forum Monthly One-Word Prompts
Started by Deleted user
tune
Edit topic

people_alt 61 followers

@Echo_6 group

(Screw it, Imma write another thing anyway.)

Her name was Rosaleen Celine. Her hair was snow white, and her eyes were like that of little purple flowers. She was full of wonder and love. Love for the ocean, the plants, the animals, and all the people. Everyday she would go to her mother and ask. "Mummy, can I go on the boat today?" And everyday was the same answer.
"Maybe some other time, sweetheart."
She was innocent, and curious. Every day that the sun gleamed on the water, you could find her somewhere on the beach. Drawing little pictures of stars in the sand, making a sand castle, or collecting shells. Sometimes she would play in the water, or you could see her following a little hermit crab. It didn't matter what she was doing there was always some sort of mystery to it. People would ask her mother how she knew so many things, or why she had so much love for things. To which her mother would reply. "She was given and over abundance of love, and she will use none of it on herself."
They never seemed to understand. The little light shining so brightly in the dark world. Eventually her light began to spread. People knew her, and they loved her. The sea town slowly became alive in her light. You could her laughter and conversation, and children playing.
No one expected the sudden darkness that settled in. The bells went silent. The laughter stopped and the children no longer played. Miles out to sea was a ship. Rosaleen Celine was on that ship. So were the towns people. They were sleeping peacefully. Rosaleen Celine holding her mother close as they slept.
The waves were sad and slow. Splashing solemnly over each other. The clouds hung low, and dark, with the sun just below them, steadily sinking into the water.
The water was at a sad peacefulness, as it watched Rosaleen Celine sleeping beneath the water.

@Echo_6 group

Put the pieces together. You know that the girl had always wanted to go onto the water. You also know that they all had to go out to sea and never made it to there destination. I also threw in the why part right at the end. With peacefulness. When is it usually the most peaceful? And what could have put all the people of the town on one boat?

@Echo_6 group

Cure:
Most of the city was quiet. No birds were singing. No cicadas chirped. There was no sign of life in this city. Tall skyscrapers stood through the whole city. The ocean splashed along one side. A desert surrounded the other. Only a light breeze could be heard. Dust layer the whole city. And then in the middle of the city a volley of gunshots went off. In the midst of a seemingly dead city, was chaos. Men shouting orders to each other, some screaming in anguish, others not moving.
"Garret, get that case out of here now! We'll cover you!" one man shouted to a man that held a silver case. There was a group of them all taking cover behind, chunks of concrete, that stuck up from the street, and cars, that no longer worked.
"I'm not leaving you behind here!" the man with the case, Garret, shouted back. He had his back pressed against a chunk of concrete. A barrage of bullets pelted it and the car the other man was behind.
"Garret if you don't get that case out of here now, we may never get that cure again!" the man behind that car shouted back at him. He twisted out of cover and shot several round back at their attackers, before ducking down again, as a volley of shots pelted the car. "Dammit Garret, get out of here, that's an order!"
"I can't just leave you and the other's to die here Doug!" Garret shouted.
Something small landed between them and rolled slightly to a halt. Doug looked at it once and jumped to his feet. "Grenade!" he snapped jumping back. Garret jumped up and ran with Doug as the grenade blew up. They both made it away from the blast range and pulled back to the rest of the group. "Garret this is an order, you get that thing out of here and back to HQ now!" He snapped as they slid behind a different car.
"Doug, first of all I, technically, out rank you, and second of all, I won't leave you here. You will get killed," Garret snapped.
"Garret, if you don't get that case to HQ we are all gonna die do you understand that?" Doug replied looking directly at Garret. They both wore matching uniforms. Light tan colored camouflage. "HQ can't get that cure to everyone if you don't get it to them first."
"You will all die if I leave," Garret argued.
"We'll die for nothing if you stay," Doug snapped. "Now go," he shoved Garret in the direction he needed to go. Garret stood for a moment looking at his team. "Go!." Shots flew past Garret snapping him out of his thoughts. He took a few steps back before turning on his heel and sprinting away from the firefight going on behind him.
The city eventually grew silent again. Not leaving a trace of having been disturbed. Out on the water just outside the city a jade green statue still stood. With cracks running down it and pieces broken off. She still stood signifying freedom and liberty, in a dead city.

Does this look good?

@Bandito

It was pretty vivid. I could imagine it clearly, really descriptive. But the dialogue was pretty much Garret and Doug saying the same thing over and over, so you might make them be yelling about something else and change the verbs instead of 'shouting'. Like 'yelled' or 'growled' or something right before an action, like "No!" He ducked again. But I liked it. Are you going to do something for Diversion?

