Another Old Writing Assignment

I've been asked by a friend of mine to put together all of the 'scenes' that ended up getting deleted from Warrior's Fury before it was finally published. But as I was going through old notes and documents to do that, I found this short story about Zeegan I had written in 2009 for yet another class assignment...

Anyway, I thought it was kinda funny and everyone I've shown it to has at least not hated it, so I thought I'd post it ;P :D   

(NOTE: I only did some cursory editing, so it may not be 'perfect' as far as that goes ;)

Dream or Nightmare?

Written by J D White

November 17, 2009

“And then there’s ‘I don’t eat bacon – but I do like the flavor of shoelaces.’ Man, I’m tellin’ you, that is gonna be the greatest rock hit of the century when me and my sophomore buddies get a record deal.”

            It was taking all of Zeegan’s willpower not to start screaming and ripping the fur out of his head. He was pretty sure it had only been an hour since he had met Jared, but already he was convinced the boy was insane.

            Zeegan should have been all comfy-cozy in his warm bed aboard the Giou-Zeeganzy with his wife. But no, here he was trudging through inch deep snow in nothing but a pair of short cut pants, headed down a mountain towards a lake that he hoped would reveal a way home, followed by an insane sixteen year old boy who claimed that they were in the western region of a mountain range called the Sierra Nevada.

            Suddenly Jared started singing some horrible melody with a voice that Zeegan was convinced would attract every carrion eater for miles – not to mention all the other animal’s that would most likely come to smite him just to stop the atrocious din.

            “Jared!” Zeegan screamed as he spun around to face the boy. “Will you PLEASE, shut up? I am trying to concentrate on the source of the nayrl.”

            “On the source of the what?”

            “There is an energy source near that lake down there–”

            “Hey, that’s Red Lake.”

            “Realy? That’s amazing. I believe I will find a way home down there.”

            “Awesome man . . . Hey I’ve been meaning to ask you, what planet are you from?”

            Zeegan sighed and turned away from the boy, continuing on down the slope towards the elongated lake. . .

            He guessed it was about half an hour later when they came to the shore of the lake. Jared sat down with a muted ‘grunch’ in the snow and leaned back against the trunk of a tree, while Zeegan knelt down at the shore to cup some of the cold water into his mouth.

            Something wasn’t right here. The wind had died and there was no sign of the animal life that had been prevalent when he first awoke higher up on the mountain. Zeegan stared out over the lake in the waning light of twilight, trying to determine where the disconcerting stillness had originated.

            A rustle in the sparse underbrush behind him brought Zeegan slowly around on his heels. Close to where Jared sat was a group of bushes that rustled ever so slightly.

            “Jared!” Zeegan hissed as loudly as he dared.

The boy opened one eye and looked over at him. “Whuh?”

“Don’t move.”

“Why?”

Zeegan pointed at the group of bushes and Jared slowly turned his head to look at them. The branches began to move about once more and Zeegan felt his uneasiness grow.

Suddenly, out of the bushes popped a small creature with a long snout and a black mask around its eyes. It looked like it weighed about twenty pounds, its bushy gray fur made its body look like a big fluff ball, and it had a bushy tale with black rings.

“Ah, come on man, it’s just a raccoon.” Jared said grinning and leaning towards the creature. “And it’s a cute one too. Come’ere little buddy, come on.”

Zeegan’s face screwed up in a grimace of concern. “Jared, get away from it!”

But the boy was ignoring him. When Jared got within a few feet of the raccoon, it suddenly stood on its hind legs and hissed, white foam fizzing up around its mouth. Its ears were now drawn back flat against its skull and it looked thoroughly violent.

Jared apparently finally got the hint, he screamed and tried to jump back but was far to slow. The insane raccoon leaped right at Jared’s face and latched on, still hissing. The boy leaped to his feat and swung his head around violently, trying to shake off the beast.

Zeegan leaped forward and dashed to help Jared. Grabbing hold of the vicious raccoon he yanked it off the boys face and threw it away with all his strength. The beast hit the ground on its feat and skidded to a stop half a dozen yards away.

“Run man, come on let’s run, go!” Jared was in a veritable panic.

“Calm down will yu’, its not’n I can’t handle.” Zeegan said, holding up his hand to show that it was now covered in a glowing hazel-yellow, semitransparent, gel-like mass of energy.

