[Workshop] Engage me quickly!

[Challah Rajni]

Cool pieces all around. And thanks, Brian for squeezing something out of me that isn't another incomplete magnum opus. This one's good practice for me as I tend to write pretty things that meander and prefer to stay pretty rather than become exciting.

***

Welcome to Bihar: Economic Superpower

Click-click… Click-click... Done. All the world's money: worthless.

In a cheap sari, a bare room, and India's poorest state, Amu had brute-force hacked every stock exchange, openly. She never locked her door. It groaned open now... Her eyes widened with gleeful rage.

Just wind…

LET THEM COME. Let them come...

 

[R M Tobias]

"Will you not speak," Temerion challenged the swordsman. "I have travelled far to slay you."

His opponent said nothing, lay one hand on his sword hilt.

"Thirty years is a long time," he said, angry. "But my vengence will be sweet." Termerion drew his sword. The mirror did the same.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Blindly , he was thrust to his knees. As the hood was removed , his eyes quickly became accustomed to the flickering light, and he studiously inventoried the room. Blood-red walls. Candles. A pentagram. An altar. A knife-wielding robed figure. As he began to struggle , the hood was swiftly replaced.

 

[My Atomic Tales]

- Somebody walks into a room.

It can be any genre, any background, but there *must* be a sense of tension driving this.

Additionally, you may write no more than 50 words to convey that tension!

He saw the blood before he even opened the door. His soles were seeped in it. His hand went to his gun as he stepped inside, eyes scanning the apartment with calm abandon even as his finger tensed on the trigger. Aliens. He hated 'em. Didn't bleed red for a start...


(Oops, one word over, but can't figure out which one to excise.)

 

[Mouse]

You could change "His hand went to his gun" to "His hand touched his gun" And Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt, one word down.

 

[My Atomic Tales]

You could change "His hand went to his gun" to "His hand touched his gun" And Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt, one word down.

I was thinking of removing the redundant 'even' from the 'his finger tensed on the trigger' passage, but it was too late to edit. Cheers for reading it, anyway.

 

[Mouse]

That'd also work. I quite like that 'even' though.

 

[Chel]

They all saw his harrowed expression as he slammed the door shut behind him. He was out of breath and his legs were shaking. Something had gone horribly wrong.

"We have to get out of here," he whispered, pointing to the window. Treetops waved outside in the storm.


***
Nice exercise, this.

 

[jamlebrilla]

Are we still on the "something enters the room" theme? Here's my try at it.

The room grew colder. My ears registered no window opened, no door unlocked. A presence ghosted over my skin. I shivered. Someone was there, circling me. I turned my head, hearing no movement, but feeling it. I opened my eyes, a useless action. I saw nothing but a murky brown.

 

[fitzchivalry]

Thought I would have a bash at it too

Footsteps outside. I froze. Key beat the lock, as fear beat my heart. I turned, like the handle on the door. He burst into the dark room, as I hid behind a table. Did he see me? My eyes, are closed. Dare I open them? The door closed. My eyes opened….

 

[J Riff]

The door burst open and Dorothy and the dog dragged poor dead Delbert in and dumped him on the divan.
"Don't dirty my divan!" yelled Delilah from her davenport.
"Nice desk." drawled Dorothy.
The dog was doing dire deeds to Delbert.
"Desist, dog!" demanded Delilah.
"Dog's name's DeeDee." declared Dorothy.

 

[My Atomic Tales]

I stepped into the room.

The corpse smiled at me. "Awright?" it said, though decomposition had already demoted its conversational abilities to the most basic level.

"Been better," I muttered, scanning the environment for any signs of aggression or threat. "Who did it?"

The corpse gurgled happily. "Wife. Can you believe it? All these years..."

"That's love for you," I replied unsympathetically. "It always gets you in the end."

"Says you!" breathed the corpse before shuffling off towards its final destination.

I rubbed my nose, as if in some way this would negate the stench. "Yeah," I grunted, taking a last glance at the pile of flesh that had once been the President. "Says me. Welcome to the Afterlife. Hope you enjoy it."

I left, my only desire to track down the kind of woman who could kill a corpse. Much as it pained me to admit it, the Dead had rights too. And one of those rights included not having your chest blown out with a shotgun.

I knew where to start. Clutching my pistol, I knew where to finish too.

 

[chrispenycate]

Didn't read the first post, did you? Specified

you may write no more than 50 words to convey that tension!

Nothing personal; I just wouldn't like the next person along to think it was unlimited, and the point of the exercise (building tension in minimal space) be lost.

Yes, yes, I know; I have need of this particular training myself. Perhaps I'll try for one.

 

[mosaix]

A slightly edited version of something I posted in First Lines a couple of years ago...


Brent stepped into the apartment, flies buzzing around his head. In front of him a table with a half finished meal, an overflowing ashtray and an old copy of the Racing Gazette. To the right a corpse, its throat cut, sat in an armchair watching the TV midday news.

 

[J Riff]

very silly

The door went down along with the wall as Delbert drove his new Jeep into the living room.

"I'm watching television!" screamed his Mom.

Delbert proudly revved up his new machine. His Mom produced a flamethrower from under the couch and waggled it suggestively.

"A wee bit tense today, are we?"

*​

Something was at the door. Not someone - some thing.

Marlena inched along the wall, persperation pouring from every pore.

She was opening the closet door when a protoplasmic monstrosity exploded through the keyhole and swarmed onto her like a giant psychedelic starfish, just as the closet door snicked shut behind them.

Silence.

 

[Brev]

- nice idea, and some good work, hows this?


Frantic, he shut the door behind him.


Pressing against it's hard wood, his legs and chest burning from the exertion, his mind wild with fear, he listened.


Had they seen him?


His ragged breathing and rapidly pounding heart sounded too loud, screaming his presence.


Then, footsteps from beyond the door.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

It's nice to wake up knowing you've been shot. The alternative is much worse; being shot and not waking up. I was alive and whoever shot me made the mistake of not checking. It was a mistake I never make. That could wait: now, where's that damn phone?

 

[Ian Whates]

He froze on the threshold. Whoever the intruder was they were good. There was no sign of forced entry, nothing overt to arouse suspicion, and no sound to give the man away, not even the gentle rise and fall of breathing. Yet Ulbrax could sense him, smell him, feel him…

 

[Talysia]

Footsteps woke me. Wearily, I opened my eyes and looked around, but there was no-one there. A dream? Unwilling to leave my bed, I shrugged and sought sleep, only to hear those soft steps again.

Exasperated, I sat up, seeing nothing again. Nothing, save for the shadow on the floor...

 

[Evelinn]

A gentle push opened the door. The sight that met him made his stomach churn and his hackles rise. The air felt used, inhaled and exhaled by too many lounges, and it brought with it a sweet smell of decay. What lay on the floor could no longer be identified.