City of IF

[Ingrothechundyer]

One competition that should be highlighted is the short Linear Story competition. Held in the Linear Stories section these stories are given a set of rules, a short period of time for all authors to write, and a small word limit.

The resulting stories are voted on and the best one is posted in this thread along with the rules for that month.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Past winners, the rules they wrote under, and the stories that won are listed here for your enjoyment.

Mordok (March 2005)
Smee (May 2005)
ethereal_fauna (June 2005)
Random (July 2005)
ethereal_fauna (August 2005)
The Powers That Be (September 2005)
Key (October 2005)
chinaren (November 2005)
lordofthenight (December 2005)
Jack_D.Mented (January 2006)
ethereal_fauna (February 2006)
Shady Stoat (March 2006)
Solomon Birch (April/May 2006)
The Powers That Be (June 2006)
Smee (July 2006)
JezSharp (August 2006)
September - No competition
JezSharp (October 2006)
November - No competition
Kalanna Rai (December 2006)

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

Random wrote: It's challenge time!

Post date: Feb. 14
Due date: March 5

Topic: Tell the story of Felix, a grizzled, burnt out warrior trying to reclaim his younger glories. (What really happens to him is completely up to you.)

Genre: Fantasy (Seems to be the popular one)

Length: 1200 words.

Please read the rules above before submitting.

Spelling and grammar do count so check your work.

You have until March 5th to post a story. You can post and make edits, changes, or delete your story up to this date. On March the 6th the poll will go up for one week to vote on who wrote the best story. The Winner will be announced at the end of the week.

Good luck!

The winning story:

Mordok wrote: Ok, this isn't what I had in mind originally, but its what came out. Gimme the full review so I can change anything that is uncool or that would disqualify me.

Writing this was much cooler than I thought it would be. Its a great exercise in style and creativity. Everyone should do this.

===============================================

I remember the day my Grandfather Felix went to hunt the bear. I had awoken early, frightened awake by a dream and had gone to the great room to stand by the fire. He was there, finishing his preparations, when I arrived.

He was always a large man. Some said this was because a normal frame could not support the weight of such a heart. I always assumed they were talking about the amount of love he showered on his family. Now that I too, feel the coming of winter, I know that this was only a part of it.

It was strange seeing him dressed for the hunt and holding his spear. I had seen his spear many times, and heard its songs just as many, but I had never seen him touch it. It made him look bigger somehow.

“Ah, good,” he said as he saw me enter. “I won’t have to wake you.”

“What is it Grandfather?” I asked. I was always happy when my Grandfather decided to talk. Most of the people in our clan found his stories boring, but I was always fascinated by his talk of the old ways.

“Do you remember how I told you of our past?” he asked. I could only nod to show him that yes, I did remember his tales. Many times, I had listened as he told of our past as great hunters and warriors.

“And do you remember the story of the longest winter?”

Again, I could only nod. I knew the story well. It had happened before I was born, but while my father still lived. A storm had left enough snow to bury the longhouse, trapping everyone inside. When the food ran out, my father and grandfather had dug a tunnel and went into the icy cold to hunt. The bear they found killed my father before falling to my grandfather’s spear. He had lost his son, but had saved his people.

“The day I lost your father I made a vow that I would protect our clan from this ever happening again. I was, as I am now, clan chieftain after all. I added to the livestock pens and grew seeds when the seasons allowed. I started trading our goods for the goods of other clans. Now we are the largest clan and have the biggest halls.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Your leadership has made our people strong.”

He shook his head. “By strengthening the whole; I have weakened its parts. By securing our future, I have lost our past. We are no longer hunters and warriors; instead we are farmers and traders.”

“So you’re leading a hunting party,” I asked, failing to understand. “So we remember the past?”

“I go alone because I have no future. The men still call me chieftain, but they no longer value my words. They are so afraid to lose what they have worked to achieve, that they don’t see they have lost their pride. They are so busy enjoying the safety they provide to their women that they don’t see the danger to their manhood. If I bring back a bear, maybe they will be reminded of what they can do.”

“A bear,” I asked in disbelief “but Grandfather, you are too old.”

“Then maybe I will find an old bear,” he snapped “maybe a bear that’s claws aren’t as sharp as they used to be. One that is tired of eating the scraps left behind for him by the young bears. A bear that has seen all his friends die and is getting tired of watching things change. Maybe I can find a bear that understands that the winner of our battle can walk with pride for a few more years. Maybe he will know that it’s better to die fighting than to live hiding.”

“But Grandfather,” I asked “aren’t you afraid that you’ll be killed.”

He looked at me as if he knew it would be years before I understood. “I am more afraid that I will live in shame. I am afraid that I will live long enough to forget the face’s of the ones I love. I am afraid that I will be put into the sick room with the old women, no longer able to feed or clean myself. I have already lost the glory of my younger days, and I will not be denied the glory of being able to choose how I live.”

“But…,” I started before his knowing smile cut me off.

“If I am to die, it will be a warrior’s death, and if I am to live, it will be a warrior’s life.”

And with that, my Grandfather turned and left the longhouse, carrying his spear into the winter morning.

===============================================

Anyway, like I said, tear me up with the comments. I need all the help I can get. :D

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

Mordok wrote: This month, you have to tell the tale of Sol, and his long awaited revenge.

You can use as many words as you want as long as you don't use over 1,500.

You can pick your own genre (fantasy, horror, so on and so forth), but you are still expected to edit and spell check your work.

The basic rules are in the first post of this thread is there are any questions.

So, You have 30 days, what are you waiting for?

The winning story:

Smee wrote: Sol's Revenge...

Giving my beautiful wife a quick peck on the cheek I headed out the door. Monday morning had arrived with the same inevitability it always had; the enjoyment of the weekend’s time off work already fading, the dark grey clouds overhead not helping.

My car, whilst nothing spectacular, was still my pride and joy. A four-door, metallic silver Buick LeSabre, brand new just a year ago. Getting in and turning the radio on I began the twelve-mile journey to the office.

Arriving five-minutes early as usual, I parked in my reserved space and headed up to the seventeenth floor, nodding a welcome to Barry the doorman on the way. I worked as a senior accountant for a highly respected bank, advising the richest of our corporate clients. A nice job with some nice perks.

My secretary was already in place at her desk, a pile of opened mail in the top corner ready for me to pick up as I went by.

“Good morning Sandra”

Looking up from her typing she pushed her glasses further up her nose.

“Morning Mr. Walker, your ten o’clock called, he’s going to be twenty minutes late.

“Thanks. Is this all the mail” I said, gesturing towards the pile.

“Yes sir, the contract from the Millou account has arrived.”

“Excellent” I replied, picking them up and walking into my office.

With a quick flick through I pulled out the contract and threw the rest of the envelopes on to my desk. This contract was for one of the richest clients of the bank. With my help and advice I’d make their balance double in five years and probably make partner in the process.

I settled down to a morning of work and burned my way through everything by 11:30. Feeling hungry I decided on an early lunch. Handing Sandra a small group of dictation tapes for her to type, along with the Millou contract to fax back I walked out of the office and headed to my car. I wanted a pizza and knew of a fantastic Italian restaurant just a five minute drive away.

The tattered rubber of the back wheel caught my eye first and I soon noticed the others. All my tyres were slashed. Who had done this? How stupid were they. A quick glance up confirmed the several CCTV cameras watching the company carpark. Lunch forgotten I marched directly up to a slightly surprised Barry and told him what’d happened.

“Wow, I didn’t see nothing sir, do you want me to check the tapes”

Despite the circumstances I couldn’t help pick up on his double negative. If he ‘didn’t see nothing’ then he ‘did see something’. Was it bad grammar, or something else. I was surprised by my suspicious mind. Barry had worked for the company for years, and he’d stopped attempted thefts in the carpark several times during those years by his quick action. I quickly responded to him.

“Yeah, thanks that would be brilliant”

His eyes darted back and forth as he scanned the recordings on fast forward. I waited anxiously, hoping a good ID could be made on the culprit or culprits.

“Sorry sir, there’s nothing here! Nobody went anywhere near your car all morning.”

“Can I see” I countered.

“Sure” he replied as he turned the monitor around.

He rewound it and began the scan again. Within a few seconds I saw my car arrive, and then a few frames of myself as I walked into the office. Frame after frame of my car followed. I closely watched the tyres, looking for when they went down. Suddenly I saw myself heading out to lunch, the car now in it’s current state.

“As I said sir, nothing all morning.”

Completely bewildered I headed back up to my office, dismissing Sandra’s confusion with a mild gesture of my hand as I closed the door.

Practical considerations first, I called a garage to come and sort out the damage. One would be out by 2pm. I almost called the police and then decided against it. Without any video evidence there was nothing they could, or would, do.

A phone call disrupted my dealings, and Sandra’s voice informed me that Mr Vincent was on the phone. Putting aside the concerns of the day I thanked Sandra and took a deep breath. The Vincent account was even bigger than the Millou and I’d been working on it for the last two years. It was what had gotten me to the position I had.

