Articus Town

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I wake up. I am thirsty. My bed feels odd. Silence sparks my attention. The noise of my fan humming, is not present. Did the power go out? I open my crusty morning eyes, it is still dark in the room. I rub my eyes clean and try to figure out the situation. The red glow of my digital clock is lacking. The stereo light glow is not there either.

Yeah, the power must be out. I step out of my bed, the floor is further than normal from the top of the bed and I find myself laying on a cold wood floor. This is not home! Panic starts to vibrate its way up my limbs. Breathe deep silly girl, I think to myself, there has to be a reason for this.

I reach back to where the bed is, the bed is warm and safe. Thank god, I feel the bed. I move as silently as possible, my eyes are on full alert, my ears can hear the air, I must figure this out. I slip back under the sheets and blankets successfully, not even a creak of the floor or squeak of the mattress is heard.

I bone up and reach to my right. My hand touches a coolness and springs back towards me in automatic response. Ha! It is just a wall. I touch it again, follow it towards the top of the bed, which is situated in a corner of the room, I figure out. A small head board. Curiously I reach out my feet to, yes there it is, a foot board also.

Still no light is present and I definitely don't have the courage to walk around a pitch black alien room. I lay silently in the defined borders of the bed space. Listening as hard as I am capable, accidental sleep takes over my senses.

Consciousness springs on me and my eyes shoot open, simultaneously, memories of what I had discovered about my current situation, flood back.

I am in a dimly dawn lit room. Lace curtains float in front of a giant window. Wood walls, wood floor, wood dresser, wood door. Hmm, very clean and simple. It almost smells like an unused room in my grandma's house. No grandma smell though, just old and clean, un-lived in, wooden spare room.


-Articus Colonization Project

-A.C.P.

-1 mile radius dome

-Crystalline dome structure
-Locked Massive crystal door on the dome, connection to outside world un-obtainable access
-Simulated natural weather
-Small forest
-Natural Valley
-Pond
-Brook
-Varied: insect, bird, animal, fish species
-Varied crop field
-7 single room cabins
-Store house with computer and aid teleportation device
-Meeting house and Main Hall
-Work shop with all needed crafting and building supplies

-Articus Project: To observe transplant scenario for human habitants of Earth.

-Location: Planet Articus- a desolate Earthen moon sized desert planet with vast glacier underground water reserves, mild atmosphere due to minimal micro plant life, Temperate climate of 70 degrees at equator.

-Chosen Occupants:Random with higher intelligence and some workable skills which apply to self care and cohesiveness.

-Success Expectancy: Minimal

-Due to current evolutionary set backs and low expectancy, Humans will be altered.

-Articus Colonization Project Inception

Are you going to wake up in Articus, without fore warning or awareness, to never see your old life again?

I came up with this and hope some of you will enjoy this story game.

Eagerly,

Alissa

Thanks again Assicious for some writing practice. This is a creative idea for a novel. Do the humans know they are a part of an experiment?
I'd rather not do automatic writing like last time. Also, who is your character or do we make it up as we go. I'd like to put more thought into this because I think it could be really entertaining.

I completely agree Magnus. So right there with you. Even though multi individual writers, is an interesting proposition for a linear set up. I believe it will work. I love the idea of something a bit more structured for this format.

The people do not know what is occuring upon arrival, nor at the beginning. I was thinking that the supply computer in the -Store house with computer and aid teleportation device, would be the link, to figuring out more of what is happening to them all.

What do you suggest for character writing style. I entered the first character in first person. Her name will be soon discovered, as soon as I think of it. *laughs* It can easily shift to any style. I can learn how to write in the style that will work best.

So my character has no idea, where why or how she is where she is. No idea the dome even exists. As far as she knows, only the room exists.

We will all have to split selling rights. :p

If we each have a character, who thinks and interacts somehow, but comes from the singular form of awareness. What would you suggest. We can try a few styles out and decide as we go.

I can't wait to write with you. Okay. I await eagerly.

Alissa

Let's try to establish the characters before we start writing. I'll be Penny. I like that name because it shows that she is worth about a penny in the eyes of the experimenters. However, the experimenters do not know the humans true worth because they are so focused on protocol and their science (which turns out to be absurdly wrong). This could provide for some comic relief.

