Post by TheUdjat on Mar 29, 2007 11:11:49 GMT -5
Because K-Man yelled at me 
Here's a short excerpt from the first chapter of my novel. I haven't officially named it, or I'd include that part. The boards don't seem to handle indenting too well, so I had to separate the paragraphs. I might've screwed that up. Don't blame it on the novel, though.
Without further ado - Enjoy.
He turned off the monitor and went to his kitchenette, hoping a late dinner and mindless television would ease his suffering.
“Mr. Marigold,” a voice calmly addressed him while he perused the refrigerator. Marius jumped, bumping his head on the freezer door immediately above him.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, rubbing his head and whirling around to face the intruder. He was a slim gentleman, seated in one of the corner chairs, turned to face the kitchenette. He had an angular face, sharp features, a cleanly trimmed black goatee, and an elegant black suit with a glowing white undershirt. His eyes were dark, but sparkled strangely, and moved in a way that Marius found greatly unsettling, though he couldn’t say exactly why. His hair was neat, as dark as his suit, but not combed back. In one hand he held a coffee mug, steaming generously, which he sipped from with no apparent discomfort. Marius thought that perhaps he looked familiar, but the pain of bumping his head was making it difficult to focus. “Who the hell are you?” Marius asked sharply, with the tone of voice he thought appropriate for addressing a home invasion. Even a well-dressed one.
“Who the hell indeed. Mr. Marigold, please, have a seat and I will explain.”
“How about I pick up my phone, call the police, and you explain to them?”
The gentleman closed his eyes and sighed gently, patiently, placing thumb and index finger on either side of the bridge of his nose in an unmistakable gesture of consternation. “If you do that then I will be forced to slit your throat, Mr. Marigold, all over your clean, beige carpeting.”
Marius blinked, the response taking him completely offguard.
“It would be a lot of blood,” the man added, given the pause.
Marius blinked again, still speechless.
“Your carpet would never really recover.”
“I… I see.”
“Sit down, Mr. Marigold. Have some coffee,” he gestured to a matching mug Marius had not previously noticed, waiting in front of the other chair. He wondered how this man had sauntered into his locked apartment with two mugs of coffee without any noise whatsoever. If he was a burglar, he was a good one.
Numbly, suddenly fearing for his life on account of this well-dressed stranger, Marius shuffled across his living room floor, the distance immeasurably longer and more foreboding than he remembered it being, and sat himself down by the man in the suit.
“There now, isn’t that much better?”
“Not especially.”
“Drink your coffee, Mr. Marigold.”
Marius stared at the steaming mug. The coffee looked hot – very hot – but he was really in no position to argue on account of his throat and the proposed slitting. Marius wondered whether it was poisoned as he lifted it up, though the color looked normal enough for coffee with some cream and sugar added. Marius tried a sip, and found it far too scalding for his tastes, not to his surprise. “Hot!” he choked out.
“Mm, yes,” the man frowned, looking at his own steaming mug. “I guess I do like it a bit hotter than most. My apologies.”
“Look, not to complain, but is tasting coffee seriously the reason you just threatened to kill me? Are you some kind of demented barrista?”
“To what is, I’m certain, your immense disappointment, I am not a ‘demented barrista’. I am a businessman. You may call me Aldebaran,” he took a sip of his coffee, utterly unbothered by its temperature.
“Aldebaran? Like the star?”
“Sure.” He smiled mildly. “Mr. Marigold, allow me to cut to the chase, as it were. You are in possession of something that I am in great need of, a certain thing, for lack of a better term, that is valuable beyond measure. I am here in an effort to strike a mutually agreeable bargain for that thing – though understand, as I alluded, that if you are especially uncooperative, I will probably just kill you. Brutally.”
“Well, gee, my cup just brimmeth over with options.”
Aldebaran shrugged indifferently.
Marius sighed resignedly. “So what is this ‘thing’ you want?”
