Beginnings...
Sep. 8th, 2015 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
k_a_webbSketches of a Sleepless Earth
Hannah stared out of the window. She was tired, but she wasn’t sleepy. That was normal, for her, and she’d learnt to live with it as best she could. It was obvious she didn’t have any other option. Nothing the doctor gave her helped. None of the ideas she found online helped. Every day she found herself falling asleep around five am. After a few hours sleep, maybe five at the most, she’d be awake again, her body not wanting any more sleep than that. Sighing, she brushed a hand through her hair. Finding an explanation might help, because at least then she’d know why she wasn’t sleeping, but she’d been through three different sleep studies, and they hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with her.
“Nothing is wrong with you.” The voice came from behind and a shiver of fear went down Hannah’s spine. No one else had been in the apartment when she locked up, so how had he got in? Slowly, not certain she wanted to, she turned to look at her visitor. “Sorry. Time is running out and that means I haven’t been anywhere near as subtle as I normally would have been.”
“What do you mean time is running out?”
“How long have you been unable to sleep at night?”
“I was sixteen when it started. I’m twenty-six now.” She studied him. “I should call the police.”
“They won’t be able to help you. I didn’t break in, and if you did call them they wouldn’t be able to see me. You’re the only one who can.”
For a long time Hannah was silent. Questions she wanted to ask crossed her mind, but they were all questions she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted an answer to. “You’re going to need to explain this to me.”
“Yes, I am, but we can’t stay here. There are others who are looking for you. You’re lucky I was the one who found you, because the others…” He shook his head. “I’m not willing to give you any more details than that. I know what they’re capable of. I knew it was possible I might find you dead when I arrived, the way all the others have been, and as you aren’t I need to get you to a safe house.”
“Right now I don’t have any reason to go with you. It’s entirely possible you could be lying to me.”
“True.” He stepped forward. “Are you willing to open your mind to me, Hannah?”
“I thought I already had.”
“I’ve been picking up stray thoughts, nothing more.” Their eyes met. “Your shields are down, because of what you are, and I can teach you to replace them. In order for you to accept my offer you have to believe I’m telling you the truth. If you open your mind to me I can show you what you need to know, instead of trying to explain it to you when you aren’t open to believing a word I say.”
Gemini
They looked at each other, and then back at the man who was sitting on the other side of the table. “Why should we believe a word you’re saying?” Christopher brushed a hand through his hair. “Everything you’ve said could have come out of a book.”
He nodded. “I know, which is why I wasn’t certain this was the best thing I could do, but I’ve been where you are before. My other self and I weren’t willing to believe anything, and that was a mistake. I’ve been running from them my whole life. Unfortunately he didn’t survive our last meeting with them. If we’d believed from the beginning he might be alive now. If we’d believed we might have been able to stop this from happening again.”
“We were created.” Thomas sounded almost amused. “By who, exactly?”
“Had we accepted what we were told we might have been able to find that out. We didn’t.” He swallowed. “We thought, the same way you do, the man who was telling us exactly what I’m telling you was insane. That was the only explanation we had. Then, one night, someone knocked on my door, and I found he wasn’t insane. He’d told us the truth. He’d tried to prepare us for what was coming.” He shook his head. “I can understand why you’re reacting the way you are, but I need you to believe me. I need you to be the ones who fight against them. I’m on my own now, so I can’t. There has to be two of you.”
Christopher shook his head. “I have my birth certificate at home. There are pictures of me as a baby all over the place.” Which was incredibly embarrassing at times. “Why should I believe what you’re telling me?”
“I asked the same question. I remember going home and looking at my birth certificate, telling myself he couldn’t possibly be right, but haven’t you felt it sometimes. There’s something different about the two of you. There always has been. Some days it seems like you’re connected.”
Thomas looked at Christopher. It was true there were days when they did feel like they were connected, and the connection had been getting stronger. Sighing, Christopher did his best to push aside his fear they might not have been born to their parents, because he couldn’t let himself believe what they’d been told, even though there was a part of him that believed every word. “Okay. If you are telling us the truth we need to know what’s going to happen next.”
“Yes, you do.” He smiled at Christopher. “Thank you for being willing to listen, even if you don’t quite believe yet, because that’s the most important thing. When you’re willing to listen it will be easier for you to find the truth about what you are. It’s a truth I was never lucky enough to find out and I don’t think I have much longer left. That’s why I had to find you. I had to tell you what you were before it was too late.”
