If anybody wishes to read this entire story uninterrupted, they may do so HERE.

Hey, everybody! I mentioned in the intro thread that I'm really into fan fiction, so I thought I'd bring my fan fiction talents to this board as well! Hope you guys enjoy this story!

A Merging of Worlds

Chapter 1

The clouds overhead foretold of a dim afternoon for John Hankle. They were brewing like some evil witch's stew, a witch that was telling John he may as well give up any hope of having fun this afternoon.

The myriad of dismal colors swirled about in constant motion, the grays intertwining mystically and almost magically with the blacks and the whites, a kind of poetry of the sky. Brief flashes illuminated the clouds for just one second every now and then, as if God and the angels were taking family album pictures up in Heaven.

The entire sky was blanketed with these gray swirling colors, making the afternoon ahead seem so boring John wondered if he may as well shoot himself to get out of it.

His chin rested on the inside of his car door, staring out the window at the small drops of rain that spattered spasmodically across the sheet of glass in his face, enclosing him in a sort of mental/glass prison from which he couldn't escape.

"John, sweetie?"

John tore his gaze away from the clouds and the rain and turned to look at his mother, who was driving the car.

They shot down Main Street at a nearly dizzying speed. His mom was not known for her good driving skills. Puddles splashed up onto the gray mini-van, spraying along up the sides of the windows, disrupting the tiny rivulets that were already running down; smashing into each other like two freight trains colliding, their pieces flying apart and off into out of sight.

John's mom's forehead wrinkled with concern, and she brushed a stray strand of golden blonde hair out of her face. Her full lips pursed in concern and she wrinkled her tiny nose.

"John, are you okay?" she asked worriedly.

"I'm perfectly fine, Mom," John said, turning back to stare out the window. The spectacle of the rain on his window was much more fascinating than any conversation he could have with his mother, who was barely twenty years older than him.

He hated being teased at school about having a mother who was so young. She had gotten herself pregnant at her community college at age nineteen, and had dropped out just to take care of John.

As for his father, John had virtually no memory of him. All he had was one single, solitary memory, and though the actual event tore at his heart like an emotinal knife, he held onto that memory for all he was worth, for he knew it was all he had left of him.

"Well we're going to Hollywood Video, aren't you happy, honey?" Lydia asked happily, tapping her fingers on the sterring wheel impatiently as she gazed out at the red light that had halted them in their speeding tracks.

"Whatever," John said. They were heading to the video store to pick out a couple of movies to watch, because it was a Friday night, and the one time each week that Lydia took time out to spend with John. They normally watched two movies, one Lydia picked and one John picked. Occasionally they rented a video game and picked that as well.

"John, sweetie, what's the matter?" Lydia asked.

John wanted to turn around to give her a disgusted look, but he decided not to. She wouldn't get it. Lydia Hankle wasn't exactly known for her intelligence, either. She worked as, well, as a stripper.

John hated that. Fortunately, none of his friends knew, or he'd never heard the end of it. Well, that wasn't true.

John had no friends. None whatsoever. He had a very hard time making friends, and even though he'd lived in the same apartment with his mom thirteen years, ever since he was born, he couldn't make friends. It was like there some sort of invisible curse put on him.

John knew that working as a female dancer was the only way Lydia could pay for his education, and afford apartment rent, but he still resented her for it, and was mad most of the time at her. Friday night was usually their one night out to have fun, but tonight every chance of that had been spoiled.

When he'd come home from school and found his mom entangled in the arms of some stranger. He had felt like vomiting, and had nearly dropped his backpack in shock, then ran out of the house, with his mom calling out after him. He had run and run and run, not looking back.

Four hours later they were driving to Hollywood Video as if nothing had happened. Lydia had explained that, as a single woman, she had a right to date people whom she wanted. But John didn't care. It had been the fifth man she'd seen that week, and he hated it.

Hated it hated it hated it.

He slammed his fist on the side of the door in frustration.

Lydia looked at him, but didn't say anything, clueless as to what she was going to say as usual. They pulled into the Hollywood Video parking lot, and Lydia parked the car as John jumped out and ran into the store, not even looking at his mom.

Lydia Hankle sighed and followed her son into the store.

Up in the sky, the clouds continued to darken, twisting and writhing about ominously, the flashes of light continuing.

