[PAN2014] Light From Darkness

Upon viewing bio containment vessel Sigma-6 from outside, it merely seemed like a city. That said, most cities do not appear to be covered with a gargantuan fly net. It was a dome shaped affair, a mile high at its uppermost, covering a hundred square miles of surface area, and several feet thick and layered, and rather than being a simple net, it was clear every time a fly or a bird landed upon it, that there was more at work than a simple physical barrier. They would be flash burned, cooked in instants, proof of the vast electrical power flowing across and between the layers of the dome.

If one had the gift of microscopic sight, one would see that the mesh covering the city was not simply there to cook complex organisms in their skins by contact. Even the smallest living things coming into contact with the thrumming electrical fields would be deconstructed on the molecular scale, the currents smashing their molecules apart by raw force. If one were to look away from Sigma-6, toward the Outlands, one would soon discern the need for such a comprehensively dangerous perimeter defense being in place.

The Rot had set in so long ago, that none yet living remembered it, nor the erection of the dome itself. The land outside the city was a puss covered wasteland, infested with corrupted creatures, from trees to mammalian forms, from insects to microbial life. All things outside such protection as offered by the dome, had had their very genomes violated and turned to the purpose of propagating the existence of The Rot.

That is what it was called, the name by which it was known, to the residents of Sigma-6. They had muddled through within that dome, crowded cheek by jowl, with generational sparks of violence to keep their numbers manageable, with regard to the scant resources of space, food, and power, but always living fairly close to a total collapse of everything from morale to law and order. There was little choice for any of them, and the law consisted largely of punishment by way of banishment, which given the circumstances was tantamount to a death sentence, since nothing could survive exposure to The Rot for more than thirty seconds. That is not to say that thirty seconds exposure or less was not fatal. It was. Any exposure was. You were dead the moment that it got at you, and yet, you would remain animate. Ones brainwaves upon exposure however, would instantly change, rewired by The Rot as its first priority, from there to re-write the very code which makes up a living being, at the deepest level. The person or thing exposed, would die, and all that would be left would be a puppet for the plague.

Air of course, could penetrate the domes physical surface, and would be stripped of any microbial life within it, by passage between the mesh layers of its construction, and exposure to the electrical fury contained there, and the same with moisture in the atmosphere. The shape of the domes inner walls allowed for the collection of all moisture to make it through the mesh, and the constant passage of air through the mesh assisted the residents of the dome in powering the MLDF screen (the electrical component of the defenses, the Microbial Life Defense Field. Shaped fields of plasma forced air into turbines atop the dome, rotating the blades, and producing more power for the constant requirements presented by reliance on electrical discharge to keep the people safe.

But there was one intrepid group within the community of Sigma-6, whose job it was to venture outside the dome, to recover lost artifacts of technology, discover useable resources, engines, fuels, and to keep an eye on the progress of The Rot.

At the base of the Dome, on the north side, there is a gate, and it is to this gate, that we pay particular attention now.

Whirling red lights began to spin, a klaxon began to wail, and all of a sudden, the nighttime stillness was interrupted by a blinding light, as forty gallons of highly flammable, weaponised Petrochem was blasted out, past the ignition system around the door, erupting in flame and burning a hundred meter path clear through the ever nearing skin of The Rot. While the flames still spewed from the ports around the door, it cycled and before it had even opened fully, a massive armored vehicle blew past the edges of the door, with inches to spare, and growled out into the night. Just as it approached the fire curtain, the flames ceased in their issuance from the ports around the door, and the vehicle mounted flame spreaders and plasmacasters started to take over, cleansing The Rot from the path of the heavy treads. The Rot was indiscriminate in its application of dominion over the lifeforms of Earth, and where normally would have been grass and trees, a thick, black-green slime covered everything, rapidly dissolving and evaporating under the thermal assault from the vehicle.

Within, Karmichael sawed away at the wheel, looking for traction and following the path cut by the forward weapons array.
"Blimey lads!" He shouted over the clattering roar of the engine," It might get a bit bumpy back there for a bit!". No sooner had he spoken, than the vehicle hit a small boulder, and while refusing to take damage, lurched around on its axles in an alarming fashion, throwing anything that was not nailed down all over the crew cabin.

