Week 80- (May 12th- May 18th) Stories --- Topic: Project DONE!

[Stephanie]

You have until May 18th to post a story/poem and on the 19th and 20th we'll vote for which one we thought was best.

Please post directly into the topic and not a link. Please don't use a story previously used in this group.

Your story should be ONLY 300-2,500 words long.

REMEMBER! A short story is NOT a scene. It MUST have a BEGINNING, MIDDLE, and END.

The topic this week is: Project

The rules are pretty loose. You could write a story about anything that has to do with the subject. I do not care, but it must relate to the story somehow.

Have fun!

[[deleted user]]

hmm.
interesting. lol.

[Mark]

Michelle's Project

Michelle Saint Claire honestly believed being taken

from a sad, depressed existence by the teeth of a

vampire she only knew as Maureen would get her a one

way ticket to Heaven and her family. Was she ever

wrong about that! Instead, the powers that be up

there, Angels she supposed, deemed Michelle

unfit Heaven material, given she had granted

Maureen permission to take her life. Michelle's

project, they informed her, prevent a twenty-

something woman named Heather Moreson from jumping to

her death off a bridge. How Michelle was supposed to

do this, by possessing her body and convincing her

she was making a terrible mistake.

The next thing Michelle realized, she was back

on Earth, stuck inhabiting the body she assumed was

Heather Moreson. The shabby way she was dressed,

clearly gave Michelle the idea just why she wanted

to end it all by throwing herself off this very high

bridge. Michelle knew if she was dressed like this,

she'd jump without a second thought.

Quick Michelle think, you can't let her jump!

You need to stop her from doing so and get to Heaven!

"I wouldn't jump if I were you!" Michelle

blurted out, hoping Heather would hear it.

"Who said that?" Heather asked in wonder.

Great, that's how you're going to prevent her

from taking a nose dive off this bridge Michelle.

"Okay look," Michelle said. "I'm stuck in your

body as punishment for letting a vampire named

Maureen something suck away my life, and as a result

I can't get into Heaven until I can convince you to

not jump off this bridge."

"No, I'm just hearing my conscience," Heather

replied nervously.

I swear, some people can be so stubborn

sometimes, Michelle thought.

"Do I look like I'm your conscience?" Michelle

asked as she tore herself out of Heather's

body. "Now why do us both a favor and not jump all

right?"

"Fine okay," Heather said, her face covered with

pure nervousness.

[Amanda]

I know it's really long, but it matches the subject of PROJECT 'cause it was my project for Writer's Craft.

An Evil Within

The solid iron doors of the dungeon creaked open with forbearing, the kneeling crowd now silent, and I shook, the early morning dew beginning to creep beneath my leather sleeves. I watched as they dragged a young peasant girl, dirty and barely clothed, forward to the execution block. The jingling of chain mail mixed with the clinking of the girl’s shackled wrists in a harmony familiar to one of my profession, and the guards gripped her struggling arms with a strength as strong as the dungeon doors. She fought fate with each step, but she was in my grasp, her tangled golden locks shaking as she trembled. Her green eyes glowed in the sun that set the thatched rooftops ablaze, and she met my gaze as her vulnerable head was lowered onto the aged and bloodied block. The church bells rang of allegation, echoing off the cold stone walls of the square, and I bore my soul to her in that gaze I held, so that she knew I felt no remorse, no pity for the woman on whom I had bestowed the weight of mortal judgement. The hostility in her eyes woke a deeper part of my heart, and my stomach twisted with a deep, instinctual fear, a feeling of terror that has stood the test of time. I almost rushed up to the guards to free the fair child. Almost.

This feeling was dismissed with the arrival of the executioner, a long time friend of mine, his stench familiar to that of the dead. The glitter of his chipped axe in the hard morning sun drew a hunger from deep inside me for the girl’s flesh as though I belonged to the Devil’s eternally damned children, and the girl’s fevered screams at the presence of Death made my heart race with anticipation of my most longed for desire. I was driven to a crazed high by the complete and utter fear in the young girl’s eyes, and the world became surreal around me. There was simply the tender, soft, sensitive flesh of the girl’s naked neck and the glinting slickness of the axe blade being raised into the clear September sky. And her screams, the fearful soul’s frantic escape from its doomed host, they were the music to this madness.

