300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013) -- VICTORY TO MOUSE!

[idiot_prince]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

BEACHED
He rose gently from the ground wet particles of sand clingingto his face, as water dripped freely from his ripped and tatted clothing. He looked around frantically for any of the other crew of the Moreander. Only driftwood and skeletal remains of ships could be seen as he surveyed the dark and foreboding beach. After a quick checking of his belongings he was relieved to find that his dagger was still strapped to his leg. It had been an impulse buy at theirlast port call in Oleandis, while of simple design it was well made and the handle was carved whale bone a supposed good luck charm that many sailors carried with them on the rough northern seas, it also had the added bonus of a flintstone designed into the sheath.

His body weary and bruised Jacob trudged toward the woods inhopes of finding enough dry wood to warm is chilled body. He had seen more than one unlucky fellow die from the harsh weather in his years on the Moreander and days spent coughing up bile and the fever took him urged him on.

Not long before the sun completely disappeared from the horizon Jacob had a nice fire burning, his clothes hung high in a branch over the fire to dry causing the fire to sizzle and pop as stray drops of water fell into its warm caress.

His stomach cramping from hunger Jacob watches as the last splinters of orange and red are devoured by the approaching darkness. The sound of the light underbrush underfoot draws his attention behind him where he finds himself looking down the business end of a bow. Following the wooden shaft up finds the perfect emerald green eyes of an elf, whose face while lovely shows no compassion.

 

[Scott R. Forshaw]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

No Love, No Hope​

Samuel folded the corner of a tattered page, and closed the beaten book.

“I'll finish reading it tomorrow, love,” he said. “It's getting late, and we need more firewood.”

Hannah ignored him, choosing, instead, to stare listlessly at the darkening skies, and the endless filth stained clouds rolling overhead. He sighed, shrugged, got to his feet, and trudged away into the growing night.

Once again, his thoughts consumed him. Ever since their ship had washed up on this godforsaken island, lost somewhere in the backwaters of the world, they were all he seemed to have left. It was only his Hannah who kept him sane, stopped him from falling apart at the seams.

The tide lapped lazily against the shore, and Samuel wondered, as he pulled his tattered shirt around him to fight the never ending chill, just how long they'd been marooned on this s*** hole.

He glanced grudgingly at the wrecked, skeletal remains of the ship which dominated the shoreline, and cursed beneath his breath. We shouldn't have even been on the damned thing. If only I'd have listened to her, waited one more day, we wouldn't be in this mess. He kicked angrily at the sand, as he remembered the screams, the burning bodies, and cries for help. Three hundred had boarded the Orcan Queen, but only two had survived. He thanked the Gods for saving her.

With enough wood to see them through till sunrise, Samuel made his way back to camp, sat down next to Hannah by the steadily blazing fire, took hold of her cold hand, and smiled. The dying light shone in her creamy eyes, and against the grey pallor of her skin, as she gazed, silent and unblinking, at the lumbering clouds overhead.

“At least I have you, my love,” he said.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

CANCER NIGHT

Doctor Marrash placed the injector against Carla's forehead. It felt smooth and cold. "I am required to obtain final verbal consent," he said. "You must understand the limitations and side effects of the treatment."

Carla tried not to sigh. "I know this isn't the fountain of youth. I know it's going to hurt like hell."

"And it will minimize the effects of many degenerative diseases. Most of my patients tell me that one night of misery is worth many decades of good health." Doctor Marrash activated the injector. Carla felt a storm of icicles enter her body. A few seconds later they melted into a vague chill.

"Go home and try to rest," Doctor Marrash said. "The worst of the symptoms will begin in a few hours, and last most of the night. Good luck."

#​

As soon as Carla returned to her apartment, she recorded a bland, cheerful message for any of her friends who might disturb her with their sympathy. She dimmed the lights to create the illusion of a cloudy afternoon. For a moment she considered spending the night listening to music, then decided it would require too much of her attention. Instead she filled the room with the whispers of a distant ocean. She imagined the skeleton of an ancient shipwreck, sleeping peacefully on a moonlit beach.

