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Tag Archives: Trifecta Writing Challenge

Travelers (Trifecta Week 88)

This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge word was “band.” This is “Travelers.”

I wrapped my cloak tightly around me as the breeze threatened the wanderer’s attempts to maintain a fire. He laughed, shifting into position to block the wind as he added more kindling.

“You know,” he said, “you’re not doing too well at this whole adventuring thing.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, indignant. “After all, you were the one who was walking through the desert at mid-day with nothing in your waterskin.”

“Oh, sure, you’ve got supplies. I saw them. But have you got a weapon?”

I stared blankly at the man. The fire crackled as he stoked it.

“Of course I’ve got a weapon. I’m not about to go away from the city without something to defend myself.”

“Some raggedy stick?”

I clutched my staff. “They’re the weapon of my order. We train with them from the time we’re able to walk. If I wanted to, I could kill you seven different ways with it before you could shout for help.” I found myself briefly wishing that I’d never stopped to help him.

“My blade could slice it in two before you noticed, boy. Case in point.” He glanced at my neck, and I followed his eyes down. A sword extended from his hand to my throat, the blade a hair’s breadth away. “But I think,” he went on, his eyes flicking back up to my shoulder, “that it would be for our mutual benefit to band together. At least until we cross the Sand Sea.”

“…”

“Don’t be scared of me, boy. It’s just that there are things out there in the dark, and it doesn’t seem that you can see them. Otherwise you’d have noticed…HIM!”

I felt the blood dripping down my arm as the wanderer’s sword flew from my neck and pierced something behind me.

“A…agreed…” I looked down at the bleeding creature.

“You and me, kid. We’ll do okay.”

“I hope so.”

“You’ve got supplies. I can see these things. It’ll be fine.”

The wanderer stoked the fire.

The Crack (Trifecta Week 86)

Another Trifecta Writing Challenge entry for you today. Here’s “The Crack.”

“I think I may be going mad,” Kerry muttered as he looked at his surroundings. The sun beat down upon the fields, black grass shimmering in the light. It stretched on into hills and valleys without a single variation in shade. Reality was breaking around him, and the source, the crack was nearby, but that was the only thing that was certain anymore. It was coming for him. He had seen things since his first encounter with the rift, since the day he’d met Alicia, though even now he couldn’t say if that had been ten years or ten days ago. This field before him might only be an illusion. Regardless, the crack was coming closer. There was only one way for him to end it.

“But if I am, I can think of worse ways for it to go.” He saw her then, or her shape, white flitting across the black, and he drew a dagger from his belt. She moved toward him, never touching the grass, never noticing the narrow band of chaos that seemed to be carved across the landscape by her passage. Finally reaching him, she stopped.

“Hello, Kerry.” Her voice a jumble of voices clamoring at once.

“Hello, Alicia.”

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Kerry’s face was grim. “I’ve been looking for you. I hoped I’d find you sooner.”

Alicia’s shape twitched as if it had just noticed the blade he held. “Is that what I think it is?” the multitude asked.

“Let’s find out.”

He stepped behind her, arms around her in a final embrace as he guided her hands upward and the knife point found her neck.

The crack that had trailed behind her yawned wide. Kerry clutched Alicia’s limp body to him and let the chaos swallow them both. All that remained was black.

Trifecta Week 78: “Pedantic”

It’s Week 78 over at Trifecta, so here’s yet another one-word prompt story. “Pedantic.”

“It’s dull.”

“What?”

“Your story. Dull. Boring. Dreary. Pedantic. Drivel.”

“So, you didn’t like it?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Just that I think it’s shit.”

“What the hell, man?”

“Hey, you asked me what I thought of it. I’m just being honest.”

“Yeah, and an asshole.”

“An asshole who is happy to be brutally honest with you.”

“Apparently so.”

“But seriously. You can write better than this. This is uninspired. I’ve seen what you can do. Who were you trying to fool with this stuff?”

“What? Fool? Why the hell would I be trying to fool anyone?”

“Beats me, but this bit of ‘story’ that you handed me an hour ago is nonsense. Unimaginative. Dull. Bullshit. Pedantic. Did I use that one already?”

“Yeah, you did, actually.”

“Well then, I guess it counts double. Go rewrite it. Better yet, throw this away and start from the beginning. Forget you ever had this idea.”

“Fine. FINE. I’ll scrap it.”

“Good.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Hmph. Fine.”

“Please, just…try harder this time.”

“Alright. But you know something?”

“What?”

“Next time I ask myself to read something I wrote, I’ll do it without all of this talking to myself nonsense.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“Good. Now, shut up and let me write.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ecstasy

This was written in response to the most recent Trifecta challenge. Here’s “Ecstasy.”

 

She had begged him to go to the cavern, to gain the experience for himself. Now he sat alone, waiting for the process to begin. Crispin closed his eyes and felt the vapors wash over him, enveloping his skin and pouring into his mind. The ecstasy would be upon him soon, the tremors in his legs, his fingers, his arms. Bracing himself against one wall of the cavern, he collapsed in a fetal ball and the visions began.

There they were, standing together with their fingers intertwined. The snow was beginning to fall as they shared a lingering kiss. Eliza’s dark lashes were dusted with white as she leaned against him. She had been laughing when he dropped to his knee and startled her into silence with a small velvet box.

They lay on their backs under an alien sky, Eliza resting her head against his chest. Crispin pointed out constellations that no human had ever named before, tracing dreams in the night above.

They sat at a café in Paris, half-finished pastries and cooling coffee on the table between them. Eliza ran her foot across his, blushing as she did.

They cried together in an empty room, Eliza slumped on the floor and Crispin leaning on the crib that would never be filled.

As suddenly as it had begun, the ecstasy ended. Crispin’s head cleared and he managed to stand. A bottle of water stood on the table. When he stumbled while reaching for it, Eliza’s hand caught him and pulled him upright. She waited patiently while he finished the water, only posing her question after the last drop was gone.

“So… How was it?”

“Different,” he replied. “I saw a lot of possible futures, Eliza, and only one thing was certain in any of them.”

She tapped her forefingers together, looking away. “W…was it…”

“It was you, Elly. You were there by my side, in every one of my visions.”

She smiled, pulling him into a hug. “Then let’s go home.”

Trifecta Writing Challenge: Week Sixty

This week, I decided to compete in a Trifecta writing challenge for the first time. As usual, it’s V’s fault. For the challenge this week, we were given three words. They could be used in any order, but we were only allowed to add 33 words for a total of 36. Our words were rain, rebellion, and remember. Here’s my entry.

 

*       *       *

It’s been thirty years this week. Thirty long years since the day that the blood fell like rain. The city in the clouds above us had erupted in war, a full fledged rebellion.

I still remember.