The Ghost Of A Chance - Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes: This is a free story; you may reproduce it as you wish, so long as you do not charge for it. Please leave any comments on the author’s smashwords page. The Ghost Of A Chance By: Jonathan Antony Strickland ……….. From the notes of Collin. Leader of the tribe North East: I have lived half my life in ignorance. Not knowing anything of the past, how old I am, were I originated from, and never dreaming of the future. I used to live only for the day and until the first appearance of the babblers I can truly say that this is the case for not only myself, but also I believe every other one of my kind who is of a similar age and who still walks the earth. First let me tell you something about me, as the last fifteen or so years I (and my kind) have changed quite a bit. I grew up a savage, and was part of a family of six, (consisting of my father and mother, two brothers and one sister) running and savaging the land for food. Back then I was called Orano, it seems a simple name now since I have taken on one of the mysteriously strange and alien sounding names that some of the babblers have talked of. Sometimes we would meet other people like ourselves, even becoming friendly for a short time with them but our father would never let us become too close to any stranger. He knew that it was safer to remain within a small group, this way we could communicate to each other without any confusion or danger arising. He explained to us with pictures he drew in mud on the ground or sometimes painted with animal blood on trees how many times he had witnessed large groups form in the hope of starting up some kind of community. However it would always end in tragedy. As we all know, numbers always attract orcs and wargs, always coming in gangs or packs, and always far too many to defend against. Any group that tried to fight them would be killed and eaten. If they were lucky they would be scattered apart and lost from the rest, but if they were unlucky they would be captured by the orcs and taken for food or something even worse. Throughout my early years all my family were eventually killed by what my daughter now calls the orcs and the wargs (though at the time of my youth our people had virtually no language and what language there was, was extremely basic. We, for example, as a family would make a low grunting sound as a warning to each other that an orc had been sighted), it’s hard to believe now that but twenty or so years ago I and the rest of my kind were hardly much better than those big-faced beastmen who gorged themselves on all forms of raw meat. First of all let me explain why I write this account. It is my attempt to try and make sense of all the stories and try and give our new blossoming race some sort of history of what things were once like. Also, as the appearances of the babblers becomes less and less as they materialize within the chosen-

ones, and our people become more and more, the story of there lost civilisation and our own history and survival can serve great purpose and show future generations what times of old where once like before the orcs and the wargs came to be. But first let me begin by telling you a little of the babblers, the strange invisible ones who saved our race from possible extinction. We have learned throughout the years very little of the babblers since they first chose to help us. It seems that for some reason they refuse to talk about what happened to there own kind. All we’ve managed to piece together from the odd tales they tell, or the rare pieces of ancient literature found when out exploring our land, is that they belonged once to a mighty civilization that was destroyed, but how and why is still a mystery to any of us. Several have tried to ask a chosen-one while she or he was inhabited by a babbler what happened to cause such destruction, but the babblers refuse to answer, or become more cryptic in their speech. We ourselves have speculated, and various theories have been thought up as we learn more and more from the babblers’ teachings of survival. Some have suggested a great war exterminated their race, my very own daughter has dreamt up the idea of an alien invasion (she apparently got the idea from one of those new set of books we found buried in the earth). Most of us though believe it to be the wrath of the gods, unhappy at the babblers for past sins or sordid reasons we can only fathom at. So what have we learned? Well, it seems that before me and my kind even existed on this land, the strange beings we call the babblers ruled. They were all powerful; there people stretching far and wide across a thing we supposedly stand ourselves on called a world. There were apparently many different tribes, and some of the tribes grew powerful and mighty, creating great new inventions, houses stretching up into the sky, metal wings called planes that could carry people through the heavens. One such story that my daughter told me was of what many of them consider perhaps there greatest achievement when a select few travelled on a very special plane that took them to the great white moon that floats above our heads and lights up the night sky. One thing I must point out is the strange system that the babblers use to communicate with us and how we have evolved from being slightly more civilised from the animals, wargs and orcs, to being able to read and write and talk in a complex language to one another. It all started when my daughter was but a child. I think she would have been around seven or eight (Days, months, and years, are all still new to us but the concept of time management makes great sense.). One night while asleep she suddenly woke up, her eyes wide and staring blankly into the darkness as her body shook as if overcome by a terrible fever. Her mother went over and put her arm around her, trying to comfort her. It was at that point that the strange