My breathing quickened in expectation, (as it did each time my good friend brought me my desire) wanting nothing more now than to take up Death’s tool myself and release with haste the heady weight of lifelessness into the bitter air. My wishes were not without fulfillment as the blade parted the wind and caressed the gentle edge of the girl’s neck before biting into the delicate flesh. A clean cut not made, her life spilled away, flowing into the spaces between the cobbled stones, out to whoever may wish to sit in gore and share in lost memories.

And oh, how she screamed then, her golden locks spilling to cover a head half detached; a shriek of sheer pain and horror and distress. It was no longer harmony, but complete orchestration, the perfect audible sound of beauty. I could taste the sharp tang of blood in the air, and jealous of the axe, my body craved the girl’s sweet flesh. The curve of the blade made haste to put the child out of her misery, the madness music coming to its finale with the glinting edge taking its last taste of humanity.

The severed head rolled along the weathered cobbled square to where the rats scurried about, and I took up the face locked in fearful countenance. I kissed its forehead where a trickle of blood would linger on my lips, the dessert to my desire, and I shut the eyelids as was customary ritual. The lifeless corpse was removed from the square, such a pity, back into the bowels of the fortress, and the head placed with the others foolish enough to think they could outwit me.

~ O ~

The guardians of the shade broke the breeze, their hands catching the bitter cold, and dancing in delight at the wind’s defeat. The forest was alive with heartbeats, and the cries of life unseen echoed through the forest mist. My horse’s hooves pounded through the coloured carnage, old man winter’s first kills, perfumed with the rich, earthy scent of fertile soil. The peeling bark of birches reminded me of my lady’s aging face, the face I pursued along this overgrown path, and I wondered if I could forgive her for the treason with which she betrayed me. No, she deserves to lose her memories to the pigeons, escorted to the Devil grasp by the executioner’s blow. Or is it my doing that rushes the Fates to cutting too short a thread? The icy fingers of the Fallen Angel caressed my mortal heart, and I could not help but find myself shuddering, a silenced conscience shrieking, my heart racing back from whence we came. Ravens cried ahead of us and the ruckus made broke me of my thoughts. Already tasting blood on my tongue, I urged my mount faster to discover what the ravens have seen.

Their cries led us to a clearing where I caught my wife, skirts torn, shambled, and hiked up past her knees, with her calves and feet caked with dried mud. She was sprawled out on a ground littered with apple tree branches and cherry pits, hands caught beneath the folds of her dress. Her hair was wild and caught with twigs, and she looked like a child of the forest. Mixed with the scent of earth was her aroma, the perfume of freshly cut wildflowers, and my heart was gripped with passion. Her hazel eyes stood apart from the fiery ground below her, and she stole my heart with those eyes, so wide now at the sight of me. Perhaps I could have forgiven her, but the Lord knows her sin, and His law must be upheld. Spitting at her feet, I ordered the guards to capture without a word to her, only looking into those hazel gems and wishing I wouldn’t have to see the light go out in them. Her mouth was an ugly grimace as they shackled her wrists, their clinking sound arousing a deep desire in me for her flesh, heightened as the shoulder of her dress slipped down to her elbow and revealed a secret part of her that belonged to me.

~ O ~

The crackle of the flames behind us kept rhythm to her beautiful screams. They were elegant and so full of emotion, much like the cries of the wind in winter, and I almost wept at the sound’s natural artistry. She wriggled beneath my grasp as I helped to hold her nearly naked body to the cobbled ground as they scorched her fairest of all skin with boiling pitch, painting it on in thick layers. It created a luscious smell of charred flesh that made my mouth water with hunger more than the sharpest tang of blood on the tongue. I longed for the moment they would give her to the Devil’s element, and he would take her and her treason under Heaven’s stars. The air tasted now of smoke, and I watched the pitch, black as the coming night, pool in the natural hollows of her body, beginning to singe the skin to the bone. As I urged them to end her torture and tie her blackened body to the stake, I watched her bloodshot hazel eyes on me, tears streaming as she screamed that madness music.