The Diary of a Doppleganger
September 8th 1998
Another door lies ahead of me. I know the time has come for me to move on once again. The life I’ve built for myself will be left far behind and I’ll begin all over again on another world. Some days, I must admit, I hate this. I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to leave everyone I know behind, but I knew when I first stepped through the door this was what would be expected of me, and now I understand why so many people tried to talk me out of making this decision, because I realise now it might have been a mistake. At sixteen, however, I thought I knew what I was doing. Soon enough I’ll have been travelling for the full ten years and then I’ll be able to go home.
Is it home now, though? There have been worlds that felt more like home than that world ever did. Not feeling at home was why I made the decision I did in the first place and I don’t regret leaving everything there behind. I didn’t feel the same pain I do now. I didn’t know it was possible to feel this pain. People I love will never see me again. Fortunately the magic of the door will make them forget I was even here, but I will never forget them, because they have made my life so much better than it would have been if I hadn’t met them. Leaving Brandon is the hardest part of all this, even though I know I will be replaced by someone else. He will have another lover, one that loves him as much as I do now, and he won’t know I’m gone. He won’t know I was ever here. He is the lucky one, to be honest.
My bag is alread packed. I’m as ready as I can be for the moment it happens. Fortunately it won’t be long. When I step through the door I’m going to be the only one who remembers the year I spent here. It’s the same as before. Every world I’ve been on has changed me, but I haven’t changed any of the people I touched. In one way that’s a good thing. People aren’t looking for me. They aren’t hunting for me, with no way to find me, wondering if I’m dead or alive. I was promised that was the case when I decided to do this and I’m hoping they told me the truth. There are times when I wish there was someone out there looking for me, someone who loved me, someone who is doing everything they can to find me, because then it means I meant something. I think that’s the hardest part of all this. I know I don’t mean anything when I set foot on the worlds the door’s chosen for me and that’s going to be the same when I find myself on whatever new world has been picked.
Is It Saturday Yet?
It was five minutes to midnight. John often sat up on Friday night, hoping it would turn into Saturday morning, but that hadn’t happened. He’d never seen a Saturday. There had been a time, when he was younger, that he’d tried to explain it to his friends, until it became obvious they didn’t believe him. He wasn’t surprise. Sometimes it was hard for him to believe he was thirty and hadn’t yet lived through a day that everyone else seemed to enjoy. When he glanced at the clock it seemed like time has slowed, the way it always did. He listened to the clock ticking, trying to work out why his life had been so different to everyone else’s, knowing there was a chance he might never learn why. He might never see Saturday. Shaking his head he sipped the coffee he had beside him.
As he picked up his phone John told himself Friday would become Saturday. He’d told himself that a thousand times before, but it had never happened. Maybe it was never going to happen. Maybe he was never going to be able to go to a co-worker’s barbecue. Maybe he was never going to be able to go to one of their Friday night parties. Maybe he was never going to be able to know what it was like to have two days when he wasn’t working. Midnight came closer, slowly, and he thought about what it would be like to live through a Saturday. It would be the most wonderful experience. It had to be. After waiting for so long it couldn’t be anything else.
One moment John’s phone said it was Friday the 4th. The next it said it was Saturday the 5th, and someone was knocking on his door. “Let me in.”
Whoever was out there was being too loud. John went to answer the door, unable to believe it really was Saturday, wondering who’d be out there at midnight on a Saturday. He opened the door, not sure what he was expecting to see. His best friend from high school was definitely one of the last people on his list. “What are you doing here?”
“The time has come, John.” Their eyes met. “You need to come with me.”
John shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You wouldn’t, but I only have a short time in this world. We need to deal with this as quickly as possible, so you understand who you are and what your job is, because the last thing I want to do is lead them to you.”
“Stop being cryptic. Tell me what I need to know.”
“I don’t dare tell you anything while we’re here. I don’t know who might be listening. The last thing we want is for them to know you know.” Their eyes met. “I know this is strange, but you have to believe me when I say I’m here to help you. Please come with me, John.”
If you want to see any more of these stories let me know. Tips gratefully received at kayleigh.a.webb[at]gmail[dot]com. Every $5 = 1000 more words. Tip more than $50 and get something special in return.
Oh, and I also need some ideas for something sci-fi, preferable a game of some kind, because of the work I'm doing for the Fae World. I'm definitely thinking of something Dune-like, and possibly something inspired by Metroid, but I'd like a couple more - and I'd love to find someone to world build with. There are some things I'm working on I need some help with and I find talking things through really helps.
Hannah stared out of the window. She was tired, but she wasn’t sleepy. That was normal, for her, and she’d learnt to live with it as best she could. It was obvious she didn’t have any other option. Nothing the doctor gave her helped. None of the ideas she found online helped. Every day she found herself falling asleep around five am. After a few hours sleep, maybe five at the most, she’d be awake again, her body not wanting any more sleep than that. Sighing, she brushed a hand through her hair. Finding an explanation might help, because at least then she’d know why she wasn’t sleeping, but she’d been through three different sleep studies, and they hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with her.
