Hey guys, ever since the 2014 Summer Writing Challenges were announced, I had wanted to make a thread that contained all of my stories. I didn't figure it would hurt if I went ahead and gathered them all together now that the challenges are over, so here they are! (Oh, there is also a 14th story on here at the end. It wasn't one of the 14 challenges, but I wrote it for another contest earlier this summer and just decided to include it).
By the way, some of these are fan fiction while most of them are original stories. I don't really like writing fan fiction all that much, but some of the challenges required it, so yeah.
I'll go ahead and write the order and the dates in which I completed each challenge, as well as who issued them to me. Enjoy. everybody!
Challenge 01 - Cross-Over Story: Supernatural: The Mushi-Master
Challenge issued by: CD-Man2021
Part 1 completed on: July 8, 2014
Part 2 completed on: July 10, 2014
NOTE: The stories I crossed over for this challenge are Supernatural and Mushi-Shi
Challenge 02 - 4th of July Story: Our Time is Now
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 12, 2014
Challenge 03 - 10 Minute Story: Final Moments
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 12, 2014
Challenge 04 - 200 Word Story: Endings
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 13, 2014
Challenge 05 - Survival/Apocalypse Story: The Room at the End of the World
Challenge issued by: CD-Man2021
Completed on: July 13, 2014
Challenge 06 - Song Story: Golden Brown
Challenge issued by: CD-Man2021
Completed on: July 14, 2014
Here's a link to the song that this story is based on: The Stranglers - Golden Brown
Challenge 07 - 3 Day Challenge: Scarlet Oak
Personal Challenge
Part 1 completed on: July 21, 2014
Part 2 completed on: July 22, 2014
Part 3 completed on: July 23, 2014
Challenge 08 - Fluffy Story: Autumn Leaves
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 24, 2014
Challenge 09 - Write it Better/How it Should Have Ended: CLASSIC 7: The True Story
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 25, 2014
CLASSIC Originally written by: CD-Man2021
Original Story this was based on: CLASSIC
Original Chapter of CLASSIC this was based on: CLASSIC 7 [The Forgotten Forest Expansion
NOTE: You may want to read the original chapter CLASSIC 7 before reading my How it Should Have Ended.
Challenge 10 - Fantasy Story: Supernatural: Knights and Valor
Challenge issued by: ChibiHearts249
Completed on: July 28, 2014
Challenge 11 - Multiple Universe Story: The Walking Dead: At the Crossroads
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 31, 2014
NOTE: I chose The Walking Dead for this challenge. For those who don't know, there are essentially two universes. There is the Comic Universe (which contains the stories of the comics, Telltale's game series, and the novels), and then there is the AMC tv universe (which contains the stories of the show and the game Survival Instinct).
My story crosses these two universes using the games from each. It takes place between seasons 1 & 2 of the game shortly before season 2 begins, and towards the end of Survival instinct. I have the central characters of each game basically cross paths on their journeys, and I have them explain exactly where they were headed in relation to each game's story. So if you've played the games, you should easily be able to tell where I am slipping this into the story of each game. If you didn't play them, then you just have some insight as to where the characters were headed. Either way, I feel like this meshing the stories together to fit into their canon universes worked out quite nicely.
Also, if you are unfamiliar with The Walking Dead's terminolgy: Walkers, biters, etc. All words for zombie.
Challenge 12 - Horror Story: We've All Been There
Personal Challenge
Completed on July 31, 2014
Challenge 13 - Friendship Story: Balloon Squad Protectors
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 31, 2014
NOTE: This story is most definitely dedicated to two very good friends of mine. You guys may know them as CD-Man and Sugar Lips. Sorry if you guys don't get all of our little jokes, but I just had to include them. It's just one of those friendship things, you know?
This is the tale of one of our epic days of playing Animal Crossing together, thus some of the randomness. We really area fun bunch, haha. Sugar Lips is Jeri, CD-Man is Casper, and I am Max (of course).
Bonus Story - Shipper Contest: What is and What Should Never Be
This story was originally written for a romance contest that took place on KHI earlier this summer.
Submitted on: May 26, 2014
By the way, some of these are fan fiction while most of them are original stories. I don't really like writing fan fiction all that much, but some of the challenges required it, so yeah.
I'll go ahead and write the order and the dates in which I completed each challenge, as well as who issued them to me. Enjoy. everybody!
Challenge 01 - Cross-Over Story: Supernatural: The Mushi-Master
Challenge issued by: CD-Man2021
Part 1 completed on: July 8, 2014
Part 2 completed on: July 10, 2014
NOTE: The stories I crossed over for this challenge are Supernatural and Mushi-Shi
Spoiler ShowDean Winchester pulled into the parking lot of the cheap motel he and his brother had been staying at for the past few days. Dean was a man of about 30 who wore his brown hair shorter than his brother. It was cut pretty close around his head, laying just a little longer on the top and styled up a bit. He had made a run to grab his brother and himself some food while his brother stayed at the motel to continue doing some research. Dean grabbed the bag of food and the case of beer before climbing out of the Impala’s driver’s seat, and he made his way inside.
“Sammy, you find anything yet?” Dean asked his brother Sam as he unloaded the food onto the table.
“Yeah, actually,” Sam said as he held out his hand. Sam was a bit taller than Dean even though he was about 4 years younger, and he wore his dark hair much longer than Dean’s at about shoulder length. Dean tossed Sam a beer, and after he took a swig he proceeded to tell Dean about his findings. “So apparently there is this small town in Colorado, and there’s been something really bizarre going down over there.”
Dean took in a mouthful of cheeseburger. “Okay, so wha’s goin’ on den?” He said with his mouth full.
“Well,” Sam replied after another sip of his drink, “People have been aging, fast. Many of the older residents just seemed to instantly die of natural causes within a very close timeframe of each other, while children have quickly become adults, had children, and watched their children grow all within the past year.”
Dean started in on his second burger, this time talking to Sam with a little bit less of a full mouth. “How have these people not been locked up in a lab or something already?” Dean asked Sam as he squinted his eyes in wonder.
“I think there are probably some laws or something against that,” Sam responded. “Apparently a few of these people were looked at, but there was absolutely no explanation found as to why this was happening to them. The press cooled off about the place a few months back, I guess the story had gotten old. Not sure how we’d never heard about it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Dean said with a smile as he shifted around in his seat. “It probably has nothing to do with the fact that we are constantly on the road, or fighting demons, or you know, saving the world.” Sam and Dean were hunters. And not the kind of hunters that went into the woods in camouflage to nab themselves some dinner. They were the kind of hunters that kept normal people safe and kept society going. They were the reason that people believed the Boogie Man was just a scary story, and Bloody Mary nothing more than a Myth. They’d taken on vampires, ghosts, and killer clowns. You name it, and they’ve probably dealt with it at one point or another. This was their lives, and probably two thirds of the time they were okay with that.
“So does this sound like some kind of demon to you?” Sam asked as he started into his salad.
“I don’t know, I’ve never heard of any kind of demon or vengeful spirit that just rapidly aged an entire town. Where is this exactly?”
“Redmill, Colorado,” Sam responded as he passed Dean a look.
“Well Sammy,” Dean said as he moved on over to his bed, “It looks like we’re heading to Redmill, Colorado.”
The first day Sam and Dean were in Redmill was spent questioning many of the townsfolk. They wore suits and flashed the police officers their fake F.B.I. badges to ensure things went smoothly for them while they investigated.
“No Bobby, we really haven’t figured anything out.” Dean said as he spoke into his cellphone. Bobby was like a father to them, and a figurehead to look towards for most hunters. Bobby had books containing information on almost any supernatural being you could imagine, and his knowledge on all of them was unrivaled. During almost any given job, the hunters could call on Bobby for assistance or advice.
“Well balls!” Bobby exclaimed back into the phone. “You mean to tell me that you two have spent the entire day there with these people, and you haven’t found anything odd at all? No sulfur, no EMF?”
“No Bobby,” Dean said as he directed his attention to Sam. He had asked Sam to grab him a piece of pie to go from a small town shop, and Sam was about to make a huge mistake. “Sammy? Sammy!” Sam turned to look at a distressed Dean. “Don’t get blueberry man, get pecan, pecan!”
“Are you throwing a fit about what kind of pie you’ll eat instead of trying to get something more solid for me to go on?!” Bobby asked Dean. Before letting Dean respond Bobby just kept going. “I’ll see what I can figure on my end. In the meantime, start worrying more about the people and less about your appetite, idget.” Dean hung up the phone and returned to Sam.
“Really Dean?” Sam asked as he handed his brother his piece of pecan pie. “Is the fact that it’s pie not good enough for you?”
“I wanted pecan…” Dean muttered as he took a bite. It was a wonder Dean was as fit as he was. There wasn’t a noticeable ounce of fat on him, and he was a pretty muscular guy. Yet his diet seemed to consist of cheeseburgers and pie.
“I need to use the restroom Dean, I’ll be right back,” Sam said as he headed in the other direction.
Dean stood in the little shop, and looked around to notice a busty blond eyeballing him. “Well hello there!” Dean said under his breath as he strutted on over to her, still eating his pie. She wore a long striped dress, and appeared to be getting some groceries. “Hi, I’m Dean,” Dean said with a smile. “So, you doin’ anything tonight?”
The girl smiled at him and brushed her hair back. “I’m eating dinner with my family, why?” She said in a hesitant voice.
“Oh, family, right,” Dean said as he nodded. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on that. You got anything going on tomorrow?”
“Well… The same thing I guess, “She said as she giggled.
Dean raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m sorry, how old are you exactly?” Dean asked nervously.
The girl giggled again as she responded. “I’m 1 year old, how old are you?”
Dean’s eyes got wide and he almost choked on his pie. “I’m uh, too old for you.” He said as he ‘graciously’ booked it out of the store to wait for Sam.
“Hahaha! You were basically hitting on a baby!” Sam said as he continued to laugh and change out of his suit.
“Listen Sammy, if you would have seen this chick, you wouldn’t have thought she was a baby either!” Dean put on a clean dress shirt and slipped his arms into his brown leather jacket. “She looked like she was in her twenties, okay! I mean, she had a pretty bodacious-“ Dean stopped himself.
“You want to finish that thought?” Sam said with a smart-alecky grin as he tied his boots.
“Shut up,” Was Dean’s only response. As they sat down on each of their respective beds in their new motel room, Dean heard his cell phone going off. He reached into his jean pocket to take out the phone and took a glance at the caller ID.
“It’s Bobby,” Dean said to Sam before answering the phone. He flipped it open to answer, “Talk to me Bobby.”
“Alright, so I think I’ve finally figured out what this thing is,” Bobby said from the other end of the line. “It looks like what you guys may be dealing with is a Mushi.”
“A Mushi? I’ve never heard of it?” Dean replied as he glanced over to his brother. Sam seemed lost as well, and so Dean returned his attention to his phone.
“I’m not surprised,” Bobby said. “A Mushi is kind of like a spirit, in that they can’t usually be seen by normal people. A person actually just has to be born with the ability to see these Mushi most of the time.”
Dean nodded his head up in down as if to let Sam know that he understood what was going on now. “So these Mushi are spirits?”
“No,” Bobby replied, “look at them more as ethereal beings. They kind of exist in this world as part of nature, and sometimes they can be the reason for why certain things in nature will or won’t happen, such as somebody having a good harvest, or even a bad harvest for that matter. Some of them live off of a person’s body, kind of like a parasite, while others may reside within a field of flowers. The Mushi can vary pretty greatly. It seems they were abundant back in the day, but nowadays they are pretty few and far between.”
“Why are they so rare now?” Dean asked Bobby.
“Well, it seems the only people that know how to deal with them are known as Mushi Masters. Because there are so many different types of Mushi, they can’t all be dealt with in the same way. A few of the Mushi Masters gave it their best to make sure that the Mushi and the people could each continue to co-exist in this world. But the majority of Mushi Masters just went ahead and eliminated the Mushi they dealt with altogether, which is the reason why Mushi are almost nonexistent today. The Mushi Masters all gathered generations worth of knowledge together, most of them giving their lives to the research and dealings of Mushi. These people would either reside over one place and take care of all the matters regarding Mushi in that area, or they would travel and take care of any Mushi that they heard about that may have been causing problems.”
“Kind of like of like us hunters,” Dean said with a grin. “Well Bobby, where are we going to find one of these Mushi Masters?”
“That’s the thing Dean, in the same way that Mushi have become so rare nowadays, Mushi Masters have become quite the thing of the past too. I don’t really know what to tell you.” Bobby said in a disheartened voice.
“Don’t worry Bobby, I have an idea.” Dean reassured him. They got off of the phone and Dean relayed everything he’d found out to Sam.
“So what’s the plan, about finding a Mushi Master?” Sam asked.
“I figured that we could maybe ask Cas.”
Sam looked confused. “Ask Cas if he knows any Mushi Masters?”
“Well, he seems to be able to find almost anything else on the freakin’ planet, why not?”
Sam shrugged and Dean closed his eyes as he lifted his face upward. “Castiel,” He prayed in a somewhat sarcastic voice. “We need your help man, you want to come lend us a hand?”
Suddenly a small gust of wind made its way through the room as they heard the sound of wings. Dean turned around to find himself faced with their friend, Castiel. Castiel was an angel of the Lord, and the human he used as a vessel was a middle aged man with black combed over hair and consistent 5 o’clock shadow. He wore a brown trench-coat over his shirt and tie, almost looking like a noir detective.
“How can I assist you Dean?” Castiel asked in his almost monotone voice.
“Hey, Cas, you wouldn’t happen to know if there are any Mushi Masters floating around these days do you?” Dean asked as he stood up from his bed.
“Well, a Mushi Master is pretty much like any other person. I don’t see any reason why they would be floating anywhere.” Castiel replied with a puzzled look in his eye.
“No, no, just- Are there still any Mushi Masters today?” Dean asked in a somewhat frustrated voice.
“Hmm, one moment.” With that, Castiel disappeared, the sound of wings filling Sam and Dean’s ears again. Before they had a chance to give each other a full glance, Castiel was back with a man under his arm.
“Whoa?! What the heck did you just do to me, where am I?!” The man asked confused as he moved away from Castiel taking a few deep breaths.
Castiel looked to Dean with a look of accomplishment. “Sorry it took me so long, but I found one. This man here is the last Mushi Master.”
Spoiler ShowThe Mushi Master walked alongside Sam and Dean through the town of Redmill as they filled him in on what was going on.
"So the people here are aging much too quickly..." The Mushi Master said as he stroked his chin. "That would explain the rush to get on this as soon as your angel friend dropped me off. It seems time is of the essence."
"Yeah, that was Castiel, it kind of figures he didn't give you a detailed explanation about what was going on. Sorry about that," Sam said as he smiled to their new companion. "Oh, so I don't think we got your name."
"It's Ginko," The Mushi Master replied. He stood at about Dean's height making him shorter than Sam as well. He had green eyes and short black hair, and he wore a white dress shirt and jeans. He also carried and old fashioned backpack around with him that was filled with who knows what.
"Ginko? That's kind of different name," Dean said as they walked.
Ginko gave a slight chuckle. "I suppose it is. It has been passed down through my family though. They say it goes all the way back to my family's first Mushi Master from back in the old days of Japan many many years ago. This is supposedly his backpack, and it's been said that at a young age he acquired hair of white due to an incident rumored to have occurred with a Mushi. Who knows how much of that is true though."
"That's quite the story," Sam said to Ginko.
"Yeah, yeah, stories. Are we gonna figure out what's up with this Mushi or what?" Dean said impatiently. "Bobby mentioned that some Mushi are capable of acting like a kind of parasite in people, do you think this situation could be similar?"
"I'm not sure," Ginko replied. "It's possible that the Mushi are finding host bodies to live in, but I can't be positive. I want to take a better look around."
Sam and Dean followed Ginko around the town as he tried to track down the Mushi. During his observations of several people in town, he found traces of Mushi within each of them, but nothing solid he could work with.
"I just don't understand, "Ginko said to the brothers as they came to the lake. "The Mushi isn't living within any of these people's eyes or hearts, and it doesn't seem to be resting in their brains or anything... But the Mushi is definitely there. and- Oh my God..." Ginko looked out at the lake in wonder, his eyes darting around all over the place."
"Ginko? What, what is it? I don't see anything," Dean said as he glanced over the green lake water a couple of times.
"Of course not..." Ginko replied. He kneeled down and cupped his hands, scooping up a bit of the water. "There are Mushi all throughout this lake. I recognize this now that I take a look at it. This Mushi is actually known as the kōrei-ka wāmu."
"The koriki whatsim?" Dean said with a puzzled look.
"The kōrei-ka wāmu, also known as the Aging Worm. They are black Mushi that resemble worms, and they reside within large bodies of water where they'll typically just lie dormant and mingle with plants. The plants they interact with are said to live forever, or at least for as long as the kōrei-ka wāmu is present. I've never heard of them having an effect on people though... I can see hundreds of them swimming throughout this lake. The lake almost looks completely black to me..."
"Well," Sam spoke up, "It's very likely that this lake is the town's main water supply. That would explain why it affects everybody."
"Who are you guys?" An unknown voice asked from behind. The group turned to face a boy who looked to be in his early twenties.
