Inspired by Ausers poetry contest, I decided to have a contest of my own, in the same spirit but with a different genre: prose. This is a medium I quite enjoy and I look forward to reading the prose that you guys can produce.

The challenge: Write a short story (anywhere from 1000 to 5000 words) starting with the words:

I stepped into the dark hallway and

The reward: 4 BP for the story I find best or 2 BP each for two players, in case I can’t decide which one deserves it more.

The Deadline: Sunday, the 21st June.

can we have multiple entries? or one per character?

5 bp for my basically the same thing contest: http://www.forumwarz.com/discussions/view/35494-v-v-v-v-contest-5bps-someone-somewhere-please-make-a-good-post-v-v-v-v Log in to see images!

Well, I’m in the midst of exams, but hey, I might as well enter *something*. Posting to remind myself to do so.

This story is titled Insomnia.

I stepped into the dark hallway, and stumbled around a bit before finally finding the light switch. I nearly panicked, as if the panel had been moved through the wall, but I know such things are idiotic, and impossible. Although i’ve lived here for a year I feel like a stranger. I look down my hall, it’s pictures on the left-hand side, a wall-to-wall window on the right. the window is what I feared most, for someone could easily be standing out there, the trees block out all of the light. As I walk down to my bedroom, i see the pictures hung up on the wall out of the corner of my eye, I had them all memorized, my 10-year old son Michael, camping in the desert, my wedding with jennifer, I knew them all. My bedroom is at the opposite of the hall, almost watching me with the oak wood door half open like a crooked smile. eventually, i dragged myself to my bedroom, it, like the hallway, had been nearly pitch black. At least the switch is right by the door. I look over to the lamp by my bed, the alarm clock read 4:12AM. I barely noticed the time, not that I can even pay attention anymore. My whole life has become a random swirl of mondays & thursdays, wednesdays & sundays. I wouldn’t even be able to tell weekend from weekday if my neighbors still worked on the weekends. colors have also faded, everything so dark, so depressing. The only thing that keeps me awake now is me. I wish constantly for the pleasure of dreams, to be gone from this world, even for a small time. The drugs help, but only for a while. As long as they’re supplied, i’ll take ‘em. A little’s better than nothing, right?I’m going to go try to take some, maybe a miracle could happen…

March 18th, 2005

***************

The pain of going through life has become unbearable, I feel i’m going insane, everywhere I look, everything I see seems wrong, out of place. I can’t even make breakfast without breaking into a cold sweat. I can’t stand it, this house, it’s wrong, it’s like it’s alive, torturing me by robbing me of my dreams, killing me from the inside. Sadly, it’s winning. 3 Days ago I bought a handgun, a small one, .22 to be exact. I don’t want to make too much of a waste. Now i’m sitting in my garage trying to make it easier for them to clean out my body. But why should I care, I shouldn’t help them, goddamn it, I should kill THEM! They deserve it, their whole ****ing lives they were deserving it! They were unfit from the start, and i’ll be damned if i’m not taking them with me!!!!!!

June 24th, 2005

***************

Channel 12 news at 6 presents a very grim case. Recently, a man wielding a .22 handgun shot and killed 5 paramedics and a nurse in a local hospital, before turning the gun on himself. The shooter has been identified as a 33-year old Frank West, a respected member of the community. His neighbors reported waking up to his loud noises during the late nights, sometimes even screaming at the top of his lungs for hours. His doctor had also reported saying that Frank had suffered from insomnia, and had, quote: “just snapped”. When police has checked through his house to possibly find any evidence on why he committed the crime, they found a journal with only two entries that were related to the crime. We are not allowed to broadcast the entries, but are available to be viewed at our website, do be warned, the language is explicit in the second entry.

...crap. Contest ends today, doesn’t it?

*opens up word processor*

I stepped into the dark hallway and then realised… this was no hallway, it was the ejection chute from the orbital nuclear platform that had been built to defend Earth from the threat of alien raptor invasion. Somehow I had stumbled into the airlock, possibly because it was dark. I may also have been drunk, hungover or both. In either case, it was too late to contemplate my situation further because the ejection chute was living up to it’s name and ejecting me into the cold vacuum of space with only the broad expanse of the Earth below to tell me which was up and which was was down.

Luckily in my drunken (or hungover) state I had managed to put on a combat spacesuit before I stepped into the chute. Remaining safely operational up to 4,000 degrees kelvin it would protect my fragile human body in the long drop to the ground below.