“Nothing is wrong with you.” The voice came from behind and a shiver of fear went down Hannah’s spine. No one else had been in the apartment when she locked up, so how had he got in? Slowly, not certain she wanted to, she turned to look at her visitor. “Sorry. Time is running out and that means I haven’t been anywhere near as subtle as I normally would have been.”
“What do you mean time is running out?”
“How long have you been unable to sleep at night?”
“I was sixteen when it started. I’m twenty-six now.” She studied him. “I should call the police.”
“They won’t be able to help you. I didn’t break in, and if you did call them they wouldn’t be able to see me. You’re the only one who can.”
For a long time Hannah was silent. Questions she wanted to ask crossed her mind, but they were all questions she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted an answer to. “You’re going to need to explain this to me.”
“Yes, I am, but we can’t stay here. There are others who are looking for you. You’re lucky I was the one who found you, because the others…” He shook his head. “I’m not willing to give you any more details than that. I know what they’re capable of. I knew it was possible I might find you dead when I arrived, the way all the others have been, and as you aren’t I need to get you to a safe house.”
“Right now I don’t have any reason to go with you. It’s entirely possible you could be lying to me.”
“True.” He stepped forward. “Are you willing to open your mind to me, Hannah?”
“I thought I already had.”
“I’ve been picking up stray thoughts, nothing more.” Their eyes met. “Your shields are down, because of what you are, and I can teach you to replace them. In order for you to accept my offer you have to believe I’m telling you the truth. If you open your mind to me I can show you what you need to know, instead of trying to explain it to you when you aren’t open to believing a word I say.”
Gemini
They looked at each other, and then back at the man who was sitting on the other side of the table. “Why should we believe a word you’re saying?” Christopher brushed a hand through his hair. “Everything you’ve said could have come out of a book.”
He nodded. “I know, which is why I wasn’t certain this was the best thing I could do, but I’ve been where you are before. My other self and I weren’t willing to believe anything, and that was a mistake. I’ve been running from them my whole life. Unfortunately he didn’t survive our last meeting with them. If we’d believed from the beginning he might be alive now. If we’d believed we might have been able to stop this from happening again.”
“We were created.” Thomas sounded almost amused. “By who, exactly?”
“Had we accepted what we were told we might have been able to find that out. We didn’t.” He swallowed. “We thought, the same way you do, the man who was telling us exactly what I’m telling you was insane. That was the only explanation we had. Then, one night, someone knocked on my door, and I found he wasn’t insane. He’d told us the truth. He’d tried to prepare us for what was coming.” He shook his head. “I can understand why you’re reacting the way you are, but I need you to believe me. I need you to be the ones who fight against them. I’m on my own now, so I can’t. There has to be two of you.”
Christopher shook his head. “I have my birth certificate at home. There are pictures of me as a baby all over the place.” Which was incredibly embarrassing at times. “Why should I believe what you’re telling me?”
“I asked the same question. I remember going home and looking at my birth certificate, telling myself he couldn’t possibly be right, but haven’t you felt it sometimes. There’s something different about the two of you. There always has been. Some days it seems like you’re connected.”
Thomas looked at Christopher. It was true there were days when they did feel like they were connected, and the connection had been getting stronger. Sighing, Christopher did his best to push aside his fear they might not have been born to their parents, because he couldn’t let himself believe what they’d been told, even though there was a part of him that believed every word. “Okay. If you are telling us the truth we need to know what’s going to happen next.”
“Yes, you do.” He smiled at Christopher. “Thank you for being willing to listen, even if you don’t quite believe yet, because that’s the most important thing. When you’re willing to listen it will be easier for you to find the truth about what you are. It’s a truth I was never lucky enough to find out and I don’t think I have much longer left. That’s why I had to find you. I had to tell you what you were before it was too late.”
The Diary of a Doppleganger
September 8th 1998
Another door lies ahead of me. I know the time has come for me to move on once again. The life I’ve built for myself will be left far behind and I’ll begin all over again on another world. Some days, I must admit, I hate this. I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to leave everyone I know behind, but I knew when I first stepped through the door this was what would be expected of me, and now I understand why so many people tried to talk me out of making this decision, because I realise now it might have been a mistake. At sixteen, however, I thought I knew what I was doing. Soon enough I’ll have been travelling for the full ten years and then I’ll be able to go home.
