#i go ''hm if i formatted all of their dialogue in a bullet list i would emulate the game more''

[felikatze]

welcome to minor formatting hell, in which i am reformatting One Singular Aspect of every single otherwise completely formatted page, and i just KNOW I'll do it again, because Siffrin's Dialogue is A Bitch

[stateofknowledge]

I wrote this.

It’s “interestingly” formatted, it may not actually be good, but it’s mine. I wrote it with the intent to make it read like a comic book without actual dialogue, that’s the why for the formatting.

Also, there’s some not PG-13 stuff, so read at your own risk.

Two confident guys in their late 20s chat in the facility while suiting up for their biggest adventure yet. A soft voice from the speaker on the wall tells them to hurry up and get into the lab.

Everything is nice and calm. People are at a time of peace, adventuring whenever they feel like it, each day has a romantic beauty to it. – Peace.

The men arrive in the laboratory, where the main attraction stands - a machine to conquer time itself.

The people handling it

The two trained men step in, and it takes them 200 years into the future. The ride is thrilling, their adrenaline levels in the skies, nothing can stop them.

And they arrive into the future. A future that is not as nice and calm. It's a world after destruction, slowly rebuilding itself. On first sight, nothing is alive. But they don’t know that. They hope for the best. But it’s dark around them. - ?

The next moment, the strange, amorphous, black and purple blob engulfing the time machine starts shifting above them.

In a moment of silent tension, it grows a spike and stabs it through one of the traveler’s head. - ?!!

The head rots away in an instant, leaving a lifeless skull with gray skin. – What?!!

The other guy manages to jump out of the machine, as the blob opens up on a part after moving body mass into the spike, letting minimal light in from outside.

But there's no hope, the door is locked, and no key or swipe card to be found.

Then he glances back to see the spike has broken off of the main body, as the blob had no energy to maintain it.

The blob slides down from the glass and metal junk that is now the time machine, and shrinks to the size of a puddle on the ground, but the spike remains stuck. - Huh?

He goes back, and after a moment of loud silence, yanks the spike out of his friend's head.

Jamming his new weapon into the lock of the door, he leaves to search the room and after about 3 hours, the lock melts away, and the door slowly slides ajar. Under this time, he tries to contact the guys back in the past, but unfortunately, to no use.

He notices the light coming from the door while rummaging through the lab for anything. – Hm? Oh.

He then stuffs a lab coat full of small tools and a coffee brewer.

Before leaving, he stops at the door, looks back at the puddle, and thinks for a moment. - Wait.

He turns back, grabs a small plasma cutter, and tries it on the small blob.

The blob reacts aggressively to the heat, and after a couple seconds of being vengefully cut, it stops, leaving him to his thoughts.

The time traveler eventually makes his way out of the facility, avoiding same looking blobs in the process.

The site around the building is empty, aside from whatever garbage was left there. – Where now?

But there's hope, he knows the way into the outskirts of the city, he can make it before sunset.

FASTFORWARD 3-4 HOURS

He arrives into the outskirts. There's not a lot to look at. No life, no humanity, only what it left behind.

And something that moves and shifts like nothing he’s seen before. – Whats that?

That something looks to be made out of the spikes the blob grew Seems like it walks on all fours, but does so strangely.

The things detects the young adventurer, and turns towards him with ill intent.

It charges. Fast. – FUCK!

It leaves the asphalt of the road slightly melting with each long step it takes.

The traveler notices his gloves falling apart from touching the spike, and it starts to burn his hands. – Oh no!

He has to let go. But then he has no way to defend. – What now?

The beast is getting closer. Fast.

No time to think, run!

But there’s one quick thought, born from instinct: "Impale it."

The lone explorer leaps forward, dropping his collection of items, grabbing the spike with both hands, which are now in immense paint and are steaming acidic gas and blood. The beast leaps too, being confident in its ability to hunt.

The two meet mid-air, and the monster is pierced through the head and into its torso. Its slain. But at what cost? A couple of thorns from whatever this was made their way into his shoulder.

