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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:57 pm    Post subject: Story of a Picture (Soap) 2! Closed.  

Okay all! SoaP2 has now closed, and it is a triumph for Smee. Not only did he get all the guesses right, he also wrote the winning story, - Mantoswim!

Congrats to Smee! The cheque is in the post! ;)

Entry 1 - It. 18% [ 2 ] Phang
Entry 2 - Hopeless. 0% [ 0 ] Dragon_Fire
Entry 3 - The Survivor. 0% [ 0 ] Stoat (1)
Entry 4 - Mantoswim. 54% [ 6 ] Smee
Entry 5 - Eleven years. 9% [ 1 ] Idea Master
Entry 6 - The Ghost. 9% [ 1 ] Stoat (2)
Entry 7 - 24601 9% [ 1 ] Araex


----
Guesses and points

Lord of the Night - 9 points.
Smee (1) - 2 points. (2) - 6 points. (3) - 17 points.



----

Chinaren's STORY OF A PICTURE 2 competition!

Roll up roll up! Take part in the competition they have all been talking about! Write! Read! Vote! Pay Chinaren money! Win! Win! Win!!!!

Winners of SoaP1 were:
Shady Stoat - Best story
E_Fauna & Smee - Most correct guesses.

Rules and all that jazz. Please read carefully:

There are several parts to this competition:

1. Look, write, submit.

Below this entry I will post a picture.

Look at the picture and write a short story (max 2001 words) which, at some point, the picture is a part of.

For example. If the picture is of a man jumping through a window, then you can write a story where a man, at some point in the tale, jumps through a window.

In the story you must describe the picture and it must match the picture pretty much exactly.

When you have written the story DO NOT POST IT HERE!!!

PM it, or e-mail it, to me!! Do not tell anyone you have written the story!! I will donate the Fables I get for posting entrants' stories back to the author*

The first entry will get their story entered for free, otherwise the entry fee is a very reasonable 20Fables per story.


2. Judgement.

There are two parts to 'The Judgement'.

a. Best story:

The first is a straight vote on which story you like the best.
The prize to the winning author will be 100Fables and the opportunity to submit the picture for the next SoaP!

b. Guess who wrote them!

The second competition requires 10Fables to enter. You must guess who wrote each story.

You will Score:

One point (1) for guessing an author, but not putting the right name to the right story. EG:If Smee writes story number 10, and you guess Smee wrote story 5, then you get 1 point.

4 points for guessing correctly eg: Smee number 10.

1 point for 'guessing' your own entry, as it isn't fair to give three, but it isn't fair to not reward you either.

Of course, this part requires the authors to play along here and not give away what they wrote. Any breach of this rule and the author will forfeit the prize, (should they win) and be barred from entering the next competition.

The person who guesses correctly first, or if no one guesses by the close date, the person who guesses most, wins a Fables prize, which will be dependant upon how many people paid to guess**.


*Minus a very small handling fee**.
**Hey, I'm not a charity you know!

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

The picture will be posted below, chosen by Shady Stoat as winner of SoaP 1.

Entrance is open until I get enough stories or until a date that I decide it is closed, depends on the response really.

Remember: If you write a story PM it to me! Don't post it here!!

Happy SoaPing!
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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:59 pm    Post subject:  



If you can't see the image copy this address into your browser:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/chinren/SoaP2a.jpg
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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 5:00 pm    Post subject: Entry 1 - It.  

It looked up as it saw the two prey in their long white lab coats talking between themselves before opening the door to its home and stepping inside, without caring to bother greeting it or even take any notice of its presence. They carried on talking in their loud, roudy voices until their conversation moved on to it.

"This is 10-5-01A/90, our longest resident still living. He refers to himself only as it, and as you can see on the walls he..."

Their voices trailed off into a loud hum again as it grew tired of concentrating on their coversation. It went back to waiting, regaining its energy spent on listening to the noise. When they turned to inspect its message on the wall it moved. Stealthily, in fact near undetectably - it had many generation's pratice behind it - it moved closer, slowly at first as it made sure they weren't concentrating on it, then picking up the pace to cross the bare stone floor of the old cell towards them. As it reached closer it quickened until it struck with lightning speed, gripping the young trainee's neck with surprising strength for such a withered, thin body. It squeezed tight, draining the life from the man who had only just become an adult, but he did not die. The older prey tried to prise its hands away but there was no hope. It felt like it had the strength of more than one person...

