300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- VICTORY TO HEX

[Grimbear]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Alone at the End​

Each time I come here I find it harder to leave. What is there to go to? Where else? And for what?

I think - some day I shall come here and I will not leave. Maybe that day is today.

Here, it was always silent. I can shut my eyes and imagine away the days, return to the old world. Here, I can sometimes make myself believe that nothing is wrong.

Nothing ever happened here, and nothing happens now. It is the same. I can lie here, like I did before everything changed, and watch the sun slowly tug the sculpture’s strange shadow over the flowering clover. It patterns the grass in a grid of angular shapes, sometimes thin and faint, sometimes bold and sharply-defined. It is quiet and still here. And it is good.

Down among the houses, quiet hangs like a shroud, silence buzzes in my ears and emptiness gapes like a pit that opens to swallow me with every step I take. Where there was light, there is now only the dark. I feel eyes watching me where there are none. I strain to hear sounds that never come.

Even the tower is dead. It breathed once, in great clots of dirty gray smoke that stained the sky.

Nothing breathes now.

I lie, drift, feel I am falling. Am I above the clouds or below them?

My view of the sky is blocked suddenly by a face. One that wears an expression that I think must mirror my own; shock and fear, but also wonder.

“Are you real?” she says.

I don’t know if I can speak. I stare at her. I could ask her the same question, but I don't.

“I think so.” I say after a moment. “I think I am."

 

[Denise Tanaka]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Doubt​

She peered at the prairie through the angular railing—the only way to see the unseeable. Years ago, she stopped wondering why it worked here. It just did. Will I catch one? Her eyes ached; vision was hazy. Her lower back tightened. Her left knee creaked.

She had journeyed to this place hoping one of them would come. The creatures felt a primal urge to return to where it all began. Dry wildflowers made a lacy veneer. Clouds unraveled in a sky like faded blue jeans. Sunset backlit the silhouette of an abandoned church. There... She strained to focus. A lone figure approached the church. A man in black jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Shudders convulsed her. One of them!

Out of the duffel, she selected a Glock semi-automatic. She checked the clip. Bracing her pale wrist, she took careful aim. My only chance. She squeezed the trigger. The Glock recoiled. Pop and a puff of smoke. The man fell.

Yes! She fired the whole clip. Every discharge pelted the figure. She could not relent, or it might attack. Empty at last, the gun clicked like old bones. Her weary hand released. Then she reloaded.

Slowly, she shuffled through dry wildflowers. She felt thirsty and hungry after so many days alone.

“Oh,” the man groaned. “You... shot me?”

His blood sizzled in parched soil. She saw him clearly; when they were dying or dead, they were visible. His skin was brown and fading, but he was not dying quickly enough.

She pressed the gun onto his chest. She pulled the trigger repeatedly until his breathing stopped.

At last, she was safe. She sank to her creaking knees. She bent over his head, opened her mouth wide, and chewed into his skull to eat his brain.

 

[Glen]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Life Goes On

Look at this crappy sculpture framing the church and the incinerator tower in this late morning light. What a luxury to have had time for art.

Most towns and villages had churches, of course, some hundreds of years old. They all had incinerators by the end of the bio-war. Best to stay away from them now: the backlog of bodies stinks, and attracts vermin. It is better this year than last. And certainly better than the first year. I called it Year One in a camp once, and had to fight an enraged nutter who insisted it should be Year Zero. Civilisation not cold in its grave before we’re arguing over nothing.

Hours of light left and a town close by. I feel confident I can find food. Let’s take a few minutes sitting in this meadow, soaking in some rays. We don’t get sun so often and my skin is pale like a rat’s tail.

‘Hey, big boy!’

I wake, scared, disoriented. There’s a girl. She’s sitting nearby, framed in tall grass and wildflowers. She raises her eyebrows, smiles. My fear fades.

‘Nearly everyone died here,’ she says. She shifts her gaze from my lap to the shotgun she holds across her own legs: just letting me know.

I nod. ‘I need food. And a place to stay.’

‘Are you on your own?’

‘Yes. I’ve seen no-one for two weeks.’

She nods. ‘I’ve got a safe place. With lots of provisions. Food, Water, Meds, tools.’

‘Just you?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes look hard for a moment. Cold. ‘I look after it.’

‘Resourceful – as well as gorgeous.’

