Tales Within

By Joseph Van Landschoot

Each story holds a strong concept and character motifs, with an emphasis on grasping the situation that each character finds themselves in. Space Maze inspired the creation of the short story collection, while Zones was an ongoing YouTube series. After beginning Tales Within, the ending to Zones has been intentionally withheld and exists only in written form here!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Van Landschoot
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215376591

Joseph Van Landschoot

My name is Joseph Van Landschoot and I find stories incredible. At a young age I would make up wild tales about heroes and far off worlds full of adventure, in which people battled monsters and good always prevailed. My name fit me well growing up as I didn't rise to anything exceptional, but the idea of experiences being told in extravagant and fantastical ways always burned a fire in my soul. By the second year out of high school, just before entering college, I found myself working a summer job where I groomed trees. I left my power zone to clip a high branch and to no great joy, slipped a disc. Now it's been several years from that incident and I've written four books, working on the fifth, and plan to write the sixth to culminate this grand tale. I am no literary savant, but more and more, words find a way to fascinate me. The characters of people I meet, and how they came to be who they are, inspire me. The never ending story of life surrounds us and our addition to it make for great things if we so choose. That is at least the summary of what I believe, and what I leave with you.

Book preview

Hello.

So,

This concept started in December of 2021. My Girlfriend and I were living on Dufferin St at the time, and I had partaken in a legal Canadian herb in preparation to watch the latest episode of The Bachelor. I don’t need to be high to watch it, I’m just not a reality T.V. kind of person and on that night, I decided to spice things up.

I began to zone out and started thinking about that old windows screensaver where the procedurally generated 3D images sprouted out on a black backdrop. I was specifically reminiscing about the pipe textures, and as I did, I began an offshoot thought about the logical end to the concept of an endlessly generated object if it had unlimited resources.

I imagined the entire world becoming consumed by these old, primary-coloured, pipes. It was vivid. The pipes grew from their respective starting point and spanned the globe until its surface was covered completely, but logically it wouldn’t end there. So, the pipes in my mind continued to spread. They started a second layer and covered the surface of pipes, then a third, and so on until the planet of pipes was so large it touched the moon.

Within the limitless field of my imagination the pipes went on to consume the solar system, then the Milky Way, then just about everything. I didn’t get far past this point because I was now inspired to write the idea down. I suspended the thought before it could slip away from my short memory, and that initial concept, once down on digital paper is what grew into the first short story. I knew I wanted to breathe life into the concept, but I had no intention of turning it into a novel. A short story would be fine. I’ve been inspired by short-ended concepts before, but this thing I dubbed: the Space Maze, was a catalyst for me to make something official.

ANOTHER NOTE TO BRING up is about the final short story:  Z o  n   e   s.

That was the earliest story officially, in December of 2020. I go over its inspiration in my YouTube video so I don’t feel the need to explain it here in this forward, only acknowledge its place in the timeline of things.

FINALLY, I TECHNICALLY thought of writing a short story for the character of Sal from Deviance, way back in 2015, but I didn’t do so until coming up with the idea for this book, so it doesn’t count. The timeline goes: Zones - December of 2020, Space Maze – December of 2021, Paradise in Trouble – February of 2022, Honey Trapped – November of 2022, The People’s – December of 2022, & The Devil You Thought You Knew – February of 2023.

With that preamble done, let us waste no further time and jump into the six unique worlds of Tales Within!

Enjoy.

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Space Maze

PER C.C.G. REGULATIONS, proprietors upon signing ownership of a complex are given the liberty to name it. Most do so, using the opportunity to immortalize their parents, child, or dog. Some name it after themselves, be it their birthname or a moniker. Then there are those that do not bother. Each complex, fitted as a self-sustaining town in orbit of one celestial body or another, comes with an identifying serial number. It is rare for complexes to not be named. Those living within such nameless communes will end up giving it a name among themselves. Sufficed to say, though, one can deduce the nameless complexes are worse for wear. An owner that does not bother to give that which they own an identity are red flags for any would-be homeowner or renter.

