the reader by the narrator. I'm not sure if this is a big deal or not, but it caused me to stop and reread to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Secondly, you describe the Darklings as "grotesque creatures of the night", and maybe this was a specific choice on your part, but it would be nice if the reader has at least an inkling of what they look like. You said that they crawled toward the patrol, which is pretty good, but a touch more would have been nice--even if only briefly mentioning color or size.

I wish you would describe the "spectacular shot" (again, even if only briefly), instead of just saying how great it was.

Those are all just nitpickings, though. I like it! I especially like the first two paragraphs and the closing. You do a good job of bringing out the mystery and establishing the tone early on. It reads like a short story, though. I don't know if this is the intent, but there's just something about it that doesn't seem quite "novel-esque"--not necessarily a bad thing.

Lastly, maybe it's just me, but I hurts my head (especially with a widescreen monitor >.> to read it without paragraph breaks for dialogue. But again, that's just a minor thing that can easily be fixed

I'd like to see where this goes!

[RpTheHotrod]

I'm looking for nitpicking

I wrote this while at work >_< so was kind of rushed, lol. As I was driving home, I was thinking that I should have described the Ekrahd (Darklings) in more detail.

This is kind of in the middle of the overall story, so by then some of these characters/ideas would be more common knowledge. Instead of writing from beginning to end, I figured...why not write scenarios, then write from beginning to end while filling in scenarios that fit the current timeline.

I'll definitely consider your opinions

[RpTheHotrod]

As he descended down the dimly lit stairwell, trying his best to ignore the stench and scrawled writings on the wall, the eerie claustrophobic feeling started to overtake him. It was as if the walls themselves were breathing loudly and were very displeased with his presence.

His foot came down at last onto the ground level. Strangely enough, it was dead silent once he moved away from the stairs. Ahead of him was nothing but a dark void that chilled him to the bone. He attempted to use the small light he had with him, but the darkness itself seemed to engulf its radiance. Clearly, the light was not nearly enough to keep him safe. He moved his hand along the wall as he hoped to find any type of light source while keeping just enough light on his hand to keep him protected. Feeling something slightly extruding out of the wall, he pushed in and heard a distance sound of what sounded like sudden thunder down the corridor. For every echoed sound, a ceiling light revealed itself closer and closer to his location. After but a moment, the entire corridor was lit up. The underground passage appeared as if it would go on forever - a maze going to wherever one might need to go. These were the tunnels the people of the city would use to go about their business when the rare event of the acidic rain would come to their grand city.

As the surface was no longer safe for him, he stepped forward into the corridor. As the lights flickered, he could merely hope that the lights would maintain themselves long enough for him to safely pass through the tunnel network. If they were to fail, his only hope was the small light he had on his person - a hope that would fail to keep him alive.

[RpTheHotrod]

Excuse formatting issues. Copy and pasting from Word.

Remember that people get sick and quickly die if in darkness too long.


==============================================

“Daniel, be careful!” Jennifer said with caution in her voice.

“Yeah, when there’s a big pit of dark doom right in front of me, I think I’ll consider being careful.” Daniel remarked without even looking at her.

With plenty of sunlight left in the day, the team, consisting of Daniel, Jennifer, Connor, and two other men, assembled together in the Deadzone where the scar of the ground had been found the previous day. The opening was just wide enough to fit an average sized man through, but its length extended to be about eighteen feet. Nothing could be seen when one were to look into it, as the thick darkness hid any light that might find its way in.

After peering down into the void, one of the team members spoke up. “You think there’s anything down there?”

Daniel took out his flash light and tried to see if anything of interest might be found. After giving it some thought, Daniel replied, “I’m not really sure. The opening is large enough where anything small might have fallen in. I doubt anyone has been down there, though. It’s pretty dark.” He looked around and found a rock the size of his hand next to him. He picked the rock up and tossed it into the hole. After but a moment, the expected sound of rock hitting natural ground did not return. Instead, an echoed sound of something hard hitting metal was heard.

