LMNO-PI

[Fredfredly ⊂(◉‿◉)つ]

huzzzzzzzaaaaaahhhhh!
WRITE MORE!

[LMNO]

CHAPTER 19:  You didn,Äôt see that one coming, did you?

Somehow, through the pain in my body and mind, I fell asleep.  It wasn,Äôt pleasant.  Images of Erin being raped and tortured kept flashing through my head, and I felt even more helpless as the images came unbidden.  Her eyes, pleading for me to make it all stop, her screams becoming ever so much more desperate, eventually just screaming at the hopelessness of screaming.  I kept forcing myself to wake up, so I wouldn,Äôt have to face it all again.  At one point, I awoke with a start to the jab of a needle in my arm.  I struggled the best I could with my useless limbs, but a warmth spread up my arm and through my body, and then I was back into the depths of my personal horror show; but this time, there was no escaping.


I listened to her scream forever.


Eventually, I woke up.  I was stretched out on the floor, with rough splints on my leg and arm.  My hand was bandaged with gauze, as was my foot.  Sometime during my drug-induced nightmare, someone must have given me some sort of painkiller, because even though my body throbbed in time to my heartbeat, I could think above the pain when I tried to move.  A mixed blessing at best.  When the pain abated enough to allow me to think, all I could think about was her.  What they did to her.  I punched my leg, hard.  A horrific agony swelled out of my leg and into my brain.  The pain was easier to deal with.  I punched my leg again.  I blacked out.

When I came to again, it was still mostly dark in the room.  I noticed the door was open slightly, and an orangish glow crept through.  Someone must have given me another shot, because the pain was again at a manageable level.  I groaned, and rolled onto my stomach.  I managed to push myself up, and get my good leg underneath me.  Gingerly, I made my way to the door.  I hesitated when my foot stepped into the light.  What if this was a test?  What if they were waiting just outside, ready to inflict more punishment after I proved I was grounded enough again to try to escape?  Fuck it, I thought, either they are or they aren,Äôt, and nothing,Äôs gonna change if I stay here.  I grabbed the edge of the door and swung it open.

It was a corridor, still looking as if it were hewn out of rock, but hanging off one spur in the wall was a heavy outdoor coat, and leaning under that, a cane.  It was slim, black, with a silver handle in the shape of and antler.  It looked strong.  I limped over, shrugged the coat over my shoulders, and grabbed the cane.  What the fuck.  Parting gifts?  

I stood still for a moment, and listened.  Inside my head, Erin whimpered.  I tried to push the memory back down into my subconscious, feeling waves of guilt as I did.  Now wasn,Äôt the time.  There might never be a time.  Slowly, my mind stilled.  I closed my eyes.  The corridor starched out to my left, and right.  I stood, waiting.  Then, I heard it.  Off to the left, a subtle echo.  To the right, nothing.  Chances were, the exit is where the noise is.  Wincing, I hobbled to the left.  The left-hand path.  How fitting.

The corridor went on for a long time.  Or at least it seemed like it, what with all the limping.  With every step, the sensation of knives jabbed through my leg.  Every so often, I had to stop, to focus away from the pain that was making my vision cloud, and brought back the screaming in my head.  It was like the pain was connected with my final memories of Erin.  Half-delirious, I almost didn,Äôt want the pain to end, because that might also make me start forgetting her.  I thought back to other people I had known who had vanished, died, or left.  Their faces were half-erased illustrations on corroded paper, while Erin,Äôs was as fresh as the meat that was cut off her bones.  I couldn,Äôt lose her twice.

I was so wrapped up in my own head, I almost didn,Äôt notice the air getting colder, and the quality of light getting better.  What brought me around was the sound of a fire, and the smell of coffee and roasting meat.  My stomach growled, and my mouth filed with spit.  Swallowing, I turned a corner, and saw the mouth of the cave tunnel, looking out over the twisted trees of the Mountain.  Off to one side was a small campfire, and sleeping, with his head on his knees, was a man in olive green pants and a black hood.  I made my way as silently as I could, getting as close to him as possible.  It could have been Erin,Äôs murderer, my torturer.  It probably wasn,Äôt.  I didn,Äôt care.  I raised the cane above me head, willing all my strength to keep me standing upright.

[Mangrove]

wow.

[LMNO]

This chapter sucks: I deleted it.

