the beginning of a long story, It's mediocre, look at it if you have a few minutes to spare. Options

[BambooRckshw]

Well this isn't so much a fine writing, as it is a game between me and my friends, each one of us writes a section of the story, so the writing style is a bit choppy and some part (mine mostly) are amateruish.Well here goes

Two weeks ago she wouldn't have dreamt of being in the mess she presently found herself knee-deep in. Life had been so pleasant, with its security and carefree lemonade afternoons; all that was f**ked now. She however, couldn't contemplate the circumstances that had led her here at the moment; they had her child and she would chase after them to the ends of the world.

She may not have known it then but she had begun to play his game. But she was just one of many. Her hand slid into her pocket and produced a small copper pocketwatch, in it a picture of her daughter. The bastards had left it for her to find.

Trudging through the bush, she couldn't help but allow her timid mind run unrestrained with thoughts of demons lurking. More than once she had stopped in her tracks sure he had heard a twig snap and a pebble roll; it would take an eternity before she could convince herself to take another step, and only with her resolve could she do so. But her instincts did not betray her, and creeping like a shadow was the one assigned to her; her first trial.

She turned on the balls of her feet and came face to face with her watcher. A man, at least thats what she thought it was. Covered in lacerations and scars ,filthy blood matted hair, and bearing the mark of "him" scorched into his flesh. She could see these were the same eyes, the same eyes of the thing that had taken her daughter. He reached into her pocket and removed the pocketwatch, immoblized she could only watch. He flicked it open "Stay alive f'til sunrise" he grunted as he threw the watch into her hands and disappeared into the darkness

She stood still, shocked so significantly by the revelation; none of this made sense, if they were trying to kill her why did they take her child and why is it that this distorted image of a man only delivered the message but did not attempt to hurt her? Suddenly she was filled with fear as she realized that her pursuer must be far more terrible that even that behemoth was not sufficient. Yet she did not sense evil in his eyes, but rather a longing for air suppressed behind strips of bloody rags; and so she turned to continue, but was faced by her daughter.

"Momma?",spoke her daughter sweetly as she stood before her, clutching her favorite teddy bear. She ran to her and embraced her sweet little girl. The joy in her heart unimaginable. But something was wrong. The soft smell of lilacs that usually surrouned her daughter was gone. Instead the smell of motor oil?? . Her daughter's hug once gentle and loving , now was crushing the very life out of her. Sharp finger nails tearing away at her back flesh. No matter how she couldn't escape the grasp of this thing. She blacked out.

Drip, drip - water fell from some far off corner, unseen in the darkness that plagued the shadow dungeon.
"---Clank, clunk, bang, onomatopoeia!" Some nearby voice proclaimed in a sickeningly upbeat tone; his lunatic gibberish was followed by a loud laughter that awoke from Amanda her nightmare.
"Ahhhh, so glad you've finally roused from your slumber, I hope the restraints did not bother you too much; but I'm being rude, allow me to introduce myself.. I am James

The man smiled, in his hand clutched the decpatiated head of her "daughter". She tried to scream, but could only manage a muffled yelp from behind the gag." Oh this, tsk tsk, such shoddy construction, far below his standard",spoke James as he dug around his toolbox for some nonspecific tool."I found you lying on the ground, with this thing on top of you. Luckily you were still alive, badly damaged but still alive.", the man's smile grew larger "However inorder to keep you that way I had to make some alterations...". The man loosened Amanda's neck restraint, and began working on some piece of machinery outside her view.She tilted her head left, she wished she hadn't, for now where he right arm had been was a mechanical countpart. She looked at the man tinkering in her arm, in his eyes a corss between insanity and benevolence. "You like?"

Dear god what have you done! she wanted to scream, but knew better than to push this potentially mad doctor from his amused state to one of malevolence; the straps were still partially on and until she was at least free she would keep quiet. She couldn't believe it had been an animated doll; who -- nay, what the hell is after her, with such elaborate trickery and unbearable psychological strains. She looked at the man and smiled the most genuine smile that a woman with a bloodstained stump of a right arm could; he noticed this and said, "Don't think you're out of the woods yet, there's an hour to sunrise and I'm just getting started."

