Coldhardt's Thoughts

Let me start of with a welcome =)

Hi, my name is Coldhardt and I'm a book junkie.

*Cough* Now that introductions have been made, Imma post some stories!

Story #1 (Note the lack of a title)
It stinks. You know the smell, the bathroom smell. The type of stench you smell when someone misses and floods the floor. But this isn’t a bathroom, and this isn’t a bar. This is where I grew up. It’s been two decades since I’ve been here. Since the accident happened. But that’s history, and I’m not gonna talk ‘bout it. Years of therapy thrown down the drain if I do.

It’s dark. The lights don’t work, figures. The smell’s getting stronger as I tread carefully up the stairs – non-petrified mahogany wood doesn’t last twenty years. As I reached the top step, I started grinning. I finished the hard part, I past the death-trap. The paint was cracked. To the left, my brother’s room and ahead, my parents’. My mind starts to drift away. I remember… I remember what happened…

“Get a hold of yourself!” I grunt. Unyielding, I continue to my room – the last to the right. A thundering creak shook the house as I tried to quietly open the door. I swore under my breath. The door was open, I looked inside. All Hell broke loose.

It’s still the same. Tangible darkness hung like drapes from the ceiling. Faces, dead faces, trying to breach the barrier – In the place of what should have been my wall. It was a ghastly sight. In the corner of the room, a girl crouched – if you would call it that. Missing her right arm, the tattered blood-spattered dress drooped to her chest. Her face was gouged and grisly. Her eye hung out and she had a tear where her nose and left cheek should be.

She saw me – the creak didn’t help. I sighed and pulled out my shotgun. By the time it was out, she was halfway across the room. I fired. Blood spattered, coagulated blood. She lost her lower body but continued to crawl toward me, bloody dress dragging on the floor and all. I holstered the bad boy and unsheathed my silver claymore.

Thud, and there goes the head flying toward my left. I grinned as the blood splashed on my face. I crave the metallic taste, nowadays. That, however, is going too far.

“I shoulda done this a long time ago… I took my time coming back.” I thought to myself as I exited the gore-infested hellhole.

Story #2
Usually, my posts have nothing to do with eachother. This is an exception. Read Story #1 first.

There I was, engulfed in darkness. I pulled out a lighter and lit my cigar. It was a Fabergas. It was also the last cigar I smoked in my previous life. The dimly lit cigar stunned me. I was too used to the darkness that became my norm for the past few days. As my eyes began to adjust, I began to notice my surroundings. “The Hallway of Saints,” is what they called it, but there was nothing saintly about it. As far as I could tell, it looked rotten and smelled rotten. “Homey,” I moaned as I continued on.
Time crawled slower by every step I took. Exhaustion began kicking in and the cigar’s light was becoming dimmer. But it was no matter, I saw light in the distance – I was almost there. Tossing my cigar, I let out the last of the smoke from my lungs – tasty. Trudging on, I grinned – it’s almost over now.
“Thirty-two thousand three-hundred and twelve painful steps,” I counted, as I finally reached the light. Blinded, a minute or so crept by as my eyes tried to adjust. Muttering a curse, I took out my axe – who needs a sword with one of these? As soon as my eyes adjusted, all hell broke loose.
I expected something demonic, another she-corpse with a few missing limbs out to get me. I expected another psychopathic loon. I even expected the devil Himself. But no, it wasn’t any of those.
It appeared as a girl, no older than seventeen. Sheathing my axe, I approached. She was a fair girl with pitch-black hair – someone people would call stunning or gorgeous. She was perfect and normal at the same time. The only oddity at first glance was her nails – length of arms and width of only half an inch. The closer I stepped, the more she decayed. When I was roughly five meters apart, she showed her true form. It was her, again; her face was gouged and grisly. Her eye hung out and she had a tear where her nose and left cheek should be.
But, something was amiss. She was the real deal – not the ones I killed time and time again. A gurgle echoed out of her mouth – no, she was chuckling. Quickly, she shot across the room aiming for my throat. Removing my gun from its holster, I pointed and shot. The bullet would have pierced through her skull like it was nothing. But I forgot one thing, I had no bullets.
Tossing me on the floor, she began to maul my chest. Crying out in agony, I attempted to fend her off by using the dagger in my boot. Sensing danger, she aimed for my right wrist and penetrated it with ease. My blood drenched her sheer-white dress.
My first death wasn’t easy. It was painful. All my moans and gasps of pain just made it all the more enjoyable for her. She crucified me on the floor by dislodging her nail through my other wrist. I wimped out and began to cry as she pried through my insides and began eating. It was pathetic, I shouldn’t have cried.