God and his angels must have been having a real party.

i like it so far,good use of language,i look forward to see more of this soon

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I'm liking it so far mate, you've got a real talent there and I look forward to seeing more of it. Excellent stuff.

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Due to the enormously popular thread I've created (A Merging of Worlds for all you Einsteins out there), I have decided to include another chapter. (Yes, two posts counts as enormously popular. Give me a break. I'm new.)
Here we go.

Chapter 2

The lights of the Hollywood Video store were dim, as if the storm outside was stifling the illumination they were attempting to bring. John walked in, looking around at the familiar dingy environment.

He liked Blockbuster better. It was cleaner. The floors were carpeted. The walls were white. All the lights actually worked.

In the far corner, along a wall that displayed new releases, a light flickered on and off intermittently. John looked at the clerk behind the counter, some pimply-faced high schooler.

"Hey," John said.

The clerk looked up.

John pointed to the light. "It's broken. Fix it."

At that moment his mom entered, just as the rain started fully, breaking down from the clouds in force and smashing up against the windows of the store. The clerk, who was reading some pulp sci-fi novel, almost jumped as some very loud wind buffetted the large pane of glass that was right behind him.

John tried not to laugh. Lydia put her hand on his shoulder, but John shrugged it off. "Don't touch me, Mom," he said, heading over to the new releases, where the light was broken.

Lydia bit her lip and looked at the clerk, who was back to reading his book, seemingly engrossed in it. At the far end, behind the desk, was a door, and from it emerged the store manager.

He was a fairly large man, african-american, with scruffy facial hair sprouting from the basic area of his chin. His blue buttoned shirt was rumpled, unruly, unevenly buttoned. Not really that attractive.

He winked at Lydia when he saw her. Lydia was well known around town, for, well, you know. She remembered this man. Lars Homes. She had given him a lap dance the previous week. Earned herself 200 bucks.

She didn't like doing anything outside of work, though. Her reputation was bad enough, she didn't need to go slutting around to dirty it anymore. For John's sake, if no one else's.

To be quite frank, she had always been something of a slut. She was passed around her high school like some old shirt. It seemed every guy in the school had had a piece of her. Nothing had ever come of it. Until community college, that one fateful night where that bastard had gotten her pregnant.

She put her hand on her head and reached into her purse for a smoke. She needed one. Badly. As she pulled out a marlboro light, the clerk behind the counter glanced up sharply at her.

"Um, excuse me, there's no smoking here," he said. He pointed at a sign on the wall, a sign Lydia had come to hate. The traditional red line drawn through smoking cigarette.

Lydia sneered at him and stuck the cigarette in her mouth, chewing it slightly, just inhaling the flavor. Instinctively she reached for her lighter.

The manager, Mr. Homes, raised his hand. "I'm sorry, Miss Hankle, but there's no smoking. You'll have to take it outside."

Lydia looked outside at the storm. It was getting worse. Countless flashes of lightning dotted the sky, and the rain was coming down in sheets now, while wind of unbelievable force seemed to tear apart the trees. Man. The weatherman had said it would be bad, but she hadn't suspected this.

"I'm not going out in that shit," Lydia said matter-of-factly. She took the cigarette out of her mouth and put it back in her purse. There was no use torturing herself with the flavor. "I can wait."

The clerk nodded, and Lars Homes gave her one last wink and slipped back into his office.

Lydia muttered something to herself and flipped the finger in the direction of Lars' office. "Drop dead, you son of a bitch."

Her high heels clanking on the stone floor, she headed over to where Josh was standing.

*****

Since the store was virtually empty because of the storm, John should have been able to hear the whole exchange that took place between his mom, the clerk, and the manager. But he didn't. He was standing right next to a window, the howling of the wind and the groaning of the trees was so loud it drowned out any other noise that threatened to come his way.

He pulled his coat close around himself, hugging himself tightly as he stared at the titles. Mostly crappy sequels. Nothing good had come out in a while. He should check out the video game section...they hadn't played video games in awhile....

"John! I'm here, sweetie," Lydia came into view. John turned away and headed for Game Crazy the video game section of the store.

Outside, the storm grew more violent.

*****

On the other side of the store, the clerk reached over and flicked the volume switch to the radio store, increasing it. This storm was getting way too loud.

