City of IF

[muirne]

'max.max.maxine!wake up!' 'just a little longer' maxine murmured sleepily. a big wet slobbery kiss got her eyes open attention. treon her 9 year old brother was leaning on her shoulder, sleeping.lulu,their wolfhound was licking her cheek .

'we're here honey'herdad called from the front of the van 'i tried waking the others up.they're still sleeping'

'what about mom?' 'honey you're mom sleeps like a log. even worse, she was snoring.now do me a favor and wake the others up.it appears they listen more to you'

the first thing you think when you see a family as big as max's is 'how do they survive each other?

'dad just turn the steroe on. put the volume as high as you can go'just in time,she ducked her head as a wave of 17 year old brother zeke's punk music hit the car. 'aaaaaaaahhhhh'daisy screamed if there was one thing max knew about the five year old it was that she was completely terrified of zeke and anything that had to do with him, including his music.
the scream did the trick. jamie her twin, zeke , treon,daisy's twin,casie, cheyenne her older sister, and her mom immidiately woke up.

'you could have busted up my eardrums'treon whined 'stop complaining'she ruffled his hair,knowing he very much hated it. in return, he glared at her. 'dad wheres the house?' she looked around . all i could see was an extremely old house that looked like it would fit comfortably in "the haunted mansion"it looked old ,unfamiliar, yet srangely familiar.......it felt as if the house was looking them over,loathing them.it looked like a house that held many secrets and it was daring them to try to find out. there was somewhere she had seen the house.... now if she could just remember..... 'uhh, that's the house max' 'oh no'jamie groaned 'i knew we shouldn't have let you choose the house alone!' 'daddy?'casey said 'yes hon?" 'can daisy and i sleep with you and mom?' 'i thought you said you girls wanted your own room' 'yes but monsters are gonna come after us'daisy stuck her thumb into her mouth 'daisy there are no such things as monsters, how many times do i have to tell you that?'cheyene finally spoke . 'but treon said'she whined. max shook her head 'treooon'she turned to him 'they're lying,they are the ones who said they're monsters there!' 'they're also the ones who convinced thhemselves to put crayons up their noses' cheyenne smiled,remembering the incident 'just leave him alone, he's just a kid' that was the longest sentence zeke had said in 6 months. daisy narrowed her eyes at him 'mommy i saw zeke smoking last night when i went to get water '



'now now kids, dont give your dad a hard time, im sure he chose what was best for us, now be good and unpack and zeke, could you stay back? i have to talk to you' zeke groaned. casey stuck her tongue out at him.they might be cute but they were also very good at being annoying and tattle-taling max was glad she wasnt zeke. no oneshe knew could stand a lecture from her mom and live happily ever after-- even her dad.she faced back to the problem at hand. the house


the house was big and also very dusty. eveything was pretty uneventful except when mom ran out of a room shouting about rats,and time went by quickly.the water pipes were faulty so no one could take a shower or drink any water. max lay in her bed trying not to think about the fact that jamie had found maggots in his bed and also that there was a [i]swamp right behind the house. gradually, she fell into a fitful sleep.


[i]she was falling. falling through and impenetratable , opague darkness, it was trying to force its way into her, to take over.she tried to resist it but it fought back, smothering me, she tried to open her mouth to scream, to breathe but there was no air. air . air. she needed air! i tried to kick, to fight it , but there was no escaping it . it was as if it was swallowing her, eating her up. her arms and legs gave up the struggle 'you are mine ' a harsh voice whispered 'MINE!' a woman was rising out the the darkness,her face not quite clear 'you will be mine,you will open yourself to me ,give up the struggle deidre 'no.' she wheezed 'no. no no no.' gathering what remained of her strenght and gave a last kick and a yell 'NOOOOOOOO!.!

she opened her eyes slowly. she was back in her room, sweat flowing like river and tangled in her sweat soaked sheets . creaaaaak. she checked her alrm clock.2:21. who could be up by this time of the night?maybe she should go downstairs and check. on the other hand, wanted to go back sleep and see if she could decipher the woman's face and see why the woman had called her deidre and she'd watched enough movies to know that when you heard a suspicious noise in the middle of the night,you stayed in bed but movies were just movies,right?


