User Blogs Group Story 4: Resistance

[Jam Stunna]

Link to original post: [drupal=5482]User Blogs Group Story 4: Resistance [/drupal]



It's been three years since the original User Blogs Group Story,, and with a month off before school starts again, I want to give it a shot again. As with the other group stories, I'll provide the main character and the setting, while each poster adds a new chapter to the story.

However, I've learned that this project doesn't exactly work without supervision. The problem we've run into is that, whenever I let posters add whatever they want, inevitably the story gets hijacked and it becomes impossible for the plot to move forward as more and more people add in what they think is cool instead of moving the story forward. This was a real problem with the original project, as posters added themselves at the expense of the story and the project ground to a halt. To mitigate this issue while still allowing for posters to contribute in their own way, I'm adding two new rules to the group project.

1) All story posts must be labeled "Chapter ____" with the accurate chapter number to be considered "canon" in the storyline. Please bold this title.
2) ANY POST MEANT TO BE INCLUDED IN THE STORY LINE IS SUBJECT TO EDITING BY ME.

I won't be changing the content of the post, but if I feel that a story edition skews too far from the established storyline, or dawdles, then I'll remove the "Chapter____" heading, making the story edition in question non-canon and relieving future posters from having to follow it. I hope to do this as little as possible, but it's become clear to me that this project cannot work without some form of editorial control.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, onto the story!

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

Chapter 1: A Time Past
There was a man, on the other side of the town named Isaac. He was seventy, maybe eighty years old, and he never left his house anymore. He was more of a myth than a man, the oldest person in the region. The only man who remembered what it was like before the Kern arrived.

Kevin had inherited the job of bringing Isaac food and supplies after his older brother had been killed. He hated having to carry Isaac's rations so far, almost five kilometers to the old human's quarters. After the new human sector was built, he'd refused to leave his home, a bombed out apartment building that continued to stand despite decades of disrepair. He hated Isaac's appearance. His body was gaunt, his skin covered with liver spots and hanging off him. There were crimson splotches on the back of his hands from the blood vessels in them constantly bursting. His breath was moldy and dry. Kevin hadn't met any other old men, and he was glad.

But on the days that he made the walk to Isaac's house, he would close his eyes and breathe through his mouth and listen to Isaac talk about those days, the beautiful days before the Kern. Kevin would imagine the old human cities of New York and Paris, what it must have looked like to see millions of people milling about without the four meter-tall aliens observing them constantly with their six unblinking eyes. He allowed himself to think of a world where you chose your own mate instead of being paired off for breeding.

He didn't really care about those parts of Isaac's story though, nice as they were. What he really wanted to hear about was the resistance. Isaac claimed he led a group of thirty men back in the heyday of the resistance. It didn't matter to Kevin whether he was telling the truth or not. With his eyes still closed, he could see men and women, humans like him, who dared to fight back against the Kern. In his mind, they carried stolen laser cannons and hand shields, and when they were desperate they resorted to guns and knives, even though they were useless against the Kern. Isaac told him they fought under the cover of dark, taking advantage of the Kern's night-blindness. They'd settle for killing one or two a night, and every once in a while score a major strike, like the time they blew up a Kern hopper and sent 51 of those monsters straight to hell.

Then came the Scouring. Kevin had heard of it long before he ever met Isaac, but it became real as he described the Kern's relentless search resistance members, watching all his friends die, learning that their midnight attacks and hoppers cost millions of humans their lives. The resistance was shattered, and Isaac was a slave again. He wondered aloud why the Kern let him live; he was too old to work, and he was certain they knew he'd been in the resistance.

Kevin would leave at that point, never telling Isaac that he knew why they kept him alive. To tell the story of the invasion, of the Scouring, of over fifty years of hopelessness and despair. To remind the other humans of what would happen if they got out of line. Isaac's stories never made Kevin afraid though. They made him angry, at the Kern, at the humans for giving up, at himself for accepting this life for 26 years. He would think that there had to be something better than this, and Isaac was a living reminder that, yes, there once was.

