I looked at some games and tried to decide which one to get/buy in order to make maps for my world building. I liked a game, ‘City: Skylines II’. It looks good. But, it is not cheap and it is large in size. I wish both these factors to be not there for my needs. I need the game or any software to build maps for my world, I wish to add buildings, areas, roads, etc. It might be a tough task also, using a game/software to create maps. It is an activity which will take some time learning. I want to keep things simple and fast. So, a 2D option will be good. A software or a combination of multiple software options to make a 2D map seems to be the choice now. Simple squares, rectangles and other such 2D shapes would suffice for my purpose, of course, different colours will be used.
Ratoja walked to the window of his house and waited. He looked above, from the window. Up above, the sky was blue with some clouds and some trees reached up. It was a quiet afternoon. There was no one in sight. The sky showed signs of the sun. So, did the trees. The trees swayed lightly with the wind. The clouds did not move. Ratoja looked down, downwards. There was a familiar structure down there, he could see it from his window on the 14th floor. From the 14th floor, it was clearly visible. Ratoja sighed. He did not have to think. The building was 4 stories high, and it was situated right between the 3 14 storey buildings, the 3 buildings surrounded the small building. The small building, named Satora belonged to a specific type of people, it was built exactly for that. It was made for the maids that worked in the tall buildings, the maids lived there with their families. One could see constant ins and outs from the Satora building throughout the day. It was afternoon, the ins and outs were a little low.
But, not zero. In a moment, 2 maids walked out of the main gate of Satora. Those 2 females, belonging to the age group of around 25-30 walked towards one of the tall buildings. Ratoja was somehow happy seeing this. It was obvious. He would not have to work the chores inside the house. The maids were not coming to his house, he knew that. The maids worked in specific houses. Overall, the presence of a total of 15 houses in Satora provided enough people for the tall buildings, in terms of household help and even security. The maids walked and disappeared inside one of the tall buildings, the building into which they walked was the one right in front of where Ratoja was standing, it was in front of his building.
In another 10 minutes, the clock in his house showed the time of 3:21. It was afternoon and the maid who came to their house to work must have arrived, the bell to the house rang. Ratoja continued to stand near the window. It was the routine. ‘Would you get the door’? Ratoja asked his wife, who was inside. That was also the routine. ‘Yes’, came the reply and his wife walked out of the bedroom and walked towards the door, this too, was routine. ‘There is nothing else but routine here’, Ratoja expressed to himself and waited, this expression was also routine, Ratoja looked down, from the window, towards the ground, which was far away. In an audible click, his wife opened the door, the door closed behind the maid, Dira, with a loud thud. Dira entered the house, looked around, took one look at Ratoja and walked inside, into the kitchen, she was not too brisk, she was not too slow either. Ratoja often wondered what it was. His wife walked behind Dira, into the kitchen. A minute went by and soon the kitchen and the house was full with loud thuds and clinks of the utensils being rubbed and washed, Dira talked to his wife, his wife talked to Dira, the words were lost on Ratoja, but, he caught the general tone. ‘What do they talk about? I don’t really want to get into it. I am not a woman’. Ratoja continued looking down from the window. The sounds from the kitchen continued. The thuds, clinks, words and laughter mixed and formed a mix. In about a minute, a loud sound came from the kitchen, one particular utensil, a big steel pot fell on the ground, it must have slipped from the hands of Dira, the utensil bounced and made lous noises before it settled down, this was not the first time this had happened. Ratoja did not bother to look from the window. He continued looking outside. The afternoon wore a hot, but, active look. ‘It is quite possible to work here, in this heat, in the afternoon. It may not be necessary to take a break, to get an afternoon sleep’. Ratoja continued looking out of the window.
After some minutes, he turned around and looked inside the house. The floor would soon be cleaned by Dira, under a mild supervision from his wife. It was all very desirable. Cleanliness was important. ‘I don’t know what we would do without this domestic help. They are handy and cheap’. He waited. Dira soon emerged from the kitchen and started cleaning the house, his wife followed Dira and looked around. The cleaning took the regular amount of time, it was about 10 minutes. His wife seemed to get more and more pleased as the house got cleaned, she did not have to move a muscle for it, it was a mild pleasing of her mind. Nobody said a word for a while. The cleaning was done in the usual fashion and Dira left the house, again, closing the door behind her, a loud thud could be heard. Ratoja moved and sat down on the couch.
