Diary of a Neophyte

[Pike]

TEXT

This is a very rough draft of a story I have been working on.

Diary of a Neophyte

Where should I begin? It’s been so long since I have spoken of my life’s history. I guess I should start the end with the beginning. I have spent the past four decades of my life in this stage. How could it have been so long? It seems like my life has passed by my eyes so quickly. My mind deceives me but this I know is true. It has been too short to believe, I can remember not just yesterday it I was standing a young child tattered and beaten.

I can remember when I first came upon the final stretch of my journey, the snow was a solid wall I could not see more than ten feet before my face. I did not start out in this torrent no this was not my home far from it. My home was a much warmer place. The wind did not blow nearly as hard as those cyclone winds. Grass grew tall and a deep green forest stood not one half of a kilometer form the back door of my home. I remember playing in it for hours. Till night would fall and I would be forced in by the dictation of my mother. This place was not my home. There was no grass or a dark forest. This place lacks that care of a mother calling her son in form the cold of night. This frozen wasteland has one thing, it wants, for all who enter it never to leave.

I had been on travel for many months. My long journey had brought me to the thousands of steps, which lay before the gates of the fortress monastery. It stood as a powerful protector of our world. A huge structure built from stone and metals that were not common to me. Every thing about that place was big, Giant statues guarding the gates were the first to greet me. From outside I could feel the warmth of hundreds of fires burning at once. These forced my frigid body in and warmed my frozen bones. The mere size of this sanctuary reassured me that my fears had played on; this was what I would call home for the next forty years.

As I sat at the entrance I realized I was not alone. It came to me that I was not the first to reach this sanctuary. There were two others off to the corner in much the same condition as I: beaten and alone, being driven only by an inner light of some invisible force but that did not worry me. The winter season had not yet come to pass but it just as well could have and no one would have noticed. I was not accustomed to these bizarre climate changes, Quick was their pattern and tough was the only way that people of this desolate land, could survive. I had not lived in, nor ever had I visited this barren region. It must have been why the Adeptus Astartus had built their monastery in this lonely ice and snow-covered plain. Anyone who was to assault this place must be able to survive the harsh torment of this barren soil just as any who was to attempt to join the monasteries keepers had to pass this same trail just to survive. This was not for the weak or passive. Many who took this path of life would not survive to see their fifth year.

On the first day that we arrived at the monastery we were in no condition to begin our task of becoming part of the Adeptus Astartus. We were greeted by two of the mighty inhabitants.
“Who are you? What is your business here?” I herd the boom of one of the keeper’s vox link, which seemed to originate form the beings helmet. Out of the group of us one rose up from a knee and in a stagger attempted to answer the question.
“We are from Crage, a planet you have sworn to protect. We stand before you the youth of a world ready for your test and trails to honor our selves in the name of the God Emperor. To become space marines and give our lives to defend the ways of the Emperor and to protect all mankind.” exhausted he fell back to his knee.
The overpowering aura of a space marine was enough to force any one down. I, standing barely taller than to ones breastplate would not have dare to speak. I was staggered to believe that if I could complete the grueling task of mental and physical endurance that they would be sure to place upon us the honor that we to could become one of them.
“You wish to join us?”
Noticing our speaker was not ready to confront the marine, one more of my group stood up “We do. We have come form all across this world to this place for that very reason.” The marine stood back and inspected us, then glanced over to the other and nodded, the second marine walked forward to us stopped pointed out to one of the others in my group and asked to stand. When the child did not the marine picked him up by the back of his neck. Drew back and tossed the limp child back out to the snow. The body skipped twice across the steps and than was lost in the haze to be destroyed by the ice, wind and snow “We do not except insolence here.” As the armored warrior turned to walk away, with a low mourning tone “He was already dead.” than turned back to enter the monastery.
They took us to a great hall; torches lined the stone gray walls casting light around the room that danced on the battle standards that hung high above. The light slid smoothly over the marines’ freshly polished power armor and bathed walls of stone in a warm glow. The floor covered in highly polished marble stone, laying in a pattern of black and white tiles that formed the cross of the legendary Black Templars. I was astounded at the mere mass of the structure, which I would stand in. We were to begin our training immediately, no rest or comfort would we receive for our undertaking of the journey to this place.

[johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt]

i'm condensing this into one topic for the sake of ease of reading.

A door from the far corner of the hall opened and in walked yet more of the huge warriors. To my count ten, but at that time I was so dazed to the world that it could have been fifty and I wouldn’t have know the difference. They were followed by dozens more servitors, this I could tell by their size and different implants to their bodies. These were not the most intelligent of beings, used for tasks with minimal need for thought. They were not robots in the true sense of the word but a cross between man and machine, to provide a machine with the thought process, required for some tasks. None-the-less the men of twisted metal and flesh stepped in formation. The nine of us were moved in front of a large metallic altar. We had to bend our necks back to witness the undertaking, which we were about to embark upon. Myself along with the others were just children, setting out on a journey, which even the bravest of explores would not and so this was to be our lives from now till our demise.

For the first few months our training consisted of tests and oaths. Our minds were examined, to be a space marine of the Black Templars you must be of the purest of heart and the sanest of mind. You had to be loyal to the god emperor almost to the point of fanaticism. We would raise our selves in the morning and go to the cathedral to pray to the God Emperor and continue our oaths from the day before. We kept this schedule for months, day in and day out. It wasn’t until we had finished opening trials that we were assigned to one of the might marines. Brother Alexander would become my Initiate and I his neophyte. The two most head officials at the monastery, Marshal Finocc and High Chaplain Fraxeus were there to over see the ceremony. This was and would be the one solitary time in my training that I would change my oaths to include not only Brother Alexander but also the emperor. It was the first time I had seen Marshal Finocc but not the first for Chaplain fraxeus. He spoke with much zeal will he called us out one by one the names of the new recruits. With a sturdy voice he came to my name
“Neophyte state your name and recite the final oaths to the God Emperor and our chapter.” I stepped forward from the short line.
“I am Neophyte Gregor.” My skin went cold.
“What is your task?”<br>“My task is to defend the Emperor.”<br>“What is your life?”<br>“My life is to the Emperor.”<br>“What is your art?”<br>“My art is death.” With that ended the first trials of my training. I was awarded my initiate, armor, and weapons. Although much weaker and smaller than the marines I was just as potent. After the ceremony we came to the dinning hall were a feast was held in our honor for the next day untold to us was when our true trials were to begin.
After the feast we returned to our dorms to rest. It was not long before Brother Alexander came to my chamber with him he carried a large chest made of what looked to be wood.
“Gregor I would like you to have some thing which I was given as a neophyte.” He laid the chest flat on the floor opened it and brought out a folded cloth.
“This was given to my initiate by the first high marshal of our chapter.” In between the folds of the cloth lay a blade which looked to me to be as new and fresh as I was, not that of an old chapter relic.
“I want you to have it. It has always served me well. It has never dulled and it contains a peace of the Emperors armor form when he walked amongst us.” I was amazed at how light and durable it was. I could not believe that I had received such a gift
“I hope it brings you as much luck as it has brought me.” With that he turned and left my chamber. The bond between an Initiate and his neophyte I would find was one of great respect and honor. In the monastery, the neophyte would take care of the day-to-day needs of his initiate, every thing from simple tasks to the most complex of chores including base maintenance of the marines’ holy power armor. On the battlefield is where the initiates shined. Their place in the world was in a blood-choked cloud of death and destruction. But this would also become my teaching ground in the art of war and death. Initiate would also teach their neophytes the ways and culture of different planetary systems. A space marine of the Black Templars must be swift, intelligent, and ready for anything but this all I would learn later. For now my concern was the ceremony. It lasted for many days, doming which we would begin the genetic mutation process in which our bodies would begin to change from that of mere humans to that of the super human marines.

