Drive

Taking a break tonight from my story mode of late to talk about normal life. Which is normally so boring these days that it's not worth talking about, but tonight was good.

I dropped off an application at Foodland today. They said they'd look at what they needed and they'd give me a call. So I'm hopeful. They confirmed that I'm done school and can work days, and that I'm up for lifting things, and then I went home. It was a very short interview, but yeah. Got all cleaned up and shaven. Managed to cut myself shaving. Which is a first. Well, and a second. I cut myself twice. Once on the face (lower chin), and once on the finger. Middle finger, left hand. How did I cut my finger, you ask? Let me answer you in one simple word: Ninjas.

Youth group was fun tonight, despite a lack of Dave and Eric. They're gone somewhere. I heard somebody say Acquire The Fire, but I dunno. Anyways, they were gone. Tonight was Dwayne's night in the drop-in building. 'cause we'd organized a switch a few weeks back, they wanted in the building for one reason or another, and we were just gonna go up in the church. It was gonna be movie night. But no sooner do we grab our things and vacate the drop-in building, but we learn that there was a wedding rehearsal taking place in the church. I'm opposed to the idea of wedding rehearsals in the first place. It's not like a play, dammit. The priest knows his lines, and if you can't walk down that fuckin' isle and say two goddamn words, then maybe you shouldn't be married, HM?!

Anyways...We were gonna go ahead and watch the movie anyway in there, but then an idea came to me. Rick's mom and her boyfriend were going to a Halloween party, so I thought "Let's watch it there! There's couches! And Rick!". He couldn't leave because they were going, and somebody had to watch the dog. The dog has a nasty habit of shitting everywhere when it's not supervised. So we went over there and watched the movie. It was gonna be Chronicles of Narnia, which I hadn't seen before, but instead became Nacho Libre, which I still hadn't seen. The people present to watch the movie at Rick's were: Myself, Rick, Rebecca, Tony, Sebbie, Andrew, and Steph. So not too many people, and it was fun. The movie was hilarious.

When youth group ended, everybody left but me, and Rick and I ordered some pizza and watched Bleach until just before one in the morning. Then I came home, hoping that my parents were in bed and wouldn't notice my late entry, and as luck would have it, they were, and they didn't. So here we are.

Oh, and I played some Mordor with Jared today. That was a lot of fun. He keeps getting ahead of me in level though, the bastard. Just ONE level. But DAMN it's annoying...It's because he spreads out his experience in different class levels. I level straight mage, for the most part. He spreads out a lot more...I just want to get to the awesome spells at higher mage levels. I just got identify, and I'm one level away from fireball. Which is one up from the spell I've been using, which was already doing some heavy damage.

Anyways, I'm tired, and it's late, so Nate sleep now.

Until next time,
Oh, you have a case. Unless I bribed Jack Thompson to argue for your side. Nobody listens to him anymore.
~Kataron

Murder

This story is dedicated to Scott, with a little message. I'm gonna fuckin' kill you, Scott.

~~~~~~~~~~Start!~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He watched the boy walk towards the large dorm building. He made sure he wasn't seen, standing far enough away not to be noticed. Students were such easy prety. They were so caught up in their own busy lives that they barely ever noticed him. Well, university students, that is. College students were much more troublesome to hunt. The boy entered the building, disappearing from sight, but it didn't matter. He opened a small laptop that had been concealed in his briefcase, and turned it on. It booted up quickly, and he loaded the program to access the cameras he'd placed in the dorm building. There were three in total. One outside the boy's room, looking down the hall. Another in the common room the boy shared with a few other students. And one in the top corner of the boy's room, looking down on the rest of it.

He watched the boy walk down the hall and turn into his room. As predicted, he went straight to the laptop on the desk and started doing homework. University students were nice and predictable. He knew when the boy would eat, sleep, socialize, or even bathe. But that was, in part, due to the fact that he'd hacked into the boy's laptop and had been monitoring conversations taking place over it. It was well protected, but he'd been at this for years. He'd been trained well enough to deal with this sort of thing, though he hadn't been trained to use his skills for this. This was simply a hobby, a diversion. Something to pass the time.

It was anhour before the boy moved, going into the small washroom that came with the dorm room. He couldn't see what the boy was doing, having no camera in the washroom, but he knew nonetheless. The boy was spiking his hair, something he'd noticed that was done frequently by the boy, whenever going out. He knew this because the boy was about to go and meet with a girl at a local coffe shop. He took one last look at the skinny boy leaving the washroom and donning a t-shirt, then he shut the laptop.

He made sure to arrive at the coffee shop well before they did, and took a table where he had a good view of the rest of the room. He ordered a decaf and sipped in it slowly as he waited. Caffeine made him too jumpy, he preferred to be calm and level-headed when it came to the hunt.

They arrived right on time, the boy first, and the girl two minutes later. They sat in perfect view of him, and he smiled. They ordered their drinks, and talked for a while. He could read lips, and knew exactly what they were saying, but it was nothing of importance. They were too wrapped up in each other to notice him stealing glaces towards them. The girl was pretty enough, having long dark hair and a cute face. But he was concentrating on the boy, as the girl was not his prey. After a time, they said their goodbyes and went their seperate ways. He wondered whether the departure would have been different if either of them had known that they'd never see each other again.

