Friday, October 15, 2010

Author's Note: My Journey in The World of Dead: Week 1

I'm trying to do this thing where I'm setting up a world to fit w/ my Halloween costume. It's also to see if I can build an interesting story w/ whatever kind of context I have. I put a lot of thought into and I hope you all will enjoy it. This was meant to be done this past Saturday, but due to difficult of being an lazy ass and hw, I didn't got it done in time.

Week 2 on the other hand will hopefully be done tomorrow morning or evening. The problem w/ this one is that tomorrow is Extra Life day where gamers will be playing video games for 24 hr. straight in the name of charity. It's a great cause since anyone can participate and donate. I don't have a donate page to call my own, but if you want to read more information on how you can donate or participate, go right to this link and read more about the event. See parents of the world? Video games aren't the biggest waste of time.

Anyways, have fun reading My Journey in The World of Dead.

-jnp08

Monday, October 11, 2010

My Journey in the World of Dead: Week 1

I can't believe I've found a laptop. It's small as hell, but it's better than a computer that doesn't work at all. The other survivors and I all are cooped up in a small hardware store, right in the middle of a 3-story building right next to a dock of dozen or so boats. Too bad not one of them is a yacht. I don't know why in the hell I'm writing this after one week of un-nerving, never-ending, pain of running away from a horde of walking carcasses that feast on the living. I've pinched myself a thousand times and tell myself it's all a dream, but it ain't. If anyone survives this outbreak and lives to see this, let it be know that I have and will document every single step of my journey to the bitter end. It's my story, and this is how it all began.

It all started last week in an early breeze, sunny day in my town of Juneau, the capital city of Alaska. With bright sun came cold chills that might freeze you up if you stand out there with nothing but a short pajamas and a Rolling Stones t-shirt. At least the sun looks pretty enough to look at. After a quick shower and a small breakfast, I head out to college campus where I'm destined to become a journalist. Now that I think about it, that's kind of what I'm doing right now except no one is gonna read this for 2 decades. My life in school down the drain I guess. By the time I got there, people were crowding in front of television sets. Some of them were in awe and others in shock of terror. I look at the TV in the cafeteria room when the first thing I hear is "Epic pandemic is spreading all over the world, as hundreds; if not thousands of radiating people have risen from the ground." Obviously the word the reporter wanted to say is "walking dead", but I guessed even during this epidemic they're not allowed to say it. Like everybody else around me, I was shocked by this. After the breaking news, the PA came on and said as of now all classes have been canceled for the day. I was thrilled and at the same time sad since my English paper that I worked on all night and was due today was all the hard work for nothing.

My friends called me up one-by-one telling me their plans for defending this outbreak. Some are obvious, others try to be creative. But here's the thing about this town; it's isolated from the rest of the world. The only way out here is by plane or boat. We are fine since it's gonna take years for zombies to get up here. At least so I thought.

The next day I wake to a horrifying crash I hear from outside of my apartment. At first I thought it was a car until an explosion banged so loud, it ranged my ears and the apartment. I walked outside only to see a piece of a air wing in the middle of the elementary school nearby, burning like it's a bomb-fire. I see people scrambling around, getting into their cars, and fleeing away from here. Then I hear a groan coming on my right and I see I thought I would never see; a walking corpse. It lunges at me going for my head, but I swung my door right at it and I knocked it down. I ran back inside, heart beating out of my chest, and grabbed the nearest thing; a green cheap-metal broom. Not the first weapon of choice, but it was all I had. The dead-man rose up and lunges at me again only to meet the end of the broom straight through the heart. I plucked the broom out of the dead corpse and plunge it again this time through the skull. It's only risen arm fell after whatever life it had fade away. My heart didn't stop pounding thanks to the shock and thought that they're here in Juneau. Aftershock went through me when I saw one of my friends, Barry, ran into my apartment and witnessed my first un-dead kill. "How did it felt?" he told me.

"Like a wakeup call from life telling me to go die in a horrible and painful death," I replied.

Me and Barry gather our things and decided to find and rally up our other friends and find a safe place to shelter ourselves from the walking dead. Since phone lines were down and internet being the last thing to check up after a corpse walks into your front door, we decided to head towards The Valley Church around sundown once we find everyone. What I wasn't expecting was that's the last time I get to see my long time friend again.

