Post by Cerberus on Aug 6, 2011 0:18:47 GMT -5
This is a chapter sliced out of a story on another forum which is based in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R universe. Rather than assume that everyone present is familiar with said universe, I figured I'd post the sections relating to characters outside of said universe, in this case the prior history of one of the lads.
Any and all criticism is welcome, and desired. If there is anything that can be improved please say so.
Disclaimer: Story does contain some adult language.
---------------------------------------------
Andrei Mercer, "Mr. N"
Angola, October 19th, 1986 - 7:54 P.M
------------------------------------------
It wasn't far from sunset. The sun was still a few feet over the horizon, staining the sky with shades of gold, red, and orange as it slowly crept closer to the edge of the world. Beneath the jungle canopy it was already dim and gray, the sky nothing but a bright strip above the narrow mud road. The jungle had fought this road for years, trying to press in against it, to squeeze it out of existence, but with no success. Beneath the mud was heavily salted earth, repelling all attempts to lay roots. Unable to grow into the road, the jungle instead chose to grow over it. Steadily, the canopy thickened, the green walls curving in from both sides, diminishing the the visible sky until one day the eastern jungle would connect with the western in an arch and became a living ceiling, blocking off the sun completely.
It was surprisingly cool in the gloom, nowhere near the scorching heat that existed outside of the jungle's protection. A cacophony of sound existed at all times, day and night. The chirping of insects, howls of monkeys, caws of birds. As day passed into night, the sounds changed, as if someone flipped a cassette over from A to B. Same album, different track. Some creatures slipped into their nests and burrows to sleep, while others awoke, crawling out of shelter to go about their daily business of survival. As the native wildlife went about its routine, so did another animal, foreign, alien, uninvited.
Something stood at the edge of the road, immobile, barely visible in the fading light. The heavy camouflage that adorned its skin and clothes made it difficult to spot against the jungle, the eye easily passing over the outline and failing to register it as something distinct from the foliage. If one were to crouch down, say, to tie a shoelace, then its presence would jump out, cleanly silhouetted against the strip of purple sky above. The shape of a man, the unmistakable form of a rifle, or perhaps a shotgun. There was no man however, no matter what shape it appeared to be. Whatever stood in the road was not separate from the jungle. It did not isolate and cut itself off from the world around it. There was no point where the jungle ended, and the man began. There was no presence of an individual. There was no person in this scene. There was only gray jungle, mud road, purple sky. Whatever stood in the mud was a natural presence in the scene, integrated into it, no different from the hundreds of creatures that called the jungle home. It was just another predator, hunting another form of prey.
He stood there, all but invisible. He didn't move. He didn't twitch. He made no effort to defend himself against the insects that attacked again and again, indifferent to the endless bites and stings. He enjoyed the strip of color above, patiently waited for the sun to abandon the sky, and for darkness to come flooding through the jungle. The air darkened rapidly. Normally at this point the first stars would be revealed, but not tonight. As the sun sank lower it leached the color out of the sky, draining it, leaving behind nothing but a black, starless void.
A new sound joined the montage of monkey shrieks, bird calls, and buzzing insects. It was distant, almost unnoticeable beneath the thick blanket of noise. It grew louder, becoming recognizable as a car engine in desperate need of maintenance. The man moved for the first time, tilting his head to the side, looking north, towards the sound of the vehicle. He shifted the shotgun in his hands, and stepped out into the road, calmly walking across, unhurried. For the few seconds it took to travel across the road he became distinct. Noticeable, individual, present. And then just moments before the car would have bathed him in its headlights he was across, escaping into the jungle, his outline
blurring away into nothingness, and then the man was gone.
***
Darkness came crashing through the jungle with a violence akin to a tidal wave. All shapes disintegrated, merging into one seamless blanket of blackness. There were no stars, no moon in the sky to illuminate the world beneath. The twin headlights of a jeep appeared on the road, revealing patches of the world before it, slapping away the dark for a few brief moments. For one split second the light revealed a sliver of a boot as it vanished into the jungle. Too quick for anyone to notice. As the jeep moved on darkness returned, reclaiming the space stolen from it seconds before.