Sipping his decaf, he checked his watch. He had a car outside, a nondescript black one, but the boy had to take the bus back to his dorm. It would take the boy half an hour, whereas he could just drive there within five minutes. Finishing his drink, he drove back to the dorm and put on a generic maintenance uniform that he kept in the back of his car for times such as this. He put his laptop in a small workbag and left towards the building. Nobody questioned him at all as he strode confidently down the hall, whistling an upbeat tune. He stopped in front of the boy's door, and picked the lock within a few seconds. It was pathetically easy to pick, and me smiled at the lax security of the building.

He checked the device, which he'd installed three days ago. The boy hadn't noticed yet, and probably wouldn't. He'd remove it after its task was complete, and nobody would know that it had ever been there. When he was done checking it, he slipped into the closet and waited quickly, watching the room through the laptop, with the hidden camera. The boy arrived home within a short time, and went straight to the computer again. It was hours before the boy moved again. This time, the boy got up and turned off the laptop, planning to go to bed. As the boy moved towards the washroom to take a quick shower before sleeping, he activated the device.

When the boy turned the water on, the device attached to the showerhead added a colourless, odourless chemical to the water. It went unnoticed as it flowed down the boy's body, covering the skin. It soaked into the boy's pores, infiltrating the body. Soon every part of the boy was covered in it, and the boy had no idea. He smiled as he heard the water running in the opposite room. So predictable. While the water continued to run, he slipped out of the closet and placed a small silver needle laced with poison in the boy's bed. The boy would lie down and prick himself with the needle, and then the boy's weight would push the needle back down into the mattress, out of sight and out of mind. This being done, he retreated to the closet and waited. Moments later, the boy emerged from the washroom, slipping on a pair of loose pants and flicking off the light. When the boy crawled into bed, he heard a small grunt of pain as the needle penetrated his skin. Both parts of the trap had been triggered. He waited for exactly one minute, and stepped out of his hiding place. The boy didn't move. He flipped the limp form over, and saw the wide-eyed look of horror in the boy's eyes. The boy tried to move, tried to speak, but found it impossible.

"Don't bother," he said quietly, "The pain you felt when you got in bed was a small amount of nerve toxin entering your body. You're paralyzed. You won't feel a thing, which is probably could considering what happens next."

The boy tried to speak again, but he put a gloved finger to the struggling lips.

"Shhh..." he murmered, "This will all be over soon."

Then he watched as the chemicals started to take effect. The boy's skin literally started to melt off, revealing a sickly layer of muscle and veins underneath. But the chemicals had soaked in deeply, and even this started to melt now. The boy's chest was the best example of this, which was melting so much that parts of the ribs were visible through the mess. Even the boy's face was beginning to deteriorate. The cheeks melted first, revealing teeth that were not usually visible. It almost made the boy look like he was grinning, but it was too grotesque to be mistaken for anything as pleasant as a smile. The boy's hair had soaked up a lot of the chemicals as well, and it shriveled up slowly, leaving thin trails of smoke running up from the top of the head.

The hands were almost completely gone. The tips of the fingers were just bone at this point, and the rest was slowly dissolving. The legs and lower torso, on the other hand, were going more slowly. The water had struck the head, arms, and upper torso the most, so they had absorbed most of the chemicals. By the time the water got down to the rest of him, only some of the chemicals remained. They were still melting, but at a much slower rate. They would be gone within an hour or two. The rest of the body would not last nearly that long.

He watched the eyes particularly, the only remaining sign of life in the boy. A window to the mind, he could use the eyes to tell how afraid he was, and he loved it. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have used the nerve toxin to stop the pain, but screaming in a dorm room was not stealthy at all. He hadn't been trained to be caught.

After another few minutes, the nerve toxin finished its job, and the glint of life faded from the boy's eyes. He packed up the laptop again and removed the device from the showerhead, being careful not to touch the water. He placed the device in his bag with his laptop, and walked to the door. On the way, he spotted a t-shirt sitting on the desk. It said something about being a super programmer or something. Deciding that his son might enjoy it, he placed it in the bag with his other belongings and prepared to leave. Before he did so, though, he placed the body in a burial pose. Arms crossed, legs straight, looking as patient as a melted corpse could be. It would be a few hours before the body would be discovered. Still wearing the maintenance uniform, he left the room and walked down the hall, whistling again. On the way, he pulled a small metal tube with a button on the end from his bag, and pressed the button. The three cameras in the building self-destructed, leaving only small scraps of metal that could not be identified.

~~~~~~~end~~~~~~~

The Game

Hey guys. I just wanted to type out a story of mine on here, see what some of you think. I've already gotten some good reviews from Eric, Dave, Rick, and Andrew. In fact, Andrew suggested that I might try to send it to a magazine or something. Which I was quite pleased with. I'd never even thought about sending some of my work in as a short story somewhere, but it's not a bad idea. It needs some editing, though. So if anybody has any comments, be as critical as you like. Compliments don't improve work! Just...Please avoid comments about ME personally. Like "Oh, Nate, you smell like poopy!" or "Oh, Nate, you have the mental capacity of a small tree!". That's just low, man, and that HURTS. Anyways, on with the writing...This is the first time it's been transcribed to the internet, so point out spelling mistakes and the like that I'd otherwise miss, and I'll fix them and delete the comment so it looks like I got it right the first time. It's about ten pages long on paper, so I'm not quite sure what that'll end up as...I'll also be doing a quick edit-job as I write, so forgive any mistakes. They're probably on sections recently changed and therefore new. But anyways, on with the show. And if you've already read it, then please just skim it again. I've made a lot of changes.

