Messages

Edit: Well, I guess I missed a bunch of posts.  Thanks a bunch for all the votes, folks!  I'll be sure to get the next contest up and running promptly.

Oh, wow, Baron! That is exciting news indeed! Please keep us posted. I'll be picking up a copy for sure. Will there be physical printings or just e-book for now?

It sounds like you're actually going ahead and publishing this, which is exciting. Let us know when it's ready to order.

Oh, gosh. I bounce between stoked and apprehensive about the whole thing.  My latest draft got some very positive feedback from beta readers, so I've gone ahead and splurged on professional editing (and budgeted for a swanky cover).  It's hard to say with certainty when it might actually be released, having never gone through the process before (proofing, formatting, copyrighting, ISBNing, ARCing? Marketing? etc.), but I'm hoping to have it out before the end of the year.

I do intend to publish it as a real physical book in order to satisfy a life-long dream, but I can't promise it will be available as such in all markets and territories in that format.  We might have to make arrangements for me to ship out physical copies to you guys if you're really keen on paper.  I'll be sure to let you know when I finally hit the "publish" button.

You're all Drew Freak! 

I'd read it. I'd change the title though...

Spoiler

With luck you'll be able to this fall - my self-publish debut is off with the editor as we speak!    But your instincts serve you well - I haven't exactly nailed down the title yet.

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[@dharmadischarge (a.k.a. Drew Freak)]

I'm quite impressed at the variety of novel genres to choose from here.  Everyone brought some very distinct stories to the table.  I know I say this every time, but I re-eally had a hard time distributing my votes.  You're all winners in my books. 

@dharmadischarge (a.k.a. Drew Freak)

Spoiler

Whoa!  You need to bottle the sheer energy from this novel and sell it to Hollywood actors.  I love the Total Recall-esque underlying question throughout the story: is this real or is this all just one heck of a mind trip?  Top marks for near-omnipotent ambiguous forces of nature in the guise of 1920s black-white cartoons, love interests with dissociative identity disorders, quasi-hallucinated avian sidekicks, and anthropomorphic carnivorous mushroom people.  I feel the editing of your synopsis could have been tighter - why are some names capitalized but others not?  But maybe it's all symbolic of the narrative's descent into spun-sugar induced madness....

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@Sinitrena

Spoiler

This is a brilliant idea for a novel!  And I'm not just saying that as a fan of your Lominverse (although I am saying that as well  ).  I love the idea that each short story is distinct but with a coherent overall plot line - it's like the modular design philosophy just met the epic fantasy genre.  It's hard, having read your stories over the course of many years (and probably forgotten more than I remember  ), to piece together the overarching narrative, so I appreciated seeing how your previous works fit into a greater struggle between the concepts - and deities - of justice and freedom. 

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@Stupot (a.k.a. Drew Freak)

Spoiler

It's funny, but sometimes I think I teach in Probble's village.    I loved the concept of a blighted community coming together for the common good, and the suspenseful atmosphere of flawed characters teetering on a knife-edge of disaster makes for an exciting read.  Your clever puns ("Probbleham child") and irreverent humour ("Tragically for him, she saves his life") are like adding sauce (sass?) to a tasty dish, turning what could be a depressing diatribe on social drift into a laugh-in-the-face-of-our-troubles inspirational message.  Although hardly my genre of choice, I would happily buy this book.

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And my votes....

Spoiler

On concept alone I'd have to split my votes three ways, because I'm intrigued enough to read each of these novels.  As a FWC entry, however, I think I have to give the edge to Stupot based on gripping salesmanship and subtract a point from dharmadischarge due to the somewhat confused nature of his prose.  Thus....

I give 2 votes to Stupot and 1 vote to Sinitrena

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[/b][/b][/b]

[FREELANCE]

I expect to have something in at the deadline.  Stand by.

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FREELANCE
A cozy fantastical mystery thriller!

Life in the shadow of the magical Forest Vast is a gruelling slog for the farmers of Feorlen, and doubly so for the women folk.  For poor Rhetta Cur, buffeted by the poverty and social strictures, it feels something like being a ragdoll in a whirlwind of troubles.

One night, a plague of demonic rats terrorizes the countryside.  Rhetta thinks perhaps the Lances (the local police force) will investigate, but magical incidents are beyond their remit.  Instead, they've thrown her ne'er-do-well husband into debtor's prison and drag her off to be his guarantor.  Rhetta cannot fathom how she will ever pay off the small fortune he owes.

And yet...the inadequacies of the Lance force has created demand in the countryside for someone who investigates both minor mysteries and magical mayhem.  Rhetta begins a side-business conducting "freelance" investigations.  The local sheriff even grants her a licence, so long as her work does not interfere with official Lance business.

Alas, the good sheriff is murdered, apparently by witchcraft!  Rhetta now has a major case to unravel, just when her finances and personal life seem to be careening off the rails.  She discovers that the sheriff was investigating three major incidents when he was killed: the plague of rats, a missing stockpile of weapons, and a smuggler ring.  By careful reasoning and deduction, she creates a short list of suspects that includes the heir to the county throne, the local witch, and a respected businessman.  As the clues pile up, Rhetta is drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens to tear at the precarious balance between magic and mankind.

For every success Rhetta has in investigating, there are setbacks.  Through dogged persistence she discovers the route the smugglers use to circumvent the local authorities, but is hit over the back of the head before she can unmask the ringleader.  After a harrowing escape, she seeks the aid of the paranoid local witch to heal her cracked head.  Unfortunately the witch doesn't care for people nosing in her business.  Rhetta is pushed to the brink, but succeeds in overcoming the witch's power using the magic of her rational mind.  The witch ends up healing Rhetta and confiding her side of the story, indicating that the good sheriff's murder might be related to a mysterious new witch growing and testing their powers.

Rhetta tries to track down this new witch by triangulating clues left from each of the crimes.  She confronts gangsters and nobles, and retraces the path of rumoured magical occurrences to narrow down the centre of this new witch's power.  Subtle reprisals and personal attacks against her begin to indicate that someone behind the scenes is beginning to panic.  She is getting close—perhaps too close!

In the end she is arrested, thrown in a dungeon, and then dragged before the count to face the charge of witchcraft herself!  Can Rhetta solve the mystery and save her homeland before she pays the ultimate price for her meddling? 

Time is running out.

[@Rootbound]

Wow, this was a hard one to judge.  Really solid entries all around.

@Rootbound

Spoiler

The themes of alienation and dysmorphia are powerful in this story.  We really feel for poor Priscilla as she feels increasingly invisible in the world.  The mirrors served as both vehicle and analogy for this slide into invisibility, which I thought was clever.  The numbness attributed to her condition is harder to wrap my head around - is it real, or is it all in her mind? - but it definitely raises the stakes as more and more of her disappears.  The angsty angle of her wanting to be noticed but at the same time self-loathing is a paradox that is a recipe for ever deeper depression: she is truly determined to walk through the mirror at the end.  It was a sad story, but it made me think.

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@WHAM

Spoiler

I loved your world-building and the mechanic of swapping places with yourselves in the mirror.  I was slightly confused as to the nature of the other Jans.  Do they reflect different aspects of his personality (the Hedonist on the right, the Father in the centre, and the Junkie on the left) or are they just replicas of him that have just experienced more degrading time in the world (the Young Man on the right, the Older Responsible one in the centre, and the Ancient Decaying one on the left)?  I'm leaning towards the latter - you say Old Lefty reflects mistakes made during Jam's training, implying that Jam remembers those lessons, and yet he is grilled about his overnight activities as if it was news to his selves, which makes me doubt that they do, in fact, share consciousness.  I think the mechanic would be stronger if it were explored further, with each reflection's relevance being revealed through the action of the story.  Still, it's a good story that makes you think.

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@Stupot

Spoiler

At face value this is a simple tale of Aven talking to herself in the mirror.  On a deeper level, it is about setting superficiality aside and communing on a deeper level with yourself and others.  Aven is aghast at how she is treated poorly when she returns home, and yet her own self-assessment is just as vile.  Contrarily, when she opens herself to "others" (in her mind), they reflect that open acceptance.  The last line about leaving by separate exits is superficially an unnecessary reveal that it was her reflection all along (the single door was emphasised at the beginning), but it could also be taken as a metaphor for options multiplying when you accept yourself for who you are.  Short and sweet - nice story.

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@Mandle

Spoiler

This was a compelling read with lots of moving parts.  I loved the notion of the Encapsulated, how the infinite multiverse tests the character of the narrator, the mystery of the missing brother, and the unspoken horror of the "others" watching just out of view.  I felt the scattered narrative could have been tightened, in the sense that the same narrative could be told in fewer words with greater impact, and I was a bit let down by the ending.  Surely the main character can think of another plan besides blithely sharing his brother's secret message over the bugged network?!?  In the end, I'm left wondering what makes this unremarkable MC so important that all this effort would be made to spy on him and his infinite selves?

