A Proposition

I've been thinking on this long and hard and I've decided to go through with creating a VN with anyone else that's interested. I'm asking here because I know fakku has a lot of VN lovers. I myself am a writer, but anyone can sign up if they want to give it a try. The base group that we need is a writer, an artist, a composer, and a programmer.

If this thread should be moved, I'm sorry that i put it in the wrong spot. Just saying that in advance

You might wanna give people a taste of how good of a writer you are with a preview or something.


What's the VN about?

Not enough zombies.

Well I think I have a link to a thread on the writing forums in my signature, Klown. But hey, can't hurt to draft something, right?



Here it was again: the building he had spent the last three years at. Hideki looked up sullenly at the grey, dull school simply designated 'Public High School 024' by the prefectural Board of Education. Today, however, was a happy occasion by comparison to the last few months.

"Alright, enough of that same ol' glum face." Kaji said as he passed by Hideki, knocking the depressed student from his reverie. Hideki looked down from the name that spread across the archway above the gates and forced a smile to his friend.

"Well excuse me for not being too happy about being a NEET, Kaji. Not all of us did well on our entrance exams." Hideki said as he fell into step with Kaji and the two passed through the gates. Kaji smiled slightly and held up a hand, phsycially showing that he planned to make a point. Hideki sighed in prparation as Kaji opened his mouth.

"Well not all of us listed Toyko University as their ONLY planned college. You kinda shot yourself in the foot on that one" Hideki nodded in defeat and let his shoulder sag as they went inside and stopped in front of the shoe lockers.

"Morning, Hiiragi-chan." Hideki said to the jaded girl that stood in fron of Kaji's locker. "Guess I'll see you in class" He said quietly to Kaji before leaving him alone and going to his own locker.

He opened it and found the usual shoes and took the pang of disappointment he felt whenever he felt jealous of Kaji and wished to find a nice neat envelope with a heart-shaped sticker sealing it. He pushed the feeling to the back of his mind and changed his shoes as the first bell rang its usual tune. Hideki slowly placed his outside shoes in the locker and swung the door shut before starting up the stairs to 3-B for his final day of classes.


Okay so I know its a shot on the un-inventive side but cut me some slack here. Wrote this in 3 minutes. Like I said above, though: for something that I have put more thought and effort into check out the link on my signature. For a longer but earlier sample of my writings, e-mail me at pvt.skittlz@yahoo.com. I'm saying e-mail me because the piece in question is 55 pages.

Alrighty, got some more samples




Jericho fell to his knees, defeated. He limped behind cover and leaned against the battered wall. The occasional hisses, zings, and pops of nearby bullets no longer fazed him. Nothing caught his attention as he slowly bled out alone. The gunfire stopped and the Tiidani slowly advanced to the fallen soldier. Jericho pulled up the Sentinel roster and felt a bite of shame. Red KIA statuses burned silently beside the name of nearly every active Sentinel. He changed his own status to WIA and relaxed against the wall, unable to hear the dropship above screaming down on him with a full fighter escort, or the gasps of horror the Tiidani choked out when they looked skyward. His vision blurred and he began hallucinating. He saw S’jet leaning next to him, smiling with his helmet off. Jericho weakly smirked and looked back in front of him. The full complement of Olympus looked down upon him with admiration on their faces. A girl kneeled next to him, a shield in her left hand.

“Athena?” He whispered urgently. The distorted image nodded and laid her shield across his chest, then stood and stepped back to the other Gods and Goddesses. The images sharpened and he saw Athena’s face. “It’s strange. You look exactly like-“

“Jericho!” Kathryn’s voice cut into his hallucination, bringing him back to Khay-Tar. Missile contrails and fighters painted the sky above him. He blinked wearily and pushed himself up, looking over the wall he hid behind. The remaining Sentinels and shock troops of the Tanseele Commonwealth had formed a perimeter around him, and the gunshots had stopped. The Tiidani had laid down their weapons and stepped back. Tank crews evacuated their vehicles and joined the foot soldiers. The ground rumbled and the Tiidani looked to the sky once more. A Commonwealth ship descended into the atmosphere, its drop bays opening and transports flooding outward.

