Stars of Shareware: Animation & Sound/SOS-ANIM_SOUND.ISO/archiv/ice_0593.zip/LIT.ZIP/FT-SANC.LIT

Text File | 1993-03-18 | 12KB | 179 lines

   You open your eyes slowly, dreamily.  A dove perches just beside you.
You're compelled to smile; You're happy to be alive!  Your quickly fluttering
heart starts to slow.  The dove flies away.  You sit up, looking around you.
You see a light purple sky above you, bright with a white moon shining to
the north.  The dirt under your feet is a rust color, and you are covered
with it.  There are no trees, just low, radiant green bushes.  There is a
sense of music in the air.  A soft, lullaby-like melody permeating your soul.
You feel at peace, although you suddenly realize you don't know where you
are, or how you got here!  You appear to be in a stone quarry to the left
of a dirt road.  Your memory is foggy, but you remember enough to make you
want to live.  The dove circles above, almost dancing to the music.  A
slight hint of chanting comes from far away.  You look all around you,
and see such color.  Everything is so radically different from back home.
It suddenly hits you.

  You're a physicist.  Your group has been working in top-secret laboratories
in Southern California, on a project highly classified.  Quantum physics.
You were not playing with time travel; this was a topic for the television
only.  No, you headed an ambitious young group interested in proving or
disproving the dimensional theory, and, possibly, the existence of a
real time-space continuum.  At first, the project seemed doomed to fail,
and top government officials were growing impatient, threatening to
cut the funding.  But you knew you had to move on.  Suddenly, you started
to receive signals from passing dimensions, at least you hoped them to be.
You didn't get pictures or background, just some noise.  Then, the big
break - you were able to pass objects to and from the dimension.  You
had to send a camera, or some other recording device.  On the day that
would change the fate of man, you prepared to send a camera over, set
to take pictures of the dimension.  You knew this was important, since
other countries had gotten wind of the project and would go to all
lengths to stop it, believing it to be a tactical advantage.  You
left your home to journey to the lab, radiant.  Kissing your beautiful
young wife, almost eight months pregnant, and your five-year old
daughter goodbye, you set your mind to your task.  What would this day
bring?  What news would be given?  Where and what do we coexist with?
You would have your answers, and you were happy.

  At the lab, you made all final calculations and fitted the camera with
the device that, upon a timer or a manual trigger, would lift the device
back across the dimensional plane.  All of the other scientists gleamed
as you leant over the transmitter to position the camera.  You gave
the A-OK to Dr. Drew, your assistant, to start the transmitter's timer.
Suddenly, just before your big break, a group of armed men entered the
room, instructing all not to move.  Three warning beeps loudly sounded.
As the men eagerly opened fire, the transmitter was fired.  You screamed
as a jolt of power hit you square in the back, knocking you cold and
causing you to drop the camera.  After awaking from your unconsciousness,
you found yourself here.  The grim truth was revealed to you.  You were
transported to a parallel dimension, without any means of escape.
The transmitter's remote device was on the camera, and the lab scientists
were under seige, if not dead.

  You have nothing but the clothes on your back.  A white lab coat with
an I.D. card pinned on it, over jeans and a collar-shirt.  You glance
down at the I.D. card.  It says "Dr. Steven Ginetti.  United States
Official."  Somehow, it seemed now that this card is no longer necessary
here, and you thrust it into your pocket.  You look around once more.
Wispy cloud formations roll by slowly in the purple sky, and the strange
moon keeps glowing, as if in defiance of the new day.  You are hungry,
and you decide to take the dirt path.  You start walking, and immediately
you feel as if something is following you.  Not turning around, you continue,
hoping your fear will subside.  Suddenly, it starts to rain.  Grey becomes
mixed in with the purple of the sky, and the entire world seems to darken.
Thunder and lightning begin.  Continuing further down the road, you feel
slightly different.  Now, you are no longer followed, you are hunted.
A chill makes its way slowly down your spine, like melt from ice on a
hot summer's day.  Down the path, on the horizon, you notice a large
building-like structure, but hollowed out.  You decide you must walk this
path; you feel guided to safety.  The sound in the air mellows out to a
distant hum, and the breeze slows near a halt.  You feel alone.  You
move towards the formation.  No longer are you so hungry, just determined.
The day wears on, and you come across a thin stream of water.  You stoop
to drink it, and it tastes so pure, so fresh.  The water was a crystalline
clear, and tasted as good as it looked.  A far cry from the water in the
L.A. basin.  It was almost dusk when you came upon the structure.  Inside,
there were about a dozen, perhaps more, hooded figures.  The figures wore
purple robes, and chanted some Gregorian chant completely foreign to you.
The formation turned out to be something similar to Stone Henge back home,
except that it had a roof, a large circular slate of stone.  The figures
circled the center altar, and their leader placed upon it a covered object.
The chant grew more imperative, more impressive.  The leader then whisked
away the cover, revealing a floating blue pyramid.  Light radiated out of
this pyramid-stone as if it were a star.  It began to spin on some unseen
axis.  The chant grew commanding, and the light from the pyramid-stone
became focused onto the side wall, directly opposite you.  It showed a
phenominal flash of light in a plain valley, and a large object falling from
the flash.  The flash had a center, opening slightly and revealing white
with a shiny silver pinpoint, and then the flash was gone.  Then, it
showed a misty grey land, obviously far.  A stone building with runes
written all over was standing in the middle.  All of the hooded figures
gasped at what happened next; the building began to crack open.  The
pyramid-stone turned an angry red, and all images subsided.  The stone,
still red, was covered by the leader.  He began to speak to the coven
in a harsh, urgent voice.  Although you didn't know if you were in danger
or not, you run.  You run until you can run no more.