The couch was pink and white in color and to the liking of both Ratoja and his wife. Both of them sat down on the couch. It was afternoon. They had nothing to do. Casually, Ratoja turned on the TV with the remote control. The TV came on, with the previously watched channel showing, Ratoja watched, his wife watched it more. It was some channel of interest to her. Ratoja did not touch the remote control, his wife seemed to watch the TV with interest. He let her watch the TV. The TV showed some channel with some people talking, Ratoja watched, only with the intention of being able to answer any question that came from his wife about the show. Ratoja watched, his wife sat next to him. The people on the TV screen talked in a local language, they seemed to quarrel a little. Ratoja’s eyes were on the screen. His wife laughed after about a minute. Ratoja brought up a mild smile on his face. The show continued. Half an hour went by and finnlly the show was over, or, it was his wife, Ratoja was not really sure, with some speed, he had changed the channel. It was a news channel now. “You have to pay attention now”, the lady reading the news read, “this is an important piece of news. As our nation gets trapped in this new virus, we all must act in the right way. The government has issued guidelines on what to do. It is a virus which can infect people through breathing. So, everyone must be careful. You should avoid public places if you can. You are advised to be caerful when doing so. Please wear a mask and protect yourself by keeping your hands clean. The government will keep issuing guidelines and advise. Please stay tuned for more information. You are advised not to leave the house. Stay indoors and stay safe”. Ratoja looked at his wife, she had taken in the information from the news. She looked at Ratoja. They both did not speak. A minute passed by. And, a mild commotion could be heard from outside, Ratoja quickly got off the couch and went to the window. From there, he could see what was happening. A group had gathered there, below. There were many people from the tall buildings and there were people from Satora. There were about 20 people there. Ratoja could not grasp the words, but, he could sense some things. In a minute, the group seemed to reach some kind of consensus and they stopped talking. Then, they walked towards the main gate of the building complex. They reached there and had the gate shut, completely. Then, the group waited there, with the gate completely shut. All the 4 buildings were now closed off from the world. Ratoja watched. He would now keep watching, for no one was going to come in or go out, now.
Professor Rotil entered the classroom and looked at the students. He was not particularly happy that morning, he never was happy in the morning. He looked at the students and asked, “quiet please”, the students collectively went into a quiet state immediately. Professor walked up to the blackboard, then, he kept down his books on the table in front of it. He looked at the class again. He asked, looking at the right hand side of the class in general, “where were we the last time”? No one answered.
A half minute went by.
Then, a hand came up, it was a female student from the second bench. “Yes”, came the word from the professor. The student got up from her seat and answered, “sets”. “Alright”, the professor acknowledged the answer, and motioned the student to sit down. The student sat down. Professor took half a minute and then turned towards the blackboard. He wrote, “Permutations” there.
“Alright, in the last lecture we must have seen the sets, which is a type of discrete mathematical structure. I repeat, the discrete mathematical structures are the ones which are not continuous. A range of real numbers between, say, 1 and 10 can be called continuous, as they can take on values like, 1.1, 1.12, 9.8, etc. There is no limit to their numbers. Discrete structures on the other hand, are not continuous, they can be counted and the count can be represented using a number”.
Professor Rotil looked at the class and continued. “A set having, say, 12 elements can be called a discrete structure. A set is a mathematical structure which has elements in an unordered fashion”. A hand rose up, from the first bench. It was a male student, named Kauti. “Yes”, the professor acknowledged the student. Kauti got up and asked, “are lists and arrays such structures too”? Professor sat him down with a motion of his hand and continued, “these are structures, but, these can be called computational structures rather than mathematical structures”. “The theory on this is loose and undefined, you are free to take a stab at it. It’ll be best, though, for the purpose of this class, to focus on the mathematics”. The professor then continued.
