CHRISTMAS EVE POST (7th Day of Christmas)

I know I haven't been terribly consistent with these posts over the last week, and today's post is not going to follow any predetermined format whatsoever either >:D Don't you just love Christmas Eve? 

(Ah yes. The Times New Roman is back. Helvetica just wasn't looking formal enough for me. I know Christmas isn't formal as it is, but Helvetica just makes everything round and curved and almost too perfect for the human eye...erodjoaiejfoaaefldijaiocalijeoiamklf...)

Where am I going with this post? Well, I might as well start it off with a couple of drawings.

Most of these are sketches. Because that's what I do best. I sketch. It allows me to add more onto the drawing later. It allows me to do okay-ish drawings wherever I want- most of these have been drawn in my English class...

English class. Reading Macbeth. That explains the text in the middle, where I was reminding myself that certain lines were said quietly and some others were said loudly- "Behold, look, lo!" was whispered, "Why, what care I?" was shouted. But that's not important! The actual focus of these sketches is Rorschach, or just plain old trenchcoats and hats. Things to note? I know the hands of that figure up the top are scribbled out and really odd. I realized half way through drawing them that they were really quite messed up XD

Yet again, English class. Trenchcoats, guys. Just trenchcoats.

Art class, this time. We actually had to do this one :P Yeah, the face. I know. Odd. Looks depressed. I can't exactly draw faces too well.
It's a bauble, even if it's not perfectly round XD I don't think we were allowed compasses to draw with. And the reflection is almost coloureless on purpose.
I have to say, I had a tonne of fun doing this. I love twisted proportions. The walls of the room curved fantastically and the table reaching up on either side of the bauble like the Cheshire's smile. Even if the bauble looks like a little circular mirror and the thumb is too big, I still like this drawing.

I drew this in my spare time, kinda after I drew the bauble-and-hand one. Did I tell you I like warped perspectives and proportions?
It's not so much that the ships are on giant waves or something that is tilting it that way. It's just that I wanted to draw it like it was the reflection of a curved surface or seen through a fisheye camera. 

AH! THIS!
Straight off the bat- drawn in Maths class. This is on the last page, extending onto the cardboard back of the book. That's why half of it is lined and half is not.
Second of all, the picture was too big to scan and we had to scan half first and then the other half second. Then I had to put the images together, which wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Therefore, you can see an odd line slightly to the right of that really prominent line you see. Ok, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Alright, don't try looking for the line, just look at the picture XD
I scribbled with my pen first, just drawing some random lines, on the left. Then a day or two later I got very, very bored and started drawing in pencil, and made the pen lines into a gun/arm and then filling in the rest. Kinda cool, huh?

More sketches.
Starting from the top left, we have a guy leaping in the air holding what appears to be a random weapon, another guy firing from the lip of a trench with a rifle next to him... underneath him is GLaDOS, the AI gone crazy. The Aperture Science logo can be seen next to her, and underneath that is a scribbled out Companion Cube. Right side of the page we have...someone with a shotgun...and underneath that is just random assorted things that are stupid and mostly crossed out XD

Scribbled in English. No, I didn't have reference and that's why there are just random windows on the doors of the TARDIS and I don't know how many there should be.
Yeah. Australia looks odd and I think the missile is streaking out of Canada, which I don't think is possible at all due to their niceness...or it's coming out of Russia, which is definitely probable...Listen, I didn't have any reference, ok? XD



(I just realized that the sun has a shadow.

That can't be good.)

I DREW THIS AGES AGO
AND I LOVED IT

THIS IS JERICHO, GUYS.

THIS IS THAT OC THAT I MADE AGES AGO CALLED JERICHO (I FORGET HIS LAST NAME BUT IT WAS PROBABLY SOMETHING STUPID LIKE "ETERNAL HEAVEN" OR MAYBE EVEN "IMMORTAL" IDEK

'Exhibit A' and 'Exhibit B' are not their names. I just put those words there because originally, it was just going to be a shot from the back of Jericho and from the front. I drew in the rest later.

(I started writing this post, like, 12 hours ago, and only just came back to it after a great Christmas Eve dinner and a drive to see all the lights and stuff. Enjoy the little things. Like those cracker things that you take one end with and the person next to you takes the other end and you both pull and there's a pop and someone gets a little coloured paper crown and a tiny toy and often a really bad joke on a piece of paper...Surely I'm not the only one who knows what those are...even if I can't remember the names of them...)

Ok. But it's seriously getting late, so I'm going to go ahead and put up the last two unfinished stories before it's turned Christmas already XD

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This next bit. I should have posted this a loooooooong time ago. This is Part 3 of my World War 2 story. Fdsklfkajdoiefldagjoe remember this? And I was like "I'm going to finish this" and I never did? Yes. I remember this. Every painful moment of never completing it and procrastinating and finally deciding to write something else. I was so close, though. So close...

As I remember it, at the end of Part 2 of this story Tanya had saved them with some amazing upside-down sniper fire and they had all piled off into the jeep and ridden off into the sunset. Something like that.

Israel sat cramped in the jeep, Tanya on his left, cleaning her rifle, and Dmitri on his right, taking a rest from driving and letting Nikolai have a turn instead. The road seemed to be evening out now, becoming flatter and easier to navigate. 

But they were running out of gas. They needed to stop and refuel the jeep, or change vehicles, or something. Everyone knew it. But no-one knew how they were going to do it. They hadn't a clue where the next house was, and at the speed they were travelling they weren't going to reach the Russian military based until tomorrow.

So Israel sat, cramped and worried, in the dark on an empty road. There was nothing but silence and the sound of the jeep’s engine puttering away on its last legs.

