The Dreamless Dream Options

[redsrock]

This is just something I came up with today. It's not much, just something to help me bide my time until I can think of a good 'long' story to write, other than CoB.


When I had first heard the screams I wasn’t sure how to respond. I mean, sure, I was the source of the cries, but I was still unable to move immediately after I finished the deed. Part of me was glad to have finally succumbed to what I have been daydreaming about for so long, but the other part of me--- a small part I should add--- was simply astounded that I actually had done such a horrific thing.

As she lay there, seemingly innocent on the hardwood floor, I had couldn’t help but notice how conceited she still looked, even in death, with the slash across her neck and the gash on the upper right side of her chest. However, the know-all attitude had been wiped from her face, once and for all. No longer would she be able to embarrass the boy who was at least trying his hardest. No longer would she be able to slowly kill him inside. That was now over, and for that I am eternally grateful.

The screams I am talking about had come from the mouth of Ms. Ariel Vindayne, a professor for ‘mage’ wannabes, if you will. Before actually being accepted into the Arcane University, one usually enrolls in a sort of ‘pre-mage’ institution. There, instructors explain and show the very basics of magicka. Ages of students can range anywhere from ten years old all the way up to about eighteen. It’s normally the rich families that send their children, because the price of admission is very high.

When I first even thought about killing the young Breton woman, I had several motives. One, being that she had publicly humiliated me in front of a classroom full of students. I’m only sixteen, and have yet to fully grasp even the most basic of basics when it comes to magicka. She had asked me a question that I did not know, and after I mumbled a few words, trying to stall for time, she yelled, “It’s children like you who shouldn’t be in this place, Dannus. Children like you are a disgrace to the magic society. And I would expect more from you, coming from a talented family of mages.” She said with a normal smartalic tone, but the words cut through me like a hot tip of a knife.

And that had been the last straw. Thinking back on it now, I was always a somewhat disturbed child. I was very different, thus leading to the reason I never really had too many friends, not that I wanted any. The children I grew up around were conceited and thought only of themselves. I couldn’t live like that, and I certainly didn’t hang around with anyone like that. So most of my childhood life was spent reading books, on various subjects, some that I don’t wish to disclose at the moment. My parents loved the fact that I was an avid reader, but they were devastated when Ms. Vindayne had sent a letter home, describing my inability to recite even the easiest of spells. From then on I was essentially ignored by my parents, and this was when I was fifteen.

So a whole year I had been planning on the murder, attempting to work up enough courage to actually go through with it. It had sounded easy enough, but once the plan was put forth, and I was sure I had everything down pat; actually doing it was a whole other challenge. My hate for Ms. Vindayne was as pure as the grass in green, but my guilty conscience, and fear of killing in general, had gotten the best of me.

In order to dispel the guilty thoughts and fear, I traveled to the forest with a small iron dagger. I practiced at first by killing rabbits and other tiny creatures. Actually, it was more of a pain catching the damn things than it was killing them. It had not taken long before I had almost even ‘grown’ into the art of killing. That is when I had moved on to bigger targets, mainly goblins. I didn’t have to go too far, not with living in the city of Chorrol. I waited until a single goblin was alone, and then I had killed the creature with little ease. I had actually been surprised that I had been able to defeat the goblin so easily, but of course I had known it was needed if I wanted to kill Ms. Vindayne. This isn’t to say I had been afraid that she would fight back with great skill, oh hell no. I had simply been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do it once the time arrived. But after I had defeated the goblin, I knew I was ready.

The plan was simple, so simple that now I am surprised it had even worked. I merely stayed behind after class one day, waiting until she and I were alone. I had walked up to her and she said, “What do you want, Verick? I have a meeting with the Arch Mage, something that’s very important, you know.”

And then I did it. I swiped the dagger from its concealed sheath behind my belt buckle, hidden from view. I quickly swiped at her neck and sliced off a big chunk. While she reached for her throat her eyes lit up in horrific surprise. She tried to speak, bit of course the wound kept her from doing so. She fell to the ground, back to the floor, and then I ended her life for good. I took the dagger and shoved it through his chest and into her heart.

What happened next is a bit strange, and I really can’t explain it. I didn’t run for my life, afraid for my horrible act and the consequences that would follow. At that point I really didn’t care, and I simply stood there until a couple of students entered. Once they saw Ms. Vindayne on the ground, lifeless and lying in a thick pool of dark blood, the immediately screamed and ran out of the building for help. In no time three guards entered with swords drawn. Upon seeing me, a sixteen year old boy, they pondered why I would do such a thing.

And then what happened next was even stranger, something I [i]definitely[i] can’t explain. Before the guards could do anything I put the knife to my neck, and tears started to stream down my cheeks. I knew now that nothing was left for me in the world. I had sinned the ultimate sin.

“NOOOO!” the guards had yelled, but it was too late. I thrusted the knife to the left, and then took my own life, in punishment for what I had done to Ms. Vindayne. I don’t know why I did it, though I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my only future was prison. I didn’t want that, so I took the short rout.

You can call me a coward, and that I cannot deny. I was afraid of prison and the life that followed, thus leading to my act of suicide. And as I stand here now, seemingly in a trance, somehow floating from the my body mere ten minutes after performing the suicide, I think I did what was right. It’s funny, you know? I’ve felt like the past year has been somewhat of a blur, a dream even. But of course this is not dream, or else the screams coming from Ms. Vindayne wouldn’t have hurt. This is reality, or ‘was’ I should say. Like I said earlier, I was a disturbed child. The world wasn’t ready for me anyway. Oh no, they would have never been ready…

[raggidman]

sick

[minque]

sick

hrrrrmmmmpfff....you are more verbal than that my dear raggie! This story deserves more than a "one-word-comment" don't you think?



