Forums » Art & Creativity » ((Full Background Story)) Arusoin Disaster

(The background story of a WIP character)

Mist sat delicately across the darkened hue of night time, while clouds slowly strolled past above the town’s surface. The moon’s light was dimmed by the resentful gatherings of gas. The border of where the horizon met the ocean waves was almost invisible, the only contrast that could be seen being the slightly darker tone of the gentle laps the waves pushed over each other. The streets below were vacant, and not a sound could be heard for miles. The roads were lined with a thick coat of muck and shrivelled autumn leaves. A withering flower was littered in between the cracks of the pavement accompanied by dead grass. The lines that had been painted on the roads what seemed to be over a decade ago were fading with time as appeared as faint as a supernatural being.

The street lamps lined these filthy streets and did not do the city much justice. Most of the lights were flickering rapidly, while others did not work at all. The metal coating around all of the electrical systems were peeling off and rusting, cracking at the slightest touch. There was not much wildlife nor naturalistic life around, the only thing being a tree every two or three miles and the dead grass and withering flowers within the path.

Stores, hotels and other human buildings lined the streets with crumbling plaster and decaying tiles, with walls that were falling apart and were a hazardous thing for any person. Gates which separated the homes from the sidewalls were hanging off on one hinge, threatening to tip over on its side and completely give up on holding on. Front gardens were unkept and in bad shape, clearly having not been tailored to for many decades.

Within the silence of the night, a loud shriek erupted as a small girl caught sight of the hurricane which citizens had been warned about the previous night. She felt the heavy winds brush across her face as she clung desperately to one of the crumbling lamps, the wind dangerously close to sweeping the small six-year-old from her feet and a thousand of the same into the air. A fearful cry vibrated through her throat and slipped past her lips as her grip began to loosen and she felt her fingers begin to slip. What she could not see, however, was her own father holding the mother close to his chest as they watched from their house nearby: watching their little girl get swept away by the winds and carried off to the dark. The father struggled to keep the mother from running to the girl, so that she didn’t lose her own life and her daughter’s.

Within the father's tight grip, he could feel his distraught wife trembling and breaking under the small amount of pressure he was applying with his arms. He nuzzled his face into her slender neck while he felt her tears drip from her chin and fall onto his hair and his forehead. Her delicate arms wrapped around her husband’s neck, pressing him further into her skin as she sobbed. Her own grip, unlike his, was weak and fragile, her bones easily felt under her skin. The man's grip tightened around the woman’s waist as his own body began to violently shake from the terror of losing his daughter, the one he had lived since she was born six years ago.

It... It was all too much for them to take.

The hurricane lasted for several hours after, heavy winds tearing trees from the ground and ripping rooftops off of buildings. Street lamps were torn from concrete and flung into walls so harshly. The crumpled leaves that once lined the streets were now afloat within the air, being tossed back and forth by winds of several miles an hour.

People were nervously taking shelter below ground, buried deep in the muck of the sewers and in pre-made by bunkers made by the people who had the privilege to do so. They cowered fearfully as they heard all sorts of wood, metal, concrete and slabs slam against the floor above them and occasionally slip through an unattended crack. Children whimpered and sobbed, mothers curled up in the corners while rocking their children back and forth while singing nursery rhymes to sooth them into a deep sleep.

This is is a very good piece! I love your descriptions, very detailed but not too wordy at the same time. This has a feel and subject matter that reminds me of the game 'Life is Strange' where a 'tornado/hurricane' is set to destroy Arcadia Bay, and actually in the second game if the town is destroyed at the end of the first game, there is a memorial near it that says something very similar to what the end of your story says. So, good job! It definitely caught my attention.

I have actually been meaning to play Life is Strange. I didn't know it a hurricane/tornado though... I thought it was something like a tsunami. You learn something new every day!

It is probably more like a tsunami, but in the game they just call it a 'tornado' for some odd reason haha.