‘Charmer!’ she says, smiling. ‘Come on then.’

This is humanity. What is left is just the same as what was before. Life goes on. Sex, death and violence. Violence, death and sex.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

[FONT=&quot]Bloodthirsty Foes and Brave-Hearted Fathers[/FONT]

​

[FONT=&quot]Elizabeth huddled close to her mother; her father’s arms wrapped around them both. They stood in the center of the dining room listening to the sound of marching boots outside on the wet pavement. A man of seemingly important status shouted something and the boots stopped all at once. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Elizabeth felt a lump in her throat. Outside, a single set of boots began splashing through the mud.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mud! The front yard was the only muddy thing between them and wet pavement!
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Her father tightened his grip on his family. The sloshing of mud grew louder; each step a violent, muddy step closer to the camps.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Her mother kept silent. Elizabeth slowly looked up at her father, who was now looking down at her. He crossed one finger over his mouth, whispering a shushing noise.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The boots splashing through mud ceased. Elizabeth could hear heavy breathing outside the door. She pictured a Nazi soldier, probably bedazzled in metals. She pictured a man with graying hair and a clean-shaven face. She pictured him raising his stubby hand and knocking on the door.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Knock! Knock! Knock![/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]She could feel her mother trembling behind her. Slowly, her father released his grip on them. He stepped quietly to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. From behind it he produced a rifle.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Elizabeth swung her head from the door to her father, and back to the door. He walked to the door. He placed the rifle against the wall where the open door would hide it, still close enough to grasp in a second’s notice.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]He wrapped one hand around the cold steel of the door knob and–[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Knock! Knock! Knock![/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Elizabeth and her mother jumped; her father never flinched. Slowly, he turned the knob and opened the door.[/FONT]

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

The Legacy of the Human Race​

The community in that visual paper? Yeah, I know that place. Somewhere along the eastern coast of the Isle, back when it was known as the United Kingdom. United. What a laughable concept. To ever think that humans could have ever gotten along with each other.

What happened? That’s a long tale…

It happened in the year 2244, of human reckoning. The relations between all the ruling councils of what humans called The United Nations had been strained for two hundred human years, finally collapsing into oblivion when a centralized council land called The United States accused another council, a land called Russia, of an act of warfare. As a result, The United States landmass launched one of their big exploding shells against the Russia landmass, going against that United Nations council’s orders. The other centralized council lands asked that The United States council not be with them anymore.

That sparked an act called the Third World War. Councils that The United States council called “friends” dropped more big exploding shells on the landmass, leaving behind a horrible area of burning, radiated land and leaving millions of their fellow species dead, and millions more with undesirable genetic differences. The council of the land was disbanded and the rest of the councils of the world broke apart soon after. Now humans live as solitary creatures, the males preying on other males for food and territory, and women for breeding.

Now all that stands of the community you mention are the shelters and what humans call “factories” and barriers made of metal and tree slices. Your race is doomed to extinction because of the acts of your centralized councils. You ask us to help save your species. We have only one response to your request…

Why should we?

 

[Kylara]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Cruel Fate
​

The wind invigorates my soul. Arms outstretched, eyes shut against the dust, my head flung high as if staring at the stars. My body vibrates to the sound of the trees as I lift onto my toes. I suck in the blasting air and a dark despairing scream echoes in my mind. Huge ethereal wings unfurl as I anticipate the soon to be had joy of being carried by the winds.

It dies down a little and I know the wildness that approaches. Stretching out my wings fill with a snap and the harsh cry of the wind engulfs me. Wrenching myself about to gain more height, always more height, pushing higher with every gust, every breath of air, straining up towards the stars, my impossible destination. The air changes, thickens with moisture as my desperate tears remind the storm of what must come next.

I am running out of time.

The rain comes, beating cruelly upon the grass and stone. I climb higher, revelling in the fey freedom of the storm. Yet being pulled back by my anchor; no more soaring for me…the glorious stars denied me once more. Woefully losing height as I sink slowly back down towards the overgrown mound. My illusory freedom ended viciously by a rainbow and the sun.

And I am stranded…still…desolate and alone by my aging bones. The dying wind giving its last to my fading spirit, leaching new strength as I sit, chained, atop my tomb. Waiting, yet again, for the storm to come for me once more.

