300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- VICTORY TO TERESA EDGERTON

[JoanDrake]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

“Wow”, said Tasmina, “just wow, I have never, ever, seen anything like that.”


“Nor has anyone else”, said her father. He pointed to the large and growing crowd of people being held back by several police. “Idiots keep trying to get closer. Somebody’s going to be electrocuted.”


“Why don’t they just shut it off?” The slender girl asked. The smell of ozone was overpowering, she kept wanting to sneeze.

“They’d black out half the Grid. They’re trying to reroute all the lines to different substations, but it takes time.”


“So everything’s still working?” said Tas.


“Without a hitch, as far as we can tell. The lights flickered all over for a few seconds at 6am and then this came on.

The huge sparks danced wildly over the electrodes like blue wraiths. They hurt the eyes to look at and made a crackling noise that was painful to hear.


Tasmina looked at the errant substation silently for a minute, then her blue eyes twinkled and she smiled. “I think I know what to do. I’ll need a heavy duty VOM, a Wampanoag Electroscope and my universal calibrated quantum breaker. Oh, and I’ll need Brenda to help.”


“You are not,” said Mr. Swift firmly, “going anywhere near that thing. I’ve forbidden anyone to go close, even if it goes off. Not until we know what’s happening.”


“No problem there, dad” replied the teenager, “in fact, this will probably work best if we back off a few hundred yards.”

 

[Perpetual Man]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

The Spanner in the Works​

It sprouted from the formerly fertile land, a bleeding eyesore. A stagnant grey sty that scarred the landscape as sulphurous smoke ate the blue sky like cancer. The radiance of a life filled forest gone: chewed, spat out, lumber for the encroaching life that had raped then murdered their world now did the same to another.

Rusting steel roots probed, worming through soil like maggots, seeking, consuming minerals, raping the land, stealing a wealth that was not theirs; churning peat and moss, twisting it into waste and rubble.

Chaltith-Kah watched the monstrosity, not believing it could have been built by living creatures. But there it was eating her land like some giant leech of metal and smoke.

She clenched her klannu staff in a three fingered hand, ignoring the corroded shackles on her wrists.

Her captor beside her, his alien face a mixture of contempt and disdain. At least that is what she believed, it was hard to be sure on such a fur-less visage.

“It’s over,” he spat, forcing her to translate his savage tongue, “See how our technology grinds over your mumbo jumbo.”

Her fingers tightened on the smooth wood and she spoke three words.

One for life.

One for death.

One for forgiveness.

The end of the staff sparked...

Lightning clear as starlight came out of the sky with a blast that made ears bleed. It arced, twisted, shattering the machine, rendering it in fire and magic leaving little more than ash and debris.

As the manacles slipped from her wrists she looked at the smouldering bones of the man that had enslaved her world then laughed in her face.

With a tone that said he was little more than a bug, she spat the word, “Humanity.” Then walked away to free her people.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

The world goes out with a pfffff

King Kong was dead long before he hit the ground. Working here, I’ve noticed how often that’s the case. In his case he gave up, broken hearted.

It’s not a supervirus (not that kind of virus, anyway), meteorites or nanobots that are taking Earth to hell, it’s me.

Employers are often oblivious to a clinically depressed employee, and a clinically depressed employee won’t push the issue, because they don’t care. I understand that intellectually, but…

Even in my ennui, I know I'm not totally to blame. I didn’t create the Generator, neither did the Australians - all nations did; Pine Gap just happened to be where they housed it.

‘Thought Forms can change the world!’ came the headline from the scientist zealots. ‘Positive Mental Attitudes; thoughts made manifest.’

But no matter how edifying these concepts are (concepts, hah!) there’s always some goofball in the office; the arse who photocopies his, well, arse, the people who photobomb a pic, or frape their mate’s Facebook account. A Meme Generator’s irresistible to those idiots, and there were several office clowns in the facility.

So we had the flying sharks tearing up Canberra, the Bunyip that tried to shag the Queen of England’s leg when she came here to visit. Someone (I think it was Gavin) thought it’d be funny to think up a tooth fairy that stole kids’ teeth while they slept. Healthy teeth, that is. Worldwide nearly a billion children were hospitalised, and there’s only 7 billion people on the planet as it is.

That’s how effective the Generator is.

The management loved me; I'm deaf-mute – a plus - but they mistook my subdued demeanour for focus, not depression.