Kevin's thoughts turned to his brother Johnathan. He'd heard the stories too, when he visited Isaac. One day, he told Kevin he loved him, and left that same night. He didn't return until the Kern dumped his broken body at the entrance to the human quarters. No one talked about what had happened to him, but Kevin knew. He'd died fighting the Kern.

Maybe it was time for him to do the same.

 

[Alberto1866]

Chapter 2: The Adventure Unfolds

One day Kevin had set out to Isaac's house, he took the same route as always. He saw the same broken gray buildings, the miserable people sulking around. The Kern had left them devasted, with each passing day Kevi's rage built against them. Though on the fateful day Kevin had seen something that would change everything. On his way nearing Isaac's house he saw The Kern taking away a women, she was screaming and struggling against them, but it was futile. That was when a small child appeared, screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! No don't take her!" her cries were terrible the agonzing screams. Then what happened next was too much. The woman had broken away and ran to her child, but in a matter of seconds The Kern grabbed her, and ripped her apart shrieking, limb by limb. They were furious, no one disobeyed them. The little girl watched the whole thing, Kevin would never forget her face that day.

Kevin now ran the rest of the way to Isaac's house. "He's been here the longest, he must know something... There must be someway to get rid of them." said Kevin. Arriving at Isaac's door breathless, he knocked repeatedly wanting to get in as soon as possible. The door opened, "Ahhh hello Kevin."

 

[Luco]

Chapter 3: A broken prophecy

Kevin was frenzied. He rushed to tell Isaac what he'd seen that day and in his haste he also blurted out that he wanted to do something against it... he wanted to fight back.

"Kevin, that is not wise to talk about. Do you really want to die like your brother?" Isaac's eyes were steel.

"You knew!?"

"It was obvious, child! I've seen enough in my time to know what happens when you go against the Kern. That aside, I don't want you to end up like he did."

"I won't! I never realized it... but what is life worth if not for living! I can't live my life under oppression!"

"Then... then... I... I don't want to see you die, child. I'm responsible for the deaths of countless lives." Isaac had a concerned look in his eyes, no longer so concrete.

"Then let me fight. Living this way is only death in another form. Death of all that we love, death of all that is beautiful in this world. I'm not going home, old man. I will fight until my last breath if need be, however rash that may seem."

"...

Fine. You're as persuasive as your brother, don't think I like this though."

"What can you tell me" Kevin asked him.

"Not much. A start, perhaps. A long time ago it was said, perhaps as a hope to keep us going, that there would be success, that a small group of people would infiltrate the Kern... and free us. We all assumed it would be our group, until it was dismantled. Then we thought it was a myth. I held on to it for a long time but the more I saw, the less I believed in it. Still, i'm not too jaded to believe entirely that it's false."

Isaac strained to rise from his chair. "Follow me."

They came to a wall. "Now where is it...?" Isaac tapped the wall in different places. In one section, where the wall seemed slightly discoloured, the circular patch moved inward, followed by the rest of that part of the wall: A few metres high and one across, inside a small space, clouded in darkness. Isaac reached in and grabbed out a gun. It was covered in dust but he wiped it away and pressed a small, square-shaped button on the back of it.

The gun lit up as power surged through it. "Don't ask how I got this", the old man said. Giving it to Kevin, he added "This is one of two left that I have. Take the other one, if you meet someone else interested... you know what to do. Remember what does and does not work against the Kern, though even a knife is better than nothing if you're looking for a distraction. Take whatever you can as you go, sometimes the smallest things can be of the greatest use." He spread his fingers apart, two on either side. "Lucky the Kern don't know this one yet, it was a sign we used in the resistance. We also sometimes used it on hand-pads to gain access in to weapon vaults and other rooms. If you find anything resistance related, that's the sign to be using."

"I don't know how to thank you for this..." Kevin started.

"Don't thank me, I feel as though i'm just sending another poor boy to his doom. Whatever you do, use your wits, trust your instincts..." He led him to the door.

"And be safe."