Happy New Year! I hope January has gone well so far for you! I've been editing my novel at a CRAZY pace, so that's good. Hopefully you've set some goals for the year and things are going well. I have to get back to editing (this novel will be ready to submit, hopefully, by summer - if not sooner), so go check out the prompt and write me a story! (or, well, write Jeremy a story...)
If you need to read the full version of the rules, go here. Otherwise, here's the short version:
Rules:
1. Up to 500 words
2. Keep it clean (nothing rated R or above)
3. Start with the given first sentence.
4. Optional Special Challenge
5. Include Twitter/email, word count, Special Challenge accepted
6. The challenge is open for 24 hours on Tuesday EST
Oh, and feel free to change pronouns, punctuation, tense, and anything in brackets to fit the story/pov/tone. I'm not going to be TOO picky... Our judge however...
Our Judge today is Jeremy Milburn. Check out his blog here. Read his winning tale from last week here!
Your first sentence for FINISH THAT THOUGHT #27 is:
Hatred burned inside her with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.
Your SPECIAL CHALLENGE from the judge is:
Incorporate a mythological deity (any culture) and a mythological realm (different culture than the deity)
AAAAAAAND WE'RE OFF!!!
Erin McCabe
ReplyDelete@disturbiakiss
500 words
Special Challenge Accepted
Sin Crouches at the Door
Hatred burned inside him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. The slow tempo dirty jazz permeating the place only served to make things worse; it slinked around him, each note filling the crevasses of his soul with increasingly blackened rage. His clothes were soaked with perspiration, slick against his skin, sweat slowly trickled down his face, dripping from his nose to collect in a small pool before him.
Aggressively massaging a frown from his brow Cain slung back another shot of throat scolding bourbon. The trip to the bar was a yearly pursuit, but even here, Hell’s very singular and restricted themes; punishment, damnation, fire and brimstone were omnipresent. Admittedly Cain wasn’t really such what brimstone was, but he’d been told it characterised the uniquely pungent atmosphere here, somewhat resembling rotten eggs.
Xaphan; a petite flame scorched demon, swooped down and replenished his drink with the comical addition of a tiny pink umbrella.
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“You looked depressed.” the demon shrugged.
“It’s impossible to be anything else in this place.” Cain growled, wiping his face with a nearby rag.
“This is one of the few parts of the realm not exclusively designed for torture!” scoffed Xaphan, dramatically rolling his eyes for the benefit of the other patrons; a nearby Pirate burst into laughter.
“It’s still torture!” Cain shouted, shooting the pirate a steely glance which immediately prompted his apologetic and fearful silence.
The little demon tutted loudly and went back to cleaning glasses.
A deathly silence fell over the bar as Lucifer marched by, Cain instinctively slunk down into his chair; he wasn’t in the mood to see his Father, only month had passed since their last interaction and they could often go years without seeing each other.
Cain felt a soft hand ease its way around his sodden neck.
“Looking for company Sugar?”
The woman had blonde curls, bright crazed eyes and a twisted grin which suggested that in the end, she’d probably ended up in the right place.
“What’re you in for?” He asked.
He always asked, he wasn’t sure why, frankly he had no idea whether they were even telling him the truth and given their present location, it was highly unlikely.
She flashed him an unwholesome smile and drew in a deep breath, “I drowned my…”
“Sorry I’m busy.”
Cain turned his back; he didn’t want to hear the rest; it was always the same, children, husband, sister, cat. Once, just once, he longed to hear the reply; “Blasphemy Darlin’.” Now that was a sin and a woman, he could comfortably get behind.
To his relief, she, being lopsided of mind seemed to take this brush off relatively well and swiftly skulked off towards the corner of the bar to bother another miscreant.
Cain threw back his remaining bourbon and wiped away another warm tear, cleverly disguised as sweat.
“I forgot the date.” Xaphan whispered solemnly to the resident poll dancer; Aphrodite.
“Abel’s Birthday.” Aphrodite replied with soft seductive cadence.
Hatred burned inside her with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. The room around her glowed , and she had to shield her eyes to avoid damaging her retinas. She’d set the dial too high again. Squinting against the glare, Leyna turned the dial down to 500 and tried looking around.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was much better. She wanted him to know he was wrong, but only take her out for a nice dinner and clean the house before rubbing her feet with scented oils wrong, not flee in fear of his life wrong.
It was probably time to get that thing adjusted, anyway. The First Law of Robotics would never allow her to injure a human, something she had had to work around in her positronic brain once she discovered how closely pleasure and pain were interlinked in humans when they were being … amorous.
She hear his data card enter the lock and arranged herself for maximum impact in front of the door. Leyna knew she was stunning, and the combination of her crafted to within an inch of perfect beauty and smoldering anger would have him eating out of her hand.
Or so she thought.
Roht barely glanced at her as he came through the door, tossing his hard-hat hard enough against the wall that it dented the plasteel, mumbling something about the foreman at work.
Uh oh. Maybe she should have left it at a thousand if she wanted to be noticed. After a day like this, there wasn’t much she could do to get his attention. That bastard! What right did he have to have a horrible day just when she had worked up a good steam of anger?
But looking at Roht settling down on the couch and staring blankly at the wall, Leyna felt her anger begin to dissipate. She slipped a hand behind her and turned the dial down to a mere 20 while upping the sympathy dial in her vocal settings. “Hey, sweetie. What, uh, what’s wrong?”
