This week's Short Story Weekly post is about some immortal named Urytz, a monstrous beast of a former man that came across powers incomprehensible to the human psyche, world's apart from the normal hocus-pocus. I wrote this short story with some ideas on whether it was fantasy, or horror, and it turns out, I didn't really care what specific genre it fell into,the same with most stories I've written in the past few months. This is also the first story I've written as a thirty year-old, and I'm quite intrigued to see where it goes from here.
I still plan on stopping these short story posts by Halloween 2016, I've mentioned this several times over the course of writing the 300th post. Still, this story is almost a horror story in its own right,mbut I can't pin down what I would want to name it, but I would like to say this: Urytz has definitely empowered me (no pun intended) to want to keep on doing these short stories. I'll have one next week as well, as I've already begun working on that short story. Every time I think I've written myself into a corner, I just let the fingers type, and think of just writing, and something expels itself from me...whether it's inspiration, or shit, that remains to be seen. For now, please enjoy part 1 of this short story entitled:
Urytz: Some Immortal
For generations, the man was encompassed with a power so benevolent, he had kept it locked away, precious like a clam's Pearl. Aloof in the slopes of the highest peaks, of the furthest regions,meh had only traveled out from the self-discovered quarantine only to witness petty rainbows, and fair-steed unicorns. His powers were immeasurable,no end to them, so he kept away, as civilization went on without him. For hundreds of years, he, no natural name anymore, Urytz, a name of a sound,mlike the scathing of big pincers across cobblestone, that was his name now. He had no humanity left inside him, a feral being that could never be welcomed into the bosom of Nature again...he was a mythical monstrosity, a god-like force of whimsical glory, that the poles of the Earth shifted away from him,mor else they'd fear to collapse upon themselves.
Hundreds, thousands of years went by, and Urytz, an alien born out of broken eggshells of permafrost and upper crust mantle, formed a singular alliance with his hallow,mk I go off the gestation of his near-immortal body, collapsed only by the sipping of river water, running eternally cool, and with a moisture that could quench the thirst of the dead. He picked himself up again, and with shaggy hair that trailed like a prehensile tail behind him. It was matted beyond wash, dragging behind Urytz like a mossy log, dusted by bard frogs that hope from puddles of mud, to soft-spoken sod. He cradled himself in yawls more animal than man, more angelic than demonic, a loss as simple and childish, yet affront with raw power, like a Sasquatch from Hell, he peered out from the hills.
Many have spoke of Urytz prescence, for man will travel the unknown, and discover the unknowable eventually, and the villagers have spoken of a crazed man with hair as long as the cedars cowering up on the mountaintop. Some claimed to have heard his screaming, but it was always written off as an aardwolf, or the wind carrying the funnels of hallowed-out trunks from far distances. These stories were the basis of the country folklore, but none have ever seen the man-beast, the one self-proclaimed as Urytz. There's were only tales, they carried on throughout the generations, and became fund and games for children and children-at-heart all around.
Yet, deep inside the hallow, above the stunted pines, and asphyxiated cedars, stood the massive Urytz, still a beat more than man, still trapped for eternity with powers beyond comprehension, still a danger to the gasping world around him, as it darkened around his umbra, the sun itself veered away from him, refusing to shine its light in his path. The powers, they were growing uncontrollable, as his humanity was slipping away. He scrawled out onto the grass,muffling his screams of agony, another pulse capitulated through him, rumbling around inside the very core. He was losing control of the power that had been kept at bay with reasoning and strength training. Meditation was a factor, a bodhi of his own, at a stream so beautiful, he kept his poetic soul alive. Now he felt the pain of a caged animal that was ferocious from the start, but feels more empowered than seated with every showcase behind bars. He was furious, and the power was hungry. Damn it all! Damn this curse! He reconciled inside himself with only the ever-tiny-bit of humanity his psyche could muster.
The end was coming, the world was doomed by his praent state. Surely the villagers that dress as him, monstrous as they seem, like Romulus and Remus were to the settled clans of Rome, the wolf children to civilize hut-dwellers, now a feral beast to unleash hell on Earth from atop a mountain of cold, cold isolation....would destroy humanity with a yawp as chilling as the Lucan that bay at the full moon. His green hillside, it grew little daisies that barely stood above a toe, bees that floated,rather than buzzed from the deprivation of life in this hellish ruin. He screamed and screamed, a pantomiming beyond that of some theatrical beast, but of utter agony. The power, a white crystalline light inside his being, it flowed like magic chains, binding him in suits of armor designed by a sadist, the pain of energy designed only for the destruction of chaos, coming from runes,mor tablets from so long ago, their history is lost on even his immortal mind, Urytz let the pain course through his veins, and penetrtrated the weary little soul that had been shelled over with ambrosia and morphine, so even the touch of Death itself would grow numb.