 

[alchemist]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Interesting Times

"We'll go the hill," Darren said after the broadcast. "We may as well watch the end of the world."

#



Kirsty blinked and everything was frozen. Smoke hung, unmoving, over the factory's chimney. The church bells were silent.

She was alone – no crowd, no Darren, no Ellie. Ellie! If she didn't get her medicine... Kirsty looked about, her heart hammering.

A man broke the stillness, walking up the hill towards her; his gait confident, one hand tucked into his trousers.

She knew what he was.

"Kirsty."

"Yes?" she croaked.

"You have a choice."

A choice? What matter, if the world was going to end anyway? "I don't understand."

"Is your world worth saving?"

Ellie, the night before: her tear-filled eyes after another clump of hair fell out; her moans as the pain broke through. Kirstie had prayed so many times for the agony to end.

"Could I say goodbye to her first?" Kirstie asked.

He shrugged. "Yes. Your decision?"

But the tears had stopped, and Ellie had forced a smile. "I'll be okay, Mum," she'd said. "I'll walk again by Christmas."

Kirsty wiped away a tear. "There's hope. There's always hope."

"As you wish."

A cool breeze played across her face and the murmur of excited voices grew all around. She looked down.Her daughter was in her wheelchair, smiling from under her Spongebob bandana.

"Ellie!" She hugged her – carefully, not too tight – as she never had before.

"It's okay, Mum. The man said he changed my world, and the pain's gone."

Ellie's face was bright; full of hope. Gone? Could it be...

"I just wish Dad was here."

"What?" The crowd was thinner than Kirsty remembered, and Darren was gone. Her stomach balled in a knot.

"He left with the man," Ellie said. "Just after he said goodbye."

 

[kiffinyjean]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Aiding and Abetting a Satyr
​

Jail is no place for a Satyr. I'm supposed to be out frolicking, chasing wood nymphs... flashing people. And if you think this view sucks, trust me, the food's worse. Two more years of moldy grapes and vinegar for wine.

It was that gambling, flea bitten, one horned GOAT of a Unicorn's fault. He got off free due to the “nature of his existence.” I'm going to slowly whittle his horn with a potato peeler. Take the witch's brew he says, you can't curse a unicorn he says. NO mention of high tech security systems... or that her familiar also practices law. Mangy cat.

I was stuck in a 10X10 holding cell waiting to be hoof printed for nearly 10 hours. With a Centaur. A gassy Centaur. He was ranting about how he gallops better when he's drunk. It has never been so horrible to be immortal.

The guards are 8 foot tall bull-headed brutes -- but they're Minotaurs, so that's expected. As long as you don’t get lost in the hallways they mostly stay off your back. The guards don't run this place anyway, the Gnomes do. Annoying little guys, but useful if you need something. They can smuggle almost anything in those pointy hats of theirs.

A huge Cyclops with elaborate tattoos has been awfully friendly. He keeps asking about my pipes... and I think he's winking at me, but I could be wrong.

It's funny how incarceration "saves" people. My cellmate is Brownie in recovery. He keeps preaching about how Zeus saved him from drunkenness and debauchery. I'm a Satyr, I'm supposed to be drunk and debauched.

That’s it. I can’t take this anymore. I need to get out of here soon… before that Cyclops starts eyeballing me again.

 

[Scott R. Forshaw]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Shadow Walker​

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Only they aren't, are they? Not in this world, in any case. The ones who roam these lands now have lost all sense of reality; they've reneged on life, and given in to the darkness which lies beyond. Soulless entities hell-bent on our destruction, their living flesh handed over to the Lords of the Underworld. And for what? So they can rule over us, destroy our once beautiful world. Bring it crashing to its knees, and drain the life out of what remains. They were Human once – long ago, but what's left of them now is nothing more than a creation of the pit; Hell on Earth.

When they came to power– the Rhagargoelion Marwolaeth – six billion people died overnight. Those who survived fled, went into hiding. They were wise enough to want to keep the flesh on their backs, and their hearts in their chests. Only the gods of decay wouldn't rest until we were all dead; each and every one of us. No soul spared, no blood left undevoured. The beasts of the night, merciless beyond compare, spawn of fire and brimstone, the harbingers of death, had come to feast on us all.

