Welcome to the seventeenth #SatSunTails micro fiction competition.
Be warned – the prompts aren’t easy, but that’s so you can write to the best of your ability.
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)
- Monday 11am GMT is the expected closing time for entries BUT the competition will be open until I put a ‘competition closed’ comment so you may be able to slip something in (because I’m extra kind like that). Got 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.
For tips, read through the critiques from last week’s entries.
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:-
“angst-ridden repast”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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Princess And The Pack
As a purebred princess of her kind, Anastasja was not bound to moon cycles like the pitiful werewolf peasantry. She was accustomed to hunting and feeding as she wished, not reposing to wait for others.
But it was a duty of her lineage to form and lead her own pack and so she had. She wondered, idly, which of her newly-made wildlings had begun to embrace the sensual pleasures of their lupine state and which still bemoaned their situation. In truth, it mattered little, since either would provide her some semblance of excitement.
If the weak ones turned tonight into another angst-ridden repast, weeping at their bloodied hands and faces, she was not above culling the pack as necessary. To be a wolf was to be strong, to revel in the raw primal power that was the pack. There was no place for tears. Tonight they would howl like wolves or die screaming like prey.
155 words @klingorengi
“What do you know about it? You’ve always been so bloody gorgeous!” Steph’s words splashed across her like acid. Jen stared at the flushed face of her little sister.
“I know more than you think.” Her voice sounded thin, pitifully unconvincing.
“The hell you do!” Grabbing her bag, Steph stuffed the diet pills in her bag and slammed the door behind her.
Tension gripped Jen’s stomach in claws. She tasted saliva, hunger. Desperation.
Got to get out.
Staggering to the hayfield she curled up in the armchair she’d dragged there years ago. Felt the sun stroke her face, smooth her knotted muscles. Safe here.
Away from the kitchen cupboards, from the plastic bags stuffed under her mattress.
Trembling, she pulled out a mirror from a slit in the damp leather. Her gaunt face stared back at her. “I won’t,” she whispered. No angst-ridden repast. No gorging. No purging. Not today.
150 words, charitygirlblog
Selena fumed. “Where are my shoes?” The sun beat down, making her sweat. She took a tentative step off the chair, then pulled back. A glittering shard of glass stuck out of her foot. Red drops of blood ran down her arch, pooling between her toes.
The photographer and his assistant ignored the haughty model, forcing her into an angst-ridden repast as they loaded the truck.
Looking around, Selena noticed green, white and blue hues sparkling from the ground. Realization dawned on her when images of last night’s six-o’clock news registered. The glass killer, not much of a name, but quite a spectacle after three women were found dead in three weeks.
She screamed as the truck pulled away. “Don’t leave me! Please!”
Knowing what would happen after dark, Selena first walked, then crawled across the glass-strewn field. Slivers pierced her hands and knees. Behind her, the sun hung low in the sky.
153 words – @Leo_Godin
Yikes, quite an ultimatum.
Wow. So powerful.
The world shakes with the memory of its destruction every time they stampede. After the first couple times I stopped worrying—they don’t know I’m in here.
I remember three, maybe four, days in this concrete crawl space. Stores of food, water and a crude sort of latrine emptying god-knows-where suggest this space was outfitted to wait out the apocalypse. Maybe I did it. The whole nightmare is surreal. I can’t remember how I got here or what happened.
If I tried I might be able to remember, but her picture tells me I don’t want to. When I start to feel numb, she becomes my angst-ridden repast. I look at her sitting coy on a leather chair in the middle of a field, dressed in costume jewelry and a small dress. I feel guilt.
I’m sure I know her. I think I should have protected her.
My shelter has room for one more.
154 words
@DavidALudwig
I should have been at work. Not have been in a field of grasses, flowers, and weeds. And I certainly should not have been there with her. I don’t know where she found that leather chair, or how she hauled it to the middle of the field.
She called. “Spend today with me.” I skipped work. Picked her up. Drove to a farmhouse. “Daddy’s,” she said, “He won’t mind.” We walked past the house, down a dirt road, through a wooded area. To the field. And the chair. She undressed. Leaving on a camisole, and panties. She sat, her feet on one chair arm, her bottom on the other. She draped a scarf across her middle. Then picked up a small mirror, and started removing her necklaces.
“Consume all of me today,” she smiled.
She was my angst-ridden repast. I really should have been at work.
150 words.
@LurchMunster
Change of Plans
Lisa McCourt Hollar
“This is where the living room will be.”
Jarrod shook his head. “It’s in the middle of nowhere. And how did you get my leather chair all the way out here?”
“I had Bryan drive it out. I know you couldn’t move on without the chair.” Jen flopped down in the leather wingback and hung her leg over the side, showing Jarrod some leg.
“Then I expect Bryan to bring his truck back here and take it back to our apartment, I have no intention of moving. I thought I made that perfectly clear.”
Jen didn’t say a word, tears filling her eyes. Jarrod sighed. She always was a bit childish when she couldn’t get her own way. His phone rang and she began fiddling with her mirror.
“Hello.” Jarrod said, answering the phone. His face turned pale as the blood drained.
“The apartment burned down.”
Jen smiled. “Guess we have to move now.”
Word Count: 154
@jezri1
Competition is closed