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    Out Side
    Out Side
    Out Side
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Out Side

    By Clive Ousley

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The metal corridors go on and on, only punctuated by workrooms and other citizens’ cell doors. Artificial trees decorate this artificial maze and life is further enhanced by the remote voice that proclaims their survival relies on them working hard.
    But Mattie Prince had a dream she called Paradise – it was of a place where the ceiling lights condensed into one warm, bright globe that refreshed you and made your skin glow. Water in Paradise ran freely in torrents that cascaded down craggy metal and even fell from above.
    But contrasting that vision was another.
    This dream was a nightmare all of the citizens had known since childhood – it was a place called Out Side. In that place were dust storms, acid rivers, polluted air and no water. To be in Out Side meant your flesh could be corrupted by radioactive dust and your mind would decay with brain-melt illness.
    Mattie wanted to find out which vision was real. But first she needed to find out how to get there . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherClive Ousley
    Release dateJan 21, 2017
    ISBN9781370499335
    Out Side
    Author

    Clive Ousley

    For many years Clive Ousley painted vast alien landscapes and worlds peopled by strange creatures, now these landscapes and characters inhabit his novels. He writes and reads apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and most other forms of science fiction. He has written three apocalyptic sci fi novels - Jadde, Books one - The Fragile Sanctuary, book two - The Dark Tide and book three - World of Skulls. He also has two novels in a series titled Interstellar reincarnation -13 Reincarnations of Luke Arthur and Ring of Souls. He is currently completing a novella called Out Side and a soon to be released novel called Execution Grove, both of which are space opera stroke adventure sci-fi. Another novel, Fountain of Stones, is present day apocalyptic fiction. All these novels are are selling in increasing quantities and have 5 star reviews on Kindle.These projects have received a great deal of interest from old and new friends, recently gained followers, possible other world aliens, and his dogs.He exhibited paintings of these worlds in major exhibitions at The Mall Galleries in London, England. The Royal Birmingham and a Sotheby's sponsored exhibition. He became an illustrator and has completed work for The Natural History Museum, Westminster Abbey and Alton Towers in England. He has worked in the printing industry, two horticultural research institutes and has run a car-parts warehouse. He occasionally fiddles with a bit of DIY and walks the coastal paths in Pembrokeshire, Wales with his wife and dogs.Clive's writing website can be viewed athttp://clivesotherworlds.weebly.comI enjoy any feedback or genuine correspondence, so feel free to get in touch through the contact page of my website, Smashwords or through Goodreads.

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      Book preview

      Out Side - Clive Ousley

      Out Side

      A Novella

      By

      Clive Ousley

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales are entirely coincidental

      COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Clive Ousley

      Smashwords Edition.

      All rights reserved.

      This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of it may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or used in another book, without written permission from the author.

      Cover design and artwork by Clive Ousley

      Also by Clive Ousley

      Execution Grove

      Fountain of Stones

      The Jadde Series

      Book 1

      The Fragile Sanctuary

      Book 2

      The Dark Tide

      Book 3

      World of Skulls

      The Interstellar Reincarnation Universe

      The 13 Reincarnations of Luke Arthur

      Ring of Souls

      Author’s Note

      This Novella has been expanded from four linked snippets found in my novel Ring of Souls. The concept was too intriguing to leave as these short pieces so I have expanded them to form a prequel to my novel Execution Grove.

      This prequel and the ensuing novel are both stand-alone stories unconnected to my previous novels. I expect you’re thinking, but the snippets are in Ring of Souls so they must be connected to that novel.

      I guess you will have to read Ring of Souls to find out!

      CHAPTER ONE

      Generations ago citizens were allowed to watch archive film of Out Side. These people liked the place so much they filled the Maze’s corridors with pale replicas of its vegetation. They believed that the real plants had once grown under an enormous light called The Sun. In homage they recycled grey metal into sculptures of metal trees and drew brittle ferns from strings of molten plastic. Invigorated by their creations they then melted more plastic into flowers and mounted them on wire stems. Final touches came from chunks of polystyrene insulation carved into toadstool clumps that seemed to grow out of the rubber deck.

