Red Riding Hood

An old story, of a sort. This is a re-interpretation of mine of one of the supposed original tales of Red Riding Hood.

Red Riding Hood was a young woman in a small village of woodsmen. She was a mischevious, disobedient girl who was constantly being told that her ways would get her into trouble. Her grandmother was an old lady, and thus lived in a small cottage deep in the woods. Some folk of the village even muttered that her grandmother was a witch.

It happened that Red Riding Hood's grandmother fell ill and was bedridden. No one knew of this until a small sparrow came to Red Riding Hood and told her. Red Riding Hood of course knew better than any small bird, and brushed away the sparrow. She was busy being the centre of attention of a group of young village men.

And so the bird flew off, and flew to Red Riding Hood's mother and told her. Furious with her daughter Red Riding Hood's mother packed a basket of food and set out in search of her daughter. She found her under a bridge, kissing one of the villaage boys, with her hooded cape on the ground beneath them.

She drew out the slim willow branch (in those days all mothers of disobedient children would carry one) and struck her daughter across her legs. "Filthy disobedient pig!" she said to her daughter. "Your grandmother lies ill, go to her at once before I beat you black and blue."

Sniffing, Red Riding Hood put on her cape and took up the basket before walking into the forest towards her grandmother's house.

In the forest also lived an evil beast, the wolf, who loved nothing more than destruction and corruption. He had been watching Red Riding Hood for some time, and now saw his chance. As she entered the forest he stood before her, smiling at her.

"Well hello there. And where is a beautiful girl like you off to today?" he asked.

Red Riding Hood blushed as bright as her cape and said to the wolf (completely forgetting all the warnings she had been given about not talking to the wolf) "I am going to take this food to my grandmother. See, some bread and cheese, all we can spare."

Hearing this the wolf laughed inside, for he knew the way to the grandmother's house well. "Look at those flowers" he said "I'm sure your grandmother would love a bunch of those."

"Alright," said Red Riding Hood, rather grumpily as she didn't want to waste time, "I'll pick her some."

The wolf licked his lips as he watched her young form bend to pick the flowers. Then, quick as a flash, he ran off through the woods to the grandmother's house.

The sparrow had been watching this and followed the wolf, sure he must be up to evil. It was right in thinking so, for when the wolf got to the grandmother's house he called out in Red Riding Hood's voice "Oh grandmother, I have brought a basket of food for you. Please let me in."

The grandmother called back in her old, croaky voice "Come in my dear grandaughter. Warm yourself by the fire. The door is unbarred."

Quick as lightning the wolf burst through the door and killed the old woman. Then he cut out her thigh and carved it, leaving the cuts of meat on the side like ham. An empty bottle was lying on the side, and he filled it with her blood, then ate the rest of her himself before throwing her bones onto the fire. He took her clothes, blew out the candle by the side of the bed, dressed himself in her clothes and climbed into the bed. No sooner had he finished than Red Riding Hood knocked at the door.

"Come in my dear grandaughter" called the wolf in the grandmother's voice, "and warm yourself by the fire."

In came Red Riding Hood in her red cape, a bunch of flowers in one hand and the basket of food in the other, her clothes muddy and dirty from picking the flowers. The wolf stared at her as she came in, but with only the dim light from the fireplace Red Riding Hood could only just make out her grandmother's clothes and not see the wolf inside them.

"I've brought you some food grandmother." said Red Riding Hood.

"Thank you dear, but I've just eaten. There's some ham left there. You must be hungry. Have some." said the wolf in the old woman's voice.

Red Riding Hood was hungry from her walk, so she sat at the table in the cottage and sliced some bread before putting on it a slice of cheese and some of the meat the wolf had offered. As she was about to take her first bite the sparrow, unable to bear any more without saying anything, burst out "Filthy girl, eating the meat of your grandmother, shame on you!"

But Red Riding Hood was very hungry, and considered the sparrow a foolish little bird, and she bit deeply into the bread, cheese and meat, and finished off the platter with the sparrow crying out its warning outside the cottage.

"You must be thirsty my dear," said the wolf, "have some of the wine that's left in that bottle."

Red Riding Hood took the bottle and poured herself a glass of wine. As she lifted it to take the first sip the sparrow cried out again "Depraved child, don't you see what you're doing? Drinking the life-blood of your family!"

And now the meat and wine had made Red Riding Hood sleepy, and she yawned. The wolf grinned an evil grin as it said its next words, and its impression of the grandmother slipped a little as it spoke. "My dear, you sound tired. Why don't you climb into bed with me?"

Red Riding Hood nodded, yawning again, and started to move over to the bed.

"Oh my dear girl, you can't climb into bed in those filthy clothes. Take off that muddy cape of those or you'll make the bed dirty." said the wolf.

Red Riding hood unfastened her cape and let it drop on the floor. "Where shall I put it?" she asked the wolf.

"Throw it on the fire my dear" said the wolf, and she took the cape and threw it onto the fire where it burned away.

"You should take off your shoes dear." said the wolf.

She slipped off her shoes and looked around for somewhere to put them. The wolf's voice was slipping a lot now, almost back to its smooth growl. "Throw them onto the fire dear, you won't need them again."

The shoes followed the cape onto the fire, burning away in the hot, greedy flames.

"Now your dress dear." said the wolf, entirely in its own voice now "Throw that on the fire too, you won't need it again."

Outside the sparrow wept as it watched Red Riding Hood strip off her dress and stand naked and shivering while her red dress burned away on the fire.

"Now you can get into bed, my dear" said the wolf "and warm yourself up next to me, and sleep."

So Red Riding Hood climbed into bed with the wolf, and curled up next to its thick fur, and lay with the wolf.