Story #3
Another few weeks pass, and another person passes. I woke up to a nasty itch. My beard was fully grown again, three inches long. Eyes adjusting, I began to stagger to the sink. The delicious taste hung like iron now. I didn’t bother looking at the mirror, I know what I am. Six foot three, pale, weary blue eyes, a long pitch-black mane and an elongated beard that was too tame – what would-be handsome.
Eyes closed, my hand moved and found its blade. Too many times have I shaved, once for each killing spree. Clean-shaved, I left the bathroom.
Lying on the bed, I stared into the ceiling. “I lost count two-years ago,” I sighed. Closing my eyes, I tried to piece together what happened last night. Concentrating, I see blood. I see a woman and her two children – frail creatures, innocent. Sight shifted forward, and I saw them again. The woman’s body draped on her bed – chest cleaved open and large bloody gashes all across her body. To the left of the room, a baby’s body pummeled and face missing. The last of the children, a young girl – the type of kid you see in a Hallmark film – was ripped in half. Her face was pristine, but her body mangled and gnarled.
“Bloody madness,” I whispered. I felt a tinge of sadness but it was nothing compared to my first kills. The metallic taste still dangled in my mouth. Getting up, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I had an unscarred body and looked twenty or so. It hurts that I’m still living when everyone else I’ve known died. Growling, I crushed the mirror.
All pain numbs, eventually. But do I want it to numb? Do I have the right to live guilt-free?


** This is a very confusing one... You might have to think about it **

Dude that last story is like... holy ****. I really like it. Great depth. But I still can't put my finger on it, it's really well-written. Good Job!

Before I start the next story, I want to share a life lesson:

They tell you Life is short: You should go selfishly do everything you want to do because you might not live another day. That's bullshit. Life is long. Whatever you do will affect you tomorrow and the day after. Go ahead, blow your savings on a vacation until you're broke; watch your kids, one by one, die on the street. Go ahead, drink all night and party everyday until you puke your guts out when morning sickness hits. I learnt this the hard way. I risked it all and lost the gamble.
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Now, the story:


Story #4

I felt nothing the day my grandma died. I can vaguely recall the hordes of crying people ganging to kiss her cold, plastic forehead. Eleven years old and bored, I left walking around the graveyard. Back then, I had curls in my hair and a spring in my step.

The wind shifted, blowing with me and not against me. A giant tree had erected next to an old mausoleum. Under the shade of the tree, I sat, glaring and waiting for the funeral to end. Bored, I began to admire the tree. A wondrous plant, thick roots erected from the ground, it had branches that twisted on themselves and the color of darkness so thick, light couldn't penetrate it.

A butterfly fluttered across my sight. At second glance, I noticed its odd color and shape. A color of pale white dominated its body with a dark shroud covering its wings. It didn't look like a butterfly anymore, it looked like a little person, shriveled and gruesome. The small face turned to me, with eye sockets stitched in, and smiled to me. Rotted teeth appeared from the would-be mouth. It was laughing.

Then there was darkness. Appearing in the distance, I see the funeral, the people I know: mom, dad, Marie. I call out to them, but it is as if I'm muted. I see them weeping and at this point I want to weep with them. I hear a voice, dull, lifeless. It wasn't the voice of the little-corpse-bug, but it was the voice of the tree.

An utterance, almost unintelligible, seemed completely clear to me: "Selfish, isn't it? A final farewell and people stain it with their sobs and whines. The dead don't care, they're past caring. People are really crying for themselves."

I found my voice now. I screamed to the tree, LET ME OUT!
"Okay," it said, and a bellowing chuckle followed.

I awoke, I'm under the tree. Swiftly, I run to the funeral and wait for it to be completed. "I'm safe here," I thought. But I'm not, now, every night, I dream of the tree and it's laughter. It slowly eats away my life, night by night. I no longer have curls in my hair, nor a spring in my step.

Yum. I love the story. It has a spring in its theme. Symbolism was great, although this one was more obvious than the one before.