It was at this time, she was able to recall the one piece of advice, that had served herfaithfully throught her whole life. "Flattery will get you everywhere". She slightly cocked an eyebrow and smiled as she spoke. "My, what an amazing piece of machinery, the design is brillant, so practical yet so stylish". The doctor's form immediately perked up. "Why yes she is my greatest design, the internal mechanisms perfectly mimic that of a human arm", beamed the grubby little man as he spoke."But sadly it is imperfect", spoke Amanda.
"What?!?!"
"You see there is a small malfunction in the mechanism "
" I can see no flaw"
"Well you can't see it it is internalt, but if you were to loosen the restraint, I could show you"
"Oh, exactly how stupid do you think I am",chuckled James
"Stpuid enough not to realize, that isnt the arm you should be paying attention to",said Amanda, as she leaned back and struck the man in face as hard as she could with the arm she had freed.

He fell like a stone and Amanda freed herself from the restraints. At last she thought, back on my feet, but down an arm; and in fact she entertained thoughts of searching for her lost limb but felt a persistent need to escape this god awful place as soon as she could. She ran towards a shaft of light that was seeping through a vast expanse of ether; she crouched down and crawled through, minutes passed than hours, finally when what appeared to be days had passed she emerged on the other side and was mortified by what she saw: a warehouse full of figures as identical to her, all moving and talking, seemingly going on about their lives.

She stood there for a second, just watching the figures.Amazed at how much they resembled one of those wind-up toys, each one performing some random everyday motion whether it was folding some imaginary laundry, watering some nonexistant flowers, or just making small talk to a mailman that wasn't there. A few figures had fallen over, they made no attempt to get get up, simply just continuing or trying to continue performing their activity. Creepy. Amanda could see a large door on the opposite wall, she could see the faint purple red light on the steadily approaching sunrise through the cracks in the door.She slowly began making her way across the room,attempting to blend in with the figures. This not being too hard seeing as they were exact replics of her, moins the large metallic right arm of course. She had made it halfway across the room, and then she realized how silent the room was. Every figure had stopped their repetetive motion, their mindless small talk. Now all staring at her, they opened their mouths and began to speak in unison.

"1 minute to sunrise, engaging self-destruct sequence."
It took Amanda a moment to comprehend just what had been said; she stood frozen by their cold, monotone voices. It was then that she realized that over a hundred lifesize robots exploding would result in an impactt far greater than anything she would care to imagine. With this she began to sprint, completely abandoning any notion of stealth in a brazen outreach for life. 15 seconds, she could now see the door clearly, it was large and metallic with handles like an airplane; she thought she was in the clear, until she realized that the door was blocked off by 20 robots in a line.

Awwwwwwwww Bullshit" was the first thing that entered her mind. The second was "I wonder if my arm will be waiting on the other side when I die?"
Ten. Nine. Eight. She turned round, only to be confront with another line of robots awaiting her from where she's entered the room. Seven. Six. Five. She panicked, franctically searching for an aexit any exit, an air duct, a window, hell even a mouse hole would do. Five. Four. Three. No way out...... NO WAY OUT. Two. She cringed. One. One. One. One. One. One. She looked up. Not dead. Still the robots continued their "countdown". One, One One.The sound of computers powering down surrounded her and the robots collapsed in heaps. She cautiously for the door, taking great care not so much as nudge one of the robots, fearing that thye may wake up. She took the first step for the door but couldn't something was holding her back. No literally something was holding her back, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned round and came face-to-face with...... James?!/! "Damn f**king robots, I knew I shouldn't have used Windows Vista as an operating system". He spat."Well if You want to do something right you gotta do it yourself." He reached in one of his tattered pockets and produced a small pocketwatch not unlike hers. "Ten minutes til sunrise", he said as smiled, producing rusty machete from his inner coat pcokets.

He raised his right arm and slashed at her with his weapon, smiling as he felt the blade make contact.But with a recent head injury and all he had miscalculated the distance and only managed to serverly wound............ ......her shirt. Amanda's left eye twitched. "THIS WAS MY FAVORITE SHIRT!!!!", she screamed as she lunged towards James,knocking the machete out of has hand and him to the ground. She was ontop of him, the smell of strong booze and motor oil was thick. She raised her prosthetic arm. "The creator dies by his own design", she hissed as she brought it down full force onto his face.It was incredible, although the arm was nothign more pistons,joints and she could almost the facial bones cracking under the incredible force, the fresh blood dripping from her knuckles, the contact of hard metal against soft flesh.She raised her arm and struck him again, and again, and again. No longer fighting for her own survival, now only for revenge, revenge for the her daughter, her life, her shirt. They had taken it all from her. Although he was clearly dead (his head now resembling the shape of a deflated volleyball), she couldn't stop, all the sorrow all the anger,the hatred that she has pent up inside of her was was spewing out of her in thick black torrents.She raised her arm, and was about to strike him again, but stopped. Gripping her arm like an iron vice, was James' hand. He lifted her up by her arm, adn threw her against a wall.Hard.