My name is Saul Ferryman, the Light Bringer. For a long time I've lived in fear, foraging just to survive, but now those days have passed. Now I walk in the light, hell-bent on the destruction of darkness. I will prevail; I have to for Humanities sake. With a sword on my back, and a gun on my hip, I step out to face the world once more. Today, darkness will bleed, and the souls of the damned shall be sent screaming to the fiery depths. Today, I promise you this, Demons will die.

 

[chrispenycate]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Be careful what you ask for.​

A giant Phallus, impregnating the heavens, dwarfing the steeple symbolic of our previous obsession.

Once it was railways, strip mining for the iron and coal for rail and engine. Earlier shipbuilders denuded hills and plains for wood. Later highways, and airlines; always destroying what is here to seek wealth elsewhere.

Across countries, continents, the peaceful cannons discharge their life-sustaining contents skyward.

As the planet slipped further into near suicidal depression, and entertainment jostled bureaucracy as chief employment, an idealistic international group had seen what was needed was a project that would absorb the energies of the masses no longer needed for food production, who had avoided education , seeing no advantage therein, who lived for copulation, hallucination and television, without the traditional remedies of war or famine.

It could have been saving oceans, or de-desertification, but we chose space. Proven capable of inspiring enthusiasm, so huge the job could never finish, the eternal frontier. A place for everyone, education critical.

It worked. Childbirth is down, overall pride soaring. Every country on the planet is collaborating, competing, attempting to outshine others, Astronauts have replaced sportsmen in national popularity, equatorial lands bicker in the UN for the skyhook anchoring points, understanding that political stability is an important selection factor but failing to see the final choice need not be made for another two decades. Perhaps by then the habit of thinking 'solution equals war or revolution' will have died.

I contemplate my success. The distant churchbells rattle in time to the earthshake and sonic boom as another cargo rises towards the heavens to pay its tiny part in the tower of anti-babel, of co-operation in competition that has given mankind a breathing space from its self destruction, at the price of degredation of everything it once had.

 

[StilLearning]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

The ghost of the valley...

"The Moon surprises people," a search and rescue guy once told me.

On the Eighth Continent marathon, in that airless desert, surprises weren't welcome.

Half the internet was riding my helmet camera. Commentators periodically bugged me for breathless sound bites. I love the fans, really. But halfway through the climb out of Schroter valley - which exhausted me into hearing things last year - wasn't the time to deal with:

"Mike! MTV! How's the weather?"

Legs burning, I wondered: Sarcasm, retard, or wrong web address?

It wasn't the moment to trip.

I did.

Face down, in the lunar dust, my foot had the hot/numb feel of something broken. Worse, I'd just sworn on a show my daughter watched. So now Jenny would skin me.

Lying prone, I twisted to see what'd tripped me.......

I’d tripped over a head.

Someone was yelling on the line. Desiccated heads, in half crushed helmets, probably aren’t family viewing.

I hope they cut the connection before, pointing, I screamed: "Fuuuu-! Head!!"

Not my coolest moment.

*

Rescue will take hours. Schroter valley wall isn't exactly accessible.

I give my new friend a cairn of pale lunar stone. The yellowed photograph I found - looks like a shot of his home town - is in his hand.

My guess: He arrived a hundred years ago, in some cold war stunt. Lander wouldn't restart. He climbed the valley, to die with a view.

Set off a rock slide.

Had his memory ignored.

Good call though - the climb. The distant ground is silver anorthosite and black basalt. Green, volcanic glass, 'berries' are strewn all about. Earth in the sky.

Stunning.

I wonder about the voices I heard last year.....

The Moon surprised me.

 

[JoanDrake]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

MIRAGE

　

“Fire”

An explosion followed, shaking the whole building as the Commandant raised his binoculars.

Fascinating, you can sometimes actually see the shell in the morning light it was something he had heard but never believed.

Then he cursed as it exploded harmlessly at the base of the huge smokestack which dominated the horizon.

HOW could it still be there? They’d been bombarding it for THREE DAYS. Still it stood.

And blocked them like a division. One observer atop it could see for miles on either side, their movements would be countered instantly

This is not the way to fight, we are supposed to bypass resistance, to move like a bolt of lightning, that was Guderian’s whole idea.

Instead they’d been stuck here, blasting this…thing, unable to move until it was gone….bringing up artillery by the hour. No more planes were even available.

“The troops have reached the target, sir, they send a report“, the sergeant who had just arrived saluted, then, rather nervously, proffered a note.