~~~~~~~~

It all started out as little more than a passing thought travelling through a tired mind. I had just watched the last few hours of late-night television that I could bear, and was calling it an evening. The rest of my family had been asleep for hours, and I tried to be as quiet as possible as I crept past their darkened rooms, not wanting to wake them. I made it to the washroom without raising the alarm, and even relieved my bladder without incident. But it was at that moment that I turned my head to the side and saw the window. The blinds were down, but something within me caused me to pry the blinds apart with my fingers and gaze down on the yard below. It was dark and motionless, as was the yard of the house opposite to mine, and the parking lot for the bank next to my house. There were only two sources of light, one from the bank, and another from a streetlight on a small backroad behind my neighbour's house. I could only see a small patch of it from where I was, but it was enough to entice my imagination.

And that was when I first thought about it. Not that I intended to, it was just one of those thoughts that randomly passes through your head before you even realize it.

Wouldn't it be creepy if one night, I happened to gaze out that window, and I actually saw someone? If I saw a shadowy figure stalking slowly down the small road behind the house? And just to top that off, what if the mystery figure carried a long knife that glinted in the illumination of the streetlight?

And now I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't thought about it. Would things have turned out differently? Doubtful, but it was far too late to think such thoughts anyway. The events that followed are now past, unchangeable. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I digress.

That night, I shrugged it off and went to bed without giving it any more thought. But the next night, as I crawled up the stairs to prepare for sleep, I found my thoughts once again returning to the man with the knife, and my gaze once again returning to the small patch of road. Parting the blinds again, I glanced out to survey the area. The light in the bathroom was off, allowing me to see clearly beyond the window without any reflections of light interfering. I scanned the region, but my eyes kept returning to the road. Again, it was empty, but I couldn't help imagining the figure walking through it. Trying to shrug it off for the second night in a row, I found myself thinking about it beneath the sheets this time, unable to completely forget.

It became a small obsession of mine. Every night as I went to bed, I couldn't help but peer through the blinds and check to make sure that the road was empty. I couldn't go to bed without it crossing my mind, and I found myself unable to sleep unless I'd checked at least once. But every morning I'd forget all about it, only to remember with horror when I found myself in the washroom late at night.

And so it went for a number of months. A strange cycle of paranoia and forgetfulness. And for the longest time, that's all that it was. Just a silly little fear that crept up as the sun slid below the horizon, then faded away when the morning came. And interestingly enough, the fear was made more real during the day, when the sun was still shining strong.

I had just crawled out of bed around noon, having been up until three in the morning. Finishing my business in the washroom, I glanced out the window out of reflex, and I saw him. Only for a brief instance before he passed out of view. The dark form was exactly how I'd imagined it, though I hadn't seen whether or not he carried the knife that my imagination armed him with. It was at that very moment that the fear crept back to me, during the day for the first time. And this time, I didn't have the refuge of sleep to take the fear away.

I was...awestruck, to say the least, and after making sure the doors were securely locked, I spent the afternoon trying to convince myself that it was just a passing stranger, a coincidence. It took me almost a week to trick myself into believing that I'd been mistaken, and less than two days after that to shatter the false hope that was the only thing allowing me to sleep at night.

The next time I saw him, I wasn't lucky enough to do it while the sun was shining. I was, again, heading to bed late at night, and this time I thought I heard a noise from outside. I stood there for a short moment, paralyzed with fear. Part of me wanted to see what was out there, but another part of me (a much larger part) was horrified of what I might find. Finally, scolding myself for being afraid of a small noise, I parted the blinds and peered out into the night. It was dark. Darker than usual, in fact. On most nights, a light would be on in the bank, or a neighbour's window would be lit. But this time, the only light that I saw was from the streetlight, shining its orange glow down on the street below.

And there he was. This time, not disappearing out of sight, but instead pacing slowly back and forth. He walked methodically and deliberately, never leaving my line of sight for an instant, never stepping behind the houses on either side of him. I watched him slowly pace the whole of the small patch of visible road. Then he stopped and turned his head to face my house. To face me. Then he shifted the rest of his body to face the same way, and stood completely still, staring up at me. It seemed impossible that he could see me from that distance, through the small crack in the blinds, but I felt our eyes meet. Then he raised one hand, and waved to me. Up until that point, I had never imagined a wave being anything but innocent, but there was something downright sinister about the slow movement of his hand.

I removed my fingers from the blinds, and they snapped back into place, taking him from my view. I stood there for a time, dumbfounded, and then snapped back into reality. I rushed downstairs to ensure that all the doors (and windows) were tightly locked.

I barely slept a wink that night, tossing and turning, thinking about the man on the road. Something about knowing that my fears weren't completely unfounded scared the hell out of me. Even though I didn't see a weapon on him, the mere knowledge that he was out there, and that he knew I was in here, horrified me. All night, I kept thinking that I'd heard something from downstairs, the man breaking in and preparing to murder me. I told myself that it was just the cats, but the smallest noise would prolong my wakefulness by another hour or so. Eventually, I did doze off into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of the dark figure. I awoke tired, and still haunted with the memory of the night before.

I considered telling my parents, my friends, anybody, but decided that they wouldn't believe me. I spent the majority of the next day trying to figure out how I might deal with the problem, which ended indecisively. I had no idea how to deal with something like this, aside from calling the police. And unfortunately, there was nothing illegal about walking down a road at night.

The next two days went by slowly and painfully. The man did not show up for two straight nights, and I was just starting to relax. Then my parents decided to go away for the weekend and leave me home alone, something I usually enjoyed. I almost tried to talk them out of it, but then realized that it would seem too strange, and I still didn't want to tell them about the man. I kept my mouth shut, and they left. It was a long weekend, and they would be gone for three days and three nights.