The pain began not long after she had bathed and wrapped herself in thick blankets. Carla fell to her knees and moaned. Her bones seemed to be filled with fire. A sudden wave of nausea made her retch. This is what Stephen felt for so many months before he died. I must never forget.

Doctor Marrash was right. The treatment was worth all the suffering; but not for the reasons he imagined. Carla smiled, and waited for dawn.

 

[Lenny]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Deal Me In

My first was a thing of desolate beauty! Timbers, like ribs, set into the sand, reaching out as if seeking an escape. It lay below the waterline, just enough to be completely hidden when the tide came in, then slowly revealed, inch by inch, as the tide receded. And at the right time, the right angle, it formed a cage for the might of the sun… but to the public it was all, ‘Oooh! Where did the mystery structure come from? It might be an old pirate ship!’.

For years my paintings had been ignored. Galleries passed on them with nary a glance, and it made me so mad. My heart and soul went into each little masterpiece, bared for the world to see... but never getting displayed. When I was given the opportunity to make my heart and soul mean something, well, how could I refuse?

The crowds came, and took pictures, and bought postcards, and local newspapers reported on it, and… and success tasted good. Very good. So I made another.

My second was a sunken ship (the public wanted pirate ships, so the public got a pirate ship) laden with gold. A team of divers found it just off the southern shore and it quickly made the national news. Television! However, people quickly lost interest when the word “hoax” was bandied about.

My third, my finest, my magnum opus needed to be real. I researched for months, planning the spot, the history, and the discovery. I went back through time and wove a story, creating a religion that enslaved thousands. My temple was built and sacrifices were made in my name!

It was found under a car park by a council worker.

I turned as I felt his burning hand on my shoulder: “Is it time already?”

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Sins of the Flesh​

Once upon a time, the seaside restaurant had been decorated with cruel silver spikes, and protected by crueller golden archers. It was part of a restaurant chain stretching across the continent.

Now it was a corroded skeleton, open to the elementals. The silver spikes had been looted, the golden archers gutted by jagged blades.

The local manager was now a rotted corpse, crucified upon a beam with his own daggers.

Another dagger, of orcish make and crudely forged from elf-bane iron, nailed an official memo to his skull:

McDarkElf's would like to assure our customers our goblin burgers contain nothing but 100% impure goblin flesh. We reserve the right to serve refuse to all our customers, and would never tarnish our bad reputation by serving such wholesome flesh as unicorn. All reported cases of unicorn poisoning therefore have nothing to do with McDarkElf's restaurants, and anyonewho says otherwise will shortly be visited by our tenth-level assassin-lawyers.

The Dark Elf sorceress from Head Office shook her head. The orcish customer base was apparently too stupid to fear assassin-lawyers.

She spoke eldritch words. A chorus of screaming souls answered, pleading for damnation rather than the fate she planned for them. But one who has clawed her way to twentieth-level sorceress-manager knows no mercy.

The local manager pulled himself free with a shriek of tortured metal and bone. The tarnished golden archers rose from the bloodstained sands where they had fallen.

The orcs, some so riddled with arrows they looked like decaying green porcupines, slumped to attention before her.

"The rumour mongers at Hungry Jackal’s will rue the day we repositioned our brand with a mission statement focussing upon the customer," she cried.

"Brains?" grunted an orc.

She realigned her objectives into language her target audience understood. "Kill!"

 

[Grinnel]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Home​

Exhausted, Perion sat heavily on a driftwood log. He was, by a score of summers, the oldest in the village and his body would not withstand another trek to the sea.

He wiped a tear from his cheek as he looked for the last time upon the great metal structure that he knew more intimately than the gnarled walking cane resting across his knees.

Perion’s earliest memory was the day his adopted father brought him here as a youngling.

“A false dawn lit up the west and the air split with thunder heard leagues away,” his father said. “When we came we found this iron wreckage and strangely clad bodies. Naught but one infant survived. You. It was the most frightening and most blessed day of my life, Perion.”

As a youth Perion had snuck back here many times. To some this was a cursed place. To Perion, this was his parents’ tomb.

