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As we are already part the way through August, this vignette will last until the end of September. Because it is the summer holidays here is a themed prompt:
Usual rules apply, and can be found here.Quote:
Your character is spirited away somewhere they have always wanted to go. They can be kidnapped, forced or it could be a surprise, but they should not be expecting to go to the place. How does your character deal with the situation?
"Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it."
~~~
The snow fell heavy around her. White flakes fluttered and fell. The cold was familiar, but not anymore bearable. The question rose in her head. Wait, how did I - where am I?
The thick clouds rolled above. Felicity could barely see the pale winter sun through them. She picked up her foot. Her fur boots mushed in the tall snow. Once again, confusion tugged at her mind.
"Where am I?"
"Felicity!"
That voice seemed... strangely familiar. From where, however? The girl blinked. Her unfamiliar eyes were speckled with thought.
"Dinner!"
She blinked and looked on ahead. She realized that she saw a large shape ahead. Squinting her eyes against the snow, she trudged on forward. Leaving ditches of snow in her path, she pushed towards the shape. Eventually, she saw through the snow. It was a house. The cottage was made of insulated wood and coated in furs. The door was waiting for her to open it.
She stood there, still. What was this place?
"Felicity! Your food is getting cold!"
Her stomach rumbled. Felicity shook her head and walked towards the door. The pine steps moaned as she walked up. Something felt off. So, so off.
She opened the door.
Inside, a roaring fire burned bright in the center of a dark room. A small table was nearby. Meat and winter grown vegetables sat in a dish. Delectable, the aroma drew her closer.
"Remember to close the door!"
Felicity turned and softly shut the door. Turning to the table, she felt it was strange that she was so gentle with the door. Still, she is walked towards the table. As the flames flickered, coloring the bland log walls, she stepped up to the table. Then, she saw something at the corner of her vision.
She looked up to see a black haired woman with a round face and brown eyes. She was smiling as she carried a bucket of water to the table. She was astonishingly familiar. Felicity knew exactly who it was.
"Mother!" She cried. She was shocked that she sounded excited about this. She felt an involuntary smile creep along her face. Inside, she was panicking.
What is this!?
Her mother placed the bucket down and wiped her forehead. She dusted off her dress and looked up to her with a smile. "Sit down, dear."
Felicity sat down, still too shocked by, well, everything.
As the older woman cut up her moose meat, she sighed. "I get worried about your father, Felicity. He's fighting so hard..."
My father?
"... He promised to come home with another glory story about how he and your cousin fought off those - those-"
She paused, bringing her fist to her mouth and clearing her throat. "Well... no words can be used to describe the wretched nature of the Neandertals. Beasts!"
Felicity did not jump, she did not react at all. Shocked, she continued to listen.
The woman put a cut up vegetable in her mouth and swallowed quickly. "Who knows what that one that attacked me would of done if your father had not rescued me."
She looked over to Felicity and smiled, "I know you will find your own prince one day, sweetheart."
Felicity felt lightheaded. What was going on? How did she get here? What was this place? She simply put a chunk of meat in her mouth and chewed. Were her hands moving on her own. She felt shocked that the whole time, her body had been straight and her head nodded in agreement. She was too stunned.
Suddenly, the feeling of food going down the wrong tube forced her to choke. Coughing, she remembered the procedure to take care of this, yet she did not do it. Instead, she kept on coughing. She felt herself jump from the chair and race to the bucket. Using a wooden cup, she forced down water and swallowed between coughs. Soon enough, she stopped. Tears flooding her eyes, she thought that her reflection looked strange. She wiped her eyes dry as her mother rubbed her back, whisping soothing words.
Felicity was alarmed at what she saw.
She was much skinnier than she usually was. Her forehead was human sized. Instead of stringy, red locks, her hair was black and smooth. Her eyes were blue, not green.
Her heart rapidly pounded inside her chest. She felt horrified. This was not her!
"Felicity!"
Wait, that voice!
"Felicity, take my hand!"
She was bewildered and frightened to see that through the water, a ghostly hand seemed to be reaching up. Confusion grasped her, but she obeyed. For the first time, she could truly control herself. She reached into the water and felt her hand intertwine with another's. She felt the world disipate around her. It crumbled like paper and flew away like a feather. The house, her mother... it faded like mist. She realized she was underwater. It was dark, yet she sensed magic surrounding her being. She was still holding onto the hand.
She felt him pull her up.
Liquid slid off her as she emerged from the water. It felt like ten million pounds had fallen off her body. She felt like she was in a deep slumber and just woke up. She panted, catching her breath. She looked around to see herself in a round tub, filled with a dark grey liquid. The room she was in was simple, empty with pillars holding the walls up. The pillars were carved in the images of the Great Thaynes. She looked around to see that the tub she was in was one of many.