sounds, like nothing I have heard before began to utter from her lips. I now know that these sounds were from the voice of a babbler frequenting within her. The voice was deep and croaky, talking in a way none of us knew, a voice that erupted fourth in a strange babble of nonsense. The next day she remembered nothing of her strange chant, though as she talked in our own primitive tongue certain strange alien-like words were spoken by her. She claimed she knew their meaning and that we must have taught her them. At this we guessed she was playing some kind of childish game (she had always been incredibly intelligent for one so young and dreaming up such a prank was not beyond her, even at such a tender age) and I remember the confused look upon her face as her mother and myself scolded her every time she uttered one of the strange foreign words. We thought with telling her off for her cheek that that would be the last of it but the next night the same thing happened. This time we shook her (quite violently I’m ashamed to say) but still she went on staring into space and talking in that strange baffling babble (the voice being slightly different from the first night, though equally disturbing). And no matter how much we shook her or shouted at her to stop, she continued, and then we knew that she was not aware of us and the thing inside her had for the present taken over her person. I remember the first few nights were terrifying and we worried for our child’s sanity. At that time also there was with us another two, the mother of my daughter’s mother and a man called Ulk. Ulk had joined us when his own small tribe had been attacked by a vicious onslaught of wargs. He had been the only survivor from four others he lived with. At least that’s what he told us. After getting to know him a bit better, I personally believe he had been chucked or chased out from his own tribe. I never really liked the man, and should have never have let him join with us. I thought having an extra hunter with us would be helpful, but their was something about him that was odd. The only way I can explain it is the way in which he would act and communicate, always shifty looking and whispering his thoughts to individuals so no one else could hear what he said. I believe he purposely did this to make others suspicious. The other thing I didn’t like about him was that he and my daughters mothers mother got on well together. This was a problem as I knew that she never liked me from the start, and I think she always harboured a secret desire for her daughter to replace me and get with the Ulk. When the two of them heard the voices my daughter made at night they came to believe that my daughter was turning into an orc, and at one point Ulk became so convinced that we harboured with us a soon to be killer that he picked up a stone (egged on by the mother of my daughters mother) as my daughter chanted in her strange and frightening way. A fight ensued as I wrestled him to the ground, biting his hand so he dropped the bludgeoning

stone. Then we fought with fists, feet, heads and teeth. Fortunately I was much bigger and stronger than him and it was my hands that first gripped his neck and shook the life from him. Afterwards, the mother of my daughter’s mother was sent out alone for her part in encouraging Ulk in trying to murder our daughter. Out into the wilds she was sent by her own furious daughter. We have never heard tale of her since and I believe and hope that some big nasty orcs found her roaming that night and had their selves a hearty feast (though I half suspect the grizzly old cow would have no doubt stuck in their fangs). Every night, again and again, a babbler would posses our child and speak its incoherent ravings that none of us knew. And after each night our daughter picked up and learnt more of the words from the crazy babbling people that possessed her. After all, how was I to know that the strange creatures inside my child uttering nonsensical nonsense to my ears were in fact the very words that would help me and my kind establish a foothold that would see us become the main predator of the land? How was I to know? When we realized our daughter had no control over the babblers inside her, we of course stopped scolding her and instead listened to what she told us. She began teaching us the new strange words that the babblers had imprinted within her. As this went on the words grew, until slowly a language that the babblers called English began to form. This also meant that as each night went by and our child became possessed, we too could began to understand the speech of the babblers. At first we could only understand small snippets of language, but as the nights went by and our daughter taught us more English through the day, the babbling began to make sense and we realized that the voice inside her talked of many different things, all connected with the survival of our kind. The babblers first taught us how to defend ourselves against the orcs and wargs. How to make weapons to fight them, and armour and shields to defend ourselves from both claw and fang. They encouraged us to seek out more of our own kind and to form groups and teach others these new methods. Of course as I have stated before, group forming attracts the attention of both large hordes of orcs and wargs. The difference now was we could fight back against them, our armour countering there tooth and claw, and our weapons piercing there thick hides and spilling there life juice from there dirty scabby flesh. And as we joined with others, forming ourselves into a larger and larger tribe, we learnt that sometimes other children of a similar age to my daughter spawned from these new people and had also been given the gift to home a babbler within them at night. This I remember at the time was actually a great relief as it meant our daughter was not unique as we had first suspected. It also meant that more advice was being given at night, in fact at it’s height our tribe had seventeen chosen-ones that the babblers would use to preach there methods to us.

