Hi so today I wanted to post something interesting. This time it isn't an original work of mine! Today I Wanted to past the first chapter of my novel, Stargazers : The Deep Void. So this is a book that I spent most of the last year on. Essentially, it is a science fiction novel that revolves around a group of 6 friends. These friends initially think that they're going on a simple backpacking trip through Europe, but things slowly take a turn for the worst as dark secrets and a shocking death threatens to tear them apart.
So far I've written the first book, and am halfway through the second book, but I still feel like my first book isn't publishing worthy yet. Like I still want to do some hardcore edits on it to make sure everything runs smoothly. This is a project that is super close to my heart, so I Want to make sure everything is perfect before I formally try to publish the book. But anyways, enough of my talking, here's the first chapter in its entirety. Cold. Cold winds shivered through my body. Something was there. I could feel its presence. Rows and rows of dark spikes rose out around me...eerily like teeth. The deep pool of ink above me was shifting and tumbling, like a roaring ocean. I was on the ground, a rough gravel that seemed like it was moving! But no, not moving, rumbling, as if a terrible beast was awaking from its slumber. *Augustus...* The shadows seemed to whisper as an ominous shape drew out of the rotted and stunted shrubs that dotted the area. *Come to me...* I could see its eyes, it’s horrifying eyes as the area around me, the shrubs, the gravel, the very air seemed to dissolve. And in that moment my very essence was vanishing in a long and deep scream... The sounds, the sounds I could hear of an... alarm clock? I woke up the blaring noise of an alarm clock... no my alarm clock. Actually a more accurate depiction would be to say that I literally fell out of my bed, screaming as the ground reached up to meet me. “August! August are you ok!”, my mom yelled at me from downstairs. “Aughhhh”, was the wittiest response I could come up with. I pulled myself up from the soft carpet, and looked around, trying my hardest to forget the terrible things I had just seen. “It was a dream, just a dream”, I thought to myself. And I looked around at my room, at all the comforting things I had, the poster from a movie I’d outgrown so long ago, like five years ago, the stamps my grandparents had given me, a poster from London that my friends had gotten me, and of course my world map. Looking at the map made me feel confused. Soon I would be going, finally going on the adventure that I’d been planning for years. But after that I’d be leaving everything and everyone I’d known for all my life. But on this wonderful morning, at the beginning of my travels, it was hard to be sad about everything, even though the malice of my dreams was still etched into my mind... So that's it. That's the first chapter of my book. What you heard is the chapter from the perspective of one of the main 6 characters from my book, August. Essentially he woke up from a "bad dream". Who knows, maybe the chapter is directly foreshadowing the main evil for my book, yeah I have no clue, definitely don't know. Oh wait, I'm the author, so I definitely do know. And it is definitely foreshadowing something in the future. Anyways, I feel like in the future I'll post more chapters from my book, or maybe before that a rundown of the main characters and their characteristics and motivations. Yeah that does sound like a good idea. But anyways, within this chapter I tried to stuff in a lot of metaphors and imagery. And definitely a lot of foreshadowing. Honestly the way I tend this story is by knowing where I want the characters to end up, and then just making up how it happens as I write. It's a very spontaneous approach, but it's honestly led to some great moments. The funniest part about my writing process while working on this story was that I wrote most of the chapters at around 12-2 AM. Or during classes. Very little of it was written at a decent hour during my off times. I find that those not decent hours are when my craziest ideas are produced, which is definitely what this book is a product of. But anyways, next post will probably either be a short story or another traveling post. Goodnight everyone! Peace!
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So today I want to write another short story. But this one will have a direct connection to my last short story. For those of you who don't remember it, essentially the unnamed narrator woke up in bed with the knowledge that in 2020, two years from now, the world will end. Now he's trying to figure out what exactly it could be. The story isn't going to be very long, but I think after I'm done I'm gonna share some of my thoughts. We'll see, here we go!
