Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Terror from Above and Below

This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I heard I'd be taking my first flight to Hawaii, thought Thomas Fiddel. He had departed from LAX at around midnight, and it was now around 1 AM. He wasn't quite sure if he'd passed over a timezone or not yet, although he must be pretty close. The only things he was overly aware of relative to the situation was that he was tired, and it was dark. He hadn't even touched his coffee, he hated the airline shit they tried to give him.

When he was younger, Thomas always had a fascination with aircraft. Well, he had a fascination with travel, and like most people, was curious just how the hell something that heavy could stay up in the air, but other than that, he wasn't much interested in airplanes. Still though, there was something alluring about being an international pilot for a major airline. He'd get to see the world, meet all sorts of interesting passengers, hell, he might even find out how these things stay up in the air.

At least that's the impression the brochure gave him. The truth of the situation was that he had to keep a big, heavy chunk of metal up in the air while dozens of businessmen and tourists in the room behind him vomited into little bags, or chattered obnoxiously in either strange foreign tongues or, worse, English. If they were only speaking foreign languages, at least he could pretend they were having an interesting conversation about far away lands that he'd really only seen through the plane's cockpit window, or whatever scraps of culture showed up in the airport terminal. But when they spoke English, all he would hear about is what happened on that new popular soap opera or reality show, or how much a given businessman holds contempt for his family. It was starting to get to him.

He fiddled with the yoke absentmindedly, waiting impatiently to see land, to see city lights, or great mountains and volcanoes, waiting to see ANYTHING beyond the flat, depressing, blue ocean that was the only thing he'd seen for at least an hour, save for the cockpit control panels and an occasional stewardess.

He'd only been at the job less than a month, but it was already starting to get to him. Putting up with all the obnoxious people day in and day out, having his biological clock interrupted on an hourly basis, and the only world-traveling he ever did was some miles above the landmarks he longed to see from the ground, up close. He didn't see it as just, he didn't want to put up with all this shit.

“Hey miss, can you please warm this coffee up for me?” He asked a stewardess coming in to see if he needed anything. He didn't like the coffee, and he avoided drinking it, but he needed something before he crashed, and it was better than nothing. “Right away, sir.” She gave a tiny bow and scurried out of the room with the little plastic thermos in hand.

About a minute later, he heard some shouting in the passenger cabin, and what sounded like most of the passengers screaming bloody murder. Jesus, what's going on NOW, Tom thought. Suddenly, the door to the cockpit burst open and a man wielding a 9mm handgun stumbled in over the fallen door, shouting for Thomas to get up. He did as instructed, and then walked back into the passenger cabin with his hands over his head, as he was instructed to do at gunpoint.

“Alright people, remain calm. If we do what the men say, we'll get out of this unharmed.” Said the stewardess, shivering at the gun barrel lodged into her lower back, the short man holding it squeezed tight up against her from behind. Damn, a hijacking, Thomas mused. This was exciting, sure, but compared to something this extreme, the tedium of being an airline pilot was the most fun thing on the planet. He felt a pang of guilt at constantly complaining about his boring job.

Just then, the passengers screamed again. But something was weird about this scream; only the passengers on the left side of the cabin screamed. Thomas dared to lean over from the back of the cabin, where he was forced to stand, and look out of the window, where the screaming passenger's eyes seemed to be glued.

What he saw was some sort of black outline, something tall and cone-shaped. A skyscraper? No, that's not right, they were hundreds of miles away from the nearest city. Another plane? No, planes don't usually extend for several miles out of the ocean.

Suddenly, the structure moved, beginning a hurtling descent onto the water's surface. It dawned on Thomas that this thing was not man-made at all. It was the limb of some sort of creature, a giant tentacle, complete with suction cups and sand and scum from the ocean floor. “Jesus Christ!” Thomas shouted, reeling back to the cabin wall, slumping to the floor in sheer terror. Several passengers lost their dinners at the sight, most of them not reaching for the sick bags and dirtying the upholstery of the seats and the floors.

