Post by laurelflight on Feb 10, 2009 19:47:20 GMT -5
I was inspired by Dove to post my story <3 It has not been thoroughly edited (which is probably easy to see) And, it's only half of the prologue. Please, feel free to critique and express your opinion on it ^^ Tell me if it's confusing, good, stupid, horrible, etc. I'll listen xD
Rain hit sharply on the cobblestone pavement, making a steady crackling noise as it continued to fall. The sky above was gray and covered with black clouds while everything else was encased in fog. It lingered heavily over the city, blurring the edges of tall towers and masking anything beyond a few yards. Above all though, it was very cold.
The inhabitants of the city were nowhere to be seen. No body has walked these streets for years. Just ask the moss and shoots of plants that break through the cracks in the sidewalks, or the mold and vines that weigh down the skyscrapers until they collaspe, about what occured. They have grown and grown over the years, slowly toppling all that stands in their way with their roots.
As the steady storm pours onto the metal forest, the wild dogs that have lived there since the fall of the Uppers roam unpurposefully. They barked at seldom times notes to their comrades, almost ignoring their exhistence completely. Over the years, their fat ebbed away, as did their spirits. The last of their man-made kind were dwindling, slowly becoming extinct. The german shephard, the collie, the beagle, all of them, dying from not being able to reproduce, which is one of the many curses the fall of the Uppers had brought onto them.
Wild brutes like the common feral dog paced about, untamed and unruly amongst the rotting buildings. The rain hit their shaggy pelts, weighing them down and sending them whimpering for shelter.
A solitary being sat casually yet destitute among this so called nostalgia. Her thin and bony frame rising steadily as she breathed, she watched from her perch. The case of a random vulture which had become abundant in the past few years soared overhead above the small creature. She allowed for her eyes to follow it's path below the clouds, extremely wary.
Feathers spread wide apart as it caught the wind, the vulture descended rapidly. It got closer and closer to where the small mammal watched. Instinctively, she used the last stores of her energy to scramble down the post she was on to then land on the hard cobblestone ground. Tail curled, she sprinted away into the shadows of a leaning tower.
Dogs yipped as they spotted her, which frightened the poor creature even more. She had leaped in through the broken window that the crushing vines had made. The glass shards still littered the dirty floor where she landed. It pierced her paws and slowed her as usual. It pained her that her pads were being stripped away of the skin, but she had nowhere else to go.
Several other surviving creatures like her that still held the ability to mate confronted her warily. They sniffed her muzzle and rear, deciphering whether she was who they thought she was and also curious as to where she had been. The largest of them, with his tail raised and shoulders braced dominantly, silently ordered the dout of feral cats to clean their sister.
They worked on her tick infested pelt and her sore paws and in return she licked the ear of every cat who helped her. Their leader contributed as well, washing the she-cat's pelt with his tongue. It was several moments before one of them broke through the cluster to stand off on her own, her belly plump and round with little unborn lives. She sat down, tired and starved. The leader eyed her sadly, desperation in his dull eyes. They were quickly starving.
The she-cat who had been on the post outside shooed the other lingering denmates away from her, angered by the sudden claustrophobia she had felt. They understood and felt no bitterness, for they were partly solitary animals after all.
"I believe it's high time we leave," the large tom meowed hoarsely, "We came here because of the scavengers that gathered here, they told us that this place had prey. It did, but we quickly devoured it." The post-cat's ears flattened and her filthy fur bristled, "There are dogs and long-winged birds everywhere." "Didn't you say that we would be able to wait the dogs out at least?" The pregnant she-cat asked softly. The dout looked at their leader angrily. He had been the one who had spoken those reassuring-at-the-time words to them. "It was a false promise," The post-cat growled.
Leader jerked his head and unsheathed his claws. "It was true! Have you seen pups? I know I sure haven't. Their skin is uneven with the protrusion of bones and their mouths are laden with the foam of disease. They could never survive without the Uppers; look where they are now! They will be dead and rotting at our territory's end by nightfall as far as the One-of-Death is concerned."