“Today, we are going to see permutations. This is another discrete mathematical structure. Again, this structure lacks the property of being continuous. Permutations can be defined as a set of elements taken from a set of elements, the order is important. Let’s say k elements taken from a set of n elements. Permutations count the number of such possibilities. There is a fixed formula for this”. Then, the professor started to write on the blackboard. The class, Kauti and the female student listened, some wrote things down in the notebook, the class was nearly quiet. The professor wrote the formula for permutations on the blackboard, some students copy it. The, he proceeded to explain the formula using an example. “Let’s say we have 10 people and 5 chairs. The problem is to find the number of ways in which the 5 people from this set of 10 people can be seated on the 5 chairs. We just have to apply the formula to calculate the number of ways”. Then, he applied the formula and wrote down the answer on the board. Some students copied it and some students just watched. The professor then looked at the class and let the students digest the lesson. He looked around, at the class, he took a minute.
“Next”, he started, “is the graph”, he said and started wiping the board, “the graph is another discrete structure”, he was done wiping the board and he started drawing on the board. He drew a graph on the board. “A graph is a set of nodes connected by straight lines. Here, this graph has 7 nodes and 8 connections. Again, this is a discrete mathematical structure owing to the fact that it has no continuous nature”. He continued, describing the graph.
At the back bench, a couple of students were completely lost, they had barely grasped the concepts of graph and permutations. They were lost in their own worlds. Their worlds did not cross into the world of the professor, other students or the discrete mathematical structures. They were 2 of them. One of them was sitting by the window. As the professor spoke, an image of his mother flashed in front of his eyes, and he got lost into what had happened that morning. He zoned out of the class and into his house. In a minute, the words of the professor which were related to mathematics became a lullaby for him and he fell asleep, by the window.
It was hard that morning. It was a rather dark morning with some cloud cover. Etul had walked to work from his place. His living quarters were not very far from the office where he worked. It was a distance which was covered easily by walking. Etul reached the office building and stopped. From the place where he had stopped, the building entrance, he looked up, and above him, long distance away, was the top of his office building. The top was far away. Etul looked down. He looked at the ground, which felt dark. He then looked ahead and walked inside. Inside, it was some light. The light was not too bright, in fact, it tended towards being a little dim, mild effect of the lights inside. Etul looked at it and moved on. The office lobby was not without anybody. There were some people in the reception desk area, and, there were some people walking towards and away from the elevator. There were still some more people, waiting in the lobby. It was as usual. Etul did not want to look at anyone right then, so, he moved past all of them, towards the elevator. The elevators were some distance away, some people were already waiting there, Etul could see that. ‘Oh, no, it is going to be some waiting’. There were more people there, Etul would have to wait there, until the people who came before him would get cleared. It was going to be some time. Etul did not like it. He waited. People in front of him were mostly quiet. ‘It feels a little eerie, it always does, here, at this time, I don’t know why. May be something happened here, which nobody knows about. It could be something very sinister, like a murder. The happening of which still lingers here. I have read stories, and have imagined feelings like this’. He looked around. ‘I hope the elevator comes soon’.
The elevator arrived soon and Etul was on it. The elevator rode straight up, it did so slowly. It was as if the elevator sensed the eerieness of the place. ‘It is as if the elevator knows’. Etul thought and then kept quiet. The elevator stopped at a couple of floors and finally opened the doors for Etul on the floor number 21. The elevator panel read the number 21. Etul exited the elevator and did not look back. He walked towards his desk. But, he had to look back, he looked back, and saw the elevator doors, closing, with half a foot of gap between them, Etul could see the people remaining in there, 2 faces showed, the doors pushed closer together, it felt as if the people in there were screaming, then, the doors closed. Etul looked ahead. ‘There is nothing I can do’. He thought and walked, towards his desk, suddenly heavy. He reached the desk and put down his bag on the desk. He was in no mood to start working, he never was, usually, in the morning. He put down his bag and turned to go towards the coffee machine. The coffee machine was in the corner of the floor. He walked and reached it. There was no one there.
Etul pressed the necessary buttons on the machine and waited. The machine started and made some sounds, Etul was no stranger to those sounds. The sounds stopped and a beep could be heard. Etul reached for the coffee cup, careful not to pick it up by the middle part, the machine always gave out very hot coffee, he had learnt the hard way on the first day of his job there. He had to carry coffee on his shirt all day. Etul picked up the cup by its rim and walked back to his desk. He was careful, he was careful not to slam into anybody on his way to his desk. The coffee was very hot in the cup.
