forum Writing Prompts
Started by @Bandito
tune

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@personfullofplotholes language

(Continuation of my last prompt!)
They were looking at the mercenary, but the murderer's eyes were seeing the past; remembering, sorting, choosing what would be told. The woman waited patiently. She'd seen this first step of the story many times.
It took a long time for them to start talking, but when they did she was enraptured.
"I've been many places in my life, from wilderness to great cities, southern mountains to northern tundras, all types of lands and people. This land, these countries, are all so rich and diverse. But no matter where I went, I always had the same thought: I didn't belong here. Whether here was a small town with a three-room tavern or a great lord's castle or an army barrack or an abandoned farm in the middle of nowhere, I just… didn't fit right. Never meshed, always on the outskirts."
"On the fringe," said the woman, understanding. "Like your name."
"Exactly." Fringe smiled, a surprisingly nice look. "I didn't start calling myself that until after I killed a few innocent people. Then, I was still someone who didn't want that reputation, so I chose a different name. Now, it's the only one people know, and I frankly don't give a shit. A name is a name, and I’ve grown into Fringe quite well."
The woman leaned forward, puzzled, but before she could ask Fringe answered her question. "I do still know my old name, but I don't use it. No one will associate it with me, and besides, it's not important to my story."
"Right." She leaned back again, shifting to settle her sheathed sword across her thighs. Again, the murderer glanced at her armor, the way it protected every inch of her skin even when sat and contorted like this. Whoever had crafted it was an artist, understanding the buyer as well as the medium.
Fringe wanted to know so much about the mercenary and her armor.
Which meant, of course, that they needed to keep talking. About the places they'd been, the people they met, about the boy…
Kyle. Even after all these years, talking about Kyle still felt wrong, under all Fringe's stoic expressions and their uncaring, hardened heart. Even back then, Fringe hadn't deserved Kyle and his kindness, his willingness to change a whole village just to show Fringe what belonging felt like. They hadn't been a murderer then, just a killer, in self defense only; they hadn't known how dark the riches of the world could be. They had never deserved him.
But the mercenary was waiting to hear, to eventually speak. And Fringe's story wasn't complete without Kyle, without the story of their friendship and the little forest town and the realization that no matter what, Fringe was never going to belong anywhere. The story wasn't complete without explaining what Kyle had done for them, how much he'd risked, how hard he had tried to make a place where Fringe could belong.
Wasn't complete, they knew, without explaining why they had killed him.

@Shadow_Knight group

"I don't belong here." The girl on the roof said. The boy next to her twitched.
"W-Why don't y-you? Y-Your ju-just like us. You k-kill people." He said, twitching as talked.
"Because!" She yelled "I hate it! I can´t like killing people!" She exclaimed.
He grabbed her hand. "L-look! I don't like i-i-it eith-er! B-ut we h-ha-ve too!" He yelled back, his twitches getting worse.
The girl looked at him and began to cry. She didn't want this life. He began to cry a bit as well.
"No-None of us b-belong h-h-here but we c-an't leave."
They sat like that for a while, lying on the roof and crying.

(What the f#@% did I just write?)

@personfullofplotholes language

(College is kicking my butt, but I've been thinking about this prompt all week and I'm excited to finally write it! Also sorry it's long, I really struggle writing short things.)