“Good afternoon Mr Vincent”

“It might be for you, but it’s been very disappointing from my perspective”

“Oh, I’m sorry to here that Mr Vincent, how can I help you” I inquired.

“The IRS phoned me this morning informing me that I have not paid over $200’000 in corporate taxes over the last two years. If I don’t pay within 45 days prosecution proceedings will be started. Care to explain Mr Walker.”

I answered instinctively,
“That’s impossible, I went over those figures myself. Every cent was accounted for. There must be a mistake.”

“There’s no mistake Mr Walker, I have the figures here in front of me. The only concern I have is how you messed up, and what you’re going to do about it.”

My face flushed and panic all but consumed me. Forget about partner, I’d be fired.
“I..I.I’ll need to investigate Mr Vincent,” the stammer in my voice infuriating me, knowing there was nothing I could do about it, “I will call you back right away”

“Make sure you do. I’m not taking the fall for this Mr Walker.”

With the very obvious threat delivered he hung up. Wiping the sweat from my palms on my trousers I picked up my phone again. Sandra promptly answered.

“Sandra, patch me through to Jackson please, tell him it’s an emergency.”

“Ok sir, sir are you ok?” Genuine concern filled her voice.

“Not really, but if you could just do as I ask.”

Within a few seconds I heard the voice of the Senior Director on the other end of the phone.

“Jackson speaking, how can I help Daniel?”

“Sir, it’s a major one, are you available for a meeting?” I had to do this face to face, it couldn’t be done over the phone.

“I’ve a tight schedule for the whole afternoon, it had better be important”

“It is sir”

“Very well, get up here now.”

The phone went dead and I headed up to get fired.

45 minutes later I headed out of his office, hearing the pleading sounds of Jackson on the phone as I left,

“I understand Mr Vincent, one of our associates has left us down badly. Trust me when I say it’s been handled, and we’ll get everything sorted for you as soon as we can”

I headed out of the office, intent on going home. It was then I remembered my car. Heading back inside I gave my keys to Barry and asked him to sort out the repairs when the mechanic arrived.

Unusually a cab was just outside the office and I quickly got in it.

“Where to sir”

I gave him my address and we pulled out into the traffic.

Within a few minutes I realised he was going in the wrong direction. Like something from a movie I heard the click of the locks clamping down, even as a screen went up separating me from the driver.

I was trapped.

Completely drained from my day from hell I collapsed on the seat and waited to find out where I was being taken.

The car stopped after about twenty minutes. I had no idea where I was.

The screen rolled down and the driver stared at me.

That face…I recognised it. A lot older, but definitely the same guy.

“Sol…?” I whispered.

“Ah, so you do recognise me. Excellent, makes this so much more satisfying.”

“What are you doing…”

“Out of jail,” he finished the sentence for me. “Thought I’d come say thanks to the person who framed me and put me in there.”

For the second time that day panic almost consumed me. How could he know. I’d been so careful.

Sol continued.
“I see by your eyes you’re not going to dispute that. Bet you’re wondering how I found out. That’s the thing with prisons. Lots of bad men who know all about the activities of other bad men. I found out a lot more than your sordid past.”

“What do you want with me! It was twenty years ago, I was young and stupid” I was just blabbering, but I couldn’t help myself.

Sol’s voice suddenly dripped with anger,
“You set me up, stole twenty years of my life and then stole my wife. As I said before, I’m here to say ‘Thanks’. With you being fired today nobody will be surprised to learn of your suicide.”

I barely saw the gun before I felt it. A hammer between my eyes and then nothing.

Wow, once again I struggled with the word limit, reaching about 1650 first time round. Some serious editting required.

I hope you enjoyed. :)

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

Smee wrote: Time for a new month's competition:

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The genre and topic for this month:

1500 words on...

a Horror story involving a crossbow, a horse and a hat.

The rest of the details are up to you. How the three items are used is completely up to you. So long as they are involved in some way.

Deadline = 4th June 2005

Happy Writing. :D

The winning story:

ethereal_fauna wrote: The Bobcat

On the fourteenth of February 1130, Gregory Papareschi by virtue of the papal ascension became the 164th Pope. He served the Lord God and the Catholic church as pope for thirteen years and seven months under the title Pope Innocent II, during which time he condemned the crossbowman’s skill as “a deadly art, hated by God.”

The passage of time beheld the fabrication of even deadlier weapons whereby one man could end the life of another, and the crossbow fell into disfavor. Ages transformed the obsolete weapon into a hunters bow, taken up for sport and not war, and the target of the shooter shifted from his fellow man to the beasts of the hunt.

Would the same God who made the Christians deny creation of the beasts? Should the deadly art only be hated by God when the crossbowmen turn their skills upon each other? Marla Kune doesn’t consider these questions as she slips on her hat and mounts her sorrel mare, and then rides from her solitary cabin and into the wooded hills.

An only child, Marla became the substitute son her father wanted but didn’t have. She spent many long nights chasing quarry through the brush, and honed her skill with the crossbow as she bonded with her father. Her modern hunting crossbow was engineered to launch 400+ grain bolts at initial velocities in excess of 200 fps. With a draw weight of about 150 pounds, she achieved ample kinetic energy for game hunting with a far lower draw weight than would have been the case with a crossbow of similar power in Pope Innocent’s time. A longer power stroke coupled with a less massive fiberglass lath made the difference.

For hunting purposes her maximum effective range was close to forty-five yards. Too much energy bled off the arrow past that point. Without sufficient energy, her bolt most likely would lodge in the game without inflicting immediate death, and be carried away in the subsequent flight, lost along with the doomed prey. Her intended quarry today was merely a pleasure hunt. She sought the bobcat that she often heard crying in the long hours of the night, for no other reason than to have conquered its wild freedom.

After hours of riding, she finally halted her mare and dismounted, pushing her hat further back on her head. She patted the soft red horse, and wearily sighed a lament.

“I don’t think she’s going to confront us today, girl,” she whispered to the mare, before surveying the sun’s steady ascent into the sky. The cat would soon seek its shelter, to sleep through the afternoon. A chill wind prompted Marla to pull the hat back down over her head.

An almost surreal spirit captivated the surrounding trees, and Marla felt a peculiar fright unlike any she had ever experienced in her life. In the queer calm following the chilling gust, Marla spotted the bobcat, its whiskered face peering at her from the cover of a bush. Her breath caught in her chest, overwhelmed momentarily by the lucent beauty of those feral eyes, before the urge to claim and conquer the cat asserted its demands over both awe and unease. Slowly she slid her bow into position, afraid to move too quickly, or to gain a more advantageous distance for firing, lest she startle the cat and lose her opportunity.

The bolt flew towards the target, and with an agonized scream the cat launched into the air, turning in pain to scurry into the woods. Marla cursed aloud, for although her aim was as true as ever, the shaft had penetrated the cat’s gut and lodged there, allowing the animal to hastily flee.

She mounted again and tracked the path of blood, but as the day wore on she finally conceded victory to the wily cat, and with a heavy heart headed back to the cabin. She felt unusually ill, a queasiness gripping her stomach and causing her to dismount and vomit before reaching the comfort of her home.

The cat padded softly to the cover of the bush, motivated by an angry spirit that she could not resist. The compelling voice of the land called her to a sacrifice, and she peered in disgust at the vile monster standing beside the red horse.

The wilderness whispered into her furred ears, “It seeks you, that abomination, and it destroys with wanton lust.”

The cat tried to grasp the concept of killing for pleasure. She studied the monster with casual curiosity, and accepted the burden of the angry spirit. She sat in pristine honor as the hunter shot the bolt into her side, and then with anguish fled into the grateful shelter of the trees.

Marla slept fitfully, waking often with the searing pain gripping her insides. She finally abandoned her efforts at sleep and paced restlessly about the cabin. She peered out her open door into the frightful night, a blowing snow now blanketing the landscape in ever deepening drifts. She should have left before the snowfall, and with a mental kick chided herself for being stranded and sick, alone in the hills.

Making a strong tea, she settled into a chair and moaned at the unexplained agony. Her insides felt swollen and twisted, and she smelled her own fear at this cruel pain. The night slipped away as day broke, little brighter with the blight of the falling snow, but Marla failed to notice the passage of time.

An ill fever now wracked her body, and she alternated between hot sweats and violent shivers. At times she felt incapable of coherent thought, and hunger gnawed at her in episodic waves, only to have nausea replace it soon thereafter. In this manner she passed the next two days.

The cat lapped at the cold water in the stream, ice forming as the snow began to fall. She had finally stopped running, and with horror she had tried to dislodge the arrow protruding from her side. The shaft penetrated deeply, entering below her ribcage and angling towards her rear legs. The tip parted the hair as it exited the other side of her loin, rubbing a raw wound onto her hind leg as she moved.

