Wow three blogs in three days, that must be a record for me. Thanks to Mr Mark K I might actually dive into this whole blog universe thing again for good. So today for my A-Z I have chosen to share, for the first time I might add, the first chapter of my other WIP which is currently stuck on 60k pages and has been so pretty much since NaNoWriMo where it was first conceived. I would like to add that there might grammatical errors or spelling mistakes in what I am sharing with you as it has not yet been through first edit. Maybe it will give you an insight into some of my actual work that is not in short-story form, I might lose some readers and gain some but here goes.
I think what little introduction I need to give is the following: It is a sci-fy story set around our time. The overall theme of the book can probably best be described as Hitchhiker's Guide meets Dr.Who with a decent sprinkling of something very New Weird. The whole idea came to me as I was walking home from a party in the middle of the night, fog was concealing everything but the road in front of me and in my dream-like state I heard fireworks so off in the distant. This was at 4 am I would like to add, on a Wednesday (It was summer vacation so don't judge) in the outskirts of Copenhagen. All I could see was the distorted colors of the fireworks going off in the distance that seemed to linger on in the fog and that was when fireworks went off in my head. What if we really are not alone in the universe? And can you assume that just because there might be alien races out there that they are necessarily more intelligent than us? And most importantly, what color does interstellar travel really have? I present to you the preliminary first chapter of The Day they Descended:
Chapter 1. Maz:
Who
can really say how it began? Was it hidden in the signs of deterioration of the
earth or in the nature of human beings? If we could have predicted how much we
had been wrong about the universe, would we ever have dreamt of venturing into
it? But this story is not about the beginnings of space travel, nor is it meant
as a discussion about the rights and wrongs about the ideas we had back then.
It is simply a story of a man, a girl and a number of other people that seem
less important than these two, but will provide good fillers, who would shape
the destiny of the planet earth and its decedents.
To
tell the story, we must start at the beginning; we must go before the human
race became an endangered species and before the people of this story even knew
what their faith would be. This story starts with a man named Maz Aldrich.
Maz Aldrich
was overall an unhappy sort of man. He was middle aged, divorced, lived alone
with his cat and his goldfish in a small apartment, in a largish city in
England. His involvement in our story begins a Friday night at around 2 am. Maz
had been to a party, a high school reunion to be precise and having been faced
with a large number of successful people, whom he had formally been at school
with, he had early on in the evening decided that the only way to get through
it, would be to get dead drunk. So he did. No one recognized him anyway and the
alcohol was free after all. Maz had always thought that the best form of
alcohol, or anything else for that matter, was the free sort. When the party
had ended he had staggered on to the nearest pub, well technically he had
tagged along with a larger group of former class mates and now CEOs, directors
and otherwise successful business men. The alcohol here had also been free or
rather someone had shouted down to him as he rested on the floor having a hard
time keeping his balance on the bar chair, if he wanted a drink. He had nodded
and beer had been offered. The others seemed to make a game out of sitting on
the floor, so here he was chatting up some blonde rather sassy lady who kept
calling him Dickie, when suddenly out of the blue a man dressed in a most
peculiar outfit showed up. It was not close to Halloween or Bonfire night and
yet this man seemed to be wearing a form of costume only seen in sci-fi movies.
His suit looked like sort of a mixture between a jester and a dentist. It was
brightly coloured and small bells rang when he walked. He was wearing a bowler
hat which really stood out from the rest of his costume. But this was not the
weirdest thing about him. His hair was carrot coloured with all kinds of things
woven into it and his eyes were an eerie shade of purple. He didn't seem to blink
and Maz found his eyes watering by just looking at him. What was this little
odd creature doing here? Maz found that he was not the only one looking at the
man, if it indeed was a man. He seemed to be young for a man, but old for a boy,
yet he had no beard or signs of stubble. The man smiled a white smile and
seemed oblivious to the fact that almost every person in the room had now
seized their talking and just stood around starring.
"Hello
everyone," the man said,” I am looking for a hero!" The silence was
intense and Maz had a strange feeling of being in a dream or just being more
drunk that he had ever been.
"No
heroes?" The man smiled even more. A few people around him backed away and
shook their heads in disbelief. But still no one answered.
"I
am almost certain that the person I am looking for is supposed to be in this
room," he said. Apparently he didn't notice that no one was answering him,
so he continued in the same tone:
"I
will be quite miffed to have come all this way and not find him, I tell you.
Time travel is not only unpleasant for the traveller, but also for the
government funds!" Maz caught himself thinking about the kind of
government this little man was referring to and his drunken conclusion was,
that the man must have escaped from some sort of mental institution where he
believed himself to be from another time. Yes this must be the most plausible
explanation. Maz took a big sip of his drink. Maybe that would restore
normality for a while.
The
man removed his hat and scratched his orange head of hair. He pulled out a pink
clipboard and a fuzzy pen that you would normally associate with teenage girls
writing in diaries. Maz was sure he saw some sort of small animal crawling
around on the man’s head, but tried not to make an outcry. These people might
be dangerous after all, he reminded himself. He snickered a bit at the thought
of a country, where everyone was dressed like the little man with small animals
running wild in their hair. Strangely enough he imagined that these small creatures
in some way or another controlled their humans. He touched his own hair, just
to make sure that nothing was living there at least, then he looked at his feet
and the floor moving. When he raised his head again, the little man was
starring right at him.
"Umhm,"
he said and walked straight over to Maz. Maz slided as close to the bar as he
could and attempted to hide behind an empty barstool just out of precaution,
but too late, the man had set his eerie stare directly on him. Around him
people started talking again and soon the music was back on.
