#nsctw100

[garlglittergold]

Autumn Nights (499 words)

My entry for the not-so-classically trained writer’s ‘Hooked in 100′ contest. I already submitted it a few days back, but I thought i’d toss it up here too,for funsies.

It turns out word restrictions physically pain me, but I tried the best I could to fit my ideas into 500 words. Enjoy.

Gwen could hardly believe it. The oldest gateway in all of Canada, in this shithole of a park? It was tiny, filthy, and had only one tree that wasn’t already dying. Grunting in a mix of disgust and anticipation, she skipped around the third used condom she had seen so far. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I would say that Sam told me to stay away from here for sanitary reasons’ she thought. Her gut clenched when the name came up, but she forced her thoughts forward. ‘Just find the tree’ she thought, ‘focus.’                                                                                                                 The old oak was barely 20 feet tall, even though some of the people she had asked claimed it was older than the park itself. Every branch seemed to be grasping outwards, searching for a way to pull itself to freedom. In the highest branches, Gwen could see a dim shape of a crow in the evening sun. It’s bark was dotted with notches and the initials of lovers carved into the wood, proof of their bond. Tears gathered behind Gwen’s eyes as she drew her switchblade from her windbreaker and made her own mark. G.C. alongside S.J.

The ritual begun, Gwen raised her arms, palms outstretched towards the gnarled branches, and spoke:                                                                                                               “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, and four for a boy.”

The sound of her calm and practised rhyme sent a barely visible ripple through the leaves of the trees, rustling them despite the still and unnatural city air.                                                                                                           “Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that will never be told.”

Gwen could hear their whispers now, floating around her.                                                                                                          “Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a surprise that you never should miss. Eleven for wealth, twelve for health-”

Gwen took a deep breath. The crow screeched a warning.                                                                                                     “Thirteen beware, it’s the devil himself.”

As the last syllable left her mouth, the slight breeze surged into a gust that nearly knocked her off her feet. Gwen held fast. “Show yourself, Gatekeeper,” she screamed. “Take me to where you bastards took her!”                                                                                                               In a single instant, the dark shapes of the buildings surrounding the park melted away. She felt turquoise grass tickle her ankles,  saw the single gorgeous tree with emerald leaves, before a dark shape descended from its branches. What had been the crow crashed into her, knocking the breath from her and pinning her to the grass with wicked talons.                                                                                                         Larger than any eagle, the thing clacked its beak, ruffled its black feathers and met her gaze. The right eye blazed with a wild fierceness she had seen in no other creature, the other bore a cracked, cat’s eye marble. When it spoke, the creature’s voice grated, like someone was shaking a bag full of shattered glass and pebbles.                                                                                                            “Not gatekeeper. Tolltaker.” It hissed. Letting out a wail, it stabbed its beak into Gwen’s left eye socket.                                                                                                                 Her screams tore a hole in the world.

[vaeru]

Writing Contest Entry 2

The creature followed behind him, and it was getting closer. His breath burned in his lungs, the chill of desert nights freezing him from inside out, except that his skin was burning hot, and his muscles felt as though they would collapse from beneath him at any moment. 

He skidded around the corner of a building, darting down the dim alleyway, narrowly avoiding piles of refuge. In an open area behind the building, a chained dog barked at him as he passed, and then behind him, he heard it yelp in terror and fall silent.

[ryansbookreviews-blog]

The Midnight Train

(no, not like the Journey song... just a ~happy~ coincidence)

word count: 422 !!

PS - submitted at 11:20 PM :) just barely made it....

There are many reasons not to board a train at midnight, just as there are many reasons not to run away, and even more reasons yet not to trust an urban myth (no doubt warped through word of mouth).

But as the young girl stood by the train tracks late that night it was clear she was far beyond anything as concrete as reason.

She shifted in her ruined Mary Jane’s. Her stockings were torn at the knee and her skirt was muddied. It had been no easy feat breaking into a train station after hours, yet she was not lacking in determination nor desperation.

For a moment she wondered what her parents would think of her now. Disheveled, dirty. A stowaway. For a moment she wondered if they’d miss her, but then she chided herself for wishful thinking.

Instead, she set her shoulders straight. Her platinum braid caught the light of the moon through a grimy window, projecting a cold radiance onto the dull platform. It did nothing to warm the atmosphere. The cold draft chilled her bones and her ears rang from the pervasive silence.

Hesitantly she stepped towards the tracks and opened her palm.

Nestled inside were a baby tooth, three buttons and a silver coin, just like she’d been told. With a deep breath of finality, she turned her wrist and watched them disappear into the depths below.

She waited.

And as she stood there for several minutes, waiting, she began to feel incredibly silly for believing that boy on the playground. This had all been a mistake. A horrible mistake.