*~*~*

It looked up as it saw the two prey in their long white lab coats talking between themselves before opening the door to its home and stepping inside, without caring to bother greeting it or even take any notice of its presence. They carried on talking in their loud, roudy voices until their conversation moved on to it.

"This is 10-5-01A/90, our longest resident still living. He refers to himself only as it, and as you can see on the walls he..."

The old prey continued talking to the younger, but moved around to watch it. The two remembered, faintly, like a dream, being each other, but they had pushed it to the back of their minds long ago. He turned back to the trainee, and directed him towards the writings on the wall. It struck again, but something stopped the old prey from intervening. He touched the scars on his neck, and matched them with the hands of 10-5-01A/90. With his own hands.

He turned back to the writing on the wall, left by the first It - "Death shall set us free". It didn't mean it's own death - it meant the death of another, for it to become them and they to become it. So it went, forever.

*~*~*

The year is 2050. It looks up as it sees the two prey in their long white lab coats talking between themselves before opening the door to its home and stepping inside, without caring to bother greeting it or even take any notice of its presence. They carry on talking in their loud, roudy voices until their conversation moves on to it.

"This is 10-5-01A/90, our longest resident still living. He refers to himself only as it, and as you can see on the walls he..."
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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:33 pm    Post subject: Entry 2 - Hopeless.  

Hopeless.

This was the only thought that could enter his mind, the only emotion that could worm its way into his dry and withered heart. It was the spice with which he seasoned his food, the alcohol that put him to sleep at night, and the name he had taken upon himself long after he had forgotten who he used to be. It echoed, whispering in the concrete cell that was his whole world, again and again rebounding upon itself: hopeless. To him, this was all there was.

Such were his thoughts in the night, when the cold moonlight cut into the small room, glimmering on the bars in the window. It illuminated the scrawled messages and half-formed words cut into the walls. Upon the man it fell, showing him as a half-dead creature, pale, scarred and emaciated. He leaned with sullen weariness against the side of his cell, watching the door with sunken eyes, waiting. He knew what would come, he knew he could not escape, and he had long ago ceased to care. Dully his gaze traveled around his cell, despite the fact that he had memorized its every detail. For a moment his staring eyes lingered on one of the few complete messages that covered the otherwise bare walls: Death shall set us free. Then without further thought, his gaze passed on.

In the corridor outside, footsteps approached. A key turned in the door, and the man fixed his eyes upon it. Slowly it creaked open. In glided three man-figures, cloaked in black. They were only barely distinguishable in the pale light of the moon outside, for they brought no light of their own. They did not need it. The temperature in the room dropped as they approached, fear seeped in, and the man shrank into his corner. As one, the creatures reached for him.

They raised up their pale hands and laid hold of him. His skin crawled at the contact, and instinctively he thrashed around, trying to escape. He never could. With gleaming red eyes, they bore him to the ground. Their bottom jaws widened, lengthened, their pale tongues dripped. Black teeth latched into the man’s flesh.

Without a thought, he screamed. But he could not move, and there was no escape. The creatures fed, hissing and gulping for what seemed an eternity. Eventually, though, they stood again, licking the blood from their faces, laughing as he panted, shivered, wailed thinly at their feet. And then, all at once, they turned and left.

The man lay in a haze of pain and ebbing fear, and as the night wore on he listened numbly to the screams of the others in the cells around him, whose faces he had never seen. Once, eons ago when he was first brought here, he might have felt compassion. Once, he would have wished them all death. For, as he had believed, Death shall set us free.

A wishful fantasy. There would be no death for the poor people trapped within this prison. For centuries, millennia, they had lived in torment and emptiness, for when their jailers fed, they passed on their immortality. No, he would never be free, not until the trumpet pealed at the end of days.

He was past all longing, past imagining what could have been. A beast he was, crouching sullen in the corner of his cell, as the hateful word reverberated within the darkness.

Hopeless.
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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:40 pm    Post subject: Entry 3 - The Survivor.  

THE SURVIVOR

Red Gryst looked up as the prison guards stepped into the room. It was hard to say whether the expression on his face was more of wariness or hunger.