Her memory was foggy. How did she get here?
"Felicity."
Felicity looked up to see a familiar face. It was the Lesser Thayne, Gwenael. He was the Thayne of time and space. His amber eyes were flooded with concern. He also seemed just a tad bit annoyed. His lips were slightly turned down.
"I told you to watch your step!"
Felicity blinked, her memory blank. She looked back down into the liquid to see her reflection.
Red hair, green eyes, neanderthal forehead, sturdy figure.
Still panting, she looked up as the liquid continued to drop off her body. "Wh-what was..."
"-These pools." Gwenael explained, "They contain alternative reality simulations."
Eyes wide, Felicity looked down again. She could not get the images out of her mind. The cabin, her smiling mother, the story of the circumstances of her birth, her reflection..."
Tears flooded her eyes once again.
"I want to forget that!" She shouted. She looked to Gwenael with pleading, desperate eyes. Her chest felt like it could burst. She wanted to curl up and forget it all. "Please! I can't get it out of my head!"
Tears streamed down her face as her blood pressure soared, making her light headed.
"Gwenael! Please!"
Opaque mist dyed a gentle golden color by soft sunlight roiled across the world around him as Tobias ambled across unfamiliar ground. He could feel dew-touched grass gently caressing the soles of his feet, kissing away dirt and massaging callouses as he surveyed the area for any sign of familiarity. "Hello?" he called out. Nothing.
The sky stretched for miles in every direction, a faint orange and white canvas devoid of any structure. He reached out ahead of himself and clutched at the aether. It scattered between his fingers and slipped away like sand. In that place, existence felt ephemeral- more so than it did anywhere else. He could feel the gentle caress of the sun, but it was nowhere to be seen. "Where am I?" he asked. Again, no response came.
He continued for miles, or longer. His concept of time was swallowed whole by uncertainty, and the longer he went the more his anxiety crept up. When he came to a halt, he looked down at his feet, and he found that even the sensation of grass was a lie. There was no sign of the source of that familiar texture. "Your mind is conjuring something familiar," a voice echoed in his thoughts, and he looked around quickly. "Be at ease, Tobias, I am not there."
"Where are you?" Tobias asked.
He looked about warily, and the light shimmered before his eyes. A breath caught in his throat. "You died," he choked, a faint whisper. "I watched you die."
Her dirty blonde locks brushed from her face as she gave him the coy but warm smile that he fell in love with. "I did," she confirmed, "but this isn't really me. I just chose something that was dear to you, something that wouldn't terrify you." The image of Camille took a step forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Do you know where you are, Stalt?" she asked him.
He looked down, and his hand traced his stomach. It came back slick. The beleaguered adventurer lifted the shirt to reveal a fatal wound. "I- I've died?" he asked, more calmly than most men.
"You're finally free," she confirmed.
Tears formed at the edges of his eyes as he sank to his knees, and Tobias Stalt wept.
Before me and behind me was nothing.
It was a black, endless expanse that was a void, lost within a black hole, trapped within a vacuum. And I was there, I could see all. The nothing. The great, undying plains of death and decay that spoke only silence and shone no light.
As soon as I entered, I knew what this was. It reminded me of a single other moment in time - my birth, when I had stepped fully formed from the roiling mass that is called Khaos. Then, it had been a place and time before time existed, when only gods ruled the world of Althanas and beings like me, called primordials from the period of pre-history that we are from, were born to serve them. Back then Khaos had meant something, and had had at least a semblance of matter and antimatter, yet no order to how that matter was placed together. Thus, it had been unsorted. It had been tumultuous. It had been beyond nothing, beyond something, because it was everything.
However, this was different. Now, I stood in pure nothingness, lost on a sea of annihilation with nihilistic philosophy clouding my brain. I was, as they say, at the end of time and place itself, when nothing is and nothing was, and all there is is a future uncertain.
If there is a future at all.
I was at the end of the universe, stolen away from my reality by this presumptuous god-like being who thought it would be good for me.
What? Good for me to see how it all ended?
Endings are always good, the voice within my head whispered. Her, Destruction, as she liked to call herself. My symbiotic entity who could not survive without my body as host, who loved and hated me.
Endings are always sorrowful, I whispered, as I looked around the emptiness.
You said you always wanted to come here, she said softly.
And I had, indeed I had always been curious. In my dreams I had always tried to imagine what this would be like. The end of everything. Of time, space and place itself. I had not thought it would be so ... nothing.
No hope, no sound. Just that voice in my head.
Even the god-like being who had snatched me from my bed in order to show me this place had gone, leaving me here just to stare.
A being who had been ... well all I had seen was a fist. A flash of dark features. A feminine laugh. A ... hang on a second ...
