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IN, story and genre please 
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Jan 3, 2023 22:33
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Some crits... if you think my assessments are bad and wrong feel free to tell me why. This, Here, Now by Thranguy I enjoyed this story. I felt you over reinforced their situation within the framework of the hellrule. By the time you surprise the reader with world's not like our own, the preceding section seemed to take a bit away from those brief, but cool flashes. Overall, I think the middle was a bit bloated. I thought the ending itself was fine, and of course it was all very well written. Thought you did well with the hellrule and showed it to the reader in cool ways from the fantastic to the scientific. I'd just cut out some of the middle. The Courage of Nearly Flightless Birds by Flyerant In plain terms I think this story is great. I think some of the analogy gets a bit clunky towards the end, but overall there are things I really love about it that seem absolutely true and painful in a realistic way. To the initial prompt of something that has never happened before I feel like it technically delivers, but I feel like the story is just a good story that doesn't necessarily fit the prompt the way others did. But without trying to butter your biscuits, it's totally my jam. Chasing Cars by Ceighk This was cool, but I think I see in your story what others have said of my stories. The beginning seems disconnected from the real focus of the story. I like the character guy ou establish in JP, but the real story is the insert of the test subject. I dont know if there is a genre for stories that are adjacent to the actual real story, but that's what this feels like and I don't mind it, I think I write stories with a shifted focus like this probably too often now that I think about it, but I see how it is a detriment to the cooler story that is embedded within the too long setup. But you used snow brigade lol and I think that was an awesome working of the "gift" even if it feels more like it's just action thrust on an ordinary character's life (which I think kind of has it's place, but I don't think that's your intention here). I honestly think if your story began with them on the drive, you cutting out his origin bits and maybe just having him having always been this awkward person that you sum up briefly, it would have allowed more space to develop the more interesting part of your story. It's like slice of life that has had scifi horror shunted in, but the ratio for what you get of each is off. Fun though.
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Jan 7, 2023 05:42
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in gift and tax 
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Jan 18, 2023 02:32
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Corpse Reader Gift: A sentient GPS device Tax: Time. It does not pass at all in your wilderness. 1,399 Words Max stood in the alley outside of the hospital and burned two cigarettes down to the filter during his fifteen minute break. In the distance, the city thrummed with discordant energy. Neon light diffused through the permanent haze of fog that permeated the upper echelons of monolithic skyscrapers that airlifts ferried elites to and from. On the ground, clusters of disenfranchised gangers eviscerated one another for control of the city’s decaying infrastructure in perpetual turf wars. The Civil Defense Force would no doubt be bringing in a fresh batch of bodies for Max to analyze. Max’s official title was Human Remains Neuroanalyst, but everyone, including the H.R.N.s themselves, referred to them as ‘Corpse Readers’. With any luck, each of the night’s cadavers would be normal. Vibroblade wounds, implant failures, and overdoses. Each horrible, but predictable, known quantities that Max could understand. No matter the cause, bad things simply happened. Over the course of a night, Max would probably analyze three or four bodies. If they were fresh enough, he could directly interface with his neural-link concretely identifying the cause of death and perpetrator if applicable. A technician would serve as his tether to his own consciousness while he traversed the dead memories. If a corpse was less fresh, or particularly ruined, the job became a bit more involved. The technicians, using Max’s own brainpower and storage, would create a replication of the deceased’s mind with the corrupt sections of it filled in by highly tuned algorithms and Max’s own deductive reasoning. Max realized that would be the case this evening as he stared down at the pristine body of a young woman who if not for the distant, sunken-in eyes, appeared to be sleeping. Her skin was tinged blue and cold to the touch. She had been kept on ice. As the EMTs finished up the last of their paperwork, he asked where she had come from, to which they offered noncommittal shrugs. “Someone dumped her outside of a hab and that’s when we got the call. She was nearly frozen solid when we first picked her up. No obvious wounds or visible trauma either, so I’m hoping you can work your magic and at least get a bead on who or what happened here.” Max nodded without voicing any concerns and had the body wheeled off for preparation. Max’s technicians got the analysis room ready as he fortified his mind for another dive into the realm of the dead. He pressed a nodule behind his ear and a thin tube ejected with a glistening wire attached to it. The wire trailed from his head to hers as he guided the tube to a spot at the base of her skull. When finally in place, it bloomed into a network of burrowing needles that perforated the soft tissue of her scalp and drilled through the skull into various sections of grey matter. Max adjusted himself in his seat, made eye contact with the technicians on duty (Stu and Mina), and closed his eyes. The software operated remotely by the technicians plunged Max into the girl’s mind. Although her body registered as dead for at least half a day, the internal structures of her mind remained intact enough for the technicians to salvage a workable scan, likely as a result of the conditions she was kept in. Normally, Max would be bombarded with extreme emotion. The feelings the individual had at the time of death, or those feelings leading up to it. Whether it be a surge of adrenaline, a pang of terrorized regret, or simply the feeling of fading away. When the artificial world stabilized itself, Max felt none of those things. Instead, he found himself standing at the top of a stony escarpment. Tall deciduous trees that lanced the clear blue sky surrounded him, and he found himself awestruck, lost in the perfect memory of some other time and place, so vastly different than the dystopian world of concrete, decay, and social decline that he’d always known. It wasn’t until a technician spoke that Max remembered who or where he was. “You alright in there, Max?” Stu said from across the room, managing to sound like a divinity inside the replication. Max cleared his throat awkwardly before answering, unsure if he actually was alright, and said unconvincingly, “Yeah, I’m fine. All good here.” “Alright, good,” Mina said. “We’ve identified two anomalous clusters where the data seems to be corrupt. Coincidentally, you happened to load into one. Sorry if it was jarring.” That explained it. An anomalous memory. A corruption the simulation couldn’t replicate. A pure thought from the hidden spaces between the girl’s hushed synapses. The air was so crisp as to be cool in his lungs, and the sea roared softly as it frothed against the bottom of the escarpment. Birds, actual birds, circled in the sky above him, and at his back was a vast forest that expanded further than he could clearly see. It seemed to offer the promise of something he couldn’t quite place his finger on and he realized that he had stumbled upon some perfect place. Something that had been in a sense desecrated by his being there. As he rifled around her memories in the pursuit of the gruesome information that the CDF enlisted his aid for, he couldn’t help but see that pure vista at the back of his mind and found himself preoccupied with that paradise even as it became clear this girl was a clone of a clone. A clone so far down the chain of its iterative predecessors that it could hardly be considered human. Identifying who did this to her, who she ‘belonged’ to, was going to be next to impossible. The why was simple; organ harvesting. Undoubtedly, any number of bioengineering firms had the means to produce a clone, and even if you limited that search to corporations that could breed specific types of clones repeatedly, you’d be left with a shortlist of corporate entities that would either ruin you through litigation or off the books extermination by a paid ganger if that proved to be cheaper than getting lawyers involved. A full autopsy revealed that many organs had been removed from her body, and at the time of death, she appeared to be growing replacements for those that she’d lost. Why she got dumped on the street for the CDF to find was beyond the scope of what Max could answer for and frankly he didn’t care. Bad things happened, but the memories of that simulacrum of a person had left their mark on Max. Had touched something hollow in him. When the techs had closed down the lab and the girl’s cadaver had seemingly shared all the secrets it contained, Max waited for everyone to leave, then he returned to the morgue under the pretense of work. He pulled her slab from the incineration queue and looked into those distant milky eyes and wondered. Against his better judgment, he pulled a chair up beside her slab and made himself comfortable. He slid his finger behind his ear to the hard spot of artificial flesh and released the connector for his neural-link. It was dangerous to go into a corpse that had been dead this long, especially without the aid of a technician there to guide the reader through a recreation of the mind. The wind that rolled over the sea prickled at his skin in his mind’s eye with the same clarity of the cold metal charnel house he spent his life in, and in that moment he positioned the link back at the base of her skull allowing its wires to needle their way into the girl’s dead flesh. He gasped as reality tore away into void. After an indeterminate amount of time, if time could be attributed to such a place, he opened his eyes and was back at the escarpment. He found that the city had become a distant island cloaked in dark, undulating clouds. As Max gazed at it, he couldn’t help but be struck by a profound sense of despair. He turned away from the sea to the vast, unyielding forest and briefly began to panic at its alienness, when suddenly, the unnamed dead girl, now a beacon of life, appeared from behind a tree. She offered him her hand, and she led him into that expansive unknown.
