America 2.0 Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Candy from a Little Girl

Place: Central Station, in New Eden, deep under the Earth.

Year: 2071.

Time: 7:25 P.M.

Throughout the mammoth marble lobby, complete strangers walked to and fro, in their dark, wrinkle-free suits. The chatter on glossy phones reverberated off the walls like multiple ball bearings in a frantic game of pinball; it was a game lasting as long as there have been rich and poor, kings and queens. The artificial sunset coming through the glass dome above made these pieces of technology glitter like gold, when they were destined to be nothing but dust at their days’ end. The only thing to break through that senseless pool of words competing to be heard was the hissing and squeaking of the monorail as it slowed into the station, just outside the marble balcony above the glossy tiled floor, stories below. Its sleek, chrome shell reflected the smallest rays of light, so that the entire train blazed like a phoenix. On one car of the vehicle, in bold letters the height of a typical human being, there were painted the words, “Art Transit, Inc.”

            A marvelous marble stair case descended from the balcony. At the stairway's foot was a life-sized, bronze statue of a mighty African elephant positioned next to a meek, docile donkey. The elephant's trunk held a stalk of grain, which the donkey also gripped onto with its mouth.

            The majority of those present in the building, if not all of them, did not bother to look at  the chandelier hanging above the east end, with its beautifully organic diamonds hanging from the supporting gold ring. If they had, they would have noticed a human-looking figure, clothed in black, perched upon the ring. Its face was concealed in a dark balaclava; the eyes were shrouded by a pair of bulky, orange ski goggles.

            “Alright, alright,” the black figure muttered to himself. “Who shall be my victim for today?” Raising a small pair of binoculars to the flat surface of his goggles, he zoomed in on potential targets.

            “Hmm, how about, that guy, right there? Clean shaven, nice haircut. He’s got a couple bucks to-”

            “Carl! Carl!”

            A blond woman embraced the man, followed by two kids in their starched school uniforms.

            “Darn it, he’s got a family. I guess he’s out. How about, hmm, scanning, scanning, so many Mr. and Mrs. Smiths here.”

            A lion roared from inside his stomach. He put a hand over his rumbling belly. “Starving. I hope I get a good score today.”

            Through the binoculars, he saw the legs of a woman, seated upon a marble bench. The body tow which those legs were attached was clothed in a white fur coat.

            “What did those baby seals do to deserve being skinned like that? Okay, I think I’ve found my victim.”

            The stranger tucked the binoculars inside his black sweater. After a daft leap, he was skittering across the ceiling, and he was undetected by those individuals drowned in the details of day-to-day life. When the black figure set his face parallel to the ceiling, he shot out his tongue. Like a yo-yo, he lowered himself down with the sticky, bubble-gum-pink bungee chord. Landing on all fours, he dropped down behind the woman. Grunge rock blasted from the sky blue ear buds of her headphones.

            “Thank you excessively loud music,” the stranger uttered.

            He scanned the landscape of the woman’s body. Her hips easily protruded from underneath the shiny, silvery-white pelt that clung tightly to her contoured body. Her shimmering hair was luxuriously long and jet-black.

            “Well, she’s hot. I’ll give her that.”

            His stomach started gnawing at his liver.

            “Shut up, hormones,” the stranger grumbled to himself. I have some cash to steal.”

            Her ruby red handbag was laying right beside her on the bench. She was intensely tapping on her tablet device with a manicured finger. It was Facebook, as far as the masked figure could tell. Facebook is going to suck her soul if she’s not careful.

            He had just placed a gloved hand onto the bag when—

            “But it’s MINE!”

            The stranger glanced over to the source of the shriek. A teenage-looking boy with purple hair and a red sports jersey was attempting to wretch a rainbow-colored, all-day sucker from a four-or-five year old girl in a sky blue dress.

            “Finders keepers,” sneered the teenager, as he tugged the sucker free from the girl’s grip with one final yank.

            The girl’s face wrinkled up.

            “Oh, crud,” moaned the stranger, shaking his head. “Please don’t start crying.”

            The stranger’s whole body froze. His hand was right on the bag, but he couldn’t budge it. Got to stay focused on the prize, he thought. Got to stay focused on—but stealing candy from a little girl? How low could you possibly get?

            The girl started wailing. Bucket-sized tears fell from her eyes and pounded the ground.