"I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam, and this guy here is our friend Ginko. We're here trying to figure something out about the whole croaking too quick thing going on in this town."
"Oh yeah, that... Well good luck to you." The boy said. He walked over to the edge of the water and sat down his books. Ginko was looking among them curiously, which the boy took notice of. "Oh these? I'm a college student. This is where I come to study. I'm Zack by the way." Zack then took out a pill bottle and popped one real quick before taking a sip of the water using the palm of his hand.
"What did you just take?" Sam asked Zack with a concerned look on his face.
"Oh... This is just Tylenol," Zack said as he looked at the bottle." Studying gives me a real headache, I have to take a few of these bad boys everyday."
"Oh I see," Sam said. "I hear where you're coming from. Back when I was in college, it got rough frequently, cramming for five or six different classes at a time."
"Oh boo hoo," Dean said to Sam as he took a step towards Zack. "Why even bother with school. It seems to me that around here people are aging about two years for each passing month. If that's the case, then by the time your four years of schooling is up then you'll almost be a hundred years old."
Zack laughed at this as he looked at Dean. "That's the exact reason that most people around here don't go to school. But I don't age that way, I'm 22 years old. And a few other people around here seem to age fast, but not nearly as fast as some of the others, so a couple people still try to get an education."
"Wait a second," Sam said as he knelt down beside Zack, "Why don't you age like the rest of them? We've determined that it's more than likely the water here, which I just saw you drink. That doesn't make any sense..."
"I don't know," Zack said as he cracked open his Micro Economics book. "I just know that I age normally, and I need to finish getting through school. I won't be able to depend on my parents much longer now. They took to the rapid aging a year ago when this all started, and they are very old now."
"Acetaminophen..." Ginko said as his eyes got wide.
"Excuse me?" Dean said as he and the others all directed their attention to Ginko.
"I can't understand why, but acetaminophen seems like it may be the key..." Ginko cupped his hands together and filled them with lake water. Little Mushi that only his eyes could see swam around in the water he cupped tightly in his hands. "Zack, could you crunch up one of those Tylenol you have there and sprinkle it in this water?"
"Okay..." Zack replied as he did just that. The kōrei-ka wāmu started flipping around as if in a struggle in Ginko's hands. They eventually forced their way out of his hands and wriggled their way back into the lake.
"What's going on?" Sam asked Ginko as he looked carefully into the water cupped in his hands.
"For some reason unknown to me, these Mushi experience some very negative effects when touched by acetaminophen, most commonly known as Tylenol. It's a bit ironic considering it's usually used to relieve pain in humans, but causes the opposite effect in these Mushi. Very odd. Zack here said he takes Tylenol everyday for his headaches. That probably kept the Mushi from entering his body whenever he took a drink of this water. Zack also mentioned that some people don't age at the same rate around here, this could be due to the fact that some of them may take Tylenol every few days or so, slowing the aging process a bit." Ginko looked over the Tylenol bottle as he pondered what to do.
"Son of a bitch," Dean said as he grabbed the bottle from Ginko with a smile. "So does this mean that we can just dump a crap load of this acetaminophen in the lake to get rid of the Mushi or what?"
"No," Ginko said. "I don't see any reason to kill the Mushi when there is a much easier solution than overloading this lake in Tylenol.
A few days later, everything was taken care of. Sam and Dean told Bobby about everything, and before they knew it a couple of "doctors" were sent to Redmill by Bobby himself, proclaiming to know what was going on. They prescribed everybody in the town Tylenol, explaining to them that it was some negative effect of the natural environment they were living in. While they told many people that if they moved away and took normal doses of Tylenol they would eventually be completely better, almost everyone chose to remain in Redmill and just take the medicine daily.
"Wow," Ginko said as he spoke to the brothers who were both leaning on the Impala, "Who would've thought it would be that easy to convince the entire population of Redmill to take Tylenol every day. I thought surely people would question how stupid that sounded and I'd be left trying to explain Mushi."
"Well, the people can't see Mushi, but they can see the "doctors" in the white coats." Sam said as he made quotes with his fingers.
"Must be one of the perks of being hunters, I wish there were a quarter of the resources you guys have out there for Mushi Masters," Ginko said as he laughed with the two.
"Well," Dean said with a smile, "if you ever need anything, let us know. You have our number now, so call if you need anything."
"Will do," Ginko replied as he readied his backpack. "It's sad that the people of this town who died and aged can't go back, but from here on things should start looking up for these people. Within a generation of each family, their children will grow up normally from here on out." The frown on Ginko's face slowly turned into a smile as he looked on the bright side of things, and he turned down the road to start walking. "Goodbye Dean, bye Sam, hopefully we'll meet again someday."
"Wait," Dean called out to Ginko, "instead of walking all the way back to where we nabbed you from, we could just have Cas take you back, how about it?"
"Ginko laughed again and turned to Dean. "I was in Japan, but that's alright. It doesn't matter where the Mushi are, they are my responsibility. There are probably even more Mushi here in the U.S., and somebody has to take care of them." Ginko waved to Sam and Dean one last time and then continued walking on down the road.
"Mushi, who would've thought," Sam said as he climbed into the passenger seat of the Impala.
"Yeah, they were somethin'. I think we should leave them to that Ginko guy though, I think we're better suited for monsters and creepy crawlies."
"I think you just like to hit things," Sam said as he laughed at Dean.
"Yeah, yeah, keep on laughing. All I know is I'm starving, let's eat."
Dean started up the Impala and put it in drive. As he began cruising down the road and heading for the highway, he turned on the radio to get some tunes going. With that, Sam and Dean would keep on going until the time of their next hunt.
Challenge 02 - 4th of July Story: Our Time is Now
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 12, 2014
Spoiler ShowI was feeling pretty nervous that night. It was the 4th of July, the biggest and most important night of our lives, and I seemed to be the only one who was scared of what was about to happen.
I looked around at the others; we were a pretty colorful group. Mike was big and burly, and he was the head of our pack. He was proud, and it would definitely show when he got going. Next there was Melissa and Kristen, they were the twins. They hung back behind Mike a bit. It was almost as if they were his left and right hand men, well women, because they would give him all the support he needed. In this line of work, you couldn't just go it alone. We only truly shined when we worked together.
Those three stood in the grass pretty far ahead of me. I was surrounded by the rest of my peers. I felt like we were kind of like the grunts. This job could get done if just one of us was missing, couldn't it? I didn't feel like a very important part of the team. It's kind of like people who don't vote. They say that their one vote doesn't matter, so why bother. Then other's will go on and on about how every vote matters, but that's not true. I understand if everybody had the mentality that their vote didn't matter, then we'd have a problem. But everybody doesn't share that mentality, so the minority who chooses not to vote isn't really a big deal... Right? I don't know, I guess I can see both sides of things. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to get out of here. We didn't choose this, none of us did. This was chosen for us. So why was I the only one who was so terrified?
I looked over at Johnny, and he was ready. Any moment now, just give him the word. He was actually excited.
Susan, Timmy, and Kyle were all huddled up together behind me. They seemed like they were planning something, like they wanted their own little moment in the spotlight like Mike and the twins would have. They were kind of an odd looking bunch, but I wasn't one to judge.
Everywhere I looked, I saw anything but fear. Devon was in his position, eager to get things going. Mandy seemed sad, but it was a happy kind of sad. This was all very bittersweet for her. Her sister had done this the year before, and now it was her turn. Stanley had managed to be up at the front of our little group, closet to the trio. I knew that made him happy, he really looked up to them. I could go on and on, there were so many of us, why couldn't anybody share my feelings.
Before I knew it... It was time. The fire was lit, and a sound almost like a hissing could be heard all around as everybody prepared.
Mike went first, just like planned. Melissa and Kristen followed right behind him. I started to feel hot as the fire got closer to me. The trio soared through the air, and there was a silence while everybody waited for it to happen.
All of a sudden many of my friends around me started to follow suit. I wasn't ready, would we really go this soon?! I felt my fuse get shorter, and suddenly I was launched into the air.
I looked up as I was speeding toward the stars. Mike and his group had finally done it. I watched as Mike sparkled a magnificent red all across the night sky. The people cheered as he started us off with a bang. I was too scared to look down at the cheering people, I was way too high up in the sky now. Bad thoughts started racing through my mind, worst case scenarios going off in my head. What if I was a dud? What if I reached my peak and never went off? I would have to tumble to the ground from all the way up here! No one would see my spark, no one would recognize me, my existence will have meant nothing!
I had to calm down. This was supposed to be the greatest moment of each of our lives. It isn't supposed to be the moment when we are assembled, or the moment we are packaged. And it definitely isn't the moment when we are shipped off. It's supposed to be now.
Susan, Timmy, and Kyle had all managed to go off. I watched as the three of them spread through the sky in synchronization. Susan's glowing green slowly fell while Timmy's sparks of gold complimented her wonderfully. Kyle had been a bright white light that drew all of the attention their way. I was happy for them, they had done it. It didn't matter how odd they may have looked on the ground either, because they were beautiful now. It didn't matter how any of us looked on the outside, every single one of us that glimmered across the night sky was beautiful.
I started to feel a little more confident. I looked down towards the ground, and I noticed the cheering had stopped. Everyone was quiet yet again, as if they were waiting for something. I looked around me, and it had hit me. There must have been a pause when we were being launched, because there was no one above me right now. Everyone's sparks from before were slowly fading away, and I was leading the rest of the pack now. Me. I was leading, just like Mike had before! I wasn't big like him, I was just average like the rest of us that were left, but when I looked down at the smiling children and all of the happy people on the ground, I realized that every single one of us mattered. All of the votes counted. They were waiting for us; they were waiting for me.
My moment had come. I felt the shell of my body quickly blow apart. I thought that it would hurt really bad, but it was kind of like ripping off a band-aid. Once my shell was gone, I was free to spread around over all of the people. I watched as I lit up their faces with a magnificent blue. I could see all of them from every angle, it was like I had eyes in every spark. Then my friends followed behind me with reds and whites and yellows. There were greens and purples, and even oranges! All of our colors mixed and spread across the sky in one grand finale, and the people below all looked so happy.
I looked down upon their smiling faces one last time as my sparks began to dim. It turned out I didn't have anything to be afraid of after all. I slowly faded away before their eyes, and for once I wasn't scared or nervous, but I was happy that I could be here tonight.
Challenge 03 - 10 Minute Story: Final Moments
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 12, 2014
Spoiler ShowI gasped for air as I tried to take in my surroundings. I blinked through the tears that were making my vision a blurry mess, but every time I seemed to clear them away they just came back.
It took me a moment before I fully grasped what had happened to me. It was about 11 p.m., and I had walked down the road to get some milk for my daughter. I used the last of it in my coffee this morning, and she was pretty upset that she couldn't eat her cereal. Her and her mother were both in bed, unaware that I had went out. I should have left a note...
I glanced to my right to see the busted gallon of milk down the road. I looked forward and saw the man in the car with his head smashed into the steering wheel.
"Sir, can you hear me?" I tried to mutter to him. I attempted to move but I couldn't, I was pinned tight between his car and the tree. "Come on man, come on..." I was struggling to get the words out, but he couldn't hear me.
My mid region was in immense pain, but I couldn't feel my legs at all. I could taste the blood in my mouth, but I was trying to ignore it. Please, why couldn't somebody else drive by, anybody.
I thought about my wife. She was beautiful and kind. I knew she was the one ever since our first date. We met in college, and we both aspired to be teachers. We both wanted to help people, to have an impact on children's lives.
Things were starting to get really hard to see, I started to get dizzy. I leaned forward on the car, my mid region starting to not hurt so bad. I started thinking about my daughter and the day she was born. It was the happiest day of our lives. She was beautiful just like her mom. She had my hair color, but other than that she was her mother's daughter. She would be 5 soon, the years had really gotten away from me. I remember when we first took her to the beach, she was mesmerized by the water. She really loved...
Gosh, it was like I started to forget to breath for a moment. I looked around at what seemed like a dark blurry mess, my face gently resting on the car holding me up against the tree. I just wanted my family to be here with me. I wished among all things that I hadn't used up the milk this morning. Hopefully they would be okay without me, and my daughter could grow up to be a strong young woman. I looked through the darkness of the road at what seemed like a tiny little light coming my way. A tiny light trying to push it's way through this immense darkness. As it got closer and brighter, I slowly closed my eyes.
Challenge 04 - 200 Word Story: Endings
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 13, 2014
Spoiler ShowEndings are important. Nothing ever seems to peeve me more than a good book not giving me a solid ending. That’s why my ending has to be perfect.
I circled the bastard that I had tied up in the middle of the room. Did he really think he could get away with this? Drool ran down the corner of his mouth as he made noises I couldn’t quite make out. The gag was doing a pretty stellar job.
Now what should I do this guy? Well, I had to cut off his eyelids; that was obvious. Should I rip off his fingernails? Scalp him? Pull out each tooth and shove them in dark places?
It was hard to say which of my stupendous ideas I should go with. Any of them seemed like they could do really. But whatever I did just had to be perfect. I was going to make sure this guy paid for what he had done. I could feel chills going down my spine as I watched him cower. I approached him with my knife. I don’t want to seem like a hypocrite, but this is an ending that I think I’d rather keep to myself…
Challenge 05 - Survival/Apocalypse Story: The Room at the End of the World
Challenge issued by: CD-Man2021
Completed on: July 13, 2014
Spoiler ShowI watched the speedometer rise as I pushed down on the gas. I was running out of time... I needed to hurry if I was going to make it. The deafening grinding of the pavement got louder as the road continued splitting apart all around me. I continued to push forward, but then I saw a giant crack shoot across the road directly in front of me. The road I was driving on started to lift up, as if forming into a ramp. It was like one of those bridges that you couldn't pass over once it began raising itself up towards the sky. But I couldn't turn around. There was only more chaos behind me. I was going to have to go faster and make it over this ramp of road before it raised itself too high. 80 miles per hour... Faster. 85... a little more than 90 now. I was running out of road. The ramp got closer and closer as it raised ever so slightly higher, and then I was off of the ground. My car launched itself over the ramp, and for a moment I was free falling. I looked out my windshield at the ground below. There was no chance in hell I was going to to survive this. The front of my car slowly started tipping forward, the nose of it beginning to point down towards the Earth. As I looked down, I realized I was about to have a head on collision with another car that was just sitting there. There was a woman in the driver's seat looking back at me, having the same revelation that I was. She must have been driving the opposite way, unaware of the fact that there was nothing left where I had just come from. When the Earth rose in front of her, she stopped only to be faced with the sudden death of my car smashing into her windshield. It was like she was moving in slow motion as I saw the terror go across her face, and I witnessed what I would call a silent scream as I watched her mouth spreading past it's limits. She was fiddling to shift her car into reverse, but it was too late. For a moment, we were only a few feet away from each other. For that short moment in time, we were both living and breathing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24 Hours Earlier
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I walked on down the road, I heavily considered ditching my backpack. It was only filled with clothes, sure, but that weighed down on you a bit after walking for an eternity. It especially weighed down on you when you realized that you would probably never need to wear the clothes again anyway, because life as you knew it was coming to an end.
It was hard to imagine that only two weeks ago everything seemed fine. Well, in a sense of the word anyway. My wife and I were having a stupid argument in the bedroom because I wasn't going with her and the kids to California to visit her parents. It's not that I didn't want to, and even if I didn't that wasn't the point. The point was that we were getting into some serious shit at work and my boss needed me there. I told her that when everything at work was taken care of then I would fly over by myself, but that just wasn't cutting it. She took the kids the next day and left on a bitter note. My oldest daughter, Samantha, said she wanted to stay with me so that I wasn't alone. But her mother wasn't having it, she said it was my own fault if I was alone. Rather than risk escalating things, I told Samantha she had to go with her mother and watch out for her younger sister Emily to make sure she didn't cause their mom any grief. Samantha understood, and she went without another word about it. She took her role as big sister very seriously. She was 12 years old now, man how the years went by. They always say that they grow up so fast, but it's not until you have a child of your own that you really realize it.
I regretted not going with them now. It's not that I thought my wife was right about our argument, I mean work was important. It was how we ate. But considering the way things turned out... If I would've had even the slightest clue things were going to go this way, I would have much rather been able to spend these past couple of weeks with my family. I wish she knew that I was only staying for them. I hope that, after knowing me all of these years, she knew how sorry I truly was...
Now I was making my best attempt to make things right before there really was no time left. I had to get to California; I just had to see them again. Flying would have been the best option, but shortly after things started going to shit it was out of the question. I remember everybody had heard about the meteorites that hit China not long before. It could have just been coincidence, but it seemed like the kick-starter to everything else that came. I was walking to the office a couple days after my family left, and I literally watched a tree catch fire, just out of nowhere. Before I knew it, every tree on the block caught fire. It was on the news, trees were randomly burning up all over the country. The next couple days, the news started talking about the cracks in the Earth. They started surrounding large chunks of land, most often big cities. Once they made a full circle, the land outside the cracks would start to raise up, or the land inside the cracks started to collapse... Either way, once the pit was made, everything inside the circle burned to ashes. Fire would begin spewing out of the cracks in the Earth, and then that place was pretty much done for.
