Story about the future of humanity. Take a read if you enjoy dark melancholy

[NuclearBrainReturns]

Boneknife stumbled and fell into the hole. The rain from the storm up above was thrashing down onto the crumbling stone pit where he lay disorientated. He lay there in the wet and cold looking up at the night sky, it looked beautiful to him but he hadn't the vocabulary to describe it. He had lost his tribe.

Standing up, he looked around. He was in some kind of cave but the walls were all uniform and flat. There was a wall on the top of the others which gave the impression he was standing inside of a square, although, the hole in the roof made the room less uniform. He couldn't quite see in the dark as his eyes hadn't adjusted to the lack of light. Slowly the room revealed itself to him. There were other squares but they looked important somehow. They held little thin and long rectangles with strange writing imprinted onto them.

Boneknife picked one of them up. It seemed to flip open like the hempleaf used to write in his own tribe but once again, much more uniform and the writing was smaller. He couldn't read most of the words scribbled onto it due to weather damage and complexity but it was accompanied by strange images. Boneknife panicked and began wondering if this book was enchanted by a spell, how could images be so lifelike and yet be written down on paper?

He took a closer look; it was as if a metallic structure lay there on the page. Long with wings at the bottom, attached to two great orange cylindrical shapes. Boneknife could somewhat read the words underneath the picture...

"NAH-SAH" Boneknife said to himself, reading the four letters. They were inscribed on the image of the metallic structure too. This must have been an important incantation for this ancient race. What structure could this be?

Boneknife closed the book and stuffed it into his knapsack, his Elder would want to see this. Perhaps he may be able to figure out what this means if he is to find his tribe.

 

[Magical Apple]

Fixed it for you.

Boneknife stumbled and fell into the hole, splashing onto a puddle of dirty water on a cracked, stone floor. The light of a brilliant full moon shone down into the crumbling pit where he now lay; disoriented, bruised and drenched. Unsteady, he struggled to his feet as the grim reality of his situation slowly began to set in. He was trapped, alone and for the first time in his young life, lost from his tribe.

With the moonlight shining through the hole as his only source of illumination, Boneknife slowly began to make out his surroundings. He was in some kind of cave but the walls and ceiling were all uniform and flat. There were square structures in the wall which were packed with rows upon rows of rectangles imprinted with writing. He had a feeling that they were important because the tribe elders had taught him that objects adorned with writing were artifacts of the ancestors.

Boneknife pulled his lighter from his knapsack and flicked it on. Guided by it's flickering orange flame, he reverently reached for a rectangle and removed it from the wall. It seemed to flip open just like the hide-leaves his tribe's record-keepers used to bind their writings. However, unlike the hide-leaves of his tribe, every leaf was perfectly symetrical and uniform with it's inscriptions far smaller and structured with an uncanny precision that surpassed even the handwriting of his tribes finest scribes. Boneknife had been taught to read the ancestors glyphs but weather damage and complexity rendered these writings unintelligible to him.

This object contained not only writings, but many strange images as well. They were like nothing he had ever seen before and were rendered with a realism that boggled his mind. Boneknife was suddenly filled with a fear that he would suddenly be pulled into the object and trapped within its leaves by the the mysterious spell that he figured the ancestors had used to create it.

Carefully examining one of the images, he saw a massive white structure. It was long with wings at the bottom, attached to two long pointy white cylinders and a wide orange cylinder.

"NAH-SAH" Boneknife said to himself, reading the four glyphs. They were inscribed on top of the leaf and on the front of the strange structure itself. This must have been an important incantation for the ancestors. What incredible artifact was shown in that image?

Boneknife closed the object and stuffed it into his knapsack. The elders would want to see it. Perhaps he would be able to figure out its purpose; if he was able to escape this pit and find his tribe.

 

[Magical Apple]

When writing fiction you need to consider the situation you are portraying from both an external perspective and from the internal perspective of the characters.

E.g. Boneknife would not think about the beauty of the night sky as this site would be commonplace to him and the situation he is in would be to stressful for him to even consider such small things.

If there is a storm then there would be no light inside this structure and he wouldn't be able to see at all. To read, he would probably need an external source of light as well.

Adding context is important as well. The reader should know things from the perspective of the character. For an example why does boneknife think that those rectangles are important? Why is he even able to read writing from old civilization?

These are small details but they make a huge difference.