I would like to suggest that we use the experimenters as an analogy of how humans in their grandiosity falsely believe they know something by dissecting it with misguided views. They miss out on the real nature of their humans because they refuse to empathize with them for fear of not being scientific. The humans are at first unaware of this, but later their intuitiveness suspects the reality of their plight.

Penny is 24 years old. She has long, copper colored hair and luminous blue eyes. She is ridiculously naive and sweet. This would get most people in trouble, but she has a charming sort of luck that keeps her happy and safe. Her nickname is "Lucky Penny." This is also a metaphor for her life.
She was left at birth (or so she thinks) and picked up by an elderly man who cares for her. He is a philosopher. His name is Gemini.

Gemini is a boisterous old man who walks around town (help me with this town scene) and instigates debates wherever he goes.
He is very wise. He is also lonely because people think he is too eccentric and his ideas are way out there. I'd like to make him be the one who inspires someone to break the code to this whole experiment at the end of the story. Perhaps Penny's boyfriend? We need a love story in the plot...

Penny is awesome, yet we don't even know how she is going to appear. Start her from an unconscious state, in some part of the dome. She knows nothing, she understands nothing of the situation. From there, she is anything you desire.

My character is Kara. She just woke up, she knows nothing, there is no idea to be had for where she is at.

I am going to go one step further and play the story keeper. And it is a story indeed. How everyone reacts, what they discover is their new genetic ability, is up to anyone who comes to post in here.


The suggestions are neat, but not conducive at this point in the story. That does not jive with how the story goes. I didn't want to reveal too much too soon. And planning that far ahead is difficult. We don't know who is going to decide to post and what character they are going to make. Hence the random choosings.

There is a wonderful adventure awaiting those who desire to be a part of this.

The beings who are doing this project, are not malicious. In fact, the very opposite. Planet earth is being over run by people and the air, oceans, and land are being filled with filth. This is merely one possibility at evolution and a persons ability to adapt.

The dome is only our dropping off point. Let us see if we can take this story for a fly.

I'll post the next installation of Kara's experience. I hope this will work. If it does not, at least I have a story I will begin work on. lol. I hope to hear from all of you out there.

Oops, looks like I broke all the rules already. Oh well, I already done wrote this on wordpad, so I might as well post it. I kinda felt like having some background, get my feet planted so I can jump. Anyway...


I opened my eyes. The sun coming through the lacy curtains didn't look right, but at least there was some sun.

I sat up in bed and tried to remember where I was, how I had gotten here. My memory was foggy, confused. Something about going into a cryogenic chamber, and they closed the door. How long had it been? I had no idea.

Slowly, I realized that I was the one who had somehow brought this about, and that I had involved others. It had seemed like the best idea at the time.

Older memories appeared. Things had happened so fast, the crash of the linked economies of North America, Europe, and Asia. Iranian speedboats and anti-ship missiles stopped the flow of oil. The hobby projects in Iraq and Afghanistan ended immediately when food riots broke out in the major cities and hungry mobs moved outward to plunder the surrounding countryside. In the western United States, a state of open warfare existed between the only two intact powers, the bikers and the mormons.

In other parts of the world, life went on much as it had for centuries. In their haste, the returning soldiers left most of their equipment behind, and by default, the taliban became the most organized and best equipped military force in the region. They quickly consolidated control of Afghanistan, and Pakistan, deprived of foreign support, fell under their control soon afterwards.

Amid the worldwide chaos, nobody noticed as an unknown herdsman started gaining influence in Mongolia. Nobody had paid any attention to Mongolia for centuries.

He had grown up tending flocks, watching the stars in the clear night sky, listening to his grandfather's stories of Mongolia's former greatness. A fast learner in his youth, he had been selected to go to school in England. His grandfather wanted him to study economics or engineering, to work toward restoring Mongolia's rightful place among the world's great nations.

He shared his grandfather's vision, but his dreams went much farther. Nobody understood why he chose to study astronomy, then returned to his homeland to live the life as a herdsman.

And nobody paid much attention when he took the name of another Mongolian, Genghis Khan.

