Author Topic: "A Long Night"  (Read 8061 times)

Lopez

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on: June 28, 2009, 02:49:48 PM
I keep trying to make my stories in my world independant of each other, but it's getting harder and harder. I knew that I couldn't write this story entirely in either first or third person, so I made myself split it apart. It's also twice as long as my usual story...surprising for me. I've been reading so much Metamor Keep(On story 65!) and D.Ein that they're both starting to influence my writing....Um, comment as you wish. By the way, I do the thing that occurs in the "long paragraph"(You'll notice it) FAR more often than is healthy...Hope you enjoy it!(Or skip it)
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I stared at my military ration with both a sense of hunger, and a sense of disgust. I knew that I had to eat it, eventually. But my mind was distracted by the quiet mundane conversation downstairs, as I tried to pick out what I could. I loved learning English in school; it was a nice change from the rote Fox I was forced to memorize. However, that had been foxified English; I knew that this was the real deal, and I would not have this chance often once the war was over.

So, I threw down the phrasebook, picked up my bag of edibles, and walked downstairs. I walked on two feet, rather than four, so as to appear a bit more natural. My commander said to minimize contact with our hosts during our stays here. He was afraid that these people would be traumatized enough by the fact that they were now required to provide room and board for one of the occupying fox soldiers; they didn’t need any help from those said soldiers trying to make conversation with them. However, I determined that I would NOT let this opportunity pass me by.

As I clumsily reached the bottom of the stairs, they turned to look at me, and I sort of froze for a moment.

“I was wondering,” I asked in my best possible English, “If I could eat here. With you.” The older man silently nodded, and another chair was immediately added to the table. “It’s relatively lonely upstairs,” I added for the finishing touch.

There were four of them. From my studies in human psychology, this was a standard family unit with one father, one mother, and two children, a boy and a girl. I could tell the father apart from the son by his authoritative posture, and the mother apart from the daughter by the obvious size difference between them.

I believed that if I didn’t start any conversation, they would have been perfectly fine eating in silence. “Since I might be here a while, may I ask for your names?”

I never finished my concentration in human psychology. But from what I did learn, since they lack both moveable ears and a tail, they use the position of their mouths and the tone of their voice as their primary means of expression, aside from the obvious case of diction. I analyzed them intensely as they introduced themselves.

“Jonathan O’Connor,” the son hastily replied. He didn’t meet my eyes, instead looking slightly off to the side. I deduced that he did not appreciate either my presence or the fact that he was required to introduce himself; however, I didn’t know which one, for sure. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.

“Patrick O’Connor,” The older man said lightly. Since he decided not to use his full voice, he did not know if he was making the proper method of introduction towards me. That’s natural for most humans here. They just need to learn to be themselves around us, and it makes it better to understand them.

“Julia O’Connor,” the mother replied. She was the first one to smile while introducing her self. However, her smile was forced, because the tone of her voice refused to shift. This meant that she didn’t know the proper tone of voice to correspond with her feigned emotions.

“Cecilia…” the youngest answered. I could not figure her out for the life of me, the entire time I was down there. She looked at me dead-on, but with not any readable emotion. I think she perceived me as some kind of large dog, and I firmly believed that and minute she might ask if she could pet me.

“My name is Andrew Markin,” I told them, trying to keep sight of all of them at once. It was a bit silent as I chewed a chunk of jerky from my rations, and I contemplated what I would ask them, since I knew that they weren’t ever going to ask my anything.

But suddenly, out of NOWHERE, the father asked me, “How long do you think you will be here?” Even though I was thrown off for a bit, since I already knew my response before he asked the question, it was easy to reply.

“As long as need be. After that storm a few days ago, most of us became ill from sleeping outside, so this policy of boarding was made. Hopefully, it will not last for long, only until we find other means of shelter here.” Ow. That one felt straight from the phrasebook: we were taught it before coming here. After I said that, I decided that I would form my own sentences.

Suddenly, the son stood up from his place at the table, said “Excuse me,” and walked upstairs. As he walked upstairs, the mother shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she told me, “He’s just a bit nervous about talking to you. That’s fine, right?”

“That’s fine, it may take some a while to become used to our presence,” the words spilled out of my mouth before I even had a chance to think.

“No,” the father looked at me, “He was a soldier.”

“Patr-” the mother tried to stop him.

“But fortunately for him,” he continued, “The war was over before he even got the chance to fight. You fight fiercely, quickly, and without too much damage. I respect that.” He drank his water as he waited for my reply. I absolutely misread him.

“Well,” I began, “If he still wants to fight, he could apply for a position in the new Imperial army.”

“What?”

