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NeoGaf Creative Writing Challenge #20 - "Score"

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D

DumbNameD

Member
Theme - "Score"

Interpret as you will. [see next post for Optional Secondary Objective]

Word Limit: 1750

Submission Deadline: Wednesday 1/28 by 11:59 PM Pacific.

Voting begins Thursday, 1/29, and goes until Saturday, 1/31 at 11:59 PM Pacific.

Submission Guidelines:

- All submissions must be written during the time of the challenge. We don't want a snippet of your doctoral thesis from 1996 being used here.
- One entry per poster. You can submit and then edit if you'd like, but finalizing before submitting is encouraged.
- Spelling and Grammatical errors can be used to great effect when the story, characters, and setting demand it. However, proofreading and spell-checking your writing will probably result in a more positive attitude towards it when people are voting.
- Using the topic as the title of your piece is discouraged. These challenges get a large number of submissions and if entries share the same title, it's difficult for the readers to separate them out come voting time.
- Any writing style is welcome, but remember that most people are probably going to vote for the well written short story over an elementary acrostic poem.
- There are many ways to interpret the theme for this assignment, we are all writers or wannabe writers, so keep that in mind when writing and critiquing others' works.
- Thousands of people read GAF, so if you don't want some masterpiece of yours to be stolen and seen in Hollywood a year from now, don't post it on here.
- Finally, there is a handy word count checker at www.wordcounttool.com. Nobody wants to be a word count nazi, but please keep your submission under the limit.

Voting Guidelines:

- Anyone can vote, even those that do not submit a piece during the thread.
- Three votes per voter. Please denote in your voting your 1st (3 pts), 2nd (2 pts), and 3rd (1 pt) place votes.
- Please read all submissions before voting, it is only fair to those who put in the effort.
- You must vote in order to be eligible to win the challenge. Critiques/comments are encouraged but not required.
- When the voting period ends, votes will be tallied and the winner will get a collective pat on the back and will be in charge of picking a new topic to write about and pick the word length.
- In the event of a tie, the story with the highest number of first place votes will be declared the winner. If they are still tied after this first tiebreaker, the previous challenge winner will decide any further tie-breaking measures (2nd Place votes, Joint Topic Choice, etc.)

Previous Challenges:

#1 - "The Things Unseen" (Winner: beelzebozo)
#2 - "An Unlikely Pair" (Winner: Aaron)
#3 - "weightless, breathless" (Winner: Azih)
#4 - "On the way" (Winner: DumbNameD)
#5 - "The End" (Winner: Cyan)
#6 - "Playing with Fire" (Winner: Aaron)
#7 - "Something Brutal" (Winner: Ronito)
#8 - "Parasite and Host" (Winner: Aaron)
#9 - "The Seasons" (Winner: ivysaur12)
#10 - "Anniversary" (Winner: Memles)
#11 - "Comedy" (Winner: Scribble)
#12 - "The Trilogy" (Winner: Aaron)
#13 - "Impossible Thing" (Winner: Cyan)
#14 - "Lost and Found" (Winner: Iceman)
#15 - "Prescient" (Winner: Iceman)
#16 - "Trick or Treat" (Winner: DumbNameD)
#17 - "Countdown" (Winner: DumbNameD)
#18 - "Masquerade" - (Winner: Nitewulf)
#19 - "The Grey Area" (Winner: DumbNameD)
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Score, hmm? A few vague notions floating in my head already. This could be a good one.

Great Rumbler said:
I'm really going to try and write something this time.
Click to expand...
Awesome!
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
Hmmmm. Might be fun to use the less obvious definition on this one. Hopefully, my stupid self participates this time rather than just frittering around.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
crowphoenix said:
Hmmmm. Might be fun to use the less obvious definition on this one.
Click to expand...
Heh, I was just thinking the same thing! I think I might have a decent idea... now to flesh it out a little.
 
B

Bo130

Member
Never seen this topic before... I have the week off after thursday, hopefully I should be able to get the time to write something. Great idea :)
 
W

Ward

Member
I brainstormed a few ideas and quickly was caught by one and couldn't stop typing random ideas to add to the story. Now if I can only make it coherent and pull it together =)
Definitely can't wait to get started now.
 
G

Great Rumbler

Member
Just a Number
Word Count: 1,061

“Bishop is coming across mid-field now. Gifford is coming in for the tackle, looks like he’s got him, NO!, Bishop just tossed him aside and he’s into the open field! He’s across the thirty now, the twenty, no one can stop him! Wait, here comes Lee out of nowhere! Bishop’s down, he’s down! Oh my, that does it, ladies and gentlemen, this game is over. Just like that, Detroit’s hope for their first Super Bowl victory in team history is over with a score of 24-20.”

24-20. I used to hear that a lot from people, but not so much anymore. Maybe people would have forgotten about it eventually, except it was that one play that ruined my entire life. When Lee took me down something snapped in my ankle. I was so mad that I didn’t even realize it at the time, but it caught up to me pretty quickly after that.

The team cut me two weeks later. I couldn’t blame them. Yeah, I’d played a great season, maybe the greatest that I’d ever had, but I was getting old and that injury wasn’t going to make things any better. Maybe they knew what I knew the moment I hit the turf: that if I’d been a little bit younger I could have out-run Lee. He wasn’t fast, he didn’t have years of experience, he was just some punk rookie that got a lucky break because I didn’t see him until it was too late to do anything about it.

I talked with some other teams, but nobody was buying. They said a lot of the same things that the suits in Detroit had. But, hey, I made millions during my career. Even if I never played again I was set up for life. Well, people would be surprised at how much a party costs. I’d been spending my money almost as fast as it came in, so when the money stopped coming…things got tight.

Two months after I got cut, Anne left me. Said she couldn’t live with a man who wasn’t able to buy her nice things. Maybe she would have stayed with me to tough it out if I was a better guy, but I wasn’t. In the end, she took just about everything, except the clothes on my back and few bills in my wallet. If nobody wanted me around, then I didn’t want to be around them. I’d start fresh and show them all!