Many people didn't believe it. Even though the trees burned up right before their eyes, they acted like it was all some kind of hoax. I didn't stick around to find out. I packed a bag and bolted. I got in my car when I heard the airlines were down and I fled New York City as fast as I could. I looked back on my way out and I watched it catch fire; it was long gone...
I'd been through a lot in the couple weeks since then. One time, I stopped for gas, and a group of guys mugged me and drove off with my car. It wasn't like I needed my wallet anyway, but the beating I took and the lack of a vehicle was really slowing me down. Some of the scariest moments would be walking down a barren highway when all of a sudden giant cracks in the earth just shot down the center of the road. I always wondered if that was going to be my last moment. It never had been though, not yet.
After walking around somewhere in the middle of Kansas for what felt like forever, I had come across a cop. He laid near an empty police cruiser in the middle of the road just barely moving. I slowly made my way over to him to find that his face had been bashed in. I could hear little whimpering breaths coming out of his mouth.
"Officer?" I asked as I cautiously approached. It didn't seem he could hear me. Looking at the rest of his body, he appeared to have several stab wounds in his chest and stomach. I lightly reached forward to touch his shoulder and he gave me quite the scare when his body gave out a massive flinch. I jumped backwards and he let out a pathetic whining noise as blood started oozing from his mouth. This guy was done for. I saw a gun laying on the road nearby, and I made my way over to it and picked it up.
It must have been his, because with a glance back to him I saw his holster was empty. I had to question why whoever did this to him did it in the first place, and why didn't they take his gun or anything. I ejected the clip to see how many rounds were left. Just one. One single bullet. He must have used the rest trying to take out whoever did this to him. I considered using his last bullet to put him out of his misery, but then I decided against it. He was done for. This bullet was for me now. If I ever got caught in the flaming mess I saw back in New York, I'd be damned if I was going to just burn to death. No, this was going to be my easy way out. Just in case...
I stuck the gun in the back of my pants and turned to the cop. I couldn't just leave this man here. That would be cruel, I needed to do something about this. I looked around for any large rocks or bricks, but there wasn't really anything just laying around. There was an old restaurant nearby though, so I lightly jogged over to it to it to take a look around inside.
I entered quietly, making sure that the people who had done this to the cop weren't hanging around in here. I headed on back behind the counter and shuffled around in the back looking for a knife or something, but the place had been cleaned out. The best I could manage was a rusty pipe sticking out of the wall and a moldy piece of bread. I grabbed both and made my way back to the cop.
I looked down at him. He was just laying there suffering, waiting for it to end. I pulled the pipe back behind my head, trying to aim it up as best as I could to make sure I didn't miss and make things worse. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you..." I muttered before gaining the courage to go through with this. I cocked back a little bit more and then swung the pipe down at his head as hard as I could. I can't describe the disgusting noise his splitting skull made as blood splattered onto my face and clothing. I wanted to make sure this was taken care of, so I pulled the pipe back again and gave out a little grunt as I made one more swing. After I came down on his head again, my rusty pipe broke in two and I staggered over his dead body a bit. My breathing had picked up and I let go of the half of the pipe remaining in my hand.
I dropped to my knees beside his body and looked at what I had done. No matter how badly I wanted to turn away, it was like my gaze was being drawn to the piece of pipe sticking out of his head. My stomach churned and I covered my mouth to stop myself from losing what little food I had left in me. He was dead, no doubt about it. After finally pulling my eyes away from his face, I managed to gently search through his pockets. There, that was what I was hoping for. I found the keys to his cruiser. I took them and backed away from his body, feeling a little dizzy. I took my shirt and did my best to wipe his blood off of my face before heading over to the car to get going.
The highway seemed endless. I did my best to pick the mold off of the piece of bread I found so that I could eat what was left. Before all of this, that would have totally grossed me out. I would have thrown away an entire loaf of bread if it had just a speck of mold on it, but not now. Now I was going to cherish every little stale bite of bread I could get out of this. What I wouldn't give for one more cheeseburger. I would kill a man if it meant having another cheeseburger before I died. Maybe not literally, but...
I switched on the radio in the police cruiser to see if any stations would come through. I flipped through each one and heard exactly what I expected: Static. It was worth a try. I shifted around in my seat wondering how everybody was doing. My wife, Samantha, Emily; I really didn't want to show up in California to find out that... Please God, I just wanted to see my family one more time. I wanted to tell them how much I loved them, I wanted to tell my daughters how proud of them I was.
I had just passed the border from Kansas into Colorado. I still had quite the trip ahead of me, but I had come long way nonetheless. The sun was hot, so I kept the windows rolled down and let myself feel the wind on my face. Just as I started feeling hopeful that I might make it, a crack in the road shot by.
"Not now..." I said under my breath as I began speeding up. The cracks started splitting the Earth on both sides of me, and I could hear them tearing through the ground behind me. I got off the highway at the first exit I found, but the cracks followed me right into town. I drove through the empty streets with speed, dodging the occasional abandoned cars in the road along the way. I honestly hadn't seen another soul in this town yet, making me question if it was completely abandoned. More cracks started forming, larger cracks. The Earth started shifting around, I turned onto another street but everything seemed so futile. I had to get out of here. This could not end here. I watched the speedometer rise as I pushed down on the gas. I was running out of time...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I could hear the sound of somebody crying in the distance. I opened my eyes and looked around, confused at what I saw. Black pavement was above my head, and my windshield was smashed into thousands of little red pieces. After taking another moment, I realized I was upside down in the police cruiser, my seat belt and an airbag holding me up. I struggled past the airbag to undo my seat belt. The damn thing just would not go down. After getting my seat belt unbuckled, I squirmed around until I found my head pressing against the roof of the cruiser. I managed to pull the rest of my body out from between the airbag and the seat, and I did an awkward little roll to get my body laying right. I then crawled out of the destroyed windshield, minding the glass, and stood up underneath the night sky.
My neck hurt like a son of a bitch, and my head was thumping, but there wasn't much I could do. I still heard the crying, and looked around until I saw the car I had crashed into. It was a good distance down the road, sitting smashed in front of the newly formed cliff I had ramped off of. Did my car really go this far? I made my way to the other car, curious as to how the woman who had been driving could possibly still be alive, but I arrived to find out she wasn't.
"M-mommy!" I heard come from a sobbing little voice. The front of the car was totally smashed in, I was completely unable to even make out the driver's seat or the passenger's seat. There was however a pool of blood forming underneath the car where both seats should be. I made my way over to the window of the backseat of the car to see a little girl in a car seat. Her face was red from crying, and her pink dress was covered in blood. She had brown hair in a ponytail, and she wore little black shoes with buckles on them.
"Oh Jesus..." I said as I got that sick feeling in my stomach again. It was worse than the situation with the cop. I turned around and ran over to the grass where I released every bite of that bread I had eaten earlier. After I was done, I rubbed the back of my neck, which was killing me, and then I walked back on over to the car. I opened the back door which surprisingly didn't offer me any struggle, and I reached in to unbuckle the little girl's car seat.
"Shh, shh, it's alright, come on now," I whispered to her as I lifted her out of the seat. She was frantic. She didn't put up a fight when I went to take her, but she definitely seemed scared. I carried her while she rested her head on my shoulder and cried, her tiny hands gripping onto my shirt. I rubbed her back to try and make her feel better as we went on down the road. I could feel her heart rapidly pumping against her chest as she continued to sob out the word "Mommy" here and there.
I walked us over to the nearest house. Hopefully we could clean up there and I could get this poor girl some food. She was my responsibility now, and I wasn't going to let her suffer. I opened the door to the house and walked right in. To the left of the door was a staircase, and straight ahead was a little archway leading into a dining room. I grabbed the little girl's head and made sure it stayed pressed against my chest as I looked on in horror at this family's last supper. A woman and three children, all dead, sat around this dinner table. I was too shocked to move when a man walked through the archway with a shotgun pointed at us.
"What the hell are you doing in my house?!" The man asked as he inched towards us. The guy was bald, and his face was beat red. His eyes looked glassed over and filled with rage.
"Listen, w-we didn't know anybody was in here, we didn't mean to intrude-"
"Why in God's name wouldn't I be in here?! THIS IS MY F***ING HOUSE!!!"
The little girl started crying even more, getting louder as her fingernails dug into me with fear. "We're leaving, I'm sorry!" I said as I quickly made my way back out the front door. I heard a gunshot go off as I ran. I never looked back to see if the man actually intended to hit us or not, I just ran as far as my legs would take me.
We had been far away from that man for a while, but I was just now starting to feel safe enough to take a breather. We were in the middle of yet another abandoned neighborhood, and it was eerie how dark the place was with no street lights. I picked a random house for us to go into, and just hoped that nobody would be occupying it this time.
Luck was on our side. I set the girl down once we were inside and started taking a look around. Before I wandered off too far, I felt her grip the leg of my pants. She made quick little footsteps as she kept up with me and we made our way into the kitchen. After digging through a couple drawers, I managed to find a working flashlight.
"Here, do you want to be in charge of this?" I asked her as handed the flashlight over. This seemed to put her at ease a bit, and she pointed the flashlight to the fridge. "Good idea," I said to her as I made my way over to it. There was a giant jar of applesauce, some pickles, and a whole bunch of bottled water. We hit the jackpot.
"Somebody must not have been able to carry all of this when they left," I said to the girl as I took everything out of the fridge. We sat in the dark and ate our food. The girl wanted nothing to do with the pickles, so I just found her a spoon and let her have at the applesauce. The pickles weren't too bad, but they really weren't that great either. When we were finally done, we went ahead and went upstairs to look through the bedrooms.
We found a room that seemed to belong to a young girl, which my new friend instantly became attached to. I shuffled through the previous owner's clothing to find something clean for the little girl to wear, and then I had her sit down on the bed.
"Now hold still," I said to her as I dumped a bottle of water over one of the old shirts in my backpack. I wiped the blood off of her face and her arms, giving her the best bath I could provide in these circumstances. "Okay, now you change into something clean and I'll be right back, okay?" She nodded and I stepped out of the room.
I went ahead and changed into a clean shirt myself while I waited on her, and then I heard her call me in with a soft little voice once she was ready. I walked back into the room to find her laying under the blankets holding a teddy bear that had been in the room. I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and pulled it over to the bed so that I could sit beside her.
"So, what's your name?" I asked her, trying to think of things to say. We hadn't really talked much at all.
"I'm Emma..." she replied shyly. "I'm going to be four years old soon."
"Wow, you're really going to be a big girl, huh? You know, I have a daughter who's just a little older than you, her name is Emily."
"Emma and Emily," She said with a little smile. "Where is she?"
"She's with her mommy and her sister in California right now. I was on my way to see them when I met you." Suddenly Emma's eyes began to water.
"Where's my Mommy?"
"... I'm sorry Emma. You're Mommy and I got in an accident. She got really hurt and... I'm going to take care of you now." I didn't know what else to say. Emma started crying and squeezed the teddy bear tight. This child was breaking my heart.
We sat there for a while before she spoke up again. "Um... Will you hold my hand? My Mommy always holds my hand until I fall asleep when I'm scared..."
"Of course." She placed her hand in mine and I held on tight. I reached forward with my other hand and brushed through her hair a little bit. I couldn't help but think of my own daughters. Her breathing slowly lightened up, and I knew she was finally asleep.
I heard a noise from outside and looked to make sure Emma didn't wake up. I walked over to the window to see cracks all around us. The night slowly started to get a little brighter as fire began to seep up through the cracks in the ground. Way off in the distance I could see where Earth had risen up high forming a cliff. I don't really know if it was the same cliff from earlier, but I knew what came next. Several trees along the road caught fire, and when I looked up into the sky I saw a couple meteorites falling.
"Well I'll be damned.. Just like China," I said to myself as I watched them fall to the Earth. I still had no clue if they actually had anything to do with this. It didn't really matter if it was coincidence or not I suppose. The house started feeling hot. I opened up the window to see if things might cool down a bit, and I walked over to Emma again as I heard the ground breaking up outside some more.
"What's going on?" I heard her whisper as her puffy tired eyes tried to look up at me.
"Nothing, this is all just a bad dream, just close your eyes alright?" I sat down next to her and took hold of her hand again. She smiled at me and closed her eyes, holding the teddy bear tight with her other arm.
I brushed her hair back once more, and then wiped the sweat off of my forehead as the room slowly became an oven. I took out my gun and looked it over. My easy way out. So much for that. There was only one bullet, and it turned out it wasn't for me after all. I held Emma's tiny hand in one of mine, and rubbed over her little fingers with my thumb. I held the pistol in my other hand, and as I started to hear the crackling of fire in the room, I rested my hand with the gun next to Emma's sleeping face. I closed my eyes for a moment and prayed that my family was okay. I prayed that they knew how much I loved them once more, and I hoped they knew how hard I tried to make it to them in time.
As Emma and I sat in this room at the end of the world, it was a sad thought to think that neither of us could be with our families tonight. But at least we weren't alone. We had each other, and at that moment, that was all that mattered.
Challenge 06 - Song Story: Golden Brown
Challenge issued by: CD-Man2021
Completed on: July 14, 2014
Here's a link to the song that this story is based on: The Stranglers - Golden Brown
Spoiler ShowGolden Brown, texture like sun. Lays me down, with my mind she runs. Throughout the night, no need to fight. Never a frown with Golden Brown.
We had just met, and I was absolutely mesmerized by everything about her. We were at a party, and while there were people all around me, she was the only one I noticed. When she pulled me in and kissed me, I lost it. I felt like I was turning into jello as my body struggled to stand. The party faded away before me as she took me to a warm field of flowers where the problems of the real world disappeared and we could be alone together. At the end of the night, all I could think about was how long it would be before I could see her again.
Every time just like the last. On her ship tied to the mast. To distant lands, takes both my hands. Never a frown with Golden Brown.
I started to find my day to day problems getting worse the more time I spent with her. When we were together, things were great. I couldn't be happier. But while I was at work, everything started piling to crap. She was all I could think about. My performance started slacking and I got in trouble with the higher ups. I started flaking on my friends to be with her, and one by one they stopped calling. They tried telling me that she was a bad influence on me, but they didn't know her like I did. I had fallen in love.
Golden Brown, finer temptress. Through the ages she's heading west. From far away, stays for a day. Never a frown with Golden Brown.
The issues at work escalated to the point that I got fired. My girlfriend didn't take too kindly to that. She tried telling me that I'd been acting different lately... Why did she always take everybody else's side? I got a part-time job as a cashier at a gas station, but it was an absolute struggle to pay the rent and make sure we had food to eat. We may have had a little more money, but Golden Brown... She had her flaws. She was becoming a bit materialistic; an expensive date if you will. When we first met, it wasn't like that. Things changed, but I still loved her. I looked past her flaws because I loved all of her positive traits. I was able to pay the rent and appease Golden Brown with the little money I managed for a while... Until my girlfriend found out about her. She was more than furious. She couldn't understand my love for Golden Brown, she couldn't understand what we had! How could she possibly understand?! She'd never even met her, she was being a prejudgmental bitch! I told her that too. That was it after that. She packed her bags and left. I didn't care, I was too pissed to care. I didn't need her or friends or anybody else! All I needed was Golden Brown...
Never a frown with Golden Brown... Never a frown with Golden Brown... Never a frown with Golden Brown... Never a frown with Golden Brown...
I couldn't afford the rent by myself, so I moved out of my place. I had much more time with Golden Brown now that it was just the two of us, but it started becoming pricier and pricier to be with her. I could have picked up more shifts at work, but that would have defeated the purpose of having this extra time to be with her. Before long, I stopped going to work altogether. I needed to spend every waking moment with her, I wanted to always feel the way I had when we first met. But ironically enough, no time ever felt like the first... Nothing ever even compared to that first wonderful night we spent together. I was chasing a dream. Our time together after that didn't last much longer. Once I ran out of money, I never saw her again. She just disappeared and left me for dead, I had nothing anymore. I was living next to a dumpster in an alley. My girlfriend left me and my family basically disowned me. I should have realized Golden Brown would eventually leave me as well, but I didn't see it because I didn't want to see it. I had never felt anything quite like the pain I felt at that moment. I felt like my heart could never be repaired, and my insides felt like they were slowly being shredded by a cheese grater. My forehead got hot to the point that it probably could have fried an egg, yet I was constantly freezing. I curled up in a ball and waited for the world to crumble around me.
Never a frown...
It had been a few months since Golden Brown had left me. My life was slowly starting to get on track again, but things were still very hard. It seemed as if my life would never be the same again. Nobody's would, not after meeting her. She pumped through your veins like a disease, and you liked it. I started going to a support group and made a friend who had also spent a fair share of time with her. He spent even longer with her than I had. She left him once, and he didn't see her for about a year. Right when he was starting to get over her, she made her way back into his life. He said it was even harder to let go the second time. I believed him. There was no way in hell I could do this again. There was no way anybody I knew would forgive me if I even met with her again. My family had given me a second chance, as did some of my friends. But they didn't look at me the same anymore. My Ex and I were speaking again as well, but she had moved on and found somebody else. I didn't blame her, she deserved to be happy. I knew that I could be happy again someday as well. Someday I may be able to find somebody else and start over. Hopefully that day wasn't too far off. For now though, I just needed to take care of myself and enjoy living. At that moment, I was just happy to be alive.
