Fortnightly Writing Competition: PARTIAL (Deadline April 31)

[Baron]

The Fortnightly Writing Competition is a friendly bit of wordsmithing that takes place over a period of two weeks. Write a short story based on the theme, share your thoughts with votes or feedback, and enjoy the creativity that this community can bring to bear when they put their minds to it. This fortnight's theme:

Fragment



Your writing mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a max 600 word fragment of a bigger story (Title not included in word count). Your fragment should have no beginning and no end, but can certainly imply how these parts of the story pan out. What we want to see is some bit of the middle of a larger story, ideally the juicier or more thought provoking bits. The reader should NOT have a full grasp of exactly what is happening - that is part of the fun. Feel free to start and end mid-sentence!    See if you can suck someone into your story world without so much as an introduction or any serious world building. Be liberated by the fact that your cool story idea that probably wouldn't work can now see the light of day. Have fun, challenge norms, and let your muse run wi-

Contest deadline is April 31, 2025. I know, I know, it doesn't make sense, but neither will the entries, so just go with it. 

Good luck to all entrants!

[Stupot]

Text version, if you have issues with the image.

Spoiler

Little Brother by Stupot
Page 174

...much since the last time she was here. The old grandfather clock still stood proudly in the corner. The same worn-out, cigarette-burn-pocked carpet covered the floor. She was pretty sure the barkeeper was the same, too. The only real difference was the air. Smoking had long since been banned. She recalled Little Brother, running cheekily through the sweaty fog, between the legs of the patrons, receiving pats on the head and smiles from the grown-ups, while she sipped her lemonade miserably, in what she realized was very possibly the same chair she sat in now.

This time, though, she was drinking white wine. Nancy took a sip, opened her backpack and without thinking, she pulled out the small case. So far, everything Mrs Chapman had predicted had come true. Her skepticism had all but vanished. The old woman truly is psychic. There can be no doubt. But that doesn't necessarily mean she always tells the truth. Nancy held the small case in her hand and moved it up and down, as if gauging its weight. If the psychic's fifth prediction proved true, then everything... EVERYTHING... she thought she knew about the world, about life, death, nature, physics, all of it was a lie. She replaced the case in the backpack and took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching her.

Be more careful, Nance, she told herself. She'd come this far and didn't need to be drawing unwanted attention to herself now.

A younger man roughly her age entered through a door behind the bar. Though she had not seen him for more than thirty years, she recognised him immediately as Dan Baxter, the landlord's son. He caught her eye and offered a silent smile and a nod by way of greeting, as he would have with any other customer. He didn't seem to have recognised her.

The clock chimed three o'clock. Nancy took another sip of wine. Only now it was lemonade again, and she was glaring at Little Brother, jealousy raging through her like the lemonade through the straw. She hated him. She knew she shouldn't but she did.

A tap on the shoulder brought her out of her fugue, but when she turned, nobody was there. It's starting, she thought. The fifth...

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379 words

[Mandle]

HOW MY THREE-DAY VACATION TURNED INTO MUCH MORE

Spoiler

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[Stupot]

Anyone else? @Sinitrena?

[Sinitrena]

Oh, two fancy presentations this round.  None from me though. First I had no idea, then I forgot, then I had no time. So I only offer a pro forma entry this round:


Julius and Julia

Spoiler

p. 52

... severed from the body, fell to the ground. Even before the last drops of blood of the last rebel had reached the ground, his knees had given in. He knelt in the hot rain, on the shit, blood and piss stained field.

A few of his men still pushed their swords into the necks and hearts of their enemies, some still jerking from impact or pain, he could not tell, while others had long stopped moving.

Julius did not allow himself a long respite. His men were busy, he had no right to have them work while his exhausted body sank deeper into the mud. ,,Finish them!" he whispered, hoarse from hours of battle-cries, of commands, of mindless fighting.

"Finish them off!" he called triumphantly, heaving himself up on his gladius, the dull edge nearly braking under his weight.


*


Julia sprinted through the villa, past the atrium and the impluvium, quickly kissing the feet of the Lar standing guard over the house. Bone comb and bone needle clicked against each other in her pouch, reminding her of the thread she had nearly forgotten.

She slithered to a halt on the marble ground and sprinted in the other direction. This was no time to anger her mistress, no time to dawdle, no time to be forgetful. Lydia expected guests tonight, her hair needed to be perfect. But if she had forgotten anything else, it was worse. She checked her pouch in front of her mistress' door, then straightened her clothes and her own hair before she entered Lydia's room.

The lady of the house sat on her bed and didn't bother to look up when Julia entered.

"About time," she sighed, standing up and going over to the chair in her usual lethargic fashion. Her long hair hung half over her eyes, not yet combed or ordered in any way.

For a moment, the uncharitable thought entered Julia's mind that she didn't even know how to comb her own hair, but she knew that this wasn't fair. Lydia was still a child after all, thrown into the responsibilities of a domina far too young. With her father at war, her adoptive father no less, she had no-one but her ancilla, who...


gladius – sword
impluvium – basin for catching rain water
lar – household god
domina – mistress
ancilla – maid, slave

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[CaptainD]

It's been a long, long time since I entered one of these, but I thought I'd give this one a go: