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Love the trophies by the way! 8)

[Obi]

Sorry, I forgot you only get 1 vote this time so that's why I've edited this post.
Obi

It'd be really good if TwinMoon asks for an extension because their stories are usually cool and currently there's only four entries. If it stays at that I suggest we just vote for one story.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but so is many things, including for me the worst job in the world. Not in general or for everyone, just for me this job is the worst. When I was in my 20s I was naive, my father had been sent to jail for life when I was a young child. I can barely recall him but one thing I trust even to this very day is that he was innocent of the crime. Ever since I was determined to stop people like him having not only their lives ruined but also their families’ by incompetent lawyers, inadequate evidence and general frame jobs. Clearly my emotions towards my father’s case had clouded my vision about innocence and guilt. My mother was mortified when she discovered I was to become a defensive attorney. Through her tears she even asked me to seek therapy about my father before doing so. However I was cocky and rebellious and foolishly discarded her request.

When I began defending clients I was optimistic of their innocence, my court appearances were filled with zeal and blatant attacks at the prosecution, and it was like the cases were all for defending my father and freeing my clients was an attempt to free him.

Yet as the years wore on, my blind optimism was stripped away. I was listening to bank robbery suspects, murder suspects, etc. and trying my hardest to best represent them but my belief of their innocence in many cases became eroded and instead I told myself it was a now just a job, no longer a cause for my father. I was becoming hollow and egotistical; I’d use my now fake zeal to free people who I believed were as guilty as the prosecution and every time I won one of those cases a part of me faded away.

The final straw was when I took on a client accused of murdering his father; there was no evidence of abuse or a reason for the murder except greed, inheritance money. By this point I was in my early 40s, my marriage had crumbled and I barely saw my children because I had become someone they didn’t know any more. Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep when I thought about what this job had done and taken away from me. Every bone in my body told me this guy was guilty, that he’d brutally beaten his father to death and all for money. I began remembering my own father; only a year ago he’d passed away in jail. I kept feeling how pained he would be to see what I’d become and the irony is that I began this for him, or was that merely a pretence to convince myself it wasn’t for me. On the final day of the trial I was suffering from depression and laid in bed all day, ignoring the persistent calls to me about my absence. I just couldn’t do it any more; this had become the worst job in the world for me. I was allowed to retire gracefully rather than be disbarred. Defence lawyers are important, they’re needed, not all of them only care about freeing their clients regardless of whether they are innocent or guilty and not every defendant is guilty but it’s not for everyone, I now know it was never for me.

Jack Sheehan
Daniel H

[Runaway]

                                         

Runaway

                                         

8 years ago:

The house was pitch black, only the eerie sound of creaking of old floorboards could be heard from within. As the sun rose it shined through the kitchen window to reveal to a nosy neighbor, smeared blood marks on the facet and sink. They merely suspected Mrs. Harold had cut herself cooking but went over to investigate further. Her persistent knocks were ignored. Since the Harold’s and their teenage daughter lived there she was overly suspicious that nowhere was answering, more than most would expect. In a panic she called the police and then the reality of what happened inside the house was revealed.

For most of the day the house was swamped with police from all different kinds of units. It appears the blood seen was not from a simple accident. On the floor just below Mrs. Harold was found bludgeoned to death with severe head wounds, she never had a chance considering she was repeatedly hit with force in the head with a heavy object, breaking through her skull. The reason no one answered the door was simple, nowhere was able to. Mr. Harold was the next victim found, he was in his study, on the floor but his death was caused by different circumstances. He was shot twice, both to the chest and it was lights out forever for him.

However the daughter was nowhere to be found. So the initial determination was she had been taken hostage by the murderer. She was never heard from again and after a few months of fruitless leads she was presumed dead. Despite the entire DNA and other evidence recovered at the scene there were no leads as to who killed the couple and possibly their daughter. Therefore it became known as, like many cases do, a cold case.
                                                     

Current Day:

A woman aged in her 20s sits in a holding cell on charges of shoplifting. Her license states her name is Julie Marson. The policewoman who processed her finds a startling discovering, this woman is not who she claims to be. A database lists her fingerprints as that suspected to be those of Julie Harold and she’s been missing since her parents’ murder in another state 8 years ago.

