Challenge Post

[hope-rising.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [115] An offer you can’t refuse
Title: South of Nowhere
Word Count: 420
Spoilers: Only if you don't know who the Organization is.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 (language and creepiness)
Notes: Crossover. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad; when you're desperate, darkness can be your only road out.

What some people didn't realize is that it didn't take a broken mind or a grappling, yellow-eyed little creature to consume a heart in darkness.

 

Most of the time, it's desperation.

 

Her mom was the first to go. She had always been a hard-headed woman and insisted a little coughing wasn't going to slow her down. Coughing turned into sneezing. Turning into fever. Turning into swollen lymph nodes turning into dementia turning into...

 

Panic spread faster than any virus.

 

She felt selfish for being relieved when the hoarse cries in the other room died away. But she wanted to get the fuck out of there. She was scared and lonely and pissed off and wanted to get the fuck out of there.

 

The panic didn’t quite set in even when she found her little pony lying down in its field, labored breaths shaking the poor creature’s body. He was always a rather vicious little bastard, biting and kicking his rider. Not an ear flicked as she sat down next to her fallen mount and stroked his face.

 

An hour later she still sat there, dew and sweat soaking her pajamas as dawn dragged her into a world with only the dead for company. Their silence was the single most deafening sound she had ever known.

 

It was then that the panic finally set in. She ran barefoot down the catacombs that had once been the streets of her hometown. She could see where people had tried to get past the army barricades, trampling each other in their frenzy to escape an inevitable death. She almost laughed when she realized she was trying to out run a plague, but instead let out a mix between a cough and a sob as she slowed. For miles ahead, there was nothing but trees and corpses. Even if she did get out, what then? New York? If they couldn’t keep it out of her little town they sure as hell couldn’t keep it out of The Big Apple.

 

So she sat in the middle of the road. Her lungs burned, her feet hurt, and her heart felt strangely numb.

 

This was truly what it was like to stand on the edge of the world and stare out into nothingness.

 

The dark man extended a hand to her in her dreams. Promised her a way out of all this. Offered a future and a purpose with the flock of the damned.

 

Relena stared back with eyes colder than the ninth circle of hell. And smiled.

This was more of a challenge to myself and my writing abilities than a hope to win a contest. Thank you for reading :)

Comments

[str1.livejournal.com]

I never read The Stand, although the Dark Tower series heavily referenced it and I know the basic gist of the story. That being said, it really feels more like it leans toward Stephen King and less toward Kingdom Hearts, though I don't know if that was intentional or not.

[hope-rising.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was trying to pull of SK's creepy, dismal writing, but I may have gone overboard with the "DEATH EVERYWHERE" thing. Ah well, live and learn I suppose.

Thank you for taking your time to read!