Categories > Original > Sci-Fi > The Hammegram Chronicles: The Dawn

Enter the Boy of the Eternal Sunset.

by hgcmp 0 reviews

A Phantasmic nightmare tramatizes 16 year-old Greg as destiny begins to shadow over him.

Category: Sci-Fi - Rating: PG-13 - Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Sci-fi - Published: 2006-03-25 - Updated: 2006-03-25 - 2453 words

0Unrated
A boy who calls himself Greg is running as fast as he can. His body is barreling forward in a nocturnal phantasm that is all around, his face drugged with fear. His legs are racing forward like two horses pulling a runaway carriage and his arms circling outward in the air like two sailors tied to the mast of sinking ship. Around him, ancient crooked vines clutch on to his clothes, trying to slow him down and pushing back. Behind him, he can hear the slow and methodic thud of his shadowy pursuer. As he runs harder and harder, the thud of the figure's feet become louder and louder, keeping the same meticulous rhythm. The pounding of the feet thunders so loud in the boy's ears that he can't even hear the desperate panting of his own lungs. As he flies through these demonic woods, the trees close in on him, like a child devilishly playing with a bug in his hand. As the trees around him inch closer, the tugging on his body intensifies and begins to rip and tear at his flesh. The trees don't seem to be slowing down the dark silhouette at all, as the thunderous footsteps keep in the same devilish methodic stride that now seems to be echoing around the boy.

As he tries to get a slight glimpse of his pursuer, a root wraps around his foot and trips him. The jagged trees around him slash at his body as it smacks the dirty and dusty ground, face forward. The shadow of his chaser inches closer to the boy's fallen body until it blankets him. The boy, drunken with fear, moans, "Who are you!?" Before the boy can turn his head, a dark and hauntingly familiar voice echoes the same question.

Greg, drenched in a cold sweat, awakens with a jolt to find himself, lying on a bed of self-created cigarette butts on the rooftop of a run-down five-story building. He groggily sits his up in a sleepy stupor and runs his skinny pale fingers through his long, dirt-blackened hair that droops down and obscures his face with his palm limply smacking his forehead. He rubs his head against his hand while groaning to shake the bewilderment of the dream and drops his other hand down into his pocket to pull out a lighter and cigarette. His other hand still in his hair abruptly brushes back his hair to cause sweat to fly in the air and reveals a skinny pale face with round blue eyes with their whites tinted red. His eyes immediately cringe when greeted by the bright light of the sun. He grabs the cigarette with his free hand and places it between his lips, sparks the lighter with his other hand and it reveals a soft amber glowing flame. He lights the tip of the cigarette and inhales the smoke from the filter and then removes the cylindrical object from his mouth and, while breathing out the smoke from his nose, reaches with his other hand into the collar of his shirt and pulls out a gold locket with its chain around his neck. It is the circular locket with tiny hinges on the right hand side and tiny button on the other.

The boy pushes the button and the locket clicks open to reveal inside two tiny pictures of a young man on the left and a young woman on the right, who he believes to be his dead parents, and stares at the two images, gazing deeply as if he is in a trance. His face seems almost completely blank and his mouth appears as if is trying to make a smile but is being held back. As his mind begins to further drift in the depth of his imagination, the muscles in his face begin to relax as his mouth begins to show downward curvature.
The instant the smile appears on the boy's face, a shrilling scream of a woman ravenously echoes in his ears. It arrives with an agonizing and paralyzing pain that pierces his skull, forcing him to frantically jolt his head back. His arms convulse outward, throwing the cigarette away, and his body bends back in shock, causing the locket to rip off of his neck, tearing the chain, and sliding it across to the floor. He forces his hands on to his forehead, clutches his scalp and collapses to the ground on his hands and knees, quivering in an almost fetal like position.

When the pain finally subsides, the boy clumsily staggers to his feet and groggily looks around to see that the sun is setting. Greg realizes that the severity of the pain must have caused him to pass out and left him unconscious for the whole day. He frantically pats his chest to feel for the locket that is now missing. Looking alarmed, he anxiously surveys the roof to see it, lying next to the edge with the picture of his father popped out. As he stumbles over, he notices a small, brilliantly shining piece of gold next to the locket and as he gets closer he can see through his blurred vision that it's a ring. He lumbers over the piece of jewelry and drops to his knees to pick it up, nearly stumbling forward in the process. Grabbing it from the ground, he stares at it in amazement, as it seems to shine as if the sun was still radiating on it. The ring looks to be in mint condition with not a single scratch on it. On the head of it, there appears to be a weird symbol engraved on it.

He raises his head and stares off in the distance at the golden sunset. As the orange orb inches to the ground, he feels a strange sense of tranquility. The world around him is illuminated in a warm ginger glow as it creates a milieu between light and dark, creating a perfect balance. The light in the distance is hypnotic to the boy's eyes and its warmth touches and caresses him as it rains down on upon him. For one a short time period, he can forget about all that is around him and indulge himself in the splendor of the moment. Savoring every second, he stands there patiently watching the glowing disc as it hides behind the horizon. After the golden light withers away and a new world of darkness is born, the boy looks back down at the ring and slips it on his index finger, turns around and walks into the shadows.

He keeps walking until he gets to the brick shack that is at the far end of the roof and opens the large rusting metal door with an echoing screech that reminds him of waling. He enters and begins the walk down a small set of stairs as the door closes behind him, screaming shut with an echoing thud that leaves a slight ring in the his ears. The only light room is a light with a bulb that is at the end of its life, flickering off and on with a fading white light that is almost totally obscured by shadow when boy reaches the bottom. At the bottom, there is a small light wooden door that he tosses open and walks through.