They dragged her to the waiting pyre, bits of her flesh catching between the cobbled stones, and I longed to pick them up and savour their delightful aroma, but not now. They tied her up, the rope digging deeper into her chest, her thighs, her slender waist, revealing the raw flesh within, and the bitter-sweet smell of her blood drove me to a crazed state. I unsheathed the dagger and sliced off her silvered hair that smelled of wildflowers. Stepping out of harm’s way, the full moon beginning to cast its heavenly light upon her destruction, I ordered that the pyre be lit, billowing smoke into the air.

The crowd was as ecstatic as I, cheering on the death of their queen, but she had only hazel eyes for me and I could not look away. I kept her gaze as the flames leapt closer like children grabbing at her hands to play, and every minute that the moon inched higher into the sky, my thoughts were consumed with the taste of her flesh, the undeniable aroma of it, its slimy limpness in my hands. And in that last moment before the flames caught the pitch at her feet, the light in her eyes fighting to live, the soul refusing to leave, I thought of how the Devil would be pleased at the sacrifice made to him on the Lord’s altar of the Earth. I watched her mortal frame, the one I had desired and used again and again, erupt into the flames of Hell.

And I watched the light leave her eyes, tearing my heart in two.

It was then that a change erupted inside of me, the full moon casting its light on me now, my arms erupting into the brownish fur of an animal, my smell heightening, my strength growing. I was gripped with mortal fear as I lost control of my body, simply watching from my mind as instinct took over. I could feel the tug as a snout grew out of my face, and the peasants screamed in terror at my grotesque form. I could hear the church bells crying distress, but I was gripped with only one thing in my mind.

My instincts ran me into the blaze of the pyre, seizing what was left of my beloved’s charred and blackened body before returning to safety. And I sated my undeniable hunger for her flesh, filling my muzzle with the meat, tasting what no man should ever taste, the mortality of mankind. It was sweet as innocence, but bitter as sin, an ugly confliction that was life. And as the juices of her lifeless flesh dripped down between my jagged teeth, I realized the truth of my nature, that the treason, the evil, the monster I was trying to remove from my kingdom was me.

And I wept like I had never before, feeling my heart being ripped out of my chest by the Devil himself, my legs frozen where I stood, my knees buckling beneath me. I curled into a ball, my claws scratching at my face, and screamed at my sheer terror, screaming at the monster I could never defeat. And lamenting for the love I had destroyed.

There was not a sound in the square except my shrieks, the flap of fleeing raven’s wings, and the footsteps coming closer. The air around me smelled of old parchment, of ancient scrolls, and I looked up into the face of the church’s priest. Frozen by my abhorrence of myself, he shot five silver bullets into my forehead.

And I knew in that moment that I would never see my beloved again, because she went to Heaven, and I was going to Hell. I could feel the warmth of my life drain away to the cracks between the cobbled stones, where those who want to share in lost memories can stop and sit in woes.

FIN. And believe it or not, only 1, 940 words. :P

[Stephanie]

Title: Discarded
Words: 1,204

The wind blew through the trees, spreading Artemis’s hair into the tears cascading down her cheeks. Snow fell from the dark clouds as she brought her burnt, deformed hand in front of her face. Her whole body trembled, but not because of the wind or the snow. The moon’s rays shined on her, lighting the pale skin on her face. Her eyes drifted to a pink, winter flower that had made it through the light covering of snow. She reached for the flower with her deformed hand. The moment her fingers made contact, it burst into flames. Artemis bitterly pulled her hand away. She watched the flames devour the beautiful flower until it was nothing but ashes.

* * *

A smile creased his lips as he watched Artemis smell the flower. “You like it?”


Artemis looked up, her nose still in the flower. “Yes.” She closed her eyes as her fiancé pulled a strand of hair out of her face. They had only known each other for only a few weeks but it hadn’t taken them long to fall for each other. Jason was handsome, kind, and strong. What more could she ask for? Yes, it was true that he had a dark past but not because of whom he was. If anything, he was a victim.