I went downstairs, still shocked over what I'd just seen. The images were still etched in my mind. The pure insanity of hundreds of human beings, stuck with nothing left in life. And I couldn't get over the idea that two years from now, it is all going to happen. Humanity will be wiped out. I mean, it seems crazy right now. We seem on top of the world. Sitting in the kitchen of my house in the middle of the suburbs, it seemed insane. I looked around. How could this all go away? It just can't be possible. I looked at the porcelain plates in the wardrobe, at the bright granite countertops and the dark oak of the kitchen. There's no way something could happen...it just doesn't seem possible. But is it really that crazy? A voice nagged at the back of my mind. A world with nuclear missiles will never be a safe world. They said that the attack happened because of us, because of humanity. We caused our own downfall. It definitely doesn't seem impossible that two governments piss each other off enough that all of our nuclear treaties, everything to ensure that we don't destroy each other goes out the window. It's like our world is standing on a thumbtack right now. We're balancing on one foot. One sudden movement and we all come crashing down. But even if it's not the governments, think about all the splinter groups and rouge organizations we have in the world. There's too many, all with conflicting ideas. And I'm sure that many would be perfectly fine with destroying our world. But no, that would never happen. For every insane person in the world, we have three perfectly sane people, who are in charge of our heavy hitting weapons. No, the attack wouldn't be through nukes. I coughed slightly, wiping away the spit with a napkin. No, it would be through disease. Whether through bioterrorism or just through some sort of accidental epidemic, that's how it would happen. I thought of all the public transportation systems, planes, trains, and buses. So many people in close proximity. One person starts to cough, and they're suddenly able to infect so many people. Airports are hubs of disease simply because of the amount of people in one area. It's kind of ironic actually that the people themselves are the carriers of the very thing that will destroy them. Really makes you think. But no, while that may be a very plausible way in which humanity will go extinct, something about it just didn't seem right. As I took a shower and got ready for work I continued to think about it. I thought about the village from my dreams. They said that place was the epicenter, it's where everything started. Some sort of evil was released upon the village... As I drove to work I looked out at the bright and cheery day. Somehow, the warmth and brightness just cheered me up. I actually forgot about everything from the morning. I started working, debugging a particularly nasty piece of programming. All my thoughts were focused on my task. And as I sat down during my lunch break and surfed the web I actually started to relax. That is, until I heard a familiar chime from my phone. Looking down, I saw a notification from my news app, which read HUNDREDS DEAD IN VILLAGE MASSACRE IN NEPAL Alright, well there's the direct connection. So far the story hasn't started to speed up. That's all gonna change soon. But I also wanted to take this venue to discuss all of the violence within our world. I mean, it's a bit insane. We're all one species aren't we? I feel like sometimes people get all wrapped up in the different segregated groups they've create, based on race, religion, gender, work, or even interests. And this causes people to forget the we all are part of the same group. The human one. Next blog I think is either gonna be a discussion of the different conflicts we've had in the past twenty odd years, or it'll be another Around The World Segment. But yes, I have some ideas for the short story series. I think the next few ones are only gonna have subtle nods to each other. I think it's high time to delve into the past don't you think... See you all next time! Peace! Not to worry, for I am still alive. I'm sorry for not posting in a while, the past two weeks have been a blur of midterms and homework assignments that I've kinda been freaking out about.
But as the Thanksgiving holidays come around the corner, I'm definitely gonna try to put more focus on the blog. But then, once again I'll have to take a break as...finals come around. Ugh. Let's not think about that. Anyways, what I wanted to write about today was finally, another short story. Now, this story isn't gonna relate too much to the first one that I wrote at first, but I promise, eventually, maybe not in this story, but eventually it will all make sense. Oh boy I'm excited. Here we go. Long after humanity has gone extinct, Earth is visited by extraterrestrial explorers, archaeologists and paleontologists all seeking to reconstruct human history. What they find is both intriguing and horrifying. So there were many different paths I was thinking about going with this story based on this prompt, and all I know right now is how it's gonna start, so let's get right into it. *** Star-Date 5674, estimated time since extinction...currently unknown. I read the information firing in from the analysts down on the planets surface, fascinated by what I was hearing. Unknown cause of extinction, but based on scans could be caused by a variety of factors including radiation or pathogens. The people that lived on this planet had built great things. Their constructions reached towards the stars, and some of their monuments were seriously impressive. But perhaps most impressive of all was their vast storage of knowledge in the electronic storage unit they had once called the internet. You're probably wondering how I know so much about this species. Their information banks have been quite useful in helping me understand who and what they were, but I already knew about this species before even reading through the internet. Ahh yes, we've investigating this species for quite sometime, since far before they went extinct. Yes, something about the beings that lived on the planet they called Earth has always fascinated us. But now it's time for us to dig deeper, to truly learn about what this civilization truly was. And today is that day. "The biggest flaw in their species", one of the researchers told me as we headed to the surface of their planet, "was that they were incapable of truly bonding as a society. Sure you had those short lived nations, but those never lasted for more than a couple of millenia. For some reason, the biggest enemy to humanity was always itself." "So that's how they finally went extinct...?", I said sadly, "Some sort of nuclear or biological warfare?" "Not at all actually", the researcher said, much to my surprise, 'Come, I must show you." Once we landed on the surface of the planet he took me to a huge mountain overlooking much of the barren landscape. Where I'm sure there had once been lush overgrowth, all that was left was a sad reminder of the past. "It