Anyway it's a dark story, thus well written I think. The ending is sad though but not a surprise, I saw it coming!

Now redsie always comes up with good works....oh yes, I mean it!!!

[redsrock]

Yeah, I knew it was obvious that the main character was going to die, I actually planned it out that way. I know this isn't my best work by any means. Like I said, it's just something to get my mind going while I work on CoB and another big story I'm planning. Thanks!

[raggidman]

? Ok - this carefully mimics that mass killings that have been happening in the US particularly where a young student walks into a class and murders everyone he can, then turns his weapon upon himself. I have nothing more to offer such an action save the recognition of what it is. sick.

[redsrock]

? Ok - this carefully mimics that mass killings that have been happening in the US particularly where a young student walks into a class and murders everyone he can, then turns his weapon upon himself. I have nothing more to offer such an action save the recognition of what it is. sick.

It's called hamster cave fanfiction, Raggidman. The last time I checked the character didn't 'murder everyone he could'. He killed one person, and then himself. It has nothing to do with the US mass-school killings. That is what you "think". You do that, you know? You think things and then say them when you really have no clue what you're talking about. No offence, but you really hit a soft spot for some reason...

[raggidman]

It's the mental state that it mimics, that is what the story is about, not merely the act - I just hate it. I don't hate people, but I do hate the things they do sometimes. and give the character a machine gun and one changes to many. Same difference.

I believe I am entitled to react honestly - and this is my reaction.

In this country we do not have so many of those mass killings, but we do have people who murder their families (or attempt to) and then themselves. That personal kind of act - forcing others to pay for one's own failings simply disgusts me. The moreso as not only do the victims seldom have a clue about what is about to happen or why - but also because when the reasons come out they have little or no rational purpose and it can often be seen that if the perpetrator had been removed from the equation then the victims would have got on with their own lives just fine.

For me ES is about strange and marvelous things. If they are horrifying then it comes from a fantastic source or is in connection with something that could not be in RL. I'm afraid that this tale is just too much of the kind of RL I have no time for (it could be a 'story' in a cheap newspaper) and not enough ES for me to accept. We all have limits, and this is mine. To write such tales bespeaks a certain obscenity and merely spreads the disease if not opposed. Personally, I reject it. It is not something I am prepared to lie, prevaricate about or apologise for. There is only one way to deal with such and that is to oppose unyielding.

And when we write things we normally do so with the intention to have an effect on the people who read. If the way we write leads them to think something we did not intend it is often a result of the construction we have put on things. If we are not leading our readers to think things then maybe we are not writing anything worth reading and/or we are not in control of our own output?

Blaming the reader can be as negative as blaming the writer.

Read it through again as a reader rather than a writer (if you can divirce yourself sufficiently for your intent as a writer) and you might see my point of view ... or not.

[minque]

Please!!! Do NOT put politics into this!

Raggie, it's a story....nothing else, fiction you know!

I second you about your disgust for similar things IRL....and THAT is sick! I know it's more common in US than here and I really loathe it...I do! But I think you might be overreacting a bit in your comment on redsrock's story! It is a story..nothing more so please do not put more into it or it will be like a flaming war and we do not approve of such things here

With that I ask you to not take this any further....or else..

[Ibis]

I have read this fanfic at TESFU's FanFiction Forum and I did not at all equate it with any mass school shootings ... and I am a US citizen. It was not a Mass Murder - it was a personal act that was spurred by the teacher ridiculing the student in front of the whole class and estranging him from his family with a note sent home to them. It was a desperate act by an admittedly 'unbalanced' young person learning magicka in the TES world. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCHOOL SHOOTINGS IN THE USA. If one reader took a personal spin off the tale into that subject matter; it was in their own head to do so.



This fanfic has been made into a Morrowind book for the upcoming TESFU Town Mod that we are building as an advertising school for TESFU site. We have also been in correspondence with TES Official site that this mod may be featured in an upcoming TES Blog when it is further developed. They are keeping their eye on it.



I strongly urge writers here who are also members at TESFU ... Minque, Treydog, Black Hand among others ... to come on over and create an NPC of yourself for the town mod so that we may feature one or two of your fanfictions as Morrowind books hot off of our dwemer printing press. This mod is going to be uploaded to every available download site as an advertising tool for our TESFU website ... and as well, we are making it for our own fun



The pinned NPC Character creation thread at the Modding Forum at TESFU:

http://z15.invisionfree.com/TESFU_Forums/i...?showtopic=1220

[redsrock]

Thank you, Ibis. That was all well said, and good job with the TESFU mod-talk as well.

[Lord Veneficus]

This is really deep man. I understand what Dannus was going through; being ridiculed and made fun of does not set well with me. I loved the story, Reds.

Great, great, great, great.

[Burnt Sierra]

I've been so busy recently, I didn't even see this. Sick eh? I don't agree with that. It's disturbing, and surely that's the whole point. Anything that can make us feel uncomfortable, and question events is surely a good thing. One of my favourite books is "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis. A deeply unpleasant charater, who does deeply unpleasant things. Guess what? The author was slated for daring to write about someone you weren't supposed to like, for writing a story that wasn't "nice".

Are we supposed to like this character? I seriously doubt it. I don't like him. So what? I think I admire Reds more than ever for trying to write something different, something challenging, and very hard to pull off. I think you managed it.

[redsrock]

Thanks V and BSD! Sorry for the late reply, but I'm currently on vacation.....