................
The characters used in this
story are totally fictitious;....
Any similarity between anyone living or dead
is totally coincidental and unintentional....
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“Polybius was an arcade game
that was supposedly released to the public in February 1981.....
“The game was said to have
caused many disturbing side affects to its users such as amnesia, seizures,
vomiting, nightmares, night-terrors, and in some cases suicide. There were also
reports that several frequent players of the game had been abducted by men in
black suits, and that some players woke up in the middle of the night screaming”.
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P
O L Y B I U S ....
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P R
O L O G U E
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The wind whistled the screams of children
which rattled throughout the forest trees and quickly became drowned out by the
heavy rain, crackling thunder, and gunshots which tore through the rain as
though it had torn a hole through the very fabric of existence.
You
could hear the suction-like sound of mud underneath an army’s boots as they
chased down a looming figure that moved with great haste. Torches beamed out
into the midnight woods as the yelling of the guards became increasingly loud.
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There became a flash of lightning, revealing a
burdened leaf which stood out upon its brethren far above at the top of a tree,
clouded by the bright moon yet untouched by its moonlight. The burden reflected
the Parisian dark-blue sky as the armies vibrations caused the leaf to give way
and fall from its so-called heavens to lay with its deceased brothers and
sisters. Swiftly yet quickly it fell to the ground and laid at peace, only to
be crushed by the boot of the fast moving hooded escapee, moments later.
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The hooded male figure; dodging trees,
fighting his way through bushes, climbing over barbed fences in mere seconds
and then vanishing, falling into a trench where everything became quiet. He
could hear the sound of his lungs increasing in size; he could easily hear the
sound of his heart beating. He could see his cold sweat slowly roll down from
the inside of his hood to the tip of his nose. Worst of all, he could feel a
sudden pain in his leg from the fall. He held it in silent agony.
The patrol began to move around him as
he lied there in a trench holding his breath, watching the armed guards run
around the sides of the trench and far off in the distance, out of sight as
though they had been sucked into the darkness of the woods.
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It was a whole minute before the man gasped
for air and shortly after he began to hear someone walking.
The
sound of leaves rustling and cracking could be heard over the sound of heavy
rain as the hood merely pokes out of the trench, looking up at a guard. The
hooded escapee pats his hands around the soil bedded trench that he lied in until
he held something that felt like a heavy branch.
Grabbing it, he climbed out of the trench
quietly, and then blindly swings it at the guards head. By the time the man had
fallen to the ground he had already been dragged into the trench where the
escapee swapped their clothes.
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Holding the ledge of the trench, mud
wrapping around his fingers, he lifts himself up and out. He continued walking
forwards not knowing which way would lead towards a sane civilization; he
merely went with his gut.
There was many times where he would regret
the path he took but not once did he turn back. His stomach ached of hunger and
he shook from lack of body heat. The golden sun quickly hit the horizon as the
woods lit up and from the lack of sleep; it appeared as though the forest were
on fire.
The escapee’s hands shook. His face, no longer
covered by a hood appeared so cold and pale. The creases in his hands were like
blood veins, his nose began to turn purple, his eyes watered, and his ears had
frost bite. He looked up with very little hope left inside of him. His face
brightened up as he found himself staring towards a road ahead of him.
Once he reached the road, he began walking
aside it, still hidden by bushes. At least he knew he was making progress. His
conscience began to speak to him.
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‘So, I’m sure they’ll be something right around
the bend’. It spoke with a high voice, like a cheery cartoon devil.
The escapee looked at his shoulder to see
nothing. He falls over and begins to rest against a tree, staring up at the
road. The escapee opened his mouth but the words didn’t come out.
His conscience laughed ‘Haha!’ ‘Going
through some bad times, aren’t we?’
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Snow slowly began to fall as his
conscience; standing on his shoulder hugged his face.
‘Isn’t this romantic?’ it says as the rev of
a van engine slowly echoed over the frosty road besides the escapee, who
quickly stood up and walked out into the road to stop the van.
