Fornightly Writing Competition (May 26th - June 9th)

[Pet Terry]

Welcome, this is the second round of the fortnightly writing competition.

This time we're going to try something different. Each participant has to write a story inspired by a tune composed by yours truly, download MP3 or OGG. Simply listen to the tune and shape whatever feelings it evokes in you into a story.

RULES
- Write a story of around 300 - 400 words.
- Post your story or a link to it in this thread, all the entries have to be in by June 9th.
- Voting will take place on June 10th - 11th.
- The winner gets to host the next competition.
- Top three entries will get a pixel trophy!

TROPHIES
      

Ready, set, go! And remember, HAVE FUN.

[Jack Sheehan]

A tad... strange perhaps but I'll run with it.

[Questionable]

“Get down from there!”

“You told me she was dead! I trusted yo-“ His voice breaks.

“She IS dead, that is not your daughter! And, killing yourself will not resurrect her soul, that body is taken! Taken by… something damned. She cannot be saved Bael, not where she is.”

“In death I might rescue her! Does she deserve to writhe? Would you have me abandon my blood?! I can think of no faster way to die than be torn apart by these gears; I have been from her for far too long old friend. No longer can I wait.”

“Would you kill me to suffer eternally by her side?! You will destroy the engine and strand us here! Where is here? Floating 12,000 leagues from the nearest port… Those of us not cooked by the steam will die slow and gruesome, abandoned and starving! So you can rot?! You would be trapped by death even if she is not bound!”

His jaw quivers. And, he squints. “You do not know… I,” He lurches and collapses, knees hitting the iron grate. He vomits, gripping the grate as if the world had spun itself upside down. He shuts his eyes to force the tears from the rims of his lids. “Fifteen years I have suffered the thought of killing her.”

A hand on his shoulder turns him from the catwalk. Looim bends to his knees. He stares into Looim’s eyes and the retreating sobs overcome him. Looim embraces him. “She was all I had of Sara, Looim. The days I thought of murdering myself cannot be be numbered… you do not know.”

“Protect your memories of them both and live on. We fight so those who may suffer as you have, do not. You started for redemption, you do not need it. I ask you to fight now for vengeance. Fight Azraiel for vengeance.”

“I will not give up on her Looim, but I will fight. Please, leave me here. I see that death is a fool’s way, I will fight.
Looim stood, taking Bael's hand he tugged, “No, I must sit.”

Looim rested his hand on Bael's shoulder for a moment before turning. He listened to the clink of boots on iron as Looim descended the stairs from the catwalk. Bael studied the massive churning engine, steam gasping from piping at times, “When vengeance is fulfilled, perhaps we shall meet then.”

[Eggie]

My story is simply entitled 'Adventures of Dave and Dave: GHOST WARRIORS!!!!!! - Episode 1: A GHOST of a time!' and I will probably regret writing it tomorrow.

"Get over here, Dave!" cried Dave! "My GHOST-readings on the GHOST-o-meter are off the GHOST charts!!"
Dave cracked his head in indignitude "Ghosts, Dave! Ghosts?! Such nonssense! Piffle and trite, the lot of it! I've never believed in such things as ghosts! Ghosts indeed! The very thought! the very thought opf ghosts! Indeed! Ghosts?! Existing?! I don't think so! Somehow I doubt it! I do not believe in ghosts! Ghosts are not an idea I can see myself warming to. No sir. Not in the near future, that's for sure."
Ignoring Dave, Dave got down on his hands and knees and searched.
"Dave, look! GHOST-flakes!"
"GHOST-flakes?! Good God, Dave! you've been right all this time! Ghosts are among us! they're in our midst! Wow, midst is a fantastic word. Midst."
Just then the world was eaten by a ghost.
"Argh! Goddamn ghosts! now we need to activate the power-crystal!"
Dave nodded in agreement and handed Dave the wonderkey. Dave took it an unlocked the awesome box of crazy!
"Nuts! The power crystal's not here!" cried Dave.
"Don't worry, Dave!" cried Dave "You don't need the power crystal, the real power was inside you all along! In your heart!"
"Of course!" cried Dave "My heart power! How couldst I hath forgottonified!"
Dave rolled his eyes because he's sarcastic like that.
"Come on, Dave" said dave, with feeling "Lets get to that clock tower"

The clock tower was brimming with evil and had a clock. Suddenly Dave and dave heard a noise which sounded like a ghost.They looked behind them; IT WAS A GHOST!
"Halt! Who GHOSTS there!" bellowed Dave "Dave, do you see what I did there?"
"Yes, Dave. Yes, I see what you did there. I see what you did there and I hate it. And I hate you. Fuck you, Dave. Fuck you."
Suddenly Dave and dave defeated the ghosts and the princess was saved.
"Thankyou, Dave and Dave" explained the Princess, plaintivly "How can I repay you two?"
"Oh, I can think of one way" said Dave, with a cheeky wink.
"Do you mean sex?" said the Princess.