The senior officer bulked over him. “It’s your turn.”

Gryst shuffled past them and out into the corridor. They flanked him, behind and out to either side. For a moment, he entertained the pleasant daydream of turning and fighting back. Gouging their eyes out with a potato peeler, then paring the flesh from their bones inch by inch as they screamed their agony into the echoing stone. Watching the blood flow – the lovely, bright red blood, from whence he had earned both his name and reputation.

Those days were long gone, though, he thought with a sigh. Once, maybe, when he had been healthy and well-fed and formidable, he could have gorged on the red meat of their flesh, adding their power to his own. Now he was little more than a walking skeleton, waiting for…

Death shall set us free.

They had lied – not only to Red, but to everyone else in this hellhole. His body may have been lost to years of interment, but his mind was as sharp as it had ever been.

He was onto them. Where there was a scam, there was a squeeze; and where there was a squeeze, there was an opportunity.

Frag the rest of the fools! Let ‘em rot – or worse. He was out to get what he could get.

Finally, they arrived at the door. It was made of light wood, an incongruent piece of modernisation in an archetypal dungeon setting. It had no locks, merely a brass handle that turned in a slick and well-oiled way.

“Go make your pitch, filth,” grumbled the senior guard. “You got five friggin’ minutes.”

He gave Red a shove which sent him stumbling hard against the door. The handle bashed his skeletal ribcage and he vowed he would feast on that man’s brain before this was all over.

Hiding his rage behind a pair of blank eyes, he righted himself and turned the handle, stepping inside.

The room hurt his eyes. It was two meters wide and long, three meters high, claustrophobic and stifling, even though it was slightly bigger than his own cell. Used, as he was, to grey stone, grey guards, grey food and grey skies, the abundance of green was disturbing. Red, now, red would have been a feast for the eyes. Maybe soon.

He sat down in the green armchair, feeling the soft green carpet beneath his feet. His eyes were fixed on the grey screen in front of him. It filled the whole wall, down to the level of his knees. There was the faint hiss of technology as it waited with machinelike dispassion for him to speak.

His eyes narrowed.

“I know what you’re up to,” he began. “I left you a message on the wall of my cell. You must have read it. You know I’ve worked it out. And I know the people will never get to see this. But you will. That’s what counts.”

He waited, but there was only silence.

“What I didn’t understand at first was why you were lying to us.” His words began to come a little faster, aware that seconds were ticking by. “I mean, you’ve got us here, at your mercy. Why bother to tell us that there were re-trials on offer? Why lie?”

Silence.

“Then I figured it out. Entertainment. You get us in here, we spill our guts about what we did and didn’t do. We talk, you watch. The whole fraggin’ world watches. Then the whole fraggin’ world votes. Am I right?”

Silence.

“ANSWER ME!” Red roared suddenly and slammed a fist into the screen. It shook against the shock, but he hadn’t damaged it. He knew he couldn’t. Seconds were ticking and he was wasting them on his fury. He sat back down again, allowing the cold rage to sink into himself again.

“I figured, the system’s overcrowded. Nobody ends up dead any more. Appeals and more appeals and stays of execution. Not good for the governor, eh? Too many damn crims, no more room in the prisons?” He let out a laugh that was at least half snarl. “So… leave it to the people, am I right? Am I fraggin’ right? They listen to the appeals, then they press the little red buttons.”

He leaned in close to the camera. “If all these suckers are getting free appeals, how come none of ‘em ever come back? Eh? How stupid do you think we are? How stupid do you think I am?”

He could feel the anger bubbling its way back to the surface. Blood would have made him calmer, but he could barely remember the taste of his last victim. It was like a dream from long ago.

How much time was remaining? Was anyone even listening? He had to try!

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” he demanded. “They get voted off. Then they get the chair. You’ve turned us into a freakin’ reality show. You know that? Of course you know that. And you call us the sick ones?”

Red stood up, aware that the camera would follow him, wherever he was in the room.

“Trouble is, now that you know I’ve figured you out, you’ll have to do somethin’. You could always rig the vote. Send me for ‘re-trial’. But…” He whirled and showed the gaunt lines of his face to the camera again. “… I could do more for this show alive than dead. Here it comes. I want in.”