Within two years since the first babbler possessed my daughter, I now understood English and through her and the other chosen-ones teachings I was even becoming competent at reading and writing. I was also beginning to form a successful tribe, becoming a wise chief and leading a large group of people. Through my daughter and the other chosen-ones the babblers taught us how to fight as an army, build houses surrounded by walls to keep out the unwanted, turn the earth and plant seeds to grow great fields of crops, fish the rivers and farm the land, and a hundred other different useful things and ideas. We learnt how to hunt and trap, to capture animals such as cows, sheep, pigs, ducks and geese. They even taught us how to breed and farm them as well, using not only the meat, but the skins as clothes, and the bones as tools. In fact, the amount of things we were taught by the babblers in those first few years was truly astounding. Everything from essential skills such as cooking, medicine and hygiene, to pastimes to amuse and entertain such as music, song, dance and storytelling. Also, when our tribe grew too big to support all the people, it began to split up and new settlements were formed in other parts of the land. We could even communicate with one another using a remarkable animal called a pigeon (good eating as well) to send messages to other tribes. Hopefully you who are reading this, know something of this last part. So I shall leave out the finer points of how the newer tribes came to be. One thing I will say is that I pray we carry on progressing and our people and ways continue growing stronger year in and year out. The babblers have told us though that soon there visitations will become less, but to continue growing and seeking out even more new people. They have hinted that this land that we find ourselves living in was once ruled by some of their kind and bears pretty much the same name as the very English that we now speak to each other in. This place we now know to have once been called England should be explored (I have recently found that the tribe I formed inhabits a northern corner of England and according to a babbler was once the very same place that one of their villages stood. And so we too have named this place Tremwell like our saviours before us) they tell us for we are not the only ones that the babblers have helped. This is but a small part of mine and my people’s story, and although there are many gaps and things we still do not understand I write down the information what I know and believe to be true. Perhaps someone else someday may discover this writing, perhaps even myself in years to come will add to it and give better explanations to some of the strange and baffling scenarios I have hinted at. ……………..

From the notes of Julie, daughter of Collin of the North East Tribe: Where to start. Hmmm… I have just read an account I found while rummaging through some of my fathers belongings that he must have wrote some twenty years ago detailing what he remembered at that time. It does not surprise me that he had the foresight to document what he knew by writing down what he could remember for the purpose of telling the future generations something of how our civilisation all started. He always thought first for the future of our race, after all it was he alone that brought together the people of the “North-East Tribe” and fought off the orcs and wargs. I can’t help but wonder if he knew that I would be the one to find this piece of writing if anything happened to him. I know that he always wanted me to be as proud as he was for what the two of us did in those early years. I remember very little of my childhood, and as a teenager when my father reminisced of those times, recalling with much pride how he (with the help from the information gained from my many possessions) brought together a group of people to form one of the first great tribes, I would make my excuses and leave. When he began to realise I had a problem with the past he of course never talked of that time to me again. I suppose in a way it was a happy time, a time when we as a people grew and became what we are today. It’s just the thought of all those possessions, and the way the babblers would take me over in my sleep. I still have nightmares some fifteen years after my last possession, and I know it’s silly as we owe everything to the babblers but…well…it’s hard to explain. I suppose it’s the thought that someday they may return and perhaps take me over completely. And that is perhaps why he hid it between the pages of my favourite book, knowing that when I was older I would be able to deal with my inner demons and instead look back on the past and the part I played and be proud of what I and he did back then. Of course, at the time there was no way he could know the disease affecting him would prevent his adding to the account in later years…damn amnesia. It has affected many of the people of a similar age to dad. He never complains, and he reminds me that actually he is fortunate to have lived so long and we all have to die of something now that the wargs and the orcs are nearly all gone. Still, it is not nice to witness this great man slowly becoming less and less, his memory, personality and intelligence fading by the day. Even the babblers apparently had found no cure for it. No doubt when he wrote his account of those years of struggle, he did plan on returning to it in years to come and adding greater detail, but it’s the fact that he hid it within the pages of “The Lord Of The Rings” that makes me think he knew that if anything was to happen to him that I would find it.