Aldebaran sipped his coffee, completely unhurried. “Your soul.”
“Ah, yes, my… what?”
“Soul. Yours.”
Marius rubbed his temples. Was he dreaming? “Ignoring the impossibility of both verifying and transferring a soul, what the hell do you need mine for?”
“I will ignore your erroneous assumptions for the moment, Mr. Marigold, except to assure you that your soul exists, and I am here to take it. Buy it. Whatever. My reasons are… something of a complicated matter. Really a bit much to be bothered with. Especially on a Thursday.”
Dream or no, Marius didn’t like being brushed off. “Since it concerns my immortal soul, I think I can be troubled to try and comprehend it.”
“As you wish.” He cleared his throat. “Your soul has become a most troublesome entity. It is immaterial, I assure you, but in the spiritual world it is both sluggish and bulky. You could say it ‘crowds’ spiritual traffic, like a car stopped in the middle of a highway. This alone would not be quite so problematic, except that your soul is also… different. I would say it is ‘unique’, but that might give you a misperception of its worth. ‘Defective’ is a better term. Yes, your soul is defective, Mr. Marigold. It is infecting everything around it on a spiritual level with its defection, spreading misery and woe like a fire ship, or perhaps a plague rat. It is my charge to remove your soul to a more appropriate home, to quarantine it from the others it might contaminate. Your soul, Mr. Marigold, is frankly a burden and a danger to yourself and to others,” he paused to take a sip of his coffee, letting the details sink in, before he continued.
“Now. I am prepared to offer you – within reason – anything your heart desires in exchange for your soul. I won’t lie, life will not be the same without your soul – a little less peachy, not quite as warm and fuzzy, some unnamable something missing. Of course, from my extensive research on you, I have gotten the impression that you are already missing a certain something from your life, so it’s likely you won’t even notice.” He shrugged. “So there’s the deal. You give me your soul for safekeeping, with the knowledge that losing it helps everyone around you, and I give you whatever pleasures of life you can conjure up. Doesn’t that sound splendid?”
Marius was not prepared for that sort of detailed explanation. He had also never imagined his soul to be a ‘sluggish and bulky’ thing, though he had to admit that he was not especially surprised to hear this. It explained a number of things, after all. Stunned as he was, Marius took his time, taking a sip of the still-steaming coffee and, blissfully distracted by his whirling mind, managed to ignore the burning sensation as it coursed down his throat. All the while, Aldebaran waited patiently for his reply, hands folded neatly over the table.
Finally, Marius mustered the voice to speak. “Where… where would you take my soul?”
Aldebaran nodded. “A most understandable question. There are, after all, not many suitable locations to store a soul at. I would take your soul to our Soul Habitation Center in Dis, there to rest indefinitely, until perhaps a cure can be found for its ailment – though in confidence, I would not put much stock in that, sadly.”
“Dis? What’s Dis?” The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t think why…
“Dis is a city, Mr. Marigold.”
Marius shook his head. “There’s only one city.”
“A fabrication. There is also Dis.”
“Then why haven’t I heard of it before?” Marius was growing increasingly suspicious, and a little aggravated. Everyone knew there was only one populated city in the entire world, and everything beyond it was inhabitable Wasteland. It had been that way for almost a thousand years, and it wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.
“It is understandable why you’ve never heard of it before. Dis is a city of souls, Mr. Marigold. It does not exist in the physical world, but I assure you, it is well-populated spiritually. Your soul would be in good company.” He smiled reassuringly.
Well, that made sense. It didn’t have to be physical, he supposed. Truth be told, Marius was having little luck finding fault with Aldebaran’s proposition. Certainly, his soul was an integral part of his existence, but if it was causing such problems, who was he to cling to it? His life wasn’t making much ground, and hadn’t he joked to himself just the past week that he was just another ‘soulless drone’ in his office? Maybe Aldebaran was right and he wasn’t using his soul, anyway – it would explain a number of things. Souls probably didn’t thrive on office work and overtime, either. Maybe he’d made his soul into the fat, bloated, noxious thing it was now by not doing anything important with his life. If that was true, he was certainly responsible for remedying the problem.
