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Click here"Good man. Now, let's see if we can put an end to this menace before it can cause any more misery." Captain Rogor said, hefting his own hammer and raising his shield.
"You got it, Captain!" Henry said with glee, doing the same.
"If you think either of you stand a chance, you both stupider than I thought. Time to die!" The Horror roared, surging under the bed. It struck from the shadows under the bed lightning fast, It's pencil claws seeking the Captains legs. The Captain was quick, though. A veteran of countless battles against enemies from every corner of the galaxy, he had the reflexes of a rattlesnake and was savvy enough to protect himself from the low blow.
His shield came down, turning the claws away with a buzz as they scraped across the surface of the ion field. The Horror was quick as well, though, and escaped the swipe of Rogor's Gavel. Henry had hopped over to the other side of the bed, and as the beast popped It's head out there, It was met with the minijet powered hammer crashing into It's jaw with a crackling pop.
The Horror squealed and ducked to the side, reeling from the strike. The hit had knocked an old shirt loose, and it lay on the floor. Henry wondered what the creature would look like as It lost It's parts, how It would fight as they tore parts of it away. He also wondered if his stuff was going to be ruined. He glanced at his shirt again quickly and saw that despite being hit by an electrified, minijet aided space hammer, the shirt was unmarked. He decided to ignore it for the time being and focus on the fight.
The Horror looked from one enemy to the other, trying to decide who to go after. Both had their shields held up and their hammers ready. The Horror made It's decision and darted at Henry, a gurgling roar in It's throat. Henry thrust his shield out, but was toppled by the force of the creature slamming into it. It's clawed hands came around on either side of the shield, reaching for Henry. He brought the hammer around in a short swing, trying to keep It from raking him with It's nasty claws. The swing would have been all but powerless were it not of the pulse engine in his hammer. With it, the hammer moved like a freight train, smashing into the thing's shoulder and knocking It off of Henry before It could get a hold of him. Then Captain Rogor was over It, his own hammer coming down like a thunderbolt. He had his pulse engine set to maximum and it showed. The crackling thud was almost deafening to Henry, who was only a foot or so from the impact. The Horror howled and scrabbled to It's twisted feet.
Henry pressed the attack as he rose, wanting to keep the demon from having a chance to attack again. As It turned to face them, Henry screamed and brought his hammer down in an overhead swing, letting the minijet drive it hard. The blow slammed into the Horror's shoulder, crushing It to It's knees again. It lashed out with It's other arm, smashing into Henry's shield and pushing him aside. Henry stumbled but kept in his feet. The beast was quick though, and was on him before he could steady himself. Henry was pushed up against the bed, his back slamming into the side of the mattress and frame, pinning him as the Horror raised a claw high to deliver a terrible blow.
It's claw was shattered by Captain Rogor's Gavel before it could come down, however. His hammer punched through the clawed hand, blasting it apart into a few socks and some pencils flying about the room, the arm thrown to the Horror's side. As the beast howled in pain, Henry swung his own hammer upwards, from under the monster's grip on the edge of his shield. The Gavel slammed into It's stomach, cutting the howl short in a gurgling gasp. The demon shot back under the bed and Henry stumbled over to where Captain Rogor stood.
"A mighty blow, Henry, and well placed." Rogor said with a nod and a smile.
"I think yours was pretty good too. It sure saved me." Henry gasped, trying to catch his breath a little.
"A few more good ones like them, and I think this thing will be just about finished. Look. It has lost a lot of flesh already." The captain said, pointing at the various bits of junk that had once been parts of the Horror. It was all just laying there, not burned or ripped or anything. None of it looked like it had been smashed by lightning hammers or anything. Henry nodded and hefted his Battle Gavel.
"Then let's give it a few more good ones." He said, feeling like a more like a star barbarian than ever before.
"Indeed." Rogor chuckled, circling the bed and ducking to look under it.
The Horror shot out as the Captain went around the corner of the footlocker, and got past his defenses. It latched onto his shoulder, pinning his Gavel to his chest, as It's remaining claw raked his back. The Captain bellowed in pain and rage as he tried to twist free. He turned off his shield and used the projector to bash at the beast's face, pounding It with his powerful punches.
Henry shouted 'NO!' as he saw his hero being mauled by the Horror, and leapt into action. He didn't want to swing the hammer and miss, taking the chance on pulverizing Rogor. Instead, he bounded onto the bed and used it as a springboard again. As he came down this time, he had the handle of his Gavel in both hands, and brought the butt of the handle down on the back of the Horror's head with a heavy thud.
