writing exercise 1 "war"
by ~zk306

152. That's how many moving parts a typical Talon MkII Infrantry Class Enhanced Armor has. Even an experienced pilot, complimented with a fully automated command system, will have a hard time making the unit move efficiently. If at any time the command system fails and control of its actuators were set to manual, then the pilot is practically left with a five ton paper weight.

The complexity of the unit's controls however did not seem to hinder the pilot of unit 306. The black and white Talon Mk II moved gracefully about the training grounds. It's movement was swift and almost lifelike as it performed a kata. The electronic sounds of its actuators rapidly activating and deactivating along with the hiss of it's hydraulics filled the air. It was for this reason the locals called the unit a "Metal Dragon". The ground shook with each step and each landing, betraying how heavy the unit was, despite how it's movements made the unit look lightweight.

Finally the unit finished performing its kata and slowly went back to a neutral standing position. The sun shone brightly on the machine, giving it a bright luster on areas where the plating was new. Standing still, it was obvious that the unit has been through tough times. Parts of its arms had platings that were more gray than black, and were scarred with bullet imprints or burn marks.

With a loud hiss part of its back cracked open and fell backwards slightly. The head along with the chest area leaned forward finally splitting the unit's body like a V. From the cramped space a young man emerged wearing plain white and red tracksuit. Several medics and engineers in uniform hurriedly gathered around the unit. Some assisted the young man while the others quickly started checking the unit. Worried that the unit may not have survived the strain put upon it by the pilot.

"I'm alright! I'm alright," assured the young man as he pushed aside one of the medics.

"He's just making sure you're alright boy. Let him be," an older voice ordered.

The young man sighed and simply raised his hands in surrender. The medic nodded in recognition and proceeded with his routine. Careful not to agitate the pilot further and quick to shorten the inconvenience. "He's fine general," the man finally reported before saluting and moving away.

"Told you so," the irritated pilot remarked as he shot a look at the general.

"Can't be too sure Tom," the general responded as he walked closer and put a hand on the pilot's left shoulder. "Not because you're an interfacer, you're already immune to basic physics," the old man spoke matter-of-factly as he stood closer to the young man. "Can't have my only grandson get harmed," the general's voice was softer this time and a gentle smile came upon his face.

Tom sighed and shook his head. He smiled knowing how his grandfather was too protective sometimes. The old man had reason to be. War.

writing exercise 2 "zombies"
by ~zk306

Remember all those video games where you battle the undead? Tons of fun to play, walking around armed to the teeth, shooting anything remotely undead. There's always piles of ammunition to be taken. Even in the oddest of places, like trashcans or fridges. But for the life of me, I have yet to find a box buckshot in a bin. And trust me, I've checked out practically every trash can in this dump. Nada, not a single bullet. But here I am, rummaging through trash. Hoping to God, or whoever thought it would be a fun idea to bring the dead back to life, that theres a box of buckshot in this bin.

It all started a few weeks ago. Some new strain of flu or some such. It spread like wildfire. You can't ride the morning train without running into someone coughing, with a runny nose or just plain fever. Of course, the doctors came up with a fix. "A revolutionary new cure to the flu," they claimed it to be. They modified the genetic material of the rhinovirus, thats the common cold to us non-scientists, to make an anti-body that constantly changes to adapt to new influenza strains. Now, I'm no PHD - no I'm just your typical tech support working a dead end job - but it sounded like a disaster to me. If you've seen enough sci-fi movies, you'd know it was a bad idea. Anyway, fact is stranger than fiction and behold the cure worked. For the first few days anyway.

Something went wrong along the way of course. Suddenly, people's brains were on fire. Turned them into rabid, ever-hungry, senseless versions of themselves. Well, at least those who weren't immune. The civilized world ended in a matter of days. Most of it anyway. People turned on each other, eating their face off like it was chocolate. It was hard for most, espcially those who had family. I had it easy since I already left all of that in the provinces. Which also was a good thing since the bondocks are far less populated than the city. I heard some survivors on the radio the other day saying something about heading north to the wild country. Rumor is some rural villages managed to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Buckshot.

Who the hell throws a box of buckshot away? Well, whoever threw it, I'm thankful. The name of the game in this new and dangerous world is scavenging. With 98% of the population out to eat your face, you'd better know how to fend for your own. It's been a few weeks now, but I have yet to get out of this damned building. It doesn't help that the office is on the 29th floor. Over the past few days I've slowly made my way down, checking each floor, taking what I can use. I got lucky and snagged this shotgun from a guard on the 28th floor.

He was lying there next to the elevators. I can still remember his face, if you can still call it that. Half of it was chewed down to the bone. His eyes popped slightly out of their sockets - this virus has a nasty habit of making you hemorrage and bleed from your orifices - with dried blood in place of tears. His mouth was still wide open. If you looked through it you'd see the wall where the buckshot and bits of brain were embedded. There were two others on that floor, both in bad shape. My guess is those two got infected and were put down by guard. He of course got infected in the process and took himself out when he started to turn. Felt sorry for him, but I was also happy he didn't use up all of his shells.