Resolve filling him, Marius set his chin. “Very well. I suppose there’s really no choice, if my soul’s being such a wicked thing. Take it to Dis.”
Aldebaran was strangely silent. He forced out a chuckle after a moment, a sort of choking thing filled with no mirth at all, but a certain measure of nervousness. “Mr. Marigold, while I am to no end pleased to see that you understand our perspective, there is the matter of your payment.”
“Oh, what? Payment?” Marius considered, shrugged and waved it off. “No, don’t worry about that. I wouldn’t feel right, taking from the world for something that I really wasn’t much using, anyway. If it will help others, just take it. I don’t need any compensation. I’d probably just waste it anyway.”
The man in the suit bit his lip, then closed his eyes with a sigh. “Your charity is most appreciated, Mr. Marigold, but not required. You will be compensated, it is only fair. Surely, there is something you desire.”
“Well, no, not really. Nothing I’d feel right taking.”
“How about something you don’t feel right taking?”
“Oh, no, out of the question,” Marius shook his head. That would be wrong.
Aldebaran bowed his head in that consternated expression again. Then he squared himself and looked plainly at Marius. “Mr. Marigold, let me level with you. If it were my choice, I would be more than happy to take your soul without offering you so much as a dime. But, practices and procedures being what they are, we have standards these days. It is simply not acceptable to take a soul without providing adequate, satisfactory compensation. So, please, select something – anything – that will satisfy your wants and desires. I don’t particularly care what it is, as long as you are satisfied with it. Then we can get this transaction on its way, settled, and the spiritual world at peace once again, hmm?”
“Oh. I see. Well, I understand, wouldn’t want that kind of thing showing up on an audit or anything, would you?”
“An audit,” he considered the term, tasting its accuracy on the tip of his tongue. “Indeed.”
“Who did you say you worked for again?”
“I didn’t,” Aldebaran tapped his fingers, growing impatient.
“Oh.” Marius considered this, determined that he would have to deliberately ask, “So who-”
“Tartarus, Inc.”
“That’s an interesting name.”
“We’ve been around for a while. A long while. Have you decided what you want?”
Marius scratched his head. “Well, I’m hungry. How about some food?”
“Some food.” Aldebaran did not seem especially impressed. “Seriously, that’s what you’re going with?”
Marius shrugged. “I’m sorry, I’m just not very good with this ‘want’ thing.”
“Clearly.”
“So… does that work?”
“No, I’m afraid not. First of all, you need to be more specific. Second of all, it needs to be something you want, not something you need. Perhaps I should offer some suggestions?”
“Shoot.”
“How about women? Your life appears to be relatively lonely and pathetic. Wouldn’t a devoted, unquestioningly loyal woman of unmatched beauty to dutifully attend to you whenever you want be nice?”
“That seems like slavery…”
Aldebaran sighed, exasperated. “Or maybe a mansion, with every finery available, original artwork of a priceless value, lush furniture, and elegant decorations. You could even have a pool in the back, a gated exterior…”
Marius wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I don’t need a place like that.”
“I know. That’s rather the point. Look, is there something you want, or isn’t there?”
Marius frowned. He did not like upsetting the gentleman, and he was eager to get his soul out of spiritual traffic, away from doing harm. He concentrated, considered, and contemplated – while Aldebaran quietly tapped his fingers. Finally, he had it. Something unselfish, unimposing, that he wanted, but didn’t need. “I’ve got it!”
“Excellent! Let’s hear it,” Aldebaran replied, his excitement glittering in his strange, dark eyes.
