"I can't help it Praetor, something triggers in my brain when dark templar are swiping on both my bases and I have no detection! "
"Besides I said "gg", I wasn't a sore loser. If I had said "God damn it, Dtemps are gay! I hate you!" then I woulda been a sore loser. =]"
-Johnny_vegas
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| Death's Embrace: Chapter 1 | | | Author: | | | IP: | slip-32-XXXX | | Date: | 06/06/00 12:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for ScreamStalker: 7.5385 |  |
Hello everyone. Welcome back to my world. I hope you all had the chance to read my first series: Dream Control. If you haven't, feel free to by searching Scream in the search author box. I know I have been out of it for quite some while, but I am pretty sure most of you will enjoy this next piece. But a warning to you, this chapter does not contain much StarCraft, but instead sets the stage. With that said, I present:
Death's Embrace - Chapter 1
I am pretty sure I became insane on my sixteenth birthday. No I wasn't abused mentally or physically by my parents. My parents were loving kind people, who never touched a hair on my head in anger. I am not horribly scarred, which might cause me to crave revenge on the more attractive souls. Nor am I stunningly beautiful, which may have led to the false sense of security in which I believed I was above the law. No, no, I am none of those cases. I simply chose to become insane much like a mother chooses which supermarket she will visit that particular evening.
Now, you may wonder, what exactly does insanity mean? Well there are many different kinds of insanity, but my form is rather unique. You see, I crave death. I lust for it, beg for it, I am addicted to it. I need it like fish need water, and humans need oxygen. I desire it so much that it has now become more like an insatiable appendage of my body, forever crying out for more and more. Of course, when I chose that route, I inevitably knew that it would eventually get me in to trouble, which is why I am here in this court room today.
But I speak too quickly. Let me start at the beginning. I was born to wealthy parents in Snowfall, North Dakota. My childhood was a happy one, filled with moments of laughter and joy. I spent nearly all of my first five years of life frolicking in the snow with other children my age, and creating mystical sequences with my numerous action figures and play sets. Not much changed when I began to attend school. My town was so small that nearly everyone was acquainted in some way, and I was very popular. My life continued in this manner for the next ten years, full of happiness and love. I was never in any fights, was never attacked, was never threatened. I never knew the dark side of life until one night in March, four days before my sixteenth birthday.
My older brother and I had been invited on a camping trip by a neighboring family. We drove up into the mountains and arrived at our destination in what seemed like no time at all. We expected a warm fire, roasted marshmallows, and friendly smiles, but when we got there, no signs of life were evident. A fire ring had been built, but no orange blaze streaked within it. Several chairs had been set around the fire pit, but no warm bodies occupied them. Instead there was only stillness, and the occasional chirp of a nearby bird.
Concerned, my brother dashed to the nearby trailer, for it also was dark. I instead, ran to the truck that had towed the trailer, and placed my hand on the hood of the engine. Still warm, they had not been here long. I didn't have long to ponder though, for my brother stumbled backward off the steps of the mobile home and crashed into the snow. The instant he hit the ground he began back-crawling wildly, screaming incomprehensible words. I ran to the trailer door, and was knocked back by the stench. Probing my way along the black wall, with one hand over my mouth, I found the light switch and flicked it.
Our neighbors had been murdered. Their throats cut from ear to ear and their bodies arranged in sitting positions on a nearby bunk. The trailer had been trashed, and seemed to be void of all valuables. I tried to inspect further, by the smell of fresh blood had begun to make me gag. I turned to descend the three steps to the ground, but was pushed harshly from behind. My hands went out, and I was able to stop my fall without a scratch. I rolled over to face my attacker, and was greeted by a nightmare.
A tall man stood towering over me, cloaked entirely in white, except for those portions that had been stained deep red. How I did not see him confuses me to this day. For my senses are as sharp as any humans, and perhaps even keener then some animals. In the man's hand was a three foot long blade. The blade shined white with the reflection of the snow, providing quite a contrast to the black bone handle. It also, was stained. For a minute he did nothing, just simply peered down at me through his white ski mask. He then spoke sharply, causing me to jump at the sound of his deep voice. I can still remember his exact words…"A shame," he said. "I was rather content with just killing the enemy. Too bad." And with that he lunged toward me.
He was quick, but I was quicker. I leapt out of the path of the oncoming blade, and sprang into a sprint towards my brother's truck. I knew my brother had a small hunting knife he kept for emergencies stored in the glove compartment, and I figured that knife was my only chance. I glanced back over my shoulder once in my dash for safety, and saw nothing. My brother had apparently passed out, for he lay face up beside the fire ring. The man was gone. I damn near ripped off the truck's door when I got hold of it. Trying my best to remain silent, I slid across the leather seats and opened the compartment. The hunting knife tumbled into my hand, becoming a piece of me. I had never held a weapon before, never shot a gun, or practiced with a blade, but I handled the knife as though I had years of experience.
Retracing my steps, I was able to back out of the driver's side door, but my coat got hung up on the seat belt, causing me to lose my balance and land on my butt in the snow. Once again, the assassin amazed me, I had barely returned to my feet before he was on me. His shoulder rammed into my chest and slammed me against the side of the truck. I tumbled to the ground, landing on my back, and as I did my eyes caught the sweeping motion of his blade. Panicking, I did the only thing I could think of to stop the knife, and raised both of my legs into the air.
I was lucky, his weapon made a solid *thunk* as it became lodged a full inch into my thick rubber boots. Now, once again I stress that I had had no training at this point. None. As if by reflex, I brought the knife-less leg (it happened to be the right one) into a deep tuck tight to my chest. I then lashed out with my heavy foot and caught the underside of his left kneecap with a strong blow. He cried out in pain, and stumbled backward before tumbling into the snow, retracting his knife from my boot as he did. Wasting no time I vaulted to my feet and attacked. My hand struck at his closest appendage, his right leg. I ended up burying the hunting knife in the middle of his calve up to the hilt.