Last week me and my ennui went in. I can’t talk or hear, but I can write.

And – unfortunately - think.

 

[alchemist]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

This Island Sky Platform-001

Kal crouched and examined Dominic through the grillework. His fellow councilman had stopped trying to get back up, now knowing he would die as soon as the strength left his fingers.

“You're mad!” Dominic shouted, his words barely audible above the wind and the muffled crump of the thunder below. Lightning flared beneath the clouds, illuminating them like brief, multi-coloured roses. If you stared long enough, the fools said, you'd go mad; the ledge-madness.

But Kal was no fool. He pulled his coat tighter about his throat. “No. We can lead a better life, all of us.”

A look of horror crossed Dominic's face. “Everyone?”

“Yes, when you’re finally gone.” He peered through the grille to where the platform's southwest strut pierced the clouds. The ancient lift mechanisms within would still work; he was sure of it.

Red and yellow flashed below, accompanied by a dull rumble. Come to us, it said. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Months of watching, of learning the patterns, and he’d finally understood the language; the words, the phrases, even the moods of down below.

“The clouds are poison!” Dominic screamed. “Everything below is dead!”

“We won't be alone anymore.” Kal bent lower, close enough to see the beads of sweat on Dominic's face, the lines on the nails of his fingers. “We'll be able to kiss the ground again.”

“You'll kill everyone, you fool!”

Kal sighed and stood, his hair whipping in the wind. “I always wondered what it looks like from below. How the lights dance, how beautiful they are ...”

Dominic swayed, trying to find a gap for his hands.

“I have only one regret,” Kal said. He stamped on Dominic's fingers and the councilman plunged, screaming, through the clouds. “That you will see them before me.”

 

[Rafellin]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Inspector

Four hundred metres away, my destination cracks the storm with artificial lightning as it unceasingly does the job it was designed to do. There are twenty people inside who, while not being delighted to see me, would readily extend a hand to help a man in distress.

It was my idea to stage surprise inspections. My insistence that ‘surprise’ really had to mean surprise. No warnings. No-one could know where I would pop-up next. The blue-green sheen of my amphibian would catch someone’s eye just after the trespass units identified me. Then I would stride aboard; sometimes faster than the consternation my presence caused.

People lost bonuses. Some lost their jobs. But the environment stabilising stations fell back into synchronisation as lazy people realised that I had the stomach to deliver upon my threats and no hesitation in applying penalties.

My existence was a strange limbo, where I was welcomed in principle but hated in fact. I have never arrived at a station where all was as it should be, but I have always left a station as it should be.

On my last call, a burly Irishman called Ginty accosted me as I walked down to the bay where my craft waited. He stepped in front of me and placed a grimy hand on my chest before muttering: “Double check everything. You’ve made enemies.”

Before I could reply, he had moved off into the cavernous, conduit-shadowed maze that comprises the guts of every station. I ignored him as I had been threatened before.

My apologies, Ginty. I failed to recognise your gruff warning.

Which is why I am going to drown four hundred metres from salvation; my power cells and electrics shorted, my distress beacons replaced with dummy units, and all my survival gear lockers welded shut.
​

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Spin Doctor’s Media Circus

‘Spin Doctor is a super villain who lies, and makes you believe him,’ said Anchor Woman.

Superheroes could be mild-mannered reporters, but only Anchor Woman did both jobs at once, reading the superhero news in full spandex bodysuit and mask.

Few people knew why. Even she didn’t know the truth. Not yet.

An image of his factory filling the screen behind her made him angry. This wasn’t some politician caught with his hand in the till or his trousers down. Or both.

This was his underwear-on-the-outside dirty laundry. The public had No Right To Know.

His factory made magic. Many claimed to, but that was just untruth in advertising.

With a crackle of man-made lightning, his factory made ordinary people into heroes.

Or villains.

Spin Doctor’s super lies convinced the scientist who invented the super power machine to hand it over. The factory and the TV network were acquired the same way.

Spin Doctor could have lied his way to ruling the whole world. An Empire of Terra. But this was so much more fun. All the created heroes and villains owed him. Believed him. So he told them when and where to fight, and always had a news crew standing by.

But now Anchor Woman knew the truth, and she could punch his head from his shoulders before he could lie to her.

If only his lies lasted forever.

He sighed, and activated the kill-switch.

The time-delayed broadcast went from commercial break to “Experiencing Technical Difficulties”. No one else saw Anchor Woman’s final news item. Or her death.