She had nothing left. Nowhere to go. No one to turn to.

She’d never felt so hopeless.

A hot tear rolled down her cheek and splashed into the abyss below.

And all at once she was deafened by a chiming coming from the rafters and echoing through the platform. She spun on her heel to see the large hands on the great steel clock grind into place.

12:00.

She turned back to face the tracks, and it was there, as if an apparition.

The train was smooth and black. The painted silver letters on its side read:

The Midnight Train.

A door slid open and she boarded without a second thought- to her family, her friends or her fate.

The door closed promptly behind her.

The hands on the clock inched ever so slightly forward.

12:01.

Just like that, the train was gone, in the same fashion as it arrived:

Silently, mysteriously and without a conductor.

[velvethyst]

Ascendence At Dawn (A Short Summary)

My entry for not-so-classicallytrainedwriter’s writing contest. It might suck (actually it WILL suck) due to the fact that I tried to stick as close to the preferred minimum of words as possible, but I’m gonna give it a go anyway. *crosses fingers* May the odds be ever in my favor.

Subject: A short (terrible) summary of my W.I.P novel, Ascendence At Dawn, the first installment in the Cerebrals series.

Word Count: 116 words

~

She will tolerate no more.

Time and time again, her life has been unraveled and pulled apart, the Experimenters torturously plucking apart the cosmic strings of energy that held together what little bearings of reality she had left. They dissect her mentally each and everyday, using their enhanced technology to peer into her evolved mind. Since she Ascended at age nine, they’ve dedicated years of their time to this science of shattering her, trying to figure out what exactly made her, and hundreds more, their definition of an abomination; a Cerebral, a mentally enhanced human with unique and strange abilities; but she wasn’t like the others.

She was a Supernova.

And she will tolerate no more.

[grayathena]

Hooked in 100 words

Okay, so it’s closer to 300 words, but still. My entry for The Not-So-ClassicallyTrainedWriter’s contest is below the cut

I knew the fall was going to kill me before I hit the ground. The deck had been in disrepair since before everyone had abandoned the neighborhood and the wood was splintered and rotting in areas. In my desperation to get out of the house, I had forgotten about the broken, buckling patches. The instant I set my weight down on one, the deck had given way.

           My body twisted as I fell and I slammed sideways into the rocky ground. My chest slammed into a boulder and there was the distinctive snap of ribs breaking. Pain blackened my vision and choked off a scream before it could escape my chest. A rattling inhale turned into a desperate cough that sent blood spattering down my chin and puddling in the dirt next to my head.

           I’m going to die, I thought. Please, please, God, don’t let me die!

           The sound of someone running across the yard started behind me. “Oh, Goddess.” A male voice said, soft and horrified. I couldn’t turn my head to see him, but the word ‘Goddess’ sent a chill down my spine. The sound of footsteps grew louder and a man in about his early thirties crouched in front of me.

           If someone gave him a casual glance, he could have looked human. He had smooth brown skin and shoulder length, ruler straight black hair. His eyes were a warm brown color, but they were flecked with golden yellow that made them look more hawk than human. My eyes darted down to his arms, which were covered in deep brown feathers, forming a set of wings that separated from his arms at his wrists, so his hands and the third joint of his wings were separate. Most concerning of all was the pair of twisting, slate gray horns that sprouted three inches straight up from the top of his head.

           I swallowed against the blood and bile that had started to well in the back of my throat. Never mind God. Let me die. Now please.

[jammerlee]

When Metal Sonic's eyes finally opened, the world appeared out of focus. He blinked at the ceiling. This was not the HD output he was used to receiving from his optics. And what was this strange sensation spreading across his chassis? Try as he might to find a logical comparison, it only left him more baffled. It was something entirely new, and it frightened him. The output to his vision went dark as he closed his eyes.

Get up... get up! he yelled internally. His body refused to operate with its normal efficiency. The strands of code visible in his mind's eye taunted him with its refusal to function. What was his physical status? Where was he located? And WHAT was that sensation causing him to feel so uncomfortable?! Even something as simple as viewing the time was blocked off to him! Every vital part of his sensors had been disabled, and as a result, he felt crippled. Why wouldn't his body cooperate with him?!

With an annoyed grunt, he managed to get one finger to twitch. Through that he slowly figured out how to force the rest of his body to comply. He wobbled in place as he peered down at himself, shocked at what he found. No longer did the familiar metallic surface of his mechanical body gleam back at him. Instead, short and coarse cobalt fur spanned its majority, broken only by the soft and shorter peach fur covering his arms and belly. His joints connected smoothly and seamlessly beneath their layer of skin and muscle.