Silence.

Gryst’s mad eyes stared into the blankness of the screen.

“You’re doing it all wrong. You got people voting for the next volt-dancer. That’s great, but where’s the theatre in some guy getting’ the zap? One buzz and it’s all over.”

Time was slipping. Red could feel the hot prickle of sweat on his skin. He was running out of time. He began to speed his speaking almost to a jabber.

“Get the people to vote. Sure. Two votes, not one. Every week, they pick two to fight it out. Live cameras, blood, action, death, you could have it all.”

The words tumbled out.

“You’ll need an arena. Maybe a live audience, make ‘em pay for tickets. Feed the prisoners up, maybe. Give ‘em trainers. Weapons. Make them fight for survival.”

His eyes were two black holes. “I could do it. They’d trust me – ‘specially if they knew the truth. At least they’ve got a chance this way. That’s what they’d think anyway. Course they’ll all die in the end, but they’ll go down fighting an’ I think they’d like that. You wouldn’t need to lie any more.”

He laid his gaunt hands on the screen. “I could manage ‘em. I don’t want anything back. Only first pickings off the loser. I want to eat again. I’ll work for you, make sure that you get the best fights, the best deaths. It’s all I’m asking. Whattya think?”

Silence.

“Aw, c’mon! Whattya think, eh? It’s a good…”

The door opened. The guards entered. This time he kicked and struggled and tried to bite. He was hauled, kicking and scratching, back to his cell and thrown roughly inside again.

He paced. He scratched his words on the walls. He waited and paced again. He swore violently and banged on the door.

Silence.

Finally, as the hours passed, the door unlocked again.

Red Gryst looked up as the prison guards stepped into the room. This time, one of them was holding a grey pallet, covered by an opaque arch of grey plastic.

At least his meal was on time. He stood, watching with blank eyes as the guard laid it on the table and left.

Red shuffled over to lift the lid. Two kidneys dripped bloodily on the plate.

The world lit up in a wondrous display of red. Gryst picked up the first organ and licked it lovingly. It seemed a deal had been reached.

Maybe tomorrow, he could request heart…
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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:39 pm    Post subject: Entry 4 - Mantoswim  

Mantoswawim

15 years of my life lost just like that.

The bars of my cell slammed shut with a certainty that echoed around my head. A certainty that the verdict delivered by the head juror hadn’t managed. Not even the judge responsible for sentencing had gotten through to me.

But now, staring at the cold steel, I knew my life was over.


Immediately I noticed I wasn’t alone in my new home. A gaunt form stood listlessly by the window. He faced away from the limited light, casting his face in partial shadow. Multiple scars crisscrossed his arms, but seemed insignificant compared to the jagged lines circling his bald head.

He wasn’t wearing the blue overalls I’d just had unceremoniously flung at me, but instead a dirty white vest and torn, non-descript pants. His feet were bare on the concrete floor, but of all the concerns his face showed, this was probably the least.

The only sign that he’d noticed my arrival was a slight movement in his eyes. His face looked dejected, but his eyes still burned with a dark passion. Another ugly scar jutted down his right cheek.

The sort of cellmate you pray you don’t get.

"What's your name convict?"

His voice was softer than a whisper yet penetrated my mind as if he'd shouted. Not answering didn't even enter my mind.

"Name's Brown. Yours?"

I failed to suppress an involuntary shiver down my spine at having so boldly asked a question back. He didn't seem to notice and ignore it.

"First name?"

"Louie," I replied. He didn't move. "Do you mind if I take bottom bunk?" I added into the silence, gesturing to the dilapidated metal frame.

Again no response.

Neither bed seemed taken, so I nervously took his silence as an okay and dropped my few belongings onto the thin mattress. I sat down, catching the faint odor of industrial detergent from the bed, and decided to try again with my strange cellmate.

"So what's your name?"

His eyes flickered, yet his head never moved from where it rested lightly against the far wall.

"Pete."

Taking this as an opening, I jumped in.

"Good to meet you Pete, so how is this place?"

"It's hell..."

He may have intended to say more but then a siren rang out and a guard's voice floated down.

"LIGHTS OUT."

