Scriptorium 2015 Summer Writing Competition - Final Voting

[Sir Adrian]

Here are the submissions that made it to the final round. Please vote for your favorite one.

Also, please bear in mind that anonymity is still required here. Authors of any works below may not declare what submission may be theirs, or in any other way ruin the anonymity of theirs or another member's submission. Those found to be doing so here or anywhere else will be punished with extreme prejudice by our resident sith lords, knights and ice creatures, and rightly so. The same rules apply to other members as well. Authors may vote for their own entry if they wish.

The thread is for discussion of the articles at hand and voting, NOTHING ELSE.


Polls last until September the 30th

[Sir Adrian]

Entry 01 - Theseus

Theseus "Are you sure about this?" Less a question than an accusation. No. "Yes." "Aren't you afraid?" Less a question than an accusation. Yes. "No." "Systems are booted. It's time." This time a statement that feels like a question. The machine hums expectantly. I stroke a finger across the paneling. Warm. Not a great sign. It's going to be a long night, and overheating is the least of my concerns. I walk to the interface. The controls are rudimentary, but the machine is fairly basic. All it really needed was an on/off switch. The hardware was easy. A tank of primordial soup, with a few generous pinches of biogens to ease the transition, a handful of photoelectric spark lights pulled right off the shelf. Barely any modifications beyond what I could pick up at the store. It's the software that took decades. Thank goodness I didn't need to write the code, though. The software is beyond human comprehension. A billion years of evolution took care of that part for me. I throw the switch. The machine hisses at me. It's angry. I think it knows better. I adjust the power surge and obediently it calms itself back to a purr. The spider arms carrying the spark lights put Terpsichore to shame as they dip into the pool and stir the fluid into rivulets. Each spark light flashes brighter than lightning, with a pop to shatter an eardrum. My assistant is hiding beneath a protective mask. I savor each and every assault on my senses, the staccato bursts speaking an unheard language. Pain is fleeting. Pain is fleeting, and now, so is death. So is misery. She begins to take form. First a wisp in the pit, then an outline. Next, a silhouette. A shadow growing paradoxically as the lights grow brighter. Each flash of light polymerizes a new molecule, a vesicle full of neurotransmitter, a glycoprotein anchor, a cell full of functioning pieces and parts. A body is growing. Her body is growing. It won't be her, he said. It can't be her. It must be her. Every enzyme, every muscle fiber. Every hair. The sweeping curve of her cheeks. The crooked smile that sneaks out when she smells daisies. The tank fills with foam as the arms swirl about. I was never able to solve the foaming issue. An air pocket here and there shouldn't be a problem. We can correct that after the procedure. And if we can't - we'll just run it again. Eighteen hours have passed. I haven't moved from the controls. The half-composed flesh and bones in the tank would be a hideous sight to an untrained eye. Gristle and guts and byproducts of a killer, not a restorer. These are not trophies of death. These are not remains. These are redemption. A second-chance. A vessel to carry something that never should have been lost. Eighteen more hours. Or maybe it's been eight-hundred? I have powered down my assistant. If it weren't his directive to follow, he would have left a long time ago. His opposition was good. It hardened me to my task, but I do not need distractions now. We are nearly there. The body has been sealed off, hiding the precious organs within. She is missing only a few hairs, which lengthen even as I watch. She is exactly as I remember her. I would call her even more perfect, if I didn't design the machine. She is exactly as she was. DNA is an infallible code. The hardware would not permit otherwise. She will not be her, he said. She will look like her, but she will not be her. DNA will rebuild her body. The scans will rebuild her brain. Every synapse, every cross-link, every thought and memory is nothing but a code. She will be as she was the moment she died. Memory is not a code. You cannot program experience. You cannot program love! Funny words from a robot. I would have dismantled him then and there if anyone else would help. I am alone. Part of me wishes my only companion could witness our reunion, but this is a moment for me and her. I will not be alone anymore. The machine hisses at me. It is angry again. I toggle the power and the arms drift to sleep. The photo nodes fall silent. The foam roils, bubbles, simmers, dissolves away. There. There she is. Exactly as I remember. She is perfect. Far more perfect than I could have imagined. I climb into the pool. My legs have grown useless during my reverie, but I am weightless in the fluid. My blinded eyes see clearly. My shattered ears hear the songs we sang when we were young. I feel the ache seep from my body, and the doom seep from my heart. I grasp her, feeling her skin for the first time all over again. One arm around her waist, one cradling her head. I have never stopped loving her. A deep, cleansing breath escapes our lips as we break the surface. She opens her eyes. It is I that is reborn. I stare deep. I feel love. The same love I have always felt. She stares back, but says nothing. She feels it too. I know she feels it too. Eight-hundred hours pass, and I falter. "Darling?" I ask.

