Random opening - CONTINUED!

Yep, I've actually managed to continue a story, thanks in no small part to Jake's rather motivational comment :) This carries on directly from yesterday's post, which is probably directly below this one, but for the sake of good practice here's a link.

Jimmy Sawyer noticed, and he despaired at the state of days these days.

Apart from that though, Jimmy was a fairly normal guy. Or at least, he appeared to be pretty normal as far as his friends could tell based on the people they knew, and that’s about as normal as anyone can get.*

But Jimmy was not normal. Jimmy was special. Jimmy had a DESTINY! Not just a run-of-the-mill, metaphorical destiny, but a proper, written-in-stone, capital-letter Destiny.

This made him, in the run of things, quite unusual. You see, contrary to popular belief, most people don’t have a Destiny; they just trundle merrily along according to free will or determinism as their particular universe sees fit. But some people, very few, are chosen to be different, to be special, to uniquely alter the workings of their universe in immeasurable ways. These people are destined to have a Destiny.

Jimmy sawyer was not one of these people. For him, of all people, to have his own Destiny would be so unlikely as to be almost impossible. Instead, he was merely the victim of a bureaucratic error, which happens all the time and isn’t unusual at all.

It was also all his parents’ fault.

*A bored scientist once tried to define the “normal person” by averaging out every attribute of every person in existence. He published his findings as follows: 1. Postage to Mongolia is really expensive. 2. The average person does not respond to meticulously detailed questionnaires. 3. People are into some weird shit.

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After some frenzied scribbling yesterday, I actually have a pretty good idea of what happens next, so I might actually finish this. We'll see.

Random opening

It was a beautiful morning. The birds were singing, the sun was shining and the day was, to be honest, hoping like hell that nobody would notice just how horribly clichéd it all was. Being a day’s far harder now those hairless apes have gained sapience and started using fancy phrases like “literary device” and “gross overuse of formulaic opening”.

Luckily, everyone was a little too busy to notice, what with the apocalypse and all.

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Yeah, another opening that will never get a story. I don't even know what the apocalypse is. I like to think it stands by itself, though.

A million wondrous worlds

Dreaming of memories,

Memories of dreams.

A million wondrous worlds,

All experienced within a single night.

But memories fade,

And dreams wither,

Until they are nothing more than a memory of a memory,

Of a million wondrous worlds,

Now lost to yesterday’s night.

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Another one I wrote ages ago. This whole "force myself to write more" plan doesn't seem to be working out too well.

A villian with a difference

“Some might claim that I am a villain. It’s certainly true that my actions are often suspect, or even evil. But consider the alternative: a land without heroes. Oh, you don’t think so? Think back. Why did each and every one of you become a hero? To combat me, though you may not have known it at the time. Consider the world as it was before me. Peaceful. Unified. And completely devoid of opportunities for heroics. Every hero needs a villain. You are the heroes, I am your villain. I gave you a reason to become heroic. Be honest with yourselves. How many of you would still be living your peaceful, vulnerable lives, having never wielded a weapon, if I was not here? I thought so. I, with my murder and genocide and destruction, gave all of you a reason to become heroes. For the good of humanity.

Don’t laugh. What would you have done, had you found what I found? If you knew that, before the century was out, there would arise a threat so great and terrible that no one man could stay it, and that its victory would spell the end of the human race? What could I do, as one man, knowing that no-one would believe the truth? I could not be the hero, so I set out to become the villain. A villain so reprehensible, so evil and so powerful that an entire league of heroes would rise up and unite against me, and so give humanity a fighting chance.

I cannot say that I don’t regret my actions, for there have been many dark and terrible deeds done for the sake of necessary evil. I will not ask forgiveness, for it will not be offered, and nor should it. I will not say that my deeds, by their purpose, were not evil, for many were by necessity unforgivable. I will not say that it was the only way, for I am but one man, fallible and alone. But I will say that the sacrifice was worth it, as you gather here for my final victory. Doomed I may be, but I have created you, humanity’s greatest hope. And now that I have trained you, matured you and ensured your occupation until such time as you are needed, I can die happy, knowing that every dark act, every murder, every taint and blemish upon my soul, was ultimately worth it, to give life to humanity.

Perhaps, now you will know this, I should surrender, end this without death. But I have been steeped in evil for too long to easily accept such an act. Perhaps, finally, I have lost myself, and become what I sought to portray. So we shall have one final battle my friends, enemies, allies. One last fight to end it all, to begin humanity’s salvation.”

++Final message of Dark Lord Synthraxx, activated after his final defeat at the hands of the newly-formed League of Heroes, leading to the end of the oppression of the Dark Empire. The last of the plans set in motion by Synthraxx was finally defeated 10 years later, 3 months before the Reckoning.++

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Author's notes:

I was thinking about a lot of stuff when I wrote this. Mainly about how I wanted to see a villain who wasn't necessarily evil, but also about how a villain's motivation is often independent of heroes, but a hero's motivation almost always includes some kind of villain.  Also, you know how in games the villain always starts off by attacking you with his weakest troops, and keeps sending progressively stronger ones so that by the time you face him you're powerful enough to defeat him? That makes sense with this guy.

Seriously?

I never expected that one day I’d be calling a real life event clichéd.

Especially the apocalypse.

I mean, that’s the kind of thing that you’d expect to be pretty unique. The end of the world is quite a notable experience, really. One-off, even. But no, this just feels overdone.

I’m pretty disappointed in humanity too. It’s not like we didn’t have plenty of preparation. The amount of books and movies released on the subject over the past 10 years is insane. Everybody should have at least some idea of how to deal with them. This should have been over in a month!

But no, a few zombies and it’s the end of the world. How fucking original.

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Author's notes:

This is the opening to a story that will never be finished. I seem to write a lot of those. I do like the idea of a zombie apocalypse story where the protagonist is a massive fan of the genre, and uses that knowledge to survive while at the same time complaining about how clichéd reality is. The only problem is, I have no idea what happens next.