Standing next to the corpse of the horror that is the spiked beast, the loner looks at his hands, one hand burnt to the flesh, the other barely usable, and his shoulder in great pain.

The monster melts into a puddle, and starts shifting slowly. The horror movie protagonist runs back to the pile of tools stuffed in the lab coat, and grabs the same plasma cutter as before.

FASTWORWARD 1-2 HOURS

The traveler's going through the different aisles of a local drugstore, looking for bandages, painkillers, whatever can help. He stuffs the coat even more, which is now full of mechanic's tools, syringes and rags.

He puts some more bottles of pills in the plastic bags behind the counter, and goes on his way.

Exiting, he notices that plants started to grow onto the buildings, Mother Nature is taking over. – Maybe this is Her doing?

FASTFORWARD 1 YEAR

The time traveler sits at a table of a completely barricaded house, with his arm broken, his only incident the past year.

He's eating some canned food that's most likely expired. But his stomach can take it, it must, there's not much else.

FASTFORWARD 5 YEARS

There was a couple of encounters with similar life-forms, with similar outcomes as the first.

The time-traveler turned survival movie protagonist is now writing a diary, so as to not go totally mad. He writes down jokes that come to mind every once in a while alongside lists of things need to gather, and draws little 2 page cartoons for himself, mostly knock-offs of real cartoon characters.

Eventually he runs out of paper and empty notebooks. - What now?

The library! It's 3 streets from here, not too far.

On the way to getting books and paper, nothing really happens, but he is on the lookout. Any weird noise makes him more and more paranoid, even if he knows it's just the wind.

The library's main entrance is locked, and who knows where the key is. He goes around, looking for a window to break, and he finds one already in pieces. - Another burglar?

In the library, there isn't anything surprising other than the sheer number of books. There's a printer at the checkout desk, full of paper, and some pens scattered on the ground. – Exactly what I need.

The other burglar must've looked for something else. Maybe shelter for some time.

He picks the stuff up, puts them in one of his backpacks, and starts looking for some new books.

He goes upstairs, only to find something out of place: blood stains everywhere. – The burglar?

The dried spots of blood on the ground lead to a reading room, but looking back, it's weird how he didn't see it under the window coming in.

In front of the door, he can smell something that's unfamiliar, but at the back of his mind, knows what it is. It's the smell of death.

He opens the large, dark brown door, touching dry blood on the handle. The horrible smell is now unbearably strong.

And there it is. The burglar. But he's not alone. He has someone he must've been close to. That little someone is in rotten pieces, and the burglar's torso is pierced through by a familiar looking spike. And in his hand, there's something shining. A pistol, with 'that one bullet' now in the burglar's head. - I’m so sorry!

After gasping, putting his hand in front of his face, trying to be discreet, quickly turns back, exits the room and closes the door behind him.

With the smell now mostly gone, the adventurer clears his mind, or at least he thinks he does.

He goes around in the library, snatches some books off of the shelves, and fills his other backpack.

He finds a key to the entrance, broken into two pieces. – Useless. – Takes it anyway, it might be fixable.

FASTFORWARD 1 YEAR

One monster found in the last year, but there wasn’t a fight. The apocalypse series protagonist has learned how to avoid them.

He has also learned cooking plants found in the wild. The nearby forest is confirmed to be empty of monsters.

He’s making some fried mushroom with snake meat, there’s nothing else.

FASTFORWARD ~20 YEARS

The ex-time traveler turned 50 years old. Maybe. Maybe 49, or 52. Who knows. – who knows?

He’s starting to get a little weaker than he was, his legs are in pain every now and then.

In the last 20 years, he has fought off more of those monsters than he could count. There was an around 5 year period when 1-2 monsters showed up in town every month, sometimes more. But for the last 2 months, no monsters, and no fights. Maybe he fought off all of them? – i wish

He doesn’t completely feel his left arm and lower torso from all the damage from the acidic beasts. It’s starting to really take a toll on him. – fuck this.

But he has to go out again, to get food.

And as good as his luck has been, he encounters another one of them. Not equipped with anything, save for an empty backpack and a knife. He has become sloppy, and this is the punishment.

RUN!