Once again, Mongolian horsemen rode out to the east. Armies were in disarray as governments collapsed, and their tactics and weapons were ill-equipped to deal with a fast moving invader scattered across the countryside that suddenly concentrated to attack, then dispersed again.

"We'll go easier this time," he had said, and under Mongolian rule, order was restored and agriculture resumed.

Stories spread fast through the mountains of Afghanistan, a small group of Asian travelers stopped at a tiny hut and asked for food. They shared the family's meal and unrolled their blankets on the dirt floor. In the morning, when they were gone, the villagers found a dozen bars of gold in the dust where their horses had been tied. An alliance was formed between the people of the mountains and the people of the plains.

From a hilltop near his tent, Genghis looked south. China, he knew, was more than land and slaves. China was scientists and engineers, modern weapons, and the industry a great empire would require, and once more in its history, China was in chaos. The Mongol armies moved south.

Nobody understood why Mexico was prospering. Unemployment was nonexistent and the government was fully in control. Oil tankers and huge cargo ships moved in and out of the ports continually. Countless Americans crossed the border, seeking any kind of work. Nobody understood until twenty thousand tanks, led by helicopter gunships, crossed the Arizona border and fanned out to the north.



It began as an ordinary day, or as ordinary as a day could be during the collapse of civilization. The food in the grocery stores was gone weeks ago and there were more and more rumors of cannibalism. I was opening my last can of chili when I heard a splintering crash and turned to look behind me. Six Asian men stepped through the broken doorway and quickly surrounded me. Their casual clothes didn't conceal the cat-like disciplined grace of their movements. The one who stood in front of me reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture. He looked from my face to the picture, then back to my face.

"I have to ask you to come with us," he said politely. I knew it wasn't a request.



The week before, Genghis Khan had walked through the door of his tent into the night and looked up at the starry sky. With most of the world now under his control, he could begin to consider realizing his dreams. His eyes scanned the dark horizon. "The earth," he said to himself, "Not nearly enough. My empire will fill the stars."

Since his student days in London, he had been troubled by the Fermi paradox. Of the billions of stars in the galaxy, some of them must have earth-like planets, some of those must have evolved life forms, and some of them must have developed technological civilizations, some of them millions of years ago. Some of them must have longed, as he did, to build empires among the stars. The tiniest fraction would still be a huge number.

Yet we haven't seen any sign of them.

"It must be very difficult," he told himself, "And so it will be difficult for me."

He thought back to his days as a boy, wandering the wide rivers, contemplating the insects, the ones that laid countless thousands of eggs in the hopes that one or two would survive to lay eggs of their own." The wastefulness of nature that paints the shimmering insect wings.

"And I must do the same," he said out loud, "Ten thousand colonies in hopes that one of them will survive."

"But where to find that kind of people? Utterly isolated, nothing to keep them going but the resources of their minds. Ordinary courage wouldn't be nearly enough."

He bent down and picked up a handful of dirt and sifted it through his fingers. "The smartest and the bravest, and most of them will die." He tossed the dirt toward the starry sky, and remembering something he had heard long ago in London, he walked back into his tent. He double clicked the firefox icon and google appeared on the screen.




I looked out the window as the plane descended toward grassy rolling hills. Tires roared on gravel as the wheels touched earth. There was no place to run. I followed them to a helicopter as the engine whistled and the rotor blades began to turn. We lifted off as they slid the side doors shut.

I saw no roads or vehicles as the earth sped by beneath us. Hours later, the nose tipped up and the helicopter settled to the ground beside a corral filled with small horses. Rough men in peasant clothes with AK-47's slung over their backs led seven horses to us, already saddled.

The man who had spoken to me once before took the reins of one and gestured for me to get on. I raised a foot to the stirrup and we rode off into the afternoon.

Miles ahead on a hilltop I saw a group of tents. We dismounted and they escorted me to the largest one. One of them pulled the door flap aside and I stepped into the tent.

An Asian man sat on a silk cushion in front of a low table, writing on a scroll. Beside him, in a wooden chair sat an orthodox rabbi with a long beard and a fur hat. I saw that the Asian man was writing in Hebrew. "No," shouted the rabbi, "That's terrible. You're a disgrace."