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VOTES

Spoiler

I struggled with this, I really did.  I think in the end I'm going to have to split my votes three ways: Rootbound, WHAM, and Stupot.

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[¡RorɹoЯ!]

I don't think Mandle's ass can be much older or more tired than mine.... 

¡RorɹoЯ!

Spoiler

Hannah—the same forwards as backwards—had always been a meticulous soul.  On her second birthday she had lined up everyone's cake plates according to size, and then had refused anyone permission to eat.  At the age of six she had organized her mother's food pantry alphabetically, and at the age of nine she transplanted half the front garden so that the flowering plants would bloom in order of the light spectrum.  She kept her hair always in pigtails, perfectly symmetrical like her name, and she abhorred anything out of balance.  Which was why tonight she was rocking herself gently to stop from screaming.

Sleepover camp had been her mother's idea.  It was, apparently, a rite of passage.  A dirty, smelly, itchy, and very much imbalanced rite of passage.  Hannah bit her lip as the girls next to her laughed uproariously about something that had fallen into the campfire.  She would return to the cabin if she dared sleep there alone, but the random outbursts of her fellow humans was preferable (if only just) to the unpredictable predations of bats and bugs.  Hannah shivered, despite the heat of the fire.

"Will you walk me to the bathroom?" a girl named Tayleigh asked.  She was a shy, quiet girl, and Hannah probably would have gotten along swimmingly with her if not for the fact that her nostrils were quite clearly two different sizes.  Hannah considered refusing, but as that would likely require a lengthy explanation that would be perceived as unkind she decided to suck it up.  At any rate, on the long walk with flashlights through the dark, Tayleigh's nasal imbalance would be quite hidden.

The bathroom building at the camp was a dingy affair.  It had electricity and running water, at least, but there the amenities ended.  Cleanliness, for example, was quite lacking, and the savage fluttering of insects around the lights was positively distressing.  Tayleigh was desperate, but Hannah could not bring herself to use the facilities.  Instead she waited near the grimy sinks, compulsively straightening the bottle of sunscreen abandoned on the counter and gingerly tucking the litter on the floor into the garbage receptacle.

"You're just going to have to go later," Tayleigh commented as she emerged to wash her hands. 

Hannah tried not to stare at the mismatched nostrils dancing in the mirror as the other girl washed her hands.  "My plan is to hold on until Monday."

"That's two days away!"

Hannah shrugged.  Tayleigh tittered.  Together they returned through the dark to the fire circle.  The camp leader now had her flashlight inverted beneath her jaw, casting her face in eerie shadows.

"Gather round and hear my tale of horrors," she began, despite a few suppressed giggles.  "You've heard of the Nether, of the Upside Down, and of the fiery realm of Hell itself.  But that's because these places are either made up or simply too careless to keep word of their existence spreading.  What I'm going to tell you about tonight is real, but once you know about it you can not unknow about it, and unfortunately this will put you in real danger."

Another suppressed peel of laughter, and then all was silent once more.

"There is a world, much like ours, on the other side.  Only it is different, opposite, perverse.  You have seen it many times, although you do not realise it, and that is the great secret of its existence.  You've been taught by people you trusted to believe that it is just a reflection of our own world, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  I'm talking about the realm you glimpse every time you look into the mirror.  I'm talking about The Backwards."

Someone in the group gasped.  Hannah fidgeted.  She liked the perfect symmetry she saw in the mirror.  Why would anyone fear it?

"The honest truth is that The Backwards is its own world with its own rules.  It looks like ours, except unnervingly flipped, but that is by design.  It is a disguise created by its inhabitants to lull us into a false sense of security.  But every once in a while they make a mistake, usually subtle, just to make sure that we on the other side haven't cottoned on to their secret.  And when we on this side do notice, it marks us out as prey.  From that point on our days are numbered, for there is no escaping the hunters.  They have windows into every house and vehicle.  They will watch you, sizing you up for your weaknesses, and then strike when you least suspect it."

Someone from the group gave a little shriek, which started a domino effect amongst the girls.  Hannah alone was silent, trying to find the logical flaw in the story.  She had never noticed anything amiss through the mirror, but had she really been looking for it?  Her of all people should be able to detect even the slightest flaw in symmetry, surely?

"And now we get to the worst part—the bloodthirsty inhabitants of The Backwards.  They look and walk like us, although they move like ghosts that make not the slightest sound.  They watch whenever you watch, and sometimes when you don't.  They even look like you, but not because of any disguise—this is the truly disturbing part.  What you thought was your reflection in the mirror is actually your master.  They have raised you up from nothing to live and breathe in their image, and what you think is your motion is merely their movement willed unto you.  But if you dare to try to break free of the spell, they will reach through the flimsy boundary between our worlds and haul you back into theirs where they will devour your soul."