“Since this island is part of the Empire now, we’ll be recruiting soldiers from here for the army as well. Hopefully, the army will have human soldiers as well, for those who choose to apply, and it will not be just a wolf and fox army. There are…” I trailed off, and decided to force myself to devise my own sentences, no matter how bad I sounded.

“We can always…be helped,” I shoved through my muzzle.

On the voyage over here, we practiced all the phrases on each other. “If you ever need anything, please contact…We are sorry for the inconvenience; this situation will be dealt…If you have any information regarding the…” But then I realized that if these phrases are all that we ever use, we’d never learn how to understand each other.

“But, how could you fight with us? We are two different species, after all,” I never grasped the father’s deeper meaning until the conversation was over.

“We fight with wolves. We are two different species, after all,” If I did know, would I have answered any differently?

“Oh.”

We sat eating our meals in silence, with the absence of the son. I thought that Cecilia was looking at me, but when I looked over at her, I realized that she was looking right above my head. As we locked looks, she finally piped up.

“Why do your ears move when you talk?

As foxes, we don’t normally think about the movement of our ears too much. They simply move according to our indicated tone in the conversation. However, I never stopped to think that these people might not even be able to interpret them. I knew that now was a good time as ever to introduce them to the concept.

“Well, I use my ears to express emotion,” I enunciated my words to make sure they understood. “For you, for example, when you are happy, then you smile, when you are sad, then you frown, however, we use our ears to do this.

“For example,” I tilted my ears back, “When I am sad, then my ears are like this.”

“Aw,” she cooed. She was quite peculiar in her way of expressing it, but I knew that she was beginning to understand, “It’s okay,” she added.

“When I am happy, then my ears are like this,” my ears tilted upwards, and my tail bristled up as well. I then reverted back, “To be honest, I cannot understand you sometimes.”

“How long have you been learning English?” the mother asked, “It can be hard to know ALL the words in a language when you begin learning it.”

“I understand all the words, but there is more to what you say than…what…you…say,” looking back on it, that was a perfectly logical statement, “I also need to know how you say it, to understand what you mean.”

“For example, we have a famous example of this. We say ‘There is a boat on the horizon’ to show this. I can say this phrase two different ways,” I tried to make myself look as unnaturally happy as possible; “There is a boat on the horizon!” I then tried to return to looking normal. “However, I could say it this way as well.” I widened my eyes, drooped my ears, and froze my tail in place, “There is a boat on the horizon…” The girl looked spellbound by my acting.

“I said the same words both times, but because I showed you what I look like when happy and sad, you know there is a difference in what I said.  If I said it the same way both times, then you would never know that there was a difference.”

“Wow.”

“So, when you talk to a fox, it helps if you make sure they understand how you say something. It is even more important than what you say to them.”

I sincerely hoped that all of this sunk into them.

“Honestly,” the girl said, “I think you’re nice.”

“Thank you,” I replied, and purposefully tilted my ears down, as a practice for her, “A lot of people do not think we are nice.”

“Why?”

I could see the two parents growing uncomfortable at the developing conversation.

“They think that we only want to hurt them. They think that we want to take all of your things, then go back home. No one believes us when we say that we want to stay here and help you.”

“It’s okay,” she smiled, “I believe you.”

After a brief moment of silence, I nodded to the three humans still seated at the table, stood up on two feet, and folded my empty ration bag into a simple square. “Even though it is still early, I think that I should rest. Thank you for…” I stopped myself just in time, “It was nice to talk with you.”

With those words, I departed up the stairs to the room they gave me. The room was intended as the guest room, and since I was a guest, I guess it was only natural that they put me here. As the lights of the city gradually grew him, I stood up and began slowly pacing back and forth around the wall farthest from the door. Gradually I sped up, my four paws pacing faster and faster, for I knew that I had one very long and tired night ahead of me.

...but that's just my opinion, so don't let it bother you too much!


Lopez

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Reply #1 on: June 28, 2009, 02:50:22 PM
First story of mine to beat out the 20,000 character limit...ouch...

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After the fox finished reflecting on the happenings of the day, his mind became blank. The only thoughts he had revolved around the movement of his legs, pacing silently back and forth along the wall, and even those thoughts were rapidly becoming involuntary. Unless Andrew found some other way to occupy his mind, he would walk closer and closer to the ground until his mind moved no more. He considered listening to the clicking noise coming from the other side of the wall to perk him up.

Suddenly, the wall spoke to him in his native tongue, “Keep your claws sharp?”

He responded to the wall in an instant, “And your eyes sharper. What are you doing over there?”

“What do you think? Keeping my eyes sharp, of course.”

“What section are you from?”