"Yeah, no kidding! A little bit more warning would be nice Kaz!" Shouted Lemming from the rear. Lemming got his name by way of being near suicidal in his desire to loot abandoned buildings, and gain technology remnants for the Dome. Lemming, like the rest of the men in the crew cabin, was one of an elite of warriors and scavengers, known as the Doormen. They were so called for two reasons, chiefly that they were the only ones who ever ventured through the access ports at the North and South of the Dome, and also because their efforts were often all that stood between the citizens of Sigma-6 and the encroachment of some of the more intelligent Rotted, who could fashion and use simple tools. In the event of such a thing, it was the task of the Doormen to ensure that undesirables were thwarted in their attempts to gain entry.

"I am doing my level best Lemming! You can drive next time if you fancy it!". Karmichael responded.

"Less prattle from you lot. This is going to be enough of a pain in the arse of a job without having to listen to the waffling of two complete mororns." This came from the stern faced leader of the team, Bailey.

"Yes boss. Thirty minutes to destination. Sorry boss."

Lemming looked around the crew cabin, taking in the forbidding features of his commanding officer, the empty stare of the tactical specialist, called The Rage, or TR for short, Gary, the cheery heavy weapons lugger, and Samson, a dour man who was their navigation and communications expert.

After the admonishment from their commander, the men fell to checking their weapons and equipment, and Samson went over the maps and frequencies being used for the infiltration mission they were about to undertake. His sharp gaze picked out several positions which might allow for advantageous deployment of Gary's heavy weapons compliment, and other places that any War Form Rotted might be able to be bottle necked by The Rage. The Rage never spoke. You never spoke to him, not unless you happened to point at something and ask him to kill it. He was the only one of the men on board who was not technically a full citizen of Sigma-6....

a reply to: TrueBrit

Wow...

Looking forward to the next installment! Great visuals and character introductions.

...
In fact, he was a resident, but he had been institutionalised for violence since anyone could remember, and since he had been too dangerous to even ATTEMPT to manhandle out of the city, those responsible for his upkeep had elected to weaponise him, and... alter his brain chemistry and neurophysiology to a significant degree. He would be docile, dull eyed, unresponsive, until called to action.

Lemming did not like to look into the dark pits of The Rages eyes for too long, in case his soul got sucked out and somehow eaten by the bastard. No one really trusted The Rage, added to which Lemming's reliance on luck for his survival as much as anything else, often lead Lemming to remark that The Rage was cursed, not insane, a sort of unwitting Pavlovian response, a near occultist prayer to ward off ill spirits. No such comment this night though, for this night was important.

Well outside the normal patrol range, one of the cities roving UAV drones had spotted what looked like a hatch, a great metal door in the surface of the planet, which had been obscured from sight by a thick layer of Rot for decades, so long in fact, that no one knew it was there until the drones picked up reflections from its surface Ten hours ago. It looked however, exactly like the sort of place that the Doormen would be ideal candidates to investigate. The doors alone would have been worth a years work to the Doormen, scavenging in the wastes for metals they could give to the engineers to shore up the mesh skins of the Dome. Of course, they would weigh nearly one hundred tonnes, and there was no machinery available to them which would have allowed them to pull the doors back home, and no door wide enough to get them through.

It was what was inside that interested the team the most. Never in their history had any such thing been seen or investigated, not to their knowledge anyway. As far as Lemming, Bailey, and the rest knew, this was a total departure for their whole society, no one having been this far from the Dome, no one having been into such a substantial looking complex, outside the Dome before. Breaking new ground. Thats what this was. Lemming checked his watch, and almost as if he had spoken his question out loud, Karmichael's voice issued from the drivers compartment.

"Twenty seconds to destination". He called. "Right, final check, weapons, ammunition, suits and gear, prepare for rapid deployment!" Bailey shouted in response. At this, the rest of the men did indeed go over their gear once more, including making sure that their suits power packs were checked and double checked, and then decoupled from the power points in the vehicles seat wells. Their suits were rather like the Dome in terms of their form and function, except that where the Dome was... well, a dome, the suits were perfectly adapted for covering a human being in the same type of protection offered by the Dome, an electrical field contained within a mesh, but where the suits differed, aside from in shape, was that they also offered ballistic plating, and emergency oxygen supplies for use in the event of an outer layer breach, and of course, they ran both from batteries, and by being constantly exposed to a bioelectric field, that of the wearer.

