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THeMaCHinE
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This week's segment... let me know what you think!! Thanks for your continued readership, comments and PMs! Always motivating and appreciated...
-----------------------------------
Past Segments:
ATBG/Segment 1 — Blackness and Light
ATBG/Segment 2 — The Descent
ATBG/Segment 3 — Calm Before The Storm
ATBG/Segment 4 — The Quickening
ATBG/Segment 5 — Beneath The Ice
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
And There Be Gods
Segment 6 — The Garden
by MACHINE
© 2001
All Rights Reserved
8.
Behind the veil of slumber, Aumna felt the familiar trappings of the dream surround her. She’d visited this place many times before. Trying to wake, she stirred lethargically. Powerless to regain consciousness, her mind held fast to the vision unraveling before it.
Spring awakening to Summer; the air hot and sticky — pregnant with moisture.
The planet’s impossibly large yellow sun beat down, washing the open-air inner sanctum in a steady bath of monochromatic light. Above plant level, the sun embraced her. Below the heady, blossoming flowers and ornamental bushes, it created crisp, dark hiding places large enough for only a child.
Scrambling amidst the explosion of colorful plants, she laughed musically — her pure and multi-timbered voice rising upwards like a prayer, the only other sound above polite conversation in the otherwise hushed garden.
It was cooler in the shadow places; she was comforted by the smell of earth and green plants, renewed by the feel of dew and dark, rich soil on her soft skin.
She often spent time in the castle’s central courtyard. She played and watched her father work with the endless line of people that demanded his time. When duties and weather allowed, the king opted to work under the soul-cleansing light of the sun. One of the things she loved about him.
From her sheltered hiding place, she peered through leafy cracks in the immaculate green canopy. A small field of plump blood roses stretched before her, hemmed on all sides by the tall gray walls of the castle and the fragile latticework of the garden’s tall hedges.
One by one, the advisors, lawyers and politicians left the courtyard after the king addressed their business. The last of them finally gone, a cozy silence fell over the courtyard.
Beyond the field of flowers, her father sat at an ornate desk upon a small stone clearing. A crisp white canopy fluttered softly over his head and a tall hedge to his back provided a modicum of shelter from the sun’s rays. He concentrated on the documents that littered the surface of his great ivory desk.
Creeping closer through the wall of foliage, she studied the profile of his clean-chiseled visage as he leaned forward to review an item from the desk’s small comp screen.
She liked it when she was alone with him in the courtyard. She made it a game to quietly inch forward through the leafy cover and leap from the hedge behind him. Though she suspected he always head her coming, he would feign surprise and her actions would earn a great bear-like hug, a throaty laugh and a few moments of play before he was pulled back to managing the planet’s myriad duties.
She crept through the underbrush, giggling to herself, moving closer and closer to her father.
Suddenly, deep fear in the pit of her stomach. Somebody was in the bushes with her. She first felt the presence and then saw; ahead of her — a cloaked figure in black.
The handheld blaster snaked stealthily from a crevice in the bushes behind the king.
She saw her father turn towards the noise, a half-smile on his face as he prepared to greet his daughter.
Instead, he met the high-intensity discharge of a single-load, K-41 scatter blaster.
Point-blank, the wide, searing beam caught him across the face, melting and charring his skin like a wax figurine in fire; the blaster’s tremendous flash of light momentarily eclipsed the brightness of the afternoon. Aumna never blinked.
Like a discarded puppet, her father slumped face down onto his desk, a terrible, open-mouthed death grimace marring its white surface with blackened flesh. One of his hands slid a stack of papers to the ground as it fell off the desk under the power of gravity. Wisps of dark smoke rose from the king’s badly burnt head and upper body.
Aumna froze, unable to move. Unable to comprehend the horror and finality of what was before her.
With a rustling of shrubbery, the assassin emerged from the bushes behind her slain father. Blackness covered his face. He was wearing a dark mask. A tiny mechanism inside the mask reflected light beams away from him, shrouding his visage in unnatural shadow. To Aumna, it was like looking into a fearsome, bottomless void.
