Drabble+: Nightmare

[strangetomato]

There's nothing quite like breaking your own rules, is there? I'm contrary like that, so actually coming out and saying I'm not going to post much will obviously make me want to write something. So here it is... a drabble+.

Prompt: A character wakes from a nightmare in the middle of the night to the person they least want to see at that moment.
Characters: Tank Grunt (and others, but you'll have to read it to see)
Wordcount: 400
Warnings: language, violence




Then Johnny stopped moving. Tank held his neck in his hands, and Johnny looked back at him with lifeless eyes.

He was dead, and Tank had killed him.

Finally.

Goddamned alien piece of shit.

But why did he feel so empty?

Oh, god. He had killed him.

"Johnny... Johnny?!" Tank shook him. "Shit... I didn't mean it. Wake up, you asshole!"

Frantically, he tried to revive him, but it was too late.

Then Ripp was there, wailing. He fell onto the corpse in despair. "Johnny! You've killed him. You've killed my Johnny!"

"Stop it!" Tank yelled, "Stop crying!"

"You killed him. My brother... you killed my brother."

"I'M your brother."

Why, Ripp? Why him? Why not me?

"I hate you."

Had he said the words, or had Ripp?

Then he was choking him, pressing Ripp to the floor, and feeling the life go out of him too.

Why not me?

He was killing him.

He wanted to stop, but couldn't.

He tried to break out of it, but couldn't.

He tried to scream, but nothing came out.

"Tank?" Frances was on him, shaking him. "TANK!"

Tank still couldn't move or say anything. He couldn't even catch his breath. He could see the room around him, and Frances reaching down at him, but he couldn't move. Frances had his hands reaching out towards his neck, and he thought he must be trying to kill him too. He tried to yell, "Get the fuck off of me!" but nothing came out.

"Tank?! What's wrong with you? Stop it! Wake up! You're scaring me." Frances felt his panic rising, and the next thing he knew, he had slapped Tank squarely across the face. "WAKE UP!"

Tank woke up.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Tank wanted to escape, to shove Frances aside and get out of there, but he felt a strange comfort in having him there too.

He didn't want to be comforted.

He didn't need it.

How much of that had Frances been able to witness? Had he cried out in his sleep? Dreams were blurring into reality, and he didn't want Frances to see that... to see what he had done. He didn't want Frances on his bed either.

"You... hit me."

"I'm sorry." Frances bit his quivering lip, and tried not to cry, but the panic and relief were too much for him.

"God... don't cry."



 

Comments

[sadieg79.livejournal.com]

@tanathir: Ugh, tell me about it! Muses have the habit of tapping you on the shoulder just when you don't expect - or even want - it.

@ST: Very compelling, if a little confusing - unless it was meant to be. I'm curious about these drabbles though; looks like something I'd like to try, but I'm new to the whole idea of them. Where do the prompts/character ideas come from?

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It might be less confusing with images, since it does have that dream-like lack of structure. What was confusing about it? I'd like to know, so I might be able to improve it.

I did a post to request them. madame_ugly did it first, and she got the idea from laridian. It's great to have a prompt when you're feeling the effects of writer's block. I just posted and asked people to suggest prompts. There's a link to it on my sidebar (though few people have suggested anything since the first posting... re-requesting might bring some more, but I have plenty for now).

There are prompt lists all over the place, if you want to find a ready-made example. You could use some from the simstorytellers community. Just go there and find the drabble tag. Also, simfic50 offers prompts for sim writers, and challenges them to complete their 50 prompts with 50 short written pieces. It's on my to-do list for one of these days.

[sadieg79.livejournal.com]

Ugh, just ignore me - I made the same mistake one of my readers did on Insim; lesson for today - never read when you're really tired x_x The bit about Tank going "Why not me?" threw me a little, but it made sense when I read it again. Very effective use of paragraphs there.

Ah, I see; weapon against writer's block! Awesome idea :) Mind you, even without the block it makes for good creative exercise - definitely worth a try, thanks for the info. I saw the one on SST and have been very tempted to do one already, on "runaway"...

[tanathir.livejournal.com]

Muses are temperamental things not to be messed with. No wonder the ancients made demigods out of them.

I think I need one of those boards that lets you write in the shower, because the best lines of dialogue come to me when I'm in there.

[sadieg79.livejournal.com]

LOL Have you seen/read Stephen King's Tommyknockers? Where the resident writer has this machine hooked up to her typewriter, and it writes out her ideas while she sleeps? That'd be an awesome tool for us, wouldn't it? ;) Just leave the computer on, plug in some kind of dongle that receives telepathic thought, and we're all set! :D

Piece of advice: never work with a group of young muses. I've started calling it Single Parent Syndrome, 'cause sometimes it feels like I'm the mum telling them all to be quiet now and then to give me some peace...

belated reply is belated

[tanathir.livejournal.com]

I'm not a Stephen King fan so I avoid his stuff, but I can imagine the general premise.

LOL I imagine my Muse as looking like Hugo Weaving, which is distracting in itself because Agent Smith = HOT as well as SCARY.