The armoured car slid to a halt, scattering cooked Earth and burnt Rot from beneath its mighty wheels, and the rear hatch slammed open, as Bailey and his team leaped out and took up a defensive circle at the rear of the vehicle. Meanwhile, Karmichael moved over to the MARB station, one seat over from the steering wheel. The Mobile Anti Rot Bastion control panel was part tactical map, part DHI (Direct Human Interface) linked weapons control system. A jack lead dangled from the bottom of the dash, underneath the display unit, and this he snatched up and slid into the receiver in the back of his skull. "Tac map, and suppression systems fully operational Doormen. No activity at any compass point at this time. You are clear to proceed." He said, his voice rendered slightly emotionless by the connection with the machinery of the systems at his fingertips.

Outside the vehicle, the team formed up around Bailey, with Gary in the lead, scanning left and right, the barrel of his unified flame launcher, plasmacaster, and microwave cannon, panning ahead. If he depressed the trigger, all three types of energy would be thrown forth in a great, ravening gout, vapourising anything unfortunate enough to be in the way. Fortunately, that was mostly the Rotted, and so no body minded much. That was just fine with Gary. Just as the tac map had made clear, they had been deployed about twenty meters inside a clear zone, inexplicably empty of Rot skin, around the edge of the massive door in the Earth that they had come to investigate.

"Specialists Gary and Samson, get "The Key" ready for use, and get it deployed. I want to be in this place, and out again before the Rot can even try to close up again" instructed Bailey. At this, the two named men looked at one another, and then made off to opposite ends of the center of the door, following the crack which betrayed the edges of the steel. It was not really a crack, since they met perfectly along their length, but it was enough for them to know where the door would open. Once they had reached the top and bottom of the door, the two men about faced, and placed a large bag on the ground next to them. In tandem, their training showing clearly, they bolted a special kind of two way jet engine, onto first one side, and then the other of the gargantuan door. This technique was costly, because the jets, once used but a few times, would burn out, and the secrets of their construction had long been lost to time.

Upon completing the installation, the two men backed off, gave a signal to one another, and then at the same moment, pressed a control stud on a panel on their wrists. The jets fired up, soon screaming and sending jets of thermal energy out of their exhaust nozzles. The plumes of heat blasted against one another, and slowly, inexorably, the blast doors responded to their power, creeping open until a man could fit well between them. No sooner had that point been reached, than they cut out automatically.

"Gentlemen... we descend." Bailey said, ominously.

The Doormen gathered at the opening, nearest the south facing end of the door, and shone their suit lights down into the yawning space beneath. A gantry appeared to run down the side of a great shaft behind the door, and so the team deployed their climbing apparatus, and descended into gloom.

Feet hit deck plating, angles were checked, corners panned with light and the barrels of weapons, and the first thing that struck the teams membership about the space they had descended into, was how damned CLEAN everything was.

"What the hell is this place?" Exclaimed Lemming."It looks unused, like everything was put in... new?"

"Agreed. It is a strange place this." Samson announced, then turning to his commander continued, "Sir, my equipment tells me that this shaft, this gantry, continues down for some half a mile, and further, that there are a full fifty miles of tunnels and chambers, splitting off from this one main shaft. Air quality is improving also Sir. I believe that there may be some passive system at work here to remove taint from the air."

It was then that they heard the humming...

...

It was a pulsing, all encompassing frequency, as if air were being driven around the place by some huge force. None of the Doormen present could conceive of a fan large enough to create that sensation of sound.

"Whatever it is, this place is massive, and it is not getting any smaller. Samson, take Lemming and look for any location within a mile of here that might contain valuable data storage, or TOI artifacts (Technologies Of Interest). Gary, TR, you fellows are with me, we are going deeper to see if we can identify the source of that sound. Samson, I want vocal and positional check ins every forty seconds, and updates as and when you see fit. Lemming..." Bailey peered intently at the wild eyed, grinning scavenge master. "...Just do not get us into any trouble that you cannot get us out of, personally. If you get stuck in another Quik Rot soup again, I am not risking any of the rest of us to pull your boots out of the muck, understood?".

"Understood Sir!" Lemming announced with ceremony, snapping a salute, and drawing a snicker from Gary.

"Yes, yes, enough of your nonsense. Away with you!" said Bailey, shaking his head. As Samson and Lemming made their way off down one of the myriad tunnels leading from the main shaft, the others trusted their fates and lives to the ropes once again, clambering down, their suit lights piercing ever further into the darkened heart of the complex as they went.