As a child you see, the Ring Trilogy had always been a favourite of mine, in fact it was through these books that I got the names for the orcs and the wargs from which we have now nearly wiped from our land. It turns out I’m not the only one to use this method, many other people from different parts of the land used a similar technique when naming those creatures. One example for instance that I can think of off hand is a tribe down south called the Eloi who did exactly the same thing using a book they had found to name the orcs. They however called them Morlocks, this name coming from a different book which at present I have not read. Now of course since we have learnt more and advanced technically in many scientific areas, we have discovered ways in which to analyse the very D.N.A structure of all things, and through the more specialised scientific books and the teachings of the babblers we know now that these creatures are actually genetically mutated by what we believe was some kind of disaster, war, or experimentation that had virtually wiped the babblers out. Through our discoveries we believe the orcs to be a genetic mutation of ourselves, and the wargs a similar mutation from the many dogs that the babblers would have owned at the time. Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself. The reason I write this is to continue what my father started. Like I have previously stated we now know a lot more than we used to. For starters, when my father first wrote his account we where just beginning to form a society and understand the many teachings of the babblers. I (as my father has documented) was one of the children who had been lucky enough to have been chosen by the babblers, and as they talked and preached I (a chosen-one), who was still so very young had the fortune for there very words, ideas, and knowledge to become imprinted into my own thoughts. Others like me where granted the same gift, but it was my father who first opened up to what the babblers taught and encouraged me, and then others, to absorb the information given. This part is well documented by my father and that is how we as a people formed and grew to what and where we are today. Now we live not in caves or even the make-shift huts that we first made throughout the early days of the babblers. Now we live in stone houses surrounded by high bricked walls that guards patrol night and day, watching out for any form of danger and attack from hostile forces. We have also managed to contact other people from other parts of the country, and trade goods with over fourteen other tribes like ourselves. We have also been visited by tribes from other lands, sailing within ships of wood. These people had been suffering a similar fate to our own but like us had been saved also when possession of a child had taught them the ways of old. And so it appears that the babblers had planned not only to advance us, but all the other humans in existence as well. And why shouldn’t they. After all, the babblers where once human too.

So what have we learned from our strange visitors? Well, virtually everything really, from writing, reading, arithmetic, to farming, medicine, art, an improved language, how to make electricity and steam powered engines and a thousand other things I shall document later and hopefully in greater detail within a journal not just from my own silly head but comprised from the scholars who know far more than I about the above skills mentioned. You see this with this last part I would just like to point out the one major thing that troubles me. Since we learned everything from the babblers we can now explain nearly all the mysteries that my father wrote about all those years ago. And even as the explosion of progression that has enveloped us now slows to a crawl, we have come to understand that the civilisation before us and the people that we called the babblers was merely our own ancestry virtually destroying themselves. But we still don’t exactly know on a scientific level what the babblers are. Even the books we’ve discovered from babbler society tell us that there are no such things in existence like the babblers. Although several fiction books talk of the dead coming back to visit the living, but these are usually just stories told for entertainment purposes. It does seem however that some of the people who we called babblers did believe in many things such as aliens, gods, monsters, and of course spirits, but they never had solid scientific proof to back them or their own personal beliefs up. So if this is the case then I ask you…What the hell are they? And why did they leave us? The first question I cannot answer. However, I have my own suspicions on why they left us. I believe one possibility may be that they only came to help us as they feared that there big mistake would cost the human race too great a price. This is perhaps why when we questioned them about what happened they refused to answer. If it was a war for example, then further questions would need to be asked such as who started it and why? And perhaps the answer to this question would be so horrible that the simpler response to it would be not to admit to the crime in the first place. Of course that would also suggest that the babblers who found us where the very ones responsible for the annihilation of humanity, feeling that the only way to atone for their sins was to help out the few who survived. Another possibility for their disappearance could be from the very science they taught. I have read various babbler books and it appears that early on in their culture that mystery and unexplainable strangeness where more acceptable even to the greater brains of there time. Of course science would disapprove and expel all superstition as it’s unquestionable proofs crushed all verbal nonsense before it until such things as magic, monsters, gods and the like were thought of as childish and ridiculous scaremongering. So perhaps then, with our very own evolution and progression that the babblers taught, we have evolved to a level were it is now impossible for us to believe in them.

A bizarre paradox perhaps. But it does make you think! Anyway. Perhaps it is not for the likes of me and you to wonder at. After all, if they hadn’t come then as our scientists believe we would have probably died out as the orcs and wargs numbers were becoming far greater than our own. Extinction they say was inevitable if the babblers had not stepped in. Who knows what the future may bring. Maybe through books and information scavenged and unearthed we will learn more of the babbler’s fate. Perhaps we ourselves need to take these early steps very carefully if were not to end up as the babblers did, destined for extinction through our own unpractised practices. One thing is for sure though, even if a great struggle for survival still awaits, then at least the babblers have left us with…the ghost of a chance. THE END