            “MAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

            The attractive woman pulled one of the headphone buds from her ear.

            “What is it this time?”

            “HE—he—“she pointed a tiny finger at the teenager. “He stole my candy!”

            The woman grunted. “Is that all?”

            The words escaped the stranger's mouth before he could stop himself. “Wuddaya mean 'is that all?'”

            In a split second, the woman’s head turned, and her eyes met the stranger’s orange goggles.

            ‘Uh,” the stranger chuckled nervously, brushing his hand against the bag. “There was a huge cockroach crawling on your purse. “      

Who is this masked stranger? Why does he have a frog tongue? What is in the Art Transit, Inc. car? Why are you still reading this? Download America 2.0 Part 1 now!

In the Library

This is a piece of writing for a project I've experimented with on and off. Please leave a comment below:

The library: a place of academia. A place of black and white text, sometimes colorful pictures from oversized reference books. It was a place where the greatest minds on Earth would leave what information they had to share for the next generation, which was, at this point, drinking plenty of coffee to go through the long hours of study and education at Ignatius college. They were flipping through monotone pages, blasting music from their smart phones in their ears, and hammering away at the keys on their laptops. There was one desk, hidden in the depths of the library shelves, at which one student, a female with long, silvery-white hair, was doing some studying of her own.

            She focused her Japanese eyes intensely on her right hand. Its nails were painted a wasabi green. She concentrated all her energy, attempting to block everything else out from her mind: her computer science homework, her daddy issues—don't get her started about her daddy issues—anything and everything.

            “Come on,” she muttered to herself. “Come on, work.”

            Slowly, her fingers began to shorten. Tiny tufts of white hair began to sprout on her hand. A roughly triangular shape with rounded corners elevated from her palm, as it began to mold  and condense itself. The thing that was once her hand was shifting spasmodically back and forth between its original form, and its newer, wilder form.

            “Focus, June, focus.”

            Beads of sweat were dripping from her brow. She wanted so badly to give up, but the power inside of her yearned to be released.

            Gritting her teeth, with her silvery braces gleaming in the florescent lighting, she bombarded her hand with one last burst of mental energy.

            Her hand was gone. Replacing it was a paw: a singular, snowy white, canine paw. The paw of her fox form.

            “Yes,” she shouted, pounding her left fist into the air.

            Her victory celebration was by the ringing of an 8-bit chip tune from her smart phone. It was Max. Perfect timing.

            She reached for the phone with her left hand, and picked it up, only to have it slip from her grip, and fall onto the floor. Impulsively, she reached out with both her hand and her paw, only to tuck the paw underneath her armpit. She performed this act while she was still leaning off the side of her chair, causing her to tumble over, and roll onto her stomach. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a student in skinny jeans raising a bushy eyebrow at her. The phone was still ringing. Another second longer, and the librarian would be sure to hear it and kick her out of the library—again. She straightened herself up. Her waist-length hair fell in a disheveled mess over her eyes. She used her hand to quickly brush it aside, and then quickly pick up the phone, and turned away from the student who gave her funny looks.

            “Hello?” She whispered.

            “June-dog! How's it going?”

            June hissed, “I'm in the library.”

            “Crunching computer code or chasing your tail?”

            “Oh, very funny, Max.”

            June got herself up, then swiftly walked over to the women's restroom, while still hiding her paw underneath the armpit of her open denim jacket, revealing an image of a grinning, yellow star. She fumbled for the door handle while holding onto the phone at the same time. She dashed inside, and quickly slammed the door behind her. She gave herself a seat on one of the recliners in the waiting room. Yes, there is a waiting room in the girl's bathroom.

            “What the hell do you want?” continued June.

            “Sorry for how rude I was. They're serving tacos in McFarland.”

            “I'm actually a little busy right now.” June's voice quivered as she looked down at her paw.

            “You didn't say you would be too busy earlier. Juno, you're not messing with your powers, are you?”

            “Uh, no. Of course not.”

            “Juno, do you remember the last time your powers went bizerk? I still have the scars, if I may remind you.”

            “I wasn't myself at the time, may I remind you?”

            “Juno, it's like your father said. These new abilities of yours: it'll take time to--”

            “Don't mention my father.” Her voice went ghastly cold.