While we had been struggling, my brother, who had resumed consciousness, had extracted his cellular phone from his jacket pocket. He had used it to call the police, explain our predicament, and relay them exact directions. He saw his opening when I attacked the murderer, and charged in , with full intent on landing a kick in the guy's ribs. But the assassin was obviously trained for this kind of attack, for he ignored his immense pain, caught my brother's foot as it swung in for the blow, and twisted it, breaking most of the bones in my brother's ankle.
Once again, my instinct kicked in. I ripped the knife out of the attacker's leg, and jumped upon him, straddling his midsection with my legs. I stabbed him once, twice, three, four times in his left flank. With a desperate last ditch effort, the killer swung his armed hand towards me. I blocked it with my foot, sending his knife straight into the snow. I then grabbed his wrist, aligned it with one of the nearby truck tires, and pinned it there, with the help of my now bloody hunting knife.
This is the point when my mind made the initial snap. Instead of rushing to my screaming brother in an attempt to aid him, I picked up the fallen blade. It was beautiful, and I pulled off my gloves so that I might feel the handle. Inscribed in small letters near the base of the blade was the name: Pyre. As I cradled the weapon in my fingers, feeling the cool black bone, I realized that there was no way I could let this piece of art leave my sight. Returning to the fallen killer, I patted him down, in search for another weapon. What I found was a white leather sheath that had been strapped to his thigh. I removed it from the limp body, and tied it to my own leg underneath my snow pants. I then placed the blade in its proper home, out of sight of any onlooker.
The cops arrived a few moments later. After rushing the killer, my brother, and I to the hospital for emergency treatment, they sat me down and began the interrogation. I retraced the steps in my mind as best I could remember, and told the story to the police, but left out the part about how I now possessed Pyre. I instead told them his weapon had flown off somewhere after I had kicked it, and had probably been covered by fresh snow. They were skeptical at first, but after I related the same exact story they began to believe me. My brother did not remember much of what happened due to his immense pain, and therefore was unable to relate many of the events that had transpired. I had been lucky.
Back home we were treated like heroes. Apparently, the entire town believed the killer would eventually have stalked them all, and my brother and myself had saved all their lives. We were interviewed by several TV and radio stations. Our house was the recipient of many a present that year, and barely a day went by when someone didn't stop by the house to thank me and my brother again. On the day of my sixteenth birthday I made a revelation. I had loved every second of that battle with the masked man, who had, by the way, received the death penalty by the Supreme Court. I wanted more, by I had no way of obtaining it. I knew I had to have more, and vowed that whatever I did in life would have to involve death in some way. It was then I became insane.
Spring came and everyone quieted down. It was though the past winter's abnormal events leaked from all memories, as people began to focus on a more national threat. The Great War had begun. Some of our outlying colonies had had several scuffles with two other alien races, I really didn't know all the details then, my family was more accustomed to the olden times, and current events were not a large part of our lives. Anyway, the call to arms had been made, and the Army began advertising this War as "The War to End all Wars." That of course, brought new recruits flowing in by the millions.
I realized that this was my chance, my chance to fulfill my hunger, and I immediately signed up for the Marine Corps. My brother on the other hand, refused to participate in such slaughter as he called it, and proceeded to persuade everyone in our family to try to change my decision. They pleaded, they begged, they ordered, but I had made up my mind. I can remember that my father said if I left the house to fight a war, I could never again return. I left without hesitation.
Basic training was a synch. The more I trained, I more I discovered powers unknown to me. I became the star student, and was quickly promoted to a font line battle squad. Our first assignment was one I'll never forget. We were stationed on an outlying moon in the Plamez Ring sector. It had no official name, but all my fellow marines affectionately nicknamed it "Avalanche".
I remained in the barracks for three days after our initial arrival, training, gambling, sleeping, and doing what all normal recruits do while they wait for their time. I remember that I quickly made friends with a guy everyone called Plasma. Nobody knew why he was called Plasma, he just was. It was on my fourth day when I was finally called to the accommodation room As it was, Plasma was called at the same time I was. In the accommodation room, I received my standard marine combat suit fresh off the assembly lines. Once dressed, myself and the other five recruits that had been summoned at that point received a rather brief speech by an overweight general about how to not get ourselves killed. How nice.
The blast doors opened, and I got my first ever view of the snowy moon. Our encampment was located in the bottom of a gorge, surrounded on all sides by a forty foot ice ledge. Our base was not large, for the level ground we could actually construct on was much less then what most commanders are used too. In the three days before my summoning, my group had managed to construct three barracks, a factory, an engineering bay, an academy, and several supply depots. We had also built a small ring of missile turrets along the bottom edges of the cliffs in order to deter any drops from other races. As I watched with great interest, one of the SCVs withdrew from his mining position, and began the erection of what looked to be a starport.
I would have liked to have observed more of our standard procedures, since I had never actually seen them in real life before, only simulations, but it was not to be. Antimatter spheres began to rain down upon a distant turret. Within seconds it broke out into flames, and exploded, taking with it the life of the SCV that had been instructed to repair it. More energy blasts started to crash into our bases, attacking any outlying buildings or troops stupid enough to cross in their range. The onslaught had begun. The Protoss were cannoning our base.
And there you are. Chapter 1 of Death's Embrace. I apologize again for there being a lack of actual StarCraft in this chapter, but I needed to develop the characters first, as well as some background. Comments are begged for as always. Did you guys like it better then my first story? More to come.
ScreamStalker
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