“Attention all Tiidani personnel: Firing upon any Hiigaran Special Forces is a declaration of war with the Tanseele Commonwealth. We have claimed sovereignty over the Operatives and thus they are soldiers of the Commonwealth. Lay down your arms immediately and surrender or we will strike with our full ability.” The recorded message repeated itself from an unseen speaker. Jericho assumed it was the reason for the sudden change of the tide. Jericho turned on his beacon and stood, keeping his weight off his shattered right leg. Kathryn saw him and ran toward him. He put up an open hand and she stopped short of him. He hobbled slowly to her and put an arm around her shoulder, using her as support. She helped him to a medivac craft and let him down onto a stretcher. Technicians and doctors pushed her out of the way, trying frantically to remove his armor and treat his wounds. Kathryn resigned to her place and backed out of the craft slowly, keeping her eyes on the hollow figure on the stretcher. The door sealed itself and the magnetic locks clicked into place, sealing Jericho from the world. She looked to the horizon, the anomalous blue dwarf star system slowly set and fluorescent lights in the staging area turned on. Kathryn stood in a silent vigil outside the ship for two hours, refusing medical attention until she herself collapsed and was escorted to a field hospital to join the rest of the Sentinels. She woke with a start and reached for the IVs in her arms, but her hands stopped short. She looked to the tethers that held her to the bed frame. She tried to break them, but couldn’t muster the strength. She gave up and let her head drop to the bed and fall to the side. She saw the other Sentinels in either beds or walking around, un-restrained. She clenched her teeth in anger and grabbed part of the bed frame, crushing it in her hand. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, whispering inaudibly to herself. A doctor approached and looked at her with concern.

“Are you okay, Kathryn?” The doctor asked, keeping away from her reach. She looked up to him, her bangs over her eyes. The doctor took another step back from the menacing sight.

“I want to see him.” She said curtly. The doctor sighed and her body tensed. Hayter walked over to her slowly.

“Kathryn, this isn’t healthy. Be concerned about yourself for now. Jericho will be okay.” He said, looking at her biomoniter readout.

“Myself? I didn’t stay in an un-defendable position for three hours to cover a drop ship leaving to get reinforcements that may never come! I didn’t fight until every muscle in my body was running on steroids and artificially introduced oxygen. All I did was watch the man I love subject himself to the worst torture imaginable for my own welfare. I watched history repeat and I don’t care about what happened to me.” She said bitterly, looking up to Hayter, who shifted uneasily and looked away from her.

“Mr. Antares has undergone severe surgery and is under complete lockdown. Any movements on his part could prove fatal. He was so severely wounded that when we tried to remove his suit, he crashed. Most of his suit’s computer and life support systems are still keeping him alive, so we haven’t been able to touch most of his wounds and we won’t be able to until we can get him stabilized with our own equipment.

“Well, will he make it?” Kathryn asked, hope evident in her eyes. The doctor inhaled slowly and bit his cheek as he tried to think of the right words to use.

“In all honesty, I don’t think this is an encounter he can survive. He has been so extensively mutilated that if we can save him, he won’t be combat ready and he’ll have to undergo intense physical therapy. It’ll be years before he’d fully recover.”

“I don’t care how long he’ll take to recover. I just want him to live. I don’t want his death on my hands. He did this for all of us, but I was what gave him the idea. If he dies because of me, I’ll never forgive him, or myself.” she said matter-of-factly. The doctor bit his lip and sighed.

“Just get some rest for now, okay? We’ll see what we can do in the meantime. Don’t even consider the possibility. He’s fighting with his own physical limits right now and he doesn’t need a shred of doubt from you.” The doctor said. Kathryn scoffed and leaned back in her bed, defeated.


Voices echoed in Jericho’s head. Nothing around him seemed real. Everything was a wispy shadow of itself. He knew it was the tranquilizers in his system, but the vertigo he felt was powerful. He tried to move his fingers, but couldn’t even muster the strength. He could even feel his strength ebbing away with the rising and falling of his chest.

