The Glitchers (Sample)

The hike took no more than a couple of hours, but Tad was happy it was almost over.

He first noticed the small wooden sign as they neared the top of the hillock.  Clean but ungraceful white paint read:

Oremen's Hamlet

Population:  16

Traders Welcome

Beyond it, a few roofs grew over the horizon, until at last the whole settlement was visible.  A large mineshaft dropped into the center of the knoll, making it appear as a grassy volcano.

There were five shacks and a barn surrounding the mine, and little else of interest.  A couple of trees, a couple of sheep, a couple of cows.  A fire pit with an old spit was set apart from the buildings, balanced on rock jutting from the hillside.

Beyond the animals, there was no life.  The people were all indoors or in the mine.  Tinking and clinking echoed up through the hole, fading to nothing beyond a few yards.

"Is it in the mine?" Tad asked; a boy in transition to manhood, yet still with a wide-eyed, innocent face.

"Nothing so romantic as that," his teacher replied.  The old man uncapped his canteen and took a swig.  He was fighting some sickness that had not yet been diagnosed, but it made him sore and thirsty just to walk.  The midnight blue robe of his order felt a hundred times its weight on his body.

Tad's teacher led him through the hamlet toward the barn.  "In there," he said, pointing with his eyes.

Tad leaned over the mine as they edged past.  Light drifted down the gray stone hole in the earth.  Tad couldn't get a proper angle to see the bottom, and he wondered how far the picking noises traveled to reach him.

The teacher stopped at the antique shack next to the barn.  He warned the boy: "Only speak when spoken to, and say no more than your name and vocation."

Tad nodded, and his teacher knocked.  Shifting noises inside, and then the door opened roughly.

A middle-aged woman glanced at the old man and gasped, half fearful surprise, half pleasant surprise.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't told you'd be coming," the woman said.

"This is a little impromptu," Tad's teacher apologized.  "I thought it would be a good idea if the boy... my boy, Tad, here, got to see."

"Is he your apprentice?"

"If you like.  As close as comes to it in our profession."

The woman's shoulders dropped a little, which Tad thought was disappointment.  But she said "I'm glad you came anyway.  I'm glad someone pays attention to us.  Come."

The woman, haggard and unkempt, took man and boy with each hand and marched the ten paces to the barn, as if habit.  She pushed open the sliding door, and revealed a nearly empty cavern of decaying hay and wood.

In one corner, a boy sat on a stool, facing away from them.  He wore the simple leather and cotton of a peasant, and appeared to be not much younger than Tad himself.  He had a strange movement to him:  he turned his head toward them, then suddenly snapped back, and repeated the motion over and over.  The snap was not as if he moved his head back, but as if his head simply disappeared from one position and reappeared in the other instantly.  His hands grasped at air, squeezing nothing.  His voice was a constant stream of an unfinished sentence, timed with his movements: "I wantI wantI wantI wantI want..."

Tad's eyebrows went up in shock.  He was looking at a glitch--but it was more than a glitch; it was a boy who was glitched.  A human being.  A kid younger than he was.

The old man came close to the farm boy and looked at his face.  Tad came along behind, almost hiding behind his master.

"Please, explain how this happened," Tad's master said.  "For my boy."

The woman stifled a sob, as though the incident just happened, still too raw to speak of.  "He was milking a cow," she said; "I was sweeping the floor.  We were talking.  I wasn't paying attention to him, but... I think the cow just decided to walk away from him as he milked her.  Then he got stuck like that, right in the middle of speaking, turning to... to look at me."

Tad put his hand out, and his teacher quickly slapped it away.  "Don't touch him," he warned harshly, "you don't know what that can do.  To him or to you."

"We don't touch him," the woman said, as if the old man had spoken to her, "me and his father, we don't.  I haven't... I haven't touched him since...since it happened."

"And how long has he been like this?"

The woman looked away.  "Six years," she said.

The teacher put a hand on Tad's shoulder, and spoke softly, so the woman wouldn't hear:  "In six years, this boy has been stuck like this.  He does not age, he does not sleep, he does not change.  He should be older than you, Tad.  His name is Colm.  He once took care of the cows and the sheep to make milk and wool for the farmers.  Now the animals are too scared of him to even enter the barn.  Someday this structure will collapse, and he will go on with that unfinished sentence.  This is why you joined our order, Tad.  Someday, if your prayers are heard, this boy can be fixed.  Someday he can live again."

Tad sniffled, keeping back a tear.  This boy had a name.  He had--has--parents.  He had a job, did something of value, helped take care of his community.  And one day his life changed forever, for reasons unknown, if any reasons existed at all for such a fate.

"I suppose if you knew anything, you would tell me," the woman said.

"Yes, I would," the old man said.  "Our prayers are unanswered."

"Ours, too."

"We must go now," the teacher said, and they did.  Tad, his teacher, and Colm's mother left the barn, and Colm's mother shut the barn door, but even so, Tad could still faintly hear the boy, repeating forever: "I wantI wantI wantI wantI wantI want..."

-----

The final moment in the above passage has been in my head for quite some time.

I've been working on a new fiction project for a while now, coming up with characters and such, and this is kind of a demo or proof of concept or taste of what I'm going for.

The basic gist is that it takes place in a world of a videogame, which is rife with glitches.  The main characters (who call themselves The Glitchers) are adventurers out to find, note, study, and ultimately fix glitches found in their world.

I won't get into much more detail than that, because everything else is subject to change.

What I have now is a few notes and a few sample scenes like the one above, which I've written to get in the groove of writing, to get in the heads of characters, and to try to solidify the world.  Hopefully posting this will get me in gear to start writing the real thing.

Read on...