julian94
07-02-2011, 10:22 AM
Hello, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy it!
For those who will critique, please do not be afraid to be harsh.
One last thing:
The setting is not in the 21st century
I put it in fiction but there are some fantasy elements in it that may be an externality, but it does not contribute to the overall story. I will not say what it is though xP.
Old and creaky, each step on the wooden floor of the old house would produce a noise loud enough to wake up its inhabitants, suspecting burglary. Indeed, this home is a prisoner of sound; it would always be filled with heartfelt cries of laughter and happiness. Now however, even if this continues to be filled with sound as ever, the tone for quite some time has changed to that of great sadness as one of its inhabitants, eventually succumbs to an inevitable illness. The once laughter-filled room of hers is almost silent as she lies in her bed, too sick, too weak, and too fragile to do anything. The only sound left is the beeps of a machine which resonate across her whole room.
The door of the main entrance opens with a large clang revealing a young man the same age as the girl. Blanketed with snow and heavily grasping for air, he immediately asks the orphanage nurse on the girl’s condition. Not the cold sting or his coarse throat matter to him. His bright eyes, wild as the flickering flames in the living room chimney, reflect this, and the intense scowl on his face depicts his state of great despair. It is as if he were trying to stop his tears. Nonetheless, his heart is weeping for his spirit does not want to accept the terrible truth until he sees it with his own eyes.
“She’s going to leave us soon I’m afraid, Arius,” she sighs. The tracks of her tears and haggard appearance show what she has been enduring for the past few days.
“Please, I need some time alone with her,” he then insists just after a pause of a second. He is too scared of the passing of time.
“Very well,” she says. “Her eyes have not opened since last night and her voice has long since faltered so do not expect anything from her.” Her face crumbled into a mass of depressed wrinkles and her voice is unstable as she solemnly responds to him. The once lively nurse of childhood he knew, whose face only served for a smile, does not seem to exist anymore.
However, he could not dwell on this and quickly bolts his way to her room. Each heavy step makes the floor tremble and produces an equally loud creaking noise, revealing the floor’s old age and fragility. Arius abruptly stops in front of her room, then, gently but firmly, opens the door without a moment of further hesitation. He is ready for this, or at least trying to persuade himself that he is, and that death is a fact of life. Nonetheless, he cannot help but curse the heavens for always wanting to take away the most precious thing he has. While his best friend has lived her entire life in this orphanage, Death had taken away his parents when he was 7 years old. The fire that engulfed his house, he does not remember how it started, devoured every life existing in their vast palace, but not him. He would always be searching for Death and the latter would always flee from him. His meeting with her saved his soul and now her soul is departing to the distant land.
In front of him is his childhood friend. Lying in her bed, her golden hair and petite frame make her seem immortal, far from the finite truth. Since her birth, she is frail and weak. The doctors would always predict that she will not live for very long but she herself would always manage to lengthen her own time. As each year passes, this struggle became more and more apparent until Death finally catches up to her as she becomes 18 years old. A month ago, the day of her birthday, she suddenly collapsed in front of the shocked crowd. However, here she is, still desperately clinging on her thread of life, determined to hear Arius’s voice one last time.
“Hello, Helen.” Arius greets her with an almost inaudible voice.
Helen does not respond. Her once gleaming eyes are now covered by her eyelids and the always smiling face is now cold and blank. That same happy girl that waves goodbye to him and makes him promise to tell his travels to her… that same girl who shouts, with her unusually high voice, “Do not forget me, ya hear!” is now silent and motionless.
Arius would have thought that she were dead if it weren’t for the almost imperceptible movement of her chest and the continually beeping sound of the machine next to her.
He approaches her. Each step is soft and moving on an invisible fine thread, producing virtually no noise.
“Don’t you' remember? I still have to tell you about my journey, don’t I?” he exclaims as he stops in front of her. Her already pale skin becomes paler as she approaches the silent land
A gust of wind violently hurls the branches of the tree against Helen’s window, producing a thud.
“You know the ocean that you so dreamed seeing? “he asks her. “Just as we’ve read in the books, it’s like one huge bathtub filled with an endless amount of water, the water is salty though and the ocean is so deep that you would drown before you reach the floor; but you know what’s more amazing though? It was the endless expanse of the sky! I seriously thought that we were going to sail forever and survive by eating only fish, good thing though that we saw a figure; it was small at first then it got bigger, and bigger, until the white sand appeared. Unlike snow, it is calm and warm. It remained there and didn’t melt in your hands…” he tells her while his hands move wildly in the air to depict the grandeur of this experience. “It’s like what we’ve read, Helen. You know, what the war soldiers used to tell us? It’s as vivid as that. The sun shines brightly and everything was warm there. From day to night, it was relentlessly shining, warm and giving” The cheerful tone of his voice betrayed the sad expression on his youthful face.