As he walks through the doorway, he his greeted by yet another set of descending stairs and still more darkness. As he finishes the set, he turns a corner to see another, but this time, instead of black, there is a faint hue of red, caused by an illuminated exit sign many flights down, and the slight odor of smoke in the air, residue from many cigarettes. As he spirals downward further and further each set of stairs, the scarlet illumination gets more and more deeper and the smell becomes more profound and floods his nostrils. As he continues to descend, overwhelming sounds of moaning coming from all around him begins overflow into his ears. The moans seem to be the sounds of the thralls of an orgasm, the embrace of a narcotic or simply the depression of utter despair.

When he reaches the exit to the streets outside at the bottom of the stairs, he opens it and enters a world entombed by darkness with the only light emanating from a lone street light two blocks down to his left. He turns right and walks down the glass littered sidewalk and strolls over to the underground subway station two blocks down and descends down a set of stairs leading into a long lit stone tunnel with posters in glass cases on the walls with images of various advertisements. The tunnel leads to a large open room with a set of vending machines that line the wall to the right and to the left a barricade of turnstile boxes in front of an escalator. He walks up to one of the machines, inserts a ten-dollar bill in the appropriate slot and presses some green illuminated number pad. Almost instantaneously, the machine spits out a small ticket and his change out of a lower slot. He grabs both and turns to see a man heading towards the turnstiles, a lanky pale man with a large baldhead, dressed in black from head to toe, with a guitar strapped his back. Guessing him for a musician, the boy begins to follow him until he is within three or four steps away. The musician inserts his ticket into a small slot in the box of the turnstile, causing the box to suck it in, and he walks through the rotary on to the escalator
The boy follows suit and walks onto the escalator, creeping closer as the steps descend. As he gets right behind him, the musician jolts, whispering the word "shit" and causing Greg to quickly move to a higher step, and as they reach the bottom step, the man darts up the ascending staircase next to the one they were on.

"He must left something behind," the boy thinks to himself. As soon he walks onto the terminal area, he marches to a magazine rack with no backing at the center of the tunnel, allowing him see all around, and grabs a magazine, placing right below his eyes as he scopes the area. He sees the dark gray stone semi-circular tunnel that surrounds him with two metal tracks on each side and senses the rumbling of an incoming train from the right side. It arrives, comes to a stop and opens with an announcement of a pre-recorded, sterile voice that says, "Please let passengers disembark before boarding." This voice causes an ebb and flow of people coming on and off the train as the sliding doors open. Each of their demeanors are all the same as they seem too self-involved in the our business to pay attention to what the other people around them are doing, keeping a blank poker face at all time. Down the escalator, comes a man that gets the boys undivided attention, a very pudgy man wearing a partially tucked white dress shirt, drenched in sweat stains and little brown drops of soy sauce, with the left side flopping at his hip as he awkwardly moves about. His brown, gray and balding hair is in a total mess, bouncing in almost every direction. He is also carrying a busted up and broken brief case that he holds under his left arm with a plethora of papers sticking out. As he stumbles by, Greg discreetly puts the magazine back on the rack and follows, quietly marching closer. As he closes in, he can smell the rancid body odor streaming off the man's body, mixed with his breathe that reeks with the stench of soy, beef, cabbage and beer that spews out as he wheezes and pants. As the boy creeps into within inches, he can even hear the over-worked pulsating of the man's multi-bypassed heart. He waits for the right moment and with an abrupt and subtle nudge of his hand, he forces the brief case to fly out from under the man's arm. As it crashes to the floor, papers fly everywhere.

"No!" the man screams as his face turns pale, sounding high pitched like someone had ripped his testicles out.

"Please, let me help you," Greg replies in a dry almost unemotional voice.

The two quickly pick up each of the scattered papers and stuff them into the brief case. After all of the papers are collected, the man says as he reaches into his pocket, "Thank you, here let me give you something for your trouble."
"No, that's not necessary," the boy answers once again in the same voice.

"Oh pasha, it's the least I could do," the man insists as he digs deeper into his pocket. He grows a confused look on his face as he switches to the other pants pocket and frantically searches, and then removes his hand to look into the pocket.

"You know, there aren't enough nice people like you around these days" he says as he looks up to see that the boy is gone.

The man surveys the area around him and whines, " Damn it, now where the fuck is my wallet?"

After leaving while he wasn't looking, Greg quietly exits the subway station and walks across the street and two blocks down. He ducks into an alley and darts to a large metal barrel full of old newspapers and starts a fire by lighting the papers with his lighter. He swiftly shucks through the wallet, pulls out all out the bills and coinage inside, amounting to about fifty dollars, and tosses the credit cards into the fire. He stuffs the money into his pocket and carefully walks deeper into the alley. After walking a little more than two feet, suddenly and without a sound, he is tackled from behind by an unknown force, a force so powerful and swift that he can't even use his hand to try and break his fall, causing his head to slam the concrete beneath and a sharp pain in his temple. As he hits the ground, two shadows appear over him and commence to savagely pound his stomach and face with their feet, forcing him to curl into the fetal position on his side. As the pain of the beating becomes more and more overwhelming, he begins to hear an evil sadistic laugh that echoes in his hears. As he slips faster and faster into unconsciousness, the cackle becomes louder and louder and, at the moment the darkness finally overwhelms him, he comes to the realization that the laughter is his own.
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