DP

[aviva claribel]

good beginning but you might want to add a prolouge. Oh and i think she should go downstairs. you should also think about making it more scary

[Phantomfan]

This is quite good, muirne!
Just a personal pet peeve... When words are not capitalized that should be capitalized. (ie, names, beginning of sentances, the word "I"... you know what I mean)

As for the dp- I would try to go back to sleep. Whether or not the same dream comes again could be interesting... maybe Max then suffers from insomia because the dream frightened her too much to go back to sleep.

Just a thought.

[aviva claribel]

well since "go down stairs" already won the poll,might as well continue

[muirne]

oh come on people , i need more posts!

[muirne]

prolouge

[i]there is a lesser known version of the fairy tale,snow white
yes there was a witch with a mirror and a beautiful girl but her name was not snow white:it was deidre . deidre was the most beautiful girl on earth,so beautiful was she that men would travel great distances to behold her beauty . but alas, her beauty brought choas and havoc to the earth . men everywhere began to kill their wives so as to be eligible for marriage to her until the entire female race except one witch was wiped out. even then, men continued to fight and kill themselves over her. the witch grew jealous and tried to use her magic mirror to steal deidre's beauty so that she could wreck even more havoc and feed on the choas to make her even more beautiful

devastated,and so as to keep the entire human race from being wiped out, deidre stole the witches mirror and captured her beauty in it, then she ran to the highest peak on earth, the witch on her trail,and threw the mirror down , the mirror shattered into three pieces and where the mirror fell, a lake formed "the lake of mirrors" it was called and the[i]witch dove in after the mirror pieces,it is rumored that she is still there , looking for the lost pieces, but whether she is or not, nobody knows.there is also another rumor that a house was built over the lake and that the descendants of deidre would be haunted by the witch--until one of them found all three pieces


maxine had a dream about a strange house the night just before the day her dad broke it to them that they were moving.unfortunately max cannot remember the dream clearly and had a feeling that it was not because it was a night terror.

[muirne]

since it seems go downstairs already won, i'll just give the poll half an hour and then go on to the next chapter

[muirne]

Chapter 2 :

quietly, trying her hardest not to wake anyone up, max tiptoed down stairs. she looked into the living room;no one . there wasnt anyone in the hall,the to be game room or in the laundry room. coming around the bend into the kitchen, she saw a strange light and a silhouttee. without thinking, she gasped. the figure turned around. realizing her mistake, she dropped immidiately to the floor. seeing no one, the figure proceeded towards a painting that hung high in the kitchen wall. max crept quietly along the wall towards the figure, avoiding the rays of the searing white light that hung in the air in front of it. max knew she should go upstairs and get help but something was drawing her closer and closer to the figure, something was familiar about it.

suddenly, she realized something. the figure was that of a little girl, about five,in fact she could swear daisy had been wearing that particular today....... realization hit her like a wall of iron.

'daisy?'she whispered hoarsely, hoping that she was wrong. the girl turned. it was daisy's face alright, but it was twisted with hatred beyond recognization and her eyes were lit with the same light that floated in mid air in front of her,her face filled with dark shadows . memories flahed in max's brain and she realized where she'd seen the house before. her dream. the dream she'd been trying to remember.her brain flooded with memories. she tried to run as she realized what was going to happen next. her legs would not move. run, run, run,move! her brain was screaming messages to her legs but it was as if they were logs. before her brain could compute what was happening,five knifes flashed through the air, pinning her to the wall and burying themselves deep. daisy spoke.her mouth was moving but it was obvious the voice was not hers.'atlast. deidre' 'daisy, please no, i don't have it, please, no, dont do this' whatever it was, she didnt know but she knew "it"whatever it was, was what she wanted. ignoring her pleas of mercy, daisy pulled out what appeared to be an ordinary stone.closing her eyes, she began to speak in the ancient language,reciting a spell.as she spoke, the stone began to glow red, pulsing with a light of it's ownand slowly, she placed it over max's heart. max tried to scream but she could not open her mouth and once again, the darkness she had experienced in her dream began to envelope her, this time more forcefu than ever . it was as if she had been put inside a block of solid cement.

slowly, her strength and her life force were drained,her memories sucked away like dust mites being pulled into a vacuum cleaner. just when she gave up, a word, just one word came to her lips,which up till today she can't reacall, and she shouted it out. immidiately, the spell released her. her memories came pouring back like an ocean; all except the dream also her life force but her strength didnt come back, like the single word she had uttered had used up all her strength.

the last thing she remembered before her legs crumpled beneath her was daisy ,the light and the stone disapparating, and faintly footsteps and the knifes clattering to the floor.