His words lifted the heads of some of the cats but deterred others. She-who-is-pregnant unsheathed her claws as well and spat with furious criticism, "I'm hungry! We are all weak and I already feel a dead kit taking up room inside of me. Now I for one believe we must find food." A young black tom and a few other cats lowered their heads, half in shame and half in respect. Ones-who-are-pregant are the hiarchy of the dout, along with the Leader-of-bodies.
Leader dipped his head toward her, supressing his triumph that she agreed with him.
Post-cat lashed her tail in irritation and meowed disrespectfully then, "But right now we couldn't possibly hope to find a new den without a dog killing off at least one of us." The black tom who had had his head lowered spoke up, "Aren't they too dopey though? They couldn't catch us." "Foolish youthful pride," Post-cat countered, "Not all of us could make it-"
The dout scattered to the corners of the room as they heard scuffling outside of the window. The reek of mange and rabies tainted their open mouths as they scented the air. Cowering low to the floor, the wild cats waited fearfully for the dog to pass. It eventually did without a sound. "See?" The post-cat hissed quietly, padding with a slight limp to the center of the room again. The others followed as Leader ventured back out with his mate, the One-who-is-pregnant.
"I'm suprised it didn't smell us," Leader murmured, his tail bushy from fright. "Their noses are dulling," Post-cat admitted.
"I meant to ask this before," Leader ventured, "but what did you see out there, Rust Striped?"
The Post-cat lifted her head and swiveled her ears forward. The dout rarely used each other's names, partially because they were so varied and hard to remember, and also because it was considered a term of endearment or offense to use them. The she-cat dropped her gaze to the floor and replied, "All I saw were canidae and cathartidae."
Most of the dout looked disheartened. Canidae, the real name for dogs, and cathartidae, the real name for scavenger birds; those words only brought dispair to these cats. "That seems to be all there ever is!" One-who-is-pregnant moaned, laying on her side. They all expected for it to be just those creatures, but it was a blow all the same to their dwindling hope.
How were these felidae supposed to contend when the world around them was changing so rapidly?
"Just to see a pigeon again!" a small she-cat mewed.
"Then we'd know we're not alone," the black tom digressed.
"If it rains again, the flood waters will rise even farther," one member of the dout fretted.
"Silence," Leader commanded, kinking his tail to emphasize his order. "We must migrate to a better place. We all know these cities don't last forever. We must go, and fast."
Prologue - Green City
Rain hit sharply on the cobblestone pavement, making a steady crackling noise as it continued to fall. The sky above was gray and covered with black clouds while everything else was encased in fog. It lingered heavily over the city, blurring the edges of tall towers and masking anything beyond a few yards. Above all though, it was very cold.
The inhabitants of the city were nowhere to be seen. No body has walked these streets for years. Just ask the moss and shoots of plants that break through the cracks in the sidewalks, or the mold and vines that weigh down the skyscrapers until they collaspe, about what occured. They have grown and grown over the years, slowly toppling all that stands in their way with their roots.
As the steady storm pours onto the metal forest, the wild dogs that have lived there since the fall of the Uppers roam unpurposefully. They barked at seldom times notes to their comrades, almost ignoring their exhistence completely. Over the years, their fat ebbed away, as did their spirits. The last of their man-made kind were dwindling, slowly becoming extinct. The german shephard, the collie, the beagle, all of them, dying from not being able to reproduce, which is one of the many curses the fall of the Uppers had brought onto them.
Wild brutes like the common feral dog paced about, untamed and unruly amongst the rotting buildings. The rain hit their shaggy pelts, weighing them down and sending them whimpering for shelter.
A solitary being sat casually yet destitute among this so called nostalgia. Her thin and bony frame rising steadily as she breathed, she watched from her perch. The case of a random vulture which had become abundant in the past few years soared overhead above the small creature. She allowed for her eyes to follow it's path below the clouds, extremely wary.
Feathers spread wide apart as it caught the wind, the vulture descended rapidly. It got closer and closer to where the small mammal watched. Instinctively, she used the last stores of her energy to scramble down the post she was on to then land on the hard cobblestone ground. Tail curled, she sprinted away into the shadows of a leaning tower.
Dogs yipped as they spotted her, which frightened the poor creature even more. She had leaped in through the broken window that the crushing vines had made. The glass shards still littered the dirty floor where she landed. It pierced her paws and slowed her as usual. It pained her that her pads were being stripped away of the skin, but she had nowhere else to go.