The villagers were a peaceful bunch, superstitious, humble, simple people, intellectually stunted, but full of heart and a prowess for humanity. They knew of monsters in the unknown, deep, damned forests, of demons in the mystical woods of Nature, where the devil had his reign, and the heathens worshipped the petal of the smallest flower, over the gramdest God. They knew a ll about the evils that have succumb the hills surrounding their home. They feared this so greatly, that it was with extreme predjudice they feared the oncoming assault of the demons above, and the demiurges below.
Urytz had known that all sanctuary must come to a hault, it must be released from the plains, casted down into a shadow of doubt, by those who both fear, and seek out the unknown, and he was the edge of a map for the low-brow. The centuries had been terrible for his complexion, his withered immortal frame was nothing to envy, but he looked as knightly as a monster off the cliffs of Dover, underneath the Loch of Ness. Nothing was as fervent as his desire to just be left in his solemn solitude. Nothing made him happy anymore. He'd had lovers, many, some who have seen his beguiling transformation into something so petrified, it had to be garrish to see the subtleties. He learned later on not to take to bed lovers,mon matter the human desire to procreate was pumped by his ever-ending flow of testosterone,mbut he knew that deeply engrained in his body, in his very immortal being, was a yearning for death. He never asked for this curse, he never wanted anything more than to live easy, die easy, and bask the long days simply as a man. Not a monster.
The day came when something came across the mountains, it straggled from the valley, and came upon Urytz, as. Was gathering berries from a mountain grove. He could starve,mbut never die,mso su firing would go on for eternity....thus he ate simple, and drank little, but his startle came from the hunched figure cloaked in traditional robes of the Order of the Cloth. Urytz saw these people many times throughout the histories that have surpassed I'm with a century gone since his last interaction with Man. Still, it was a startle, and a chortle came from his vocal cords, as though he was trying to make a legitimate word from whatever guru goes he could spit out. He had not used words in so long, they sounded like a chirping bird calling out at near death.
"Oh Dear Lord! What in the Heavens are you?!" Came a voice from under the mass of clothing and carry. It was an elderly voice, something of which drove Urytz mad with envy. Even in his whispering ways,mand cackling caws, he had been just as young in voice, as he was in his fair, albeit withered skin.
"Urytz! Urytz!" He muscled out of his seized larynx. There was something of torturous pain that is herald throughout his twisted body, and yet he was still the spitting image of youthful perfection. Yet something was wrong, he was wrenching in pain to even speak a word of Man's tongue once again, it was a chasm from which he could not embark.
"You mean,the great best of legend?! Nothing but a young man covered in moss and lake grass? You're as much a monster as Havi, the frontiersman of the port city of Umph! You're nothing but a...a man!"
"Urytz! Urytz!" He couldn't understand... He knew what to say,meh had the intellect of a million men! He had studied, and meditated for as many hours as one could if they were immortal. He was emphatically smarter than even the most inclined being on the planet, but all that came out was "Urytz".
The figure, huddled over and gray, then took it upon itself to stand up, and grow as tall as a cherrywood in summer, reaching to the highest canopies for the most sought-after sun rays.
"So you see just a man, nothing more than a man! Ha! Perhaps then this was faith! The Olden Ones have saw to banish me from my village, and I fear that you will wonder just what is going to happen now. I know there was a monster up here, but something was amiss. I'm not a smart old fogey, but even I know that monsters are either myth, or misunderstanding....however, there is something mystical about you. Well, hold on tight 'Urytz', because we are going on a grand adventure. "
This is the set-up for part 2, the longer, last part of this short story. I will have part 2 done by next week, and then I'll go back to another, new short story. This week, I wanted to do a 2-parter because 1) I haven't done one in quite some time, and 2) I am going to be reviewing No Man's Sky. Yes, I am a proponent of writing, but reviewing games, and new hardware has always been a focal point of this blog, as has been reviewing books.
Although the book is nearly seventy years old, I may just do a quick discussion on the Glass Bead a Game, a book I've been interested in for some time, and finally got around to reading. I've just finished Zen in the Art of Writing, which is a book on the subject of writing by Ray Bradbury, and I'm reading through the Elements of Journalism currently, which is about ethics, and syntax in the world of journalism, and how the 24/7 news reporting is bad for the public, and such arguments that have been almost thirty years in the making.
Regardless, I'll be finishing this story next week, and by the end of the month have a post up about no Man's Sky, which I am going to grab today (Tuesday, August 9th, 2016) There will be a great deal more coming to the Malacast Editorial in the upcoming months: if I get to see Suicide Squad, I'll review it,if it gets to far-out, I won't bother, because it's been so polarized by so many critics, it becomes the old adage of as nauseum, rather than a fresh perspective. I'll also be doing all the DLC for Fallout 4, I've done a review of the main game a while back (I believe) and I'll be of course prepping for NaNoWriMo, which love it or hate it, is really right around the corner, as we begin to bid farewell to summer.
Also, my first novel has officially found an illustrator for the cover, so this will be something for the fall, and/or winter, and it would be nice to get my first books self-published before the end of the year. My top Ten Games of 2016 will be up in December, along with an end-of-the-year post.
Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial!
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