April 9, 2013 - 9th Contest!

[Grace, Head Moderator]

Okay, so we're going to try for another writing contest. If this doesn't work out, we'll wait for summer.

For our ninth contest, I want you to write a fictional story based on the picture below. Don't think of the picture as a rubric though... let it inspire you. And think out of the box.



Rules:

1. It must be at least 300 words (anything less will be deleted and disqualified from the contest) but no more than 1,300 (anything more will be deleted and disqualified from the contest). NO EXCEPTIONS.

2. No commenting on others' stories. Only writing entries will be accepted in this thread. If you want comments on your stories, post them in the Critique folder. If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions, this is where to go: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...

3. No sex scenes.

4. Keep cussing to a minimum (it's ok if a word slips out here or there, but please keep it PG-13)

5. Have fun and DO YOUR BEST! And vote for the winner!

Entries are due by Wednesday the 24th. Voting will begin that day.

[Madi]

MISSION GONE WRONG
(390 words)

OK so it’s true. I’m a spy. And my name is Jewel. I’m new here but I finally got my first chance to do a real mission! Before I knew it the actual day was here! I was in the normal everyday clothing that spies wore. BLACK. But what nobody knew was that my outfit was different than theirs. I began the mission, but then something went terribly wrong…

Nobody knew what the object looked like but everyone knew it was a bomb. Each spy went their own way but obviously I had chosen the wrong way. I had chosen to investigate the palace. Like I said earlier my outfit was different and this is where it began to kick in.

I crept along the walls, like us spies were trained to do. My outfit started changing, so now I blended in with the wall. I looked like wallpaper. Told you it was different.

Something was wrong!! Whenever I practiced this had never happened. Ever. It was like the wall was alive. Like it was a giant mouth trying to drag me into the wall. Well it was working because I was getting sucked into the wall. Now I WAS the wall.

I tried to scream but nothing came out. I pushed against the wall and for a minute I had hope. But then I just fell deeper into the wall.

Thoughts started to overwhelm me. What if I’m stuck here forever? What if the bomb is inside the palace and I get blown up!? What if no realized I was gone or just didn’t care about me? What if, what if, what if…

Ok so here is another downer about this outfit. Whenever it changes high heels got placed on my feet. I had no idea why but my feet were killing me. Literally. Everyone second I kept thinking that was one less chance I would get out of this wall. Especially since it was hard to breath with my face smushed against the other side of the wall.

I wanted to scream to the world and tell them I was stuck here. I wanted to be saved.

But most of all I wanted to become a spy. Now it seemed like there was no chance at all. But really this had been my only chance…

[Charity]

Remember the Wallpaper?

Words: 805

Genna walked slowly through the grand old house. Her mind wandered across the memories the building held. She had grown up in this old mansion in the countryside, an only child, sheltered from the outside world. Her wealthy parents had been more absent than they were present, and she had spent many long hours alone with only her nurse maid.

She had been ten years old when the new game keeper for the estate arrived. He had been a tall, quiet man, with a stern face and a graying mustache. With the new game keeper, came his thirteen year old son—Peter, though everyone called him Pit.

With a quiet smile, Genna ascended the spiraling staircase, running her hand along the smooth, dust coated railing. Pit quickly became her best friend. As the only two children on the estate, they had run wild with little supervision. The two years they spent together at the estate had been wonderful, blissfully unaware of the world beyond their doorsteps. Pit had been her best friend. Her only friend.

And that was why she was here now, ten years later, walking the abandoned halls and remembering the beauty of the simple life they had once known.

Those days seemed like a distant dream, lost to the bustle of life. She was in law school, on the path to being a wealthy defense attorney, and hadn’t given her childhood a second thought. That is, until the letter turned up on her doorstep—penned in simple black ink and square handwriting.