"....the winds are increasing to violent proportions here, Bill, almost hurricane force...our meterologists here are trying to figure it out, but no explanation is sufficing...."
"Yes, that's true, Mark, we live in North Dakota....hurricanes only form over water, don't they?"
"Yes...as of now we are advising everyone to STAY INDOORS until the storm clears. If you have an underground shelter use it, but as of now, outside is not a safe place to be..."

The clerk shook his head. Hell of a world they lived in.

*****

John and Lydia were standing in the video game section, looking at video games. (What else?) Xbox games. His mom had bought him an Xbox for his 12th birthday. He had loved it, because it came from someone he loved.

True, though he often felt like he hated his mom, he knew that without her...he didn't want to think about it.

"I don't think I've played this one," Lydia said, picking one off the shelf. "Extreme Beach Volleyball?"

John almost laughed when he saw what she was holding. It was rated M for mature, and it wasn't for violence if you know what I mean. "No, mom, that has a bunch of naked girls dancing around with their boobs hanging out of their bikinis."

Now, obviously, this was not something a thirteen year old and their mother would discuss, but not every thirteen year old had a stripper mother.

Lydia laughed and set the title back on the shelf. "Sounds like what I do for...." She stopped herself. She didn't want to go there, and break the tenous connection that she and John had been holding for nearly two minutes.

John, though, was very blunt sometimes. "You can say it, Mom. It's what you do at work." Then he fell silent.

The room fell deathly quiet. Unnaturally so.

John looked at his mom. "The storm, Mom."

Lydia looked over at the window. No rain. No wind. She walked over carefully to the window, and a look of horror flashed across her face. She turned back to John. "Sweetie, I love you...."

SMASH!! John knew incredible shock and surprise, and the next minute, he forgot everything.

Dark.

*****

And thaaaaaaat's the second installment! Hope you guys enjoy!

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It's great, I'm liking it alot, I hope you keep it up.

You're pulling all the right strings.

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Chapter 3

An ocean of darkness roiled over John, clouding his vision, enveloping him, swirling around him like the bodily liquids swirl around a child in the womb. So many different shades black....barely distinguishable from one another, yet all the same, uniform, not really changing, except John could see the black moving.

His eyes were closed, but he could see the black moving. He tried opening his eyes, but they seemed to be welded shut. He tried clenching his teeth, but realized, with slightly detached shock, that he had no teeth. He really didn't have a body.

He was traveling around ethereally, searching for a way out of this darkness, an escape from this prison of black. It seemed quite urgent, as though if he didn't something very bad would happen, something not quite right.

John wasn't sure. This didn't make any sense.

His mom. He didn't remember his mom. Well, he did, but he didn't. He had a vague image of some person who was supposed to be in his life, but she wasn't. She was gone, but it didn't seem to matter. Didn't seem important.

John retched, though he didn't know how he could have done that without a body. It happened though. He could feel the warm liquid of his snack earlier that day flowing down onto his legs.

His legs. He had legs.

With a shock, a jolt, a scream, he sat up, slapping his head against some metal objec, immediately sending him flying back down onto the concrete ground on the store.

The Hollywood Video store. What.

John sat up again, reaching out with his right hand to steady himself against a rack of video games.

Well, that wasn't exactly the correct description. There were no video games. None whatsoever. The entire rack was empty, but the metal was still there.

Wait a minute. He had opened his eyes. When had that happened? John felt dizzy for a second, and he felt the moving blackness beckoning to him. It was peaceful, but he knew there was some reason he couldn't.

John stood up and looked around. He was still inside Game Crazy. The purples walls caused him to feel claustrophobic. He shook himself and his jacket, shaking off the little bit of rain that had accumulated on him as he had been running into the store.

He looked around. All the video games had disappeared. The store looked completely normal, except it had no wares.

John frowned and headed out of the video game section, gasping when he saw the rest of the Hollywood Video. All the DVDs are gone, as where the VHSs. What in the hell.....?

And then John remembered his mother.

A cold chill crept up his spine, and he whirled around, to see.....

Nothing. Nothing was there. There store was completely deserted, with no one in sight. Anywhere. At all.

"Hello?" he called out, his voice tremulously shaking with fear. The manager was gone. There was no store clerk. The radio stood there, blaring out static. The man's book sat on the desk, open to some random page.

