I have been trying to write some sort of book, just to tell a story and see if I could do it. This is Chapter 1. I've revised it somewhat and may keep doing that but I wanted to share it to, well, get over some shyness and see what you think. Hope it's enjoyable:
What happened? It was the first thought in his head when he came to. Let’s see… where am I? Not sure of this room… tied to a bed… could be a good night or a bad night, depending. He looked the room over again. From what he could see, it was a small apartment. And he wasn’t in the bedroom. And not tied to a bed. To a couch. Yup, a futon.
The room was what you would expect. A decent TV, a chair, small dining area, and divider between the living room and kitchen. This was your typical apartment. That made him feel better. Right? What was on the wall? It was like there was no bare space, something was there. Pictures, shelves with anime statues on them, knickknacks. Is that a diploma? Goth stuff, too? Oh, symbols. Something “magic-y”? Maybe. Okay, things were not great. This was weird.
Someone came around the corner and into the small living room. It was a woman, and from what he could see, she looked like she was Asian, average height, and looked like she worked out (a runner or maybe did a few HiIT classes from his guess). The best part was she was only wearing red lipstick, black leather booty shorts, a black leather corset, black thigh-high fishnet stockings with knee-high black leather Stuart Weitzman boots. This looked like it could be a great night!
The woman pulled her just passed shoulder length hair into a ponytail.
“Umm…Hello, I'm really sorry about this, but I really need your help with something.” She sounded nervous but otherwise sure of herself.
“Hi! I’m Fergal!” the guy tied to the futon replied, “And I’m willing to help you in any way you need!”
Fergal clicked his tongue and winked for emphasis. He would have done finger guns, too, but his hands were tied. The mystery woman noted a slight Irish accent as well, but it was soon pushed to the back of her mind.
“Great! And I thought you’d be mad!” The young woman clapped her hands together and bounced on her toes. “Let’s get started then!”
“Sure! Seeing as my hands are tied I'll need help with my pants…”
The woman cut Fergal off.
“What? Oh, no, sorry, you got the wrong idea. I need you for a blood sacrifice!”
“Whu…?” Fergal squinted at her, “What do ya' mean?”
“See, I’m a sorceress,” she explained, “And I have a new spell I want to try that needs human blood. I don’t think I need to kill you, I just need a little bit.”
She then grabbed an ornate, decorative knife with a long wavy blade.
“Okay, first, you’ll want a carving knife or cooking knife, those pewter handles on those knives are cheap and hollow,” Ferdall commented, “Second, if we’re not having sexy times why are you dressed like a dollar-store dominatrix?”
“Do you have any idea how much these boots cost!?!”, she snapped. “I thought this was how you dressed for this sort of thing, you know, like a super hero outfit. “
“You watch too much anime,” was his reply, “or lay off the comics.”
She stepped towards him with the knife.
Fergal exclaimed, “What did I just fucking say about the knife!?!”
The woman stopped in her tracks. She felt something wasn’t right, or not correct considering she was going to drain some stranger’s blood. At the same time, she was getting impatient. She stormed to the kitchen and grabbed an 8 inch chef's knife from the drawer.
She flashed the blade at him. “Happy now?”
The woman made her way back to Fergal. Shouldn’t he be more afraid? In the end, it made it easier. She was feeling guilty about knocking him unconscious and dragging him down the steps (slowly, he was heavier than he looked) to her garden level, one bedroom, apartment. She wasn’t planning on killing him (well, she hoped not) and a willing participant was a much better outcome! She picked him because A:) he didn’t look too big and easy for her to move and B:) he happened to walk by. All the events were lining up for her victory!
Fergal smirked again.
“Be careful, you might cut someone with that,” he said right before she grabbed his shirt and sliced it open.
“How could you!?!” he screamed, “I got that shirt the last time Flogging Molly was in Sterling Heights!”
The sorceress gasped and took a step back. Not because of the callous destruction of a Flogging Molly shirt, but what was underneath it. Fergal was ripped. Not just surprisingly muscular but also carried a lot of scars on his chest, stomach, and arms. Most could pass as light scratches, but some were a little deeper.
“Back to sexy times again?” he asked.
The woman groaned and pierced the flesh of Fergal's left breast. He winced slightly, yet still kept his smirk. It made her somewhat uncomfortable at this point, but she pressed on. She held a shot glass near the wound and collected blood until the bottom was covered. She placed a bandage on the wound (she wasn’t barbaric, after all).
“That should be all I need for now,” she said as she turned away from Fergal. He didn’t try to hide the fact he was looking at her butt as she walked away. She went across the small apartment to a wall that had a bare spot near the floor. It was one of the few places on the walls where something wasn’t in the way. Dipping her finger into the glass, she covered her finger tip in blood. Using her finger as a brush, she painted a small arc about 2ft tall and 2ft wide onto that lone bare spot. Fergal raised an eyebrow. This made him nervous.