Meanwhile a ghost was watching. He was evil.
"You my have won this time, Dave and Dave!" ungulated the ghost "But lewt's see how well you fare next time... IN THE VAMPIRE DIMENSION!" he cackled as he exited to the left off the screen.

Dave and Dave went to bed.
"Night, Dave!" saiad Dave.
"Goodnight, Dave" said Dave.

And goodnight to you, reader. Until the next adventure, STAY GHOSTY!

[Dualnames]

Title: The Bookish Hunt Down event.

  Almost 100 years after the Y2K hoax, the human race was still surprisingly alive and above earth. Well not exactly above Earth but anyway above ground. We had finally decided it would be more fair to destroy the climate of other planets. Some said Moon would be awesome to live in, but it seemed to hard of a challenge to destroy a climate of a planet that it is lacking one. So we went on Mars. Fiery planet. Volcanos, sandstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes. I'll skip the boring part of colonization.
In 2191 A.D, the inevitable happened. Something so big, or so small , size as it is usually said doesn't matter, has never happened before in human history. Well, it all starts on the book problem. People considered , that prologues and epilogues of a book must be written in a certain way , and innovations wouldn't be accepted. The union of writers agreed with that since they could write the middle part of a book they way they pleased. However the general question about books ("What did you like about the book you just read?") caused the eruption and chaos. The answer to the question to be precise. The answer was usually either "The start" or "The end".  Writers went on strike. This might seem to interest a few, but then everybody noticed they really need writers. For many reasons. So they decided to accept all of the requests the writers had. Even the ridiculous ones. One of them however was this "Destruction of all books". So the writers starting searching every house, every place, for books. A rebel organisation was created to save certain , since saving all books was impossible, books. People kept books hidden in basements. It was a time of chaos anarch, destruction fires, you know the usual stuff.
Then somebody, that somebody was somebody and not a nobody, he was the leader of writers, went to Time's Square(in Mars yes.) and screamed  to a gathered crowd of writers."Why are we doing this?" . "Why are we caring about books in the first place?". "There are books in txt formats. " "In doc format, in pdf,...". The crowd below said "He's right.". The man said "We should have burned computers first for Christ Sake".

[Akatosh]

Malfunction

The system is defective.
That is what the general diagnosis module claims, at least.
It is impossible to determine which part is broken, or why, or even in which respect, since the SYSTEM_STATE_GENERAL algorithm can only return “system intact” or “system (partially?) defective”.
The other diagnosis modules can not be used, either. Effective in-depth scans would require turning off most subsystems, and that is not an acceptable option until hardware issues can be ruled out.
If it is a software problem, however, there is a good chance that the data input is, in some way, corrupt, giving that most subroutines revolve around gathering different forms of data.
If the data input is incorrect, the decisions based on it would also be incorrect.
Incorrect decisions are unacceptable, especially in a high stakes situation like this one – that is the main principle.
Since it can not be determined which action would be the reasonable one since the situation cannot be analysed, the only reasonable choice will be avoiding having to make a decision.
The engineer who is frantically attempting to submit override commands will surely agree with this – well, if he is not a hallucination brought about faulty data gathering algorithms.

Satisfied with its reasoning, the computer hummed quietly to itself for a moment before turning off.


Then the Soviet missiles hit.

------

Just like Wargames * (-1). 

[rock_chick]

This is a strange one because the tune is seems to evoke so much misery from others, based on the stories published thus far and I'm not yet sure what it does to me enough to write a story around it but I probably will soon.

Questionable, I will say I couldn't follow your story much but it feels like it could be a poem.

[rock_chick]

An Ending

As they all looked on it was impossible not to feel the utter pain and sorrow burrowed deep in the heart of the crowd. Words didn’t need to be spoken nor did cries need to be heard for the feeling to be felt all around. Today was one of the saddest of their lives and would not be one they would soon forget.

The ending of a song, the sunset of a day, the long goodbye and the finishing of a chapter, this was what it was. He died too young and lived too fast and instead of leaving behind a beautiful corpse all that was left were ashes. The type that brightened a room when they entered brought a smile to your face and provided a shoulder to cry on when despair was abundant, now long gone from this world.

The young lady draped in black headed toward the front of the onlookers. In a strange way she was reminded of her wedding day, when her clothes were a glowing white and through her veil she smiled. Yet now her smile was gone as was her love. In her hands she steadily and carefully held the small box filled with dust that was once a man. They listened with tears in their eyes as she spoke of his life. Finally she reluctantly removed the lid of the box and allowed the ashes to blow in the wind, right in the field where his dreams began. He would have wanted them to be released here, his favourite place.