An hour later, they arrived at what appeared to be some sort of lift shaft, clinging to the side of the shaft, and constructed of what appeared to be girders and little else. From the roof of the shaft, was suspended an elevator car, and so without any ceremony what so ever, Gary blew a hole in the wall of the main shaft. His weapon blew a perfectly spherical hole in the wall, large enough that himself, Bailey, and The Rage could stand within it comfortably. The deployment of his weapon had also carved a hole into the tunnel leading to the door of the elevator, and through this gap they shuffled, bits of their equipment fouling on the still hot remains of steel reinforcement struts which had until recently been a part of the wall, and were now nothing but dirt in the air, vaporous wisps curling from the reddening ends of the metal.

The elevator was of a clearly industrial type, and yet totally unfamiliar to the Doormen. Bailey examined the control pannel while The Rage prowled the doorway of the elevator, with Gary complaining that his pacing was ruining his line of sight. "Never mind about that!" said Bailey," I think if I..." with that he pressed a button, and no sooner had he done so, than the elevator car shot downward.

"OH HELL, OH HELL, OH SWEET BLESSED DIRT!" screamed Gary as they plummeted, as their feet began to leave the floor....

"Huh..." Said Lemming. "Sounds like something just powered up somewhere. Must be Bailey and the lads... I hope!"

"Yeah, that would be nice. A nice relaxing jaunt through a hitherto unknown underground complex can be spoiled by interruption from interlopers." Replied Samson. "It is about time we caught a break, I will give you that Lem... I just have my doubts about this being the time for it!" He continued. "Ooh... What have we here? Chamber at the end of the tunnel Lem. It doesn't seem to lead into anything more. It's just a bloody big room."

Lemming perked up at that. They had been just wandering down a tunnel, turns this way and that, with nothing of note along the way, save for the continuing theme of a severe lack of dirt anywhere.

"Right you are! I'll lead us in." He said. They moved through a double door and into a cavernous chamber. As they passed the door, they both noticed a three letter symbol painted onto the door. The letters CDC were picked out in red against a green backdrop.

"Samson... What do you suppose that means?" Lemming asked. Samson was the most historically aware of the pair of them, and in fact the most accomplished scholar in the team. He shrugged in response. "I don't know. There are an awful lot of mysteries surrounding our ancestors and their way of life. Certainly no one has used that set of letters in combination in hundreds of years. I only know that because my research has made it back about four hundred years through time so far, and I have not seen anything like it..." Samson mused.

"I suppose that it is possible that this was one of the symbols used by the Old Masters." He pondered. "It is said that in ancient times, the world was ruled by a very small number of powerful people, people whose tendrils spread deep and wide, and had many names. Perhaps this is the name of one of those arms? If so, I have no idea which arm, of which fiefdom this might represent."

Lemmings face took on an aspect of wonderment and enthusiasm. "Well... Stars and stones, would you look at all this LOOT!" While Samson had been prodding at the edges of his wisdom, Lemming had been wandering further into the vast space, the cavernous chamber beyond the door, and had come upon a stock of some of the most valuable booty he had ever laid eyes on. There were racks and racks of them, at least tens of thousands of them, all hung on hooks, and stored in shelves two floors tall. Environment suits. Breathing gear, water purifiers, sample kits...

This room had all the supplies necessary to keep Sigma-6 in survival gear for... Well, longer than any of the team had been alive, or given the high attrition rate amongst Doormen, the projected remainder of their lives. Lemming was FUMING! "For the LOVE of Earth... This is intolerable! All this kit! We will NEVER get all of this gear out of here! There is just far too much of it! But you could search for a lifetime out there and never hit the jackpot like this!" He exclaimed.

Samson nodded, saying " And ever was it thus, either the feast or the famine." Which drew a snort of derision from Lemming. Samson continued " I have found something else... Give me a second." He was standing by the end of a row of racks, on which was mounted some sort of computer. He searched around its edge for a button or a switch, and as he fumbled, his thumb brushed its screen, at which it blinked to life....

...

The elevator began to slow, and as it did so Gary, Bailey, and The Rage, found themselves lowered to the floor of the elevator car, which calmed Gary down enough that the occupants of the cab could once again hear the movement of the car down the cables which kept it suspended in the shaft. Gary and Bailey looked at one another nervously, and The Rage? He just stood at the door, rooted, unflustered.

