LCN WRITING WEEK, i had not a better name, sorry world. Options

[Shiokazu]

THIS IS HOW IT BEGAN:

MARCH 24TH 2013

people were in the irc and i said... well, i lost the logs, WHATEVER HERES THE IDEA:

DURING A CHOSEN WEEK, WE'LL GATHER EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE AND WE'LL WRITE SOME STORIES, DOESNT MATTER WHAT YOU'RE WRITING ABOUT, JUST WRITE.

THE WORDCOUNT IT 10500 WORDS.

YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS.

GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED, MAY THE SAKURA SCENT GUIDE YOU ALWAYS.

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1st LCNWRIWE

from march 25th until march 31th.

This post has been edited by Shiokazu: Mar 25 2013, 03:03 AM

[Rhiannon]

DAY 1 IS OVER. SHIO TAKES FIRST PLACE, RHIA TAKES SECOND PLACE, VAHN TAKES THIRD PLACE. Probably. I wasn't actually around and PPA won't tell me his progress. He seems doubtful.

VAHN POSTED HIS STORIES IN A NEW THREADS BUT MY STORY DOESN'T GET TO HAVE A LIFE OF ITS OWN. I only write bad stories about bad people anyway. And literally nothing happens yet. I hope it's purple enough.

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The woman woke from her slumber to the sounds of five crows circling above. She sat and searched her surroundings for the source of this noise, finding only the rotting carcass of some unfortunate dog's prey. The wild dog had been her prey the night before; the animal that could best sustain her, trapped as she was in this god-forsaken forest. Even the dogs had mostly learned to stay far from her territory, save for one or two fools who did not realize that she was a thing to be feared. But she had no use for that which was already dead. She supposed the crows feared her -- as they should. Nevertheless, she wished they would quickly silence themselves and take the wretched dead thing if they wished to so greatly. She certainly had no desire to stop them.

Though, the more she thought about the dog, the more sympathy she felt for it. The fact of the matter was that the entire forest was her territory. It was her land to walk, and within it she had few boundaries. There were few parts of this forest that she could not walk upon -- they were the lands where the seasons still changed. Here in the heart of the forest, it was autumn eternal. In the small fragments of forest beyond her reach, it could very well be a bitter winter. Where else would the poor dogs go to find their prey?

She recalled a memory from the time when she lived in the nearby village: without exception, during the winter months, the wild dogs would enter the village and attack anything living, and they would have to fight them off with their meager farming tools. It seemed like such a distant memory, now. The woman had no knowledge or awareness of how long she had stayed here; in this forest without the changing of the seasons or even the rising of the sun.

Where she grew up, they had a phrase that was often used: "Once in a blue moon." It meant something that happens infrequently, as it referred to the appearance of a second full moon in a month. There would never be a blue moon in this forest. Nothing unlikely or rare would ever happen here, so long as the dried autumn leaves crunched beneath her every step. Just as there was no winter in the forest, there was no night. Endless autumn, endless sunset.

She was taken abruptly from her thoughts by the stirring of the reddened leaves that still remained on the trees, and by the frenzied flapping of wings. She turned to where the crows had been circling and saw the four of them flying away. She wondered what had startled them so. It can't have been her, surely. If they had not fled when she first sat up, the slight movements she had made since then would not have been cause enough for alarm. Perhaps they had been surprised by a squirrel jumping suddenly from branch to branch. The squirrels certainly were not the smartest or most elegant of animals that lived in the forest. In fact, they were probably the stupidest, the clumsiest. She had seen many a squirrel miss their jump and fall to their deaths. The ground is too far for such small creatures. So why was it that they continued such risky behaviour? She could not comprehend the actions of lesser beings.

Humans, too, she found, were no longer comprehensible to her. Whether this change happened suddenly with her ascendance or gradually as a natural result of her seclusion, she could not know. Part of her did not wish to know. But part of her longed to understand that which she once understood -- a byproduct of the memories she had from when she was still human.

Though she felt that she had ascended into a higher form of existence from humans, a far superior living being, she wondered at times if her particular situation made her nothing more than a caged tiger, pacing endlessly back and forth in its tiny enclosure, waiting with great impatience for an opportunity to break free from the chains that bound such a great being to a life of such mediocrity.

She stood and began to walk through the forest, with no set destination. She did this often, though she was not yet sure if it was out of boredom or genuine interest in the current state of the forest, with all its proclivity towards the unending. At times she had toyed with the idea that her part of the forest had lost its flow of time, that it was trapped in this endless moment which just so happened to be close to the end of the day near the end of a somewhat warm fall season; but were that the case, the only living creature left to wander amongst the trees would be her. They would all be consumed by each other and her, and with no passage of time there would be no reproduction. Furthermore, she herself would be truly immortal -- an ageless being by virtue of existing only within a timeless realm.

As she walked, still occupied by memories from her time as a human, she began to hum a song. It was a song the elderly humans in her village often sang, and though she did not know the lyrics, she could still remember the title: "In the Gloaming." Such a title seemed fitting as she walked through the dead leaves, bathing in the minute twilight the sky-consuming trees permitted to pass through. She heard the scurrying of small animals fleeing at her arrival, and, startled by the sudden noise, ceased her humming. The existence of this song seemed meaningless to her now, anyway. Once she might have even sang along with others, but things were different now.

She soon reached a wide, rushing river that cut the forest in two. It was wide and fast enough that no creature incapable of flight or lacking expertise in swimming could possibly cross it, and on the other side was the land that could hear the season's call. It was not yet winter on the other side. Rather, it was mid fall, on a sunny day. Perhaps even morning or afternoon; she could not tell the difference.

She sat at the river's edge and put her hand into the water. The current was strong as ever. She wondered just how deep the river was, and what sorts of living creatures it housed. It was certainly wide enough that one would expect it to be home to some fairly large fish, but if it was too shallow there would be no chance of anything of a decent enough size for her to call a meal. It was at least as deep as she was tall -- she had found out that much by jumping in one day. Unfortunately, she could not swim well enough to resist the current's pull, and she never found out any more than that before being swept to the boundary of her territory, whereupon she was gifted with an immense pain like a bolt of lightning shooting up her spine, and then inexplicably found herself in the very center of the forest.