It was a nice thought and it even kept me warm for a while on cold, lonely nights as I lay wrapped in newspapers under some unnamed bridge with a dozen other has-beens or never-weres. The distinction didn’t matter much down there, because either way you were a bum.

What was I supposed to do? Flip burgers at McDonald’s? Never flipped a burger in my life. Hell, the only thing I was ever good at was catching a ball and then running with it. When I couldn’t even do that anymore, there wasn’t much left to go on living for. Nobody else cared if I lived or died, so I didn’t either.

24-20, huh? God, I hate those numbers. I can even see them in my nightmares, taunting me without mercy. They’re like a scarlet letter that’s been branded on my forehead. If I just could have pushed that kid to the ground like he deserved, I wouldn’t be here right now looking back on a life that’d been burnt to the ground so thoroughly that it wasn’t even worth sifting through the ashes.

I heard the rustling of a door handle and then the loud creak of rusty metal rubbing against more rusty metal. A kid came out of the opposite building carrying a bag of garbage over his shoulder. He might have been eighteen or so, but I wasn’t sure because I didn’t care enough to look any closer.

He tossed the garbage into a dumpster and then he just stood there. Might’ve been looking at me, wondering what sort of Hell I’d been through to get where I was, but I just kept on staring back at a blank brick wall.

“Uh…hey, you’re Niles Bishop, right?” The kid asked tentatively. Great. Another jilted fan come to yell at me until he felt better about himself.

“Haven’t been Niles Bishop in a long time,” I mumbled roughly.

“I used to watch you all the time when I was younger,” the kid said, “My dad even bought me your jersey and all that. Breaking all those tackles and all those diving catches, you really were the best.”

“Yeah, ‘were’. I’m just a nobody now, kid. All you gotta do is go back and watch the Super Bowl to know that.”

The kid shook his head, “I watched the whole season. We wouldn’t even have made it to the Super Bowl is you hadn’t played lights-out like you did.”

“We still lost. Twenty-four to twenty. You know, I’ve been haunted by that for three years. It took everything that I had and destroyed it! Even if I tried to do something else, do you think that people would really forget about that?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” The kids said with a shrug of his shoulders, “After all, it’s just a number.”

Just a number. Nobody’d ever said anything like that to me before. Probably because the whole idea was crazy.

“Say, kid, whatever happened to Lee? Probably big-timin’ it right now, huh?”

The kid paused for a second. “Oh, I guess you hadn’t heard about it. About a year back, Malcolm Lee got shot outside a nightclub. Some gang members started shooting at each other or something and he just happened to be in the wrong place.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, he never even saw it coming.”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! Lee’d had his whole life in front of him. He would have been a legend. Should have been! Kid never did anything to deserve that kind of fate. He wasn’t a boozed-up loser like me, trying to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of the here and now. It wasn’t fair.

“Thanks, kid. Now run along, I’m tryin’ to sleep.”

“Oh, yeah. See you around, Bishop.”

I heard the rustle of a door knob and then the creak of rusted metal against rusted metal.

Just a number, huh?
 
C

Cyan

Banned
***Not a challenge entry***

While working out what to write about for the topic, I wrote this little bit of narrative on a whim. Probably not my entry (unless I have no time to write something else), but just thought I'd share it. Because... why not? And also because it's short. Any comments are welcome--I don't usually write in this style.


Stars

When I was little, Dad used to take me out stargazing.

He'd wait until 11 at night--he said it was because the stars were brightest then, but really it was because that was when Mom fell asleep--and he'd sneak out of his room and come get me.

We'd go out back and lie on our jackets and stare up at the sky. "There's Orion," he'd say. "There's the Big Dipper." Then we'd laugh, because those were the only two constellations we knew.

So we'd make up our own. The Big Triangle. The Dragon. The Sideways Tornado.

We had little competitions to see who could come up with the best new constellations each night. "Star pictures," we called them, since "constellation" was too much of a mouthful for me.

When I went off to college, I signed up for an astronomy class right away. I wanted to know what the real constellations were. It gave me a funny sort of feeling, like I was cheating on Dad or something, but I didn't think he'd really mind. That had been a long time ago. Still, I didn't tell him about it. I thought I'd maybe surprise him with the whole thing.

Of course, astronomy turned out to be Johannes Kepler, quasars, the life-cycle of stars. Even a little Einstein. Not word one about constellations. Fascinating subject, but not really what I'd been looking for.

So I finally gave in and hit the library.

There it all was. Cassiopeia. The Northern Cross. Andromeda. I put the book back on the shelf, feeling somehow disquieted. Those constellations just weren't right. It didn't feel proper to be reading about them.

Still. It'd be nice to be able to explain to Dad when I got home. I could take him out stargazing--it had been years--show him some of the real constellations. We'd laugh about how dumb the ancient Greeks or whoever were, and how our constellations were better.

You know how this story ends. This kind of reminiscence always finishes up with the subject being dead. Otherwise why talk about it?

It happened two days before my flight back at the end of the semester. Mom didn't tell me until right before I got on the plane. "We didn't want you to miss any finals," she choked out over the phone. I stewed on the flight home.

The funeral was--a funeral. When it's someone you really love, all funerals are the same. A soggy mess of unshed tears and putting on a brave face, of eulogies that don't even begin to explain the person and piles of flowers that probably would have killed them sneezing had they ever been in the same room in life. Someone told me once that funerals are for the living. That's bullshit. Funerals are for the living who wish they'd known them better. Who wish they'd reconnected, or called, or been nicer, or whatever it is.

They sure as hell aren't for the people who really care.


It was a whole two years before I ever thought about stars again.

I mentioned my freshman year astro class offhand to a girl I was interested in, and she was suddenly taken with an overwhelming need to be out stargazing.

"A girl I was interested in." Funny that I still say that. Another thing from Dad. Back in high school, he'd always ask me who I was interested in. I asked him about it once. He waited til Mom was out of the room, then said it was "more decorous than asking who you want to bang, and less juvenile than asking who you have a crush on."

Stargazing sounded just the thing. The perfect opportunity to put the moves on--it's dark, there's no one else around, and she's feeling romantic. Can't beat it.

