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Preliminary plug/rant:
Those of you who haven't been to the R2096 site in a while would do well
to visit it. Lots of new stories, character pages/bios and art have been
added. If you haven't seen the site yet, I trust you'll enjoy it.
R2096 isn't high on my list of projects right now... My studies and for-pay
works are taking up a lot of my time, not to mention the fact that excellent
writers like Lara Bartram (Fall of Heaven, Vengeance of Heaven) and Adrian
Wong (Nikumi, Fatale) are being kind enough to pick up the torch and fill
in the missing stories in the continuity. However, there was just one
teensy little void in my characterisations that was nagging at me, and I
simply HAD to fix it...
*Please* send your comments, if you have anything at all to say. R2096
authors, in particular, have been rather disappointed with C&C, or lack
thereof. I know that people read the tales, but that's only because of
the counters on my pages. Both 'Fatale' and 'The Vengeance of Heaven'
received absolutely no feedback. Even Mike Loader, whose IMBS series is
taking the fanfic world by storm, heard little about his 'Faithful
Departed'. Is Ranma 2096 really that unpopular? I certainly hope not.
Anyhow, enough of that, or my whining will be longer than the story.
Enjoy!
-CW
P.S. People who've read 'Fatale' and 'The Vengeance of Heaven' will get
more out of this than others, but that's only a bonus, and not a necessity.
The story is a standalone.
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|_|. \__\ |_|. .|_|.|_|...\/..|_|.|_|.|_|.|_|. \|_| \
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Created by Christopher Willmore. / \ \ /
<4cw6@qlink.queensu.ca> / / \/
Based on a story by Rumiko Takahashi and /
Developed by C. Michael Schumacher / /
\ /
R2096 pages: http://qlink.queensu.ca/~4cw6/ \/(Logo:Armakuni)
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TERROR
A Dark Slapstick
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By Chris Willmore
<4cw6@qlink.queensu.ca>
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*ALPHA DRAFT*ALPHA DRAFT*ALPHA DRAFT*ALPHA DRAFT*ALPHA DRAFT*ALPHA DRAFT*ALP
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For Vilja
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"There are few who'd deny
At what I do, I am the best
And my talents are renowned
Far and wide.
When it comes to surprises
In the moonlit night
I excel without ever even trying.
With the slightest little effort
Of my ghost-like charms
I have seen grown men give out a shriek.
With a wave of my hand, and a well-placed moan
I have swept the very bravest off their feet."
-Danny Elfman
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Soft and firm, the flesh. How still it lies. So odd that only breeze, an
outside draft should ruffle the cloth atop her epidermis. So odd that in my
own arm all the movement should be coming from within, from.. from... Not.
From. Me.
The parasites are on the go again, removing my attention from the pile of
meat in front of me. They demand my time, demand my notice. Nothing from
OUTSIDE could touch me, no outside force, but...
Ah, there they are. Look at the pretties, there on my wrist. Up and down
pulses the vein. I can feel them swimming through my deoxygenated blood,
can even see them - clearly! - as they stumble from branch to branch,
turning back whenever they hit a too-narrow capillary.
They're trying to get out, but they will learn. My blood vessels are a
closed system, and there is nowhere they can run to, nowhere to escape to.
They decided they were going in, and there they are. They've made a
decision, they can't turn back...
And neither can I.
We are much the same, these worms and I, both navigating as best we can
through the channels open to us. All our work, all our thoughts apart from
food and procreation are one thing: preparation. They nibble at my insides,
putting a wall here and another there, breeding in sensitive places so that
when they die, so will I, their host.
And what of me? What is my goal?
A particularly strong gust of wind tosses up a corner of the fallen sheet,
and two large eyes are suddenly upon me - two large, wet eyes with an
expression that can be interpreted as childish curiosity.
You want to know? (It wants to know.) But do I want to tell, do I want to-
Pain. It's nearer to my heart this time. They dig, they eat, and - oh!
Just STOP! Just LEAVE and-
Tell.
I see.
You want to know. You ALSO ask me. Food is not enough. You must have
information. Well, then.
You've heard, I'm sure, of other men, of other cardiovasculary systems.
There are millions, BILLIONS on this earth, but you, you're trapped. You
cannot leave my body to see those others... Not unless I were to set up a
transfusion between myself and some unfortunate, or manually place... Hrm.