There was a light in the distance. It was a nice, yellowish light that got distinctly larger as they approached. They stopped a hundred metres away from the light, which they saw came from a small house next to a large barn. They exited the jeep and crouched in the dark, cold and wondering whether to risk asking the residents for food and fuel. The temperature got the better of them, and they drove the jeep until it was parked right outside the house.

They turned the engine off and Vasilev told them all to stay put, walking around to the door of the house and quietly going inside.

Israel sat on the ground beside the jeep, staring at his pistol. Tanya had successfully pulled apart her rifle and was polishing the bolt. After a few minutes, Israel sighed.

"Why do you even bother with that gun? If you die tomorrow, no-one will ever find it and clean it the same way. It would of all been for nothing."

Tanya shrugged. She held back a component and put the bolt back into's place and made sure everything was properly held together before saying "Because it is mine. This rifle, I had it before the war."

Israel chuckled. "I guess rabbit hunting's the last thing you want to be doing now, hey?"

Tanya frowned. "Oh, I hunted bigger game than animals."

She stood up and left Israel with an expression of horror and walked towards Nikolai, who wasn't taking his eyes off the house, waiting for Vasilev to come out and give the 'all clear' signal. It had already been five minutes.

"I'm ready to storm the building when you are, Comrade," Tanya told him. He nodded and smiled.

"Good. If he does not come back out in the next minute, we'll go in." He called over Israel and Dmitri and told them of he plan.

"Ten seconds," Nikolai said from the shadows by the small house's door. He had with him his machete, while Israel and Dmitri held empty PPSH's. Tanya was the only one with a loaded gun- her rifle. They were all truly out of ammo and out of luck.

"...three, two, one." There was a pause. "Alright, let's hope these folk have a cellar full of ammo..."

And with that, Nikolai ran to the door and gave it a mighty shove with his shoulder, stumbling inside. Tanya followed right behind him with her rifle raised, and Israel brought up the rear. Dmitri had been given the job of looking after the three commanding officers they were still looking after. They entered onto the scene of Captain Vasilev munching on a piece of cake at a table with an elderly man and his wife.

"Mrmph?" Vasilev said to his squad, then finished his mouthful. "I thought I sent the all clear signal ages ago."

Nikolai glared.

"...or not?" Vasilev added, unsure of himself. "Um, have a cake. They're great. Courtesy of Mr and Mrs...hang on..."

He spoke rapidly in Russian to the two owners of the house and they spoke back equally fast. They all laughed heartily and Vasilev turned back to tell Nikolai their names. But Nikolai and he rest of the squad were already gorging themselves on the small platter of plates at the table.

Two hours later, the squad plus the three officers were fast asleep inside the barnhouse.

Well, the officers, Tanya and Vasilev were.

Nikolai cooly regarded Dmitri and Israel over the tops of his playing cards. He selected a single card, a Jack of Hearts, and put it on top of the small pile in front of them.

 "Jack," he spoke his accented voice. Then he added, "Let's see you do better."

Israel stared at his cards, his eyes forced open with his left hand. No magic was allowed in this game, and Nikolai and Dmitri knew of his foresight power. 

All he had was a Jack and a Queen. If he played the Jack, him and Nikolai would have to compete in the ultimate test of strength to win- an arm wrestle. And Israel was sure that he could beat Nikolai...

He played the Jack, placing it face up on the hay stack and waiting for the next turn.

Dmitri smiled. He selected a card from the few in his hands and placed it down, tapping it once and leaning back. 

Israel frowned, and Nikolai gaped. "Seriously? An Ace? How the hell did you-"

Nikolai's arm shot forward and grabbed Dmitri's wrist, pulling down the sleeve with surprising speed. But there were no hidden cards there, and when Dmitri showed his hand there were only a four and a seven. 

Nikolai grumbled and sat back onto the haystack he was using for a seat. "Enough. I'm not to lose another game to you." He took Dmitri's cards and Israel's as well, then grabbed the pile and stuffed it inside his jacket. There was a moment's pause as they all leaned back and wondered what they were going to do. Then came a sound from the road that made them all jump to their feet.

"Truck," Dmitri said, edging closer to a gap in the barn wall. Israel and Nikolai saw that it was true and frowned when they saw a lone man limping out of the house to greet it.

"It's the old man," Dmitri said, and then something clicked. "Captain Vasilev..."

Vasilev didn't look away from what was happening outside. "Hmm?"

"Where are we...?"

"We're in Germany, you idiot. Fighting a war!"

Dmitri waited for Vasilev to realize it. When he did, him and Nikolai cursed and started hurriedly shaking Tanya and the officers awake. 

"What?!" Israel asked Dmitri. "What has this got to do with us being in Germany?"

"There aren't any Russian farmers in Germany, not during a warzone."

"My God," Israel said, as the truck was waved onwards by the man. "The farmer is a spy!"

Nikolai turned around as Tanya jumped to her feet, instantly awake. She swung her rifle around and grinned. "The farmer's betraying us, isn't he?" she said, pulling the bolt back and ejecting the shell of a bullet she has fired earlier. The small ammo clip's mechanism pushed another bullet into the chamber and she slid the bolt forward again.

"Sadly, yes," Vasilev said, hoisting the officers to their feet and pushing them up the small wooden ramp to the second floor of the barnhouse and not feeling sad at all. They helped him drag around some hay bales, and soon they were well hidden.

Vasilev strolled back down and called to Israel. "How close are they?"

"Forty metres. They're pretty well armed, Captain," Israel replied, peering through the small gap in the barn house wall. "What's our ordinance like?"

Nikolai searched his pockets. "No ammo left for anything," he said glumly. Vasilev, Israel and Dmitri were the same.

Tanya hefted her rifle. "I still have my gun."