Is it home now, though? There have been worlds that felt more like home than that world ever did. Not feeling at home was why I made the decision I did in the first place and I don’t regret leaving everything there behind. I didn’t feel the same pain I do now. I didn’t know it was possible to feel this pain. People I love will never see me again. Fortunately the magic of the door will make them forget I was even here, but I will never forget them, because they have made my life so much better than it would have been if I hadn’t met them. Leaving Brandon is the hardest part of all this, even though I know I will be replaced by someone else. He will have another lover, one that loves him as much as I do now, and he won’t know I’m gone. He won’t know I was ever here. He is the lucky one, to be honest.
My bag is alread packed. I’m as ready as I can be for the moment it happens. Fortunately it won’t be long. When I step through the door I’m going to be the only one who remembers the year I spent here. It’s the same as before. Every world I’ve been on has changed me, but I haven’t changed any of the people I touched. In one way that’s a good thing. People aren’t looking for me. They aren’t hunting for me, with no way to find me, wondering if I’m dead or alive. I was promised that was the case when I decided to do this and I’m hoping they told me the truth. There are times when I wish there was someone out there looking for me, someone who loved me, someone who is doing everything they can to find me, because then it means I meant something. I think that’s the hardest part of all this. I know I don’t mean anything when I set foot on the worlds the door’s chosen for me and that’s going to be the same when I find myself on whatever new world has been picked.
Is It Saturday Yet?
It was five minutes to midnight. John often sat up on Friday night, hoping it would turn into Saturday morning, but that hadn’t happened. He’d never seen a Saturday. There had been a time, when he was younger, that he’d tried to explain it to his friends, until it became obvious they didn’t believe him. He wasn’t surprise. Sometimes it was hard for him to believe he was thirty and hadn’t yet lived through a day that everyone else seemed to enjoy. When he glanced at the clock it seemed like time has slowed, the way it always did. He listened to the clock ticking, trying to work out why his life had been so different to everyone else’s, knowing there was a chance he might never learn why. He might never see Saturday. Shaking his head he sipped the coffee he had beside him.
As he picked up his phone John told himself Friday would become Saturday. He’d told himself that a thousand times before, but it had never happened. Maybe it was never going to happen. Maybe he was never going to be able to go to a co-worker’s barbecue. Maybe he was never going to be able to go to one of their Friday night parties. Maybe he was never going to be able to know what it was like to have two days when he wasn’t working. Midnight came closer, slowly, and he thought about what it would be like to live through a Saturday. It would be the most wonderful experience. It had to be. After waiting for so long it couldn’t be anything else.
One moment John’s phone said it was Friday the 4th. The next it said it was Saturday the 5th, and someone was knocking on his door. “Let me in.”
Whoever was out there was being too loud. John went to answer the door, unable to believe it really was Saturday, wondering who’d be out there at midnight on a Saturday. He opened the door, not sure what he was expecting to see. His best friend from high school was definitely one of the last people on his list. “What are you doing here?”
“The time has come, John.” Their eyes met. “You need to come with me.”
John shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You wouldn’t, but I only have a short time in this world. We need to deal with this as quickly as possible, so you understand who you are and what your job is, because the last thing I want to do is lead them to you.”
“Stop being cryptic. Tell me what I need to know.”
“I don’t dare tell you anything while we’re here. I don’t know who might be listening. The last thing we want is for them to know you know.” Their eyes met. “I know this is strange, but you have to believe me when I say I’m here to help you. Please come with me, John.”
If you want to see any more of these stories let me know. Tips gratefully received at kayleigh.a.webb[at]gmail[dot]com. Every $5 = 1000 more words. Tip more than $50 and get something special in return.
Oh, and I also need some ideas for something sci-fi, preferable a game of some kind, because of the work I'm doing for the Fae World. I'm definitely thinking of something Dune-like, and possibly something inspired by Metroid, but I'd like a couple more - and I'd love to find someone to world build with. There are some things I'm working on I need some help with and I find talking things through really helps.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-08 11:57 pm (UTC)As for sci-fi, what sort are you most interested in? It's a pretty broad genre.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-09 07:46 am (UTC)I meant for it to be broad, because I'm looking for as many ideas as possible in as many of the sub-genres, so I can push myself out of my confort zone. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-09-11 12:10 am (UTC)What is your favorite sort of sci-fi? I'd suggest starting there and branching in related directions. Space travel? Aliens? Robots? Alternate history? How hard or soft are you thinking?
no subject
Date: 2015-09-11 06:31 am (UTC)Yeah, that's my problem. I like all of the above, but I don't want to mix it all together, because it doesn't work for me. Generally I'm more interested in soft, as I often don't understand the science behind hard sci-fi, and therefore don't feel as capable of writing it. That's why asking for ideas is helpful.