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Hyperion Fanfic; or whatever you call it
Topic Started: Oct 29 2005, 05:20 PM (137 Views)
Shrike
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The Spikeadelic One
Today in English we had to write a poem or story about something Halloweeny, scary, horrific, etc, or as the teacher put it, "gothic". Not being a poem person, this is what I churned out ten minutes before the bell rang. Mind you, the original story lies in the hands of the teacher, but I tried to recreate it as accurately as I could when I got home.


I knew it was a Shrike kill even before we were sent out to do the routine forensic investigation. Only the Shrike could appear suddenly, without warning, in the most crowded slum of Port Romance, spread its victim across the room like a painting by one the ancient artists from the Poet’s City, and be gone without anyone having a clue that it was there. Humans leave behind DNA traces, fingerprints, organic spoor of some kind, and it’s my task to follow the trail to its end. I’m good at what I do. But tracking the likes of the Shrike is a job for the devil himself. The best we can do is clean things up, calm the crowd down, and prevent a riot from breaking out.

If the Shrike was an artist in the medium of slaughter, I knew as soon as I stepped inside the room that this was one of its masterpieces. Put away the body bag, boys, I imagined myself saying, and grab a mop. The only thing keeping people out and holding the mob at bay was the platoon of FORCE:ground Marines barring the door. If someone caught sight of this, we’d have a riot in no time.

A Shrike kill is a bureaucratic nightmare for a forensics investigator such as myself. Identity of the victim? Impossible to determine. Cause of death? There’s a box to check for “Edged Weapon”, but somehow that just doesn’t do the Shrike justice. In a universe of hellwhips, deathbeams, and neural stunners we humans have made killing a precise and surgical thing. The Warden of the Time Tombs, the Grendel lurking beyond Hyperion’s mead hall, takes it all back to the Stone Age. And creates great wastes of time and increases in blood pressure for poor saps like me. I didn’t take up this profession to be a fall guy.

The first inkling I had that maybe I wouldn’t be taking the fall this time was when the headless corpse of a FORCE:ground Marine hurtled past my left side, ploughing a smear in the Bosch masterpiece in front of me. Suddenly I saw my shadow defined in ruby red light upon the floor. I knew before I even turned around that I was a dead man.

I suppose the first thing Shrike victims are drawn to is the ruby gaze of the monster, blazing impossibly bright from those multi-faceted eyes. From there, the eye will be drawn down to the profusion of spikes at the neck, over the four massive arms ending in fingers like scalpels, and then of course back to those terrible eyes. The body of the creature is like a coiled rose vine awash in silver, a maze of thorns and barbed wire and chrome. It is one of the universe’s supreme ironies that the thing is man-shaped.

And, I suppose, as in every other Shrike victim before me, the urge to fight inevitable death rose unstoppable within me, and my hand flew to the deathwand at my waist. Time slowed to a crawl as the monster walked unhurriedly towards me, and as my arm drew an impossibly slow arc, finger inching towards the firing stud. Before I could even bring the weapon to bear, the Shrike loomed nine feet tall in front of me, ruby eyes blazing as it drove bladed fingers into my chest and withdrew. Time resumed its normal course, but the world throbbed in unison with my heart as it lay still pumping in the monster’s fist. My sight began to fade, colors draining away like running oil paint, and the world became grey, quickly fading into darkness as I collapsed on the wooden floor. The last thing I saw were two pinpoints of red light, shining briefly before winking out as though they had never existed.

Sorry if it doesn't make total sense, if you haven't read Hyperion I totally understand. Happy Halloween, everybody! :D
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LoboDiabloLoneWolf
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The SHE-Wolf of the Crop-Circles
Ooooo, creepy. No I haven't read Hyperion, but I sure want to now! I especially like how you kept refering to art. It's true, life is one big masterpiece, but it's up to us to make the effort to make something out of it. Yes, I like that metaphor alot. Good work. :D
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