Like many others, I'm going to keep all of my entries into this one thread. I'm considering attempting to make every entry in the challenge part of one small coherent story. It seems it'll add to the challenge, but I think I should be able to do it.
Prompt 1: 20 Minutes or Less
I decided to go ahead and do this one first in order to shake some of the rust off, as it has been a little while since I've sat down to write anything. This one is actually somewhat challenging for someone like me, as I spend a very long and detailed amount of time on everything I write, and I typically have an idea on what I plan on writing before I actually do it. This one was certainly shorter than I'm used to and certainly more spontaneous. I've never shown anyone a piece that I haven't really edited myself first, so this is a new one for me. I hope you enjoy!
Prompt 2: Three Days Challenge
I decided to continue with the story of the previous challenge. I'm unsure how much I'll continue it in future challenges yet, but I'll see what comes to mind. This one is extremely long compared to my other piece, so feel free to break it up and comment on a little at a time as you get through it. I've pasted it from Word into a google doc due to the length.
Prompts 3 and 4: Dearly Beloved and Hospital
I went ahead and changed things up for this one. I decided to deviate from the story in the first two prompts in order to deliver a more emotional, thought-provoking piece. This is in part the direction where I wish to direct some of my potential future novels, and therefore is a mood and atmosphere I'll be working with a little more often. The covering of the Dearly Beloved prompt should be fairly obvious in this one, and I've received permission to label it with the Hospital prompt as well. Even though it doesn't feature an actual hospital, it shows the caretaking of a sickly individual. Without more blabbering, here's "A Sliver of Hope".
Prompt 1: 20 Minutes or Less
I decided to go ahead and do this one first in order to shake some of the rust off, as it has been a little while since I've sat down to write anything. This one is actually somewhat challenging for someone like me, as I spend a very long and detailed amount of time on everything I write, and I typically have an idea on what I plan on writing before I actually do it. This one was certainly shorter than I'm used to and certainly more spontaneous. I've never shown anyone a piece that I haven't really edited myself first, so this is a new one for me. I hope you enjoy!
Spoiler ShowKaidan squinted as the sun beat down on him furiously. The wet, warm air hung around stagnantly and provided no sense of relief as sweat poured from his head, soaking his short, military-cut black hair. He dug his toes firmly into the wet sand and let the cold, refreshing ocean water slide over his feet. He hoped it would wash away his despair along with the sand, but it was to no avail. How foolish could his simple mind be, that it thought coming here would actually relax him? He bent down and slammed his fist into the wet sand, digging deep down into the mud-like ground below.
“Damn it!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He grabbed a handful of the sand before coming up, and then threw the clump of it as far out into the ocean as he could. No matter how hard he tried, he knew that he could never truly atone for his mistakes. He longed for his pain to end, but justice would not be served by him simply running into the sea and drowning himself.
“No…no, this won’t do. Snap out of it! Answer me!” Kaidan's head was knocked backward as a hand connected with his cheek. The pain of the slap and the harsh words of the man in front of him pulled him out of his daze. “You’re gonna tell me what ‘appened, you understand? No more playin’ around here,” the deep, gruff voice came in again. A single, stone cold, gray eye stared into both of Kaidan's. He stared back at the ugly, bald head in front of him, his attention drawn to the black eyepatch that was strapped around the man’s other eye.
“Nice eyepatch,” Kaidan chuckled slowly, his voice smooth and cunning. Something was strange about the room around him, as it felt like it was sapping away at his strength, just as a leech would draw at the blood of its victim. “Tell me, what are you hiding? A missing eye? Or is it something else? Perhaps you’re just hiding the fact tha-” he stopped short as a full punch connected with his jaw and a crack echoed around the cold, dark room around him. To Kaidan's horror, the metallic taste of blood immediately flooded his mouth, a taste that had not so much as approached him in quite some time. An intense, sharp pain erupted within his jaw seconds later, and Kaidan knew then that the empty room he was being held in was anything but an ordinary prison cell.
“I said no more playin’ and what do you do? You must be hard of hearin’, eh?” the man said as he slid to the edge of his chair. The man’s face was nearly touching Kaidan's now, the smell of rotten fish and garlic pouring out of his mouth as he spoke.
Kaidan reeled his head back in disgust. He spit blood and a couple of teeth into the man’s face, delighted as his captor yanked his ugly head backward. “Want me to start from the beginning?” Kaidan smirked, fighting through the pain in his jaw as he attempted to wrestle free of the tight, rough ropes that held him to his own wooden chair. It was unusual that a material as weak as the rope would be capable of keeping him restrained at all.
He watched, almost victoriously, as the man wiped the blood from his face. He then quickly pulled a knife out of his pocket and pressed the cold, uninviting steel against Kaidan's throat. “Yeah, from the beginning,” he said.
Prompt 2: Three Days Challenge
I decided to continue with the story of the previous challenge. I'm unsure how much I'll continue it in future challenges yet, but I'll see what comes to mind. This one is extremely long compared to my other piece, so feel free to break it up and comment on a little at a time as you get through it. I've pasted it from Word into a google doc due to the length.
