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Short Story Contest #6 - Survival Horror

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Survival Horror
Contestants must create a story about an individual or a group of individuals who are dealing with supernatural phenomenons and other-worldly horrors. The story must be written from the perspective of one of the survivors.

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  • The entry must be at least 2000 words, and may reach a maximum of 10,000 words.
  • The entry must be written in the first-person.
  • Absolutely no plagarism.
  • All entries must be written in fluent English, illegible entries will be disqualified.
  • The entry must abide by the theme.
  • Do not take up half of the entry describing the creatures the survivors are fleeing from.
  • At least one WIP (Work In Progress) must be presented before the deadline.

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  • First Place: 50 reputation points and your entry on the award icon
  • Second Place: 35 reputation points and an award icon
  • Third Place: 20 reputation points and an award icon


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  • Tell us if you want to judge!
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Characters
How well were the characters presented? Were their motives and actions clear and logical according to their psyche? /25 Points

Pacing
Did the story flow along smoothly without any part feeling rushed or empty?/25 Points

Style
Were any of the events exciting or heart-pounding? How well was the story presented?/25 Points

Theme
Did the story fit the overall theme?/25 Points
  • 75 % of the winner shall be determined by the contest's appointed judge(s).
  • 25 % of the winner shall be determined by the results of a public poll.
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  • The contest shall begin on 4th February 2011 and conclude on 11:59, 6th March 2011, GMT
 
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Level 18
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I may participate, if I say I will do I have to produce something ?

It's not a matter of motivation or anything, it's just that I may have not enough time to do it.

EDIT: Is there a specific timeline ? Modern times for instance.
 
Level 19
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I looked at the sunlight through the window, only now realizing the warmth and the light it gave. Seems they were right, you only realize the small things of life when you have it taken from you. Or when it’s about to be taken from you.
You pick.
I heard the iron door open and a big, tall man stood in the entrance, behind him someone else who was about the same length as him. They were wearing standard uniforms, boring gray colors. Both were old farts. Their faces were indifferent, but I didn’t blame them. For them it was just standard procedure. Meh. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried that much about it – just a month in an isolation cell... Right?
I stood up and walked forward before being grabbed at both my arms and being dragged away.
Ah well, at least I didn’t have to walk.
Always stay optimistic.
The other prison doors were shut. No sound penetrated these empty halls except for the footsteps of ‘my’ guards.
‘’So, laddies, what are you doing this weekend?’’ I asked them, trying to lighten the mood. They didn’t answer, their faces now dark. Strange.

‘’Here.’’
The guard opened the iron door in front of me which was dirty, covered with dust. There was a small place to insert food which could be shut. I wondered if I would get a meal daily or around the three days. Ah well.
‘’Better behave yourself next time, son.’’ the other said.
‘’Will do.’’ I replied with a joking voice.
Then they kicked me in. It hurt. No manners, I thought to myself. The door was shut with a powerful blow. Bam, just like that.
I looked around and of course everything was dark. Couldn’t see a damn thing in this fucking cell.
No need for cursing…
I just walked around, trying to feel a wall, somehow. Once I found it I sat down against the cold wall and I shivered.
 
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Level 18
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I might make something if I find the inspiration and time. Just a question: The theme states that it must be written from the perspective of 1 of the survivors. Does that mean you have to write as the 'I-person', or can you also discribe everything that the survivor encounters in a third person view?

For example: Is it forced to be written like 'A huge creature appeared right in front of me', or can I also write it as 'A huge creature appeared in front of Ralle'?
(Sorry for making you victim of the big bad monster, Ralle :p)
 
Level 10
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I'll be going with a "journal" type of first person writing. I really liked "Robinson Crusoe", the one that was completely in the "journal" style.
I know, the writer himself was stranded on an island for about a week or so, and based it on that. I'll base mine on one Event as well. Well, I'll turn the "enemy humans" into something else and make it a little more epic ;)
 
Level 20
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I might make something if I find the inspiration and time. Just a question: The theme states that it must be written from the perspective of 1 of the survivors. Does that mean you have to write as the 'I-person', or can you also discribe everything that the survivor encounters in a third person view?

For example: Is it forced to be written like 'A huge creature appeared right in front of me', or can I also write it as 'A huge creature appeared in front of Ralle'?
(Sorry for making you victim of the big bad monster, Ralle :p)

Technically speaking you could do third, but only the contest creator could clarify what he actually meant. Pretty sure it just means no 'switching' to different perspectives/branching lines/alternate scenes ;)
 
Level 19
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Good for you. Lets get a lot of competitors, writing a lot of good shit.

WIP:

I’d been working in the mines for about a week when I thought the walls were closing in on me. I cried for help but got no response. And as the walls were just about to seal shut, I could’ve sworn I’d seen a silhouette of a man on the deep in the mine, calmly waving his hand at me as if to say hello.
After that I remember the air being sucked out of me. I remember the buzz in my ears when everything around me was dark. But most of all, I remember, or in least I think I remember, the feel of shrill breath on the back of my neck.
 
