QK Round 3: MY MONSTER TWIN IS ROTTING versus THE QUEEN OF DRONES
Entry Nickname: My Monster Twin is Rotting
Title: A Savage Miscreation
Word count: 86,000
Genre: YA Gothic Horror
Query:
When Talmage True was born, people said it was a mercy that his mother died, for the child’s razor-sharp teeth would have torn her apart. He was born with a full set.
Now fifteen, Talmage hides his misshapen face from those who condemn him for being unnatural. But a chance meeting with his estranged uncle, a curiosity peddler hawking the medically grotesque, brings Talmage a spark of hope. For the first time, Talmage feels a kinship with the bizarre creatures on display--the eight-legged taxidermied kitten and the dog whose body ends in a shell. After all, Talmage, too, is an aberration.
Talmage is drawn into his uncle’s dark world and together they create a clockwork boy, covered in the flesh of stolen corpses. Late one night, the figure comes to life and Talmage--who has never had a friend before--welcomes it as a brother. But the world is no place for a clockwork boy, especially when its body starts to rust and rot. Desperate to stay alive, it turns to murder to harvest fresh body parts. When it sets its sights on Alice, a girl scarred by fire who sees beyond Talmage’s monstrous appearance, Talmage must decide: dismantle his clockwork brother or watch it kill the only person who has ever shown him kindness.
First 250 words:
I always supposed it would be difficult to kill someone you love. More than difficult. It would be impossible, a gut-wrenching, mind-numbing horror that, if achieved, would haunt your soul forever.
It has haunted me every single waking moment of my wretched life.
You see, I did.
But if I had the opportunity, I would do it again. I would tear his body limb from limb, extracting bone from delicate socket and shattering them into a thousand pieces. From those shards, I would grind what was left of him into powder and then bury it miles apart so that there would be no chance his body could ever come together again.
If only I had.
That night within a ruined clock tower, his chest weighed against the curve of my back, his breath rasping into my ear. I dragged him down the rickety stairs, his bare feet knocking against the planks. Outside, amorphous shadows clawed at the edges of the cobblestone street--only the moon would be witness to my heinous act tonight--and so, without looking back, we slipped into the trees.
He was not awake and yet his lips began to murmur. I must move quickly but how to do it? A swift stone to the temple? His skull was too thick. Saw his head off his shoulders? The spinal column too wiry. A blade, then, through the center of his heart?
“But he has no heart,” I whispered into the night.
A fire then, the thought dawned. Yes, a fire would do.
VERSUS
Entry Nickname: Queen of Drones Title: The Chimera’s SnareWord count: 85KGenre: YA Sci-fi Postapocalyptic
Query:
June was only a child when a failed scientific experiment spawned an incurable chimaera-virus, dissipating humanity. Now, at sixteen, she lives confined to a bunker at Alpha, one of the twenty-four armored settlements scattered in the ruins of North America. Unlike the other settlers, June is never allowed above ground. Her only link to the outside world is the streaming feed on her holographic monitor; her only companion is her stoic, infuriatingly secretive guard Kyle.
When ravenous, flesh-eating chimaeras destroy Alpha, June’s isolation is shattered. Together with Kyle, she treks across a mutant-infested bayou to the neighboring Omega, where they encounter three other Alpha survivors. But, each person remembers the attack differently and June must race to piece together the truth behind their conflicting memories before the survivors turn on each other and before the monsters strike again. Alpha’s subterranean database could hold the key to reconciling their stories and finding a way to defeat the chimaeras, but with four other settlements already fallen, time is quickly running out.
June and Kyle return to Alpha to search for clues, instead they unravel a past that ties them directly to the horror of chimaeras. June discovers she is a clone, engineered to turn the world into a beehive of zombie-like drones, and Kyle is an assassin sent to stop her. An assassin, whose wiped memories are beginning to resurface. If June isn’t strong enough to override the monstrous program in her DNA, she must persuade Kyle to follow his orders and kill her.
First 250 words:
June felt the vibration in her bones seconds before the emergency siren shrilled to life. The wave of sound passed through the thick layer of earth, slamming against the bunker’s titanium bearings. The walls and ceiling shuddered and the silver chess figurines on the table knocked against each other, June’s careful strategy scrambled into chaos.
In the space of a heartbeat she was up, her ear pressed to the concrete, straining to catch familiar sounds beyond the blaring wail.
The main generator was silent.
We can’t stop the apocalypse, but we can survive it. June scowled at the enclave’s oh-so-optimistic motto flickering on the holographic monitor above her bed. Clinging to a false hope wasn't surviving.
She climbed on the mattress, licked her fingers and reached towards the air-conditioning ducts. Nothing, other than a faint scent of mildew. And apples. In the settlement, apples were a luxury. Wondering which chemical compound could've produced the odor, she didn’t notice when the siren cut out.
For several long moments the walls trapped its echo, fainter with each iteration. But the air conditioner, the generator, and the intercom system didn’t come back online.
“Kyle?” June’s voice pitched high, amplified by her room’s armored carapace. In response, something groaned and from above issued a long, plaintive screeching.
“Kyle, where are you?”
Not in the bunker. Otherwise, he would’ve already responded. Her stomach went weightless; in the last two years, Kyle rarely left her side.