The first thing she did upon her so-called ascendance was, indeed, a testing of her apparent limitations. That is simply what one does when they are told they can not do something. The very first thing that they absolutely must do in such a situation is the very thing they were warned was impossible. Each time she came into contact with a boundary, inevitably, that was what she experienced. The pain followed by the perfect and complete disorientation of suddenly finding herself somewhere far from where she was just a moment ago, with no loss of consciousness to precede it. Her first experience with the boundary was followed by another attempt to cross it, which left her just as befuddled as the last had. After that, she ceased to entertain her delusions of escape, and resigned herself to her fate: an eternity in the forest of everlasting autumn twilight.

She gazed into the water, at what little she could perceive of her reflection on the water's surface. It was not much. Such a constant, violent disturbance offered her little of what she had hoped to perceive. There was a large mirror in a spacious shed she had cleared out and cleaned up, regardless. If she wished so strongly to see what she looked like today, she need only walk back and glance at the mirror. The shed had proven itself well worth the effort of cleaning out. Though shelter from the elements was never a concern in this forest, it was the only safe place she could put the apples she gathered from the trees. Anywhere else would end with them being eaten -- either by the crows or the numerous rodents.

Uninterested in attempting her previous experiment with the river's depth again, she stood and began to walk back the way she had come.

Next time a thing probably happens.

[Dr Strum]

What a coincidence. I've been writing a story every day for the past week since I'm on break from work. But I haven't been requiring a certain word count of myself, partly because I think I'm too wordy to begin with.

[Shiokazu]

What a coincidence. I've been writing a story every day for the past week since I'm on break from work. But I haven't been requiring a certain word count of myself, partly because I think I'm too wordy to begin with.

you are welcome to join in.


OH and i am also linking my story on my signature, so people can read it.

the word count goal for today is 3 thousands words!

[Shiokazu]

TODAY IS THE 3RD DAY OF THE WEEK. YOU MUST BE FEELING A LITTLE WORRIED BY NOW AINT YA?
no? oh well... nvm then. just keep writing at your own pace, remember that the hare got beaten by the turtle and all that stuff. and, theres just more four days left.

isnt it awesome?

but please

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This post has been edited by Shiokazu: Mar 27 2013, 04:27 PM

[P.P.A.]

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 Oh, how I hated his face. We all did. His elongated, smug visage, with that finely combed little moustache on it. Always shadowed by his tricorne, which he decorated every day with the feathers of some other exotic fowl he padded his bloated stomach with. He passed our place on his daily walk, watched us toil and sweat under the ever-burning sun, and presumably got so exhausted from his slave holding his parasol that he had to return to his nice mansion for the rest of the day.
 We would have loved to twist his neck, but whoever had designed that quarry would have deserved it more: the entrance was situated right on the face of a cliff; below, the waves trashed against the naked rock, which jutted out of the water as thin around the waist as us yet as pointy as our pickaxes. The guards were roped down in a lift every day to retrieve any ores we found, and to leave some resemblance of food behind. Inflation must have been pretty high, we gave them bags of gold and only got a few loaves of bread and some cheese out of it! We could have tried to overwhelm them—they weren't heavily armed—but then their mates above could just have cut the ropes leaving us stranded.
 The only news we ever got from the outside world was when new convicts arrived. Some mineurs spectacularly sabotaging a coronation in another country; an indigenous island empire further west expanding and the neighbouring Wortlanders getting queasy… One fellow was particularly knowledgeable about the state's affairs, which might have been the reason why he was here with us. Thin, weak—I didn't expect him to last long (he did, though). Pieter was his name; he had been ambassador, and apparently an eager schemer, until he schemed himself onto this lovely prison island. He was from Nieuw Walschor, as quite a few of the newer arrivals seemed to be; some were not even criminals, but had moved here seeking opportunity. I admit, when I first arrived and stepped onto the deck of the ship in whose mouldy hull I had spent the weeks prior, my impression had not been all that bad. Bright sand all around, palmtrees swaying in the salty breeze, and a range of uniquely steep mountains competing with the mighty green of the jungle for the most imposing part of a picturesque backdrop. If only I had then not been forced to scrape them out one by one.

 One day, Daniël ran up to us while we were lazing around in the shadow. Ah, Daniël: built like a bear but docile as a lamb; he had gotten caught up in something back home and couldn't bear to lie his way out of the mess, the fool, and thus ended up taking all the blame for the incident himself. A slow thinker, but a unconditionally kind-hearted spirit. New convicts tended to try and exploit his friendliness, but we always made it quite clear to them that this was not in accordance with our idea of comeradie.
That day, he was drenched head to toe, and quite excited about it. “I found water!”, he shouted, waving his arms. “There's a waterfall underground!” Everyone would have welcomed a little refreshment, and so we followed him into one of the mineshafts. Sure enough, behind a turn the rushing of water beckoned us with the promise of a cool respite. Just as Daniël had said, it was a waterfall, tumbling into the darkness below. It was illuminated only by the shine of our lanterns, for above all was pitch black; presumably it did not drop straight down from the surface but took a few detours through underground tunnels.
The cold shower was welcome, even if we had to be careful not to be torn down to our untimely doom.
We were about to go back to work when I noticed bald Nestory to be rather captivated by the scene. He tossed a rock down the chasm and listened attentively; then he asked Daniël to hold him tight as he leaned out through the waterfall, trying to squeeze a lantern past it dry. “What's the matter?”, I asked when he stood safe on his feet again. “Obviously, the water has to come from and go somewhere.”—“That much I figured. So you're saying there might be an escape route?” He flashed a smile, but avoided fuelling false hopes. “Perhaps. The water might flow out into the sea, but in what manner I cannot even guess. Upwards is hardly an option, alas.” I nodded. “Still worth a closer look.”
 We did not want to draw unwanted attention to the discovery, so we returned to our work and laid a bit of our finds aside to have something to show for the following days when our focus would lie elsewhere. Ropes were organised, knotted together, and when the time seemed right, I volunteered to be let down on them. The waterfall continued to drop for a few dozen metres, and the shaft it had bored into the mountain was quite narrow. As it began to widen, I felt the stone under my hand to become smoother. I loosened the lantern tied to my belt and its light revealed crude carvings of various fish, crabs, and other such appetising things. I copped a feel of a creature haf-woman, half-fish, too! Though the shine from the lantern was too faint to illuminate the bigger picture, the carvings stretched as far as it reached. Apparently the rope had run out, or the men above had gotten worried, because hereafter I was pulled back up and reported wht I had seen.
 The next day, I descended again, and soon reached the carvings. Below me I could make out a structure—or what was once a structure; the waterfall must have eroded it, for much of it had collapsed—which might once have been a pavillion; and, at least, the glow of the lantern was reflected in ripples rolling over the surface of a body of water. It was fairly shallow, I could stand in it up to my chest; there were no waves, and it barely tasted of salt. The darkness of the cave swallowed the flame's fickle flicker, and so I waded through the water blindly until I stumbled over something. It was a step, followed by another, and another, until I was on dry land. I tied the rope still clinging to my waist to a nearby column and ascended further. The noise of the waterfall faded into the distance, but the silence could not settle down as from the distance it faintly screamed and roared, shrill voices sang. The darkness ahead was impenetrable, the clamour otherworldly, but the allure of freedom hastened my steps—only for them to halt before a wall of massive roots, dirtied with soil. At least the sounds from beyond were not coming from the beasts of hell, unless the devil was truly so cruel as to have a man claw his way to his realm, full of expectation meant to be shattered. Freedom was just out of reach, and with these good news I returned to the other inmates, or some of them. A select few of us (to minimise the risk of someone slipping and telling the guards) would descend into the cave every day and scrape and cut away at the roots and vines.