@Echo_6 group

The air in the room became more tense. The room, with seats circling around in rows down to the ground, with the middle an empty space. That space taken by the presence of two people. The seats taken by close to a hundred people, all looking down at the two in the center of them. The meeting completely disrupted by their entrance. The two in the middle, a male and a female. The male, looking completely calm and collected, by the female who looked as if she were questioning why they were there. "Tolkalee, please explain what you mean one more time, because I do not believe any of us are tracking with you," a voice said somewhere from the people above them.
"Alright, but you'll need to pay careful attention," the male, Tolkalee, sighed. "We currently have most of our troops on the west side of the mountains, with only a fraction here in the forest. The enemy has their armies evenly split into four sections. They have one attacking the kingdom in the South, one part to the North of us, one part to the West side of the mountains with the majority of our armies, and the last part in the canyon. That canyon is where they are keeping all their supplies and where they train their people. It has the most people guarding it to. But we also have that rogue army running around causing problems that we have to watch out for. We currently are unable to locate them, due to them heading into the Eastern mountain range. However them being that way gives us a slight advantage. We can split the part of the army we have here into two parts and attack the army in the canyon. With one part going head on to attack the front and draw out those from the inside, creating enough chaos for the other part to get in and destroy a good chunk of their supplies. Make sense?"
There was a silence that followed for a brief moment letting the tension sit for what seemed like ages. "What you are saying is that we attack but don't attack while another part of the army we have here actually does attack?" someone asked from above.
"Yes that is exactly what I am saying," Tolkalee twisted around to look at whoever had spoken.
"That makes no sense," someone else spoke up. Then the girl standing next to Tolkalee sighed and let her gave travel the room.
"What he's saying is have one part of the army cause a diversion so the other part can come in and do damage," she explained impatiently.
"That's what I said," Tolkalee looked at her. "Isn't that what I said?" He looked around the room.
"That didn't sound anything like what you were saying," a woman stood up from her seat. Directly in front of the two people in the middle. "But I think a diversion could work in our favor. Would you like to get the troops ready Tolkalee?"
"It would be my pleasure," Tolkalee replied taking a bow before turning and leaving the room. The tension slowly dissipating.

Yeah, like I said it wouldn't be very good, but it's… something. So, viola!

@Bandito

Flame+Heresy

Gray could never get used to the desert. Far too hot for him. He could get used to the things that lived in it, though - in fact, he liked them. A lot. He liked destroying things.
There were these plants, these cacti, that lived in the Queen's Royal Desert (a small, more fertile section of a much larger wasteland), which were very small and very flammable. They were like small, powerful hand grenades, just laying around for anyone to pick up. You could just stick them in your pocket and walk right into someone's home without them even knowing that their lives lay in your hands.
And there were the people, the stupid primitive scavengers, who trotted about without even thinking about what they could do with the cacti, because they had no magic, no flame. They were peaceful centaurs and they moved about in large groups once a month, which gave Gray time to track them down and steal from their airy, unprotected tents whatever he needed or desired.
Gray thought he was superior to the other inhabitants of his kingdom, including the king and queen. Gray thought he could kill them all and take charge and build a much, much stronger empire. So he had put lots of cacti in his pockets and was now on his way to the palace. When he was emperor he would move it far away from anything explosive, but for now it was too convenient.
He walked through the doors with a letter in his hand and a royal messenger's clothes hiding the cacti. He ran up and delivered the letter to the king sitting on the throne. While the king opened the letter, Gray simply sprinkled him with cacti, ran out, and cast a flame spell on the entire room.
When his hearing returned, the king had vanished. A small pile of ash remained on the throne, which was somehow unharmed. Everyone else in the room lay on the floor, crispy and smoking.
Gray turned and left to find the queen. Unlike the king, he had no idea where she might be. He should probably have gone for her first. He headed for the main tower first, assuming it was where she slept.
So hot. Gray wiped the sweat off of his face. The cacti in his pockets were like a blanket of heat. He wished he knew any magic other than flame, but there was a more important goal.
There was no one in the tower. Gray felt uneasy in the quiet and pulled out his sword. He leaped down the stairs, not bothering to be quiet, and saw no one in the halls. He stopped and held his breath. He was certain something had gone wrong now. He glanced around quickly for an exit, but now he heard footsteps coming down both ends of the hall. He hurried back up the stairs.
There were no windows in the tower. Gray heard the first set of feet walking up the stairs. He felt stupid and trapped, but he tossed a handful of cacti down the stairs and set them off. The footsteps stopped and the smell of smoke filled the air, but now that the stairs were destroyed Gray had no way out. He peered outside the room and saw a wide pit were the stairs were, and behind that, the king and queen with a line of people behind them. He wiped his hands on his pants and threw more cacti at them, but they fell into the pit.
The queen lifted her hands. "Who are you?"
Gray narrowed his eyes. "You can't get to me. I'll say nothing."
There was silence. This whole idea had gone so wrong. Gray ground his teeth. He could still be saved. They may spare his life if he cooperated, he thought. The dungeon was unavoidable but it could be escaped. At least it was cool underground. "I am a civilian from the coast."
"Why have you tried to assassinate us?"
"…I believed I could improve your kingdom."
The people behind them sneered with disgust. Gray felt like a strange and repulsive animal on display.
"You have committed an unforgivable crime," the queen said, smirking. "This foolish act of heresy will cost you your life."
Fool indeed. Gray had thought he was invincible. Superior. He held up shaky hands. "Please, I surrender."
But the queen snapped her fingers, and the cacti stuffed in Gray's own pockets destroyed him before he could do anything more.