Challenge 07 - 3 Day Challenge: Scarlet Oak
Personal Challenge
Part 1 completed on: July 21, 2014
Part 2 completed on: July 22, 2014
Part 3 completed on: July 23, 2014
Spoiler ShowI felt my bottom lip quiver as I took in a deep breath. How long had I been out this time? My face ached, and as I repositioned my legs to get comfortable I could feel them tensing up in pain. But the worst pain was in my wrists. They had become so raw. No matter how much I struggled, I just couldn't manage to squeeze one of my hands out of the handcuffs. My back leaned against this cold rusty pipe, my hands cuffed around it so that I couldn’t escape. Why me? Why did he choose me?
My eyes burned and my jaw felt like it was about to fall off. That man stuffed a dirty sock in my mouth and made sure to seal it all up with duct tape. It made it so much harder to breath, especially when I started having a panic attack. The only time he would take it off was when he occasionally fed me. At the thought of food, I looked over to the empty plate lying on the grimy concrete floor. It was only a few feet away from the bucket he’d left beside me in case I had to use the bathroom. He was pretty upset the first time he came back down here to find that I’d just been sitting in my own filth. It wasn't my fault, I couldn’t figure out how to get my pants down with my hands behind me like this. He told me that if he wanted a disgusting bitch then he would have pulled a dog out of the gutter.
I kicked the bucket away and looked back to the plate. There were still crumbs on it… What I wouldn't give just to have those little crumbs in my tummy. I tried to stretch out my leg towards the plate, even though I knew it was useless. It was too far away, and even if I got it over here I had no way to get this tape and this nasty sock out of my mouth.
I leaned my head back on the pipe. How long had I been down here? I was walking home from school one day and this man just approached me. He told me I was pretty, he asked me my name… I was honestly creeped out. Without being rude, I quickly told him my first name and tried to walk away, but then I felt his hand wrap around my mouth from behind and… It’s not important how he got me here. But he did. And I honestly had no clue where I was.
My Mom and Dad had to be so worried about me. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks as I doubted that I would ever make it out of this musty old basement alive. I silently cried as I missed my parents and my sisters. My tears ran into the little cuts in my cheeks where he had beaten me. The sting wasn’t so bad, but the little pain was just so annoying that it seemed worse than it was. I started taking in quick breaths through my nose again and began pulling on the handcuffs. The tears strolled down my cheeks more and more as the whole area around my wrists became warm with blood again. I could feel fresh blood mixing with the old dried up blood that was caked on my wrists. Part of me wished I could just give up a hand to get out of this nightmare.
I ceased my struggle immediately as I heard the noise. It had become the most terrifying noise I had ever known. My chest tightened and my breathing picked up as the basement door creaked open and light peeked its way through. I could feel a knot forming in my stomach as footsteps slowly made their way down the stairs.
Spoiler Show“Hello?” I heard a woman’s voice ask. She proceeded on down the steps and looked on at me in horror. “Oh my God… Oh my god!” She threw her hand over her mouth in shock and then ran over to me. Her fingers trembled a bit as she slowly pulled the tape off of my mouth and I spit out the sock. I immediately started sobbing, taking in deep, full breaths while I tried to ask her for help.
“I heard some kind of a noise.” It must have been when I kicked the bucket. He always told me to be quiet, and that if anybody heard me he’d kill me. I wasn’t thinking at the time… “What’s going on, what are you doing down here?” She asked as she moved around behind me and examined my handcuffs.
“That man…” I struggled to get out. I took a couple more deep breaths and tried to compose myself, “He brought me down here. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, I lost track of time.” My chest unwillingly heaved a couple more times. “He’s… He’s done terrible things. He is a bad, bad person. Please help me; please get me out of here.”
“The only people that live here are my husband Robert and I, and I just…” She seemed so confused. It was obvious she was oblivious to his pastimes. “Let me try and find the key to these.”
The woman began to shuffle through tool boxes and drawers looking for the key to my handcuffs. I watched as she moved around, becoming more frantic as she went. Then I heard the front door open.
“That should be Robert… Hold on.” She began going up the steps and I began to panic.
“Wait no please, just pretend you didn’t see anything!” I didn’t want to know what he’d do when he found out about this.
“You did what?! I thought I asked you to stay out of the basement until I said so!” He screamed with anger as I heard him marching towards the steps.
“Well I heard a noise, and you being all secretive about what you’ve been doing down there just wasn’t flying anymore!”
I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen to me. Was this going to be it? Would it finally be over?
They came down the stairs and the two of them stood in front of me, both of them furious. I let out a little shriek as he backhanded me. “You just couldn’t stay quiet, could you?” He asked me. I didn’t answer.
“Wait, is she that girl that’s been missing all this time? And you didn’t say anything to me?!” Robert looked back at her confused.
“Why would I say anything to you?”
“Because I am your wife! If you are going to do something like this, I want to be involved, I want you to quit leaving me out of things and thinking I’m a nuisance!” She pleaded with him. This woman was obviously off her rocker. I thought she was my glimmer of hope only moments ago, and now this…
That’s when the man… Robert, got that look in his eye. I saw it every time he came down here, and it terrified me to no end. What exactly was going through his head? “You want to be involved with this do you?” I heard him ask his wife with a smile.
“Yes Robert-Baby, I want to be a part of everything you do.” She pressed her body against his and kissed him.
“No…” I muttered as I watched on. I wanted to turn my head away, but I just couldn’t. Robert placed his hand on the back of his wife’s head, keeping his lips placed against hers. Then I watched as he grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her head back.
“Robert?...” The look of sheer surprise on his wife’s face wasn’t uncalled for. He bashed her head against the pipe I was imprisoned to and she let out a scream as blood began dripping down her forehead. He smacked it against the pipe again and then rammed her head into mine. I could feel her twisting and turning as she struggled to get free, but his strong grip kept her face pressed down against my scalp. He pulled a buck knife out of his belt clip with his free hand, and sliced it right across her throat. He continued to hold her over me and the blood flowed freely from her neck and over my face. She flopped around at first, making gut-wrenching gurgling noises, but before long the noises and the movements stopped altogether. I could feel the tension on my wrists as my body tightened up and my arms pulled on the handcuffs without my meaning too. I had stopped breathing for a moment. Then I felt that immense pain in my left wrist. It shot all the way down my left hand. A tear left my eye and I sat in momentary shock, staring straight ahead and unmoving as he released his wife’s body and stepped back.
He looked down at me, and without a word he turned around and went upstairs. I still felt too scared to move, like if I did he might find out. After a moment, I pulled my arms around to my front and examined my left hand. There was a remarkable amount of skin just hanging around and covered in blood. I had literally tore my hand out of the cuff by accident while I was out of it. My eyes began to burn and it took everything in me not to scream. I pushed his wife off of me and stood up, the only noise now being the sound of the jingling handcuff on my other wrist.
Spoiler ShowI moved quiet as a mouse across the basement to his tools. I moved them around carefully until I found a giant screwdriver, something to defend myself. I was sweating profusely; my left hand was an absolute nightmare right now. I tried to put it out of my mind as I crept on up the basement steps.
The stairs were old and made creaky noises no matter how light I was on my toes. Each step felt like a mile until I finally reached the door. It was cracked open ever so slightly, and I just gave it the tiniest push to get it open. I peeked around the kitchen to make sure he wasn’t around. I couldn’t hear any noise, so once I thought the coast was clear, I made my way through the door.
The kitchen was dirty. The sink was full of dishes, and I couldn’t tell if the walls were supposed to be yellow or if they were just a very dirty white. I saw a phone hanging on the wall and quickly made my way over to it while I looked around me. It took me a moment to dial 911 after taking it off of the receiver since I could only use the one hand. After a couple of rings, “911, what’s your emergency?”
I looked around again before speaking and then did my best to gather my words. “I- I don’t know where I am!” I whispered loud enough to the point that I probably could have just spoke normally. “This man, Robert, he kidnapped me and he just killed his wife and he’s probably going to kill me too and I just don’t know what to do…” I got quieter as I finished rambling, starting to cry again in desperation.
“Ma’am, I’m going to-“ Just then I heard a noise and I dropped the phone. I fumbled with it for a moment and lifted it up to my ear. I whispered into it as quiet as I could “He’s coming,” and then without listening to what the officer had to say I gently placed the phone on top of the receiver without hanging up before then I ran over to the sink. There was a window right above it. I flipped the lock to the other side and struggled to open it. It began to slide open, and then I felt a burning sensation on the back of my head as I was jerked backwards. Robert had a fistful of my hair, grabbed the waist of my pants, and then lifted me up and threw me onto his coffee table.
Upon landing, the wind was knocked out of me and a couple of the legs under his table gave out as I went crashing to the floor. “Just where did you think you were going?” He asked me as he walked over to me. I got to my knees, and as he reached another hand towards my head I tightened my grip on the screwdriver and shoved it into his thigh.
“Ahh! You f***ing bitch!” he screamed out as he fell onto his butt. He grabbed at the screwdriver with both hands and began to pull it out. Without waiting another second, I ran out of the kitchen and into a hallway. I didn’t know where I was headed, just somewhere away from him. I pushed on through the house and ended up in his living room. Upon entering I saw the front door and rushed to throw it open. I bumped into a lamp, or maybe it was a vase, and I heard it crash to the ground before I went outside.
I was completely taken aback upon stepping out of this hell-house. All around me was nothing but trees. We were in some house out in the woods and I couldn’t see a road anywhere nearby. The trees were nearly all dead, with leaves of browns and oranges all over the ground. I jumped when I heard him stomping towards the door behind me and immediately bolted.
My legs felt weak and wobbly, but they continued to take me between the many trees in an attempt to keep me alive. I could hear him not far behind me, his boots crunching through the dead leaves and his breath as if it was on the back of my neck. I imagined him grabbing me by the hair one final time and throwing me to the ground, using his buck knife to gut me before dragging my body back to my prison.
In the distance, between many of the old dead trees, I could make out a bright red color. My short term goal was to make it to that red. It was my destination; whatever lay beyond these trees may have been my only chance. I huffed and puffed as my weary body pressed on. The light of the sun was almost blinding to my eyes, and it got even brighter as I got closer to exiting these woods.
I was almost there now, and I could make out the bright red target I was heading to. It was a Scarlet Oak tree that appeared to be in the backyard of somebody’s house. My hopes began to raise a little as I got closer. I was finally out of the woods, and I could see two people, a man with scruff covering his face and a girl who looked to be about my age. They were playing baseball together.
“Help me!” The two of them looked over to me as I ran their way. I waved my right arm through the air as if they needed to see me better. The man grabbed his bat and started running in my direction. He lifted it up as if getting ready for a swing and I slowed down my run.
“Wh-what’re you?” I came to a complete stop and covered my head as I ducked, and then I heard a loud metal ‘thunk.’
“Are you okay?” The man asked me. I looked up at him and turned around to see Robert lying on the ground.
“Yes… I am now.” I replied, almost shocked that it was actually over.
“Come on, let’s go inside so I can-“ before he could finish his sentence, Robert blindsided him and shoved his knife into the guy’s throat.
“Daddy!” The teenage girl screamed. As Robert pulled his knife out of the man’s neck, I picked up the baseball bat that was lying at their feet and swung at Robert’s back. He dropped forward and I didn’t hesitate to swing again at his head.
He fell to the ground and I smashed the bat over his arm that was holding the knife, and I listened to him wale as his grip loosened. I let go of the bat, my left hand felt completely and utterly destroyed at this point. The girl sat in the grass behind me crying as I walked over and picked up the knife. I climbed on Robert’s back and put the knife to his throat.
Police sirens screeched through the air as cars pulled into the driveway. A woman ran out of the house crying and gathered her daughter up in her arms.
“You deserve so much worse than this,” I whispered to him. I heard him gasp before I ended it. I jammed the knife through his throat just as he had done to this girl’s father. I listened to him as he struggled for air and tried to grip at his neck. I pulled the knife out and let his blood flow freely the same way he had to his wife. I stood up and dropped the knife to the ground before turning to walk towards the police officers. I killed him on the outside the same way he had killed me on the inside.
Challenge 08 - Fluffy Story: Autumn Leaves
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 24, 2014
Spoiler ShowI looked upon the autumn leaves
And sat surrounded by oak trees
I glanced beside me and she was here
I knew I had nothing to fear
As far back as I can remember
We had always been together
She was right there with me through thick and thin
And I looked back fondly to where we’d been
When I was young we’d run and play
We stayed together throughout the day
We’d tell stories, laugh, and sing
We would tell each other everything
But things weren't always peaches and cream
That would be a childish dream
The time my father and I got in a fight
She kept me company throughout the night
And way back when her mother died
I stayed beside her and we cried
Our relationship became very strong
With her there was never any wrong
On my first date with another girl
I thought that I was going to hurl
When things went south and I was left to die
She returned and looked me in the eye
That was the moment I was sure I knew
That she had always loved me too
Beneath the stars she laid me down
And we spent our night without a sound
The feelings we shared were clear and true
I whispered to her “I love you”
She’s my best friend, and my lover
It shouldn't matter that she’s my Mother
Challenge 09 - Write it Better/How it Should Have Ended: CLASSIC 7: The True Story
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 25, 2014
CLASSIC Originally written by: CD-Man2021
Original Story this was based on: CLASSIC
Original Chapter of CLASSIC this was based on: CLASSIC 7 [The Forgotten Forest Expansion
NOTE: You may want to read the original chapter CLASSIC 7 before reading my How it Should Have Ended.
Spoiler ShowAfter the abrupt farewell with Alice, it was time for me to get moving towards this forest. The sooner I finished the mission (or the first day of it anyway) the better. I walked towards the receptionist desk of the hotel just in time to see the employee hastily sit down.
“Oh!” She stammered. “Um, uh. L-leaving already?”
“Yeah?” I said, confused.
“She's uh... she's quite forceful, isn't she?” The girl asked me.
“What?”
“Your girlfriend. To think she would bring you into her room with such... such vigor.” What was she trying to say? I just wanted to talk to—oh. OH.
“No!” I defended myself quickly, feeling my face flush. “No no no, we didn't do—She isn't my—no no!” I recovered quickly. Get a grip, boy. You're part of the Sword Guild, show a little dignity. “She isn't my girlfriend.” I told the receptionist after clearing my throat. I looked at the girl sitting in front of me. ...Actually... “I don't have a significant other, to be honest.” I said, leaning on the desk as I stared into her eyes.
“Oh really?” She said as she leaned closer to me with a sly smile. “Neither do I.”
Damn, I must be smoother than I remembered. That really just happened. This girl was pretty cute too. I decided it would be best to just roll with it.
“So, do you want to do something sometime? You know, with me?” That last part probably didn’t need to be clarified.
“Okay sure, how about when I get off of work?” She asked me as she tilted her face even closer. I could feel my cheeks starting to burn, so I knew I had to make up for it with a show of even more confidence.
“Sounds good, when should I pick you up?”
“In about five minutes, let me get my things.” She backed up and started finishing up her receptionist duties just as someone else in the same attire as her walked back behind the counter.
“Um…” I didn’t know what to say. She was ready now? I mean, I guess that was fine, I just thought maybe I’d have a little bit to get ready. She came back around the counter carrying a bag and placed her right hand on my chest. Was she checking out my body? She ran her hand up and down my coat and then leaned in towards my ear.
“I love a man in red,” she whispered before backing up and starting out the hotel door.
“Well damn,” I said to myself as I fixed my collar and followed behind her. It was going to be a good night. I needed this the night before every mission.
I was surprised even further when I asked her where she wanted to eat. She actually told me that she wanted to make me dinner. Score, right? I hoped she was a good cook anyway. A girl as good looking as her didn’t have to be a good cook.
I entered her home to be surrounded by purple walls. When I removed my boots, I could feel how freakishly soft her black carpet was as well. It was that furry kind of carpet that felt good between your toes when you walked without socks on.
“Have a seat, Bryer,” she said to me as she took off her coat. She flipped her long black hair around, forming it into a messy perfection. “Let me go change, I’ll be right back.”
I took a seat on her couch and looked around the room. Her center table was made of some kind of marble, and it looked really expensive. I also noticed she kept a lot of candles around, which was probably why it smelled so nice in here. I was getting a bit warm, but there was no way in hell I was taking off my coat. It was the only bit of red I had on me. I mean, what if it was a fluke? What if she was only attracted to me when I was wearing red? I’d have to live out my life wearing nothing but red… Worst case scenario, she just thought this was a sexy-ass coat. Then I’d be stuck wearing this coat forever. No matter what the season is, or the temperature, I’d have to wear this coat. She may even make me keep it on when…
“Here Bryer, have a drink,” She interrupted my thoughts as she entered the room with what looked to be a glass of wine. She was now wearing a flowy black dress that left her shoulders exposed and came down to her knees.
“Oh thanks,” I said as I took a sip. It was delicious. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
“Well I have to make you dinner silly,” she said as she began heading towards her kitchen, which was visible from the couch. I watched her walk away, admiring her… dress, all the way to the kitchen. I took another sip of the red wine as I watched her light some candles.
“Hey, what’s your name anyway?” I called out to the kitchen as I swirled the wine around in the glass.
“Bryer, don’t you think it would be more fun if you could go ahead and just call me ‘Ms. Receptionist?” She said this in a tone that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end.