Remember the wallpaper? It wasn’t a dream. I’m back. Find me. –P

Oh, she remembered . . . she remembered every horrifying detail. It had been a hot day in July when Pit had opened the door to the room her parents said was off limits. His blue eyes had been sparkling with mischievous glee. It was the ultimate game, disobeying her evasive parents, so she hadn’t objected to Pit’s plan. They were going to hide in the forbidden room and scare her parents, since no one would expect to find them in there.

Pit had led the way in, closing the door behind her. The room was dark and bare, lacking any windows or light fixtures. The floor was dark wood, dusty and untouched. The walls were closed in a beautiful pattern of dark, swirling wallpaper. They stood in the threshold for a moment, momentarily stilled by the roaring silence that dominated the room’s atmosphere.

Then Pit had walked forward, moving slowly and quietly as if any sudden movement would cause the entire room to collapse around them. He reached the far wall, and then looked back at her, his blue eyes wide.

“It’s just like my dream,” he whispered, terror evident in his voice. Then he reached out, and touched the wall. The wallpaper shifted, absorbing him. In an instant he was gone.

Genna ran to the door, screaming, and found it locked. She then fell to the floor, screeching and weeping until a house maid had found her several hours later. Her parents had immediately packed up and left after hearing Genna’s story. Everyone believed he had been kidnaped, and her childish mind had made up an explanation for his disappearance. Genna even started to believe it.

But now she knew better.

She was facing the doorway to that same room that had terrified her as a child and haunted her youth with nightmares. She drew in a deep breath, startled at how unnerved she was. With a trembling hand, she turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. It swung wide on rusty hinges, squeaking quietly.

She took a step into the cool room, finding it no different than her childhood memories. Her shoes clicked on the dusty wood floor as she took another cautious step into the room. Then she saw him, reclining against the wall directly ahead of her, obscured by the room’s shadows.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she peered toward the figure, her heart thudding in her chest. “Pit?”

The figure straightened and took a step forward, “you came.”

She stared at the man, noticing the resemblance he had to the boy she had once known, “is it really you?”

He nodded and held out a hand, “it’s been a long time, Genna.”

“Yeah,” she hesitated, but took his hand, not sure what he wanted.

His blue eyes flashed in the dark as his hand closed around hers. Moving backwards, he drew her forward. His back hit the wall, and sank into it, the wallpaper absorbing him just as she remembered.

“Pit!” she exclaimed, but the wallpaper was absorbing her as he drew her forward. Panic rose in her chest for a blind moment, but she squelched it. Holding her best friend’s hand, she walked resolutely forward and into the unknown.

[Audrey]