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The conscious stood next to the escapee in
the middle of the long straight road, surrounded by black woods, and looked
down upon by the sun, burning over the horizon.
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A man in a black suit, hat and sunglasses stepped
out of the van.
‘You shouldn’t be here, Rookie’ says the
man to the escapee, still slightly struggling to breath.
‘One man got out, patrols everywhere. Not
returning until we’ve found him. Orders are to kill on sight’ replies the
escapee, raising the stolen SMG as the suited man raises an eyebrow.
‘Kill on sight, eh?’ says the guard as the
snow quickly settles.
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A rabbit sprints across the road, behind
the van, into a bush which then begins to rustle. The escapee aims the gun at
the bush as the suited man turns around and draws his pistol, aiming it towards
the bush.
‘What was it?’ asks the suit as the escapee
sprays the gun into the back of his head.
Another suited man quickly gets out of the
van and begins to open fire, shooting the escapee in the stomach. He falls to
the ground, one hand on chest, one waving around the gun, firing blindly,
managing to shoot the suited man in the chest and head. The escapee’s vision
backed off. It appeared as though he was under water, looking through glass,
just with more visual effects.
The moment the bullet hit the escapee’s
chest, the sun and sky had vanished. The road was still drenched by rain and
reflecting the new born blinding bright sunlight. Mountains off in the distance
were in sight.
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The escapee’s vision, still zooming back
and forwards, slowed down as he began to stand up and found himself staring at
the van, with both hands resting on his knees. Taking one step forward, not
being able to stop him for then second step or the third or fourth, walking
into the side of the van, hearing voices inside. Clenching the machinegun tight
and noticing the heavy plastic feel of the SMG.
It was like being reborn and having someone
say “You are now aware of your arms. You are now aware of your legs. You are
now aware of how to breathe. You are now aware of the blood that is pouring out
of your stomach at an alarming rate”.
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Resting his back against the van, the
escapee slowly side stepping around to the back of the van where he held the
door handles of the van with both hands. Everything became quiet as he conjured
the strength to open the doors.
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Swinging them open, a blinding light
disbursed out blinding the escapee.
There was a high pitched shriek as he shielded
his eyes with his right hand, his left hand back on his stomach after dropping
the gun, blood still trickling between his fingers.
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The piercing white light began to fade as
the escapee began to lower his right hand seeing the contents of a van.
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‘Jónsi?’
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Polybius....
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Part1:
Shattered Dreams.
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A grey flicker of lightning dug half way
into the eye-sockets of Claire, who sat at her computer desk with her feet up
and her keyboard resting on her legs. The black and white room became blue
again as the beam of light from her monitor glowed brightly. A colony of bats darted
past outside the window in an instant. The room reeked of the coffee that had
been spilt earlier and had stained the revision books Claire had been given
earlier.
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To describe Claire, she had thick brown
hair, hanging down to her shoulders and her green eyes which often glowed
brightly when on webcam. She often wore jeans and a plain white t-shirt or a
black t-shirt with a basic and small graphic on it with a piano or guitar. She
didn’t particularly have a stereotype unless you were here dad, who often
described her as the under-achiever of the century.
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The girl typed away to her MSN contacts
glancing back and forward towards her digital alarm clock that sat to the left
of her feet that poked upwards from the desk. She swapped between her dark
desktop and her MSN application which took up the whole monitor, reviling the
girl’s bedroom.
Clothes were scattered all around the room,
guitars were held up high on every wall and her black and white striped bed
sheets and wallpaper were both torn.
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The time was 2:33AM and the fowl taste of
tooth decay had sneaked up on Claire’s taste buds whilst she chewed on the backside
of a pencil. Eventually the pencil began to break away in her mouth and she
found herself spitting out all the tiny splinters, moving her from her reclined
position. After having moved for the first time in the last five-and-a-half-hours,
she decided to call it an early morning and to try to sleep.