Thomas' mind and heart both raced faster than light speed. What the fuck was that thing? Just a hallucination? Did I mistake it for something else, something more logical and familiar?

Before he could start formulating a theory for what the thing he saw really was, the plane suddenly whipped around 180 degrees, spilling a few stray passengers into the aisle, and knocking over anyone who was standing. Thomas took this momentary distraction to overthrow one of the terrorists and take his gun. He barreled forward and tackled the short man, still on his knees and attempting to pull himself up. He reached down and swiped the man's gun from the floor. He pistol-whipped the man's head a few times, until he was sure he was at least unconscious, then quickly made his way up to the cockpit.

It wasn't exactly a pretty sight; when the plane was flipped around, he must have gotten motion sickness and puked all over the floor, because the ground was slippery with half-digested bits of what looked like what you'd find in an average BLT. While he was hurling the contents of his sandwich onto the floor, he must not have seen the fire extinguisher he was rapidly leaning towards, because he fell into the metal canister and split his skull open, killing him painfully and slowly. Even now he was still twitching around like a little mouses' nose, stirring up the puddle of drying sick and blood and brains he was lying face-down in.

Trying to ignore the mess (and pausing once, briefly, to vomit), Thomas crawled over to the controls and attempted to take control of the plane and escape whatever it was out there swinging at the plane like it was the goddamn World Series.

He yanked the yoke to the right and up, to get out of reach of the tentacle. The plane bumped and started losing altitude. Thomas guessed the tentacle brushed the bottom of the plane. He tried to counter the force of being smacked down into the ocean, and for all intents and purposes succeeded, although he was flying at a lower altitude than ever.

Behind him, a stewardess let out a blood-curdling scream, falling over and rolling around in the aisle, still screaming and flailing around. For a moment, Thomas thought she had lost her mind; he looked over and saw her wrestling with what looked like a giant fleshy crab, all six pointed legs trying to rip off the flight attendant's face.

He ran back into the passenger cabin and saw nothing but chaos; the passengers screaming, four dead bodies on the floor (one of the short terrorist, one of the stewardess he had at gunpoint, and two more who died from the shrapnel of a burst window, through which the crab thing must have gained access), and the stewardess, still wrestling the beast off of herself, large chunks of flesh missing from her arms and face, clothes ripped to shreds. He took the handgun he had previously tucked into his waistband and fired a few shots into the crab, at an angle so as to avoid harming the stewardess. The crab slumped over onto the woman's face, one of it's claws half-dug into a gaping wound in her head. It wasn't all too clear whether she was dead or didn't have the energy to scream, but Thomas wasn't worried about that right now. He had to get everyone to safety, right this minute.

He dashed into the cockpit and fiddled with the radio, trying to send out an emergency broadcast. No good, the equipment was destroyed when the terrorist's corpse slammed into it. Shit, he thought, how the fuck are we getting out of this?

He heard a deafening crunch behind him, and jerked his head back out the cockpit door again. The tentacle had ripped off the left side of the plane, and swatted at a few of the passengers, knocking several of them out and slamming a few of them into the opposite side of the cabin. The plane jerked to the left and dumped several passengers out into the water, splashing the tentacle with bloody seawater and miscellaneous personal items, such as cell phones and shreds of clothes.

Thomas threw himself onto the yoke and flung the plane into a level position, immediately regretting it, because the bodily fluids on the floor came up to splash him in the face and stain the windshield. He retched once, then composed himself and started trying to fly upwards again, but something was wrong. Something was holding him back. He peered out of the cockpit and looked out of the gaping hole in the side, noting the blood stains and chunks of flesh arranged around the sharp edges of the gash. He made a mental note to throw up when he had the time.

The tentacle had wrapped itself around the circumference of the plane, and was squeezing tightly, attempting to break the plane in half just behind the wing. The plane was not actually moving of it's own volition anymore; the tentacle was swinging it wildly back and forth, giving the appearance of movement. The hull of the plane creaked under the weight of the pressure exerted by the mighty creature, and threatened to snap any second. The roof and floor of the cabin were already starting to warp inwards. Thomas had to do something. Fast.

