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Mar 21, 2020 17:34
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The Keepers in the Sun ~1265 words Like a fragile canoe perched atop a giant waterfall, forces reach up to pull her down towards her death. Phoebe breathes deeply and jams the control stick forward. gently caress it. Nothing to lose. The John Ellis pitches into the convection zone, engines screaming in protest, the magnetic field generators thundering agony beneath her feet. The maelstrom streams past as she picks up speed down the plasma current. She's knows they'll break apart from the stress, the heat, the unrelenting radiation and magnetic fury. But by some miracle the damping fields hold as she plunges deeper into the chaos. Phoebe taps the top corner of her HUD. "We've got this, right?" "Flying through a goddamn nuclear detonation? Sure." Blake's voice cuts into her earpiece. "Doing everything I can from up here. It’s gonna get worse, but hell. gently caress it, right?" "Nothing to lose," she breathes the second half of her mantra. A face swims into her vision. If only she could hold him one more time, cradle his little head in her lap, fill the emptiness inside--Phoebe pushes the vision away and turns to her navigation panel. The coronal hole Blake was generating continued to hold stable, carving her a path through the convection zone and into the core. A decade ago the Sun changed. Sunspots and mass ejections, once random events, began appearing in repeating, cyclical patterns. No natural phenomena could explain their structured periodicity or pattern. It was Blake, stationed at the Mercury Solar Collector, who'd first realized what they were: signals. A message in alien code broadcast to the universe. The Sun was communicating. Phoebe listened. The pulse of the singularity drive turns to an insistent whine as she descends further towards the core. A frantic decade of observing, measuring, and analyzing the sun had led scientists nowhere. The only choice was to go deeper—-descend into the star itself. Collect data from within. A call Phoebe couldn’t resist. With a lurch the John Ellis pitches her forward in her webbing. "Radiative zone," Blake’s voice crackles in her earpiece. "Plasma's a lot thicker down there. Hotter." The ship slows as the onslaught intensifies. Her control panel lights up as systems begin to fail. The roar of the field generators climbs in pitch, then they cycle down as they reach critical mass and the dampers kick in. Without magnetic fields to shunt the Sun's energy into the singularity, she'll fry. Phoebe grits her teeth. She’d known the chances of survival were thin. But she had to do this. Had to fill the emptiness inside her, a void that had only grown since his death. A goddamn airlock malfunction—they’d said it was a one in a billion chance. She asked only that the sunship be named for him. "I’m getting some ugly readings up here," Blake says. “You’re still getting data, right?” Phoebe shouts. He answers in the affirmative, his voice broken by another loud, concussive sound from the collapsing hull. Phoebe wants to reach out to him, take his hand and reassure him this is what she wants, but he’s far above in the orbital command module. The sound of crushing metal rips through the John Ellis. Progress slows further, and alarms intensify. "Phoebe! The ship won’t hold," Blake's voice rises in urgency. "We have enough data. Come back up." She looks at the data stream. It’s not enough. She has to go deeper or all this is for nothing. gently caress it. "Goodbye Blake." It feels important to say this. Nothing to lose. If he replies she doesn't hear because she enters a new course, then commands everything to silent mode and instructs the viewport to open. If fate wants to take her, at least she can watch. Massive metal plates iris open, revealing at first just a pinprick of light at their center. The alarms drop into blissful silence and even the violent crushing of the John Ellis around her fades as she watches the light grow. It is pure white, intense. It fills the cockpit with its energy, a blanket of photons that quickly overwhelms the filters in her visor. The light pushes through and the heat and radiance warm her face. The onslaught of photons pushes deeper, and then the world outside is gone, the John Ellis is gone, Blake is gone, too, and time stops as the light grows into her, and she becomes the light, and the light becomes her, the brightness all she is, all she ever was, brilliance and peace and light and then and then she is not in the cockpit and she is not alone. She is with her son. He's crying and she's crying and they are holding each other and warmth fills them from the inside. Photons pass through them like they’re thin as paper. Together they float in a great white expanse. Dark shapes swirl, indistinct forms with iridescent blue eyes that flicker in and out of the incandescent white. "It's you. It's really you." He has no distinct form, neither does she. But she can feel him, and her heart opens. They are together. "You heard me," he says. "You came." The signals. “Yes, John. That's why I'm here." The dark shapes with pale eyes circle closer. "They're souls, mother. Souls waiting for hosts." A wave of sadness washes through her. They’re tired, like worn out fabric, stretched too thin. "Nobody dies anymore. People live forever. Too few are born. They've been here too long. Trapped." Phoebe frowns. "Medicine and life extending therapies have made natural death unnecessary. Population control has solved all of humanity’s problems. What happened to you was...not supposed to be possible." "I know, mom. It's always a balance: gravity above, fusion below. The birth of new life, and the release of death. But now that balance is broken. The sun is sick. We all are." Phoebe doesn't know what to say. She reaches to hug him, but he pushes away. "Mom, we can be together now. Forever. But there's something we need to do first." The shapes press closer. Their sadness echoes her own weariness: so many centuries of life, days piled upon endless days, relationships and jobs and friends and experiences all reduced to a fog of forgotten memories. And through it all, the emptiness inside her. “Souls don’t die, Mom. Like matter, or energy, they aren’t created or destroyed. But they need a home. A new one.” And then she knows. And understands. They can be together. gently caress it. “I understand, John. Let’s do this together. Let’s start it over.” Nothing to lose. The shapes press into them, become them, and together they swirl and condense around the atoms from the John Ellis, a poisonous iron pill in the Sun’s core. Solar fusion stops. Mass crashes down upon them and then they are free, ejected from the core along with all the pent up matter and energy, light and heat scouring clean the elements as they ride the wave of rebirth out into the blackness of space. Years later, two small children sit in a grassy field under a clear, sunlit sky. The young boy absently picks a small white daisy from between his toes and hands it to his sister. Her pale blue eyes widen in surprise at this sudden kindness. “I love you,” he says. He’s not sure why. She twirls the flower in her hand. “You’re a poopy-head, but thanks. I like you too, sometimes.” He playfully punches her in the arm. She smiles and takes his hand. They have the whole afternoon ahead of them, and for now that’s enough.
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Mar 23, 2020 05:18
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IN, flash me!