Well, think now, for a moment, that we men are like yourselves. Think that
we crawl within a body cosmological, surrounded by uncountable others which
are nonetheless unreachable, and then suppose that one man, in one family,
had found a way to breach these walls. One worm among all all the others
had grown fangs, and could invade whatever corpse he would. That was my
grandfather - my grandfathers, all the many hundreds of them, for just like
all human bodies have the same basic type of cells, the same general organs,
so each world repeats its residents, in slightly varied form.
Oh, here, my dear, a stroke. Let me just pull this cloth around your neck,
like so... ah, yes, that's better, and - oh! you must not look at me like
that! I know you hate this talk of worms, I know how much you were disgusted
when I first showed my little houseguests to you, but - oh? What's that? You
will complain no more? I THOUGHT that'd be the case. So, where was I? Oh,
yes. My fear. My one and only terror.
So you see... Where is that knife? My grandfather and some of his
descendants - even some of ME, though I myself am not thus blessed - were
able to... Oh, here it is! slice THROUGH the spacetime cloth, to rip out
from their casings. And so one of them did, and came to me. Just like - it
stings. It stingstingstingsting DONE. The slice is DONE. Now just you
wait, soon we'll continue, face to... Bandage! Bandage! Ah, here you are!
What a vile little creature you seem to be, all weak and floppy, just like I
was. Stopping blood is easy. There. Now just some tape above the
patch.... I WOULD use Plastiskin, but cursed Ono makes it.
Anyhow, you see? You see how large I am? Look, just, how I can hold you
with my thumb and forefinger. It's different on the other side, isn't it?
And you, there, on the ground - look closely. Yes. But that's enough. I
just wanted to show you. I want to SHOW you what will happen if you trust a
woman too much, if you let her into your confidence. I want to show you
that everything we do or don't has consequences. Bad ones. Always. Bad for
SOMEone.
Now, don't writhe! You LISTEN, and stay still! As I told you, so was I told,
by 2993, and he SHOWED me. For a while, he spoke to me, and gave me
counsel. I followed his suggestions, but there came a time when I wavered.
I wriggled. But then he pressed TIGHTER.
"Why should I do as you say?" I asked him. "Why should I follow your
orders, and lead a fool to greatness?"
Oh, but he showed me.
Infuriated, he tore not just ONE, but TWO passages through the ages. He led
me to where he had come from. It was a dark land with a red sky. There
were dead bodies in the streets, zombies in the fields and fearful half-men
peeking out of every house. We walked through layered graves, passed
rubbled skyscrapers, burnt-down farms, and finally came to a castle on a
hill. Tall spires, pointed gates, monstrous guards, but what caught me most
was the village at its base. It was purgatory, it was hell - it was HOME.
I knew the people there. I knew my teachers, fellows, grocers and there they
all were still, but subtly changed. They had been BROKEN. Figuratively and
literally they had been crushed. Some had no arms, some had no hands, all
had no souls. And what was worse... He could not stop me went I went my
usual way, when I walked through changed familiar corridors and ended up in
MY house, MY room, MY dungeon.
Never. Never could I... Not what I saw there. I couldn't. The faces, the
things they kept... They REACHED at me, and grabbed, and they were not all
there, all here. They did not belong there, and neither did I.
"This is where the path of weakness leads," 2993 warned me. "This is where
you'll end if you decide that you want beauty, art and poetry."
But that is what the fool is after! was my counter. He replied he did not
want the fool, the world did not want such a thing, but what it wanted, what
it needed was that someone should fall that I might rise, that *I* might
hold the power and protect, and fend off... That which his own land had
become.
He told me what had happened at great length, illustrating his points with
roadside displays - a grisly walking tour. He taught me that I could afford
no kindness, if it would lead me to stray from the appointed lane. The
slightest mis-step landed one in an inverted fairyland, with malevolent
sprites distorting all you cared for, all you loved. Ruthlessness was the
only way. Temporary discomforts for some, in exchange... not for future
pleasures - the world is not so kind - but for sidestepping the pit that my
society (that OUR society, he corrected himself) was headed towards.
You lying there, you think you're fine, and you in my hand, you think hardly
at all. The ugliness and cunning which assaulted me there are more than a
math for your imagined beauty and lack of wit. And what had precipitated
the disaster? What had been the cause of this which I saw and could never
must never would never allow to encroach upon MY world, MY realm, MY
reality?