Upon entering the young ladies cell the officer sits down and shows her a case file, she announces she has an order to get a DNA sample from her. Julie protests in confusion. “What? Why do you need my DNA?” “Because I believe you are not Julie Marson, in fact based on your fingerprints I suspect you are the same Julie Harold that disappeared from Grove County when her parents were murdered. A DNA sample will confirm who you really are, or perhaps you want to save me the trouble and admit it instead.” Julie rolls her eyes and says “Take the annoying test, it’s not like I can stop you but I know who I am!” So the test was taken.

At a lab the test reveals what was suspected all along, this woman is actually Julie Harold. So the cold case team is called in as well as CSI to help re-examine the evidence from the original crime scene. So now it’s clear that the missing lady is alive and well but it doesn’t quite add up. She changes her name, appearance and moves states but evidence indicated she was at the house during the murders. Did she escape her captor, possibly kill him and try to start a new life, or was there a lot more to it?

Julie is held for as long as the police can hold her but she is not helpful, despite the evidence she still insists she’s not who they say she is. In the meantime the original evidence is reinvestigated and some anomalies appear that weren’t noted originally. For a start a friend of the family had stated that Julie was away on vacation during the attack and wasn’t due back until a week later yet her DNA, finger and shoeprints were found in the house that night. Also a friend of hers said she suspected Julie had run off with her boyfriend some weeks ago. The former was believed and they suspected she’d come home early and the latter was simply dismissed. However now things were starting to look a little clearer. So it was time to do a little further talking to family relatives who at the time said little to nothing about Julie, almost as if they wanted to avoid talking about her. After a lot of trying they finally found an aunt who admitted that Julie had runaway with her boyfriend before the attack because her parents disapproved of him, apparently he’d been in trouble with the law but she didn’t know his name.

Back to questioning Julie, finally she crumpled and admitted she was who they’d confirmed and that her aunt was telling the truth. Upon further pressure about the evidence she confessed that not only was she there that night but also with another male..

She and her boyfriend, Lewis had broken in during the late night to rob the place as they had little money and Lewis already had robbed houses before. He brought a gun with him; she said he only intended to scare her parents. However her father put up a fight and Lewis panicked and killed him. In the kitchen Julie and her mother were arguing, her mother was telling her she was no good and that she regretted not giving her up for adoption, after how she raised her the only reason she could see that she’d turned out like she had was that she was just rotten. This drove Julie into a rage; she picked up the kettle (found missing at the scene) and smashed it into her mothers’ head. After realizing her parents were dead she and Lewis fled and changed their IDs and tried to start a new life. They actually were still together. She gave up his whereabouts for a plea deal. Case closed.

Edited because I didn't proofread enough before posting and realised I could word some things better.

Will you be making any picture trophies for the winner, just asking?

Considering there's only a few days left to enter perhaps extending it by at least 2 days might be a good idea, at least to avoid just having one entry, after all it's not a competition without more than one person entering.

Would an interviewer classify as a scribe? I'm just trying to work out what occupations would qualify for such a title.

I probably am, it's just sometimes when these competitions start to get very few entries sometimes people start to think it's not worthwhile, I disagree but it has happened before.

I'm a bit stuck for this theme so I'm currently unsure if I'll enter but I might. However if anybody enters I'll vote(if there is at least 3-4 entries).

Not to sound pessimistic but let's say that no one or only one or 2 people enter, I hope that wont discourage the continuation of this competition.

[TwinMoon]

I agree that everyone should be able to vote in all rounds for this competition, I think the initial argument was that non entrants might not be bothered to read the entries. However I still think it's a good idea to have a consistent rule for this either way for every round.

TwinMoon, I'm sorry, I misunderstood what you meant in the first round but now I understand.

I feel strongly that non-entrants shouldn't be excluded from the voting.

No offence but I thought you only wanted entrants of the first round of this competition to be able to vote, that's the way it seemed anyway.

Look it seems each person who runs each competition sets their own voting rules, so let's just stop fighting about this rounds voting rules or instead have a off subject discussion about a permanent voting rules for all rounds, this seems like setting a constant standard will avoid all these arguments.

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?

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.

[TwinMoon]

Disneys Nightmare by TwinMoon
The Bookish Hunt Down event by Dualnames

[An Ending]

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.

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.

But you never actually needed a Google account to comment on it. 

Maybe not with his but on other blogspot ones I have needed to.