If he didn't leave any, then I'd be like him. Maybe even worse off. My luck would've ended there. See, when the change occured I was in the bathroom. Breakfast didn't agree with me. So while I sat on the throne, someone inside the office yelled. Not an angry yell, mind you, but the type you'd let out if you were given a painful surprise. Like when someone takes a bite out of your shoulder. The walls muffled the sound but from what I could make out some of my officemates were yelling "Stop," "Hold him down," "What's wrong with you?" Others were asking amongst themselves what was going on. I wanted to step out, but my stomach knew better and didn't let me. That's what probably saved me as another yell came.Then there were screams followed by a thud and the sound of glass breaking, probably a computer monitor falling off a desk. At this point the whole office was in an approar. Everyone was either screaming or yelling. There were yells of pain and flesh against flesh, like when fists are thrown. I cleaned up quickly and headed out of the bathroom, or tried to atleast. I slipped, fell backwards and banged my head against the sink pretty hard.

It was pretty stupid, but I guess that was my luck kicking in. When I came to the office was eerily quiet. I didn't notice it was already night until I left the bathroom. Fear quickly took hold when I realized what happened to me. This was amplified when it dawned on me that I lay there undiscovered for seven hours. Where was everyone? It was impossible no one needed to use the bathroom for that stretch of time. Then I remembered the commotion I heard earlier. I peered into the main room and could not believe what I saw. A quiet "what the fuck?" escaped my lips as I surveyed the office.

The lights in the room were still on, but everything else was a mess. Majority of the computers were on the ground, case opened and its insides broken. A few monitors were also on the ground, cracked and with a few smudges of some dark substance. The chairs were scattered here and theres, some upright, but most on their side or with their legs missing. Finally there were the black pools of liquid. I didn't want to believe it, but I knew it was blood. A fight probably broke out, people threw what they could, hit others with the monitors, or the chairs. Some of them got hit pretty bad and bled. That was what I concluded. However the unanswered question in my head was why.Why did they fight? What caused so much violence? And where were they? I asked myself this as I entered the room, unsure what to do. That was when I saw the arm.

It was sitting right in front of the secretary's table. At first I thought it was a mannequins arm or some fake prop. But then I realized whose arm it was. A new wave of terror washed over me and for a minute I simply stared at it in disbelief. It looked gray and some parts of it had a shade of purple. Bruise marks covered a good deal of it and chunks of it were missing here and there. It looked like it was torn off, judging from how rough the edges of where it met the shoulder. When I finally got my courage back I knelt down and looked at it closer. What I saw made my heart sink into depths of terror and mind numbing fear. There were bite marks along with the bruises. The missing chunks had circular edges, indicating they were bitten off. My mind tried to rationalize why someone would do that while desperately trying to silence the voice in my head yelling "Zombies!"

Reloading in the dark is a bitch.

Makes it annoyingly hard to tell which end of a shell is which. But in this screwed up farce of a world I now live in, the darkness is your friend. While the walking dead can't see, all thanks to the virus making your bleed from your eyes till they pop, they're pretty sensitive to heat. So much so that they can feel if a flashlight has been pointed at them for too long. While this is not much of a threat - I've never seen a flesh eater trying to attack a flourescent lamp - it keeps them "awake" and you don't want that.

When alerted these buggers have terrific sense of hearing. You can drop a coin and the zeds on the other end of the hallway will stop and look at the sound. Thankfully though some semblance of human intelligence is left. They become curious first at the origin of the sound. Assuming it is a curious sound, like a door opening, small creaks, or even glass breaking. They seem to have retained knowledge of sounds of danger and life though. You don't have to yell to get their attention.
No, you just need to speak loudly. They'll be onto you before you finish saying "Hello is anyone there?"

I learned that the hard way. When I stepped out of the office I was still pretty shaken up. The image of the gnawed hand was still fresh in my mind. I had not fully accepted the possibility of zombies being real at the time so I walked aimlessly in the hallway. The lights were still on and compared to the mess inside the office, the hall was relatively clean. There were those telltale dark spots on the carpet and long drag stains from the other offices leading to the emergency stairs and the elevators. But aside from those, the hall was tidy and as always, empty. I stood there trying to decide what to do when I heard something go bump.

At first I thought it was my imagination, but then it came again. The sound came from across the hall, on the other side of the elevator bay. I wanted to go and check, but a part of me, the one that was still yeling "Zombies!" wanted to run away, or atleast find something to use as a weapon. I was still largely afraid, honestly I'm still scared now, so I heeded my gut and went back to the office to grab my umbrella. In hindsight it was a stupid choice of armament, but I had more confidence swinging that around than say, the metal brace of a chair. Finally I reached the ad agency where the sound was coming from. The thuds came steadily, almost rhythmically, accompanied by what sounded like soft tearing and wet sounds. Catious I tried to peer in through the glass door.

