Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just found this section of Dakka and thought I'd chuck up something I wrote a while back. The formatting and grammar in this are probably horrible. I am in the habit of writing these short 'snippet' stories which I never follow up. Please feel free to comment and critique!

It was dark. Not like a dark night or a dark alleyway in some scum ridden gang slum. The darkness was utter, complete, absolute. It was as if the universe had been snuffed out like a candle. The Consciousness drifted slowly through the darkness. It had been someone once. Who? When? Yesterday? But what was yesterday when you'd existed for eternity? Confused, alone, abandoned in the darkness it drifted, for a second or for a billion years. What was the difference?

A light. Such a simple, tiny thing at first. A million, trillion light years distant. The Consciousness had known light once. Pure and white it came closer, slowly, becoming brighter and larger. The Consciousness turned its corporeal form to wonder at the marvel unfolding before it. A light in the darkness. A beacon shining from another world, from another dimension. The darkness burned away from its touch with a shriek as if it were alive, unravelling around the edges and streaming back on itself as the light unfolded and spread. The Consciousness watched as the light streamed past it. Engulfing it. Wrapping it in serenity and peace like it had not known since it died. Died? It thought. I died.

Suddenly the Consciousness was aware of a choral up-welling of noise, like a million choirs all praising their maker with sublime song. The Consciousness caught snatches of hymns and devotional prayers, intermingling in a beautiful symphony of hope that seemed to match the intensity of the light. The darkness was gone now and the Consciousness drifted in a sea of pure, white, radiant, light. A voice spoke from the light, powerful and all encompassing. This voice could create worlds. This voice could ignite stars. This voice spin the fabric of time and space to suit its own needs. A thousand universes were born, lived and died in each divine syllable, “It is not your time." The words, not spoken but instead simply known, flowed through the Consciousness. It is not my time. Then the world turned red.

Aeons passed. The Consciousness was aware of the red and the choral voices and nothing else. Slowly, like droplets of water freezing into an icicle, knowledge flooded back through neural pathways that hadn't seen thought in months. The Consciousness remembered. It remembered dying. The last thought through its mind, a benediction to The Emperor of Man for allowing him to die in glorious battle.

Him. Allowing him to die. Is this death? He thought to himself.

"Relax Captain." A voice said as the red slowly began to fade away and resolve. He was in a room. A large workshop it seemed. Tools and various instruments adorned racks around the walls. In front of him stood a Techmarine. "You are safe here."

Macharious. He thought. Yes, I was Macharious once. Captain. Astartes. Knowledge continued to flow through him, now like a jolting spark of electricity coruscating down his spine. Speak.

"W...What... Where?" His voice, echoing through the chamber, was deep and resonant; no trace of his original accent or speech remained.

"You are aboard the Hand of Castigation Sir. In the Sanctum Technicae." the Techmarine said. Readouts began to scroll across Macharious' vision. Data reams, weapon specifications, power levels, hull integrity. He took a breath out of habit and realised that it was not necessary to breathe any more.

“I... feel..." His voice a deep robotic purr.

"Rest Captain. The interring will leave you feeling slow for a while until you get used to your new body." A snaking mechadendrite, which sprouted from the back of the Techmarine, made some adjustments to a panel in Mecharious' armour. He felt a sudden surge of power within his frame. Such huge energy sparking within him, bringing him back to life as his reactor came fully online.

Memories flooded back. The drop from the Hand of Castigation to the surface of the heretic world had been brutal. The battle through the Halls of Misery against Archon Daetor's heretics, bloody, fast, ferocious. Finally confronting the vile Archon in his defiled chapel. Their duel had been a thing of legend. A battle which would decorate the Chapters records until the end of days. He had struck down the daemons which the Daetor had summoned with his mighty hammer Caligo Annihilare and crushed the arch heretic's skull just as a searing bolt of warp energy had detonated deep within his sternum ending his life.

With a whine of servos Macharious raised his hand. A Powerfist replaced his left hand and he could feel the fearsome whir of the assault cannon servos on his right.

"You have been brought back from the very brink of death Captain, to continue your service to your Chapter and The God-Emperor." The Techmarine said as the mighty Dreadnought took his first ground shaking step.

"For The Emperor!" Intoned Captain Macharious.

Thanks for reading!

What do you mean your not going to continue! Please do as i liked this and would love to read the Dread taking it's first steps into battle. Maybe he could make planet fall in a drop pod and have flash backs as he drops. I see potential in this for a superb read. ( yes, my spelling and grammer is gak to )

Thanks mate! I'll try to continue with it but I find it really hard to just sit down and write. Your idea about flashbacks sounds pretty sweet. I reckon I could do something with that.

I have some other shorts that I might post up eventually but they're not really done yet and have been sitting in limbo for a while now.

Don't worry about rushing more of this or future stories out as there's no pressure. I know flash backs are a bit done to death for Dreads, but I think him remembering his old life from what's happening in his new would be cool. A almost rebirth at the end of the fight, something along the lines of gandalf the grey becoming the white, would be pretty cool to. Sorry for bouncing ideas at you.

Writing is a chore for me but I plod along slowly, sometimes paint drying slow. Just ask my only, *cough* sorry, biggest fan about the pains of waiting for me to finish a chapter, so I understand when you say you can't force your self to write.

Oooooo shiny story me like!