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Mar 30, 2020 16:57
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Team: Jailbreaker You get a character role! Your story features at least one acrobat or stunt person. Last Chance to Advance Beyond Human ~1490 words Julia took the cup from the Deacon, raised it to her lips, and tilted her head back. The bitter taste of poison made her eyes water. “May your ascent be peaceful,” the Deacon said, and moved down the line. Julia wiped her eyes and spat the toxic drink down the sleeve of her robe. The drink blended into the crimson polyester. The disciples at the front of the line staggered and fell over. Behind them people crumpled to the floor. The choir sang a desultory tune. “We shall shed our human bodies,” he intoned, “and attain the next step in our evolutionary state.” Another crew member sipped from the cup. Julia’s foster parents went next, eagerly gulping the spiked concoction. They were true believers—always talking about Human Individual Metamorphosis and how someday they’d leave their “corporeal vehicles” to reach a higher state. Julia had tolerated it because they were kind. More so than her last family, who’d perished in a freak circus accident involving elephants, a ring of fire, and an enraged condor. Julia didn’t have many complaints. But then the comet had appeared, the blast doors slammed shut, they all got new sneakers, and the crazy meter spun into overdrive. “Embrace the change,” the Deacon said. “We’ll be together again. Soon.” The large woman in front of Julia—Agnes, the church’s bookkeeper—teetered, her legs buckling as she hit the linoleum. Time to follow suit. Julia closed her eyes and dropped. Aiming for Agnes’s prone form, her fall was nicely cushioned by the ample accountant. “VoidTower One was a necessary step in our journey,” the Deacon continued. “But the closure of the blast doors sent a message: this era of human existence is over. We will ascend to the comet, take our place among the stars, and drink the sunlight to attain collective bliss.” He must’ve made it to the choir, because one by one the harmonies were dropping off, until only one voice remained, crooning “…we shall leave the Void and fill it with Love…” before it, too, stopped. Silence fell over the chamber. Agnes’s chest slowly rose and fell. She wasn’t dead—at least, not yet. Julia cracked an eye open and scanned the room: a pile of bodies in crimson robes and white Voidtrack running shoes. No sign of the Deacon. She inched her way off Agnes and checked her other neighbors. Their pulses were weak and slow, but present. So the poison wasn’t immediately deadly, but induced a deep, comatose state. Julia gave a silent sigh. Time to report this—and probably time to look for a new foster family. One last check around, and Julia rose to her feet. With a low crouch she picked her away around the bodies to the church exit. It was eerily silent in the chamber, her every movement amplified in her paranoia. She pushed through the door into the entryway, where the gaudy neon sign flickered “First Church of the Evolutionary Ascendance: VoidTower One Campus.” Below, in smaller cursive lettering, “Barry Applethorne, Deacon.” Where had the Deacon gone? He was definitely not among the parishioners. Probably chickened out. Julia pushed the second set of doors out into the Mezzanine. Airy, melody-free music floated through the greenery as throngs of shoppers moved past, chatting happily, arms bursting with Voidmart shopping bags. Julia felt dizzy as she walked toward the elevators. Maybe some of the poison had absorbed into her bloodstream. An aggressive fern lashed out at her, and she spun away, startled. As she did she glimpsed a familiar figure across the food court—the Deacon. He turned towards her. Where his face should have been was instead a brown, leathery mass, rippling and pulsing. Julia fell backwards, nearly falling victim to the predatory fern a second time. When she looked back he was gone. Weird. Maybe a side effect of the poison. Julia crossed the Mezzanine to the elevators. The call screen displayed <TEMPORARILY DISABLED> in large red letters. On the map next to it Julia pressed “Security” and another red warning buzzed: <TEMPORARILY DISABLED>. Huh. She scratched her nose. Where else could she go to report what happened at the church? Ah, yes. She pressed the button marked “Customer Service” and the map screen helpfully drew a dotted green line showing the route. With the elevators down it involved climbing the emergency stairs. A lot of stairs. Customer Service was on the top floor, just below the observation deck. She pressed the button marked “Observation Deck.” <TEMPORARILY DISABLED> Approximately a billion steps later, when Julia arrived at Customer Service, the front desk was empty. “Hello?” she called, and walked around the desk to to hallway behind. All of the offices were empty, hastily abandoned. At the far end of the corridor an elevator door was stuck halfway open. She poked her head inside. The elevator shaft extended upward into darkness. Strange, considering Customer Service was supposed to be the top floor. A maintenance ladder was built into the wall of the shaft, and curiosity drove Julia to grab it and start climbing. If there were hidden floors at the top of VoidTower One, she wanted to know about it. Her years fostered with the circus family—the Flying Falkowskis—had involved many ladders over dizzying heights, so ascending the shaft wasn’t a problem. After passing at least a dozen floors, Julia spotted light from another open door near the top of the shaft. She scampered through it and into a sterile white hallway lined with glass windows. She crept up to one and peeked through. The room beyond was filled with row after row of monitors displaying security camera feeds from all over VoidTower One. She could see the Mezzanine, The Golden Bean, hundreds of shops, and even the insides of individual residences. A few displayed nothing but static, including “Security” and “Observation Deck.” Her eyes landed on one marked “First Church of the E.A.” A grainy image of the inside of the church revealed a startling sight: white-clad techs arranging comatose churchgoers into neat rows. Others were attaching large cables to their heads, spooling thick, ropy wires across the room to an alien-looking machine perched on the dais. Movement caught her eye. A figure walked into the security room from a side door holding a steaming coffee mug. His eyes locked with hers—or, rather his eyestalks did. His head was a mass of leathery tissue from which sprung two stubby tentacles, each ending in a veiny eyeball that widened in surprise. The mug dropped to the floor and the creature sprinted for a large red telephone on the wall. Julia rushed back to the elevator. A car was rising up towards her, blocking her path downward. Instead she climbed. At the top of the shaft she pushed through a maintenance hatch, down a short hallway, and exited to find herself on the Observation Deck. The verdant gardens, normally bustling with people gawking at “The Best View in the World,” were empty. A lone figure stood in the center of the plaza, hunched over a machine hooked to a large satellite dish. Even with his back turned the crimson church robes were a dead giveaway: it was the Deacon. She crept closer. High in the sky, the comet cast strange shadows across the foliage. “Subjects are ready,” the Deacon said into a device clipped to his lapel. “Consciousness upload will begin in 30 seconds.” He twisted a dial on the machine, then chuckled. “Be patient up there. The appetizer’s coming.” A piece of bark crunched under her foot. The Deacon turned, and Julia could see that his head had taken on a decidedly more scrotal appearance. Two tuberous eyes regarded her. “Jane? How’d you get up here?” he asked. “It’s Julia. And I’m gonna need you to step away from that machine.” “Well, that’s not happening. It’s just about to start. Everyone’s counting on me.” One eyestalk bent up towards the comet. “For what? What are you, anyways?” “Human Evolutionary Ascendance, Jane. I’m with the Advance Team. Prepping minds for upload.” His lapel buzzed. “Need to make sure human consciousness is, ah, palatable to my species. Before I deliver the main course.” “Over my dead body,” Julia said. “It’s not your body we want.” He reached back to twist the dial. Julia leaped from the bushes and launched herself at the Deacon, pushing him away from the machine. He was shockingly light, as if his alien body was just a big, leathery bag filled with dust. He was sent flying, easily clearing the safety railing. The last she saw of the Deacon was the look of horror on his wrinkled alien face as he fell to his doom. His machine followed him shortly after. Julia tightened the laces on her glimmering new Voidtracks and grabbed a shovel from a garden shed. There were some aliens that needed killing. And in her current evolutionary state, she was definitely up for it.
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Apr 6, 2020 07:19
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In, and I'll take a sound.