[Rhiannon]

Total is at 3944 now, but eh. :( 600 isn't that bad to leave to catch up for tomorrow.

NOW IN MY STORY A THING HAPPENS. A little faster than I meant for it to (it was supposed to eat up those last 600 words too!) but whatever. Probably my fault. Conversation and transition into THE THING THAT HAPPENS seemed pretty rushed. Now you probably know what kind of story this is. Probably.

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After a fair bit of walking, she reached the center of the forest. The trees here were more widely spaced out, and on the opposite side of the center from where she had come, hugged close by two trees, was her shed. It was not in the greatest condition, having not been properly maintained in what could very well have been an eternity, but the colors cast upon it from the light that burned from above gave it a slightly antiquated look, she thought; or perhaps the word she was looking for was "quaint."

She shoved aside the rock that held the shed's door closed with her foot, and stepped inside, letting the light fill the small enclosure. High up on a small shelf were a few apples of a faded red colour. She took one and bit into it, savoring the sweet taste. She no longer had any need to consume food or drink in this way to survive -- her only enemy now was time. She still grew old like any other living creature, and one day that could kill her.

She glanced at the tall mirror leaning against the wall, being held in place by a small metal folding chair. The light was imperfect, but what could be gleaned from it under these conditions was all she had. Recently, she had begun to wonder if, with the lack of sufficient prey lately, it would be in her best interests to take the mirror outside so she could see exactly how bad things were. But it was so tall, so thick, and it would surely be heavy. Perhaps it would be more trouble than it was worth. Perhaps she was better off not knowing.

She looked at her face in the mirror, settling, at least for now, for the sub-optimal lighting. Looking closely, she frowned at her reflection. Though she had that wild dog not long ago, her lips and eyes were still framed by a few wrinkles. It was certainly better than it had been before, but just one dog would not be enough. With growing dread, she hoped that the coming winter would bring more of the dogs into her domain. She tried to forget the fact that they had been rare even during the outside world's previous winters.

She left the shed with a sense of urgency, closing the door and again using a foot to return the rock to its usual place, and hurried off in a random direction. Eventually she calmed herself, and sat with her back against a tree. She still held the apple in her hand. The part she had bit from before had changed to a brown colour, so she turned it and took a bite from a different part of it. She had no need to eat these apples, but she enjoyed the taste, and it felt nice to chew once in a while. When she had finished eating the parts of the apple that still looked appetizing, she tossed it into the trees behind her. A gift for the small animals that still lived here, for not abandoning her.

She became alert to the sound of leaves crunching. Silently, she stood and listened more intently, hoping that another wild dog might have wandered in. But as she listened, she realized that whatever it was, it walked on only two legs. She wondered if that irritating old hag of a witch had at last decided to pay her another visit. Looking around to find her, the woman soon realized from the close sound of the steps that she must have been behind her. With hostile eyes, the woman turned around the tree she had been standing against. What had been walking towards her was not the witch as she had expected -- and it let out a cry of surprise when she had come out from behind the tree.

It was a young boy. The hostility fled from her in an instant. She had no idea who this boy was. He glanced around nervously as she pondered if he was perhaps from the nearby village, as she was. His clothes were mostly different from the style that had been common for young boys back when she lived there, but how many years had passed since then? She had no idea what had happened in the outside world; not an inkling of how popular styles and trends might have changed since then.

"Uh," the boy started, breaking her from her thoughts, "would you happen to know what this place is?"

The woman blinked at him for a moment, unsure of how she should take this encounter from here. He was at first looking her in the eye, though clearly rather afraid of her, but after a few more seconds of this, he averted his eyes.

"Are you lost?" The woman asked. The boy looked around as if to see if he could find any landmarks he recognized, then turned back to the woman and nodded, eyes low with embarrassment. "Well then," she continued, "where did you come from?"

"I'm from a village not too far from here. Do you know where it is?"

"A village, you say?" The woman took a moment to think. But it wasn't the location of the village she was thinking about. She thought that this boy could perhaps be a nice diversion from her boredom for a while, and she was wondering how she might get him to stay a little longer.

"Well? Do you have any ideas?"

"Ah, yes, perhaps. There was, I believe, a village at the edge of this forest."

The boy's eyes brightened. "So you do know about it! Can you tell me which direction it is from here?"

