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How Far Down [intro]

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How Far Down [intro] Empty How Far Down [intro]

Post by Hollis Brown Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:29 pm

It is 9:45 pm in Stakeford. Under the black sky, a boy is leaning forward over an old well. There are houses along the cul-de-sac, and the curtains are down in each of the lightless windows. The town is quiet, except for the whistling of a cold wind.

“Hurry up,” the boy calls. He pulls himself back a bit and looks to his left and right. The boy has sandy blond hair, and even in the dark his eyes are visibly blue. He has freckles on his face and wears glasses that are held together with masking tape. He is wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans, the bottoms of which drag and are caught underneath the soles of his feet. He wears black shoes.

“We haven’t got all night,” the boy calls again, rapidly. “Someone might see us.”

“I know, I know!” A voice calls out from inside the well. The voice sounds like another boy, about the same age as the boy standing by the well—around ten or eleven. “It’s really dark down here… I’m tryin’ to be careful.”

The boy by the well rolls his eyes. He holds a thick rope in both of his hands. “Just hurry up, Sammy. I can’t hold onto this rope forever. You’re heavy.”

“I’m almost there,” the voice inside the well yells back.

A plane slowly passes overhead, roaring its way across the sky. When the plane is gone, the sound it made fades with it. There is a lull before the wind picks its whistling back up.

“Alllllmost there,” Sammy says from the well.

A man in a brown tailcoat is standing by the boy by the well. The man is wearing a white undershirt underneath the tailcoat, dark brown pants, and tall black leather boats. Curly brown hair peaks out from under his black beret.

“What’ve we got here?”

The blond boy is startled by the voice and immediately brings his hands up over his head. He turns toward the man in the brown tailcoat with wide eyes. The rope slithers down the well, and Sammy’s yell echoes to the surface.

The man in the brown tailcoat looks from Sammy to the well. He turns and places his hands on the brick ring and peers into the darkness below.

“I’m alright!” Sammy shouts.

The man in the brown tailcoat glances back at the blond boy.

“We were just wondering how far down it goes,” the boy quickly explains. He lowers his hands to his side. “We were just curious, honest. I told him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Wow!” Sammy’s voice is quieter but still able to be heard. “I couldn’t see my own hand or the rope when I was about halfway down, but now I can see a lot.”

The man in the brown tailcoat peers back down into the well. “How far down does it go?” He asks loudly.
No response comes.

“I say,” the man repeats after about ten seconds have elapsed, “How far down does that well go?”

There was another, shorter pause. Then Sammy yelled back, “I found a head! It’s a woman’s head… it’s not connected to nothin’ at all!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“WOMAN HEAD FOUND IN WELL”

Jenny Smith is looking down at the Stakeford Tribune in her hands. Under the large headline are columns of text continued on 6A, no picture. Apparently two local kids had found a dismembered head at the bottom of the well, and the police are trying to identify the victim.

“We’re not wanting to make any assumptions at this time, but given the nature in which her body, or head, was found in, we’re inclined to believe there was foul play,” sheriff Randall Flecker told the Tribune.

“No shit it was foul play,” Jenny says.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

October 1st, 2015—the day when a woman’s head was found at the bottom of the old well.

This was the most graphic event to ever take place in an otherwise uneventful South Dakota town, yet the response among townsfolk was mixed. Some were truly concerned, others latched onto the latest gossip and spoke about it all day, some shrugged it off, and a few seemed somehow happy with this turn of events.

Even those who were otherwise undisturbed by the latest news invariably took a pause if they happened to walk by the old well, which now had yellow crime scene tape wrapped around it.

It is after noon now and a rather chilly, cloudy day. Stakeford continues as normally as could be expected, if not a bit more so.
Hollis Brown
Hollis Brown
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How Far Down [intro] Empty conclusion of 1. the big dream

Post by Hollis Brown Sat Oct 31, 2015 4:58 pm

Julee’s Bar – (10/31, 11:50pm)

The dark skinned man with corn rows sits in his usual spot in the bar, at a table on the right side of the room. He is holding a dark gray cup in his right hand, while his left hand is covering the top. He flips the cup upside down, and his left hand prevents whatever contents are inside from spilling out. He is wearing a brown leather jacket, blue jeans, and brown leather boots.

The people in the bar are frozen in place. No one blinks, no one breathes, and there are no signs of life. The band is holding their instruments, mid-performance, but the bar is entirely silent.

A soft creak catches the man’s attention. The door has opened. He watches as someone walks in, someone whose boots clack on the floor with each step.

The newcomer joins the man with corn rows at his table. The newcomer looks exactly like the man across from him, even wearing the exact same clothes, except that the newcomer looks about 20 years older.

The newcomer points across the table and says, slowly and in a deep voice, “Oricle Younger.”

The younger man with corn rows points across the tables and says, slowly and in a deep voice, “Oricle Older.”

The two look at each other for about 15 seconds in total silence. Then Oricle Younger, not taking his eyes off the man across from him, says, “Love is the name in the wind. The wind blows through the trees and stars.”

Oricle Older holds the gaze. He pulls out from an inside pocket of his brown leather jacket a dark gray cup, identical in appearance to the one Oricle Younger has. Each holds his cup slightly over the table and shakes it.

Oricle Older begins, “We make a wish—“

Oricle Younger finishes, “—to be together.”

They take their hands off the top of their cups and thrust the cups forward. From each cup a die rattles onto the table—from Oricle Younger’s cup, a blue die, and from Oricle Older’s cup, a red die.

The die land near the center of the table. Instead of numbers already on the die, when they land, a word slowly materializes on the face-up surface that, just before, was blank. The two men look at the results:

How Far Down [intro] Dice_o10

Neither man shows a reaction on his face.

Oricle Older says, quietly, “This night… When we dream together, we’ll remember…”

Oricle Younger nods. “When we dream together the big dream.”

Oricle Older looks up from the dice and back at the man across from him. “The time has come to say the words we want to hear.”
Oricle Younger looks up as well and says solemnly, “It’s the big dream.”

The two men are gone in a split second. They disappear suddenly, with no flash or pomp. The bar returns to life. The music begins to play again, and people in the bar are moving and talking like usual.

Mil Bradley is humming while he cleans a glass.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The red die signifies who will die at midnight, when this month transitions into the next. The victim’s head will be at the bottom of the town well, and the body will not be discovered.

The blue die signifies who will receive a dream on the last day of the next month. In this dream, the blue die dreamer will have an opportunity to prevent the next death. The blue die dreamer will pronounce the name of the person he or she wishes to protect. If the person he or she wants to protect turns out to be the red die victim, the blue die dreamer will save him or her. However, if the person the blue die dreamer selects is not the red die victim, then not only will the red die victim still die, but the person the blue die dreamer tries to protect will suffer imminent, great misfortune. Because of this risk, the blue die dreamer can opt to not attempt to protect anyone. In that event, the red die victim will certainly die, but there is no chance that anyone else will face additional misfortune.
Hollis Brown
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