Repeated clanging, and a slight whooshing noise, bounced around from all directions as pairs of cells were plunged into darkness. It swept down the line like a depressing Mexican wave and without warning the bare bulb in my cell winked out. Only a faint silhouette of the window hinted at anything in the black.

I hastily pushed my belongings underneath the bed, and laid back. My head instantly protested at the hard surface under the woefully inadequate pillow but I ignored it, suddenly sensing movement in the dark. The slightest of creaks sounded, and a weight seemed to settle down in the bed above.

I must have fallen asleep then because the next thing I knew was an identical siren.

"WAKE UP"

My eyes jumped open revealing my cell lit up by the dubious brightness of day. I noticed nothing else because I was shocked to discover Pete stood in exactly the same place, and position, as the night before.

The eyes flickered and I quickly masked my shock with an exaggerated yawn. With some trepidation I resumed communication.

"Mornin'."

"Get dressed."

It was still a soft whisper, the command ringing in my ears. Suddenly it irritated me. I'd tried to be pleasant but all I got in return was half responses and orders.

He seemed to detect my annoyance because before I could reply he said it again.

"Get dressed."

A slight hiss seemed to be on the end of the whisper this time, but something in his eyes made all thoughts of a retort vanish and I did as he said.

The blue overalls were exactly that, and whilst I preferred it to the black and white stripped PJ suit you see in old movies I knew I'd soon hate them.

Almost instantly after I finished dressing the siren went again, followed by the now expected guard's voice.

"CELLS OPEN, MOVE OUT."

With a massive clanging of gears the doors slid open in pairs. I moved to the front and saw that the tenants of each cell immediately stepped out and stood in line facing down the block to the left. My own cell door sprang to life and I jumped back in surprise.

"Better get out there," came the whisper, making me jump almost as much as the door.

I turned around to find Pete still stood by the wall.

"You not coming as well?"

Silence greeted me, but I heard a guard shouting and ran out my cell. I wasn't going to get in trouble just because I had a cellmate who was on some kind of protest. At least that seemed the only explanation.

I quickly learnt the prison routine. Sirens, orders, more sirens and more orders. If you understand English then you can't really go wrong in jail. That is until 'freetime' when you have to spend time with the other prisoners. My first experience of 'freetime' came after lunch.

We were paraded out to a square, roughly 50m each side, and surrounded by the expected concrete walls. There must have been about a hundred of us. Within seconds I realized my cellmate was nothing compared with some of the brutes I could see. At least four stood out like man-mountains, and many more could easily snap me if they were so inclined.

Unfortunately in jail most only require the slightest reason to be so inclined.

One of the mountains materialized in front of me almost the second the guards disappeared. My first thought was of death, followed swiftly by just how lucky I was to have Pete as a cellmate. Despite the scary voice and the eyes, he was a skinny little thing that probably couldn't do me any harm.

"Ahar a new 'un. Who are you runt? What could you have done to get put in 'ere?"

I'd faced this sort everyday of my life. I had to be strong.

"Louie Brown, murder."

I hadn't murdered anyone. But he didn't need to know that. I was a county judge that got caught embezzling a few hundred thousand tax-payers dollars. Typical cliché, I got greedy, I got caught.

I forced a tough-look on my face. His small eyes screwed up as if thinking, although it seemed to cause him a lot of effort.

"You ain't killed no one. I recognize you..."

My heart did a back flip as I in turn recognized him. How could I have forgotten him! Multiple homicides in a grueling holdup with hostages that went very wrong for all involved. Over half the hostages were killed out of desperation to get the escape transportation they wanted from the authorities. I'd taken pleasure putting him away in this hell hole. Too bad I was now here too.

"...you that fucking Judge that sent me here instead of the federal playpen I was promised if I cooperated."

He struggled with the word 'co-operated' and spat it out like it tasted bad.

----

I woke up lying in my bed in my cell. I felt like I'd fallen off a cliff and then the cliff had fallen on top of me.

"Been having trouble?"

The almighty whisper hammered through my mind as I tried to comprehend what had happened.

"What happened?" I appealed.

"Someone hit you," came the reply as if explaining the answer to one plus one.