"You
sir, might just be the one I am looking for." Maz laughed hoarsely.
"You...
you think I am this hero you are looking for? Puddle worms, I have never heard
such a stupid thing in my life!"
Of
course this is what Maz wanted to say, but drunk as he was half of the words
came out as gibberish instead. Funnily enough the little man seemed to
understand this gibberish. He looked Maz over and smiled wide.
"Oh
heroes come in many shapes and forms, as you will soon find out. No doubt you
are in for a surprise in that sense."
"Undoubtedly"
Maz answered, "what, you really think you can con me into this make belief
world of yours? Is this candid camera or something?" Maz began looking
around after the cameras, but people around him already seemed oblivious to his
existence.
"It
is quite urgent that I bring you up to date with the situation friend. In only
an hour or so, things will get really serious. Like mindboggling serious and if
you are to save the earth and the universe as we know it, we must act
quickly." Maz stared at him, then he said:
"Will
you excuse me for a moment?" The man nodded slowly, but Maz got the
impression that he didn't really understand the meaning of a moment. Maz could
feel his stomach turning and at that moment he thought of nothing else, but to
get outside and go home. Sod these people he barely knew and who didn't give a
horses behind if he was there or not, this evening had not turned out quite as
he had hoped. He waved goodbye to the sassy blonde, who was already in deep
conversation with some other guy and took his jacket from the hanger by the
door. He looked around, just to make sure that the man wasn't following him,
but he seemed content with standing there and waiting for him.
The
air was crisp and cool, but Maz didn't mind. The walk home might clear his mind
and give him some sense of the madness he had witnessed tonight. He had walked
only a few minutes, when he felt someone approaching fast from behind. He
looked over his shoulder and saw to his amazement, the little man speeding
towards him. Around him everything was quiet, the lights from all the apartment
buildings were out and on his left side, the field where the circus and the
giant flee marked would set up their tents, was dark and deserted. In the
distance he could sense the lights from the big city, but he couldn't focus on
them. At that moment, when he heard those footsteps drawing nearer, he realised
that he was all alone, and no one would hear him scream if the little man decided
to get violent.
"Please,
Mister Anderson, you have to listen to me!" The little man had finally
caught up with him.
"How
do you know my name?"
"It
says so on your nametag." He pointed at the plastic nametag, which Maz had
forgotten to take off when he left the party. Maz sighed; he had never been one
for confrontations and hardly had it in his heart to tell the little man that
his name was in fact Aldrich, but someone had stuck this to his chest earlier
in the evening.
"Look,
I don't know what you think you are getting out of me..."
"I
have already told you Mister Anderson."
"Please
call me Maz... Mr. Anderson is from some movie." He struggled to remember
what movie it was from, but he highly doubted that this man lived in this world
enough to know it even if he did remember the title.
"Alright
Mr Maz, I have already told you in brief what you are needed for. I need a hero
to help me save the earth, humankind and the universe as we know it."
Maz
was about to answer when he heard loud cracking noises, that sounded like
fireworks. But nothing showed up on the sky. The little man started fiddling
with something in his belt.
"Oh
noes, they are here already!"
"What,
who... what?" Maz stared into the black sky, that hang over them and then
he saw them. Slowly but surely, lights the shape of a projector came closer and
closer. Maz stared in disbelief. He had seen fancy hotels and clubs drawing
attention by doing this, but those always came with a stripe of light and these
seemed to originate from the sky.
"What
are those things?" The man sighed.
"I
am not sure you would believe me, if I told you."
"Try
me..." Maz kept staring at the sky, as the lights came closer and closer
and grew in size.
"Well
they are ships from a fleet of humanoids that inhabit a planet not too
different from yours, only bigger. They have come to colonize the earth as
their own planet was running out of resources. So far as I understand, they
thought the earth looked green and cosy and well humankind are not the
brightest light bulbs in the galactic universe, so it seemed an easy target.
Are you with me so far?" Maz nodded sagely. This was all a dream, in a
moment he would awake with a terrible headache and a bad taste in his mouth
from all the cheese doodles he had eaten at the party.
"There
is only one problem though." Maz stared at the man in disbelief.
"Oh
right, only one problem... Hmm I wonder what that could be. Maybe the fact that
there is a freaking alien invasion happening and no one saw it coming?" The
man shook his head.
"No,
no. That is the least of our problems. You see, the problem with the ships are,
that they are too large to land and hanging over the earth like this, they will
block out the sun and moon and possibly a lot of rain. The earth will die you
see and with it, all human kind. That is why I came looking for you!"
A
loud clanging sound emerged from the ship hanging above them.
"Hear
that? That’s the ships making ready for phase one, scaring the human beings
into giving them their planet."
"And
how to they plan on doing that?" Maz had to shout to make himself heard.
The little man screamed back at him.
"Oh
that’s the easy part, they will annihilate around two thirds of the human
population. Just to set the standard." Maz was suddenly aware that his
mouth was open and he at that moment much resembled his goldfish.
"We
have to go! Grab a hold of this." The man held out a strange orange book
that had no markings on the cover, but seemed to be alive in some way.
"Put
your hand on the book... This might sting a bit!" Maz slowly put his hand
on the book. Had he only stayed at home this evening, this would have never
happened. He would have been at home with his nice TV, a microwave pizza and
the picture of his daughter Emma would have been staring down at him, making
him feel guilty about not calling her more often or taking the time to listen
to her teenage problems. This was his last thought before the world around him
started contracting and swirling and everything went bright pink.