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Jan 23, 2023 05:53
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"But why does she eat a man? That's scary." My daughter on the Hall & Oates song "Maneater" In with falls off the toilet “I can’t believe I died.” I'll also take the boon of the prophet.
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Jan 25, 2023 02:25
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In , guidebook
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Feb 16, 2023 04:09
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 The Pillars of Transfiguration 973 Words The Pillars of Transfiguration Johnny had been tearing up the South Florida tarmac with enough coke in the boot of his car to lock him away for good. He was supposed to meet Bill’s contact outside of Fort Lauderdale, but the man never showed up to the drop. “Hey, what the gently caress, man. I thought you had a guy out here?” Johnny hissed into the receiver of his cell phone. A bulky block of grey plastic that Bill had loaned him for the run. “Yeah, Jesse or Jose, a loving ‘J’ name, but I got a guy out there,” Bill said, obviously high. “Uh, is it Johnny?” Johnny asked incredulously. Bill snapped his fingers, “Yeah! Johnny, that’s the guy.” “Bill, I’m loving Johnny!” Johnny screamed. “You’re loving Johnny?” Bill asked curiously. “No, you idiot. I’m him. Who the gently caress am I supposed to deliver all this blow to? For Christ’s sake, Billy, this is the poo poo I’m talking about. You’re god damned unreliable.” “Hey man, chill the gently caress out, okay. It’s just—it’s just a misunderstanding is all. Let me just get my head straight.” Johnny stared wide-eyed at the cellular brick in his hand and contemplated throwing it out the window, driving off, and starting a new life funded by whatever Billy’s drugs could afford him. Johnny knew better though. He knew his ticket was already punched, and long ago at that. A fact that was cemented as a long-barreled revolver pressed against his head through the open window of his car. He swallowed hard and dropped the phone onto the floorboard. “H-hey, man. I don’t want no trouble.” Johnny said. “And you won’t get none if you come up out that car, boy.” Johnny didn’t dare look at the man. He just said, “Y-yeah, man. It’s all yours. No trouble here.” The robber kept the gun leveled at Johnny the entire time leaving him no other option than to comply. He swung open the door to the car and stepped out without any fuss. The robber kept the gun leveled at him as he got into the driver’s seat. Johnny, not knowing what else to do, waved. * * * Johnny was in the middle of nowhere with no phone, no money, and no way of getting anywhere without walking for dozens of miles. As such, he decided to take a break, and plan out his next move when he saw a light deep in the woods. Despite his reluctance, he had nowhere else to go so he set off in that direction. When he finally was clear of the small forest he found himself standing infront of a vast queue of people. He tried to speak to someone, but the language was jarring and unintelligible. Not words, but not exactly noise; something unlike anything he’d ever heard before. He staggered away from the man, and bumped into a woman holding a sign. She rattled off more of the alien speech while angrily pointing to a black spire where two massive person-like creatures tossed a living ball of flame between one another. Before Johnny knew it, he was being led by angry or sympathetic faces to the black pillar. A loud explosion echoed from somewhere far in the distance. An unending roar that he had only just then noticed as he reached the ladder. The people shouted, or begged, or forced him, onto the ladder and when he touched it, suddenly the voices became clear. He could understand them, and knew what he had to do. * * * “Johnny was a man that was always on the move. He never let anyone dictate how he should live his life, and while that may have come with unexpected consequences, I’ve never known anyone as free or cheerful as Johnny.” A person whose face Johnny couldn’t quite place, said as he reached for the next rung of the ladder. The crowd nodded in reply. Another person approached the podium. “Johnny was a son of a bitch. He was a cheat, and a thief, and an addict, and a liar, and an abuser, and a—” The litany continued. The voice was flat and bereft of the vitriol that one would think would accompany such a barrage of indictments. The crowd chattered, seemingly outraged, and not with the speaker. He felt their spiteful gaze as his trembling hands reached for the next rung. He tried to drown out the seemingly unending list of faults and betrayals by focusing on his heartbeat, a technique he’d implemented as a child when his parents fought, or when he first robbed someone, or when Carly told him she was pregnant, or when he’d walked away from the life he’d built for no other reason beyond his total indifference to the situations that he was confronted with. A dog approached the podium and howled at the microphone. People in the audience began to bark or boo in response, and Johnny paused for a moment to puzzle out what was going on, ultimately returning to moving one hand over the other. Ever higher up the pillar. As he continued to climb. The sounds of the surrounding landscape and its inhabitants merged together. The sea encroached upon the shore, pushing and pulling the land until it took on alien shapes from Johnny’s perspective. He lifted his head up to see how far he had left to go and saw that the black discs were right overhead grinding some concatenated mess of unreality and missed opportunity into new forms. Johnny looked down at the mass of people-like things all pointing up at him. Pointing at the discs. He carefully inserted himself into the churning mess one limb at a time, until his legs and arms and torso had fused to the various others ground between the discs, all waiting for the chance to be made into something new, something complete.
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Feb 20, 2023 04:50
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In
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Feb 21, 2023 03:03
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Feb 28, 2023 23:41
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The Pursuit of Power 1,257 Vilesh stood at the control center for his flying castle and looked at the villagers below through an opalescent scrying orb. Panic-stricken faces gazed upward at the sky uttering prayers to whatever gods cared to listen while Vilesh watched mercilessly, eager for the destruction to come. Kelezet and Melchior, Vilesh’s apprentices, looked at one another apprehensively as their master prepared to unleash a necrotic plague upon the land. Neither of them considered themselves to be heroes. They were apprenticed under an evil wizard after all, but both of them had the sense to know that they couldn’t rule a land with no people. That there would be no purpose in destroying everything. They winced as Vilesh’s pox-covered hand tugged at a lever on the console. A section of the floating castle unhinged, supported by lengths of chains that fed into gears and pulleys, and began raining down magically modified corpses onto the land. Vilesh cackled gleefully as he watched the bloated corpses explode against cobblestone and dirt sending waves of villagers fleeing to their homes. The corpses, in various states from the fall, began to reanimate, scrabbling onto uneven limbs so they could lurch at shocked villagers for a cannibalistic meal. Kelezet felt sick to his stomach, having always disdained the necromantic arts. Melchior studied the process dutifully. While Vilesh delighted himself with infesting the countryside, Kelezet began to plot. He made the sign of the horns and touched the pinky and index fingers to his temple forming a telepathic link with Melchior. Melchior registered the aetheric disturbance like the knocking at a door inside his mind and formed a triangle with his thumbs and index fingers that took on a faint green glow. “I do not respect you. I think the magic you enlist is vile and perverse, and I do not trust you in the slightest,” Kelezet said, “however, I believe it has become abundantly clear that the master has lost his wits to the unrelenting forces of chaos. I propose that we set aside our differences, however temporarily, to put the master to rest.” Melchior harrumphed, nearly breaking contact with Kelezet, but a glance in the direction of Vilesh did send shivers down his spine. “I do not seek your respect, and it is your insistence on maintaining the arcane traditions we sought to leave behind which will prevent you from ever attaining true power. I think you are weak, and a fool, but I agree. The master can no longer be trusted… I attempted to scan his mind recently, as I had done secretly in the past, and his thoughts are darker than usual, clouded with secrecy and intent. I fear he is planning something that may not be in our best interest,” Melchior said. Kelezet nodded as if Melchior had confirmed a longstanding suspicion then replied, “So it’s agreed then. We will forge an alliance of necessity.” “It is agreed.” Melchior said, before disconnecting the link between their minds, fearing that their master might overhear their traitorous thoughts. * * * Though Vilesh had many apprentices, none were as trusted as Kelezet and Melchior. Which was to say, none were as useful to him as they were, despite their sycophantic interest in him. He knew their rivalry would only make them more powerful, and that much more capable of hosting his own tremendous power. However, he found himself running out of time. His extended campaign against the unified southern fiefdoms had put an unexpected strain on his already diminished reserve of energy. He’d have to end his grooming of the wizards prematurely. Vilesh stepped onto his fortified stone balcony as the castle floated ominously above the clouds. The screaming had gone on long into the night as his pestilent horde of undead made their way through the countryside. He began his nightly ritual of supping on the souls of the recently departed, drawing on their life energy to keep his crumbling body kept together long enough for him to steal one of his apprentice’s bodies. When