"Ah, yes, yes, but first, why don't we go to my home to rest for a little bit?"

The boy's excitement faded with that suggestion. "But I've been away from home for a while now, and I really want to go back..."

"Yes, of course. You must be tired, though, and hungry as well. The village is quite a long walk away from here, too." The boy did not seem to be convinced by her words, though his hesitation was perhaps caused by the tinge of fear the woman could still sense in his movements. She wondered if he could somehow sense that she was not a human like he was.

The silence was broken not by words, but by the growling of the boy's stomach. He looked at the woman, embarrassed, and she smiled at him. "Well, that settles that. There are apples at my house; let us go there, and rest, and you can fill your belly," she said. The boy still seemed hesitant, and so she gently took his hand into hers. "And I find the apples quite delicious, if my opinion amounts to anything. Now come, let's go."

With his body's betrayal of his needs and her hand holding his, the boy seemed to have lost his will to resist her invitation.



She led him to her small shed, and, smiling, looked down to gauge the boy's reaction. He looked cautious, now, like he might run. "What's wrong?" she asked him.

"This is your house?"

She took a second look at it, at first not understanding what the problem was. But then she remembered -- humans didn't live in old sheds. Humans lived in houses. She smiled at him weakly, now. "Well, this is all I have."

"Can't you get someone to build a real house for you?" the boy suggested.

"I know no one who could do such a thing, nor do I have any money with which to pay them for their work."

The boy's fear was gone now, replaced with pity. "I guess not everyone is as fortunate as we are in the village."

"No, they aren't. Now come inside," the woman said as she pushed the rock aside to open the door. He followed her in cautiously, and she, of course, left the door open for the extra light. The boy looked around at the shed, possibly wondering how someone could live there. The woman remembered how humans slept on beds, and had washrooms and other such utilities. She, of course, had none.

"You can sit on that chair over there," she told the boy, motioning towards the folding chair in front of the mirror.

He hesitated. "Where will you sit, then?"

"I can stand. You are the one who must rest, after all." That answer seemed to have satisfied the boy, for he took his seat where she told him to. She reached up to her shelf and took two apples down, and handed him one. He took it, but did not begin eating it. He seemed to be inspecting it, to make sure it really was an apple. "They're just normal apples," she said, "it's not as if they're poisonous."

She saw the boy's eyes widen slightly, and he ceased to examine the apple. "So who are you, anyway?" he asked.

"Me?" The boy nodded his affirmation, and the woman was at a loss for words. She was unsure how to answer this question. She could not even think of a name to give him -- she had simply thought of herself as herself for so long that she no longer remembered her real name.

"Like, what's your name? How did you end up living here all alone in this weird forest?"

The woman blinked at him, still trying to think up something to tell him. She searched her memory for names, trying to remember her own, or any old name that she could use. After a moment, she finally answered: "My name is Melanie. I have always lived in this forest. And what about you? I know that you are from the village, but little else."

"I'm Cody."

There was a moment, then, of awkward silence. The woman began to eat her apple, wondering if Cody had any intent to do the same. "It really isn't poisoned, you know," she said.

"I'm not really all that hungry anymore, though. I don't like apples, anyway."

She looked at him curiously, wondering why he was so incredibly cautious about her. She had certainly startled him when they first met, but after that she had been nothing but kind to him. And yet his fear and caution had continued. "Why are you so afraid of me?" she asked outright.

Her straightforwardness caught him off guard for a moment, and he looked back at the apple she had given him. "Well, I've heard stories that a witch lives in this forest."

She laughed at this. "You think I am a witch?" She looked above him, at her reflection in the mirror. Her messy black hair; her old, wrinkled skin; her rather disheveled clothing. A strange old lady living alone in the forest. Perhaps it was not such a far-fetched judgement. She looked back at the boy, who semeed embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I should not have laughed. I do see why you would think that. But I assure you, Cody, that if I were a witch with magical powers, I would live in a far more glamorous home than an old abandoned shed, and I would use my powers to make myself so much more beautiful."

Cody thought about that for a moment, and then looked at the apple again, and slowly took a small, cautious bite of it. She smiled at him. "It's delicious, isn't it?" He nodded, and before long he was devouring the apple ravenously.

When he had finished, she asked him to tell her more about the story he was told -- about this witch that lives in the forest. "They say she lures kids to her house and fattens them up with food. Then she ties them up and throws them in a pot of boiling water to cook them, so she can eat them."

The woman laughed again. "You believe a story like that?" Cody looked away, clearly embarrassed yet again. "And I imagine your parents tell you this story so you'll stay away from this forest, yes?"

"Well, yeah."

Something in his story had made her realize something. What if the value of the animals she took as her prey was not their size or complexity, but rather their possible lifespan? A human... would surely live for many many more years than any dog could ever hope to. Her smile faded. "And yet you still came?"

"Well, it was a dare from a friend. Everyone would call me a coward if I didn't try it."

"Ah, one of those types of things." In truth, the woman did not understand his motivation at all.

"Yeah."

The woman nodded, and took another bite of her apple before setting it aside and taking a step forward. The boy looked at her, confused. "Stand. It's time to go back to your village." He complied, and she suddenly grabbed his wrist and swung him against the wall.

For a moment he was dazed by both the impact to the back of his head and the sheer strength the woman possessed, that she could move his entire body so swiftly as if it were no heavier than a feather. She placed her other hand flat on his chest, and saw the panic and confusion in his eyes as he tried to figure out what had happened, what was happening, and what was going to happen.

"What are you doing?" he stammered. But then he looked to be in great pain, though he managed to stop himself from crying out. He attempted to struggle, but his strength left him almost immediately. The woman watched as his features first became more defined, and then slowly fell apart as he aged. It didn't stop with leaving him as an old man -- eventually his skin withered away; all his organs and muscles and the like with it, and at last his bones turned to dust. When it was over, there was no trace that there had ever been a boy.

The woman took a slow, deep breath, in a state of euphoria. It quickly passed, and when she remembered what she had just done, she hurried to look into the mirror. The wrinkles had completely disappeared. She brushed a hand over her cheek. The surface of her skin was incredibly smooth, incredibly soft. She looked how she remembered looking on her last day as a human; the day she came to this forest. She smiled with elation.

