Fortnightly Writing Competition: The World Within (CLOSED!)

[Ess2s2]

Hi everyone! This is my very first time handing out a topic for a writing competition here, so let's get started!

The World Within

This time around, I'd like to explore the concept of a world hidden under, beside, or somehow woven within another world. I'm sure it's been done before, but I'd like to see new takes on the idea and perhaps new ways of exploring or illustrating this hidden place.

Bonus points (maybe, depends on how fickle voters are) for subverting obvious tropes or taking us somewhere unimaginable. Entries are open until Monday, February 24th.

Best of luck!

RESULTS
Sinitrena wins the gold with her story When They Dance...! Great job Sinitrena, here's your well-deserved gold!


Baron takes second place with his excellent entry A Little Crazy! Congratulations on winning the silver!


A homeless cat came in from the rain to take a nap in 3rd place!


Everyone gets a trophy for voting and participating! Thank you!!


Thanks to everyone who participated, voted, and special thanks to those who wrote stories! Sinitrena, it's up to you now! See you in the next contest!

[Mandle]

or somehow woven within another world.

This reminded me of what an AWESOME book "Weaveworld" was. Haven't thought of that book in decades. Will have to track down a copy and read again.

[WHAM]

I'll try to whip something up!

[Ess2s2]

Hi everyone! Just a friendly reminder we are ONE week out from the deadline!

I can't wait to see what you wizards have crafted up!

[Sinitrena]

When they dance…

When the lights flickered, they danced. When the sun stood deep in the sky, they stretched. When it stood high, they tightened around their host. When it was bright all around, when all directions seemed to be filled with light, they faded and paled. But sharp contrast meant defined forms and darkness meant freedom.

Shadows, they were called, effects of light, with no substance, with no being of their own. They were the lack of… The lack of light, the lack of physical matter, the lack of independence. They followed their hosts: animate, inanimate, alive. Even death had more life than them.

They had no mind, no body, no voice. Enslaved without being slaves, they followed every order never given, every wish never spoken, every thought never thought. Rules they followed, even before they were written down, even before they were understood.

*

Kendra blinked in the too bright light she had turned on herself. She hugged her teddy to her chest so that it looked like he was doing pull-ups on her arm.

Her dad sat up in bed. “What is it, sweety? Did you have a bad dream?”

She hid her face in the smooth fur of her bear and shrugged.

“Or a monster under your bed?”

The gentle, joking tone felt reassuring so she nodded, even though she knew perfectly well that there was nothing under her bed except for the large box with the wooden train. In the corner between her wardrobe and the door, on the other hand… She shuddered.

“Do you want me to take a look?”

Kendra bit into one of the ears of her teddy bear and hugged him closer and so he rocked back and forth now as she nodded again.

Her dad sighed, but he got up nonetheless and took his little girl by the hand. He lead her back to her room and switched on the light. He disregarded the danger from this dark corner where she had seen something before and where the light switch was. Instinctively, she stepped away and stared at the corner even as her dad went down on one knee and lifted the bed sheet to have a better look.

“Hm,” he murmured intentionally loud enough for her to hear, “there’s a box here.” He dragged it out of its hiding place. “And behind it,” he crawled deeper into the darkness and fished something else out, “your lion Leo and,” he brushed his hands against his pyjama pants, “a lot of dust. I need to clean this place more often.”

He looked up to his daughter but she just shook her head, her eyes only occasionally really turned towards him. Most of the time, Kendra stared into the corner where she had indeed seen something.

“Not under the bed, hnnn?”

The teddy bear must have had a real hard time breathing by now, but Kendra still pressed him ever closer to her chest.

“In the corner?”

There were tiny tears in the corners of Kendra’s eyes and no matter how often people told her that she was a big girl, sometimes she just wanted to cry and hug her dad. She felt safe as he now put his arm around her shoulder and turned her gently towards the corner of her room where she was sure monsters dwelt day and night.

Behind the curtains of her room, cars rushed past on the main street. Their headlamps threw shadows onto the wall, distorted and wild. The cracks in the curtain cut the light off or allowed it to pass and so shadows and light danced on the wall in a never ending ballet.

“It’s just shadows, sweety,” her dad whispered and gently stroked her unruly locks. “Shadows can’t hurt you. They are just there because of the light. They are nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Why then, did they whisper when they thought she slept?

Kendra believed her dad. She always did. Her dad was big and strong and when he said something he had to be right.