Vasilev glanced through the gap next to Israel. "Remember when we were inside their house? They have a hunting shotgun of sorts, double barrel. Tanya will move with Dmitri towards the house, grab the gun, and head back here."

Tanya nodded and Dmitri pulled out a small knife in answer. Vasilev turned to Dmitri, "Please tell me you grabbed those bottles of Vodka, comrade," he asked.

Dmitri grinned. "Of course. It's in the jeep."

"Good," Vasilev said. "Leuitenants Israel and Nikolai will make their way with me to the jeep and make ourselves some Molotov Cocktails. Drinking isn't the only thing Vodka is good for."

Israel took one last look outside. "They're here," he whispered, and backed up to stand with the rest of the squad.

Vasilev and Nikolai smiled and clicked their fingers simultaneously.

Tanya crouched next to Nikolai, looking through her scope and at the large barn doors in front of her.She could hear the soldiers on the other side, muttering and breathing heavily. She was not afraid. She had been in worse situations.

There was a sound beside Tanya but she didn't turn. It came from deep within Nikolai's chest, a low, gutteral voice that steadily rose. The soldiers stopped muttering on the other side of the doors.

Vasilev joined in a second later, then Dmitri, then Israel. Tanya began to say it as well, drawing the word out and letting her voice get louder and louder.

"Oooorrraaaaahhh," they chanted. When the word was finished, they started again, faster and louder, Nikolai and Dmitri slamming their fists on the wooden walls closest to them to match a beat. "Ooooooraaaaahhh!"

She could imagine their enemies on the other side of the barn doors, frightened from this demon-like chant emanating from inside. Nikolai and Dmitri picked up the beat and as it got faster, they chanted one last time.

"OOOOOOORAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" they yelled, and the German soldiers kicked down the doors.

Nikolai and Vasilev threw their hands out in front and directed a solid stream of fire at the soldiers. Their screams weren't heard by Tanya, who had leaped to her feet and pulled the trigger on her gun the moment the doors were battered down. She grinned like a lunatic and pulled the bolt, jumping onto the wall and running at the soldiers from an angle they weren't used to. Her next shot hit her target dead on, even though she was running at full speed, and the same was with her next shot, and the one after that. She clapped her hand onto Dmitri's shoulder and he nodded before running full pelt out of the double doors.

She ran out with him and a gun instantly swung her way. She fired blindly at the source and dropped to the ground, sliding under the enemy fire. When she stumbled back to her feet she kept going, her eyes trained on Dmitri's running form ahead of her and the house that was looming closer and closer.

Bullet holes suddenly peppered the wall when Tanya reached it, and she ducked and swung her entire body around to face the attacker. Her rifle came up, and within that second she scoped him in and fired.

His body fell backwards but she didn't stay to watch. Dmitri had already shoved the house's door open and they collapsed inside, kicking it shut behind them.

There was only the slightly muffled sound of gunfire now, and the occasional shouts of alarm or fury. Tanya rested crookedly on the floor of the house, the action over the last day finally catching up with her.

"This way," Dmitri said, pushing himself to his feet. He grabbed Tanya's hand and hoisted her to her own and then stumbled down the hallway. The floorboards creaked as they reached the end, where the kitchen began and the flickering light shone through.

Tanya closed her eyes. There was silence, save Dmitri's breath and her own. But it was too silent. Slowly, she motioned to Dmitri to keep moving, while she carefully placed a palm onto the wall beside her. Her other palm followed, and then her right and left foot as she used her magic and altered her center of gravity.

"Dmitri!" she whispered, and he looked up and nodded. He withdrew his machete and threw it up to where she crouched, upside-down on the roof.

They started moving again, Tanya crawling in the darkness above, blade in hand and rifle slung over her shoulder, and Dmitri striding confidently below, a grin on his face and his hands swinging by his sides.

They reached the living room and Tanya stopped at the top of the doorway; it was too well lit for her to move stealthily. So she motioned Dmitri onward and crouched, hidden in the shadows.

You know, I should get on to finishing this. Just rereading it makes me want to write more. I really liked this. In fact, I like it so much that I'm not going to tell you my plans for it. Because maybe in the near future I'll start writing again, and it'd suck if you knew the end of the story before I wrote it out. Actually, I could tell you the end and then change it later. For instance; Israel totally gets shot and dies.

(But that doesn't make much sense, cos the entire story is meant to be a flashback from Israel's mind...unless... the whole thing is a dream and Israel is really being played by Leonardo Dicaprio or something :O)

Alright. Last story. I know you have had a long day/have just woken up/are just about to go to bed. But I beg of you. Read this last story.

This is the first Private Eye story I started writing. I had big ideas for this story. Man, it was going to be cool. I haven't read it in ages. Brb.

BACK.

I DEEM IT FIT FOR YOUR EYES.

HERE YOU GO:

"Private Investigator," I said to myself, rolling the word around in my mouth. "P.I... Private Eye."

I propped my feet up onto my desk and sighed, leaning back on the creaky chair. I was old fashioned, I know. To be honest, I wasn't even sure how I had landed myself a job like this. I hadn't ever wanted to be one as a child. I don't even remember applying, really. But here I was, a 21st century P.I, lounging back in his small office space, with no money and no cases.

I lazily reached out with my right hand to try and snatch up my hat from the stand near me, leaning far out of the chair until it creaked on the verge of tipping.

The door to my small office burst in and my concentration at balancing vanished long enough for the chair to win and send me and it sprawling onto the floor. I glanced up, wincing at the expression of disappointment on the chief of police's face in front of me. He sighed and watched with his arms folded as I stood up, dusting my shirt off.

"What's up, Chief?" I asked.

"We have a situation, the top of Milne road. A few armed, some innocent hostages- you know the drill." He threw me a Manilla folder, filled with several photos. "They're not terrorists, but they're all armed. They have yet to kill anyone, although there have been some pretty heavy threats thrown about. We've been ordered to take them down, Private."