Etul successfully walked back with the coffee in his hand. He sat down. Then, he turned on his computer monitor. It came on, with the usual login screen. In a well trained fashion, Etul entered the password and went on. He clicked the email software icon twice. The software came up on the screen. He immediately saw and opened the email from his colleague. ‘No way, this is going to be a bad day. I would have to fix it today. The internal monitoring site is down. I would have to get on to it. Before, the boss notices, I would have to fix it’. Etul took a sip from the cup of coffee. ‘Thanks a lot, I’ll look into it’, he emailed back to the sender, Sera.
“The space has always been a challenge, and we have always risen to it”. Mr. Taret said as he walked across the meeting room. It was a meeting full of senior engineers of SpaceDot. SpaceDot had been a leading maker of spacecrafts for 2 decades now. It manufactured spacecrafts as well as other equipment. Mr. Taret walked back and looked at the people in the meeting.
“Do we need to revisit the design for SpaceRace”? One person in the meeting, Gare, an engineer asked. Mr. Taret looked at him and said nothing, at first. He was quiet. A few people looked at each other. A moment passed by and then Mr. Taret answered, “You can do so, if you wish to”. Then, he kept quiet, and then, he moved on. The meeting was going to take some time. The people in the meeting waited. Mr. Taret walked back and forth.
“We are here to renew our vision for the next decade. The next decade is a challenge for the field of technology. And, SpaceDot must rise to it. We are not a company that lags, we are not a company that comes second. We are the leaders of the industry and I want everyone to keep that in mind and work accordingly”. Taret delivered a small speech and then waited. Then, he looked at the room, a little proud of himself, he waited, looked ahead, no one said anything. A few people wore a look of some kind of hope. A few wore a look of mild hopelessness, they were careful not to show it much. They knew this far too well. “This is yet another, one of those, I speak, you listen kind of meeting. This is going to be a pep talk, but, the difference is that, Mr. Taret is going to talk and we are going to pep him up. He is the CEO, it is the usual deal”. Those few who were with hopelessness had earlier had this conversation by the water cooler, among the two of them, the others from the group were away from them. The people were quiet in the meeting room.
Present Day
Sera and Teya were standing in front of the huge gate that belonged to the building and the warehouse of the SpaceDot corporation. The corporation was not there anymore. The gate and the building wore a deserted and dirty look. There was no one around. Sera looked around, to make sure they were alone. Teya looked at Sera. Then, Sera moved forward and put down her backpack, from the backpack, she removed a big cutter, it was big enough to cut across steel half an inch thick. The handles of the cutter were each one and a half foot long. She motioned Teya to step back, Teya did so. In a second, Sera had the cutter on the lock of the gate, and in another second, Sera brought together the handles, the lock gave in, with a loud snapping sound and fell down, on the ground. Sera looked back, at Teya, Teya looked at Sera. Sera put the cutter back in the backpack and put the backpack back on her back. With the gun in her hand, she kicked on the door, the door moved with the hinges making some sound, Teya looked around. She walked towards Sera. Sera took a look inside, she waited.
A half minute went by, “I think, we can go in”, Sera said in a low tone of voice. Teya followed Sera as Sera went in. They took another stop at the building entrance. Another half minute, “Let’s go”, Sera said, after making sure they were good to go. They both went into the building, now, a palace of dirt, dust, darkness and 40 floors. Sera stopped by a huge board to scan the floor map. The map showed various parts of the building. Sera scanned the map for what they were looking for. Teya kpet a watch. Sera took time, going through the list of floors and sections. It was a big list, SpaceDot was a huge corporation. There were a number of floors, sections, groups and parts listed there. Sera scanned the map, top to bottom, bottom to top. ‘Where the hell is it? It is supposed to be here. The equipment section should be here, as informed by Huto. This is too much information. If I don’t find the section, it’ll be a wasted effort’. Sera had thoughts. She kept scanning the section.
