A Dark Shock

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Hey ho my amigos.

I wrote a short story. It's worth 6.25 pages.
I hope you could take the time to read it, because I spent majority of today writing it.

Please note a few things:

• This is a Fantasy story.
• This was just finished an hour ago.
• This hasn't gone through much editing.
• The story's plot points might still be hazy.
• There's a possibility you'll find this anti-climactic.

Alrighty, here goes nothin'!

A Dark Shock

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Wyatt slowly woke to the sound of what he thought was hammers, drills, and the distorted revving of a long unused sport bike which made his black hair frizz. It was a strange morning. As he walked down the stairs for his morning meal, he had heard numerous explosions and three loud pops in succession which sent a shiver from his spine. The smoke from downstairs fogged the glasses he wore and its smell tainted his pajamas.

“I am not quite fond of breakfast,” he said to himself, “but this morning merits a little normal.”

He listened to a rough hum and sizzle as the racket downstairs began to die down. As he cooked a meal for two, Wyatt expected a certain someone to join him that morning for a taste of his fruity flapjacks, he just wasn’t sure who. A woman from the basement walked into the kitchen, greeting Wyatt as a slight frown grew on his face. Not entirely the person he was expecting, but was he expecting at all? He beckoned the young lady to the table as he plated the still-hot pancakes.

“Alice,” he blurted, but he cut himself off.

He didn’t know her.

Alice wore her long hair blood red as it shot small sparks of light like a tesla coil. Her eyes were an unusually murky light blue hue. She wore a long black sleeveless dress that showed her toned arms.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt, for waking you like that. I know you just woke up.

I just had to…”

She collapsed face first onto her plate, her hair no longer sparked as it faded to a sinister black. Wyatt stood awkwardly and walked away, down to his basement where Alice had come from. Curious to unravel the unbeknownst events that have occurred in this room, Wyatt slid open the tinted glass doors to reveal a domicile of insanity. On the table right next to the door, a shiny metal table held a large assortment of tools, from a scalpel to an industrial jackhammer. The white walls right above it was spattered with too many colors that mixed into a putrid black, which dripped onto a formerly tiled floor. Sheets of metal and oily wires were scattered all over the floor. Etched onto the floor were numerous illegible words. In the center of the room was a sort of mechanical exoskeleton, but judging from the lack of actuation it had, it was built to capture and restrain. Surprise, it did just that.

Wyatt was pinned, face to the wall, and extremely pained; more in his heart than the rest of his body. Firstly, who is Alice again? Secondly, he was extremely pissed thanks to this AI strait jacket. Lastly, quite literally to his heart, he had never felt adrenaline before and was probably heading for a cardiac arrest. He felt the wall fade away as the world spun rapidly into a completely different domain. He saw what the world really was; dark, miserable, and at war. Wyatt was no longer a man; he was a victim, a prisoner, dead and meaningless. He stood, alone on the ground. Snapped back into reality, Wyatt was looking straight into Alice’s murky blue eyes. He began to weep in a quiet sorrow, unable to comprehend the events he had experienced. He looked down to see he was wearing a white suit and cargo pants. His hands glowed with a vibrant green flame.

“Oh my,” Alice said, “whatever shall I do? I have brought this unto you and now you suffer this consequence. I don’t understand whatever I saw either, but I know that we’ll never be the same. Were you apprehended by numerous shadows too?”

“What are you saying?” Wyatt groaned hoarsely. “A giant robot of some sort wrapped around me and started beating me against a wall. It fed me strange thoughts and now I can’t help but feel that you and I are a lie.”

An eerie silence caused the two to look around. They weren’t in a basement at all; they were in a tent warmed by a campfire from outside. Alice’s worries flew away like a rocket and she ran out with a carefree grin. Wyatt’s heart was still pained so he went to sleep.

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Wyatt abruptly woke to the sound of gunners, missiles, and the distorted humming of a long unused generator which made his platinum hair spike up. It was a strange morning. As he walked out the tent for his morning meal, he had heard numerous bombs drop and three loud gunshots in succession which scared the hell out of him. The smoke from the fields fogged the chipped glasses he wore and its smell practically emanated from his suit.

“What in blue blazes!” he was screamed, and then he looked back down to his hands. “What in green blazes!”