Emergence

I've always had a fascination with oral telling of stories, and this was originally written as more of a script than an actual short story. Because I intended it to be told sitting around a campfire each night, with the teller in costume and the 'kid' mentioned matching, and others simply sitting around it is broken up into several parts.

You probably don't even know what an Emergence is, do you? I remember when they were still happening, when it was still novel, before everyone forgot and we shipped them all off. We never did get to the bottom of them, never managed to puzzle it out. Then again no one really bothered, they were an embarassment more than anything. No one, absolutely no one, wanted them except themselves and a few comic book fans. They were a disaster.

Bah. Listen to me ramble on, sorry about that. Now what was it I was talking about?

Oh yes, Emergence. Well then, lets go.

I was actually there for the first Emergence. I was six at the time, yes, I know that makes it seem a very long time ago. I suppose it was a very long time ago actually, since I'm over a hundred now. What's that? How old am I? That's not a particularly polite question to ask. I'm one hundred and sixty-two, if that makes you happy.

Anyway, the first Emergence. People didn't live as long then, we hadn't wiped out the common cold, and AIDs was still a threat rather than an annoyance. They even had these things they called health scares, all long before nanos were developed. I suppose they were actually developing at the time, but it was before they were released anyway. A good fifty years before in fact.

Right then, sorry I keep drifting off the topic. The first Emergence then, at least the first officially recognised Emergence. I saw it happen, I was actually in the bank where it happened. Hell, I was the first one saved by it.

Now what happened was this, I was in the bank with my parents.

Yes, parents you know. You must've been taught about them. It was when we still had men and women, and just men and women, and they actually reproduced together by exchanging genetic code.

Yes I know people still do that, but trust me, its not the same.

Anyway we were in the bank all together, and in came a half-dozen crooks. Dozen, it means twelve, and a half-dozen is six. They came in, and they looked perfectly normal at first. Then they pulled various guns out of these carrier bags they had and held up the place.

Oh for God's sake. Guns, you must've seen them in a museum or something, under that safety glass to keep the nanos from digesting them for resources. They used to shoot bits of metal at high speed, designed to hurt people.

You know what, I'm getting tired of this. Come back tomorrow.



Ah, okay, you're back then. I'm actually quite suprised. Where were we yesterday?

Yep, that was it. The bank. Its a building, big concrete building, used to hold money. Money was used to trade for stuff, kind of like bytes are now, except then it was solid and banks used to keep it in a safe. They used to trade it for solid stuff too, not just info-space or resources. Actual goods, books, things like that.

You know what a book is? I'm impressed.

No, no, that's not what books used to be. They used to have lots of pages, not just one, and it was permanently fixed. Forget it, we'll come back to that later.

So I was in this bank with my parents and these guys came in with their guns to hold up the bank. A hold-ups a bit like someone trying to swipe some of your info-space without a trade, like someone walking off with a kilo of resources, except they used to threaten people to do it. You could still kill people then, its kinda like someone going dormant and not coming back out.

And they took a hostage, that's someone that they're threatening to kill if they don't get the money they want. Then they put a gun to his head, and pulled the trigger.

And this was the amazing bit, this was the moment of the first Emergence, which we should have recognised for the disaster it was. He didn't die. The gun didn't blow his head off. He wasn't even kneeling there any more. By the time the crook had pulled the trigger, he was already standing behind him, with an arm locked round his throat. The bullet went stray and hit one of the others in the arm, not that any of us cared, we were watching the first of the heroes take apart the crooks.

You know its been said that a lot of legends might have come from periods of Emergence. We don't know what caused it, but a lot of legends of gods and myths of heroes match up with what actually happens.

Head off home kid, and leave that kilo here. I've got a few mods I want to make and you ain't getting this tale for nothing. See you tomorrow.



Welcome back kid. Getting to be a regular thing. Right then, shall we get on?

So there was this hero who saved us all, could move incredibly fast or something. I mean we're talking faster than a sprinter here, so fast you could barely see. Eyes were more limited then, now it wouldn't be a problem. He took all of the guns away, knocked out the crooks, and that was it. The first Emergence.

Of course the media were all over it, the guy was a celebrity overnight. That's where we screwed up.

See celebrities now aren't the same as they used to be. It didn't used to be all self-promotion and building yourself up, telling people about you. Instead there were people whose jobs were just to find out information about these people, and when the Emergences started there got to be people who had to find out all about the heroes.

At first it wasn't so bad. There were only a few of them, and they kept fairly quiet, the press couldn't get at them. By the time of the hundredth Emergence though it was over the top, they got no privacy. Imagine someone cracking your security coding and watching you constantly, reporting to everyone exactly what you're doing. Yeah, I see that gets you. That's pretty much what these people had to go through.

And you can imagine what it did to them. They started to get angry. The original celebrities were a bit like they are now, they were the type who liked the attention, but those who went through Emergence were just average people. Good people with a sense of justice in most cases, but basically just people.

The first murder happened. A sniper took out Zip while he was just walking down the street, and the whole thing came crashing down. Zip? He was the one who'd saved us in the bank, that first one. The sniper was caught.

Oh, a sniper is someone who uses a gun over a very long distance. Or that'll do for now anyway.

I'm actually nearly crying from this, I remember exactly how it all went wrong. That murder was the first of many, it was put down to various things, jealousy, personal reasons, all sorts of different things. I think jealousy was the main one, if these Emergences got to be special then why couldn't everyone?

Eventually there were only a handful left alive. Sure, they were powerful, they were amazing, they were heroes. But there had only ever been a few hundred of them and there were six billion average humans. They went on the rampage, they fought back against the people who wanted them to be just your average joe and part of the crowd.

The death toll was never really counted, but we won in the end. I killed two of them myself in fact. We lost a lot I'll admit, but we got rid of them, and we thought the world would go back to normal.

And then someone released the nanos. But you know about that one.