was here that it started", said the researcher again sadly, "They allowed a dangerous enemy to walk away unhindered." I looked around at the mountain and checked my scanner which noted that the area had once been a peaceful village. "What happened to the people who lived here?", I said fearfully. "A great evil, something they could hardly understand, completely destroyed them. And it didn't stop there. No, it continued to spread, nation after nation, until there was no one else." "But what could've caused this?" "Like I said, their worst enemy was always themselves." My throat grew dry, "It was one of their own." The researcher laughed, "Not at all actually." He continued to laugh and laugh and laugh as his face grew hideously disfigured. It was like someone had stretched skin across the empty shell of a corpse. It had no reason to be alive. I blinked, and suddenly the callous ruins of a village were everywhere around me. More people started to laugh all around me. The insane fragment that had outlived everyone else. They were far beyond help, too broken to be saved. They all started to laugh in unison. I blinked again, and lying on the ground in front of me was a torn scroll, the kind that these people hung up on the wall as a calendar. Written in bold script on the front was the last year that any living fragment of this species had ever flipped to. The year of the apocalypse. 2020. I dropped to the ground as the whole world began to swirly, the insane face of the broken society still etched into my mind. * * * I woke up in my bed sweating. I looked at the alarm clock and calendar on my bedside. 2:38 AM, November 24, 2018. But that wasn't the only date on my mind. I remembered the date of the events I'd seen play out in my supposed "dream". And it didn't make sense. There's no way it could have been a dream. The year that my dream took place was 2070... * * * WOOO That was a ride. I feel like the end is a little unstable and rough, which I promise you I will smooth out over time. But read the first short story before you read this one, and I hope it will make a bit more sense. But there's so much left to uncover from this storyline, first being who our mysterious 3 narrators have been.(3 counting one from the first blog post, one from the future, and one who just woke up a little freaked out). And the very specific time I wrote coming from the alarm clock is the time right now, so I'm gonna sleep. But I definitely like where this is going. A lot more to uncover. Next is going to be something travel related I believe. I need to get out of this dark stuff for a while. Also yes, I'm sorry this story got really dark too. The next short story will be a little less heavy on the mind. Hopefully. Peace! Hey all, Aakash here for the first blog post. I want to start my blog off with a short story. I'm hoping that sporadically I can post a story based off of an interesting prompt or idea that I find. Afterwards I also want to analyze the different creative techniques I used and such. One of the greatest joys in writing is the ability to create completely different scenarios and ideas out of basically nothing. So anyways, without further ado, here we go. My breath fogged out in front of me. The icy mountains stretched out far ahead of me, looming on the horizon. The chill in the air was clearly evident, and I shivered despite my heavy parka and sweatshirt. The zipper on my jacket had broken off days ago, leaving me unable to close my jacket. Which was unfortunate. I gazed down at the small mountain village beneath me, which considering the circumstances, seemed very inviting at the moment. Three months, that's how long I'd been off the grid. No cell phone, no laptop, nothing. Such a thin layer between me and the wild. Every single day it felt like that layer of civilization was slowly breaking down. I felt like I could finally think again. The rush of human life was too much for me, and finally, just finally my connection with the land around me, the trees, the sky, the birds soaring through the clouds, and the insects digging through the ground, almost felt complete. I felt so at peace with the world. So as I made my way down the broad side of the mountain, I did so with a cheerful smile on my face, excited at the prospect of a strange new culture and a mountain paradise. What I arrived in was the complete opposite. What I arrived in was a village struck down by tragedy. I came there hoping to find some semblance of civilization, but I saw something far worse. The worst part about the village wasn't the blood stained snow or the gaping holes within the village, no it was the silence. And for the first time in a while, I felt so alone. There were no bodies whatsoever. The village felt like the empty shell of life. What was probably once a bustling and happy village now felt like something set up purposely to mock me. I felt like life had brought me here as some kind of cruel joke, as if to say "Hey, you're feeling alone. Let's prove that you are!" Even the wonderful vista that I'd been previously admiring felt misleading, like it was trying to make me feel isolated. I continued through the village, just staring around at all the broken down houses. It seemed like this had happened very recently. Grass hadn't started to poke out around the rubble just yet. But it still didn't make sense. Where could everyone have gone? Something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. On the ground in one of the smallest shacks I saw something sparkling. With extreme foreboding I slowly made my way over to the collapsed home. I had been alone for so long. Had seen no one. People shouldn't spend so much time alone. I never expected it to go so far. The gale of the wind reminded me of the terrible terrible shrieks. The sounds. I never meant for it to happen. Humans are such social creatures. We were never meant to be alone. Something eventually breaks inside every person. With a heavy heart I pulled my zipper out of the ruins... * * * Alright guys, that's it. I did not plan on the story going in that direction. And don't worry, we're not gonna end that story on a cliffhanger. Well, not completely at least... Haha, I started that story hoping to create some sort of piece on self discovery and journeying through the mountains, but I ended up going down some sort of darker path. Which is interesting. Remember, this is just a first draft. I'm probably gonna smooth it out at some point. Oh and by the way, that picture you see up there is from Nepal, which is honestly one of my favorite countries ever. I'll definitely have to share my experiences there in a future blog post. But anyways, I'm gonna leave it at that for today. I'll probably continue with another short story that is related to this one in some way next week. See you all next time! |
AuthorI am just a guy in my 20s trying to find my way in life. I love to write short stories and also document the wonderful world around me! Be prepared for a lot of pictures! Archives
November 2022
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