“If this keeps up, I won’t even be able to breathe by myself.” He said to EVA. A metaphor generated by the A.I. fell around him as he was immersed in it. He was safely in his mind, where his mental image could move in any way it wanted to. He looked around himself to see what EVA had programmed. A tower stood before him, corpses littering its base and filling its exposed halls. The tower itself barely stood. It bent to the winds and groaned as it shook from the smallest quake of the ground. He knew this was a metaphor for himself, and EVA was showing her concern. She appeared next to him, not in her usual digitized state, but flesh and blood. She looked to the ground, not willing to say anything clever like she usually did. She saw everything and couldn’t imagine his pain. A crow cawed from atop the tower and they both looked skyward.

“W-Why, Jericho?” She said with tears in her eyes. Jericho breathed deeply and stood silently. He had never realized that she had genuinely cared for him. The constant warnings she always repeated weren’t a part of her personality, they were concern.

“I couldn’t let them take her away from me again.” He said in a monotone voice, watching the crow fly off, toward a knoll in the distance.

“No wonder she hated you so much.” EVA said bitterly. Jericho looked to her with his brow furrowed, enraged. “You took her away from yourself! I don’t know exactly what happened at Tarkim, but I know what happened here. You could have run with her and gotten away, but you closed her off. You gave her no decision in the matter and cut her off from yourself. You threw yourself onto her conscience and made her feel miserable because of some delusion that what you did was right.” EVA yelled, sounding unnaturally human. Jericho looked to the ground, ashamed. She was right. He was so caught up in the bravado and machismo of sacrificing himself for her that he didn’t think about the ramifications. He could have just as easily ran with them to the Commonwealth. He had no love for the planet or anything that was left on it. He did something unnecessary and he was most likely going to die for it.

“Tell her I’m sorry then, EVA. Tell her what I won’t be able to.” He said as pieces from the tower fell to the ground, kicking up large plumes of dusk. Even in his brain, his vision became blurry. He looked up to the tower, watching it buckle under its own weight. “I can see her eyes.” He said softly, the amethyst orbs floating in delirium. He fell to the floor, his body covered with the debris of the collapsed tower.



Doctors and nurses crowded around Antares for the quick switch between life-support systems. They took off his armor and he immediately flat-lined. His brain activity ceased soon after. They inserted him into the stasis tank, the oxygen-rich liquid inside being forced into his brain. They introduced a small electric charge into the liquid, jolting his heart into action. It beat lazily and his vitals corrected themselves. A general sigh made its way through the room as the machinery inside the tank went into action. The tank drained and the robotic parts began their precise work of removing bullets, cloning failing organs, and fusing together broken bones. The nano-machines in his body worked in conjunction with the surgical arms, hurrying the surgery along.

Jericho woke up with no feeling in any of his body. His head was flat on a small bed, his eyes staring at the ceiling. This was the real world, not his mind. The Tanseele had actually come through. He tried to move his mouth, but the paralysis was throughout his whole body. He closed his eyes again and opened up a metaphor file he had created.

“You shouldn’t try anything for now, Jericho. A 12-hour marathon surgery doesn’t leave many in a good condition, especially when the wounds should have killed you. I think it’s best that you know that you have less than half of your original organs in your body.” EVA said.

“How long will the paralysis from the sedatives continue?” Jericho asked without moving at all. Any additional stress on his brain could prove fatal.

“I’ll wake you when they do. Good night, Jericho.” She said before closing the metaphor. Jericho, with nothing to do, fell asleep and dreamt of supernovae.



Kathryn looked down at her tray of food, the first real food she had seen in nearly a month. She stirred around the mashed potatoes lazily, not feeling the want to eat it despite her immense hunger. She dropped the fork into the food and leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. She was angry; angry with herself for being so attached to Jericho, and angry at Jericho for being so selfish. She had been notified that the trial run for the stasis tank had succeeded, and had possibly been the only reason he was alive. She now only had to wait. She consulted her neural implant and checked the time. Only 10 minutes had passed since the last time she checked. She sighed and wished that she was tired enough to go to sleep.