[P.P.A.]

SO FEW WORDS YET

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 It was a race against the virility of the jungle, which, many times, covered the little gaps in the undergrowth we had managed to carve out of it with new plant matter the day after. Single rays of light fell into the cave, more and more as the days went by. Gradually it was thus revealed that the cave was half domed, again with many archaic carvings decorating the inside. Next to the long staircase lay, often broken, statues of land animals of all sorts. Many of them were in a cowering position—perhaps paying tribute to whatever was the meaning or purpose of the pavillion at the bottom of the stairs? We indulged in lively speculation before we went to sleep (not to bed—wish we'd had that comfort). After the monotony and isolation many of us had endured for months or years, it was immensely satisfying to be able to make our own discoveries, and to discuss them in a circle where each of us had something to contribute. The mermaids seemed to be a recurring motif and took central positions in the carvings on the wall. Perhaps real mermaids had lived here once? Or the peoples who built the structure celebrated the union between the land and the sea in the temple. Even if behind the cave had been just another cliff, it had already loosened the shackles on our minds by returning to our lives a degree of quality and purpose.
 But the promises held true. One day, Nestory—it had been his turn to dig—came to us his hands full of exotic flowers, though his smile overshadowed their colours. He tossed them into the air, and we picked them up and tossed them back and danced gaily, for we all knew what it meant: he had been outside. We did not immediately escape, however. Though we were yet unaware of the dangers of the jungle, it seemed obvious that to go without a means of defending ourselves against the fauna would be careless. A winch was organised from elsewhere in the mine so that nobody would be left behind, but we could remove the rope after the deed was done.
Relieving some guards of their weapons proved easy, thanks to a practise we had established months ago already. One of the convicts would make a scene, upon which one or two guards would be let down under the pretext to see what was the matter. We would retreat into the mine, where they shared food or alcohol with us and pocketed a bit of gold dust or a few small gemstones we had laid aside from them. It was an unspoken secret, as each guard had been complicit in it plenty of times and neither were interested in the higher-ups catching wind of it. On the day we escaped the colony, we simply knocked the two visiting guards out from behind while they were distracted. By the time they came to, we were gone without a trace, as were their muskets, ammunition, sabre, and some meagre rations they had on them.

 The stagnant, humid air hit us like a wall as we went to leave the cool, dark interior of the mountain. The heat was suffocating. Some of us seemed reluctant to leave that cave, which had given us a purpose, a respite from the heat and the monotony of our labour. But it had been but a station on the road to freedom, and now we had to seize the chance before anything could deny us our future.
Through the dense treetops far, far above us trickled light, filtered by layer upon layer of green. Young trees reached out for the crowns of their ancestors, vying with giant ferns for the sun's scarce golden dew. Vines crawled up and down the trunks, in every corner of the eye something fluttered, jumped from branch to branch, or roused the impenetrable underbrush that spilt all around. Monkeys screamed, birds chirped, and things we never hoped to meet roared and bellowed. The sensory overload mixed into our enthusiasm of a new future, and we happily hacked away at the foliage with the few shovels and sabres we had on us. It was tedious work, more tedious perhaps than the mining, but it was an act of our own volition.
 In spite of our passion, progress was slow. We had little indication of how much time had passed, for the sun was hidden behind a sea of green shadows at all times, but the longer it took the more wary we became of any possible pursuers. We decided to split up to decrease our chances of getting caught. Prisoners did not last long on this colony—if the hard work or the terrible climate didn't kill them, an accident, a sickness, or something else usually did—so we numbered only about nineteen men. Our rations were barely enough for eight men, and the less mouths we would have to find food for, the better. Someone joked that we might have better chances to survive if we stayed together, so that by the time a dozen of us had died from eating poisonous food, the remaining handful would know exactly how to feed themselves. Split up, each team might waste a member on the same fruit or animal—how inefficient!

[Shiokazu]

4th day? something like that i lost my count really, but all i know is that ONE: im feeling it, im not used to writing directly at such a rate, it destroys me. but im having fun
TWO: i got to read 4 novels, each one UNMISTAKABLE charming, rhia's has a magical feel of stillness, i like it all. makes me think of holo, and man, how i like holo. PPA's is unique, love how he details everything, i wasnt sure of how it would bend until

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the waterfall

but now i have been taken by its grips. And vahn's both good stories, thought the warm fuzzy feel is kind of going away and im starting to not like the anne girl e_e shes kinda an asshole.

THREE: the later i try to write, the worst my writing gets.

THE WORDCOUNT FOR TODAY IS 7500 WORDS;

god help us all.

This post has been edited by Shiokazu: Mar 29 2013, 03:49 AM

[Shiokazu]

today is the last day guys.

if you did it, praised be, your effort will be sung for many years in the future.

if you did not, dont worry, you will have another chance very soon, but the last message for all of you is:

Thank you for Participating.

[Rhiannon]

EDIT: WAIT HOLD ON FORMATTING DIDN'T WORK

EDITAGAIN: OKAY YOU CAN'T ITALIC IN SPOILER TAGS BUT YOU CAN BOLD AND UNDERLINE AND BOLD, WHILE HARD ON THE EYES, STILL LOOKED BETTER THAN UNDERLINE. LCN ruined my story. I'm sorry. Just imagine that's all italic.

EDITAGAINAGAIN: RAI SO RAI, NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO PRETEND

THE NEXT PORTION. 6184 words now, except obviously the week is over. But I can't stop there. That would make people think I didn't actually have anything else planned out for the story, even though nobody was thinking that.

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The woman lay in the center of the forest, looking up at the sky the endlessly setting sun burned red. She, too, would live here endlessly. The universe had sent her a great gift in the form of the boy, and now she had many years ahead of her. And, she had no doubt, before her time would come, she would receive yet another great gift that would bless her as an undying being.

She thought back to a time long past. She thought back to the very last day she spent as a human. That was the day she discovered the forest. She remembered it quite well, considering just how long ago it was. However, it had marked the beginning of her new life; she felt that forgetting the details of that day would be strange. She felt as though she had reached a new beginning of her life, so what better time to reminisce about what brought her here?