suddenly, a tiny imp hovered into view with a mischievous grin on its face. “I didn’t conjure you,” Villesh said confused, and the creature began spewing a gout of flame into his face in response. Villesh shrieked and stepped away, only protected from the assault by a network of protective spells he maintained, but hardly recharged due to the interruption, he found himself in a serious predicament. He opened his mouth and a vast amount of flies spilled out of his throat, coating the imp with their bodies. They needled their way into the corners of its eyes, into its nostrils, and even down its throat despite the imp’s protests with diminishing bursts of fire and the creature blinked back to whatever infernal domain it came from, unable to withstand the tide of vermin Vilesh unleashed upon it. He detected the next barrage before it struck its mark. A host of ethereal arrows plunked into the carpet beside him before fizzing away into nothing. Melchior nervously sat at the rear of the chamber in the shadows. The arrows were just a distraction. A multitude of magical serpents coiled up from the fabric of the carpet and sunk fangs into Vilesh’s withered flesh. Vilesh was immune to the pain but knew that lethal poison was coursing into his veins. Unfortunately for Melchior, he was immune to most poisons as well. Vilesh shot beams of dark energy from his eyes at the serpents who began to burn with a black flame until there was no trace of them except for an image of their writhing shadows. He gestured a withered hand at Melchior and a massive ethereal replica of it seized the apprentice wizard and began crushing him. Melchior screamed for Kelezet. Kelezet, cloaked in a spell of invisibility, had been engaged in a ritual to cast a banishing spell on their master. His familiar was sent back to whatever hell it had come from in a swarm of flies, but it wasn’t until Melchior was being crushed that Kelezet lost his focus. Only for a moment, but a moment was all Vilesh needed. Vilesh picked up the Kelezet’s aetheric signature and quickly fired a necrotic beam in his direction. Kelezet, caught off-guard, took the blast in his shoulder, and felt the fabric and flesh beneath it slough off his bone like wet paper. His arm fell useless to his side, but he blocked out the pain and continued through with the ritual. Vilesh had seconds to spare. The betrayal by his apprentices was something he truly had not anticipated. With the last of his life energy, just as Kelezet was preparing to banish him, he attempted to seize the mind of Melchior whom he had subdued. He channeled his essence through the ethereal hand that held Melchior and with a final squeeze of it, the wretched nails seemingly dug into Melchior’s body before releasing him. Vilesh looked wide-eyed at Kelezet and began to say something, but Kelezet was fixated on seeing the spell through. The light behind Vilesh’s sunken eyes faded and his body fell slack as his soul was sent to some other place. “We’ve done it,” Kelezet exclaimed as he began to reknit his flesh with the only holy cantrips he knew. “Why yes you have…” Melchior said, emerging from the shadows. Kelezet’s blood ran cold as he met Melchior’s eyes and saw the specter of their former master behind them. “You should begin to worry. Having your soul consumed hurts a great deal.” Vilesh said, approaching hungrily.
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Mar 6, 2023 06:36
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In, flash please.
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Mar 8, 2023 17:33
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Apr 4, 2023 01:38
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The Other Self 1,190 Words It started with a buzz. A low hum prickled the nape of Nick’s neck. It was easy enough to discount it as nothing more than the background vibrations of the bus. He wanted nothing more than to do just that. But the persistence of the buzz, and its growing loudness… He knew he was having another episode. He gritted his teeth as the noise in his head grew from a tinny static into a chattering chorus of unintelligible gibberish. With shut eyes and clenched teeth, he clapped his hands to his ears, as if the added pressure on his skull might stop what was happening to him. What continued to happen to him. It didn’t though, and the unfrayed strands of his wits that remained raced to the only thing they knew that could help. Pills. He hated the pills. The four to five hours of alleged normalcy they bought weren’t worth the accompanying torpor, but now, here on the bus headed away from home for the first time just to prove to his parents that he could, he needed them. He sank a trembling hand into his satchel and retrieved a pill case that was, of course, empty. He shuddered and frantically began searching the various pockets of the bag, scraping their interiors with probing fingers, but found nothing. “gently caress!” he shouted inadvertently. The few other passengers on the bus cast wary glances in his direction. He shrank in his seat trembling. When the gibberish, as if parsed through some unknown filter and decoded, began to make sense, his panic became complete. An older woman, in her mid-to-late sixties, came and sat beside Nick. Lost in his panic, he hadn’t noticed her approach. It was as if she just appeared. She looked up at him and smiled, taking his hand in hers, but remained silent. ‘You need to stay calm, Nick,’ a voice said. Nick looked down at the woman to see if it had come from her. ‘That is not a woman, Nick, and you need to do exactly as I tell you if you want to survive,’ the voice continued. “You-you said?” Nick stammered at the old woman trying to confirm any of what was transpiring. The woman just stared at him. Smiled at him with that same unflinching smile, and it was then while Nick was studying her face, that he realized that it was off. When his eyes studied any individual feature, it appeared normal, in place. However, when he tried to witness the assembled whole of her face, it became harder to reconcile. The eyes drifted across her face like ships in water. The smile grew wide and full. Her nostrils flared open to some deep inner valley. She was unnatural. Nick tried to move, but could not. ‘Nick, focus on me. Try to pinpoint my mind, and imagine yourself dying an excruciatingly, agonizing death. Vividly imagine the pain and the completeness of it. It’s the only way to drive off a soul leech.’ the voice continued to sound inside his head. Hardly able to keep his eyes open as a result of the old woman’s touch, he did his best to do as instructed. He had contemplated his own death a thousand times, but in the unreality of his present situation, he found himself struggling. ‘I can’t do it!’ Nick thought as he faded further away from himself with each passing second. ‘You can!’ the voice responded in his mind, ‘If not your own, think of someone else’s. It just needs to be impactful.’ Nick remembered when he was a child his uncle, a trucker, died in a pretty gruesome traffic accident. He remembered the closed casket funeral because there was nothing for it. His uncle had burned alive in the mangled wreckage of his semi-truck and the truth of that, when his mother felt comfortable enough to share it with him, had haunted for years afterward. He’d often dream of his dead uncle, pressed like so much playdough through the folds of the bent and broken frame of his truck, gaping silently like a dying fish. As he got older, age lent itself to more deep imaginings of his uncle’s destruction. The cubic bits of glass embedded in the soft tissue of his melting face. The charred meat of his corpse fusing with various textiles of the seat. The process of turning into some unidentifiable, intermingled pile of ash and debris. The woman, the thing, recoiled from him as its true hideous shape was exposed from the psychic onslaught wrought upon it by Nick’s childhood terror. The creature was a clumsy facsimile of a person. Awkwardly and with an uneven, impossible gait, it staggered away from Nick uncertainly. Then, the specter, having gained some awareness of the situation, leveled a final smile in Nick’s direction before fading into nothing. ‘You did good kid,’ the voice sounded in his mind. A man from the rear of the bus approached. He seemed to be maybe a few years older than Nick, but his sunken-in eyes conveyed a deep weariness. The man sat beside Nick.’I’ve been watching you for a while,’ the man spoke directly into Nick’s mind. “H-how are you—” “Shh.” the man said, tapping his temple. Nick tried to think the message. He realized he had done so effortlessly earlier, maybe he could do it again. ‘Who are you?’ Nick thought. ‘A friend, one of a select few who can actually help you navigate what you’re going through.’ ‘Oh? And what am I going through?’ Nick thought incredulously. ‘For starters, we’re having a conversation inside your head. Two, you literally tapped into a deeply-seated trauma to drive off a supernatural creature just moments ago. I’d say you’re going through a lot.’ “How do you know all of this?” Nick blurted out. The man rolled his eyes. ‘Listen, our link is cutting out. You’re getting beyond the reach of my projection zone so I’m just going to lay it all out there.’ ‘On one path, you go about your life. Swallowing down beta blockers, antidepressants and antipsychotics. Each pill doing its best to hammer who you actually are into a semblance of what society expects you to be. But you’re not sick, Nick. You never were. The world is going to do its best to devour you, and if you carry on this path, eventually, despite all your progress and each new medication, it will.’ ‘On the other path, you begin training your other self, your true self, for the war to come. The division between their realm, and ours is eroding. Soon, all the dead and their ilk, the otherworldly and long forgotten, the old ones hidden away in dark, distant stars… they’ll return to this place and it will be up to people like us to save a world that doesn’t deserve it.’ Nick was flabbergasted. ‘I don’t—none of this—’ ‘You don’t have to choose now, but time is not on our side. Choose soon.’ The man evaporated from the seat in a mist. A fading projection only there for him to see. Trembling, horrified, Nick searched his bag for another pill.