[i]she was in a room full of mirrors that seemed to go forever upward.strangely enough,there was no floor. in it's place was a shoal and the bottom of the shoal seemed to be made of glass. at the end of the hall, there was a circular mirror on the wall,carved into it were figurins made of glass.she walked toward the mirror and as she was about to touch it

[Dean]

Your writing is actually pretty decent. I like the feeling of suspense that you provoke. However, you don't use any capital letters! If you want to get this storygame moved into a proper forum, I'm pretty sure you're going to have to start using capitalization. Of course, if you don't mind just writing your storygame here in the New Storygames District, then there's no problem at all -- keep up the good work. ^^

As for the second chapter, I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what the decision point is supposed to be. Sorry. *shrug*

[muirne]

[quote="muirne"]Chapter 2 :

quietly, trying her hardest not to wake anyone up, max tiptoed down stairs. she looked into the living room;no one . there wasnt anyone in the hall,the to be game room or in the laundry room. coming around the bend into the kitchen, she saw a strange light and a silhouttee. without thinking, she gasped. the figure turned around. realizing her mistake, she dropped immidiately to the floor. seeing no one, the figure proceeded towards a painting that hung high in the kitchen wall. max crept quietly along the wall towards the figure, avoiding the rays of the searing white light that hung in the air in front of it. max knew she should go upstairs and get help but something was drawing her closer and closer to the figure, something was familiar about it.

suddenly, she realized something. the figure was that of a little girl, about five,in fact she could swear daisy had been wearing that particular today....... realization hit her like a wall of iron.

'daisy?'she whispered hoarsely, hoping that she was wrong. the girl turned. it was daisy's face alright, but it was twisted with hatred beyond recognization and her eyes were lit with the same light that floated in mid air in front of her,her face filled with dark shadows . memories flahed in max's brain and she realized where she'd seen the house before. her dream. the dream she'd been trying to remember.her brain flooded with memories. she tried to run as she realized what was going to happen next. her legs would not move. run, run, run,move! her brain was screaming messages to her legs but it was as if they were logs. before her brain could compute what was happening,five knifes flashed through the air, pinning her to the wall and burying themselves deep. daisy spoke.her mouth was moving but it was obvious the voice was not hers.'atlast. deidre' 'daisy, please no, i don't have it, please, no, dont do this' whatever it was, she didnt know but she knew "it"whatever it was, was what she wanted. ignoring her pleas of mercy, daisy pulled out what appeared to be an ordinary stone.closing her eyes, she began to speak in the ancient language,reciting a spell.as she spoke, the stone began to glow red, pulsing with a light of it's ownand slowly, she placed it over max's heart. max tried to scream but she could not open her mouth and once again, the darkness she had experienced in her dream began to envelope her, this time more forcefu than ever . it was as if she had been put inside a block of solid cement.

slowly, her strength and her life force were drained,her memories sucked away like dust mites being pulled into a vacuum cleaner. just when she gave up, a word, just one word came to her lips,which up till today she can't reacall, and she shouted it out. immidiately, the spell released her. her memories came pouring back like an ocean; all except the dream also her life force but her strength didnt come back, like the single word she had uttered had used up all her strength.

the last thing she remembered before her legs crumpled beneath her was daisy ,the light and the stone disapparating, and faintly footsteps and the knifes clattering to the floor.


[i]she was in a room full of mirrors that seemed to go forever upward.strangely enough,there was no floor. in it's place was a shoal and the bottom of the shoal seemed to be made of glass. at the end of the hall, there was a circular mirror on the wall,carved into it were figurins made of glass.she walked toward the mirror. she leans forward to touch the smooth silver surface but then the roof of the house tore away, suddenly and with force. a fierce wind came whipping out of the blues, grabbing the mirror in it's greedy fingers and bore it away. 'no,no. nooooo!' she reached up towards the mirror and was thrown back to the