The killer dropped the spent blaster to the ground with a clatter and surveyed the figure of the fallen king before him. He checked the dead man’s throat for a pulse. There was none.
Shouts in the distance; the wailing of the guard alarm. The castle’s CPU had noted the king’s absence of vital signs and sent out an alert.
With a start, the assassin fled from the desk. Paralyzed by fear and disbelief, Aumna watched him go.
As the assassin reached a small alcove that provided access to the castle’s interior, he pulled the mask off and threw it aside. For a moment, the sun beat down on his naked face as he took a final glance around the courtyard before fleeing to the castle’s halls.
For that long moment, the child stared upon the killer’s face. His look as he prepared to escape the garden would forever be etched in her memory. She knew him.
Aumna gazed upon the face of her uncle — her father’s brother, Prince Styge.
Her vision grew dark at its periphery, the foundations of her world crumbled. Her mind went numb.
The child folded in on herself, lying on her side in the nest of the hedges, knees folded to her chest. Unflinching, eyes wide like clear glass.
Moments later, she heard the shouts as her father was discovered.
Still, she didn’t move.
Gasping for breath, Aumna awoke from the terrible vision and sat bolt upright in the bed; the darkness of the chamber closed in on her, a fine sheen of perspiration haunted her flawless brow. She splayed her hands out, fighting the bed’s tangle of covers. Disoriented, she struggled to gain her bearings as she cleared her head of sleep.
The chamber’s surroundings gradually came to her. Her breath slowed. She spoke to herself softly. It was just a dream.
A dream from years long gone.
Garden had left, his spot in the large bed still warm. Across the room, the view screen glowed steadily.
The details of the memory came back to her. It had been many months since she’d last dreamt of that cursed day.
Unable to fight the tears, she rested her long athletic legs over the edge of the bed, planted her elbows on her knees and dropped her smooth face into her hands. She cried for her father. She cried for her home planet.
She cried for herself.
Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a great explosion rocked the night.
++++++++++
-----------------------------------
Past Segments:
ATBG/Segment 1 — Blackness and Light
ATBG/Segment 2 — The Descent
ATBG/Segment 3 — Calm Before The Storm
ATBG/Segment 4 — The Quickening
ATBG/Segment 5 — Beneath The Ice
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
And There Be Gods
Segment 6 — The Garden
by MACHINE
© 2001
All Rights Reserved
8.
Behind the veil of slumber, Aumna felt the familiar trappings of the dream surround her. She’d visited this place many times before. Trying to wake, she stirred lethargically. Powerless to regain consciousness, her mind held fast to the vision unraveling before it.
Spring awakening to Summer; the air hot and sticky — pregnant with moisture.
The planet’s impossibly large yellow sun beat down, washing the open-air inner sanctum in a steady bath of monochromatic light. Above plant level, the sun embraced her. Below the heady, blossoming flowers and ornamental bushes, it created crisp, dark hiding places large enough for only a child.
Scrambling amidst the explosion of colorful plants, she laughed musically — her pure and multi-timbered voice rising upwards like a prayer, the only other sound above polite conversation in the otherwise hushed garden.
It was cooler in the shadow places; she was comforted by the smell of earth and green plants, renewed by the feel of dew and dark, rich soil on her soft skin.
She often spent time in the castle’s central courtyard. She played and watched her father work with the endless line of people that demanded his time. When duties and weather allowed, the king opted to work under the soul-cleansing light of the sun. One of the things she loved about him.
From her sheltered hiding place, she peered through leafy cracks in the immaculate green canopy. A small field of plump blood roses stretched before her, hemmed on all sides by the tall gray walls of the castle and the fragile latticework of the garden’s tall hedges.
One by one, the advisors, lawyers and politicians left the courtyard after the king addressed their business. The last of them finally gone, a cozy silence fell over the courtyard.