The group around the campfire was dead silent, each girl shuddering at her own thoughts.  Hannah squirmed as well, but distressingly from a full bladder.  She couldn't quite swallow her pride to ask another girl to walk back to the bathroom with her, and so she set off alone through the dark.  Somewhere behind her shrieks of laughter erupted once more.

The lights of the bathroom building still attracted the unwanted attention of insects with skeletal legs and far too many sets of wings.  Hannah squeaked inside and then tried to work up the nerve to go into one of the scuzzy toilet stalls.  A bank of mirrors by the sinks distracted her, and once she was staring she could not look away, for she had to prove the absurdity of the camp leader's tale.

There she was, standing alone in the unsanitary bathroom building.  She was slender and weak and fragile, just like before.  But was there... was there something sinister in the eyes, now that she really looked closely.  Hannah leaned up to the mirror, searching the eyes of her reflection for any clue that she was her own depraved puppet master.

Hannah had to laugh at herself, and the girl on the other side of the mirror did likewise, except it was a silent, hollow laugh.  Empty.  Evil?  Hannah shook her head.  Stories like these were just made-up nonsense, mind-worms designed to gnaw at the confidence of those who should know better.  Hannah sniffed, and then tapped the glass of the mirror just to be sure it was solidly present.

Satisfied, she was about to turn away when something caught her eye.  The reflection of the bottle of sunblock was turned opposite to the way she had left it.  Someone had probably come to the bathroom in the meantime and played with it, Hannah decided.  And yet... she couldn't help but glance down at the bottle in reality, just to be sure.  Jarringly, it was exactly as she had left it.  Hannah looked back into the mirror to be sure it wasn't just a trick of the eye, and then glanced back in horror at the girl with the pigtails standing across from her.  The Backwards was real, and this doppelganger was now her enemy!

Hannah's lip curled in fearful realisation.  The girl in The Backwards gave her a viscous smile. 

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I'm working on something.  Should be in by the deadline, all things being equal.

[@Sinitrena]

@Sinitrena

Spoiler

A depressing story.  A woman who never really lives life can't really help other people not live theirs.  The murder at the end was a nice bookend, basically starting the cycle of trauma all over again.  (Yes, I get that the daughter is abused because she is burnt, but now she has a murdered father to deal with).  I suppose one could make the argument that the greater good is served by unilaterally executing baddies, although somehow I feel like society might suffer more from the burden of false positives.  The timeline jumps towards the end threw me a bit (she's at her desk with the heavy purse, but then back home on time for once, but then back at work not eating).  I think the story would punch deeper if she had a name and a life, making her self-sacrifice for the good of others more poignant.  As it stands now you have a one-dimensional character killing another one-dimensional character, more or less just cancelling each other out.

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@Stupot

Spoiler

I like the theme that normal is just outlandish that you don't know well.  Never having watched Big Brother I had a hard time relating to the cultural debate about its merits as it evolved, but you did a good job making the crux of Paul's arguments accessible to a broader audience.  I feel that getting "normal" out of people is not a realistic ambition if you put them on camera, regardless of whether they are exhibitionists or not.  Just the idea that an audience needs to be entertained can germinate into some pretty crazy hijinks (Exhibit A - my online science experiment videos from covid times  ).  Nevertheless, the resulting tomfoolery was definitely outlandish, so full points for that.  I agree with Sinitrena that perhaps the most outlandish element in your story was the justice system that doled out convictions without culpability.

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And my vote goes to...

Spoiler

Stupot for outlandish outlandishness. 

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[Tall Tales & Details]

Tall Tales & Details

Spoiler

Selena rubbed her temples.  It had been a long day, and the strain of keeping it together was beginning to take its toll.  Her work was constantly texting, her three-year old son was running wild, and her grandmother's house was still a complete mess despite the looming sale deadline.

Bzzzzt-Bzzzzt!  Her phone notifications piled up.

"It's a fire truck!" her son shouted at the top of his lungs, running through the room.

A pile of old documents collapsed from one of the piles, nearly burying Selena in the family's history.

"Cael, stop running this instant!" she called, although the boy was long gone.  She looked despairingly at the pile of papers on the floor, and then decided to deal with the work text first.

"It is not!" Cael shouted again, running back into the room.  "Mom, tell him!"

Selena finished up her text explaining the account details for the umpteenth time.  "What was that, Sweetie?  Is Georgie not playing fair again?"