"Oh," was all I managed. I was alive though. The Mountain had hit me yet I was still alive! My brain started working and I managed to lift my head off the pillow and look at Pete. I wasn't surprised to find him still stood exactly the same, although his eyes had a softer light to them. I went to ask how I'd arrived back here but his voice assaulted my senses once again.

"Who was it?"

"Some thug, I'm not sure who." I responded without thought. Then my tortured head somehow came up with a name from my past life. "Stockton," I whispered. "Michael Stockton."

"Would you like me to take care of him for you?"

Such a long sentence in the whisper-scream made me wince and I laid down again. What did he mean?

"Erm sure. That'd be great?"

I looked sideways and his eyes were suddenly hard again, and burning into me.

"Mantoswawim."

"Sorry, what?"

"Mantoswawim."

What was he on about?

"Yes," I ventured.

The siren rang and I was plunged into darkness. Again I felt the slight weight above, and again nothing until the siren the next morning. With little surprise I found Pete once again in place by the wall.

I felt pretty good, and got dressed quickly. Pete made no effort to speak and I left for breakfast.

It didn't take more than a few minutes to spot that the routine was broken, despite only being here a day. Guards ran around urgently, whispering to each other. By the time I arrived in the breakfast hall I had discovered one of the inmates had been found dead in his cell. A few minutes later I found out the name.

The day went by in a blur, and 'freetime' was spent stood in a daze. No one came anywhere near me. I hadn't seen Pete anywhere, not even at meal times. Finally it was time to go back to our cells. I watched everyone in the queue and saw no sign of Pete. AS such I wasn't surprised to find him in place against the wall when I made it to my cell. Maybe he had got in with the guards and got special privileges?

His eyes flickered to me at my arrival, but he said nothing. I tested the water.

"Er..thanks for taking care of Stockton."

Silence. I persisted.

"No one bothered me today."

More silence. My true thoughts broke out.

"THE GUY WAS DEAD IN HIS CELL. HOW DID YOU KILL HIM DURING THE NIGHT," I exploded. I was shocked at my own volume, it echoed down the block and I feared the reaction of the other inmates. They didn't make a sound.

Nor did Pete.

On schedule the siren rang out and the lights went out.

I sat on my bed in the dark. I couldn't see Pete. His eyes suddenly appeared in front of me, just inches from my face and burning a bright red.

I let out a startled yelp, but no sound came out. I tried to push myself back, away from the eyes, but I couldn't move either.

"Mantoswawim," he whispered.

----

The wall was smooth against my head but such thoughts barely concerned me any more. With Pete's moving-on much understanding had passed to me. I was now sentenced to far longer than fifteen years. I would stand here, with my head against the wall, until a cellmate agreed to swap with me.

Pete had done me a favor. And without realizing I had agreed to my end of the bargain. The restrictions on the curse meant that speech was limited. He'd explained as well as he could but he couldn't explain any more.

He had gone now, and instead my spirit was left to occupy the curse. He had killed me of course. Twisted my neck around. Nasty stuff, but such thoughts barely concerned me any more.

I had to work on my new cellmate. He'd been having trouble with one of the guards. Maybe he'd deal, otherwise I'd just have to kill him and wait for the next one. I carefully framed what I had to say, knowing it would be distorted by the curse.

"Man to swap with me."
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Chinaren



Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 8878
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 8:40 pm    Post subject: Entry 5 - Eleven years  

Eleven years

It had been eleven years since I committed the act. Eleven years since I had set off a bomb in the largest of all malls. Eleven years since the judge asked me to plead innocent or guilty. Eleven years since I was asked for last words. How I remember that day. The papers all refused to print much of my language, as they colorfully put it.
This judge was harsh. He sentenced me to have ten years in jail for every life I took. Total, that was fifty thousand years. But what he didn't know, what the world didn't know, was that I could serve the sentence. I was a mistake, after all, and therefore only half-human. The other half? Oh, it comes out at night. Whenever someone has a bad dream, when darkness consumes their souls, I am there. I am, after all, personified evil, given birth to by a member of the human race. Therefore, I assume human form.
I had a brother as well, as much my opposite as Yin and Yang are. He would get me out, because he didn't know better. He would be rescuing his brother. He would be doing good by his moral (if misguided) compass.
My first cellmate? Oh, I killed him. That earned me another ten years, for the decree still stands, and will stand until people forget why, then they will forget the decree.
Admittedly, I have been waiting rather long...I had expected my brother on the first night. I kept waiting and waiting...
And now, it has been eleven years in darkness...I can only hope my wish would come true...
I've kept track of the days on a wall. Futile, I know, but I never want to forget. I will hunt down the members of the court and torture them for wasting my time like this. I have better things to do than play by the laws of mortality.
Eleven years...
Eleven years...
How much longer do I have to wait?
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Smee