[LMNO]

I sat at the edge of the cave, next to the pathetic little fire that was doing it,Äôs best to stay alive in spite of the thunderstorm that had just come up the side of the Mountain.  I dipped my hands in a puddle of rain water that was collecting at my feet.  The cold, acrid water smelled like the air of The City, and stung the cuts and scrapes on my knuckles.  The water tuned a rust brown color as I rinsed my hands.  I turned, and wiped them off on the pantleg of the corpse lying beside me.  A pool of blood framed what was left of his head like a congealing halo.  I know, I had been stupid; I hadn,Äôt taken the hood off before smashing his face into nothingness with the cane, and now there was no way of telling who he might have been.

I huddled near the fire, nibbling on the roasted meat the dead man had been cooking.  It tasted gamey, and it was stringy & tough.  To my mind came unbidden memories of what I had witnessed in that room and I began to retch, but my hunger overcame the nausea.  Initially, I had been worried that my escape had been discovered, but it had soon become clear that except for this one man, everyone had disappeared.  So why did this guy stay around?

,ÄúIt was a sacrifice.  Musta been.,Äù  My own words, gruff and harsh, echoed in the cave.  Some fucked up sense of Fairness must guide those fuckers.  And, like a sucker, I fell for it.  I let myself be lured into playing by their rules.  I had proven their point.

I smacked the dead man,Äôs leg.  ,ÄúAsshole.  The least you could have done is be awake, so I could feel that I was defending myself.,Äù  Groaning, I sat down next to the body, and listened to the rain, with the occasional bursts of thunder.  I stared at the shadows flickering on the wall of the cave, and I wondered what the hell I was going to do next.  The weather prevented me form trying to venture outside, but even if I could, where would I go?  Even if I was able to get down The Mountain, I,Äôd still have to find a way to get back to The City,Ķ and I was a fugitive there.  No doubt they,Äôd have found who I was by now, and they,Äôd be pissed about me killing that cop.

I could stay on the mountain, but even if I held my ground and established a place among the battling factions, I,Äôd always be reminded of Erin,Ķ  No.  I can,Äôt think about there right now.  But I can,Äôt not think about her.

Right.  I realized there was only one thing to do.  I had to get to the Ocean, to finish this fucking thing.  It started with a face-raping bat, it was gonna end at the Ocean.  Fuck it, I,Äôm not even getting paid anymore.  There,Äôs just nowhere else for me to go.

I leaned over the body, and rummaged around in the packs on his belt, until I found what I was looking for: a flask of cheap whiskey, and what looked like standard-issue pain killers.  I washed one down with the other, and tried to make myself as comfortable as possible.  The next few days were going to suck.

The next few?  Fuck, maybe all the rest of my days were gonna suck.  And I didn,Äôt even know how many of them I might have left.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Absofuckinglootley Awesome! Get on with it.

[East Coast Hustle]

srsly.

[Cain]

Yeah, thirded.  Hell, I've nearly caught up on you.

[LMNO]

Sorry, sorry... but I experienced a sub-antarctic rain forest on my honeymoon, so I have some good ideas of how to get me off the Mountain.

Also, I'm tryin to work in som BIP material into it.

and, I've been tasked with writing up the wedding and honeymoon, so there's that...


Plus, with Erin dead, I kinda blew my load, y'know?

[Cain]

Well, whatever turns you on....

Though actually I would like to see some BIP material included, so long as you don't end it a la Illuminatus!.  You should, when you next write, write as much as possible.  Thats what I do, go with the flow and then sparingly post it, saving me having to work at it.

[East Coast Hustle]

yeah. I don't write for months, but when I do it usually yields at least 3 chapters, sometimes more.

ECH,
has actually been holding out on you fuckers for some time now

[LMNO]

You bastard.

[East Coast Hustle]

nah. I just made it sound like it was intentional for effect. I wrote a bunch of new stuff, then closed my store and went on the roadtrip, then got back and let my fiancee's dad have my computer so he could soup it up, now it's been ready for a month or more but I never get down to Portland, and my fiancee's parents, while wonderful people, are not in a hurry to make an extra trip to East Bumfuck to bring me the computer that got souped to the nuts at no charge to me.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Plus, with Erin dead, I kinda blew my load, y'know?

Erin's dead???? Shit nooo. Surely she's going to come back in some sorta nanobot/timetravel kinda situation?

[hollowbox]

Hi there
I just created an account here, for the sole purpose of telling you, LMNO, how muhc I love your story. I found it by accident, and was drawn in immediately. I don't understand alot of the inside jokes but I have been able to pick up on alot of it. And the story itself is very compelling. I will stick around to read the rest for sure!