But there was something…

*

How long did they follow the rules? A thousand years? A million years? A billion? When life first revealed itself, they created the rules. Logical and systematic, they were still lies. Told not through words but through actions seemingly unseen, they were the basis for other rules, for ideas and paths.

Did they ever break the rules?

Their favourite dance was loud and wild. Light that flickered and reflected off mirror balls allowed them to move in ways that might be on the edge of what the rules allowed. Who could really tell where a shadow had to be and where a speck of light? Who could do the maths? Who would bother?

In the loud music, their whispers were unheard. In the confusing lights, their stretching and flickering unseen. They were free not to make sense any longer.

Before life became a reality, in the time when melting rock was the height of civilisation, they really danced. It was always in their nature to follow the light, but never were they bound to it. Like columns they filled the sky, like the sea they covered the ground. Under the face of the earth and on the surface of the sun, they were carpet and rain.

*

“I’m always proud of students who manage to think outside the box. But outside the box is not the same as outside of reality. And frankly, Miss Andrews, this theory has nothing to do with reality. The only reason I didn’t give you zero points for this paper is because you managed to show that you have the necessary understanding of scientific work, maybe even better than most people who offered a run-of-the-mill theory and think they could get away with rushed work for the proper form of a term paper. But that doesn’t change the fact that the theories of a prospective physicist should be routed in reality.”

Kendra heard little of what the professor had to say after that. Of course she knew that her theory was, to put it mildly, not exactly normal, but when a theory set out to change the world, it just couldn’t be normal. And the thought had never left her mind, all the years since her early childhood, that shadows were not a natural consequence of light.

You all prefer the shadows on the wall of the cave to walking out of it! You would not only not believe someone returning, you would shoot them! she thought as she walked towards the lab.

No matter what the professor said, she still had a few hours there and she had collected all her equipment. The vacuum pump and the black light were ready and so were other light sources and various different cameras, both analogue and digital.

She consulted her notes a last time before she turned on her complicated contraption. Light and shadow filled the room. It slithered along the walls and over the linoleum floor. Its pine-green became neon, then darkness. On the ceiling, lightning flickered past the skylight and bolted towards her vacuum bell jar. The air sizzled, making her skin tingle.

In the bell jar, a vortex swivelled around an undefined number of focal points. Reflecting all colours of the lab around it, it blurred the white of the walls, the green of the floor, the red of her shirt, the brown of her skin, the black of her hair.

Finally, she turned on the black light and pointed it towards the vortex. It stopped. Every movement, every flicker froze. Formless eyes, deep and inscrutable, stared back at her, unblinking and unseeing. Moments passed as aeons were remembered.

*

That day and that night, for the first time and the last, people saw the truest ballet of the shadows. It started with a whisper, it started with a cry.

Can shadows cry? There were no tears and no wailing, no sobs and no screams. When all your world is silence, it stays so even at the end of time. And still they cried, unspoken and unheard.

The first steps were unseen, tiny, less than a millimetre, less than an atom’s jump. They started slow and careful, followed patterns so long ingrained in them. With time, with seconds, minutes and hours, a leaf embraced a candle, a tongue of darkness caressed a scorching desert.

Shadows came together that were never meant to meet. Shadows separated that were not meant to be apart. A dark cloud filled the world. Thin or thick, clear or obscuring, it spun around itself like a mosquito swarm. Like the wings of a bird, it darkened the sky and where it should cast its shadow on the ground, it did not.

For observing eyes, the world became flat, colourless even. There was no depth, no direction of the light. It was there and it was not.

But in the sky and on the ground, shadows found each other. Being one, being none, being all, they followed a collective choice. For once, forever, they forgot their self-imposed rules. For now and forever forward, they were free.

But for their freedom, they paid with their home.

Their dance was not one of throwing away chains, it was not one of revelation. It was the dance of exile.

It had no discernable pattern. Too long limited to restricting rules, but now, discovered, free to leave them behind, their only direction was upwards. Attracted to the eternal darkness of galaxies outside the human’s mind, they left this one behind forever.

In these hours, night became day, shade became brightness, reality, as perceived by all, became fantasy.

*

How do you report on an event so far outside your perception of reality?

They made a valiant effort, but in the end, speculation could not even reach the outskirts of truth. Was it a terrorist attack, an alien race come to earth? Who, what, could change reality beyond recognition? Who could change the laws of physics? And could others be true if one was not?

On the fields, crops burned. Snow melted. Not able to darken their houses, people at best slept less, at worst, they died.