As Perion grew, a hollow grew within him. He lusted and adventured widely, always a little stronger and faster than most around him, and he earned both fame and infamy. Yet never was the hollow filled, and always he returned here, the monstrous metal skeleton a loadstone to his soul.

With a start, Perion stood. A handsome woman was approaching from the wreckage. Never had there been strangers here.

“I feel you, cousin.” She greeted in a lilting accent.

Perion frowned. “By what right do you claim kinship?”

“Do you not feel me?” Smiling, she gently touched his chest. “Here?” Her presence flowed into the hollow in his soul and it thrummed in response.

“We knew of no survivors. Luck alone brings us together now. Will you return with us, cousin?”

He took her proffered hand. Unaccustomed joy filled him. He was going home.

 

[monsterchic]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

The Call

The ship on the beach calls me, the song of sailors long dead. I want to see it, this vessel that carried me my darlings. They are gone now, and I am alone. Hungry.

For so long I have waited here in my prison of waves, waiting for the one who will save me. So many lives I’ve taken, dragging the bodies to my home on the ocean floor. Each one dead before the spell can take hold.

My tail swishes in the current. The colors of the ocean are washed out, blending with the stormy grey skies. A shadow passes over me and I look up. A ship. I swirl my head around, black hair floating like a halo of seaweed around me. My blue tail flips powerfully once, twice, as I float toward the surface.

A ghostly echo sounds in the water when I open my mouth and sing. The song calls all creatures to me and the seaweed bends against the current’s will. The sailor at the helm turns the ship toward me, powerless to resist my call.

A reef lies under the water just feet from the turning ship. I watch as the prow smashes into the coral and begins to fill with water. Screams fill the air as my sisters of the sea flip onto the decks and bare their teeth, eager to fill their aching bellies.

Two words sound above the pounding waves. “Mon dieu!” a man shouts, voice smooth despite the danger around him. I flip toward the ship and see steel fly as Arani is gutted. I open my mouth, but he sees me sitting in the water. “Stay your tongue, ordure. You have no power here. Not over me.”

Could it be?

 

[chrispenycate]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

The ballad of Unknower's ark​

Tide's gone out since our arrival.
High on mountains, snow on snow.
Odds were poor for our survival,
Or ecology's revival.
Clouds drop temperature below.

We shouldn't have survived. Liners and petrol tankers sank, with navigational suites and trained crew. From submerging council flats and rotting tenements we'd boarded only because she floated, following the water up. Carrying computers or toys rather than food or warm clothing. No more prepared than the surprised government for the unpredicted melt.

Housing lost in drowning cities;
Floating shelter, ragged horde.
Far from government committees
Unprepared, whom no-one pities,
Society can not afford.

Always raining; drenched from above and below, huddling, skill-free, a less likely group of survivors difficult to imagine. Conditioned to wait for help from authority which, never having considered a feedback peak in Antarctica, was a thousand percent behind events.

Moorings fail with rising waters
And we found ourselves adrift.
Combat stains the winds four quarters,
Never rescue service sought us,
Waters, unlike spirits, lift.

If it hadn't been for the constant rain, everyone would have died, at least all who didn't resort to the Kilkenny commissary. Raw barnacles and seaweed are salty, and such flotsam as we recuperated was more saturated than us.
When the keel dragged mud and we scrambled out we didn't even know what country this had been, just that it wasn't ocean nor seething with other refugees. Lighting a fire for the first time in months, finding a field still full of ready salted turnips were achievements that put traditional victories in the shade.

Planks have gone for building shelter,
Naked ribs transpierce the dawn.
Undeserved, the hand misdealt 'er,
Near forgotten, left to welter,
Saviour lonely and forlorn.

Older, and considerably colder, I stumble away from our wreck, into the glacial future.

 

[johnnyjet]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

The Bones Left by the Storm

After the storm passed by, young Maria from the Village went out to walk the length of the beach and look for treasures and other mysterious droppings left behind by the storm. It wasn't long before she noticed that there was something quite large far down the beach. She wondered if a ship had been grounded by the storm.

She sifted through the sand with her bare feet. Maria was the teenaged daughter of a Village Councilman. She had soft sultry features and long golden hair and wore a brightly flowered sundress that stopped several inches above her knees.

