THREE HUNDRED WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #1 -- Victory for Boneman!

[StormFeather]

Precious Time​

Taurus​

You may find that news of family or friends is hard to hear today. You have the inner strength to cope with the news, and you will receive support from an unexpected source​

When I received the call from Dad, and when he told me that he couldn’t walk and his hands weren’t working, my heart sank. I knew what his symptoms implied.

At the hospital, we found out that not only had it been a stroke, but that he’d had a heart attack too. It was a worrying time.

Later, as Dad slept, exhausted after all the tests and scans, I shut my eyes, and offered up a silent prayer that he’d be ok.

Within seconds, the regular sounds of the ward receded. The beeping machines, the gasp of the respirators, the purposeful chat of the nurses all faded. I opened my eyes to find Dad bathed in the softest golden glow. There were figures in the light, surrounding his bed. They were holding hands. Some of them seemed familiar, others I didn’t recognise at all.

I felt an enormous sense of calm, as the glow reached me too. One of the figures turned to me and smiled.

It’s not his time to join us yet. He still has more to do. When his time does come, know that he will be among those who love him deeply too.

I didn’t hear the words directly, but knew this was what had been said. I blinked back tears of relief. I wanted to thank them but in between one blink and the next, they were gone.

Dad is out of hospital now, and back home with his family. Every day is special as we make the most of every precious minute we can share together.

 

[Precise Calibre]

One Man's Concept is Another Alien's Curiosity

​

Angry, black clouds boiled across the sky; arcs of lightning illuminated the blasted landscape. X'thrglphter and his companion, W'shgrphltha, gazed at the archeological wonders of this dead, poisoned-filled world through massive, crystalline eyes.

It had once been a city. Through research of long-passed civilizations, the two could identify this as an old village square. Stones had been planted in the ground in orderly fashion to serve as a crude road. The outlines of clumsy stone buildings, all but leveled, could be seen out to the horizon.

X'thrglphter wound one of his many tentacles around a curious bit of wreckage, lifted it for inspection. A strangely shaped bar of metal led him intuitively to believe it was meant for pointing at something, but what?

Vibrations came through the air – his partner was laughing at him. She pointed her prime tendril gracefully at a pile of wreckage different from the rest; a massive disk covered with odd etchings. Still attached via mangled metal were quaint representations of a little planet and a star.

'I believe this is what the entities on this planet once called a “clock”, though I may be wrong,' W'shgrphltha sent.

'What is it for?' he replied.

'When this planet could still see them, the stars would move through the sky, the same pattern over and over again. The lifeforms on this planet feared this passage without knowing where they were at each step,' she sent back.

He radiated confusion to her.

'They built these... clocks to cut the passage of the stars into smaller chunks. With the celestial cycle divided, they could know where their place was. They called it “time”,' she explained.

X'thrglphter scrutinized the clock and sent 'It's not doing anything.'

'Maybe they ran out of time?' she replied, laughing.

 

[Culhwch]

A Clockwork Heart

I loved her, but she didn't want me. Not all of me, in any case. She took my heart for her dark arts, and left me broken and bleeding.

Flesh and tissue are transient, imperfect. She had her arts, and I had mine. I built a replacement heart, from clockwork.

And I swore vengeance. She wished to cast her spell across the world, and ensnare the hearts of all men. I would not - could not - allow that.

We fought across continents, sometimes in the shadows, unseen, and sometimes on the field of battle, leading armies numbering tens of thousands.

We fought across centuries, she preserved by her magicks, and I by my mechanicks. Time changed us both.

She could not withstand the darkness she wrought upon herself and others, and slowly, inexorably, she became a creature both terrible and beautiful, a queen fit to rule nightmares.

And though my heart ticked ever on, my corporeal body could not keep pace. I crafted a better canister for my spark of life, a geared and steam-powered behemoth, crafted from witchiron and engraved with protective runes.

When we met, that final time, neither of us even slightly resembled the souls we once were. But as we battled, I thought I saw something in her eyes, a sliver of memory, a brief shard of regret for the pain she had caused me, the darkness she had wrought.

It may have been my imagination. But I choose to believe it wasn’t.

As I crushed her then in my mechanical embrace, I knew I still loved her. That I would love her forever.

And it is true. As my heart ticks ever on, with no end in sight – it is true, I love her still.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And with the Challenge closed for entries, the poll is now open.

The rules and the polling system are a little different from normal SO READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY:


Any member of Chrons may vote whether or not they have submitted a story


Each member may vote for up to THREE stories, all votes to be cast at the same time
(The software won't allow for return visits for voting purposes, so if you don't use all three votes at once, you will lose the unused ones)



NO MEMBER MAY VOTE FOR HIS OR HER OWN STORY


Any voting irregularities will result in votes being discounted


The poll will close at 11.59pm GMT on 15 May 2011



THIS TIME THE POLL IS AN OPEN ONE

(This means that everyone will be able to see for whom you voted and how many votes you cast)


The link to the poll is here:

Poll​

 

[Brian G Turner]

Winner announced on the chronicles homepage:
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/2011/05/24/april-writing-challenge-winner/