DATE: 09/20/2008 22:28:33 / MOOD: bored
This is the full prologue. I'm rather proud of it, so I thought I'd give you guys a chance to sample my work.
Prologue
Friday, December 1st, 1944
0437 Hours
[Location within Romania to be figured out with research]
Senior Sergeant Pavel Petrovich Rozinka ran for his life.
The
snow-covered forest was cast in an eerie glow by the moon. Behind him
came primal hoots, growls and shouts accompanied with the sounds of
snapping branches, logs being pounded with rocks, the sharp cracks of
Mosin-Nagant M91/30 rifles and the occasional screams of his comrades being ripped apart alive.
Pavel
could barely hear any of it, since his blood pumped such a powerful
rhythm inside is own ears. To go along with it was the sound and sting
of the sharp intakes of breath he took from the freezing Romanian
winter air.
He had no idea if the others driving and guarding the transports were still alive or if they would be for long.
The abominations are taking their revenge upon us, Pavel thought as he ran.
He
was only thirty-six, but he felt as if the years of labor before this
Great Patriotic War had sapped much of his energy. He knew that he
could not maintain this pace indefinitely, no matter how terrified he
was.
Before
moving them out to begin some of the field tests in the Transylvanian
forest, from which the subjects were to begin there first attacks on
German soil, many of the men in the troop assigned to Captain Mikhail
Starubudov Raczko's company were fearful that the creatures were
becoming restless and resentful of their station in life.
Perhaps
Captain Raczko anticipated it as well, since he sent two of the three
platoons assigned to the laboratories to guard the transport.
Whatever
really happened, the subjects had forced their way out of one of their
specialized holding transports and brought the entire convoy to a halt.
They had attacked, stolen the guns and probably killed all the men in
two platoons that Pavel was in command of.
His
bare hands started to go numb as he ran and he was afraid that the
Mosin-Nagant he gripped in both hands might slip from them. The ideas
of how he might survive in this freezing Transylvanian hellhole until
rescue arrived never passed his mind, he just wanted to escape. So he
kept running.
After
what seemed like hours of running, the howls and screams faded away and
the only sounds Pavel could hear were his own heart and the crunching
of his boots in the snow-covered, frozen mud of the Transylvanian
forest.
Pavel
slowed his pace to a walk, finally feeling safe enough to let himself
rest against a tree. He had no desire to sit down in the cold mud and
give himself frostbite. He needed to find some shelter. He knew there
were some cliffs nearby, because he'd seen them at one of the high
points in the road. If he could find a cave and some dry wood and
tinder to make a fire, he might just make it, so he began walking in
what he thought was the right direction.
As
he walked, his mind looked over the faces of all his comrades who had
fallen tonight and a thought grieved him. "What about Dr.
Konstantinov?" he asked allowed in his native Russian. He often talked
to himself when there was no one else around. "I hope she survived
this. They liked her, so maybe they didn't hurt her."
A
sudden crash in the trees behind him caused Pavel to stop dead in his
tracks and to slowly turn around. It was probably well below zero
degrees, but he was sweating.
The
moonlight was bright enough that he could see more than two dozen pairs
of glowing balls, eyes reflecting the moonlight, staring at him. Some
were up in the trees staring down, others on the ground. It looked like
some of them were walking on all fours while others were upright.
Slowly, he began to walk backwards away from them, unable to tear his own gaze away from the silently encroaching audience.
Pavel
began to hear the clicks of loaded Mosin-Nagants being readied to fire.
Then there were small, angry hoots. Then those hoots built in intensity
until the forest was alive with primitive, vengeful screams. The little
lights began moving towards him faster.
For the second time, Pavel ran for his life.
A
loud crack rang out from what Pavel knew was a stolen rifle just before
he saw bits of his own flesh exploding out the front of his shoulder.
He
fell to the freezing ground, screaming and clutching his wounded
shoulder as they circled in on him, beating him with fists, rocks and
rifle butts.
But he couldn't hear his own screaming, because it was drowned out by the creatures that were supposed to be under his control.
And then Pavel Petrovich Rozinka was silenced as one of them ripped out his throat.
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DATE: 08/24/2008 23:37:55 / MOOD: bored
So, I was thinking I'd try to put in some custom colors on my homepage, but I was looking at the palette and realized I can't tell what 90% of it is.
I have what you call a color deficiency. In normal color vision, people have an equally balanced number of red, blue and green receptor cones in their eyes. In true color blindness, the person completely lacks one of the three types of cones, generally red or green, making the two indistinguishable. I, on the other hand, have all three types of cones, but their numbers are not balanced. You could say that my sense of color is somewhat muted in comparison to regular color vision.
I saw a rainbow in the distance driving home today, and though I can see red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet just fine, I can never see all six colors in natural rainbows.
I often wonder how much more vibrant the world would be if I had normal color vision.
Hmm. Oh well. Stupid genetics.
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