--------------------------------------------------
John Harris, United Nations Observer Office in Angola (UNOA)
Angola, October 19th, 1986 - 7:55 P.M
-----------------------------------------------------
The jeep sped off, leaving John Harris in the middle of the road with nothing but a flashlight and a mud-splattered three piece suit. The second he had stepped out of the air conditioned cocoon of the jeep two things happened. First, he immediately became soaked in sweat. Second, he began gasping deeply for air. John Harris had been born and raised in California, so heat caused little discomfort. But the humidity. The air in Cali was so dry that you risked starting a forest fire if you so much as thought of a match. But here, in the Angolan jungle... Dear God, he felt as if he could drown just by breathing too hard.
Once again he wondered what in the hell had possessed him to volunteer for this job. It wasn't the first time he'd asked himself that, and it wouldn't be the last. The U.N had set up an office tasked with observation and assessment of the eleven year old Angolan Civil War. Technically speaking, it was twenty-five years old if you counted the war for independence from Portugal. It seemed to be a tradition in Africa that the second a revolutionary war ended, a civil war began. The two wars were back to back. No sooner had the thirteen year War of Independence ended in 1974, then the Angolan Civil War began in 1975. It was now 1986, and there was no end in sight whatsoever. The United Nations did what it always did. Set up a task force to keep tabs on the war, condemn it, and then... nothing. All bark and no bite. Harris had been assigned to the UNOA, whose main headquarters were located in New York. However, the UNOA was headed by a military veteran who understood an ironclad law of warfare. You need boots on the ground if you want to get anything done. And so they began to ask for volunteers to send to Angola, to observe and assess the situation at various locations, and report back.
Harris had never done any field work in his life. He had begun working at the U.N when was still young and full of romantic idealism. The passing years quickly turned him into a disillusioned cynic, working not out of idealism, but simply out of habit. He had never wanted to visit any of the God forsaken third world nations that he analyzed from behind a desk. Indeed, he had built up a nice buffer between his comfortable civilized world, and the ragged war torn hell that was Angola. A buffer of documents, statistics, nothing but ink on paper that he could shove into a desk and leave behind as he finished up for the day. He wasn't adventurous, he wasn't physically suited for the outdoor lifestyle. And yet, for some reason that he did not remember, he had quickly volunteered to travel to Angola as an adviser. A remnant of his teenage idealism had surfaced for a brief while, some notion of seeing the world while he still could, of doing hands on work and actually making a difference. The spark burned within the pit of his cynicism just long enough to get him on the plane. It burned out half-way over the Atlantic.
Now, standing in the middle of nowhere, spit shined loafers sunk several inches into wet mud, sweat stains spreading through his several hundred dollar suit, he couldn't help but think of an old anecdote he'd seen in a movie somewhere. A man one day stripped his clothes off and leaped bare assed into a cactus patch. When he was asked later why he had done it, the only thing he said was, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
And that was exactly what John Harris was thinking. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He had a simple assignment. Get on the plane. Get off the plane in the capitol. There he would meet a driver who would take him to an outpost (whatever that meant) in the jungle. At the outpost he'd look around, speak with the commander, write down anything and everything. Next day he'd be driven back to the airport, and be back in the good old U.S.A before you know it, with bonus hazard and sub-standard living pay.
The driver turned out to be local, the only word in English he seemed to know was "dude," and looked stoned out of his mind. Instead of stopping at the outpost, he had simply dropped him off on the road, tossed a flashlight at him, and pointed into the jungle, saying something that sounded more like random gibberish than any form of language to John. And before John could say a word, the driver slammed the door shut, and floored it, the rear tires of the jeep splattering mud across his shoes and pants.
John turned on the spot, shoes squelching in the mud, flashlight slashing through the darkness, revealing nothing but road and jungle. Completely indistinguishable from the miles of identical road and jungle he had seen on the ride here. "Fuck," he said.
***
For a few minutes panic had begun to invade his mind. What the hell was this? Had the driver just ditched him, leaving him alone, with no food or water, in the middle of the fucking jungle? John had walked around in the same square of mud for several moments, stabbing the flashlight beam every which way in the hope of revealing a human being, or a sign, or something to indicate that this was actually near civilization and not just another strip of uninhabited jungle. And then just as he was about to lose any sense of calm he had the flashlight revealed a thin narrow path leading through the jungle. He had sighed with relief, thoughts of panic quickly replaced with rationalization. Of course the driver hadn't just abandoned him. The Outpost must have been a small distance in the jungle, away from the road. The driver couldn't very well have driven him up to it, could he? And hadn't he pointed in this direction, indicating that was where John had to go? Everything was fine.