Several other surviving creatures like her that still held the ability to mate confronted her warily. They sniffed her muzzle and rear, deciphering whether she was who they thought she was and also curious as to where she had been. The largest of them, with his tail raised and shoulders braced dominantly, silently ordered the dout of feral cats to clean their sister.
They worked on her tick infested pelt and her sore paws and in return she licked the ear of every cat who helped her. Their leader contributed as well, washing the she-cat's pelt with his tongue. It was several moments before one of them broke through the cluster to stand off on her own, her belly plump and round with little unborn lives. She sat down, tired and starved. The leader eyed her sadly, desperation in his dull eyes. They were quickly starving.
The she-cat who had been on the post outside shooed the other lingering denmates away from her, angered by the sudden claustrophobia she had felt. They understood and felt no bitterness, for they were partly solitary animals after all.
"I believe it's high time we leave," the large tom meowed hoarsely, "We came here because of the scavengers that gathered here, they told us that this place had prey. It did, but we quickly devoured it." The post-cat's ears flattened and her filthy fur bristled, "There are dogs and long-winged birds everywhere." "Didn't you say that we would be able to wait the dogs out at least?" The pregnant she-cat asked softly. The dout looked at their leader angrily. He had been the one who had spoken those reassuring-at-the-time words to them. "It was a false promise," The post-cat growled.
Leader jerked his head and unsheathed his claws. "It was true! Have you seen pups? I know I sure haven't. Their skin is uneven with the protrusion of bones and their mouths are laden with the foam of disease. They could never survive without the Uppers; look where they are now! They will be dead and rotting at our territory's end by nightfall as far as the One-of-Death is concerned."
His words lifted the heads of some of the cats but deterred others. She-who-is-pregnant unsheathed her claws as well and spat with furious criticism, "I'm hungry! We are all weak and I already feel a dead kit taking up room inside of me. Now I for one believe we must find food." A young black tom and a few other cats lowered their heads, half in shame and half in respect. Ones-who-are-pregant are the hiarchy of the dout, along with the Leader-of-bodies.
Leader dipped his head toward her, supressing his triumph that she agreed with him.
Post-cat lashed her tail in irritation and meowed disrespectfully then, "But right now we couldn't possibly hope to find a new den without a dog killing off at least one of us." The black tom who had had his head lowered spoke up, "Aren't they too dopey though? They couldn't catch us." "Foolish youthful pride," Post-cat countered, "Not all of us could make it-"
The dout scattered to the corners of the room as they heard scuffling outside of the window. The reek of mange and rabies tainted their open mouths as they scented the air. Cowering low to the floor, the wild cats waited fearfully for the dog to pass. It eventually did without a sound. "See?" The post-cat hissed quietly, padding with a slight limp to the center of the room again. The others followed as Leader ventured back out with his mate, the One-who-is-pregnant.
"I'm suprised it didn't smell us," Leader murmured, his tail bushy from fright. "Their noses are dulling," Post-cat admitted.
"I meant to ask this before," Leader ventured, "but what did you see out there, Rust Striped?"
The Post-cat lifted her head and swiveled her ears forward. The dout rarely used each other's names, partially because they were so varied and hard to remember, and also because it was considered a term of endearment or offense to use them. The she-cat dropped her gaze to the floor and replied, "All I saw were canidae and cathartidae."
Most of the dout looked disheartened. Canidae, the real name for dogs, and cathartidae, the real name for scavenger birds; those words only brought dispair to these cats. "That seems to be all there ever is!" One-who-is-pregnant moaned, laying on her side. They all expected for it to be just those creatures, but it was a blow all the same to their dwindling hope.
How were these felidae supposed to contend when the world around them was changing so rapidly?
"Just to see a pigeon again!" a small she-cat mewed.
"Then we'd know we're not alone," the black tom digressed.
"If it rains again, the flood waters will rise even farther," one member of the dout fretted.
"Silence," Leader commanded, kinking his tail to emphasize his order. "We must migrate to a better place. We all know these cities don't last forever. We must go, and fast."
* * *