The mystery woman knelt down in front of the arc and began to hum. Then, she started to chant. It was low at first, then grew louder. It was almost animalistic. For any number of reasons, Fergal couldn’t make out what she was saying at first. The more he listened, the clearer it became: “Oscail an doras go caos”. When arc began to glow, Fergal began to sweat.
The arc opening began to glow bright green. The “sorceress” stood up and stepped back excited. Fergal began to tense up.
“See, I didn’t need that much blood! I guess I could have just asked, but people give you weird looks. Sorry if I scared you too much. I know this is all strange. You’ve been a--”
Fergal cut her off, “You’re gonna want to close that right now,”
“What, why? How do you--”
Fergal cut her off again “Do you know what you said?”
“I said, “Open the gate for servants” in an ancient, magic, lang--”
Fergal cut her off yet again, “It’s fucking Gaelic. You said “Open the door to chaos”. You have no fucking idea what can come through there and that hole is big enough to let something bad enough!”
The sorceress was confused and a little taken aback.
“How would you know? You are not the kind of sacrifice...I mean, “Special Helper”...”
For the third time, Fergal cut her off, “I know ‘cause I know! Look, there’s a piece of wood five inches long in my left pocket...”
She jumped back,”I’m not touching your wood, perv!”
Just then, a shadow appeared in arc. It was small, just large enough for the object to fit through. It waddled out into the room. The woman gasped at the grotesque figure. It was only an arm attached to a leg, at the shoulder and hip. On top of that, attached by a scrawny neck, was a head. The face consisted of one eye, a crooked nose, and a gaping, thin-lipped smile accenting the one tooth in its mouth. It drooled as it scanned the room.
The sorceress screamed in horror, “What the actual fuck is that!?!”
Fergal rolled his eyes, “It's what you called, genius. An agent of chaos from a realm that should be forgotten.”
“It’s not what I wanted!!!”
“Ya' don’t say? Look, I can stop this but you have to grab that wood in my---"
“STOP ASKING FOR A FUCKING HANDJOB!!!”
Just then, another creature appeared. Then another and another. All looked similar, an arm attached to a leg with a one-eyed head and vacant smile. They seemed to jabber back and forth, making sounds like “gibber” and “jeepjeepjeep” back and forth. That’s when they turned their attention to the sorceress. They crept closer and closer, saying “gibberjibberjeepjeep!” and laughing. As they crept closer, she tried to back away slowly. All the while more creatures stepped through the arc.
“Faigh an soith!” one yelled and they all charged the sorceress. They leapt on her from all angles. She tripped and fell hard against a wall, knocking down several pictures and crashing into a near-by table. They bit into her where ever they could semi-toothless maws, laughing and chanting “Faigh an soith!”. She kicked and screamed, sending many creatures flying across the room. As soon as she could get one off, two more took its place. She was being groped, beaten, and eaten all at the same time. And more kept coming through the arc!
At first, Fergal had been unnoticed. As more creatures entered the room and more were sent flying by the sorceress being attacked, this was a state Fergal didn’t stay in long.
Fergal looked over at the sorceress writhing and screaming on the ground and shouted “Should have grabbed my wood!”
Just then, there was a bright flash of burning, white light. The sorceress screamed, not from the attacking “things”, but from the searing pain of the brightness. She was blinded for what seemed like forever, and when she came to, she couldn’t believe what she saw.
There, standing on her rickety futon, stood Fergal, with a glare in his eye and sneer on his lip. His wrists, where he had been bound, were smoking. She could see burns and melted pieces of rope just above his hands. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a wooden rod, not longer than five or six inches.
He smiled at the recovering sorceress and pointed at the rod, “My wood!”
There was then another flash this time accompanied by a whoosh sound. Gone was the rod and in its place was a large medieval sword. Its blade was at least three feet long and imposing. Cross-guard was flat and not ornate, but the pommel was a Celtic Cross, made of silver and adorned with emeralds that extended four inches from the grip. The sorceress was awestruck. Now it was clear. Her sacrifice was no sacrifice.
Leaping from the futon, Fergal kicked a creature across the room where it made a satisfying splat on the opposite wall. It stuck for a moment, and then slowly slid down leaving a trail of blood and pus as it went. He rushed over to arc where the creatures were coming through and with a quick stroke, cut through one side of the arc to the other. With the blood outline damaged, the portal could not stay open. All that remained was a burned section of drywall.
Fergal then kicked and slashed anything in front of him, making his way to his former captor. Carcasses flew around the room spraying all manner of fluids and meat chunks. Slashing and punching everything off of her, he picked her up with one arm and made his way to an empty corner of the room. Now stuck in a corner, the room was still full of the one-armed, one-legged things jabbering and hissing towards them.
Bruised and cut, she couldn’t say much of anything, “Y-You, you’re...”
“Gonna save your ass!” was Fergal’s reply. And with that he charged into the horde of the jabbering things. With, of course, a smirk.
The scene shook the wannabe-sorceress to the core. It was like someone put ground baloney, ketchup, relish, and potato salad into a blender and set it on high with no lid what-so-ever. There was no way she would get her security deposit back now.