Hope you didn't feel like sleeping any time soon...
I am not the Hero of this story. There are no Heroes or Villains in this story. There are just people, and the choices they make.
— Sandra Janssens
The Chronicles of Taras is a Creepypasta Horror Action Science-Fiction Diesel Punk Web Serial Novel by N. Somniack revolving around the exploits of Taras Jacobs, a 17-year-old girl with a mysterious past and a tendency to murder or permanently disfigure/disable anyone and anything in her way.
The story's narrator is Sandra Janssens, a girl who keeps the journals labelled The Chronicles of Taras, which have fallen into possession of N. Somniack, who provides the series with background research into Taras' demented exploits with often sarcastic and irreverent commentary.
The first story in the serial is Red Dementia. It features Sandra being shipped off to a bizarre summer camp named 'Camp Moric' in the middle of a black desert, featuring seven other tough-as-nails girls who are forced to work in mines all day, digging for scrap metal to further build on Camp Moric's grounds.
Soon Sandra becomes one with the group, who have all given each other nicknames (Sandra is christened "Jumpy" for her raw nerves and excessive fear), and they make a plan for escape. But Sandra's mind begins to fall into insanity through a kind of mind-damaging effect of Camp Moric's Grounds called the "Red Dementia" that only Taras Jacobs is immune to, and soon strange creatures called "Rakes"
begin to skulk around camp at night, leaving Sandra and her cabin-mates with either escape or certain death on their hands.
The episodes (journal entries) of the story go up every Tuesday and Saturday at 9 a.m. server time, often with updates on Taras/Moric's/other characters' backgrounds in between.
On December 28, 2012, N. Somniack announced he would re-tool the story and try to sell it to Kindle. The new story, he said, would have a different setting and new different elements, as well as less of a rambling, incoherent tone that is common with the red dementia parts of the story.
This creepypasta provides examples of:
- Abandoned Area: The Mall buried under the black sands that the girls take Shelter in starting in Episode #12.
- Abandoned Mine: The Mines of Camp Moric's Black Desert are too extensive to have just been made by Teenage girls. In fact, because of the bizarre clawmarks and petroglyphs it's implied the mine's creatures
weren't human beings... - Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Pretty common, actually, particularly Episodes Three, Four, Six, Seven, and Eight.
- All Asians Know Martial Arts: Subverted. Stone, the Chinese girl named for her emotionless appearance, can't do anything to fight against anyone, let alone the Rakes.
- Alpha Bitch: Ghost, The Albino Girl at first. Strange since, next to Sandra, she's the shortest, least physically imposing character there.
- Ax-Crazy: Lara "Yuma" Carroca, Taras' rival, is arguably less sane than Taras is: Lara hears voices, spreads false rumors about Taras, and has tried to kill her more than once before to make herself seem more threatening.
- Catchphrase:
- Taras: "Tap-Tap"/"Tap-Tap?" Also "Bloody Bowels of Hell."
- Sandra: "Epic. Win."
- Ghost: "Why me? Why me? I don't deserve this."
- Cutter: "Ace!"
- Yuma: "Taras, if we get out of this alive, I'm gonna make you wish you died here."
- Taras: "Over your Dead Body."
- Cultured Badass: Taras Jacobs, contrasting Yuma's Pop-Cultured Badass.
- Deadly Dingos: Or in this case, deadly dingo-snakes, that conatntly try to finish off the protagonist.
- Diesel Punk: All technology in the C.O.T. Verse is this. For a good example see the "Collins RB-434 Hunter-Scavenger", the "Airship" That the Guards use to hunt down rogue Campers.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: The Rakes, Red Dementia, The Guards, The two-faced 'Counselors', the Camp Warden, Dingo-Snakes...
- Evil Redhead: Well, not Evil, per se, but Taras sure is brutal, ruthless and taunting to anything that stands against her.