I saw a flash of anger on the Asian man's face that turned to amusement as the rabbi stood up and paced around the tent, saying, "I'm glad my mother didn't live to see what an ignoramus her son has for a student, a fool like Genghis Khan."

The Asian man continued writing and the rabbi stepped back to look closer, "That's much better," he said, "Pretty good actually." He paused, "You might have a little bit of talent."

"I try to avoid repeating my mistakes," said Genghis Khan.

"If you hear there is wisdom among the nations, believe it," quoted the rabbi, "That's from the Talmud."

"I figured it was," said Genghis Khan.

They both looked over at me. The rabbi said, "I see you've brought another stranger here from another nation."

"Not just any nation," said Genghis Khan, "It's a tiny nation, scattered among all the peoples of the world. Most people have never heard of them. They're often despised, they usually live in poverty, but they're a nation with a destiny."

"I know of a nation like that," said the rabbi, "But he looks American to me."

"He is American," said Genghis Khan, "But that wasn't the nation I meant."

"I'll leave you to attend to your guest," said the rabbi, "Practice your Hebrew if you get the chance," and he stepped toward the door of the tent.

"Rabbi, one more thing." said Genghis Khan.

The rabbi turned, "Yes, what is it now?"

"When the vessels of light were shattered during the creation of the universe,' said Genghis Khan, "What was it that went wrong?"

The rabbi hesitated, "There are things that nobody knows for sure," he said, "But some people have some ideas."

"Can you tell me more about this tomorrow?" said Genghis Khan.

"Yes," said the rabbi, "Tomorrow would be good."

"When the sun is one hand width above the horizon," said Genghis Khan.

The rabbi looked up at the smoke from the central fire drifting through the purple silk on the ceiling of the tent. "He's conquered three quarters of the world," he said, "But he can't figure out how to use a clock."

Genghis Khan laughed, "I like the old ways better."

"On that, my friend, we both agree," said the rabbi.

When the rabbi had left, Genghis Khan pointed to a cushion. "Come sit down," he said.

He poured two mugs of tea and handed one to me. The rough clay of the mug was encrusted with rubies and emeralds and sapphires. "You've traveled far," he said.

He took a sip of tea and he called me by my name, "Alex Plank, I need the help of your tribe."

Then he looked down. "Where the hell did you get those shoes?'

Kara thinks and listens deeply for what seemed like hours. Nothing. No words, no creaks, no movement of any kind. I guess it is time to poke around then, she determines.

Standing up, Kara focuses of being quiet and stealthy as she walks to the window, to her surprise, she does not go far at all. In fact, she took one step and then seemed to hold firm to one spot. What the heck is going on? Looking down she sees that her body appears to be in the shape and solidity of a common gray rock.

Panic jumps her heart beat into dangerous territory. *whomp* Staring at herself in disbelief Kara watches as her body shape shifts back into human form. Oh my god! There is some seriously weird s**t going on!

A few more hours pass as Kara tries to determine what occurred, then swift as can be, a thought jumps into her mind. You thought silent, so you became silent, in fact, silent as a rock. Kara being a very in the moment sort of gal, gets giddy and tries for fast. Thinking of a cheetah racing hard against the wind, *Smash!* Kara wakes up a while later and determines from the hole in the wooden wall, that she went too fast.

Well, no one has been alerted to my presence so far. I walk over to the window and see my surroundings. It's, it's beautiful. The most idealic small town can be seen from the second story of this house. Just outside of this small and very empty town, a field resides, flanked buy a beautiful green forest with soft red leafed trees dotting the occasional opening.

Again though, not a single soul. Feeling brave with her new found speed and shape shifting abilities, Kara ventures to the door.

No one resides on the other side, no one is down stairs. A quick peek out the living room window, reveals absolutely nothing new, in the way of population. A small turn of the knob and the front door glides open.

Loneliness takes the place of cautiousness. Hello, Kara yells out, can anybody hear me? A rooster crows off in the distance. silly rooster Kara thinks.

Up the street to the right is the way she saw from the top story window, looking the other way, Kara realizes that the idealic setting suddenly ends at what appears to be a strange shimmer in the air.