Jason pulled her into an embrace and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad.” A shadow fell over them and the both looked up. Artemis’s face paled. Jason stood up, pulled Artemis to her feet, and away from the man beside them. A dark look fell upon his face. “What’re you doing here, Xavier?”


The bald man had the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes. “I’m picking up.”


“What?” Jason unconsciously took a step forward. A shadow appeared behind him and Jason just had time to widen his eyes before a loud smack sounded on his head. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground.


The attacker raised the hickory stick to hit Jason again but Artemis threw herself onto him. “Please! Please, stop! I’ll do anything, just please, don’t hurt him,” she sobbed. The attacker stopped and looked at Xavier.


The bald man frowned then a sinister smile crept onto his face. “Anything?”


Artemis looked up, tears staining her cheeks. “Yes,” she breathed even though she wasn’t sure if that was true. She knew she’d die for him though.


“All right then.” Xavier grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Come along.”


She stumbled beside him, trying to keep up with his pace. Even with her diligence, Xavier practically dragged. He pulled her into a forest; they walked deeper and deeper until it seemed like they couldn’t go further. Just when she thought she was going to collapse, Artemis spotted a cave and realized that that was exactly where they were headed.


The cave was damp and water dripped from the ceiling. Winter was upon them, they were all enjoying the last days of autumn. Xavier dragged Artemis into the depth of the cave until she found herself in a torch-lit room with a single table in it. Three other men were in there, but she couldn’t identify what they were doing.


Xavier slammed her onto the table and one of the other men strapped her down. Panic filled her heart and she struggled. “What’re you doing? Stop!” The hot, stale air made it hard to breathe and the smell of sweat didn’t help any.


They ignored Artemis and successfully restrained her. One of the men, cloaked and holding a book with a deformed hand, walked up to the table. Another man stepped next to him, a bucket of coals in hand. She struggled, but it was of no use. The cloaked man started chanting in a different language and swiftly nodded to the man beside him. Artemis tried to pull her hand away but the man’s firm grip stopped her from having any real progress. The next thing she knew, her hand was on fire and being held in the bucket under the hot coals. She screamed and thrashed around on the table.


The cloaked man’s chanting became louder and the pain in Artemis’s hand too great. She passed out.



Artemis’s eyes flickered open. She frowned and spit at Xavier, whose face was right above hers. He moved but not quickly enough and wiped the spit off of his cheek. “I guess our project failed. Terminate her.”


Anger flashed in Artemis’s eyes as the cloaked man stepped towards her, opening his book. He opened his mouth to speak but fire leapt from her hands and the table started burning. The man stepped away but his cloak caught fire. He tried to smother it but that was of no use. The fire wouldn’t go out until it had completely devoured him.


More fire leapt from her hands and landed on the other men in the room. Artemis watched in wonder as the fire burning the table didn’t hurt her. She couldn’t even feel its heat. Soon, the cave smelt of burnt flesh and the men lay in heaps of ashes on the ground. She pushed herself out of the table’s ashes and looked around. Gulping, she experimentally touched the cloaked man’s book and watched in alarm as it caught fire.


Artemis fearfully ran out of the cave and stopped the moment its roof no longer sheltered her. She looked up. How long had been out? Snow fell between the trees and onto her body. Tears stun her eyes and Artemis ran as fast as she could until she found the spot where she’d last seen Jason. He wasn’t there. Despite her predicament, she gathered her skirt in her hands and ran.


Jason’s house was miles away but she had know if he was alive or not. She didn’t- wouldn’t stop until she saw the building. It was dark when she finally stopped running. The house was just a shack but there was a light in it. Her heart pounding, Artemis stepped towards it but stopped herself. What if it caught on fire because of her?


The door knob turned and Artemis cringed in apprehension. Jason’s face filled to doorway. “Artemis!” He ran to her; just as his arms were about to enclose about her, she quickly took several step away from him. His face twisted in curiosity.


“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, hugging herself.


Jason caught site of her burnt, deformed hand. “What did they do to you?”


“I’m one of their failed projects. Please, I don’t want to hurt you. Everything I touch… burns.”


“What?” Jason stepped towards her, a devastated look on his face.