I gave Chief Mckenzie a pained look. "It's not a rank, sir. It's my title. 'Private Investigator'. And can't you and your buddy's deal with this? It ain't exactly my area of expertise."

"I don't care what 'Private' means to you- as long as you don't have a case and we need an extra shooter, you're mine. Your office is in my police station, your gun is from our armory, and every bullet you fire is paid for by us. You're running on the Police's time, Private. And it's running out for you, fast."

I ignored him and flipped my hat up with my foot and donned it, and with a flourish as the Chief left my office I swung my trenchoat around my shoulders. The wooden carved box that held my beautiful Smith and Wesson revolver opened on well-oiled brass hinges as I retrieved my weapon of choice. At all times I had a box or two of the special magnum bullets my revolver used, and I dug them out of my coat pocket and flicked the chamber out as my feet took me from my office and through the crowded station.

"-showing up randomly, all over town-"

"-a big old fashioned rifle, never seen anything like it-"

"-got another one yesterday, thinks he's from the fifties or something-"

I should have been listening to the policemen and women around me in the office, and deep down I guess I was, storing it away for later use, but at that moment my mind was working on a one-track-mind. Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee...

I snagged a travel mug off of a distracted officer's desk and didn't look back, tipping it's strong contents down my throat as I followed the chief into the daylight and down the concrete steps outside the station's entrance. Half a dozen or so smartly dressed officers were in the chief's tow as well, and they got into their respective police cars and started the engines, smoothly pulling out onto the open road. I hurried to my own police vehicle and slid in, and for a moment I stared at the dashboard, completely lost. I didn't know whether to us the dial with the wavy green lines on it or to mash the button with the red triangle inside of another one. It was all a foreign language to me, and I slowly put the key into the ignition and turned. It started first time, which, to my memory, had never happened before. And then my eyes fogged over and I could feel my arms moving strangely of their own accord, pushing down a pedal with my foot, shifting the stick next to me, and flooring another pedal as I peeled out of the parking space.

The moment I was out onto the open road, my vision de-fogged and I was in control again. I had no idea what had happened; my arms and feet had not been moving due to me, but whatever I had done had worked, and now I was on the road and following the other police men on the way to the shoot-out.

The lights changed to red and it happened again- my hand moved of it's own accord, pushing the stick next to me down and to the right, and then up again. Gear stick floated into my mind strangely, labeling it. My foot gently eased onto the brake, a pedal that I knew already, seemingly. The lights flicked and I set off again, accelerated neatly with everyone else in line.

I glanced to the other seat and at the photos splayed across it. They were stills of ordinary-looking people, and yet under each of them they had a stamp saying 'Highly Dangerous'. The top one that was clearest to me seemed oddly familiar. The name underneath the photo was "Jacob Cook". 

Chief Mckenzie's voice crackled through the radio speaker. "Just on the right here, lads."

I pulled the car over by a huge construction site with the other police cars, and stepped out of my vehicle. Less then a second passed of me observing the site when a bullet pinged on the hood of my car. "Shooter!" I yelled to the rest of the officers before sliding over the hood and into a crouch behind the car. More bullets hit the car and I crawled along the warm asphalt until I was near the back wheel. I pulled my revolver out and span the chamber restlessly. The few cars parked next to mine had the other police officers, all strangely poised in the exact same crouching position. They didn't fidget, or talk in hushed tones as the shooter somewhere in the construction site rained hell onto their cars. And without a visible signal, all six or seven of the officers rose and fired.

There was silence. I didn't know what the hell was up with them. One or two shook their heads, muttered "Weird..." and then they were back to normal, moving towards the construction site, weapons raised. I followed them, ignoring it for the moment. 

"Spread out!" the chief said. "There's three hostages somewhere, we gotta find them."

I crept into the only finished part of the construction site, a four wall room of cold cement slabs. There was a billowing orange tarp covering the exit on one end, and it gave me something to point my gun at while I looked around the room. It wasn't completely finished, of course- there wasn't any furniture or wallpaper of the sort, only the boredom-grey of the concrete.

I found the first body slumped under a concrete mixer, a revolver not unlike mine in the finger's death-grip. His slack features matched one of the photos the Chief had given me.

"Scratch one shooter," I spoke into the walkie talkie I had with me, and slipped it back into my pocket. I examined the man further and realized that he was the one that the officers had just gunned down. Weirdly, he didn't have several bullet holes in him. Only one large hole in his chest. Complete accuracy.

"Synchronized shooting, or something..." I said to myself, recalling the way the officers had shot him. They hadn't even needed a signal, and they had all hit him in the exact position. I mentally noted it for later.

There was a gunshot and I was at my feet in an instant, rushing to where it came from. The orange tarp wrapped around me frustratingly as I pushed on through it. I was in another barely finished room, the bland grey colours draining all the brightness around it. I took everything in instantly as my eyes glanced quickly around.

Lying on the ground and in his own blood was the prone figure of another shooter, an old fashioned Tommy gun strapped to his chest. One of the police officers stood over the body, his head cocked to the side as he stared at it. And then he looked upwards at the other two men in the room, who wore frightened looks like gloves. The officer raised his gun and the man closest to him started weeping, pleading for his life. The policeman pulled the trigger and the man collapsed to the ground.

"What the hell?!" I yelled as I ran into the room. I bashed the but of my own gun into the officer's head sharply, knocking him out. "You just shot him, you crazy bastard!"

The policeman couldn't hear me- already he was spiralling into unconsciousness- but I still shouted at him angrily. I gave myself pause and breathed in and out, and heard a sound behind me.

