Welcome to the third #SatSunTails microfiction competition.
If you haven’t had a go before at this writing challenge, then please don’t hesitate to try this weekend.
Rules!
- Post stories in the comments
- Stories must be 150 words (margin of 5 words either side) AND based on the picture and written prompts.
- If you title your entry this is not counted in your word count.
- Only one entry allowed (so make it count)
- End each entry with word count and name/twitter handle (if you forget these REPLY TO YOUR OWN COMMENT with them before judging closes)
- You may enter until Sunday 11pm GMT (because I’m kind like that).
If you do not comply with these rules your story will be disqualified from judging. Good spelling and grammar will also help to make a better impression on judges – the odd typo, however, will be overlooked so please don’t worry about that.
Winners!
There will be ONE OVERALL WINNER and THREE RUNNERS UP. After that there will be THREE CRITIQUES of three stories that didn’t make it.
It would also be nice to those participating if you could promote your fellow competitors and those who win.
Today’s Prompt!
The following may be used as a sentence in your story or provide a basis for it:-
“burrowing ineptitude”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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The Fall Of Pride
Like all of the space-faring vessels of her people, she was not only sentient, but infused with a rudimentary personality. Everything she experienced was assimilated into her not only as data but as memories. She had the capacity to learn, to grow by drawing on those memories.
Sheliandra’s Pride was different than others of her kind, though. From her first flight, she knew she was somehow…flawed. Vague uneasiness grew into a sense of burrowing ineptitude and culminated in what was clinical depression for her kind.
The responsibilities of exploration and of sustaining her crew, while avoiding the hazards were more than she could handle. It was all just too much to take!
As she transited from Strangespace into the planetary atmosphere, her scanners detected a solution to her pain. She disregarded her crew’s input and flew directly into the giant webs. As gigantic arachnoids pierced her hull and consumed her crew, she finally knew peace.
155 words @klingorengi
For some reason I thought the deadline was 8pm today, so rushed this off before I have to disappear. Oops.
——————-
It wasn't hard to find them, they had left damning footprints in their wake. That didn't make my mood any more favourable – it was bitterly cold, with a biting wind that seemed to pierce through even my warmest clothes. The children in the street had been agitated throughout the day by some sort of secret, but even they knew the dangers of going out into the forests at night, especially during the Saskatchewan Winter.
The call of a Burrowing Owl alerted me to it's presence – the wildlife was out tonight. It was unafraid of me, standing in it's pride as I walked past.
I heard the cry of their laughter before I brushed aside the final bush. A clearing, with an old style Helter skelter stood before me. The children were there to, thankfully. I considered berating them, but I guess there's room for one last ride in this grown man's heart.
Word Count : 154
"6 feet! It has to be 6 feet deep or it won't work!" Christopher shouted at the group of young people digging frantically. They had been at it for several hours and they didn't seem to be making much progress. He checked his watch again. They were now down to 2 days and 14 hours to be settled underground before it hit.
When the time came, despite their burrowing ineptitude, they were ready to hibernate. Steel doors covered the top of their den and they hoped and prayed it was enough.
Eerily quiet at first, a soft rumble increases as the wave gets closer and is at its loudest when directly over them. In mere minutes, it's over. Once they are sure that it is safe, they open the steel doors and peak out at the frozen landscape. White, as far as the eye could see. Miraculously, they had survived.
150 words – @wendyreid2
Spawn was small. He was weak. The Tribe cast him out but he returned, dragging his pale belly along the floor, burrowing his way back into The Nest. He wasn’t even good at that. The sentinels heard him from three leagues distant, the scrape of his scales, the wheeze from his undersized gills.
An insult to the Tribe’s glory.
He knew it too. Heard their mutters, sensed the antennae twitching away from him.
The Tribe were beautiful. Crystalline. Magnificent. Warriors with nine pincer-tipped legs. Strong. Bold. Brave.
In his misery Spawn hid. Hiding, he saw the ship land. Saw The Other emerge, putrescent bodies shimmering under the four suns. And he knew. There was no time to raise the alarm.
Antennae raised in a solitary salute he did the only thing he could.
Self-detonated.
The Tribe saw the silver tangle splatter against the sky and were warned. Spawn had never looked so beautiful.
@charitygirlblog 153 words
What a noble act for the poor, hideous little bastard. I like it. 🙂
That was a hard, hard, hard prompt. At first, I figured I'd just call you evil and skip it. Then, creativity set in. You're like a sadistic Mr. Miyagi pushing us to be our best…
Universes contrive themselves outside of space and time. Super dense balls of energy, waiting, forming. Yet unready, they wait age upon age to spawn eons and light years, planets and stars, organisms and species.
So dense. So uniform. Some explode early in brilliant sparks of light only to burn out as matter cancels anti-matter. Others tarry too long, shooting streaks of dust too far apart for gravity to take hold.
Those keen enough to support existence, wait for sub-quantum bugs to dig, introducing fluctuations in density. Enough for one in five-billion particles to survive. Enough to form hydrogen and helium, and even carbon, the building block of life.
What are these infinitesimally small bugs possessing no other purpose than tunneling though the makings of all existence. It is not for us to know. For we live in this universe, and they, beyond it. With burrowing ineptitude, they facilitate all creation.
Oops. @leo_godin 150 words
Great ending.
Well, again the competition is closed.