It was enough. The beast was rocked from It's grasp on the Captain and released him, staggering to the side. The Captain immediately spun around, bringing his hammer about in a flat swing, smashing the beast's face and sending It reeling towards Henry. As It stumbled to Henry, he held the Gavel like a baseball bat and wound up for a homerun swing, thumbing the pulse engine to full power as he did. Henry swung at a slightly upward angle, putting as much power into it as he could, adding all the force he could to the already massive force of the minijet powered hammer.
The crack was like thunder. The Horror's head exploded into a cloud of blanket and laundry and hangers and marbles. It's body slumped to the floor, falling into a heap of junk as it did. Whatever possessing spirit had held It together was gone, destroyed by Henry's smiting hammer. The clatter of marbles bouncing on the walls and his desk was the last sound of the Horror they heard. Henry stood where he was, shoulders sagging, sore, as he gasped for breath.
"Another enemy of good, felled by the might of conviction." Captain Rogor said, turning off his shield and Gavel. Henry turned his off as well and straightened up, smiling. It was what Captain Rogor said whenever he saw to it an enemy was brought to justice or destroyed.
"Thank you, Captain. I would be dead if you hadn't shown up to help me. How did you even get here?" Henry said, his mind a whirl of emotions and questions.
"What do you mean? I was always here. I didn't help you. You did. Where do you think I came from?" Captain Rogor said. As he spoke, he started to fade away, growing more and more transparent with every word.
"Wait! What do you mean? I don't understand!" Henry called, stepping over to where Rogor was almost gone. Rogor reached out pointed at Henry's chest, speaking again just before he disappeared entirely, his voice faint and sounding like it was more in Henry's head than in the room.
"Where else would I have come from?" He laughed. Then he was gone. Henry stood there blinking for a second, then looked down at his hands. He held his old plastic hammer and plastic shield. They were the same old toys they had always been before. He looked around his room. It was a mess, but that was it. It didn't look like there had been a fight between a shadow demon, a star barbarian, and a kid armed with weapons from some far off galaxy. It just looked like his closet threw up.
Henry heard footsteps in the hall. He tossed his hammer and shield in the open closet, turned off the flashlights, and hopped into bed, pulling the blankets up just as the door opened. His mom poked her head in the door, trying to see in the dark room.
"You alright? I thought I heard something banging around." She asked quietly.
"I'm fine. I thought I saw something in the closet, but it was," Henry started, not knowing what to tell her.
"It was what?"
"It was just a nightmare." He said, smiling in the dark.
"Okay. Goodnight." She said with a little laugh.
"Goodnight."
- COMMENTS
johsunover 3 years agoJust get over it. Be graceful when you've made a mistake. It's useless to do a flame war in the comments, most people don't even come back to see what you said in response to their comments. I don't.
Its an interesting story. So it's not perfect for this site, but it is a little gem. Clean it up and submit it to The "New Yorker" or Playboy.
Just don't bother to rant to someone who won't ever see it. It makes you look ... Less.
Anonymousabout 6 years agoThis story was just plain silly. Third graders don’t frequent this site. Or at least, they shouldn’t.
wakingDownalmost 7 years agoAuthorThis is wakingDown. I am not adverse to constructive criticism. Whatever you may think to the contrary with this comment, that really is the case. Comments like these do not feel like they qualify as 'constructive' or 'criticism' to me.
Some blank commenter leaves a rant because they can't (oh look; a contraction) decode the puzzle as to why/how capitalization (and yeah, I missed a couple capitals. It happens) was used in a stylized manner to distinguish a monster as being referred to as 'It' as a *PROPER NOUN* to accentuate its inhuman, singular, and nature and inorganic composition. Fine. No sweat off my sack. I'm game.
If you don't like that approach in terms of style, then you don't like it in terms of style. That's perfectly fine. That's a totally subjective, opinion-based matter and I'm not about to cry foul over a matter of taste. I'm sure there are plenty of styles that I detest that others find to be absolutely lovely. That's just human nature, and it's something that should be *embraced* in my opinion. Differing flavors make for a varied and exciting meal, after all.