“How are you holding up? You’ve got to be doing better now that you know he’s okay.” Gaz said, rolling past her in his wheelchair. Kathryn turned and forced a smile to the wounded man, then looked back down to her food.



As He sat there next to me, the life in His eyes flickering like a candle in the wind, I felt something I did not think a person could feel on the battlefield. I could see why He did what he did, and that he believed he did it for all the right reasons. Sairem stood next to Him, smiling and grasping his hand tightly. He had saved Sairem at the cost of himself, and did not fear his retribution. The muscles in His face relaxed and his hands opened as he exhaled deeply. He looked to Sairem with glazed eyes.

“Don’t tell anyone what I did here today. Anyone who will understand—who needs to know—already knows. Keep going, Sairem, and don’t ever stop until you find what gives you purpose, then let yourself go.” He said groggily. Sairem nodded quickly with tears forming in his eyes. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. I couldn’t save Him. I could only appreciate the value of his actions as he was swept away slowly.

“Sir.” Sairem said, staring at me, fighting back a total breakdown. “Why did he do this, sir? Why do I have to watch him pay for my screw-up?” I was at a loss. I couldn’t think of the words to say. Hell, I could barely think at all. I couldn’t think of a reason because I wanted Sairem on that table instead of Him. I didn’t want Him to find his answer yet. I wanted him to live on.
I clenched my teeth as He squeezed my hand urgently, his body spasmodic as it tried to save itself from death. It shuddered one last time before realizing his will and granting him release. His eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling before I slid them closed. I looked down to his gloved hand, still unwilling to release it and accept that he had gone. A thought flashed into my mind, and I understood his reasons, and I smiled warmly, releasing His hand.

“Me and him, we believed in a pretty weird philosophy on life. It was built on the obvious fact that humans need social connections and contact with people to be able to survive. The downside of this is that when a person values others and is valued by others, they begin to fear their connections being severed, and so they try to prolong the lives of themselves and others however possible, no matter the cost. We, on the other hand, believed that a person needs to accept the fact that they and others will die. We need to focus on the present, and yet still keep and eye on preserving the future. When a person does this, they see the world in a very clear light. They can measure their true values and determine their own purpose in life. A man’s purpose isn’t pre-destiny; it’s made by the man. I believe that he accepted death long ago, and that’s the easy part. Today, however, he fulfilled his purpose in life by saving you. I don’t think it was because of who you are, or any deep emotions for you, or a sense of duty. I guess what he truly desired most was to save a life that was truly in his hands, to be the wall between life and death. It’s a common goal, but he achieved it in his own way, and he’s at peace with what he did. Now that he has done that, he found his answer to the question he has asked since birth, and because of that, he could rest happy.” I said to both Sairem and myself. Sairem looked down and a wave of understanding washed over him.

“Do you think he needed to die to find his answer?” Sairem asked, finally looking up.

“I do.” I replied somberly. Sairem looked down again, thinking to himself. I leaned against the wall behind me and waited for Sairem to absorb the information.

“Did you decide what your purpose was yet?” Sairem asked me, much like a student asks their instructor. I smiled and slowly ran my fingers through my hair.

“More than that, I found my answer as well. I just came to show him the way home. Come on, it’s time to go.” I said, tapping him on the shoulder. His eyes opened slowly and he smiled. Sairem stumbled back in shock and looked on in awe. “Was it what you wanted?” I asked him. He laughed a bit.

“It was exactly what I needed to know.” He replied happily. Sairem tried to form words, but only sputtering gibberish came out. We rounded about and began walking, our eyes on the full moon in the sky.

“You’re both dead?! W-Wait! What was your answer?” Sairem yelled after us. He turned around and laughed again.
“When you find yours, find us. We’ll tell you then.” He said. I nodded in silent agreement.

“If you’re dead too, then who are you?” Sairem yelled again, this question obviously directed at me.