Beyond the field of flowers, her father sat at an ornate desk upon a small stone clearing. A crisp white canopy fluttered softly over his head and a tall hedge to his back provided a modicum of shelter from the sun’s rays. He concentrated on the documents that littered the surface of his great ivory desk.
Creeping closer through the wall of foliage, she studied the profile of his clean-chiseled visage as he leaned forward to review an item from the desk’s small comp screen.
She liked it when she was alone with him in the courtyard. She made it a game to quietly inch forward through the leafy cover and leap from the hedge behind him. Though she suspected he always head her coming, he would feign surprise and her actions would earn a great bear-like hug, a throaty laugh and a few moments of play before he was pulled back to managing the planet’s myriad duties.
She crept through the underbrush, giggling to herself, moving closer and closer to her father.
Suddenly, deep fear in the pit of her stomach. Somebody was in the bushes with her. She first felt the presence and then saw; ahead of her — a cloaked figure in black.
The handheld blaster snaked stealthily from a crevice in the bushes behind the king.
She saw her father turn towards the noise, a half-smile on his face as he prepared to greet his daughter.
Instead, he met the high-intensity discharge of a single-load, K-41 scatter blaster.
Point-blank, the wide, searing beam caught him across the face, melting and charring his skin like a wax figurine in fire; the blaster’s tremendous flash of light momentarily eclipsed the brightness of the afternoon. Aumna never blinked.
Like a discarded puppet, her father slumped face down onto his desk, a terrible, open-mouthed death grimace marring its white surface with blackened flesh. One of his hands slid a stack of papers to the ground as it fell off the desk under the power of gravity. Wisps of dark smoke rose from the king’s badly burnt head and upper body.
Aumna froze, unable to move. Unable to comprehend the horror and finality of what was before her.
With a rustling of shrubbery, the assassin emerged from the bushes behind her slain father. Blackness covered his face. He was wearing a dark mask. A tiny mechanism inside the mask reflected light beams away from him, shrouding his visage in unnatural shadow. To Aumna, it was like looking into a fearsome, bottomless void.
The killer dropped the spent blaster to the ground with a clatter and surveyed the figure of the fallen king before him. He checked the dead man’s throat for a pulse. There was none.
Shouts in the distance; the wailing of the guard alarm. The castle’s CPU had noted the king’s absence of vital signs and sent out an alert.
With a start, the assassin fled from the desk. Paralyzed by fear and disbelief, Aumna watched him go.
As the assassin reached a small alcove that provided access to the castle’s interior, he pulled the mask off and threw it aside. For a moment, the sun beat down on his naked face as he took a final glance around the courtyard before fleeing to the castle’s halls.
For that long moment, the child stared upon the killer’s face. His look as he prepared to escape the garden would forever be etched in her memory. She knew him.
Aumna gazed upon the face of her uncle — her father’s brother, Prince Styge.
Her vision grew dark at its periphery, the foundations of her world crumbled. Her mind went numb.
The child folded in on herself, lying on her side in the nest of the hedges, knees folded to her chest. Unflinching, eyes wide like clear glass.
Moments later, she heard the shouts as her father was discovered.
Still, she didn’t move.
Gasping for breath, Aumna awoke from the terrible vision and sat bolt upright in the bed; the darkness of the chamber closed in on her, a fine sheen of perspiration haunted her flawless brow. She splayed her hands out, fighting the bed’s tangle of covers. Disoriented, she struggled to gain her bearings as she cleared her head of sleep.
The chamber’s surroundings gradually came to her. Her breath slowed. She spoke to herself softly. It was just a dream.
A dream from years long gone.
Garden had left, his spot in the large bed still warm. Across the room, the view screen glowed steadily.
The details of the memory came back to her. It had been many months since she’d last dreamt of that cursed day.
Unable to fight the tears, she rested her long athletic legs over the edge of the bed, planted her elbows on her knees and dropped her smooth face into her hands. She cried for her father. She cried for her home planet.
She cried for herself.
Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a great explosion rocked the night.
++++++++++
Seriously, thanks for the kind words!