Entry 02 - The return

The Return Seven long years away from home. It had seemed longer. He had left with nothing. A mere child, spirited away from the only home he had known, the only people he had known. Seven years. Every night for seven years he had dreamt of what had been left behind, of the life that had once been his. Every morning for seven years he had risen in the vain hope that somehow it had all just been a dream, a cursed dream from a young mind. The truth was often too painful for him to dwell on that which had been. Yet that pain was what had kept him alive, driven him forward when all others would have given up. Seven years he had grown in a land that was not his, letting it mould him in to a man. “Now I am home,” he whispered, hardly believing it to be true. If the words had been muttered any louder, Smarv feared that the sight before him would have shattered. If the gods had heard him, they would have taken it upon themselves to rip away everything before him and leave him ruined. The sea was calm, a well-received gift. The sun was alone in the sky, with nothing by a flock of gulls for company. Yet the birds were more interested in circling the mainmasts than in ascending to the deep sky. A score of warships cut through the water, oars raising and dipping in a wave out of sync with the ocean all around them. Trained sailors heaved with every movement, working in near-silent professionalism. Above their heads flags swayed in the gentle breeze, bearing the proud heraldry of a half-hundred clans from Flendria. The banners were as colourful as the sails of the warships, deep reds and oranges rivaling the sun itself in their warmth, greens as varied as the clans themselves and the violet which looked more skin than cloth. Blue and white designs adorned the sails as well as the flags, uniting the clans in at least tradition if nothing else. The lands of Flendria had become a second home for him, for the boy who had had nothing. The vast continent had taken him in, provided him with everything a man could need. In return, he had fought for its people. Bled his very essence for them. A hundred allies had been made there, some becoming close friends while others were only bound by their oaths. Yet each had provided men and money, no small thing for the clansmen of the hills and valleys beyond the domain of the city-states. Many had been relieved at the news that he was finally returning home. “At least it is a good day.” Halrof was no small man, even if he was still a youth. The stress of being at sea for the first time had driven him in to a foul mood, merely amplified by those around him. He did not like to show any sign of weakness, a trait hard-learned from service to his chieftain and father. “If all goes according to plan, then it will only get better.” Most of his newfound allies had only looked at the debt they needed to repay. Smarv’s struggle was not theirs. Their responsibility was to their people, first and foremost. A foreigner’s doomed quest was of no interest to them. Yet, Smarv was thankful of the few who truly wished for success. Those like Halrof, who now wished for nothing more than to right a great wrong. To those few, such a mission was worth their own lives. Such honour had allowed Smarv to cast his eyes forward, towards the future. With such men at his side, how could defeat be possible? “I still do not know how you can claim that those rocks offer any protection.” Maytus’ Grasp. Was there a name which could have been more fitting? The young man was hard-pressed to think of one. The five islands were fingers of blackened rock, reaching out for the god’s distant mother. While from the direction they were approaching the islands, none of Smarv’s small army could see the harbors and fortifications built to join the five solitary juts of land together. However every man knew of their existence, and of the danger the garrison could wreck. They had been warned of the fighting which would result from their unannounced presence. “Not the rocks themselves, my friend. Though we must rely on their weaknesses for swift victory.” Accepting the king’s words, Halrof made his leave. Turning away from Smarv, the young chieftain began to bellow orders at his men, roaring in the thick Flendrian dialect which he had known all of his life. Leaving the clansman to his business, the young, throneless ruler fixated upon the distant mounds of rock and timber and stone. “Your Most Honourable, we will be upon the islands before sunset.” The ship’s captain was a stocky man, a thick mane of blonde hair framing a square face. Like most Flendrians, Abelard had not been sentimental enough to name his ship. As it was merely loaned to him from the military dockyards of Repluem, the lowlander had not thought that he needed to give the ship a name. However, with a toothy grin, he had accepted the suggestion of Honour’s Steed as a suitable title. “Thank you, Abelard.” Smarv had been drawn to the man. There had been no debt needing to be repaid. No promises had been made to buy his service. No, Abelard had offered his services to the king, and the services of nearly half of the other ship captains who commanded his ships. “It is not too late to change the plan. We can take them on an even field. Our numbers would tell on the open waters.” They will not face us in the open. Despite being considered warships by the Flendrians, the vessels were little more than transports, and heavy laden at that. Their high flanks and ponderous movements would be ill-suited to the narrow straits around the Grasp. A disadvantage both Smarv and the enemy would be well aware of. “It was too late when we left the port, my friend. Iovus has not let me down yet, nor shall he do so now. Have the others make ready.” The captain nodded, striding away after he had accepted the king’s final decision. He had a hundred duties to carry out before the ship was ready for battle, and they needed his entire attention. One mistake could prove fatal, and that was something neither Smarv nor Abelard could accept. Looking past Maytus’ Grasp, the young man took in a deep breath. The salt cleansed his body, casting away the dark thoughts in his mind. Home. Off in the distance somewhere was a thing strip of land which was his homeland. A grey scar between sea and sky, it did not glow as he had expected it to. He had dreamed of something more. Pushing himself away from the prow, the young man turned and made his way back to his cabin. As full as the ship was, Smarv had little need to weave his way across the swaying deck. Those who had a spare second dipped their head in the vague direction of their liege as he passed. As he passed the Flendrian chieftain, Halrof offered the