Stuck in Darkness
(1,146 word count.)
Dark. That’s the first thing that came to my mind when I arrived.
I looked around and saw that people were dressed like they were in a king’s ballroom. They were wearing dresses, high heels, big hats. Definitely fit for a king’s ballroom. I looked down at my own outfit, a simple dress and shoes. The guests at the party looked at me with confusion.
A woman wearing a white silk dress walked up to me and smiled, “Are you at the correct party this evening? I think you’re supposed to attend the party across the street.” She pointed out the door and to a small home holding a small birthday party.
The small house looked so cheerful; I actually would rather go to that small party than this large crazy one. I sighed, “No, I’m sure this is right one. I’m looking for a Mr. Blaze Preston. I’m his friend, Monica.”
She nodded, “Yes, of course, Monica. Right this way, please.” She led me down to a room labeled dress room. “Here you are!”
I looked up at the door then at her, “This is where someone gets changed for the dance. I need to see Mr. Pre—”
“Of course!” She laughed. “You can’t be looking like that in the presence of Mr. Preston. It would almost be like a disgrace.” She grabbed a dress and shoes out of a random closet. “Here, put these on,” I threw the clothes at me.
I caught them and nodded. My shoulders slumped as I walked into the dressing room. “I still don’t see a point in this.”
The new purple dress was very beautiful and matched well with the shoes I was also given. It had black patterns that were made of a soft material. The dress could’ve been made for someone like me because I love purple.
I walked out of the dress room, all decked out. “Do I look better? I need to be at a meeting any minute now.”
The woman’s face lit up, “You look gorgeous! Now let’s go see him.” She grabbed my arm and pulled my down the hall and turned into another hall, then a few more halls. The building seemed to go on forever until we came to a large door with a golden knob. “We’re here.”
I stared up at the big black door with big eyes. It was a bit spooky compared to the bright chandeliers and parties going on all around us. “So, is this his… uh.” What was behind this door, anyway? Blaze’s office? His bedroom? I had no clue.
The woman smiled, “This is a secret room we only let Blaze’s invited guests into.” She unlocked the giant door and motioned for me to go in. “Go on.”
I was uneasy stepping in. The floor creaked beneath my feet and I could not see anything. “You do know its dark in here.”
“In fact it is, little missy. Blaze has always liked dark places, didn’t you know?” The smile on her lips was curved and smug, all shiny with fresh lip gloss.
I shook my head with disagreement, “Blaze hates the darkness. As long as I’ve known him he’s always preferred someone should turn the light on. He’s not the type of person you think he is.” I backed away from the door, “Where am I?”
She gnarled, “Shut up! I brought you all the way here for nothing?” She tried throwing a punch. “I even gave you nice clothes.”
I blocked the punch with force, “Where’s here? I liked my old clothes, just so you know.” I closed the large door, “You were of no help to me. Thank you.” I began to walk away.
She grabbed my hair, “Oh no, you don’t!” She opened the door and she threw me inside the dark room.
I landed on the floor with a thud. I was in the pitch dark when I could feel myself moaning, shaking. I was lying on the cold wooden floor when I heard an echo. My head popped up, “Hello?”
There it was again, whispering something beyond words. But whatever it was, its voice was beautiful.
“Is anybody there?” I called again.
Nothing.
My head lowered in defiance, I sighed. I crouched back down on the floor. I couldn’t get the echo out of my head so I had to call out again, “Please, if someone is there, answer me.” I was desperate.
The echo was speaking again. It seemed to get louder and louder before it felt like it was right in front of me. It felt like a cool breeze touching my face. The only thing was, the voice was right in front of me. It was standing there, but it had stopped whispering.
I poked the figure in what I think was its stomach, “Are you real?” I realized the thing was solid, “Can you hear me? Can you get me out of here?”
“Monica.”
I gasped, recognizing my name. Did I seriously forget my name? “How do you know my name?” I stepped back from the figure, which seemed like a young man.
It laughed, “How do you know mine?” It touched my face with its cold hand.
I quickly pushed him away, and curled back up on the cold ground. “I don’t know your—” But I did know his name. I remembered everything that ever happened to us. Our perks, our favorites, out troubles, even our moments when the world didn’t even matter. I could remember the happy things, and the bad.
I looked back up at him. His face was shocked that I’d swatted him away, but it smoothed back into the kind whisper that nobody could fathom. “See? I knew you’d remember.” He held out a hand, “Now come on.”
“Where to?” I asked before grabbing his hand. I still couldn’t see a thing and it wrecked me. The kid used to love the sunlight, and now…
“Monica.” His hand still at my eyelevel, waiting to be grasped.
I choked out, “What?”
“Please.” He knelt down beside me and held me very tight. “Help.”
Then I just broke down. “Blaze, what do we do to get out of here? I mean I don’t even know where the door is.”
Blaze got up and pushed a button-like thing. He pointed to a wall.
The wall was a dark purple with darker designs. It was the most beautiful wallpaper ever.
My mouth gaped as I slowly looked down, then up again. The dress and the wallpaper had the same designs. I grabbed for Blaze’s hand.
He pulled me up from my seated position. “The way out lies in there. You ready?”
I looked at him, “Yeah but what do you mean by in there?” My head tilted.
He smirked, “Just watch, and then follow.” He stepped into the wall and was gone.

[Sevania]

Unseen

927 Words


No one is ever exactly as they appear to be.