What is that? Kara walks past the edge of town and finds that the closer she comes to the shimmer, it appears more so solid with each step. It's right there, I have to touch it. Reaching out with a lions defiance, Kara touches the shimmer, to find a soft electric buzz greeting her fingers. It is not dangerous, just tingly and very solid. On the other side is seemingly a never ending expanse of desert.

Turning around to look at the town from this edge of the world vantage point, tears begin to erupt from Kara's heart. Leaning back on the strange tingling glass wall, she slides down till her butt is rudely bumped by the ground. Hello, can anyone hear me?

That is so funny! You totally did. It is alright though. I will learn eventually, to not set rules on an aspie site. Sorry, I am going to usurp my character back from you.

Terribly sorry, it is awesome. President has been set though. lol

Oh wait, Edit it slightly to make the opening of your character.

Okay, okay. I'll try to behave, for at least five minutes anyway. I couldn't very well be trying to be alex anyway.

Little editing...

I like Canyon Wind's ideas. Magnus' Gemini also sounds promising.

Algernon awoke from a nightmare about War; about crops and houses set aflame, wounds in body mind and spirit, of screams and curses, and of violated innocence. Not just the recent wars that followed the financial crisis, nor even the earlier conflicts of the so-called War on Terror, but decades, centuries, whole millennia of bloodshed, suffering and sorrow. And in the dream it seemed to him that he lived every second of those millennia, and was never able to heal all the wounds or reconcile all the enemies. He knew despair until he longed for a final war to destroy the planet and put it out of its misery; it was at this point that his dreaming broke into awareness. He realised at once that he was not in the same room that he had gone to sleep in, and ser his reason and his senses to establishing where he was.

I had to figure out where the hell I was, and what was going on. I opened the door and looked outside. Nothing looked familiar. It looked like a small town, but all the houses and buildings looked brand new.

I walked out into the packed dirt street. Just up the road was something that looked like a downtown area, but it wasn't quite right. There were signs in front of the businesses, Joe's Computer Center, Wendy's Workshop, Sam's Hardware, but the signs were all neatly hand painted with exactly the same script.

It looked like some bargain budget artificial intelligence software had attempted to simulate a typical small town, but failed to pick up any subtleties.

There was something wrong about the light. I looked down, and I saw that my shadow was moving back and forth. Trying to figure out what was going on, I looked up at the sun, but you can't see much looking straight at the sun.

I went into Sam's Hardware. Nobody was around. The place was immaculate, like nobody had been there before. It was well stocked, though, and three aisles down I found an arc welding mask. I carried it out to the street and looked through the visor up at the sun. It was moving in small circles, and there was something else next to it.

A continuous stream of fire was peeling away from the sun's equator on each side, curling outward, then curling back inward and collapsing to form a spinning disk. The disk had a hole in the center, like a flat donut. Wherever this place was, it wasn't on earth.

Even through the welding visor, I could see colors. The outside of the disk was red, and it shaded through the spectrum, like a round rainbow. The inside edge of the disk was blue, and it glowed brighter than the sun.

I realized what I was seeing. This star was part of a binary system, locked in a tight orbit with a black hole that was sucking it's matter out of this universe.

Carrying the mask back into Sam's Hardware, I wondered how long it would take for the black hole to finish eating the sun. It was something I would have preferred to watch from several light years away. I left the mask on the counter.

I noticed the sign across the empty street, Susie's Remote Sensing. In smaller script below it said, "All wavelengths available." Like everything else in this place, the outside looked like a candy store in a tourist town. Figuring it might help me get some idea what was going on, I walked up to the door. From the looks of the place, I expected top see Barbie and Ken in lab coats, but they weren't around.

I sat down at a terminal and pushed the power button. This was obviously some other planet. The most immediate question was the composition of the atmosphere. Could we breathe here?

I pulled a readout up on the screen, it didn't look bad, seventy five percent nitrogen, twenty five percent oxygen. That would do just fine.

Then I got to wondering; there might still be something toxic here. A lot of things were toxic at low concentrations. I clicked the mouse on the button that said "Show all atmospheric components."

A list came up on the screen. The first item was "Hydrogen Sulfide, one percent."

Hydrogen sulfide, I had heard something about that, somewhere. Then I remembered. Hydrogen sulfide is sometimes produced inside the human body...