The commandant read it, and looked up.

“But…how??,” He pointed one arm toward the column,“…does it LOOK like…it’s..”, his voice trailed off.

“They say it is….some sort of projection, sir, done with large mirrors and lenses cleverly arranged. That’s all they could figure from the few notes left in the physics lab they found. The town is a University and while most of the students had fled, they’d rigged bombs everywhere. That’s why it took so long to reach it.”

The commandant heard explosions and saw four small columns of smoke rising from the corners of the village. The smokestack shimmered, and vanished.

Crumpling the note, he looked at the horizon.

This is going to be a long war, he thought.

 

[Phoenixthewriter]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

The Pillar

I am the keeper of death. That is my job, that is all of my being, and it is a pleasant one. To watch the hundreds of worlds spin and tumble, grow and change; I enjoy watching them scurry – the lifeforms – about their days; their meaningless existences.

When it happens, it comes quickly. The blackness overcomes their features, their eyes, their hearts, their souls. It produces a single explosion of insanity so great and powerful; it is merciful it lasts for but a blink. I hear every soul's scream, continuous as their spirit walks the earth with but the final memory of their last moment, whaling in the night, invisible by day.

The living believe in ghosts; spirits as it were. They should. I create them, and not one of them friendly. They are tormented by the pain, walking a horrific bleached existence across the earth for eternity, the world a pasty burnt image of what it used to be.

I care not for the future of those lost souls, but I relish in that final moment. I save those images, the last thing they see before the end, kept in a sealed room beyond dimensions, designed by me. I reflect on those moments now.

Yes, I can almost taste this one. It is from a boy, the field so full of life before him, just before the black pillar reaches down from the sky and tears his life away. He watches it coalesce in the distance, just moments before it happens. I can hear his cries whenever I see it.

They make me smile. I remember them as I descend once more, my blackened body reaching down from the heavens to do it all again, for I am the keeper – the pillar – of death.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Our Lady of Jacoby

Where the Hell...?

She awoke slumped in front of a blank monitor screen with a flashing green cursor.

It was a circular room with charts and tables of four-digit numbers fixed to the curved wall. On a whiteboard was scrawled REPEAT PRESCRIPTION. Next to this was a bird’s-eye print of a barren cove; waves of glowing white sand had piled up against the defiant and corroded hulk of an old merchant ship. From Jacoby Lighthouse was printed on the picture and attached below, a tatty red and black calendar. The only evidence of time having passed was a series of hash marks of days crossed off. No date was discernible.

Rising from the swivel chair she moved to the nearest of the room's filthy porthole windows. They were not actually dirty but the light from outside was…altered; a caul of rusted clouds filtered the sunlight, painting the promontory a dead brown. Across the water a range of mountains looked like slumps of used teabags.

She backed away from the window bumping the desk at which she'd awoken, sending something skittering under an iron spiral staircase.

A small brown bottle. Empty. On the label:

Bisammonium Adamantyl ​

Anti-Amnesia ​

Ms I Lewis​

The stairs lead to a smaller room with a circular gantry. She was inside a massive glass cylinder with discs set around a central spindle. It looked familiar somehow but her attention was drawn away to two immense flying triangles coming low and fast over the sea. The woman stumbled backwards and fell down as she watched them veer off and disappear behind the distant mountains. Moments later a series of soundless flashes was followed by a billowing mantle of smoke.

Bewildered she looked down.

Fifty metres below was the rusting hull of a beached merchant ship.

What the Hell…?

 

[crystal haven]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

The price of success​

Though I know I should be searching, I read the notice board again. The demolition is scheduled for tomorrow. The factory will be gone, the land flattened – turned into a prison.

“We’ll never find it in time, Dad.” I realise I sound like a whining child; I feel like a child. Afraid.

Dad straightens, and presses his hand against his back; he’s been bent over for hours, searching the wasteland, the abandoned factory grounds. His forehead creases in pain. “It’s here. I know it’s here. We’re not finished yet, son.”

Not once has he yelled. Not once. “I’m sorry,” I say, hoping that, somehow, my words will make it right.

“I know you are, Jack. Get searching. We’ll find the brooch, and then we can go back home, through the portal, and claim the prize money.”

Still optimistic. But that’s how Dad is. He never quits – never gives in.