She stared deeply at the digital alarm clock.
It felt like seconds before the red number went up once more. Turning the
computer off; she could still hearing the quiet sound of her computer receiving
messages from contacts over MSN through the ear pieces of her headphones. She stood
up next to her light switch, left of where her legs had been resting earlier,
just next to her bedroom door. Resting her finger on the top of the switch she
slowly increased pressure on the switch. She glanced around the room for the
last time and like a guillotine, she dropped her finger down darkening the room.
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It suddenly felt like one thousand pounds
of pressure locked in Claire’s head as she continued looking blindly around the
room. She pondered forwards with her eyes closed and by waving her arms forward
and taking tiny steps she could feel her legs hit the side of her bed, a little
harder then intended. She collapsed forwards onto her bed, still fully dressed.
Grabbing her pillow, she opened her eyes and looked around her room. The flares
of light from the smallest of Light Emitting Diodes which graced the surface of
the girl’s eyes, glowing from her computer monitor and Xbox360 adaptor forming
spectres in the girl’s room. She saw indescribable faces flicker through her
head like subliminal messages, but this was nothing more than a mild fear of
the dark. Even when shutting her eyes, her eyes hurt from lack of sleep and she
could just make out the shade of crimson in the back of her head.
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ii.
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She opened her eyes. The sun had shone through
the gap between her curtains onto a golden handle that hung from her chest of
draws. The bright light hit her eyes as she leaned forwards. All the terrors
from before she had last shut her eyes, bolted through Claire’s mind like a
bullet which circled the earth only to penetrate her mind once again in 18
hours time when she would next turn off her lights, or consider turning them
off.
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She got up, changed her clothes, switched
on her pc, switched on her bedroom lights despite it being sunny outside- just
the curtains were closed. She looked at the clock at her computer desk. 2:32PM.
She stood there for a mere few seconds, or
so it felt.
The clock went up another minute as
Claire’s brain switched on.
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Opening the curtains, turning off the
lights, glancing at her computer monitor as she walked out of her room, walking
down stairs, being hit by the fowl smell of cigarette smoke, seeing her dad see
her in the corner of her and his eyes, seeing him look away instantly after as
if he hadn’t noticed her existence.
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Reaching the bottom of the stairs and
pondering into the kitchen, her dad finally spoke aloud ‘What time did you get
to sleep last night?’ he asked as Claire stared deeply at the clock above the
kitchen sink. Her dad didn’t speak directly to her, he spoke to her like Claire
would speak to the voices in the back of her head; she would speak aloud and await a reply. She stared so deep she
could hear the ticking above the sound of the TV, she could taste the gears
inside the clock, and she could see them move in such detail that she could
even see the oil smeared over certain parts of the clock gears. ‘Well?’ her dad
asked again.
Claire lost concentration and looked at her
dad who rested his face on his hand, which rested on his arm, resting on his
daily newspaper, which lied on the wooden mahogany table.
‘About half eleven?’ said Claire in a
curious voice of; is this good enough to
fool you. She spoke with a strong American accent, as did her father, who
knew she was lying and so decided to give up trying to get any sense into the
girls head for the day.
‘Fine, whatever’… he says to her waving his
right hand.
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Claire who stood behind her dad next to the
bread bin, decided whether to eat breakfast or toast. The taste of tooth decay
still plagued her mouth and so she decided to eat chocolate instead, to remove
the fowl taste of rot.
Snatching something sugary, she darted back
up the stairs and into her room where she continued where she left off before
she’d gone to sleep, earlier in the morning.
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The day went on as the sun slowly fell from
the sky. Street lights turned on and Claire’s bedroom lights flickered. She
shut her eyes, still sitting at her computer.
There became a great pain in her temple as
she held her hands over her eyes. She could see the bloody red colours where
she’d shut her eyes so hard.