He stepped forward and grabbed onto the luggage rack to stabilize himself, and went for his gun. He aimed right at the tentacle and prepared to empty the clip right into it's blubbery exterior.

“Wait...what's that?” Thomas had noticed something. It was dark, and he could still really only make out a vague outline of the tentacle, but there was movement on it. Something was moving more than the tentacle itself. Little crab-like things scurrying around, all gathering around the tentacle where the hole in the side of the plane was located.

All at once, several dozen legs retracted and contracted, plunging into the hole willy-nilly, attaching themselves to the nearest humans, tearing bits of skin and muscle tissue off, shoving it into little organic tubes that Thomas guessed were their mouths. One of them jumped in Thomas' direction, and he fired what was left of the clip loaded into the handgun (three rounds) into the crab's tube, sending it flying back out through the hole, smacking against the side of another crab coming to join the feast.

Thomas fell with a thud on top of a crab someone had managed to kill with his bare hands, before succumbing to it's frenzy at last, and did a backwards crawl back into the cockpit. The walls of the passenger cabin were bending inwards almost a foot by now, coming to breaking point. It was going to be over in seconds.

Several things happened all at once. The back half of the airplane snapped off, leaving a little inward curl of metal in the half containing the cockpit, and the rest of the passengers in the other half. (In fact, one passenger remained in the other half, who had screamed to Thomas “Hell of a story to tell up in Heaven, eh? We died getting eaten by some sort of alien!” He was not sure Thomas had heard him, but through his own insanity, he still managed to amuse himself.) The plane began skimming the top of the water, slowing ever-so-slightly, but not stopping or altogether sinking. A squadron of fighter jets zoomed overhead, firing little dots of smoking light in the general direction of the chaos seen from outside the back of the cockpit half of the plane. The creature attached to the tentacle gave out a soul-crushing roar, lifting it's head above the water and howling in rage.

The creature's face was of an indescribable and Lovecraftian quality. It rather looks like a cross between an octopus and an old man's face, comported over a watermelon, with tentacles sticking out of the back, and a neck composed of several strands of membrane. Thomas pondered the horrifying beast's biology for a moment, before realizing how grotesque it looked and making good on his promise to himself to vomit later.

The creature's tentacle (the one that was holding the other half of the plane) swung around viciously, spilling human and crab corpses out of the windows and the gaping hole in it's front, dribbling into the monster's screaming maw, swallowed whole.

The jets circled around and fired a few stray rockets into the creature's mouth, unhinging it's jaw and forcing it to slam the plane piece into it's own face, again howling in pain. Another tentacle flopped up out of the water with a mighty crash, washing away the only other survivor of the disaster besides Thomas, and finally forcing the plane to sink at last.

This is it, Thomas realized, this is how I'm going to die. Then, a third tentacle came up and smacked the cockpit up into the air, hurling Thomas into the windshield and cracking it. The plane flew what must have been 200 feet into the air, and then it began falling back to the water, killing Thomas at last.

The windshield cracked open finally, and spilled Thomas and some loose bits of the control panel out into the open, forcing Thomas to scream louder than he ever has in his life.

The monster's head moved into the path of the plummeting debris, and the last thing Thomas saw was an eye composed of thousands of little eyes, staring up at him, waiting for the chaos to end, to die at last.

It was the biggest justice could be done to him, to die finally, after all he lived through.

There was a wet splat, a mighty roar in the distance, the sound of screaming jets blazing around at thousands of miles per hour, perhaps on another world, and then being swatted from the sky by a mighty limb composed of blubbery flesh and parasites and spiny bones, and then it was all light and darkness.

The chaos was over, but there were no happy endings.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Speechless

I'm going to keep this short, as I can feel the vomit rising in my throat, but I just want to make a sort of public service announcement:

NEVER, and I mean NEVER, even out of the most morbid curiosity, read Spongebob slash fiction.