And so John had set off on the path, which was just as muddy as the road. The second he left the road he was swamped by a sense of unease, its origin unknown. The road was the only connection he had to the world he knew. Built by men, used by men, a path set down through the other, alien world that he did not know so that men could cross through it without having to leave the comfort of the world they knew. He didn't stand out on the road. He was natural to it, part of the society that it indicated. But the second he left it for the jungle, he stood out. Separate from it, distinct from it, feeling ridiculous in his expensive clothes and three piece suit, an unnatural presence in that environment.
The path was incredibly narrow and poorly kept, barely a foot across, the jungle pressing in on him from all sides. Visibility vanished completely. The world around him was literally pitch black. The flashlight was the only source of illumination, removing slices of blackness to reveal the world beneath. And that world was nothing but thick foliage. Looking left and right was just a green wall, so thick that he felt it could support his weight if he were to lean on it. Looking forward he could only see the path ahead for a few feet before it was obscured by leaves and fronds and hanging vines. With each step he took the mud threatened to suck the shoes from his feet, and the deeper he moved into the jungle the more a sense of oppression began to build inside him. He had never thought of himself as claustrophobic, and yet he thought that was what he felt right now. There was very little space. It was very much like being in a cramped tunnel. So claustrophobia made sense, didn't it?
He had walked for six minutes. Very slowly the doubt began to re-appear in his mind, even as he told himself that he had barely started to walk, that the outpost had to be near, that everything was fine. But his body knew better. His body felt trapped, surrounded by an alien and hostile world. And even if his mind didn't recognize it, his body knew that it was being stalked. The body knew that it was not a part of this world. It knew that it was uninvited. The only thing that it wanted was to quickly pass through, unnoticed, hidden, before the jungle realized that someone foreign had invaded its territory. And the body knew that it was too late. The jungle had noticed. A primal, vestigial instinct deep in the oldest part of his brain knew that something else was nearby. That something was following him, watching him, moving through the jungle right next to him, not two feet to his left. His body knew, but his mind did not. The body was screaming deep, deep, deep inside to run. Just, fucking, run. But the instinct was too old, buried too deep, to reach the mind. The only thing that John Harris's mind felt was unease, an uncanny sense of wrongness, and unable to identify why, it decided that he was simply suffering from claustrophobia. Innocent. Harmless. Claustrophobia.
Any and all criticism is welcome, and desired. If there is anything that can be improved please say so.
Disclaimer: Story does contain some adult language.
---------------------------------------------
Andrei Mercer, "Mr. N"
Angola, October 19th, 1986 - 7:54 P.M
------------------------------------------
It wasn't far from sunset. The sun was still a few feet over the horizon, staining the sky with shades of gold, red, and orange as it slowly crept closer to the edge of the world. Beneath the jungle canopy it was already dim and gray, the sky nothing but a bright strip above the narrow mud road. The jungle had fought this road for years, trying to press in against it, to squeeze it out of existence, but with no success. Beneath the mud was heavily salted earth, repelling all attempts to lay roots. Unable to grow into the road, the jungle instead chose to grow over it. Steadily, the canopy thickened, the green walls curving in from both sides, diminishing the the visible sky until one day the eastern jungle would connect with the western in an arch and became a living ceiling, blocking off the sun completely.
It was surprisingly cool in the gloom, nowhere near the scorching heat that existed outside of the jungle's protection. A cacophony of sound existed at all times, day and night. The chirping of insects, howls of monkeys, caws of birds. As day passed into night, the sounds changed, as if someone flipped a cassette over from A to B. Same album, different track. Some creatures slipped into their nests and burrows to sleep, while others awoke, crawling out of shelter to go about their daily business of survival. As the native wildlife went about its routine, so did another animal, foreign, alien, uninvited.
Something stood at the edge of the road, immobile, barely visible in the fading light. The heavy camouflage that adorned its skin and clothes made it difficult to spot against the jungle, the eye easily passing over the outline and failing to register it as something distinct from the foliage. If one were to crouch down, say, to tie a shoelace, then its presence would jump out, cleanly silhouetted against the strip of purple sky above. The shape of a man, the unmistakable form of a rifle, or perhaps a shotgun. There was no man however, no matter what shape it appeared to be. Whatever stood in the road was not separate from the jungle. It did not isolate and cut itself off from the world around it. There was no point where the jungle ended, and the man began. There was no presence of an individual. There was no person in this scene. There was only gray jungle, mud road, purple sky. Whatever stood in the mud was a natural presence in the scene, integrated into it, no different from the hundreds of creatures that called the jungle home. It was just another predator, hunting another form of prey.