The moment the car came to a halt, The Rage pulled open the elevator door, allowing an eye watering light into the small space. Bailey and Gary walked out past him, Gary's cannon once again scanning left and right, Baileys own weapon primed and moving as they moved forward into the light. It had a strange blue hue, that light, as if the sky was trapped within the space beyond the short hall way, connected to the elevator access.

"Gary, take forward point, TR, on my three o'clock as we enter please. Stay sharp fellas." Bailey ordered, as they moved through a large doorway. The light, they could see now, was coming from a huge pool of liquid, surrounded by what looked like a ring of some bizarre assortment of cocoons, as if massive insects had taken up residence. These cocoons were all attached by cables to the pool.

"Boss, you seeing what I am seeing? " asked Gary.

"Yeah... But I do not know why I am seeing it here. Last we saw something like this, was that nest of bastards out to the west, do you remember? Thousands of them..." Before he could continue, a mechanical wailing began above their heads, as if a massive pneumatic system had come online. A vast hole opened above the heads of the Doormen, and through it, a mechanical claw swiftly sought out a cocoon, dipped it into the pool, and then shot up through the ceiling with the cocoon still in its mechanised maw, dripping the blue liquid.

Just then, an urgent electronic bleeping began to issue from all three suits if armour. "Oh Hells teeth!" shouted Gary over the personal radiation sensor alarm. "Boss, we have to go, now, this room just went hotter than the guts of Gaia!" he yelled.

"Agreed. Gentlemen, lets be off." Bailey muttered, scrambling for the door. Gary, Bailey, and The Rage sprinted from the room, and just before they dragged the door closed, Gary threw a gout of refined plasma through the door, impacting on the cocoons at the rear. The sound of a cascading series of organic popping noises pounded on the closed door, as they threw weight against it. With the cessation of the sound, they fell back, and stumbled away from the door. "Its time we rendezvoused with the others. This place has all the hallmarks of a crapstorm waiting to happen, and I am not in any way comfortable with the implications of the presence of those cocoons here."

...

"Lemming! LEMMING! TARGETS AT ALL POINTS, RETREAT BY FIRE!" Roared Samson, stowing his cartographic gear and unslinging his plasma caster. Targets had indeed started appearing at every point of the compass, and Lemming had been busy gathering a stash of the choicest goodies on offer in the cavern. These he threw into a hold all bag, put it over his shoulder, and then pulled his own weapon. He rolled around the corner, spotted Samson, and sprinted over to him. Sliding to a stop, he took a position next to his teammate, and they laid down a suppressive curtain of plasma, while backing toward the exit. "Bloody NIGHTMARE! Remind me why I do this job?" Lemming shouted above their fire.

"Probably because you are too dumb for anything else! Now move your arse!" Samson shouted back, slotting a target which had been about to charge Lemming from the left. They moved backward as they fired, constantly making their way toward the door. Upon reaching it, Lemming pushed Samson through, turned around, and lobbed a modified wrecking charge through the door, into the mass of the shuffling beast forms. A fat boom, and the wet slap of bioforms hitting the door, let him know that they had some breathing room. "Right, off we go then! He said, and without further ado, ran like hell, Samson following on behind.

...

The elevator hit the top of the shaft, and Bailey, Gary, and The Rage disembarked, and made for their rope lines. "Quick as you can fellas. The others are just above us somewhere. God knows what fun THEY managed to find." They scaled their ropes, and hit the first floor level where they had said good bye to the others. No sooner had they reeled in their deep lines, than frantic footsteps were heard issuing from the corridor that Samson and Lemming had taken earlier.

"Boss! Get up those escape lines Boss, there are bloody hundreds of them directly up our tailpipes!" Lemming yelped. Samson just kept running. They all hit the infiltration lines at the same moment, and started to ascend using a quickline system. They had cleared five of the fifteen feet required to make good their escape, when a horde of War Form Rotted made it to the lines, and started to swing them side to side, spoiling the grip of the team on their escape route."TR, KILL THEM ALL!" Bailey roared. The Rage's dull eyes came into full focus, his mouth turned from a befuddled 'O' to a rictus grin, and then he dropped backward and head first off the line, spinning himself around his middle to land on the decking beneath.