"Georgie says his name is McGarr now."

Selena tried very hard not to roll her eyes.  Her son's imaginary friend was often more trouble than he was, which was quite a feat indeed.  "Fine.  Is McGarr not playing nicely?"

"He says my fire truck looks like a tractor!"

Selena squinted her eyes, trying to remember if her son even owned a fire truck toy.

Bzzzzt-Bzzzzt!

Selena sighed.  "Did you show him all the sides?  Did you show him the ladder?"

"It's just a drawing, Mom."

Selena tried not to imagine all the possible surfaces that her darling little angel might have drawn on.  "Well, if he knows better, you get McGarr to teach you to draw a better one."

Cael shook his head emphatically.  "McGarr can't draw!  He's a cat!"

Bzzzzt-Bzzzzt!

"Of course he is, Sweetie."  Selena wondered how her grandmother had ever survived the Depression as a single mom with twelve children—just one was running her into the ground.

"He says it's jello-y at the back of the fridge. "

"Cael, Dear.  Mommy has to—"

"—And there's a parent in the jello that makes plants go boom!"

"Sweetie, that's... that's such an exciting story!  Do you think you could be a big boy and see if there's anything in the fridge?  Don't eat it mind, just peek inside and tell me if you see anything."

"OK, Mom.  Wait.  No, McGarr says there are monsters and it stinks too much in there."

Selena nodded along, absently.

Bzzzzt-Bzzzzt!

"And he says be careful with the police or they'll gobble you up."

"How... dreadful!" she mock-exclaimed.

"But if you're careful they make you join at the marker."

"Mmm-hmmmm...."

"I am too saying it right!"

"Listen," Selena said, drawing her darling bundle of energy into a loving embrace.  "Mommy has a lot of work to do here.  She's got her job that keeps pestering her, you to look out for, and all of grandma's house to tidy up before the big sale, or I'm afraid we might run out of money.  It's not going to be easy, but I think I can get it all done if you help me."

"OK, Mom."

"Let's start with your drawing.  Can you bring it here to show me what Geor—uh, McGarr was complaining about?"

"No.  McGarr used it to wipe mud off the steps so that the shade dogs don't get any ideas."

Selena shook her head.  "That McGarr gets into everything, doesn't he?  But wait, how did a cat wipe up a mess with a piece of paper?"

Her son looked at her like a finger had just grown out from between her eyebrows.

"McGarr is magic, Mom."

Selena sighed to herself.  "Well then, perhaps you can get McGarr to clean up something else for me, since he's good at it.  Maybe we can start with the stinky fridge?"

"Yeah, he says he could try."

"Thanks."

Bzzzzt-Bzzzzt!

Selena ignored her phone, turning instead to gather up the documents all over the floor.  There was a certificate for winning first place in the county fair for largest pumpkin, a membership card for the Occultist Society of America, and a picture of her grandmother as a 30 year old woman holding a big black cat and surrounded by twelve smiling children.  My, they did look well fed given the time and circumstances.  Selena shrugged and stuffed all the papers back onto the pile they had come from.

Next an old crinkled bit of newspaper came into her hand.  It was a clipping about her grandfather's disappearance back in the 1920s.  A mystery for another time, perhaps.

The old crinkled paper was back on the pile when a nagging bit of self-doubt made Selena pull it out again.  In the clipping there was a picture of her grandfather staring stoically at the camera, but there was something in his expression that seemed eerily familiar.  She took out the picture of the twelve children again, scanning the faces to see if one had an uncanny likeness to their father, but the only one in the picture with even a passing resemblance to the man was the fat black cat.

Selena crinkled her brow like the old newspaper clipping.  She scanned the text of the article, then gasped.  The body had never been found.  And her grandfather had been named McGarr.

"Cale, Dear!" she called, a hint of concern in her voice.  "What was jello-y in the fridge?"

"You know, Mom.  Jello-y.  Like your rings," her son called back from the other room.

"And what about the parent in the jewellery?"

"A pedrant.  No?  It's like a Nicholas."

"A necklace?"

"That's right."

"And what does it do to plants?"

"Makes them boom!  Like, grow real fast.  McGarr said watch out for the police, remember?"

"Do you mean it makes them bloom?  And to watch out for the pole beans?"

"Sure."

"But what if I'm careful?"

"McGarr says they'll make you join at the marker!"

Selena closed her eyes, trying to parse her son's misunderstanding.  "Do you mean they'll make me coin at the market?"

"That's it!"