“I’m the man that taught him to let go of death, so I’m the one who brings him home. That’s how it works. When, or if you find your answer, he’ll be the one to take you.” I answered without turning around. He placed a hand on my shoulder and nodded, a silent †˜thank you’.

“Best of luck, Sairem.” He said as we continued walking. We made it across the street before we disappeared, leaving Sairem in the moonlight to determine his own purpose.
We appeared in Valais Square, where I found my answer 25,000 feet in the air. We looked up to the statue that commemorated my journey, then to the flowers at its base.

“What was your purpose, sir? You already know mine.” He asked my quietly. I closed my eyes and envisioned her face, smiling.

“Mine was unimaginative, but it was what I wanted. I wanted to make the world a better place for the one I loved. She should be here soon.” I said as we waited in the pouring rain.
After thirty minutes I saw her coming around the bend, a bouquet of flowers in her hand and an umbrella in the other, resting on her shoulder. She walked up to my memorial, placed the flowers at its base, and prayed silently. I waited for her to rise before I approached her. She heard my boots clicking on the ground and turned, dabbing at her closed eyes.

“I didn’t know anyone would be here today. I’m the only one that usually comes during the—Jericho?!” She choked, with shock and a bit of horror on her face.

“Hello, Kai. I’m sorry that I’m doing this to you, but I just wanted to see if I could see you again. If you could see me. I want to know that I deserved my answer. Did I do right? Did what I did help you more than it hurt?” I asked softly, clasping my hands around hers.
“It really is you, Jerry. You have no idea how badly I felt after I left you at the airbase, but you saved me anyway” She said, tears in her eyes. She hugged me and dug her face into my shoulder, crying. I didn’t want this. “Thank you for what you did, Jerry. It hurts to think about you, but you made the world a better place. I can’t be jealous and forsake the well being of the planet for myself.” She said, bringing a smile to my face. I was truly free now.

“Kai, It was because of that love you gave me that I no longer feared death and realized my purpose, but you weren’t there to show me the way when I got my answer. If you did, my purpose would have been unfulfilled. Now I am a shepherd due to this paradox. I teach the truth to those who deserve it, then show them the way. Kai, I want to stay here with you so badly, and I want you to know this. I’m sorry to do this, but I have to leave now. I promise you that I will return here on this day every week and wait for you. Don’t come if it hurts too much. I don’t want you to ache as I have. Just go home, tuck in the children, hug them, and—and give them a kiss good night for daddy.” I whispered, nearly crying myself. Kai nodded and released me, then walked home slowly, a sense of salvation in her mind. I turned to him and rubbed at my eyes. “I had to gain my closure, but I did it at the cost of your time. For that, I’m sorry.” I said. He shook his head slowly.

“Don’t worry about it, sir. I am curious, though. What was your answer?” He asked me, and I sighed, knowing this was coming.

“My answer was: Though all you did was bring destruction, you have saved the world. See, Kai was put on a shuttle for evacuation with the rest of the president’s staff. After they launched, enemy fighters gave chase. I hijacked a grounded plane and followed them. Friendly air escorts came in and shot almost all of the planes down, but one managed to fire a missile. The shuttle couldn’t evade, so I did all I could do. I flew between the missile and the shuttle. Though I could only cause destruction in the end, I destroyed myself to save Kai, and the president happened to be there. Do you see the relevance of my answer now?” I said to him. He nodded, then looked to the monument.

“So this is remembrance for the man that saved the president, though you only cared that you saved Kai.” He said, looking back to me.

“Yes. And even now, Kai is the only one to still visit. The president was only here for the opening ceremony, and then cast me from his mind. That’s alright with me though, because I didn’t care about saving him. I only wanted to save her. Enough about that, though. Unlike you, I am bound to this world. You must move on.” I said, thinking about the quick speed at which martyrs are forgotten.

“Where will I go?” He asked me with concern, I scoffed and put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ll go to the place you wish to the most. I cannot say where it will be, for it is never the same. I can only wish you luck. Goodbye.” I whispered before pushing him forward gently. He took a couple steps, and then began to fade into the city, the sky, and the sun.


“Thank you, sir.”