The inside of the ad agency office was in a similar state to ours. Chairs were disarray, computers, cabinets and other office necessities were thrown about. A materialistic part of me felt pained when I saw their plasma TV lying broken on the floor. Not finding what I was looking for I opened the door slowly. My gut immediately regretted the action as the door's hinges let out the high pitched squeel of metal against metal. The repeating sound immediately stopped while my stomach started doing backflips. Whoever or whatever was causing the sound probably had noticed my arrival.

What came after happened pretty fast. I raised my voice to check if anyone was there, but before I could finish something crashed into the main room of the office. Along it came the strong smell of blood and decay. It yelled out something unintelligble, and then charged forward. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I quickly ducked back into the hallway and ran back to the office. The creature ran at an incredible speed and would have caught up with me easily if I didn't get a head start. I reached the office panting heavily and quickly closed the door behind me. Just in time too as the creature slammed into the glass door.

It yelled out in pain and frustration as it fell back. As if angered even more it stood up and began slamming itself against the door. I tried to lock the door but my frantic hands shook too much to fit the latch properly. The door shook slightly each time the creature threw its weight against it. To make matters worse the glass started to crack. It was only a matter of time before the whole pane shattered. Out of desperation I threw the door open as the creature arched backwards, readying to throw itself against the door. This made it lose its balance and fall backwards. Without a second thought I started hitting it with the umbrella. I aimed for the head and didn't stop even though it managed to claw at me. Finally a strong blow made its skull partly collapse. It cowered momentarily from the blow and wriggled on the floor holding its head. It was only then that I noticed how bent out of shape the umbrella was.

I ran back into the office quickly as the creature started to get back on its feet. There was no way I can deal with my attacker without a weapon. It let out a cry once more before charging at me. Panicking, I grabbed the nearest thing near me and swung at its head. With a loud sickening crack and a "kachang" it was over, the creature slumped down to the ground immobile. Both scared and angry I hit the creature's head several more times until I was sure it will never get up again. I never knew Bundy Clocks were that sturdy.

With a long sigh of relief I sat down on a nearby chair and looked at the thing that attacked me.
It was human, or at least looked like one. It had legs and arms just like the rest of us. Hell, this guy was wearing Calvin Klein and by the looks of it probably earned twice what I did. His designer clothes though were not bloodproof and were soaked. Which were his and which were not was hard to tell. His hands were covered in the stuff too, as was the lower half of his face. I guess I interrupted his meal. His eyes were bulging and black from the blood that rushed into them that have coagulated. There was also blood stream from his eyes down his cheeks. His hair was tangled mess and his skin was pale and bruised in some places.There was no denying it now. Zombies were real.

exercise3 - "her shoggoth"
by ~zk306

A loud explosion resounded through the empty corridor. Several of the crew screamed as the gigantic thing burst through the wall. In it's gnarled hands, or a perverted representation of it, it held the still twitching body of a young girl. The soldiers held their ground and fired as the civilian crew ran away from the creature. The latter simply ignored the hail of bullets that harmlessly bounced from its thick hide. Some injured civilians could only stare in shock and awe.

The creature stood at around eight feet. It had four trunk like tentacles that served as its legs. These were then connected to a bloated scaly belly covered with warts and innumerable small feelers. Atop the bloated mass sat an elongated head. Where it's mouth was supposed to be a clump of squid like tentacles sat wriggling, flanked by two large pincers. The opposite end of its head tapered to a point with three fins. It had over a dozen eyes scattered on its face with no sense of symmetry or logic. At the sides of it's grotesque belly four more trunk like tentacles protruded. Like it's "legs" it was covered in a mixture of scales, warts and feelers, but with the addition of countless suckers. These stretched for an undetermined length until they tapered off to a point no larger than a pen's tip.

In one of its limbs it held in its curled grasp a young girl. While the girl showed no signs of consciousness, it showed no indication that it was lifeless either. The soldiers however showed no care and relentlessly fired upon the creature. The only thing that kept the girl unscathed was the thick scaled limbs that held it captive.

Finally the creature grew irritated at the soldiers incessant firing. It let out a slithering noise that quickly grew into a loud gurgling sound. The sound grew louder and finally ended into an ear piercing screech. The soldiers instinctively dropped their weapons and covered their ears. The creature made its move then. With speed disturbingly disproportionate to its size, it charged at the soldiers. With one sweep of its scaly limb it fell five of the men before it, while another wrapped itself around one soldier's leg. Like a child's ragdoll, the hapless man was swung about before being thrown at his comrades. With its remaining free limb it tore at the overturned tables the soldiers used as cover.

A few of the soldiers left standing lost their resolve and ran away. Only to be knocked down by the creatures unearthly long limbs. Those who still had their wits about them continued to fire. These brave ones were spared the pain of disfigurement as the creature quickly crushed their heads.

In a matter of moments the corridor was clear. The creature let out triumphant howl before trudging slowly down the hall. Slowly, the girl in its grasp opened her eyes. The thing's feelers started to sway and pulse in a gentle rhythm as it felt the girl wake.

"Have you disposed of them," came the young girl's irritated voice.

The creature answered with a gurgling voice, in some other-worldly tongue.

The girl smiled sheepishly and ran her hand along the creatures face satisfied before saying, "good work my pet, good work."