“I’m sorry.” Artemis put a hand over her mouth. “I love you.” With that, she turned around and ran as fast as she could.


“Artemis! Artemis!”


She could hear Jason’s pursuing footsteps but she kept running until she couldn’t see or hear him anymore. She dropped to her knees beside a house in the street. Tears rolled down her face. The wind blew and she caught sight of the pink winter flower. She reached for it…


Artemis knelt there broken and discarded, a failed project next to the pink flower’s ashes.

[[deleted user]]

Cancer Projects
By Avree
Word Count: 750

“I’m freaking sick of this!” He screamed, his veins in his neck bulging, as he threw his massive fist through the wall. The rock crumbled to the floor in white chunks, reminding one of crumbling, dry, white icing. I sat, with my back against the wall, underneath him. His 6’4 frame towered over my slight, 5’ one. He pulled his fist out of the wall, letting the white drywall to crumble and fall onto the floor. He looked down at me, a look of pain and anguish crashing over his face. His knees collapsed slowly, as he descended next to me on the floor. I smiled a sad smile at him as our faces leveled. One lone tear dripped down his tanned cheek, and I wiped it away with my right thumb.

“I’m so…… so, so sorry.” I whispered quietly. Derek collapsed then into my arms, a sobbing, heavy, sad anguished mess. A mess that I could do nothing but comfort and love until their pain subsided. I have no idea how long we sat there.

What a picture we made: a small, petite girl, who one would assume needing protecting with my strong, massive boyfriend who was impulsive and protective of everyone he loved. The picture was backwards, but honestly, it was the way he needed it. He lay on the floor, his sobs wracking his huge frame as I ran my fingers over his hair comfortingly, holding back my own tears.

As the yellow haze of the sunset streamed through the windows hours later, the sobs slowed and the tears gradually subsided. We sat there in silence, for such a long time. He sat up and leaned against the wall, the silence thick. One large hand wiped away the remainder of tears on his face as the other pulled me into his large comforting chest, as he wrapped himself around me. As the blue dusk fell over the room, his hoarse voice broke the silence.

“She was just a project, you know.” I sat up and looked at him, leaning myself against his shoulder. “Even with the chemo, and all their promises and lies and their-“ his voice dropped for a moment, emotions overwhelming him once again. After a minute, he started again. “They never really had her best interests at heart.” I nodded silently. “I keep thinking… wondering… if we had have decided not to try the new treatment… if we had stuck with the old school chemotherapy… would she be…” I jumped in, knowing was what coming.

“Alive?” He nodded. I shook my head. “We all knew when she was diagnosed, Derek, it wouldn’t be a long road nor would it be a pleasant one.” He thought for a moment and nodded. “It’s not your fault. You have to realize that.” Derek shook his head.

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Well, you’re going to have to.” His wet eyes met with mine.

“You don’t know what would have happened.”

“Yes, I do.” I countered.

“No. “

“Yes.”

“She was her own person, she was strong.”

“She was weak. And you know it.”

“She had problems, true. But when she wanted to be…”

“She was determined.”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t want to live life suffering. She knew the chances.”

“So did I – I could have changed her mind.”

“She’s changed cancer research. They have one more thing they know doesn’t work.”

“Nothing works!”

“Process of elimination. There has to be something at the end.”

“You’re lying through your teeth.”

“No.”

“Yes. You don’t know her, her body, the future.” I paused for a moment.

“You’re right.” I admitted. “But I know death.” I let my words sink in for a moment, as understands dawned over his face.

“I’m sorry, I’m so-“ I cut him off.

“Don’t be. Just trust me. This isn’t anyone’s fault.”

“But I could have fixed it! Or slowed it down!”

“No. Death happens; it’s the way life goes.”

“That doesn’t change the fact they just made her a name, a project, an experiment!”

“It does. She wanted to help others with it.” He was silent for a moment.

“Do you think… she was suicidal?” His voice was quiet.

“No. I think that she would be happy the pain was over.” He nodded slowly. Our argument subsiding, he drifted back into a silence, grieving our lost loved one. His mom. My adopted mom. The mom that I never had. Another mom that was lost to cancer. And another project for Cancer Research.