I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. We could breathe the air here, but the entire atmosphere of this planet was one gigantic fart.

I looked back down at the monitor, and for the first time I noticed the small writing at the bottom of the screen. It said, "Colony Planet: Articus."

"Articus," I thought bitterly, "We might have to change that name a little."

I thought of a time in the distant future, when this little colony had grown to be a planet-wide population. I imagined a tourist brochure with a picture of a gleaming city and the words, "Visit Articus, The atmosphere is unforgettable."

Deep, yet shallow. I liked that one CW.

Since I was here in Susie's Remote Sensing, I figured I might as well try to find out a little more about this place, since it seemed I was stuck here. I thought over what I already knew, which wasn't much.

I'd noticed right away that things around the town were green, with grass and earth-like plants all over, but that only extended a couple hundred yards, and then ended abruptly. The land beyond that looked utterly barren, all the way to the horizon. No sign of any native life here at all, at least that I could see.

But that couldn't be, or at least it didn't seem likely. The atmosphere was twenty five percent oxygen, higher than earth, and oxygen isn't too stable, it's always looking for a partner, and all kinds of things want to combine with it, so it doesn't stick around long. For there to be that much oxygen in the atmosphere, something had to be continually producing it.

On earth, that would be photosynthesis. I couldn't think of any other process that would be cranking out large amounts of oxygen on a planetary scale, but this place sure as hell wasn't earth.

I thought of one way to get an indication. I looked down the list of atmospheric components on the monitor, searching for carbon dioxide. It was there, but not very much, down in the range of hundreds of parts per million. I'd expect it to be higher, carbon dioxide is pretty stable, unless something here was continually breaking it down.

Again, the most likely explanation seemed to be photosynthesis, but I didn't see any sign of native vegetation. Maybe the plants were someplace else.

I figured I'd look for something green. The software was pretty intuitive and easy to figure out, except it got annoying having Barney the dinosaur for a cursor. I called up a visible light spectrum view of an area twenty five miles in diameter centered on my current location. I guess it was an American system since the US still hadn't gone metric, which was fine with me, since those standard units had a lot more character than liters and meters and kilograms, even if they were harder to use.

There was a green circle in the center, and other than that the land was mostly shades of brown, but I did see a few scattered patches of green. I thought I'd zoom in for a closer look. I clicked on the magnifying glass icon and the Barney cursor spread out his arms and I heard his voice through the speakers saying, "Come closer, I like you."

I centered the Barney cursor on one of the green patches and clicked. The green patch doubled in size, and Barney told me again that he liked me. After a series of mouse clicks narrated by Barney's efforts to build my self esteem, I was looking at a random checkerboard of greens and browns, and on the next click Barney's voice said, "I'm sorry, one meter pixels is the maximum resolution." For some reason the system was metric on this scale.

I figured whoever put this system together got the satellite optics from K-Mart and the software from Toys-R-Us.

That was when I noticed that some of the pixels were changing color, shifting between green and brown, like the plants were moving, but plants don't move. I clicked the Recalibrate button and Barney cheerfully said, "Let's start over again."

I zoomed back in. The pixels were still shifting color. I had no idea what it was I was seeing.

I got to wondering if maybe there were animals here too, since there were plants. Just on a whim, I added infrared to the displayed spectrum to see if there was anything warm blooded around. Damned if I didn't see a few infrared sources. I figured they were probably just rocks in the sun, so I zoomed in on one of the infrared clusters close to the mass of plants while trying to ignore Barney.

The infrared sources were moving. They were warm blooded animals. I had no idea what they looked like, but each one took up two of the one meter pixels most of the time, so they were somewhere between the size of a big dog and a small horse.

I wondered if the animals were herbivores that ate the plants, so I zoomed the picture out until I could see both the clump of plants and the herd of animals. The green patch had moved north, closer to the animals.

As I watched, the infrared sources, the animals, whatever they were, also moved north. They picked up speed. They were hauling ass.

I shut down the computer and walked back out into the street. Nobody was around and I wondered if I was the only one here, but that seemed unlikely. Then I spotted somebody.

A woman with blond hair stood near the place where the green lawn abruptly ended, looking out over the barren landscape beyond. I figured maybe she knew something, so I headed that direction.