I've heard it said that first impressions are the most important. That an original image will stick in a person's mind and prompt them to create someone around your appearance that is not you, only what they imagine you to be.

This is one of the sad truths of life. The basis of stereotypes.

Jason Kromberg looked perfect. He was anything I could ever dream of - blond, tall, muscular, popular, charismatic, athletic... And he was real, actually real, and he was not entirely out of my league. I remember that night, the first night I met him. It was the homecoming afterparty.

The mood was triumphant, and the scent of victory thickened the air, mingling with marijuana smoke to create an atmosphere reeking of recklessness and adventure. This party was at Hunter Peterson's house. Hunter's parents were away for the entire week and they were also completely oblivious. Furniture was pushed to the edges of Hunter's giant living room and the makeshift dance floor was packed with pulsing bodies. Alyss and I were threading through the crowd, searching for the rest of the cheerleading squad.

That's when I saw him. (I know it sounds cliché, but there is no other way to describe it.) Perfect. That was all I could think. Perfect. My imagination raced ahead of me, creating a perfect relationship and a perfect life centered around just us two. It wasn't love at first sight, though in that moment I could have sworn it was. No, it was infatuation, and that is far more dangerous. I was still infatuated after two months of dating. By that time, Alyss had gotten fed up with the way I was always shifting her aside in my schedule to make room for Jason.

I remember the first time he hit me. I had gotten too comfortable. I thought I knew him; I thought he would know I was only joking. But the slap came as I was nearly doubled over laughing (after that I wasn't laughing anymore). He said he was sorry, and I thought he meant it. I was all too ready to forgive and forget. If I hadn't been so blind I might have seen just how empty his words were. He didn't mean it, not at all, and he didn't mean it the next night when he told me he loved me, but I was still oblivious. Captured.

I remember that one party when Alyss left without telling me she was going. I stumbled around half drunk for almost twenty minutes before I realized her car was gone. Jason chatted with his friends from a distance. I know he could see me, and I know he hadn't had a drop to drink that night, but he did nothing to help me.

The next day I confronted Alyss, and she wasn't sorry at all. I asked her how she had expected I would get home, but she only scoffed and said coolly that Jason had taken me home. The way she said his name sent shivers up my spine, and then she leaned in close to me and whispered that I should get out of this relationship as fast as I could before it was too late. I looked over her shoulder and saw him watching us, his eyes cold and hard like exquisitely perfect diamonds.

Later he told me he didn't want me sharing secrets with Alyss. He said it came between us, interrupting our relationship, and I didn't want that, did I? (Those were his words, verbatim.) I tried to protest. I retorted that Alyss was my best friend (even though I wasn't so sure she was at that point) and that I could talk to her if I liked. I earned myself another slap. I think it was in that moment that I realized my perfect little relationship had been whisked away from me, just like my best friend, and neither had said goodbye.

Every scrap of common sense in my body screamed at me to run, run, run and never look back. But for each drop of reason there were ten gallons of infatuation, and I just knew I couldn't bring myself to hurt him by breaking up with him. That, and I was afraid.

I remember the turning point, that day when the seemingly unprovoked blows waned in frequency, and he just began to ignore me. Maybe ignore isn't the word, but he wasn't speaking to me. There were simply Expectations that I had to live up to, such as being at the party or the game or the occasional "date" as his token girlfriend. If I disappointed his Expectations, there were Repercussions.

Alyss never spoke to me after the day after that party, so I was stuck in this torrent of conflict and guilt and my own goddamn stubbornness. I thought I loved him but I thought I didn't. I thought he loved me but I knew he didn't.

Now I've faded into the background of his life, a crumpled bit of wallpaper hidden behind a lush, perfect tapestry. I wish he would hit me again, because then at least I am the foremost thing in his mind. I know I need to get out but the tapestry of his life is made of cutting steel thread and I'm buried to far behind it to force my way out. He is everything to me, but I am nothing to him. It is too late for me now. I am unseen.