            “Juno . . .”

            She heard Max take a frustrated breath. “He never meant for any of this to happen. He was just trying to protect you.”

            “By lying to me about the woman that gave birth to me?” She slammed her paw into the adjacent wall, leaving behind a fierce dent.

            “How was he supposed to—you know something, forget it. You can be filled with bitterness and hatred all you want. All I know is, I'm getting in line for tacos now, before it gets too long. Are you joining me or not?”

            “After I take care of what it is that I'm working on.”

            “Are you able to go out in public?”

            “Let's just say my hands will be full.” Juno rolled her eyes. How corny can you get?

            “Alright, Juno. Meet me in front of the dining hall, and I'll see if I can help you.”

A Piece of Fruit (early draft)

This is an early draft of a short story that I worked on a couple of years ago. It's incomplete, though.

In a kingdom on an island in an ocean far from Earth, there lived a people who once lived in peace. This was until the day a strange fruit arrived at its shores. Its pulp bore knoledge to those who had consumed it. But this knowledge was both of great good, and the darkest of evils. So this empire went into collapse. Five centuries later, a wandering sailor, thrashed by a storm, arrives on the shores of this jagged, crystalline rock. This is his tale.

Welp, I've done it again. I figured things couldn't get any worse after Ariana got married off to that wealthy prick. But now I'm on this giant island of crystals in the middle of nowhere.

But I suppose this is what I've been sent out to do. I knew that my losing Ariana was supposed to mean something. The Architect of this galaxy doesn't arbitrarily choose to tear people's lives apart. No loving Architect I could imagine would be so pitiless and sadistic. And even if he was, it was supposed to be for the greater good. So now, Architect, I'm asking you. What greater good is supposed to come out of my suffering? Am I supposed to find something? A lost treasure? The cure to an incurable plague? I leave it all in your hands now, Architect.

As I step out of the protection of my damaged vessel into the rapid-falling rain, I was hypnotized by the glowing green crystal spires that loomed over me. I've seen something like this in the mines that I used to work in, but there was something different about these rocks. I was picking up some intense vibes from them. These crystals were corrupt, with a great evil that seemed unmistakably tangible. It was as if the fumes of brimstone and sorrow were wafting through my pores, caressing my nerves. I felt this same vibe from Ariana's father. He seemed gentlemanly enough. I even thought, with the right timing, he would become my father-in-law someday. But, sadly, he was just a little more complex than I thought he was. The societal values of his home planet preached that the impoverished were to be forsaken, if they had not achieved wealth by a certain age. Those who enforced this policy called it the Architect's will. They claimed that the Architect created evolution because he felt that only the strongest were worthy to rule over the planet. All the poor had to be banished to the storage facilities on their moon, where they became slaves.

Ariana was nearing that point. Her father already owned an entire corporation, but Ariana wanted to discover what kind of stuff that she was made of. She was planning on moving in with me near the steel mill my parents worked at. But her father decided that that was against the will of the Architect. Also, he would be ostracised from his community, because he allowed her daughter to be married to a miner. So that was that.

I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to meet anymore people like that. In fact, the place looked completely barren. It was as if the people who lived on this island suddenly vanished. All that was left, at least on the ouskirts of the main city, was a ton of rotted, thatched structures. They seemed like the huts that the early colonists of my home region first produced.

“Excuse me?” I shouted. No reply. “Is anyone there?” I waited for it, waited for it, waited for it some more. Nothing.

“Ugh, just my luck.” I uttered. “If it can happen to anyone, it’s going to happen to Trip Daniels.”

Someone else started talking just then: my stomach. I took off my backpack and searched for some provisions. I pulled out a chocolate-chip granola bar. My favorite. But just before I put it into my mouth, I heard something fall over in one of the huts. It sounded like some kangarats initially, but maybe it was someone who still lived here. Maybe he could have pointed the way to someone who could repair the hole in my boat.

I approached the hut that the noise came from. Not an ounce of light was anywhere to be seen. So I pulled out my flashlight and took a look around. It looked like whoever lived, or had lived, in this hut was an artist. There was a big painting leaning against the wall. The colors were faded, but it was certainly more vibrant than the dark and gloomy skies above. It was a village, one where the people were dressed in simple dragon-skin tunics. Every single person was playing what seemed to be some kind of flute.

