Apparently the dreaded Real Life hit everyone hard, so we only have two entries for this writing contest, but they're good ones.
Voting will last seven days, ending on October 15th.
Entry #1
Entry #2
Voting will last seven days, ending on October 15th.
Entry #1
- Spoiler:
- Last night had been just like any other for the seventeen year old girl. House hold chores, a slight argument with the parents, a typical thing that you might see on the reality television shows. The last thing that Ember Wave remembered was wishing that she didn’t have to go to school the next day. That her father was home more often. All of the little things that she didn't like about her life, she ending up listing and going over in her head. Lying there, starting at the ceiling, hoping and dreaming, until she finally drifted off.
Waking up early this morning around 5am, just as she did every other, she would realize that she wasn’t in her bedroom. Don’t get her wrong, it was the same wallpaper and laid out just the same. However, she realized that she was in a totally different bed. This bed appeared to be made out of solid oak, covered in soft white sheets. Her bed was metal, an old bunk-bed, with black sheets. All of these things coming together in her mind, Ember would sit straight up in her bed, eyes wide, her short blonde hair everywhere. She actually had a bedside table now, plush carpet and a vanity table that was organized.
Okay, Ember, it’s just a dream, she told herself. Giving her arm a quick pinch she would indeed see that this wasn’t a dream it was a different reality. One where she woke up with what seemed to be riches by the looks of her so called new room. Pulling off the covers, she would walk over to the closet door, opening it wide. A walk in closet lined with dresses of all colors, silk, satin, long and short. Pristine tops and brand new jeans. What ever happened to her dresser with faded jeans and t-shirts. It was official. The girl was beginning to get a head ache.
Well, what else to do besides get dressed. Sucking up her fear, she would pull a light green shirt and khakis from the hangers. Sighing and brushing her teeth after dressing herself, Ember would wish desperately for her Nirvana t-shirt and skinny jeans. Instead she was stuck in such… proper clothing. She made a disgusted sound before rinsing her mouth and rolling her eyes. Walking back out into the room, she would find that the one thing that still remained on the bed side table was her actual cell-phone. The girl smiled before walking over and picking it up. Her playlist was there… but her contacts weren’t. Sure, there were numbers on the list, but the names she didn’t realize at all.
And now it was time to walk out of the door. Not only had her room transformed, but so had the entire house. Sense when did she have stairs in her house? Hearing the sounds of what could only be the morning news, she would take a look around what was the first floor. Standard living room and kitchen, as well as dinning room, but with pristine furnishings. Was the universe really messing with her like this? A woman was in the kitchen cooking. Turning around, she would give Ember a bright smile.
“Morning, darling,” the woman would say.
“Uh.. good morning,” Ember would respond.
“Are you not going to give your mother a hug?”
The last comment made the girl freeze. Mother? Her mom had died in a car accident when she was 5. Her father…. “Where’s dad?”
“Why down at the office, of course.”
“Lady… um, mom… Dad works… dad’s never had a office at his job.”
The woman walked over, putting a hand to Ember’s face. “Honey, are you feeling okay?”
Flinching away from the woman touch, she would respond: “Yeah, fine.”
“Well, the bus will be here in 5. Better go ahead and-“
“Yeah, I’ll just… walk to the end of the drive.” And with that, Ember was out of the house. Her intentions was not to go to school, but instead take off down the street. And that is exactly what she did. It was autumn, leaving a chill in the air and goosebumps on the girls arm. Quickly walking, she would find herself bump into something. Not a hard something, like a tree or a telephone pole, but looking up to find herself staring into the face of a man just shy of six feet tall. Poorly dressed and his face covered in what could be identified as dirt, it was clear that the man was homeless.
“You should have been happy,” the man grumbled.
“Excuse me,” Ember replied.
“Your life, miss. You should have been happy with it. Take what you get and turn it into something beautiful next time. Don’t wish for what you don’t have,” and with that, he began to walk away.
“What are you talking about,” she yelled at him.