“Zero, three, zero, five, two, one. You?”

“Zero, three, zero, five, one, three. What’s your name?”

“Tyler Rivers.”

“Andrew Parrish. How are you holding up?”

“Fine, as long as you keep walking. I can feel your footsteps over here.”

He laughed, “I’ll probably have walked the whole length of this island by sunrise.”

“You going to go the whole night?”

“Yes.”

“Good, that’ll help keep me up, then.”

Andrew slowly reverted his mind back to pacing the floor, putting one paw in front of the other, reaching the edge of the room, turning, and beginning anew. After three cycles, the wall spoke again.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Andrew lied down on the floor to give his legs as much of a rest as he could. “I actually have a clock in here. A few, actually. The human who lives here makes clocks.”

Andrew felt himself slowly drift off.

“Since we’re both here, we might as well help each other out. How about I stay up half the night, listen for anything over there, and then you stay up until morning and wake me up then? This way, we both get at least half a night’s sleep. Sound good?”

Andrew tilted his head down until it hit the floor, and curled his tail up along his body. He was barely able to whisper “thank you” before he nodded off to sleep.

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A sound like a door slamming shook Andrew to his feet, but when he turned around he realized that the door to the room was still firmly closed shut.

“Wow,” the wall spoke, “You’re a heavy sleeper. You really awake over there? Answer me.”

He leaned up to the wall, “Not quite awake, but feeling much better.”

“Good. Don’t pound too loudly,” he heard a yawn from the wall and glanced around the room before he stood up and began his rounds once more.

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He had it all figured out in his notepad. Ireland was about 200 miles across. The room he was in was about fifteen feet across. 200 miles was around 1,056,000 feet. That meant that he needed to walk back and forth about 70,400 times. It took him about seven seconds to walk from one end of the room to the other, so it would take him around 493,000 seconds to walk across the entire distance, which ended up being around 137 hours. He would be walking like this for about five hours each night, thanks to Tyler on the other side allowing him to sleep half the night, so it would take him 27 nights to walk across the entire island. That didn’t seem too long. Then, he figured that the continent of the Americas was about 1,500 miles from the western sector of the Empire to the eastern sector. That calculated to about 7,920,000 feet. This would require him to walk back and forth 528,000 times for a period of time around 3,696,000 seconds. This could be brought down to 1,027 hours, which was 205 nights. That didn’t seem too long at all. The entire world was about 25,000 miles all the way around. This meant that it was also 132,000,000 feet to go around the entire world. In fifteen feet increments, that was 8,800,000 times. At seven seconds a time, that meant it would take 61,600,000 seconds, or 1,026,667 minutes, or 17,111 hours, or 3,422 nights. Just a mere 3,422 nights, and Andrew would go all the way around the earth in fifteen feet increments from a small guest room in the middle of Ireland.

Suddenly, he heard heavier footsteps from the other side of the wall.
   
He tapped on the wall, and then resorted to slamming on it, “Tyler! Wake up! I hear something over there!”

The fox heard a weak voice emanate from the other side. “Really?” The footsteps’ noise had stopped, but their tone still echoed through Andrew’s mind.

“I just heard it, at least look around yourself before you go back to sleep.” He waited, and tried to imagine the other fox’s eyes piercing through the darkness, to see only one lone mechanical face staring back at him.

“Well,” another yawn from the wall, “If you hear it again, let me know.”

“Okay.”

He resumed pacing, as silently as possible, leaning close to the wall in hopes of distinguishing what he had heard before. Andrew then heard a very slight creak.

He tapped the wall again, “Tyler! There it is again!”

Another weak response came, “What?”

“It sounds like there’s someone there,”

Heavy footsteps now shook the floor. “Hey, what…” Andrew heard a high pitched whine from the wall.

“Tyler! Tyler!” he yelled. But the wall would not answer, for it was a wall.

He looked around for a way to help the other fox, but there was no door leading into the other room, for it was a wall.

Andrew picked up his rifle and slammed its end into the wall again and again, like a battering ram. “Tyler! Answer me!”

Eventually, the wallpaper was completely torn off, but the barrier still remained, for it was a wall.

He turned the rifle around in his paws, and closed his eyes as he aimed into the wall. A reassuring clicking sound emitted from the gun every time he pulled the trigger, again and again. After the clip dropped out of the rifle, he realized that is was empty. No bullets remained.

Then, he looked under his bag, and picked up the extra clips hiding there. No bullets remained.

Lastly, he looked inside his bag. He dug through its contents like digging through sand. All of them were the same. No bullets remained.

Suddenly, the door creaked behind him. He spun around, pointing both his muzzles at the crack, where the image of a small girl appeared.