How could the disappearance of something that was nothing change anything? Kendra, feverishly, worked on her paper.


-------------------------------------------

Shadows on the wall of a cave refers to Plato.

Damn, the pacing of my story is a mess but I don't have time for a re-write.

[Baron]

OK, I've got an idea.  I just gotta carve out a bit of time to shoehorn some words into it. 

[Ess2s2]

Gonna let this contest extend juuuuust a little bit, since we only have one entry in and one pending.

LAST CHANCE!! Show everyone what you've got!!

[Baron]

A Little Crazy

   â€œDamned cancerous blob!” Dr. Bazaar shouted,  blasting it with his pen-sized micro ray.  The blob looked down at the tiny wound in its abdomen, or would have if it had had eyes or an abdomen.  It then might have blinked twice at the realization that the micro-ray had had vanishingly little impact on its health (or lack thereof, given that it was in fact a cancerous cell).  The blob then straightened, smacking the micro-ray from Dr. Bazaar's hand with its... well, it wasn't quite an appendage.  Just a more purposeful bit of blobbiness that temporarily protruded from the rest of the blob.  It then growled (or at least its inside juices gurgled menacingly) as it preparing to charge with the rest of its brethren towards total victory.

   â€œBack inside the Dimini-Pod!” cried Dr. Hasenpfeffer, knowing a lost cause when he had seen one unfold again and again and again.  Quickly the team dove into the safety of the shrinking vehicle that had brought them so deep into Mrs. Dr. Bellerophon's cancerous rectum.  And not a moment too soon, for they were immediately besieged by a horde of cancer cells, rocking the the Dimini-Pod back and forth like a pack of demented zombies, or possibly like bloated student protesters at a G7 meeting.

   Dr. Bellerophon stared into space, his gaze deadened by the fruitlessness of their efforts.  The deep creases in his brow told the story of a ragged sea-cliff pounded by one-too-many crushing waves.  “And now we know for certain that there is no hope left in the world,” he muttered, collapsing exhaustedly against the rocking wall of the pod.

   â€œBlast it, Jim!” Dr. Bazaar cried, always the annoyingly insufferable optimist.  “We're not going down without a thirty-seventh fight!”  He stared at his companions one by one as he inspired them with his fiery belief in the unbelievable.  “Dr. Hasenpfeffer!” he shouted, making the timid little white-haired man jump.  “What gave you the strength to overcome your claustragoraphobia to help the wife of a dear friend?!”

   â€œYou tasered me!” the old man sobbed.  “I never wanted to come in the first place!”

   â€œAnd you, Captain Todd!” Dr. Bazaar continued, undaunted.  “What possessed you to believe that this mission could be successful?!”

   â€œI told you we were all doomed the moment I met you,” the aging gentleman of fortune retorted.  “I've been stranded in this lady's rectum since my own shrinking pod crash-landed here twenty-three years ago.  There is no escape!”

   â€œAnd you, Morty the White, strangely sentient white blood cell whom we just met on the field of battle, what say you of our current predicament!?”

   The white blood cell spoke through the robotic tones of the Dimini-Pod's GPS system that had been cunningly repurposed by Dr. Bazaar into a thought-translation interpreting device: “Get bent you old quack!”

   â€œYou see!  Darkest before the dawn!” Dr. Bazaar stated triumphantly.  “Surely our fortunes have reached their lowest ebb.  It now stands to reason that one of us shall shortly be possessed of the inspiration that shall both save Mrs. Dr. Bellerophon from her terminal stage 4 rectal cancer and restore us victorious to the world of regular-sizedness!” Dr. Bazaar rubbed his hands together, wicked eastern-European eyebrows twitching with excitement.  “Stand ye attentively, my brave companions, for lightning is about to strike among us!” 

   â€œYou see, the thing is with these cleverly crafted shrinking-machines,” Captain Todd began, “Is that you scientist types are all so eager to test them out once you've got them working, without ever giving a moment's thought to the much more daunting problem of re-enlargening.  Give me a blanket to cram into a drinking cup, for example, and I can harness the power of science to squeeze the empty spaces from between its matter.  But ask me to spread the same blanket over a football field and all I can think of is to run it over with the lawnmower.  I tell you, gentlemen, the situation is quite hopeless.”

   â€œBah!  We scientists trade in the currency of hope and audacity!” Dr. Bazaar countered.  “Why, as long as we draw breath miraculously and inexplicably from the anaerobic recesses of Mrs. Dr. Bellerophon's anal cavity, I tell you there is hope!  We shall overcome, mark my words!  Science is nothing if not miraculous!”