‘Time to audition a new Anchor Woman. Again.’

Her mask was a contractual obligation making her easy to replace if she ever tried to report the truth behind Spin Doctor’s lies.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

EBONY, OAK, AND IRON

Lightnings danced amidst the towers. In a secret chamber up among the spires, the sorceress boiled a potion in an iron pot: essence of tears and wounded love, seasoned with years of malice.

Through an open window a sizzling indigo bolt struck the cauldron, which for a moment glowed with dark demonic light. The air smelled of something curiously sweet. From the seething brew rose a figure, crude at first and clear as water. The sorceress spoke: the form solidified, flushed with color ... and became a maiden, hair like sunlight, fair as any summer day.

***

The queen sat brooding on her throne, while on the dance floor the king disported with another woman.

She remembered ... a long cold sleep, through many passing seasons. The prince (as then he’d been), thinking he beheld in her the secret of eternal youth, woke her with a kiss. A decade now had passed. Men still deemed her fair, no trace of silver touched her raven locks -- but the king chose younger mistresses every year.

How flirtatious grew the figures of the dance! The golden girl stood up on her toes, turning up her face for his kiss. It was the merest brushing of their lips. Then the king swooned and fell, deathly pale, to the floor.

In their haste to reach the king, none saw his partner leave. Later, when they searched, no one discovered where she’d gone.

The queen knew. She smiled with lips red as blood. He had found eternal youth, and she her revenge. She would see him buried deep, in a coffin made of stoutest oak, wrapped round with iron chains. No one would look inside and kiss him awake.

Snow White smiled again. She’d known exactly how the poison would work. It was a family recipe.

 

[Glen]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Night Fears

‘Come back to bed.’ He doesn’t answer, just sits staring over the city. He looks exhausted. ‘Tired? That was some rescue. You make me feel hot when you save me.’

‘You are hot. I was hot too - temperature of 104.’

‘You can still make me laugh. What’s wrong?’

He gestures at the city. ‘I don’t know how to save it anymore.’

‘But you don’t have to do everything yourself. There are others with powers now.’

‘It’s not that. I can always find a way to beat villains like Heinous, or Dr Amoebus.’

She gets out of bed, steps lightly to him, puts her arms around his shoulders, kisses him. ‘Darling, what is it?’

‘Look.’ Outside rain falls heavily, flashes of lightning reveal the shapes of the city. ‘It’s all falling apart, and nothing I do can make it any better.’

‘No, darling...’

‘Yes. There were three billion people when I was born. Now there are more than twice that number, and they all want big screen TVs.’ He laughs. ‘And none of them will turn them off. They just leave them on standby.’

‘You’re being pessimistic.’

‘I am. A mass extinction has already started, and they elect venal, short-sighted politicians. I can save people from floods, but I can’t stop them destroying the climate. I can’t stop the population growing!’

‘I don’t think I’ve heard you use the word “can’t” before.’

‘Well. It’s hopeless. It’s all going to hell in a handcart.’

‘You’ve rescued me from hell before.’

‘I can only rescue you if there is somewhere safe to take you.’ He pauses, sighing. ‘It’s the kids who will still be alive in fifty years that will have it worst.’

She touches her belly. Decides the news will have to wait.

‘Come back to bed.’

 

[AMB]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Water Management

The night was cold, dark, and very wet. It always was in these parts. The castle was surrounded by frozen tundra on one side and arid desert on the other; its skies were permanently overcast and localised storms were a regular occurrence. People counted on them.

Roz sat huddled on the roof, watching the vats fill with rain. Whenever they were full she pulled the lever beside her, emptying water into the purification tank below. It was an important job, but a miserable one, often held by those seeking redemption after falling foul of the king.

She had fallen, hard. Roz was in love with Prince Hester. He loved her in return, and they hoped to be wed. The laws of the land even allowed for the match, albeit not without condition. "A future queen not of royal blood must possess all the skills and experience consistent with running the castle, so that her husband may better focus on the kingdom at large, with its distinct climates and very different requirements." No gentlewoman had ever succeeded, and she was a mere merchant's daughter.

Yet here she was, her final study. A thousand servants lived within the castle, and the frequent, violent storms provided water for all aspects of their daily life. Being self-sufficient they made no levy on the ice trade between regions. During particularly wet years they threw away gallons of surplus water. Such a wasteful system. There had to be a better way for everyone.

