Young Writers Society

7/25/08

094 – Independence

Philip held his breath as he looked down on the Mutt community. His soldier instincts, all of his training, were screaming at him to pull out his weapon and alert his squad. But he squashed the urges. He didn’t have a weapon anyway and his squad was miles away. They were probably looking for him, but he wasn’t too interested in going back. Deserters weren’t usually welcomed with open arms. It’d probably be more like at gun point.

But it didn’t really matter. He had found the Mutts. After such a long search, he had finally found them. His excitement made him forget the dryness in his mouth and the churning of his stomach. He had run out of supplies the day before yesterday. But here he was. There were the Mutts.

He stood up on the sand dune and climbed to its crest, in full view of the compound. Well, what was visible of it. Just two buildings, almost completely covered by sand. If he hadn’t known what to look for, he never would have seen it.

The Mutts saw him. There were three of them, all squatting in a group near one of the buildings. They had been doing something with their backs to him, but the moment he stood up, they turned around and alerted.

Philip raised his hands, hoping they would recognize it as a gesture of peace. There had been so many stories about the Mutts and they all contradicted one another. They were sentient, they were beasts, they were the perfect human, they were the perfect animal. But everyone thought they were just stories, only stories. History claimed they were a reality, but after time, readers of history mixed up the facts. Nobody really believed in the Mutts anymore, not even the soldiers who hunted them. Only Philip had believed. And now here he was.

The Mutts had stood up now and watched him as he cautiously made his way down the sand dune. It was slippery and more than once, Philip had to catch himself with his hand or sit down heavily to avoid tumbling the whole way down. He had to look away from them to concentrate on where he placed his feet.

Finally he reached the bottom in a small avalanche of sand. He struggled to extract himself and stumbled towards the building where the Mutts were standing. But they weren’t there anymore. He went to the door and opened it. The building was small and crude, both inside and out. And it was empty. So was the second building, but it had footprints in the dust inside, leading to a trapdoor in the floor.

Philip pried the trapdoor open and peered into the darkness below. Cool air blew up from the hole, feeling like ice in contrast to the baking desert. Philip smiled and laughed out loud. They lived underground! As Philip lowered himself into the hole, finding the ladder steps with his feet, he began rehearsing what he would say to these people of legend. How he had always believed they existed, how he didn’t believe they were monsters. They would take him in and adopt him, as they had humans in the past to freshen their bloodlines.

Just before he descended completely, Philip saw a shadow move in the building. It was one of the three Mutts he had first seen. They had come back. Philip opened his mouth to greet them, to show he was not a threat, when he felt something bite his neck and there was a soft popping sound. He put his hand to his neck and pulled the dart from his skin. And old model, military issue nearly twenty years ago. He had seen them in museums before he came out and received the new version for combat. The Mutt above him lowered the air gun he was holding.

Philip’s vision began to swirl. Poison or tranquilizer. Why would they poison him? He just wanted to see them, to live with them, to… hear how… they had … survived… all… these…

Whatever it was, it wasn’t painful and Philip slipped into darkness peacefully. At least he had found them. They were really real. He had been right.

Gryph -

Very nicely executed. I enjoyed this installment, but as usual, you don't give me much to actually critique. With this kind of story, it's hard to direct you stylistically and/or point out any mistakes because there isn't enough room for one to be made. Therefore, I only found one thing that sounded a little strange.

Deserters weren’t usually welcomed with open arms. It’d probably be more like at gun point

This has an awkward ring to it. I would consider combining the two sentences together and getting your point across with less verbage and less stop-an-go. Why not say something along these lines: Deserters weren’t usually welcomed with open arms, but rather with laser sights and gun barrels and execution squads.

Something along those lines. What you have now is just too choppy and it doesn't match the rest of you sentence structure.

Ta,

-Kylan

Wow...that was just...fascinating. I haven't read the other stories in this series (100? Wow, that's ambitious; I wish I had that sort of dedication) but this has definitely piqued my interest. I particularly like the way your prose reflected Philip's thought process--mostly in short, abrupt dispassionate thoughts like the soldier he is, but also with an undercurrent of excitement. The bit where Philip was slipping away from the force of the tranquilizer was particularly well-done.

I do have a few gripes with the somewhat choppy sentence structure; while it does reflect Philip's thought process, it also comes across as a tad awkward at times. In particular, you seem to enjoy starting sentences with "but". While it does work to showcase the abrupt nature of Philip's thoughts, you use it so much that it starts coming across as just plain choppy and awkward. A few of those "buts" could probably be merged into the previous sentence to make the sentences flow more naturally, like this:

He had run out of supplies the day before yesterday--but here he was

Actually, that sentence would probably be even better worded as:

Although he'd run out of supplies the day before yesterday, he had still found his way here.

Or some happy medium between the two, I don't know, I'm not thinking properly. I ate a lot of cookie dough and now it's making my stomach (and thus my brain) feel funny.

I also felt at times there were phrases that could be italicized for a stronger emphasis, but that could just be my personal preferences speaking. All in all, though, an excellent and intriguing work--it was brief, but managed to contain enough information to pique my interest. I'll most certainly go read the other ones. Even if there are 99 of them.