- Fiery Redhead: Subverted. Taras might have killed and maimed countless people who crossed her, but she's always calm, always quiet and always composed.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Episode Ten, which diverges from the story as Sandra's mind experiences a brutal flash of the Red Dementia.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four main girls:
- Choleric (yellow bile): Lyla "Ghost" Marten.
- Melancholic (black bile): Taras.
- Leuquine (white blood cells): Sandra.
- Sanguine (red blood): Tawna "Cutter" Jones.
- Freudian Trio: Taras is a more sociopathic version of The Spock, putting Logic, reason and her own survival above everything else, while Sandra is The McCoy, emotionally devastated by deaths and the Rakes. The Kirk is passed between Ghost and Cutter, depending on the Episode.
- Gender-Blender Name: In Ukrainian, Taras is a male name.
- Genre Throwback: To old prison escape movies, by
Word of God.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: By Word of God, a staple of the series. Our protagonists are all convicted criminals with the possible exception of Sandra (And Taras is a confirmed Murderer and mutilator of people), but a little investigation into the background of The Rake brings up whether or not these girls were simply attractors for The Rakes and brought to the Camp Moric to protect them.
- Sandra sees Taras and Yuma as this, respectively. Taras Jacobs is a violent, sarcastic sadist who lives only to kill, takes no responsibility for anyone other than herself, and doesn't feel any compassion for anyone who dies over the course of the "Red Dementia" serial with one exception. Yuma, on the other hand, tortures for the fun of it, wants to skin and disembowel and bisect Taras for the fun of it and goes into this detail in front of her, brings up Taras' only real love, whom she murdered in cold blood, and turns in Cutter, Sandra and Ghost in exchange for money and freedom from Najis Rakkasiak, who's of course not planning to pay up on the deal as he despises her as much as Taras does.
- I Call It "Vera": Taras names her weapon, a three-foot long flame-thrower with a Weedwacker on the end for tearing flesh and spreading flames, powered by Mike's Hard Lemonade, "Big Lennie".
- Jerkass: Yuma. Being a Schizophrenic and a (possible) Sociopath probably has a lot to do with it.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: What exactly are the Rakes, the Dingo-Snakes? Furthermore, what causes the Red Dementia? And where exactly are they?
- Laser-Guided Karma: After Taras gets tricked by a Negotiator (She blew out all of East London's Power because of a malfunctioning Slurpee Machine), she kills his entire SWAT Team and carves the word 'Liar' into his chest, leaving him permanently disabled and horrified of the dark.
- Meaningful Name:
- Ghost - Lyla Marten is an Albino with a creepy, raspy voice "like a mouthful of razors" who wears an ethereal black cloak.
- Star-Scar - Serena has a Star-shaped mark on her back.
- Yuma - Though Portuguese, Yuma was apprehended in Yuma, Arizona.
- Cutter - Because her parents wouldn't let her get tattoos, Tawna carved patterns and symbols into her arms and back.
- Stone - has no expressions, even before death.
- Jaws - because of the lack of medical care - or just care in general - Julie has had her braces start ripping into her gums and cracking her teeth.
- Mordor: The "Black Desert" that Camp Moric is situated in is forever below zero and is home to, outside The Alcatraz Hellhole Prison Camp Moric, The Rakes, An Underground mall full of velvet-skinned, 3-foot high dog-like creatures (pictured) with poison that kills you over a few days and causes you to vomit blood and hallucinate, as well as a lake of fire, as well as high-tech machines the Counselors use to hunt down the girls.
- Nemean Skinning: Taras, after she slaughters a venomous, Doberman-sized reptilian animal (pictured) with a hunting knife, skins it and makes a shirt/dress-like garment out of its hide. To find out what she does with its blood, see Tribal Face Paint.
- Noodle Incident: Taras and Yuma's escape from "Shadows". It left Yuma with a curved spine and a distinct terror of Chains that Taras often plays on, and it may have exacerbated Yuma's Schizophrenia and hatred of Taras. Taras herself ended up with even LESS trust of anyone, a more bloodthirsty disregard for life than before, and serious Angst over the loss of someone named 'Xavier'.
