Gregor and the Stalkers: A TUC Fanfic
Nov 28, 2011 22:45:07 GMT -5
Post by Gorim on Nov 28, 2011 22:45:07 GMT -5
Two years…
Two entire, long, fleeting, agonizing years.
Gregor stepped off the bus, waving cheerfully to his friends, hiding the emotional roller coaster that been going on inside his head all day. Old names that he'd tried to keep pushed out of his mind kept popping up at the oddest times.
Mareth.
Aurora.
Temp.
…
He knew for a fact it had been two years.
It had taken over a year to move safely to Virginia. So much had to be done. Gregor's mother had to get a job there; they had to transfer everything to Gregor and Lizzie's new schools; they had to move the furniture from the apartment to the house.
And then, of course, there was the waiting. They had to wait for Dad's health to improve, and wait for Gregor's scars to fade to the point that it was safe for him to go out, and wait for the nightmares and dreams to stop…
And wait and wait and wait…
In between all that waiting, Gregor's grandmother died. Then there was the debate on whether to bury her in New York or in Virginia. Ultimately, they decided on cremation.
And that whole time, Gregor sat and wondered about those people and friends he left behind against his will.
No matter how long they waited, he could never wait Down There. That would be counterproductive.
And when the waiting had finally stopped, it had been almost a year. And then it was anything but waiting. Then it was a whirlwind of packing and moving and settling in and transferring…
Gregor hadn't realized the anniversary had passed until the week after. But then everything slowed down, and now it was calm enough to dwell.
The driveway that led to their farmhouse was literally a mile long. Normally it was a nice walk, but today all it did was provide more empty time to think.
Time to think about the beautiful stone city miles beneath New York.
Time to think about the pale skinned people that lived there.
Time to think about the bats and rats and cockroaches and mice and moles and spiders that lived with them.
Time to think about the treacherous jungles and the mazes that were far across a body of water and a dark room covered in carvings and words that dictated his life to an irrational extent.
Time to think about…
He felt his eyes begin to sting and took several deep breaths. He'd woken up that morning screaming. The nightmare had been a hodgepodge of fears. He'd been fighting for his life against thousands of shadows, blind, or maybe just lost in the dark. He'd watched helplessly as a great black bat had died, and then he'd fallen through the ground into even heavier darkness.
He wondered if going back to That Place would have made things better or worse.
He was snapped out of his potentially counterproductive reverie by laughter. He looked up, not realizing that he'd walked the length of the driveway already. Boots and Lizzie were running around in the snow, though with Boots it probably would have been more precise to say flailing, throwing snowballs and just having a good time.
Boots was five now, and in kindergarten, though she was part of the half-day class that didn't need to attend full-time. While she still went by Boots with the family, she was starting to insist on Maggie or Margaret.
Irrationally, Gregor didn't really want to let go of her old moniker.
Stay tucked up, Boots! Hold your knees!
I hold my knees!
Gregor swallowed past the lump in his throat and did his best to banish the voices and names and images that had refused to stop plaguing him since that morning.
Lizzie was ten now. Technically she should have been in fifth grade, but she was smart enough to skip a grade. She'd jumped right out of forth grade and into middle school, which was fine with her. Sometimes Gregor wondered if Boots remembered That Place, but he never had to wonder with Lizzie. Once, she'd crept up to him in the hallway between their rooms and whispered, so their mother wouldn't hear, "Do you think they're all okay?"
"I don't know," he'd whispered back. "I hope so."
"I'm sure they are."
"Hey, Gregor!" An icy fist of a snowball slammed right into the side of his face. "Oops… I was aiming for your chest!" He looked up, brushing the snow out of his hair and off of his face, to see Boots rolling in the snow in hysterics while Lizzie smiled apologetically. With a slow grin, Gregor bent over and started to create a monster snowball. "Oh g- RUN, MAGGIE!" The girls tumbled through the snow as Gregor pelted the ground at their heels with snowballs, and the three rushed into the house, grinning and dripping all over the hardwood floor.
The house itself wasn't bad, particularly in comparison to the apartment they'd shared in New York. There was a full kitchen, a living room, a dining room that was actually separate from the kitchen, four bedrooms plus a basement. Only one bathroom, but all things considered it was thoroughly small price to pay.
For a brief, utterly invigorating moment, Gregor forgot about what day it was.
Gregor the human, I bond to you.
"Hey everyone," their dad called from the living room. "How was school?" As the girls rattled off the details of their days, even Boots who would have told him about her day already, Gregor hung their coats up and tried to not remember those damn words.
Our life and death are one, we two.