Fringe blinked, thoughts of Kyle as easily dismissed as always.
The mercenary was staring at them, a single eyebrow raised in confusion. Her sword still glittered across her lap, and for a moment the light dazzled Fringe's eyes. Was that something that the mercenary actually used to her advantage, blinding her enemies with her sword like the legends said? Did she keep it sparkling as a reminder of her reputation? Did she just hate the sight of blood dripping off the metal?
Probably, it wasn't even something she thought about. A clean sword was a good one, after all. But Fringe wanted to know if it was the sort of thing she kept in mind.
"You're a good storyteller. I really appreciate the dramatic pauses." Her words dripped with sarcasm in the long-standing silence. "That was quite the look you had there, for a moment. Thought you were going to go berserk and try to kill me again or something."
Fringe snorted. "According to folk tales and legends, I don't lose control."
"Some of the legends also say you used to be human, once. Emphasis on 'once'." The woman drummed her fingertips on the smooth curve of her metal calf. "According to folk tales and legends, you're a monster."
"Maybe they're right," the murderer mused. "What kind of person doesn't belong anywhere? Who truly feels nothing when they kill, or even when they exist? Some people have tried to label me, psychopath or deranged or other such things, but none of them feel quite right. I don’t think very many people could truly understand me. I was ready to die, just now. I wouldn't even be talking to you if I wasn't interested to learn."
Again, the woman spoke with sarcasm. "So glad I'm interesting enough to pique the curiosity of one of folklore's deadliest modern villains."
"But of course you would."
"What?"
"Look at you." Fringe leaned forwards, dark eyes wide, staring, eager. "If I'm the deadliest villain, you're certainly one of the deadliest heroes. The woman mercenary, in her shining armor, with a sword so bright it's said the sun itself fears its edge. And who am I? Fringe, the monster on the outskirts, the thing with no name; but you, you don't even need one."
"I have a name," she protested, her mouth turning down in a scowl. "I'm not like you."
"Aren't you? We both kill. At this rate, you've even probably killed more than I have. Neither of us have a reason to; you're definitely rich enough to do nothing for the rest of your life. And we're nothing, really. I'm just a monster, and you're just a woman in a suit of armor, and the world touches neither of us." It had always been the armor that interested the murderer. The armor covered every sliver of skin, every joint weak with cartilage and bone, showing just enough of her face to keep fear out of peoples' hearts. The armor cut her off from everything, and yet she moved in it so comfortably. Like it was a part of her.
"What's your point?" Her voice was irritable, and Fringe remembered a few minutes ago, when she'd shown a hundred emotions in a few seconds before setting her sword aside. "What's all this got to do with your story?"
"You wanted to hear my side of the legends. My origins, my reasons, my thoughts." Fringe spread their hands, palms up as if to calm her. "I'm thinking perhaps our sides aren't so different as you think, when you look at them up close. I gave up my humanity, although I'm not quite sure what that means, and you hid yours away in that armor. What’s so different about that, when you think about it? A few different choices and we could be in each other's spot this very moment."
Silence followed their speech. Fringe watched the woman, her head bent to stare at her sword.
"I think," she finally said, "that when you get close enough to the details of my story, you'll learn that it's nothing like yours."
She looked up, and her face was as blank as Fringe had felt when the sword hovered over their heart.
"Prove it," they challenged, eyes never leaving the mercenary's. There was something like fascination in their chest, beating against their ribs, demanding to be let out.
She stared back, her expression still of nothing, and said, “My name is who I am, not what I have become, and my name is Elise.”

@RainClouds_Itachi_

One: You will never be a god.

ack- ok i'm late to this thread but i saw this one and-

he lay there, broken and mangled under the clear blue sky.
"why?" he croaked out, tears slowly sliding down his face.
"why did you turn me away? have i not proved myself?"
the dark figure of Death ignored his pain, slowly moving closer.
"but i'm your son!" he sobbed out to the heavens, hoping for his father to hear his cries.
no one answered. Death moved closer.
the ground burned around him, the collapsing buildings falling silent. all he could hear was the wind.
he hiccuped in pain and anguish one last time before shutting his eyes tight. Death lunged forward.
the last thing he heard was a strong voice echoing in his mind.

"you will never be a god."

@Shadow_Knight group

"I just…I messed up so bad!" He said as he hit his head against the table. "I have to undo it." He said quietly.
Grandma Yana just kept stirring the soup she was cooking. "Milo, have you ever tried to unmake soup?" She asked as she poured some of it into a bowl.
Milo looked up at her. "You can't."
"And why can't you?" She asked sitting down next to him.
"Because I while ago you made the broth. You could remove everything else but you can't unmake the broth." He explained.
"Exactly. You made the first part of that mistake a long time ago. Even if you don't add everything else, you can't undo that first thing. Sometimes you can't unmake mistakes, just like you can't unmake soup."