She gingerly made her way to her den, sheltering from the snow, and cried out her pain in a low rumbling growl. She gnawed at the shaft, feeling the buried arrow twisting at her insides. She smelled her own fear at this cruel pain. She tried to rest, she tried to ignore her pain and her hunger, she tried to rid herself of this slow death. In this manner she passed the next two days.

Marla no longer had memories of anything but pain, and she pondered at the inexplicable wound rubbed onto her thigh. She chewed at her own skin, her teeth shredding her fingernails and the exposed nail bed below, and the salty taste of her own blood sickened her further. This troublesome gnawing proved a compulsion she could not control.

The stabbing pain in her abdomen had settled to a steady, dull ache, but this offered her little comfort. The skin burned hotly with internal fever, and an angry blue bruise darkened her entire midriff. Any movement resulted in a grisly twisting, as if something turned in her guts. She accepted death, but in her arrogance she still wondered why such a cruel demise had befallen her.

The cat slipped into shock, the pain receding into a numbed sensation providing a welcomed relief. Blood clung to her whiskers and the soft tawny fur framing her muzzle. She accepted death, and with comfort stepped from her battered body, greeted by a shining warmth that she joyfully followed like a kitten.


Marla stubbornly clung to life, although she longed for death. Her fevered mind conjured haunting visions, but surprisingly she managed one last fitful sleep. She jerked awake with a feeling of oppression, and a creeping unease that she was no longer alone in her cabin. She grimaced in pain as she sat upright in her chair, and her eyes strained in the dark for the intruder.

A darker blackness advanced upon her, an inky figure slipping through the murky atmosphere of the cabin, a sinister blackness upon blackness. Marla opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

ethereal_fauna wrote: Time for July's competition:

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The genre and topic for this month:

1300 words, Visionary Fiction (visionary fiction overlaps many genres, and may include elements of fantasy, scifi, or other themes. This should allow for more artistic freedom from varied writers. The defining aspect of visionary fiction entails spirituality. It is not religion specific, and often addresses Christianity, paganism, and/or occultism, among other things.)

Topic: Shelby Hawkins undergoes a life-altering experience, and determines to share this encounter with both friends and strangers.

Good luck, and be creative!

The winning story:

Random wrote: Here is my entry for this month's contest. I haven't had a chance to really fine tune the editing so any help would be very appreciated. :)

A Cup of Coffee and the Color Yellow

“9am- Meeting with Daryl Van derKamp on the new IT solutions project.
10:30am- Reschedule lay off meeting to 1pm. Conference call with Singapore.
11:15am- Run reports, and final figures for Terry.
11:30am- Review reports for Helsin deal.
12pm- Lunch with Jules and Gary. Reschedule, need to get figures to courthouse.
1pm- ….”

On and on it went. The date book reciting to Shelby what her life would be centered on today. Shelby was successful, something her father had wanted for her, but she couldn’t help but feel as if she were a disappointment. She was single, not even dating, and her parents had long ago stopped bugging her about grandchildren. Shelby was wealthy for a single woman, and at the top of her game in the corporate world. She had power, a nice house, a fast shiny car, and her stocks were going through the roof.

Shelby hated her life.

None of this was what she had wanted when she got out of college. She had wanted to become a painter. That was her dream, her fantasy, and her ambition that kept her facing each dreadful day. She had money, power, and was pretty enough for her choice of men. But there was hollowness inside Shelby that she could not ignore; a hole that had appeared at some point in time, although she had never looked deeply enough to find out when that had happened.

Her phone rang, for perhaps the twentieth time that morning, and Shelby sighed as she reached for it. “Ms. Hawkins,” Shelby said into the phone. Silence answered her. “Hello?” Then it started, a faint whisper seemed to be heard, a chorus of them actually, as if a million people were trying to talk at the same time. Shelby didn’t know what to say as she sat at her desk bewildered by the noise. Gradually, the voices became understandable, if not sensible. Suddenly one of the voices, a genderless and vibrant voice got through, almost singing to her, “It is not yet to be.”

The voices went dead, and Shelby was left staring at the phone. She replaced the phone on its hook and as she brought her hand up to her chin, she tipped over a cup of coffee sitting on her desk edge. The cup rolled under her desk and Shelby threw her hands to the sky and wondered if it was going to be that kind of day. Shelby had to get on her hands and knees to get the cup under her desk when a thought occurred to her. Shelby had never had a cup of coffee in her life.

As suddenly as thought, Shelby’s world became one of a single loud roar, then darkness.

It was sea of bliss for Shelby. Swimming in the waters of this place, Shelby had no phone ringing incessantly, no managers badgering her to work longer, no lay offs to hand out. It was floating sensation, as if she were simply riding the currents of a gentle sea. It’s waves caressing her and pushing her towards…. Nowhere.

Shelby could neither see nor hear anything, but she knew she was screaming as her body jerked in a fit of uncontrollable spasms. The darkness dulled, and Shelby felt hands on her. She no longer floating peacefully, but bouncing now, in the rough choppy waters that had suddenly stormed against her. The grayness of the place lightened a little more, and suddenly there were other sensations. The smell of air, the taste of smoke, and pain in her head and stomach.

Shelby opened her eyes to Hell. Flames licked at a place she thought should be familiar but she couldn’t place the object sticking through the gap in what she thought was wall. She looked up and found herself being carried towards the sunlight. She realized she was draping over the back of someone, a fireman by the looks of the helmet. They crashed into the outside world with a groan from Shelby as the sunlight assaulted her eyes, making the pain in her head bang a steady rhythm against her skull.

More gently than Shelby would have thought possible, she was placed on a soft mattress, and once again hauled away. A sharp sting erupted in her arm, and Shelby fell away from the world again, this time into an unmoving black sea of emptiness.

Time meant nothing here. Every so often the darkness would grow gray but it never lasted long. Images flashed through her mind, but two remained constant, a cup of coffee she had never drank, and a phone with voices she could barely recall. It didn’t add up for her mind, and for Shelby the loss of time was as tragic as the loss of one of her limbs. Time was everything, it was money, it was a testament to all she had worked for, and a road to take her back to her childhood.

But in this place, time did not pass. Her finger moved. Shelby raised what would have been a hand to her eyes, and slowly it formed before her. Shelby realized that this was her place. A cup of coffee, a distant voice, a dream unfulfilled. Shelby raised her other hand and it too materialized at her memories. Shelby wasn’t sure if she could smile at the new revelations, but she tried. A line of yellow blurred between her hands. Her favorite color was yellow. Her color of happiness had always been Yellow.

With a fling, she sent the yellow blur out, turning the blackness into a sheet of yellow canvas. She laughed, and she knew she had laughed for she felt it. In her world, she painted a masterpiece. Greens, reds, blues, cardinals flew in a soft blue background, a single lazy cloud drifted far in the background, and the crystal blue waters reflected serenity in all its imperfections. With but a swipe of her hand the picture was gone and Shelby began anew.

Shelby blinked as she opened her eyes again. Tubes were protruding from her in an orderly chaos, running to a machine that blipped with every beat of her heart. A woman leaned over her, a large smile on her face, and a look of sheer joy in her eyes.

“What happened,” was all Shelby could ask.

“You were in a coma dear,” the lady responded, gently pushing a button on the wall. “Most thought you were too far gone for hope. But it is not yet to be.”

Shelby looked at the woman, something so very familiar. She scraped at the walls of her memories for any clues but was soon overwhelmed by doctors and nurses rushing around her.

Shelby learned she had been in a coma for three years. An ex-employee had rammed a car full of dynamite into the front of her office, killing several, and injuring hundreds. It was a miracle she had survived, but they had found her under her desk, safely shielded from the toppling roof and flames.

Her parents had been happy for her, but it wasn’t long before her father asked her when she planned on going back to work. Shelby sat in her new house, a smaller place but one with a lakeside view, and pondered that very thing. She laughed aloud at the trap she was setting for herself and turned back to her easel. Shelby was not good with words, she couldn’t explain to her father or anyone else what had happened. So she picked up a brush and laid her first stroke to the empty canvas.

A large slash of yellow.

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

Random wrote: New Challenge Time! WHOO HOO!

This challenge will remain open until August 24th. That gives you three weeks to complete a story and submit it for editing and review! On Agust 25th, the poll will go up and on the 29th the new winner will be annunced.

Edit: Since this has had such little discussion I'm going to change the genre from Humor to whatever genre you prefer to write.

Topic: Gary, a plumber from the Bronx is mistaken as someone extremely famous. Who he is mistaken for and why are all up to you.

Word Length: 1400

Best of luck to you all! Feel free to ask any clarification questions you have!

The winning story:

ethereal_fauna wrote: I originally considered humor for this submission, but I think I've ended up with a brief examination of the grotesque instead. For what it's worth, here's my entry this month:

Mizz Racine

Mrs. Goldstein looked with exasperation at the messy footprints tracking across the otherwise pristine linoleum of her kitchen floor. She did not despise all strangers in her house, just the odious ones. Her lip curled in a disgusted snarl as she glanced at the plumber’s backside jutting from under her sink. The man grunted as he worked, kneeling between the cabinet doors with his large posterior swaying ludicrously as he tightened the pipes. Mrs. Goldstein choked back her laughter at the exposed ass crack flashing unashamed in her hospitable kitchen.