Every existing structure within C.C.G., the species of humanity at large, is connected through webbing networks and thus not every complex need-be entirely self-sustaining. The nameless complexes are some that bare an absolute minimum in amenities. They are often dystopic places built to house two things: factories and bedding. Import fees for food and all else keep citizens in these areas perpetually living paycheque to paycheque.

Heng grew up in such an industrial complex, in orbit off Titan. While the complex had no official name it was openly called Child Dump; a name apt for its reputation as a place to discard unwanted infants. Officials kept a blind eye on this illegal practice due to how economical it was having an unending, uneducated work force.

Most children resisted work until they starved or found parental figures that would use them to ease their own workload. Heng had a different approach. He was fed as a baby by another child that ultimately died from famine and was later found by a group of pickpockets who then cared for Heng until he could walk and talk. To the group’s despair, as a three-year-old Heng outed his group during a routine grab at lunch hours in one factory. His group was hung to be made an example of, and the factory owner took Heng into his bedding as a reward. At age seven Heng abandoned the factory owner. He worked his way around Child Dump, changing names and appearances at each factory to maintain an air of anonymity. He did this for seven years.

One day at lunch, word caught his ear of a contract job.

What kind of job? a co-worker asked for clarification. Heng sat at the adjacent table, overhearing the conversation.

All I know is it would be recruiting workers for transport. It was vague. The vessel’s in a hurry, something about expansion.

Heng kept his ear to the ground and made sure to be at the right spot, at the right time. When the vessel arrived with Central Complex Government printed on its side, it didn’t announce its recruitment over megaphone. A single man, the captain, simply walked out onto the dock, looked around at the curious bystanders, and started pointing. Heng pushed through the crowd until he was at the front where he watched the captain’s gaze. His finger flicked lazily, and the workers chosen jogged up without so much as a word. Heng’s brow perked as the captain’s finger zeroed in on his area. It stopped directly on Heng and gave a flick. He smiled until behind him a large man shoved past, almost knocking Heng to the ground as he took his place.

Heng was furious, ready to lash out and attack the man like an animal, but years of injustice had sharpened his constraint and he held fast. The captain continued his pointing to people but the finger never came close to Heng’s corner again, and then he was done. The captain ushered his selection up the ramp, and they did so gingerly, leaving behind anything they had.

This could not stand. Heng’s mind raced as the captain walked in behind the group and beyond them to his quarters. The ramp began to elevate. Heng watched until the captain disappeared behind a door. Heng sprinted with all his heart and threw himself onto the ramp. His hands found grip just as the ramp raised above where he could reach. His feet dangled as he pushed up with all his might. He rolled down the other side and slammed down on hard metal with the ramp soon closing completely behind him.

The group of men watched the whole ordeal with concern but ultimately had nothing to protest, thinking they might have done the same if they were not selected. Heng locked eyes with the man that shoved him and scowled. The man merely smirked in admiration for Heng’s tenacity, giving him no more mind and so Heng would do the same.

THAT WAS HOW HENG LEFT Child Dump. He entrusted the group with his secret. There were thousands more workers from other complexes already in the vessel and they all worked in manufacturing steel casings. The casings were strange because they fitted together into a wide semicircle of varying thickness. During their flight in space, Heng ate better than ever before. He worked less hours than any factory in his life, and the general mood of the workers was good.

Over the next five months the casings locked together to make a single object so large it took up the entire belly of the vessel. As time on the strange project inevitably neared its end, Heng helped tow the industrial welding machines out of the hull to make room for the singular object. The following two days, all windows are locked shut and the workers were kindly asked to stay out of the hull, which was additionally locked shut.

Heng took this time to ask around if the other workers knew what their project was made for. Do you know what this is about? he asked.

"I heard it’s the start