One of the light-bulbs in her lamp which
dangling down from her ceiling, exploded as Claire’s mind shattered. She felt
like the bullet had just returned from circling the planet and hit her once
again. She uncovered her eyes, shut down the game she was playing, shut down
her computer, listening to the ringing of her contacts calling her once again.
The computer speakers buzzed as she turned them off and once again, she dropped
her finger and shut off the lights. The buzzing of her speakers still echoed
through her head, slowly becoming louder and louder, getting higher and higher
in pitch. The time was only 9:14pm and she hadn’t even made herself any dinner,
but she didn’t feel hungry so it wasn’t important. She stumbled back and
forwards as she walked from her bedroom door to her switch. Her vision blurred
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She collapsed once again on her bed, still
fully dressed just as before.
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Seeing her night terrors, she began to
shake un-controllably; she shut her eyes and saw a bright light.
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At first there was just a bright blur, so
it was obviously day time, she could already make out her dads feet. She rolled
her head up slightly and found her dad asleep watching over her, in a wooden
chair, in front of her chest of draws. She could feel her bed covers over
herself, meaning her dad must have found her because not once had she gotten
inside her bed for the last 4 years.
Claire’s dad opened his eyes to see Claire
staring at him. She slowly closed her eyes as her eyelids shook.
She still felt tired, so she shut her eyes
again. ‘No no, no-no-no’ says her dad, walking up to her as she groans and
opens her eyes, rolling on her back, looking up at him. ‘You had a seizure’, he
says.
‘Despite
what you may or may not believe, I was perfectly fine’, Thinks Claire, to herself.
‘Right, well, I’ll let you rest. There’s
something we have to do later on, so… don’t get up to late, please?’ he says
walking over to her door, opening and looking at her from outside her room.
‘That was awesome’, she whispers to herself
as her dad walks away, leaving her door open. She glances at the alarm next to
her on her bed. 12:15
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Rubbing her eyes, getting up, putting on
her shoes, worrying why her shoes were even off in the first place, turning on
her computer, walking off in the bathroom… walking out of the bathroom, walking
back in her room, turning on instant messenger, turning on her speakers, being
messaged while her volume was on max, attracting her dad…
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He peered round her door. ‘Supposed I
should thank you’, says Claire.
‘Ya, well, very serious thing; seizures’.
He replies as Claire’s mind begins to wonder off.
‘Well, I’ve made to many jokes up
concerning seizures to take them serious, even if they were to in someway
disable me’. Says Claire again.
‘Yeah, but that doesn’t matter, I can’t
have you pass away from something so silly. Anyway, before I forget. Boy next
door, died last night, yada-yada-yada’.
‘Um, ok?’ Claire looks at her dad for the
first time in the whole conversation, putting her feet back up at her desk and
placing her keyboard on her legs. Raising an eyebrow, she says ‘I really only
spoke to him a couple times, he kinda
didn’t seem like a very interesting~’, she struggled to think of an appropriate
word… ‘guy.’
Her dad; with no where better to look, stairs
outside Claire’s bedroom window.
‘Yeah’, he starts, ‘well, we’re going round
there later to show some kind of sympathy for the boy’s sister’. Claire looks
back towards her PC. ‘Do you even know his name?’ her dad asks as his daughter
laughs.
‘No’
‘Right, well, c’mon, we’re going round
there now. He lives next door, you can get lunch after. I’ll buy you a Subway
or something’…
Claire; picking up the keyboard, dragging
down her legs, putting down the keyboard back on her desk, turning off her
monitor, following her dad down the stairs, out the front door, grabbing her
keys on the way out. Shutting the door. Seeing a semi-circle of people crowded
around outside the boy’s house.
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‘Is this really necessary?’ asks Claire, to
her dad as they walked along the pavement to their dead neighbour’s house. The
roads were cracked and there were a series of coloured cars outside their
house. There was one singular black BMW parked over the other side of the road
which Claire noticed and looked up at.
‘Yes!’ says her dad as Claire places her
hands in her pockets in a bit of a strop, hanging her head in sorrow, trying
not to be seen by any of her old school acquaintances.....