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Apr 10, 2023 05:18
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Although I'm glad I didnt lose or DM, Pham, even though I know I'm not a stellar writer, I have to disagree with your criticisms and say that yes, you must be dumb. I challenge you to a brawl. The first time your harshness was set upon my bad-wrong words I wrote it off as my words just being bad and wrong, but the cartoonish degree of your critique will not stand. Acknowledge my request or forever be known as a coward. If it really is just 12 year old animorphs fiction you have nothing to lose, right?
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Apr 10, 2023 23:11
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In and flash
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Apr 11, 2023 00:33
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Strange Cares posted:Earnest Brawl Idle Amalgam Vs Pham Nuwen The Vessel 1,586 Words Harris ran his fingers over his son’s portrait. It was faded now. The toddler beaming up at him from the tiny frame would probably be about 9 or 10. Harris had stopped counting the days since Margaret took the boy to stay with her sister out in El Paso. “Get some help,” she said. “I love you, but you’re losing yourself,” she said. “You’re scaring me,” she said. She was right of course. Harris knew it. She knew it. And although it made Harris’s stomach hurt to think about it, made his eyes start to blur with tears, Junior knew it too. What kind of dad could he be to Junior when apocalyptic visions began to control his life? That was about to be behind him though. After years of searching, he’d finally found them. He’d found the Vessel. However, standing over the unconscious man whom the visions had guided him to, Harris knew he was at a turning point. One which there would be no returning from depending on how the next 24 hours went. He looked down at the man, a 38-year-old real estate agent named Donny Pettigrew, and stowed away the empty syringe of stolen anesthesia. He loaded Donny into the van and felt it must have been his purpose that protected him from being caught. It had guided him here, and no one stood in his way. He assumed it had to be because he had been ordained. As he finished binding Donny, Harris began to have doubts that were promptly refuted when he recalled the visions that haunted him night and day. The man he’d just kidnapped came to him in his dreams and he’d peel back his mask of humanity revealing the insidious creature that hid beneath its illusion. During the solstice eclipse, the gates would once again open to those distant realms of hell, and unchecked legions of cartilaginous, tendrilled horrors would spill forth from the blackened sun, tearing through the sky to destroy the world. The repurposed dead would devour the remaining bastions of humanity within the year, and an entity spawned by chaos would preside over the broken nations of Earth for eternity. Harris gritted his teeth as he willed the visions away. He crawled to the front of the van, sparing the bound man a final glance. He nodded to himself and the two of them drove off into the desert. * * * When Donny came to, Harris sat nearby consulting various manuscripts and tinkering with strange components. Donny was bound in accordance with the rituals revealed to Harris in his visions, but even then, Harris who had come so far as to abandon his whole life in the pursuit of resolving this, found the process to be unorthodox. Donny’s eyes fluttered open, and he was flooded with realization. He was chained to the floor of a dimly lit basement, gagged, and bound. He panicked. “Easy, easy,” Harris said, “I know this must come as a bit of a surprise, but I really do have all our best interests at heart. I promise you.” Donny shot Harris a bewildered look. Harris held up a cautioning hand. “I’m going to untie that gag so you and I can talk, okay?” Donny trembled as he nodded affirmation. Harris carefully removed his gag, and as expected, Donny began to scream for help. Harris sighed and crossed his arms while Donny screamed. “Have you had enough of that?” Harris asked. “Ain’t no one going to find you out here, son.” Donny sobbed. “Now, now, I don’t plan to hurt you. I swear it. I believe we can resolve this peacefully.” “I’ll loving kill you! I swear to God, I’ll loving kill you!” Harris nodded, and Donny raved. He flailed his body as hard as he could at Harris before being yanked back against the concrete. It was in falling though, that he saw his surroundings. There were four rings, each larger than the last, and comprised of varying materials. The inner circle Donny sat atop was coated in a thin layer of ash that had made its way across his body. The first ring was a ring of decay. The putrescent remains of animals, excrement, and moldering filth. After that was a ring of fresh laurel leaves. The next ring was chalked in and adorned with various sigils, and the last was of powdered bones. “What—what is all this?” “In a few hours, the sun will be eclipsed during the solstice event. A happening that occurs once a century. When this happens, a gateway will align and open itself to try and allow a being into our world. The trouble is that the horror needs a host, a vessel, and that vessel is you.” Donny laughed. “You, you’re loving crazy,” Donny said. “I’m not going to hurt you, or rather, I don’t want to hurt you. There are other ways to do this than how it’s traditionally been done.” Harris continued without acknowledging the remark. “What do you mean how it’s traditionally been done?” Donny asked. “I mean, normally the host is killed. I assume every time until now, in truth.” “My god, how many people have you killed?!” Harris chuckled then. “I promise you that I’ve never killed anyone. Heck, I release the spiders that I find crawling around my home. I really don’t delight in the prospect, and fortunately, despite my life unraveling around me, I like to think that I am of a mental fortitude durable enough to keep my wits about myself where someone not as fortunate might have killed you on sight, repercussions be damned. Then probably themselves as the full weight of their actions, the inexplicability of it all, pushed them over the edge. “My name is Harris Vickers. I’m an electrician from Texas. My wife and I are… separated for now. I’ve got a son that I—I haven’t seen in a while, and after this bit of business is taken care of, I’m hoping I can pick up the pieces.” “You’re hosed, you know that right? There’s no ‘bit of business’ to be taken care of. You loving kidnapped me!” Donny exclaimed. “I am the only person on this planet who is trying to save you, you stupid son of a bitch!” Harris snapped, then he pulled a snub-nosed .38 from his waistband. “The alternative is me emptying this revolver into your face, Donny, and I really don’t want to do that. God, I don’t want to do that. So please, please, please, please… please, will you just work with me here. Do you really think I’d do all this for no reason, Donny? I’m not crazy, okay? I’m not. This is happening. Now please, I know you’ve got a family to go back to, right? Do this for them. I truly don’t want this to have to go any other way.” Donny, the vessel, trembled as he nodded in agreement. “Good. Now, I’m willing to undo your bindings. I’m not an animal. If you know what’s at stake here, we can work together. We’ll begin the ritual before the solstice begins, and if there’s no trace of possession after the eclipse has passed. We part our separate ways never to see each other again. I swear it.” Donny just continued to nod, biding time for an opportune moment. He allowed Harris to continue talking, and Harris went on to explain how in each generation a vessel and champion were chosen. Puppets that enacted this cyclical cosmic drama to decide the fate of the earth. Donny didn’t care about any of that though. He waited for Harris to get close. To free him. Harris was relieved to have someone who understood on his side up until the moment Donny, free of his restraints, charged Harris and in the ensuing scuffle seized control of Harris’s revolver. Harris pleaded. “Please, Donny! No, no, no. God no. Don’t do this. Look, if you just—” Harris stepped towards Donny, and Donny shot him. Harris crumpled as he fell against the ground. When he finally realized what he’d done, escape became the only thought in his mind. He ran from the circle of ash, past the first ring of filth, past the leaves and chalk, but when he was about to pass the ring of bones, covered in all the varying materials of the other rings, he found himself confronted with an immense, impassable pressure. Harris gasped from the floor, “My God, it’s real…” and the distraught look of failure that had been etched into his face faded away. He pulled the faded photograph of his son from his shirt pocket and smiled, having completed one last fatherly act no matter how removed from his son’s life the act had left him. Harris bled out and died. Donny continued to throw his body against the open air but found it impossible to exit the circles. The sun went black, and a shadow fell over Donny as he continued to thrash against the invisible barrier. Then he noticed the change taking place in him as the skin of his arms began to ripple. He saw his reflection in Harris’s pooled blood and bore witness to the thing that hung on the precipice of reality, ready to consume him as it made its way into the world. Held back only by a dead man’s obsession, Donny knew what he had to do. He put Harris’s revolver to the side of his head and pulled the trigger.