But that simple subjective discussion isn't what we have here, is it? Nope. Not this one. What we have here is some random-ass chode who won't even stand up and put their name to their 'critique' (ha) when trying to rip into something that clearly went sailing far and wide, missing their noggin by a not inconsiderable distance. We have a rant trying to make this a statement that the stylization used is objectively wrong, and the only point forwarded to support this is "I can't read a word without thinking of the exact definition and/or usage of that word that I was raised with and taught to associate with that word, no matter what, forever and ever, a-fuckin'-men." I would ask you if the concept of slang is a foreign one due to this crippling literary affliction, but as forms of slang and hyperbolic phrasing are used in the rambling nonsense of the comment (things like cock, Nazi, and show-stopper), I can't really lay the fault there.
It isn't even a case of the capitalization concept flying over your head either as you noted a place where I missed one, forcing you to bust out your Captain Midnight Magic Decoder Ring to figure out what I was saying. So you clearly knew that I was using 'It' as a proper noun, yet you still demand that it be used as a simple pronoun, because that's all your mind can handle in terms of assigning meaning to it.
How the hell do you think slang ever came to be in the first place? Where do you think words and phrases like bucks and dough and bread and scratch and what the fuck ever came from to mean money? Or critters or creepy-crawlies or pest or cootie for bug? Wheelgun, barrel-shooter, six-gun, six-shooter, shooting-iron for a revolver? The list goes on damn near as long as the list of *words* in our language, as almost all of it is substitutable in one form or another, in some sort of manner. We have a very versatile, malleable, dynamic, fluid language that has evolved to function in nearly a modular manner when needed or desired to express the things we try to express with it. All you have to do is consider the context that those expressions are framed in, and it's typically pretty clear what the modulated words are meant to convey. When you get into that rigid 'nope, only one meaning ever' mentality then you might as well throw out most of the current language being used, and sequester yourself away in a shack up in the hills, since you'll be pretty lonely what with the inability to communicate with the rest of the world and all.
As to using 'It' in a modified manner specifically? How about you look to my source if inspiration for that particular style choice: Stephen King's 'It' and his use of the word in the same manner as I've used it in this story. Are you going to write a letter babbling about 'anti-grammar NAZIs' (sic) as well, since I did the same thing that he did? Will you fill that letter with grammar and spelling errors as well? Things like fragmented sentences, incomplete thoughts making for broken paragraphs, unclosed parentheses, and such?
People in glass houses shouldn't huck calcified chunks of dipshittery around willy-nilly. I guess that would be the long and short of that final point.
In summary: The word 'It' is capitalized for a reason, which you already admitted to knowing in your post. You went off like a defective bottle-rocket anyways.
I don't know why, and the only reason I can posit is that you saw something that caught in your head for a moment, and instead of going 'oh, shit, okay I get it' and reading the story the way a normal person would, you went the other way. You happy-assholed on over to the comments, plopped on down anonymously, and sharted out a turd-string about just *how hard* you are capable of forcing yourself to be stupid for the sake of a flawed argument. If that isn't it, then I'm sorry. I'm just not as capable at screaming down the parts of my brain that deal with logic as you are.
Now then. If you'd like to sit down and have a nice, civil, respectful discussion about this, I'm totally cool with that and would be more than happy to take part. So long as we could meet at the common ground of understanding that style is subjective, and use it as a jumping off point, then I would be completely open to this. If you wish, however, to remain insistent that the only linguistic permutations to be considered canon (or whatever it is that got you so hung up about 'words have meaning' in your post) are the ones that you were taught or that you personally approve of, then I would say why waste time? Coming at this from two positions such as these, so clearly opposed on such a basic level, would be a nightmare of a debate. Not impossible, but so contentious to one another that we may as well just spend an afternoon only yelling 'Nuh-uh!' and 'Yuh-huh!' at each other.
So that's it. That's what I've got for this for now. I saw this when I turned on the computer this morning, and I felt moved to address it. I apologize if I covered any given point multiple times, but I haven't slept in two days and I am very tired. Think about the points I raised, as I've thought about the ones you threw up. Let's see where we stand. If you ever come back here and read this, that is. If not, then let it stand as a billboard for others to read and say 'the fuck is this guy's deal? I thought he had a bucket of meds he took. Did he forget them?'
No, I didn't forget. I just don't really sleep anymore, and it makes me a little wonkier than normal.
Anonymousalmost 7 years agoNovel and original story, absolutely ruined by your lack (or deliberate ignorance of) basic English grammar rules. The word "it's" is a contraction meaning "IT IS"! The word "its" is a possessive pronoun explaining that the previous subject noun in the sentence (or prior sentence) owns, controls, possesses, or belongs to the word or phrase following. Example: "The dog had sharp teeth in its mouth." What this means is that the dog (subject noun) owned/possessed the teeth in that dog's mouth.