      Mattie Prince grew up loving these dense sculptures in her district of the Maze. When younger she played among them until a jagged leaf sliced her leg. The resultant six stitches dissuaded her from enjoying the hidden spaces under the leaves but she always wondered what a real forest looked like. It was hard to imagine anything that grew of its own accord. Apparently green predominated, bright shades of green amidst shafts of light brightening up groves of giant vegetation. It was said that in these plantations real creatures called deer ran and families of rabbits hopped around feeding from the plants. Mattie sighed again in regret for what had once been. She examined imitations of frogs placed on papier-mâché rocks that framed an artistic copy of a pond, and then peered into a mirror that simulated the water. But was it lifelike with its lack of movement? With her imagination working flat out, frogs jumped from the rocks and produced ripples in the water.

      This imitation woodland lined many wide corridors with a footway through the middle which was often arrow straight, occasionally this undergrowth broke to form islands as paths led to metal doors. These locked and bolted entrances led to each of the citizens’ cell like rooms.

      During a rest period Mattie went to her favourite metal grove and contemplated the woodland. There must have been more shades of colour to the real thing: she mused. Mattie fumed at the long-dead administrators who once decreed all film and video should, in the future, be kept from the citizens. It was for their own good apparently; too much longing for the past provoked feelings of frustration and depression that led to anti-social behaviour and even attempts to escape their refuge into the toxic environment called Out Side.

      The imitation forest had been designed in her great-grandparents’ time to appease the citizen’s protests, or so her mother told Mattie before she had succumbed to the brain-melt illness.

      Mattie only knew these artefact lined corridors and box shaped rooms that formed The Maze. Her room branched off at intersection Z45T and was the same size and shape as all the others. The only difference was the clump of palm trees made from ventilation tubes and carefully cut sheets of aluminium for leaves. Her room contained the same grey coloured furniture and foam mattress and received the same never-ending but soothing instrumental music piped through hidden speakers.

      This room was where Mattie slept and dreamt of exotic locations beyond this place she called home. But she told no one of her dreams as they were to her very real and an admission of this would at least have her mind-wiped or, at worst, sent Out Side.

      Like all the others she feared Out Side with an all consuming dread.

      Out Side were two words whispered in fear by everyone. It was a place of horror. All of the citizens knew it contained dust storms, acid rivers, fountains of molten rock, unbreathable air and worst of all there was no water. To be out there meant your flesh would be blasted by acid laden winds leaving only your skeleton to stare at the unforgiving heavens. Underfoot, radio-active dust would wash over your remains leaving them glowing in the unremitting darkness.

      But Mattie hated being cooped up in this dismal place of interlocking corridors leading to the multitude of rooms that formed the Maze. The gloomy corridors only lit up when people walked them and Mattie was sure these days they remained dark for long periods. She had undertaken a survey of the few people she met wandering around with heads down and feet shuffling along the anti-slip floor.

      ‘Seen anyone today?’ she would ask breezily. Usually the citizens mumbled a simple, ‘no,’ and carried on going about their meaningless tasks. After many attempts at conversation she’d given up and plodded along without trying to catch anyone’s eye.

      It was worse in the highest public access corridors of The Maze. No one walked there except for Mattie. These corridors felt so high up even she wondered whether it was possible to fall through the floors to end up in the more inhabited territory. But she liked it up there, the place often gave her a vivid daydream that one day a door would materialise and she would go through it into Paradise. She had got the name Paradise from somewhere but had no idea where it came from. To her it was a place where the ceiling’s light globes condensed into one warm bright orb that refreshed you down to your bones and made your skin glow. Water in Paradise ran freely in torrents that cascaded down rocks and even fell from above. It was a place where food plants grew naturally. She imagined going up to a particularly succulent metal

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