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Jul 7, 2020 14:33
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Sound: Creaky dock - Underwater Hydrophone Recording The world does not care about us ~785 words Zakide dragged his leg irons across the rough wood, seeking respite from the pain. His skin beneath was raw and hot. He touched it, gently, and a blister burst hot liquid that mixed with the encrusted salt. The sun swam in his vision. He clenched his jaw tight until the pain faded. The little boat wobbled when he moved, sodden planks groaning beneath his weight. It was late in the day, the sun lingering above the unbroken horizon. A whisper of a breeze floated across the water, so Zakide dutifully held up his sail. It was crude—just a small scrap of cloth recovered from the wreckage, held aloft in his arms. But it worked, a little. The bow of the boat rotated northwards as the breeze nudged it forward. The sea was still but for small ripples that lapped up around the boat, a low murmur of pops and gurgles as they broke against the hull. Nothing like the ravaging storm that had shattered the slave ship days ago, a thunderous detonation of wind, water, and fury, the hand of an angry god reaching down to crush the white man’s ship. They’d hammered the hatches shut, blocking escape, and the cargo screamed and cursed as the ocean flooded their shackled bodies. What became of the white devils Zakide didn’t know, but when the hull collapsed and the shackles tore away from the wood he swam, dragging the chains behind him, upward, with all his strength, until he broke the surface. He watched the slave ship go down as he gripped a capsized lifeboat, hearing panicked voices echo over the mountains and valleys of the storm ravaged ocean. His companion stirred, pressing a small bundle tight to her chest. One eye opened and watched him as he maneuvered his sail against the little breeze. “The wind does not care about us,” she said. Zakide grunted. His tongue felt thick and swollen. She was right. Yesterday it had brought them a little rain, a puddle of fresh water caught in his sailcloth, but that was all. He remembered her from the ship. She’d birthed the child a month into the voyage. Against all odds it had survived the disease and dehydration of the hold. And maybe even survived that calamitous night, although Zakide had not seen it move or make much sound since he’d found the woman, clinging to her child and a tangle of debris, and pulled them on board. The breeze subsided as the sun sank lower. Dark figures moved through the water around them. He peered over the edge of the boat, watching shapes shift and shimmer below the surface. “The sea does not care about us,” she said. The boat creaked as she shifted the cloth wrapped bundle in her arms. Zakide nodded. Again she was not wrong. His stomach felt like a clenched fist, cramped and angry. He was a fisherman before, working the rivers near his village each day while his mother and sister wove fabrics and shaped clay. With a net it would be so easy to catch endless fish here, to sate his stomach, heal his aching muscles. Instead they slipped past in silence, just out of reach. The last vestiges of the sun sank into the horizon. A bird appeared in the sky. It circled above, descending with each lazy loop, until it alighted onto the surface of the water no more than ten yards off their stern. It watched him with large, golden eyes flecked with black. Zakide had seen birds like this near the Port of Mocambique, gulls with white heads and bodies and black wings. He’d watched them circle the sky from the iron and stone enclosure of the slave pen, jealous of their freedom, though they never strayed far from land. Like the elusive fish below, this last thought circled and slid through Zakide’s tired mind. “The world does not care about us,” she said. She wrapped her bundle tighter. The bird squawked, extended its body upward and flapped its wings. As it rose into the sky, a strong breeze gathered over the dark water. Maybe she was wrong. Zakide grabbed his sail and held it up. The boat lurched forward, knocking him off his feet and onto the hard planks below. His companion barked a contemptuous laugh at his foolishness. But then he heard another sound. Over the lapping of the waves and creaking of the old wooden boat, a soft cry came from the bundle within her arms. Zakide stood and faced the wind, the sea, the world. “No,” he said to them all. “But I do,” and held up his sail.
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Jul 12, 2020 23:27
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sneaking IN
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Aug 1, 2020 05:07
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Random Encounters ~795 words Valathor pulls out his dull blade. The rain pounds down. He hates his name—conjuring images of heroism and chivalry, ideals that fit him as well as would a horse’s codpiece. Still, after reading the post on the tavern door (”Soldiers Wanted”) off he’d gone to defend the honor of the Crown Royal. A fuckwit King who’d poked either his his alcohol-scarred nose or his flaccid dick into the affairs of the the surrounding states. Usually both. It isn’t highway robbers this time: Valathor’s in a swamp, swatting mosquitoes from his pockmarked body, a platoon of ungrateful conscripts behind him. Not even halfway up the hill to the witch’s shack. Each sodden step makes a sucking sound, his very soul being leached into the mud. “Form up, maggots!” he yells, but his voice is swallowed by the pounding rain. Nobody listens. It doesn’t really matter. The sword is heavy and his arms hurt. He plucks an oily leech from the back of his knee, tossing it into the muck. His mouth tastes sour, like old lemons. He looks up and the horse and rider are upon him. A knight in burgundy and gold pushes a lance through Valathor’s midsection. The glowing weapon pierces his breastplate, metal against metal, emerging from his back and lifting him out of his boots, which collapse, flaccid, into the mud. “Nat twenty, bitches!” Becca exclaims, her face aglow. “Nice!” Val says. “Don’t bother rolling damage. He’s only, like, eleven HP.” She crosses out a number in her notebook. “Okay, what do you do next?” “Chevy pulls out the lance and clean off the guts. It’s like, super gory. Blood and entrails everywhere. Double damage, baby!” The other girls at the table roll their eyes. Val had asked for more description (”Paint a word picture”) to make the game more entertaining. Becca had responded by getting overly graphic anytime her paladin killed anything. Across the table Sarah takes another swig of Lemon White Claw. “Why are we in this swamp anyways? The green hag? The kidnapping the Queen’s daughter?” Val sighs. Sarah, not the sharpest blade, has a hard time listening after her third seltzer. At least she’s funny, and not obsessed with descriptions of liquefying organs and bone shrapnel like Becca. Val fantasizes new ways to kill Becca’s paladin while explaining (again) to Sarah why they’re in the swamp. She can edit this later. Val grabs her d20 and consults the random encounter tables. “Roll perception.” As the dice hit the table Valdez flicks the earbud out of his ear. An old Buick struggles up to his window, brakes grinding metal against metal. Valdez slides the glass divider open as the old lady tries to roll down her window. He pauses the podcast. His friend had recommended it, but not having ever played D&D he got a little lost in the mechanics. But the one chick was funny and he liked her graphic descriptions of gore. Plus, she sounded hot. The old bag finally accepts defeat in her battle against the car window and pushes her ticket through the little gap she’d created. Valdez grabs it, punches it into the machine, and gives her the bad news. “Highway robbery,” she says. The broad’s skin looks green in the artificial light. She pushes her old lady glasses up on her nose and digs through a burgundy and gold purse. Valdez rolls a lemon drop between his teeth. A longing glance at the Crown Royal under the counter, a quarter empty—the only way he survives this soul-sucking job. The rain pounds down. The hag finally produces some coins. Without counting, Valdez presses the button and the old Buick putters off. Something else has caught his eye. Two headlights, moving quickly. A pickup truck barrels towards him. A flash of lightning illuminates a truck bed loaded with rebar, long metal poles extending like vicious spikes. It is dark, the road already slick with rain. The driver must not see the toll booth because he approaches fast, too fast, then he hits the brakes. Too late: the truck fishtails, the driver over corrects, and then the long metal spikes sweep across the tollbooth as the big Chevy roars sideways through the plaza. The metal spikes cleave through Valdez, ripping skin and muscle and sinew, bones splintering. A mist of blood fills the tollbooth as his body is torn in half, an explosion of gore and liquefied entrails that blasts outward from his midsection. Valdez and the tollbooth are launched into the air. What’s left of his body lands, flaccid, scattered across the wet pavement. The next morning Valerie awakes, exhausted after another night of troubling dreams. She decides the podcast is not worth the effort. Nobody listens. And it doesn’t really matter, anyway.