"Hands up," the person behind me said meekly. I turned slowly around to meet a wavering revolver, pointed at my head. I recognized the face behind the gun immediately as the man I had seen in the photos- Jacob Cook. Highly dangerous, indeed. The man didn't even seem to know how to hold a gun properly.

My left hand shot up and grabbed the revolver, twisting it out of his grip with barely a struggle. I held both my gun and his trained on him, fingers lightly resting on the triggers. He stepped back, shaking and sobbing. "I ain't gonna shoot you," I said to him, but he didn't calm down. As if to prove my point I threw his revolver to the other side of the room, and slowly fished a pair of handcuffs out of my back pocket. He pulled himself together when I clinked them on his wrists. I thought for a moment and took another pair out, attaching them to the unconscious policeman.

"So...you're not with him?" Jacob asked me.

"What? Of course I'm with him, he's an officer of the law. But he shouldn't have killed that man... I don't know what happens now, but he won't go unpunished."

I turned to face Jacob, wondering where the other policemen were. They should have heard the two gunshots and came running, like me. Jacob was staring at me incredulously.

"Don't you understand? He won't be punished- he's one of them."

Oh no, I thought to myself. A lunatic. Great.

Jacob seemed to read my mind. "No, listen to me. The others will be here soon. They're changing things. They tried bringing us here, but something went wrong, and now they have to clean things up."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded. 

His face suddenly brightened up. "Hey, I know you- I hired you once, back at the Nightwalker. You know, that joint near the middle of town."

I closed my eyes and groaned as my head was suddenly attacked by a massive headache. I saw a dark alleyway, the flashes of car's headlights and the glow of a neon sign. The smell of alcohol and cigar smoke, red leather booths and soft music playing from the record player in the corner-

My eyes forced themself open. I was crouching on the ground, massaging my head with my hands. Sadly, I was still at the construction site, not at the Nightwalker, downing a cool glass of whiskey as Jacob pushed a suitcase of money over the table to me and commented on the music artist's perfect voice drifting to our ears...

Sadly? I shook my head. Why would I be sad to be here? What the hell was going on?

I reached for my pistol- it had fallen to the ground- and stood up dizzily, facing Jacob. "Tell me what the hell is going on!" I shouted at him. There were footsteps from the other room and I could feel the presence of the other policemen behind me.

Jacob shook his head sadly and smiled at me. But sobs broke through the smile as he looked over my shoulder. I turned to and saw the policemen raising their sidearms silently.

"No!" I yelled at them. "Stop! He's unarmed! I've detained him! Do. Not. Shoot!"

"Don't mourn for me," Jacob whispered behind me. "I'm not even meant to be here. I'm not real. At least, I hope so."

"What the hell do you mean?" I looked back and asked him. "Of course you're real!"

"I hope not," Jacob replied, taking a deep breath. "Or this is really going to hurt."

There were seven gunshots that sounded at almost the exact same time. Jacob's head whipped back in a mini-explosion of bloody pieces as all seven shots skimmed over my shoulder and hit him. I turned in rage to the policemen as they lowered their pistols as one. I screamed and my eyes closed and my scream was the soundtrack to the murder of dozens of people, soon to be hundreds and even thousands by a madmen unknown. And while every investigator in the country was looking for him, I was sitting in the Nightwalker, accepting the money and the job of finding one little girl, lost in the chaos of it all. And as the story unfolded I saw myself track her down and succeed where every other in the world had failed; I found the madman, too. And my screams continued as I sat bolt-upright in bed, in my apartment, in the year 2012 and not 1948. My screams went on and on until my throat could take it no more and my lungs needed fresh air.

And I was the albatross of my own demise.

Even reading this too makes me want to write more. I liked this story, I really did. And I can see a possible future for it. So (rather annoyingly, I suppose) I'm not going to tell you how I was planning for this story to pan out, not at all. I shall make you suffer >:D

...

...Now what? 

I've posted all that I had planned to post. I'm fresh out of old drawings and unfinished story ideas. My back hurts. Damn sunburn. My cat is being adorable and giving himself a bath (which I think is adorable no matter how old the cat is or fearsome he appears to be). Dogs bark at the cold night and the computer's hum fills in the gaps of silence. And suddenly, I'm filled with an urge to switch it off. I would lose all of this paragraph here, which I'm probably just going to delete anyhow as it's just an extension of my thoughts... Unless Blogger saves it (good old Blogger) which has most definitely happened in the past and will no doubt happen again. More dogs barking. Rorschach quotes flying around my head. The fedora's sitting fine, thanks for asking. Still trying to unbutton this crisp white shirt so I can go to bed already, and scowling at the cleanliness that it glows back at me. It's taunting me. There's chocolate in my draw, greasy chicken in the fridge and all manner of raspberry and strawberry jams in various hiding spots strewn throughout the kitchen. Don't tempt me, crisp white shirt. Don't tempt me.

Oh wow, I just ended a paragraph like that. I would have never thought. I'm not even going to repeat how I ended it, that would be pointless. This is all pointless talk right now, filler talk to make the post seem bigger ;P 

What about the sound now? Let's see. Computer hum. Check. Dogs barking. Check. Voices from the other room- my brother and father. Check. My cat breathing? Well, my hearing isn't that good, but it sure as hell looks like he's breathing. Kinda. He's asleep. I hope.

Alright. That's it. I might as well say it, now.

Merry Christmas, all. 

G'night, Australians.

G'morning, Americans.

G'day, Irish...Scottish...Dubliners... UK..ians...people...

5th and 6th days of Christmas.

Thanks to everyone for your comments on my previous post :) They were very much appreciated :D

Oh hey, I think I fixed the text.

Sorry for not posting in the last couple of days. Guess I kinda missed out on the fifth day. But hey! Here's a story that is actually a reasonable length. 