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The two of them stood in a large crowd of
people as two paramedics carried out the boy’s body in a black ceiled body bag,
carried on a stretcher, moving it into an ambulance which then drove off in a
hurry.
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Claire watched as time slowed down until it
hit a stop. She looked around as all of existence had frozen. Even when she
breathed in, she could see the frozen particles move into her mouth. She could
see every speculation of air that she breathed out, like condensation. She
could see the frozen water from garden fountains still in mid air, drenching a
boy kicking a football, being chanced around by his dog, she could see the body
bag through the window of the ambulance which was far away by now.
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She took a step towards the ambulance,
raised her arm as she saw a flashing face in her sight. Time continued as
Claire stood there confused, thinking what the face looked like.
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A girl walked out and began talking to Claire’s
dad as Claire starred brain washed at the house door which called for her to
enter. She suddenly felt cold as the shadow of the building haunted upon her.
Slowly she walked forwards as she became more and more sucked into the house,
shadowed by darkness.
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Walking into the house, Claire noticed all
the disturbing things on the way to where ever it was that she was heading. Fingernail
torn wallpaper, pieces of broken lamps all over the hallway, the stairs,
twisted. There began the sound of barbed wire twanging in the back of Claire’s
head, slowly getting louder. There was the creaking of the stairs, the unsubtle
texture from the wooden stair case banister. The girl proceeded regardless
until she reached the top of the stairs and found herself at another hallway,
but ignoring all the doors she mindlessly walked forwards towards the open door
dead ahead. The light from a TV or monitor beamed through the door as at this
moment, everything had become quiet. The sounds of the creaking floorboards,
the insane imagination that lurked inside of Claire’s head, inside the darkness
of the other to her left and right.
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She opened the door and found herself
staring face first at an arcade game.
‘Polybius’. She says to herself. The
bedroom she stood in, assuming it was the dead boy’s room, clothes everywhere,
a PC with a smashed monitor, still glass everywhere.
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Claire, still staring at Polybius, took out
a quarter. Before she placed it in the machine, she noticed the game credits on
screen had gone up from 0 to 5.
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Slowly she placed the coin back in her
pocket and held the joystick. Clicking random buttons, the game began to start.
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Part
2.1: All Things....
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The van came to a halt outside a gas
station in the middle of nowhere. The sun was dead above the van, so it could
only be assumed it was dead-afternoon.
A figure kicked open the driver’s door from
the inside, the man collapsed out the vehicle as the clerk from the gas station
rushes out to his aid.
The back doors to the van open and Claire
jumps out and rush to the man.
‘Are you alright!?’ she yells at him,
holding up his head.
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‘Are
you alright!?’ her voice echoed through time. It
echoed through the black hole that sat inside Claire’s head. She stood staring
into Polybius.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Claire’s dad who
was standing at the bedroom door frame as Claire began to shake, slowly turning
around, staring at her dad. The little sister of the boy walked up next to the Claire’s
dad.
‘Claire, you shouldn’t be here. I’ve been
looking all over for you’, says her dad. ‘Luckily Freya; here, saw you enter
the house’.
Claire held her arms in shock. ‘I’m sorry’,
she said shaking slightly.
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The three of them sat in the living room,
Claire holding a cup of tea, still slightly shaking. ‘I’m sorry- sorry about,
y-your brother’. She says struggling.
‘It’s quiet alright’, says the little girl,
Freya. ‘He always said when my mum and dad died that they’d gone to a better
place, so, I guess now he’s gone too’. ‘Of course, it’s sad to see him go. I
don’t even know how he died’. She said looking down at the carpet from her
chair, resting her head in her arms. ‘The medic people just showed up and took
him away’.
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Claire and her dad looked at each other for
a moment, and then looked back at Freya.
‘Freya’, Claire began. ‘How exactly are you
going to live on your own at the age of, uh-’.
‘-I’m 9’.