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Aug 3, 2020 02:20
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Thunderdome Week 418: Ancillary Action! One of my favorite plays is Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which follows the escapades of two minor characters from Hamlet, set simultaneous to the events of Shakespeare’s most famous play. This week we are going to tread a similar path, by writing an original story that inhabits the same timeframe/universe of a more famous work, but instead features a minor character(s) from that work. Here’s another example of this idea, courtesy of Robot Chicken: Wrong Place Wrong Time A couple of key points: This is not fan fiction! Your story should NOT feature main characters from the original work, although they can be included or referenced in passing. Yes, you are borrowing a setting, possibly some characters, and maybe some events from a pre-existing story. However, the challenge is to create something that is original and totally different from the original work, yet still exists comfortably in parallel to it. Events from the original work can be incorporated into your story, but focus on how your new protagonists would influence/react to them, as in the examples above. Feel free to invent new characters to flesh our your story as well. For your original works, choose a movie from this list, brought to us by the esteemed Hollywood Reporter: Hollywood's 100 Favorite Films If you really, really, really want to choose a film not on that list, gently caress you, fine, but you must  and I will assign you a hellrule. You can also for 200 extra words, and I’ll give you a line or two from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to inspire you.You do NOT need to claim a movie to enter, unless you're choosing something not from the list. Word Limit: 1000 Sign ups due: Friday, August 7st, by midnight Mountain Standard Time Submissions due: Sunday, August 9th, midnight MST. Judges: 1. Hawklad 2. sparksbloom 3. GrandmaParty Entrants: 1. Saucy_Rodent (2001) 2. CaligulaKangaroo (The Dark Knight) 3. Chopstick Dystopia (Blade Runner) 4. AstronautCharlie (Die Hard) 5. MockingQuantum (Alien) 6. cptn_dr 7. Something Else (Ghostbusters) 8. steeltoedsneakers 9. Thranguy (Space Jam) 10. Noah 11. AlmightyDerelict (LOTR-Fellowship) 12. a friendly penguin (The Big Lebowski) 13. Simply Simon (Groundhog Day) 14. crabrock (Jurassic Park) 15. Tyrannosaurus Hawklad fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Aug 8, 2020 |
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Aug 5, 2020 02:26
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cptn_dr posted:In, Here's your line: “Pirates could happen to anyone.” steeltoedsneakers posted:In. Sorry about the shambles. Being one of my favorite writers on here, I'll give you a line regardless. Use it or not: “Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it.” Thranguy posted:In, Great movie. Your story cannot contain the 5 most common words in the English Language: the, of, a, and, to
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Aug 5, 2020 07:28
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AlmightyDerelict posted:You offer it to me freely? Very well, In with LOTR: The Fellowship of The Ring, You story shall contain no dialogue or internal monologue.
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Aug 5, 2020 20:39
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Tom Stoppard posted:Word, words. They're all we have to go on. signups closed!
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Aug 8, 2020 17:33
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Tom Stoppard posted:“Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.” subs closed
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Aug 10, 2020 07:11
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 Week 418 Judgment! Many of the stories this week firmly entrenched themselves in the soggy middle of the pack through their use of either jarring tone, tedious exposition, or general lack of stuff happening. Others took the source material and built upon it truly unique and interesting stories with their own theme and voice. Some tried to do that and failed miserably. Let’s start with those: The loss goes to CaligulaKangaroo’s effort “A Few More Guys Like Batman.” The judges found it confusing, boring, and riddled with the aforementioned tone issues. DM’s are given to Something Else and AlmightyDerelict for not quite reaching the middle of the pack with their entries. AlmightyDerelict was hobbled by a hell rule that they couldn’t quite overcome; Something Else had no such excuse. But, as always, we write so that we can improve on our bad words, and I have no doubt they will bounce back strong! On a brighter note, the judges agreed that three stories deserved positive mention. First, Tyrannosaurus’s depiction of an assassin haunted by guilt earned our first Honorable Mention thanks to its technical expertise, clean structure, and layered story. Also receiving an HM is crabrock for crafting an emotionally intense, almost painful introspective tale of love, loss, and life—actually no, we just liked the butt joke. Our winner this week took their movie setting and created an original, interesting, and rather melancholy story that we all agreed rose above the rest. Congratulations to our winner Chopstick Dystopia! “Authentic Los Angeles Ramen” takes the prize this week. The throne is yours!
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Aug 11, 2020 03:24
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418 judgecrits Chopstick Dystopia - Authentic Los Angeles Ramen A chef muses on the nature of authenticity, and if it really matters? This story has a nice setting, I can smell the steam and pork fat in the air. As the story unfolds the theme develops well, as Enji considers the dissonance he feels as he attempts to create an ‘authentic’ experience when it’s mostly just an act. The prose is simple and evocative, and you tie into your theme the mind-link, the alcohol, Enji’s relationship with Hitomi, and the vignette with the female customer nicely. As he considers what aspects of his own experience are fake, he makes an odd discovery – that there’s no such thing as true authenticity, that once you scratch the surface most everything is built on a fake foundation. The line about him considering a mood-link for himself as sort of a quiet acceptance of this fact ties everything together. Overall: high MockingQuantum - Jones the Cat, as played by Werner Herzog A cat ponders predators and prey in an uncaring universe. Oof that first line! But I can see what you are trying to do with this piece. The language is turgid, thick with metaphors and description. That it is coming from a cat is I suppose intentional, and creates a sort of cold distance and aloofness that does befit a cat’s attitude towards humans. As the cat considers the fate of himself and his human companions before the ‘space-cat,’ he accepts that a far superior predator is at work and simply gives up. And I suppose that is my main gripe with the story, as its protagonist spends so much time and so many words doing and accomplishing...nothing. Choosing that cat as your POV character runs that risk, and while your story was entertaining to read and well written, it felt more like verbal catnip – in the end, not much substance behind the bloated language. Overall: mid Something Else – busted! A Ghostbusters impersonator gets tossed from a birthday party, gets hit by a bus, and turns into a ghost himself. There was some debate about whether this one went over the word limit, but we let it slide since when copied into a gdoc it was exactly 1000 words. Your breezy tone makes the story easy enough to read, but really limits the amount I could engage with it. The protag has no real backstory outside of being a failed clown, and the fact that he was ecstatic after getting assaulted and then (basically) stiffed out of payment made no sense to me. It felt more like a contrivance to get him to fall and get hit by the bus. Also, why would the parents expect a ‘real’ Ghostbuster to come and perform as a clown at a kids birthday party for $40/hour? Why does he have tiny fists? Why does Professor Patches communicate in honks (admittedly I am unsure how clown college works maybe that’s normal)? Why does he share a bed with his mom? I would also quibble that this doesn’t quite meet the prompt—while it is set in the Ghostbusters Cinematic Universe, it doesn’t feature a minor character from the movie (that I could tell). Overall: low Simply Simon – Bill’s Secret A restaurant employee finally admits to himself that he is gay. Taking a throwaway line from the movie and working it into an extended, introspective piece about Bill finally accepting his homosexuality is a bold choice, and you mostly pull it off. A few details seem superfluous, such as the time spent on Debbie, but overall you capture the ephemeral confusion about past, present, and future in the Groundhog Day universe, as Bill questions how he knows what he knows (or seems to know). The dark tone works well in contrast to the lighthearted delivery of the line in the movie and gives it greater depth. The use of second person was challenging, as it put Bill’s initial homophobia squarely on the shoulders of the reader; some may find this off-putting and coercive. I liked this one a bit more than my fellow judges. Overall: mid-high Saucy_Rodent - Clavius Crew of abandoned moon base resort to cannibalism to survive, strike a deal for rescue, and are then gunned down for it. The dark humor works well in this piece, the corporate-speak