“Okay,” I said as I downed the rest of the wine quickly. A little too quickly actually, as I had a small coughing fit for a moment after that. I started thinking for a moment. “Hey, um, Ms. Receptionist?” It sounded weirder actually saying it than I thought it would. “How do you know my name?”
She giggled a bit as she continued to make noise in the kitchen. “Don’t you remember silly? You gave me your information when you came to visit your friend. You introduced yourself by name and Guild position; you must be a very important man.”
“Yeah… Yeah that must have slipped my mind, sorry about that.” I yawned and let out a stretch as I waited for her to return.
“Ms. Receptionist?”
“Yes Briar?” She asked in a voice as sweet as honey.
“Is there…” I leaned my head back and rubbed my eyes. “Is there a difference between a receptionist and a secretary?” Before hearing the answer to my vital question, I slipped away into the realm of sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I opened my eyes to find the world in an awkward position. When did everything get upside down? And when did it get so cold in here?
“Ms, Receptionist?” I called through the room.
“Ah, Bryer, you’re awake! Good, I was getting a bit tired of waiting.” She came into my field of vision, well her legs did anyway.
“What’s going on? Why am I down here?”
“You still seem a bit groggy from the concoction I had made up for you. Why don’t you take a good look around and get your bearings.”
I looked at her peachy legs and followed them up her dress. “Is this the kind of thing you’re into, because I kind of have something I need to do in the morning and I don’t know if I’m up for this…” She let out a sigh and took a few steps back, making her dress a little less… revealing.
“How about you try again?” I looked down, well up… I looked at my body to see I was covered in some kind of red liquid. My coat and shirt had been removed, and my arms and legs had been spread out so I was in the shape of a human starfish. Steel bindings held my wrists and ankles in place on a large circular metal wheel. The combination of metal on my back and this red stuff that was sticking to me explained very well why I was so cold.
“Is this…” I was scared to ask. “Blood?”
“Very observant!” She exclaimed as she clapped her hands together and got a huge smile on her face. “Pig’s blood to be exact!”
“Oh my God,” I said as I let out a disappointed sigh. “Are you still going to cook me dinner?” While the situation at hand was less than stellar, I was still pretty hungry.
“Aww, I think you misunderstood me Bryer. I never said I was going to cook you dinner, I said I was going to make you dinner. Like, literally, I am making you for dinner.” Was I supposed to be amused with her clever wordplay? She let out a pouty lip as she started sprinkling salt on me. Dyson was going to be pissed if I didn’t show up for the mission because I got eaten on a date.
She spun the wheel I was imprisoned to so that I was now right side up. She began rubbing her hand on my bare chest. “I love a man in red…” She whispered as she pressed her lips against mine. She pulled away and began to lick pig’s blood off of her lips that I must have gotten on her. “It makes them more tasty.”
I couldn’t think of anything clever to say due to the realization I had just come to. “This metal thing…”
“It’s a hot burner.” She took the words right out of my mouth. “I’ll just get the heat going, we’re going to want you to slow cook.” She waved her hand towards the burner and it slowly started rotating on its own. The cool metal was starting to feel a bit warm, and fire that seemed to be coming out of thin air encircled the burner and I, rotating in the opposite direction.
“Wait- you’re a witch!”
“Maybe you’ve heard of me. I am Elena the Man Eater!”
“... Oh right, I have heard of you! You’ve been on the wanted list for years. The stories say that you were cursed as a child, and thus you can never tell a lie. You grew up practicing witchcraft in hopes of being able to remove the curse one day, but eventually used your astonishing beauty and powers to lure men in and, well, eat them.”
“It’s all true,” she said to me with a smile. “It was hard growing up, only being able to tell the truth. I mean, sometimes you just don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. Eventually, I got used to it though. I learned that if I worded everything I said just right, then I could get away with saying anything.”
“But what made you start eating men?” I was starting to burn up from the heat, but I was curious all the same. It’s only natural for a villain to reveal their plan to the hero before they try to kill them anyway.
“That part of the story got just a tad twisted up. I don’t just eat men, I eat men who possess great power. It’s a simple spell involving candlelight and pig’s blood. When everything is set up just right, I can absorb all of the power within you, greatly enhancing my magic! When you approached me at the hotel and told me who you were, the Scarlet Lightning Bolt’s son, I just knew I had to sink my teeth into you! As far as the cooking you part, that’s more just for me. Have you ever just tried to eat a human raw? Gross.” Her face twisted up at the thought of eating an uncooked human, and then she returned her gaze back to me with a smile. “So, do I live up to my reputation so far? What do you think?”
I tried blowing air onto my forehead to cool off before responding. “I think you’re a psychopath. I also think you could have gotten a better title than ‘Man Eater.’”
“Oh, just can it!” Elena said as she snapped her fingers. All of a sudden, the flames around me disappeared and the wheel ceased to rotate.
“What the- I was trying to cook you faster, what’s going on?” She opened up a bottomless bag and pulled out a magic book that she started flipping through. “I did everything just right-“
“But you neglected to lock your door,” I heard a familiar voice say. I turned my head to see Alice standing in the doorway, staff in hand.
“Alice, how did you-“
She cut me off as she shot me a glare. “I put a tracking device in that bag I gave you in case things didn’t go so well in the forest during your mission. I checked things out just to be sure everything was working properly, only to find that you were in a vicinity just looming with magic. I rushed here right away.”
“Get out of here! I found Bryer, his power is mine to consume, so don’t you dare try to steal him!” Elena yelled maniacally as she launched several ice shards at Alice. Alice waved her hand and fireballs were launched through the air. As the magic of the two witches clashed, Alice’s fire consumed Elena’s ice and continued forward until Elena was blasted by the fire.
Elena screamed as the fire burned her skin, and Alice approached her. “Don’t be mistaken, I do not eat men. I am simply trying to save the life of a companion who had nothing better to do with his evening than waste it with a tramp such as yourself.” Alice then gave a wave of her staff and Elena’s body was instantly ignited by a blue flame. “It’s not so fun when you’re the one being cooked, is it?”
I watched as Elena quickly burned to ash. Alice approached me and tapped each of the steel bindings, unlocking them and thus dropping my body to the floor. “Ouch,” I said as I stood up. I took another look at Elena. The magical flame had stopped burning, and Elena’s body was nothing but a pile of dust now. “Thanks Alice,” I said to her as I picked up my clothes from the floor. “I didn’t think I was getting out of that one.”
“I still question why she decided to cook you with your pants on…” Alice muttered as she headed towards the door.
“Is that what you’re worried about?” I slipped on my shirt and my jacket and ran up beside her. We exited the building and proceeded to walk. “You must be pretty powerful. I mean, I already knew you were, but you’re magic totally overwhelmed hers, and she had consumed god knows how many people to absorb their powers.”
“She was a mediocre witch at best,” Alice said without even looking my way. “That whole ‘absorbing peoples’ powers by eating them’ thing was a farce some cannibal witch came up with as an excuse to eat people hundreds of years ago. Elena was probably one of the last witches who actually still bought into the whole thing.”
“Wow… So I wasn’t even duped by a cool witch.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I woke up bright and early next morning. Dyson wanted to see me again before I left and when we met he gave me a more detailed description of my mission. I was still a little shaken up from the night before, and I chose not to share the story with him or Chive, or anybody else for that matter. Before heading out, I swapped my red outfit for a green breathable one instead. I felt like it was time to take a break from the red coat… Just for a little bit.
Challenge 10 - Fantasy Story: Supernatural: Knights and Valor
Challenge issued by: ChibiHearts249
Completed on: July 28, 2014
Spoiler Show“God dammit!” Dean yelled through the bars of his cell. “We need to get out of here, there has to be something we can do.”
“I’m trying Dean, this lock isn’t exactly the easiest to pick…” Sam said as he looked over to his older brother.
A man in a cell across from the two walked up to his own bars and peeked between them at the brothers. “Do you guys have any idea what’s actually going on here?”
Dean’s eyes shifted to the other prisoner and he let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, we have some idea what’s going on. We have to get out of here and stop it before it gets any worse too, but first we need to find a way out of this frickin cell.”
“You guys actually think you can stop it?” The prisoner looked back and forth between Sam and Dean for a moment. “But how?”
“That’s just what we do pal,” Dean let go of his bars and made his way over to the wooden bench that was hanging on the wall. “We’re hunters.”
---------------------
48 Hours Earlier
---------------------
“Dean, check this ou- Are you eating a second cheeseburger?” Sam asked from his computer in the motel room. Dean looked at Sam with a look of guilt as his cheeks bulged out and he ceased to chew.
“Yeah, I din’n figure you wan’ned yers.” Dean squeezed out through his full mouth. After a moment, the look of guilt faded and Dean smiled as he proceeded eating.
“Whatever,” Sam said as he grinned and shook his head. “Anyway, you need to take a look this. There have been five disappearances within the past three weeks in Oakview, Washington.”
“That doesn’t sound like something we do,” Dean replied before taking another glorious bite of Sam’s burger.
“That’s not the weird part,” Sam said to Dean. “The weird part is that several eye-witness reports state that they saw the people being taken away by a knight in black armor on a horse. None of the people were ever found.”
Dean leaned back in his chair and crumbled up the burger wrapper before throwing it at Sam. “Okay, that sounds like something we do.”
-------
Now
-------
“So, you guys are Sam and Dean?” the prisoner asked through his bars.
Dean tilted his head in the guy’s direction. “Yeah, how’d you know our names?”
“That’s just what you’ve been calling each other since you’d got down here. I’m Peter.”
“Well Peter, what’d you do to get down here?” Sam asked as he continued messing with the lock.
“I uh- I stole a candy bar…”
“You got thrown in a dungeon just for stealing a candy bar? Man,” Dean said as he started laughing.
“Haha, very funny. I don’t know why I do it, but I steal petty things all the time. Candy bars, mood rings, a zippo here and there,” Remorse showed on the prisoners face as he stared down at the stone floor separating the two prison cells. “I think I just do it because I like the thrill, the feeling of getting one over on somebody, almost like I’m smarter than them because I got away with it.”
“Why don’t you get a job at the county fair, they get one over on people all the time,” Dean said as he laughed at his own joke. He looked back and forth between Peter and Sam, and the smile on his face slowly faded when he found nobody laughing with him.
“I guess… The other day, when I took that candy, I just jammed it in my pocket; I didn’t even really plan on eating it. But then when I turned around, there she was. She saw me, and then that’s how I ended up here,” Peter said as his fingers slipped down the bars. He took a look behind him, and then moved away from his cell bars. “Here, see if you can use this.” Peter walked back to his own wooden bench and picked up what looked to be a journal with a pen in it. He took out the pen and tossed it over to the other cell.
“You want us to use a pen to escape?” Dean asked as Sam caught the pen.
“Actually Dean, this might work.” Sam began taking the pen apart and setting aside the pieces he didn’t need. “This is a pretty fancy pen. It’s all metal, and very durable.” Sam held in his hands a couple pieces of long thin metal he’d taken from the pen, and began using them to try again on picking the lock to the cell door.
“Well alright then,” Dean said. “Get us outta here Sammy.”
---------------------
21 Hours Earlier
---------------------
Dean and Sam had arrived in Oakview and went through the usual investigation routine. After they suited up and flashed some fake F.B.I. badges, the two talked to the police about the case, and then split up to cover the several eyewitnesses. They met back up at their new motel room to go over everything they had gathered.
“So, let’s go over what we know exactly,” Sam said as he flipped through their dad’s journal, hoping to find something that fit the case. “Several people in Oakview have gone missing, and every single eyewitness swears a black knight on a horse took them.”
“And there is a connection between the victims,” Dean said as he leaned forward on the table. “Each one was known in this town for being a troublemaker of some sort. Those two teenage boys had been caught smashing mailboxes and egging houses on several occasions.”
“And that one woman Debbie was supposedly famous for trying to scam money out of people. I guess she even got found out for going around different churches asking for money claiming she needed food for her kids. A couple of people from different churches who got to talking about 'the woman who came running in’ figured it out, and now they know to watch out for her. Turns out she doesn’t even have any kids. How low can you get?”
“And the list goes on.” Dean rubbed his eyes as he thought about their course of action. “Alright, I think there’s only one thing we can do.”
“And what’s that?”
“We’re just gonna have to be bad and bring the knight to us.”
-------
Now
-------
“I’ve got it!” The sound of a loud clicking noise echoed through the dungeon as Sam and Dean’s cell door opened. They exited it and began making their leave when Peter stopped them.
“Hey, aren’t you going to get me out? And what about the other prisoners in the other cell blocks of this dungeon? We don’t know what they might do to us man…” Peter’s voice began to get shaky as he thought about the possibilities. Now that Sam and Dean were closer, they could see Peter was a scrawny man who looked to be about 20. He had a bit of scruff on his face and short brown hair, and sported clothes that seemed a size too big for him.
“Listen,” Sam said as he tried to calm Peter down, “Once we take care of this, it should all go away. You and the other prisoners will all be free to go.”
“I can help! C’mon, let me use my skills for good, just tell me what you need me to do!”
Sam and Dean looked at each other as if gauging each other’s approval, and then Sam began picking Peter’s lock. “Listen, what we're going to have you do is going to be very dangerous, are you sure you’re up for this?”
“I’m positive, let’s take this thing down,” Peter said with confidence in his eyes.
---------------------
04 Hours Earlier
---------------------
Dean twirled the baseball bat in his hand as he walked down the street. “Sorry, baby,” he said to an old Buick as he smashed in its windshield. It was nighttime now and it was getting chilly. Sam and Dean had decided to split up and terrorize the town at night when they were less likely to get flak from people. Dean had already dodged the cops twice, and they were definitely on the patrol now.
“… I’m doing your owner a favor,” Dean said to the Prius as he took a couple good swings at the windshield. He then picked up a brick and chucked it through the window of the nearest house and booked it towards the meeting spot he and Sam had agreed on earlier.
“So how’d it go?” Dean asked Sam as he approached the Impala.
“Okay I guess. I sat down in a restaurant and ordered some food, then I left without paying. I also switched the numbers of the addresses on some people’s houses.”
“Really?” Dean’s forehead scrunched up as he looked disappointed. “I’ve been smashing up cars and you’ve been dining and dashing?”
“You’ve been smashing up cars?! We’re trying to give the people in this town better lives by stopping whatever is going on, not making their lives harder!”
“We said we were being bad okay, I was trying to make some noise to draw this damn knight's attention! I mean-“ Dean was cut off by the sound of galloping. The brothers stood back to back as they looked around to spot their enemy.
“So what’s the plan again?” Dean asked Sam over his shoulder.
“I don’t know, Dean; I mean we have no clue what this knight actually is.” Sam readied a bottle of holy water while Dean prepared their demon knife. “Dean!”
Right at that moment Sam and Dean both jumped out of the way as a giant black horse leaped over the Impala and almost landed on the two of them.
“How in the hell did we miss that?!” Dean asked as he stood up and caught his breath. Above him sat the black knight on his horse. He held a sword in his right hand and held the reins of the horse in his left. “I bet you’re pretty damn ugly under that armor,” Dean said to the knight, holding his attention.
Sam came up from behind and splashed holy water all over the knight, to no avail. “Dammit, do you think it’s because of the armor?” The knight turned to Sam and bashed him in the head with the hilt of his sword, knocking Sam unconscious.
“Sammy!” Dean ran up and attempted to climb the knight’s horse. The knight punched Dean in the head, and Dean readied his knife and stabbed the Knight between a crevice in the waist of his armor. The demon slaying knife could instantly kill a demon when they were stabbed with it, and you could see an orange glow emanating from the wound. But not this time. Dean pulled the knife out only to see blood, there was no glow, and the knight sat unwavering.
“God dammit,” Dean said right before he got clocked in the face by the knight’s metal fist.
-------
Now
-------
Sam and Dean had crept through the castle dungeons carefully. It was filled with tons of traps to keep prisoners from escaping, such as trap doors that led to bottomless pits, spikes falling from the ceilings, and a couple of axes that would swing back and forth across a hallway.
“You ever wonder how the guy that puts people in dungeons like this actually gets out?” Dean laughed at his own joke again while Sam pressed forward.
“Listen, do you think Peter will be okay on his own? We didn’t actually know what this place was like when we split off from him.”
“He’ll be fine Sammy, being sneaky and being careful is what he does. I just hope he can be there when we need him.”
The brothers made their way out of the dungeon and into the main castle. Dean looked out a window to see the castle was surrounded by woods. “It’s no wonder nobody from town ever noticed this place, it’s out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Dean,” Sam whispered as he crouched by a giant door. “Dean! Come over here, this is it.”
Dean moved over to Sam and pressed his ear up against the door. He could hear a girl’s voice, and as he suspected nobody responded to it. “Alright, you ready to do this?”
---------------------
01 Hour Earlier
---------------------
“Ugh, Sammy? Sammy?!” Dean asked as he sat up on the cold stone floor.
“I’m here, Dean.” Sam didn’t sit too far away from his brother and Dean let out a sigh of relief to see he was okay. He stood up and approached their prison bars to look down at a little girl wearing a golden crown and an elegant red dress.