She noticed small bleached white bone fragments scattered over the sand, becoming more numerous as she went. At first she thought they were broken shells until she examined them more closely. Some of the bone fragments were large. What sort of creatures did they once hold together? She feared they might be the bones of their ancestors. She dropped them quickly. Father would be angry she even touched them.

The object was definitely a wrecked ship. It was stripped to bare crossbeams and supports, a skeleton of its former glory. Did the bone fragments once belong to its former crew?

As she drew nearer to the ship, she slowed down and looked up at its full height. It was a huge vessel, twice as large as any she had ever seen before.

At that moment the sand began to shift around her feet and the ground began to shake. She dropped to her knees. The ship shuddered and creaked as though battered by a strong wind. But there was no wind. Gradually, as though in pain, it lifted itself up on its haunches and roared, angry perhaps at the storm that had carried it so far from its home.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

A Sailor From the Sea


The bars are closed, and silence follows her as she walks in darkness. Through the town, down the worn path to the farthest point of land in the harbor, her lone figure makes this trek nightly. If anyone is watching, none dares to disturb.

The wind whips her dress wildly, white lace like a sail in the moonlight shining through to the ocean. Glinting at her neck is a locket from her love, on a chain of Spanish silver.

She grasps the shiny promise, and the sea licks contemptuously at her feet. Its voice on the wind says, not this year, not ever. He belongs to me.

Sand between her toes, her dress soaked in the spray, she hurls a rock at the sea, and shouts: Never!

Her salt tears mingle with the salt mirth of her rival as she falls to her knees and cries his name into the wind.

***

On a faraway sandbar, the silence follows them as they walk in darkness. Out of the broken beams, up and down the worn strip of land, their haunting figures make the trek nightly. There is no one to disturb them, as if anyone would dare.

The wind whips the tattered sail wildly, and the moonlight casts a skeleton of shadows on the beach as it shines through to the ocean.

Glinting under the water, forever just out of reach, is a ring of Spanish silver; he tries in vain to grasp it, and the sea swirls jealously around his feet. Its voice on the wind says, not this time, not ever. It belongs to me. You belong to me.

He throws a rock into the sea and shouts: Never!

The salt spray slaps his face, and on the wind comes a whisper of his name.

 

[summer013]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

The Grey

" 'Look like death," the woman looked at him sideways, concern wrinkling her forehead. He barely heard the words. "When did you last sleep? Let alone eat?" she said.

Unimportant details. He didn't bother replying. His ribs rose and fell with effort, dragging in each breath. Determination glared from too-wide eyes, sunken in their hollow sockets.

The doors were closed. A tremor ran through his bones as his gaze fixed on them. Heavy, imposing doors, made of rich mahogany. But they didn't look like mahogany. They weren't even brown. Grey, like bones left to bleach in the sun. If he closed his eyes, those doors would remain, burned into his vision.

The doors opened. Sudden trembling shook his body, but he couldn't tear his unblinking eyes away. A paint-splattered youth paced despondently from the threshold, an unfinished canvas swinging listlessly from one hand.

"He'll see you now, Adam," said the woman, softly.

Unrelenting travel had long since bruised the tender nerves of his feet. He staggered unevenly as he rose. His skeletal hands, wracked with guilt, pushed back his sleeves instinctively. Streaks of crusted ink patterned his forearms like tattoos. The beds of his fingernails were deeply stained with pigment. All of it varying shades of black and white.

The sweat-stained face of a man looked up as Adam fell through the doorway. The creases of worry on his face deepened as Adam's knees gave out in front of him.

"What have you done, Adam?" the man said, anger threading his voice. Adam's chin sunk. His eyes fixed on the relief of the pale white floorboards. "I'm certain it can't have escaped you that the world is grey."

"I'm so sorry," Adam said, his voice hoarse to his own ears. "It's my fault. I lost the colours."

 

[nixie]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Lost At Sea​

Monday 7th October 20 miles from Harrow Beach.

All hands on deck we are been drawn into the whirlpool. The crew manned their stations but slowly, surely the ship was being pulled into the gaping eddy.