The first night started out quietly, and everything was going normally. But when midnight struck, I started to hear things from outside the windows in the living room. Voices coming from the street in front of the house. I looked through the blinds on the windows, but saw nobody. But still the voices came, talking in their hushed voices, whispering things that I couldn't make out. Whenever I would peek out the window, the whispering would stop, but whenever I stopped looking, they would return instantly. I tried to ignore them, but they wouldn't stop. I couldn't make out a word that they said, but I somehow felt that they were talking about me. I tried to drown them out with other noise, television, loud music, anything that would stop them. But when I tried, they just got louder, until they were loud enough for me to hear over my distractions, but still not to the point where I could make out their speech. I was about to go outside and look around when they suddenly stopped. The silence was deafening.

And then the phone rang.

The caller ID was oddly blank, so I picked up the portable phone, which turned on automatically.

"Hello?" I asked quietly.

"Hello, Mr. White," a strange voice sounded from the other end of the line, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

I had no idea who this White person was, or who was calling, but for the first time in weeks, I wasn't afraid. I was confused, but not afraid. And after weeks of fear and horror, a little confusion was not a bad thing.

"I think you've got the wrong number, sir," I replied politely.

The man on the other end laughed as if I had told a joke, but it was only at this point that I realized how harsh the voice was.

"No, Mr. White. I have the right number. I'd recognize your voice anywhere, especially after everything...everything we've been through. And we've been through a lot, you and I."

"There's no Mr. White here," I tried again, "You must have a wrong number."

Then the voice got angry.

"You listen to me, you little shit. I know exactly who you are, and these games won't work on me. We've played them too many times before, you and I. Besides, I've seen you. I've seen you through the window."

It hit me like a bullet. This was the one from the street, this was the one that had been haunting my thoughts, my dreams, my life. I almost dropped the phone, but managed to keep my grip.

"What do you want from me?" I asked softly, afraid of what I might hear.

"The same thing I always want. Your heart on a platter. The prize for our little game, the same prize we always play for. It's a life-or-death game we play, you know. And I aim to win."

The phone went dead in my hand, and I dropped it onto a nearby table.

Sitting down, I tried to gather my thoughts and think about what was going on. Did this guy think I was somebody else, somebody he wanted to hurt? Why would he think that? And why did he sound like he wanted to kill me? I shuddered at the thought, and picked up the phone again. Dialing the number for the police, I took a deep breath and prepared to talk. Walking down a street wasn't a crime, but death threats were. Somebody on the other end picked up, and greeted me. I immediately hung up, paralyzed with fear. It was the same voice, the voice of the man on the phone, the voice of the man from the street. I picked up the phone again, and dialed another number, the number for a friend of mine. But again this stranger answered, and I hung up, too scared to even speak. He seemed to be everywhere.

I took a few deep breaths, and began to search the house for a weapon of some sort. If he intended to kill me, he would not find me such easy prey. I settled on a large metal baseball bat that I used to play with when I was younger. It was heavy enough to make an effective weapon. I held it with both hands, and walked back to the living room, where I began to pace nervously back and forth. I tried to sit down for a while, but couldn't stop fidgeting. I also tried to watch television, but all I could do was flick through channels nervously. Eventually I gave up and peeked through the blinds that led to the front street again. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, except for the possible absence of traffic. It was a very well-used street, but tonight it seemed dead. I turned back from the window and let out a long sigh of relief. Then I heard three slow taps on the window, from right where I'd just looked out. Almost to the point of shaking with fear, I peered out one last time.

He was standing right outside the window in his long dark coat, waiting for me. Dropping my bat, I stared up in horror at his face. It was incredibly pale, as if it had never seen the light of day, and was stretched so far back to the back of his head that it was literally torn in a few locations from tension. The torn areas revealed a sickly black layer beneath the skin, which seemed to be a liquid, flowing beneath the skin, though it did not leak out. And his eyes also seemed covered in the liquid, as they were completely black. But though they had no pupils, I felt his stare burning into my skin. Then he reached up a hand, clad in a dark glove, and waved. As he did this, he grinned, revealing a sickly set of teeth, stained dark by something. In his waving hand was the long silver knife that I'd imagined him with.

I was too scared to move, too scared to even turn away. I prayed to whoever might be listening, to whoever might help, as he walked towards the front door. I heard a rattle as he tried to open it and found it locked. I breathed another sigh of relief and thought that perhaps my prayers had paid off. Then I heard the dry 'click' of the lock turning, and watched with my mouth open wide as the door swung open, as though of its own accord. He stepped in after it, and entered the living room of my house. He cast an appraising eye over the contents of the room, an eye that eventually ended on me. He bowed slightly, and to the bat at my side, which I'd dropped upon seeing him.

"I believe that it is now the time where you try to defend yourself, and fail miserably," he offered with a smirk on his face.

I gulped and looked down at the bat. He didn't make a move, so I bent down and picked it up, holding it again with both hands and looking at him. I had the advantage of range, as my bat was much longer than his knife. If I could keep him from getting too close, perhaps I could get out of this alive...