"COME, COME MEET YOUR DEATH!" He screamed, launching himself bodily at a mob of War Forms. He smashed into them, spilling half a dozen of them off the gantry, before leaping, spinning through the air, with his fingers turned to blades, the armoured gloves around which, he plunged through a skull, a belly, a spine, he was lost then to the violence itself. That was the only problem with The Rage. Well... It was not nearly the only problem, but that was the main one. There were two ways to recall The Rage from combat. One, would be in a body bag, and that had never come up. The other, was if you were prepared to carry his exhausted carcass from the charnel house he had turned every fight he had ever been in, into. He created a one man beachhead, and the others saluted him, and continued to ascend.

....

Four days had passed, and suit sensor logs and cameras had been scoured of all possible data, which had been passed to the city elders for analysis. In shadowed rooms, connections were made, understandings achieved, things learned, others confirmed. No one knew what CDC stood for, what it really meant, but the cocoons presence in close proximity to a radioactive source, and all in this clean facility, lead the engineers to the conclusion that the Rot had been released deliberately, that it had been done on an industrial scale. The logicians were of unanimous opinion, that there must have been more than one of those facilities. The next team that was sent out, dropped a MOAB down the hole, razing the entire thing from its subterranean depths, to its shielded heights.

Doormen Team Gamma had returned safely, minus The Rage initially. He had shown up twenty four hours ago, having murdered every living thing he could find, before his augmentations had taken over his body, and returned him to the cell in which he lived. He had shown up at the North gate, and merely stood there until it opened. His suit cam revealed that the entire walk home, The Rot had avoided his path. For the first time in a long time, he smiled at the guards at his door as he walked past clamped in irons, a smile of peace.

-------------------

a reply to: olaru12

I'm done... Thanks for dropping in olaru12!

I hope you enjoy the complete story as much as the bit you have already read!

Awesome!! I believe I was even your first flag...ahem...having followed this since seven minutes after your first post! So glad you joined in the writing, TrueBrit! Always a pleasure.

I loved the colorful combat team - a classic aspect of all "trooper" type stories. Great action sequences and a fun, compelling story/mystery.



- AB

Great story True! Really enjoyed this!

a reply to: AboveBoard

I am thrilled that it meets with your approval AB!

Now however, my eyes are grainy, and I need to rest my weary fingers lol!

a reply to: Night Star

Woo!

Thanks Night Star!!!

a reply to: TrueBrit


True!!! That was Fantastic! I didn't want it to end!!!!!!
Very Fine Literary Works Indeed!!!!
I am so Impressed that I want to Hug You My Friend!!!

a reply to: SyxPak

Hehe! Thanks very much Syx.

If we are getting to the huggy stage, you should be warned, its like hugging velcro that has been charged with electrostatic energy!

a reply to: TrueBrit

LOL That True!!! I could just imagine that!!! I am doing a bit of roundabout writing here for a while so that I am not found in The Shed 2 . Obvious reasons. But I know me, I will probably drop in there to say hi at least to the rest of the gang to let em all know that we are both alive here and unscathed...... I have my share of probs to deal with, and all will be well In SyxPak Land.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Intelligent, Deep, Dark and thought provoking! (But that's enough about me! )

GREAT STUFF!!! Bro, when does your book come out??

SERIOUSLY!! It has to be done! MAKE IT SO!!! LOL

Engage S&F! FIRE!!

G

a reply to: Gordi The Drummer

Good grief man... my book comes out when I find vast reserves of both spare time, a vast amount of money to live on for the five years it would take me to write anything substantial enough and of a high enough quality to bother calling a book in the first place, and another three years of living totally free of anything like responsibility, in order to replenish my stamina before even begining the work!

If I find any of those things, I will let you know

a reply to: TrueBrit

Start looking under the bed. My lost socks often end up under mine.

a reply to: Gordi The Drummer

Heh... All I have under my bed is a large number of plastic crates, containing CD cases and sleeves (all my CDs themselves are in a large CD wallet), a set of small rubber weights, various memory items from my childhood, a couple of work journals, and two decades of doodles and written musings.

There may also be some sharp objects. It is the space under MY bed we are talking about!

That was great. Well written and a damn good yarn.

I loved it.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

I am honoured to receive such praise from you Phoenix358!

I am also glad that you enjoyed it!