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May 2, 2023 04:31
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In and FLASH!
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May 2, 2023 04:31
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In
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Jun 8, 2023 00:46
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When the Sleeper Wakes 495 Words Over the horizon, as the sun slips into shadow, the Sleeper’s dark silhouette becomes visible in the cold light of the moon. I gaze up at its placid face each night expecting its giant eyes to open, each lid receding like a vast tidal wave in the ocean of its flesh. And then, as its wakefulness is restored, the Sleeper’s scrutiny will once again scour the world clean, burning us away. I wish for it, because then it would be a fitting end. A sensible conclusion to our long history of destruction. My father, still wrapped in the sand-blasted fabric of his scav suit, calls me down from the roof. There’s an excitement in his voice that I haven’t heard for some time. When I spot my eldest sibling who has been missing for the last three months sitting at the table, it becomes clear why. My father is stripping free of his gear. He’s slung his pack into the common, left his boots in the kitchen. Sand gets everywhere in his enthusiasm. My mother is trying to get his attention, but he’s not listening. My brother whose just been sitting stoically at the table, not saying a word or making eye-contact with anyone, opens his mouth and lets out a sound that’s unlike anything any of us have ever heard. A wet, full-throated shriek crawls out of him. Each syllable more alien than the last. All of us, except my father, scrambled away with shut eyes and hands pressed over our ears. We’d heard the rumors from other families in the village about visits from the Sleeper’s phantoms. My father let out a single terrified cry, and then fell silent. When I had mustered up the courage to look, my brother was nowhere to be seen. My father stood in the open doorway of our home looking up at the night sky. The next day, he marched into the desert and never came back. The elders of my village tell tales that they say were passed down to them from their elders, but no one really knows how the Sleeper arrived or what it even is. They say our ancestors, at the height of their knowledge, constructed a device that could explode with the energy of the sun. Something to completely eradicate their enemies in a confrontation for control of the world. But their attempt to wield such power proved flawed. They say a great rift opened in the sky, and through it came the Sleeper. A wrathful god to check humanity for its hubris. I don’t think it’s a god though. I think it’s a prisoner. Dragged out of its own hell and into ours by sciences that will never again exist. It dreams, trying to connect with the disenfranchised populace of a dying world, yet another victim in an unending conquest. I hope that I live long enough to see it open its eyes again. To see it wipe the slate clean.
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Jun 12, 2023 00:16
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Falling 191 Words I’m falling. I know it’s not real of course. It’s only a dream, and since I know it’s a dream I don’t feel any apprehension about falling. There’s no fear of impact. No sense of vertigo as my innards shift from gravitational resistance. There is only the disconcerting fact that I’m falling. If I force myself, my dreamself that is, to turn and look upward, a pinpoint of light appears to be shrinking in the distance. However, after a moment I realize that the point of light isn’t shrinking at all. It remains forever out of reach while I fall further into darkness at a nonexistent velocity. I’m suspended in a state of perpetual falling. I look back down hoping that maybe there’s a bottom to the darkness, an end. But it never comes. Wind that’s not wind whips past my imagined limbs. I try to wake myself, but no matter how I struggle to penetrate the veil of unreality that keeps me dreaming, I’m stuck here forever falling towards nowhere. Eventually, I’ll forget that I’m here at all. Forget that I’m dreaming, and then, only then, will I truly sleep.
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Jun 12, 2023 21:21
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A crit of Proselytize My Child, of the Darkest Black by Flyerant. Overall: Wowee, I love this type of stuff. An extra-dimensional entity takes interest in, or is called upon by someone who may or may not have been a cultist. There appears to be the implication of sacrifice of self-destruction that piques this otherworldly being's interest. Resulting in it hopping across realities in pursuit. A very cool angle for a post-apocalyptic vignette. You handle existential and cosmic horror themes in a satisfactory way. Highlighting isolation, the yearning for connection and understanding, obsession and annihilation. Your usage of language seems appropriate and not overwrought for the tone/duration of the piece, and as a result I feel like the intent behind your words comes across clearly. The plot itself seems easy to follow. I don’t feel like there is any noticeable loss of clarity in what you’re trying to convey. I feel there are some slight conflicts with the nebulous relationship between the person/creature that attracted/called upon the entity, and only from the context of the entity expressing emotions that are comprehensible as completely human. On the flip side of that, it helps to solidify compatibility between the two. I have no suggestions for how I would have done it any differently though and I enjoyed it throughout. All in all, I felt like I wrote a less cool companion piece to this inadvertently haha. Neat to see the incidental inverse of my story in the same week lol.
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Jun 15, 2023 16:56
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In and flash!