exiled king one of his well-used phrases. It had been muttered and whispered and roared so many times that Smarv said it with his ally. “This had better be worth it. I expect the women to be as wanton as they are beautiful!” Those within earshot who had the time and energy to give up a ragged cheer. “I am certain that you will discover that for yourself,” went the reply. Laughter, half forced half genuine, sounded for a few moments before the men’s attention was drawn back to more pressing concerns. Blades were sharpened to an unmatched edge and armour was stitched with practiced hands. Food was handed out between friends, each many grimacing at the poor quality they were still not used to receiving. However they did not complain loud enough for Smarv to hear, so he put it from his mind. The cabin was a small affair, only large enough to house a bed and a small chest. However, it kept out the worst of the salt spray and that was good enough for Smarv. The alternative had been a hammock drawn between posts down in the dark hold. At least here there is some light. Casting aside his heavy cloak, the youth worked at his shoulders. Glancing around him, Smarv tried to find something to do. His feet took him to one side of bed, before turning and leading him to the other. Settling on the lumpy mass, the king tried to rest, closing his eyes in a false imitation of sleep. There he lay, listening to the world outside, trying in vain to drift off in to sleep. “Your Most Honourable?” The voice was not accompanied by a rap upon the weak door. However that gruff noise needed nothing to help express the urgency. Smarv called Icarus in as he accepted the futility of sleep and opened his eyes. The man entered at once, pausing only long enough to offer his king a deep bow. “Your Most Honourable, Abelard says that it is time.” Before the youth could rise from his bed, the man was already diving in to the royal’s chest. Pulling out his liege's well-wrapped armour, Icarus examined each piece with an expert eye before laying it out on to the simple bed. It was done in silence, a ritual older than the kingdom which Smarv was destined to rule. Although Smarv could hear the oars dipping in and out of the ocean, and scores of burly men moving to-and-fro throughout the ship, his attention was focused solely on the equipment laid out on his recently-vacated bed. Stripping, the king raised his arms out to each side. At a barked command from Icarus, two servants entered carrying towels and deep bowls. One bowl held steaming water, the other a rich oil. “Welntos, King of Gods, your servants call upon you once more. We beg forgiveness for the weakness before your all-bearing sight. Of ice you formed our souls and of rock our will. That we fall is not to spite you, but to honour you with our spilled essence.” The two servants worked quickly as Icarus spoke, first using soaked towels to clean Smarv’s body. Then, with practiced hands, they lathered the oil over their liege. Massaging as they went, the two servants covered Smarv in the gleaming liquid. Using the dry towels and frantic movements, they dabbed off the worst of the shine. “Lend me your voice, great Welntos, and that of your sister-wife’s son Epartos to speak to souls of the metal.” Now Icarus approached Smarv, aiding the two servants in dressing their king. First went a knee-length robe of cloth, bound tightly by a broad rope around his stomach. Then the leather armour Smarv had worn during the bloody skirmishes across the countryside of Flendria. It was supple leather, able to bend but nigh impossible for a man to tear. Aside from filling out his chest and hiding his shoulders, a skirt of leather strips, strengthened by oil and bronze studs, offered a little protection to his near-naked thighs. “Spirits, we beseech you for your aid. Lend your strength to the armour of one of your own. Protect him as you would your own son. Defend your king, your protector, your champion.” As each piece of armour was fitted, Icarus muttered a different prayer, a different request to the souls of the men who had found their final resting place while wearing the armour. Greaves were held in place by a dozen knots. His vambraces ended in the sharp claws of a Flendrian big cat the king had once slain. Then went on the cuirass, the bronze held in place both with knots and by attaching to the leather underneath and at the shoulder guards. When he was finally clad in his armour, Smarv bowed to Icarus and the servants for their service. However they were not finished, and the king had to allow the servants to approach him again with their oil. Icarus had fallen silent, having retrieved his liege’s helmet and sword. Waiting patiently for the bronze to once more gleam in the weak light of the cabin, Icarus remained motionless. “After the battle, seek me out. You will be both honoured at the victory feast.” The servants, older men from the courts of the Flendrian city-states, thanked the young king with a deep bow and muttered gratitude. They were the first to exit the cabin, fleeing back to whatever dark corner Abelard had earmarked for the non-combatants. “It is good to be home,” Smarv told his friend, leading him towards the prow of the vessel. “It would have been better under different circumstances,” replied Icarus, pausing to allow a clansman to get out of his way. No, the circumstances are just right. He was an exiled king returning come. He was the rightful king coming at the head of an army of warriors seeking vengeance. The people would see him and remember the stories they had been told as children. He had Welntos’ blessing. “The Grasp will be your victory,” Smarv told Abelard as the Flendrian turned to acknowledge the king. “Your name will be remembered by my people for years to come.” The captain accepted the honour with a toothy grin. However it quickly disappeared as he called the king forward. Casting his hand out towards the five islands, the man pointed towards a dark shadow shifting like smoke. Despite the short distances, Smarv needed a moment to focus his eyesight. “They are reacting as quickly as you and your men boasted, however they are gathering in the wrong place.” The king tried to spot the positions of the enemy, but without the aid of the sun, he could not tell for certain what his eyes saw. “Where would that be?” Iovus asked, as unused to naval actions as his younger liege. “Between the middle and fore fingers. They should be over by the index.” They should indeed. For a moment, Smarv did not know what to say. Licking cracked lips, he allowed a thousand thoughts to settle. "They think they have the strength to face us on the open sea?" The king raised his head up to the heavens. Thank you Welntos.