"I'm gonna go upstairs and study, okay guys?" He said, picking up his bag. He went upstairs without waiting for an answer.
He closed the door and swung the little hook latch to lock it. Then he pressed his forehead to the wood, his eyes closed.
Nike.
Dulcet.
Nerissa.
…
He gritted his teeth and pushed away from the door. He knew Lizzie wouldn't bother him; whether out of sympathy or empathy, she'd understand. Same with his father. As far as he knew, Boots didn't even notice something was wrong. But his mother…
His mother would want to discuss it. His mother would want to know why he'd been to the principle that day for snapping in the lunchroom. She wouldn't understand why it meant so much. She hadn't made friends Down There. She hadn't cared about anyone. She hadn't…
In dark, in flame, in war, in strife…
He wished a fire would start, or a bomb would go off, or a nuclear holocaust; something, anything to make the world too fast for him to think about it.
About them.
Oh, look who's decided to show up! Smelling like pudding and bubble bath.
He felt sobs start to push at the walls of his chest as old memories bubbled up to the surface with a vengeance. It was as if the dam had broken.
Following giant cockroaches into an area teaming with giant bats.
Teaching pale skinned children how to dance the Hokey Pokey.
Flying over beautiful stone buildings with a friend who'd never let him fall.
Watching lava dribble and spill over rocks and corpses.
So many corpses…
Don't go, okay? Don't.
"I save you as I save my life," Gregor whispered to empty room. For some reason, that stopped the sobs instead of freeing them.
Hazard.
Howard.
Vikus.
He closed his eyes, held his head in his hands, and let silent tears fall.
Ripred.
Twitchtip.
The Bane.
Quiet, hitched, stuttering breaths became the only sound in the room.
Ares.
Luxa.
I love you.
He hated it here.
()()()
Later that night, his mom decided they'd have hamburger casserole. Nobody ever argued about hamburger casserole. The problem was that the hamburger was in the freezer in the basement, and Lizzie was convinced something was down there. And by something, the otherwise logical young lady meant a ghost.
"I'm not going down there!" She argued, standing the kitchen as her mother turned on the oven. "I'm not!"
"Lizzie, this is ridiculous," the woman sighed. "There are no ghosts in the basement."
"Then how do you explain it?"
"Maybe the conversations from upstairs are going through the floor," her father suggested. "Or maybe the television?"
"I'd recognize that," Lizzie protested. "It's just saying one word."
"And what word would that be, dear?" Their mother asked tiredly.
"It's saying 'Gregor'."
The teenaged boy looked up from his place on the couch, peering through the window that connected the living room to the kitchen.
"The ghosts are saying my name?" He asked with interest. Lizzie nodded furiously.
"Yeah! It's so clear! And when I ask who's there, it stops!"
"Being dead must be bad," Boots piped up. "If all they have to talk about is Gregor." Even Lizzie had to giggle a bit at that.
"Here." Gregor got up from the couch. "I'll get the burger." He walked over to the door to the basement, then stopped and turned to his family. "And if I'm not back in five minutes… run. It can probably smell fear."
"Ha ha, Gregor!" Lizzie called as closed the door behind him.
The basement wasn't that large. It had two rooms, one with the washer and dryer and another with a couch, a tv, a freezer, a table with a chair, and a large, broken antique vent that never put out any air. It stayed cool in the summer and fairly warm in the winter, so Gregor would often come down to the basement for quiet time, which came in the Calm Down and Study variety.
Now that Lizzie's story had included him, however, it was a little creepy.
He decided to hurry, paying no attention to the fact that it was a bit ridiculous for his heart to be pounding so loudly.
He had barely touched the handle of the freezer door when a whisper made him jump out of his skin.
"… Gregor?"
He cursed and backed up against the freezer, looking around frantically.
"Gregor?"
He went over to the room with the dryer and washer and peered inside. There was no one. He could feel the blood rush in his veins, and while he would have loved for it to be one of his family members joking around with him, he could safely say that the deep, gravely voice was not his father and could not have been Boots, Lizzie, or his mother.
"Gregor!"
"Look," he said shakily. "Whoever this is, it isn't funny, alright?"
"Overlander whelp!"
The statement was far louder than anything else that had been said, though not loud enough for Gregor to worry about anyone else hearing. It was loud enough for him to realize where it was coming from.
The vent.
He should have run. Any sane person would have run. His mother would have screamed and demanded that they move to Kansas or something. But the same word that would have made her half die of fright was the same that made his heart feel outrageously light.
Overlander.
He rushed over to the vent, peered inside, and scrambled back with a sharp squeak of shock.
Peering out, blue eyes glittering, was a very large wolf.
