An Odd Trio (Short Story Part 1)

Màu nền
Font chữ
Font size
Chiều cao dòng

So instead of making reference pages because I'm lazy (I'm still going to but you know what it'll be a while because I'm the queen of procrastination), I decided to make a short story about my three characters, two of which guys might know and the third you haven't met yet.
The story will be told in first person, as in using pronouns such as "You," so the protagonist is whomever you want it to be meeting these characters.
The story is set in a steampunk/Victorian style world.
I hope you enjoy meeting Patch, Heartstrings, and Clockwise.

You awake with a splitting headache, and no recollection of what happened before you passed out. You open your eyes to find yourself in an odd room, on a horribly lumpy cot. Lights stuck out of the walls, they looked a lot like those you might find on a ship, barred and bright. The walls, ceiling and floor were made of tarnished brash plates, some stripped off to reveal piping and thick wires running beneath them. More pipes covered the ceiling, and some even stretched out to the floor, disappearing to whatever lay below. Little clouds of steam puffed out of these pipes occasionally, creating little hisses, like desert snakes.
The desert! That's where you had been before....this place. You had been traversing the vast sandy ocean, trying to find civilization after you were robbed clean of everything but your now-ragged-clothes by bandits while traveling to your aunts' estate in the city.
You sit up from the uncomfortable bed, rubbing your aching head. The cot was on a basic looking metal bed frame in the corner of the small, square metal room, and next to it was a dark-wooden nightstand, with a short, metal mug sitting just on the corner. You swing your legs off the bedside and reach for the mug, but your actions still groggy, and you accidentally bump your hand on the corner of the nightstand. You wince and shake it off, and reached again. You actually grab the mug this time and peered inside, hoping it's water. It's not. Inside the mug was a brownish-liquid that smelled sweetly-spicy. Although you were thirsty, you decide against drinking a strange liquid sat next to you in a strange place you don't recognize.
Setting the mug back on the nightstand, you get up and stretch, your back popping. You rub your head again and sand falls from your hair, confirming your passing out in the desert. You sigh and head for the door, your legs also stiff and sore from your desert journey. The door-like everything else-was made from metal, and pipes. It hung open into a long metal hallway with similar lights as the room. Pipes also stretched on the ceiling, and occasionally up the walls, heading up and down the corridor.
You look down the hallway to the left, and saw it was a dead end, to a large metal door with a gear-locking mechanism that was obviously locked shut. You look the other way and find it is unblocked, and stretches to a turn to the left.
You start heading that way, occasionally jumping at the random bursts of steam from the surrounding pipes. Your footsteps echo through the brass corridor, until you reach the turn and find something odd.
At the end of the hallway, there was a simple wooden chair. Sitting on the chair was a limp rag doll made to look like a cat. It was old-looking and had several patches of different coloured fabric stitched onto it. There was some blue, but mostly grey and white. One eye was also replaced with a light blue button, and it's face was stitched up in an eerie smile. The doll itself was probably no bigger than his foot, if not just a little bit longer.
It was slouched in a sitting position, facing the direction that you had come from, and on one shoulder, you see something sticking out from the doll, what looked like the threading-end of a large sewing needle.
'It's rather rude to stare you know,' you hear a voice whisper inside your head. You spin around, almost falling over and immediately regret turning so fast, as a wave of nausea sweeps over you. Your head was still throbbing.
'Woah, be careful. You probably just woke up, and you're not steady on your feet yet.'
"Who said that?" You ask into the metal hallways after you recover. Your voice echoes down the empty corridors.
'I did. You were just looking at me.' You look back down at the rag doll and nearly had a heart attack. It was now standing with its arms at its sides, and its long tail hanging limp behind it. It looks up at you with its creepy smile.
"H-h-how...how?" You shakingly point a finger at the doll, you had seen some odd things but never anything such as this. Cheerful laughter rang through your mind and the rag doll flicked a fabric ear.
'Wow! How rude are you? First you stare at me and then you point a finger at me all questioningly.' The doll put a hand on its hip. 'Anyways, I'm not going to let you finish that question because first of all, it would be really difficult to explain how and what I am without you knowing where you are first. And second of all, we haven't even introduced ourselves. My name, is Patch!'
The doll bowed formally, a ridiculous sight that almost made you laugh, but seeing as how Patch reacted to a simple stuttering question, you force yourself not to.
You tell the doll your name, and ask where you are. Patch folded its arms.
'You're in my friend Clockwise's science facility. She's got the smartest mind in this era!' Patch took a few steps forward and tapped its foot. 'If you let me up on your shoulder, I can take you to meet her. She can tell you everything you want to know!'
Trusting a talking rag doll was one of the last things you expected to do today. But really you didn't have any other choice considering you didn't know where you would go. Patch seemed to know where to go, and this Clockwise person sounded like someone who could help.
"Alright then..." You say calmly, slowly reaching your hand down to the doll.
'GREAT!' The doll jumped up onto your upward-facing palm and climbed up your arm and promptly sat on your shoulder. It didn't weigh much more than if your aunts pet parakeet did the same thing.
Patch pulled the needle from its back and pointed it forward, down the hall you didn't appear from, holding it like a sword. It was made of a sort of blue-silver like substance, not like a normal sewing needle.
'Onward!' His thought-voice rang through your mind.
Unsure of what else to do, you walk down the hallway, and Patch puts his needle back in his back, like sheathing a sword.
"Doesn't that....hurt? The needle I mean?"
The doll looks at you, it's felt eye seemed animated now, the white pupil moving freely from its black felt sclera, or...that's what you can make of it anyways.
'It doesn't. I don't have nerves so I don't feel pain. In this body, I'm only made of fabric and stuffing. My soul is actually a freely-moving spirit that can posses any object, so long as it benefits my needs. I can't actually die because in reality, I'm already dead.'
You try to wrap your head around this explanation and just get more confused. So, instead of asking more questions, you simply shut up and turn down the metal corridors every time Patch says to change direction. Besides the hissing steam and clunk of your boots against the metal plated floor, a new sound was appearing, slowly, and softly, but surely.
It was a soft bubbling, a slight whirring, and the constant clunk of multiple feet against metal.
Soon you walk through a doorway into a giant chamber, with two floors, the second one open with large stairs with a twisted brass banister. There were multiple desks covered in vials and glass contraptions filled with odd coloured liquids, papers were strewn about, and occasionally blood-soaked bandages were piled up in a bunch, and there were clean bandages hanging somewhere nearby.
A sickly sweet smell hang over the room, making you almost nauseous again.
Patch stood up on your shoulder, balancing with a fabric paw against your head and you feel little claws dig into your scalp.
'HEY HEARTSTRINGS!!'

To be continued... :)

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen2U.Pro