Since the town is divided into three boroughs, traffic will either be 1) non-reverent, or 2) a major cluster of epic proportions. Either way, my Jeep will be covered in body parts by the end of the night. After stocking up on food supplies and more green brooms at the nearest supermarket, I headed downtown where another great friend of mine is there w/ no car or any kind of transportation that needs some help. As I swerve around the highway dodging wrecked cars left and right and hitting a corpse or two along the way, I stopped at the only red-light that was blinking. I noticed there aren't people or cars heading to the nearest hospital. I start to wonder why. But before I thought the hospital's contingency plan, I hear another vehicle swerving on the highway at full speed except it's taking both sides of the highway recklessly. I step on the gas and maneuver away from the truck, but by the powers it be, the truck notice my general direction and decide to head towards me. I step the gas so hard, I heard the engine roaring before the truck clipped my back Jeep and spun me around for 2 seconds before to a complete stop. The truck on the other hand ran off the highway and into the nearby lake, collapsing on its side. After recovering from a minor headache, I see that more of those un-dead walking towards me. I got out of the car, grabbed my only used broom and swung at any nearby hunk of flesh that dared to touch me. I was lucky enough to make it to the medical store, barricaded the door w/ furniture, and killed some more un-dead. After searching through the fridge for early dinner, I placed myself in a room w/ a barely lit candle. W/o a window to look through I had no choice but to close the door shut and place a desk right on the door. I thought that room was gonna be my tomb as I drown myself to sleep.

I once again woke to a thunderous bang. This time it sounded like a shotgun. Scarcely, I slowly pulled back the desk holding the door, and slowly check to see what the noise is. Next thing I knew, the door slammed open send me to the back of the room. A flashlight shines upon me before I heard a woman's voice shouting to the person to hold their fire. Thank god it wasn't the military. Instead it's a group of survivors like me, faces who I've never met before. That really says a lot consider this town is small. There were a total of 5 survivors; three male, and two female. Their names are John the middle-age janitor, Zack the high-school jock, Harry the mechanic, Lisa the brain-smarts, and Joanna the medic. I picked their titles after hanging out w/ them for the first hour. Sure it was by looks, but I know sooner or later we're gonna open up to each other. By this point it's close to midnight, and I was starting to wonder about my friends and if any of them are still alive.

"Hey guys," I asked them. "My friends and I were gonna meet each other at the Valley Church by sundown. And since it's midnight, you think we can stop by and--" Zack walks up towards me and tells me that The Valley is nearly filled w/ un-dead and it's very likely we'll be stopping by and knock on heaven's door and check if my friends were there. I want to punch him the face, but I stopped myself and ask nicely if we can try. After a quick talk to themselves, they agreed, but one condition; this will be the only time they'll head down The Valley. I swallowed my pride and agreed. W/ their handful of arsenal and ammo and my only trusted broom, we get into a minivan and headed down the Valley.

Morning broke as we reached The Valley. Zack was right; nothing but walking carcasses. The Church was in the middle so we all know that the only we'll go in is also we'll get out. No alternative. I just can't abandon my friends and I hope they're alright. We fought wave after wave of those things. It seemed like for every horde of meat we fought off, we move two miles and it wasn't easy. By the time we saw the Church it was afternoon, and so far no sign of life. We finally reached our destination and had little time to spare before more of them head towards us. W/ my nearly broken broom, I banged on the front door hoping for someone to respond. There was nothing. Me and John open the doors only to find it mysteriously un-protected. We ran in and the only thing we saw was a note and 2 bags. On the note, my friend Barry wrote that by the time I get this. he is either dead, alive, or in-between. Everybody else we knew beside him and his girlfriend was dead by the time they got here only to find out it was a big mistake. Inside the bags were sticks of dynamite from his father who was a mine-worker. He gave instruction to gather as many of those things inside the church and blow it sky high. It was a daring risky move, but at least it will give anybody else alive in The Valley a decent chance to leave while they can. After a moment of silence of my fallen friends, we placed the dynamite and use some of the gas from one of our tanks and create a line so that the dynamites would go off like dominoes. As me and John throw ourselves as bait, we lured them in, and when it was full, I gave him the signal, lit the fuses, and jump out of the building, and ran away before the walls exploded and collapsed on them. I wasn't so sure if Barry or anyone else I knew was in there. But now it was turned into rubble.

