"Document 13" A Dystopian Tale:Part 1

At some point last year I came up with a plot line to a story I wanted to turn into a graphic novel. My daughter is a talented artist and I thought it would be a pretty awesome collaboration if I wrote the story and she illustrated it.

Of course like so many things in life, it started strong but I kinda fizzled out. She refused to start drawing the comic until I completely finished the story and I got bogged down in the complexity of the world and couldn't figure out a suitable end or even much of the path to it. My writing petered out and I put it on the back burner so to speak.

Now I think I am ready to pick it back up, and to motivate myself to continue with it I'm planning to post it serially here. This will force me to come back to it again and again and tweak and add things as I go. Hopefully it will also give me a good idea of whether people think it's good or not. And maybe folks will be kind enough to give constructive criticism. It's not a short story per se but more of a script to be turned into a comic or graphic novel.

So, without introducing the background, because I want it to be self-contained, here is the first section of "Document 13."

Opening:

Overhead view of a desolate Washington Mall, there is no grass, all the trees are scraggled and dead. Monuments are crumbled. There is an orange tint to the sky. Despite being nearly May, there is still a considerable amount of snow in drifts around the desolate trees. In the sky are floating fortresses tethered to the ground and on ground level many domes built over old buildings.

Scene: a robot, shaped like a large box on treads, follows a road leading to one of the towers. The words “Nile: Everything You Could Ever Want” are written on the side along with a logo and a number R545.

A figure appears, she is wearing an SCBA type mask. She is about 14 years old. She is carrying a small package. She nimbly moves towards the robot and opens a small panel on the side. She disables it and the robot rolls to a stop. She puts down the package and fidgets with the control panel. A door on the side of the robot opens, revealing a parcel of packages, varying in size. She picks carefully through them and selects two. She places the package she was carrying into the bay and shuts the door.

A sound comes from behind her.

Girl: Huh?

A robot dog appears from behind some debris.

Dog: This is a restricted area, leave at once!

G: Not a chance!

D: Evacuate the area! Lethal force is authorized on trespassers!

The girl fidgets with the control panel and the robot starts to roll again.

D: Evacuate at once!

Other dogs appear.

D: Lethal force activated!

G: Oh great…

She picks up the two packages and begins to sprint away, the dogs take pursuit.

Chase scene...

She dives into an alley and escapes the dogs but catches her air hose on a piece of metal and her mask pulls off from her face.

G: Noo!

She panics and flails around for her mask. After a few seconds she realizes that she can breathe.

G: What?!

She takes a few breaths. She is astounded but still fearful, so she replaces her mask.

She reaches a door on a dome (there is a sign next to the door that reads “St. Wilde’s Orphanage”), enters a code into a panel, and enters an air lock.

I hope you liked the first part of the story! Let me know what you think!

Do you think I should post my whole premise or continue the story and let the readers learn the back story as they go along?