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Jun 15, 2023 16:58
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In, can I get a week
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Jul 24, 2023 22:31
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(let's not quote the wrong week lol) I'll co-judge if you'll have me. Idle Amalgam fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Sep 24, 2023 |
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Sep 24, 2023 06:11
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Idle's Week DLXXXI Judge Notes General Review Notes
If they submitted multiple stories:
In order of First Submissions Author: Yoruichi Stories: Llama Drama - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=4021140&perpage=40&pagenumber=37#post534683542 Vale’s Last Stand - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534705296 Conjuction - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534791457 Yes, these stories fit the prompt. Yes, a passable stories are told within the 100 words, but I feel like some readability was lost in editing to get to that 100 in the first story. The second story has good action. The situations that the characters find themselves in is clear. The third might be the best of the three. The drawback of the first story is that the emotional underpinnings of the characters come across stilted at the suggestion of their strained relationship from the touch or the pleading of the other brother. The second story manages to solidify the emotional connection a lot more neatly without it needing to be substantiated any further beyond the loss, and imminent demise. The third story is apocalyptic, but what I like about it is that the characters in this story seem capable from what little we’re given. There seems to be a determination and conveyance of character that sets this one apart. The second story is probably the best in terms of a fulfilling story, but this one is my favorite for its matter-of-fact characters and their seemingly unflinching demeanors. The first story was a story, but the second was a good story (and I’m glad these weren’t directly connected, the sci-fi/fae is a good vibe). The last is also a good story. The second read the best to me, but the third has the most fun implications in my opinion. poo poo’s hitting the fan, but these individuals are unperturbed in away that shows more characterthan it conceals. Author: beep-beep car is go Stories: Technomalum - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=4021140&perpage=40&pagenumber=37#post534690435 Sean Gloriosis - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=4021140&perpage=40&pagenumber=37#post534690578 Payment Rendered - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534705802 T-Minus - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534758990 Yes, they fit the prompt. There is a common connective theme of human’s interacting with a magical world that exists around them. Enough is given in each story that explains the world and makes them fit well together with satisfactory delivery. The second story seems the least clear of them all, but I think the alluded inebriation and suggested manner of the characters accounts for this. The third story had fairly mundane opening, clear and straight-forward, I did not expect the ending and had a sly grin at my face instantly. The fourth story is organized so neatly as to almost be perfect in my opinion, but without the preceding stories it would feel less so, but by that point in reading your submissions it seemed as if you had imagined out a universe with its own rules and understandings. As such, all of your stories end up feeling very complete. These were good stories given the format. Author: rivetz Stories: Dear Imprudence - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534703087 UNTITLED TRANSCRIPT - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534728137 Rêverie en Vert - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534769811 Cuckoo - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&pagenumber=39#post534815088 First story fits the prompt, the second doesn’t convey it as much. A passable story is told in “Dear Imprudence,” and while I get what you’re going for in “UNTITLED TRANSCRIPT,” it does seem to fall a bit flat for me. Your third story however, picks back up some of strength of the first with more ethereal and supernatural qualities that feel right at home within the prompt. Dear Imprudence was a bit of a delight to read. The personalities of the characters are made clear. There is an antagonist, a protagonist(or at least, the antagonized), and otherworldly retribution neatly packed into the prompt constraints. UNTITLED TRANSCRIPT is too much like an actual transcript that doesn’t solidify the Fae experience beyond name, but your effort is noted. The third submission feels like your strongest work this week. There’s just enough of all the presented pieces to make it feel like it has more weight to it than the 100 words allow. Intrigue & Deception, a good angle to work here. Cuckoo manages to pack alienation, body horror, and otherness into the word count decently, but it feels less concrete than Dear Imprudence was a good story. UNTITLED TRANSCRIPT isn’t really a story. Rêverie en Vert is a good story. Cuckoo is cool, but I feel it lacks the strength of of the third story. Might be second best of your submissions this week though. Some of these were good stories, others were stories. Author: sebmojo Story: Restitution - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534703391 Yes, this fits the prompt. Yes, a passable story is told within the wordcount. This is sinister and fae in all the right ways. A very strong opening. The ending is one of mystery, that I feel suggests the protagonist may in fact have a guilty mind, but it seems to end on a note of their awe at some forbidden place instead of cementing that the protagonist knew better in the first place. Maybe it’s better that it’s implied? This is a good story. Author: Vinny Possum Stories: The Black Beast - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534749186 Retro Spite - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534789003 Yes, these fit the prompt. Yes, passable stories were told within the wordcount. The first is another sinister fae story, but it’s more them living in the world of humans which translates in an effectively terrifying way. Another story read with a grin. Thank goodness, they’ve got the best beast around. May it chomp down many more malicious fairies! The second story hones in on mischief associated with fae folk, but I don’t feel it’s as strong a story as the first. Both were stories however, the first was a good story. The first was a good story, the second was a story. Author: Dicere Story: It’s Just Seasonal - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534751553 Yes, it fits the prompt. Yes, a passable story is told. This struck me at first as kind of bland, but the more I thought about it, the more I can appreciate the humor of a completely indifferent supervisor who is just trying to meet quotas. The universe has literally revealed itself as supernatural, and they’re just like… “buckle down folks… numbers, business, buzz, buzz.” I can’t help but feel like it’s lacking something, but it’s not without its charm. This was a story. Author: Chernobyl Princess Story: It’s a Deal - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534761800 Yes, it fits the prompt. Yes, a passable story is told (but apparently wordcount! womp-womp) This take on a fairy godmother is poignant and dark. All of the words are used for describing the entity and how they interact with the world which is fitting here given the limitation on the wordcount, but as a standalone entry I feel that it lacks something. This was a story. Author: TheMackening Stories: Fairy Ring - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534762485 The Forest - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534762848 Death Awaits - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534763298 Yes, they fit the prompt. There is a cohesive malevolence between your stories, and yes, they all manage to tell a story of demise. This is another set of stories that fit well together. While there may be thematically direct connections, each tale seems like the penultimate highlight on someone’s impending doom (which is a total vibe, and one that works well with this week.) These were good stories. Author: Popeston Stories: Untrue Name - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534766889 Flight Control, Fortune Favored & Good Cop, Bad Cop - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534794055 Yes, these fit the prompt within the word count. These are passable stories. The first has all the joy of a human servicing a fae creature, or even better, a fae creature providing some new-age baby naming service for a fellow fae. In either case, it’s relevant to the prompt and it has a whimsical, satiric charm to it. The second, “Flight Control” effectively subverts expectations and does so neatly within the word count. My favorite of the 4. Fortune Favored is a close second. This monkey’s paw-esque nature of dealing with fae that you and other writers this week honed in on is very satisfying. Many end with a malicious reveal, but in my opinion, they each manage to do so in a way that seems unique or fitting to the story so it doesn’t feel unfresh. The fantastic and beautiful are lined with underlying rot, and/or unexpected horror. Good Cop, Bad Cop fits but kind of hones in more on the whimsical side of things. Not bad, but I don’t think it’s as effective as your second and third stories. These were all stories, and some of these stories were good. Author: a friendly penguin Story: Bespoke Bodies - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534767992 Yes, this fits the prompt within the word count. Yes, it’s a passable story, but either symbolism is lost on me, or there’s not enough here. What is there is good, but I need more (and it could just be me, I am admittedly, donkey brained.) Kind of pretty much touched on it in point 2, but there’s just not enough here for me to really sink my teeth in. The flavor is nice, and you manage to create a sense of urgency/panic between the initial interaction with the godmother and the frenzy at the fae market, but again, either some greater symbolism is lost on me, or there’s not enough here to make this feel complete. This was a story, but… (My fellow judge pointed out that yes, there may have been elements to this story going over my head, and I think that lends it more credit than I initially gave.) Author: Chili Story: GroWing Up - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534771986 (womp, womp - disqualified - youplayedyourself.gif) However… Yes, this is fits the prompt. Yes, it is a passable story within the word count. It feels very much like a fairy tale or parable in the delivery that all at once feels very “fae” natured. However, the unintentional edit sinks you. Otherwise, this was a good story. Author: Ouzo Maki Stories: The Queen of Air and Shadow, Unseelie & Primrose - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post534775870 Hell yes, this all fit the prompt. There is a connective thread between the stories, and the 3-in-1 does not feel like an abuse of the 100 word drabble. With your entries, you manage to carve out a timeline, and it might be one of the more effective uses of a completely connected story this week. Innocent intrigue, cursed tradition, and a cautionary tale all-in-one. This was a good story. Author: Slightly Lions Stories: Glamorous Futures - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=150280 Listen Now, Dear Hearts, With Ears Like Elephants’ - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534811935 First, it fits the prompt, but semi-loosely. Second very much hits the mark. There are passable stories within their wordcounts. The delivery of the first story’s set up and humor is well done. The fae association seems mostly in name, and what you tell the reader almost directly, but I’m fine with it. The second story is another poetic, fable/parable/nursery rhyme-esque story that seems fairly clever The first was a story. The second was a good story. Author: Bad Seafood Stories: Peekaboo - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534798076 Passport - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534806810 Yes, these fit the prompt. They also tell a story within the wordcount. First, another seemingly sinister creature feature and I’m with it. You went the route of the descriptive and poetic which gives your story the tone of a fable which works well with the prompt. Second, a pattern of desperate persons seeking some fae intervention in their lives. Seems very human, I think it only suffered from trying to fit the words into the 100 word limit, but I enjoyed both of these and ultimately thing they had good execution. These are good stories. Author: derp Stories: Untitled 1 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534804716 Untitled 2 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534804726 Untitled 3 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534804752 Untitled 4 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534804772 Untitled 5 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534804784 Untitled 6 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534804795 Yes, these fit the prompt. Yes, each drabble is a continuation, and most importantly, they don’t feel like an abuse of the limit. I don't know if they each have the power to stand alone, and that does make it seem more like a segmented singular piece, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. These were organized well. The last line of the 6th untitled piece confused me a bit, “We showed the face to the family — but by then that page had been torn out,” These were good stories. Author: Rohan Story: shifting sands - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534805306 Yes, very much fits the prompt. Yes, a complete story is told within the word count. This is higher up for me. Well-written with the otherworldly and awe-inspiring becoming unpleasantly lurid with the more sorrowful or horrifying elements like forgeting an ethereal love or noticing the sharp teeth (a common trend at this point, but makes sense). In any case, impossible longing is not an angle I think had been touched on so far this week, and it’s a very good angle to wok given the prompt. This was a good story. Author: Antivehicular Stories: The Changeling’s Return - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534812710 True Gold - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534812933 Yes, these fit the prompt. Yes, stories are told within the word limit. I am not entirely sure these two are linked, if they are, it may be my own gaps that fail to make the connection. The first story is the better of the two in my opinion, and only because it’s easier to grasp on first pass. The second story, however, seems the more inventive of the two, and it leaves some of it up to interpretation in a compelling way. I’d say the first story is a good story, and the second is a story. Author: Beezus Story: A Castle of Bark and Bone - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534813589 Yes, this fits the prompt. Yes, it tells a story within the wordcount. This is fun. It seems straightforward. The stakes seem in place with a code of rules that the king of mist and moss believes are in place. He, like the reader(maybe), doesn’t expect the hapless fool to be someone clearly fed up and ready for an extravagant exit. It’s a good note to end on for the character. It leaves the protagonist with their own bumbling and hapless qualities. This was a story. Author: My Shark Waifuu Story: Rusalka - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=39#post534814346 Yes, this fits the theme. Yes, a story is told within the wordcount. At first, I was like “where is this going?” but the title and content were actually very satisfying when all parts of these 100 words are considered. I am a fan. This is a good story. Author: Lord Zedd-Repulsa Story: Bloom - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4021140&pagenumber=39#post534815079 Yes, this fits the theme. Yes, a story is told within the word count. A story that has a clear setting, a character with clear qualities, and the reward of those qualities. I’d say this is a fair story on par thematically, and in delivery, with several others this week. This is a story.