As I approached her, I saw a clump of small trees, a little taller than a human, appear at the crest of a brown barren hill. Incredibly, they were moving toward us. Some plants could be fairly fast, had seen vines on earth grow a few inches a day, but I'd never heard of a plant that could move by the roots.

As I watched, pale brown roots appeared at the base of the leading trees, quickly grew outward into the air, then curved downward and poked into the earth and widened, pulling the trunks with them, towards us.

Other roots were emerging from the ground between the trees and doing the same thing. I wondered if this clump of trees all grew from a single root system, like mushrooms or grass or aspen trees.

The clump of trees stopped advancing on the bare ground just before where the grass lawn ended. The woman looked around and saw me. "Hey," she said, "Did you see that? Walking trees."

The trees started swaying back and forth. I figured there must be a strong wind, but I couldn't feel anything. The motion was hypnotic. It was hard to look away. The woman turned toward me again, "Look," she said, "They're dancing." She turned back to watch the trees.

A root emerged from the ground beside her foot. the tip spiraled in circles, then it swung toward the woman and wrapped around her ankle. She looked down at it, then looked at me. "Hey," she said, "It likes me." She reached down and petted it, "Nice root," she said.

The root made a couple more circles around her ankle, and I saw the skin compress as it tightened it's grip. "Hey," she said to it, "That's too tight. Let go."

Another root emerged from the ground beside her, rose up into the air and wrapped around her waist. It pulled her to the ground. She struggled to get up. I ran to her side, grabbed the root and pulled with all my strength. It didn't move at all.

Another root emerged from the ground beside her, curved inward, and penetrated her body beneath her ribs. She screamed.

My bare hands were useless. I needed some kind of a weapon, so I sprinted back downtown. I saw a sign outside a store, Lorena's Cutting Tools, so I ran inside. Behind the counter was a row of hatchets hanging on the wall. I grabbed one and ran back toward the woman. A dozen more roots had appeared in the ground around her, curving toward her and penetrating her skin. One was wrapped around her neck. She struggled weakly.

Swinging the hatchet, i chopped through the thickest root. A clear fluid, tinged pink, dripped out, then a woody skin grew over the cut end. a crease appeared down the middle, leaving two bulges, and each bulge grew into a root and they both drove through her skin, into the woman's body. This wasn't working.

Her struggles had stopped and she lay still. There was nothing else I could do, nothing. Her skin distorted as moving rope shaped bulges appeared beneath it. A hole appeared in the skin of her face and enlarged. There was nothing beneath her skin but a solid mass of tangled roots. The rest of her skin disappeared, leaving the shape of her body sculptured in tangled roots.

The roots unraveled and withdrew back into the ground, leaving a clean skeleton, still wearing her clothes. Now I understood why the animals had been running away. "What the hell kind of an ecosystem is this?" I wondered, "The plants eat the animals."

I looked back up at the clump of trees just beyond where the grass ended. They had started swaying back and forth again. I figured the woman had been right. They were dancing.

AMAZING STORIES!

~Kara~

I shook so hard, that my head bounced off my rock pillow. I apparently fell asleep. The air was dense and I faintly recalled hearing something. Off in the distance, a piercing scream hummed through the dome.

I jumped up in a staggering adrenaline rush, a woman's scream, here in this empty place. Shifting into a red mottled mustang, for speed and strength, I ran hard and directly into town. A man was pell-melling out of the other side of town, with a hatchet in his hand. He must have made the woman scream.

My mind went wild will rage, he is chasing a screaming woman. Pounding small craters into the ground as I ripped through town, I devised a brutal and very graceless tactic to end his assault upon a possible friend. I will crush him! Rounding the last building and landing upon the field, I was happy to have chosen less speed for personal security. I knew not the shape to shift into for this spectacle. The man was hacking at what appeared to be a tree, a tree who was attacking a woman who was disappearing into the roots that were enveloping her.

The falling was not so much of an issue as sudden stop. Shock at seeing something I was completely incapable of associating with, transformed me into a bucket.

Feeling much more peaceful, cradled in the surrounding grasses, I watched him stand as the tree left with all but the woman's skeleton. Tree blood covered the whole front of his composure. Huh, tree blood.