When she was still a young girl, she had run into the forest to get away from something unpleasant -- an argument, of some sort, either with her family or with her friends. However, she ran farther into the forest than she meant to. She ran deeper into the forest than she was permitted to by the other villagers. Everyone had always said the depths of this forests were cursed by a witch. They must have known that it breaks all of the rules of this world.

She hadn't stopped running, and she hadn't been thinking about... well, anything, truly. She just ran and ran in her frustration, and that blinded her to the fact that the forest she was now in was experiencing a completely different season from the forest she first ran into. Before long, she collapsed from the sheer heat. When she awoke, she was laying on the forest floor, dead leaves tangled into her hair, and feeling still quite uncomfortably hot. That was what she noticed it. It was autumn in the forest, not the winter she had run from. She immediately tore off her excess clothing, worn only to keep her warm from the winds of winter.

After that, the girl searched the forest as thoroughly as she could have. She eventually discovered a large shed and, feeling as though she had just found her savior, knocked on the door as though it were a house. There was, of course, no answer; and her knocking at the door had disturbed it enough for the door to reveal that it was broken by swinging open on its own. Of course, the shed was bereft of life, let alone anything that one could call a savior. It was then that she noticed possibly the most disturbing thing she had seen in her life up until then: dead animals -- mostly insects, but a few small rodents as well -- impaled onto the edges of branches all about. The sight brought great fear to her. Not fear for what would be capable of doing this to such small creatures, but fear for why it would have done such a thing. She wondered if they had died a slow death that way, and whether or or not it was some type of warning.

Thinking gave her no precise answers to her questions, and she was far too unnerved by the combination of the forest's peculiarities and the morbid sight to want to remain there any longer. She had no choice but to continue her search. But the forest seemed so big to her, and she was so small. She was exhausted from the all the running she had done before, and though she spent a great deal of time searching for an end to the accursed forest, she never found one, and eventually could not bear to walk another step.

She had no inkling as to how long she had laid there, but thought that it must have been a very long time, for she fell asleep at some point. She awoke to the sound of a squirrel repeatedly making some sort of squealing noise. She searched for the source of the sound, only to find the poor thing imapled upon a branch, still alive. She covered her mouth with horror and pity. She could do nothing to put the poor creature out of its misery as it remained there, stuck and dying very slowly, very painfully. She could not stop herself from crying at the sight. She wanted nothing more than to save it, but it was too high up for her, and there was no way she would be able to climb the tree.

She turned away, tears still streaming from her eyes, and she looked around in hopes of finding the culprit. If this squirrel had been left to die in such a way, then surely all the other impaled animals she had seen had, too. She decided that no matter the reason and no matter its form, the culprit must have been a monster. But the only life she found beyond the dying squirrel and herself was a small bird perched on the branches of a nearby tree.

She thought nothing of it until she realized that it was watching her. Then she realized that it was a rather peculiar bird. Its head was disproportionately large compared to its body -- not enough that it was equal or larger than the body in size, but enough to give it a very different look from other birds. Its feathers were a bluish-gray colour on the upper half of its body, and the lower was a soft white. The bird had very prominent black feathers all about its wings and tail, too, though; and the most striking of its black markings was a strip of it that started from its black, hooked beak and completely surrounded its eyes and even went a little farther than that before at last submitting to the gray.

She then experienced the most bizarre sensation ever while staring at that bird -- the sense of, with her mind's own voice, asking herself why she was crying. The question seemed absurd, and she did not understand why she thought that just then. But it happened again. This time she thought: Tell me, human, why are you crying? She felt suddenly faint, realizing that her mind was having thoughts separate from her own. Am I going insane? she thought to herself, Why won't you answer?

She fell to her knees, now acutely aware of her heartbeat, and fearful. She no longer cared about the impaled squirrel that still made its pitiful sound high up in the tree behind her. She no longer cared what monster or witch would possess the cruelty to torture all these insects and animals. She just wanted to know what was happening to her. The bird flew down to stand on the ground. It was very close to her. Too close. Did this bird have no fear of her? What's wrong? Why won't you answer? her thoughts went again.

She stared at the bird with horror, seeing that its tiny black eyes were still staring right at her. Is this bird doing this? she thought, and her thoughts continued on a separate note without her will once more: Perhaps it is only for witches to perceive this. The bird and the girl stared at each other a moment longer, neither of them doing anything, and then the bird flew back up to its branch.

"Wait," the girl called after it, "Was that you?"

The bird flew back down to the ground and looked at the girl once more. If the girl was certain of nothing else, it was that this bird was just as abnormal as this impossible forest. A thought rushed to her once more: So you can perceive this after all.

"What are you?" The girl asked, her fear fading now that she understood this was some sort of telepathic power of the bird's, though that in itself was absurd and impossible. She began to think that perhaps she really was going insane.

I am what I appear to be. I believe your kind call me "butcher bird," so perhaps that is specific enough to sate your curiosity.

The girl had never heard of a bird with such a name, but frowned when she again became aware of the dying squirrel's cries. "Then are you the one who impaled all those animals on the trees?"

Yes. It makes it easier for me to eat my prey that way.

The girl became enraged, remembering the numerous dead she had seen by the shed -- some of which had been so old as to have flies buzzing around them. "Then why do you kill way more than you eat?"

Ah, I no longer need to eat to live. For the same reason that I am able to communicate with you in this way.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, her awareness of the abnormality of this situation increasing more by the second.

A being that called itself a witch told me that I had done something that allowed me to transcend all others of my kind. It taught me how to communicate in this way, and taught me that I no longer require the same sustenance I did in the past.

"A witch? So there really is a witch who lives in this forest?"

No, it does not seem to live here.

"Doesn't 'seem to'? You mean you don't know?"