We made it to Downtown once midnight broke signaling another day of staying alive. We searched for wherever to stay in and camp until we find a way out of this town. Of all the places, we found a 3-story compartment building big enough to last us a week. For those last several days we killed those things in the morning, scavenge in the afternoon, and have fun on the roof in the evening acting as if this is our new home. My new friends did a proper burial for the loss of our friends and loved ones. Since I'm closest thing to a catholic, I tried my best to be a priest and prayed that they will find rest in the afterlife. Lord knows were struggling to survive.

And now I've found this. Since I didn't want to let my writing skills go to waste I have wrote what needed to be written. And there's plenty of more to come, no doubt about that. I must not let the others know about this. Some of them were internet junkies and seeing a functioning operating system would force me to look up those search engines and find out who was the first celebrity to be eaten. It's almost my time to be the lookout scout for any intruding un-dead inside out building. I’ll report back next week and give anyone who reads this an update of our current situation. Don’t be surprised if we don’t find a “cure” to this “disease”. See you all next week.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Wait am I dead?

No not really. I've just been so busy that I didn't follow on my promises.

So there's no Part 2, my trip to New York City has has come and gone, I'm now 21 years old, and taking college. Oh and I've been playing video games.

So during my time away, I was actually thinking of doing a written review of Metroid: Other M and other games afterwards, but there's one slight problem w/ the game. And that is THE GAME IS SO CHEAP AND THE FINAL BOSS IS SO HARD IS UNBEARABLE! Now let me explain. Other M lets you play the game w/ the Wii remote on it's side ala NES style. Whenever there's an object in your way that you can't blast w/ your regular beam, you go into first person mode by pointing the Wiimote towards the screen. You point at the said object and it'll shoot Missiles, Super Missiles, and on occasion, a Charge Beam at a specific target. Oh and you can't move while you're in first person. Throughout the game I had no problem w/ this mechanic. There were times that I wish Team Ninja, the developers of Other M, would've added the Nunchuk so the time to point the Wiimote to the screen is cut to no time at all, especially when it comes to boss fights since it can so frantic that the game takes a bit of time rendering that the Wiimote is pointing the screen.

Here's the problem I had w/ the game. I'm at the final boss. Samus (the player) is in a room where she can barely move around because the boss is huge enough it takes the middle portion of the room. Right at the start of the fight, the boss hatches a metroid, an alien life-form that sucks the life of anything it sees and contacts. The only way Samus can let go from the metroid is the use of her power bomb. The only to kill a metroid is by freezing it w/ the freeze beam, and shoot it w/ a good charged Super Missile. Back to the fight. The boss hatches a metroid the second the fight starts, then two more 30 sec. later, than three more before the first minute is up. Time so very limited and not to mention the metroids can out-run you and grab you before you can stop and take a good charging shot at one of them. Or the game can screw over your shot, and instead point at the boss itself. And even if you get one of them frozen, you have very limited time to shoot the frozen metroid before you get grabbed by one of the other metorids. Not to mention the game takes a full second to register you pointing the Wiimote on screen. You see where I'm going w/ this? The boss is hard enough as it is, but when you have a lot of distractions going on around you, you can't focus on the boss alone. It's so frustrating and so annoying and I hate it!

Anyways I wanted to fill in something for this blog so I know it still exists and probably do something good w/ it. Maybe this weekend I'll make another post, giving my final thoughts on an anime show that has caught my attention this whole summer and a story about a kid and a very weird Majora's Mask cartridge. And who would have thought it's October. And yes, they are Horror related.

Also as of today, I can officially say I have both a Facebook and a Twitter. I tried to resist twitter for a long time until one of my close friends gets one, and today is the day that happened. So yeah. Friend me, follow me, whatever. Have a good day.

-jnp08

P.S. Apparently someone took my name on twitter so I had to put the_real_jnp08 so no one would confuse w/ the other jnp08 twitter.