He stood there, all but invisible. He didn't move. He didn't twitch. He made no effort to defend himself against the insects that attacked again and again, indifferent to the endless bites and stings. He enjoyed the strip of color above, patiently waited for the sun to abandon the sky, and for darkness to come flooding through the jungle. The air darkened rapidly. Normally at this point the first stars would be revealed, but not tonight. As the sun sank lower it leached the color out of the sky, draining it, leaving behind nothing but a black, starless void.
A new sound joined the montage of monkey shrieks, bird calls, and buzzing insects. It was distant, almost unnoticeable beneath the thick blanket of noise. It grew louder, becoming recognizable as a car engine in desperate need of maintenance. The man moved for the first time, tilting his head to the side, looking north, towards the sound of the vehicle. He shifted the shotgun in his hands, and stepped out into the road, calmly walking across, unhurried. For the few seconds it took to travel across the road he became distinct. Noticeable, individual, present. And then just moments before the car would have bathed him in its headlights he was across, escaping into the jungle, his outline
blurring away into nothingness, and then the man was gone.
***
Darkness came crashing through the jungle with a violence akin to a tidal wave. All shapes disintegrated, merging into one seamless blanket of blackness. There were no stars, no moon in the sky to illuminate the world beneath. The twin headlights of a jeep appeared on the road, revealing patches of the world before it, slapping away the dark for a few brief moments. For one split second the light revealed a sliver of a boot as it vanished into the jungle. Too quick for anyone to notice. As the jeep moved on darkness returned, reclaiming the space stolen from it seconds before.
--------------------------------------------------
John Harris, United Nations Observer Office in Angola (UNOA)
Angola, October 19th, 1986 - 7:55 P.M
-----------------------------------------------------
The jeep sped off, leaving John Harris in the middle of the road with nothing but a flashlight and a mud-splattered three piece suit. The second he had stepped out of the air conditioned cocoon of the jeep two things happened. First, he immediately became soaked in sweat. Second, he began gasping deeply for air. John Harris had been born and raised in California, so heat caused little discomfort. But the humidity. The air in Cali was so dry that you risked starting a forest fire if you so much as thought of a match. But here, in the Angolan jungle... Dear God, he felt as if he could drown just by breathing too hard.
Once again he wondered what in the hell had possessed him to volunteer for this job. It wasn't the first time he'd asked himself that, and it wouldn't be the last. The U.N had set up an office tasked with observation and assessment of the eleven year old Angolan Civil War. Technically speaking, it was twenty-five years old if you counted the war for independence from Portugal. It seemed to be a tradition in Africa that the second a revolutionary war ended, a civil war began. The two wars were back to back. No sooner had the thirteen year War of Independence ended in 1974, then the Angolan Civil War began in 1975. It was now 1986, and there was no end in sight whatsoever. The United Nations did what it always did. Set up a task force to keep tabs on the war, condemn it, and then... nothing. All bark and no bite. Harris had been assigned to the UNOA, whose main headquarters were located in New York. However, the UNOA was headed by a military veteran who understood an ironclad law of warfare. You need boots on the ground if you want to get anything done. And so they began to ask for volunteers to send to Angola, to observe and assess the situation at various locations, and report back.
Harris had never done any field work in his life. He had begun working at the U.N when was still young and full of romantic idealism. The passing years quickly turned him into a disillusioned cynic, working not out of idealism, but simply out of habit. He had never wanted to visit any of the God forsaken third world nations that he analyzed from behind a desk. Indeed, he had built up a nice buffer between his comfortable civilized world, and the ragged war torn hell that was Angola. A buffer of documents, statistics, nothing but ink on paper that he could shove into a desk and leave behind as he finished up for the day. He wasn't adventurous, he wasn't physically suited for the outdoor lifestyle. And yet, for some reason that he did not remember, he had quickly volunteered to travel to Angola as an adviser. A remnant of his teenage idealism had surfaced for a brief while, some notion of seeing the world while he still could, of doing hands on work and actually making a difference. The spark burned within the pit of his cynicism just long enough to get him on the plane. It burned out half-way over the Atlantic.