“I want-”
There was a resounding crash as Marius’ balcony window exploded. Cold wind rushed into the room, blowing scattered papers about and probably cooling his coffee to a tolerable temperature, though Marius’ attention was far removed from the beverage. He was somewhat more focused on the colossal, six-armed woman that had suddenly appeared in the destructive maelstrom that was his window and living room. Her skin was black – not dark, not brown, not ethnic, but completely black, like ink had been poured over her entire body. Her thick, muscled legs – undoubtedly black as well – were concealed by a brilliant, crimson pair of paints, though in truth they resembled little more than linen sheets wrapped around her legs and waist. Her feet were barren, tar-black like the rest of her body, with sharp talon-like toenails that threatened to tear his carpet. Her six arms were monstrous, strong-looking, and unhindered by apparel or accessories, though a band of crimson was wrapped around her breasts – which was really the only clue Marius had that she was female, for she was not especially feminine, well-endowed, or curvaceous. Her hands, all six of them, ended in fierce talons, much like her toes.
Her face was more frightening, still. Misshapen and colossal though the rest of her body might be, it was the eyeless sockets of her face that bothered Marius the most, for though blood streamed from the empty sockets and there was naught but space where eyes should be, she seemed to turn her head around the room, as if she could still see. Her teeth, bared in a cruel snarl, were sharp, hooked, and gleaming white, perhaps more pronounced due to her inky skin.
Marius was paralyzed in fear. He couldn’t even scream.
Aldebaran, much to Marius’ half-noted surprised, remained relatively nonchalant, though clearly aggravated. “You see,” he said to Marius, “What your indecision has cost us?” He sighed and appraised the black monstrosity as she crept further into the room, towards them, kicking away offending furniture that impeded her path like soccer balls.
“Aldebaran,” she intoned in a hollow baritone that echoed in Marius’ gut, low enough to make any pro-wrestler envious.
“Hellfire,” he muttered as a curse. “By Crook or by Hook, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
She grinned, a sickening, heart-trembling grin that made Marius want to curl up and die (or possibly just whimper profusely). “This one is off limits. Find another soul to steal.”
“I wasn’t stealing it. In fact, we were just coming to an accord. All fair and by the book.”
“Maybe I wasn’t perfectly clear, Al. Get out now, or I rip you apart.”
Aldebaran frowned visibly and glared at the six-armed woman. He stood, then, and moved right in front of her, glaring up at her imposing face looming above him. “Very well. You can have your way this time, but rest assured that this is not ov-”
“You never did learn to shut up,” she cut him off, and grabbed each of his arms with two of her own. Aldebaran’s eyes suddenly widened, but before he could speak another word the woman – thing – tore his arms off in a spray of blood.
Marius had never seen that much real blood before. Television had its own portrayals, of course, but the real sight was distinctly unique, probably impossible to replicate. For all of his previous paralysis, the sight of a man literally being torn apart in front of him brought Marius to his knees, bent over, vomiting whatever sat in his stomach at the sickening sight. Meanwhile, he heard crunches and snaps the likes of which he hoped never to hear again in his life, and a blood-curdling scream that pierced his soul – reminding him that he still, in fact, had it. He was thus far not impressed with its capabilities.
When the carnage seemed to be over, Marius chanced a glance at the scene that he would later regret – The black monster’s skin was glistening, and Marius did not require a great deal of imagination to figure out what covered it. At her feet lay a mass of distorted and unrecognizable parts that Marius decided to not even begin to analyze. More terrifying still, the woman turned her eyeless head to Marius, her six hands still dripping with blood.
“That was a rush. Want to dance with me next?”
She took one step towards him, and Marius’ paralysis abruptly broke. He scrambled towards the door, slipping once on his own vomit in his rush to the doorknob. He threw it open, not daring so much as a backwards glance, and rushed to the stairwell, too panicked to even await the elevator. Behind him he heard laughter – hideous, inhuman laughter.
That's all for now, folks!