Ever.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

My very first poem:

Poems suck,
What the fuck.
All those emo kids,
making gay-ass bids
on whether fags will like their crappy poems.
Can't stand the sobbing,
the vein in my head is throbbing,
and I just had an aneurism.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Luckiest man on Entler, part 5

The Tremoyen are a race that thrives in the unfavorable climate on Entler; they're a large, but diverse, tribal race that tunnels into mountainsides and takes refuge in cave systems. The tribes themselves number in the dozens on averaqge, and are seperated out the entire planet of Entler. Of the few things that are known about them, one thing is for sure:

They don't like strangers.

When exposed to an alien environment, it's not uncommon for a human to panic; they are very stressful creatures, and they tend to react poorly to new and dangerous situations. If ever there was a man panicking in a strange environment, it was Jeremy (something). He was beginning to think he was losing his mind, but it was rather hard to tell. It all SEEMED to be happening, at least.

“You see, the colonists wish to use this planet as a residential planet, but we all know how wasteful and harsh to the environmeny they are...” Even as Rylch'k (or Eustice, he wasn't sure how to address her) was telling him all this, he couldn't help but run a thought over in his head, and this thought blocked out all others: “Where the hell am I?”

But that would have to wait, there was a much more pressing matter at hand: the fact that he could barely walk, on account of his broken leg. "Excuse me, but my leg is really in need of some goddamn attention." She looked him over, and her eyes locked onto his right leg for a few moments. "Ah yes," she said at last, "I'll have to have a look at th-" and that is when Jeremy stopped listening, for he had passed out.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Brief Interlude

Slight case of writer's block, so chapter 5 of the Entler saga might take a little while. In the meantime, I got a major part of my new computer desk together!

These shelves are going to go under the desk, and I'll put books and CDs and the like under the desk. I just finished staining them today, but tomorrow is a coat of Polyurethane. It's a fairly large load of work, but it's already looking great.And a quick detail shot:

So stay tuned for chapter 5 of Entler, SOMETIME this week, hopefully.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Luckiest man on Entler, part 4

Sitting in a corner of the cramped little room he was in, Jeremy still wanted to sob hysterically, but he knew that whoever that voice belonged to was on it's way to get him, and lord knows what it wanted with him.

The planet Entler in the Astren system is a barren desert world covered fully in clouds all of the time, with very little water anywhere to be found (though enough to support life). The atmosphere, however, is breathable by humans with no environmental alteration or use of life-support, making it a prime candidate for colonization. Currently, there have been 12 colonization attempts on Entler.

None have succeeded.

The Astren system itself isn't much to speak of; two gas giants, each orbited by three moons, orbit the sun. Their names are Y'ltar and Jupitus, and Entler is technically the moon of Jupitus. At night, the gas giant is quite visible, and it's a shame that Jeremy missed the view, for he was sleeping, being watched by an odd creature who believed that he could help his people.

When the door opened, Jeremy stood up and promptly fell back down, when he saw what was walking into the cell: a tall woman, brown-haired and wearing some sort of flak jacket over a worn military uniform, with black combat boots and holding an assault rifle in her elegant hands. There was a device around her neck, which looked like a dog collar, only with a small box attached to the front of it. As the woman's mouth moved, the words did not seem to be hers. In fact, they sounded rather robotic. She said "Pleasure to meet you, I am known as Rylch'k on this world, but my former name is Eustice."

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Luckiest man on Entler, part 3

When he arrived in the cavern, he didn't quite know what to make of what he was seeing; there were what seemed to be dwellings carved into the walls, and there were stairs made of stone, and a waterfall leading into a hole who knows who deep on one end of the massive inhabited area of this gigantic cavern. There were creatures in doorways, and by the waterfall, and walking towards the group that was carrying Jeremy in their claws.

What gave the cavern light was anyone's guess; there were many things on the walls and the ceilings that could bring the gentle glow that was omnipresent in the large grotto, deep underneath the surface of Entler.