Battling to keep away but the pull was stronger, a state of the art ship meant to withstand all nature could through at her but still she couldn’t resist the strange whirlpool. Round and round they turned inside the swirl clinging for dear life, a wonder not a man lost.

They came out under a unknown sky, waters never seen before. The equipment wouldn’t work, the captain and mate poured over charts but still they couldn’t pinpoint their location. Even the stars seemed different.

Without technology the ship drifted, you could taste the crews terror in the air. They didn’t have oars or even sails, no need in our modern age for old fashioned tools. On she drifted no land in sight, the crew tried to keep their spirits up, telling themselves it was all a dream.

Tuesday 8th of October Harrow Beach, News 24.

Today the village of Harrow, woke to a mysterious sight, a shipwreck washed up on their shores. Speculation is that it is an old wreck that has came to the surface although local historians and fishermen say there are no sunken ships around here and the sea has been calm for weeks.

In other news, the search for The Lucky Marie, goes on, the newest addition to the luxury fishing trawling company fleet disappeared from radar last evening around 7pm. A spokesman for the company insists it’s a computer glitch.

 

[alchemist]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

The Lighthouse

Shay’s boots crunched on shingle and the roar of the waves abruptly stopped, as if a door had been shut. Odd.

He dragged his boat up the small beach and tied it to a rock, beside the rotting remains of an old coracle.

Maybe he should have listened to his father. Don’t go to the lighthouse. It’s cursed. The light still shone, even though it had been abandoned for as long as anyone could remember. But if he didn’t bring back something to prove he’d been here, the guys would never take him in.

Light seemed to flow down through the mist, illuminating his way as he climbed steep stone steps to where the lighthouse stretched high from the rock. The door, its red paint well-preserved, swung open at his touch and he peered inside, his heart hammering.

"Hello?" he said. Nobody answered. No monsters, no ghosties. Just stark white walls and flagstone floors, but nothing he could take back. He would have to go up.

He climbed the wrought iron spiral staircase, each footstep reverberating through the handrail, until he reached an open door in the wall. He stepped out onto the catwalk, unguarded from the waves crashing silently across the rocks below.

“Finally.”

Shay jumped at the voice and grabbed the doorframe. A man, stooped and bearded, emerged from around the light.

“Finally what?” Shay said, his gut telling him something was very wrong.

“Finally, somebody was stupid enough to cross the reefs. Just like me, a hundred years ago.”

Shay’s vision blurred, his legs weak. “I’m leaving.” He turned towards the door.

“You can try. Lord knows, I did. Many times. Many ways,” the man said, looking down. “But this time, it will be different.” He stepped out into the mist.

 

[crystal haven]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Bolt for the exit

He stares at me, eyes like ice. “Marry me, Cara. Say you love me, then you’ll be free.”

I peer back, through the glass. Some freedom that would be. “Never! I’ll never change my mind. You might as well kill me now.”

“I’ll return tomorrow,” he says. Then laughs.

Always tomorrow.

So many days have passed. Months. Or is it years? I bite my lip against the pain I carry in my heart. Cruel fate – please, just leave me to die!

I walk around the ship, brushing my hand across decaying wood. Splintered, broken, destroyed wood. The remains of my father’s ship. The sand is dry under my feet. No wind blows.

“Marry me, Cara,” he says. “You can stop the pain you suffer. Even your father did not fight so long, before giving up his kingdom.”

A rush of anger. “No!” I scream, and try a shoulder charge against the barrier. My foot touches something hard. I look down at a rusty bolt, fallen from the lifeless ship. My stomach jumps with realisation.

“Tomorrow,” he says, and walks out of the room. I know he’ll be gone for hours.

Frantically I grab the bolt with both hands and swing the metal at the glass, over and over again. Suddenly it cracks, but doesn’t shatter. Elation. Euphoria. Sand begins to trickle out, between the fissures, all over his mahogany table.

Nausea engulfs me and I fall to my knees. Slowly I begin to grow, until I can push against the glass with my feet. Tears of joy trickle down my cheeks.

