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:-
“undetected innocence”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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She made it out into the alley. It was raining heavily and in minutes she was soaked to the skin. She knew she’d have to find cover soon, the chemical weapons from the last few years bringing a new meaning to the term acid rain. Already her skin was prickling with a million tiny burns, leaving microscopic scars on the first layer of dermis. Although these scars wouldn’t heal, provided she got out of the storm soon, they could at least be sloughed off with the other dead skin cells. Unlike her new scars.
He’d said he wanted to test her innocence. Couldn’t believe she’d stayed undetected for so long. His radar was finely tuned to those burdened by innocent ways. Or so he said. Perhaps she’d be safe now, if she ran fast enough, to escape recapture. After all, she was not innocent anymore.
145 words @sixwordsmag
I have one rule. Don't look them in the eyes. Find 'em, and kill 'em so they don't kill us. Simple, right? Except, these things used to be children. Poor bastards aren't to blame. Parents died. Left their babies growing up like animals. They only know how to eat and shit.
Boss doesn't give me bullets. Too valuable to waste since the collapse. No, it's blunt objects for me. Aluminum Louisville Slugger, thirty-four ounces. gotta get real close to use that.
Sure intended to kill this one. Found her rooting around in the trash. Even lifted my bat, ready to charge. That is, until the rain started. The little animal lifted her head, catching wet drops in her mouth. Such undetected innocence.
Wasn't easy. Plenty of bite marks to show for it. But, now she calls me "Da." I look in her sweet, blue eyes every night before tucking her in, and I smile.
@Leo_Godin – 154 words
Wow, that's a lot of power and subtext in 145 words. Excellent story.
She wished it were mud she was caked with. She wished the red-brown smears were clay. They might have been. She might have been playing in a back yard and gotten dirty. Her mother might be on her way to scold her for ruining her clothes.
She wasn’t. Deep within her, there might be a shred of undetected innocence, but no one would find it now. Instead she opened her mouth to the rain and pretended it was right there, on the surface. She was just a little girl playing in the rain. There was nothing to fear from her.
A shot rang out and a gurgled oath was followed by a thud. He hadn’t seen it coming, had accepted her facade. He deserved to die for that. No one was innocent anymore. Her arm ached, but Jasmine pulled back the hammer of her pistol, ready to shoot again.
149 words
@Kimmydonn
I walk. Even in the rain. And it was pouring. No one was outside. I had the world to myself. Until I saw her. A little girl. Playing in the rain. Laughing. Splashing in the puddles. I stopped and watched her for a moment. I found myself wishing I could protect her from the world. Keep her innocence undetected. Knowing our society, our way of life, would slowly strip her innocence away.
I thought of how I learned to live a lie. Pretending everything’s OK. Pretending to be happy. Until I believed it. Until my own innocent definition of happiness was replaced by a bitter, crippled one. Where my dreams were only dreams. Where I’d learned to say, “I’ve put away my childish dreams. I’ve grown up.”
As I continued my walk I was thankful that the rain washed the tears I cried from my face.
150 words
@LurchMunster
It was always hard for people to tell which one of us was leading the other, or who protected whom. Technically, I was her guardian, so I should have been the one to shelter her from the world.
But the world had intruded too early into her life, and now when I looked at my baby sister, I saw a battered woman of thirty, probably an ex-con, trapped in the body of a child of eight. Whereas I had been in college when the world collapsed around our ears, and often felt like a girl of four hiding in the body of a college graduate. I was the breadwinner, but she was the one who took care of me.
I was startled, then, when we walked away from the cemetery, from our parents’ graves, and the rain started, and she laughed unexpectedly and danced. I had never detected that innocence.
150 words
@KelseyPotter13
The chains are cold, the ground wet. The Lord's tears pound my skin, as though he sees what has become of me. If I'd listened to Mother, I wouldn't find myself so crudely bound. She'll be cross. But it's too late now.
Or is it?
The Devil's workers sleep, ignorantly warm inside their metal boxes. They think me weak, innocent. But Innocence is nothing more than a name, given to me before my own thoughts formed. I'm told it's proved to be ironically apt.
The chains are cold, hard. And easily slipped. The Lord's shouts will conceal my escape, which I intend make once my job is complete.
On their table, the Devil's own tools lay unguarded. Various devices for fiendish human interaction. One calls out louder than the rest. Leather grip, sharpened steel. It will do.
I'll make Mother proud.
I'll finish the Lord's work, and then escape. Undetected.
150 words.
@jackkholt
Leah tightened a makeshift bandage round my leg, I winced.
Steely eyes pierced the air between us with disdain, “you’ll live,” she muttered.
My injuries had been assessed and calculations made. Would I be a help or a hindrance in the battles ahead?
Obviously I had some merits, I was still breathing unlike the man beside me.
His water bottle was practically empty but we shared the last precious drops, this was the prize we were fighting for.
A drumming started on the corrugated roof. My first thought – gunshots?
Leah scrambled from our makeshift hideout, knife clenched tightly.
Dragging my injured leg I followed.
The long prophesied rain was falling at last.
Hurriedly grabbing the bottle strapped to my waist, I filled it with sweet refreshment.
Leah meanwhile stood motionless, face upturned, previously undetected innocence on her face.
She may be a killer but underneath she just a girl from the farmlands.
153 words
@reravelling
Competition is closed!