Finally, after about 3 miniutes of scanning the map, she found it, ‘1243’, ‘this is the section’, Sera was glad. “We go to floor number 12”, Sera informed Teya. Together, they took off. They walked towards the elevator shaft. Then, they moved towards the staircase. The staircase was open, they both took a look, up, and finding nothing there, entered and started walking, up. “Be careful now”, Sera said to Teya. Teya kept quiet. They both moved, slightly crouched, up the staircase. It was going to take time. They climbed slowly and kept a watch on their surroundings. They both had their guns ready. Sera and Teya moved up the stairs. It took some 12 minutes before they reached the 12th floor. Once, on that floor, it was easy to find where the section was. It was right in front of them. ‘1243’. A board read. “Let’s go in, get our equipment and get out”, Sera said. Teya followed her. They entered the section. It was considerably dark, with some light seeping in from broked windows across the section. They both found the part that they were looking for. They could see boxes loaded with the device they were looking for, the boxes read, ‘Raisin’.
It was not good to be there, for Teya. She sat in her chair and waited. She waited for Mixa to come and tell her about the account she was working on. It had been three years since Teya had joined the offices of Kirdot, Kirdot occupied the floors 3 to 6 of the High Rise, an office building well known in the business area of the city. The city was bustling with many such buildings. The High Rise housed Kirdot and many such offices. The coming and going of people working there was on through most of the day. ‘Floor 03’. An orange painted block read as the elevator passed the second floor, the orange showed through mesh on the upper part of the elevator doors. Mixa got ready to get off the elevator. The elevator door opened and she stepped out of the elevator cabin. The outside was much cooler than the elevator cabin. Mixa felt better, she looked around as she walked on. She had to walk towards the place where Teya sat.
Teya sat near the window. It was not a corner office. It was half a cubicle. Teya sat there waiting. She looked outside the window pane. There was no one outside. It was an afternoon. The people were either inside the office, or far away from it. It was always like that there, around High Rise. Teya looked down, and watched 2 men walk towards the High Rise. They were not particularly interesting or different, yet, Teya watched them with interest.
“Hi”, a sound came from behind her. “Hi”, Teya answered as she turned around, with her swivel chair doing most of the job of turning around, it creaked a little as it turned, Teya felt as if the chair bumped up a little, the chair came to a stop, by the pressing of Teya’s feet on the floor, she saw Mixa as she did that. “How are you?”, Mixa asked. “I am alright, how are you?”, Teya returned the question. “Fine”, came a reply. Mixa placed 2 files on top of Teya’s desk. The files were both light red in color and both has a number on top of them, ‘1234’ and ‘1235’. Teya saw that, and she was not pleased. She knew that most of the coming month was gone now. She would have to scour through some 200 pages each of each of the files, that was the average thickness there. Mixa kept quiet for a bit. Teya did not respond. She took half a minute to recover. “What is this about?”, she asked Mixa, although, she knew what that was, a never ending bunch of reports, charts, pictures, sheets and accounts of some company that Kirdot had gotten paid to work for. It was mostly accounting, analysis work. The second file had the same contents. Teya sighed. Mixa seemed to sigh. Nearby, in another half cubicle, a male worker sighed as well, just like his dog had sighed in the morning. “It is the usual. Nothing much. It should be a breeze”. Mixa smiled, Teya laughed, part of her died inside though, the part which was not coming back, she knew it. “Breeze, alright”, Teya said and looked outside. Outside, there was sun and air, but, no breeze.
“Alright, do you want to go through them now? I can brief you on the contents. I am familiar with both the accounts. I have worked with these for a year now.” Mixa asked. Teya wanted to kill Mixa by shooting her between her eyes and she wanted to then dance on her fallen body, an office fantasy she had held dear to herself for the last 2 years, and, then she wanted to go get a strawberry flavored ice cream, manufactured by Ice One. She took a second and replied, “Okay”. For the next 10 minutes, they both went through the drudgery of looking at something that no human wants to look at, numbers, lines and accounts. It paid though. Mixa talked enthusiastically, Teya listened passively, she discarded half the talk. ‘Rubbish’, she knew it. It would take a month, she would have to begin from the start, work on all of it herself and generate a 20 page summary for her boss. Teya listened on. In ten minutes, she was done, Mixa said, “we are done here, please give me a call if you need help on this”, she said and then got up to leave. She said, “bye” and started to walk away from Teya’s desk. She took not more than 2 steps before she was called by Teya. “What is your extension number?” “203”, Mixa turned back, replied, and then walked back in the direction of the elevator. Teya sat back.