“Just my luck,” Jeremy thought to himself, as he was dragged into a small room, about 7 feet wide, but over twice his own height. There they left him, closing a stone door behind them when they exited the room. Above him, Jeremy saw a small hole in the wall, but he could not see inside of it. He wanted very much to crawl into the corner and sob himself into a coma, but he knew he had to be a little more alert than that to survive this. Just when he was starting to succumb to his own desire to break down, a deep, booming voice echoed through the small room, shocking Jeremy to his feet and against the far wall.

“Do you have any idea why you are here?” It asked nonchalantly, but with a certain tone of authority. Jeremy did not respond, for he was too shocked to even open his mouth. “I repeat, do you have any idea why you are here?” “N-no.” Jeremy managed to croak out.

The voice spoke again: “I wish to find out if you would be of use to us.” “What do you want me for?” Jeremy inquired, rather terrified. “The fact that you are even asking tells me you may be what I need right now. I will be right down to retrieve you.”

Friday, August 08, 2008

Luckiest man on Entler, part 2

“Son of a bitch, it's a ghost town.” He cussed under his breath, lamenting that there wasn't a single man-made structure within sight; even after a day of searching, Jeremy didn't find so much as a candy wrapper, to show that any humans were here. It did, in fact, contain life, unbeknownst to Jeremy, but certainly not very many humans, and no human structures, or food, or anything else that could be considered human.

Stumbling through the thick mounds of gray sand that covered the planet of Entler, he found his way to a small curve in the landscape, a crater. He decided he could sleep there for the night, as he felt he didn't want to waste any more energy than he had to. Whoever left him on this planet, they had been thoughtful enough to leave him a backpack filled with bottles of water and candy bars and a knife, in case he were to find a beast who wanted him for lunch, or a beast that HE wanted for lunch. He did not care to know which.

As Jeremy slept under the cold, gray clouds, something approached him. Something rather hideous, covered in grayish-green scales, with beady yellow eyes, and only three legs to walk on, but also three arms and hands. This thing watched the sleeping human for some time, until it decided that the human could be put to good use, and he went to go tell the tribe about his discovery.

When Jeremy woke in the morning, there was not even enough time to scream when the group of beasts spirited him away into the cavern, where it was dark and cold and smelled of rotting corpses.

Luckiest man on Entler, part 1

Grey skies and gray lands. A personal hell. “How the hell did I end up here?” The man thinks. “I didn't do shit, and now I'm here. How the HELL did I end up here?”

Jeremy Roderick never did have good luck. Even as a child, all the bigger kids would push him about or steal something of his. And as an older child, none of the girls seemed the least bit interested in him. And now, in his late 30's, he was stuck on this god forsaken rock in the middle of an unknown system, and he knew that his luck had not changed.

He was on the planet of Entler in the Astren system, although he did not know these names, nor where he might locate those in relation to New Earth. All he knew was the atmosphere was breathable, and that alone was enough for now.

How he got there was a little mysterious to him; one moment, he is in a bar, trying to find a job: smuggling, bounty hunting, whatever he could get in a seedy bar on the edge of his sanity, otherwise known as New Earth; and the next moment, he wakes up, his leg broken, on the most barren planet for many light-years. No, his luck had indeed not changed.


Picking himself up and dusting off his clothes, he angrily mutters, "Well, I guess I better check for signs of a station, or a way off of this shithole."

Letting you all know I'm still alive

I haven't had particularly much to blog about lately, actually. Pretty soon I'll be taking an overnight trip for my dad's eye surgery (cataract surgery), so I might post from the hotel just for fun.

I've been reading a LOT lately. I just read Neil Gaiman's Stardust, and I'm reading through Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain, and once I'm through THAT, I'll be reading Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. That is a LOT of reading for me.

It was my birthday just this past July 29th, and I got exactly what I wanted: a laptop, an EEE PC. It's really, really nice, but I just can't deal with the cheesy Linux distro it comes with, so I'll be installing an nLited version of Windows XP as soon as I can.