Not ready to show myself to the man or the trees, I decided to watch what this Man stranger found to be pertinent in his next actions. So of course, I shifted into a gray squirrel. Who loves not, a cool little squirrel, and if not loved, then at least ignored.

Bounding in for a closer look, I stopped twenty feet from the Man and chirruped and wiggled my tail. He was probably going to assume this situation odd, and possibly awkward, but I need to follow him and see what he knows, or what strange ability he might possess.

~Story Teller~

The planet Earth, had been traveling through the Milky Way Galaxy long enough to shift and adjust for galactic influences, and still survive peacefully.

When humans entered the Industrial Age, factors changed dramatically. In the humans normal mode of functioning, they were: rampaging, controlling, curious conquerers of everything they became fascinated with. Now they poured all of their small concepts upon the earth in waves of pollution.

Humans, not being previously schooled in planetary balance, knew nothing of the extreme balance required for the Earth to adjust to its many deviations in stellar bombardments as it traversed age unknown obstacles.

Human influence slowly ate away at the planets flowing responses. As forests were slaughtered in waves of progress, as factories were vomiting poison into the rivers and the oceans, as large cities were feeding on all surrounding resources, the earth's ability to regulate and produce Oxygen, slowly faded.

The human populations sucked up their current capitalistic sanctuaries, in their slowly degrading lives of miss information on reason and the true purposes of life. The Owners of the planet, were gleeful in their fat lives and powerful greasy ideals of living for the payback emotional responses that came from manipulation per dominance.

The signs were few and easily mistakable for other small factors in Earthen cyclical patterns. So what was seen in the earth changes, was not seen for the full import of the changes true implications. A few individuals tried to tell the masses, yet even those few, had no idea of the mass scale of reform, that would need to be integrated into the common social structure, to turn the population around enough, to survive the worst of the planetary sickness, and then to help the planet and whatever humans remained, to heal and move on with the new lessons learned on what is truly important in life.

So they wander down on their planet. Those humans walk as if it is their only goal, to stomp every seedling in their path. For in the actions of their beliefs, they are killing planet life. We could not tell them this though, they would have taken it to either mean, it is too late to change and we might as well just party until we die, or they would have completely denied all perceivable factors around them, as they had nearly always done, up till now. The few who knew and would be able to cope with the brilliant idea of complete change, for the continued peaceful co-existanse, were few and powerless in the greater story of the Earth's new song of life and purpose. So those few were motionless in all but the occasional out pouring of irrepressible emotion.

We knew that an alternative was pertinent. Articus would suffice as a jump point in our necessary accumulation of knowledge in the situation of extreme change reactions, interactions to new people and unknown situations along with total reprogramming in social structure and balance. A handful of capable Adults who fit the requirements to have a small hope to succeed at the first and most extreme of challenges, to be the templates for which proper support and accommodation would be set to in specification.

The best we can do is Articus. We can not interrupt and help humans, on their home planet. It is the law. Atleast, until the point of obvious imminent extinction within a years time. Meaning, they are beyond helping themselves and they know it. Then and only then, can we begin transplanting and setting in play, the necessary changes, with their agreement, required to do the best we can, in staving off death and bringing about a total rebirth.

We are the Keepers and we are watching and loving you for who you are. Our only purpose is to love and help where others are already helping themselves. So know that love is life and only total honesty will bring you to love so you can live your life. Real true honest absolute love based patterns of logic. The ultimate in hemispheric connective cooperative base functioning and excellence in true present concurrently balanced highest pulsuratory vibrational patterns. You too can be happy. It will only take years and absolute devotion in every moment, meaning absolute devotion to the true highest and positive responses in every moment on every moment. Absolute self forgiveness, to truly learn the lesson current. To be capable of moving in time to the next lesson current. Only one law, Harm none, not even yourself. Then forgive all slips of abilities at prescience, for to be aware of a mistake, is a blessing and to be thanked. If I know I have harmed someone, then I have partially learned my lesson, so then I forgive myself in the feeling of peace and or acceptance of the lesson becoming visible.

This is a very, very small piece of what we hope to see these beings grow in to. Now, we watch their current Earth line of understandings, while watching the current Articus progressions.