A tear flows out of Helen’s right eye.
She seems to be hearing him. Her ears must be alive, he thinks.
Hoping this is true, he tells her more stories of his adventures, excluding the ones that are painful. Indeed, he does not tell her that he is a soldier or the number of lives he has taken with his own hands. He would not tell her any of that, and why would he? To burden her with an already painful life is one thing but telling her of the brutalities of her own friend would leave an everlasting blow to her—and to him. He can’t tell her the countless deaths he has experienced, from his comrades to his enemies. He knows Helen only likes rich and beautiful stories rather than being burdened with the stupidity of humanity. He does not want his friend to hate him. He is not doing this for her sake but for his.
As warm as the sun shine in the south, the warmth the experiences here is more important and more precious to him, more intense than any other and is brighter than any light on the Earth. The moments with Helen in this frozen country are the most precious to him. It eases his mind more than any alcohol and serves as his guiding light.
Telling her his stories is a sort of hymn to him. Atonement from the sins he has done if God does exist. The more pleasant the tone is, the more violence it veils underneath.
And Helen is indeed hearing all of this. What remains until the very end is her power to hear. With perfect crispness, Arius’s voice fills her with happiness. He does not forget her and certainly not about their promise. As she hears all these stories, she has tears in her eyes. Helen is happy for her friend and happy that she has heard his dear voice before she dies.
Then with a hopeful tone, he continues on to his last story: “Now, you will take a journey of your own. A journey no person of this world has ever done. And after that, it will be your turn to tell your story.” Repressed tears start falling from his eyes. He could not stop them anymore and trying to is futile.
With one last ounce of her strength, Helen produces a faint smile that is a reminiscence of her former glory and that of this once laughter-filled home. She would meet him again and tell him next time her own adventures...
She sighs out one last breath and the beeps of the machine are replaced by the endless chain of blank noise, cold and unforgiving.
For those who will critique, please do not be afraid to be harsh.
One last thing:
The setting is not in the 21st century
I put it in fiction but there are some fantasy elements in it that may be an externality, but it does not contribute to the overall story. I will not say what it is though xP.
Old and creaky, each step on the wooden floor of the old house would produce a noise loud enough to wake up its inhabitants, suspecting burglary. Indeed, this home is a prisoner of sound; it would always be filled with heartfelt cries of laughter and happiness. Now however, even if this continues to be filled with sound as ever, the tone for quite some time has changed to that of great sadness as one of its inhabitants, eventually succumbs to an inevitable illness. The once laughter-filled room of hers is almost silent as she lies in her bed, too sick, too weak, and too fragile to do anything. The only sound left is the beeps of a machine which resonate across her whole room.
The door of the main entrance opens with a large clang revealing a young man the same age as the girl. Blanketed with snow and heavily grasping for air, he immediately asks the orphanage nurse on the girl’s condition. Not the cold sting or his coarse throat matter to him. His bright eyes, wild as the flickering flames in the living room chimney, reflect this, and the intense scowl on his face depicts his state of great despair. It is as if he were trying to stop his tears. Nonetheless, his heart is weeping for his spirit does not want to accept the terrible truth until he sees it with his own eyes.
“She’s going to leave us soon I’m afraid, Arius,” she sighs. The tracks of her tears and haggard appearance show what she has been enduring for the past few days.
“Please, I need some time alone with her,” he then insists just after a pause of a second. He is too scared of the passing of time.
“Very well,” she says. “Her eyes have not opened since last night and her voice has long since faltered so do not expect anything from her.” Her face crumbled into a mass of depressed wrinkles and her voice is unstable as she solemnly responds to him. The once lively nurse of childhood he knew, whose face only served for a smile, does not seem to exist anymore.