Joined: 16 Oct 2004
Posts: 5215
Location: UK

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:48 am    Post subject:  

Damn you crafty people - I have no idea who any of you are. :shock:
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Shady Stoat



Joined: 02 Oct 2005
Posts: 2950
Location: England

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:06 am    Post subject:  

I'm struggling too - but then I've got very little to lose. I can't possibly guess worse than last time :D
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LordoftheNight



Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 5276
Location: Hell

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:27 am    Post subject:  

i think i know some* of them - i might be wrong though

*read one
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Chinaren



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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:30 am    Post subject: Entry 6 - The Ghost.  

The Ghost

The man looked out at the blank walls which formed his prison. Then, guided by some crazy need to torture himself further, he grabbed the end of his bed and dragged it over to the far wall.

Standing on it, he could see the flat wilderness beyond. The backdrop was lit in streaky red and blue – a wonderful sunset, shining upon a corpse-world.

All dead now. All gone. Except for him.

Why? Nobody knew, and by the time they understood that he alone could withstand the plague, it was too late for them to care. Within weeks, cultures, colonies and continents had all been decimated beyond hope. Maybe some few survived still – but in a world littered by the festering corpses of millions, they would fall to new diseases soon enough.

In every sense that counted, he was alone.

They had taken his blood, studied his excretions, monitored him as he had banged his fists bloody on the doors.

All the while they had kept within the confines of their environment suits. It hadn’t helped.

He had been one of the first to get the sickness. Lesions and boils and pustules and his hair falling out. Flesh shrivelling against his bones as his weight plummeted. He had wished to die… but inch by inch, he had been hauled back into sullen survival. Then he had watched his Carers fall under sway of the plague.

He had begged them to let him go. Two days ago, knowing that there was no further help for him, the last of his Carers had agreed to let him die in the manner of his own choosing.

Then he had gone to retrieve the cell keys. He hadn’t come back. Nobody had, nobody would.

Caged like a rat in a trap, he waited for his world to die with him…
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rlz
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:04 pm    Post subject:  

You might want to put something like THIS STORYGAME IS NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. There is some real bad language in some of the stuff. Just letting you guys know, or you could just *bleep* it out or something.

Ripsaw768 (I think is his name) is an 8 year old. So just letting you guys know...

Random: The Rules wrote: We have a lot of young people on our board. If your story must contain harsh language, sexuality, or graphic violence, please put in a warning. I will read everything posted here. If I find a post that has no warning, I will give you a PM and 24 hours to put a warning up. Otherwise it will be removed, although I will most likely save a copy don't count on it. And really, would it kill ya to shower every once in awhile?
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Chinaren
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Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:51 am    Post subject: Entry 7 - 24601  

24601



24601

A random handful of numbers. Possibly a code? A jumbled up selection of half the digits of the Arabian numerical system.

To them, that was all he had ever been. 24601. To himself? That was all he had become.

He dimly remembered a past; with freedom, and sunshine, and birds singing and blue skies. There was once a name. Perhaps. He had liked his name, or so he likes to think. It had been something inspiring and heroic, he tells himself in the dead of night, as the dank stone halls of the prison magnify the tiniest sounds into reverberating horrors of the dark and unknown.

He thinks he has been here for many years … however, when all you have to measure the passing of the endless minutes, hours, days, weeks, months is the light shining through the one small, barred window of your cell, maybe this doesn’t seem so remarkable.

He thinks he’s been here for a while because he is in For Life. Those ominous words which condemned him to this hellish eternity echo through his mind; and he is briefly entertained by a vision: a marriage of a kind between him, the faceless guards, who at the end of every shift go home to their wives, families and concerns, and the cell. His cell.

‘Till death do us part’.