[Sir Adrian]

Entry 03 - Thus Spoke The Shark-Men

Thus Spoke the Shark-Men Thus Spoke the Shark-Men Part 1 The tall man with the shaved head strode onto the spotlit stage, greeted by vigorous applause, and he smiled up at the audience. It was a sincere smile, although it revealed teeth yellowed by too many cigars. His eyes were grey and intelligent, and he held himself with a swaggering confidence, but he spoke to the eager audience members in a soft and somewhat cracking voice, as if it were the first time he had spoken in days. His brother, sitting in the front row, rolled his eyes, as he noted the childlike excitement in his elder sibling’s face at being the centre of attention. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at either of them with so much admiration. He groaned inwardly, but listened to his brother speak: “In the past, the night sky was viewed as a painting, a backdrop. But now, in the year 3015, the night sky is no longer a painting. It is an open air vista of the local neighbourhood. Near-speed of light velocity travel (a product of superefficient constant acceleration technology) has allowed people to reach many of the closer star systems, up to around 50 lightyears away. My brother and I were the first people to reach Proxima Centauri, our closest star, four lightyears distant. But even now, so many years later, we have barely begun to explore our part of the Milky Way, let alone the wider universe. Anyone living on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri would, theoretically, be able to see earth’s sun, and (with a sufficiently advanced telescope) earth itself, but they would be literally looking into the past, seeing it as it was four years before. The stars visible from earth with the naked eye are anything up to 2500 lightyears away: this means that we see them in 3015 as they were when the Roman Empire was falling, and Mohammedan armies were sweeping across the Middle East, or when Genghis Khan razed Samarkand to the ground. Without telescopes, we can only see a small proportion of the stars in the Milky Way, and none at all outside it.” And so the man went on with his lecture, and at the end was greeted with applause. But the real reason everyone was there was not to hear a talk about their part in the history of space exploration. It was to hear about the men’s latest mission. But they were to be dissapointed. The brothers left swiftly, and, dodging reporters and news cameras outside, returned home, leaving the questions of a hundred people unanswered. The two men, Mads and Kamy, were twins, brought up in the small village of London, England. It had only 10 million inhabitants, and so the two had grown up in a near constant state of small town boredom, and since a young age had longed to travel, to see the solar system. They had never even been to Neptune until the age of 18, when their uncle, who ran a small hydroponics farm on the moon, had paid for the three-day journey as a birthday present. This uncle later committed suicide by stealing a small Toyota space-Corolla and careering into the sun. In earth years the men were now over 50 years old, although due to relativity, their frequent long-distance journeys meant that their bodies had not aged according to earth time: they had the bodies of vigorous young men of around 35. They were very close to each other, and lived in neighbouring mansions on the moon. They had no wives, due to their long absences, though they generally managed to acquire some gorgeous model or other on the rare occasions they returned to earth. But even so, they were past their prime, and despite their celebrity status, the money in interstellar exploration was poor: it was mostly the preserve of introverted scientists, or cult religions looking to find some out-of-the-way dwarf planet so they could practice rituals that they didn’t want the rest of the universe to know about. But Mads and Kamy, experienced veterans of interstellar travel, had now decided to volunteer for a mission of no return. A wormhole had been discovered that was likely to allow travel to star systems beyond the farthest reaches of what had been ventured before, millions of lightyears from earth, systems where an observer might see our sun as it was in the age of the dinosaurs. There was no way of knowing what was on the other side. And so, the time had come for a mission to end all missions. A mission which would transform the two men from B-list has-beens doomed to oblivion, into mythical heroes. There had been a major press conference the year before announcing the discovery of the wormhole, but nobody had yet stepped forward as volunteers to leap into the unknown. Mads and Kamy however were disillusioned with the universe, and they disliked their hedonistic lives, discovering like so many others that long months spent alone in a spacecraft hurtling through a pitch-dark vacuum is not a great asset to one’s emotional health or social skills. The two men indeed were borderline insane, not to say suicidal. They knew, despite the optimistic purring of the scientists who praised their bravery, that this would be a one-way trip. Besides, as the last few centuries had proven, the scientists were always wrong. Hilariously wrong. They had assured the public on several occasions that alien life was on the cusp of being discovered in some exciting goldilocks planet in the vicinity of the Sagittarius sector, but it never was. Mads’ favourite story was a colony of ‘space worms’ picked up by a probe on Europa, that on closer inspection turned out to be condoms left over from a Mars University frat hazing. It was a testimony to his loathing for scientists that a somewhat tasteless Youtube video edit of the 2998 C.E. Haley’s comet tragedy was prone to make Kamy laugh continuously for a whole hour on the more lonely stretches of interplanetary travel. And so the two maladjusted young men arrived in Kazakhstan to a polite welcome from a large but rather sedate crowd, considering the occasion. The spacecraft was a huge, whiteish-silver monster, like a fighter jet on steroids, faster than anything ever built before. A brief religious service was held: Christianity was now largely extinct, but nobody seemed to know what else would be appropriate for the sending off of the two men into the void. A priest from an obscure protestant denomination was procured, and it was he who, handing them a bible for their journey, recited, in a strong Glaswegian accent, the final reading before their launch, from the book of Revelation: ‘And saw I then a new sky, and a new earth, for the old world had Passed away, and there was no more sea.’ Part 2 Mads and Kamy, having journied for five years in earth time, approached the wormhole, and commenced preparations for entry. The outer shell of the spacecraft fell away as they drew near, leaving only a spherical graphene capsule. The hole itself was invisible, but it was marked on the digital interface which was spread over the cockpit view, and it distorted the light from the stars around it, so that their flickering twinkles were twisted into unnatural shapes, strings which seemed to converge and merge with one another, disappearing into nothingness. The men’s faces bore identical steely, but oddly content expressions, although one might have detected also in their eyes a glimmer of a primeval anxiety that must have belonged to Yuri Gagarin when he broke through the clouds, and saw the blue sky ‘gradually darken, become turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.’ The pair passed through the portal, and immediately the ship began to shake and heave, first slowly, then violently, sliding into huge arcs, moving from side to side as if seized by the hand of God, then it span like a ship in a whirlpool, and after what seemed like an eternity, it suddenly slammed hard as if into a brick wall, and there was a noise like the howling of a thousand wolves. Then all was quiet, and the ship moved forward, slowly, as if it were in a sea of syrup or treacle. But it was stable and undamaged. The men were blinded, or so it seemed, but they realised soon that there was a bright light dazzling them. Eventually, it faded, and the two sat in silence for several seconds. They had entered the wormhole, and were unharmed. But in front of the capsule they saw nothing but a great wall of blue. It stretched out in front of them in all directions, and seemed scarcely to end. It was not a uniform view, but one traversed by white lines and patches: it was a planet, covered in a vast ocean. There was no hesitation: Kamy opened the throttle and headed straight forwards. After a while, the waves and currents became visible, and not long afterwards the black sky above lightened into a brilliant blue as well. But the blue of the sky and the blue of the ocean were very different: the one a smooth pale cloudless expanse, the other a terrifying dark swell. It was not a stormy day, but still the planet was clearly larger than earth by several orders of magnitude, and thus the waves were as tall as skyscrapers. The spacecraft was tough, built to traverse a wormhole and supply the brothers with food and oxygen for years of interstellar travel, but nevertheless the wall of water caught them like a hand swatting a mosquito and plunged them into a watery world that amazed the two men. After some hours Mads said to Kamy: “What do we do now? Explore? There is nothing here but water.” It was the first words either of them had spoken in several days. Kamy frowned and dived deeper into the abyss. Suddenly a huge shadow appeared below them, which as they moved closer materialised into a long thread the thickness of an oak-tree log and the length of a whale. It had no head or tail, and was made of a strange gelatinous material, a transparent membrane containing what appeared to be a large fluid filled sac. Its structure was not dissimilar to that of an amoeba. “,” said Mads, “if that’s an amoeba then what are the fish here like?” Kamy cooly replied that drawing such a crude comparison between life on earth and that of an alien planet was pointless, and that anyhow if simple lifeforms could grow so big it probably meant there was no complex life around to feed on them. This theory was promptly proven the worst prediction in the history of biology, as a blade-like tentacle sliced the ameoba apart, narrowly missing their spacecraft, and then spiralled upward, as a huge animal the size of a jumbo jet swam down from above and consumed its prey, cutting it up into manageable chunks and then absorbing them into a vast mouth that took up most of its side. There was no sign of any eyes or legs, and so it seemed not to notice the spacecraft, but simply floated, digesting its meal. All in all it resembled a monstrous cylindrical clam or a headless cuttlefish. Kamy dove down deeper into the sea, fearful of more slicing tentacles, and it dawned on them both that they had come to a place where humans were like salmon fry hatching into a spawning ground where only 1% would escape the dozens of predators fighting each other for an easy meal. The two men careered through the deep, for the first time nervous. They knew it was only a matter of time until they ran into another monster. Shadows lurked beyond them, above them, beneath them, and they were tormented for many hours by unseen terrors. Every time they allowed themselves a flippant comment or a moment of calm, another amoeba appeared, not all identical to the first, and as they got deeper they came across many types, flashing blue, orange and green with bioluminescence, unlike anything on Earth. Soon, inevitably, one of the shadows rose up and showed itself. It was a leviathan, shaped like a tangle of seaweed, but each strand was covered in mouths, circular openings rimmed by dozens of luminous curved teeth. Each tooth was the size of a house. Even as the men watched, the beast rose above them and soared over them like a bank of storm clouds, to meet another monster, even larger, so large that the men could not easily make out its true shape. It was covered in what seemed to be rows of blinking eyes. Kamy took the ship down even deeper, and deeper still, until all was pitch dark except for the occasional flash of an amoeba. And then, with a thunderous crash, something siezed the craft and began to smash it off a hard surface like an otter trying to break open a shellfish. Warning alarms began to sound as the exterior of the craft buckled with the blows, though it did not break. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the thing stopped, and swam ahead of them. It was the worst thing either of them had ever seen: smaller than the previous titans, but shaped not dissimilar to a human, albeit with razor-sharp fins instead of hands, and a head like that of a shark, with one wrap-around eye. It turned and gave them a malevolant look, as if it were calculating a better way of extracting them from their shell. The oxygen generator had failed, and in their panicked state the men quickly began to gasp for air. The last thing Mads saw was the horrible faces of three more of the shark-men, who joined their comrade and slowly advanced on the ship. He then passed out. The original sharkman seemed to gesture to Kamy, and in his oxygen-starved state it seemed infinitely more horrible. It drew up in front of the cockpit view and smiled, baring a set of spiralling green teeth. Then it began to talk: “What are you! You are not of this world, you cannot survive. Go home. On your planet you worship gods, but look at their pictures: they are only men. You have seen that there are things here larger and more terrifying than any of your gods. Your gods are not gods. They are merely storytellers. One of them travelled here long ago, and saw things that shocked him to the core. And because he was shocked, he thought that we were a sign, a warning, infernal symbols of death and the hereafter. But we are but prey for monsters. Why dost though need heaven when here in your real universe there are infinite things that you cannot imagine? Your gods are false gods, deceivers. They have seen beasts with seven heads and ten horns, and upon their horns ten crowns, and upon their foreheads the name of blasphemy. But blasphemy is nothing more than censorship. The tricksters terrify you into serving them with stories of mighty beasts, but even the tricksters cannot imagine the truth, that even sharkmen are plankton for moonwhales, and our planet is a quark in the molecule of our galaxy, and our universe is an amoeba in the ocean of chaos. But go home now, for this one glimpse of the truth will redefine your whole species. One little spaceship will wipe away millenia of charlatanry and human-centric stupidity. For now you have seen the bottomless pit, now you have witnessed the dark abyss. Repent your sins, such as they are, and go home to Babylon. Tell those you find there that you have seen the sea of blood, and that you bring news of mysteries, of abominations, and of sharkmen. Go now.” Somehow, Kamy managed to direct the ship upwards, out of the ocean. He flew for many days, not venturing out of the oxygen rich atmosphere of the alien planet, and soon found a small island. He did not linger there, swiftly fixing the ship as best he could and jetting off back through the wormhole. The food generator was faulty and he knew it would barely last the journey to a habitable planet. The cameras on the ship had captured everything, but he did not dare watch the recording, and simply read the Bible to himself, aloud, without thinking or even processing the words. Part 3 A battered, discoloured orb crash-landed much later in a mining settlement on a large exoplanet orbiting Alpha Scorpii. The planet was terraformed, and so the man found alone by two young women was breathing, albeit in quick, shallow breaths. He said nothing, until they carried him back to their house on a rocky hill bathed in the supergiant sun’s cool red glare, and laid him on a clean bed to rest. After a while his eyes opened and his breathing slowed. He looked at the two women, and his tired eyes gazed on them with pity. He was holding the Bible to his chest, and hugged it tightly. He was close to death, but he found the strength to utter one final verse from the book he had been reading for the last 10 years: “Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them, and woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea: for the devil is come down unto you.”