Here's a short excerpt from the first chapter of my novel. I haven't officially named it, or I'd include that part. The boards don't seem to handle indenting too well, so I had to separate the paragraphs. I might've screwed that up. Don't blame it on the novel, though.Without further ado - Enjoy.
He turned off the monitor and went to his kitchenette, hoping a late dinner and mindless television would ease his suffering.
“Mr. Marigold,” a voice calmly addressed him while he perused the refrigerator. Marius jumped, bumping his head on the freezer door immediately above him.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, rubbing his head and whirling around to face the intruder. He was a slim gentleman, seated in one of the corner chairs, turned to face the kitchenette. He had an angular face, sharp features, a cleanly trimmed black goatee, and an elegant black suit with a glowing white undershirt. His eyes were dark, but sparkled strangely, and moved in a way that Marius found greatly unsettling, though he couldn’t say exactly why. His hair was neat, as dark as his suit, but not combed back. In one hand he held a coffee mug, steaming generously, which he sipped from with no apparent discomfort. Marius thought that perhaps he looked familiar, but the pain of bumping his head was making it difficult to focus. “Who the hell are you?” Marius asked sharply, with the tone of voice he thought appropriate for addressing a home invasion. Even a well-dressed one.
“Who the hell indeed. Mr. Marigold, please, have a seat and I will explain.”
“How about I pick up my phone, call the police, and you explain to them?”
The gentleman closed his eyes and sighed gently, patiently, placing thumb and index finger on either side of the bridge of his nose in an unmistakable gesture of consternation. “If you do that then I will be forced to slit your throat, Mr. Marigold, all over your clean, beige carpeting.”
Marius blinked, the response taking him completely offguard.
“It would be a lot of blood,” the man added, given the pause.
Marius blinked again, still speechless.
“Your carpet would never really recover.”
“I… I see.”
“Sit down, Mr. Marigold. Have some coffee,” he gestured to a matching mug Marius had not previously noticed, waiting in front of the other chair. He wondered how this man had sauntered into his locked apartment with two mugs of coffee without any noise whatsoever. If he was a burglar, he was a good one.
Numbly, suddenly fearing for his life on account of this well-dressed stranger, Marius shuffled across his living room floor, the distance immeasurably longer and more foreboding than he remembered it being, and sat himself down by the man in the suit.
“There now, isn’t that much better?”
“Not especially.”
“Drink your coffee, Mr. Marigold.”
Marius stared at the steaming mug. The coffee looked hot – very hot – but he was really in no position to argue on account of his throat and the proposed slitting. Marius wondered whether it was poisoned as he lifted it up, though the color looked normal enough for coffee with some cream and sugar added. Marius tried a sip, and found it far too scalding for his tastes, not to his surprise. “Hot!” he choked out.
“Mm, yes,” the man frowned, looking at his own steaming mug. “I guess I do like it a bit hotter than most. My apologies.”
“Look, not to complain, but is tasting coffee seriously the reason you just threatened to kill me? Are you some kind of demented barrista?”
“To what is, I’m certain, your immense disappointment, I am not a ‘demented barrista’. I am a businessman. You may call me Aldebaran,” he took a sip of his coffee, utterly unbothered by its temperature.
“Aldebaran? Like the star?”
“Sure.” He smiled mildly. “Mr. Marigold, allow me to cut to the chase, as it were. You are in possession of something that I am in great need of, a certain thing, for lack of a better term, that is valuable beyond measure. I am here in an effort to strike a mutually agreeable bargain for that thing – though understand, as I alluded, that if you are especially uncooperative, I will probably just kill you. Brutally.”
“Well, gee, my cup just brimmeth over with options.”
Aldebaran shrugged indifferently.
Marius sighed resignedly. “So what is this ‘thing’ you want?”
Aldebaran sipped his coffee, completely unhurried. “Your soul.”
“Ah, yes, my… what?”
“Soul. Yours.”