Now, standing in the middle of nowhere, spit shined loafers sunk several inches into wet mud, sweat stains spreading through his several hundred dollar suit, he couldn't help but think of an old anecdote he'd seen in a movie somewhere. A man one day stripped his clothes off and leaped bare assed into a cactus patch. When he was asked later why he had done it, the only thing he said was, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
And that was exactly what John Harris was thinking. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He had a simple assignment. Get on the plane. Get off the plane in the capitol. There he would meet a driver who would take him to an outpost (whatever that meant) in the jungle. At the outpost he'd look around, speak with the commander, write down anything and everything. Next day he'd be driven back to the airport, and be back in the good old U.S.A before you know it, with bonus hazard and sub-standard living pay.
The driver turned out to be local, the only word in English he seemed to know was "dude," and looked stoned out of his mind. Instead of stopping at the outpost, he had simply dropped him off on the road, tossed a flashlight at him, and pointed into the jungle, saying something that sounded more like random gibberish than any form of language to John. And before John could say a word, the driver slammed the door shut, and floored it, the rear tires of the jeep splattering mud across his shoes and pants.
John turned on the spot, shoes squelching in the mud, flashlight slashing through the darkness, revealing nothing but road and jungle. Completely indistinguishable from the miles of identical road and jungle he had seen on the ride here. "Fuck," he said.
***
For a few minutes panic had begun to invade his mind. What the hell was this? Had the driver just ditched him, leaving him alone, with no food or water, in the middle of the fucking jungle? John had walked around in the same square of mud for several moments, stabbing the flashlight beam every which way in the hope of revealing a human being, or a sign, or something to indicate that this was actually near civilization and not just another strip of uninhabited jungle. And then just as he was about to lose any sense of calm he had the flashlight revealed a thin narrow path leading through the jungle. He had sighed with relief, thoughts of panic quickly replaced with rationalization. Of course the driver hadn't just abandoned him. The Outpost must have been a small distance in the jungle, away from the road. The driver couldn't very well have driven him up to it, could he? And hadn't he pointed in this direction, indicating that was where John had to go? Everything was fine.
And so John had set off on the path, which was just as muddy as the road. The second he left the road he was swamped by a sense of unease, its origin unknown. The road was the only connection he had to the world he knew. Built by men, used by men, a path set down through the other, alien world that he did not know so that men could cross through it without having to leave the comfort of the world they knew. He didn't stand out on the road. He was natural to it, part of the society that it indicated. But the second he left it for the jungle, he stood out. Separate from it, distinct from it, feeling ridiculous in his expensive clothes and three piece suit, an unnatural presence in that environment.
The path was incredibly narrow and poorly kept, barely a foot across, the jungle pressing in on him from all sides. Visibility vanished completely. The world around him was literally pitch black. The flashlight was the only source of illumination, removing slices of blackness to reveal the world beneath. And that world was nothing but thick foliage. Looking left and right was just a green wall, so thick that he felt it could support his weight if he were to lean on it. Looking forward he could only see the path ahead for a few feet before it was obscured by leaves and fronds and hanging vines. With each step he took the mud threatened to suck the shoes from his feet, and the deeper he moved into the jungle the more a sense of oppression began to build inside him. He had never thought of himself as claustrophobic, and yet he thought that was what he felt right now. There was very little space. It was very much like being in a cramped tunnel. So claustrophobia made sense, didn't it?
He had walked for six minutes. Very slowly the doubt began to re-appear in his mind, even as he told himself that he had barely started to walk, that the outpost had to be near, that everything was fine. But his body knew better. His body felt trapped, surrounded by an alien and hostile world. And even if his mind didn't recognize it, his body knew that it was being stalked. The body knew that it was not a part of this world. It knew that it was uninvited. The only thing that it wanted was to quickly pass through, unnoticed, hidden, before the jungle realized that someone foreign had invaded its territory. And the body knew that it was too late. The jungle had noticed. A primal, vestigial instinct deep in the oldest part of his brain knew that something else was nearby. That something was following him, watching him, moving through the jungle right next to him, not two feet to his left. His body knew, but his mind did not. The body was screaming deep, deep, deep inside to run. Just, fucking, run. But the instinct was too old, buried too deep, to reach the mind. The only thing that John Harris's mind felt was unease, an uncanny sense of wrongness, and unable to identify why, it decided that he was simply suffering from claustrophobia. Innocent. Harmless. Claustrophobia.