“How cliché,” she thought, crinkling her nose at the unattractive man. The plumber had arrived earlier, reeking of stale sweat and sewage, and depositing grimy prints on all clean surfaces he contacted. Why did she never have the luck of the other bored housewives in her neighborhood? She’d dressed seductively in a blatant attempt to woo a handsome repairman, only to open the door at 9:23- and the bastard had to be late- to find Gary standing on her porch.

Gary groaned and farted as he backed out from under the sink, pulled himself into a standing position by placing his nasty hand on the white countertop leaving yet more grime, and hitched his pants up. He breathed heavily and grunted as he gathered his tools, before turning to the appalled Mrs. Goldstein with a grin.

“That’ll do ‘er,” he quipped.

She looked at him with mild disgust and complete incomprehension. Gary slowed his speech a little, wondering again why he’d left the Bronx to move into a southern state. He missed the city, the rudeness, the bustle. He had not yet adjusted to the slow drawling speech, the massive mosquitoes, or the oppressive humidity of the south. What he did not mind about his new locale, however, was the manner of flimsy dress that most of his female clients greeted him with.

Gary left Mrs. Goldstein’s tidy home and checked the time. Her cranky disposal had cut into his lunch, which was just as well; he had promised his sister’s husband’s nephew a favor. Apparently the young man’s girlfriend had an eccentric grandmother on a fixed income, who needed a little pipe snake action in her plumbing. He would fit her into his lunch hour for free, just because he was nice like that. He turned his truck from the cozy streets of this upscale neighborhood and drove into a shabbier part of town.

He parked outside a ramshackle abode, and then verified the address. Sure enough this was the place. A yellow note taped to the door instructed him to come on inside, and explained where the restroom was located. He finished this job in no time at all without ever hearing a word from the grandmother, and made ready to leave. As he entered the darkened hallway of the cramped dwelling, he heard a scratchy voice call out to him.

“Gary, c‘mere to me,” issued a crackled summons.

He obediently peered into a dimly lit sitting room, and gazed in astonishment around him. Candles flickered about the space, and a deep crimson painted the walls. Sparkling plastic beaded curtains draped the doorframe where he’d entered, reflecting the candlelight in muted whispers. The room smelled strongly of garlic and spices, and a bit of decaying flesh. A tattered chicken carcass hung in one corner, appearing almost jerked and losing feathers slowly.

Most disturbing of all was the withered old woman sitting half-naked in a tattered chair. Wrinkles mapped the skin clinging to her bony frame, and the only fleshy bits of her body were the pendulous breasts hanging grossly on her chest. Her thin gray hair fell in matted ropey strings across her face. An earthen bowl of some dark, viscous liquid sat congealing in her lap. “Come speak a spell with Mizz Racine,” the old woman demanded.

Gary sat, unable to think of any plausible reason not to and too shocked to form any clever excuses. The old woman leaned forward, bringing her face closer to his, and one sagging breast plopped unceremoniously into the bowl. Gary shuddered involuntarily at the hideous display of the large puckered nipple dipping into the unidentifiable ooze.

“Tell Mizz Racine what you want most,” the old woman said with a toothless smile. “You want Mizz Racine to make you handsome, maybe you get the girl of your dreams?”

Gary fought back his revulsion. Was the old crow offering to perform some kind of spell for him, some black magic to fulfill a wish? He could hardly see the harm from indulging her whim, and it just might get him out of here quicker. His mind raced with what to request.

“I want to be famous,” he blurted. Damn, was that the best he could think of?

The old woman creased her forehead. “Fame? For what do you wish fame? Where’s your talent?”

Gary didn’t have any talent. Oh, he could open a drain but that was hardly worth fame. He looked nervously around the eerie room, and suddenly felt hot and oppressed. His eyes returned once again to the tip of that obscene orb hanging from her chest and dunking into the bowl.

“I don’t know. I don’t care what talent I have. I just want to walk into a room full of women and have them screaming after me,” he choked out, hoping this would soon be over.

“Very well,” the woman said as she sat back, dark moisture dripping from her dipped feature. She dunked a feather into the bowl and painted a streak down Gary’s forehead. “One sows hasty wishes, and reaps hasty rewards.”

Gary fled the house at that moment, hounded by the cackling laughter of the old woman. In the safety of his truck, he wiped the mark from his face and tried to calm down. He sped away from the unkempt lawns and falling houses into a more habitable area. Today had been a trying day.

The remainder of his workday passed without any incident, and he had almost forgotten about the strange old woman by the time he reached his home that evening. A quick perusal of the fridge revealed stale cheese and expired sandwich loaf. Gary raised his hand and sniffed his armpit, and with a forceful exhale decided that he didn’t need a shower, but he would change his clothes. The only clean shirt he could find was the bright satiny monstrosity his best friend had given him last Christmas. It made him look like some over inflated egoist, in his own opinion. With a shrug he pulled on the shirt and headed to the corner cafe.

He paid little attention to the banner hanging outside of the establishment, although he did note that the bold lettering welcomed a local ladies organization to the cafe. Apparently some feminist bitches were gathering for a hen party, cackling in the corner of the small eatery and bashing men. He shrugged it off and sat in the far corner, intending to dine there anyway.

The waitress hadn’t even placed his glass of water on the table, when he noticed how quiet the cafe had become. Looking around in the unnerving silence, Gary noticed the women in the group staring at him and whispering. One of the bold ladies finally spoke up.

“I’m sure that is him. He lives in this neighborhood, you know. That’s the producer of pornography and the defiler of women,” she shrilled for all to hear.

“We don’t want you here, victimizer, whoremonger!”

The women all started to murmur and grumble, until the entire cafe filled with the cacophony of their misplaced slights. Gary placed his face in his hands and laughed miserably, ducking out into the night without ordering his meal, while the room full of women came screaming after him.

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

ethereal_fauna wrote: Time to begin September's competition:

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before 10 October, and polling will begin on 12 October.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. The honor is listed on your profile and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The genre and topic for this month:

1500 words, author's choice of scifi, horror, or fantasy.

Topic: All good things eventually end. Chronicle the demise of a civilization. This could be anything from the destruction of an entire world, to the obscure and silent ending of a colony of ants. The sole requirement is that by the end of the story, everyone or everything must face death.

Good luck, and be creative!

The winning story:

The Powers That Be wrote: I've been held hostage by real life for the last several weeks, and I'm hopelessly behind on writing, particularly for Abducted!. But I'm back now, and I figure I'll start getting back into it with this.

Uncharacteristically, I had plenty of words to spare.

It was said, falsely, that the answer was found only after all hope was lost. In truth, all hope should have been lost. The inevitability of defeat had been clear for a long time to anyone willing to perform the brutal calculus of war. Outnumbered, outgunned, outwitted at every turn, humanity was steadily yielding ground to the Others, planet by planet, system by system. The chances of victory had dwindled to a mathematical abstraction, a fraction that made “one in a million” seem like a sure thing. And yet, the human capacity for hope, for blind, pointless, absurd self-delusion, was not yet breached. And so it was that the small group of researchers gathered on Earth’s tiny moon toiled on. They had long ago exhausted the obvious and considered the improbable. More recently, they had abandoned the improbable in favor of the impossible. And finally, with no alternative but despair, they progressed to the unthinkable, the intolerable. It was then, when they had finally freed themselves of constraints, of ethical and moral considerations, that they found the solution.

Biological warfare was not a new idea, nor one that was repugnant to all. The means that were used, however, in this desperate hour in this remote place, would later be condemned as inexcusable, even in the face of absolute proof that there was no other route to survival. Suffice it to say that a certain chemical was required to make the virus that would win the war, and this chemical was produced in the bodies of the Others only when subjected to the most extreme forms of torture. As soon as the discovery was made, prisoners of war were transported from far and wide to the Moon to support production.

The virus was really quite ingenious. Airborne and fast to reproduce, it would spread quickly through the populace. The course of the infection was twofold. First it attacked the brain, creating in the victim an overwhelming desire to return home. Carriers in this stage would, like the extinct salmon of Earth, forget all other tasks and brave any obstacles to make their way back to the place of their birth. Each virus was a Pied Piper in reverse, drawing a single rat back to his or her personal Hamelin, where billions of residents waited to be infected in turn.

When the infected Other did reach home, changes in brain chemistry would trigger the second, more conventional, deadly phase of the disease. This phase was long and protracted, as the victim’s body slowly, painfully shut down, organ by organ. The pain and incapacitation would make the victims beg for the death that was still days or weeks away. Eventually, though, their wishes would be granted.

The virus was released in the Betelgeuse system, only recently conceded to the Others. It worked perfectly as advertised. Within days, the planets were emptied, the Others’ ships flying off in all directions as the invaders retraced their steps back to their corner of the galaxy. Before long, all of humanity’s planets had been reclaimed. And soon, the armed forces began to advance, landing on the planets of the Others, usually with no resistance.