- Odd Name Out: Ghost, Star-Scar, Yuma, Cutter, Stone, Jaws, Jumpy, and......Taras. The one who kept her real name.
- Once Killed a Man with a Noodle Implement: Taras once killed a man with a Bowl of Old Nachos and a Golden Retriever Puppy.
- Sandra: "How?"
- Taras: "Huh? Oh, Uh, I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention at the time."
- Perky Goth: Taras loves Disturbed, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot, and Korn, though she's often Snarky and often Jovial about killing people.
- The Plan: Taras' has one to escape, hijack the armored truck and wound a Guard and Counselor of Camp Moric.
- Pop-Cultured Badass: Lara "Yuma" Carroca, contrasting Taras Jacobs' Cultured Badass.
- Precision F-Strike: Yuma: "Poison. From the Dingo-Snakes. I'll sever your spine, you'll be stiff as a board, and then? You'll die here. Helpless." Taras: FUCK YOU!!!"
- Scenery Porn/Scenery Gorn: Black, Sub-freezing Desert, Mines painted blood-red and blue-green by the floodlights the Guards of the Hellhole Prison Moric use, The Underground Shopping Mall, The forest of dead, leafless trees and the dirt road that runs through it, the glowing hills and the Hellhole Prison itself, made entirely from Scrap-Metal......let's just say This Verse is very fleshed-out.
- School Bullying Is Harmless: Averted. Sandra is implied to be as quiet, frightened and lacking in Self-Esteem because of being physically and verbally tortured by the popular girls and their boyfriends in her Connecticut Hometown. It can be argued she's attached to Taras because Taras doesn't take anything from anyone, and behaves the way Sandra would like to.
- Seeker Archetype: N. Somniack himself, as he plays a paranormal investigator searching for the truth in all his fictional works.
- Shout-Out:
- A Camp for Juvenile Delinquents known only by nicknames that describe them...?
- an entirely female group of travelers trapped in brutal, unforgiving terrain with humanoid monsters, anyone?
- Character Development triggered by science-fictional monsters?
- A Diesel Punk story based around a group of girls with REALLY trippy, bizarre creatures and technology (minus the exploitative dress and behavior)?
- Taras' Celeb Crush is Alan Rickman.
- The Dingo Hunter?
- The Rake?
- The girls call themselves "The Berserkers".
- Yuma's little "The Reason You Suck" Speech seems somewhat familiar....
- Status Quo Is God: Yuma's tried to kill Taras multiple times because she wants to take Taras' place as the baddest, most terrifying girl in History.
- Team Mom: Tawna "Cutter" Jones. In fact she's the first of the girls to reach out to Sandra, the night after she arrives at Camp Moric.
- Token Evil Teammate: Yuma fits the trope perfectly.
- Tribal Face Paint: Taras uses blood from the Dingo-Snake she eviscerated to paint her face with vertical lines on her cheeks under horizontal ones under her eyes. She also applies it as Raccoon-esque Mascara/Eyeliner.
- Truth in Television: There really are 'Children's Gulags' just as bad as Camp Moric is, minus the Diesel Punk, Red Dementia, and Rakes/Dingo-Snakes.
- Urban Sci Fi: Sandra Janssens is a normal girl from Connecticut, Ghost is A nasty hoodlum from Trenton, New Jersey, Cutter is a normal Australian Girl and only Taras and Yuma have truly bizarre, mysterious pasts. Normal people...in a world of Rakes, Dingo-Snakes, Airships, Bounty Hunters and Volcanic, sub-freezing desert. Nice little diversity of tone.........
- Waif-Fu: In Episode Fifteen, A Quintet of Teenage Girls take down a swarm of Rakes and Dingo-Snakes. Five Teenage Girls with weapons against Monsters.
- Wrench Wench: All characters except Sandra. At first. She becomes one eventually.