@Echo_6 group

Ooooooooo, this was really good. I apologize because I'm not really good at critiquing things, so I'm not much help there. But I will say that it seemed to flow nicely, and it's something that I would read more of.

@Echo_6 group

I can't think of a time when there wasn't any ice. At least where I come from anyway. You could walk outside and through the snow, that was always a foot deep, and you could find a frozen creek of some kind. A creek, river or pond. All of it would be frozen. There were always icicles hanging off the roofs of buildings, and hanging off of car side windows. The wind was always blowing and it was cold. It was always cold, I liked it, but it was always cold. You couldn't last fifteen minutes without some kind of coat. That was okay with me though, there was a kind of beauty in all the cold.
I remember one early morning pulling on my dad's old jacket, lacing up my boots and going out to take a nice long walk. The night before had been long with the wind howling, and snow coming down so hard that feeding the animals that night had been difficult. But that next morning the sun was actually out. So I was going to explore a bit. Nothing really big or amazing like that, just a walk.
As I was walking through the woods however, I had to stop and just look around. It was so… quiet, and yet… it wasn't. There was a fresh layer of snow and ice. I could hear, from over ten miles away, down the hill, the highway. There were a couple birds singing from somewhere, and I could hear something walking through the snow. It was still really early in the morning and the sun was just barely shining over the top of the hill and through the trees, making the snow sparkle. Like frosting.
Deciding to continue after a few moments of not being sure how there could be anything that beautiful, I began walking forward again. I was slower then, and spent more time looking at everything. I can remember coming around a corner and seeing a doe, and her fawn. Both looked up at me, but didn't move. It was probably because there was a large pond in-between us. I didn't notice it at first but the whole pond was frozen. I should have guessed that it was frozen, everything else was. But this one was so clear. It was so clear, that it looked like it was just standing water. It wasn't, it was frozen.
The doe continued watching me from where she was, and the fawn was moving slowly back into the trees. They both seemed nervous about me being there, but they didn't run instantly. They both started walking back into the trees and slowly disappeared from sight. Just before the fawn disappeared completely it stopped and turned to look directly at me. We stood, for what seemed like forever, just staring at each other. A call from the doe, finally pulled the fawn away.
Another sort of silence settled around me again. It was the most calming atmosphere I'd been in for quite some time. I didn't want to leave it, but was called by my mom, just as the little fawn had been. As I turned to leave, a smile crept to my face. It still amazes me at the things God does to create beautiful things around us.

@Bandito

Awwww. I really want to move to Alaska now. And the writing was very simple and peaceful which helps a lot in creating a winter atmosphere like that. Have you ever been somewhere like that irl? Also I'll probably do the Roses one if you don't want to, and maybe if I'm not busy I kind of want to do Ice too but like a completely opposite reaction, like where yours was beautiful and calming I want to do something harsh and violent lol

@Echo_6 group

Thank you. The closest I've ever been to something like that was a really harsh winter we had here in Oregon. And you should totally do both, if you have time.

@Bandito

Roses

Now she doesn't remember much of it, but when she was little, Sila almost starved to death. It was right after the war, and her father was still with them. They had been on the run for months by now and had run out of money and favors a week ago. Sila was five but had lost the youth and innocence in her eyes. A spark of hunger remained.
They walked through long grass along the highway for most of the day, but when their shadows grew taller, so did their fears, and they retreated to the bare fields and plains. They stopped at every house and village to beg for food, but they were not the only ones affected by the war, and not even the worst. The big cities had houses filled with skeletal corpses, waiting to be burned down.
Sila's father went into one of these houses a few days before, and came out stumbling and yellow-skinned. Sila's mother hurried her away before he could see them.
They went to another corner of the city, too faint to actually leave. In some twisted way, their father had still saved their lives, for now - there was food. A government official was giving bowl-clutching people some form of boiling red paste. Sila and her mother stood at the end of the line, hunching there in the sun until the people before them had been saved.
The official glanced down at Sila, then to her mother, and said that the government was not handing out bowls too.
Sila gazed around. Everyone else had emptied their bowls or cups. But they slunk away before Sila could ask to borrow. So Sila's mother told the official to pour the soup into her bare hands, and he did. Sila just watched her mother's hands turn red and blister as she tried to get it to her daughter's mouth before it drained away. Roses, she thought. Curling red petals blooming on harsh, clawing leaves.
Later on, her mother lay down and died. To this day, when asked about her childhood, Queen Sila can only remember thinking about roses.