He stepped forward, and I swung the bat, both as a warning and as a means to test my range. It passed right in front of his face, and he didn't so much as flinch. He took another step, and I closed my eyes and swung my weapon again, knowing that he was now within striking distance. I heard a sickening crunch as it connected, and opened one eye to see what I'd done. He was still standing there, smiling at me. He'd raised one arm to block the bat, which it must have struck quite hard, judging from the sound, but he didn't seem to notice. Instead, he thrust his knife forward with his other hand, which I barely dodged by shifting to the side where the bat had connected. I moved closer to him, and grabbed the arm with the knife to stop him from trying to cut me again for a moment, and then brought my knee up with all the force I could muster towards his groin. Normally a cheap shot, I decided that this particular opportunity called for it. It connected, but again the blow didn't seem to affect him. It was a blow which would bring an ordinary man to his knees in agony, but still he smiled. Letting go of the bat, I wrapped one of my legs behind his ankle and pushed him backwards with my free hand, pulling my leg back at the same time in an effort to bring him down. He staggered backwards, but did not fall. It was enough for me to duck under his arm and run to the kitchen though, which I did.

Reaching the adjacent kitchen, I ran around the counter that was immediately in my way, and frantically pulled out a drawer, looking for a knife to match his. I heard his slow footsteps move towards the room, and as he entered it, I pulled out two knives of roughly equal size to his own. He walked leisurely to the end of the counter, and I stepped backwards, holding a knife in each hand.

"Very well then, Mr. White. If you want to play it that way, I will allow you one free shot. I suggest you take it," he grinned.

He held his arms out on either side of him, inviting me to attack. I decided not to waste the opportunity. I slashed at his face with one of my blades, and plunged the other into his chest. Then I stepped back, leaving one knife imbedded in his body, and holding the other in my off-hand. Three long cuts line his face, revealing more flowing blackness beneath, but none of it seeped out through the wounds. I smiled, looking at what I assumed was a killing blow, but he smiled back, as though it had meant nothing.

As I stood there awkwardly, wondering why he wasn't falling over, and what I might be dealing with, he rushed forward and slashed with his own knife. It only took one quick flash of blade across my neck to bring me down. I felt hot blood run down my chest as I fell backwards, my mouth open in surprise. I clawed at my bloody neck, which became too slippery from the bleeding to grasp with any certainty. My eyes closed, and my breath sputtered with blood as I felt it run down my throat and begin filling my lungs. My world grew dark, and my limbs grew numb and cold. The last thing I heard was the man, the man that had murdered me. He was talking.

"I win this round, Mr. White. Better luck next time."

And with that, my world faded into darkness. Everything was gone, and everything was cold and empty. I floated about it in the emptiness for what seemed like a long while, but eventually I awoke. And when I did, I felt fine. Better than fine. I felt powerful. Looking down, I saw that I was wearing a dark coat, and gloves, as well as shining black dress shoes. I felt my face, and could picture the stretched skin in my mind. Memories flooded back to me, each round of the game that I had played. Now it was my turn to find Mr. White. Now it was my turn to make him pay. And I would, I would make him pay for what he'd done to me. And for every other round of the game that he'd won. I promised myself that I'd make this a round he wouldn't soon forget, and I wondered where he might be. The last round had lasted for nineteen years. Perhaps this time, I would finish it sooner than that. Perhaps this time, he would be more of a challenge. Perhaps this time, he would remember.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And there we are. It started off as one thing, and ended as something completely different. But I'm quite pleased with the results. But please, I want your opinions on it. It was fun to write, and if people seem to like it enough, I might actually look into submitting it to a magazine somewhere. But it's three in the morning and Nate need sleep.

Until next time,
The game seems a little one-sided...But ah well.
~Kataron

Join the war!

Uncle Kataron wants YOU!

To help him kick all the ass in Kings of Chaos.

Now, he knows it's not a new game, and that some people may have gotten bored of it before, but so did he, and now he's back!

And now he'll stop talking in the third person.

Go here:

LINK LINK LINK LINK

To help my cause. You can add men to my armies, or you can join yourself. Or both. Do both. The more people we get playing (preferably under my command), the more fun we'll have. So let's give it a try, and we'll form an evil empire of death. Or a holy empire of light. We'll see how it goes.

Jared's got the link in his MSN screen name, so I decided to join again, under his command. The good thing about having a commander is that you've got some others to go to if you get unfairly attacked, or if you just wanna team up on somebody with a dumb name. So please, join now, or soon. We'll rock together.

Eric, you already have an account, under my command, but it's been seventeen weeks since you logged on. Come back.

Uhh...I guess that's all. I just joined, so if you join now, you'll be at the same level as me! Neat! Come on guys, it'll be fun. But that's enough of this for now, I'm gonna go play some Diablo.

Until next time,
There's just something about having subordinates that makes me...happy.
~Kataron

Better

hey there, folks.

I'm sorry I haven't been posting much lately, but...the fact of the matter is that my life has become exceptionally dull. I mean, the past week, I've been doing one of two things. Putting off looking for a job, and being sick. The sickness has been the last couple of days, but I felt relatively better today. Which was good, 'cause I would have died if I hadn't gotten my social fix at youth group.

Speaking of job hunting...I'm going to drop off a resume at the video place, but that's probably the most popular place to work in Rockwood, so outcome looks doubtful. The logical course of action is to apply at Foodland, our local grocery store. I don't think I'd mind stocking shelves and the like, Rick seems to enjoy it well enough. So yeah. That's probably where I'll end up....

