degreelessness: chapter one

degreelessness:chapterone


TAPTAP
chester
TAPTAPTAP
fired his chaingun at the red ball of teeth and blood that he had come to know as a cacodemon. it whined, high-pitched static from a failing radio. tried to produce whatever electric hell it puked out but the flurry of bullets was too much and the
cacodemon’s head burst like a jack-o-lantern filled with explosives.

gore splattered the surrounding area and suddenly chester was overcome by numbness, a bright shimmering wave of nothing. absence. alone again, he surveyed his surroundings.

major urban area in ruins
blasted city centers
charred remains of the dead

he found himself staring at the carcass of a dog, someone’s pet, a stray, whatever, really nothing left of it but black ash except for its head and the lower half of its left-front leg, its eye melted into a thick semi-transparent ooze, now hardened and dried, crusting, flaking. chester thought of all the people he’s seen, people he knew, turned to something different, less. all dead now. dead squared, thanks to him. coworkers. the guy who delivered his mail. a few celebrities. hell, he even thought he saw jesus walking around once, glassy eyes rolled back into his skull, small intestine looped like a noose out of a huge gash in his stomach almost severing him at the torso as he limped along. the bullet made a swishing sound as it went through his skull.

chester had never been a religious man until the demon invasion. now that it was so obvious that it was all true, this left him with some serious questions. why was christ on earth? why now, in such a hideous form? some sort of bizarre second coming? had he really killed the son of god? in the end, he had decided that it didn’t really matter, that even before that shot was fired, god had totally forsaken him.

after jesus, chester had tried to kill himself an infinite number of times. he’d even tried using a rocket launcher he’d found in an underground bunker on the outskirts of the city. it was on an otherwise empty shelf in an otherwise empty room. he had found himself fascinated, a rare thing these days, at the absurdity of an underground bunker with no stores, no supplies. he looked up at the ceiling and saw a pentagram, drawn in blood, surrounded by five letters, one for each point. as he squinted to make out the letters in the darkness, hovering on the edge of understanding, he blacked out. when he woke up, his head was ringing and he felt as if a door had opened somewhere.

anyway. suicide by rocket. he shoved the barrel in his mouth and pressed ‘ctrl’. didn’t work. no matter how many times he pressed it. he even tried to call the tech support number he had found in the manual, but after the invasion, all the phone lines were dead, dead like he could never be. he let his demonic foes assail him, offering no defense, facing their pains endlessly. no point. death was beyond him. or was he already dead, maybe? was this agony his punishment for a godless life? he didn’t know. so he went back to killing the things anyway. at least it was quieter that way, although it still wasn’t completely silent anymore. ever since hell had been unleashed upon the earth, it was as if life had been given a soundtrack. music poured forth (from where? the sky? the empty heavens? his head?) at all times, changing styles from song to song, sometimes blazing thrash-metal, sometimes bizarre ambience. once there had even been bossa-nova. he thought that it was kind of odd, but then, he thought being attacked by demons was pretty fucked up too.

once chester had stumbled onto the remains of a library that was mostly intact. he had searched every dictionary and every holy book in every language they had there, but he couldn’t find the word written in that bunker. ‘iddqd’. what the fuck is that supposed to mean? he figured nothing, just some bullshit written by crazy apocalypse fanatics. although he supposed he couldn’t really call them crazy anymore. on his way out of the library, he grabbed some random paperbacks, small enough to fit in his backpack, to read while he wandered the city. the next day, seated among the ruins of a sidewalk café, he reached around haphazardly into the pack, pulled out Valis by Philip K. Dick, and began to read.

pregnant with worms said


anyway. suicide by rocket. he shoved the barrel in his mouth and pressed ‘ctrl’. didn’t work. no matter how many times he pressed it. he even tried to call the tech support number he had found in the manual, but after the invasion, all the phone lines were dead, dead like he could never be.

If Chester were experiencing a "DOOM PORT" then perhaps he could hit the tilda key and type 'kill' to solve his problem.


I notice your fan fics are getting little or no replies. At least not any positive ones. I think the fics are fuckin' rad! Most people dont like them because of how free-form they are and because of the 'ctrl' thing. But that's what made the story. People are saying that doom fan fics are going downhill. I think if they keep this trend up they'll be doing the opposite. Everyone writes essentially the same thing. A marine is all alone and kills a lot of demons. It's nice to read something that breaks the mold. Just because it wasnt the story you were expecting doesnt mean it's bad.

thank you very much, dingus. i really appreciate the support. i'm not the greatest writer in the world, but i'd like to at least do something different with doom fan-fics. and yeah, i have great ideas for source ports later in the story.

This story is definitely better than the other one you wrote, namely because the style is more consistent.

I don't like the stuff about trying to tell the story as if it's inside the game, namely because it's too weird to be immersive, but that's just my opinion.

However, you've written it quite well, with some ok descriptions, so I'll leave it at that.

And yes, the general quality of fan fics are going downhill (with a few exceptions - Spike's are excellent), but they have been going downhill ever since late 2002 and it's mostly due to the better fan fic writers fleeing the forums.
Guys like Tek and Gooberman aren't writing any stories anymore, Katarhyne rarely ever posted any of her stories anyway (but she's also got a job to worry about), Wildman has become too busy to write stories to post here and so it's long between the really good stories that can truly get me hooked.

Very Interesting. Reminds me a bit of Delany. The thing to keep in mind while writing this type of story is that it is all in the imagery. The goal is to invoke an emotion more than build a narrative. For example your text:

he found himself staring at the carcass of a dog, someone’s pet, a stray, whatever, really nothing left of it but black ash except for its head and the lower half of its left-front leg, its eye melted into a thick semi-transparent ooze, now hardened and dried, crusting, flaking.

Could be:

he found himself staring at the carcass of the dog--flies buzzing the yellow eye, diving into the rim of pus, sucking, biting the drying ooze--the half-dog, burned and rotten, a sweetness that tickled the nose, a choking in the throat, a tag around the neck: CHAMP stamped in silver metal, edged black with blood.

I can't really write this kind of story, but you get the idea. It is all about emotion and imagery.

wildman: at certain points in the story, more dense layering of details is probably a good idea. thanks for the tip. i'll try it out.

*puts on smart guy glasses*

Actually, I think in the context of the story, worm's description of the encounter was more interesting. It gives you some insight into the character's state of mind, instead of just expounding on the gory details.

*takes off smart guy glasses, stomps on them*

But yeah, that was very cool. The only thing I didn't like too much were the references to the game. Maybe they're to make it more surreal or add humor, but they make it hard for me to immerse myself in the story. A great fan-fic non the less, I'm looking forward to the next one:)

The game references are perfect.

There is no sarcasam. :)

ravage, dajuice: wow. thanks. really. i appreciate that a lot. the references to the actual game aren't meant to add humor or surrealism. i try not to treat them as if they were anything but a normal part of chester's world. i realize that his knowledge that he's in the game might hamper some reader's immersion in the story, but i think this might be at least partially attributable to such tropes being relatively unused in doom fanfics. at any rate, i like it too much to stop using it anytime soon, probably. :)

I kinda like freestyle because you don't have to study in some class to get it right. You just 'feel' it. That and my 11th grade teacher hated the the stuff. Teach, you know who you are. :P

Oh, my bad, I hadn't realized it was from the perspective of someone playing the game (that's what it is, right?). Makes a lot more sense now:)

What no impsex??

lol