I am not originally from this land, either. It was sheer chance I ever ended up here at all. I used to live in the vast open areas, not the dense collections of trees. But the cold days came, and my prey retreated from my land. I thought to traverse to lands still warmed by the sun, and on my way spotted this place, still warm enough to be teeming with prey. I decided to stay here until the cold days at my original land ended. But I soon found that leaving this place was no longer possible for me. I can not explain it, but even now I cannot leave. Eventually, the witch came, and told me about what I had become. I had not seen the witch before it met me, and though it seems to visit periodically, it does not seem to live here.

"Okay," the girl said, "so why do you impale all those animals if you're not going to eat them?"

Because death is a beautiful thing.

The girl was infuriated by this bird. Butcher bird -- what a horrid, fitting name for such a monster. "If you like death so much, maybe I should just kill you so none of these other animals will ever have to suffer because of you ever again."

Were you to grant my wish, human, I would welcome and accept the act with grace.

"What are you talking about?" The girl had some difficulty decoding what this bird was trying to get across, at times. Its style of speech was alien to her. Nobody spoke that way in the village.

I witness the deaths of these animals. I miss nothing; not even their last breath. I've come to realize that death is the most beautiful thing, and that the reason I am so fascinated by it -- the reason I needlessly kill them -- is because I long to be closer to death. My greatest desire, now, is to die. Is it not humorous? Before I met the witch, my first and only priority was to ensure my continued existence. That is why I went, each year, to such exhausting lengths to migrate elsewhere where I might find more food. But now that life is as easy as absorbing some large creatures now and again through such a simple act as coming into direct contact with them, my thoughts are much the opposite. Even more contradictory is my fear of ceasing the very acts that continue my life, even though such a cessation would eventually result in my death.

The girl knew now that sympathizing with this creature would be impossible. She was not even convinced that she was understanding it properly, as the thoughts it was sending to her mind made no logical sense to her; but if she was misunderstanding it, then there was probably no way for them to communicate any more clearly than they already were. It was, after all, nothing but a bird.

Tell me, human, the bird pushed its own thoughts into hers, do you wish for eternal life?

The girl thought on this a moment. Eternal life was like a dream come true. She would never die, so she would never have to be afraid of anything. She could do anything she wanted to, and no one would stop her. "You can give me eternal life?" she asked the bird, still doubtful that it could do such an impossible thing despite all the impossibilities the bird had already made possible.

Yes. Grant my wish, human. End my life, and devour my flesh. The witch's blessing be yours.

The girl hesitated, again considering the bird's proposal. What it was asking was disgusting, but at the same time, if she killed this bird the other animals in the forest would not have to suffer its torture.

She didn't think she had it in her to deny herself eternal life, anyway.

This post has been edited by Rhiannon: Apr 4 2013, 05:15 PM

[Rhiannon]

DOUBLE ULTRA SUPER POST and next time I post will be when the story's over. I'm at 8181ish words now, still dunno if I'll actually make it to 10500. My plans for that sixth day of the week that is no longer a week, man. They basically don't exist. I've written through my plans for the 6th day so far, so I'm a little ahead but I still don't know if that's going to be enough.

Now the story continues to pretend it has a point.

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The woman who still could not remember her past name despite all she remembered of her past sat up from the mix of grass and dead leaves. She found it strange that the bird she met that day changed after attaining what she had since inherited from him; for she had not. Or had she? She had been thinking not terribly long ago that she could no longer understand the actions of lesser beings. She toyed a moment with the thought that the way she had changed and the way the butcher bird had might be related in some way. But even now, she could not understand the way the butcher bird thought. Her lack of understanding of normal birds, normal humans, and the long-dead butcher bird brought forth for her no connections and no significant thoughts.

She stood, and stretched a bit. She had laid there in thought for quite a while. She decided to pay the river another visit. When she arrived, she knelt down and put both of her hands into the water, bringing it up over her face to help her out of the daze she'd been in since the end of her last prey. She spotted a squirrel nibbling on something at the forest's edge and wondered if it, too, would have had such affection for death had it been the recipient of the witch's blessing.

She looked back at the forest across the river. In only a few hours, if the weather permitted it, it would look no different from her own forest, at least for a short while. Inevitably, though, they would desynchronize and she would again have that constant reminder that she was trapped -- the only thing about this blessing she disliked.

There was a sudden sound, and the woman turned to again look at the squirrel. It was no longer there, of course. The woman had never gotten used to the sudden, noisy flights through the forest that the rodents seemed so fond of. It always ruined her focus, and then she could no longer remember whatever it was she had been thinking about before their noise so rudely interrupted her thoughts. She decided she would return to the center of the forest, and perhaps try to nap for a while. As she reached the center of the forest, though, she saw a familiar figure awaiting her in the distance: the witch.

"What brings your ugly face back here so soon?" The woman called out to the witch as she drew closer.

The witch smiled, disturbing her heavily-wrinkled skin. "Now now, is that any way to speak to your benefactor?" She responded, her voice harsh.

The woman stopped walking closer when the witch's expression changed to one of surprise. A rare event. "What's wrong?" The woman asked the witch in the same condescending tone she had addressed her with previously.

The witch looked away, and ran a hand down the back of her head, over her gray hair. The woman enjoyed seeing the witch look older every time she visited. She disliked her ever since the day she met her, and would joyfully dance upon her grave should she ever get the chance. "What did you do? Did you absorb a tree's life force, or something?" The witch asked.

"What?" The woman couldn't tell if that question had been a joke or not.

The witch looked at her. "Well, if it wasn't a tree, what did you absorb?"

"Wait, trees can be absorbed?" The witch cackled at her question, and the woman felt deeply offended. The last thing she desired was more of this witch's mockery. "Well? I would like a real answer, please."

The witch answered once her laughter died down. "Well, they're living, aren't they? They grow just like everything else. Why wouldn't you be able to absorb them?"

The woman suddenly felt that she did not know anything at all, and that all her worries from before had been foolish. She knew well that trees lived for a very long time. In fact, she had never heard of a tree actually dying before. She would probably only need to absorb one tree to outlive anything else that ever set foot in the forest. And when her own body again began to show signs of old age, it would take just one tree to reset her to as she was now -- and perhaps it would bring her even further youth than that.

"So tell me why you're here, again? I don't really like the sight of your face, of something so close to its own death."