John swallowed. What had happened? Where was his mom? Where were the movies?

He looked outside.

The sky was a blazingly beautiful blue, with perfect white clouds dotting its surface, conveying a sense of peace that John couldn't help but welcome.

At first.

But then he shook it off violently. He needed to find his mom. Find out what was going on, because he had some nagging feeling his mom was important in whatever had happened.

John headed towards the door and pushed it open, a cool breeze blowing across his face. He sighed in contentment. This was nice. Then he screamed in shock and fell back against the glass, nearly knocking it out of its frame.

The parking lot in front of him was normal. There was his car. There were some other cars around. Parking meters along the road on the left.

But about a quarter of a mile to his right, where a shopping center usually sat, was a forest.

Yes, a forest.

John squinted, pinched himself, gave a slight yelp of pain.

A forest.

It seemed to groan with ancient age, its dark leaves heaving a huge sigh, as the boughs and trunks of the trees seemed to communicate with one another in some secret language. The entire canopy of the forest rippled with some kind of intense communication. It was as if the trees were talking.

There was something familiar about this forest. John couldn't quite place his finger on it.....

Wait. Yes he could. He knew exactly where he'd seen this forest.

This was Fangorn Forest, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

"What the hell?" he muttered to himself, his jaw hanging open. This was impossible. He must be hallucinating. Dreaming. Something or other. Turning around, he tried to crawl back into the store, to the safety of Game Crazy, to let the blackness envelop him once again.

But the door was locked, and no one was inside. The shelves were still empty, the book still sat on the counter, alongside the radio, still blaring static.

John swallowed again and turned around.

"AAAAAHHHH!!" John screamed in fear as a giant winged creature swopped down toward him, an evil glare in its eyes.

It was a gruesomely hideous freak of nature, all of its limbs, including its wings, bent at an impossibly odd angle, twisted and turning around, with half of its head missing, the lower part of the brains swarming around liek a mass of worms. It smelled of sulfur.

The creature was within inches of John, until it exploded in a flash. Dozens of its burning pieces were scattered about the parking lot as some sort of string shot through the thing, ripping apart into endless chunks of ash raining down onto the cold concrete.

John's mouth hung open, and as the smoke from the explosion of the creature cleared, he saw someone standing at the far end of the parking lot.

A dark figure, head bent down, clothed in a long black coat of leather. He was holding something too, and when he clicked something on it, the string that had shot through the vile creature swirled around through the air and landed back in place.

The figure looked, and John couldn't movie, he was so petrified with fear. It began to walk over to him, then stopped about five feet away. John couldn't believe it. Absolutely could not.

How was this possible?

The man, an African-American, smiled down at him, almost amused at how afraid he was. "Hey there. Kid. Name's Blade."

*****

Like the interesting plot twist I put in there? Believe me, it's not gonna be the only one....
*Laughs maniacally*

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Sweet, I'm really liking this, it's easy to read yet has a huge amount of detail, loving it mate, please continue.

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Thank you for all the comments, peoples, and I really hope you enjoy this next installment of "A Merging of Worlds."

Chapter 4

It simply was not possible. It defied all the bounds of natural logic, something which John clung to with his very life at that moment. He was a math whiz in school, because he knew he could trust math. Numbers always turned out the same. It wasn't like writing, or gym, or even science stuff. Even science wasn't an exact, well, science. Math was. Every answer was the same, and he loved that sense of security that it brought him whenever he completed a problem.

With a stripper mother and a father long gone, it was something he didn't feel he could live without.

And now this was happening. A movie character, Blade, was standing right before him, with his traditional buzz-cut, and tatoos adorning the edges of his face. Large sunglasses hid his eyes, making him completely inscrutable. He had a large frame, well over six feet, and a long black leather coat cascaded down across his shoulders, the shiny sheen of black leather reflecting almost blindingly the setting sun. Various bulges in his coat showed concealed weapons, weapons that John knew he used to kill vampires.

Then he spoke, a low, commanding voice, without any hint of fear at all. John's lip curled in disgust when he saw Blade's pointed fangs, the fangs that were a symbol for the horrible connection he had with vampires. John remembered from the movies that Blade had been born from the womb of a woman who had just recently been bitten by a vampire.

