Lucid Waking

Archive for March 3rd, 2010

The Wanderers (2)

        Hundreds of names filled the black rectangular directory, which made scanning take more time than he had hoped. He could hear a clock somewhere beep a final warning before he found the name and ran towards the stairs. Taking two at a time, he bounded up to the sixth floor and ran to the door marked: Visitor Services. He lunged at the doorknob and tried to turn it, but the object wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, he tried turning it back and forth and put his weight against the door. Naturally, the door wouldn’t move and when he knocked a little too loudly, no one came to answer it.
        Dorian stepped back from the locked office and looked around him. Even where he stood he could hear the final alarm marking the city as completely shut down for the night. He started walking back down the hall to where the elevator waited, but thought better of it after remembering the guard in the lobby. He slumped down to the floor where and leaned back against the wall. The lights shut off and left the hall in darkness as he sat and weighed his options.
        Running away had seemed like such a good idea at the time, which, he supposed, was how most bad ideas started. Even though he was, technically, an escaped criminal who had now violated curfew laws, he felt no panic in getting caught or remorse as he shuddered at the memory of metal blue walls enclosing him and others within a monotonous routine. The sun lamps did nothing for his mood and neither did the extreme surveillance he was given for appearing “moody” and “disruptive.”
        He found out much too late, of course, that the real world was even worse: there was no sun or sky and for all that it seemed fantastic to have freedom, he didn’t have a job, food, shelter, or money and so he was bound to the life of a thief and sentenced to run for his life everywhere he went.

Author’s comments on post 358: So there were a lot of things I didn’t mention last time and now that I’m not in such a hurry, I feel like you should know. First, this story (especially now) might remind you of a certain other story that I had started. I decided to pick it up again, but this one will have completely different themes than what I had for the first version. I also would like to think it’s better written (after all, the first one was published in 2008). There’s more to my notes, but I think I will leave it right now where it’s at and let the story tell itself.