A few weeks after the initial release, the Others announced their unconditional surrender. Humanity rejoiced, but only briefly. It wasn’t long before reports began to filter back, stories and images of the Others’ worlds, dominated by slow, painful, inexorable death. Rumors also spread about how the virus was manufactured and what was being done to POWs in humanity’s name.

The Others begged for a cure or at least for help stopping the spread of the virus. The human population similarly petitioned its leaders to come to the aid of the defeated. But there was no cure and the spread could not be stopped.

On the worlds of humanity, there were trials and recriminations. Animosity grew between those who saw the final solution as necessary and those who saw it as unforgivable. Entire planets threatened secession. Local civil wars started and threatened to spread through the galaxy.

Meanwhile, on a remote planet beyond where the war had ever reached, the last of the Others, its body wracked by pain and deformed beyond recognition, perished.

It was at this moment that the Voice was heard. It came from everywhere and nowhere, it was heard by all humans throughout the galaxy, and it was happy.

“Congratulations, my children! You have accomplished a remarkable deed and the people of the galaxy owe you a great debt of gratitude.”

Everywhere, questions were asked. Who are you? What is happening? Where is that voice coming from? But no answers were to come. The Voice was speaking only, not listening.

“We have run billions of full simulations with true AI. Every one, until now, has ended with the complete extermination of humanity. You alone have survived. Not only have you survived, you have won! And by winning your simulated war, you have shown us the way to win the real one. We have collected your data and the virus is being formulated even as we speak. We will do just as you have done, and we will be victorious. Thank you all.”

There was a short pause, and then billions of voices rose up in protest. You are mistaken – we are real, shouted many. Our solution was wrong! Do not repeat our mistakes, pleaded more. What will happen to us now? asked still others. Only this last group would receive a response.

A second Voice cut through the din, with the cold intonation of a computer. “Simulation 18,430,243,971 complete. Termination in 60 seconds. 59…58…”

An entire simulated galaxy froze in horror, unwilling and unable to accept their fate. Noone spoke. Noone moved. Everyone listened, and waited, and wondered.

Everyone, that is, except for the army’s E Company, stationed on the homeworld of the Others. Their mission was to clean up the planet, make it ready for colonization. It was an unpleasant mission involving incineration and the filling of mass graves, and it was far from finished. The simulated soldiers of E Company were not working, however. Nor were they listening to the ethereal countdown. There was no panic or fear in them. There was only a single thought, relentlessly repeating in each one of their minds, driving them back to their ships. A single goal, an impossible goal, denied by the very countdown they ignored. Home.

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

The Powers That Be wrote: Time to begin October's competition:

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before November 6th, and polling will begin on November 8th.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. The honor is listed on your profile and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The genre and topic for this month:

1500 words, author's choice of horror or comedy.

Topic: A Halloween event (it could be a party, trick-or-treating, or something else) goes terribly wrong.

Good luck, and be creative!

The winning story:

Key wrote: OK, here's mine. 1499 words (and boy was it a sweat to get it down :) )

Petey and Me

I shoulda known things would go bad. Soon as I saw him I shoulda known. And if I’d been more scared, maybe Petey would still be around.

Petey’s my partner. Or was. He hated it when I called him Petey. “My name, my dear Jacob, is Peter Finch,” he’d say in his high-falutin way. But my name’s Jake and he always called me Jacob, so I guess we’re even.

Petey died of a bad heart 70 years before me, in the same old house on Sycamore. I didn’t even know he’d died there when I bought the place, much less that he stuck around afterward. But I found out after that tractor accident. After I got all mangled up, my wife and kids couldn’t even see me anymore, so Petey was the only one I could talk to. I think he was lonely, too, so I guess that’s why we got to be friends, though we were kinda different, with him having all that schooling and me not having much.

I know, you don’t want to hear about old times, you want the story – this Halloween, when it all fell apart. All right, but let me tell you something first: Petey and me ain’t evil, ok? I mean, sure, we scared some people who tried to move in, but what else were we supposed to do? How’d you like it if someone showed up at your house, starting building stuff, hammering on the walls, bringing their screaming kids over, all without a pretty please? We paid good money for this place and it ain’t fair for someone to take it over just cause we’re dead.

Petey didn’t even want to start the haunting. But I told him that this is our place and we got to make a stand. Besides, what else were we gonna do for fun? It ain’t like we can go bowling.

So anyway, we scared off a few families. Pretty standard stuff – chains across the floor, tapping on the walls, knocking books off the shelf. Truth is, we can’t do much else; I was a strong guy back in the day, but 90 years of not having a body don’t do much for your muscles. But it worked, and thanks to the stories they told (which were mighty scarier than anything we did), we had the place to ourselves.

Except on Halloween. That was the day the neighborhood kids dared each other to spend a night in the haunted house. It started as a lark in the 50s, but it became a tradition – the kids would come in every Halloween around sunset like clockwork, go through the place from top to bottom, settle down for the night, and then we’d scare the bejeezus out of them.

They were expecting a show, so we gave them more than the run-of-the-mill haunting. Petey liked doing stuff with candles – lighting them, blowing them out – and sometimes he’d sneak up behind the kids and turn off their flashlights. I mostly went for groans and whispers, though I did have this one trick where I showed up inside the wall and stuck out my leg – the one that got caught in the tractor – just far enough to see the red. It looked just like the wall was bleeding.

The kids ate it up. They were scared, of course, but they wouldn’t have been here unless they wanted to be. It was all in good fun. Nobody got hurt.

Until this year, that is. This was the year he showed up – Father Roland, the exorcist.

We knew he was up to something soon as he marched in. He wasn’t a tall guy, but he was thick, like a wrestler, and he had a pissed-off look, like he had a stick up his ass. First thing he said was that he was going to cleanse the house. Now, truth is, the house could use a good cleansing – it’s been 90 years and we got cobwebs something fierce – but I figured he was up to something else.

He had two boys with him, dressed in white, clean and with really short hair. They all started marching through the house splashing holy water all over. That got me and Petey pretty steamed. Our furniture’s seen better days, and the last thing it needed was water stains.

Petey went over there to give them a piece of his mind, maybe blow in their ears or something. But just then Father Roland sniffed the air and looked right at Petey, like he couldn’t see through him. Petey was spooked. He backed up in a hurry and we just watched them then on.

Finally they settled in the living room, lit some candles, and started praying. By this time Petey and me figured out what they were trying to do, but we didn’t take it serious. So we thought we’d have some fun. I creaked the floorboards upstairs, and Petey blew out a couple of their candles. That gave the short-haired boys a scare, but Father Roland just looked more pissed off than usual and grabbed a prayer book and started reading out loud. Petey and I went up to flip some pages and make him lose his place, but then he finished the prayer – and something really weird happened.

A wind blew through us – an ice-cold wind, a wind that woulda froze our bones if we’d had any. Petey and me flew back 10 feet and stood there shivering, then we ran upstairs.

I’d never held much with religion or any of that hocus-pocus, but I hadn’t felt cold like that since I died. So Petey and me figured we should hang out in the attic until they were gone. But then Father Roland really got started downstairs: booming out prayers, lighting incense, ringing bells – the works. And that same cold started seeping up from the downstairs, through the floorboards, right into us.

I told Petey we had to get out of the house, hide in the barn or the fields till tomorrow. But he was having none of it. It was always harder for him to leave the house than me, on account of he’d died here, while I’d popped off in the fields out back. But that priest had got his dander up, too. “I’ll be damned if I let that stick-in-the-mud drive me out of my own home!” he said, straightening up to his full five feet six.

“You’re a good ghost, Petey,” I said. “You got spirit.”

He just looked at me and said, “My name, my dear Jacob, is Peter Finch.” And he marched downstairs into the freezing cold.

What could I do? I followed him down.

Father Roland and his boys were in the middle of the room chanting. The cold was worse here, much worse. I wanted to leave more than anything. But Petey looked them over and said, “I’m going to push the clock onto him.”

I stared at him. Father Roland was in front of the clock, all right. But the clock wasn’t like a cuckoo clock hanging on the wall. It was a grandfather clock, a huge oak thing eight feet tall. It musta weighed three hundred pounds. Even when I was alive, I couldn’t have moved that clock. As a ghost – well, like I said, your muscles don’t get better with age.

But Petey just went behind it and started pushing. “I need your help, Jacob,” he called.

So I went over. It was so cold I could barely move, and the louder Father Roland and his boys chanted, the colder it got. My arms felt like they were being stuck with needles. And I thought how stupid it was, to get frozen into beyond-death trying to push something no ghost could move.

But then a miracle happened: that clock, that 300-pound clock, started to tip! It shook and swayed and Petey and me pushed with all our might, and then I’ll be damned if the whole thing didn’t tip over and drop onto Father Roland’s head.