“You two have been bad boys!” The girl yelled at Dean as she smacked her scepter at the bars. The girl looked to be maybe 6 or 7 years old, and she was missing one of her front teeth. She had a little Chihuahua that was scampering around at her feet quiet as can be.
“So you’re the one doing this to people? You have to stop, you have to let them go-“
“Silence!” She cut Dean off. “Don’t tell your queen what to do! You will do as I say! Now, you two must be punished for the bad things you’ve done. I think 50 years in the dungeon will do it, and then I will let you live in my castle as my loyal subjects for the rest of your lives. But if I don’t think you’ve really changed… Then off with your heads!”
The little girl squinted her eyes and jumped up and down as she shouted at the two.
“How are you doing this?” Sam asked confused. “How did this castle get here, and who is that knight?”
“You mean Daddy? He is my most loyal subject. He takes care of me and does whatever I ask.” Both Sam and Dean glanced at each other as they noticed a book under her arm. “Good day, I will see you both in 50 years!” The queen walked away, and Sam and Dean waited to talk until they could no longer hear her or her little dog’s footsteps.
“So what’re you thinkin’?” Dean asked Sam quietly, “Witchcraft?”
Sam pulled out their dad’s journal and began flipping to a certain page they’d visited once before. “You didn’t see the cover of the book, did you?” Dean shook his head, waiting for Sam to continue. “It was a fantasy pop-up book called ‘Knights and Valor.’ The cover had dragons and wizards on it, as well as a black knight on a horse.” Sam turned the journal for Dean to see. “I think this is a cursed object.”
“What? A cursed object, are you crazy? I mean we’ve seen a cursed rabbit’s foot before, but a cursed pop-up book?”
“I don’t think there are any rules as to what can and can’t be cursed. I think this book can make whatever that girl reads come true.”
“Well, I sure as hell don’t want to fight a dragon or some freaking wizard,” Dean looked in thought to the bars containing them. “We’ve gotta stop this thing. But first, we’ve gotta get out of here.”
-------
Now
-------
“Alright Princess, let’s not make this any harder than it has to be. Give us the book and let’s stop this nonsense!” Dean exclaimed as he marched halfway up the red carpet that led to the little girl’s throne. Sam followed close behind, and the two of them looked upon the little girl sitting in her massive seat with her pup on her lap and her knight by her side.
“You were supposed to stay in the dungeon! It’s going to be off with both of your heads! Daddy, bring him here!” To Sam and Dean’s surprise, the knight did not go after them. He walked behind a big red curtain behind the throne, and reappeared with a crying boy.
“Please! Please no…” The boy sobbed as the night threw him to the girl’s feet. The boy’s arms and legs were chained together, and he looked dirty as could be.
“Look at him!” The little girl shouted as she shoved her Chihuahua in the boy’s face. “You whipped this poor puppy with a stick and thought you could get away it?! And now you beg for your life?! Well, being the merciful queen that I am…” The girl lifted up her pop-up book that she had on a stand beside her throne and opened it up.
“No please!” The boy pleaded at her feet and begged for mercy.
The girl turned to a page and a wizard popped up for all to see. The girl tapped the wizard with her scepter, and then tapped the groveling boy. Slowly he began to change, twisting and turning before their eyes until what stood before them was a mighty wizard with a long white beard. He wore a blue robe that came down to his feet with a hood that covered his head.
“Turn the short one into a toad my wizard! Then I shall kiss him, and he will become my prince.” The girl pointed at Dean and the wizard began flailing his arms about in the air preparing his spell.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” The wizard launched the spell towards Dean and he rolled out of the way just in time. The wizard didn’t let up though, and shot golden sparks Dean’s way trying to toadify him on his new queen’s demand.
Sam saw Dean slowing down, and ran over to help him. “Dean!” Sam jumped through the ar and shoved Dean out of the way of the wizard’s next shot.
“Aw man, thanks Sammy…” Dean said as he slowly stood up. The wizard has ceased fire, which Dean didn’t understand, but he wasn’t about to argue. “Sammy?” When he turned to find his brother, all he saw was a toad hopping along on the ground.
“You hit the wrong one!” The little girl screamed through the throne room. “Fine then, let’s see how you like this!”
“Oh God no, don’t tell me-“
The little girl turned her book to a page with a massive dragon. She tapped the dragon, and then her puppy, and the little Chihuahua got a whole lot bigger. She laid the book back down on the stand, and then turned to face Dean. “Let’s see you escape this! My dragon is fierce! The moment I give him the okay to toast you, there is no taking back! That’s beyond even my control!”
“Peter!” Dean screamed.
The queen looked around confused. “Who’s that? Don’t speak out of line!”
“Oh dammit, did he frickin bail?”
“Okay, now prepare yourself! My dragon, feast your eyes upon your dinner!” The dragon’s narrow gaze stared Dean up and down, and Dean let out a slight gulp. “Are you ready, he is yours!”
The dragon let out a nasty and fierce scream throughout the room just as Dean heard a voice. “Dean! Over here!”
“Peter, hurry up, torch it!” Dean yelled to Peter as the girl turned to find the voice of the intruder. Peter stood nearby beside the stand that had held her book, and he was trying his hardest to flick Dean’s lighter to life, but was having no luck.
“Daddy, seize him!” The black knight rushed Peter, and Peter chucked the book Dean’s way before the knight took him to the ground.
The dragon pulled back its neck and opened its mouth wide, letting out a low growl just as Dean caught the book.
“No, stop!” The girl yelled as she ran to the dragon’s side.
Dean shot her a smile and held up the book. “Can’t stop it now, can you?”
The dragon breathed a fierce fire out of its mouth and Dean threw the book in its direction. As the fire and the book clashed, everything changed right before Dean’s eyes. Suddenly he was standing in the woods facing a small wood cabin and a crying little girl holding a Chihuahua. The boy-turned-wizard was a boy yet again, laying curled up in a ball near a man who was holding down peter. The other prisoners were also laying around the woods, and they all started to get up and mumble in confusion. Dean turned to his side to see his brother lying on the ground, no longer a toad.
“I think I liked you better slimy,” Dean said to his brother as he helped him to his feet.
“Yeah, don’t expect me to take any spells again for you anytime in the near future.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam and Dean leaned on the Impala outside of the black knight’s house as they said goodbye to him and peter.
“I’m so sorry about everything,” the knight, whose name turned out to be Tom, said to Sam and Dean. “I bought her that book at some pawn shop in Seattle when I was away on business. I had no idea it was cursed.
“Most people wouldn’t,” Sam said as he smiled at Tom. “I’m just glad we were able to take care of all of this.”
“Yeah, me too. My daughter and I will be starting therapy soon. I think she needs to talk out some of her anger issues and her ideas about justice…"
“Take it easy on her,” Dean said as he placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “She just a kid, all kids have an imagination. It’s just that not all kids wind up with the power to make that imagination reality. Oh and uh, sorry for stabbing you." Dean looked down at Tom's bandaged up wound from the fight on the horse before.
"Oh this? Don't worry about it, I would've done the same thing."
“And as for you,” Sam said to Peter.
“Tom’s going to get me a job as a janitor at the office he works at. No more sticky fingers for me, I swear.”
“Good,” Sam said with a smile. “So Dean, where to now?”
“I say we get the address of that pawn shop from Tom here and go make sure they aren’t sporting anymore cursed items. But first, let’s eat! I’m starving.”
Challenge 11 - Multiple Universe Story: The Walking Dead: At the Crossroads
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 31, 2014
NOTE: I chose The Walking Dead for this challenge. For those who don't know, there are essentially two universes. There is the Comic Universe (which contains the stories of the comics, Telltale's game series, and the novels), and then there is the AMC tv universe (which contains the stories of the show and the game Survival Instinct).
My story crosses these two universes using the games from each. It takes place between seasons 1 & 2 of the game shortly before season 2 begins, and towards the end of Survival instinct. I have the central characters of each game basically cross paths on their journeys, and I have them explain exactly where they were headed in relation to each game's story. So if you've played the games, you should easily be able to tell where I am slipping this into the story of each game. If you didn't play them, then you just have some insight as to where the characters were headed. Either way, I feel like this meshing the stories together to fit into their canon universes worked out quite nicely.
Also, if you are unfamiliar with The Walking Dead's terminolgy: Walkers, biters, etc. All words for zombie.
Spoiler ShowClementine followed Daryl through the woods until Daryl held up his hand in a signal for her to stop. He lifted his crossbow and steadied his aim. His target was a deer they’d been following for a while now. Daryl was great at hunting and tracking, two skills Clementine never learned. She didn’t suppose many girls her age did anyway, but she watched Daryl closely as she tried to learn this new skill of survival. After a moment, Daryl shot a bolt right into the deer and it scurried away through the woods.
“It’s getting away!” Clem loudly whispered to Daryl.
“Don’t worry; it’s all part of the hunt. We’ll follow its tracks and catch up to it in no time.” Daryl began making his way through the woods again and Clementine stayed close on his heels.
“So, what are its tracks anyway?”
“You know, where it might leave some footprints and whatnot, or if some spore is laying around then you know it’s been there.”
“What’s spore?”
“You know… Deer shit.”
“Oh. Gross…” Clementine examined the ground they walked on. Daryl seemed to be able to find which way they needed to go quite easily, but she just couldn’t seem to find any of these tracks before he was ready to move on. She didn’t want to ask him to stop and show her though, because she really didn’t want their dinner to get away.
“See this?” Daryl asked as he pointed to some fresh blood on a tree stump. He waited for her to nod her head before he proceeded, “This more than likely means our deer has been here. It’s bleedin’ out, which is good news for us. Come on, let’s get this thing.”
Before long, the duo had caught back up to their deer friend and Daryl put another bolt in it. It tried to get away again, but this time it didn’t get far before it dropped to the ground.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daryl and Clementine were sitting close to their small fire while they ate the parts of the deer Daryl could cook. Clementine shivered at the crisp night air and stuck her hands closer to the fire.
“Can we make it any bigger?” Clementine asked Daryl with a shiver in her voice.
“Sorry, no can do. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention,” Daryl said as he chewed his food. Daryl was a tough looking man. He wore his brown hair short and sported some scruff on his face, and he wore a button up shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His shirt was covered by a black leather vest with angel wings on that back that Clementine couldn’t help but think were cool.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Daryl could hear the disappointment in Clementine’s voice and decided to try and get her mind off of the cold. “So, you were looking for some people when I met you at the crossroads, right? How exactly did you get split up?”
“There was a hoard of walkers all around us in the city. We tried to stay together as we attempted to get out of there, but things just kind of happened and we got separated. I couldn’t go back in there to look for them, so I figured that maybe I would just find them at the next town.” Clementine gazed at the fire as she wondered if her friends were okay.
“So these people, what are they like? You been travelling with them long?”
“Yeah, we’ve been together for a little while. Their names are Christa and Omid. Omid is funny, he always makes us laugh. And Christa’s the one that just tries to keep us on track and keep us going. She’s pregnant right now, and we’re pretty excited for the baby. But it’s also kind of scary… We used to be in a bigger group. There was Kenny and Ben, and Lee too. But they all…”
“It’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it,” Daryl said from across the fire. Clementine nodded her head and adjusted the baseball cap on her head. She was a small girl of only eleven, and she kept her hair cut short for her own safety, the advice of her old friend Lee. Lee took care of her after he found her at her parent’s house all alone, but after everything that happened in Savannah the only remaining members of their small group were Christa, Omid, and herself. Now she had been separated from them as well, but she was determined to find them again.
“Um, Daryl. So where are you going? Why are you alone?” She was curious about him, but had been hesitant to ask him any questions about himself until now.
“Well, when all of this started, I was out hunting with my dad and a couple of his buddies. But then the biters, they just came out of nowhere. They popped up from all over the place throughout the woods and they basically devoured him before any of us could stop it. After that, I went to look for my brother Merle. I eventually found him, drunk off his ass, and we stayed together for a little while until we got to Barksdale. Merle was quiet about wanting to go there, and I eventually found out it was to settle some score with his old gang and to grab some of his drugs. Dumbass… After a blowout with the gang, he and I got separated and I’ve been trying to track him down ever since. He’s an idiot, but he’s blood.” As Daryl finished he held his crossbow in one hand and poked at the fire with a stick in the other.
“Well, I really hope you find your brother,” Clementine said to Daryl. “Family should stay together, especially in a time like this. I tried finding my Mom and Dad, but they had already turned…”
“Looks like we’re a couple of orphans… You’re a tough kid, you know that? We can watch each other’s backs for a while until you find your friends, and I’ll try to teach you more about tracking.”
“I’d like that,” Clementine said as she got a smile on her face.
“Well good. Hey, you’d better get some rest. I’ll go ahead and take the first shift to make sure nothing sinks its teeth into us.
“But what about you?”
“You can keep a lookout while I sleep after, deal?”
“Deal!” Clem took off her at and laid down on her side in the dirt, letting herself drift away into sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The two had been together for about a week now, and it had become a morning routine for Clementine to try and follow some tracks in the woods. Daryl had taught her which tracks were animal tracks, and which tracks were human tracks. She needed to avoid human tracks, because those most likely lead to stray walkers. The woods had begun to become one of the safest forms of travel, because if they found human tracks, they just had to make sure they avoided them to stay in the clear most of the time.
Daryl and Clementine were just exiting some woods outside of a small town. Daryl began his routine of creeping around the corners of buildings while Clementine watched his back with a small hatchet. When outside looked mostly clear, he opened the screen door of a house and made his way inside.
“I’ll check upstairs, you check things out down here,” Daryl whispered. He began to quietly proceed up the steps while Clem headed to the living room. This house looked to her like it had been abandoned in a hurry. A lot of stuff was still here, including pictures and whatnot. The living room attached to the kitchen, and she opened the cupboards to find different cereals and crackers. Without hesitation, she opened up the box of Berry Crunch and stuffed some the sugary cereal into her mouth. She thanked God scavengers hadn’t hit this house yet, and wondered for a moment if Daryl had ever eaten Berry Crunch.
Clementine was then startled by the sound of glass breaking upstairs and ran back through the living room and to the steps to try and help Daryl. She tripped as she tried to make her way upstairs too quickly, but never stopped moving on her way to make sure her friend was okay. Upon reaching the top of the steps, a walker greeted her with a hiss and arms spread wide.
Clem stumbled backwards to avoid becoming this thing’s next meal and fell down the steps. The walker stumbled down the steps as well and landed right on top of her. She could smell its rotting breath as it opened and shut its jaw over and over in an attempt to get a juicy bite. Saliva dripped from its mouth and onto Clem’s face. She cringed as she tried holding it away with her left arm, her right trying to get a good grip on the hatchet. She couldn’t hold it off much longer, and let out a grunt as she swung at its head. The hatchet sunk deep and blood dripped down out of its skull. Clementine pushed the body off of her and struggled to get the hatchet back.
After tugging and pulling on the hatchet that seemed to be buried in this thing’s head, Clem fell back to her butt when the weapon finally slid free. She wiped the nasty drool off of her face and looked up the steps to see Daryl quickly making his way down.
“Glad to see you were able to handle things down here,” Daryl said as he patted Clem on the shoulder. “Sorry I couldn’t help, there was basically a family of those things up there.” Daryl made his way to the living room window and peeked outside through the curtain.
“What are you looking at?”
“Did you not hear that ruckus outside? Some bimbo was racing through town in a car and crashed into a tree. Yep, he’s walker meat alright…”
Clementine made her way to the window and looked out to see dozens of walkers roaming around, several of them tearing out this man’s insides. The man no longer seemed to be conscious, and Clementine found herself a bit saddened by this.
“I think that car will still run if we can get to it,” Daryl said as he examined the area from a different window. “This town has way more of these things in it than I thought, we’re going to need a distraction…”
“Do you have a plan?” Clementine asked as she looked over to her companion.
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clementine had made her way outside through the back door and came around to a chain link fence that surrounded the backyard. There was a gate blocking her off from the front yard, and she had a perfect view of the road from here.
“Hey you ugly son of a bitch, I’m up here!” She could hear Daryl calling out from the upstairs window drawing the attention of some of the walkers out front. She heard shattering as she watched him throw China plates down into the road. Whoever used to live here would probably be appalled, but that didn’t matter anymore.
As Daryl screamed and cursed, all of the walkers started coming towards the front of the house. Now it was her turn. “Hey! I’m over here!” She screamed as she smacked the head of her hatchet over the chain link fence over and over again. A large portion of the group started making their way towards her, and she opened up the gate. “Yeah, come on, I’m over here!”
Clementine ran into the house through the back door just as many of them started getting too close for comfort, and then she looked through the window to see Daryl landing in the front yard from the upper window. He had a couple walkers to take on still. He shot one in the head with his crossbow, and stabbed another in the face with a knife. A couple more started coming at him and Clementine hurried out the front door to help. She landed a solid hit into one’s head with her hatchet but she wasn’t able to get it out in time before another one came at her. Before it could actually reach her, Daryl jammed his knife through the back of its head and it dropped down cold.
“Clem, go see if you can get that car started, I’ve gotta close this gate!”
Clementine stood up and rushed towards the car. A couple of stray walkers wandered about and looked her direction, but she was still faster than them. She made it to the car and climbed inside, frantically turning the key to try and get it going. “Come on, please…” As she looked around to see walkers coming her way due to the sound of the engine revving up, she locked all of the doors and made sure the windows were up.