Other than that, I can't think of much to write, so I'll just be on my merry way until I can think of something.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Ay-Arr-Jee

I'm working on something I've wanted to do for a while, but never really had the time or attention span to compile it all together; I have started an alternate reality game. For those unfamiliar with those, it's a little like roleplaying, like Dungeons and Dragons, only a bit different. The premise is, a group of "players" try to solve different puzzles and challenges put forth by the "puppetmaster", the guy controlling the story, in an attempt to discover what is at the heart of the game's plot. (At least this is what mine is going to be about.)

I can't reveal any information on the game, but the first clue will be located here. Good luck!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Yootoobz

Ok, so I started a Youtube channel, and I just wanted to share it so everyone can have a look at it. I'll probably be "vlogging" more, too, so be sure to check there often.

Linkzorz.

Monday, May 19, 2008


I saw this picture of my sister's pet rabbit, Sophie, in my pictures folder and couldn't resist.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Favorite links meme

Ok, so I've been tagged by SME, so I guess I should get this over with:

AnywhereBB: The greatest forum community I've ever seen, hands down.

Slashdot: I'm sure nobody's surprised I read the geek news.

XKCD: Geekiest webcomic out there. (There's a LOT of people who won't get it, either.)

Computer Stupidities: The funniest website on the internet, hands down! All about idiots trying to work with computers, and the poor bastards who have to help them.

4chan: I think I'm breaking rule number one of the internet just by posting this, but whatever. It's hard to explain why I like it, but it might be the dark sense of humor a lot of members have, especially on /b/ (Random.)

So that concludes my "Favorite links meme."

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Youtube comments

Comments on Youtube are just too ridiculous not to laugh at. If the commenter in question is trying to be serious, he tends not to get his point across; or if, on the other hand, the commenter is trying to make a joke, it tends to be either stale and unfunny or spiteful and tasteless. Of course, there is an even worse third category: Utter nonsense. Take this actual comment, for example:

"we goona highway to hell... and nobody can do something^^

what is wrong with me, us all here... i don' know... cup with me i have holyday!!"

Everyone I know swears he used Babelfish, but it's hard to say, considering the decline in the quality of grammar, sentence structure and spelling in the past decade, especially in younger people. This particular comment was found on a video about the aftermath of the Columbine Highschool Massacre, and judging from the content of the message, I believe he is trying to this:

"What is wrong with humanity? We're all going to hell, and nobody can do anything. ^^

What's wrong with all of us? 'Sup! I'm on holiday!"

This man obviously does not know when it's appropriate to use cheerfulness or morbidity, but that can also be chocked up to my poor job at "translation." So, I've said what I wanted to say about that for now.

As a closing note, I want to show you what happens if I translate my interpretation of the commenter's message from Japanese back into English in Babelfish:

"Somewhere humanity is not strange, is? We are everything which has done to the hell and who somewhere our everything which cannot do with ^^ necessarily is not strange, is? ' Sip! As for me there is a holiday!"

We are everything which has done to the hell and who somewhere our everything which cannot do with, indeed.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Quick review: V for Vendetta (The movie)

I verily enjoyed this vigorous romp through the film V for Vendetta. I very much felt the movie was vatic of the uncertain times that we, as the vulgus, should take as food for thought. "V" (a contemporary vision of Guy Fawkes, the man who was volensed to the Gunpowder Plot) is a character with a voracious appetite for violent overthrow of a totalitarian regime vendicating England for the purpose of vastiditly collecting sums of currency. Along the way, he velociously dispatches a volley of foes, and falls in love with a young woman who yearns for more than she is experiencing in her life. (DAMMIT! I messed up, hardly any V words there.)

Bottom line: Good action movie which touches on some rather "shady" political ideals.

I apologize for the voluble verbigeration of V words in this review, but I am...a smartass.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Scientology petitions

Quick post, just want to put some petitions here, so they get signed. PLEASE SIGN!

Petition to make the CoS a cult.
Petition to disband the CoS.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Project Chanology

Because I do not want to take a biased stance here, I'll let it speak for itself.

http://chanology.cjb.net/