Selena couldn't believe it.  Her grandfather had not forsaken the family at all, but had rather been helping out in his own way the whole time. 

"Wait, what did you say about the monsters?!?"

"I can't remember, Mom.  But we're about to open the fridge door right now."

Selena dashed to her feet quicker than her phone could buzz.

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If you utter children stop with the unnecessary spoiler tags, then yes... let's say until the end of Monday the 22nd?

Spoiler

Uh.... what if we just can't stop? 

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Spoiler

...and make getting Baroned harder.

You're getting Baroned harder. 

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Spoiler

...But not anytime soon, as I've completely run out of runway on this competition.  Any chance of an extension?

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Spoiler

I'd just like to say that I'm not working on anything yet, but...

Spoiler

...but I also didn't want to spoil that fact for you if you didn't really want to know.  

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Spoiler

I am shocked by this theme.  Simply shocked. 

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Wait, what?  You can't do this to us old guys!  For a minute there I legit believed I'd lost my mind and hadn't voted yet.  Now I feel compelled to vote for a third round of voting to call into question the validity of the previous two votes. 

I think I agree most with Mandle here that this is mostly a writer's group masquerading as a contest.  Who cares about the voting system?  I mean, it's nice to win once in a while, and more votes mean marginally more validation I guess, but the real love is in the feedback.

If anything good has come of this it's that Mandle has taught me the word "borked".   
 

[@Sinitrena]

Good reads, my friends, good reads.

@Sinitrena

Spoiler

I liked the twist of old feeble Belikon being the superior necromancer and giving the smug High Caster his comeuppance.  I might have voted for your work except for the many humorous typos: "Witch" a snap of his fingers; two "answered" slipped through Belikon's mind; first he "locked" at the old sword....  You claim to have been rushed because you only got your idea two days before deadline.  Man, I wish I had ideas that far in advance!   

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@Lorenzo

Spoiler

The story was a bit silly, but Loopy's enthusiasm despite her ignorance and poverty were infectious and I loved the description of the mess in her room.  It actually reminded me of my son's room (*cringe*), so I had a good chuckle at some of her antics.  A well-deserved vote.   

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@Mandle

Spoiler

Oh Mandle.  Did you really spend 10 hours writing this?  Because it was AWESOME!  You kept me guessing where this was going, but there is no way in a million years I could have conceived of that ending.  I look forward to reading what you might produce if only you could pour a proper amount of time into your craft (I'm thinking six hours per paragraph?  ).  Alas, the geo-nerd in me looked up the Google Streetview at 47th Street and 6th avenue and was sadly disappointed.   

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[Memoirs of a Trashy Woman]

Wait, we're not supposed to post if it's so bad we wouldn't show it to a dog? 

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Memoirs of a Trashy Woman

Her nostrils flared to the smell of garbage burning.  It was strong and acrid, like the smell of charred caffeine powder that Moloch used to brew at the beginning of each cycle in order to drive off the adenosine fog.  Now she couldn't help but associate the smell with what the locals called "morning", when the sky in the east was lit on fire and most of the megavermin went dormant.  Soon it would be day.

The girl cracked an eyelid, noting the dim haze through the slats of her shanty that seemed to cast everything in a hint of sepia.  She would like nothing better than to sleep another hour, for she always dreamed in colours more vibrant than her reality.  But the heat of the sun would soon make the shanty air unbearable.  With a heavy reluctance that dragged at her limbs she forced herself out of her nest of plastic sheeting to face another day.

She checked the roach traps to see if there was any breakfast but was not terribly disappointed to find them empty.  She was not a fussy eater - she had been raised on Moloch's nutrient paste, after all, a substance barely more palatable than the scouring powder they had used to bathe - but even still she had never quite gotten used to the taste of cockroach.  The surface had its marvels, but culinary successes weren't among them.

"Hey Trog," muttered the mangy urchin who slept under the wing of an ancient flying machine adjacent to the girl's shanty.  He was several years younger than the girl, not more than nine or ten, but already his skin was wrinkled and his patchy hair greying.

"That's not my name," the girl called Trog sighed.

"Whatever, Trog."  The urchin boy scratched at the goiter that marked him as a surface dweller from birth, and then pulled a large tuft of hair out of his head, a sure sign that he was already suffering from the decay.  He spat his nonchalance, the splattered phlegm revealing flecks of blood, and then hunched down to drink out of a puddle sheathed in oily scum. 

The girl called Trog watched the spectacle with a sense of pity more than revulsion.  Back in Moloch's subterranean lab much stress had been put on health and hygiene, and those habits of mind died hard.  But how would a surface dweller understand that there was any better way?