*

Roz revolutionised the water system for the entire kingdom, successfully winning Hester, who later took the throne.

Hester overturned the previous marriage law, forbidding her work on any future projects. Shortly thereafter, Roz became the first queen in history to die of boredom.

She should have been an engineer.

 

[Brev]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Match-3K


The helmet twisted tightly into place, flattening her hair.

'It's secure.' His voice seemed deeper through the helmet's speakers, his skin tone darker through the thick visor. His smile remained warming. 'You can breathe now.'

The suit's air tasted too pure. If she gulped it in, her head would spin. She resisted the temptation. 'So, erm, you're a scientist?'

He nodded, slipping into his own Bio-suit with practised efficiency. 'Climatologist.'

'And, we're really going topside?'

'Yep. First time huh? Don't worry, I'll look after you.'

She followed him into the elevator, then stood in nervous silence during its jerky ascent. Beyond the elevator; narrow walkways, joining three spiralling stairwells. Each step upward, took her further from the world she knew. When she'd ticked the box that said “open to new experiences”, this wasn't what she'd had in mind.

He checked her suit again, before leading her into the airlock. She'd been trying to think of something to say, something to fill the long silence, but as the outer iris door opened to reveal a blackened landscape, her mind went blank.

Wind buffeted against her. A new sensation.

The stories were true. The Earth's surface was a scorched wasteland, perpetually savaged by a toxic storm. Below the airlock, loomed the contours of a massive machine, almost obscured by the darkness. An angular metal monstrosity, like the filters which kept the air below breathable, only on a gigantic scale.

'That's my Stormshredder! It clears the cloud. Temporarily. Watch.'

Electricity danced across the machine. The ground rumbled. The air churned. The cloaking clouds began to part, revealing...

'What's that? It's beautiful.' She reached out, clasped his hand.

'That's, a Sunrise.'

Despite the frustration of flattened hair, she had to admit, as first dates went, this one was pretty special.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Ghost in the Machine


“That thing's not gonna help. I really can't remember any more.” Charlie squirmed in the chair, eyeing the machine on the desk distastefully.

“Charlie, you know you always remember more under hypnosis. You're an informant; I pay you to inform me. Now hold still.”

The smudged plaque on the door said Jo E. Morrell, Detective Services. The dusty office was hers, this month – next month's rent depended on Charlie Robinson's information about the Leitz jewel heist. The way Charlie was sweating, Jo figured it was something big.

Charlie ducked the headset and glared until she sighed and pulled another twenty from her pocket. She slipped the headset over his ears and pushed a button. The Hypnometer was her invention: it read brainwaves and adjusted music and soothing nature noises accordingly, for better hypnosis. It did so now, and signaled that Jo could begin questioning.

A few answers later, Charlie sat bolt upright and gripped the arms of the chair.

Inside closed eyelids he saw the thunderstorm. Lightning crashed about him, arcing, sparking fires. The campfire crackled, the sky brightened, and he saw the Hypnometer, giant behemoth towering three stories above him. A bolt of lightning seared his chest. Everything went black.

Charlie slumped forward, fell out of the chair. Jo nudged him with her foot.

“Charlie, stop horsing around. I know you hate the machine, but --”

To her horror, she realized that he was dead. She called 911 and hastily disentangled the machine and moved it to the back room.

Much later, after police and coroner's business was done, Jo realized she'd left the Hypnometer on.

She held the earphone up to listen, reaching for the off button – nobody needed thunderstorms on a day like this. Charlie hadn't.

She froze. That voice!

“Help! I really can't remember....”

 

[The Spurring Platty]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

The Tomorrow Beyond

The greatest leap in energy happened when one think tank asked themselves, ‘What does the earth have the most of?’ In the end their answer wasn’t nitrogen, rock, or water. It was mass. True to human nature, their next question was ‘How can we exploit it?’

The first experimental platform contained only one deep-water array featuring thirty-two orbs. Each orb was a meter wide and its advanced internal engineering converted the massive pressure at those depths into electrical energy. The orbs were attached by a rigid cable extension connecting to a semi-rigid main cable that ran to the platform on the water’s surface. The array was jokingly christened ‘Chthulu’s Disco Ball’. When fully functional it provided enough energy to power the entire station. With a few refinements it was powering ships in the Pacific fleet.