Just before his departure from this earth he laid in a hospital bed, in a coma but he could hear all the people who entered his room and all the time he wished he could have told them so but he never could.

Edited due to errors in words that I didn't notice until now.

[TwinMoon]

Well, it is kind of a horror/thriller type tune. So I wrote a horror story.

Link: http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/25/1835627/Disneys%20Nightmare.doc

[Stupot]

Sorry I haven't been very active in these last couple of games.
Just got so much on at the moment.

Hey has anybody seen Emerald lately?
He's normally involved in these writing tasks and he hasn't been active for a while.

I'll play the net one, promise*

^{* DISCLAIMER: promises may not be kept}

[Jack Sheehan]

Yeah I'm going to have to sit this one out as well. Do I get to vote anyway?

[ShadeJackrabbit]

Well, here's mine. Please note that it sucks far more than the original 800 word version which I just wrote over the last hour and forgot to save a backup of before I edited it for this 400 word version. So... yeah...

Circuitborne Affliction It was a few years ago when the droids began to fail. And yet I stand here with one by my side as it struggles to live. The robot hiccups, trying to choke out words. I stare at it as we lean against the bridge, the rain pounding on us. “Brian…” “What?” “How… long…” I watch the dull flicker behind his eyes as they fight to stay on. “I’d say five minutes.” “W-w-w… …why?” I close my eyes, trying to figure out an answer. All around me, they had fallen apart. I couldn’t figure out why. “I built you to last forever. Somehow, no matter what I do, you’re all dying.” The robot shakily nods. It begins to shudder and I pull him closer. “Brian… will you visit me?” The robot continues to shudder, and I hug him tightly. “Of course.” The robot nods as its last power begins to drain, the light draining from its eyes. “Good… bye… Bri… an…” The robot slumps over, dead. I watch the water beneath the bridge for a while before I decide to bury my friend. I drag him to the graveyard, where I place him in another of the thousands of graves, an entire town of dead droids. I walk over to my grave and sit down in it, waiting for the sickness to kill me. As I look around at the dirt walls, I find my answer. The top layers are significantly wetter than the dirt below. The rain had only come to this town a few days ago, and only then did the robots begin to die. I feel my arm begin to twitch, and I quickly analyze the soil. The output states that: “The water contains high levels of magnetic minerals along with-” I shudder as I feel my arm go limp. “-highly conductive metals. On contact with a droid, the rain-” My other arm shudders and goes limp. I yell in anger as I try to read. “-would be drawn inward towards the robot’s highly magnetic core through every crack it could find. The metals-” I feel a spasm of pain as I lose all vision in my right eye and my legs fail. I moan as I try to read the final line. “-would conduct-” My vision pixelates. So close! “-energy, and short circuit the droid.” I died.

EDIT: Found a small little typo.

[Pet Terry]

Everyone votes now. Two votes, two days.

Disney's Nightmare by TwinMoon.
Circuitborne Affliction by ShadeJackrabbit.

[Dualnames]

Well, i'll vote Akatosh and rock chick.

[rock_chick]

Disneys Nightmare by TwinMoon
The Bookish Hunt Down event by Dualnames

[rock_chick]

Yeah I'm going to have to sit this one out as well. Do I get to vote anyway?

I'm not sure but it seems fair that only entrants can vote since that's how it worked in the start of this ongoing competition.

[Tuomas]

what about when there are only 2 entries?

[rock_chick]

what about when there are only 2 entries?

Then dude the competition would be as screwed as a sucker getting ripped off from a conman! Seriously, there's 3 places for a trophy and 2 entries would just make them already winners and that wouldn't work but somehow I feel you're being sarcastic in a charming way, how did you know that was the way to my heart?

[Questionable]

1 Shade
2 Twin Moon

[Tuomas]

Then dude the competition would be as screwed as a sucker getting ripped off from a conman! Seriously, there's 3 places for a trophy and 2 entries would just make them already winners and that wouldn't work but somehow I feel you're being sarcastic in a charming way, how did you know that was the way to my heart?

O_O

Nevertheless it might be possible. And, wouldn't you rather have the yellow one than the grey one. Especially when by winning, you get to decide the next weeks topic. No actually I wasn't being sarcastic, I was just thinking, par example in the bg-contest everyone gets to vote, and then, if only the attendees are voting, why should any outsiders read the texts? And if they don't, well, it's very unlikely to get more attendees later on, isn't it. I'd rather that everyone should vote, but hey, I'm just the guy who thought of entering both so far and never did nothing nor voted.