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Sep 26, 2023 13:51
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Sep 26, 2023 15:37
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Supplicant 1,145 Words Henrik sat near the hearth, transfixed by the fleeting shapes in the flames. His grip tightened on the gnarled leather whip in his hands, intent rising with each passing second. The resounding crack that followed was laced with Henrik’s pained winces. As sure as the barbs on the whip flayed his flesh, the spirits that haunted him were quieted. In the doorway, a concerned attendant watched as Henrik whipped himself. Henrik, feeling the attendant’s presence, turned to face them with a gaze of deep placidity. He nodded and returned to his penance. The whip cracked with more fervor. * * * It had been more than a year since Henrik had begun his pilgrimage to the Monastery of Fallen Grace, and now, at the base of the mountain its sacred halls had been carved into, he was within reach of redemption. As he climbed, he recalled his previous attempts at exorcising his devils. No matter the amount of prayer or mystic-guided rituals he participated in, he was unable to rid himself of the atrocities that plagued his mind. The horrors he had committed with his own hands in the name of cruel gods and crueler vassals would not leave him. He was stained to his core with the blood of the innocent and they demanded vengeance. He had been at the bottom of a bottle in a cattle pen, in the contemplation of ending his own life, when he was given an unexpected lifeline. A man in soft, billowing robes approached Henrik and studied him with weary eyes. “The rusted armor and dull sword tell all there is to tell. You are a soul on the verge of collapse,” the man said. Henrik tried to wave him away ineffectually. “I sense in you a soul seeking redemption… seeking absolution.” Henrik tried to retreat into the hay, but his drunkenness rendered him immobile. Tears welled up in Henrik’s eyes as the man pulled up the hem of his robe and knelt beside him. The robed man, a monk by Henrik’s assertion, had looked at him stolidly and without judgment. The monk produced a vial of dark liquid that shimmered in the moonlight. Then the monk gingerly worked his fingers onto Henrik’s cheeks, lowering his jaw and parting the lips enough to receive a single drop of the curious liquid. Henrik recognized the taste right away as blood, but had not expected it to, nearly instantaneously, turn sweet. It was at this moment that the incessant voices and visions vanished. Tears flowed unbidden from Henrik’s eyes as he realized this. “The Spirits… they’re gone,” henrik said, disbelieving the words as he spoke them. “Not gone, brother, but placated,” said the man. “Seek out the Monastery of Fallen Grace. There you will be given a new purpose. There you will find what you seek.” “That liquid. What is it? I must have it!” Henrik demanded. “You cannot.” “Why?!” “It is too precious a resource, and now that you’ve been shown the way, it would be wasted on you. That single drop alone will sustain you on the journey to come.” “B-but the voices… the visions… they’ll return without it.” “The burden you’ve shouldered all this time has been lessened. It is your penance, and yet still, you must become more penitent. When the spirits return, and they will, you must placate them with your flesh. Blood for blood,” said the robed man, then he retrieved a worn cat o’ nine tails from his robe and placed it into Henrik’s hands. “I have shown you the way, you must follow it if you wish to be redeemed.” Then the monk disappeared into the night leaving Henrik somewhat restored to the man he once was. * * * The climb to the peak had taken Henrik nearly a full day, but when he had arrived he was met by a pair of monks who stood resolutely at the entrance to the monastery like wardens. “Why have you come here?” the first monk asked. “I am Henrik of Aglemmar and I have come seeking absolution.” “I apologize, but you’ll not find absolution here. You have been misled.” “That cannot be. One of your order came to me and saved my life. They—they had a liquid, a vial nearly black as pitch, and equally acrid to the taste, like sharp blood, but then… It was so sweet and purifying. It was as if I had no troubles in the world. As if I had been forgiven by all I had wronged.” “You were not forgiven and your troubles are not behind you. They are who you have become, and who you will be. There is no absolution for you here.” Henrik fell to his knees and desperately flung himself at the unflinching monk. “You must let me in, please. I cannot go on like this!” “You misunderstand, brother Henrik,” the other monk said, helping him to his feet. “The way to you is not barred, but we are forever stained by our sins. They cannot be absolved. Even the divine must become penitent in their failing. It is your resolve that led you here, and it is this strength of character that will allow you to do what comes next.” “And what might that be?” Henrik asked genuinely curious. “Your vigil.” The monk said as he opened the monastery doors. A frigid gust of air escaped as the door flung open and Henrik trudged in slowly, reminded more of a tomb, than a site of holy worship. He navigated elaborately carved halls that depicted an eternal battle between good and evil. As he continued, he began to hear the low murmur of chanting. When he rounded the corner, he stepped into a large apse and his mind reeled. Hoisted from the domed ceiling in constricting chains was a creature unlike any he had ever seen. It had the size of a dozen men and a multitude of wings that seemed to burn but produce no heat. Beneath it, a circle of monks chanted in perfect harmony. If one left, they were replaced without interruption by another who joined the chant effortlessly. A person, nondescript in every way except for their robes, stood beneath the creature with a golden lance and smoldering thurible. At the height of the chant, the person would spear the creature’s abdomen allowing it to bleed into the reservoir it had been suspended above. Henrik’s mind struggled to reject what he was seeing, but then as he turned to flee, it spoke to him saying, “Take, eat,” and it was at this moment that Henrik truly saw the creature. A being fallen so far from grace as to willingly give itself to mortals. To engage freely in penance for sins Henrik would never even begin to comprehend. Then without any interruption or hesitation or lack of understanding on his part, Henrik joined in the chant.