Daryl raced for the fence gate as fast as he could. He knew he had to get it closed before all of the walkers trapped in the back yard were attracted to the car again. A couple walkers behind the fence noticed him before he got there and started clawing through the air as they moved through the gate towards him. “I don’t think so!” Daryl kicked one in the stomach knocking it into another and they both fell to the ground back in the fence. Daryl stabbed the third one in the head and slammed the gate door shut as the other walkers started coming his way. He watched through the fence as they all attempted to get through to him. They wanted to devour him like the man from the car, but he would never let that happen. Not to Daryl Dixon, not like his father. The fence started bowing as the weight of all the biters pushed against the fence, and Daryl knew it was time to go.
He started running towards the car, which he had just heard finally turn on. Clem had got it working; now it was just a matter of them getting out of here. A walker quickly approached Daryl from the direction of the car, and he took a clean shot into its head with his bow. He reached down and yanked the bolt out of the dead walker’s head as he finally made it to the car.
He pulled on the handle to no avail. “Let me in Clem!” He looked around at the slowly surrounding walkers, the fence behind him finally giving in.
“I locked the doors, and now they won’t unlock! The windows won’t go down either!” Daryl looked around real quick and then directed his attention back to her.
“Clem, get in the passenger’s seat and cover your face!”
Without a moment’s hesitation Clementine moved and Daryl smashed the driver’s seat window in with the butt of his bow. Glass shattered everywhere and Clementine could feel little shards sprinkle on her arms and her side. Daryl hopped in and threw the car in reverse, backing it into a nearby walker. Once he shifted it into drive, he floored it and drove right on down the road.
“Whoo! Now let’s get the hell out of dodge, what do you say?” Daryl glanced over at Clementine to see her staring out the window at each walker they drove past.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The two made it out of town and had been driving no more than an hour before the inevitable happened.
“Dammit, looks like this bad boy’s out of juice. And of course we’re miles away from the next town.”
“What should we do?” Clementine asked as she watched Daryl grab his bow and his bag.
“We walk from here. Only thing we can do.”
The two walked on and on past endless fields on an empty dirt road. The car they left was out of site now, and there were no visible walkers to be found.
“So, Daryl, where exactly are we headed?”
“Well, my brother and I were headed towards Sherwood before we split, so that’s where I plan on going. We’ll either have to pass through Lafferty or Archer Creek on the way I suppose. We can figure it out when we get there.”
“Okay, sounds good.” Clementine was just happy to have a plan, and the two were content with walking silently by each other for a while on down the road.
After a while, the two were beginning to approach some crossroads. “Hey, Clementine, do you see that?”
Clem looked in the direction Daryl pointed to see two figures slowly approaching from the road on their left. “Walkers?”
“Even if they aren’t walkers, I sure as hell am not taking the chance of them ransacking us.” Daryl lifted his bow and aimed at the figures. “One of them looks kind of big.”
“Daryl, wait!” Clementine lowered Daryl’s bow and ran towards the figures.
“Clem! Clementine!” Daryl shouted as he trailed her.
As they got closer, Clementine realized exactly who the figures were. “That’s Christa and Omid!”
“Clementine?!” The two figures shouted as they made their way to her. “Clementine! Oh thank God, we thought you were gone… We looked around forever for you!”
Clementine hugged the pregnant Christa and Omid patted her head as he smiled. He cautiously looked over to Daryl who had stopped running and was trying to catch his breath. “Hello there… Clementine, who’s your friend?”
“Christa, Omid, this is Daryl. We’ve been travelling together ever since we got split up. He’s helped me out a lot.”
“It’s more like she helped me,” Daryl said as he looked at the two.
“Well, if Clem’s been with you all this time, and she trusts you, then we trust you too.” Christa said, easing Omid as well.
“We can all travel together right?” Clementine asked as she looked around at the group.
Daryl, unready to let his guard down, looked on at Christa and Omid. “Where’re you guys headed?”
“We’re going to Wellington. Hopefully there’s a chance things may be better there.”
“Things aren’t going to be better anywhere…” Daryl muttered. “I’m sorry Clem, I can’t go with you.”
“Why not?” Clementine asked as she approached her friend.
“I need to head towards Sherwood, it’s my best bet of finding my brother.” A sadness rang through each word Daryl spoke.
“We actually passed through Lafferty, you probably don’t want to go that way…” Omid warned.
“Archer Creek it is then.” Clementine followed Daryl as he began to walk past Christa and Omid.
“So this is goodbye?...”
“I’m afraid so Clem.” Daryl answered with a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself? I mean, Christa and Omid… At least they have each other.”
“I’ll be fine Clem. I may not be as tough as you, but you know I can take care of myself.” Clementine couldn’t help but crack a small smile at Daryl’s comment. “Besides, I’ll have my brother Merle once I finally catch up to him, so don’t you worry about me.”
“Okay Daryl. You be careful out there. Don’t go breaking everybody’s good China just for fun either, only in an emergency…”
“Haha okay, the same goes for you. You’re going to make it in this world Clementine. If anybody can, it’s you. You’re tough, so you hang in there and watch out for your friends.”
“I will… I’ll never forget you, Daryl.”
“I’ll never forget you either, Clementine.” Daryl threw his crossbow over his shoulder and turned away. Clementine watched as he walked on down the road alone in search of his brother. She held back tears as she said goodbye to her friend. For a moment, Clementine thought the wings on Daryl’s vest made him look like an angel as he walked on towards the sun.
Challenge 12 - Horror Story: We've All Been There
Personal Challenge
Completed on July 31, 2014
Spoiler ShowI felt warm and fuzzy as I lay underneath the blankets in my bed. Too warm as a matter of fact. It was that awful feeling where if I let my sweating feet out of the blanket they would freeze instantly. But if that were the case, then why were they sweating at all? Was there any scientific reason that this happened? I didn’t want to ask and just get told “hormones,” because that seemed to be the answer to everything I asked.
Man, now I felt chills on the back of my neck. Every time that happens, I always think back to the rumors about ghosts being present in the room. It’s ridiculous really. But is it?
I kept my eyes shut and attempted to let myself drift off, sweaty feet or not. I thought about what I might eat for breakfast. On the bus ride to school, would I get to sit next to the girl I liked? Would I sit next to her at lunch? Did she even like me? My thoughts moved onto tennis. I loved to play, but I hated to practice. Yeah, practice was important and all, but still… Then my thoughts moved onto the breathing in my room.
What? My breath halted and my eyes squeezed shut. That was definitely someone else’s breathing that I heard. Who was it? Who was in here? I slowly let out a breath, and as I started to calm down I heard it again. Where was it coming from? Was it close? I was not about to open my eyes and find out. I pulled the blanket over my head.
You know, this happened once before. I thought I heard breathing, but in the end it just ended up being the air coming out of my nose funny. When I sleep, I’m definitely a mouth breather. So when the sound of the breath leaving both exits clashed and my nose had a booger in it or something, I panicked and thought the breath was someone else’s. I know it sounds silly, but it’s not.
Well, my nose was fine. Just to be sure, I stuck my finger up both nostrils. Yeah, it was definitely fine, which meant the breathing was not mine.
Great, now I had to pee. Would squeezing my legs together really do the trick? I would imagine that would just squeeze on my bladder. What were the odds that I could just fall asleep without going to the restroom? It was worth a shot. My closed eyes felt a bit f a sting from being so tired. I wanted nothing more than to drift off. But the immense feeling of something inside my body just shoving on my bladder made me feel like I was going to explode. It didn’t help with the sweating either. Oh God I had to go…
As if my body was out of my control, it darted up in my bed and faced the steps leading upstairs. My room was in the basement, so I had to make my way through the dark and up the steps before I could even think about releasing this.
I swung my legs over the side of my bed and then pulled them back up quickly. What if something from under my bed reached out and grabbed my ankle the moment my foot hit the floor? It could have been waiting under my bed for this moment to grab me and pull me under. Once I was under there, they’d probably tear me to shreds and take my flesh to another world.
I gazed through the dark into nothing as I contemplated just trying to go back to sleep again. Okay, I just need to land my feet on the ground as far away from the bed as I could before making a dash for the stairs. I took a little leap and heard my bed squeak as I took off from my bed and frantically ran up the stairs. I placed my hand on the handle and stopped. What if something was waiting for me on the other side of this door with a machete? What if the thing under my bed was following me?! Without another thought I pushed my way through the door.
The ground floor of our house was eerie at night. I could hear creaking and shuffling noises coming from the next room. It was just the house settling of course. Of course.
I looked up the steps down the hall and thought I saw someone standing on them for a moment. After further examination, I could see nothing was there. Those stairs always tricked me.
When I got to the bathroom, I reached my hand in the door and flipped the light on before stepping inside. I walked over to the toilet and pulled down my pants. The relief was overwhelming; nobody should ever have to hold that in. My eyes flickered to the yellow shower curtain directly to my right. I always imagined somebody in one of those famous hockey masks just opening the shower curtain and getting me. Without even thinking about it I pulled the curtain open to examine the inside. I was startled at first because I thought I saw a body lying on the floor of the tub, but it was just wads of hair all bunched up together.
After flushing, I know you should wash your hands, but I didn’t. Washing my hands would mean looking in the mirror, and I know the moment I did my mirror self would reach through and grab me. He hadn’t got me yet, and he wasn’t about to now. I quickly walked past the mirror and moved back to the basement door. I thought I forgot to turn off the bathroom light, but it was too late for that now; there was no way I could go back.
When I made it back to the basement, I looked down the steps to see nothing but pitch black space. I couldn’t make out anything from up here. I reached around above the steps to hit the light switch, and the moment I did the basement lights flickered on and of real quick. Crap. I flipped the switch up and down, but it was no use, the light bulb burned out. Suddenly I could hear that breathing again. As it picked up, my breathing picked up. Or was it the other way around?
This was it. I just needed to make a run for it. I needed to get back to the safety of my bed and everything would be fine. I started down the steps in a hurry and tripped. This causes my body to produce a loud banging noise down each step that scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. As soon as I hit the ground I bolted through the darkness and jumped onto my bed, making sure to not give whatever was under it the chance to grab my legs.
As soon as I was in my bed and under the blankets I felt safe again already. I could hear the breathing, but everybody knows that you’re safe under the blankets. I pulled them over my face again and rolled over to face the wall. I was absolutely terrified when I bumped into the cold body that was lying under my blankets beside me.
Challenge 13 - Friendship Story: Balloon Squad Protectors
Personal Challenge
Completed on: July 31, 2014
NOTE: This story is most definitely dedicated to two very good friends of mine. You guys may know them as CD-Man and Sugar Lips. Sorry if you guys don't get all of our little jokes, but I just had to include them. It's just one of those friendship things, you know?
This is the tale of one of our epic days of playing Animal Crossing together, thus some of the randomness. We really area fun bunch, haha. Sugar Lips is Jeri, CD-Man is Casper, and I am Max (of course).
Spoiler ShowI sat quietly on the train as I stared intently out the window. Any minute now the train would arrive and I could finally hang out with two of the best friends a guy could ever have.
“Excuse me, mind if I sit here” A blue enthusiastic looking cat took the seat across from me before I could answer. “So-“
“Rover, I’m not moving into a new town. I’m just visiting.”
“What? Do we know each other?... Wait, Max? Is that you?” Rover looked me up and down very carefully. I wondered if he had snuck a couple sniffs in there for good measure.
“Yeah, it’s me.” I answered him with a smile.
“You look different! When you first moved into Radiata, your hair was kind of spikey and you were just wearing a plain old t-shirt. Now look at you, with the shaggy hair, and the Governor-esque eye patch. And then you have on the black coat… You look like a bonified bad guy!”
“Well I’m not!” I responded in a huff. I could wear whatever what I wanted.
“What’s with all of the cherries?” Rover asked as his eyes widened at all the fruit I had with me.
“They’re for my friends.”
“They look yummy… Can I have one?”
“No! What part of for my friends don’t you get?”
“You really are like a bad guy,” Rover said as he frowned.
I sighed as I handed him a cherry. “Now somebody’s going to get an uneven basket, but I just can’t deal with the guilt trip.”
“See, I knew you weren’t so bad, Max!” Rover gobbled up the cherry just as the train came to a halt. “Well, we’re finally in Ellin. This is your stop, right?”
“Yup. And I suppose you’ll still be on the train when it’s time for me to leave.” Rover smiled and waved as I stepped off of the train and into Ellin. As soon as I stepped out into the sunlight, I was greeted by my friend Casper, who surprisingly sported the exact same hairstyle as me. He also wore glasses, and always showed tons of emotion. Close by him was our friend Jeri, who had pink hair that stood out like a sore thumb. She was holding a balloon that Casper had given her in one hand, and she waved to me with the other.
“Hey Max!” Casper shouted as he did a ridiculous little spin.
“Hey guys-“ After only 3 steps, I fell into a hole and dropped all of the baskets of cherries I had brought with me. “Ugh, uragh!!!” I let out masculine grunts as I tried to pull myself out of the hole.
“Hahahaha! He actually fell in!” Casper walked up to me and sneezed on my face before he let loose his stupid little spin again and ran off in complete wonder.
“Is this how you two greet your friends?! You plant pitfall seeds?!” I finally pulled myself out of the hole and faced Jeri.
“Hi Max!” Jeri said with a smile on her face. I pulled out my axe, and it wasn’t to chop down trees.
“Max? Ahh!” Jeri immediately took off as I chased her around with my axe. It was just like some cartoon, where the cat would chase the mouse around with an axe. And. He. Can. NEVER CATCH THE MOUSE!
I chased Jeri through the trees and behind houses. She was a quick little thing, and I lost sight of her frequently, but I was not going to give up! There would be justice for that pitfall…
She managed to get away good this time. I circled Ellin several times over, but to no avail. It was as if Jeri had disappeared.
“Achoo! Can’t find her?” I felt the sprinkles of saliva land all over the side of my face. I wiped them off and turned to Casper. He just had this grin on his face that could not be wiped off. He sneezed in my face again and smiled.
“Stop sneezing on me! What makes you think that’s okay?!” Casper sneezed on me again, as if he was testing me. That was the last straw. I started smacking him with my axe over and over. No matter how many times I hit him though, the axe just bounced right off of his body. “What is wrong with this thing?! Where’s Jeri?!” Casper interrupted me with a sneeze to the face. “WHY?!”
“Hehe, I can’t believe you haven’t found her.” Casper said with a smirk.
“I swear, if you sneeze on me… So where is she?” Casper didn’t respond, and instead twirled around again. I could see I was going to have to find her myself.
Casper followed me around town while I searched for Jeri. I didn’t even know why I was chasing her anymore. More than likely Casper planted that pitfall seed to try and send me to my doom, and obviously my axe was magical and made of rubber since it just bounced off of people. I suppose I just needed to find her out of principle now.
On my way through town, I spotted a penguin waltzing round. “Whoa… Casper, is that Fezz?”
“I wish it was Fezz.”
The penguin approached me to greet me and I politely ignored him. “If he’s not Fezz, then I don’t care.”
“That’s cold bro,” Casper said behind his glasses.
“Was that intended to be a penguin pun?”
Before long, we approached Casper’s house. “I swear, if she’s in there…”
Upon entering, there she was. Jeri was just hiding out in Casper’s home.
“You can’t hide inside Jeri, that’s against the rules!”
“But it was kind of scary when you started chasing me with that axe Max…”
Great, now I was the bad guy. Rover was right. “I’m sorry, Jeri, I was just messing around.”
“It’s okay Max! Casper, I love your house!” Jeri began running around playing with Casper’s trinkets and gadgets. His house held absolutely no theme. He just had things placed wherever he darn well pleased.
“Um, Casper? Is that a toilet in front of your desk?” I asked him. It was one of those questions I already knew the answer to.
“Of course it is. Where else would you sit?”
“Right… Okay. So, I like what you’ve done with the place,” I commented as I looked at his randomly placed Master Sword.
“Thanks man. Yeah, I just kind of put all of my junk wherever.”
“What’s your house like, Max?” Jeri asked with a look of curiosity in her eyes.
“Well, I’m kind of going for…” Before I finished my sentence I changed clothes out of nowhere like a superhero. “A pirate theme!” I now sported my Guybrush Threepwood Pirate coat that went well with my eyepatch.
“Hold on a second…” Casper plopped a pirate hat on my head and I straightened it up. “There!”
“Argh, mateys!” I promptly ran out of the house and headed for the beach.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“So you’re building a lighthouse? That’s so cool!” I could hear Jeri talking to Casper in the distance. “Hey, where’s Max?”
I hadn’t really been paying attention to a thing they said for 20 or so minutes. I was too busy digging up Casper’s beach looking for treasure. Unfortunately, there was none. The entire beach was nothing but a bunch of dug up holes now surrounding some banana trees.
“Oh sweet Jesus…” I heard Casper mutter from behind me as he finally made his way to the beach. “Max, what did you do?”
“I was digging for treasure, because I’m a pirate… Argh?” This was embarrassing.
“Oh my…” Jeri said quietly as she approached one of the holes I dug.