  But you need to sleep.  You come to a narrowing of the valley you are
in.  Large piles of earth and stone are within dozens of yards to each
side of the road.  You search until you come upon a cave suitable for
resting.  Finding one, you settle in.  The rain outside is soothing,
but you are scared.  You drift to sleep. . .

  You dream of home.  Your wife, whom you are so in love with.  And
the day you found out you'd be a father again.  Now, with her almost
eight months pregnant, so round with joy, you want nothing but to be with
her.  You think of your daughter, so kind and good.  You, with your
fatherly love, think her to be the best of all daughters.  You wish
you were there to comfort her, or read her a story before bedtime.
These visions waver.  You begin to dream of your music.  And all the
good things in life that you have taken part of.  Almost, as if, your
life is passing before your subconscious eyes.  Then, once again,
the visions waver.  And the third and final part of your dream begins.
You dream you are against a wall, trapped.  Something is in the shadows
behind you.  You attempt to scream, but your voice has left your body.
Crystal clear eyes shine from the darkness behind you.  You turn towards
them, back to the wall, staring.  They start to fill with red.  It
seems as if they are being filled with blood.  They come towards you.
Suddenly, ...

  You awaken to a crack of thunder.  You had slept for hours, according
to your trusty Quartz watch.  The day outside was worse than the day
before.  But, you feel as if the hunter is closer.  You step out into
the torrential downpour, and resume following the path.  Straining your
eyes to see, you notice a faint outline of a citadel far down the path.
You know you can make it by the end of the day.  You must.  You hope that
someone in the lab survived.  Maybe they will send a remote device.
Whatever they send now will be dropped near you, attracted to your
familiarity to your own dimension.  You just need safety to await such
aid.  You slosh down the path, made of a rust colored mud.  No living
creatures are around.  No song is in the air at all.  It would seem
that everything is taking cover from something.  You shiver, not so
much from the cold of the rain as from a deep sense of foreboding.
You start to trot.  The day wears on, seeming like forever.  You
almost give up, until you round a bend and see what you saw from afar.
A great citadel, surrounded by a gate.  There are words written above
the gate, but you can not read them.  You are still a good mile off.
Suddenly, you feel the urgency to run towards this place.  The hair on
the back of your neck stands to attention as if the hunter were almost
upon you.  Sprinting, you know this mile might mean your survival.

  As you close in on the citadel, you realize, to your horror, that the
gate is closed.  There would seem to be some important event going on that
would draw the attention of the city guards away from their outside posts.
It would seem that you showed up here at the worst time; the wrong day.
You try the gate anyway, hoping to jar it loose.  Maybe it was stuck in
the mud.  Unfortunately, the gate was locked.  You spit.  You can think
of nothing else to do.  You ring the gate-bell.  You knock.  You scream out.
No one hears you.  As you stare into the court inside the gate of the
city, a cloud covers the bright moon.  Thunder claps loudly, and you
feel watched.  Inside your body, you feel as if your organs are melting
into a stew, ripe for eating.  You almost wretch, until you hear the cry.
A loud hiss, ending in an audible high-pitched wail, comes from somewhere
in the brush near the path.  Turning around in the darkness, facing towards
where you came from, you see nothing.  Everything seems silent.  The rain
falls, dripping in front of your eyes.  You see a pair of red lights
begin to open into red lasers.  You know what they are.  The eyes open
fully, into a deep shining red.  You try to scream.  You scramble to attempt
a climb over the tall gate.  You fall, and look back.  You are trapped.
Stuck at the mercy of some ultimate evil from a parallel world you knew
nothing about.  The fodder of some heinous design gone wrong.  You,
betrayed by your brilliance and persistance.  You, failed by your own
people.  You, proud and stalwart.  You, now cowering and insane.
You, lying on the ground, exiled by your own creation.  You find the
voice you searched for, and emit a loud piercing scream.  Just as you do
so, something rips at your midsection.  You think of all the things that
could have been, and all you are leaving behind.  Your last thoughts
run through your mind as your body rips apart.  You drift and fade away,
cursing your bad luck, at the mercy of an unknown supernatural power,
dying at the gates of...


                   T  H  E    S  A  N  C  T  U  A  R  Y

                original story composed by force ten [ice]
      copyright 1993 by rick hadsall and insane creators enterprise