Sometime today I need to scan images into this computer so that tomorrow ( :O Christmas Eve!) all I will need to do is upload them and hit post. 

This is something I wrote partly on the bus to the plaza half a year ago. All of the people on the bus were indeed people that I actually saw, including the awesome white beard guy. But no, he didn't give me a special rock ._.

The usual suspects sat on the bus that day. The driver fixed a midnight blue turban proudly atop his head as I nodded to him. I fed the bus ticket into the machine and felt all eyes on me as everyone looked over at the newcomer critically. I could almost hear their whispers about my black jeans and t-shirt, feel the imaginary hands poking at the large hat I wore that clipped around my chin and warmed my ears. But as they were digesting the sight of me, I was doing the same to them.

The boy I passed on the first seat to my left had obviously spent more than ten minutes gelling his hair to spiked 'perfection' in front of a mirror that morning. He ignored me and clacked furiously away on his phone. I paid him the same respect, and moved on through the bus.

There was a haughty woman, tall and thin and with a nose like a crooked beak, that glared at me when I passed her. Two teenagers were next, dressed in crimson school uniforms and taking turns in gossiping to each other checking their phones for new text messages. They stopped talking and stared a me when I walked by. The moment they thought I was out of earshot, they began talking again.

There were two people left. One was at the back of the bus, a suited, middle-aged man who eyed the occupants of the bus with a hawk's gaze.

The other sat closer and had his eyes trained on an object in his hand. It looked like a pebble to me. He had large spectacles on and a great white bushy beard tickling his chin.

I sat down on a seat next to him. The bus took off and stopped three more times to let on passengers before he seemed to notice me.

"Oh," he said, as he looked me up and down. "I guess now's the time, then."

"Sorry?" I asked. Sitting next to the suited man or even the gossiping girls seemed like a good idea, now. 

But the old man grabbed my arm in a grip I was surprised that he could muster. I looked up at his eyes and realized with a shock that they were the brightest yellow. I could not look away.

"You must listen to me," he began.

"No way." I had half a mind to jump the bus then and there.

"Take it," he said, and passed me the stone he had been staring at. Puzzled, I picked it up and found myself not being able to take my eyes away. The blue depths of the pebble-shaped object swirled and glowed in my palms.

The bus was slowing to a stop. The senior with he bushy  beard stood up slowly with age and edged past me. "Don't trust anyone. Goodbye, and good luck."

When he spoke, I was snapped out of my trance. I looked up and saw he was already outside the bus and walking towards an old apartment block. And then the bus started up again and drove onwards. I had never seen the apartment block before. I couldn't remember this particular bus going down this route at all.

Within a few confusing twists and turns, however, the main road appeared under the wheels again. In no time, I was getting off the bus as well and staring down the road that led to my school.

I looked down at the object in my hand. My thoughts weren't entirely sure if I should call it a rock or not. It fit well in my hand, felt and looked like a rock or pebble, and weighed about the same, too. The only thing that made me hesitate to name it a rock was the color swirling inside it. It was the deepest blue and captured my attention as easily as a skilled fisherman captures a whiting.

There was a loud sound from the direction of the school, and I swore and ran. It was the first bell. The next one would go off in ten minute's time.

I sprinted through the corridors bustling with students until I found my locker. I pocketed the rock and hoped to forget all about it.

The locker to my left exploded in a flurry of movement as Liam, my friend, attacked the lock. Within moments, he was inside the lock and stuffing his belongings into it. Liam believe that time was always being wasted and strived to do everything as fast as possible. He was smaller than me by a couple of inches and had a face shaped like a ferret.

"Hiya!" he said to me and I nodded in greeting.

"What's up?"

"Well," Liam began. "Have you seen the suit walking around here this morning?"

"What? No. Who is it?"

Liam shook his head. "Probably some big shot who wants to put their son in a rich school."

I chuckled with him. "They should have looked anywhere else, then. When did he get here?"

"Couple of minutes ago. Around the same time you did, actually. Jumped off the 547x bus and walked here, I think."

I frowned. "I was just on the 547x."

Liam wasn't listening. "Here he comes- look!"

I turned to where he was pointing. The other students in the corridor quieted down a bit. It was obvious that everyone was curious to see the suited man.

It was the guy who had been with me on the bus, the one who had sat near the back. One of the teachers was leading him through the hallway and giving the 'history of the school' talk, but he wasn't listening. His eyes scanned the students until he found me. He stared until both him and the teacher had rounded the corner.

"Well that was weird," Liam commented. "What have you done to piss him off?"

"Nothing," I said, not totally believing myself. "He was on the same bus as me, is all."

"Oh, alright." Liam shrugged. "He probably just recognized you or something. Maybe he likes to stare."

"I dunno, man-" 

Liam cut me off. "Aight', seeya in class." He had his books and was already jogging away. I sighed and grabbed my books too, following him through the quickly dispersing crowd of students.

It was the fourth lesson of the day. History. The teacher was getting us to copy down some information he was scratching out on the blackboard. The only sound in the classroom was that of our pens scribbling furiously away.

An elbow nudged me on my right. It was Liam. He silently passed me a folded piece of lined paper. I opened it.

'Look at the door on my count.'

In the corner of my eye I saw Liam unbend three of his fingers and hold them straight so I could see. One finger went back down. Then another. When the third finger was lowered, he 'accidentally' pushed his pencil case onto the floor. It sprung upon and pencils were everywhere. All eyes, even the teacher's, were on him as he apologized profusely and winked at me.

I took the distraction and used it. Bending my arms backward in a yawn, I turned my head and took a good look at the classroom door.

There was a tiny window inset into the door. Through that window, the suited man's face showed. Yet again, he was only looking at me.

"Shit," I breathed to Liam, helping him pick up his pencil case. "What the hell is that guy's problem?"