That’s very pretty and all, I thought, but it certainly doesn’t  improve my situation. I was about to leave, when I stepped on something that made a loud sloshing noise; I even splattered some purple goo from it onto my jacket. I looked dowm, and there it was: a bizarro-looking piece of fruit, the shape of a giant bean, with these weird tendrils sticking out of it. Being that I only stepped on one end of it, I picked it up to check it out. It smelled sweet, very sweet, like ten times sweeter than any honey. It looked well-preserved. It seemed fairly safe to eat, I thought, but just to be sure . . .

So I took out a bile of fluid and put a piece of the fruit in. A quick shake and a couple of seconds later, the solution turned green.

Good, it’s safe to eat. Well, bottoms, woah boy, I thought. Better stuff this thing into your knapsack, and save it for when you need it. Can’t be a bottomless pit in this situation. You might be stranded for a while.

I wasn’t that worried yet about food. I had plenty of provisions with me. But a little something extra never hurt.

I reached into a certain point where shards of the strange corrupt crystal material started mixing in with the nutrient-deprived dirt. It seemed like, the farther I went up to the path at the top of the crystal plateau, the less actual dirt there was in the ground. At the foot of the castle gate, the ground was nothing but the hard stuff.

The doors must have been at least ten times my height. I tried opening them but it seemed like they wouldn’t budge. I must have gone at it for at least fifteen minutes, until the point where I was exhausted and hungry. I almost bit into that purple piece of fruit, but I had to once again be sure that I was Spartan with my food. Fortunately, I had my harmonica in my pocket, so I hummed a bluesy tune on there to get my mind off my hunger. That’s when the door suddenly opened on its own.

Okay, I thought to myself. Things are starting to get just a little creepy.

I peered in around the corner only ever so slightly. From what I could tell, the architecture looked something like a Buddhist monestary that was built when the faith’s followers from Earth started missionizing it in other galaxies. It was intensely overgrown with these thick, spindly trees that had lush green leaves on their branches. And wouldn’t you know it, growing from those trees were more of my fruit.

Guess you don’t have to go hungry for a while, I thought. Just as long as it doesn’t belong to anyone else.

I started thinking that no one would have minded if I grabbed a couple pieces of the harvest, but I didn’tt know how long I was going to be on that island for. So, same harmonica, another melodious tune. I must have played that song for another hour or so. I was starting to get really, really hungry at that point. When I couldn’t even remember the title of the song that I was playing, I knew that it was time to eat.

Just as I was about to sink my teeth into that pulpy, succulent, giant bean, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a child. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old.

“Hey,” I called out.

The runt didn’t move. I got up and went over to ask him for help. He didn’t say anything.

“Listen, kid! I need to get my boat repaired so that I can get off of this island.” Do you know anyone who can help me?”

He just stood there, staring blankly at the tendril-covered fruit that I had.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, holding out the fruit in front of him. He swatted  it out of my hands, and barked at me. “Demon!”

“Now that it is no way to talk to—“

The kid was a ghost! How did I find this out? My arms just went straight through him. Before I could even say “Hey, what in the—“ he ran off around the corner, down a long, arched tunnel. I  chased him down there for what felt like a couple minutes.

Then, I saw a light out of the corner of my eye.

               Me and my big mouth.

                I heard something shaking. The wooden door of a broom closet was rattling as if it were possessed by a dark spirit.

                Aaaaawwwww crap.

                Was there somebody in there? I had no clue. If there was a poor soul in there, I figure he was either too stupid to not lock it from the outside, or he ticked somebody off bad enough to get shoved in there. I couldn’t exactly just leave him there.

                I approached the door, with my blaster held firmly, of course, hugged the wall next to the door, and with a slow, steady hand, I grabbed the handle, and, on a count of three . . .

                “One, two, PULL!”

A man fell out, and on top of that fell the swarm of kanga-rats that were in there. As they dispersed, I saw the man’s face. It was dry and wrinkled. His jaw was wide-open. His eyes bulged outward.

This man was dead.

            This better have been a case of bad food poisoning, I foolishly hoped.

I shone my flashlight down to get a better look at the thing. It was in some rich blue robes, and was wearing jewelry. The crown implied that he was a royal figure.

But that wasn’t the strangest part.

