Post by Mark Walsh on Dec 29, 2006 21:27:46 GMT -5
Figured I'd just make a thread where I could post all the future SEF previews as they come down the pipeline. Here's the first, from SHIELD: Extermination Force #4, featuring the mutant Richard Gill - better knwown as Wildside.
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Four hours ago a midnight black Ford Mustang had rear-ended a motorcyclist stopped at an intersection. Neither party had been injured in the initial accident, and soon, shocked, angry threats were being hurled back and forth. In a way, it came to nothing. The accident was never reported, would never show up in any police file or insurance claim, and would actually be entirely forgotten by history. This was because three hours and fifty-nine minutes ago Richard Gill, the motorcyclist, had discovered he was a mutant, and history would have other things on its mind.
One moment he had been nose-to-nose with the Mustang driver, discussing the finer points of the man’s heritage, and the next he had felt something… snap. It was like standing beneath a waterfall, feeling the relentless drive of the water, hearing the roaring crash of the basin. The other man had backed away, slowly, for only a moment before he fell to his knees, and then to his stomach, cowering there in a fetal position. Richard watched in fascination as the man began digging trembling fingers into his own eye sockets. Then the screams started from everyone, everywhere, in every direction. Good Samaritans who had witnessed the accident jumped back into their cars, or just started running down the street. A minivan cruising through the intersection veered onto the sidewalk and into the mattress store on the corner. The driver never hit the breaks, even after crashing through the pane glass windows and into the cashier at the counter. Gunshots began to ring out sporadically, one after the other in sharp report. Richard didn’t pay any of it any attention. Something else was capturing all his thoughts.
He felt it. All of it. He knew how scared the Mustang driver had been when he had backed away. He had felt that fear consume the man’s sanity, devouring it whole, and leaving only the broken wisps of consciousness in its wake. But still, even the fragments had been terrified, and when the man started to mutilate himself, Richard had felt something else. Where the fear had been unfocused and ambivalent, the pain was sharp and directed. It sent little tremors down Richard’s spine, it shivered his skin, and made his legs weak. It reminded him a little of the first time he had had good sex, or maybe a little of that first shot of vodka. As soon as he felt it, Richard knew he never, never wanted that feeling to end. But it was dying already. The whimpering little ball at his feet was crying tears of blood, but that first taste, that initial rush, was fading ever so slightly.
Richard had never thought of himself as an evil man. Not really. Not before he took out his pocketknife with his quavering hands and flicked open the blade. It was just he had to feel that way again. <I>Had</I> to.
Two hours later, when he reached downtown Victoria, Richard had abandoned all thoughts of morality. He liked the way the sheep ran out of the front door of their high-rises, right into his waiting arms. His bloody waiting arms. He liked the way they clawed at each other, some trying to flee, others lashing out at random with a disconnected viciousness that thrilled Richard. The fires were also a nice touch, he had to agree. The best was when some poor shmuck would run into the flames, too absorbed in their own terror to feel the blistering heat.
Young, old, man, woman, it didn’t matter. Some part of Richard recognized he had lost his mind in the worst possible way. But then, someone new would be stabbed, or crushed, or shot, or trampled, or burned, or bludgeoned, and Richard’s toes would tingle and his mouth would water.
Victoria was dying, and Richard Gill had never felt so alive.
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I just finished the issue, and now I'm off to submit it to the editors.
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Four hours ago a midnight black Ford Mustang had rear-ended a motorcyclist stopped at an intersection. Neither party had been injured in the initial accident, and soon, shocked, angry threats were being hurled back and forth. In a way, it came to nothing. The accident was never reported, would never show up in any police file or insurance claim, and would actually be entirely forgotten by history. This was because three hours and fifty-nine minutes ago Richard Gill, the motorcyclist, had discovered he was a mutant, and history would have other things on its mind.
One moment he had been nose-to-nose with the Mustang driver, discussing the finer points of the man’s heritage, and the next he had felt something… snap. It was like standing beneath a waterfall, feeling the relentless drive of the water, hearing the roaring crash of the basin. The other man had backed away, slowly, for only a moment before he fell to his knees, and then to his stomach, cowering there in a fetal position. Richard watched in fascination as the man began digging trembling fingers into his own eye sockets. Then the screams started from everyone, everywhere, in every direction. Good Samaritans who had witnessed the accident jumped back into their cars, or just started running down the street. A minivan cruising through the intersection veered onto the sidewalk and into the mattress store on the corner. The driver never hit the breaks, even after crashing through the pane glass windows and into the cashier at the counter. Gunshots began to ring out sporadically, one after the other in sharp report. Richard didn’t pay any of it any attention. Something else was capturing all his thoughts.
He felt it. All of it. He knew how scared the Mustang driver had been when he had backed away. He had felt that fear consume the man’s sanity, devouring it whole, and leaving only the broken wisps of consciousness in its wake. But still, even the fragments had been terrified, and when the man started to mutilate himself, Richard had felt something else. Where the fear had been unfocused and ambivalent, the pain was sharp and directed. It sent little tremors down Richard’s spine, it shivered his skin, and made his legs weak. It reminded him a little of the first time he had had good sex, or maybe a little of that first shot of vodka. As soon as he felt it, Richard knew he never, never wanted that feeling to end. But it was dying already. The whimpering little ball at his feet was crying tears of blood, but that first taste, that initial rush, was fading ever so slightly.
Richard had never thought of himself as an evil man. Not really. Not before he took out his pocketknife with his quavering hands and flicked open the blade. It was just he had to feel that way again. <I>Had</I> to.
Two hours later, when he reached downtown Victoria, Richard had abandoned all thoughts of morality. He liked the way the sheep ran out of the front door of their high-rises, right into his waiting arms. His bloody waiting arms. He liked the way they clawed at each other, some trying to flee, others lashing out at random with a disconnected viciousness that thrilled Richard. The fires were also a nice touch, he had to agree. The best was when some poor shmuck would run into the flames, too absorbed in their own terror to feel the blistering heat.
Young, old, man, woman, it didn’t matter. Some part of Richard recognized he had lost his mind in the worst possible way. But then, someone new would be stabbed, or crushed, or shot, or trampled, or burned, or bludgeoned, and Richard’s toes would tingle and his mouth would water.
Victoria was dying, and Richard Gill had never felt so alive.
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I just finished the issue, and now I'm off to submit it to the editors.