We got to the park, and stared up at the sky. I suddenly found I couldn't remember anything from the library book.

"There's Orion," I said. "There's the Big Dipper."

And I laughed. They were still the only constellations I knew.
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
I can't stop thinking about what if I became president and I took another country, lifted it up in the air, and balanced the entire country on a mountain peak?

I also can't stop thinking about what if I became president and I started messing with peoples genes so that every newborn was 12 feet tall and built like a bodybuilder?

Also, what if I made a gun with a barrel that extended from the ground to beyond our atmosphere and into space, and it could shoot bullets the size of cities? I would try to shoot down other galaxies.

I tried writing on all these topics but I couldn't get past a few hundred words.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Great Rumbler said:
So did everyone else just give up?
Click to expand...
Nah, we'll get a bunch of submissions closer to the deadline.

Timedog said:
I can't stop thinking about what if I became president and I took another country, lifted it up in the air, and balanced the entire country on a mountain peak?
Click to expand...
Man, you a crazy bastard, you know that?
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
A Cascade of Ellipses
Word count; 1750

“You motherfucker! You said the investments would level out! You said to stay the course! I’ve got five kids to feed, motherfucker! It’s the holidays, and I’ll be damned if I let you get away scot-free!” Malugo was screaming so loud that he felt the steak he had eaten for lunch start to creep up his esophagus.

“Calm down, all isn’t lost. When the market fluctuates back to parity, you’ll be back up to speed. You just need to trus-“

“Trust you? I just lost over 9,000 trillion dollars, you asshole! I’m gonna lose my house unless I go back to slumming it working in a fucking laboratory again! Do you know who the fuck I am? I am fucking GOD. I fucking OWN you.”

“Mr. Malugo, there’s nothing we can do until the marke-“

“You’re an only child, right? I know you and that bitch of yours have yet to concieve. You haven’t passed your DNA into the genepool yet. I have more power than God, himself, you insolent little prick.”

Click.

He had better fuck his whore tonight, and hope for an accident, Malugo thought, standing with his hand still clenched tightly to the handle of the telephone. His heart sprinted at a pace so fast and strong that he heard an audible throbbing in his ears. Beads of sweat poured down his thick forehead and wet his black, dry beard, which soaked up the moisture like wheat-colored grass after a drought. Minutes passed, his breathing decelerated, and slowly all bodies in the universe came to a rest. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. His grip held steadfast to the receiver. Finally his legs found the inertia to move the lumbering mass of earth they helped hold upright. Malugo’s skin was as cold and clammy as clay dirt after a torrential rainfall.

He had an idea. From his basement, Malugo unearthed a box and quickly rifled through the contents until he found the two items. A small 16oz bag of cream-colored powder and an 80mL vile of clear liquid. He gathered the items and took them into his kitchen, where the stove burner was glowing red hot, and a boiling flask was already cleaned and prepared. Cautiously, Malugo poured first the powder, then the liquid into the boiling flask, then placed a rubber stopper securely into the opening of the flask, creating an airtight seal. He carefully set the flask directly on the burner, hoping to God that the seal did not let any excess air into the flask.

4 hours later, Malugo arrived at the post office. He was carrying a 2ft.x1ft.x6in. package. The name on the return address was cryptically listed “Science”. The cashier asked for delivery priority.

“Overnight.”

As he exited the building, Malugo began to entertain the idea that he was making some sort of mistake. Upon entering his car, he thought, What if my portfolio manager was right? Maybe my investments just need time? Even if they’re worthless, maybe I could just put on the labcoat and live a normal life again. Maybe I am making the biggest mistake of my life. In the morning, I could drive to the portfolio manager’s home and retrieve the package before it was opened and throw it off a bridge into some large body of water. That would neutralize the explosive if the package didn’t detonate on impact.

I don’t make mistakes, Malugo reassured himself, I’ve done the figures. I’m broke. I’m going to make sure no one can make me change my mind. From underneath his bed he pulled out another box, this one carved out of fine rosewood with a padlock keeping its powerful contents safe from prying eyes and itchy fingers. On top of the box was etched a cascade of ellipses, each with very little eccentricity. This was Malugo’s favorite symbol. Why didn’t I major in Astronomy?

……………

Today is the day, Ted thought as he woke. Well, Ted didn’t really sleep in the way most people think of the term. He couldn’t really close his eyes. He just sort of “rested” every now and again. He just wasn’t the type for much sleep anyway. Ted was walking to his grandfather’s. He walked just about everywhere. He walked to work at his construction job. He walked to his friend’s place. He walked when he wanted to get food. He walked to and fro from place to place just as fast as every one of his legs would carry him. He loved exercise. His mother told him that that kind of exercise would make him strong and would build character. It was only half true; Ted was as strong as an ox. The character part was supposed to come as a result of today’s journey.

Ted arrived to his grandpa’s full of questions about the travels ahead of him. He knew he was not allowed to ask them, though. Ted was from a large family, and most of Ted’s brothers had already taken the journey, and even in strict confidence none would speak of the wonders of outer space. Many had not come back alive.

“Finally, Ted, it is your turn to seek The Truth. Speak not of that which you see. Not to anyone, not at any time, it is the way of our tribe. From the Cave of Light arrives every fruit, every plague, and every wonder that this life may offer. The tribe creates subsistence only from that which is in existence beyond our walls in the realm of outer space. God is all powerful, and gives us many-splendored offerings. God is terrible, and seeks retribution for our sins. God exists in all things beyond the Cave. From this day forward, you may travel in space with every elder tribesman on our hunts, but on this day you must trek alone, and find for yourself the beauty God’s planets bring. Go.”

Without a word, Ted left his grandfather and walked to the outskirts of the village, towards the Cave of Light. An awesome thing, the Cave was. From it, rays of light poured upon some parts of the village, giving the gift of illumination. Ever since early childhood, Ted had wondered what other curiosities lie in the Cave, aside from the magic light that he saw whenever he traveled the outskirts. Rumors from other children told of unimaginably large planets—in station and in orbit—and food caches so large they were inexhaustible. There was said to be vast expanses of space that echoed on for eternity; dimensions upon dimensions upon dimensions of never-ending corridors. One man, long ago, had attempted to reach the end of space, the Perimeter, as he called it. He never returned. In any case, Ted was determined to complete the journey so he could begin helping his tribe.