Marius rubbed his temples. Was he dreaming? “Ignoring the impossibility of both verifying and transferring a soul, what the hell do you need mine for?”
“I will ignore your erroneous assumptions for the moment, Mr. Marigold, except to assure you that your soul exists, and I am here to take it. Buy it. Whatever. My reasons are… something of a complicated matter. Really a bit much to be bothered with. Especially on a Thursday.”
Dream or no, Marius didn’t like being brushed off. “Since it concerns my immortal soul, I think I can be troubled to try and comprehend it.”
“As you wish.” He cleared his throat. “Your soul has become a most troublesome entity. It is immaterial, I assure you, but in the spiritual world it is both sluggish and bulky. You could say it ‘crowds’ spiritual traffic, like a car stopped in the middle of a highway. This alone would not be quite so problematic, except that your soul is also… different. I would say it is ‘unique’, but that might give you a misperception of its worth. ‘Defective’ is a better term. Yes, your soul is defective, Mr. Marigold. It is infecting everything around it on a spiritual level with its defection, spreading misery and woe like a fire ship, or perhaps a plague rat. It is my charge to remove your soul to a more appropriate home, to quarantine it from the others it might contaminate. Your soul, Mr. Marigold, is frankly a burden and a danger to yourself and to others,” he paused to take a sip of his coffee, letting the details sink in, before he continued.
“Now. I am prepared to offer you – within reason – anything your heart desires in exchange for your soul. I won’t lie, life will not be the same without your soul – a little less peachy, not quite as warm and fuzzy, some unnamable something missing. Of course, from my extensive research on you, I have gotten the impression that you are already missing a certain something from your life, so it’s likely you won’t even notice.” He shrugged. “So there’s the deal. You give me your soul for safekeeping, with the knowledge that losing it helps everyone around you, and I give you whatever pleasures of life you can conjure up. Doesn’t that sound splendid?”
Marius was not prepared for that sort of detailed explanation. He had also never imagined his soul to be a ‘sluggish and bulky’ thing, though he had to admit that he was not especially surprised to hear this. It explained a number of things, after all. Stunned as he was, Marius took his time, taking a sip of the still-steaming coffee and, blissfully distracted by his whirling mind, managed to ignore the burning sensation as it coursed down his throat. All the while, Aldebaran waited patiently for his reply, hands folded neatly over the table.
Finally, Marius mustered the voice to speak. “Where… where would you take my soul?”
Aldebaran nodded. “A most understandable question. There are, after all, not many suitable locations to store a soul at. I would take your soul to our Soul Habitation Center in Dis, there to rest indefinitely, until perhaps a cure can be found for its ailment – though in confidence, I would not put much stock in that, sadly.”
“Dis? What’s Dis?” The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t think why…
“Dis is a city, Mr. Marigold.”
Marius shook his head. “There’s only one city.”
“A fabrication. There is also Dis.”
“Then why haven’t I heard of it before?” Marius was growing increasingly suspicious, and a little aggravated. Everyone knew there was only one populated city in the entire world, and everything beyond it was inhabitable Wasteland. It had been that way for almost a thousand years, and it wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.
“It is understandable why you’ve never heard of it before. Dis is a city of souls, Mr. Marigold. It does not exist in the physical world, but I assure you, it is well-populated spiritually. Your soul would be in good company.” He smiled reassuringly.
Well, that made sense. It didn’t have to be physical, he supposed. Truth be told, Marius was having little luck finding fault with Aldebaran’s proposition. Certainly, his soul was an integral part of his existence, but if it was causing such problems, who was he to cling to it? His life wasn’t making much ground, and hadn’t he joked to himself just the past week that he was just another ‘soulless drone’ in his office? Maybe Aldebaran was right and he wasn’t using his soul, anyway – it would explain a number of things. Souls probably didn’t thrive on office work and overtime, either. Maybe he’d made his soul into the fat, bloated, noxious thing it was now by not doing anything important with his life. If that was true, he was certainly responsible for remedying the problem.