“Andrew?”

He stood in silence, gradually lowering his weapon as the door opened further.

“Andrew? What’s going on?”

He walked towards her, nearly tripping over his feet. Then, he held his gun in one hand and put the other on her shoulder. His equipment made him feel taller than her, but they could look each other directly in the eyes.

“Cecilia? Can you do something for me?” he wondered if she could still remember his expression, “When you see your brother, tell him that I’m in the attic. Yes? Do you understand?”

“Andrew? What’s going on?”

“Promise to me. Tell him that. I’m in the attic. Then go to bed.” He grabbed the doorknob and closed it as he heard another door open downstairs. The fox lied down, and then silently gathered up his equipment as he listened through the wall.

“Cecilia? What are you doing up this late?”

“Jonathan? What’s going on?”

“Cecilia, did you see Andrew?”

“He went to the attic. Why do you want him?”

“I just want to talk with him. Go to bed, Cecilia.”

“What’s going on?”

“Please, just go to bed. For me? I’ll tell you in the morning. Go to bed, Cecilia.”

Andrew listened to them lighten their footsteps as the stairs creaked underneath their feet. He stood up, attached his rifle to his backpack, and placed a hand on the door.

As he heard the attic door fly open, he shoved the door open and dropped to four paws. He skipped the stairs, choosing instead to leap down them. After regaining his balance from a rough landing, he rose to two feet while rushing for the front door. As his hand slashed at the doorknob, he turned his head around, contrary to his hand’s action.

It was locked.

“It’s downstairs! Quickly!”

He pulled out his rifle and tried to bash down the doorknob. His first bash missed entirely, and the momentum he put behind it instead sent him reeling to the floor. He stood back up, and spun around to see three human faces looking at him from the bottom of the stairs.

“Go ahead and point that gun at me all you want, fox. I know you’re empty.”

Andrew glanced around, and realized that their eyes had not adjusted to the night’s darkness quite yet. He tightened his grip on the rifle.

“I don’t need bullets to kill you.”

The window pane shattered, and Jonathan was thrown to the floor. Andrew attached his rifle to his back and dropped down to grip the ground with four paws. The fox tried to maintain at least one paw’s grip on the floor all the way until he reached the window. The fox leapt up with all his might, but his left hind leg was caught on a piece of glass. It sliced into his flesh, but his fur soaked up all the blood draining from his leg.

“You okay?” the other fox asked as he shot through the clip, aiming towards the inside of the house.

“It’s just a scratch. How’s everything?”

“Bad,” after the other fox reloaded, he dropped down to four paws to match Andrew’s stature. “We need to keep moving. We don’t know how many teams they have out there. I need to go warn Commander, think you can keep checking the houses here?”

“Yes,” they both rose up and Andrew pulled his rifle back into his hands and clinched it firmly, “But you’ll have to give me a clip first.”

After he received six full clips of bullets, he loaded one into his rifle, leaving the empty one littering the ground.

He ran as fast as a fox could on two legs, but he skipped the next house down the street. The dead would have to check on their own, tonight.

...but that's just my opinion, so don't let it bother you too much!


D. Ein

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Reply #2 on: June 29, 2009, 08:15:33 AM
I liked the longer paragraph with the numbers - 'twas interesting and it made sense by itself - though I'm not sure how it fit in with the rest of the story. Overall, the writing is good, if a little dry. Personally, I prefer writing that's cracking at the seams with imagery and description, but that's just a matter of what I like. You did an excellent job with the whole emotion theme - the importance of this, in my view, was to emphasize that the foxes were not faceless enemies, but living beings.

As for the content, I'm not sure what you were going for with this story - who are we supposed to root for? Maybe I'm missing out on the universe you're writing in, but I felt a sharp aversion toward Andrew and all his kin as soon as he mentioned that the "Empire" is taking over mankind to "help them" (Middle East, anyone?). After this point, the ending turned out sad because the kid didn't get to kill Andrew - this would have been very cathartic for me. In fact, I feel like writing a fanfic where he does get killed, just for the heck of it.

I liked reading this story, because no matter what my personal viewpoint is, it invoked strong visceral feeling - anything that can do this is automatically enjoyable to read. I'm looking forward to your next work.

!!!! , ...

Subject No. III VI +


Virmir

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Reply #3 on: June 30, 2009, 09:40:55 PM
Enjoyed this one, as I do all your stories in this setting.  Unlike Ein, I'm obviously going to root for the foxes because I find them a far more interesting race. [;)  But one thing I love about this setting is that there's no good guys-- it's just war.  It's very realistic feeling.  Nice job, and looking forward to more. [:)

[fox] Virmir