It is a cold winter's morning, I'm driving on a lonely empty road, I see vilages and trees dissapearing into this all consuming fog. Suddenly I drive into the forest,
driving with caution just in case if a deer crosses the road. After driving in the forest this strange feeling takes over me, like something is is following me. I'm
driving like this, untill I see a ray of light cutting trough the fog, blinding me for a couple of seconds. I was releafed that it was just another car, the same car
I meet everytime when I'm driving on this road.

Well I might give it a try.. here is my "beginning".
 
Level 18
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Here's a WIP. It's no guarantee I'll finish, but I've got a concept and a start. Any feedback on the writing style is welcome of course.

“Alright, let’s see if there’s anything new we can work with. Come on.”
I signal my second-in-command to follow me to the bridge.
It was busy at the Eye. People were walking all around the place with paperwork in their hands or analyzing the magic tablets that were placed orderly by the side. It’s no surprise it’s a busy place, but now it’s worse than usually.
The Eye was an underground observatory that uses magic to oversee anything and everything that happens in the outside world. We work here as part of an organization without an official name. After all, our existence is secret to anybody who lives outside. The people here seem to have grown fond of calling themselves and their colleagues Silent Gods. Somebody thought of that name a while back and it stuck. We observe the outside world and intervene if anything occurs that could threaten the existence of any of the factions. However, our policy demands that we don’t leave the slightest clue behind, should we be forced to intervene. We rarely have to, but it would explain why most people here name each other Silent Gods. The reason to our secrecy isn’t that hard to find either. If people know they’re being watched and ‘judged’, they will act unlike themselves. And for that, we have these magic tablets. They link to millions of places, but now they’re all fixed on a few specific areas.
As we pass through the door to the bridge, a tall man turns around to see who it is.
“Nothing yet, ma’am.” he tells me with a disillusioned expression on his face.
 
Level 8
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that would be a pretty creepy idea indeed, to know that people are watching my every move. I'd go crazy.
 
Level 19
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Alright, here's a character development WIP rather than a mid-action WIP.


Tosh was my only friend working in the mines around the time I got hired. About a week after getting the job he invited me to go out for drinks with him and his cousin Susan. After a year had passed Susan and I were still going steady, and I basically became a part of the family because of it. After awhile, it seemed appropriate for Tosh to call me ‘brother’ and for me to treat him as such.

I loved Tosh like they he was a sibling of mine. After all, I never had any siblings growing up besides my baby sister, and I don’t know if we had much in common then because she was much too young to be having grown-up conversations like me and Tosh ended up having below the surface. If it weren’t for him, I probably wouldn’t have lasted more than a month down there. But when you had a friend like Tosh, he could make mining through heaps of dirt and rock enjoyable—I’d even go as far as to say he made me look forward to work.


P.S. First-person is hard.
 
Level 7
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I might have time to finish this one. Here is something I made just now... so it is only a little. Not sure if it quite fits the theme at the moment... but that will soon change :D

She was acting a bit weird after she had gone to see the Boss. Though that was the reaction everyone came back with after they were summoned to Red 6. They went up the stairs slightly nervous, since you only get summoned for two reasons. You are demoted or premoted, but no matter which they got, they came back different. It was like they had been changed some how. I originally thought it was part of the job description, but when Shelia came back I understood it was different.

Shelia was Mike's partner. Mike told me nearly everything, he was my best friend. He had been with me through out my whole life. Our mum's were best friends, we went to the same schools as each other, we even did the same course at University. A degree in Physics. Though this wasn't your usual Energy or Electricity Physics that I am talking about. It wasn't even the normal Particle Physics. They called it Hermiatosis. No idea where the name came from, but it was all about the Universe and how things work. After the Course both Mike and I took the oppotunity to go travelling, jumping onboard different ships. I don't know why we did it, maybe to just get a feel of the huge space around the place we called home. Taking risks, like we did at school and back in Uni. It was definatley the best couple of years of my life

It wasn't long before sense caught up with us though. The Hermiatosis course was mainly to help those in the far off reaches of the Empire. To show how Humans could settle anywhere. From the freezing cold to boiling hot to the big balls of gas. But after the inccidents on the Phoenix VI, it was clear it was all a lie.
 
Level 5
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"There is a difference between truely living, and being alive. To be alive, you expirence the love of the world, you feel the wind, you hear the birds song. To be living --- you are just there. Here. A thing, to be trampled by thousands of hell spawns and demons. Some times, I feel like I'm just living. I know it's not the best view. You'll understand better when I explain what has happened to my brothers. Sisters. My beloved. My family. Do you know what it's like to be the one marauder for the face of truth, in the family of hell? I am the only one left in my family that's not one of them. One of the beasts. My brothers. Sisters. Beloveds. Family. Traitors, I guess that's what I should call them now. They caused this hell for everyone else. My family, how I loved them. What's left to love, however, in a rotten beast who takes pleasure in eating the brains of the living, raw, and can take a side of napalm without breaking a sweat. My sisters, how I adored them. They always got what they wanted. They were always loved more then me. I now know why. My brothers... I never really knew. I was just a toy to them, a thrown away test tube when it's empty. My beloveds, taken away before my eyes at my marriage. For my family couldn't be happy being the only sad ones. Everyone else had to be sad to make them happy. If I had known this, I would've killed them much earlier. Life would still have been good for everyone, except me. I know this now, after years of thought in this lonely cell. I am selfish to think this, I know now, but if I had known then, I still wouldn't off. I'm not the type to sacrifice everything just on a whim, but now it's too late to care. My friends had been right, and I had been wrong. Life was not to be experimented with. For, what would be worth finding, if it ended all humans? Knowing it now, however, my mind is set on one thing. Others can disagree, but I don't care. Zombies are real. These aren't people on drugs, stupid. These are beasts that mean on killing us all."