He approached the door of the cave. Ted was never able to get this close to the Cave before; the elders wouldn’t allow. He was now literally inches from the opening of the portal, and from this distance he saw not just light pouring in, but he could see out! There was a sea of fibrous white grasses taller than he was, and sparsely interspersed in the grass were boulder rocks that the elders use to build. He saw no Perimeter. Space seemed to stretch on forever and ever in white. All around him at varying distances towered stationary planets of incalculable size. The colors exploded from everywhere. Gone were the drab browns and blacks of the village.

Ted entered the portal of Light and into space. He walked along in the grass for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go, no one had told him. Along the way he saw elders returning to the village, carrying scores of food. Ted wasn’t allowed to help or converse with them until this journey was over. The children said that many of the elders had seen God Himself in space. This is my objective, I must speak with God, Ted thought.

Moments later, a loud thundering noise woke Ted from the excited stupor brought upon by the awe of his surroundings. The sound had a force of such magnitude it nearly blew Ted over. His senses went absolutely haywire. Ted looked up and saw that in the far distance, a huge portal had opened wide enough to allow an orbital planet to pass through. The size of the planet must have been several million times larger than Ted, yet it moved through space with a fluidity that was astonishing. This is where I’ll find God, thought Ted, On that planet.

Ted inched his way along the white fiber towards the planet with unbreakable resolve. I will complete this journey to help my tribe. He found his way to the base of the planet. He was met with a slippery black surface that he found hard to climb upon, but he persisted, step-by-step, one leg at a time, until he came upon a coarse blue area of the planet that felt heavy. He found this zone much easier to grip. Up. Up. Up. The ascent was maddening, but with each step he thought of his family and his society, and how he would soon help them prosper.

Ted came upon a new area of the planet as he ascended higher in latitude. The land in this area was white in color, lighter feeling, and fun to climb. I must be getting close to God. He climbed higher and higher until he found a gigantic moving structure protruding outward from the face of the planet like a massive tan-colored leg. He stepped onto the structure and immediately felt moisture. The surface was warm and wet, with liquid oozing out of large vents in the surface, and tall tufts of black grass peppering the ecofloor. Water. This is a gift from God! He drank, and continued making his way through the marsh.

Finally, at the end of the protrusion, was a very hard slippery silver surface in the shape of a cylinder. He walked along it, careful not to lose grip and fall from the planet. At the end of the cylinder was a giant black cave. The Cave of Darkness. I’m here, this is where God must be, Ted thought with awe as he entered.

Mr. Malugo pulled the trigger, sending his brains to spray out of the back of his head and blossom like some beautiful red nebula that beings across the galaxy look at in wonder.
 
T

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
OH FUCK. I thought this was the Wed 28th and I missed 3 hours of studying to write that story. Ahhhhh! Hope I can still get an A on my Econ test tomorrow.
 
R

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Totally not safe for work.

Counting Sheep

“42, 43, 44…”

Andrew moved his hands with the delicacy of a surgeon. Well, he was a surgeon after all. Emphasis on was. Previously. Formerly. He had to leave the field after an incident that was too bizarre for most of the local papers to publish. A few of the major ones that could get away with describing the intimate details of the bizarre sex crime ran it, but it wasn’t like his career needed to be further tarnished for him to be subsequently fired. He didn’t understand what he had done that was such a crime. It was too bad, the man was widely regarded as a genius in the field. Not that he could get work anymore.

“People in this country are so fucking conservative. It hurts no one,” he thought, as he moved each piece slowly from his right hand to the other side. He had to hold them with his left hand, or he’d lose count.

“66, 67, 68…”

She was asleep, so it was now or never. No woman could remain that still unless she was unconscious. It’s too sensitive down there, no matter what legal drugs he gave them previously. He’d tried drugs many times before; felt it would save him the trouble of fucking them. Never worked. That was the only reason he had fucked the living daylights out of this bitch; to get her eyes closed for at least an hour. He’d need at least an hour.

“Goddamn, her cum smells like fish. It took three hours this time, she must have really been pent up,” he thought aloud. It was enough to make him almost regret giving her the pleasure of his company. But all would be forgiven, even the smell, if she broke 167.

“73, 74…”

She came five times during the three hours he rammed his cock in her. Whenever he saw her face she looked on the verge of tears, like she’d won the lottery or had been crowned Miss Universe. It was enough to make Andrew sick. Fucking hypocrites, the lot of them. Always playing hard to get but once he got them in bed they never wanted to stop. A previous record holder of his actually offered him money to keep going. “I’m not for sale, bitch!” he had hollered, throwing her check book back at her. She begged and pleaded for him to keep fucking her brains out. He kicked her out. He had already finished counting her.

He was finally about half-way done with this whore. “She might just take the record!” he mumbled with glee.

“94, 95, 96…”

“…more…”

A cold sweat slid down Andrew’s cheek, his head cocking up instantly. “No! Don’t’ wake up now! You’ll ruin all my hard work!” he thought. A moment of terror, followed by a sigh of relief. Thank God, it looked like she was just sleep talking. Stupid bitch even dreams of me fucking her? Are all woman this whorish?

“112, 113…”

His heart was racing. His previous record was 167, held by a brunette named Amber. Just a little more… come on!! He stopped and took a deep breathe. He couldn’t afford to lose control here, then she’d definitely wake up! He slowly kept counting, his breathe shorter with each number increase.

“134, 135...”

“143, 144…”

Another skip of his heart; she’s running out. “Please please please! I’ve spent three hours of fucking and an hour counting just for this!” he mentally pleaded, his eyes starting to dart around.

“151, 152, 153…”

“158, 159, 160...”

His heart was audible now. This was it.

“165, 166, 167, 168!!!”

His right fist launched into the air! He knew he’d be right about this one! He knew she could do it! And he still had a few more to go!!

“172, 173, 174.”