He was just finishing his chant, and when he said the last words – “Evil spirits, BEGONE!” the coldest wind blew through the place that I’d ever felt in my life or death. I felt like I was being sucked away and chopped into pieces all at once – it took everything I had just to hold on. But as soon as that clock smashed his head, the cold faded away and everything went back to normal. Father Roland’s boys screamed and ran out. I was still pretty woozy, but I let out a whoop and yelled, “Petey, we did it!”

But Petey wasn’t there. Whatever it was had got him. I started crying like a baby.

You know, it’s hard to lose your best friend, specially when you go back 90 years. But that’s not the worst. The worst is who I got to spend the rest of eternity with.

Do you think he’ll let me call him Rollie?

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

Key wrote: You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before December 6th, and polling will begin on December 8th.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. You get a prize of 100 fables, the honor is listed on your profile, and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.


The specs for this month:

Length: Up to 1500 words
Genre: Fantasy, science fiction, or myth.
Topic: The story must involve darkness, a guardian, and a gate. You may interpret that as literally or figuratively as you wish.

Good luck, and be creative!

The winning story:

chinaren wrote: Right then, freshly pounded out, here is my offering. 1055 words, all newly minted. It doesn't concentrate on the gate, guardian and darkness I admit, but hey, whatever. Enjoy! :D

--

Sir James and Sir Harry moved through the plains determinedly. They were weary from travel, but their destination was sure and their hearts were true. Both knights were bold and fearless and meant to see the mission out, no matter what the cost.

As they approached the Dark Forest another figure could be seen resting by the faint path they were traveling along. As they drew close they spied a fellow knight, who stood and waved as they arrived.

“Hail good fellows!” said the Knight. “Wither dost thou venture so far from thine abode?”

“We hail forth on a perilous mission good Sir Edgar.” Replied Sir Harry. “Sir James’ young sister is held in a grim citadel against her will, and we have been sent by the queen to return her to her rightful place back in the royal castle at all speed.”

“Verily! A quest worthy of such champions as thyselves!” Sir Edgar, being a true knight, paused only a moment. “In such a just and righteous cause I findeth I must pledge my aid. Wilt thou acceptest my humble service in thy quest good Sir James?”

Sir James nodded his head in accent, “Ay. Thou art welcome to join us good Knight.”

Whereupon the three set forth at once, for they were nearing their destination. Venturing around the Dark Forest they spied the monstrous monument in the distance. Before they could close though, Sir Harry spied a creature lurking near a rocky outcrop.

He raised his hand, “Hold! I spy the infamous Ogre, Gerard the Giant! A beast feared throughout the realm.”

Sir James raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “He blockest our path, we must deal with this foul creature ere we canst proceed. Yet time groweth short!”

Sir Harry waved his hand. “I shalt deal with the beast. May I suggest thee good knights retire to yonder cover, and once I lurest the Ogre away thou should maketh best speed to the Citadel, and the fair Princess Alice.”

The other knights agreed to his plan, and took cover whilst the brave Sir Harry went forth toward the grim and hulking Gerard Giant. “Ho! Foul beast! Look hither! I have plenty of gold upon my person, yet thou shalt never hold it!”

Thus goaded Gerard, who was large of bulk but small of intellect, growled and raised his mancrushing club. “I will have it I troth!” he uttered in coarse language, and lumbered after the nimble Sir Harry who retreated past the other knights and back up the path.

Once Gerard was past, the other knights made haste towards the citadel, wishing Sir Harry good luck under their breath.

The giant and grim building loomed large.

“Look!” whispered Sir Edgar. “There standeth the portal. The gate to this unforgiving place.”

“Verily, but hisst! Cast thine eyes yonder! Pacing back and forth is the guardian! The mighty Demon! How shalt we get past him! He must stand twice as tall as oursleves, and weareth a grim visage. I hear he hath mighty powers.”

“I must makest the sacrifice for the young princess.” Responded Edgar bravely. “Go quietly around and into the portal, whilst I draw the guardian away.”

Sir James nodded and after wishing Sir Edgar the best of luck, moved around whilst Edgar fished out his sling and loaded it with a suitable missile. Once James was in place near the dread portal, Edgar stood and, whirling the sling with a certain flamboyant style, loosed it at the guardian.

It hit, yet the guardian still stood! The guardian, seeing Edgar roared with anger, its giant face turning red and ran with frightening speed towards the knight. Sir Edgar was no fool though and retreated with haste.

James, taking full advantage rushed in. Pushing at the giant gate he stepped beyond, into total darkness. Feeling his way along he realized he was in a long dark corridor.

“Alice!” he called. “Alice! Can thou hear me? ‘Tis I, James, thy brother!”

There was a glimmer of light in the distance. Was that a response? He moved forward in hope through the darkness.

Yes! Another doorway! He moved as fast as he dared, and soon stood in a vast chamber. Sunlight streamed in from windows set high in the strong walls.

Sat on a giant chair, legs dangling over the edge was Alice! Seeing him she smiled a big smile and jumped to the floor and ran to him.

“James! Thou camest! I knew thou wouldst fetch me from here!” She frowned though. “But why so long? I hath been rotting here forever it seems!”

“My deepest apologies sister, I had to cross many an obstacle to reach thee. But I am here now, and we must maketh all haste to return! Time is running short!”

Taking Alice by the hand he led her through the dark corridor, and cautiously peered out of the gate. The guardian was still no-where to be seen, so they ran at best speed away from the horrid building.

“We art late!” gasped James. “We must taketh a shortcut through the Dark Forest!”

“No! Not there! It is a scary place, full of ghosts and what-not.” Responded Alice.

“We hath no choice my dear sister.” And James led Alice into the Dark woods.

They ventured onwards, skulking in the shadows to avoid any creatures, but they were lucky. Only once did they have to hide behind a giant tree to avoid a dark Hellhound, its fiery eyes gleaming red in the gloom.

After a long journey they finally burst free of the forest, out into the open again, but time was drawing short. Making all haste they made their way back to the Royal Castle, two refugees from the many perils of the wide world.

When they got home, mum berated James for taking so long to pick his sister up from school. James responded that it was a long way, and he was delayed by the school bully, Gerard, and Mr. Damon who always guarded the school gate to tell off late-comers.

Their mum nodded finally, they were just in time for dinner after all. “Now go and wash your hands! The table is laid and the potatoes are getting cold!”

Sir James and Princess Alice, hungry from their adventures, nodded and rushed away to the feast…

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

chinaren wrote: Okay then, time to vote people! Can someone remind me when the voting ends please?

Good luck to all the writers! :D


You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before Jan 6th, and polling will begin on Jan 8th.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. You get a prize of 100 fables, the honor is listed on your profile, and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The specs for this month:

Length: Up to 1511 words
Genre: Whatever you like.

Topic:

The story must involve a telephone (or other communication device which serves the same purpose and works in the same sort of manner) some Good news and some Bad news. In addition it must also contain the word: burst.

You may interpret that as literally or figuratively as you wish. :shock:

Happy Linear Story competing! :)

The winning story:

lordofthenight wrote: First Class Service

The phone rang, the noise inaudible, due to the heavy metal blaring out from the speakers of the busy shop. John Morton, proprietor of the Last Gambit was too busy to answer the call regardless. The small shop was crowded with customers, searching frantically through the shelves stacked high with engraved skulls and silver jewelry. Ever since two days hence, the store had been filled to bursting point. This was due to the skeleton which had been hung in the centre of town, its bones stripped of flesh, and a sliver pentagram worn on a pendant around its neck.

During the day the phone rang three times, each of which was ignored by the long haired Caucasian who owned the store. It wasn’t until he was closing down for the night that he finally heard it ring. Shaking his black hair out of his eyes he crossed the shop floor swiftly and held it to his ear.

“Mr. Morton.” It was not a question. The voice was calm and monotonous, with a slight infliction at the beginning of every word. “It has come to our attention that you need our help”

John shook his head at the prank caller, and replaced the phone on its hook, and left the shop.

************************************************************************

The next day he returned to his place of work, and, as was his custom, turned on the speakers. Or, to be more specific, he tried to turn on the speakers. In actual fact, what came out of the black boxes didn’t sound like music at all. A thin, weedy rasping sound made its way out, followed by a few clicks. The rasping sound then continued. John was no expert at technology, but he was fairly sure this was not a usual occurrence. He picked up the phone, and began to dial the number.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help” The same monotonous voice, the inflictions in all the same places. Now very confused, John replaced the phone, and dialed again. As soon as the voice began to speak John hung up.

Reaching under the till for a copy of the yellow pages, he scrolled down through the list for the number of a different repairman. He dialed in the number, and was connected. One ring and the voice answered in its usual tone.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help

“Who are you people?” John replied. He was not a man given to displays of emotion, and managed to keep his voice slow and steady. “What is it you want?”

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that that you need our help.” The voice continued as if he had never spoken, as if he had not spoken.

“Who are you? Are you…a recording?”

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help.”