Entry 04 - Stary, Stary Night

Stary, Stary Night Authors Note It is strongly suggested that readers listen to Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) by Don Mclean if they haven't already. Not only is it a great song but it also makes parts of the story make a lot more sense. AD 2107 Tom had always desperately wondered what colour the night sky really was. Was it simply black or was it such a deep, dark, intense shade of blue that it merely appeared black to our mortal eyes? Ever since he was a boy had he looked up and craved the answer to that question. Now, aged well into his sixties and leaning back on an old, creaky, wooden chair on an even older verandah that overlooked corn crop after corn crop until they morphed into the much, much older night sky, that question, and many more, contained within the young boy trapped in a corner of his mind, irked him. Blue or black, the young boy tugged at the neurons in his brain, blue or black, the trapped boy urged again, blue or black, a certain childish desperation, a certain childish eagerness, crept into the boy’s urgings, blue or black, blue or black, blue or black! “Shut up already.” The old man said, shaking his head free of the young boy, taking control once again. While the young boy only saw the colour of the night sky, the old man saw the stars, the big, fiery balls of gas, dropped upon the night sky like glitter sprinkled on sheet of paper by a child; at some points, applied liberally and without care, others, nearly devoid of glitter as the child realised they only had a little bit left in the container. “Starry, starry night,” Tom began, out of nowhere, “paint your palette blue and grey.” The pitch was off and the tempo faulty, but Tom didn't care. He didn't care about how bad his singing was, whether he kept in tempo or not, whether he hadn’t heard the song he was about to break out into for many years or that the song in question was over a century old. “Look out at a summer’s day,” he looked upwards to the night sky in all its poetic brilliance and just on cue “with eyes that know the darkness in my soul. Shadows on the hills,” Tom smiled as he paused for the next line, letting the music fill him up, “sketch the trees and the daffodils.” A gust of wind rustled a couple of corn crops, almost perfectly atmospherical. “Catch the breeze and the winter chills.” And then something up in the giant night sky, amongst the thousands of millions of stars, caught Tom’s eye. “In colours on the snowy linen land.” He trailed off at the end, focusing on one particular part of the sky. One particularly bright star appeared to dive bomb from the moon to the Earth in a blaze of light amongst all the other stars in such an awe-inspiring manner that most people would be left dumbstruck. Tom was left saddened and angry, as if someone had pulled his earphones out at the climax of the song. “Now I understand.” A higher, sweeter, more in tune voice came in. “What you tried to say to me.” The voice soared like an eagle above all other sounds, shattering Tom’s sadness. “And how you suffered for your sanity.” The owner of the voice danced her way over to old Tom in his old wooden chair. “And how you tried to set them free.” She lay her hands on his shoulders, soft they were, but strong and reassuring to the old man. “They would not listen, they did not know how.” She almost whispered into his ear. “Perhaps they’ll listen now. Starry, starry night.” “Emma.” Tom said, tired, the song having nearly lost its magic in but such a short amount of time. “Flaming flowers that brightly blaze.” Emma continued on regardless, pushing away from Tom. “Swirling clouds in violet haze.” She leaped around him, with the grace of a professional dancer. “Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue, colours changing hues.” “Emma.” Tom warned again. “Morning fields of amber grain.” She sang on regardless. “Weathered faces lined in pain.” Tom looked away at that line, abashed and embarrassed and Emma snuck in a laugh between the lyrics. “Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.” She leapt to the edge of the verandah and faced the endless rows of corn crops with defiance. “Now I understand.” She rode the ascent of the song higher and higher, as she musically screamed out into the plains of darkness and the night sky. “What you tried to say to me and how you suffered for your sanity.” She turned back to Tom, lowering her volume and slowing the tempo. “And how you tried to set them free. They could not listen they did not know how.” She shot her father with a smile. “Perhaps they’ll listen now.” And with a sudden change, she broke from the song, shattering the wall of illusion until only reality remained. “It goes on but I doubt you want to hear more of me singing.” “No one would ever want to hear you stop, my darling.” Tom said, with a typical fatherly charm. “Dad, it’s late.” She remarked, acknowledging his compliment with just a small smile. “It’s not even midnight." He said, an old man’s take on a typically child-used phrase. “Tomorrow’s a big day.” She reminded him; as if he needed reminding. She pulled one of the other wooden chairs over and sat next to him, clutching his old, leathery hands in hers. “Why can’t you just let me go?” Her voice faltered with sadness, sadness at her father’s sadness. “Your place is not up there, it’s down here.” He replied, with the type of strength only a father could muster. “Here, on