Nobody had got the ancient gold brooch working. Many said it was just a myth. Dad got it working; we arrived in a swirl of wind, and stepped into calm. Not at all as I imagined.

We danced and cheered; a muffled jubilation, so as not to bring attention to ourselves. It was after this, I discovered I’d dropped it. Lost it from my jacket, to be more precise. Trapped – 300 years back in time.

“Jack!”

I turn. Dad has the brooch in his hand. His eyes are shining with success. My heartbeat quickens, relief spreading through my veins.

But then he frowns and studies the purple jewelled brooch. “The pin,” he says, under his breath. “The pin is missing. A needle in a haystack now.”

He looks up and shakes his head – just a bit. And for the first time I see my Dad’s eyes brim with tears.

 

[Starbeast]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Another Forgotten Creation of Science​

In 1953, inside a remote town, Dr Starbyst conducted a secret military experiment: Project Nightlight.​

"General Raven, I still have my doubts. These research papers from Nikola Tesla are nearly indecipherable. I need more time to figure this all out."​

"You've had plenty of time after Nikola died to make this energy device work. Now throw that switch, or I'll do it."​

Reluctantly, Starbyst activated the powerful machines. "Something is forming within the energy field."​

"Increase power!"​

All are astonished as the generators began to produce a misshapen entity, then suddenly, a mighty explosion thundered through the laboratory. Clearing smoke revealed injured personnel and millions of dollars of damaged equipment.​

"General, are you alright?"​

"Yes, but look what you did to the...Good Lord, what's THAT?"​

A hazy smoking figure with glowing eyes blinked at them. Burning imprints on the floor left by the lumbering incredible thing frightened everyone as it moved toward them. Dr Starbyst ran from the room and bolted down a corridor, meanwhile General Raven ordered his men to stop the creature. Bullets and grenades were useless against the unknown creation, men died screaming as the brutish being touched them. The stench of charring bodies filled the area, remaining soldiers fled in terror. Raven hid from the monster behind a heavy door, but the thing melted it easily and set the General ablaze when it grabbed him.​

Concrete and metal became liquefied as the fantastic being walked through a wall, outside, it made it's way to an electrical transformer, whereupon it grew into a monstrous behemoth. Just then Dr Starbyst appeared with a mini rocket launcher, aiming carefully, he pulled the trigger and brought down a water tower which shorted out the massive being causing it to vanish.​

The doctor destroyed all of Nikola Tesla's research papers.​

 

[Mouse]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Truly Lovely Julie

There was a young man from the city,
Who took only girls who were pretty,
He’ll never take me,
I’m ugly, you see,
He shouldn’t be quite so damn sh—

“Julie!”

I put down my pen and left my tent. Sonia clutched my hand and jabbed a finger at the city below us in the valley. “The men are coming!”

I didn’t understand that. Well, I understood it. The words. But not the reason. The men didn’t leave the city, not during the day. They came at night, in pairs or alone, sneaking into the tents. My sisters’ tents, not mine. I don’t know what it is about me they don’t like but I think it’s either my hooked nose or the warts. I can’t see that the green skin would worry them.

Sonia clung to my arm. All around me, my sisters were emerging from their tents, whispering, wondering.

The men were coming. They wore Burberry suits and skinny ties and brogues with pointed toes. They were chisel-jawed and blue-eyed. And they all had shiny hair.

Their leader was a fox. Literally, he had such a lovely tail. He raised a hand as he and the other men reached our row of tents, and they stopped walking. Hands on hips, he lifted his chin, looked at me and said, “Witch!”

“Yeah?” I said.

“We’re here to take the women to the city.”

I looked at my sisters. They’d go. I knew that. Sonia had already taken a step towards them. They’d leave me all alone.

“I don’t suppose I can come?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Your ugliness offends me.”

I scratched a wart on my neck. “Fine. Go, sisters! Leave!”

They did. Giggling.

Tomorrow night I’ll sneak into the city and blind my fox.

 

[Boneman]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

No... More Billy​

I'm not allowed any closer than this. If I go further, they'll shoot me and burn my body.

Yesterday was my birthday. Mum left a cake that tasted of my favourite icing. And tears. The soldiers in the white suits must have brought it this far, because nobody else is allowed out from the town. I didn’t sing “Happy Birthday to me”, but I cried lots. I shared the cake with the birds and left some for a fox I’ve seen loads of times.