"Ooowwwwwwww" moaning Amanda as she hit the cold concrete wall."How did he do that? He threw me like I was a rag doll" She thought. The it dawned on her "Wait isn't he supposed to be dead!?!?! She shuffled on her hands and knees on the dusty factory floor,shakily trying to regain her balance, like an amateurishly built house of cards.He had hit her hard."You didn't think be that easy did you?",spoke James in a horrifyingly amused voice. She turned and looked. There was James, standing, his face now just a mound of loosely connected flesh, flickered fragments of bones and teeth, a small pool of blood forming in his left eye socket. She watched in horror, as he began to repair himself, small bits of skin and flesh leapt from the ground and reattached themselves to his visage. Bones reformed from the tiny shards embedded in the mess.The blood dried and scabbed off in huge layers. She didn't know whether to scream or throw up. In mere seconds, his entire head on reformed.James cricked his neck."Good as new"

She looked at him, then at the the machete in her hands. The automatons around her stared blankly as her grip weakened, the clatter of the weapon sounding loud in the silent hall.

James stood, pieced together, before her. He bowed. Of the thousand thoughts running unheard before her staggeringly devoured mind this was not present. He bowed. She stepped back.

His head raised. The blows of the machete were not so readily repaired. His massacred face struck a grim visage of glee. He opened a misaligned jaw and sound was produced.

"My...perfect. Creation." the sound was his voice but tinny and distant. "My...adversary. It's unfortunate. But. Still. You are my perfect. Creation."

His grimy hands securely hed her slender neck. She tried, as hard she might, to escape his grasp,struggling to breathe, flailing about like a fish plucked from the stream. But to no avail, he leaned backward and brought his fist towards her at increidble speed. She winced awaiting the impact. But it never came, only the sound of what sounded like an explosion and the sensation of small specks of concrete pelting her face. She opened her eyes hesitantly, she looked over and saw that James had punched a hole clear through concrete wall. Golden rays of the early morning sun peered through the gaping hole.He released her from his grip, took a step back and bowed. "Congratulations are in order, my dear Amanda, you've completed the first trial" spoke James, his voice eeriely calm."You are now one step closer my dear,but still many many many more dangers await you ahead. But hey at least you got an arm up on them heh heh" Amanda was clearly not amused.With that last bit of advice, james began to fade, slowly becoming more and more transparent, the morning light filtering through him until he disappeared altogether.In a twisited somewhat deranged way she'd miss the bugger. She walked out the front door, and sat on the cold stone steps, watching the sunrise,through the cold morning mist, the darkness being chased away."

The golden sunlight filtered through the trees tricked her eyes. She was constantly shielding them, reveling in the thought of a decent day of peace with her daughter. A hand had scrabbled at the hole i nthe wall, but she pushed a piece of rock over it and no violation of her peace had happened since.

As the sun glittered in her eyes, she decided to close them. Hence, she relaxed against the wall of rock behind her. Safe, for the time being, she closed her eyes and curled up. The sweat clinging to her tshirt would have made her instantly indecent, but that there were no men nearby.

She rested, thus, for a few minutes. At the crowing of a distant bird she started, stood, and began to walk.

A black luxury car pulled up, the front passenger door opened, inside driving was the same man from before in the forest, the one that had given her the first trial. He glared at her, "Nice arm", he grunted. "Nice face", she retorted. He patted the leather seat."Hop in".She entered the car cautiously, and the door closed automatically. He didn't stop staring forward, and kept driving."Umm....Hi?"said Amanda uneasily. "Look in the backseat", he said coldly. She put her arm around the back of her chair, and felt a handle, it was attacked to a suitcase. She pulled it out of the backseat and placed it on her lap.Click! Click! She undid the latched and opened the lid. "Holy #%$@!!", Inside the briefcase in unmarked bills was at least fifty grand US and a loaded handgun."What am I supposed to do with this?" asked Amanda. He kept driving, still not making any eye contact, he resonded. "Anything you have to complete the second trial".
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