Freedom, at last, from a ship in a bottle.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Owen, Come Home.

Sometimes in July, when the wind cries in the right direction, I hear a tremulous calliope sighing across the flats. As a child I would sit out there for hours listening and daydreaming; giving form to my mother’s words.

It’s calling to them, Owen, calling to the ghosts of the past; telling them to come and entertain again.

I can hear it, mother, I really can.

The wind calls them, and they always come; those who performed and those who burned; the perfumed girls and short-sleeved boys who kissed and cheered on circular pews whilst lions were tamed and acrobats twirled. They come to see the Insect Twins who harness wasps and make them swim; they come to laugh at Emmett’s clown, the Wall of Death and Rose-Lee Browne.

But a sideshow of souls needs an audience.

They stay this time, not like before; away, away they ran in rings, though trapped right under big top flames. Others found a different fire when they tried to bolt through the tiger chutes.

Never cancel a show, the roustabouts say, it’s bad for business and bad luck, anyway. I wish they’d summoned Madame Browne; she could have asked about the clown that normally fills the genny up, and if he had replaced the cap.

In her crystal ball would summer-dry straw burn on the shore?

What does dear mother think of all this now? I watch her at the kitchen window; rinsing teacups, mind elsewhere. She stares out at the sandy flats. Does she see me - or just the seagulls - floating?

I daydream what she’s said a hundred times to me before.

Can you hear it, Owen? Can you hear the calliope? It’s calling them to you.

Yes mother, I hear it, and evermore it calls me, too.

 

[M.Tullius]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Hope Renewed​

My feet sink into the cold damp sand. I can hear them arguing behind me, the salty mist from the sea kissing my cheeks while tears fill my eyes. Was it only a year ago I left? Are the others really all gone? Has darkness so permeated this land that now even our one remaining hope is lost?

I’m the leader, I’m the one who brought them all back here, telling them it’s the only way to end this all. I can see something up ahead. The sand sticks to my feet with every step as I make my way to the ruins.

A skeletal structure stands firm in the sand. It’s all that’s left of the Magra fleet. I can remember caring for the remains of this ship and the eleven others that used to spot this cost. They’re the original ships that brought our ancestors from the sinking island to our new home.

“What is she doing now?” I hear Power yell from our small camp fire. Love tries to console him with soothing words. My hands reach out and caress the hard metal frame that remains of the ship. So many survivors, fleeing, landed here with nothing, yet they grew and prospered. Now, thousands of years later I am lost in the very land they found. What am I to do?

I look down and see a stone. Its edges warn smooth from the tides. A stone so hard and jagged yet even time can wear it down, shape it into something else. Even stones can change.

I pick up the rock, feel it in my hands, and turn back to the other five. “I know what we must do.”

 

[Hex]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

The Modern Mermaid

Giving up my voice? Kind of dumb, now I think about it. (Hey! See what I did there? Dumb? Geddit?)

Never trust the Sea Witch -- clue's in the name -- especially her patter about men going for big green eyes and pretty smiles. How they prefer their wives silent. How it'd be better for my prince never to hear my jokes (that one may be true).

Don't look at me like that, you great wreck. He left us both behind but I'm not going to lie on a beach and take it.

Not me.

I know what I want, and I want him. Ever since I saw him on your deck -- his hair yellow as a seahorse in the low storm-light -- and when he turned to look at the gathering clouds, his eyes flashed like a mackerel shoal. Stupid reason to fall in love.

Still, what isn't?

Not up to the storm, were you? You foundered and sank, and I got him... I've lived for weeks obsessing about that swim -- about the rub of his skin on mine as I pulled him through the ocean; the achingly kissable sweep of his stomach from rib to hip; those long, hard muscles in his thighs, and--

Well. Anyway.

So now I've no voice -- though neither have you -- and soon I won't have a tail either. No more glistening oyster shells or polishing my scales with lobster tears. Kind of a relief. I'll take the pill (we've updated -- potions are so 1800s), get some legs, and see what dry land has to offer.

No messing about.

He's going to be mine. Or he'll be sorry.