Our skin was pocked, our bodies cut deep, and the extra organs that only the Adeptus Astartus had were added. My skin was hardened and turned a tint of black. Not the black of Brother Marcus but that of the midnight sky. My chest hurt and ached, my body wrenched in horrible agony as the genes were turned inside out, destroyed and rebuilt. I went in and out of conciseness. I don’t know how much I went through or how long it took but what I do know is that I had gone through yet another one of the marine’s tests. Once I had come back from the dead of shock, I lay there on the surgical table naked. The room was dark all except a small circle of light that surrounded the cold metal table. Somehow I knew it wasn’t over. My body was paralyzed and stiff. I couldn’t have gotten up even if wanted to. The surgical drones of the medical bay had secured me to the table with thick metal restraints. I had a feeling that in the past these trials had gone horribly wrong. From my left I noticed another light over a metallic table much like the one that I was on, two medical servitors moved up into the circle of light. They seemed to be in a hurry but I did not yet know why. Moments later they stopped, stood straight and at attention. In walked brother Krul; he rushed over to the table where the servitors stood. As he looked down at what I now realized was a neophyte, his face grew pale and grim. He stood there for a few moments before I saw him pull back the sheet, which lay over the now limp body, and for the first time I saw a glimpse of the dead neophyte. It had been Mathew. I could barely make out his facial features through the haze. Just as the sheet covered his head I saw it roll to the right and his eyes opened to reveal blank holes, His face on the one side looked fine but the other… I could hardly speak of it. It was as if every pore on his face was clogged and blotted to the size of a fist. Some had popped the puss and blood was ruining down his face in rivers. It was as if he all at once contracted every disease in the galaxy. His eyes stared at me as thought they weren’t really dead. My heart had begun to beat rapidly, the servitors noticing thus, moved swiftly over, sticking me with some sort of needle. I choked out the brewing scream as I fell back to the world of darkness.

I awoke once again to the same dual silence and drab cold of the med. bay. I kept my eyes closed thinking to myself that I would fall to sleep just as I had before but this time without the needles and drugs. As I lay there motionless I could feel the thin white sheet covering my body. While my eyes were closed an unfamiliar smell flashed across my nostrils. It was just a bad smell and as my brain booted up my senses grew to their full extent. Soon after, that bad smell became an all out assault on my sense of smell and taste. It was horrid. I could hardly breathe. It choked the air from my lungs and gripped my throat with the force of a hurricane. It was so bad I feared opening my eyes. I didn’t want to know what it was or could be. Never in my life had I smelled something so horrid. Out of the silence I heard a crunching and splattering of something to my left. Paralyzed, I listened as the sound drifted off until it stopped. I had never been so afraid, never in my life had I heard or smelled such disgust. Then a new sound, this time not of a soft squish or chipping bite, but of metal against metal, that of a sword dragging on the floor of the Medical Bay. To open my eyes was to see my destiny. I had forced it into my mind that there was nothing wrong, that it was all in my mind and if it wasn’t, that there was something out there and all it is was a med. drone. A moment passed than another and another till I felt that all time had passed. The sound had not gone; it had only grown louder and more dangerous. It came to me to open my eyes to see what the intruder to this sanction could possible be. My eyes brought the fear home to what could be out there. Opened wide I could see what I made out to be a human figure but this thing, whatever it might be, was taller than a man, almost as tall or taller than one of the mighty marines. But this was no marine. No, this was something else. It was disgusting and it had its one eye fixed on me. It was cold, black, and split up the center so fluids poured out. A horn parted its head and the rest of its goulash green face was decayed. It breathed pestilence and death. The neck and body, which the head stood upon, was much like the face, green with decay. The flesh in some places was falling off to reveal the open carcass within and bile flowed from its open abdomen.

[johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt]

third part of it, moved, but nothing changed.