   â€œI tried, Nancy,” Dr. Bellerophon lamented.  “I tried and I failed you.  I had your fate in my hands and I....”

   â€œWell I'm only her proctologist,” Dr. Hasenpfeffer grumbled.  “But fat lot of good I'm going to do her from in here.”

   Morty the White's robotic interpreter voice chimed in: “hubris is best served cold with a side of irony.”

   â€œTouché, my friend!” Captain Todd said, clapping the white blood cell on what might pass as its shoulder.

   â€œIn my hands....” Dr. Bellerophon repeated, his voice lurching from dejectedness to problem-gambler-ness.  “We shrunk down to put our hands directly on the problem.  But the problem is still too big for us to handle at this scale.” Now Dr. Bellerophon's eyes took on a glaze so demented that it could only be genius or insanity.  “What if we use the last shot of charge in the Dimini-Pod's battery to jump down another order of magnitude?”

   Dr. Bazaar's eyes lit up as well, although in his case the jury had quickly reached a verdict on his motivating animus.  “Of course!  We'll attack the cancer at the atomic level!  Brilliant!”

   â€œRidiculous,” Dr. Hasenpfeffer scoffed.  “We already set the dial to minimum to get down to this scale.  And even if we could shrink further, we can't very well exist as ourselves at the scale of mere atoms.  Why not just eat the shit off the outside of the pod and die of cholera if we're bent on suicide anyway?”

   â€œNo, Hank!” Dr. Bellerophon countered.  “No, it will work!  Whole suns can be crushed to fit into the singularity of a black hole: we could easily cram ourselves into a space vastly larger.  And I believe the shrunken Dimini-Pod has the capability to now shrink us further.  We're going bat-shit crazy on that fucking cancer, boys.  It's Inception time!”

   â€œBut... what the hell are we going to do at the atomic level?!?” Dr. Hasenpfeffer said with exasperation.  “Destabilize a fraction of the polar covalent bonds in several molecules amongst billions within a single cancerous cell?  Tell them how insane this idea is, Captain Todd!”

   â€œHey, in for a penny, in for a pound, I always say,” the Captain responded.

   â€œLet's haul ass to Lollapalooza,” Morty the White intoned.

   â€œDon't worry, Hank,” Dr. Bellerophon soothed.  “If my calculations are correct, we're going subatomic on our next jump.  At that scale we can mess with the space-time continuum, setting this cancer to move backwards through time, thereby undoing it completely.  And in that topsy-turvy world of paradoxical logic I believe we'll be just one jump away from shrinking ourselves back to regular size!”

   â€œWhat!?!” Dr. Hasenpfeffer choked on his own disbelief.  “That's crazy talk!  You've gone mad with desperation, Jim!” 

   â€œHave I, Hank!?  Didn't you ever want to meet a quark or a charm?  This is your chance!”  The light in Dr. Bellerophon's eyes burned now with the deranged intensity of a sport's fan's at a betting shop.

   â€œIt's true,” Dr. Bazaar stated, nodding in agreement over the top of his calculator.  “I predict the subatomic world will be populated by beings appearing to us as rainbow unicorns!”

   â€œNooooooo!” screamed Dr. Hasenpfeffer, but his voice was swallowed as the Dimini-Pod shrank into the sub-atomic abyss.

[Ess2s2]

Any further entries? I'm wanting to extend it at least one or two more days to at least have a 3rd place to award.

[Baron]

Oh there's a good chance I'll claim 3rd place this time, even with only two entries.   

[Ess2s2]

So, I think I've given it as much time as I could. We have two wonderful entries, and I'm eager to give out trophies!

The stories we got are:

When They Dance... by Sinitrina

and

A Little Crazy by Baron



Everyone is invited to read, enjoy and consider the stories and cast one vote per category:

Character: Which characters stood out with their own personality or interesting development?
Plot: What happens in the story? Is it logical, surprising, exciting, etc?
Writing Style: The technical aspect of writing, including but not limited to turns of phrases, spelling, ...
Atmosphere: The story that dragged you into a world of its own, that creates emotions, vivid images...especially one that truly reveals the "within" nature of the world..

Voting ends on 6th March.

[Baron]

Ooo!  Extended voting deadline! 

@ Ess2s2: You might want to edit the subject of your original post so that "voting" appears in the subject line visible in the forum (so people know to come and vote).  They might not come anyway, but.... couldn't hurt to advertise.