He let her go and collapsed on her stomach. “Thank you Susan, you’re name is officially worth remembering now,” he muttered aloud. It’d be two years since Amber. How many woman had disappointed him? But finally, finally he felt alive again.

“…more. Gi.. me more…” Susan sleep-spoke again.

“Fine, fine. I’ll give you one more hour once you’re awake, but after that we’re done,” he said. She didn’t respond obviously, but he didn’t care. She had earned the fucking she had already gotten, and the one she was going to get once she awoke.

For the first time in two years, Andrew slept soundly that night.
 
K

Keru_Shiri

Member
I have an idea, and I have a few pages down, but I'm not really liking where I'm it's going. I don't know if I can have something finished by the deadline. :lol
 
Z

ZephyrFate

Banned
A Hundred to One
Word Count: 1720

Uneasy silence. Bleak pleas for help. The all-consuming darkness. A whole world left unknown to Marcus. The bag wrapped around his head, tied in a loose knot about his neck. Legs and hands equally tied to a chair. The tie around his neck gave him enough room to breathe and speak, and he assumed that whoever else was in the room happened to be in his same predicament. Constantly, he felt the drip of some liquid upon his head, which would travel down the outside of the bag, dripping off the edge of the fabric before pooling in his lap. He could feel the puddle of mysterious liquid soak into his clothes, seep into his navel and crotch. A faint smell of iron...
There is blood... dripping on me... but from where? From what?
He struggled a bit more, trying to find any weakness to the bonds that held him back.

“You can stop your struggling.” A raspy voice called to him.

Marcus froze instantly. Who the fuck... ?

“Yes, I know you are scared, confused even. You have a purpose here. You are not going to be freed until you do exactly as I tell you.”

“Who are you?”

“A dealer of death. You could say that I judge over who should die and who should live. I steal souls from paradise.”

“That doesn't make a lick of sense. Let me out of here, you fucking asshole!” Marcus yelled.

“Ah ah ah, that tone you're taking towards me is not advantageous for you.” The voice became a physical presence, tugging hard on the rope bound across his neck, putting tremendous strain on his throat. Marcus gagged and sputtered, straining at his bonds in a futile attempt to alleviate his situation. After twenty seconds or so, the figure let go of the rope. Marcus coughed and recovered slowly, his windpipe slightly crushed, making his breathing painful and uneven.

“What... what do you want... from me?” Marcus asked, coughing between each word.

“You have a decision to make.” The voice, instead of coming from some external source, reverberated in his skull, as if telepathic.
And what decision is that? Marcus thought.

“Will you save yourself at the expense of others? Bear in mind, the chances of you escaping this place are... about a hundred to one.” The voice replied, each word changing the tone of the voice to something more and more... demonic.
How good do my chances get if I do what you ask?

“I will set you free, completely and entirely.”

What do you ask of me?

“Kill the others in the room around you. There is a pistol beside the chair, your bonds will be cut loose and you can... I suppose, leave. Though I'm not sure what you'll be feeling afterwards. A prison inmate usually doesn't know remorse or guilt, does one?” The voice laughed, demonic vibrations subtly embedded in each cackling ejaculation.

“Alright. What are my chances after they all die?” Marcus asked.

“That is a secret.” Another echoing laugh, then absolute silence.

The air in the room seemed to stagnate instantly. Marcus sensed that oxygen was being sucked out of the room through some unknown, unheard vacuum. He knew he had limited time. The bonds immediately loosened. He grabbed feverishly at the rope around his neck, untying it and throwing the bag to the ground. He turned his head, working out the kinks in his next muscles. He rubbed his hands and legs to give feeling back to them. Rings of red, caked blood coated both his wrists and his ankles. They flecked off as he massaged them. The blood pouring down from above had ceased. He looked upwards and saw a mangled body hanging above, one leg hung over a bar that protruded from the apparently high ceiling. The face of the body was charred and ambiguous. The skin had melted to the point where eyes and mouth were gone. He looked to his right and saw a mirror, pointed directly at him. His hair was short-cropped and brown, his body well-sculpted, from hours and hours of mindless exercise (what else is there to do in prison but work out?) . One blinking, green eye stared back at him, and several revelations hit him at once. He was horrified to see that lacerations covered his face. His right eye was closed, a gaping wound making a crevasse along the right side of his face. His left ear had been ripped off entirely. Several of his teeth were completely gone. And yet... he felt no pain.
Hardcore pain meds... the motherfucker mutilated me!!
However, the all-too-real urgency of the situation slapped him in the face. It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe with every passing second. He took the pistol next to his chair, and stood up. Five other silent, mutilated but still alive bodies were bound in chairs opposite of him. Some were men, some were women. He sighed. Murder put me in here. Murder can set me free. What kind of easy choice is that? These people... I don't know them. I won't feel sad when they die. That asshole... whoever he was. He doesn't know me. I can do this, easy.

Marcus decided he would start from left to right. A man who had been stripped of all his clothes, and had been beaten senseless. Slow, stilted breathing kept his chest moving in and out. Marcus took the gun, aimed point-blank at the man's head, and fired. The bullet pierced through the man's forehead (at least, where he thought the forehead was, every other person in there was unknown thanks to the bags tied around them). Shards of brain flopped along the floor, blood bursting out in fountains that coated the dirty, grimy floor. Congealing in the cracks between the tiles, this river of blood went far and wide. Marcus didn't blink an eye at his actions. The other four had immediately awoken at the sound of the gunfire. Moaning, struggling, tearing as much as they could at their binds. Their futility would soon end at the whim of an unblinking, insensitive psychopath. He stood in front of the second person. Long, voluminous, auburn hair lay on top of her frame, bulging out from underneath the rope around her neck. Slender frame, sizable breasts, and a nurse's outfit. Familiar...
He once again pointed the gun at her head, and fired. The bullet exploded from the barrel, splaying her brains against the chair she sat in. The other bound individuals were beginning to squeal and beg and plead as much as they could in their last moments. Marcus did not care. If it meant a way out, he would take it.