Present Day
Teya had aimed her gun at the center of the forehead of a scar. Her past in the building flew past her eyes in a flash, then, she shot, the scar fell down, she looked down and shot it again. ‘She is not Mixa’. Teya exclaimed to herself. Then, she walked on, the floor was covered in dirt and papers and dirty water. She walked on. There was no one with her. She kept her gun trained in the front.
The High Rise looked great, still. It was still a high rise. People still swarmed it and people still worked in it. It was business. Teya kept walking. The High Rise rose above her head, high in the sky, its glory unaffected by the changes in the circumstances. The sky above it was still grey blue. The buildings around it, still tall and standing. It was truly a marvel of the times. Those tall strctures stood the test of time, and they stood straight.
Teya looked back and then in front. Then, she looked up, she would have to go up, to the roof. ‘This is going to be a busy time’. It was a test time for her. The roof was always something challenging. It always was teeming with scars and something more at times. If the door down to the ground floor were blocked by something, she would have to jump from the roof. Teya sighed, then smiled and then took a step up, on the stairs, a small step for a small sized person, but, a big step for humanity.
Sera moved quickly, she ducked and then she crouched. She was aware that she did not want to hurry. Of course, she did not want to be slow either. Speed is greed, slow is death, she reminded herself. She crouched behind a set of boxes, two of them, stacked, one on top of another. The boxes seemed heavy, they were not made of metal. Sera got jumpy, she did so also, she got up quickly and moved. It was the ground floor of High Rise. The ground floor was empty and desolate. There was no one there, there was supposed to be no one there. Sera looked behind. There was no one behind her. She moved and came into an open space. She looked up from there. It was a little breath taking, one could see the grey blue sky above, through the stack of 30 floors which rose above the ground. The High Rise gave way there, to the view of the sky. Sera looked for a second. Then, she looked ahead and moved. This was not a sight seeing visit. High Rise was no place for a rookie. It was a place for her to do her job.
She kept moving. She arrived at a staircase and looked up, there was no one there. She walked, up on the stairs. She walked up some three floors like that and then she stopped. She looked around, there was no one. She looked up. Then, she looked around. There was an elevator shaft nearby. ‘Let me take a look’, she thought and went up to that shaft. It was open, the door had collapsed. She leaned in and looked up and then down, there was nothing in there. She looked down, there was darkness below, ‘the elevator car has probably fallen there’. She looked down there, in the darkness for a few seconds and then looked up. There was light above. She stepped back. And then she removed her backpack. She zipped open the pack and removed a rope thrower. It read ‘Raisin’. It had a handle. She inspected the device for a bit. She checked the hook at the end of the coil of rope. The hook looked okay. So did the coil, the coil was housed well in the enclosing case. She put her hand around the trigger at the end and moved back to the door. She looked up and aimed her device at the edge of the shaft, the aim was very high up, the aim was the edge at the top, on the 30th floor. She took a second and then she fired, the device gave out a loud hiss, the explosive charge behind the hook fired and the hook went up, straight, it flew very fast and took the rope with it, it disappeaared from her sight and in a second, there was a light thud, it seemed to come from the 30th floor, Sera pulled the rope, it came tense, in her hands. She pulled it again. She knew she was ready. In a moment, she pressed a button on the side of the device, the big button clicked, and it started a rotor inside the housing which housed it. Sera quickly gave up the floor and held well onto the handle of the device, ‘Raisin’. It pulled her to the top. It took some few seconds. As she approached the lasr floor, she quickly gave up the grip on Raisin and grabbed the edge of the floor and then a bar on the side of the door. She pulled quickly out of the elevator shaft and on to the last floor. It was the last floor. She pressed another button on Raisin and got the rope fully wound back into the device. She looked around. It was time for business.
