Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Yellow was stand by mode.
The A-7 drones buzzed around them recording everything. They took air samples feeding all information instantly to the main computer incase something happened to cause them to be destroyed. Unable to find a living target, they continued along observing. The mounted laser activated to destroy any remaining threat as Kincaid and the frail man walked steadily down the hill towards the Sea of Yeva. All he saw was an orange sea and over 500 dead bodies. Kincaid frowned at the bony man accompanying him. It was decided long ago that he was the test subject.
“There were a few hiccups,” the bony man cleared his throat.
Kincaid knew the situation was bad when he was called in from his suite in Kairos' Corporate SS to the frontier world, Arai. Parameters must be readjusted because the air was too thick. He had to take deeper breaths, but other than that the generators work fine producing breathable air. Once they get more vegetation planted, the atmosphere would sustain itself. He ran his hand over the stubble that was growing on his face. It was hard to believe that the world use to be beautiful.
“But in my humble opinion we,” the bony man added coughing like he had an old motor rattling in his throat. “The company was successful in this task because at 64 percent power the generators worked,” he continued. “We forced this eco-system to bend to our will.”
At this moment, Kairos Corp most advanced infiltration system was pumping an oxygen mix creating a perfect atmosphere. Twenty one years spent building Kairos into trading power with many of the known alien races throughout the galaxy. The space station where he lived and worked is most decadent spot in the galaxy, but this developing world is where Kincaid wanted to be. The Board of Directors should have no reason to refuse him extended leave to take care of this problem.
The bony man coughed a nasty hacking cough before interjecting, “Arai proved to be a fickle mistress.”
“You should let me do something about that,” Kincaid said. “I am a doctor.”
The man shuffled forward kicking the bones of the dead out of his way careful not to crush the exotic flowers growing midst the wasteland. His had trembled as he pick several blooms.
“I wonder what is causing these flowers to grow in this arid region.” Kincaid asked. There was other unidentifiable vegetation grown up sprouting up under the dead too.
“Maybe the worthless employees shitted on themselves once the realized what was happening to them.”
“You’re kidding me,” Kincaid’s disgust was evident on his face.
“It’s true. It proved to be the greatest fertilizer ever.”
If the was a predatory scavenger that would pick the bones of the dead clean, it was wiped out too. Kincaid steeled his nerves to try and settle his stomach. This is a fertile land beneath the broken bones and bits of metal disturbing the sand. Everything was mangled as far as he could see. As they came closer to the sea, the smell of the dead flooded Kincaid’s nose with a stench unimaginable. It made him wonder what exactly was in the waters before him.
If he hesitated, the bony man might realize something was wrong. He stepped back as the bony man waved the blooming bud under his nose. There was a fragrant smell of lavender and jasmine. He removed a syringe from one of the many pockets on his vest. The anger within him made finding a vein easy. He push down forcing the antidote into his body.
“I find it hard to believe someone with your money would have to take their drugs with a syringe.”
“It’s not what you think.” he said placing the used syringe into an empty vial. Smells that came up from the overheated ground caused the hair in his nostrils to burn tingle. He stuffed the PFU into his nostrils again to filter the air. His thumb flicked the lock on him med-case from red to green.
“I’m still not sure why you insisted on dragging that case with you. Nothing survived that blast. All that remains is rotten bodies.”
A delicate smile formed on Kincaid’s lips. “When did you intend to explain what happened to me?”
“What happened to you, sir?” The bony man sniffed the flowers and coughed.
Kincaid gave him that look. He studied the bony man trying to decide if he had a nervous cough or was his body truly not adapting to the artificial atmosphere. Maybe, his mind was deteriorating. It didn’t matter. Once the test were performed, he would know the truth.
“Oh,” the bony man went into a coughing fit, wheezing in between breaths. “Explain how the extermination went wrong to you sir. We couldn’t limit it to the destruction of the ancient tower as planned. We had to clear more land to install the generators. We had no idea that the explosion would have that effect. However, the inventory assessment is complete we catalogued a sample of every notable species on Arai at the time. Future cloning of the extinct species will be possible if the Board deems it profitable.” There was that cough again. “The collectors were disposed of as the arrangement dictated. There wasn’t anything that we could do to save them really, but they were faithful in completing there jobs.”
“I reviewed the reports back at the station. Not everything was catalogued.”
“What do you mean?” He nervously placed his hand to his mouth coughing into it. “I oversaw the collection of data personally.”
“Don’t worry, Kairos Corp sent me here to make sure the oversight was taken care of.”
“Wonderful, then let’s get started. If we . . .”
Kincaid cut him off not allowing him to finish his thought. He spoke a word and the drones switched from stand bye to attack mode.
The bony man’s eyes bulged from his face as he fell dead to the broken ground.
He popped the snap that held his knife secure to his vest. He grabbed his knife using it to slice a chunk of hair from the dead man’s head. As he turned and cut into the dead man’s flesh, the sweetest smell escaped. He placed his hand on the palm reader. It was the final layer of security for his med-case. Finger prints could be replicated. He placed the skin into the gelatinous liquid and then sealed the container. He left the body there to rot. Everything he needed to know could be extracted from that tiny bit of flesh. No need to transport the entire body back to the lab.