I climbed a tree and waved my shirt, so mum and my sisters will know I'm still alive. I think I saw someone waving back from the church tower, but it’s hard to see that far. Wish I had my binoculars. But they didn’t let me get anything from home, not even my coat. Mum always said I’d grow into it, but now I won’t.

I don't know why the barrier was put round the town, but it didn't bother me, really. We didn’t have to go to school anymore, and me and Ruby and Ella played together every day. We didn’t mind the daily inspection, they always gave us sweets afterwards. I was really frightened when the alarm went off, and the shutters came down round me. They kept me there all day, and a doctor in a white suit with a funny helmet on explained it to me. I woke up next day out here. I haven’t seen anyone else, so I think I’m the only one. That’s good, really, but I wish I had a friend with me. I get really scared at night.

The spots are spreading really quickly, and my head hurts. If you find this note, please tell my mum and sisters I love them, and I’m sorry.

​

 

[stormcrow]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

Onoverheard discursive between Faerie folk​

By NathanielWormwood, November 1908​

Narly Scrotch: A fairy, festooned in leaf and moss. Irritable; yet kindly.​

Frinsky Trill: Another similarly attired;resigned to their inevitable decline.​

Neither proven, nor disproven, human science has long denied the existence of faeries and yet, today, we are wiser for our uncertainty. How ignorant we’d been that our impartial mechanisation, our wastage, our desecration of the land, should present our once-respected cohabitants of this molten vessel we call Earth with physical barriers to our world.

NS: Annuther ooman edge yeer by! Edges an ditchers, bin seenit way back an far, now.

FT: Twil enders all, wear kin nither cross more an won’t!

NS: Den’st donne! Will keepus ather yonder side an all by, willit so.

FT: Smellit Narly? Thas irren – smeltinor, an nonne besides! Sassfaras wikin goyeer.

NS: Seedit din I? Twil enders all, as berry dust foller flowrin!

Iron, and to a lesser degree it’s derivatives, unfortunate alchemy for those who populate our hedges and barrows, lanes and brook-banks. Seemingly,our industry drives them further afield to darker places, unable to bear the noise, unsettled and unnerved.

The small folk I observed seemed scared to pass beyond the heavy iron gate, reluctant even: no matter, since I held my breath still longer, listening on.

FT: Corse, they’m bringin endin onners all –watwith wakin draggins fyre an at..

NS: Holdfassen! Stem yer gabbling tide ya foller!

An inquisitive wren, King of the Birds as we say; too close for their comfort he paused, head cocked, on a low branch not a yard from me, nor twice that from the peculiar folk I spied upon. In a blink they were gone, without fuss or flourish: simply there no more. I wondered what they meant by ‘wakin draggins fyre’, I shudder to think.

 

[Culhwch]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #6 (July) -- READ FIRST POST!!!!

The Seed

He remembered this land as lush and verdant, a thousand shades of green. Then came the artificers, with their furnaces and engines and smokestacks, turning all dull and grey. Ancient oaks fed to hungry fires. Hedgerows replaced by twisted iron. Sometimes it seemed the soul had been stripped from mankind itself.

The arcanist had walked the long road to the city of ashes. It was a dangerous land, but he was unafraid. He knew the old ways; the ancient gods kept him safe. That couldn’t be said of others. Thieves and cutthroats plied their trade along the highway, and takings were good.

A dark cloak covered his white robes and he drew barely a glance as he made his way past factories, workshops and warehouses, and those unfortunate drudges who worked within. Towards the city’s centre the buildings were finer, the people better clothed. Like their poorer brethren, though, their eyes held little life.

The Artificer’s Guild was a stark edifice of stone, iron and hardwood. They’d even captured time and imprisoned it in the great mechanical clock that ticked atop the highest tower. Kneeling, the arcanist felt around for a loose cobblestone. He pried one up, exposing dark, rich soil. From his robes he withdrew a pouch, and from the pouch a seed. It had come from the first tree, and finding it had cost him almost everything. In his hand, in the shadow of the tower, it seemed a small thing. But it held such potential.

He dug a furrow in the earth and pressed the seed deep, then mouthed a prayer as he replaced the cobblestone. Done, he stood and walked away. His time was at an end. He wouldn’t live to see nature reclaim the world man had stolen away. Having planted the seed was enough.