Although, Eric told me of a mystical place called Eden Mills. Well, not so mystical as I just don't know exactly where it is, but meh. It's close to here, I just....I don't get out much. But anyways, Eric said that Ms. St. Jean (my favourite teacher from high school) mentioned a job working as a butter taster, in Eden Mills, for twenty dollars an hour. Oh, that sounds like a job I would love to do. If I only I could get to Eden Mills and back with some sort of...Motorized chariot. But alas, I do not have a motorized chariot license, nor a chariot (motorized or otherwise). So here we are. That's why I want a job 'round here...I mean, some people are lucky enough to have parents to drive them to work, or their own vehicles, but here I am in the middle of Rockwood. There's a bus that comes and goes into Guelph, but I'm afraid of buses. And with both of my parents working, I can't really get rides. My mom works all the way down in Burlington, which is a ways away. Well, she either works there or at numerous scattered school. She tests kids for learning disabilities. She seems good enough at it. I don't think I could deal with some of the parents...My dad works around. Right now he's found employment down the street at the fireplace store. Which is cool, I guess. He's around the house less, which I'm pleased about. There's only so long I can stand hearing "Lonestar" in the background of everything I'm doing. I can't stand that channel.

Damn westerns.

Except Wanted: Dead or Alive, 'cause bounty hunters kick ass, and Josh Randall kicked ALL the ass. And...I'm pretty pathetic.

But yeah. See, that's it, and I'm running out of things to say. This is how dull my life has become. Oh, but NEXT YEAR. That's when things will get interesting, what with the college and all and the living with Jared. Which is another reason I need to find a job, so I can afford moving in with the boy.

But until then, I'll have to keep you entertained otherwise, so I'll try to find some more things to talk about more often...I'm just not on-line much. I mean, I'm on the computer, but I'm not doing anything involving the internet. I'm sort of on a video game fix, so I've been playing an ungodly amount of Megaman Battle Network. I've beaten the first game, and am probably about two thirds to three quarters through the second. After that, I have the third, fourth, and fifth games. Plus another one that I forget the name of. It...It takes a lot of my time. I just feel the need to play them before I start doing something else and forget all about them. Which will happen eventually, but I'm still partially riding off of my Megaman thing from a few weeks back, when I obsessively went through Megaman 1-9, and Megaman X 1-6. God I love that little blue dude.

WHAT???!!?!?!?! A CASTLEVANIA CARTOON! Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah that's cool! It's in the works, kiddies. So my sources inform me, and so it must be. For the internet cannot tell a lie. Not a cartoon series, though, apparently, but a cartoon movie. Still, a Castlevania cartoon, which excites me nonetheless.

...Yeah.

I miss Jared. <3

But now I need to watch some Buffy, to fulfill my nightly quota. Soon, soon it will be done, and my evenings will be mine once more!

Until next time,
FUCK. Sub Zero won. FUCK.
~Kataron

Character Battles

Dammit people, get over to www.gamefaqs.com and vote for Master Chief!

The character battles have gone on for a while, and I already watched an upsetting victory for Luigi over Zero. And COME ON. Zero would laser-sword that lame plumber in half a second, dammit.

But I will NOT watch Master Chief lose to freakin' Sub Zero! Move! Vote! Tell your friends! YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT!

Shop Vac

You know what offends me? And I'm not talking just...Pisses me off, I'm talking actual offense.

Americans that think that they won the War of 1812. I mean, from what I'm informed, I know that's what they're taught in school, but...it's just so...so...wrong.

Clearly, we won that dang war. We being Canada. Not that...You know, it matters THAT much, having happened before time began by my standards, but it's the principle of the matter.

Let's review, shall we? The war started with the United States declaring war on us. They wanted to conquer us from the British empire, and I think they actually thought we'd welcome it...I'm glad we didn't, otherwise we'd be just like them. Yuck. I mean, no offense to my American readers (all two of you!), but I'd die without my free health care. I mean, if I set foot in another country, I'd just....Contract a deadly illness and not be able to treat it, what with the costly nature of medical treatment.

Uhhh...Where was I? Oh yeah.

Here's my two am summary of something I'm on SLIGHTLY learned on. Meaning what I seem to remember being told, have heard from "The War of 1812" by The Arrogant Worms, and seen while very briefly skimming some Wikipedia entries.

But anywho, here's my summary.

The United States were all "We're gonna conquer you while England is fighting Napoleon!"

And then we were all "Fuck that."

And we fought back, and kept fighting back. We fought back all the way to Washington, where we burned down the White House.

Yeah, so not only did they fail in their conquering, but we burned down the freakin' White House.

Yet I've still been informed that people in America are taught that they won that war...Although I've never really thought to verify. Abby, Kristyn, what've you been taught about the war?

'cause I figure that a war is lost when you fail to accomplish your purpose. And in this case, the purpose was to conquer-ify us. But instead, we fought back until a treaty was signed stopping the fighting. So by both failing to achieve the goal, as well as having their whitest(is that a word? And if it is, is it spelled correctly?) building burned down, I think that pretty much says "we lost".

Yeah. Sorry, just got bored and remembered that tonight, and got all offended.

And you know what else bugs me? That the bank or whatever that has a mortgage on my house has photos of the house. And I don't mean just frontal view. They've got that, and apparently it's a nice picture, but at some point, they had somebody go into my backyard, and take a picture from the back garden. Anybody else see something creepy there? I mean, not only did they break into my backyard, my very fenced in backyard, and took a picture, but they didn't even inform us of anything. Or if they did, we forgot. Which I'm still gonna blame on them. Bastards! I mean, if I'd seen anybody in the backyard like that, I would have let the dogs out. See how much they like trespassers. But then again, since my dogs are both mentally retarded, they'd probably just go and lick them. So here we are.

BUT I STILL HAVE A SWORD. And my red suit. And my hat! I found my red hat! I can barely even see the vomit stain anymore.

