WIP; b (475 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 2 on 8 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by TaK (View user info) at 2009-03-13 21:06:25 EDT
This time when I woke it was quiet and dark and I couldn't remember where I was.
I could barely move a limb, and my eyes didn't want to open. I was warm, but it was that strange warm you get when you wake up in a pool of sweat but are too close to sleep to do anything but roll over in it and close your eyes -a wet warm going cold. Burning from head to toe, I struggled and fought. By the time I got my hands free and out into air, I remembered where I was. Opening my eyes was the hardest part of all.
The animal had been just alive enough, and my wounds just fresh enough, for the two to graft together in my sleep. My eyelids pulled apart as if my face had been dipped in taffy and left to dry. Ripping myself away from the carcass left my healing flesh behind and opened anew the holes in my body. I was naked to the stellar winds once more, this time more excruciating lacking the protection of my skin. I knew then that this was going to be a series of choices forced.
I threw my hand towel, spatula, and lock blade inside the animals' carcass and dragged the whole mess to the nearest dip in the ground, ignoring the pain, not knowing what to expect and not caring. I was surprised to find that the dip was really a hole, going down some three or four feet and arcing out a perfect circle in the ground. I was relieved to find it empty, at least of anything that may eat me.
I scurried down into the hole, dragging my buddy with me. Down here, it was much easier to breathe, and the winds somehow passed right over. I took a quick survey of my den, and got to work.
The hairy animal that I have come to call a Buffalo Worm is something like a centipede, only with five pairs of legs and fur covering its exoskeleton. They grow to approximately five to seven feet in length, and are hard all over except underneath. The belly is like that of any mammal, soft and unprotected. They are one long straight line of meat with a mouth on one end and a puckered hole at the other, armored in fur-covered discs and stood up on claws that look like fangs.
Splitting this straight line down the middle from halfway up the body made two leg strips, and cutting away two strips from the sides further up made two arm strips. Their was enough material left flapping, after covering my entire backside, to wrap around the sides of my belly and chest, neck and face, arms and legs.
In the end, I was sheathed in the armor of the Buffalo Worm with only a strip of flesh showing down the front of me. A center line of exposed skin ran down the front of my face, neck, chest, arms and legs; keeping my front to the ground would keep me protected. The way the Worms' armor was weaved -one disc tipped and laid over the next like dragon scales- allowed me to bend and flex as usual.
After donning my new clothes, I lay down on my side, bracing my other side against the curved wall of my den. On my knees, curled up like larvae, I slept yet again, and allowed time for my new skins to bind themselves together.
***** *****
I've tried many times to pray my way back to Earth. I've bartered, bargained, debated, on several occasions pleaded. I've tried the equivalent of a school yard dare, teasing and cajoling, betting Him he couldn't do it again. Saying, "Fine, not Earth. How about another planet? Or rock! A meteor! Some uninhabitable void of a place with no air! Send me somewhere worse than this!"
But nothing. No response.
Except the silent eye in the sky. Ever glowing, shedding little light or warmth. My Planet, as far as I could tell, was always in alignment with another body in this solar system. The two planets circled the systems sun, and the inner planet stood between the sun and My Planet. The effect was that My Planet lay always in the shadow of the Inner Planet, and the sun was always eclipsed. The suns tendrils flared out around the edges of Inner Planet like an iris around a vacant pupil. Staring at it too long left it imprinted on my eyes, and every where I looked the eye stared back. On the face of a rock, floating across the gray expanse of the ground or across the heavens. It was maddening.
The dips in the surface of My Planet turned out to be more than I thought. They are dens. With time, wearing the animal became like a second skin, I was able to move about in relative safety and inspect the dens more closely. I ran crouched like Tonto, breathing easier, and the weather changed quite frequently. If you were quick you could make it from one rock outcrop to the next before the wind changed moods, and it was easy to identify the patterns eventually; concentric, wide spread in ellipses, but each with a den at the center.
I took trips out from my den, in all directions and in straight lines, returning each time near exhaustion to add to the growing map on one section of my wall. I had mapped out four dens before I came upon one that was inhabited.
continued...maybe
User Reviews
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2009-03-16 21:20:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Too short! For me. Probably perfect for most people though.
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-03-16 09:29:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2009-03-16 08:57:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-03-16 07:16:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
rules
Submitted by Master_Chef (user info) at 2009-03-15 13:03:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Would be intersting to see more of this, v good
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-03-13 23:46:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
eek
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2009-03-13 22:29:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool. Keep going and ignore the assholes from SC (Hilton Head) who drop -2s on things they can't read. They were born stupid and never recovered.
Good story.
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2009-03-13 21:07:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Previously: http://www.ubersite.com/m/120598