The witch laughed again, and the woman winced in response, wanting nothing more than to destroy her but knowing full well that this witch was the only living creature she was incapable of killing. "This forest and the rest of the world are going to be in synch soon. Doesn't that excite you at all?"

"No," the woman said, "nothing special ever happened all the other times. Why should I care now?"

"Perhaps it's just my love for patterns, but haven't you ever thought that it could be a sign for what's to come?"

"What do you mean? I have tried crossing your borders when the seasons and time appeared to match, if that's what you're talking about. Obviously, those attempts failed just like all the others."

"I told you long ago that attempting to escape is futile, didn't I?"

"Yes. So what is all this nonsense about a sign?"

The witch smiled; a knowing smile that hid so much from the rest of the world. It irritated the woman almost as much as her laugh did. "You probably wouldn't know this if you didn't even realize that trees are living beings, but the exact time this forest constantly experiences, twilight, has a meaning of its own. An end, and with it a new beginning."

"Nothing will end unless you yourself end it. You know that."

"This was an experiment that relied upon the very nature of food chains. You certainly sped up the process a great deal by eating the shrike that had come before you, but this doesn't end with you, you know."

The woman rolled her eyes. "And what do you expect would be capable of killing me, if not yourself? Of course, you're the scientist, so you can't interfere. I will live here, immortal, forever."

"You don't seem to realize just how much time has passed. Nature doesn't remain the same, oblivious to itself."

"Maybe on the outside. But here, nothing changes."

"You're quite the arrogant one, aren't you?" The witch smiled again.

The woman averted her eyes with disgust. "What do you expect could possibly kill me? I'm not like that pathetic bird. I'm not about to let myself die. Destructive weather cannot reach me here, and even if you were to send a lion in, it would have no chance against me."

"Perhaps," the witch said, nodding, "but have you ever considered other possibilities? For example, disease or some form of toxin?"

"If either of those things killed me, your experiment would still show me to be the end. A disease isn't considered living, right? So if I die to a disease, there is no inheritance of my power. Your experiment simply ends there. And if I were to die to some animal's venom, surely this would happen only after I myself killed whatever wretched thing happened to bite me."

"I suppose. That would be a rather droll result, but it is certainly a possibility."

"You mean it's the only possibility, and it's still never going to happen."

The witch looked at the woman, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Don't you want to be free again?" she asked.

"Sure. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to roam the world freely again."

The witch shook her head. "You will be free only on the day of your death."

"Then I suppose I will never be free. My days will continue like this forever, and eventually you will die. Both this forest and I will outlast you."

"And you are alright with that? I would think you'd welcome death."

The woman looked down at the witch condescendingly. "I'm not stupid like that bird. If I had to choose between freedom and life, of course I would choose life. How am I to enjoy freedom if I'm dead?"

"I suppose you wouldn't."

"Yes," the woman nodded, "so why would you question my decision to live?"

"Because life itself can become an unpleasant prison, can it not? Sometimes one is simply better off dead."

"No, they'll never be better off dead. I don't know what you witches believe in, but to me, at least, death is the end. The end of all thoughts, the end of all experiences, the end of all."

"The end of all suffering, too."

"Too bad you won't know it."

The witch placed a hand on her hip and gave the woman an odd look. "How did you come to think of life as the most important thing, anyway?"

"What do you mean? It's natural, isn't it? Mortal beings always live in fear of their eventual death."

"But you're no longer mortal. As you say, you can easily live forever."

The woman shrugged. "Nevertheless, I will continue to fear my death, even if there is no chance of its arrival. Even the bird you had trapped here before me still feared its own death, though it wanted to die."

"It is one thing to fear death even when death is nowhere in sight. It's a completely different thing to think only of your continued survival, and consider nothing else. Your current way of thinking is exactly how the so-called 'lesser animals' see the world. But you weren't like this before."

"As if you'd know anything about how I was in the past."

The witch laughed. The woman was thankful this laugh was very short-lived. "I may be a witch, but before that I am a human. I know how they think. I also know where you came from, and the stories that began to circulate about this forest shortly after I enchanted it. Surely you remember the first day you met me. You called me a witch before I even introduced myself as such."

"What are you getting at?"

"Back then, you were different. You ran into this forest despite the warnings that it was enchanted by an evil, cruel witch who gobbles up little children like you yourself were at the time. The woman you are now would never have taken such a risk, even if it were possible that the stories were false."

"Then I truly have transcended my humanity. Now do me a favor and leave. I'm sick of listening to you."

The witch chuckled. "Fine, fine. I will in a moment. I just wanted to check up on you, anyway. But there's one last thing before I leave."

"And what is that?" the woman asked, not hiding her annoyance.

"You know that humans don't think the way most wild animals do. They are reckless, and have concerns other than procreation and survival. Do you want to know how humans proceed with such a life despite their mortality?"

"Not particularly," the woman began, turning her back on the witch, "I'm not a human anymore, so it doesn't matter to me. And if I was still human, I wouldn't need a hag like you to tell me."

The witch smiled and continued despite the hostile response. "They go about it pushing aside the knowledge that they might one day die, but never once forgetting that everyone and everything around them will one day disappear. That allows them to appreciate everything that you've forgotten to."

The woman took a moment to let the witch's words sink in and make sense. "Irrelevant to me, as I thought," she said. After a moment of pleasant silence, the woman turned to face the witch again, but she was already gone.

NOW GUESS HOW IT ENDS.

[Shiokazu]

ITS COMPLETE, ITS FINALLY COMPLETE LCN, MAKING ME THE BIGGEST SLOWPOKE AROUND.

I HOPE THAT, EVEN WITH ALL THE BAD GRAMMAR AND TYPOS, IT STILL CAN HOLD SPIRIT AND PASS THE MESSAGE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO PASS, AND HERE I PRESENT YOU, THE FIRST EDITION OF THE SECOND COMPLETE TALE OF MY LIBRARY:

TATYANA
http://skiesabove.wordpress.com/tatyana/

I HOPE YOU ALL CAN ENJOY IT A LITTLE BIT.

if you had spare time and patience to read it.

thank you very much.