Yes. You guessed. But then, you cheated. Yes.
A parasite.
A foreigner, hiding for many years on an undetectable island, floating from
port to port, gathering forces and supporters. His allies were like yours,
worms within the veins of high society, moving up and down, in and out,
feeding not themselves, but HIM. Or her. Or... whatever it was that monster
decided to call itself.
It was - it IS - it WAITS... a magical foe with centuries of experience, and
hate to fuel its army. Concentrated evil met with widely dispersed good,
and the result?
OH, poor dear. I'd wipe the tears from your cheek if you still wept. Why,
yes - in that case the outcome is always...
Destruction.
Utter and complete. Mental, spiritual, economic, physical. Might over
right, and so it stayed. 2993 had watched helpless as this happened. He
could not intervene in any way that would be useful, so he observed, took
notes, and then found a reality, a body cosmic similar to his where the
event had not yet taken place - and entrusted preparation for it to his
Doppelganger.
What could I do?
My, you ARE nosy, aren't you? But then you always did have such a cute and
buttony little thing there, between your eyes, the - But there's really SO
much more between your eyes now, isn't there?
I TOLD you to stop fidgeting! No wriggling, or I'll toss you into a
candle-flame.
Ah.
A candle, and its flame.
I had almost forgotten.
The foreign parasite, the fiend for whose arrival I must prepare... How WILL
I crush him? He has monsters on his side, that much I saw, and in the ruins
there were tanks, and planes, and aircraft carriers... Not to mention his
accomplices.
With those last, I can deal, for forewarned is forearmed, and I too can
crawl through a foreign host's vital passages. My dear, my beloved, my hated
wife - what do you think she is? Correct! A way to keep tabs on those
loooovely Kurenais. Aren't they dears, the betrayers? But their thick necks
aren't much suited to ties. One of these days I'll send them a present - a
good hemp slip-knot.
Too bad the invader's armies aren't as easy to dispose of. No normal human
could survive their onslaught.
So I will not send a normal human 'gainst them. I will breed my own,
tailor-made. Heightened strength, inhuman endurance, ability that INCREASES
under torture, and especially an inability to fear - an IMMUNITY to Terror.
And why? Because Terror DRIVES. It has driven ME, it has driven YOU, and it
has driven many others to insanity and back.
Poor Sakuin.
Rich Tofu.
But you, I've spoken far too much. It's late, I'm tired, I must sleep. To
bed with me, but first - to bed with you. You heard it all, did you not?
You heard what I said - a good bedtime story... the best!
Oh, dear Lizzie, your braids are always in the way. Let me part them. Here,
over again, and oh! There it is. That hole between your eyes, if I can
just... Are they still there? I was sure that I... Let me try with my index
finger. Tissue, bone, the frontal lo- no, there they are. Oh, yes, my
pretties.
Worm, go join your siblings!
Ah! No more writhing! What a dear! Perhaps you sense a mate within my
former mistress, hrm? I'm sure her head is FULL of special memories for you
to burrow through, but please be quick, because she rots, you know!
And that reminds me...
Dial.
The phone.
"Aridu? Kyoofu here. I am afraid that Miss Fields has passed away. A
deadly parasite reached her brain. I tried to operate on an emergency
basis, but they'd bred too prolifically. I wonder if you could... An hour?"
I'll wait.
For, after all, what is a mere sixty minutes when one has such pleasant
company?
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"But who here could ever understand
That the Pumpkin King with the skeleton grin
Would tire of his crown
If they only understood
He'd give it all up
If he only could..."
-Danny Elfman
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END
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Afterword:
During an e-mail discussion, Vilja pointed out that R2096 had no real
villains except Kyoofu. He was the only person that the readers were
allowed to hate without reserve. "That's only because I haven't gotten my
hands on him yet," I answered, and I meant it. Hopefully, this short has
added a much-needed second dimension to the character, and proved
entertaining in the process.
Many thanks to Lara Bartram and Sean Gaffney for their lightning pre-read.
On a final note, I listened to Danny Elfman's score for 'The Frighteners'
several times over while writing this out (longhand).
-CW
September 28th, 1998.
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_________________________________________________________________
Christopher Willmore http://qlink.queensu.ca/~4cw6/2096a.htm
"The world isn't just a spherical cow." - Prof. Gooding
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/2653/index.htm