I tried to think of good quotes from all the characters over the course of the series. It was more difficult than I thought...
Two entire, long, fleeting, agonizing years.
Gregor stepped off the bus, waving cheerfully to his friends, hiding the emotional roller coaster that been going on inside his head all day. Old names that he'd tried to keep pushed out of his mind kept popping up at the oddest times.
Mareth.
Aurora.
Temp.
…
He knew for a fact it had been two years.
It had taken over a year to move safely to Virginia. So much had to be done. Gregor's mother had to get a job there; they had to transfer everything to Gregor and Lizzie's new schools; they had to move the furniture from the apartment to the house.
And then, of course, there was the waiting. They had to wait for Dad's health to improve, and wait for Gregor's scars to fade to the point that it was safe for him to go out, and wait for the nightmares and dreams to stop…
And wait and wait and wait…
In between all that waiting, Gregor's grandmother died. Then there was the debate on whether to bury her in New York or in Virginia. Ultimately, they decided on cremation.
And that whole time, Gregor sat and wondered about those people and friends he left behind against his will.
No matter how long they waited, he could never wait Down There. That would be counterproductive.
And when the waiting had finally stopped, it had been almost a year. And then it was anything but waiting. Then it was a whirlwind of packing and moving and settling in and transferring…
Gregor hadn't realized the anniversary had passed until the week after. But then everything slowed down, and now it was calm enough to dwell.
The driveway that led to their farmhouse was literally a mile long. Normally it was a nice walk, but today all it did was provide more empty time to think.
Time to think about the beautiful stone city miles beneath New York.
Time to think about the pale skinned people that lived there.
Time to think about the bats and rats and cockroaches and mice and moles and spiders that lived with them.
Time to think about the treacherous jungles and the mazes that were far across a body of water and a dark room covered in carvings and words that dictated his life to an irrational extent.
Time to think about…
He felt his eyes begin to sting and took several deep breaths. He'd woken up that morning screaming. The nightmare had been a hodgepodge of fears. He'd been fighting for his life against thousands of shadows, blind, or maybe just lost in the dark. He'd watched helplessly as a great black bat had died, and then he'd fallen through the ground into even heavier darkness.
He wondered if going back to That Place would have made things better or worse.
He was snapped out of his potentially counterproductive reverie by laughter. He looked up, not realizing that he'd walked the length of the driveway already. Boots and Lizzie were running around in the snow, though with Boots it probably would have been more precise to say flailing, throwing snowballs and just having a good time.
Boots was five now, and in kindergarten, though she was part of the half-day class that didn't need to attend full-time. While she still went by Boots with the family, she was starting to insist on Maggie or Margaret.
Irrationally, Gregor didn't really want to let go of her old moniker.
Stay tucked up, Boots! Hold your knees!
I hold my knees!
Gregor swallowed past the lump in his throat and did his best to banish the voices and names and images that had refused to stop plaguing him since that morning.
Lizzie was ten now. Technically she should have been in fifth grade, but she was smart enough to skip a grade. She'd jumped right out of forth grade and into middle school, which was fine with her. Sometimes Gregor wondered if Boots remembered That Place, but he never had to wonder with Lizzie. Once, she'd crept up to him in the hallway between their rooms and whispered, so their mother wouldn't hear, "Do you think they're all okay?"
"I don't know," he'd whispered back. "I hope so."
"I'm sure they are."
"Hey, Gregor!" An icy fist of a snowball slammed right into the side of his face. "Oops… I was aiming for your chest!" He looked up, brushing the snow out of his hair and off of his face, to see Boots rolling in the snow in hysterics while Lizzie smiled apologetically. With a slow grin, Gregor bent over and started to create a monster snowball. "Oh g- RUN, MAGGIE!" The girls tumbled through the snow as Gregor pelted the ground at their heels with snowballs, and the three rushed into the house, grinning and dripping all over the hardwood floor.
The house itself wasn't bad, particularly in comparison to the apartment they'd shared in New York. There was a full kitchen, a living room, a dining room that was actually separate from the kitchen, four bedrooms plus a basement. Only one bathroom, but all things considered it was thoroughly small price to pay.
For a brief, utterly invigorating moment, Gregor forgot about what day it was.
Gregor the human, I bond to you.
"Hey everyone," their dad called from the living room. "How was school?" As the girls rattled off the details of their days, even Boots who would have told him about her day already, Gregor hung their coats up and tried to not remember those damn words.
Our life and death are one, we two.
"I'm gonna go upstairs and study, okay guys?" He said, picking up his bag. He went upstairs without waiting for an answer.