You brought us here? I hissed at Destruction, turning as if I expected to see her. Indeed, my eyes had been closed at the time, now I remembered it. I had been just in my bed, when I thought I had seen the fist and those dark, dark eyes. Those eyes I saw every day in my mirror. My eyes. Her eyes.
Darling ... she softly said.
A vision. A dream. Or a transport through reality and time, I did not know what this was. But Destruction had somehow brought me here because I said I had been curious about it. A time when everything had been eaten by her namesake, when it had taken all with it in Order's mission to sort everything. And in doing so, all had ended.
Can you take us back? I asked, dragging in a breath, my eyes hurt by the lack of depth, of colour, of sound and light.
Destruction sighed. Then she hummed an affirmative reply. I was pulled back to my bed, away from the end of all things and back towards my time now.
I did not know how she had done it, and I did not care to ask. All I knew was the experience.
Closed for judgment. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Flamebird
This piece contained some powerful emotions, but it also contained some awkward writing and overall I felt confused on several occasions while reading through it. I would encourage you to focus on clarity and expressing a snippet of the character's story rather than trying to fit the entire short story into a vignette.
Use of topic: I think you handled the topic well, but I'm honestly not quite sure whether the place Felicity had always wanted to be was where she started or where she ended up. She seemed shocked/confused by both places, and didn't seem especially pleased to be in either. I think that's where my confusion came from.
Creativity: This is easily your strong suit - overall you did a good job of immersing in the cold and snow, even if that part of the vignette took up a few too many words. I also enjoyed the method of travel, going through the water in the bucket, and you described that well. Just remember that sometimes less is more, and this rule definitely applies to quantity in a vignette contest.
Mechanics: I didn't notice too much spelling/grammar problems, but on several occasions you repeated words one sentence after the other in really obvious ways. "The snow fell around her. White flakes fluttered and fell." This could be better expressed as "White flakes fluttered and fell around her" - or something similar. Also, "She blinked and looked on ahead. She realized that she saw a large shape ahead." Again, something along the lines of "She blinked and saw a large shape ahead," would work better. There are a lot of opportunities where you can potentially cut down on wordage, so I'd recommend some careful proofreading to search them out.
Tobias Stalt
This vignette had some sweet spots and got the job done nicely, although I do think you could have benefited from murdering a few of your darlings. All in all an enjoyable read that ended before the song I set it to.
Use of topic: Excellent use of topic - if I wanted to be a jerk I could point out that the prompt TECHNICALLY asks you to include the act of spiriting in the snippet, but I think cutting that part in the name of brevity was the right choice, so I won't be a jerk.
Creativity: While the idea is kind of cliche (afterlife was one of the first things I thought of when I read the prompt) and the approach wasn't especially unique, your verbal creativity was such that I didn't mind. It's like setting a climactic moment in a story during a dark and stormy night. Is it a cliche? Yes. Does it work when done well? Yes. This worked.
Mechanics: Solid mechanics, but I will address what I mean about murdering your darlings. The opening sentence, while beautiful in one sense, was also really long with no punctuation and contained the word "across" twice. I actually had to take a nap in the middle of it to regain my strength. There were one or two other spots that you might have reconsidered, but overall well done.
Professor Charles
I feel this was the most unique of the entries, and the complex backstory you've given this character really benefited you here. Your entry was a little on the long side, but considering the setting you were describing is not something the average person experiences every day (or ever), I think you did a great job.
Use of topic: Excellent use of topic... it's almost like you knew that prompt inside out. It would have been nice if the snippet had been a bit less top-heavy so that you could have included more on the feeling of being dragged through time and space, but I'm being picky.
Creativity: Really good use of creativity, even though most of the heavy lifting here happened when you created the character. You had the most unique/interesting take on the prompt, and overall you did a good job of expressing what was going on, but I didn't feel especially immersed in this piece. I'll get into why I think that is in mechanics.
Mechanics: The beginning of the vignette really overused passive voice, and that kind of ruined the immersion and weakened your descriptions considerably. Saying "Before me and behind me was nothing. It was a black, endless expanse that was a void," failed to capture the momentum you were going for because of the lack of powerful verbs. I'm pretty sure I understand your intent in this section, but you used "was" so often that rather than seeming especially suspenseful it read much like a list. Otherwise, solid mechanics.
Well, you folks didn't make it easy but I managed to come up with a winner and runner up. Here they are, with rewards assigned. Congrats to all of you on submitting excellent entries!
1st: Tobias Stalt gets 1000 EXP and 200 GP!
2nd: Professor Charles gets 320 EXP and 150 GP!
3rd: Flamebird get 400 EXP!
Thanks for playing, hope to see you all again next time :cool:
Rewards added.