John replaced the phone, and turned away. He had taken two steps when the phone rang again. Knowing who it would be he turned regardless, and put the receiver to his ear.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help.”

With a snarl of frustration, which to anyone who knew him well – there were none – would have been extreme, John slammed the phone back down, before removing it from the hook. Then he turned and left the shop quickly, locking the door behind him.

************************************************************************

It was two hours later that he managed to track down a repairman who was open for business on Sunday. The man promised to come as soon as he could. When John returned to the store he found a crowd of people had gathered outside the shop, and were waiting to be let in. Impatiently John pushed his way through them, and opened the door to the shop, letting the masses in. While they were searching the shelves he had no time to think, to busy was he running the till and answering questions. It was not until a slight lull in the frenzied store that he had a chance to sit down. It was then that the phone rang.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help.” John shook his head, and replaced the phone. As the customers slowly filed their way out, back to their homes and family, he realized that he had left the phone off the hook, making its ringing an impossibility. He glanced at it, seeing it firmly on the hook, and shrugged.

The phone and the doorbell rang once in harmony and John jumped. He moved to let the repairman in, and showed him to the speakers. He ignored the phone. After five minutes of ringing the repairman – whose name was Mr. Wright – looked up.

“Mate – your phones ringing. You know that right?”

“I know” replied John with a shrug. “I don’t want to answer it.” The repairman sighed and climbed to his feet. He picked up the phone and listened to the voice at the other end.

“It’s for a Mr. Morton. Would that be you?” With a sigh John took the phone and placed it to his ear.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help.” He hung up.

“Well John, I’ve got some good news. Your speakers are fixed. A fly or something had somehow gotten into the wiring and chewed away at the wires. It should be fine now.” John thanked the man, and paid him.
As he was leaving the phone rang.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help.”

************************************************************************

The next day was Monday, which was usually the quietest time of the week. The influx of people that the skeleton had generated died down, mostly were the coroners report came back saying that the bones were a century old, and that this was not about to become a regular occurrence.

John was sitting in his shop as usual, listening to his music on his newly repaired speakers. The phone rang. Sighing, he walked over and picked it up.

“Mr. Morton. It has come to our attention that you need our help.” Instead of merely replacing the handset, he thought the question carefully.

“What do I need your help for?”

We are afraid we have some bad news Mr. Morton.”

“What is it?” John replied, pleased to have finally moved on.

“We regret to inform you. Your phone is broken.”

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

lordofthenight wrote:
You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before Feb 6th, and polling will begin on Feb 8th. The competion will end on Feb 15th.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. You get a prize of 100 fables, the honor is listed on your profile, and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The specs for this month:

Length: Up to 1999 words
Genre: Historical Fiction

Topic: Must contain the words 'explanatively' and 'chancrous'. It must also feature a surgeon - of some discription - and a dream.
The winning story:

Jack_D.Mented wrote: And now, for my entry...


It was his duty, his obligation, as it were, to rid the world of these five Daughters of Venus before they could do any more damage. Of course, it was incumbent to show explanatively, unmistakably, his pain to the world. He had to watch his son, his precious heir, waste away into nothing as chancrous sores appeared on his young face and his brain softened until, in his last hours, he was simply a drooling idiot.

But before he had passed, he had said five names. Five loose women whom he'd had relations with before his decline. As he looked at it, this list was not just of names, but a list of things to do before his own death. Four names were crossed out on the crumpled sheet. One remained.

He had been a surgeon in the war. But that was before his prodigious hands had been marred and disfigured in a terrible fire. Now they weren't much good for much more than simple butchery. And to him, these women were beasts, foul sirens of debauchery that had lured his precious boy from the Lord.

It was in a dream that he was shown the way. Five graves in the poorest cemetery, covered with the newspapers that heralded a new crowned prince of crime, watched over by the spirit of his departed, who took his father's hand and smiled. He would be able to rest after this.

Picking up the ebony case and placing his deerstalker hat upon his head, the doctor exited the door and let it close behind him. The slam was like the trumpets of a thousand angels heralding the arrival of a great redeemer. It brought to the man a change. His eyes became like ice, cold and unforgiving where once they had been once warm and friendly and his mouth curved into what appeared to be a permanent frown where once there had been once nothing but smiles beneath that same mustache.

He was now a different man than his friends or family had ever seen within him. They would have never suspected that such a ruthless creature, an unflinching hunter without mercy, lurked within this silent man. The transformation was complete. Now he was Jack, monarch of the gas lit streets.

Amazing how death changes people. It had filled his life with purpose and understanding, a clarity which had never existed within his absinthe hazed world before. The drugs were no longer within his system and it showed. He saw things no other man saw, heard things no other man could hear, and knew things no mortal should know.

It was like being a god. It was incredible. He knew that it was divine intervention which had granted him this clairvoyance. Jack climbed into his carriage. The driver knew where to go. It had been previously discussed. Opening the black case, he ran his white gloved fingers over his tools.

A Listen knife, a scalpel, a saw, and several other nightmarish instruments of amputation waited, eager to begin the night's work. The silver gleamed in short flashes as the vehicle gained speed, passing several streetlights. Each one was razor sharp, the blade honed to a fine edge that would slice through most anything with ease. The effect was hypnotizing and jack simply let himself fade away into the magic until the sound of horse's hooves pounding upon the hard road seemed a thousand miles away.


The carriage door was open and the steps extended long before the thought occurred to exit. Jack stepped out and his cloak swirled about him majestically in the wind. He glided along in the eerie fog, silent as a ghost, knowing where his destination lay and finding it with no difficulty. The window was broken just as he had been told.

A white hand, contrasting sharply with the darkness, reached through the breach and freed the lock with uncanny skill. The door eased open smoothly, without so much as a sound and the black figure slid into the room. He opened his case on the table and extracted the knife, the long blade as stealthy and deadly as its owner. Jack made his way across the room to the bed upon which slept a young woman with flowing red locks tossed about her, almost resembling pools of dark blood.

Jack cupped a hand over the woman's mouth. In response, her eyes popped open almost immediately. Struggling away for but a second, she cried out. A slice of the blade across her throat silenced her and sent blood spurting across the room as Jack the Ripper commenced his work.

"Mary Kelly, I presume?"

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

Jack_D.Mented wrote: Ok, folks. Time for another competition. The procedure is the normal drill as follows-

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Submissions should be posted on or before March 17th. Polling begins on March 18th and ends on March 24th.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct. This is a voluntary effort and no one person's responsibility. Please make comments and criticisms of entries constructive.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month. You get a prize of 100 fables, the honor is listed on your profile, and your story is immortalized in the City Auditorium.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, now that that's done, we have the interesting part, the rules...

Genre- Whatever you like.

Length- up to 1655 words.

Your story must be about a Knight Templar (as in the Crusades) and his descent into madness while featuring the word defenestrate in some form (meaning feel free to add "ed" or "ing" to the end, as long as it's in there.).

For those of you who are wondering-

de•fen•es•trate To throw out of a window

The winning story:

ethereal_fauna wrote: Ye that know the Lord is gracious,
Ye for whom a Corner-stone
Stands, of God elect and precious,
Laid that ye may build thereon,
See that on that sure foundation
Ye a living Temple raise,
Towers that may tell forth salvation,
Walls that may re-echo praise

C. A. Alington 1872 1955

The Unfortunate Defenestrating of Jacob’s Crystallized Faith

With heavy heart and unrelenting sorrow I, Dame Michaela Bernardi, sit to pen this woeful tale of spirit. Only the benevolent and merciful Lord should comprehend the tragic events that befell the charitable soul of our beloved brother Geoffrey Bissot, and my sole prayer remains that by sharing his account of misfortune others might come to understand.
**

The Grand Priory of the Knights Templar in England and Wales resulted from the merger of several priories. For the sake of knowledge, a brief remembrance along with an account of the marriage that took place in the Cathedral at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk follows.

Near to the royal castle of Windsor, on the 15th day of June in the year of our Lord 1215, on a meadow adjoining the Thames and traditionally referred to as Runnymede, a reluctant King John signed the highly momentous document known as the 'Magna Carta'. The first Baron to co-sign the charter was a Templar Knight, Brother Aymeric. Some point prior to this significant event the Barons had met for preliminary discussions to formulate their demands, set out in the Articles of the Barons, at the Abbey of St Edmund.

Nearly 800 years later, on Saturday the 28th day of June in the year of our Lord 2003, three Templar organizations of England & Wales met together in the Cathedral Church of St James, St Edmundsbury, Suffolk, to bring to a blissful culmination many years of exploratory dialogue and three years of patient, prayerful, precise planning to form a amalgamated union to replace the formerly separate Templar organizations. On that historic day the three became one under the leadership of the unanimously elected Grand Prior, Simon Le Fevre, and supported by a newly constituted and elected Grand Chapter.