Resolve filling him, Marius set his chin. “Very well. I suppose there’s really no choice, if my soul’s being such a wicked thing. Take it to Dis.”
Aldebaran was strangely silent. He forced out a chuckle after a moment, a sort of choking thing filled with no mirth at all, but a certain measure of nervousness. “Mr. Marigold, while I am to no end pleased to see that you understand our perspective, there is the matter of your payment.”
“Oh, what? Payment?” Marius considered, shrugged and waved it off. “No, don’t worry about that. I wouldn’t feel right, taking from the world for something that I really wasn’t much using, anyway. If it will help others, just take it. I don’t need any compensation. I’d probably just waste it anyway.”
The man in the suit bit his lip, then closed his eyes with a sigh. “Your charity is most appreciated, Mr. Marigold, but not required. You will be compensated, it is only fair. Surely, there is something you desire.”
“Well, no, not really. Nothing I’d feel right taking.”
“How about something you don’t feel right taking?”
“Oh, no, out of the question,” Marius shook his head. That would be wrong.
Aldebaran bowed his head in that consternated expression again. Then he squared himself and looked plainly at Marius. “Mr. Marigold, let me level with you. If it were my choice, I would be more than happy to take your soul without offering you so much as a dime. But, practices and procedures being what they are, we have standards these days. It is simply not acceptable to take a soul without providing adequate, satisfactory compensation. So, please, select something – anything – that will satisfy your wants and desires. I don’t particularly care what it is, as long as you are satisfied with it. Then we can get this transaction on its way, settled, and the spiritual world at peace once again, hmm?”
“Oh. I see. Well, I understand, wouldn’t want that kind of thing showing up on an audit or anything, would you?”
“An audit,” he considered the term, tasting its accuracy on the tip of his tongue. “Indeed.”
“Who did you say you worked for again?”
“I didn’t,” Aldebaran tapped his fingers, growing impatient.
“Oh.” Marius considered this, determined that he would have to deliberately ask, “So who-”
“Tartarus, Inc.”
“That’s an interesting name.”
“We’ve been around for a while. A long while. Have you decided what you want?”
Marius scratched his head. “Well, I’m hungry. How about some food?”
“Some food.” Aldebaran did not seem especially impressed. “Seriously, that’s what you’re going with?”
Marius shrugged. “I’m sorry, I’m just not very good with this ‘want’ thing.”
“Clearly.”
“So… does that work?”
“No, I’m afraid not. First of all, you need to be more specific. Second of all, it needs to be something you want, not something you need. Perhaps I should offer some suggestions?”
“Shoot.”
“How about women? Your life appears to be relatively lonely and pathetic. Wouldn’t a devoted, unquestioningly loyal woman of unmatched beauty to dutifully attend to you whenever you want be nice?”
“That seems like slavery…”
Aldebaran sighed, exasperated. “Or maybe a mansion, with every finery available, original artwork of a priceless value, lush furniture, and elegant decorations. You could even have a pool in the back, a gated exterior…”
Marius wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I don’t need a place like that.”
“I know. That’s rather the point. Look, is there something you want, or isn’t there?”
Marius frowned. He did not like upsetting the gentleman, and he was eager to get his soul out of spiritual traffic, away from doing harm. He concentrated, considered, and contemplated – while Aldebaran quietly tapped his fingers. Finally, he had it. Something unselfish, unimposing, that he wanted, but didn’t need. “I’ve got it!”
“Excellent! Let’s hear it,” Aldebaran replied, his excitement glittering in his strange, dark eyes.
