Welcome to the #SatSunTails microfiction 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:-
“adjacent dreams/dreaming”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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Her dreams always began with the blood-curdling screams which sprung from the adjacent rooms; altering her subconscious in peculiar ways.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at her bruised knees and skinned feet she patiently awaited the effects of the sedative forced down her throat merely moments before.
The “white coats” who delivered it, rapidly retreated behind a protective veil of indifferent laughter and her skin crawled as the sound of heavy keys forcing
the lock reverberated through
her bones.
At last the familiar spin of the room caressed her as she fell back onto the bed, blurred vision decidedly intent on the flickering bulb above her.
Completely free in her delirium, the anguished screams were rapidly replaced by the rush of the wind through the trees and she faded, into a forest of her own choosing. Carefully, delicately, she plotted her revenge and ultimately, her escape.
150 Words
@melinagillies
She dragged herself awake, tearing her way through the nightmare's lingering grip, and tossed aside sweat soaked sheets. Where was she? Alice shook her head, trying to clear her head; thoughts hampered by the muzziness enveloping her mind.
Half awake, she stood up, and fear flooded through her veins as grass tickled the soles of her feet, and metal tugged at her wrist. Alice spun around and took in her surroundings. She was chained to an old-style hospital bed in the middle of the woods. Crazy, it couldn't be happening. Denial didn't change the fact. This was no dream.
She pulled at the steel connecting her to the bed, but stopped and thumped back down as images from the local news floated to the top of her memory. Several young women had been found murdered and mutilated in the county's woods. Not what she feared; a different kind of predator.
Alice smiled, revealing pearly white fangs. This would be fun.
160words
@tollykit
From one adjacent dream to the next, she travels. Searching. Hoping. Praying.
Losing control on their wedding night, she had dreamed and pulled him into a wonderful land. A field of clover and wildflowers. They'd made love to the sound of birds in the soft meadow. No woman could ask for a better honeymoon. But she awoke, and he wasn't there.
Without her presence sustaining the dream world, it would rot, and fowl things would creep in from the periphery. He isn't safe, so each night it's two Ambien and dreams of faraway places, willing her mind to that one spot.
On the edge of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness, his familiar scent calls to her. She's close. Could this be the night? She smiles as she fades to black.
Cold, dank air greets her on the other side, awakening her with a noxious stink. With sanguine faith, she opens her eyes.
@Leo_Godin – 152 words
Don't worry about this one as it's outside the rules. Let's hope more entries arrive.
Mother always left the tastiest treats tucked deep in the woods. It took Baron hours to find them. Long, dusky evenings spent sniffing, tasting, and creeping ever closer to the kill.
Tonight smelled different. Tonight, the scent of longing hung in heavy ropes through the air.
Something white glowed up ahead. Baron slunk ever closer to the ground. The mud sucked at his feet. He was almost there.
When he was so close he could almost taste her, the girl’s head rolled towards him. He clenched every fiber in his body, and became as still as the forest.
Her eyes drifted open, two blue spots in the dark. A beat passed. Two. Her lips parted.
“She said you would come.”
He flinched at the sound of her voice, a voice that should not be.
She lifted her pale fingers to his jowls. “It’s okay.”
His hunger vanished, replaced by a new kind of craving.
154 words
@MLConklin
His voice was a mellifluous flow of words and phrases she couldn’t follow, “electrical impulses”, “sensory signals”, “lucid dreaming”.
She gazed at a picture on the wall behind him, a meadow of bluebells in a wood. Was it a coincidence that it looked like the meadow back home?
This was the place she would dream of, where she would be reunited with Sheena for the first time since the accident. Once more running together and breathing the same sweet air.
“Any questions before you sign?”
Grasping the pen she scrawled her signature at the bottom of the consent form.
“Your sister has been transferred from St Agnes’ Hospital to the Dream Centre and I can take you to her now. Then we can get you both wired up for the adjacent dream procedure. You are the first twins to undergo the trial. I will be very interested in your results.”
150 words
@reravelling
She had been in the hospital long enough that it seemed like it caused adjacent dreaming. The smell of the antiseptic and sounds of the machinery. It was when she didn’t smell the too clean scent of the hospital and could feel a breeze that she figured she was dreaming.
The window in her room didn’t open and the air conditioning made temperature chilly. Eyes remained closed as she moved on the bed until her feet touched the ground. Toes curled around stones and branch debris. The sound of a bird talking took up and there was the sound of wood creaking.
Eyes fluttered open and she looked up into the canopy of the forest. It was calming to a point. When she pushed herself up, there were white shapeless creatures in front of the bed.
“Welcome. We have been waiting.” One reached out to her. “Come. It is time to go now.”
153 words
@solimond
Competition is closed