"Damned if I know. Maybe you should ask him."

I thought for a moment. I would only be out of the classroom for a moment. The guy didn't quite look friendly, but I was sure he wasn't about to go on a psycho rage and kill everyone.

"Fine," I told Liam. "If I'm not back in thirty seconds, you rescue me, right?"

"Whatever." He was spinning his pencil on the tabletop.

"Liam! You'll rescue me, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, ok!" Liam hissed back at me. "Hurry up so I can rescue you and get back to work."

I raised my hand and negotiated going to the toilet to the teacher. When he sighed and approved, I stood up and walked purposely towards the door. The face wasn't there anymore. Maybe he had gone off on his own.

I opened the door, walked through, and closed it behind me. I looked into the corridor and frowned. Where was he?

Two large hands answered my question by grabbing me by the lapels and throwing me against the closest row of lockers.

The suited man loomed above me, and twisted his head to the left and to the right, giving off resounding 'crack!' noises.

"What did he say to you?" the man asked. His voice was a collage of gravelly tones.

"What?" I said, and instantly regretted how child-like and ignorant I had sounded. I put my palms on the ground and started to slowly push myself into a crouching position.

"Arch Ranger Kristopher," said the man. "What did he tell you?"

Surely thirty seconds had passed by now. Surely someone had heard the sound of me hitting the lockers.

My mind raced to think who he was talking about. "That old man?" I ventured. "He didn't say anything to me." I didn't mention the strange rock.

"Wrong answer," the man said, raising his fist.

Liam counted the seconds on his wristwatch. He waited another ten seconds, just in case, and then decided to put his plan into action.

He raised his hand. The teacher looked up and sighed at him. "What now, Liam? Finally picked up all of your pencils?"

"Excuse me, Miss," Liam said, ignoring her comment. "I just wanted to know if you could smell that smoke."

The teacher frowned and sniffed a couple of times. Other classmates looked around and started sniffing too.

"I don't smell anything," one of them said.

"Me neither," the teacher agreed. She narrowed her eyes. "Liam, if this is another of your pranks..."

Liam cut her off. "Of course not, Miss. But I'm sure I can smell smoke. Better safe than sorry, right? I'll go and check."

Before the teacher could tell him not to, Liam was crossing the classroom and opening the door.

He froze when he saw the man in the suit about to punch me.

The man rotated his head slowly to stare at Liam. "FIRE!" Liam shouted suddenly, making the man flinch. "Evacuate the classroom, Miss! The entire corridor is on fire!"

I heard the teacher try and tell the class to move in an orderly fashion out of the classroom, but they weren't listening. The students poured out of the room, running and shouting and pushing each other out of the way. The man in the suit stumbled down the hall as he was pushed out of the way. Liam grabbed my arm and pulled me up, dusting my shirt off for me. He smiled and I went to thank him, but the teacher's shrill voice screamed down the corridor.

"LIAM! I CAN'T SEE ANY FIRE!"

"That's my cue," Liam told me, tipping an imaginary hat. "Get out of here before that man comes back."

I nodded and ran in the opposite direction. I took the first two corners without thinking, and almost lost myself in the maze of hallways.

That's it. I rather liked this story. I doubt I'm the only one who sits in public places and imagines fights breaking out or suited strangers tailing you and holding their hands to earpieces. Rather rudely staring at people on the bus is fun, though. Because each person has their own clothing style and attitude and is a potential agent of Voldemort/Serpine/President Snow etc.

Alright, I've sat here at the computer, eating and drinking and watching youtube videos to distract myself. I can't think of anything else to write about that short story right now. I probably won't come back to it, either.

But I was thinking about continuing the story for a while. I like the idea of being in a school situation when things go wrong, because we're so used to it being normal and controlled. You don't expect to see the White Cleaver outside of your classroom window, visor glinting in the midday sun. You don't expect to hear a few preliminary revs of a motorbike engine before a certain Purple Rose races down the school corridor on a Black Kawasaki Ninja.

Tomorrow. Christmas Eve. Last post. A couple of pictures. Look forward to it :P

On the fourth day of Chriiiiistmas

I really shouldn't leave these so late...


Its 12am. Dammit XD And now something has made all the text bold and I can't just select it and hit bold again why blogger why...

Alright. Moving on, again. 

"Go tell that long-tongue liar

Go and tell that midnight rider

Tell the rambler,

The gambler,

The back-biter;

Tell them that God's gonna cut 'em down,

Tell them that God's gonna, cut 'em down..."

The song reverberated inside my head, endlessly playing. It was the song I marched to. It wasn't the only thing in my head at that moment.

It had been a week. Seven days since my homeland had been invaded by an enemy without insignia. There were thousands, hundreds of thousands of them. They wielded various weapons that did not identify them from a single country.

It took them seven days to gain control of the entire continent. Australia was now theirs, and they wasted no time in terrorising the citizens.

I was a Staff Sergeant of the 23rd, Australian Special Forces. We had been apart of the quick-reaction force. There were only ten of us, now. We had joined together with some of the normal army, giving us a total of about twenty-four men. Each carried a fully-loaded Steyr AUG assault rifle and our own kit.

We were lost. Our communications were useless- there was no-one on the other end to even pick up the phone.

Yet again, another story written on camp. But this was recently, when I went away with my dad and younger siblings to a National Park...area..thing... I cant remember what it's called. Anyhow. We visited this one area on a walk, and it was this beautiful place with ferns covering the ground on our left, dense enough that I imagined an Australian commando would have no trouble hiding in them, or an entire squad. So I started thinking of this story, typed a bit, and gave up XD I felt it was sounding a bit too much like Tomorrow When the War Began. Y'know, Australia gets invaded and all. Survivors are basically on their own. Eh. Didn't want to write that, in the end. I think I'll end up storing it somewhere or just deleting it. When I post this, it'll be online anyhow, so I can always go back and take it again.