There’s nothing else he can do. No weapon, no hiding spot nearby. – oh fuck.

He’s running as fast as a fit 50 year old can run, but that’s not enough. He doesn’t have what it takes to outrun the monster.

But he can think. Think fast like he did when he killed the first one. – come on, think!

But what? There’s no weapon in hand. – hand…

If it comes down to this, then so be it.

Punches will not do anything, but break his wrists and burn his knuckles while not hurting the monster. Can’t grapple either.

An old man fighting an otherworldly creature above his weight class is not an everyday sight, and not one the average old man would win.

In the span of 4 seconds, the tiger-sized beast gets closer and closer, almost reaching him At the last second he turns back, kicks it in the face, and both fall to the ground. 

In a rush of adrenaline, the survivor jumps up, leaps next to the monster, picks it up, and smashes in on the ground as hard as he can. His hands now hurting more than ever before.

It turns into a puddle, just like the rest of them. But there’s no plasma cutter.

leave it!

no! bury it

no     fucking   leave   it

His thoughts now start getting blurred. Panicking about what to do, he slowly backs away.

He has to go back home to treat his wounds, but then he has no time before dark to get food. – fuck

Whatever he does, the feeling of not doing the right thing, the fear of making another big mistake, like going anywhere without a weapon, is consuming him. He’s becoming more and more paranoid, as seconds go by.

FASTFORWARD ~20 YEARS

In the last two decades, he’s gone completely insane. His diary now full of random markings and lines of ink, that are incomprehensible, if they even have a meaning. Some pages burnt, some scattered around the house. -…

His left arm went totally numb, no control over it. His legs are giving up, and his back hurts. - enough

All activities are instinctual. Getting food, cooking it, nothing else really matters, not even if he dies. At least then he won’t have to do anything.

He hasn’t shaved in a long time. When he looks in the mirror all he sees is gray hair around two lost eyes. Then he remembers his first day in the future. Great depression overwhelms him every time. Then he forgets all of it as soon as he leaves the mirror.

He’s living in his little world he created. Nothing else exists outside, nothing he’s aware of at a given time exists.

In the last two decades he’s been slowly moving his stuff back to the facility. He often confuses his old room in the city with the lab he decorated.

At night he lies on the mattress and scratches the floor, as he thinks of nothing, and everything.

On one night, as he’s about to fall asleep, he suddenly hears voices. Human voices. – insane…

Then he hears faint ruffling and the sound of steps getting closer and closer. – insane…

Something touches his shoulder, and he quickly turns around, his heart rate jumping unhealthily high. - ?!!!!!

He sees the same suit he wore when arriving in the future almost 50 years ago. – crazy…

The helmet opens up, and a familiar face looks back at him. It’s one of the guys he trained with. He can’t believe it. There’s no way. Impossible.

The two newcomers seem to be older than how the survivor remembered. It’s strange. - ?

Over the next two weeks, they fix the time machine on this side of time, and finally get back where the new two came from.

When they get into the still untouched by monsters lab, the old survivor gets overwhelmed with fond memories. Then he remembers his lost friend. Everything’s quiet now.

The first thing he does is ask for a phone. This old man’s badly wounded hands are shaking as he’s handed a phone. - shit

He looks his family up on social media, only to find that he’s forgotten about. - ?!

He starts crying, tear drops fall on the profile picture of his now ex-wife on the phone’s screen, and since it’s sensitive, it opens the picture up. There they are, a happy family with some rando in his place, next to his daughter.

He quickly wipes the tear off the phone, but to no avail. One by one, tears drop down on the phone, covering the screen.

He’s been left behind. He went through all of that, only to become a blurry memory in the eyes of his family and friends. Only remembered by the people now standing around him.

He stops for a moment, thinks about what he could’ve done to avoid all of this. There’s no one to say sorry to him, and he has no one to say sorry to, but himself.

I’m sorry.

________________

So, i’m not good at writing dialogue, so I didn’t. The stuff in bold after at the end of some lines is something I imagined to be like thought boxes in comic books.

I also couldn’t think of any names, so there are only nameless people.