[Take a break at this point to imagine diving freefall from space, any attempt by me to describe it would only spoil what is sure to be a glorious daydream]

Emerging from my impact crater I took a moment to marvel at the destruction my landing had caused, with sheer kinetic energy alone I had carved a trench at least 300m long, and almost as deep. The sides of this mighty scar in the ground were walled with glbum, fused by the immense heat and force from my arrival. Looking around further, signs of more brutal devastation became apparent. Having been absent from my post at the orbital nuclear platform, I had been unable to prevent the alien raptors from invading, and they had wrought terrible destruction upon the face of the Earth with their subsonic blastwave technology. It was down to me, and the arsenal of weaponry I carried with me, to halt their invasion, and kick their scaly raptor behinds back to the wastes of space they came from.

That’s 325 words, consider it a down payment. If I remember I’ll be back to add more later.

Hell, if I win anything I’ll consider expanding it to the length of a novel.

Bemp

Now presenting the updated space-raptor epic, with a wordcount now standing at 763. Consider this episode 2 of … iunno, probably 3 or 4. I reckon I’ve got enough left in me to head in the 1000-5000 range easily enough, but if get cut short by the end of the contest… well maybe I’ll carry on anyway if this generates legions of adoring fans.

Anyway! To business:

———————————-

I stepped into the dark hallway and then realised… this was no hallway, it was the ejection chute from the orbital nuclear platform that had been built to defend Earth from the threat of alien raptor invasion. Somehow I had stumbled into the airlock, possibly because it was dark. I may also have been drunk, hungover or both. In either case, it was too late to contemplate my situation further because the ejection chute was living up to it’s name and ejecting me into the cold vacuum of space with only the broad expanse of the Earth below to tell me which was up and which was was down.

Luckily in my drunken (or hungover) state I had managed to put on a combat spacesuit before I stepped into the chute. Remaining safely operational up to 4,000 degrees Kelvin it would protect my fragile human body in the long drop to the ground below.

[Take a break at this point to imagine diving freefall from space, any attempt by me to describe it would only spoil what is sure to be a glorious daydream]

Emerging from my impact crater I took a moment to marvel at the destruction my landing had caused; with sheer kinetic energy alone I had carved a trench at least 300m long, and almost as deep. The sides of this mighty scar in the ground were walled with glbum, fused by the immense heat and force from my arrival. Looking around further, signs of more brutal devastation became apparent. Having been absent from my post at the orbital nuclear platform, I had been unable to prevent the alien raptors from invading, and they had wrought terrible destruction upon the face of the Earth with their subsonic blastwave technology. It was down to me, and the arsenal of weaponry I carried with me, to halt their invasion, and kick their scaly raptor behinds back to the wastes of space they came from.

I surveyed the immediate area for any potential threat, but all was clear for now. Jacking into the neural computer interface of my suit I saw, to my relief, that enough of the info satellites were still operational for me to get a clear signal. The feed of images, live from all over the world, confirmed my worst fears. Raptors had bumaulted every major city on the planet, crushing resistance and killing or enslaving almost all of the populace. There were still pockets of free humans scattered about the globe, but none close enough to reach before they too would sucgreat timesb to the raptors terrible force.

Awaking suddenly from the semi-trance of the infofeed, I saw 2 raptors crest the hill ahead of me. They had seen me already, no chance of a surprise attack, and were closing the distance between us rapidly. Fortunately for me the raptors greatest strength was in space, although from orbit they could decimate the human population at a stroke, on the ground they were limited by their cold blood and slow metabolism. It makes them slower to react, easier to anticipate. Even with 2 of them to fight against, a well-armed mammal stood a good chance. As for me, I was more than well-armed.

I pulled out a small nuclear grenade and tossed it towards the oncoming raptors, turning as I did so to make a run to the side. As the grenade detonated my visor darkened to shield my eyes from the intense bust of hard radiation. One raptor had been caught in the full blast of the explosion and was neatly vapourised where he stood, the other was sorely wounded but was levelling an ultra-isotopic rifle at me. The first blast clipped my shoulder and knocked me back into a nearby ditch. I recovered my footing and returned fire with a barrage from my hyperstatic bolt gun. For all their robust physiology, even raptors tend not to stay standing when you put 3 heavy metal slugs through their torso.

As the thrill of victory and rushing adrenaline faded, I became acutely aware that, though powerful, my stocks of ammunition would not last long against the combined armies of the raptor fleet. I needed to cut them off at the source, the command ship still in orbit, surely filled with further hordes of raptors, to replenish any I killed here on Earth. The raptors on Earth would slowly perish when cut off from their supplies and leadership, but there could be no human victory while that ship remained in orbit.

I formulated a plan, I knew what had to be done.

Received – thanks! Much more fun than a “last post wins” contest I’m sure everyone will agree.

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