I cocked my gun. In this hell, you can't be over careful. I leaned on the window, staring out at the ravanged Paris. The zombies would do anything for brains. Just a few weeks ago, they had ripped apart the Leaning Tower of Piza. It was different here then in British Columbia. Very. I was an exchang student back when I still planed on learning. Now I just plan on living. It would be night fall soon, judging by the red light reflecting off the window. I looked to the door. Three fridges and a bunch of other junk was piled infront of it. In retrospect, thank god I eat to much. I walked across the room, and began pulling the bookshelf over to the window. I yelled and jumped back as I pulled it away, yelling "Shit!" and cocking my gun.

"Three weeks ago it had all began. It had just outbroke. No one had cared about zombies, not even me. I loved playing with stuff. I was studying abroad to become a Eikobioligist. Then, it all went wrong."

My flaw quickly came to my mind. I had forgotten to patch up the hole from last night, and it was nearly night. I didn't have enough things here to barricare all the areas I needed too. Maybe, just maybe, I could get away without the window being blocked. I'd have to try to know for sure. I pulled the items previously planed to cover the window to that hole in the wall, made by one of those acursed beasts.

"My sister, Julia, had just finished her research on how she could create human cockroaches. Humans that could survive without there internal organs. She had won the nobel medicene prize, the nobel science prize, the nobel destroy the world prize, in my mind. My other sister, Amara, jealous of her reaserch, unleashed a copy of it as a virus. It infected children. Amara held an antidote for sale, but at one price none would pay, and she knew it. I was one of the few that tried to get it, with my stupidity. I gave Amara a injection of my blood."

Ten more minutes and they'd be hear. I find it very unlucky that I'm the sole survivor of Paris, if not the sole survivor in the world. Cocking my Magnum, I sigh, and let the bullets fly. Down. Down. Down. Up, Down. Left. Right. Window. Behind the mirror. Floor hole. Ro--- Floor hole? I stopped, gasping. The floor under neath the support colums in the room had been knocked out. I rolled away from it, firing off a spray at the beasts coming out. Blood covered my room. I'd need to buy one hell of a lot of new carpets to clean that up. Sadly, they would all be free now.

"At that time, I didn't know what it was for, but now I do. She gave it the ability to reconstruct molecules into obediant servants of herself. She would have survived, Amara, if she hadn't cut herself during that experiment. After all, I always said, don't play with knives."

I sighed. Dawn broke. I laid my head out my window, and closed my eyes. Just for a minute. I'll just think a little.
Wip number two up.
 
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Level 16
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Definitely joining.
EDIT:
Here's a small part of the story. Hopefully there aren't any grammatical errors(I'm pretty sure there are many. D:)
It was October 21, the sun was rising and I was still asleep on my be. Drops of sweat appeared on my face slowly trickling down onto my pillow, I kept on squirming like a worm as if I were to be killed, suddenly, I fell and landed on the floor, head first.
"Shit..." I said as I tried to stand up and wake up from a nightmare thinking it was all over, but in my situation, my nightmare has just started.

I picked up the bed sheet and threw it on the bed. I walked towards the window that was boarded-up, I looked through a small crack on the window and scanned the area.
There was a car in front of my house lying on its side, the apple tree on my neighbor's front yard was slowly withering, down the street the fire hydrant was destroyed and there was water everywhere.
I saw something move behind the car and quickly focused my eyes on it. I waited for a few seconds and saw what was moving, there were two of them fighting over something covered in red liquid. I focused on what they were fighting over which was all torn apart that I don't recognize what it was. It was either an animal or a person but maybe it was just garbage covered in ketchup since there was a broken ketchup bottle beside them.

Those creatures looked like zombies, they walk like a dog, they have sharp teeth, and had these bone-like spikes running down their neck down to the end of their tails.

I backed away from the window, put on my jeans that was lying in the floor, went outside my room and walked down the stairs.

My house is a short blue 2-floor building that has a front and a back yard. My house is surrounded with more houses but behind my house is a small forest that leads to the local park. On the first floor are the kitchen, the bathroom and the living room and on the second floor are 2 rooms.

My name is Vincent E. Isaac. I'm 24 years old. I work as an accountant at the nearby bank just 3 blocks away. I'm pretty good at archery and sometimes I just lie in bed all day.
 
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