 

[Kylara]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Creeping

There is less water now. Since they came. The sky boils with clouds, dark and forbidding showing us they remain among us. Above us. Watching.

The world is less colourful now that they are here. There are less of us too, more of them though, always more of them. They come in ships. Tall ships that sail the seas. They beach and then the water evaporates up, and there are suddenly broiling black clouds above. The ships, beautiful greys, like signets and goslings, start to decay. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until all that is left is a hulking dead creature strewn upon shining sand.

I know not who they are, what they are, why they are here. But they are powerful. And I am less. Far less.

The clouds are wondrously, dangerously beautiful. People stop and stare and gaze and die. They wither away all in a burst. I think they live in the clouds, perhaps are the clouds. I don't look, I don't care to die. I glimpse their tempting fluffy edges in puddles, but I don't look, don't fall into their trap.

The seas are getting smaller, and the clouds are covering more sky. Day by day, storm clouds that bring no storm explode upon the sky. I see the warning ships, the ships that bring our means of death. And I move on, further and further into the clear blue skies. Blue skies encroached by dusty greys and silvers.

It is as if they follow me. Haunt me. Search for me. Across a darkening world. They shall not entice me with their artistry, with their beautiful formations of all the water upon the earth scattered into the sky.

I can live without looking at the sky. Even if it kills me.

 

[Boneman]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

Pay the Piper​

I'm the only one who sees them.

There are... people... moving inside, preparing. I don't see them clearly. But I hear them, and I don't understand what they're saying.

The wreck has been here for over a hundred years. Washed up in a storm, some say, but nobody truly knows. All the kids played on it as they grew up - we were always a pirate galleon carrying treasure home from the Spanish Main, tops’ls flying

The seagulls avoid the wreck altogether, now. Dogs no longer lift a leg against it, but tug their owners away, giving it a wide berth.

They say Siobhán bled to death inside it. Fell from a cross-member and tore her wrist open on the mussels that grow at the waterline. They tell me my daughter felt nothing - she was unconscious from the fall – but that doesn't help.

Doctor Shaw said it's grief preying on my mind, and prescribed antidepressants. Granny Morgan thinks I'm seeing dead sailors, fighting to survive the wild seas that killed them, centuries ago.

A storm's brewing, but her mother and I come at the same time everyday and shed new tears. As we approach, the seas pull back, like a sudden rip-tide. My wife gasps, and my heart freezes as the wreck begins to shimmer. Something rises from the wet sand and envelopes the whole ship, like liquid plastic, folding and turning as it reshapes the wreck into a thing of shining fascination. Some part of the essence before us is Siobhán - her beauty, her spirit, shines through so clearly. Figures look down on us, and they're not human. The ship lifts from the sand and hovers.

'Thank you for your sacrifice.'

And then it's gone.

 

[The Spurring Platty]

Re: 300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #8 (January 2013)

We left port in Taggel, our ship laden with trade goods, seeking a new route to the mainland. Azlee, matron of storms, chose a different course. By luck we came across a small fishing boat we followed to a strange shore.

The people of the island were easily intimidated. We spent a week there, regaining strength and making repairs. When you plan for one month, three months at sea makes tough men harder. We helped ourselves to supplies, women, and a strong local brew. After a couple of deaths among both sides, our captain gave the order to leave. We were given a parting gift: a wooden figurehead for the bow of our ship. These were a seafaring people and their custom was that a ship needed a protector. After an elaborate ritual from their shaman, it was blessed.

But it was a curse. At first, people saw shadow figures crossing the decks at night. Strange sounds were heard at all hours. Creatures no one had seen before were spotted dead, floating in our wake. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and it was quickly decided to give the figurehead to Crelamon, god of the seas. He didn't want it. The next morning it was back on the prow mocking us. Then men started to disappear.

A wooden ship is no place for a bonfire, so we stopped at the first island we found. As we neared the beach something tore off the rudder, stranding us. The figurehead was gone.

Eight of us survive, scavenging food and water during daylight. It stalks at night and fire is our only protection. Little wood remains of the ship. With squid ink, a few patches of tattered sail, and empty bottles we hope against hope, that these messages will find someone.