Gima The Beginning : Gima: Boys Will Be Boys by barkingdog Artwork by MoonWillow at FanArtReview.com |
Dear Reader: 'Gima' is Fantasy-Adventure-Horror, but there is no category for it on FanStory. I do not intend to offend anyone, but language and behaviors used are essential to the characters' and storyline contrasts. Scenes are meant to arouse a range of emotions. I hope that they do. The author notes' GLOSSARY is included by request. It's not a required part of the reading. It's merely to assist a new audience. Have fun reading. :) barking dog Backstory: Trell and the band of Vertants have escaped from Sadie's with the help of Larue, Mr. Arnst and Rom, Vermel dissidents. End of Chapter 18 The group is near insanity with happiness, as the twenty Vertant boys join the three Vermel dissidents and laugh with tears of freedom. Chapter 19 Every morning in Bellow City the local cadaver unit patrols the streets, picking up the dead. The guards' remains, stripped of their uniforms and their tattooed ID’s sliced away will go to Disposal as unidentifiable. Sadie’s Pleasure Palace is in ruin: the booths shattered, her cobra smashed to the atrium floor and her relic stolen by the Vertant in Booth #11, the one named Trell. Sadie paces, inwardly vengeful, outwardly torn, with her severed particulate collector preserved in a jar of her own blood. In a short while, Sadie’s mind clears. And first things first, she remembers: Jacknel's surgeon is always backstage at The Arena during the night games. Sadie hurries with her swimming p-collector blindly sloshing, waving for re-attachment. Lida, Trolious’ wife, stands outside at the foot of the marble steps beside a bronze statue of a lion in repose. She waits and hopes for an end to her torment, knowing that the two Prime One cousins were battling it out inside. A smile broadens across her worn face when she sees Sadie exit the mayhem, seemingly unharmed, carrying a jar of she knows not what. He must be dead. Gods of our fathers, please answer my prayer. But then her misery returns, Lida slumps, and her brownish-red complexion drains to gray when she sees that her husband, Trolious, though ripped and bleeding, has survived. Even though Trolious lost this battle to Sadie’s voracious teeth and claws, he projects a sense of victory as he struts his exit through the death and destruction that his acid-spewing, vengeful tantrum caused. Trailing down at his side, as might a child's battered favorite toy, he clasps with his left hand the hand of his severed right arm. It may not be easy to re-attach. With this thought playing in mind, he smiles, looking forward to a metal prosthesis with multiple, made-to-order attachments. Lida does not smile, as she steps to follow behind him in silence. The night is young, and the streets are still full. “We have time for Club ErrOw.” “The bar is always open.” “I’d enjoy a trip up the Highway … juicy Vertant females …” A single, eager male chorts. Once called Jowly Puss, he now goes by Jowl. He whistles a calming tune while he twirls Honey Pot’s other ear-ring, which he grabbed when he used her to shield himself from Trolious’ acidic spew. He dropped her long before she began to melt, but still stiffens remembering her delicious screams. He has never been so ‘ready,’ as he is tonight. “… juicy Vertant females …, and then when I’m done, I’ll …” I wish that guy would shut up. Chort, chort, chort! The crowd speeds up, hoping to ditch him. New distractions are always available in Bellow City. Tomorrow never misses the dead. New associations form, as easily as and routinely as a detached particulate collector is stitched into place, or a prosthesis is attached. All are the same, or so many believe. Others are different. “Boys, boys, you can’t stay here,” Mr. Arnst chorts. “This is Rom. He’ll take you through the tunnels to the others.” “Others?” Jamie looks at Picar and signs. And Trell chorts it aloud, “Others?” Others echoes through the ranks, as Mr. Arnst, Larue and his vertant charge, Brackus, having said their good byes, walk away. Rom steps forward into the flickering, oil-lamp light, wearing the rear guard's uniform. It’s a bit tight, but will do to validate their passage to any curious eyes. Adjusting a brown cap with its shiny metal insignia over his coral and green eye, he certainly looks the part of a spiffy, vermel officer. “Yes. Many, many others. Now, hurry. We’ve wasted enough time. Follow me.” Rom motions for the rag-tag band to jump down onto the track, and at a fast clip, they silently disappear into the darkness. Their escape continues past the stench of drainage pipes and the searing heat of bellowing steam vents toward the safety of the distant mazes of Tube City. Bare feet pat light echoes through the tunnel … ****** In the Valley's meadow, Trell dreams and his feet remember … he sweats ... in the afternoon sun, remembering the heat of the tunnel, and the screech of its factory vents ... Trell sleeps fitfully, thrashing about on the damp fescue and clover. Gima's cool hand rests on his shoulder. “Oh, God … Father… Trolious ... Blathen’s particulate collector touches his father’s tears and rapidly withdraws. Blathen—the wolf slayer, the guardian—shows his first sign of fear as he reads this terror without a face. He reaches to protect his brother Zee from the unseen danger, but instead his uncontrollable claws instinctively extend and he clutches Zee's tender arm too tightly, inadvertently drawing blood. Zee wails, waking to the initially, small punctures. Trell's dream continues. Run Picar, Jami … Lem take my hand … Hurry, down the tracks … run. Blathen tastes again and knows Trell’s pressing desperation. His claws sink deeper. “Trelly, wake up.” Gima shakes Trell, “Please, wake up!” But with Zee's arm impaled by Blathen, Gima can only kick Trell, sporadically, while she turns her attention toward the on-going frantic piercing with hopes of somehow detaching Blathen from his brother. “Blathen, let go. You’re hurting Zee.” Blathen struggles to obey his mother and free himself. He looks confused. He doesn't want to hurt his brother, but his Vermel instinct fed by the particulate collector's sensing of Trell’s