...Yeah, I threw up on my hat. Shut up. I ate too much damn pizza at Pizza Hut, at their pizza buffet thing.

...Good times.

But anyways, it's two in the morning and I'm so tired I'm not even on MSN. Just finished watching four episodes of Buffy, and I just wanted to get a little ranting out before bed.

ooo! And I started a new story. Like...Actual writing! In a notebook! With pencils! Rather than my typed stuff, which isn't necessarily bad, but...I rarely update them, and I never proofread, spellcheck, or edit in any way. My notebook stuff, I do. So yay for that. It's only two pages so far, but it's a stab at horror. I'll post it when I'm done, I'm just aiming for "short story" at this point. But I gotta pee, and I don't see any reason for me to go upstairs, do that, and come back down and continue this when I could just stop this. Then I wouldn't have to come back down. And my bed's upstairs and junk.

And my parents are going away this weekend! Woo for me!

Not that it means much. It mostly means "I'm gonna watch even more Buffy than usual, plus play more video games and eat a lot more!". Which is absolutely pathetic I now realize...But hey, it means hanging out with people too. Who will also eat my food and play of the video games. You know, I'm not THAT terrible at cooking. Aside from that time when I burned water. And I have a witness, I just forget who it is. James maybe. And yes, I'm aware that it was just something on the burner that was burned off when I turned it on, but I like saying that I burned water.

...Fuck. I'm wired. Ah well, I might as well lie in bed and let my mind rush around, maybe I'll have crazy dreams.

Until next time,
ALLEN EAT BABY UNICORN! (There ya go, Rick.)
~Kataron

Till The Money Comes

I am so very tired right now. I mean...I could go to sleep RIGHT NOW, in this very chair. But no...No, I need to watch more Buffy tonight. Because I made a commitment, that I would watch the ENTIRE series, and that's what I'm doing, and I'm trying to get in a few episodes a night. Because it's seven seasons. Twelve episodes in the first, and twenty-two in the rest. That's one hundred and forty four episodes. I'm partway through season three. Which might just be my favourite season...I mean, it was the last of the high school seasons. The show just wasn't the same when they weren't in high school anymore...The whole Riley soldier thing was kinda cool but not great, and I remember little else aside from the last season, with those damn mini-slayers. I would have stopped watching if they weren't all young girls. And this was a few years ago, when I was more of a young man than...I dunno, the nineteen year old I currently am.

OH!

Reminded. Peter called me tonight, which at first was kind of odd, but the drop-in council decided that I'm now officially a leader. Meaning I'm able to keep going, even though I'm past the age boundary. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! First step, that. Second step, bake a cake. Third step, WORLD DOMINATION.

Man I want cake now...

I HAD CHICKEN BURGERS FOR DINNER TONIGHT. My GOD they were good. That may sound kind of weird, but it was just one of those cravings...You know, when you think "Oh me oh my nothing would taste better right now than *insert food here*". Granted, the craving was a couple of days old, something from the weekend when I was sitting at Rick's. He was in the other room doing something that I now forget. Something his mom wanted him to do, so something pointless and dull like laundry. Anyways, then it hit me, MAN I WANT CHICKEN BURGERS. I mean, last time I had them, my parents were out of town, and Rick came over. And we were like "YEAH LET'S RENT SOME MOVIES AND EAT CHICKEN BURGERS!". That was a great weekend...What movies did we rent, anyway? Aeon Flux and something else. Then we watched them, and we were like "Man, those movies didn't even have any boobies in them". So we got American Pie: Band Camp. Not that I recall any real nudity in that one, but hot ladies, and I think there was a scene when some of them were shirt-less but with bras. Yes. Anyways, the chicken burgers were fantastic. They didn't seem so great at first when I was frying them up, but then right before they were done, they just got....got...wet. I was weirded out at first, but then I realized it was grease. I like grease. And they were just...Great burgers. In fact, that was my stayupallnight night. I remember, 'cause I had more burgers at one in the morning before I watched Dawn of the Dead.

Heh...Yeah, I remember that. Woke up at three in the afternoon the day before, thought "Oh crap the day is wasted!" and vowed to make up for it by staying up all night, which made the next day HELL. I mean, I dozed off in the early evening, missing a lot of Wizard of Earthsea on Space, and all of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. I was sad. Anyways, I'm kind of wired, kind of rambly, but still tired.

I spent six goddamn hours today fixing my floor. My dad was getting ready to put slate in the little...entry-way thingy of the house. There's a word for it, but I don't remember what it is. It starts with V. It's a V-word. Well, I know what it is, but I don't know how to spell it. So here we are. ANYWAYS. He was getting ready to slate that up, and he decided that he wanted to instead saw through the many layers of floor we have to see where it all ended. He discovered that right under the layer we have now, we have a nice thick layer of maple wood. He wasn't so fond of our floor now, so he decided that we were gonna cut off the top layer of floor and have the maple underneath...Easier said than done. I'm just glad he's a contractor, so he knows what the hell he's doing. We used a big old saw to cut it, then peeled it off. And by peeled it off, I mean beat the shit out of it with a crowbar. Then we had to de-nail it...My God...The nails...There were so many nails...Fucking hundreds and hundreds of nails. You couldn't set foot on the floor without standing on the heads of like...five nails. And that's with one foot. So James and I used hammers, crowbars, and a pair of pliers to take them all out. Six hours later, we're done, and I'm exhausted. It doesn't help that I went to bed last night at one thirty, slept TERRIBLY, and was woken up at ten thirty, an hour and a half before we actually started the work. Bah, bah I say!