The look on Roht’s face made two things clear. First, that he hadn’t been aware that she was there, and second, that he found her question staggeringly stupid.
“Wrong? Oh, nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I’m always like this when I come home.”
“But, sweetie. What is it?”
He spread his hands wide. “What do you think? Huh? Take a look.”
She saw it then, what was missing. Roht left most of his tools at work at the end of the day, but not his sledgehammer. He claimed it was a family heirloom when she’d complained about it, and made it clear that if she ever made an ultimatum about the dirty thing, she’d be out the door.
“How? I mean, what?”
His face turned from anger to shame. “I got angry.”
“Yes?”
“And, well.
“Do you have enough money to fly to the moon?”
Leyna stared in amazement. A thousand suns? Ten thousand wasn’t enough for him.
492 words
@drmagoo
Special Challenge Accepted
Hi Alissa! Fellow Rotten Tomato dropping by :)
ReplyDeleteEmail: rachuff@umail.iu.edu
Word count: 500
Challenge Accepted
Arrows of Wrath
Hatred burned inside her with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. She used one hand to hold up her long white dress and flung open the door, revealing a small office with clouds of smoke rolling around the ceiling and dented filing cabinets lining three of the walls. Sitting at the desk, a small, portly older man was flipping through files with a cigar in one hand.
Without even looking up, the man asked, “Can I help you with something, lady?”
“Look at me!" His eyes flicked up and took in her dress, elaborate hairdo, and bouquet of flowers before returning to the papers in front of him.
"I'm flattered, but my answer is no,” he said, taking a drag on his cigar.
The woman stalked over to his desk and slammed her hands down, causing a few folders to slide off. “YOU! This is all your fault!”
He put out his cigar in a tarnished ashtray, sighing. “Want to catch me up?"
"Today," she said dramatically, "was supposed to be my wedding day!"
"Oh, didn't go well?" He asked, sarcastically. He ducked as she threw her bouquet at his face.
"No!" she yelled, "He decided to leave me at the alter for some hussie! This is your fault because you made him fall in love with someone else!" At that, she stabbed her finger into his face, screamed in frustration, and dissolved into tears.
The man rolled his eyes and handed her some tissues. Sliding out of his chair, he pulled up his cloth diaper where it had started to sag. His wings fluttered as he reached down to pick up the fallen files.
"So, what do you want?" He asked. "There's nothing I can do to help you."
The woman looked up from her soaked tissues. "Nothing? But... You are Cupid! This is your job!"
"Unfortunately," he said, "I take orders from above, not weepy women. Maybe he just fell out of love with you?" The woman glared at him murderously.
"OK, not hard to believe." He mumbled to himself. "Look, Sometimes love isn't a beautiful story where you ride off to rule Camelot with your knight in shining armor. Sometimes it just ends. And, just curious, what's the name of this man you almost married?" After she told him, he strolled to the other side of the room to dig through more files before triumphantly pulling one out.
"Here we go." He paused for suspense. "I did not cause that one."
The woman swore and tore out of his office. Glad to be rid of her, Cupid filed the folder back and hovered up over his desk to fall back into his chair. On his way over, he caught a glimpse of the woman outside smashing into his new car before driving away.
He changed direction mid-flight and angrily flew over to where he kept his bow and heart-tipped arrows instead. Grabbing a full quiver, he made his plans. She had pissed off the wrong god.
Hatred burned inside of her with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Literally. When Agneya was angry, things burned.
ReplyDeleteSister Vickers and I took cover behind the piano, knocking over a few padded folding chairs in the process. I was sure that she was going to burn down the entire church building but somehow the flames did not catch.
Sister Vickers hugged her knees into her chest. She was a petite red-haired girl who looked utterly helpless. I, on the other hand, was too big for a fetal position.
A chair flew into the wall next to us, making us jump. “Come out now!” she screamed. “Tell me where it is! I have to find it!”
“They didn’t prepare us for this at the MTC.” Sister Vickers wept.
“We don’t know where Kolob is!” I called. “Please…please just calm down!”
“Of course you know!” she boomed. “You are Mormon missionaries! All Mormon missionaries know where Kolob is!”
Full of adrenaline and fear, my mind raced for a plan. “Ok, ok; if you stop throwing chairs at us, we will come out and tell you.”
Sister Vickers looked like she was about to implode. “What the flip are we going to tell her?” she screeched.
I ignored her and waited for Agneya to calm down. When she did, I slowly made my way out from behind the piano.
“Are you calm?” I asked in a calm tone.
She nodded, but the fire around her told me that she was still pretty edgy.
“Ok.” I said. I walked over to the nearest window and opened the blinds. “Kolob is there.” I said, pointing out into the sky. “It’s the second star on the right; straight on till morning.”
Agneya glowered at me as she debated on whether or not I was telling the truth. And then she just disappeared.
Sister Vickers and I stood frozen for a while.
“Our investigator turned out to be Agneya, Hindu Goddess of fire.” Sister Vickers breathed.
“Yep.”
“The Goddess of fire wants to know where Kolob is.”
“Yep.”
Sister Vickers nodded. “Do we tell anyone?”
“Nope.”
Special Challenge Accepted
Word Count :351
@Chelle87Fox