The song is by Johnny Cash and plays out in the intro to a very war-ish game that I had been playing at the time. I know. Games. I do take inspiration from other stuff to. Most of my failed stories are about games... Anyway, the song is one I imagined could easily be marched to. And that was the basis for this entire story. One of the more...unoriginal ones, I know :P

  

Moving onto some of the bigger stuff, now. Oh wow, I haven't read this in ages. This is my attempt at a Hunger Games fanfiction. And I tried, twice, to make it seem kinda good. There's two different versions and they're both 800 words long, so I'm just going to read through them and choose the best to put up here.

(An hour of procrastination Ten minutes later)

Ok. This is the revised version of the story.

"We have to go," he told me. It was murder; the elephant that had been sitting in the room was now seeping it's life blood onto the carpeted floor, figuratively. I sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress and he was leaning against the door frame. My only friend.

"Where?" I ask my brother desperately. "We know they've been looking for us. Where could we go that they wouldn't follow?"

Jake shook his head. "You know who'll take us in. You know where we can go."

The unsaid taboo is on both our minds. "District 13," I whisper, afraid that somehow a Peacemaker or other Capitol resident will hear me.

"Lavina. Look at me."

I do. He's holding his pale hand out to me. He's lived his entire life here, just like me. We followed in the footsteps of our parents in some ways- they never took part in the hideous fashion designs of the Capitol that were always updating, so neither did we. Our father used to supervise the Avoxes that repaired the cars and machinery around the Capitol. He had a soft spot for them, and in his quiet moments would reflect to our mother about them. Two days ago, my parents were arrested for 'rebelling'. Jake and I moved fast to grab our things and reach some kind of safety. There was some sort of decision about our parent's fate being made by the Peacekeepers as we spoke, but we wouldn't know anything until it was too late.

Our parents had told us once that if anything ever happened to them, we would need to get out of the city as fast as we could. If we needed a temporary place to stay inside the city that was safe, she said we could go to the abandoned hotel near the outskirts. The same hotel we were sitting in now, talking about how to get further away.

There was no way out. The Capitol was surrounded by huge walls designed to keep us 'safe', while at the same time neatly keeping us from running away, too. We had thought about taking a hovercraft, but neither of us knew how to pilot it. And even if we managed to fly one, there'd be no guaranteeing that it didn't have some kind of tracking device on board. No. We couldn't risk it.

Reluctantly, I stand up and take Jake's hand. He motions to me and I follow him down the stairs and into the daylight. It blinds me at first, but my eyes readily adjust.

The Capitol shines brightly before us, as with every day. 

Jake leads me through a few side streets to avoid the Peacekeepers that line the roads. We reach a low, squat building that is out of place among the contemporary glass giants around it. Noone has lived in this house for a very long time, but I trust my brother completely.

I walk with him in silence until we're standing at the back of the house, and I'm squinting at the piles of corrugated iron when suddenly it becomes clear.

A car sits there. It's a wreck, really. Little more than a burnt out skeleton of the old cars that used to patrol the Capitol streets. Now they have electronically controlled cars that glide smoothly across the roads. All shiny curves and cushioned seats, and a speed limit that doesn't reach anymore than fifty kilometers per hour.

This car... No matter how old it looks, there's a sparkle in my brother's eye, and I can see that he can't wait to start working on it.

"Diesel engine, manual-drive 'automotive'," Jake read out to me from the dusty old book he held in his hands. I was sitting in the faded and ripped leather seat, fingers trying to clear off the grim from the dashboard. The car looked to be in good condition, despite the missing doors and roof, and only some sort of roll cage installed as protection.

"Hey, look at this," Jake says, pointing out some finer text at the back of the booklet. "It can take the same fuel as the heavy supply trucks. We might actually make this, y'know.

I swing myself out of the car and take a quick look around the squat house and the junkyard we stand in. The corners of the house are sagging unimpressively, as if in some permanent frown. I wonder who had owned it, and how old it was. We had been inside, earlier. There had only been moldy floorboards and broken lights. The only thing promising they had found was a small tool box in one of the rooms. My brother had taken it outside straight away.

I turned back to the car. "This thing's a gold mine, Jake."

He was still reading the booklet. "When we find those fuel tanks, we can leave straight away."

Ah. The fuel tanks. We would need to grab a couple from a refueling station, I guessed. They were dotted around the Capitol, in the less attractive areas of the great city. They weren't guarded incredibly well. The Capitol was perfect for it's inhabitants- who would want to go anywhere else?

That's as far as I got. I did have a plan. Eventually, they got the car up and running and stocked up on resources, and were chased out of the Capitol. Then there was this gap in my head as to what happened next (A road trip across the other eight or so districts between them and 13 was going to be a bit difficult to write) and then their car's engine was shot out by a hovercraft that had found them. So they leg it and are running through the forest outside of District 12 as Katniss spots them, just like in the book. The hovercraft moves over them and stabs Jake with the claw-hand thingo, bringing him into the hovercraft. Then it captures Lavina and bam, end story on a sad note. If anyone remembers, Lavina is the Avox that has to help Katniss while she stays at the Capitol. I wanted to fill in the backstory for how Lavina got to District 12 and who the boy was. Just lost the ability to write and put it in the Yellow section- "Stuff that I really should finish but, to be honest, will never get done."

Basically the end of the post. Yeup. Pretty sucky so far. Well, either tomorrow or the day after I'll be posting some drawings, and then the day after that I'll probably post the first Private Eye story I ever attempted, and then a coolish idea that I had that isn't just a 300 word thing :P

So don't give up on me yet.