While the anti-grammar NAZIs will castigate me for this comment, all that really means is that they are semi-literate buffoons who don't know how to spell. For someone who graduated from High School and College before the latter cohort of Generation X and the Millennials relied on their cell phones for spelling and think "great" and "your" are texted 'gr8t" and "ur", for those of us who CAN spell complete Englis sentences, the misspelling is very aggravating. As an example of how irritating it is, I have excerpted portions of your stort where you made the mistakes and reproduced the text below with its glaring errors. (And you anti-grammarians out there, who say, "just read over it and ignore it"; well when you know the correct word and you see it so badly misused, the error jumps out from the page. Imagine reading one of the porn stories here about a big NKL Offensive Guard with a 12 inch "coke" that was hard as a rock, and in every single instance where the word "cock" was meant, the author typed, "coke". Example: he was busy stroking his coke, which was 8 inches when flacid, but which swelled up to 12 inches of rampant coke, which she gobbled into her mouth. 'God, I love big, big coke', she said. 'I can't wait for this coke to fill up my Volvo!'" (Sorry, I just tossed in the use of an automobile's name for this female's pudenda --see! Words mean something! What was supposed to be an erotic story of a soon to be penile-vaginal connection, becomes a story of a guy putting a soft drink into some women's car!)
Here is the re-worked story:
Page 2.
WakingDown and the Horror
It rumbled from inside the closet. IT IS voice was low and gurgling, like IT IS laugh.
. . .
. . . Henry saw more of the Horror. It was a tangled mass of the stuff in his closet. The doors pushed wide after a final shove, and it [to be consistent, this "it" should be capitalized] was exposed completely. IT IS face was wide, mostly mouth. Teeth made of the ends of wire clothes hangers, narrow metal hooks that pointed into IT IS gaping maw; a jaw shaped from his old blanket; eyes that were bunches of marbles clumped together to make insect-like compound eyes; long, lanky arms made of clothes with too many joints; the spikes along IT IS spine made from the pegs of his old tent; It was a horror indeed.
. . .
The thing gurgled obscenely, IT IS insane mouth widening in a grin. It squatted low, IT IS malleable form letting It reshape itself mostly however It wanted to . . .
. . .
I'm done running. I'm done calling for mom. It's you or me. . . .(Bravo!!!! All correct!!)
. . .
The beast turned IT IS head to face him slowly, IT IS grin now gone.
. . .
It struck from the shadows under the bed lightning fast, IT IS pencil claws seeking the . . .
. . .
Henry had hopped over to the other side of the bed, and as the beast popped It IS head out there, It was met with the minijet powered hammer crashing into IT IS jaw with a crackling pop. . .
. . .
Henry wondered what the creature would look like as It lost IT IS parts. . .
...
decide who to go after. Both had their shields held up and their hammers ready. The Horror made IT IS decision and darted at Henry, a gurgling roar in IT IS throat. . . .
. . .
. . . but was toppled by the force of the creature slamming into it. IT IS clawed hands came around on either side of the shield, reaching for Henry. He brought the hammer around in a short swing, trying to keep It from raking him with IT IS nasty claws. . . .
. . .
The Horror howled and scrabbled to IT IS twisted feet. . .
. . .
. . . The blow slammed into the Horror's shoulder, crushing It to IT IS knees again. It lashed out with IT IS other arm, smashing into Henry's shield and pushing him aside. . .
. . .
IT IS claw was shattered by Captain Rogor's Gavel before it could come down, however. . .
. . .
The Gavel slammed into IT IS stomach, cutting the howl short in a gurgling gasp. . .
. . .
. . . pinning his Gavel to his chest, as IT IS remaining claw raked his back. . . .
. . .
The beast was rocked from IT IS grasp on the Captain and released him . . .
. . .
. . . IT IS body slumped to the floor, falling into a heap of junk as it did. . . .
. . .
That is how I read the story, and every time I came to, "it's", I thought/read, "it is", and then had to stop the story to figure out what the hell the author meant. Then when I realized that he meant the possesive, not the contraction, I could move on, to the next show-stopper, i.e, "it's", incorrectly again. By the fifth or sixth time, it was a show-slower down, not a complete stopper, but it ruined the story for me.