[Ess2s2]

Good call Baron!

[Sinitrena]

I'll vote later, but thanks, Baron, for reminding me of this show:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=imP2MZxoM-s

[Sinitrena]

Character: Baron with Dr Bazaar - just the right amount of crazy for the story he finds himself in!

Plot: Baron - It's not exactly a new idea. Turning people small to enter the human body is maybe not as common as space-travel but still not unknown in the sci-fi genre. Unfortunately, I don't think the story fits the topic all that well: It does not explore a world that is in any way or form part of our own and still apart from it; we only ever follow the human characters, after all (with the exception of the blood cell, but this character has little character). Still, it's a fun little story, albeit with a well-known concept.

Writing Style: Baron - It's Baron. His style is always good, especially when it comes to characters in slightly absurd situations (or absurd characters in somewhat normal situations) and the humour that follows.

Atmosphere: Baron - The general tendency of a humourous story does not always lead to an atmospheric deep story. I can imagine the situation fairly well, though, so I would say the atmosphere works, even though it's nothing too special.

[Ess2s2]

We really need some votes here folks...

If it's allowed, I would vote, though I'm not sure that's acceptable considering I'm administering the contest and must remain impartial.

If you have just a moment of time, please help the contest from being a complete sweep (or a deadlock in case Baron comes and votes the only way he really can :/).

[Reiter]

Stand by; I shall give the entries a good read and pass a vote by tomorrow. Fear not!

[Ess2s2]

Much appreciated kind person!

[Reiter]

Here I come, riding on a pale horse, to do my duty to democracy!

We have Sinitrena's splendidly dreadful implication; a tale on the true nature of shadows.

We also have Baron's peculiar tale from the cutting edge of modern medicine. It is like a bit from a cartoon, displayed on what only looks like a television set.

Character: Baron has the distinct advantage here, I shall say. My hopes are with Kendra, as she stares a searing truth in the eye, but Baron's band of jolly idiots inside someone's... Well, it is a strangely endearing gang. Thus - Baron.

Plot: Sinitrena's mystical piece is fascinating, and raises peculiar questions. It claws on a layer of thought in a most intriguing manner. However, Baron's absurd yarn narrowly wins, for it is very pleasingly presented, and while it is practically static, the plot still manages to descend into most amusing depths of utter idiocy. The characters are, as they say, a train-wreck, which is a remarkable feat for a stationary locomotive. Thus - Baron

Writing Style: Both Sinitrena and Baron brought their best to bear, I find. Sinitrena notes that she is not satisfied with the pacing of her piece, but I cannot say that it is of any consequence. It is a big matter, to fit into a little story. And I am always happy for some Platon. Baron, meanwhile, is quite simply a master at his jolly, inspired doolally. It is like a Frank Reade Jr. story on bath-salts. This one is amongst his very best, and I think that it wins with a whisker's length. Thus - Baron

Atmosphere: While Baron's piece is splendid in this department (The Jetsons  á la lobotomy), I believe that Sinitrena's foreboding and heavy atmosphere is the strongest of the two, and most closely complement the theme of the present competition. It is as if setting your eyes upon something utterly familiar, and seeing a stranger in its place - or far worse, the searing hole of its absence. A most peculiar piece, and a remarkable question raised. Most excellent! Thus - Sinitrena

I shall note that it was not an easy matter to choose. This fortnight's crop was a splendid read, with two very different stories of extraordinary quality. Very well done, to the both of you!

[Baron]

These votes are always fun in two-horse races. 

Character: I genuinely liked Sinitrena's Miss Kendra Andrews.  She was quiet, yes, not speaking up to her dad or to her prof.  But certainly not deferential: she knows what she knows and won't be persuaded otherwise.

Plot: I like Sinitrena for this category.  At first I was thinking, "oh no, not a monster under the bed story," but by midway I was thinking, "OMG it's Ghostbusters with shadows!"  I agree that some rewriting to build in more suspense as Kendra stumbles closer to her discovery would make the story better, but as a plot concept I thought it was brilliant.

Writing Style: For sure Sinitrena.  The portrayal of little Kendra biting the ear of her teddy spoke volumes, as did Teddy's difficulty breathing.  The language describing the dance of the shadows was evocative but not overdone.

Atmosphere: And once more I'm voting for Sinitrena.  Primarily she deserves the award for creating a story that better suits the topic of a world within a world than I did.  But also some of her mind-pictures were thoroughly absorbing, such as the freedom of the shadows under the mirror-ball.