of the Leadership Council juxtaposes with the cannibalism to create some vivid and funny imagery. The plot is a little underwhelming as the only real ‘twist’ comes at the very end and doesn’t feel particularly earned. Hits the prompt well, has a certain cold war aesthetic that jibes with the feel of the original movie. Overall: mid a friendly penguin – Everyone Wants Something A dancer struggles to balance his self expression with the demands of everyday life. This story hits the prompt, digging into the landlord’s psyche and inner struggles as he tries to balance the needs of his job with what he really wants to do: interpretive dance. Along the way the little vignettes with the tenants emphasizes his helplessness—he is trapped by his dreary job and unable to free himself from the mundane in order to transcend through dance. His dreams, while small, seem authentic. In the end it seems like he freezes up, unable to complete his quintet, but for the arms reaching to the sky at the end. It’s ambiguous whether this is a victory or not for Marty, and I wish you’d spent a little time fleshing that out—rather than the throwaway line from his nemesis Henrietta. How did Marty feel about his performance? Did it matter in the end? Overall: mid crabrock – Jurassic Park A boy loses his butt. This reads like a comedy skit. It was light, quite funny, albeit sadly very low on dinosaurs. At first I thought it was a total whiff on the prompt until my co-judges informed me “hold on to your butt” was a direct quote from the movie. I would still quibble that this misses the idea of the prompt, however my co-judges really enjoyed the goofy humor and I will admit it was cute and the sitcom ending was satisfying. For me, it just didn’t do anything with the prompt that I was hoping for. Overall: mid Tyrannosaurus - Salieri Stopped Writing in 1804, or the Three Seasons of an Assassin An assassin kills Mozart and exacts vengeance to assuage his guilt. This story was well-structured and the prose flowed well. Volger’s struggle to come to terms with what he did, what he stole from mankind, is effectively presented. The ending tied a nice bow around the themes you develop, and I thought the line about having Mozart with him was great, especially as Volger had been haunted by his music since poisoning him. Overall liked this quite a bit. Overall: high Thranguy - Nina, Who Clowned on Charles Barkley Basketball player saves the world from Martians and blocks a shot. Okay I gave you a wicked hellrule, so a little choppiness in the prose can be expected. You did turn that choppiness into an interesting voice, however—using second person perspective helped strengthen that. My complaint with this piece is that is meanders a bit too much, which makes the odd sentence structures feel even more obtuse. On a second read I felt like it flowed better, so it may have just required getting into the rhythm of the words a bit. Overall I think you did a good job with a spectacularly difficult hell rule. Overall: mid AstronautCharlie – We’re all staying late Middle manager realizes what’s truly important and commits a grisly murder. This story hits the prompt, name dropping Ellis and setting things right in the middle of the events of the movie. The ‘business as usual’ conceit was humorous, although it was really the only joke. As a co-judge said, it felt a bit like being poked over and over in the ribs with the same joke. The use of a foreign language was distracting and took me right out of the story, however, since I don’t speak German. A little of that can be fine, as usually context clues can help a reader figure out what they are saying, but in this case there were none to be found and I feel like I was left out of something. As things escalate, and Maria ends up killing Carl (memorable description of the blood fountain), the reaction of the co-workers is a little too neat, I thought. But I suppose that was the punchline and it did fit with the rest of the co-workers actions. Overall mid Noah – Ebb Football player gets cut from team and copes with loss. You take on some heavy emotional stuff in this one, as Carol plays football to please his father and then struggles with what it means when his father dies. Some of the prose was a little clunky in spots, but there was some real heart in this story as well. The end, where he chooses to not visit his father’s grave the following Friday, is rather sad—I imagine he can’t face his father after being cut from the team. I wish you’d done a little more with fleshing out Carol’s father and their relationship. Another vignette from their past may have helped, but this was a satisfying read. Overall: mid CaligulaKangaroo - A Few More Guys Like Batman A wanna-be superhero gets his comeuppance. I wanted to like this story more than I did. I’ve always liked the concept of the ‘common man’ in a superhero universe and the weird way that superheroes/villains can just wreck a city and the regular folk just go about their business. There was a lot of wink-wink references to characters in the Batman Universe which got a little tedious. The main issue I had with this was Rory’s motivation – he went from wanting to leave Gotham to joining a band of gun nuts cosplaying as Batman for what reason? Just because his buddy Brian asked him to? The action was a little confusing and I had no reason to root for anybody, and then you end the big battle with actual Batman beating everyone up, so why am I even reading about this? An exploration of Rory’s motivations might make this more interesting. The throwaway death of Brian at the end was superfluous, just an excuse to make a heavy-handed reference to a bad guy from the Batman universe. Overall this was disappointing because it could have been so much better. Overall: low AlmightyDerelict- A Most Troubling Offer Farmer goes to bar, and back again. This hellrule definitely limited your ability to develop Maggot’s character, so I tried to take that into account as I read. The prose is fine, if not a bit direct, and this story squarely inhabits the Shire and the LOTR universe in terms of setting, character, and how the events unfold. The problem I have with this story is that nothing really happens or changes; Maggot goes to a bar, he declines the offer, and then goes home. There is no consequence even though the men threaten Maggot and his family—they simply get thrown out of the bar and disappear from the story entirely. Then you end by wrapping up a plot beat from earlier in the story that has nothing to do with the main conflict. It left me feeling like you could have done quite a bit more with this story. Overall: mid-low cptn_dr: A Drop of Robert’s Blood Two pirates await the return of their captain. This story hits the prompt and had some enjoyable dialogue between Jez and Davy. However, it suffers a bit from a severe lack of action. Since nothing happens—the pirates are simply waiting for Roberts to return—there’s consequently not much to write about. The banter is pretty good, although the references to Princess Bride were a tad heavy-handed. The ending works (as long as you’ve seen the movie) to frame the whole story as a short aside in a bigger, more important tale. Maybe that’s why it feels a little lackluster in comparison. Overall: mid
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Aug 11, 2020 15:35
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Aug 17, 2020 14:51
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Contributor SurreptitiousMuffin Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror Fantasy Protagonist attribute: Sculptor of clay pots Protagonist obstructor: Obsessive/neurotic What the protagonist wants: To make the perfect pot, the sort of Platonic Ideal of "pot" Story setting: Somewhere in a universe you invented, and horror is happening Setting details: I'm imagining some sort of fantastical 18th century, in a sort of transitional period where massive technological change is sweeping the land. World problem: Our protag makes the best pots, but rapid mechanisation is rendering his job obsolete and so he's dissolving into this obsessive madness where he needs to prove he can make pots better and faster than the factory can. Your protagonist...Is trying to get the thing they want, but it's difficult Your protagonist's attribute...Is lost in the course of pursuing what they want Your protagonist's obstructor...Doesn't seem so bad, then it gets worse At the end of the story..The world problem is not solved, and will get worse Imperfect Creations ~1550 words The red mud burps, releasing acrid, caustic smoke. Josef’s eyes burn as he pumps the bellows and shovels another measure of coal into the firebox. It needs more--always more. So he dumps the last of his powdery compounds and oily chymicals into the thick concoction and mixes them with a lead spatula. The smoke redoubles. Satisfied, Josef returns to his paper-smeared desk, easing into his chair to wait for the heat to fully incorporate his creation. His eyes drift across pages of the alchymical formulas, sketches, and clay models, landing on a thick glass jar half full of clear liquid. He is tired, and the mixture will need time to set. Josef soaks his rag and inhales deeply. His brain pickles, joining those collected in the jars on the high shelf of his laboratory. He dreams of his wife, pale as moonlight, sitting across from him at his pottery wheel. She watches him work, charcoal eyes never leaving his face. He can’t meet her gaze, instead focuses only on the clay. A draft comes through the window, and with it she is gone. When Josef awakens, the laboratory is dark, and the fire has gone out. Gustav sits on the floor in the corner, motionless, head bowed. Josef hobbles over to the cauldron and inspects the mixture. It’s thick and warm. Pliable. Ready for the wheel. Maybe this time. He starts slow, working into his rhythm, warming up his arthritic fingers. Soon the toxins in the spinning clay seep into his hands, and he calls out. “Gustav! Bring me the salve.” His assistant lurches to his feet and obeys. The salve numbs his palms as he works the material, pinching, pulling, coaxing the clay into ever taller and taller forms. He is close: he can feel it in the shape of the material, and he can feel it inside him, also. He is very close. Close to perfection. “Gustav! Bring the jig knife! And more water!” he calls. Gustav careens about the laboratory, fetching and wiping and pouring with clumsy determination. All the while Josef’s creation spirals upward, taller and taller, taking forms even his own mind cannot fully understand, folding and stretching and warping into shapes expanded and unimagined. When Josef can bear it no longer, his mind overwhelmed with the whirring, blinding contours of his creation, he lifts his foot from the pedal. The wheel grinds to stop. The laboratory is quiet. Time waits in the space between breaths. Then it collapses. Folding down, deflated, imperfect. It was not enough. His masterpiece reduced to a pile of clay leaking foul fluids the colour of blood. Josef bows his head. The powders and chymicals were not enough. Something is missing. He’s sure of his recipe, but accommodations were made. Greater purity is needed. And there’s only one source. He orders Gustav to return the clay to the heating pot and throws on his overcoat and hat. The cold air bites exposed skin. He walks between the shadows cast by chymical lamps struggling to light the rain-dappled street. A few servitors move mechanically down the sidewalks, late night errands carried out with crude fidelity. Distant laughter and conversations float on a breeze from the waterfront. A tavern door opens, spilling light onto the street. Instinctively, Josef recoils, moving into the shadow of a doorway. It is too late: he is seen; and it is him! Antonio. Features too large for his body, big hands, eyes, cheekbones, lips. All twisted in surprise, reaching for him. “Josef! It’s late you see you about!” He is drunk. Antonio always enjoyed his tipple, pacing about the laboratory with gin in hand, citing Newton and Wedgwood and Lavoisier. Educated, he scoffed at Josef’s clay forms, mocking his old-fashioned methods. Vibrant and handsome, he soon took an eye to Josef’s wife. “My good man, how I have missed you! I am in your debt,” Antonio says, and pantomimes a deep, drunken bow. Some friends have joined him from the bar, braying garish laughter over some shared joke. “You owe me no debt,” Joseph says, his voice low. “You taught me what I know! You’ve made me a rich man!” And it is true. His factory is efficient, bloodless, award-winning. A masterwork of modern production. But his product is inferior: crude, lifeless, and bereft of soul. A corruption of Josef’s teachings. Imperfect. Josef knows he can do better, and faster—if he only had more time, more materials with which to work. Josef pulls his overcoat tighter around his thin frame. “I must be going, Antonio. So nice to see you again.” As he strides off, he hears Antonio guffaw: “There, gentlemen, goes the great Josef Bezalel, truly the last of his kind.” The cemetery gates are locked at night, but that doesn’t keep Josef out. He climbs over a pile of freshly broken masonry and works his way along the rows of chipped and overturned headstones. Shadowy shapes lumber through the dark with him. Abandoned creations of Antonio’s factory, no doubt. Shoddy work, each born with a partial, imperfect soul, drawn to the cemetery to search for what they lack. Much like Josef. His key unlatches the mausoleum door, and the hinges groan as he pushes into the blackness within. He fumbles to light his kerosene torch, then works his way through the cobwebs until he finds the cryptic niche containing his wife’s remains. Josef pulls out his tools and begins work. He returns to the laboratory as dawn paints a bleary haze across the windows. Gustav has tended the fire, and the clay within the brass cauldron again belches oily smoke into the room. “Well done, Gustav,” Josef says. “We begin immediately. This time I have enough essence.” He hopes this to be true. There isn’t much of her left. “Essence?” A voice speaks from the shadows. “What’s this new ingredient you speak of?” Antonio steps into the morning light. Josef nearly drops the glass phial he has pulled from his coat. “You don’t belong here anymore! Get out!” Antonio’s face softens. His eyes are red-rimmed from drink, lack of sleep, or both. “Josef, we were partners once, friends. Perhaps I was even like a son to you? What happened to us?” His words are measured, but Josef follows his eyes to the phial. He pulls it back under his overcoat. “No son would betray a father like you did,” Josef says. “Your creations are a stain on my work. Your factory churns out mindless, soulless gholems, vermin to be used and then discarded at their owner’s whim. Your work is an embarrassment.” Antonio breaks his gaze and looks down. “I followed you. Tonight, I mean. I saw where you went.” “What of it?” Josef wants to bark the words, but his voice catches in his throat. “You know I loved Esther. And she loved me.” “She was my wife.” “She never mattered to you. Was never good enough for you.” “She was mine. And you--” Josef’s voice falters. He’d walked in on the two of them here in this very room, their bodies glistening with sweat from the heat of the fire, intertwined on the floor. He pushed the vision away. “I know you did it,” Antonio whispers. “You couldn’t bear her flaws. Her imperfections. Things you could never love. So you murdered her.” “I didn’t kill her!” Josef says, and the phial slips from under his coat and shatters on the floor. A foul bolus leaks from it, reeking of chymical solvents and decaying flesh. “I did no such thing. I couldn’t.” His voice is hollow in his ears, his blood roars. Josef steadies himself, murmurs a command and points a shaking finger. “He did.” Gustav’s massive arm comes down on Antonio’s head, and the gholem’s bestial strength crushes his skull and neck vertebrae in one devastating blow. Antonio crumples to the floor of the laboratory like a broken doll. A red discharge seeps from exposed brain tissue, painting the concrete with its essence. Later, as Josef works the clay, he thinks of the factory gholems that wander the graveyard, seeking the pieces they lack. Imperfect. This creation, shaped on his wheel, will lack nothing. Esther will be complete, for she will have her true love within her, incorporated. Flawless, and pure. Josef sets the wheel into motion and presses his palms into the wet clay. She will be perfect.
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Aug 24, 2020 06:08
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A critique of the story I commissioned, Many Paths to Peace by a friendly penguin Synopsis: a drug addicted mech pilot battles an alien invasion in the Martian sky. Does it hit the prompt? Yes, absolutely. I was hoping it would be a fun story to write with lots of mech on alien action, and it delivers. Review: I like the first line (“I am going to punch that purple faced alien scum right in his third eye”), it is simple, direct, and establishes the protagonists motivation. I would quibble, however, that it sets up a different battle than you describe, since the mech is battling alien ships, not the aliens themselves. The section quickly establishes the camaraderie with his partner, and has a little action, although it it unsatisfying because the ship gets away more or less seemingly unscathed. The second section cements the bond with his partner, and delves into the drug (Drenodrip) addiction and dependency. Its got some breezy banter that undercuts the seriousness of the addiction, but if the purpose of this section is to establish addiction, it may have been more effective to somehow work that into their conversation instead of it being about cigarettes and babes. In the third section we meet the prototypical meathead Commander, who only cares about numbers and results. This guy couldn’t be more two-dimensional, a walking, barking military trope—I think you could have been more creative here. Then we are back out to the battlefield for some mech/alien action, which is fine, if a little pointless. It felt a little like Pacific Rim meets Starship Troopers (only without the satire), and would have been a good place for some character development. Instead its pew pew pew and then they head back to base. Opportunity wasted. I totally forgot about the addiction angle because it is never brought up. In the last section you work to tie everything up: they get reassigned (theme: the war never ends), the withdrawal makes him want to strangle Sgt Hulka (theme: addicted to performance enhancing drugs), and he and Gupta are in it together (theme: buddies forever). It all comes in too fast for my taste, and feels a little tacked on. These themes could have been better developed through the middle section of the story if you’d focused more on the wants/needs/desires/obstacles of our protagonist. Gupta, too, is basically a blank slate and only exists to be his friend/battle buddy. There just isn’t enough characterization to hold my interest beyond the action. Overall it looks like a good first draft of a story, but would benefit from going back and fleshing out each character so the reader has somebody to identify with and root for.