The raccoon was charging back at them at full speed. Zeegan balled his fists together and went into a crouch. Focusing, he willed the mass of energy in his hand to glow brighter and move to float in front of his fists as it solidified. Then – thrusting his hands forward with all his might – launched the mass of energy directly at the crazed creature.

The solid mass of semitransparent energy screamed through the air and would have torn straight through the raccoon – that is of course, if the raccoon hadn’t leaped up and smacked the center of the projectile with its front paws and sent a wave of counter energy through it, causing it to blast apart in a harmless explosion of dissipating energy.

Both Zeegan and Jared’s jaws dropped open at the thoroughly baffling sight. The raccoon landed on its hind legs a few feet away and hissed at them again.

“All right, running sounds good now.” Zeegan said. . .

For the next ten minutes Zeegan and Jared ran as fast as they could along the shore of the lake, screaming at the tops of their lungs as they attempted to escape the rabid raccoon.

Zeegan snatched Jared’s wrist and pulled him into a cave. Pushing him back against the dark wall, Zeegan stood next to him and waited – trying to quiet his breathing.

He heard the creature scamper frantically by still hissing violently, but it did not turn into the cave-mouth.

“Good, it didn’t see us come in here.” Zeegan whispered breathlessly. “No doubt it’ll realize it’s not behind us any more and back track, though. Let’s go.”

Jared whimpered and nodded, following as Zeegan headed deeper into the cave.

“Any particular reason we’re going into this cave?” Jared asked eventually, once he had sufficiently calmed down.

“The energy I detected is this way.”

They turned a corner in the dark tunnel and found a large door at the end. Two massive torches sat in heavy brackets on other side of the door, giving off a sputtering orange glow.

When they got within a few yards of the door, a massive hulk of a man fell through the stone ceiling and landed in a crouch before them. Rising to his full seven foot height, he held a round shield in his left hand and a short sword in his right. He was dressed in a light armor chest plate, a strange skirt-like garment, and a pair of sandals.

“I am Leviticus Claudius.” He said in a deep voice that rumbled from the depths of his massive chest. “I have served my lord Caesar as the guardian of this doorway to another world for twenty, of my forty-five years.”

Zeegan and Jared stared, trying desperately to keep hold of their individual sanities. Unfortunately Jared’s grip slipped.

“Great, first a giant alien-porcupine-wizard, then an evil, mutant raccoon, now we got a freakin’ gladiator that can travel through time’n’space!” Jared started laughing hysterically and jumping up and down in circles. Suddenly he disappeared in a poof of inability to accept stupid, impractical situations.

Zeegan blinked as tiny bits of dust drifted to the ground where Jared had stood and scratched his head furiously in confusion. A hissing from behind warned that the raccoon had discovered their trail and was close behind.

Zeegan looked back down the dark tunnel and wondered if he shouldn’t just let the vicious little creature tear him apart. A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up into Leviticus’ dark brown eyes.

“Go, little man.” The hulking man said. “I shall do my duty and guard this door to the end.”

Zeegan just nodded with a blank look in his eyes and opened the large door, praying to the Almighty Creator that this was just an insane dream and he would awake from it soon. . .

Once Zeegan had closed the door behind him, Leviticus turned to face the demented, foaming-at-the-mouth raccoon.

“Thou shall not enter here, foul beast.” He whispered as he swung about his short sword.

As if in answer the raccoon roared and charged for him. Bellowing a war cry, Leviticus also charged. . .

Zeegan nearly tripped when his surroundings turned from the dark cave to a bright forest filled with creepy, rainbow colored, elastic-like bears jumping about singing: “Gummie bears – bouncing here and there and every where. . . .”

Finally Zeegan could not take it anymore; he clamped his hands over his ears and screamed at the top of his lungs to drown out the horrible noise–––and lurched into a sitting position when something bashed against his nose.

“You awake now, Gy’doht?” Biyon asked from where she sat on her knees on the other side of the bed, a book held nonchalantly at her left shoulder where she had apparently decided to rest it after hitting him in the face.

Rubbing his nose with a rueful grimace, Zeegan nodded and thanked his wife for waking him from the bizarre nightmare. . .

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Let me know what you think :)