Hugged fiercely in his arms was that same purple fruit. It didn’t look like it had aged a day, but it clearly showed growth; its tendrils coiled across the man’s body and around its limbs., and latched to its skin. The fruit was absorbing nutrients from the cadaver.

I was almost certain of what I was going to see next, but I checked to be sure anyway. I shoen my flashlight at the foot of the trees, and found literally hundreds upon hundreds on skeletons,  wearing light armor, stabbed in the chest with spears and swords, and cradling that fruit again.

Fox Blood: a chapter in the Kitsune tales

Here's an excerpt of a short story that I'm working on. I plan on publishing it to Kindle soon.

Fox Blood

            College: there isn’t anything like it: The dorm social life. Eating Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Casual drinking parties (not the parties where you black out and can’t remember anything the next morning). And seeing someone transform into a dangerous animal. Literally.

            The animal in question is Juno. It is her second year at Ignatius University. She also turns twenty-one that year. And her birthday fell in line with the harvest moon.

            Lucky her.

The iPhone on her nacho bag-littered desk read 11:58. She had just finished up with her term, and yet, she was still a neurotic nut job, since her big project was only halfway done. God played his booming drum set. The hammering rain was the wind chime that He ran his drumstick through. He banged one of the crash symbols to strike lightning. His bass drum reverberated throughout the sky.  The thunder temporarily took Juno’s eyes off of her computer science work on her laptop. Her Boston terrier, dubbed bit, was loudly grinding up his nightly bowl of dog food, with some cheese puffs mixed in, of course. She looked down at the slobbering monstrosity that looked like it came out of a science-fiction/horror movie. Bit was her monstrosity, though. That was good enough for her.

She clicked on the vibrant orange Firefox logo on her desktop, and typed in “AOL Weather in the search bar.”  “Tonight and tomorrow,” read the status, “highs in the upper--50’s. Lows in the upper 40’s. Rain and thunderstorms persistent throughout the next several days.”

            Good. So no harvest moon for the next couple days. It made her stomach twist, though, to know that it was only delaying the inevitable.

            She sat around, looking at all the brightly-colored, Japanese cartoon posters on her wall. Robots, samurai, and scantily clad cat girls. Oh my! One of them was a poster of Naruto, a spiky-haired kid ninja who is possessed by a demon known as the nine-tailed fox. She inspected the bright orange uniform, the wide, confident blue eyes, and the mischievous smile. She then spotted the translucent, orange silhouette of the beast that loomed large behind him. It was the spirit of the nine-tailed fox, the beast that lurked inside of him. Juno wrapped her arms around herself, as goosebumps peaked up over the surface of her skin. She prayed to God that, the moment she started undergoing her, uh, changes, that she wouldn’t turn out that ugly.

            Or dangerous.

Then the alarm on her iPhone went off! BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!! 12:01 A.M. She was officially twenty-one. She reached into her minifridge, grabbed a Bud Light, and cracked it open, raised it to the Naruto poster, and said, “Cheers looking at you, brother.”

She slugged it down, not even bothering to taste it, just letting the cold liquid run down her throat. Her iPhone sounded off with an 8-bit chip tune. She checked the screen of the phone. Her Dad was calling. Juno tapped the “pick up call” button.

“Juno?”

“Crunch time at Sushi Video Games?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Don’t think the insane deadlines end after you graduate from college.”

Juno stared at the screen of code. The typing cursor on the screen kept blinking at her, mocking her. Juno chuckled a little bit. “At the very least, I’m well-prepared.” Juno made a gagging noise. “That’s the sound of me dying from excessive coding disorder.”

“Juno, it’s your twenty-first birthday! Chin up a little!”

“Excuse me,” Juno replied, rising up from her chair and pacing around the room. “Did you not forget what today is also supposed to be?

“I trust that you read the weather report. The harvest moon isn’t going to show its face for another couple of nights.”

“Yeah but when it does—“ Juno accidentally raised her voice a little bit. Her bad.

“Juno, there isn’t any reason to worry just yet. When you do start going through these changes, I’ll be there for you to get you through it. And I’ll have a giant, juicy steak for you, just in case you start craving red meat.”

Juno leaned back up against her wall, sucking up a lungful of air, then letting it out, and smirking a little bit. He always did know the right thing to say.

“Thanks, Dad.”