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Aug 27, 2020 22:15
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Sep 23, 2020 17:42
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Prompt: "The branches of salt trees and shrubs were heavy with sprouting fungus, leaves and trunks stained white with disease." (page 368) Dead on Arrival ~950 words The laztorch hums sweetly in my grip as I push the business end into his chest and pull upward. His leathery flesh offers no resistance, burning and crisping as I carve through his rib cage, finishing though his neck. His head teeters, levers backwards off his torso, and falls to the metal floor with a wet crunch. gently caress that guy. I dated him, briefly. Before. A half-assed attempt at camaraderie before we hit heliopause and dropped into cryosleep. He talked a lot about football, his ex-husband, and always stuck me with the bill. Yeah, gently caress him. I adjust my mask and step over his remains. The mask seal is tight. The air in the engineering room is clouded with milky spores searching for a way inside, trying to infect me like the rest of the crew. Not today. I glove the keypad next to the door and it irises open, revealing a hallway beyond, glowing soft with pink emergency lights. No poo poo it’s an emergency. Still two centuries away from Proxima Centauri and a fungal infection wipes out the algae pools. The arkship computer freaks out and wakes everyone up, only some of us got infected too. The fungal spores invaded the cryosleep brine, and some unlucky souls woke up different. Hungry. But not me. I try not to think about what I saw in the cryosleep bay, pods torn open and wires and entrails and chunks of strewn flesh, barely thawed. A web of gore picked over by spindly human forms leaking white fluid from every orifice. I close my eyes to stem a rising nausea and move on. Forward. There’s no other direction left to go. A sign on the wall points towards Horticulture down the hall. I know this; one advantage to being assigned custodial crew is that I’ve gone over just about every nook and cranny aboard the ship. I creep over debris and remains under the pulsing lights. The mask blocks some of the smell. Small victories. My laztorch beeps, indicating low charge. The soft snick of an irising door sounds to my left, and I spin as another zombie tumbles towards me, jaw agape. This one’s the Admiral’s son, and yes, I briefly dated him too. His smooth skin and buttery lips are now covered with milky foam, infected like everyone else on the arkship. I key the laztorch and it’s over quickly. At least he paid for dinner. I move to the end of the hall. The door to Horticulture is jammed open by an erupting mass of twisted roots covered in white fuzz. I tighten my mask and move inside, clambering over the slick tendrils. The half-gravity of the arkship makes my movements clumsy. The algae pools are dried up, replaced by tangled nests of reticulated, twitching tendrils. The fungus pulses with energy. Each ropy hyphae twirls towards the center to form a colossal central mass. Three female forms sit before the mass, each connected through a thick white tendril sprouting from the back of their heads. They rise in unison as I enter the lab. Their voices ring out: "Assimilation is essential. Assimilation is inevitable." “Yeah, that’s not loving happening,” I say, slipping my pack off my back. "The Mycelium requires it. Submit, or become fuel." “Not today.” I drop my pack at my feet. The central mass quivers, then disgorges a mist of white froth my direction. I duck and it splatters the wall behind me. The three infected females approach with jerky motions, but the tether that leashes them to the central mass pulls taut. They stretch against their restraint, making the frustrated keening of predators whose prey is beyond reach. From the pack I pull out my prize: a small kernel of antimatter I pulled from the engineering bay. It’s secure within a magnetic lead containment sphere: round, about the size of baseball. Fits perfectly in my hand. The central mass pulses again, but before it can spurt more diseased fluids I pull out my second prize: a roll of duct tape. Using it, I secure the containment sphere to the end of the laztorch, and flip its lever to auto. A blue flame flickers to life. Barely. The last dregs of charge have reduced it to a faint echo of full power. The flame starts to cut through the sphere surrounding the antimatter. I hope it’s enough. With the antimatter cell firmly attached to the business end of the laztorch, I look up just as another blast of white liquid jets towards me. Rolling to the side on slippery fungal tendrils, I toss the package towards the alien mass. There’s no time to watch the results; I turn and run as fast as the half gravity allows me. Down the hall back through engineering, trying to put as many doors between me and Horticulture as possible. There’s more zombies, veined hands reaching for me as I push past, but I weave and dodge their attacks until I arrive at my destination: the hangar. Rows upon rows of landing vehicles spread before me, designed to ferry us down to the surface of the Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. Well, that sure as gently caress isn’t happening now. Five minutes later I’m floating through space as a mammoth detonation tears through the the starboard wing of the arkship. Fragments of metal explode outward, but I’ve positioned the launch so that the main bulk of the arkship protects me from the debris. With a heavy sigh I push the throttle forward. It’s time to do what I’m trained for: I’m a space janitor, and now there’s some serious loving cleaning up to do.
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Sep 28, 2020 03:24
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Nov 3, 2020 23:43
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A1 - make it bold and spicy, like the sauce And I would like to exercise my SPECIAL ABILITY Hawklad fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 05:38
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Two knights went south on a crusade With armor and weapons homemade Heathens they tried to kill But severely lacked the skill So returned instead with agreements on tariffs and trade.
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Nov 5, 2020 22:22
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Lucky seven of diamonds
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Nov 6, 2020 22:51
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I am heading to the mountains for the weekend and discovered I may not have reliable internet, so I'm gonna have to  Pretty sure I'm under the wordcount comfortably to throw extra words at the Hermit to avoid future flashes. If not feel free to DQ me. Hawklad, the Ultra Monk Nun's Priest....FOR NOW * Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT * Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "I get knocked down, but I get up again / You're never gonna keep me down" * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like a priest with exactly two more fucks, and who is giving them to the world right now?? (+50, Normal Amulet) * Surprise fairy attack: Mega Rosepetal demands PINK * Thursday's Encounter: DEATH: Endings, change, transformation, transition / Resistance to change, personal transformation, inner purging * Limerick: Entered (+50) Began with 1400 words. Currently has 1400 words The Ultra Monk’s Tale: The Mountains of the Moon ~950 words Head inside a termite mound, Inika never saw the mountain before it clocked her right in the rear end. Eleven billion tonnes of compacted dust and granite tossed her to the ground, long limbs splaying out on the clay. Inika did a quick roll as the giant dreadnought passed overhead, blocking out the desert sun with its bulk. Protruding root fibers tickled her face. Tiny beetles scrambled across the compact soil and stone of the mountain’s underbelly, inches above her. She pressed herself flat against the ground as it passed over. She knew the elliptical orbits of the mountains would sometimes dip down to touch the Earth, ripping through the soil and brush. The Great Mother said that was how the valleys and ravines that crisscrossed the desert were formed--carved from the firmament by the massive shapes that dotted the sky. When they passed close above, the Great Mother said, you could hear the old spirits within singing as they danced in their homes of basalt and brecchia. The mountains were fragments of the Earth’s only child, she said, called back to their home. The mountain soon passed over her and the setting sun’s return brought water to her eyes. In that moment Inika made her decision: she got up, and with long, sure strides, raced across the scrubland in pursuit. The mountain’s orbit was taking it away from the Earth again. Her hands scrabbled across its rough surface, seeking purchase as clots of dry soil rained down on her. Legs burning and the mountain receding upwards, she made one final leap, and caught a root that lifted her off her feet and into the sky. Now this was a sight to behold: Inika, the Salt Hunter, the Dawn Runner, her robe of furs billowing, ferociously climbing the mountain as it rose upwards into the pink sky. She moved across the regolith like a gecko, ropy muscles relentless in pursuit of elevation. Hand over hand, ever higher, until the slope fell away before her and she reached the summit. By now the sun was low, but the ponderous mountain’s ancient orbit chased it towards the horizon, and pink light stretched deep across the sky. The summit was large, covered in a uniform gray dust pockmarked with craters and littered with bones. Human remains, dry and cracked from time, deaths ages past. Inika said a prayer to her ancestors and nudged a skull with a hunting boot. It rolled over and dissolved into fragments. In the center of the desolate summit a glint of metal beckoned. A small metal hatch, its surface free of dust. Inika pulled it open to reveal a metal ladder leading downward. She took one last look at the fading world around her and descended into the mountain. Glass tubes set into the rock walls glowed softly, illuminated her descent. After a minute, the ladder deposited her into a large room. Banks of machinery surrounded her, nests of metal wires and tubes covering the walls and ceiling of this chamber. Glass displays mounted around the room on the wall displayed nothing but darkness. All of this machinery, as dormant and dead as the human remains on the summit. Inika had seen such devices before, sand-scoured relics that her tribe scavenged for raw materials. Indeed, the hunting knife on her hip was build from such scrap, recovered from a collapsed building on the outskirts of the City of Ghosts. A noise made her turn towards a small open doorway. Pulling out her knife, Inika crouched and entered a small room. It was sparsely furnished, with a simple cot and desk with a few papers strewn about. On the cot was another corpse, this one much fresher, of an ancient human male. It opened its eyes. Not a corpse. “Welcome,” he croaked. Inika hissed and pointed her knife at him, circling into a defensive posture. The impossibly old man held out two spindly arms in a consoling gesture. “Please, don’t be afraid. I can’t hurt you. Let me just--” and his voice dissolved into a rattling cough as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position. His words were strange, his dialect archaic. Behind his gray pallor, eyes the color of cobalt regarded her with curiosity. “I wasn’t expecting visitors today,” he said, attempting a wry smile that threatened to rupture his papery skin. “Who are you, what is this place?” Inika growled. “Fragment Zeta-Pi 6.2,” he said. “Although I don’t expect you understand what that means.” The Great Mother’s words sang in her head. That the mountains of the sky were fragments of the child, sundered long ago. And then she did understand. “How old are you?” she whispered. “An interesting question. Hard to know for sure. Over a thousand years, at least, my child.” Again with the smile. “Impossible.” “Quite possible, with the life extending technologies we once had.” Inika could see a glimmer of pride in his eyes. “Shame it was all lost.” “Lost?” Inika’s eyes were as sharp as the dagger she still held before her. “The fusion reactors. To power them required so much raw material. A choice was made, long ago. To make a sacrifice.” His arms dropped down to her lap. “Where we are now is--the result of that choice.” “So it was you who made the world what it is,” Inika said, and plunged her dagger into his heart. As he gasped his last breath, Inika leaned down and whispered the words of the Great Mother into his ear: “To set a man that is filled full of vice In high degree, and call him emperor. By God, out of his throne I will snatch him; When he least expects it, the most quickly he shall fall.” After, she returned to the surface and waited with the bones under the moonless night. Given enough time, the Earth would rise again beneath her.