[Me, Myself, and I]

(view spoiler)[ No idea if I'm allowed to do it like I did- If not, I can totally edit it, if you'd like C; (hide spoiler)]

CHAMELEON
(789 words not including spoilers and gif links/830 with)



"A CONSTELLATION OF TEARS/ON YOUR LASHES"



Flames lick up toward the oil black sky, the fire roaring like a contained beast fighting for freedom. Tossing memories in the blaze to be incinerated, watching pictures of the past crumple into nothing more than ash. Faces that once meant the world to me are now engulfed in that liquid orange. And all I can do is watch, face blank without any hint of an expression: because I feel absolutely nothing. Just a dark hole of emptiness, a never-ending absence of emotion. After all, emotions are no longer a part of this game, no longer allowed on the playing field.

They told me this was all part of the training. If you can never release your hold on the past, you have no hope for the future. Saying goodbye to the only remains of my family’s memory was the one way I could think to do this. And I’m not sorry, feel no remorse. The pictures no longer hold any significant value, anyways; merely pictures of unknown people, by now so old and ill-treated, they have lost all their coloring.

The faces staring back at me from the photographs mean nothing- family no longer means anything. What is the importance of the term, anyways? A group of people who share blood, though not necessarily anything else? My so called family has left me, abandoned me when I needed them, to go to those Big Pearly Gates in the heavens.

Was it worth it, family?
Are you happy now that I am alone?


No matter- I have adapted.
To being solitary, to working on my own.
My only devices now are Them.
And I intend to keep it that way.


They care. Care enough to have taught me everything I know now. How to blend in, how to fade into the background, how to be invisible. How to no longer be one of the living, a walking, talking machine with one goal in mind: to spy. Lie low and be a fly on the wall. Blend into the wallpaper like my presence has evaporated into thin area.

And I am good at this, I assure you. Always have been. My track record can speak for itself, really, my number of victims speaking louder than perhaps any words ever could. My ability to move without being seen, a chameleon in any setting, is what makes me so unnaturally good at my job. It’s a marvelous thing, really. To know how to be a wallflower until your time comes.

Until it’s time to pull that trigger, aiming it on an unsuspecting target.

Are you scared yet?
Oh, love. You really should be.
If you know what’s good for you, you will be.


"BURN EVERYTHING YOU LOVE/THEN BURN THE ASHES."



Watching the fire while it cackled in the otherwise silent night, another picture catches my eyes as it’s in the process of burning to nothingness. A boy, caught mid-laugh, has his body angled towards the person taking the shot, even as his arms are wrapped around the shoulder of a girl standing beside him. Her blonde locks match his honey hair and she is also in the process of smiling, one hand reached up to ruffle his curls. And, somewhere in the distance, I can place them: The girl as the one who stares back in the mirror, the boy Derek. Someone who, at one point, had been able to make a smile light up my face like no one else. My little brother had been my whole world: But, like the flip of a switch, he was gone. And he no longer means anything.

Fading just as quickly as the picture is, disintegrating into little more than ash and debris.

“Cham?” My teammate’s voice breaks through the blue tooth at my ear, shattering my train of thought. Someone who works for Them too, who understands what life is like now. Simply because she has been on every kill with me and is going through it too. “I think it’s time to head back.” Giving a sharp nod at her words, I cast one more glance at the fire. Watching my previous life, the one I’ve tossed away the moment my family disappeared, get eaten away by the flames. Slipping the box of matches out from my back pocket, I slip out a match with smooth fingers. Deadly and graceful, moving with an accuracy the old me never before possessed. The match comes to life against the rough surface of the box, a flame blooming to dance over the top of the tiny stick between my fingers.

Flicking it in the pile of fire, the flames howl in defiance.
Eating any remains of the old me.

"LIGHT ‘EM UP."

(view spoiler)[ Song used for inspiration and in the story itself: "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light ‘Em Up)" by Fall Out Boys (hide spoiler)]