Prompts 3 and 4: Dearly Beloved and Hospital
I went ahead and changed things up for this one. I decided to deviate from the story in the first two prompts in order to deliver a more emotional, thought-provoking piece. This is in part the direction where I wish to direct some of my potential future novels, and therefore is a mood and atmosphere I'll be working with a little more often. The covering of the Dearly Beloved prompt should be fairly obvious in this one, and I've received permission to label it with the Hospital prompt as well. Even though it doesn't feature an actual hospital, it shows the caretaking of a sickly individual. Without more blabbering, here's "A Sliver of Hope".
Spoiler ShowThe carpeted stairs that she had climbed several times a day now seemed to Celine as if they would never end. She had never been so eager to get to her mother, because for the first time since she had fallen ill, Celine held deep within herself a sliver of hope. Maybe–just maybe–the vial of purple medicine she held in her hand could save her mom's life. Celine dried the tears from her eyes as she reached the top of the stairway.
The smooth, wooden floor was cold against Celine's bare feet as she walked down the hallway, which was eerily dark without any lights on. She had lived in that house for the majority of her life, though, and so was able to easily navigate the simple hall, even in the darkness. She stopped once she had reached the end, and with hands that were shaking due to nervousness and excitement, gently pushed open the lone door to her right.
A stale, heavy odor wafted around Celine as she stepped into the dark room. She instinctively went to cover her nose, but stopped herself, for even though her mom was asleep and could not see her, Celine still did not want to be rude. Barely able to see, she fumbled around on the wall until her hand hit a round dial. She turned the dial slightly, and a faint light illuminated the room from all directions, emanating from an unseen source.
Celine's eyes adjusted rather quickly to the dim lighting. A lump instantly formed in her throat as her sight fell upon her mother, who stirred a bit uneasily in her bed as the room lit up. Celine had checked on her mom multiple times a day, and while often times she did not bother to even turn on the lights or wake her, the sight of her lone, sickly parent always filled Celine with the same feelings of fear and helplessness. Her heart hammered against her chest relentlessly, and tears began to stream down her face as she watched her mother wake from her slumber and enter a world that was all too cruel and painful for her to live in. Merely a husk of her former self, Jane Looker was only thirty-nine years old, yet appeared to have lived twice as long as any other human being. Her once fair, tanned skin was stretched tightly across her body, causing nearly all of her bones to be visible through what was now a thin, ghostly white membrane. Her hair, which had been cut short and was a soft, light blond color had become matted and gray. Her eyes, at one time the same spirited and delicate blue as her daughter's, were now squinting and vacant, staring off listlessly into the distance in a dull, lifeless manner.
"Bright... turn them off," Celine's mom croaked, her voice sounding gravelly and strangled.
"But, Mom," Celine forced out, trembling slightly, "if I turn down the lights any, I won't be able to see." Celine hugged herself with her shaking arms, feeling as if she might freeze in the startlingly cold room.
"It hurts my eyes," her mom whined back briefly.
"I think they just need to adjust, give it a minute, you're used to being in the dark all the time." She struggled to stay strong, almost unable to bear to see her mother like this. For as much as she complained, Celine knew that her mom was suffering far more than she could let on.
Celine could see her mother let out a ragged breath, her shriveled lungs straining under the rattling bones that caged them. "But..." she eventually said before she trailed off, a long pause following before she spoke again. "The... the A..." she stopped once more, pausing for another moment. It was obvious to Celine that her mom was having an immense amount of trouble, and she wanted so badly to interject, to tell her not to worry about whatever it was that she was complaining about, but it wasn't even worth her trying. Her mother was exactly like she had always been in the sense of her extreme stubbornness. While not as intense as she once was, Celine knew that no matter what she might say, her mom would not concede until she got her point across. It was now often difficult for Celine to keep up with her mother's discussions anyway, for her deteriorated mind caused her to constantly jump around and change the subject, her thoughts frequently coming out as a jumbled mess.
"What is it?" Celine said finally, attempting to break the silence and move the dragging conversation along however much she could.
"The... air," her mom spoke slowly, "drop down... hot, sweating."
Celine sighed and turned her head to the holographic thermostat that was projected onto the wall. After seeing the absurdly low temperature of the room, she turned back to her mother and said, "I can't, it won't go any lower. This is as cold as it'll get. Why don't you just lie on top of your bed covers? It should be cooler, maybe that's what is making you so warm." Indeed, the covers and sheets on her mother's bed were quite thick and heavy, but Celine knew that it didn't truly have anything to do with her hot flashes.
"No." Celine's mom shook her head weakly, the debilitated muscles in her neck causing the movement to be hardly noticeable. "No," she tried to continue. "No... no. Then... no, I'd be– no... cold."
"Al-alright Mom," Celine said, choking up, "I'll work on it." Her mother then gave the slightest of nods in acknowledgement, her eyelids having already drifted shut. Seeing how her mom had grown so enervate since she had become sick tore Celine apart inside; she only wished for their lives to go back to the way they once were.
The lonely, surrounding silence that had accompanied her so often before made its way back to Celine. She turned her hand over and uncurled her fingers, staring down at the vial of medicine that rested there. She couldn't even begin to imagine life without her mom, the woman to whom she owed everything. For this reason, the small cylinder of purple liquid in her hand could not only save Celine's mother, but herself as well. She didn't just want the mythological medicine to work, but she needed it to work.
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