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Nov 6, 2020 23:45
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IN with Week #403 - Fight Night, Round 2
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Dec 8, 2020 21:38
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Week 403 – Fight Night, Round 2 Rules: all your characters must be asian but none of them can be stereotypes; include more than one language. Enlightenment ~1095 words A light snow drifts down from the sky, but the valley is filled with fire and smoke. The Tibetan king sent hundreds of soldiers, armed with matchlocks and swords, down from the highlands to finally put down the upstart lama. A row of spidery trebuchets rain fire into the valley, incinerating trees into the charcoal haze through which you watch the battle. Figures weave in and out of the maelstrom, screaming in pain, missing limbs, bleeding from horrific wounds, scrambling in panicked retreat. Your brother is somewhere out there. A braver man would grab his spear, charge into the massacre to find him, and battle the Tibetan soldiers with your back firmly against his. You are not that man. Instead, you watch from behind the half-constructed palace walls of the dzong, turning your prayer wheel with sweat slicked hands. Is he alive? Is that even possible? Pangka was always the warrior. As children, you would run the hillside upon which the dzong now stands. He would pretend to fight the demon that lived among the trees. This unsettled you. Later, as an adult, he’d vanquished the demon, and together you’d started construction on the dzong to imprison it in the rock beneath. News had filtered to the king; now there was a price to pay. A wave of Tibetan soldiers bursts through the smoke and charge up the hill towards you. They’ve broken the flimsy defensive line your brother organized—farmers, armed with simple wood staves, run through by the invader’s superior weaponry. Where is your brother? You flee into the dzong. Woman and children have gathered here. As you enter the courtyard, a few turn to you, their lama. “Pachāḍi chōḍnuhōs. Unīharu ā'udai chan!” you shout, gesturing towards the back gate. Some start moving towards the gate, but others hesitate. Murmurs turn to shrieks as a flaming arrow falls from the sky and impales a sack of grain. “Unīharu ā'udai chan!” you repeat, louder. You hear the splintering of the front gate behind you. That gets them moving. You shout at them to flee up the mountain, far away from the dzong. You, however, cannot leave. You break from the wave of women and children and enter the lhakhang, the large prayer room in the center of the palace. Unfinished murals adorn the walls. You step over scattered construction materials to the center, where a statue of Buddha gazes down. Candles have been lit around its base. You think again of your brother. Is he wounded, praying? Calling for you? Shouts from the Tibetan soldiers grow louder as they fill the courtyard outside. They’ve breached the interior of the palace. You take a candle and slip through a side door. Stone steps descend into the storage cellar. The air smells of metal and sulfur. You use the candle flame to light a torch on the wall, illuminating tight rows of sacks and crates. In the back of the room you find what you are looking for: a dozen large muslin bags stuffed with dark gray powder. You adjust the geometry of the pile and carefully place the candle beneath one edge. This should buy you enough time to escape through the monk’s quarters above. The sounds of footsteps on the steps behind causes you to spin. A Tibetan soldier stands at the base of the stairs, his eyes wide. “Bujhā'unuhōs vā marnuhōs!” he barks at you. You consider it, for a moment. Surrender would be easy. But then you see the spear he carries. It’s familiar markings. It belongs to your brother. Three steps and you’re on him, swinging your prayer wheel with both hands at the back of his right leg. The sturdy wooden shaft connects, buckling the soldier’s knee. He is quick to recover, spinning away, and bashes the spear across the side of your head. Sparks wash into your vision as the room and your antagonist swim out of focus. You hold the prayer wheel up to block the next thrust of the spear, but instead you’re knocked backwards as the metal point sinks into your left shoulder. The searing pain sharpens your focus. The soldier pulls the spear from your flesh. You swing the prayer wheel upwards into his chin. He falls back against the stairs and there’s a wet crunch as his head contacts the stone. His body convulses, then goes still. You don’t dare look back at the candle and the bags of gunpowder. Ripping your brother’s spear from the soldier’s grip, you race up the stairs back into the lhakhang. Two more Tibetan soldiers are there, picking through the debris. You run to the steps that lead up to the monk’s quarters. The soldiers shout, but you don’t stop. The wound in your shoulder burns, and blood soaks the fabric of your gho as you scramble up the steps. The soldiers rush to follow. The windows on this level are unfinished, so you clamber through a window at the end of the hallway and onto the rooftop. Acrid smoke fills your lungs. The dzong below is swarming with Tibetan soldiers. Their conquest complete, they chant songs of victory. “Rōka!” your pursuers shout from the hallway behind. But you don’t stop. The tile roof slopes down to the back wall of the compound. You make it to the edge, but it’s a thirty foot drop to the ground outside the wall. Turning, you see the two soldiers framed in the open window. They point at you and laugh. You raise your brother’s spear. And then you are flying. The explosion rips the dzong apart. Like a mighty breath from the demon trapped in the rocks below, the fiery blast tears through mud and stone and timber. The soldiers disappear in a flash of white and you are lifted up, out, back into the forest. The ground rushes towards you, faster and faster, and then-- --and then you wake up, flat on your back. The snowbank is wet and cold, and your shoulder is numb. Tiny snowflakes drift down through the trees. The same trees you and Pangka played in as children, chasing rabbits and demons and each other. Delicate flakes of ash float down as well, white and gray mingling in the cold mountain air. The dzong is gone, your brother is gone, and with them your dream of the placid and peaceful life of a lama. You pick up your brother’s spear in one hand and your prayer wheel in the other. The world is full of demons. Weapons ready, you march back down the hillside.
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Dec 14, 2020 03:57
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