Guardian of the Beacon
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Another in a strange series of one shot pieces that portray the perspective of the unknown and unnamed characters in the 'Verse. Not as horror-y as the last one (yes, that's a word...now)
10 points and a cookie if you can figure out who this is about before the end. As always, I truly enjoy discussing the various points that you might find worthy of note. Whether they be criticism or cash prizes, I'll yak your ear off in reply.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 2671 RATING: 10.0 (PG) SERIES: FIREFLY
Title:Guardian of the Beacon
Author:Zoesbackup aka DejaThoris
Spoilers: vague ones for the BDM
Rating: PG for horror themes and a bit o' language
Disclaimer:The intellectual property, Serenity the movie, belongs to: Joss Whedon, Universal Studios, and Fox TV. No infringement is intended nor monetary gain realized by this work of fiction.
She runs faster than she has ever run in her life. There are bodies everywhere and terror gives her an agility she didn't know she possessed. Her manic strides never falter as she swerves and jumps to avoid the human speed bumps threatening to bring her down. Everyone is dead. Her colleagues, her friends, reduced to tatters of flesh on bones gnawed at by ---she slams the door shut on that thought and desperately tries to ignore the burning in her lungs and heaviness in her legs. Movement rushed at her out of the corner of her eye and she screeches, tripping and clawing at the air that offers no substance to cling to. She is babbling, spittle swinging from lips pulled back as if to snarl, as she struggles to put distance between the attacker and her.
It is a dog. She giggles hysterically. A skinny equally terrified dog that isn’t dead and why how where did it hide and why did it run to her?
“Come on, sweetie come on!”
She knows she has to run but she can’t bear to leave it for them. She gets back to her feet and begins to jog, still calling and crooning. The dog follows, hackles up and tail between its legs. She know she is close to the shuttle; it can’t be more than a block away. She picks up speed, mumbling to the dog whose claws made clicking sounds behind her --like teeth as they tear--she sees it, there it is!
Oh God, no! Oh please, nononono. It looks as though someone has plowed the craft into the side of the building and left it there. Why would they want the shuttle? They must have tried to *FLY* it, which meant there was an intelligence behind the savagery. S
ManicGiraffe (ludicrously drunk)
I love these little one off piece though, they're so well done.
Absolutely brilliant
Nice insight and well written!
ShinyTalent and Tayeatra, I honestly didn't know if it would be immediately obvious or not as I don't know if this character stuck in your mind the way it did mine. I also thought about making it more gruesome but then it would put the focus on the Reavers and not on her and she would end up secondary. I am still trying to figure out what the best way to format the sentence structure and paragraphs to give maximum impact. It's funny how something as simple as the place you start a new parapgraph can have so much impact on the flow and intensity of the story.
I am thrilled that you enjoyed it. FYI, I love nitpicky shit, so feel free to point out things that bother you or that particularly struck you in any way.
ManicGiraffe,you are the second person who admitted to being drunk while reading it, I'm starting to think perhaps I should market my stories specifically to drunk people ;D
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I have to say it again, I love your attention to detail. The burning in her lungs, the stench of fear, the clicking of the dogs claws like the tearing of teeth...it seriously gave me the shivers. And the part where she was sobbing and trying to coax the terrified dog into the shuttle was so heartbreaking. Even knowing what was going to happen, I was so rooting for her and the poor little dog with his raised hackles and tail tucked between his legs.(There go those details again.
The cast list at IMDb lists the character name as Dr. Caron(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/fullcredits). So does the novel and Visual Companion, which includes the shooting script. By the way, I don't know if this is the kind of nit-pickiness you wanted, but the script has Dr. Caron saying that the shuttle crashed when the research team first landed, because "nobody was operating the receptors". However, I personally think that your version of what happened makes more sense, I mean, unless they were landing in storm conditions at night, they would have had to have a pretty lousy pilot to not be able to realize this receptor thing and land on manual when there wasn't another ship in the sky. Serenity did not seem to have any problem. Both of these include several other lines from this scene that were deleted from the movie. She talks of how the inhabitants of Miranda stopped maintaining the power grids. When the grids failed there were overloads and fires, but the people just sat in their chairs watching the fire approach. They burned to death, just sitting.
Ever since I started reading your series, I have been thinking about these minor characters in the show. I'm trying to get a sort of top ten list, but limiting it to ten is tough. I'll have to post that some other time as this comment is already to long as it is.
I've never seen "Down with Love", but I'll keep an eye out for it.
I didn't get a chance to say that I thought you ended it at exactly the right place. The line,"These are some of the images we've recorded...", confirms who she is to everyone, those who have already suspected and those still unsure. And we know what will happen next. So you end on this emotional highpoint of revelation.
Your right about this scene being one of the most moving in the movie, but it's also one of the most important. It's the piviotal scene of the plot and Sarah Paulson has alot of information to convey. Even though she's essentially giving a scientific status report of their mission to her superiors, she fills the scene with such a range of emotion. She knows the doors will not hold; she knows she doesn't have much time left. She is dealing with the trama of her ordeal since landing, the grief of losing her friends, the horror of everything she has seen, and the guilt that this experiment she took part in has killed the entire population of the planet.
What I loved most in your story is that you conveyed this same range of emotions, the fear bordering on hysteria, being held back through sheer will.
Dr. Caron should be remembered she personifies the tragedy of Miranda, it's almost like she's the planet's broken heart. Thank you so much for writing this story.
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