I had never seen anything like it. Oddly enough I was no longer afraid but ready to challenge the beast in combat. To no avail my attempts to engage the creature failed. My restraints were still in their full force. Being pinned to the table to await my death was about all I could do. Out loud I began to pray to the god emperor for his protection, not to save me but to let me go free, so at least if I were to die I would die in battle like a true space marine. Where this strength to fight came from I did not know. All I knew was it was here and I planned to use it. Still I was pinned and this beast stalked closer. I cursed out loud but this did nothing to help me out of the restraints. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the now destroyed carcass of one of my brother neophytes, at the same time I looked to where Mathew had been. All that remained was the long metal surgical table covered in blood, and for all I could tell human matter. The beast was now almost on top of me. It raised the rusted blade with is two decayed arms. The blade was old and rusted to the hilt, which was made up of three connected orbs of dark pestilent green. This was the only time in my life that I had given up and readied my self to join the emperor.

As I closed my eyes the creature swung its decayed sword straight down. It struck home and cut deep into my leg, almost cleaving it clean off. I shouted in pain and instantly the wound began to fester. It was as if every disease in the know universe griped the wound and held it tightly. My leg was now lost and the creature wanted more. Raising its blade again it was ready to strike and deliver the final blow. To my surprise I heard the massive muzzle blast of a heavy bolter, the beast was knocked back and stumbled around until it regained its sense of balance. The blow from the unnamed assailant had taken a huge chunk out of its rib cage. The beast was almost unfazed. It brought the weapon back into both its hands and let out a piercing scream, which would have curdled a normal mans blood. The assailant for all I could tell was unaffected.

I saw two marines move to either side of my execution table. They wielded chain swords and raised their bolt pistols blazing away into the beast across the room. The marines struck home with their lethal rounds. Once they had depleted the magazines, they dropped their ranged weapons and moved in to confront the creature in a fierce melee. Hacking and slashing through the hide of the beast, the creature seemed to be collapsing in on its self. In a flash of bright light the room was once again still. Both of my saviors came to my side as med. drones circled around my position. The last image I saw was that of Brother Alexander removing his helmet.

I rose from a dark slumber four weeks latter, I found myself no longer in the fortress monastery but in a medical berth. It did not take long for the medical servitors to come to my aid. I was awake but no ware near good heath. As the sleep I had so jealously hung on to faded away I could feel a pain building in me. It pulled at my nerves, starting in the remains which weeks before was a fully employable appendage and traveled up into my spine than to my head, that would bring a sharp ring, which would keep me from becoming unconscious. The servitors quickly dulled the pain with yet more drugs and I was able to relax for what little that was worth. It took two more days before Alexander came to check on me. The doors of the medical bay opened and in he walked. No longer in his power armor but now he wore a black robe that dropped to the floor.
“How are you my young pup?” Brother Alexander’s tone was one of hidden concern.
“Well enough brother.” My voice was a shrill squeak compared to the battle marine who stood next to me.
“You are a lucky one Gregor if we had been a few moments late you would not have the honor of my glorious presents.” He was obviously thinking about the skirmish he had partaken in with the abomination in the fortress monastery.
“I owe you my life brother Alexander…” he had cut in before I could finish what I had started to say.
“You owe your life not to me young neophyte but to the Emperor. He is why you are alive here to day not me. I am just a servant under his giddying light and you will be to but you must remember that the sting of chaos is everywhere, we must be watchful.”<br>Over the coming days I regained my strength and would continue my training. It was not until much latter I learned the fait of the monastery and how it had been so defiled beyond my greatest imagination. The subject had been brought up in the early morning during the morning mass at the cathedral on bored the strike vessel Dorns Ghost.

[Pike]

so what do you think of my story

[johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt]

it almost feels like an abrupt ending...but not quite? i don't know, i hate commenting on other people's work, best i can come up with is keep going i want to know more about our good friend the neophyte!

[pvtloganh]

It's great but yes i to agree it does seem like an abrupt ending but it is good