He closed the door and swung the little hook latch to lock it. Then he pressed his forehead to the wood, his eyes closed.
Nike.
Dulcet.
Nerissa.
…
He gritted his teeth and pushed away from the door. He knew Lizzie wouldn't bother him; whether out of sympathy or empathy, she'd understand. Same with his father. As far as he knew, Boots didn't even notice something was wrong. But his mother…
His mother would want to discuss it. His mother would want to know why he'd been to the principle that day for snapping in the lunchroom. She wouldn't understand why it meant so much. She hadn't made friends Down There. She hadn't cared about anyone. She hadn't…
In dark, in flame, in war, in strife…
He wished a fire would start, or a bomb would go off, or a nuclear holocaust; something, anything to make the world too fast for him to think about it.
About them.
Oh, look who's decided to show up! Smelling like pudding and bubble bath.
He felt sobs start to push at the walls of his chest as old memories bubbled up to the surface with a vengeance. It was as if the dam had broken.
Following giant cockroaches into an area teaming with giant bats.
Teaching pale skinned children how to dance the Hokey Pokey.
Flying over beautiful stone buildings with a friend who'd never let him fall.
Watching lava dribble and spill over rocks and corpses.
So many corpses…
Don't go, okay? Don't.
"I save you as I save my life," Gregor whispered to empty room. For some reason, that stopped the sobs instead of freeing them.
Hazard.
Howard.
Vikus.
He closed his eyes, held his head in his hands, and let silent tears fall.
Ripred.
Twitchtip.
The Bane.
Quiet, hitched, stuttering breaths became the only sound in the room.
Ares.
Luxa.
I love you.
He hated it here.
()()()
Later that night, his mom decided they'd have hamburger casserole. Nobody ever argued about hamburger casserole. The problem was that the hamburger was in the freezer in the basement, and Lizzie was convinced something was down there. And by something, the otherwise logical young lady meant a ghost.
"I'm not going down there!" She argued, standing the kitchen as her mother turned on the oven. "I'm not!"
"Lizzie, this is ridiculous," the woman sighed. "There are no ghosts in the basement."
"Then how do you explain it?"
"Maybe the conversations from upstairs are going through the floor," her father suggested. "Or maybe the television?"
"I'd recognize that," Lizzie protested. "It's just saying one word."
"And what word would that be, dear?" Their mother asked tiredly.
"It's saying 'Gregor'."
The teenaged boy looked up from his place on the couch, peering through the window that connected the living room to the kitchen.
"The ghosts are saying my name?" He asked with interest. Lizzie nodded furiously.
"Yeah! It's so clear! And when I ask who's there, it stops!"
"Being dead must be bad," Boots piped up. "If all they have to talk about is Gregor." Even Lizzie had to giggle a bit at that.
"Here." Gregor got up from the couch. "I'll get the burger." He walked over to the door to the basement, then stopped and turned to his family. "And if I'm not back in five minutes… run. It can probably smell fear."
"Ha ha, Gregor!" Lizzie called as closed the door behind him.
The basement wasn't that large. It had two rooms, one with the washer and dryer and another with a couch, a tv, a freezer, a table with a chair, and a large, broken antique vent that never put out any air. It stayed cool in the summer and fairly warm in the winter, so Gregor would often come down to the basement for quiet time, which came in the Calm Down and Study variety.
Now that Lizzie's story had included him, however, it was a little creepy.
He decided to hurry, paying no attention to the fact that it was a bit ridiculous for his heart to be pounding so loudly.
He had barely touched the handle of the freezer door when a whisper made him jump out of his skin.
"… Gregor?"
He cursed and backed up against the freezer, looking around frantically.
"Gregor?"
He went over to the room with the dryer and washer and peered inside. There was no one. He could feel the blood rush in his veins, and while he would have loved for it to be one of his family members joking around with him, he could safely say that the deep, gravely voice was not his father and could not have been Boots, Lizzie, or his mother.
"Gregor!"
"Look," he said shakily. "Whoever this is, it isn't funny, alright?"
"Overlander whelp!"
The statement was far louder than anything else that had been said, though not loud enough for Gregor to worry about anyone else hearing. It was loud enough for him to realize where it was coming from.
The vent.
He should have run. Any sane person would have run. His mother would have screamed and demanded that they move to Kansas or something. But the same word that would have made her half die of fright was the same that made his heart feel outrageously light.
Overlander.
He rushed over to the vent, peered inside, and scrambled back with a sharp squeak of shock.
Peering out, blue eyes glittering, was a very large wolf.
I tried to think of good quotes from all the characters over the course of the series. It was more difficult than I thought...