That was when the reality of the situation began to sink in. The former robot was now a living creature.

His face grew pale, and his heart raced - the foreign sensations causing his panic to bubble over.

Submission for the 100 Word Hook contest at not-so-classicallytrainedwriter. Based off of this this old teaser for one of my fanfics. MASSIVE thanks to sally-mun​ and sonicsocietyooc for their critique X3

[sparrow--and--nightingale]

Rodney’s Armchair (500 Words)

The chair sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by many other, quite ordinary chairs. But this particular chair, Rodney knew would be able to take him exactly where he wanted to be. Unfortunately, exactly where he wanted to be was, as he seemed to say no matter where in the physical world he traveled, “not here”. The only place where Rodney could find solace to this incurable ailment of “not here”, was in his dreams, and that’s exactly where his chair took him. He would slide gently onto the armchair’s overstuffed lap and, in succession, his mind would slide gently into a surreal wonderland of anything he could possibly imagine. He had traveled to worlds where he could dance upon pink, woolly floors of clouds beneath vibrant, grassy skies, where rain traveled to the heavens and mountains stretched their snowy peaks towards the ground. He had floated through the black blanket of space, where fish splashed through the infinite cosmos, in harmony with the birds that leaped and dived from planet to planet. He had wandered through tiny, green forests where the trees brushed only his ankles and the heads of enormous, graceful animals tickled the feathery clouds above. Yes, these worlds were endlessly more beautiful than anything Rodney had ever found in reality. All that he had ever been able to find were office cubicles, endless seas of concrete buildings, and new things to complain about. But what if it wasn’t a world that he should be searching for, but the lack of one. Perhaps he should be looking for a feeling or a passion, or, for all one knows, a person that makes the world around him seem irrelevant. All that would matter would be that it would make him happy, that it could bring him endless joy, no matter to what land he voyaged. But how far would he have to look for this beautiful thing? Would he have to search in the deepest corners of his existence, scraping away at layers of false identities which had piled up over the years? Or would it be something right in front of him, something from which joy had radiated so brightly that even he had been blinded? This was the battle which raged on inside of Rodney’s head, the battle of worlds. Would he slip again into the armchairs warm, cushioned folds, or would he begin his search for an illusive love, whether it be human or passion? As swords clicked and punches were thrown, Rodney’s mind began to feel the tolls of battle’s exhausting struggle. His vision blurred and his thoughts seemed to swirl in a dizzying whirlpool of emotions. He teetered back and forth and, finally, he sat down. But in which chair did he sit? Was it the armchair? Or perhaps it was simply a recliner or a sofa which happened to be positioned nearby.  One can be perplexed by one’s own thoughts, just as one can be perplexed by one’s own world.

[pizzahutchan124]

The Griseous Dilemma

For not-so-classicallytrainedwriter. 

[435 words]

The waterfalls around him cascaded in all sorts of directions, while trees that coiled & grew at fast rates died faster than they would if they existed in his world. Cyrus couldn't help but wonder if the trees here were once native to the Sinnoh region as he had once been, or if they were to be found in other parts of the world. He certainly couldn't recall ever seeing trees such as these in his travels. Then again, he also couldn't recall seeing the sky swirling the clouds in a way oil in water might, or how random plots of land reappeared and disappeared with ease. The world was new to him. This world had the promise of possibilities, unlike the one he was from. Away from the concepts of organization, and creation, could he feel himself in his potential.

 As he wandered the wayward realm, Cyrus carefully calculated what action he should take now that his plans were thwarted. Walking through the distorted forest had a calming effect on the former Galactic leader. Here, where the sky was an endless swirl of black & blue, helped to sort the man’s thoughts from his feelings; he knew he couldn't go back to the Sinnoh region. Not that he even wanted to in the first place. Cyrus had a hunch that despite his absence, his four main goons should have no problem keeping his dream alive, even if for only a short while.

 Hopping from one plot of land to the other, he also knew for a fact that with those children running around, everything that he worked for would be completely destroyed. Twelve years of researching, working, rising up through the ranks, gaining the tools and expertise needed into making his goals a reality-

 ‘A world without feelings’, he thought. All to come crashing down by those kids. Twice. Quite frankly, he would've been surprised had it not been for the fact that they both managed to infuriate him with their defiance. Cyrus wasn't used to the fury welling up from inside his chest. He could deal with the occasional fuck-ups that his “organization” made every once in a while, but thinking about how their blunders were because of mere children only made him feel more and more enraged until…..

He stopped at a body of water that ran up into a 90 degree angle up into the higher levels of the distorted realm. He felt both his palms slightly bleeding where his nails dug into the flesh of his skin. It was easy to get lost in a world that was eternally changing.