‘age of 9, thank you.’
‘Um, well, I don’t know, I suppose I can
cook pretty good; but you know’.
Claire and her dad met eyes again.
‘Well’, her dad decided she should bring
this up, ‘If you ever need any help, please know that Claire and I are always
just next door always happy to help you out, look after you. The world might be
a bit difficult for a young girl at the age of 8’ –
‘9’ -
‘-9 sorry. My memory isn’t what it used to
be’.
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Freya led the two of them outside. The
crowd of people had vanished and the sun appeared as though it had gone down
mostly now. Claire began to wonder how long she’d spent playing the arcade
game.
‘Freya’, Claire decided to ask about it.
‘Would it be alright if I had your brother’s arcade machine?’ Dark clouds began
to form from out of nowhere.
‘Oh, well, I guess getting rid of anything
that reminds me of my losses, is good’.
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Across the road stood two men in black
suits, glasses, hats, Claire stared at them for a second. ‘Claire?’ asked her
dad.
‘Claire!’ yelled her dad as she turned
around to see her dad holding the machine. ‘Claire, please move, this thing is
very heavy’.
She took a step back as the two men were
gone. She began to wonder how long had she even been staring for.
There was a roar of lightning as Claire
shut the front door, resting her head of the wooden surface and still holding
the door handle.
There became another crack of lightning and
Claire rested her head on her pillow. Something felt really weird inside her
head, more than ever.
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She shut her eyes and all she could hear
was the sound of thunder, her heart beat and her breathing through her mouth.
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She began to dream.
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Reversed
voices echoed.
‘Is
that a gun?’....
‘Call
a god damn ambulance’. (the sound of someone running)....
‘No!
They’ll only take him away again!’....
‘Well,
do you have a first aid box or something around here to stop the bleeding?’....
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Eyes
slowly opened, everything was blurry, not clear enough to make anything out.....
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‘We’re
going to fix you, OK?’....
‘Oh
my God!’....
‘Freya,
would you get out of the room for one god damn minute?!’....
‘He’s
my brother’ – the voice echoed through Claire’s
head as she leaned forward, awake once more, hallucinating, seeing the boy
sitting at the end of her bed, looking at her.
‘They will find you’. He says.
‘Who wi – what are yo – but you died!’
Whispers Claire as the boy smiled and
pushes Claire’s head back down to the pillow. She began to struggle to breathe,
feeling like she was choking on air.
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Waking up a second time, sweating. She glanced
at the alarm clock. 7:30.
There was a flash of light as Claire braced
herself followed by a quiet rumble of thunder off in the distance. She relaxed,
rolling to a side in her bed, seeing the arcade game in her room, just by her
feet.
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‘What’s happening to me?’ she quietly asked
herself, shutting her eyes as the bullet of nightmares fires from out of her
head.
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Showering for the first time in days,
turning on her computer, getting dressed, plugging in Polybius, angling her
webcam to show Polybius to her contacts, walking down stairs to get toast,
getting ready to reply to her dad’s daily moaning about her lack of life goals,
- her dad’s not in, scratch the replies, bread in toaster, water in kettle,
turn on, butter, marmite, tea-bag, mug, entertain the cat which gets neglected
nearly every day, butter the toast, spread marmite on the toast, pour hot
water, take out… no milk, get angry, get the heads cat out of the fridge, close
the fridge, tell it to sod off, get legs attacked by cat… throw away the
tea-bag, drain the mug in the sink,
-sigh-, wander back upstairs with marmite toast. Sit down, talk to contact,
turn on web cam, see Polybius. Entertain friends, or, not. – play Polybius,
bore friends after a matter of minutes. Watch life fade away.
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The sun had come and gone.
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Part
2:2: Steven Thistle
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Claire Thistle’s father, Steven, leaned
against a factory building at 20:00 when he was confronted by two suited men.
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Steve reached into his black trousers and
took out an orange lighter and a pack of cigarettes, taking out one, placing it
in betwe