The business did not look good. ‘Scar’, she exclaimed lightly and shot at the head of one as it aprroached her. The scar went down, it lay on the floor motionless. The scar was a common problem now. A nasty evolution in the city. It was a creature which would eat you alive if you did not take it down, it was always covered in some kind of filth, it smelled bad, like a mix of rotten eggs and meat, topped with a week old garbage. Another one came at her and went down the same way. Sera kept moving. It was a big wave. It was non stop. Sera took down 2 more scars as she walked fast. She knew she had to keep moving. She kept moving. It was needed. The scars came at moderate speeds at her. Sera had only one response, shot of her gun. She reloaded after the fifth scar went down and kept going. It was business. She looked around, 2 scars came from behind, she shot each one of them twice. They fell on the floor and rolled and then stopped. She moved on. Now, 3 scars came up from the front, they appeared suddenly. Sera had to shoot them qucikly. She sprayed around bullets horizontally and they were on the floor. She moved, one more came up from behind wall, just inches from her face. She took it down quickly with the butt of her gun and then shot it, it rolled around and stopped. She hissed and reloaded her gun. Suddenly, a hand touched her shoulder. She froze, a bolt of fear went down her body, she could not movve or think for a second, the gun also froze, in her hand. ‘It’s me, Teya’, a voice came from behind. Sera unfroze and looked back. It was her business accomplice, Teya, she was a little pleased, then they both, each shot down 2 scars which came up towards them. It was nice after that. Sera and Teya chatted as they moved and shot down scars. “When did you get up here?”, Sera asked Teya. “Just now, how is it going?”, Teya answered and asked. “It is as usual, I got one in my face, it’s over there by the wall, it did not look good”. “Sure”. “This is not going to go away anytime soon”. “My mother says the same”. The conversation continued. The walk continued. The shooting continued. A scar came from behind, and now, Teya shot it down, without even looking back. Sera looked at her. They both appreciated each other, they did not appreciate the scars. “Let’s keep moving”, Sera said. They walked on. They took half an hour. After which, it was done. They both stopped and sighed. A quiet second went by and suddenly a scar emerged from the staircase, “Fracture”, Teya shouted. There was no way now, a Fracture could only be killed by a set of multiple grenades. They would have to bail. They both knew it. They both ran and they both jumped off the roof and then pulled the cords of the parachutes, behind them, they could hear the loud grunt of the fracture. They were both away now, and were sailing safely from the height of the building towards the ground. Teya looked at Sera, she was some 20 feet away, Sera had fainted, ‘Oh, she is going to land badly’, Teya exclaimed and looked down towards the ground which was coming up at her fast.
I read this “subhashit” in Sanskrit today. It means something along the lines of a situation in which a person or even a bird may be held as a slave because of something pleasant that the person or the bird might possess. A bird, like a parrot might carry pleasant words, and hence may be held in a cage by someone, making the parrot his slave.
I found these words in the story that I read today, it is from the book, 50 Creepy And Blood Curdling Tales. The chapter was the 12th one.
The word “binnacle”, although, sounding like spectacle, is actually not related to spectacle at all, but, is the word used to describe a structure used to hold and protect the magnetic compass at the helm of the ship.
Next, the word, “nodule”, found in the context of fungus, or some similar growth, was truly related to something similar, it is an unwanted growth on the skin.
And, the word, “broadside”, contrary to what I would try to guess, means, a kind of one sided printed banner. It also has some meaning in the context of ships.
I just read the 12th chapter from the book, after picking out the book from the shelf, I had bought the book some time ago, like some 9-10 months ago. I don’t know if it was a good buy.
The chapter began with some description related to the sea and ship, one would think that the story would be about sea and some adventure related to it. It was weird after that. It felt as if the plot, like a ship kept moving side to side.
The story featured 2 characters, a man and a woman, husband and wife. They seemed to have been lost on the sea. They find an abandoned bug ship and search it for eatables, etc. They find some stuff. But, things are strange, a strange fungus is present everywhere, nodules of it are on the ship. The fungus make way to the head of the wife in her bed and the husband wife pair decide to leave the ship after living on it. After that, they live on the shore near the ship, still eating from the remaining food stock on the ship. The fungus is described to reach everywhere. The theme of the story, then, seems to be that of horror, as indicated by the title of the book, not much plot or surprise may have been needed.