Deleted user

"Death is only a minor setback for me, you can come, with your armies. From the past, from the future, bring all of your so-called warriors and Champions together. You cannot bring me even one step closer to a true death"

@personfullofplotholes language

(Sorry I disappeared, my laptop had to get repaired. This isn't a continuation of my previous shorts, but I'm still happy with it. I haven't written first person in ages, so this was mostly an exercise on that.)

I keep running from something. I keep running from something, and finding myself falling headfirst into it, only to get up once more and run in a different direction, over and over and over, until someday I die from tripping over it.
Or maybe it's more accurate to say I'll finally confront it. More the death of a phase of my life, than my actual death. But when you're running from… what would I even call it? Reality? The facts of life? I don't know. But when you're running from something like that, there's no telling how you'll end up. And when you're going to my extremes- breaking science itself just to try and find a different answer, doing things that shouldn't be possible or survivable just for the sake of proving that things CAN be different- well, let's just say a lot of people are surprised I've made it this far.
They all say the same thing when they realize what I'm doing. "Alex," they say- my mother, my sister, my partner, my friends, the coworker who stumbled in on my spot on the basement where I was welding the last pieces of the latest jumper together. "Alex," they all say, with this sort of hurt in their voice, and concern, as if it's something I earned or expected, "Alex, man, what are you doing?"
I don't have an answer for them. I just keep running, into new realities and universes.
Maybe that's what I'm running from. Them. The question they all ask, that I never answer because I don't know what it is. I'm making things. I'm looking. I'm desperate. What for? Why? I don't know, I never know, but if there's one thing I believe it's that there's an answer- not always a reason, not always something understandable, but always an answer- somewhere out there. Whether it's in this reality, or the one I hailed from, or one a hundred jumps down the line, I'll find it.
Except… I'm starting to think it doesn't exist. It's been so long, and I'm tired of running, of finding the same answer in every new place I look, no matter how fast I run from it. No matter how fast I keep running towards that horizon line, where there's nothing but unknown on the other side, I only find the answer I already know and have continuously refused to accept.
Maybe it's time to stop running. Grow up. Accept that there are some things you simply have to accept about life, about your circumstances, no matter how unfair or awful. Realize the same thing everyone else seems to have always taken for granted.
I think it'd be nice to stop running. I've been running for five years, and I was ready to do it forever, because it used to be running TO something. Used to mean something, this endless search. Now it's just… escape. And I keep needing it sooner and sooner, until soon I won't have a chance to ever stop even long enough to catch my breath.
Better stop while I still can, then. It's hard to not think of it as giving up… but I don't think there's anything wrong with that, when the search is neverending anyways.
I keep running from things, in search of things. I think it'll be nice to remember what it's like to stand still and look at what's already there.

@cue-nervous-humming

Loosely related to the last prompt:

The Worst Days

The worst days are when I realize
I'm not angry at the world,
Not upset at my circumstances,
But with me
I who choose to accept my situation
I who let go of sparkling dreams because they took too much effort to nurture
I who gave up.

The worst days are when I realize
I am fighting myself for my happiness
A perfect carbon copy that can point to every weakness
Poke and prod and hit
Because I need to feel something,
If not motivation, then desperation
If not passion, then agression
I somehow I stopped living so now I drive myself to survive
Clash with the forces of self-critique and guilt every day
Trip over the traps insecurities built for me
Fall into holes of anxiety and worry

The worst days are when I realize
I win either way,
Or should I say,
Lose either way,
Every day I grit my teeth because my pride won't let me call for help
And every day shudder in anticipation to more blows to my ego
Look, it makes me so angry that taking a break
Means giving in, that self care
Has just become the last balance to all of these bad habits
As if
Taking a shower will make up for my messy room
As if
Reading a book will make up for my broken reality
As if
The fact I'm fooling everyone just because I function outside my room is a victory
I keep telling myself it's a victory
But I'm not sure I even want to be winning

The worst days are when
I'm not even sure I want to win anymore