“I want-”
There was a resounding crash as Marius’ balcony window exploded. Cold wind rushed into the room, blowing scattered papers about and probably cooling his coffee to a tolerable temperature, though Marius’ attention was far removed from the beverage. He was somewhat more focused on the colossal, six-armed woman that had suddenly appeared in the destructive maelstrom that was his window and living room. Her skin was black – not dark, not brown, not ethnic, but completely black, like ink had been poured over her entire body. Her thick, muscled legs – undoubtedly black as well – were concealed by a brilliant, crimson pair of paints, though in truth they resembled little more than linen sheets wrapped around her legs and waist. Her feet were barren, tar-black like the rest of her body, with sharp talon-like toenails that threatened to tear his carpet. Her six arms were monstrous, strong-looking, and unhindered by apparel or accessories, though a band of crimson was wrapped around her breasts – which was really the only clue Marius had that she was female, for she was not especially feminine, well-endowed, or curvaceous. Her hands, all six of them, ended in fierce talons, much like her toes.
Her face was more frightening, still. Misshapen and colossal though the rest of her body might be, it was the eyeless sockets of her face that bothered Marius the most, for though blood streamed from the empty sockets and there was naught but space where eyes should be, she seemed to turn her head around the room, as if she could still see. Her teeth, bared in a cruel snarl, were sharp, hooked, and gleaming white, perhaps more pronounced due to her inky skin.
Marius was paralyzed in fear. He couldn’t even scream.
Aldebaran, much to Marius’ half-noted surprised, remained relatively nonchalant, though clearly aggravated. “You see,” he said to Marius, “What your indecision has cost us?” He sighed and appraised the black monstrosity as she crept further into the room, towards them, kicking away offending furniture that impeded her path like soccer balls.
“Aldebaran,” she intoned in a hollow baritone that echoed in Marius’ gut, low enough to make any pro-wrestler envious.
“Hellfire,” he muttered as a curse. “By Crook or by Hook, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
She grinned, a sickening, heart-trembling grin that made Marius want to curl up and die (or possibly just whimper profusely). “This one is off limits. Find another soul to steal.”
“I wasn’t stealing it. In fact, we were just coming to an accord. All fair and by the book.”
“Maybe I wasn’t perfectly clear, Al. Get out now, or I rip you apart.”
Aldebaran frowned visibly and glared at the six-armed woman. He stood, then, and moved right in front of her, glaring up at her imposing face looming above him. “Very well. You can have your way this time, but rest assured that this is not ov-”
“You never did learn to shut up,” she cut him off, and grabbed each of his arms with two of her own. Aldebaran’s eyes suddenly widened, but before he could speak another word the woman – thing – tore his arms off in a spray of blood.
Marius had never seen that much real blood before. Television had its own portrayals, of course, but the real sight was distinctly unique, probably impossible to replicate. For all of his previous paralysis, the sight of a man literally being torn apart in front of him brought Marius to his knees, bent over, vomiting whatever sat in his stomach at the sickening sight. Meanwhile, he heard crunches and snaps the likes of which he hoped never to hear again in his life, and a blood-curdling scream that pierced his soul – reminding him that he still, in fact, had it. He was thus far not impressed with its capabilities.
When the carnage seemed to be over, Marius chanced a glance at the scene that he would later regret – The black monster’s skin was glistening, and Marius did not require a great deal of imagination to figure out what covered it. At her feet lay a mass of distorted and unrecognizable parts that Marius decided to not even begin to analyze. More terrifying still, the woman turned her eyeless head to Marius, her six hands still dripping with blood.
“That was a rush. Want to dance with me next?”
She took one step towards him, and Marius’ paralysis abruptly broke. He scrambled towards the door, slipping once on his own vomit in his rush to the doorknob. He threw it open, not daring so much as a backwards glance, and rushed to the stairwell, too panicked to even await the elevator. Behind him he heard laughter – hideous, inhuman laughter.
That's all for now, folks!
I'm proud of my dialogue, so hearing that is particularly pleasing. And you're right - I sure won't be answering those question. But in a while I hope to release a book that'll hold all (well, most) of the answers.