The girl called Trog began to clamber up the pile of refuse from which she had carved her tiny shanty, being careful not to step on sharps or solvents.  The surface had many marvels that were unheard of in Moloch's dungeon realm, but it also had many more dangers.  The slightest slip could land you with an injury or infection that would swiftly end your days.  She had not escaped Moloch's depths just to end as an invalid swarmed by piranha flies.  No, she was on a quest to find something better, something half-remembered from her vivid dreams.

She crested the little pile of junk to survey the awesome spectacle of the sun.  Its rays were cancerous by midday, she knew, but here in the gentle early hours she could imagine how its majesty must have presided over the world before the Reckoning.  Bold colours danced through the smog, light and gas dancing in a glorious spectacle.  When she had finally stumbled out of the depths several months ago it had been dawn, and to this day she gaped at its power.  So bright and full of promise, like her dreams come true.

The rest of the landscape was not quite as she had hoped.  Yes, it was spacious in a way that Moloch's underground compound could never be, and the light here was solid and sure unlike his flickering luminescent inventions.  But whereas Morloch's lair had been meticulously cleaned and organized, the surface was instead a jumbled chaos of refuse from another age.  As far as her eye could see, mountains of trash competed with each other to bask in the morning light.  Tumbleweeds of shredded plastic bags rolled down the desolate laneways that weaved between these heaps, and already she could make out the stooped and sorry forms of the surface dwellers beginning their daily search for ekings in the piles.

It was a precarious and empty existence - nasty, brutish, and short.  But was it any worse than Moloch's cavernous world of tyranny and spite?  Here at least there was the wind in your hair and the prospect of finding something better over the next heap.  In the depths there was nothing to look forward to except the bleak monotony of time slowly counting up to infinity.  Yes, Moloch possessed the arcane powers of the ancients, able to mend wounds and hatch broods of children such as herself from tubes, but existence under his regimented despotism lacked any kind of fun, creativity, or adventure.  For the girl called Trog, hope and freedom counted for more than oppressive hyper-safety.

And so she had escaped through the pipes that conveyed the compound's waste to the surface.  She had staked all on a whim and a dream, and once tainted by the surface there was no return.  Moloch's cold judgement and scientific curiosity would be harsh in equal measure.  No, the only sensible path now was onward, wherever that led to.  The girl named Trog shimmied down the pile of garbage to find her new beginning.

She had already explored a good chunk of what the locals called Sector 38, from the pits that seemed to burn perpetually to the scum pond that acted like a putrid sink.  The north and east was occupied by violent gangs that burnt ancient lubricant to fuel their roaring vehicles, but these were vulnerable in the narrower laneways of the rest of the sector.  To the south the locals suffered from a lung plague that turned phlegm black, and the girl had no wish to discover how contagious it was.  Thus, as was her habit lately, she went west.

Here the heaps of trash were more massive, and the steeper slopes made for more dangerous footing.  Still, this meant that they were not as picked over as some of the other parts of the sector, and she had made more discoveries here than the rest of the sector combined.  Here she had found the patched tarpaulin that kept her shanty dry and whose drooping rain-fed puddles provided her with precious clean drinking water.  Here she had found the old boots tied together whose steel shanks saved her soles from cuts and junk snake bites.  And here she had found the old crumpled paper that an old goitered crone had called a leaf.

Keen to make fresh discoveries the girl began to poke about on a heap she'd never visited before.  There were the usual vehicle carcasses and rotting furnishings and the ever present plastic baubles.  But there, in the depths of a crevice, the glint of something interesting caught her eye.  Was it shiny or did it cast its own light?  Intrigued, she looked to see how she might retrieve the object safely.

The grating sound of trash tumbling in a mini-avalanche brought her out of her curiosity, and she suddenly realised that she had not been paying attention to her surroundings.  This was dangerous on the surface, for desperation made both man and beast a potential threat.  She turned around with trepidation to notice a pack of omnirats, their scruffy fur and barred fangs glinting in the mid-morning haze.  They were the size of the sickly dog that used to eat mouldy old shoes down by the scum pond, and she knew from Moloch's seminars that they were among the more deadly megavermin.  Several mutations in the years since the Reckoning had given them claws like steel knives and the ability to spit acid at their victims. 

The omnirats did not appear to have spotted the girl yet, but they had definitely found the scent of her trail.  Not daring to double back towards her shanty, the girl instead began to climb, slowly and cautiously, hoping against hope that the pack found something else of interest before they found her.  Up she climbed, higher and higher into the garbage strewn hills, up towards where the land met the sky itself. 