The third individual was a lanky teenager. Familiarity crept down the back of his neck, elevating hairs, before descending down his spine. He couldn't shake the feeling that he knew the people he was murdering. People from his past... people he couldn't remember. The boy wore oversized khakis, a loose-fitting white T-shirt, and an unzipped black hoodie on top of that. Marcus didn't know how many bullets were left in the gun, so he knew he couldn't take any chances. He pointed the gun at where the kid's heart should be, and fired. Blood coagulated and streamed out of the wound, melting into the T-shirt... as if all the holiness in the world had become bleached with the product of his Marcus' sins.
One left.
The last person was an older gentleman. His hands were wrinkled and spotted with freckles. He wore an expensive gray suit, with a blue tie on top of a pricey white dress shirt. Grandpa... ? His arm had already raised, his finger had already pulled the trigger. Blood pooled around the body in front of him. It had all begun to make sense... Then he heard a click. The door to the room had swung wide open. The voice had once again reappeared.

“You have done well. Little hesitation, too. I'm surprised. The way you just... ruthlessly murdered them without a second glance... it's admirable. I like that.”

The ropes were loosened, the bags removed. Reality smacked Marcus across the face. The first person he killed... his favorite high school teacher. The second, his mother. The third, his little brother. The last was indeed his grandfather. The one person in his life who always stuck by him no matter what happened. Every one of them dead. Their heads resting peacefully, slumped against their chests. Blood splattered all over their corpses. Vomit began to build in the back of Marcus' throat, but another instinct kicked in. One that had been present his entire life.
Run.
With pistol in hand he bolted for the door. It led into a dark hallway with another door at the end. Daylight pierced the dark, streaming in from underneath the door frame. He rushed towards it, swinging open the door. The outside world had remembered who he was. A killer, an escaped convict, a man with nothing left to gain from an existence he had thrown away. A bevy of policemen with guns pointed at him, most standing behind their cop cars. A helicopter above had two SWAT officers, with assault rifle sights focusing on his figure.

“Drop the weapon, or we'll fire!!” One of the policemen yelled.

I can't run anymore.
He pointed the gun at the cop who spoke, and fired, implanting a bullet in the bridge of the man's nose. Guns fired, bullets volleying and riddling Marcus' body. A pall of crimson coated and obscured his vision as he fell backward. The voice returned just before his eyes closed.

“I am Asto Vidatu. You were never going to escape. Your odds were a hundred to one... but only if you chose to save them. I figured you'd have the judgment to realize that, but you didn't. And now, I've won yet another battle. I have scored your soul, and now you will come with me.”

A noose appeared around his neck, pulling him. The ground underneath Marcus became pitch-black quicksand. Shadowy hands burst forth, wrapping around him, dragging him under.
I guess my odds just weren't good enough.
 
S

Sibylus

Banned
"Tabletop Game" (Wordcount: 1,750)

Douglas Shore sat in a dark, damp room. His back braced against the gritty cement walls and his head leaned as far back as physically possible. The concrete floor under his feet was home to a thick layer of dust and mites. A heavy, simple table was situated in the room’s center, but Douglas couldn’t see it. He simply sat still with his back rested on the wall and his eyes closed. To open them and see even more darkness would drive him further into madness. Sometimes he would press his fingers into his eyes, just to see the flashes of light sear themselves into his vision.

Nearly a week had passed like this. Isolated, always in the dark, he didn’t even see his food or his crude corner bathroom. It was just him and the assorted delusions his struggling brain conjured up. His parents, his friends and an assortment of wild animals danced around in the bleak spaces floating beyond his face, tormenting and talking to him. Shore slept on the floor when he became exhausted, having no bed or cot to curl up in. He was also bereft of his sense of time, not knowing if he had entered the room a week or two weeks ago.

He presently opened his eyes. The room was predictably as black as before. He carefully rose. Over the next several minutes, he followed the walls with his hands, mentally making note of every distinct surface he came across. Four walls and a cold, metal door brushed past his fingertips. Douglas stepped towards the center, looking for the table. Succeeding, he then located the four chairs slid partway underneath it. Good, I’m oriented again, he thought to himself. Satisfied at defeating one aspect of the deprivation, he curled up against a wall and fell into a fitful sleep.

Douglas Shore dreamed of the matters and events that had placed him here, here in this dark and enclosed space. He beheld once more the fighter jets tearing paths over his cozy suburban home, dreams of his youthful military fascination. Recruitment officers hustled and bustled in the spaces behind his eyes. He saw the day he enlisted. He was so fresh faced, so excited to be joining the army’s intelligence division. Light combat duty, heavy paperwork, they told him. He caught every word, but must have missed the part where ninety percent of raw recruits didn’t sit behind desks often. You kept your good people manning the buttons and wiretaps, the grunts were for all the overt intelligence gathering missions. As Shore’s old mentor, a one Howard Black put it, “You have to earn a few bars before you get to the fun stuff”.

This was the fun stuff, sitting in an unlit room with tattered clothes on. Food trays were clattered beneath the door and water was sprayed from a ceiling nozzle at set intervals. He once managed to break the nozzle once, in an attempt to kill himself or at least dehydrate himself enough to become sick and unfit for questioning. His hosts quickly discovered what he was doing, however, and put an end to it with a few quick repairs and a disciplinary beating. A ceiling camera was installed after that incident. Shore had tried to break that too, which prompted the purchase of another camera and another beating. Shore’s captors hadn’t thought to bind his hands, which was odd. He took it as a sign of inexperience, and he would take advantage of that. It doesn’t take much brains to inflict pain, though, he drolly noted to himself as his bruises buzzed and stabbed at his tissues.

Suddenly, the room was lit up with a flash. Yellow, blinding light washed over Douglas’s eyelids. He opened his eyes carefully, making sure not to overexpose them. The familiar chipped concrete walls came into view for the first time in a week. The faded red paint had previously come off of the walls in streaks; all that was left was a messy spider-web of splotches and splashes. The ceiling and floor were a muted gray. The pale green steel table and seats sat in the middle of the room as they always had. Little bits of foam and cushion clung to the chairs’ bases, the majority of it having been torn away at some other time and place.