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Oct 2, 2023 04:12
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Oct 3, 2023 16:53
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Family Vacation 602 Words In the midst of one of the most blistering summers on record, you and your family managed to get away for a vacation, even if that only meant a long weekend at the beach. It was nice to be away; a brief respite from the unending burden of spreadsheets. Still, work had become a permanent fixture in your mind, like an unwanted growth you didn’t need to confirm as malignant. You couldn’t help but think about it. You watch your children from the comfort of your canopied chair. They seemed to find something in the sand. Something that your wife felt they shouldn’t be messing with. You turn your attention to your phone, but see your wife join your kids in your peripheral vision. Your mind, like so much flotsam, drifted back to work. The placidity of the beach had only built upon the anxiety that there was something you missed, something you had left undone. But you can’t place it. You scroll idly for a few seconds as your children’s jubilant cries are muted by your wife urgently calling you over. You look up from your phone and see your children’s enthusiasm is not shared by their mother who looks pale and a bit distant. You reluctantly extricate yourself from your chair with a sigh, and leisurely stroll towards your family to weigh in with your expertise. However, what you see them huddled over is the mostly ruined body of a Barbie-sized Fishman wearing what appeared to be armor and weapons fashioned from sea shells. A seahorse of comparable size with gouges and rents across its body lay dead, half submerged in the damp sand. The Fishman made labored breaths that caused its tiny chest to rise and drop raggedly. Your mind spun. ‘What the gently caress is that?’ you think. You and your wife watch speechless as your children scoop up the tiny man and seahorse. They jostled them this way and that, moving their limbs like those of an action figure. Twisting them into new agonized positions. If there was any life left in those creatures, your children’s play had snuffed out the remnants. The macabre scene is enough to snap you and your wife to your senses and she speaks first reciting the only sensible thing she can think of in that instant, “Put those down! You don’t know where they’ve been!” A timeless parental command, regurgitated even when people just communicated in concerned grunts. The children don’t listen though. They’ve been going through a rebellious streak and have taken your cavalier demeanor as some sort of override for their mother’s commands (it isn’t; she’s sure to let you know), and you agree wholeheartedly, emphatically, un-loving-deniably. You don’t know where these creatures have been. “Your mother said put that down,” you say sternly, eyes fixed on the creatures as you struggle to reconcile the implications of their existence. The children groan as they leave their findings in the sand with you. When they are sequestered away within your tent, hands being scrubbed with sanitizer for snack time, you scoop up the creatures and clutch them tightly as you drift out into the water. You paddle long enough that your wife looks like an insect waving you back to shore when she realizes how far out you’ve gone. You turn your attention to the creatures tangled in your grip and push the anomalies back into the depths of the ocean where they belonged. Satisfied with the removal, or more aptly put, the return, you swim back to your family, eager to let your life return to the mundane and predictable.
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Oct 9, 2023 03:56
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Oct 10, 2023 18:04
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The Master of the House “This is it, Will. After tonight everything will change. Everything will go back to the way it’s supposed to be,” my dad said. He had that same look in his eye that he had on the day mom left us. Kind of bewildered and out of focus, like he was looking through me, moreso than at me. I nodded mechanically, and offered “sure” as reply which was good enough for him. He clapped me on my shoulder with tears welling up in his tired eyes. He was unkempt and had an air of vodka permeating him like a blanket. I said “sure” again, trying to convince myself that today would change something. That things would be different. “Hand me that tape measure would you?” dad asked, and reluctantly, I resigned myself to feeding into his obsession. When I was a kid, I didn’t know any better. Hell, I hadn’t really had much choice. If he felt something was real, who was I to challenge it? I was just a kid. When I was old enough, I asked him why mom left us and he just studied my face, as if gauging my sincerity, then his own features slackened as if he felt guilty about something. “Son, what I am about to tell you is not something I tell you easily. There are forces in this world beyond our mortal comprehension. Higher AND lower planes of existence all layered on top of one another to culminate in this collective experience we call reality.” I swallowed hard, my throat drying by the second, not sure what to make of this but if he saw any sign of unease on my face, he continued right past it and said, “son, our family is cursed by one such creature, or perhaps, even creatures called duendes. Mischievous goblin-like creatures that are drawn towards humans. However, somewhere in our lineage was someone who inadvertently, or deliberately, angered one of these creatures. This is the reason your mother left. It has been manipulating our lives for so long. Every small inconvenience. Every misplaced item. All the unnatural suffering that has seemingly been inflicted upon us can bet raced back to these malicious creatures.” By the time I had turned 10 I began to suspect that something was off. The idea was cemented by the age of thirteen, and now nearly a decade later, even with all my uncertainty about the world, I knew that somewhere along the line, my dad had been self deceived. I couldn’t muster up the strength to tell him, and I felt that sooner than later, I like my mom, would have to leave him. Instead, I just nodded and handed him the tape measure then went back to standing awkwardly by the door that led into the house from the garage. He was rechecking measurements against some hardly legible notes he kept in a tattered journal. I tried reading them once, but it read like the diary of someone on the verge of writing a manifesto and I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Instead, I had committed myself to helping him with his various experiments and projects over the years. Usually just providing moral support or handing him tools as he calibrated dangerous and bizarre traps. He had inflicted a number of injuries to himself as a result, but was always careful to ensure that I was never injured. Something had changed though. This trap was different, a bit scarier to be honest. While bear traps and falling cages did carry a certain cartoonish horror of their own, it was the bowl of blood and blackened mushrooms that finally broke my nerve. When I asked my dad where the blood came from, he just kind of shrugged and I didn’t press the issue. Around the garage were a multitude of expensive cameras that served different purposes from thermographic imaging to smart-sensor high speed cameras that would take thousand of photos in seconds. All things he had accumulated as birthdays got missed, utilities went unpaid, and many dinners were skipped. He justified this by saying, “Just one photo. Just one clear image, and that’ll be all the proof we need.” Having come this far along with him on his journey,hiis obsession hammering smooth the edges of own conviction, I wanted to believe. I had to. I needed for this, no matter how hosed up it all was, to be real. * * * Satisfied with his measurements and his “trap” my father went to his computer where he monitored each of the cameras, night after night, only getting enough sleep as to not die. Typically, I’d go to to bed when he’d begin this routine, but tonight was different. I stayed beside him, watching the screens waiting for any sign of movement. When something inexplicable happened. The air at the back of garage seemed to shimmer in the camera feeds like the distortions of heat. Then, visible on all feeds, something seemed to shake itself free from the open air of the garage, pulling itself into the material world as if by instinct or compulsion. It looked like a tiny person, but that was really just what my eyes and brain kept trying to actively reconcile it as. It’s eyes would shrink and swell, and it’s limbs would elongate then crimp. It was as if maintaining its corporeal form was more of our plane of existence trying to keep things level. Like a skittish kitten, the shape cautiously approached the bowl of blood and begagn drinking from it. Then it picked up the mushrooms in small grubby hands and ate those as well. It’s true form never coming into focus. My father burst into the room then, a madness in his eyes as the proof he needed to ensure he wasn’t mad suddenly appeared. The tears flowed freely from his eyes as he struggled to speak caught between excitement and fear. He ran into the garage to try and get his hands on the creature, but when he did, he shrieked. He let out an agonized wail and called for me, but it was too late. My father was gone. I watched as he faded from our reality to places unknown. Then, in his place for only a second was the duende, small with features mostly settled. A greying, mottled skin on its humanoid shape. His face was my father’s and he smiled the same distant smile he had given me all these years, and then it too, faded away. I tried explaining to the cops. I tried calling up the relatives who hadn’t cut themselves out of our lives. I tried calling my mother who I hadn’t spoken to in nearly two decades, but there was no one. The more I said, the crazier I sounded. No one believed my story, only accepted as the ramblings of a man who had lost his family years ago, and in some sense they were right, but they were also wrong. I know now that my father wasn’t crazy. That it is just this world that’s crazy. Filled with the unknowable at every junction, hidden just beneath plain sight. I followin my father’s footsteps, I set the traps, I take the notes, I bide my time until the creature or creatures reveal themselves to me, and I’ll be ready this time. I’ll be waiting.
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Oct 16, 2023 05:50
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In with 28 Cancel Christmas
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Oct 17, 2023 04:47
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