Three years later the first ‘Dandelion Farm’ had been built. Named after the appearance of multiple arrays, it started the movement of heavy industrialization to the oceans. Entire manufacturing plants were being built, powered by an inexhaustible supply of electricity. A steady traffic of cargo ships brought raw materials, refueled, and transported product to and from the mainland.

The newest platform contained fifty arrays, each with 128 orbs. Each array was anchored at special points to maintain spacing and prevent collisions. It was estimated the array would produce enough output to power Japan, the Phillipines, New Zealand and parts of coastal China and Australia. The biggest obstacle was placing it into the Challenger Deep, ten kilometers below the surface.

As engineers positioned the arrays over the trench, a deep rumble erupted. A wave of force struck the array and continued upward to the surface platform. Crushed orbs and cables flowed away in the current. Something had awakened.

>>>

 

[jastius]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Storm Reiver

Another dead end met Samadaris. The water rose, swirling around her calves. Ignoring the scattered skeletons, she swiftly returned to the crossing. Feeling along, her toes found the trapdoor’s ring.

Lightening flashed as she wrenched open the door, the water draining down the stairwell.

Holding the hazel twig she dove into the water, swimming to the throne room.

He waited beside the portrait of murdered Kestwelian.



She was the bride of the Sea, the rider of the night storms. Hated, they called her Witch, laying blame for all misfortune upon her.

They drowned the Witch on land, far from the Sea that was their livelihood, for she was the bride of the Moon and the Sea and could never drown in the arms of her lover. Indeed the sea palace would close in raging storm.

She was no Witch... but the daughter of Spring, taming the iron winter storm.

Without his tender lover the sea raged, freezing solid. All would perish in that frozen waste.
With the turn of the tide the people sent an offering. Seven virgin maids arrayed in white stood waiting whilst Sea crept over the walls, through the town. The waves cast over them, then left. The girls stood yet, the fairest gone.

The price for their folly.


Samadaris was lovely, the elders sighed. She would be lost.
Samadaris’s mother, though, paid blood price for her daughter, daring to birth in seawater for Spring's blessing.


“Show me Spring” He grated, his sword at her throat. She concentrated and the water and land and warmth combined in her to focus upon the twig. It stirred and fluttered, then leafed under her urging.

The sword fell to the floor with a crash of lightening. Samadaris sweetly smiled. He took Samadaris’s hand.
“My Bride.” He exalted, the storm breaking.

​

 

[The Judge]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Birth of a Monster


June 1816 ......Cologny, Geneva

Outside, the tempest. Bruised-purple clouds tearing across the sky, lightning splitting the heavens. Inside, despite the stories they’ve been telling each other, the beginnings of boredom, restlessness, the men too long confined withindoors.

She stands at the window, watching the storm approach across the slate-grey waters of the lake. Another stab of lightning, the thunderclap immediately behind; more lightning, even closer, then terrible, fierce, blinding light –

A hall, like to a theatre, strangely-clothed people sitting around her, dozens, hundreds of them, all staring, mouths open, watching the stage, but there is no stage, only an immense picture, a picture that moves and talks. She also stares, her mouth also open, and she joins in the screams of horror as picture-lightning strikes, cascading down onto a picture-table, where a man plays god, and a creature rears up from the dead.

“Mary?” Percy’s voice.

She’s lying on the day-bed, Percy stroking her hair.

“Where was I?” she asks.

“By the window. You fainted when the lightning struck the old oak.”

“No, where was I, when I was in the theatre?”

“Theatre?” he echoes.

She tells him of the moving pictures, of everything. A dream, he says, but she knows it was more than that. She was there, among the women with their short hair and exposed stockinged legs, the men in soft hats, soft loose trousers. She’d felt the plush of the chair beneath her hand, had smelled the sweat and scent and powder.

Lightning. Galvanism. Reanimating a corpse. Doing what to a living mind?

Not Where was I? she realises. When was I?

He laughs. “Well, it gives you a story at long last. Now all you need is a name for your modern Prometheus.”

“Victor,” she says firmly. “Victor Frankenstein.”

 

[Ursa major]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

.
.​

One Track Mind​

“Blame the company,” I said. “They claimed this place was uninhabited.”

The remnants of a missile lay strewn across the lab bench. Missiles didn’t fire themselves. Its target, one of the mobile factory’s tracks, had been blown completely off its wheels.

“Because a planet without vegetation or surface water is bound to be inhabited,” said Macharia, our boss, defending his employer. He had a point: the planet lacked any native life.