“Eh, whatever,” Casper said, “I’m just going to leave it. Just as Casper and I started to walk away, we heard Jeri filling in a couple of the holes. She kicked the sand with her little feet, slowly cleaning up the beach.
“Aww, now I have to help fix it.” Casper made his way back over to her and started kicking some sand in as well.
“I uh, I suppose I should help too.” The three of us kicked sand in the holes throughout the beach for a while before giving up and moving on to Ellin’s town tree.
The three of us sat on the ledge of the town tree and closed our eyes. We each smiled and soaked in Ellin’s warm breeze as it blew through our hair. We were a goofy bunch, but I think that’s what made it so fun to be together. Casper took a picture of the three of us sitting together and we all leaned in to take a look at it.
“Chillin’ together like a boss,” Jeri said with a smile on her face.
“Haha, we look good,” Casper added in.
“We should take more picures throughout the day, what do you guys say?” I asked as I stood up.
“That’s a great idea!” Jeri said, holding her balloon tightly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Wait Max, what are you doing?” Casper asked me confused.
“There was no treasure on the beach, and we need to pay off your lighthouse so that your town can get a little bit of swag, okay!”
Jeri dug up several marked spots on the ground, each of which revealed a hundred bells.
As I dug up holes and buried money, Jeri followed closely behind me and dug it all up, neatly filling her holes back up when she finished. Casper took a picture of us as we went. “So I’ll ask again, what are you doing?”
“Diggin’ for treasure with the lass,” I responded as I posed with my shovel.
“It looks more like you’re burying it…” Casper responded. Jeri gave out a slight giggle and my cheeks turned red.
“Listen! Someone has to bury the buried treasure, and it would be boring if I just went and put money towards the lighthouse straightforward. A treasure hunt is more fun, now dig!” I pointed behind Casper, and he turned to see hundreds of freshly filled holes just waiting to be dug up.
“Oh Max, why… I’ll never find my fossils if I don’t dig these up now…” Casper got out a shovel and started digging. “Max, you cheap bastard, you only buried 100 bells in each hole,” he turned to face me to find me reburying money throughout the ground behind him. “Max, stop!”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After we had finally found all of the pirate’s buried treasure, we paid off Casper’s lighthouse and took a break in the museum.
“Hey, Jeri?” I asked as we looked at all of the fishies.
“Yes, Max?”
“How do you think Animal Crossing will end?”
“Wh-what? Um… What do you mean?” I could hear the shyness in her voice as she didn’t know how to respond. Casper started chuckling from the couches as he listened in.
“Come on Jeri, you know. The video game, Animal Crossing, how do you think it will end?”
“Um… Well….”
“Do you think there will be an epic plot twist? Will a beloved character die?! Oh man, I can’t wait to see how the story finally comes to a close!”
“I, uh, I don’t know,” the three of us began to laugh with each other about the whole conversation, and Casper made his way over to us by the fish fountain.
“Alright guys, picture time. 1… 2…” On 3, Casper did his little spin and struck a pose just as he took the picture.
“Seriously?” I asked him as we looked at the picture.
“We’re the best of friends! But I’m the bestest!” Casper declared, still standing in his pose.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was getting dark out, and the three of us headed back to Ellin’s train station. It seemed like the day was over way too soon, but it definitely wasn’t going to be the last time we hung out like this.
“We should do this again sometime soon!” Jeri said with a smile.
“Definitely!” Casper replied with a little twirl. He looked at me and smirked just before sneezing on my face.
I wiped it off and glared at him. “Don’t even get me started…”
We all started to laugh again and from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of all of the cherries I dropped on the ground. “Oh yeah, those are for you guys.”
“Really? Wow, thank you!” Jeri said as she smiled and picked up the cherries. "I actually brought some peaches for both of you!”
“Well… I kind of have everything else,” a grin spread across Casper’s face as he pointed to all of the apples and oranges, and all the other fruit hanging from the trees of his town.
As we stepped through the doors of the train station, I felt a sadness come over me as I had to say goodbye to my friends.
Jeri looked between the both of us and her eyes lit up. “We should make it official. Let’s make a club! We’ll have name and everything, and then we can hang out regularly!”
“Okay, let’s do it!” Casper said.
“I agree, that’ll be great!”
“Hmm, what should our name be?...” Jeri asked as she scratched her head and looked up to her balloon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sat on the train and waved to Casper as it slowly departed Ellin. Jeri left shortly before I did on a different train, and now I sat here wondering when we could all hang out again. Rover approached and sat across from me again.
“I told you you’d be here,” I said to him as I laughed and stared out the window at the night sky.
“Wow, you left with cherries and came back with peaches and apples! Can I, uh…”
I handed Rover an apple and leaned back in my seat. When I closed my eyes, it was almost as if I could feel the warm Ellin wind blowing through my hair again. Casper, Jeri, and I. We were the best of friends, and we were the Balloon Squad Protectors.
Bonus Story - Shipper Contest: What is and What Should Never Be
This story was originally written for a romance contest that took place on KHI earlier this summer.
Submitted on: May 26, 2014
Spoiler ShowShe was so beautiful. As I sat there on the edge of the bed looking down at her beautiful face, I pictured ‘forever’ with her. I felt like I could see each day that would pass us by and beyond. It was the kind of love that some would say transcends space and time.
It was our 15 year anniversary. 15 years is a very long time to be together. It’s not the anniversary of our marriage or anything like that, I haven’t quite found the right time to pop the question yet. But I would soon, hopefully, because I want to make that kind of official commitment. She deserves it… She deserves everything.
As I leaned over her sleeping body and looked down at her beautiful face, I smiled and began to run my fingers through her silky, golden-brown hair. It was long and wavy and perfect, perfect like her. I know they say that nobody is perfect, and that’s probably true. My biggest flaw must have been overlooking hers, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find anything wrong with her.
Not wanting to wake her, I slowly moved away and got off of the bed. Still smiling, I looked around the room to try and figure out what to do while I waited. After a moment, I decided to take a look at my old VHS tapes. I had an old bulky camera, and many kids these days have probably never seen anything like it. I used to record things all the time, things I never wanted to forget.
I moved my finger along the tapes slowly until I landed on one. This one was about four years old; I actually didn’t film it myself. It was the tape from her first day at her dream job, being a news reporter. I simply recorded it on the VCR, but all the same it belonged in the memory pile with everything that I had filmed.
I turned on the television and turned it down to about 2; glancing back at her to make sure the brief noise didn’t wake her. Confirming that I was safe, I pushed the tape into the VCR and watched. It was obvious she was nervous, but also obvious that she was happy. Her smile was genuine, and her eyes appeared to be staring right into your soul. It was actually a little odd watching this without really being able to make out what she was saying, but it still stirred up my nostalgia. I was so happy for her when she got that job; she still works there today and has the same genuine smile whenever she’s on the TV.
I stopped the tape and hit the rewind button. Looking back at my tapes, I found another one that I hadn’t watched in a while. It was of her college graduation eight years ago. She got her bachelor’s degree in journalism, but it still took her four more years before she landed her job. She never gave up though, and she was willing to move anywhere if it meant following her dream. I wasn’t going to stop her from getting what she wanted. All I could ever ask for is that she is happy. If that called for a move, then so be it, I would drop whatever I might be doing and pack up. It’s not like I have the same kind of dream she does, my dream is to simply live out my life with her, and I think 15 years of being together is a step in the right direction.
I switched out the tapes and began watching her college graduation. I had my camera heaved up and recorded her in her blue cap and gown. The video cut in and out sometimes, but that was just me turning off the camera to preserve power every once in a while when she wasn’t really doing anything. As she was handed her degree people cheered and yelled her name, she was very popular indeed. You could even see her parents in the very bottom left corner of the screen. Her dad was cheering and pumping his fist in the air, and I’m pretty sure her mother was crying. Although the crying was debatable, it wasn’t actually shown on camera, but was simply a memory of my own.
Once I was finished, I rewound the tape and shut off the TV. I stood up and looked back over at the bed where she was still sleeping. It was a very small apartment in a building in the middle of town, but it was home. The bedroom was the living room, and there was a bathroom and kitchen attached. I didn’t really suspect that she would be okay with staying here very much longer, so I had already started looking for a bigger place. We’d discuss it eventually I suppose.
My gaze drifted from the bed to a picture sitting on the nightstand. What a blast from the past. Even though the picture was right next to where I slept every night, I hadn’t really just sat down and took a look at it for a long time. I picked up the picture and found myself sitting down on the edge of the bed again. It was the picture from our senior prom 12 year ago. We were so young back then; it was crazy to think about. She wore a long red dress that was just a little poofy on the bottom half. The dress really accentuated her figure. She was a pretty average height, only a little bit shorter than me. I looked on at the picture, dazzled by her youth. Her hair that night was very curly. I made my way down the picture from her hair to her beautiful blue eyes. I could just swim in those eyes, they’re like two little oceans in everything I would call my world. I continued down to her smile. She had cute little teeth splitting her pink lips. Those lips would lift up her cheeks to form the only smile I had ever loved. She was a bit self-conscious about her smile, but everyone is self-conscious about something. If only she could see herself the way I see her. I continued down further to her flawless neck. Around it was a silver necklace with a little blue pendant that only further brought out her eyes. Further down past her shoulders you could see the dress covering her breasts, revealing the last bit of her tender peachy skin until you came all the way down to her ankles, where she wore some silver shoes that revealed her toes.
She is such a beautiful, amazing person, and I have so many fond memories of her. At our prom, we were both over at the table where food was laid out for all of the students. There was cheese, there were pretzels, and there were all kinds of fruit. But most impressive of all was the miniature chocolate fountain. After eating some cheese squares, I decided to grab a strawberry with a toothpick and take a little dip in the fountain with it. This ended being a tad more literal than I expected. As I took a bite out of the delicious chocolate covered strawberry, a gob of chocolate rolled off of the strawberry, down my chin, and dripped straight down onto my rental jacket. I quickly turned to get a napkin and try to wipe it off when I bumped into her and got chocolate on her dress.
“Oh no…” She said as she looked at her dress. She started wiping it off with a napkin as best as she could.
“I am so sorry!” I stammered, “I just… It was-“
“Don’t worry about it,” she said as she smiled. She took the napkin and started wiping off my jacket. “It looks like we’re just going to have to keep you away from the chocolate fountain is all.”
I smiled back at her, and we shared a good laugh. I will never forget how easily she just brushed it all off. I figure any other girl would have freaked out about their dress, but she was very understanding of my clumsiness.
I finally sat the picture back down and opened up the drawer under the nightstand where I kept my photo album and my journal. I lifted the journal out and closed the drawer. I have had this journal since even before her. I was very selective about when I wrote in it, because while it was fairly large, I didn’t like the idea of having to get a new journal when the pages in this one were filled up. I began flipping through the pages, and found my entry from 15 years ago.
April 8, 1999
Dear Journal,
I noticed this girl today, a girl I had never seen before. I guess she was new, she had started going to our school not too long ago, but she was in different classes than me. I looked at her from across the lunchroom and she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen! I wish I had at least one class with her so that maybe we could get sat next to each other, or assigned to be partners on a project, anything. Anything to help me break the ice… I don’t have the courage to just walk up to her and say something. For now I guess we’ll just have to go to the same school and eat in the same lunchroom, but live in different worlds. But we’ve been brought this close together, and I’m sure that someday we’ll be in the right circumstances to live in the same world together.
Wow, I was such a sap. But I couldn’t help it; I always just wrote exactly what I was feeling at the time. Why not, these journal entries were for me and me alone, and I liked being able to read them again and go back to exactly where I was at that point in time. I decided that today was another good day for an entry. Exactly 15 years after I laid eyes on her and wrote that entry, the timing seemed perfect.
I spent some time trying to think of exactly what to write, because I had so much going through my head. I wanted to write down everything I had just thought about, everything she made me feel… Eventually, I came up with something I was satisfied with, and I slipped my journal back into the drawer.
I turned once more to look at her and got that warm sensation in my body. I lay down on the bed this time and moved in close to her. Oh how I wished she would just wake up so I could start spending this day with her. I wanted to tell her about everything I had thought about this morning. I wanted to share it all with her. I could hear some kind of fuss in the hallway, but I ignored it. I wrapped my arm around her and moved in closer. She was all curled up in the blanket. I could hear her little breaths pushing out of her nose since her mouth was covered by that white fabric. I slowly began to close my eyes…
“This is the police! Open up now!” I rolled over and looked at the door. This was not about to happen.
“I won’t ask again, open the door!” I opened my drawer and reached over my journal and my photo album. My finger hit the wood at the back of the drawer, and I moved my hand left- there was the magazine. I pulled it out and stuck my hand back in. I sent it directly to the right this time and there was my gun. I pulled out my pistol and inserted the magazine. I turned to look at her again, and she was waking up.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let them take you away from me,” I said to her as I ran my fingers through her hair again. Her eyes got wide and filled with tears. She started making mumbling noises, but I couldn’t really understand her due to the white cloth I had tied around her mouth.
I stood up just as the police kicked down the door, and without another word I opened fire. I managed to hit one of them in the shoulder, but my accuracy really wasn’t the best. I didn’t practice shooting much ahead of time; I guess I wasn’t really planning on them finding me. As I continued to fire, I felt a couple sharp pains in my body. The first was in my left arm, so it was a good thing that I was right handed. The second was in my leg, and I fell back onto the bed, landing on her. She must have been so scared. The police hesitated while I was on her, probably because they didn’t want to hurt her. Anyone else would have used this to their advantage, but I didn’t want them to hurt her either, so I rolled off of the bed to find myself lying on the floor and I proceeded to fire at the doorway. I heard a click from my now empty gun just as I experienced the final shock of pain. My chest started to feel very warm, and I let my head slowly fall to the ground. I dropped my gun and reached up to my chest with my hand, my God it hurt.
Everything started to look funny. I watched as two blurry figures ran in to try and take her away from me. I felt so helpless; there was nothing I could do. Another figure started to come towards me. Who was it? I didn’t want to see anybody but her. Things started getting so dark, and I couldn’t find her anywhere. Wait, maybe this blur coming towards me was her? Maybe she was coming over to tell them to leave me be, she could have been coming to help me. Just maybe… she... might…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Good morning detective,” the receptionist said as I walked in.
“Morning to you too. I’m heading straight down to evidence, so if anybody needs me that’s where I’ll be.” I continued to walk on by and made my way to the evidence room check-in. Once admitted, I headed in to find my partner hard at work.
“You find anything yet?” I asked him as I headed over to see what he was into.
“You want to know what I found? I found out that this guy was a complete nut. Good thing he’s terrible with a gun, only managed to hit an officer in the shoulder. Anyways, come here, just look at some of this stuff,” I moved in closer as he pulled over a photo album and began flipping through it, “Every single one of these picture is of the victim, but get this: most of them were either downloaded online, or he took them himself.”
I was a little puzzled by his last statement. “What’s so weird about him taking the pics himself?”
“Because look at them,” my partner continued to point out individual pictures, “If he took the pic himself, then it is from a strange angle. He was taking pictures of her when she was either posing for a picture for somebody else, or if she was off in the distance completely unaware of the fact that she was being photographed. He even had a picture of her and her prom date on his night stand, and I’ll tell you what, either he looked very different back then, or that ain’t him she’s on the date with. Probably just downloaded the picture off of the photographer’s website, they upload all of that stuff so people can buy it later.”
“Damn, that is weird…” I began looking through the pictures again to see them in this new light.
“We also found tons of video tapes of her. He had filmed her all throughout her life ever since she was 15. When I spoke to her, she was devastated. She didn’t even know who this nutbag was.”
I stroked my chin and set down the photo album. “But they went to the same high school, right?”
“Yes, they did, but when shown a picture of him she didn’t have the slightest clue who he was. And looking at the records, every time this girl moved for school or work, he moved to the same city in a building close by. It’s astounding that she never noticed him.” It was obvious from my partner’s voice that he was just as surprised as I was.
“I see…” I replied as I took it all in. “So he’s been stalking her for 15 years and nobody had ever picked up on it? That’s just nuts man.”
“You wanna hear nuts?” He reached over and picked up an old looking brown book, “Just take a look through this.”
He handed the book to me and I began flipping through it. It was this guy’s journal. He had tons of entries dating as far back as ’95. It started out as normal stuff, but eventually he wrote about nothing but her. I flipped toward the back to find his most recent entry.
April 8, 2014
Dear Journal,
I was kind of having a hard time writing my words down today, mainly because I have so much to say. To put it simply, I love her. I have always loved her. Some may say I’m crazy, that I couldn’t possibly know her, but who are they to tell me? People say that love is when you would do anything for a person, or to be willing to throw it all away for them in a heartbeat if it would make them happy. Some even say that love is when you would die for a person if you had to. Well I would do anything for her, I have given it all up on several occasions to follow her to any point of the world that she needed to be at. I would die for her in an instant. I don’t know if she could ever love me back, but I know that I have to find out. My love is different. If someone loves another person but can no longer have them, then they typically just try to forget, move on, and go on with their lives. But if I can’t have her, then I will never forget. There will never be anybody else in my life like her, and I will live out my life alone. I just want her to know that we have been together for 15 years through all of the joy and the tears, and that I would do anything just to see her smile. I just want to be able to sleep on the same bed as her, in the same home as her, and in the same world as her forever.