I knew what was going to happen. With yet another blaze of heat, bodies were pitched like rag-dolls across Horsell Common but when they landed they were different: contorted and twisted in spasming shapes, wrapped in fiery shrouds, mouths stretched wide in silent screams.
I couldn't tear my eyes from the nearest victim, but then the nearest victim's eyes tore, tore right from their sockets, and blood gushed superfluously onto the ash-black grass. Bones crackled sickeningly and easily as twigs, skin grated from the twitching corpses like zest from an orange. And as bodies blackened, coming rest on the unrecognisable common, the heat-ray ceased, but I could still feel the burning horror associated with the end, the very end, of everything.
I rushed forward to one dilapidated body, if you could call it that, because now it was a grotesque mass of bones scattered around me. I heard an erupting roar and looked towards the cylinder's deep hollow, and as the heat-ray flared I knew I would soon become nothing more than the repulsive sight at my feet.
Thrown back onto my writhing spine, I felt my veins sever, my skull shatter asunder, my burning apendages break away seamlessly, every cell in my body screaming in protest. My eyes were clamped shut against the disturbing views I knew I would see, and did, as my lids themselves were ripped away, and was forced to see the last sight, one of horror and atrocity, one of my body smoking and sinking to nothing
I couldn't tear my eyes from the nearest victim, but then the nearest victim's eyes tore, tore right from their sockets, and blood gushed superfluously onto the ash-black grass. Bones crackled sickeningly and easily as twigs, skin grated from the twitching corpses like zest from an orange. And as bodies blackened, coming rest on the unrecognisable common, the heat-ray ceased, but I could still feel the burning horror associated with the end, the very end, of everything.
I rushed forward to one dilapidated body, if you could call it that, because now it was a grotesque mass of bones scattered around me. I heard an erupting roar and looked towards the cylinder's deep hollow, and as the heat-ray flared I knew I would soon become nothing more than the repulsive sight at my feet.
Thrown back onto my writhing spine, I felt my veins sever, my skull shatter asunder, my burning apendages break away seamlessly, every cell in my body screaming in protest. My eyes were clamped shut against the disturbing views I knew I would see, and did, as my lids themselves were ripped away, and was forced to see the last sight, one of horror and atrocity, one of my body smoking and sinking to nothing
Okay Mr spellcheck, what's 'shrounds'?
ReplyDeleteI love this Shaun. 'mouths stretched wide in silent screams' is great because of the imagery AND the sibilance created by the alliteration. Not sure about superfluously - seems a bit much. However 'ash-black grass' is lovely.
The simile of the skin and the orange zest works well. The use of commas to slow down the final sentence of the second paragraph is great too and really adds to the sense of an approaching climax.
Ooooh: 'heart' instead of heard.
In the last paragraph the individual descriptive moments work really well, but how do you feel about the skull shattering while you can still, apparently, see everything.
Fantasticly gory. Target achieved...cough, cough - sentences need full stops.
fantastically
DeleteSir, in Shaun's piece of writing he put 'shrouds' not 'shrounds'.
ReplyDeleteI changed it
DeleteNice spot Char - I had noticed, but glad to see he's changed it.
DeleteDefinition of shroud
ReplyDeletenoun;
1.a length of cloth or an enveloping garment in which a dead person is wrapped for burial:
he was buried in a linen shroud
technical a protective casing or cover:
the trigger shroud prevents snagging on clothing