And the maple looks like shit. Not that the old floor looked much better, but it doesn't look very good at all. It needs to be sanded, and then finished, and then it'll look great. But for now, I have to beware nails in the floor that was missed, and hope that we won't be doing the rest of the floor yet. We only covered 3/4 of the living room, but dad's not terribly concerned with the rest right now. Which is good by me, because that's where the computer lives, and I dread moving everything. But anyways...I'm tired. So I'm going to sit here, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and drinking Coke.

And let me just say to those of you reading that I haven't seen in a while, I really frikkin' miss you. The only one I see nowadays is Rick. Which is fine by me, 'cause he's a great guy. Oh, and James. I see James. But when I see him, it usually means he's helping me with work. Which is good. But I need to hang out with him more when we don't have to do shit...But thanks for today, James, it would have been a bitch without you.

But I still miss the others. Jared, Justin, Wyatt, Eric kinda 'cause I don't see him much. Rebecca I guess 'cause I see her slightly less than I see Eric. Dave. Uhh...Who else...I miss Andy. Andy's off in school now, and I miss him. Great guy. Behrang, that crazy foreign guy. Best foreign guy ever! Mike, for all his weirdness. Jon...No, no I'm good without seeing Jon. There's probably others that I'm missing. People that I haven't seen in even longer...Like Ryan, and Kate! I miss them. If you haven't been mentioned here and you WANT to be missed, I either hate you or am too tired to remember more names. You pick.

Until next time,
It's a metaphorical question. No, I don't mean a rhetorical question.
~Kataron

The Big Boom

Sometimes I wonder about the state of the world we've got. I mean, we've got technology, and we're relatively safe, but how much does that really count for? With the growing technology, we become more and more dependant on it, more and more dependant on material possessions as a whole.

But hey, we're safe from harm. We don't have roving gangs of bandits killing and plundering and raping. But wouldn't it be COOL if we did? I mean, sure, we'd be in constant danger, but hey, sometimes that's what it takes for life to be interesting.

I'd just...I'd love to be somewhere with no real rules, nothing holding you back. If I get bored and want to leave, I should be able to hop on a horse (cars are boring.) and ride off dramatically into the sunset, and start a new life somewhere else. Which you can't do here at all. I mean, sure, I could leave town and go somewhere else, but what's the point? To me it seems all too much like in those crappy old cartoons where the animators were too lazy to draw much, so it's just the same thing, looped over and over again. And that's what our North American lives are. No matter where we go, it's just the same old thing, over and over again. The only thing that changes is the people, and meh.

But even if I wanted to go somewhere else, it'd just cost money. Money that Nate doesn't have. I could get a job and make the money, but then I'm stuck here while trying to get the money.

And dammit, I just wanna ride into the sunset. Preferably with firearms, 'cause hey, my ideal world is full of roving groups of bandits. Gotta protect yourself.

But instead of protecting ourselves, we've got the government and the police force to do it for us. So we've got protection, but the more protection we get, the less freedom we get. You gotta have balance, and I think right now the balance is tipping towards protection rather than freedom. And that's just here in Canada. It's waaaaaaaay tipped already in the States. And they call themselves free. Pah!

I wonder when the governments of the world are gonna collapse. I mean, we've had a damn good run, but history does have the tendency to repeat itself. And every major civilization has come crashing down. Sometimes they last for quite a while, but they come to an end eventually. And don't just think "Hey, we're different, we're better, we can survive", because that's what all of the other societies thought too, until they imploded.

World War III is going to happen at some point, and what with the extremely large weapons we've got now, that'll pretty much be the end. But some people will probably survive and try to rebuild society. It seems to be what we do.

But World War III will be NOTHING compared to when the zombies come. When that happens, we are SO fucked. I just hope that I'll have found a town to stay in by that time, and maybe own some property. Because I'm going to have a bomb shelter, but it won't be for bombs, it'll be for zombies. But that's an expensive thing to buy, and I'd need to stock it with water and food to last for a while. Well, that and guns and ammo. And I'd have to find a lot of clean water, because there's always the chance that water itself will become infected with the virus, and it's just...blah.

See, a zombie shelter or...I guess just a normal bomb shelter requires a lot of commitment. I mean, once you've got a zombie shelter, it doesn't get much more safe than that. After that, you're pretty much stuck where you are for life, unless you can afford another bomb shelter. Nobody's gonna want to leave the kind of protection. The government's not gonna protect you from the undead. You'll have to defend yourself, dammit. And what better way to do that than cowering in a hole in the ground, endlessly polishing your guns and talking to yourself because everybody else is dead? It's perfect!

'cause when you think about it, zombies would screw the world above pretty bad. I mean, we'd run out of food. The food we have now will only last so long, and with zombies, supplies would be cut completely, and new food wouldn't be produced. And hell, we won't even be able to grow crops. 'cause who wants to be out farming when there could be zombies in that there cornfield? The best route is to seal yourself in a hole under the earth eating army rations and drinking filtered water until you finally go insane, then going outside and taking out as many zombies as you can before you die. Because you will die.

...I haven't thought about this WAY too much.

That's what tv needs! A zombie show! About the zombie apocalypse, and people trying to survive! WHY THE HELL DON'T WE HAVE THAT?!

Now I'm mad that we don't have a zombie show. So instead I'm gonna sit here and think about zombies for a while.

Until next time,
I had a dream last night where I snuck into a theme park. But then I was being hunted by theme park security. Then I went on a roller coaster. Fuck yeah.
~Kataron