The team kneeled over perplexed wondering about what they just heard. Connor spoke up. “That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.”
Daniel peered in one more time and then put away his flashlight. “The light isn’t helping any. We’re definitely going to have to go down there.”

“I don’t understand why we don’t just head back into the city. It’s just a big hole in the ground.” Jennifer quickly responded. “Besides, it’s pitch black down there. Even with light equipment, there’s always a chance that something might happen and there’s no quick way out.”

Daniel started putting on some equipment that the team brought. “Well, that’s just a chance I’m going to have to take. Just a hole in the ground or not, there’s something down there not natural and I intend to find out what it is.”

The team had brought a modest amount of equipment and tools that were specifically designed to keep enough light on someone to keep them alive in even complete darkness. The equipment mostly consisted of transparent plastic tubes filled with a bright glowing blue liquid inside that wrapped around the person’s body. Among other items were other miscellaneous items such as flares and flash lights.

“Is everyone ready for this?” Daniel looked around and waited to see if there were any further objections, not that it would have mattered. “Connor, hook me up to the line.”

Connor fastened a thick metal wire that acted more like a rope around Daniel’s waste. The wire was attached to a pulley system so the team could let Daniel descend at a smooth pace and pull him up quickly if any trouble was to arise.

Daniel activated the equipment on him to ensure everything was running at optimal levels. Jennifer walked up and checked his harness. “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this?” Jennifer asked.

“Jenny, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. If we can survive the night patrols, I think we can survive a hole in the ground.” Daniel replied.

“All right, let’s go!” Daniel placed himself into position and prepared for his decent into the darkness below. The pulley system activated and you could hear a soft hum as the machine started to slowly lower Daniel into the pit.
The vibrant light of the sun slowly faded as Daniel began to descend into the darkness. The only light that existed in that dreadful place was the light from the crack above and from the light equipment on his person.

“Okay, that’s good for now!” The machine came to a stop. Daniel started to get nervous as he was hanging in a black void of darkness with just the minimum amount of light to keep him safe. He felt as if he was dangling in an unknown dimension of a lifeless void without emotions, reason, or purpose.
Jennifer kneeled down and shouted, “Do you see anything?”

“No, nothing! It’s completely dark down here.” His voice was heard loudly and quickly. Daniel took out his flash light, but it did him no good. “I’d say it’s a rather small area. I feel cramped for some reason, and that rock didn’t fall far when I tossed it in.”

“I don’t think there’s enough light giving off. I’m pulling out a charge.” Daniel pulled out a small charger unit that is designed to give off a burst of energy to anything electrical. As the charge went off, it made a loud cracking sound. As Daniel’s gear brightened up, he commented, “No echo. This place doesn’t tunnel too far away.”

As Daniel started maneuvering himself into a different position, he suddenly came to a dead stop. Just for a moment, there was complete silence. “I’m not alone down here.” Daniel said in a low but increasingly nervous voice.

“What? What is it?” Jennifer exclaimed.

“Just get me out of here! Pull me up!” Just off in the near distance Daniel saw a pair of red glowing eyes staring him down.

“Hold on Daniel, we’re bringing you up!” said Connor as he quickly switched the machine to its retrieval mode. A moment later the machine began to pull him up.

“Wait! Hold up, stop the machine!” Daniel shouted. The machine came to a sudden stop.

Highly concerned, Jennifer leaned down and shouted, “Are you sure? Are you okay?”

“It’s not coming after me. It’s not moving.” Daniel made sure to make as little motion as possible, but the presence off to the distance remained motionless. “Move me over towards this direction.” Daniel started to make a motion with his flash light.

The machine started to slowly move the line over towards the direction of the eyes. As Daniel got closer, he began to breathe heavier, his heart pumping with both fear and excitement. Daniel directed his flashlight towards what was staring him down.

“What…is this?”