A clicking sound rang in his ears. He look towards the Sea of Yeva once more. He did not want to believe what he saw. One of the frog people approached him. So, the blast had not killed everything . Another one launched itself from the water, then three, then seven.
A feeling of dread filled his body as he realized that the only person who could explain what was happening was dead. The drones tuned their red laser on the weakest of the group, flashed pale green and fired.
contest Unusual Apocalypse
Unusual Apocalypse Competition - Update.This one is open to all visual artists and writers, and is designed to push your creativity - that's what comps are for, right? At least, that's the reason I enter them.
The theme for this comp is: 'Unusual Apocalypse'. How you interpret this is completely up to you, but here a few guidelines:
Writers - I'm looking for an original story, but fan fiction writers are welcome to use characters and settings from your fandom - as long as you introduce them into an original story; an alternative universe, if you like.
1500 words max.
Visual artists - as above, and make sure your picture explains what your unusual apocalypse is.
To enter just link me to your piece. Please make sure you have stated that your piece is for this competition, with a link to this journal.
There will be two categories of visual art (including comics) and written art (all forms), and you may enter a maximum of one piece in each category.
In each category the winners will receive an
This is an original story base on characters that have been floating around my head for a while and the world, Arai I created for the group #One-Planet-at-a-Time.
Word count: 1204
Cover Art by
Bonus image here: fav.me/d6i3fhl
Overall Vision Originality Technique ImpactAlways a pleasure to see a new OPaaT story <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="
" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="391" title=" (Smile)"/>First I would like to focus on what you did right with this story:
1) You had a word count of 1204. 1200 words is the perfect length for specific scene like the one you depicted here and even if you decide to develop this piece more in the future I would encourage you to keep it around this length. You can add multiple scenes together to make something like a chapter (optimum length: 3500-4500 words) but you must always remember that timing is everything in writing and as a general rule less is more. Sometimes you can substitute dialogue with descriptive paragraphs, but you can't just deep fry everything with long-winded descriptions and then expect the text to be better.
2) You focused in on two characters and kept things simple. One common pitfall I have seen writers get into is to have too much going on at once in the beginning. Before the reader can get into the complexities of whatever long term narrative develops, you have to give the reader time to get used to the kind of story world you are bringing to life.
3) You wrote this as a third person narrative. There are times when first person narrative work better than vice versa, but as a general rule of thumb it is much better to stick with third person as a default, especially for scenes that involve dialogue.
4) You included a preview image (with permission from the original artist) and credited the artist in the description. Images are very important for setting the mood for stories and the fact that a writer even bothers to include an image tells potential readers that you take what you do seriously.
5) This story is a contest entry. By participating in group contests you demonstrate that you are community-oriented. dA has a much higher consumer/producer discrepancy than many other social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Goodreads, Myspace) so it never hurts to show that you are someone who values group interaction as opposed to some who just dumps art everywhere without paying attention to anyone else.
6) You chose an uncommon name for your main character. "Kincaid" has a good sound to it.
7) This story does not come across as a cookie cutter cliche so kudos for that. Talent without originality is meaningless.
8) You did not load this story down with unnecessary swearing or gory details. "As he turned and cut into the dead man's flesh, the sweetest smell escaped" is an example of a detail that plays a useful role without going over the line beyond something one would hear about in an episode of NCIS or a PG-13 movie. Mature content flags have a way of scaring off potential readers and in the long run the cons out-weigh the pros of going over the line for the sake of going over the line.
9) This scene had action in it instead of just a bunch of talking.
10) The beginning and ending of the story were well done. "Yellow was stand by mode" is a great way to focus the reader in and set the mood. "The drones tuned their red laser on the weakest of the group, flashed pale green and fired" elicited way more emotion that "a feeling of dread filled his body."
Vision **** - The essence of this story is great and I like where you are going with it. It took a while for me to get a good mental image of the story due to the emphasis on dialogue but I suppose that's just a balance thing.
Originality **** - I wanted to give you five stars on this but when I Googled "Kairos" I actually found a real life corporation that uses that name. Moral of the story: always Google a word before you use it.
Technique *** - The overall format of this story is great but there were a number of little errors that added up. My advice would be to either copy and paste this into a MS Word document or simply read it out loud. Another approach that I find useful for my own writing is to leave the story alone for three months and then try writing it from memory. If the story cycles through your head for a period of time a lot of times the narrative will evolve much better than if you try to get everything completely polished in one week.
Impact *** - Once again, this mainly has to do with the balance of your writing. Sometimes a narrated description can impact the reader more than actual dialogue and vice versa. Sometimes a good simile can make all the difference and other times it is better to just describe something in a more straight forward manner. Communicating what you see in your mind's eye in a way that the writer can have the same experience is not easy and it is just something people gradually get better with over time. If you put some distance between this piece and then read it again in a few months or so you will have a much more objective idea of how it should be improved.