The braying of omnirats in the distance indicated that the pack was onto something.  The girl quickened her pace, but suddenly stopped, for along the height of land there was a high metal wall.  She had found the end of Sector 38 elsewhere, but had somehow assumed the sector extended further in this direction.  In a panic she looked around for an appliance to hide in, but nothing in the heaps of refuse seemed to offer any sanctuary.

The howl of omnirats was much closer now, and she knew she had only moments in which to hide or escape.  In desperation she slipped into a blue booth that stood against the wall and pulled its plastic door set on rusty hinges shut behind her.  In mere moments the booth was surrounded by the scuffling sound of giant rodents on the prowl.

The girl held her breath.  The door was held in place by a flimsy plastic latch that was only just less solid looking than the rusty hinges on the other side.  A determined attack by the predators would rip the door off in no time.  There was nothing in the booth with which to defend herself, although there was a seat with a mysterious hole in the middle.  The girl called Trog did not make a habit of squeezing into strange dark places, but the hole did seem just large enough for her and yet too narrow for an omnirat.  Considering that she was dead anyway if she got caught, she swallowed her fears and squeezed head first down through the mysterious hole.

It was dark, and moist, and smelled of rot so old that it had begun to smell like the earth itself.  Scratching sounds echoed from the plastic booth up above, and so the girl squirmed like a grub through the blackness, discovering that the hole extended quite some way.  The sounds of scratching faded, but the confines of the hole were so tight that she doubted she could turn around even if she tried.  And so on she ooched forward, blindly, into the unknown.  The only sensible path now was onward, wherever that might lead to.

And then there was a pale light ahead of her, and the girl called Trog slithered towards it, daring to hope that she might survive her second subterranean ordeal.  She emerged into a kind of rustling temple, decorated with vivid hues of green that put even her dreams to shame.  Everything around her seemed alive, and yet nonthreatening.  There was a feeling of peace to this place, and the smells reminded her of something latent in her subconscious.  A pool of water had ponded just ahead of her, not oily and scummy but clear like the bottles Moloch kept in the depths.

The girl turned, and noticed the metal wall towering behind her, the faded paint indicating that this was Sector 42.  She must have passed under the wall!  Moloch had lectured that all of the surface was a wasteland - the girl called Trog had not even considered that different sectors might have different environments.  She scratched her head in wonder.

"Who are you?"

The girl tensed immediately, for the trickle of water had drowned out the approach of the boy.  He looked to be healthy - not the sterile kind of healthy of Moloch's broods, pasty and scrawny from rationed light and nutrients.  No, this boy's skin was bronzed - he showed a lot of it, she now noticed - and beneath it there was more meat than she'd seen in her life.  But he did not seem inclined to use it to his advantage.  Instead he looked just as confused as she felt.

"Sorry.  You want to know my name?  My real name?" she responded.  "No one has ever asked."

The boy shrugged.  "How else would I know who you really are?"

The girl referred to as Trog was impressed, but still suspicious.  "You tell me your name first."

The boy gave her a shy smile.  "I'm Adam."

Now it was the girl's turn to smile.  "I was named Eve."

Sweeeeeeet! 

My story's done, but it's a bit of a rushed job.  This extension should give me time to gussy 'er up a bit. 

I guarantee you it was Mandle that liked the previous post.    Hide tags for all!

I've finally got an idea.  Should be able to bash it out by tomorrow night.  Fingers crossed.

I'm just curious how you managed to create the 2 vote limit. 

(*Secretly plots to create large vote requirements the next time he runs the contest  )

P.S. May I ask if you understood the reason why Marcus did what he did? I'm curious if I have to point it out a bit clearer if I ever do a second draft of the story.

I understood that dude to be fed up, pissed off, and crazy as a spring squirrel.

But....

Spoiler

I was thinking about the mechanics of cutting the Earth in half (er, for the purposes of benign writing feedback  ). I think, what with the liquid core and all, and the fact that gravity pulls everything towards the centre of mass no matter whether it's attached or not, that Marcus would not have actually succeeded in destroying the world.  Even getting the solid crust into two pieces would probably not work, as the pressure from inside would almost certainly force liquid rock up to fill the void or create a volcano, but even if he did the worst case scenario would be two super hemispherical plates.  This would cause some serious earthquakes along the periphery, and possibly some dire climate change if they started floating faster than geological speed relative to the solar plane, but I think, worst case scenario, he would succeed in merely murdering tens of millions of people. 

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Congratulations Durinde!