Ok, so I was bored on Friday and wrote, via goonie based medium a co-operative fiction based on nothing except a chance comment by me on the quietness of the G.L.
The “Other” bits were written by rosy, he being the only other one online at the time, but I thought I’d paste it here for posterity.
—
The air here was dark and murderous, a stench of blood and roasting flesh. A terrible silence had fallen upon this once vibrant land.
—
The night of the hamsters had come without warning. A cluster of rotting corpses, children on the inside, adults bearing rude weaponry surrounding them, spoke of a brave, desperate last defence.
—
The villagefolk stood arm to arm surrounding the precious yet vulnerable prize within when the hideous banshee wail went up :
“HAMSTERRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”
Everyone froze.
It was Mikhailubub who acted first…
—
Seizing a terrified piglet, he looked down at his daughter Urrunhuanhuar. Silently, her eyes begged him not to go but even she knew he had no choice. The village god, a small caterpillar named Charles, had selected him according to time-honoured tradition. The last village had been eradicated to a man because they did not heed the old ways, a fate Mikhailubub had sworn to avoid.
He broke eye contact and ran to the market.
—
… for the market is where the wheel of power stood.
This simple device, which for so long had acted as a curiosity, a sculpture of sorts, had been the gateway for the heinous beasts of the underworld, just two hours ago.
Mikhailubub thought back to how happy he’d been, playing flobs with Urrunhuanhuar and Henurrunhuanhuar, thinking of her made his eyes well up with bitter salt, in that now distant time.
It was a happy place back then, the world. It was a world without infestation, a world without death, without pain, without hate. It was a world away now, and all had changed in the quiet village of Peranthuligua.
—
The stalls stood deserted, brooding and menacing in the half-light that had come with the hamsters and seemed disinclined to leave. Mikhailubub wondered where the sentry Ooolala was, the poor soul who had stood alone and alerted the village to the cute menace.
Suddenly, the piglet strained frantically in his arms and the silence altered in tone, as if on frequencies Mikhailubub could not consciously hear there was a shift. He turned, and felt something whizz past his cheek. He registered two things: that it was Ooolala’s hand, and it had been launched from what had looked like an unoccupied cloud shop.
It was occupied… by hamsters!
—
The Cloud shop was a tradition of the village, people had come from miles around - and even from Bobubobulob, the regional capital, to buy the clouds of Peranthuligua. They came in Pink, Blue and even Cyan.
But not today.
The Cloud-Master General, the chubby friendly Kristopopulard, was face down blocking the doorway but he had no legs the hamsters had taken them.
Those bloodthirsty rampaging buck toothed hell spawn hamsters. Suddenly one of the vermin looked up, it’s beedy eyes registered the lone figure of mikhailubub and it made some sort of snort.
suddenly there were two..three… countless numbers of them.
Mikhailubub had no time to think, he came out of his stupor and threw the blast piglet as hard as he could.
The piglet squealed as it flew through the air and a phrase often used by the town clown - Flan - sprung to mind I’ll stop laughing when the blast piglets take to the air and fly! we’d all laughed back then, but Flan will laugh no more.
—
As the blast piglet soared through the air, Mikhailubub turned and ran for the wheel of power. He knew that even now, the piglet would be undergoing awesome biochemical changes as the sudden acceleration caused the walls of the myriad specialised tiny bladders it possessed to dissolve.
The binary fluids combined as the flesh ruptured on impact. A couple of hamsters got a taste of the flesh but the fireball destroyed hundreds.
Mikhailubub had bought time, precious time. He could hear the ground tremble as hamsters from miles around stopped whatever they were doing to swarm at the disturbance. He strapped himself into the centre of the wheel, gasping as the raging energies bridging the two worlds flooded through him.
—
As light engulfed Mikhailubub and as a strange powerful, yet safe feeling, energy surged through the instrument he used to call his body he noticed one disturbing sight.
The hamsters in ruin that used to be the cloud shop were not dead, Rather they were now stirring and they were larger than before.
A sense of loss engulfed Mikhailubub even as the portentous energy from the wheel overcame his tenuous hold on his limbs. All too late he realised he had not the strength. He could not be the one. Charles must’ve been wrong. Maybe he was always wrong, the thoughts entered his mind unbidden, Maybe our people, our culture, our future is destined to die, tonight, at the hands of those repulsive ravenous rampant rodents from hell.
And thus, with venerable anger, Mikhailubub was no more.
—
As the hamsters eyed the village with renewed hunger, a soft wind began to blow. The wheel was turning.
As the remaining villagers, huddled around their last pair of pyjamas, prepared to say goodbye to each other for the last time, the hamsters paused. Their attention switched from the juicy organs pulsing nearby to a slightly nagging feelin in their pointy, pointy teeth.
The wheel seemed to develop a secondary spin, out of phase and in the other direction.
Something changed.
—
a blinding flash of light and an eerie silence once again descended.
The people looked across, believing their salvation had arrived.
It had not.
the wheel had turned into a glimmering sheen of pure light, and through it an almost endless procession of hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs and chinchillas emerged.
They seemed to be chanting, but it couldn’t be made out…
Charles started up “See I told you…”
Charles was eaten by Urrunhuanhuar.
The villagers looked, aghast. “You’ve killed us all, lassie” whistled the wisened old crone, Bitumen, “Charles was our only hope”
With blood stained teeth Urrunhuanhuar declared “Charles lead us here, you blind old bitch,” and with meaning “Charles is one of them” … her finger extended, shaking, covered in dirt, blood, and who knows what else, towards the marching animals…
The whole village saw, as one, that she was telling the truth. Riding atop the rabid chinchilla’s were none other than Charles’ Catapillian brethren, it was they who were chanting, and they who seemed to be leading the demonic hoarde.
the chanting could be made out.
“Repent!”
they were singing;
“Repent! For our time is now, and yours … is OVER”