However, he could not dwell on this and quickly bolts his way to her room. Each heavy step makes the floor tremble and produces an equally loud creaking noise, revealing the floor’s old age and fragility. Arius abruptly stops in front of her room, then, gently but firmly, opens the door without a moment of further hesitation. He is ready for this, or at least trying to persuade himself that he is, and that death is a fact of life. Nonetheless, he cannot help but curse the heavens for always wanting to take away the most precious thing he has. While his best friend has lived her entire life in this orphanage, Death had taken away his parents when he was 7 years old. The fire that engulfed his house, he does not remember how it started, devoured every life existing in their vast palace, but not him. He would always be searching for Death and the latter would always flee from him. His meeting with her saved his soul and now her soul is departing to the distant land.
In front of him is his childhood friend. Lying in her bed, her golden hair and petite frame make her seem immortal, far from the finite truth. Since her birth, she is frail and weak. The doctors would always predict that she will not live for very long but she herself would always manage to lengthen her own time. As each year passes, this struggle became more and more apparent until Death finally catches up to her as she becomes 18 years old. A month ago, the day of her birthday, she suddenly collapsed in front of the shocked crowd. However, here she is, still desperately clinging on her thread of life, determined to hear Arius’s voice one last time.
“Hello, Helen.” Arius greets her with an almost inaudible voice.
Helen does not respond. Her once gleaming eyes are now covered by her eyelids and the always smiling face is now cold and blank. That same happy girl that waves goodbye to him and makes him promise to tell his travels to her… that same girl who shouts, with her unusually high voice, “Do not forget me, ya hear!” is now silent and motionless.
Arius would have thought that she were dead if it weren’t for the almost imperceptible movement of her chest and the continually beeping sound of the machine next to her.
He approaches her. Each step is soft and moving on an invisible fine thread, producing virtually no noise.
“Don’t you' remember? I still have to tell you about my journey, don’t I?” he exclaims as he stops in front of her. Her already pale skin becomes paler as she approaches the silent land
A gust of wind violently hurls the branches of the tree against Helen’s window, producing a thud.
“You know the ocean that you so dreamed seeing? “he asks her. “Just as we’ve read in the books, it’s like one huge bathtub filled with an endless amount of water, the water is salty though and the ocean is so deep that you would drown before you reach the floor; but you know what’s more amazing though? It was the endless expanse of the sky! I seriously thought that we were going to sail forever and survive by eating only fish, good thing though that we saw a figure; it was small at first then it got bigger, and bigger, until the white sand appeared. Unlike snow, it is calm and warm. It remained there and didn’t melt in your hands…” he tells her while his hands move wildly in the air to depict the grandeur of this experience. “It’s like what we’ve read, Helen. You know, what the war soldiers used to tell us? It’s as vivid as that. The sun shines brightly and everything was warm there. From day to night, it was relentlessly shining, warm and giving” The cheerful tone of his voice betrayed the sad expression on his youthful face.
A tear flows out of Helen’s right eye.
She seems to be hearing him. Her ears must be alive, he thinks.
Hoping this is true, he tells her more stories of his adventures, excluding the ones that are painful. Indeed, he does not tell her that he is a soldier or the number of lives he has taken with his own hands. He would not tell her any of that, and why would he? To burden her with an already painful life is one thing but telling her of the brutalities of her own friend would leave an everlasting blow to her—and to him. He can’t tell her the countless deaths he has experienced, from his comrades to his enemies. He knows Helen only likes rich and beautiful stories rather than being burdened with the stupidity of humanity. He does not want his friend to hate him. He is not doing this for her sake but for his.
As warm as the sun shine in the south, the warmth the experiences here is more important and more precious to him, more intense than any other and is brighter than any light on the Earth. The moments with Helen in this frozen country are the most precious to him. It eases his mind more than any alcohol and serves as his guiding light.
Telling her his stories is a sort of hymn to him. Atonement from the sins he has done if God does exist. The more pleasant the tone is, the more violence it veils underneath.
And Helen is indeed hearing all of this. What remains until the very end is her power to hear. With perfect crispness, Arius’s voice fills her with happiness. He does not forget her and certainly not about their promise. As she hears all these stories, she has tears in her eyes. Helen is happy for her friend and happy that she has heard his dear voice before she dies.
Then with a hopeful tone, he continues on to his last story: “Now, you will take a journey of your own. A journey no person of this world has ever done. And after that, it will be your turn to tell your story.” Repressed tears start falling from his eyes. He could not stop them anymore and trying to is futile.
With one last ounce of her strength, Helen produces a faint smile that is a reminiscence of her former glory and that of this once laughter-filled home. She would meet him again and tell him next time her own adventures...
She sighs out one last breath and the beeps of the machine are replaced by the endless chain of blank noise, cold and unforgiving.