[Amanda]

Thanks sunshine. When I get the chance, I want to read the others! *reorganizes schedule to find time*

[[deleted user]]

Thanks, Al :P
Whoa, Stephanie, I really liked your story. Bittersweet ending - She has the chance to live, but nothing she can do but burn the things around her. Makes me wonder if death would have been a better option for her. But then again, if she had died, where would the storyline be :P haha.
Amanda, that was some story. Kinda creeped me out, but MAN you have talent if you can write something that makes me think about it for longer than when the story is over. Super unique storyline too.
Mark, that's a good story. Storyline I wouldn't have thought of :P Great job everyone!

[Stephanie]

Thanks guys.

[Mark]

I honestly felt I could have done much more with it.

[Edward]

Just Another Project
Word Count: 560

Just another project. Another piece of the puzzle.

Hiroh had to play lookout, as usual. A seven foot torch, as his partner called him, a two-meter tall man with untamable flame-colored hair drew the attention of witnesses, even in a major city on the primary Gurtain planet. Sitting inside one of their strange, screw driven ground vehicles, he could just be another tourist consulting his map. His partner, somewhere between five and six feet, with unremarkable features, and ready to assume a deceptively vacant expression could be anyone from anywhere. In a city, he was part of the scenery.

Which is why he was given the details of the mission, and Hiroh had been expected to replicate a rented vehicle. A country didn’t expand across three planets without a certain tolerance – or indifference – towards strangers on the part of populace and a certain wariness – or paranoia – on the part of the government. The rental appearance of the vehicle (clean exterior, older model, identification numbers in hexadecimal rather than quad-decimal, and a required emblem on the front window were the typical signs in the area) almost guaranteed the locals wouldn’t bother them. The fact Hiroh and his partner didn’t actually rent it from an approved dealer gave the authorities another dead end to chase down should they ever make it as far as the vehicle.

Covering tracks didn’t always require the deceiver to know what he hid, and Hiroh knew he worked for a very need-to-know organization. After the job his partner may disclose the general idea, but for now Hiroh just kept his eyes open for government-types and hoped his weeks of studying inner-city population movements and paying for an off-planet trip through a faceless and temporary bank account wouldn’t go to waste.

Sometimes his job was much duller than it should be.

As if the star dragons decided to make fun of him such an idiotic thought, his partner opened the passenger-side door at that moment and dumped himself into the seat. Hiroh didn’t notice something was wrong until Lucian told him, in a breathless voice, to start driving.

“Not too fast,” he amended, realizing he sounded tense. “No one following. I just don’t want to wait around.”

Hiroh complied, starting the engines and smoothly guiding the vehicle down the gravel street. He took a long moment to notice Lucian’s dark tunic was stained with blood.

He tried to keep the anger out of his voice unsuccessfully. “What the hell happened?”

“The guy had good senses. I didn’t manage to fire a round before he disarmed me. I had to switch to blades.”

“Someone might’ve mentioned this was a hit.”

In the privacy of their closed vehicle, surrounded by a mass of indifference, they talked freely.

“You know this works, Hiroh. You’ve been at this longer than I have. We’re only told what we need to do the job.”

Hiroh know, but it didn’t stop him from getting heated. “Who was the mark?”

“I don’t know,” Lucian answered immediately, ever honest.

Hiroh bit his lip, easily breaking the skin. Lucian sighed silently.

“I know you don’t like these jobs –“

“Damn right I don’t.”

“But you know it always works to a greater end. It’s just another necessary project.”

Hiroh didn’t answer. He didn’t argue. Blood flowed along his tightly pressed lips, but didn’t drip down.

Just another project.

[[deleted user]]

nicely done, Edward. I like the characters and how youve described the scene but not overboard (hehe, like me :P) and left it to the imagination to fill in. it's really interesting to see what other minds would envision this scene as. i like it ;)

[Edward]

Thank you, Avree.

[Adam]

Wow this weeks poll is going to be difficult...

[Amanda]

Thanks for the comment Avree.

[Stephanie]

The Results:

1st- Amanda
2nd- Avree
3rd- Stephanie, Mark, and Edward.