The door at the far side of the room groaned. It slid open arthritically, grinding along the concrete floor underneath. Three tall Eastern Europeans shuffled through the entrance, moving towards the table. Shore’s mind raced for three seconds before he calmed down and formed a few cohesive thoughts. The interrogators, he concluded. Don’t trust them, don’t listen to them. Drag things out, just drag ‘em out.

Shore was promptly tied to one of the four chairs. The three interrogators sat and made themselves as comfortable as the stiff chairs would allow. The leader thumbed through an intelligence document, pausing at certain names and places. He ran his fingers through his prickly beard as he studied the information. At last setting the documents aside, he addressed the intelligence agent bound to the chair.

“Ah, you are a Mr. … Douglas Shore, are you not? Are you familiar with Operation Frost?”

They’re looking for the bombs, he reasoned. Have to drag this out, can’t give ‘em time to find and defuse them.

“Of course you are. Now, we’ll be direct. There were explosives, planned to be planted at several of our facilities. Many of them were to be planted in this very city. You happen to be involved with the Prasdau branch of this mission, so I ask you: where have these bombs been deployed?”

Douglas Shaw remained silent, simply staring ahead into space.

From his chair, it was becoming more and more clear just how inexperienced his captors were. They had bound his hands and legs to the chair, but the rope around his legs were slightly loose. He had a bit of wiggle room. Glancing down for a moment, he noticed something else: The chair wasn’t fastened to the floor. Looking back up to his captors, he acted quickly. He pounded his legs into the ground and leaned backward. The chair flew away from the table, and the concrete wall bore down on Douglas. If he was lucky, he might dash his head open. He hoped for a mild concussion with a little memory loss, but he’d take the distraction and time-consuming doctor’s examination at the very least.

THUD. The chair bounced as it impacted, and then it finally tipped over and slid onto its back. Shore remained strapped in. A sticky finger of blood trailed from the wall to the floor, and it began to pool at the wall’s base. Shore’s eyes were closed and he remained perfectly still. The interrogators moved quickly, freeing him from the chair and carrying him out into the hall with curses on their voices. They rushed him to the medical quarters. Douglas Shore had quite suddenly blacked out, and was then afterward passing once more through the annals of his mind. As he lay bleeding upon a rickety examination table, images of his training flickered into clarity.

“Make it a game, keep score. For every minute you keep them guessing, you get a point”. That’s what Howard Black would always say when he talked of interrogation to his students. Every moment of avoidance was progress, willful confession being the worst way to lose the game. Better to have the information dragged out of with drugs and invasive surgeries, that way you would have at least granted your friends and countrymen some time.

Several hours later, he was back in the room with the same three men, talking again about the location of the Prosdau bombs.

“Where are they, Mr. Shore?” the head torturer asked, touching his beard.
Shore deflected the question as before. The chief European made a quick gesture to his colleagues and they were swift to act. They grabbed and pinned Shore’s hands to the table. Wasting no time with pleasantries, the bearded man unzipped out a mallet from his carrying bag and brought it down on Shore’s fingers with great force. Shore jolted back in his seat as the fingers of his right hand broke to pieces.

The bearded interrogator fished out a hypodermic needle from his bag, forcing in a tube full of salve. Some kind of compound to make me talk, Shore realized. As the plunger forced more and more of the stuff into his blood, he could feel words slipping out of his mind and onto his tongue. He thought of insignificant things and people, anything to blabber on about.

“I hate… I hate needles”.

“Where are the bombs?!”

“I had a dog one-once… he ran, ran into traffic”.

“The bombs, where are the bombs?!”

“Th-the place with the-the…” he tripped over the last words and cut off the rest. He began quoting the words to one of his favorite songs, keeping time with a rhythmic bounce of his foot. An interrogator grew angry and rose above the table. He let loose a vicious right hook across Shore’s face, snapping it back against his seat.

“Where are they?! SPEAK!” one of the henchmen shouted.

Douglas rolled his head away and tried to think about the ceiling, the spray nozzle, anything but what was happening. It was fruitless; the compound forced him back to the question, pushed him back to that little table in that little room.

His eyes watered and his breath rasped. He resisted the question once more before it battered him. He spoke, “Th-the… The bombs. First one… first, is, is…” The interrogators grew impatient.

“Speak, now!” the torturer commanded. He gestured to the mallet again and locked eyes with Douglas. Shore ground out a few more words, still trying to avoid giving the thug an answer.

The head man glanced at the mallet, visibly contemplating the immediate use of it. A low beep resonated in Douglas’s eardrums, too low for anyone but him to hear. The head man moved for the mallet. Shore locked eyes with him, and then spoke, the medication pushing it out with force.

“Here”.

A shrill whistle reverberated from Shore’s ears. The three Europeans glanced at each other, the confusion written across their faces. They looked back to Shore and saw his face transform into a smile, blood from his nose running like a red tide over his gums and teeth.

The lights went out.
 
B

bitq

Member
How do you guys notice right when the challenge is posted? I don't lurk the Off-Topic forum enough to see it.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
bitq said:
How do you guys notice right when the challenge is posted? I don't lurk the Off-Topic forum enough to see it.
Click to expand...
If you do a thread title search for "Writing Challenge" you'll find the latest one easily enough.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
bitq said:
Is there some sort of schedule?
Click to expand...
For the most part. New threads usually go up every other Sunday.

There've been a few exceptions, but I think we're back to our regular schedule again.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
"play it again..."
Count: 1559

When I went to bed last night I had 47 years left. This morning the meter says 1 day.

I was leaning over the small metal sink with my left hand rested on the mirror, propping myself up as I slowly woke. My left pointer finger had the date time-stamped there in glowing red, my digital tattoo. I clamped my teeth down on the toothbrush.

I had one day left of my life.

I panicked and threw a pair of official Corporation sweatpants and hooded shirt to block the cold of the station's permanent air conditioning. Shaun cut the cord to the heat months ago.

Opening the door I was greeted by a massive glass window before me that showed the purple and blue magesty of the Monterey Nebula. Hands shaking, I checked every inch I could reach for cracks.

I was the only one in the dorms these days so if there was any damage here it would be a danger directly to myself.