solid ground.” She looked up, to the stars, to the fat, glowing moon with its pocked and imperfect surface, to the little lights which shone from it and the little stars-which-weren’t-stars that fell from the moon to the horizon. “Here, with me.” “Dad, please.” She begged. “I can’t leave without you hating me.” “Darling, I don’t hate you.” He said, pulling her closer. “I could never hate you, don’t ever think that.” “Then why can’t I go?” “I was a young, budding astronaut once, twenty one and adventurous.” He smiled in blissful remembrance. “It was dubbed the ‘space renaissance’. We were sending men up there every other day. Fuel was cheap and flights were fast and curiosity was high once again. Nearly a hundred years after Apollo 11, the next step in man’s interstellar dream was becoming a reality.” Emma listened on with curiosity; this was not a story she had heard her father recount before. “They were 25, 23, 24 and 41. Two young girls and one young man with their life ahead of them. A veteran of many space flights with still over half his life left. They were nearly 180,000 km from Earth, almost halfway to the moon. It lit up the night sky, Emma. For a few moments, there was bright, new star and then as quickly as it burst into existence it died. A star, we thought it was. A goddam, mother-ing star.” Tears welled in his eyes, his voice croaky, weak, hurt. “The star-which-wasn’t-a-star ended that ‘space renaissance’. And why shouldn’t it have. Four lives were cut short. And for what mother-ing reason?” He shouted. “What?” He yelled. “Dad, please.” “You are their age!” He tried to scream but his vocal chords failed him. “Their age! With the same hopeful dreams and youthful smiles.” Emma didn’t even try and wipe the tears from her face. “How can any father wish you well on that same trip?” “Did you know them?” Was all Emma could ask. “Did I have to? Did every single African-American person have to know Martin Luther King for his death to have an impact?” He looked up to the sky and the stars again. “Anyone who worked in the field, anyone who had ever had dreams of space, goddam, anyone who had ever looked up and wondered, felt it.” “Dad, please.” “Don’t. Do not ‘dad, please’ me.” He snapped back. “Do you want to die and leave me alone? Is that what you want?” “I don’t know!” Was all Emma could blurt out as she burst into tears. She pushed herself from her chair and walked towards one of the wooden posts that held the verandah up, hitting it with her fists. “I don’t know!” She wailed again. She slumped against the bottom of the post, her head in her knees, her fists red and close to bleeding. “Emma,” was all Tom could say, choking on the rest of his words, “Emma, my dear. Emma, please.” He got up slowly, what was once an easy affair now slowed by the sands of time. His joints barely cooperated with his wishes and getting up was a less than graceful affair. He walked slowly over to his distraught daughter. He slumped down beside her, ignoring the shots of pain which his knees sent to his brain. “I’m sorry.” He whispered as he hugged. “Emma, darling, I’m so sorry. I just can’t-” He repeated over and over again, never finishing the sentence. “Can’t what?” She said after the fifth or sixth time. “Can’t imagine it.” Was all he said but she knew. They both looked out towards the infinity of corn and the infinity of space beyond that. “Maybe I’m a bit jealous.” He admitted at last, after a lengthy silence. “Jealous that I was robbed of going up there.” “You still can." Emma said in an air of childish naïvety, as if she was but six again. “These old bones wouldn’t let me.” He chuckled. “Up there,” he pointed, “is humanity’s future. You’re humanity’s future.” He hugged her tighter. ‘But old me, I’m not. Someone’s got to man the fort down here anyway.” “I won’t end up like those 4.” She tried to reassure him. “I promise, I’ll come back.” “That’s if you want to come back, they say zero g is pretty addictive.” Her laugh was quiet but sweet to the ear and it seemed to purge the air of all malady. “I know.” He said, solemnly, when they had both stopped laughing. “I love you.” She said, cuddling up to him. “I love you too.” He squeezed. “You are so amazing. My little Emma, so beautiful and strong and smart. Your mother, she would be so proud.” “You think?” “I know.” He looked up at the night sky once again. “She’s up there, smiling down at us.” “Did she ever want to go up there?” Emma asked. She hadn’t known her mother for long before she had died in an accident. Emma was only five. “I don’t think so.” Tom answered, remembering his beautiful Lily, his wife of nearly thirty years. “She may not have been interested in astrophysics and which star was which but like every human I think she had a fundamental interest in up there nonetheless.” Emma smiled at that, she smiled at the precious few memories she still had of her mother, she smiled at the fact that her fact and her both looked up at almost the same night sky that Emma’s mother had. the same night sky which connected all of humanity through space and through time. “Now I think I know.” She started singing once again. “What you tried to say to me.” Her father joined in. “And how you suffered for your sanity and how you tried to set them free.” They turned to each other and then, one last time before she would leave, up to the night sky. “They would not listen, they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.”