As a result, he did not suffer the traditional vampire weaknesses, mainly, daylight. Silver did not affect him, did not poison his blood the way it did the damned.

And he did not have the constant craving for blood. Vampires, suffering from a deficiency in their own blood, needed to feed on the blood of others to stay alive. Of course, there were many ways that vampires could get the chemical they needed, but once they first tasted blood, they never recovered from the blood lust. It was like a mental addiction. Nothing could replace the feeling of sucking the life flow out of a living human being.

"You have a voice, kid?"

John knew he had one; he was sure of it, and he groped around, trying to snatch the elusive thing out of the air. It was somewhere. "Yes, I do," he babbled. "And my name's John Hankle. And you're Blade."

The corners of Blade's lips turned upward as he stared down at the thirteen-year old. "Very good. You can listen."

John nodded. This didn't make any sense. This was completely and totally fucked up.

What was happening here?

And then, right at that moment, everything that had happened that afternoon hit him like a freight train. He remembered his mom, completely, how she had been torn away from him, flying through the shattered debris of the store wall as she carried away the displays with her.....

One solitary drop of sadness glistened on the corner of John's eyes, slowly carving its way down the edge of his cheek, tracing a path of loss and pain. It feel off and dashed itself against the sidewalk, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces of misery.

Blade, not one much for comfort, turned away from John to look at Fangorn Forest, leaving John to dwell on his emotions.

Which was not something John really wanted to do at that particular moment. He coughed back a sob that threatened to wrack his body, because he knew that if he started he couldn't stop.

His mom was gone. That was for sure. He needed to stop thinking about it, think about something else, concentrate on something else....the logic of it all. John was good at logic; it was why he excelled at and loved math. If he found a single solitary fact in all this he could grab a hold of it and not let go.

Ever.

Then it came to him. Looking up at Blade, he nodded, then looked over at Fangorn Forest. It made sense. The DVDs in the store were gone, as were the videos. His mother had been torn away from him, with the displays flying out after her. He was living in a world of movies.

How, he knew not. He wished everything would go back to its original position, back into their DVD cases where they belonged.

But he had that fact, and he wrapped his mind around it in several tight mental knots, willing it to stay here and not leave him. He needed it. Bad.

He cleared his throat and Blade turned back around to look at him. "What's up, John?"

John began to stand up, but tumbled back down. Blade held out a hand and John grabbed it as the Daywalker hoisted him up. John stumbled unsteadily to his feet and mumbled an incoherent thank you.

Blade nodded. "Don't mention it."

Searching for something to talk about, John blurted out, "What was that thing?"

Blade looked at him. "A demon."

John nodded, but then stopped. That didn't make sense. Blade fought vampires, and though they were demons of sorts, he hadn't ever seen winged creatures like that in the Blade trilogy. He looked at Blade questioningly, but Blade didn't seem to catch his unasked question.

He turned back to Fangorn Forest, shaking his head. "I knew I should not have left there without that motherfucker."

John shifted in position. "Um, who?"

Blade turned back to look at him. "My friend. I left him out there in that fucking forest and now he's taking a hell of a long time to get back."

"What friend?" John asked.

Blade didn't answer him. Instead, in a way, the forest did.

It rumbled a huge roar, and then spit out a single solitary figure, too far away to make out the details. It was clearly a man, though. He stumbled around the ground, doused in leaves and various twigs, rolling around until he came to a stop.

Blade shook his head and began to walk toward him. John stayed put. After taking a few steps, Blade paused and turned back around. "You coming or what?"

"Oh, sorry," John said, trotting after the vampire hunter. The two walked over to the man lying on the ground, who was slowly getting himself up and patting himself down, picking off various leaves and twigs that insistently clung to his clothing like they belonged there.

Once again, John's jaw nearly fell to the ground and smashed into the concrete. Things were getting weirder, but he guess he shouldn't have been surprised.

This was just another movie character.

White shirt. Orange coat wrapped around waist. Long unruly black hair in a kind of funky halo around his head. Black vest around his white shirt. Black shorts. Dirty, ratty tennis shoes.

And one big smile. He held out his hand instantly to John and shook it vigorously, smiling all the way. "How's it going, Dude?? Name's Ted Logan."

*****
And the story continues.....

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