Death. The word occupies his mind, and he often thinks on it for days on end. It’s ironic how a life sentence lasts until your death. Death sets us free. How clichéd. Another thought occupies him at the moment: how maybe he died; last night, last month, a year or two ago; and he is in hell.
For that is what it seems like to him; trapped forever in this solid concrete block; scarcely ten cubic metres in volume: the poor food; the unchanging routines; the waiting. Surely, it is not a big leap of faith to make the parallel between this and hell.

He faintly recalls a film… it had pirates in, and was funny. One of the characters had remarked: “The deepest depths of hell are reserved for traitors and mutineers.” Or something like that. How right he was.

24601 stirs as the harsh light from his window inches antagonisingly across the grimy wall of his cell, and the glare catches his eye. As he does every day, he grimaces, and slides his tired, worn out body across the wall, the acute nerves of his back passing over deep gashes in the wall.

The roughly etched lines on their own mean nothing, but from a distance they spell out a simple phrase. ‘Death shall set us free.’ He does not recall scratching them there himself; maybe he did it in a dream, maybe they were there before him, the last echo of the previous soul condemned here.

On schedule, there came the harsh click of boots on stone as the guard made his rounds. Unusually, he stopped outside the cell of 24601. The prisoner raised his mournful head, and the warden gazed long into the black, soulless eyes. “Looks like someone likes you,” he said solemnly, and 24601 was almost surprised to see the black gaping oblivion of a pistol barrel staring at him. Almost. A grim smile crossed his thin lips as the handgun spat, just once, its deadly payload delivered through the skull of the murderer, criminal, and traitor. It had been his first smile in sixty-three years.
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Chinaren
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:44 pm    Post subject:  

SoaP2 entry is now closed. Time for your votes and guesses! :D

Happy SoaPing! :)
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LordoftheNight
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:16 am    Post subject:  

woo - i'm winning
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dragon_fire372
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:26 pm    Post subject:  

Shame on you, Lordy! :D Everyone gets a free point now, hee hee.
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Chinaren
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:26 am    Post subject:  

dragon_fire372 wrote: Shame on you, Lordy! :D Everyone gets a free point now, hee hee.

You would think that wouldn't you? And yet...
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LordoftheNight
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:00 am    Post subject:  

i was actually talking about the guessing

honest
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Smee
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:27 am    Post subject:  

3rd guess is a charm, 17 points - and I've finally got most of you nailed. :D

Now just the few others to find... :confused:
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Ingrothechundyer
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:37 am    Post subject:  

I'm looking foward to seeing the guesses at the end :)
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Chinaren
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:51 am    Post subject:  

I will post them when I close the comp. It is really hard this time, though Smee's dedicated reading has shone through with his latest effort.
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LordoftheNight
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:18 am    Post subject:  

17 points?

damn - maybe i won't re-enter

or maybe i will, but not yet
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Chinaren
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:23 am    Post subject:  

Aye, in his third try Smee hit a lot of nails on a lot of heads. So to speak. :-)
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Chinaren
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:50 am    Post subject:  

Okay, I am going to close this SoaP soon, so if you haven't voted, or want to enter a guess, do so quickly!
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LordoftheNight
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Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:01 am    Post subject:  

no one else has guessed - where's the fun in that?
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ethereal_fauna
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:00 am    Post subject:  

Congrats Smee!

.
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Chinaren
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 5:49 pm    Post subject:  

lordofthenight wrote: no one else has guessed - where's the fun in that?

Yes, I think for SoaP3 I will make the first guess free, or amend this part in some small way.
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Shady Stoat
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:49 am    Post subject:  

I was going to vote this time around, but I was just too busy to sit down and go through the stories. And the voting section seemed to be over really quickly, I don't know if that was just the time getting away from me, or whether it really wasn't that long *shrug*

Anyway, hopefully I'll get to join in on the guessing next time around, paid for or not. Congrats Smee... although it's a bit smug winning both parts of the competition! ;)
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Chinaren
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:19 am    Post subject:  

Sorry Stoaty. I thought I had given it plenty of time, and I wanted to close it so I could have one less thing to do before I start Blood Party, which I am struggling to sum up the energy for... :sad:
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Shady Stoat
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:20 am    Post subject:  

*grins* Well, if my last time's guesses were anything to go by, I don't think you were missing much! ;)
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