She jumped off the bed and rubbed her bare foot against her calf. The floor was rapidly cooling and this too was wrong.
“Kyle!”
Title: A Savage Miscreation
Word count: 86,000
Genre: YA Gothic Horror
Query:
When Talmage True was born, people said it was a mercy that his mother died, for the child’s razor-sharp teeth would have torn her apart. He was born with a full set.
Now fifteen, Talmage hides his misshapen face from those who condemn him for being unnatural. But a chance meeting with his estranged uncle, a curiosity peddler hawking the medically grotesque, brings Talmage a spark of hope. For the first time, Talmage feels a kinship with the bizarre creatures on display--the eight-legged taxidermied kitten and the dog whose body ends in a shell. After all, Talmage, too, is an aberration.
Talmage is drawn into his uncle’s dark world and together they create a clockwork boy, covered in the flesh of stolen corpses. Late one night, the figure comes to life and Talmage--who has never had a friend before--welcomes it as a brother. But the world is no place for a clockwork boy, especially when its body starts to rust and rot. Desperate to stay alive, it turns to murder to harvest fresh body parts. When it sets its sights on Alice, a girl scarred by fire who sees beyond Talmage’s monstrous appearance, Talmage must decide: dismantle his clockwork brother or watch it kill the only person who has ever shown him kindness.
First 250 words:
I always supposed it would be difficult to kill someone you love. More than difficult. It would be impossible, a gut-wrenching, mind-numbing horror that, if achieved, would haunt your soul forever.
It has haunted me every single waking moment of my wretched life.
You see, I did.
But if I had the opportunity, I would do it again. I would tear his body limb from limb, extracting bone from delicate socket and shattering them into a thousand pieces. From those shards, I would grind what was left of him into powder and then bury it miles apart so that there would be no chance his body could ever come together again.
If only I had.
That night within a ruined clock tower, his chest weighed against the curve of my back, his breath rasping into my ear. I dragged him down the rickety stairs, his bare feet knocking against the planks. Outside, amorphous shadows clawed at the edges of the cobblestone street--only the moon would be witness to my heinous act tonight--and so, without looking back, we slipped into the trees.
He was not awake and yet his lips began to murmur. I must move quickly but how to do it? A swift stone to the temple? His skull was too thick. Saw his head off his shoulders? The spinal column too wiry. A blade, then, through the center of his heart?
“But he has no heart,” I whispered into the night.
A fire then, the thought dawned. Yes, a fire would do.
VERSUS
Entry Nickname: Queen of Drones Title: The Chimera’s SnareWord count: 85KGenre: YA Sci-fi Postapocalyptic
Query:
June was only a child when a failed scientific experiment spawned an incurable chimaera-virus, dissipating humanity. Now, at sixteen, she lives confined to a bunker at Alpha, one of the twenty-four armored settlements scattered in the ruins of North America. Unlike the other settlers, June is never allowed above ground. Her only link to the outside world is the streaming feed on her holographic monitor; her only companion is her stoic, infuriatingly secretive guard Kyle.
When ravenous, flesh-eating chimaeras destroy Alpha, June’s isolation is shattered. Together with Kyle, she treks across a mutant-infested bayou to the neighboring Omega, where they encounter three other Alpha survivors. But, each person remembers the attack differently and June must race to piece together the truth behind their conflicting memories before the survivors turn on each other and before the monsters strike again. Alpha’s subterranean database could hold the key to reconciling their stories and finding a way to defeat the chimaeras, but with four other settlements already fallen, time is quickly running out.
June and Kyle return to Alpha to search for clues, instead they unravel a past that ties them directly to the horror of chimaeras. June discovers she is a clone, engineered to turn the world into a beehive of zombie-like drones, and Kyle is an assassin sent to stop her. An assassin, whose wiped memories are beginning to resurface. If June isn’t strong enough to override the monstrous program in her DNA, she must persuade Kyle to follow his orders and kill her.
First 250 words:
June felt the vibration in her bones seconds before the emergency siren shrilled to life. The wave of sound passed through the thick layer of earth, slamming against the bunker’s titanium bearings. The walls and ceiling shuddered and the silver chess figurines on the table knocked against each other, June’s careful strategy scrambled into chaos.
In the space of a heartbeat she was up, her ear pressed to the concrete, straining to catch familiar sounds beyond the blaring wail.
The main generator was silent.
We can’t stop the apocalypse, but we can survive it. June scowled at the enclave’s oh-so-optimistic motto flickering on the holographic monitor above her bed. Clinging to a false hope wasn't surviving.
She climbed on the mattress, licked her fingers and reached towards the air-conditioning ducts. Nothing, other than a faint scent of mildew. And apples. In the settlement, apples were a luxury. Wondering which chemical compound could've produced the odor, she didn’t notice when the siren cut out.
For several long moments the walls trapped its echo, fainter with each iteration. But the air conditioner, the generator, and the intercom system didn’t come back online.
“Kyle?” June’s voice pitched high, amplified by her room’s armored carapace. In response, something groaned and from above issued a long, plaintive screeching.
“Kyle, where are you?”
Not in the bunker. Otherwise, he would’ve already responded. Her stomach went weightless; in the last two years, Kyle rarely left her side.
She jumped off the bed and rubbed her bare foot against her calf. The floor was rapidly cooling and this too was wrong.
“Kyle!”
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