He was running through a battlefield, his heart throbbing yet again, shouting for Alice and wondering why all his life was wiped save for yesterday’s events. None of it made any sense to him, but it didn’t matter much when he stood in the face of a long barrel of a gun manned by a robotic fiend. Wyatt found himself beating its face in before he considered letting himself get shot and just wake from this demented nightmare. An uncharacteristic anger started burning up from below until he saw that he was burning the fiend below him. He stood up, watched the gunfire and dreadful violence. The clouds were strangely golden as they passed by to reveal multiple white orbs where the sun should be.

“Well I didn’t sleep well last night anyway,” he chuckled.

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He found a man, or a woman. It was a humanoid silhouette. It was sitting in a deep crater clutching the head of another fiend. Wyatt walked down the crater and sat right across the being from a respective distance.

“I know why,” it spoke. Its deep bellow echoed all over the land. It swirled its hand to a fist and smashed the ground. Time froze, and so did Wyatt, as he watched the being walk towards him.

“I am you Wyatt,” it explained, “I am Alice. I am everything and everyone here. This world is what I want it to be. You stubborn ‘humans’ refuse to accept me as your ruler, so you retreat into your own minds and change what you really see. Sometimes things get down and dirty, where you see your true self in this true world. You start fighting it. You start fighting me. Deep inside, you know you it is real. Nothing you know is real. I control everyone and not even you can overcome me.”

Wyatt let that last statement wash over in his head. He wondered if he was someone of great importance or really was a stranger in this place. He gathered himself and asked questions.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

“I will not answer that,” said the soulless silhouette.

“Send me back to my world.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Send me back or I’ll make you.”

“I’ll admit you have courage to speak to me like that. However, there is no leaving this world once you’ve entered it. This is reality, subspecies.”

“This is not the real world. You’re screwing with me. Let me get out of here.”

“Are you so sure? Can you even remember what had happened the other day?”

Wyatt and the shadow glared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

“What did you do with Alice?” Wyatt asked. “She just bolted before I slept and now I have nowhere to go.”

“Does it matter? I will kill you before you get to—“

“She went that way, didn’t she?”

Wyatt was staring a lifeless area full of battered buildings.

“That’s the Itami Complex,” explained the being, “you can go live there along with the other scum like you. They’ve all mutated into strange power freaks. Although looking at your burning hands of fury makes you no different.”

“Sure, but is Alice there?”

He wasted his breath. Wyatt was left standing alone in the crater. The battle had long ended during his time-altered conversation with a shadow, so he decided to follow the remaining soldiers that fell back.

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When he reached the outer gate of Itami, another large exoskeleton stood by keeping watch. After his failed attempt to hide from it, Wyatt was yet again mashed against a wall. A faint static buzzed next to his right ear, which eventually spoke to Wyatt.

“What do ye want ya blasted brute?”

“Excuse me?” Wyatt retorted.

“It gets annoyin’ when ye lil’ ogres speak English. Get yer steampunk arse outta me sight, before I cut yer head off me self.”

“I’ll have you know I’m nowhere near as ugly as that robot-doohickey. Now where’s Alice?”

Wyatt was growing impatient when all he heard was static, but when he heard the faint phrase ‘It has vanity,’ he knew he was safe, sort of.

“I give ye my most sincere apologies, dear lad. Call me Wolfy.”

Wyatt was set free from the exoskeleton’s death grip and walked into Itami. Wolfy apologized about the security measures, with a slap to the face as an answer. At night the place glowed with an eerie blackness despite all the color that glowed from everyone walking around town. As he ventured through the large grid-based city, he came upon the center of Itami; a gigantic dome patterned with gigantic runes that glow a blood red.

For sure Alice was here, and he needed answers from her.

Wyatt readied for a great sprint into Itami’s capital, but stopped himself. He took a good long look around where he stood. No one here was a soldier; they were all regular people. Like Wyatt, they were stripped from their humanity, and given strange powers for an unknown purpose. 

“If this shadow has got anything more than his bark, he just played with us like toys,” Wyatt thought aloud. “No wonder everyone fought this war; this shadow wants his fun while us humans want our sanity. Everyone’s scared and we have no idea who we were or what we’re worth now. It’s going to be a long blind war. 

Now I just have to find Alice.”

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wakas...