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thirt33n Profile
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Registered: 04-2012
Location: The Time Vortex
Posts: 151
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A Brief History of Fear


Behold my pathetic attempt at writing. Randomly had a story idea pop into my head today and had to write it down. This happens from time to time. :P

A Brief History of Fear

Tyler Lawrence was the 11th wielder of the Key. Lawrence was a stage magician by trade and most Object theorists believe that Lawrence stole the Key during one of his stage performances from the 10th wielder, Silas Mercado an oil tycoon. Having fallen on hard times in the cutthroat world of Las Vegas stage magic, Lawrence began using his performances to fleece spectators of their valuables, and therefore accidentally gained control of one of the most powerful Objects in existence.

Lawrence's case was an interesting one, because he possessed not one Object but two albeit both unwittingly. Before his divorce, when he was a successful magician, Lawrence found a sealed pack of cards that he couldn't open. By all appearances the deck was rather battered but the cellophane that barely held to it was like steel, and wouldn't tear for anything. The other odd fact was that while holding the deck would made Lawrence feel rather uncomfortable, his ability to read his audience became much more pronounced and powerful. Despite the bleak emotions the deck made him feel, Lawrence never got rid of it. He would live to regret this decision. But he would not live very long.

When he first discovered the properties of the Key and the nature of the Room, Lawrence was enraptured with the world that was opened to him. He reinvented his act to include a version of the “Transported Man” using two doors and the Key to accomplish a feat that most chalked up to a great performance. But his liberal use of the Key attracted the attention of many unsavory Object hunters who began to terrorize Lawrence, eventually forcing him to go on the run.

It was around this time that Lawrence learned that he possessed not one but two Objects, and began to explore the properties of the Deck of Cards. Lawrence was becoming more and more unsettled by the dark emotions the Deck was forcing him to feel, and in a blind attempt to somehow modify the Deck he affixed his lucky Joker to the front of it with a bit of chewing gum.

He looked down at the Deck just as he walked out of the Room.

***

The medical examiner had determined that Tyler Lawrence had died of cardiac arrest. He couldn't explain however why Lawrence had died with an expression of abject fear upon his face. Among the personal effects of the deceased (who had been apparently robbed sometime after his death) was a sealed deck of cards.

Object theorists never have discovered the name of that examiner nor that of his assistant, but both their deaths that night due to severe cardiac arrest drew enough interest in the case to involve the government.

***

El Paso Research Facility was well known (or some might say, not at all known) for experimenting with the strange and unusual. Psychic research during the height of the Cold War, teleportation, extraterrestrial life, if it was weird it had been through El Paso.

General Fulbright was not a jovial man by nature, and his patience was famous for how fast it ran out. He had been tasked with an “item of a dangerous and foreign nature” which under most circumstances meant a melted lump of metal that some idiot politician had stubbed his foot on. Fulbright had never in his 30 years at El Paso seen anything remotely strange or mystical. Their psychics were frauds, teleportation was a fancy way of saying “explosion of a particularity messy nature” and the aliens they found were products of Hollywood and ambitious college students out to prank the government. But this was new. This thing was genuinely strange. And it pissed Fulbright off.

Even more annoying the damned thing looked like it was laughing at him. It'd been carted around for years, held in storage, tested for viruses, chemicals, radiation and anything else that could induce madness. But still the damned thing defied all convention, while grinning at Fulbright like an idiot.

Four test subjects had to be sedated and one was dead from what seemed to be fear. Fulbright frowned. The thing certainly worked alright, it worked too well. It was always “on”, and it even worked on whoever held the thing. No, it wouldn't do. A weapon that was always firing even with no hand on its trigger was good for nothing.

Fulbright sighed and with the methodology of a military man ordered the Deck of Cards to be thrown into the incinerator.

***

An Object cannot be destroyed. Sadly not everyone who comes into contact with the Objects learns this very important lesson.

The ashes from the El Paso incinerator are chemically processed before they are sent to the local dump for disposal. The Deck went along with them, intact and as whole as ever.

There it fell into the hands of a succession of drifters and derelicts, killing some and twisting the minds of others. For whatever reason the Deck seemed to stay within the confines of the dump, almost as if it were waiting for something.

It had been six months since the Deck had been thrown out of El Paso when a young woman down in the world was passing through. She had wandered into the dump looking for supplies when she came upon a deranged hobo waving a deck of cards in his hand. As he expired before her, he told her that “God lived within the Objects” and handed the deck over to her.

The woman turned the Deck over in her hand and gazing upon the Joker felt the weight of the universe fall into her mind in a single moment, and unlike the others her mind did not break, did not bend, but rather it warped. And she smiled at the grinning man in the image.

Margaret had found her calling at last.
5/16/2012, 10:51 pm Link to this post Send Email to thirt33n   Send PM to thirt33n Blog
 
Jintosh Profile
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Registered: 06-2009
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Re: A Brief History of Fear


ah. Margaret. Nice ending.

---
Jintosh, The KeyMaster, OA, RMC

Prop Replicas at http://www.TheLostRoom.org
5/17/2012, 12:27 am Link to this post Send Email to Jintosh   Send PM to Jintosh
 
Cattrina Profile
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Registered: 11-2008
Location: Finland
Posts: 1450
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Re: A Brief History of Fear


emoticon

You got your first index entry on fan art & fiction section

---

Collector's Forum Hyperlink List TLR FACTS&FAQ
5/17/2012, 1:13 am Link to this post Send Email to Cattrina   Send PM to Cattrina
 
thirt33n Profile
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Registered: 04-2012
Location: The Time Vortex
Posts: 151
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Re: A Brief History of Fear


As a librarian-in-training and a wannabe writer, being indexed is a fantastic honor.
5/17/2012, 2:08 am Link to this post Send Email to thirt33n   Send PM to thirt33n Blog
 
SuzySunshine Profile
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Registered: 03-2012
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Re: A Brief History of Fear


Superb, bravo! Couldn't stop reading!
5/18/2012, 1:25 am Link to this post Send Email to SuzySunshine   Send PM to SuzySunshine Blog
 


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