“Who says the culprits aren’t pirates,” said Yelena.

“Me,” said Hiroshi. “We came on only the second ship to visit this system. The first, the Probe, has been monitoring the planet since it arrived.”

“So whoever fired the weapon is one of the crew,” said Macharia, “which is why I’ve ordered everyone else to their quarters.”

“No one was outside at the time,” I said. “The logs prove that.”

“Logs can be altered,” said Macharia. “We can give each other alibis, but we must question the rest of the crew to determine who had the means and opportunity. We should start immediately. Apart from Diego.”

“What’ll I be doing?” I asked.

“Your job: assessing the damage to the track. We can’t stay here forever.”

Macharia had, as I’d hoped, given me the opportunity to implement Stage III of my plan. (Stage II was scheduling the taped meeting for when I knew the factory, in retracing its outward voyage, would be driving over the mine I’d planted, in Stage I, three months before.) Once outside, environment suit on, I fired ‘missing’ shards from the missile-shaped mine into the main and reserve air reservoirs. Shame the sensors were damaged.



I blame the company, whose owner, for a cut, had decided the employees’ share of the voyage’s profits should be divided amongst the survivors.

.
.​

 

[Abernovo]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST


Becoming


Water fluoresces above me. Xeno-bioluminescence they call it, which is a bit rich. We're the aliens here – even more so in the ocean depths of Charybdis, an environment unlike anything we've explored before.

A creature drifts by my visor. We think they're animals anyway. A thin film—almost transparent, with no visible eyes, or mouth, or organ of any kind—they stop to wrap themselves around divers and submersibles for a few minutes before floating away again. The biologists think it's a show of curiosity, but can't be sure these things even have a brain.

"We're in." Rachel wakes me from my daydream. We're here to do a job. "Pressure and air quality are both within the norms. I'm opening the outer door."

We have to wait ten minutes for the water to drain from the airlock. When it does, we enter the main complex and wish we were still outside in the sea. The air's rank – sickly sweet with decay. Food and ocean samples, but I can smell something else. There are bodies down here.

#​

"Orbital One, UED crew are all dead." The search has taken three hours, but now I confirm what we suspected as soon as we cracked the inner hatch. The crew of the Undersea Exploring Derrick haven't been in communication because there's nobody left. We find a possible cause – drinking water, contaminated by the ocean. The sea here isn't briny, so they might not have noticed, but why was there no contamination alarm?

It's too much. I make my way back to the airlock and put on my helmet, ignoring the condensation inside. Anything to get away from the rotting corpse smell. The air inside the helmet is comforting.

#​

I'm sleepy now. Another film creature. This time, it calls to me: "Join us."

 

[Fitzchiv]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

Blue Shadow

Alern knew there was no way out of the Facility without keys. It was a prison first and a laboratory a distant second, built to keep secrets in and morality out.

He watched the two men intently from the shadows as they worked, fixing the panel he’d plunged his bloodied fist into not fifteen minutes before. The mess of wires and cracked boards had done their job drawing two of them, and their keys, into his grasp.

“..not being funny but how does this get caved in anyway? It’s literally been kicked in,” the taller of the two worked rusting bolts as he spoke.

“**** knows. Could’ve been like this for ages. No-one comes down here unless they have to. Just disconnect the alert, bollocks to fixing it” beads of sweat stood proud on the smaller man’s neck, yet the air was cool.

“Fair play, once the last of these freaks croaks the funding’s cut off and we’re gone. I ain’t spending any more time near them than I need to,” nerves cut his voice as he waved his hand impatiently for a wrench in the smaller man’s hand.

Alern knew he had one chance, with barely enough of the warped energy The Facility had awakened to take one of them, let alone both. He was already in motion as the wrench created the join, deep blue sparks radiating from his spread fingers like tiny fledgling shadows.

Circuit complete, his touch added the spark. Darkness bloomed into the eyes of the now-husks, positions frozen, bodies reduced to brittle charcoal sculptures that held for a moment before collapse into dust.

Only fine black dust moved in the air, slowly spreading silence as his eyes roved then snagged on his prize, shining dull in the carbon. His keys to freedom.

 

[Ursa major]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #12 (January 2014) -- READ FIRST POST

The Challenge is now closed to new entries.


The voting is now open. To cast your votes, use the link below.

Please vote for your top three choices; note that all three votes must be cast at the same time to count.
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