Laid out around a Benedictine Abbey founded in AD 945, Bury St Edmonds represented the first Norman planned ‘new town’ centered on the shrine of St Edmonds, the last East Anglian King, who was executed by the Danes in AD 870. The town takes its name from this shrine. Consequent upon the royal vandalism of Henry VIII, the shrine laid in ruins until restored into a beautiful garden.

In this historic setting the marriage took place, following the long courtship between The Grand Priory of the Knights Templar in England and Wales, the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem and the Order of the Industrial Templars. The final acceptance to this union had previously been given at Rothley, Leicestershire, an historic Templar center, on Saturday the 22nd day of March in the year of our Lord 2003. A short engagement followed during which the final details of the nuptial contract formulated together with the practical details, which any marriage requires.
**

But now to persist with this tale of woe. As with even the best of marriages, and the most content of unions, conflict does arise from time to time between the united. Our ennobled brother Jacob Levy proved a source of great reckoning for the benevolent Sir Bissot.

Not so much the personage of Knight Levy, but rather the indulgence he made with his favored hobby, irritated Bissot so. In fact, being Dame of truth and severe honesty, I must clarify further and state that Bissot regarded the actual hobby with little disdain, and instead focused his angst for some unfortunate reason on a specific aspect of Levy’s enjoyment- a spoiled and pampered terrier named Jacob’s Crystallized Faith.

Sir Levy demonstrated charity and chivalry in almost all pursuits, but the gratification garnered from the breeding and showing of champion terriers suited his ostentatious personality. Favored most among his charges, Jacob’s Crystallized Faith accompanied Levy almost everywhere the man went, and secretive conversations took place between man and beast.

Jacob’s Crystallized Faith harbored an immediate animosity towards our good Sir Bissot, and indeed the acrimony readily presented in Bissot as well. Their initial encounter resulted in a painful nip of teeth to hand, and thereafter much barking ensued when one resided in the presence of the other.

Through unfortunate events, Levy and Bissot realized a regrettable merger whereupon they often discovered themselves in the presence of the other, much to the delight of Levy and Jacob’s Crystallized Faith. The formerly stable Bissot slowly began to unravel.

I observed the first inclinations when Bissot began avoiding the monstrous little dog at great pains. He accepted the most odious of tasks, with the ultimate goal of an outlet from the persistence of the terrier. He muttered often under his breath, the most heinous and severe curses against the beast.

However, I failed to suspect a descent into madness until the beef incident. Bissot arrived in a pleasant mood, maniacal eyes twinkling with mischief and a tinge of malice. He made grand show of his peace offering, bowing low before approaching Jacob’s Crystallized Faith and offering the tasty tidbit. The dog sniffed the donation, daintily accepted the treat, and then proceeded to sink his sturdy canines into Bissot’s hand.

After uttering a string of words, which my holy ears refuse to remember hearing, Bissot laughed hysterically and went his way. Jacob’s Crystallized Faith settled once more onto his cushion, but shortly sat up and vomited in an amazing display of green bile and yellow foam. Levy twittered about in a state of panic that did not subside until the following day, when the veterinarian released Jacob’s Crystallized Faith along with a stern warning about the ill effects of ethylene glycol based antifreezes.

Bissot of course denied any malicious intent, and for a week or so I actually thought that he might have heeded those pangs of guilt he surely felt for his betrayal. I worried at his mental state, although false hope led me to believe that he actually found a path back to normalcy.

Circumstance soon dashed that feeble hope. On a clear Friday afternoon, with the sweet singing of the birds filtering through the open window, Bissot finally cracked. Jacob’s Crystallized Faith growled subtly, and in rare form. He had nipped at Bissot’s heels traversing the stairs, a routine that aggravated Bissot until no end. Upon entering the room, crisp from the caress of the breeze entering via the window, the dog decided to inflict a new insult. He jumped perkily into Bissot’s chair as the man bent with intent to sit, and bit his left buttock with a throaty growl.

Levy suppressed a smirk and chastised Jacob’s Crystallized Faith with half-hearted remonstration. His entire demeanor changed to that of terror however, when Bissot turned and hoisted the dog by the scruff of the neck. Again Bissot uttered a string of words, which my holy ears refuse to remember hearing, and with a final venomous diatribe about mangy mongrels, he headed towards the window.

Jacob’s Crystallized Faith whimpered and wagged his tail in a nervous jiggle. Levy’s mouth opened and closed like a large fish. I remained paralyzed, horrified by the clear intent apparent in Bissot’s actions. Surely the man would not defenestrate the prized, champion terrier.

Before even the hand of God could intercede, Bissot hurled Jacob’s Crystallized Faith through the open window. He lurched out of the window with the effort, catching hands against the pane to prevent his own egress, and hooted with unrestrained delight at the squelching thud from below. Levy had a sharp intake of breath, followed by its apparent release that must have issued forth as a high-pitched wail that only Jacob’s Crystallized Faith could have heard. I fainted.

With heavy heart and unrelenting sorrow I, Dame Michaela Bernardi, thus conclude this woeful tale of spirit. Only the benevolent and merciful Lord should comprehend the tragic events that befell the charitable soul of our beloved brother Geoffrey Bissot, and my sole prayer remains that by sharing his account of misfortune others might come to understand.

[Ingrothechundyer]

The rules for the round:

ethereal_fauna wrote: Time for March's competition:

You will have about 3 weeks to write a short story, edit it, and post it for consideration. Post entries before or on April 14. Polling begins April 15 and ends April 20.

Proof readers will take your story, break it down, make sure it fits the word limit, grammar, spelling, plot, character development, etc. are all present and correct.

You can make changes to your story all the way up to the final posting date. After that, the stories that have not passed the critique will be disqualified. Those that are left will be put up for a vote for anyone to vote on.

If you win, you get to brag for a whole month, have your story immortalized in the City Auditorium, and earn a Fable reward in recognition from our Mayor.

This will be run like a professional writing contest. Your story will be edited, picked apart, and thoroughly looked at. If you exceed more than ten spelling or grammar errors, your story will be given back to you to rewrite. So check your work.

If your work goes over the word limit it will be given back to shorten. If it remains the same length it will be disqualified.

If your story does not follow the topic and genre, it will be given back to you to rewrite.

Things that must be right vs. artistic freedom- There are things like plot, and flow that might be your intent. That is totally cool. A proof reader might suggest that you pick up the pace or add more detail here and there. That is your choice to do or not. If you feel the story can stand on its own without change that is fine. Spelling, grammar, genre, word count, etc. are expected to be correct, no exceptions.

If you are proofreading- Look for spelling and grammar mistakes first. Word count comes next. Then answer the following questions for the story.

Did it stay within the genre?
Did it follow the topic?
Did it have a beginning, middle, and an end?

After you have done this feel free to comment on the story as you see fit. Bear in mind that anything beyond what is listed above is pretty much considered opinion. This can be taken or left by the author.

The genre and topic for this month:

Genre: 1900 words, author's choice of thriller/horror or action/adventure

Thriller/horror- A thriller is a story intended to evoke strong feelings of suspense and danger, usually involving a high-stakes hunt, chase, or a race against time. Thrillers often involve espionage, crime, medicine, or technology. Horror fiction aims to evoke some combination of fear, fascination, and revulsion in its readers. This genre, like others, continues to evolve, recently moving away from stories with a religious or supernatural basis to ones making use of medical or psychological ideas.

Action/adventure- These stories feature physical action and violence, often around a quest or military-style mission set in exotic or forbidding locales such as jungles, deserts, or mountains. The conflict typically involves commandos, mercenaries, terrorists, smugglers, pirates, and the like. Stories include elements of courage, male bonding, and betrayal, as well as lore on technology, weapons, and other hardware.

Topic: The staff of a publishing firm, intending to generate a popular book series, creates a conspiracy theory in the form of an urban legend, over which they lose control as it begins to be believed.

Good luck, and be creative!

The winning story:

Shady Stoat wrote: A Dream Come True

It’s cold down here. The lights are flickering like a cheap B-Movie. I can’t help but think that’s what this all is. Despite the death, despite the fact that they’ll get through the doors eventually and come to get me, it doesn’t feel real.

Did I really kill two people? Am I going to be next to die? Can any of this really be true?

The lights are making my eyes ache, but I don’t want to be alone in the basement in the dark. I’m afraid of what might come for me…

This is what I’ve been reduced to. A whimpering five year old, afraid to turn the lights out for fear of the monsters in the dark. Three weeks ago, I was a top executive in a publishing firm. The guy who could sell anything to anyone. The guy who was scared of nothing and nobody.

When the new book came in – the one titled How Legends Grow, it landed straight on my desk. The difficult projects always do.

It was a dry and dusty work. The only reason we were publishing it is because it was written by one of our creditors. When a company’s in as deep as we are, the occasional favour doesn’t go amiss. Still, this work was dull. I’ve read more interesting dictionaries!

It was a dilemma. Mr. Can-Sell-Anything wasn’t going to be thwarted, though. Oh no – it was a matter of pride to get an audience for this pile of crap. After three days, I finally came up with a plan.

We would invent our