[Flinn]

voted, best of luck to the finalists!

[Ngugi]

Voted

[Owlparrot3]

why cant i vote

[Maximinus Thrax]

why cant i vote

You need at least 25 posts in order to vote in polls.

[Ngugi]

When will the results be presented, or did I miss something?

[Copperknickers II]

They were supposed to be posted yesterday, but it seems someone forgot .

[Flinn]

someone seems to be anxious to get the results.. I've been there, ah it's stressing indeed

Don't worry in any case, even if it might take some more time to finish the reviews (in the end, everybody wants to read a good and honest review no?) it will be done soon and for sure an announcement will be posted (I'm gonna post in the Chat thread too).

I'm really looking forward myself to know who's the winner

[Maximinus Thrax]

As a matter of fact I've been told that there was a problem with the poll due to some site error, so the current results will be annulled and a second poll will be created just shortly. It looks like some of you guys will have to wait for another two weeks or so before they'll finally announce the results.

[Ngugi]

Yes, since they apperently intend to ban some bloke named Maximinus Thrax all his impact on the competition has to be erased. I respect that it take some additional time.

[Sir Adrian]

I just posted the results here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14722223. The editorial is late. This is entirely my fault and I take full responsibility.

[Copperknickers II]

I just posted the results here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14722223. The editorial is late. This is entirely my fault and I take full responsibility.

Firstly, thanks to everyone who organised the writing competition. And I empathise entirely with the first week of uni workload. :0 Doing this on top of studies is a big commitment and obviously studies come first. Thanks for releasing the results though, I look forward to reading the reviews.