fear causes his curved claws to anchor deeper, stronger into Zee's tender flesh. Zee screams with the sudden onslaught of the triple piercings’ pain. Deer stomp to run, and dozens of iridescent, purple-headed grackle take flight. Blathen’s claws hold firmly, as they have entered one side and exited the other, much like curved needles might suture a wound. Zee will never forget this; he will always carry the ‘Mark of Three’ which he now reaches to cover with his five. Gima pushes the two boy’s arms together hoping to stop Zee’s flesh from tearing, and she begs, “Blathen, stop. Let go.” Tears flow and she sobs, "Please ... he's your brother." She kicks Trell with purposeful might. Blathen’s anxiously whipping collector-tube extends to rub through Zee’s blood and tears. It reads: Life-source and pain. His claws continue their locking closure against the palm of his hand. This offensive claw hold, designed to rip and tear the flesh and bone of a combatant that continues to resist, can dismember. Life-source and fear. Blathen’s eye grows wild, his magenta-red pumped body stiffens and his collector produces a sizzling drop of silver foam, acid's precursor. “Blathen," a strong voice commands his attention, "release Zee at once. Your brother is not a conquest.” Trell's voice, a father’s voice is meaningful when it speaks to an instinctive allegiance. Blathen withdraws all weapons. His Father has spoken. Gima’s incessant kicking, and his sons’ continuous competition for a who-can-cry-the-loudest award had finally roused Trell from memories of his band of friends and their escape from Sadie’s. Father has returned. Blathen glows a brilliant smile, shows each of his pointy teeth in their double rows and clicks a throaty hello while reaching his hands up for a hug. "Father, me, me, up, up," he chorts. “And what do you think you were doing to your brother?” Trell scowls, signing impatiently. Blathen’s arms drop, and he squeezes his eye tight as he howls from the insult of rejection. He beats the ground and rolls hissing and grunting like a small red hedgehog in a tantrum. Meanwhile in Gima’s arms, Zee whimpers, bleeding from his wounds. He pulls away and wails while Gima wraps his arm in leather straps from her vest. “I need herbs for these wounds, Trelly.” But in that same moment, Zee sees his father and reaches up like his brother had. Trell swoops his youngest up in the air. Zee giggles ecstatically, kicking his fat legs and wiggling all ten pink toes. Zee gasps with glee. Loving being tossed in the air, he waves his arms, small hands and fingers. A nearby boulder reflects the father and son's shadow story in the mid-afternoon’s warm light. Blathen watches, but the waiting is too long. He figures being a clever copy-cat may turn this scene around. He takes a pose, trying to look as much like the helpless, infant Zee as possible, and his mimicry begins. Blathen, feigning pitifully forlorn, rocks back and forth to Gima’s humming of ‘Frere Jaques,’ as he attempts to imitate Zee’s human whimpering by emitting small prolonged screeches and looking up with a pleading, though lopsided, pout. He tucks his hands under him to hide his claws, and using intense will-power, he holds his particulate collector inward. "Screech, screech." Now, I wait. Gima looks at Trell and he at her; and they smile as Trell walks over to scoop up, this the saddest of all of Upper Earth's off-spring, his first born, Prime One Vermel son, Blathen. Copy-cat works. Blathen's eye dark-purple glimmers with satisfaction and knowledge. The boys look at each other in a stand-off with their mutual trust in question over one’s fear and the other’s jealousy. Zee’s wonders why the warm furry one caused him pain. Blathen wonders: Will Father reject me again and chose the slow one? Trell, feeling like a boy himself, holds his pride - Blathen and his joy - Zee and twirls to dizzily tumble all three of them to the ground. He tickles their tummies and shakes their legs and arms. Blathen's right leg; Zee's right leg. Blathen's left arm; Zee's left arm. So on and so forth. He chorts each body part instructionally, just as his Aunt Betta had done while raising him in Cindel City with his many vertant cousins. Then spontaneously, Trell does a very human thing. He kisses both boys equally well. One kiss presses on a smooth forehead above two clear blue eyes, and the other presents to a wrinkled bit of red fuzz above a single dark orb. Blathen blinks his dark eye that would never cry but wants to. More than ever, Blathen wants to do what the other three find so easy. He’s hopeful that since he has made the appropriate sounds to which his father did respond that he will someday also learn to cry. Content with this reasoning, for the time being, he reaches over and strokes Zee who reaches back, cautiously, with a hug. “Now, let’s play.” Trell’s broad smile radiates over the entire Valley, and energized by family, he springs to his feet. Love blows through the tall grass. Small animals peek out to resume their foraging and begin their melodic forest undercurrent. Gima trusts Trell and questions nothing at this moment. Things are as they should be. I love you, Trelly—my everything. Trell, the center of their universe, swoops Blathen, the previously screeching, drool-machine, up in the air. Blathen inhales a surprise and exhales Vermel tonal laughter. While waving his stubby arms and twisted feet, his Prime One mind catalogues this memory forever. Father, more … forever. Trell takes Zee in his other arm, and as his sons stare in wonder, he spins again and again. Blathen’s collector slides toward a new tear, near his father’s eye. He tastes happiness and chorts loud comforting sounds. Zee hiccoughs, and as if timed perfectly, the boys pee simultaneously into the meadow as Trell turns round, and round, and round; faster and faster. He’s a marvel … look at that … all three of them … mine. Gima laughs and claps her hands joining in the merriment. Gima dodges her sons' warm spray and, moving quickly several steps backwards, falls to the ground laughing with happy contentment, enjoying her boys being boys.
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