Danger. I checked my life counter on my finger again.

One day left. Was it getting harder to breathe in here or was my mind beginning that slow descent into madness that isolation can bring?

I ran along the padded floors of the dark dorm in a cold sweat from flickering light to flickering light until I found the control room. Inside were three large heads-up displays and one lonely chair. The other chairs disappeared a long time ago, along with all the silverware, couch cushions, linen, and other things in the break room. For a ten room station in the middle of nowhere with a mission long forgotten by the Selene's Corporate planet, things found a way of magically getting lost.

I only wanted to watch television today; I didn’t want to play games.

I sat in the chair and checked all meters. Heat was gone, but I knew that. Oxygen levels were normal and so were hydrogen and nitrogen, water filter was clean, lavatories were sanitary and the burners were operational, no gas leaks. I couldn’t check the food stocks as they were depleted from the refrigeration units long ago. The silicon cans of food that were supposed to last for 47 years had been taken from the storage room long ago and I had the majority of them stashed in the closet of my bunk.

I looked around, trying to find some sort of hidden danger to my life. Did someone else return to the station while I was asleep? I checked the population charts, but as they always did the number was still “one”.

I opened the door below the desk and went into the cabinet up to my waist. Inside the computer’s guts was much colder, the fans were blowing the cold and dust that entered the facility from small holes on the outside paneling. A thicker layer of dust was on all the components and I coughed. All wires were connected and I closed the door.

I looked down at the meter and it had dropped to 5 hours.

I needed clean air so I entered the largest room; the living area. It once housed a few oak tables imported from Earth on the top level for eating and socializing and on the lower level were a series of heavily cushioned couches and chairs that sat in front of a massive, wall-sized television screen. There were once hundreds of artificial plants in this room, that actually moved slowly if you stared at them: a wonder of modern technology.

I touched the screen and a small menu appeared where my fingers had hit. The black screen suddenly came to life and became a huge beacon of white light. I sat in a large, cushion-less chair and the hologram menu followed my fingers. I rose my hand in the air and there was my tiny menu. I was in the mood for 70's action movies and decided my last film would be “Death Wish”. Bold letters came across the screen proclaiming the movie was loading.

The massive figure of Charles Bronson came onscreen in vivid black and white GHD. I began to relax, suddenly happy to be completely alone. My finger still said 5 hours and I rubbed absentmindedly at the tiny bulge on my collarbone.

No one knew how the timer worked. It could be that it did complex calculations based on your health, the air around you, your environmental hazards, city crime rate, daily traffic, weather, etc. It could be pre-determined by the massive corporation that owned the majority of my part of the galaxy. Or it could be magic.

It could have something to do with the metal ball in my collarbone. The one that read my body and transmitted data to the space station. The one that told me I was alone. I remember finding one bloody ball in an envelope a few weeks after the rest of the staff left to go home.

The one that told me the game had begun.

“I wanted to wait, watch you panic,” a voice whispered from behind me.

I turned with a sigh and there stood Shaun. His hair was much longer since I saw him last and had grown grey and tangled. He was now bearded, since I had taken and stashed the blades a long time ago.

He was quiet, waiting for me to say something dramatic. That was how the game was played and it was my turn. But I said nothing, here in the silence at the edge of the known universe that I could hear the blood in my arteries pumping loudly in my neck.

In his hand was The Gun.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll go first. I now have The Gun.” The sacred cow, the ultimate goal, the game breaker. He licked his chapped lips. “I had nothing to do in the 6 months since you saw me last, so I finally broke the code to security storage.”

I said nothing, but he continued. “It works,” he said as if his mind told him I had my doubts. He turned the gun on the television and there was a shot; the display warped from the bullet, like a pebble dropped in water, and then went black.

I spoke my first word in 5 months: “no!” I screamed with a crackling voice. My second to last entertainment disappeared forever.

He turned and looked at his work. “I always wondered what would happen to these organic screens if you damaged them enough.”

I lunged at him and he fired again, but it went below me, where I had been sitting the moment before. I was on him, I was always able to surprise him, and I had him on the ground. He fired again, into the wall and I punched him in his hairy face repeatedly until my hands were coming back covered in blood. Straddling him, I picked up his limp left arm and checked his hand out of curiosity.

My breath caught: he had severed his left pointer finger. No digital tattoo display showing how long he had until he was dead. He wanted to make things interesting.

And so did I: I walked away and let him keep the gun. I walked up to the screen and checked to see if there was anyway I could fix the screen. I tried to shuffle the organics around as if I was playing with putty, but the hole was there. The screen would not come back on and the living room was now completely black. Dead.

My neck suddenly burst into pain as I felt the metal strike it. I was on the ground, with my face in the carpet. I turned and now it was Shaun straddling me, blood running down his shattered nose, the gun aimed directly into my right eye.

He hung his face over mine and laughed loudly. A tooth dropped out from the dark jungle of his bloody, blonde hair and hit my own mouth.

He pressed the gun into my eye and I reached up with my hands, trying to push him off me. My left finger was glowing like a night light.

30 seconds.

He pulled the hammer back.

10 seconds.

He began to slowly tug at the trigger.

3, 2, 1.

Zero seconds to live.

And a click and he un-cocks the hammer and smiles warmly. He stands up and hands me the gun, then walks away. Back to his little haven in the ventilation shafts, where he lives among his jungle of synthetic, moving plants and sleeps on his couch cushions, planning the next ambush.

He turns, my only companion in the universe, and I fired seven shots into his face. He fell for the last time and so died my only two forms of entertainment: my only friend and my TV.

I sat on the floor and the counter started slowly picking back up.

I would find his hiding place and bring back the plants. I would get the supplies he stole and finally fix the heat. I would bring back the tables and cushions. I would restore this space station to life and no longer need to fear the hidden shadow that kept me on my toes. I could finally relax.

How long until I got bored?

There was one bullet left in the gun.

The counter had stopped at 8 days.
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
I gots me an idea. I think I'm going to use two or three definitions for maximum insanity. This story should be painfully cliche, so here's hoping I can spice it up a bit.
 
Status
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