“It’s a continuos cycle,” he called back. “You already had the world, Ember. You can never go back to the way things used to be!”
And then the realization came weighing down on her shoulders. The universe was playing her, and she was in checkmate. The man had came to her in order to be a sign. A message. A message that she had been sucked into a continues vortex of living this strange life over and over again. What kind of crap was this?
Your new life, the wind seemed to answer. This time, be happy.
Entry #2
- Spoiler:
- Well, I guess I died. I mean, I have to figure that's what happened. Everything is now a little fuzzy, so let's see if I can recap to how I got here, and where I am now. I would like to say that I died doing something brave, noble, or even at least “Hey, hold my beer” worthy, but it was nothing nearly as interesting. Sadly, I don't even know what happened. I mean, after all, it took me a while to realize I was dead, didn't it?
Okay, not nothing. Have you ever been somewhere and then instantly been somewhere else? I ended up in this large room with a black guy in an expensive as heck suit. Really snazzy. He liked compliments too, but kept telling me I needed to pay him for my ride across. Luckily, I guess someone from Camp, probably a sibling, put a drachma in my mouth. To be honest, that sudden appearance of a drachma on my tongue really threw me for a loop. That's when I started to figure out that I was mortal no longer.
The next clue was a little more obvious. Snazzy suit guy was apparently Charon, the boatman for the dead. Let me tell you, going down the elevator with him a dozen other ghostly people wasn't too bad, but when he switched from being snazzy suit guy to being your average looking dementor, that was freaky-deaky. On the plus side, being dead means no sea-sickness when you go across the river Styx, which is very depressing to look into. All sorts of lost dreams. I'm sure mine are in there too, but I didn't see them, I wasn't looking too hard. I was in a state of shocked numbness, where nothing really made sense.
Security was a pain. Seriously, it was worse than flying. I think the TSA took tips from these guys on how to make it more or less the most awful thing ever. Too bad no one is going to take my suggestions to change things. Oh well. It felt like three centuries before I ever made it past security, I was beginning to wonder if I ever would. I got really distracted by Cerebus a couple of times, man, I just wanted to play with the big fluffy dog. He could have been a great pet. If I had had a soccer ball to play fetch with, it would have been awesome. Apparently, though, there are specific rules about not playing with Cerebus when you're in the security lines. Or generally speaking dead. I hope Hades plays with the poor guy every once in an while. He looked like he needed a good tummy rub.
Sorry. That was a tangent. I get distracted, guess being dead doesn't cure ADHD. Where was I? Oh, right, well, eternity and a half after going through security...I ended up here. Standing here in front of three judges. Damn, these guys look scary. I am nervous as hell. Have you ever looked at someone and known they were judging you for every little thing? Know that uncomfortable feeling? It's about a gazillion times worse when you definitely know they are judging you, and that what they think will decide your fate forever. Like ever and ever. Eternity. Eternity is a very long time, even if you don't have ADHD. With ADHD? That's like eternity and a half. Or three quarters.
Well, okay, I'm a demigod, I've done some noble things in my life. Fought in the Battle of Camp Half-blood. Didn't die gloriously during it either. Still, I didn't exactly perform any great acts of heroism, and there were a few demigods who would almost definitely be alive still if I had been more talented and less afraid. If I had done better fighting in battle, and hadn't shirked out of one fight, afraid of the monsters and trying avoid the fighting. It wasn't my proudest moment.
Why aren't these guys talking? Don't they know how to talk? Should I talk? I don't know how to shut up once I start talking. I mean I could talk about how I always helped clean up my cabin, although that was more because of anal retentive than being a good person. I could talk about how I helped younger demigods....when I wasn't picking on them. Okay, so I could be a bit of a bully, but really who wasn't a bully? Especially to some of the lamer cabins. I mean, Hypnos? What a bunch of losers. Wait. No, I'm suppose to be focusing on the good things, right? So they won't focus on the bad things? Uggghhhhh, this silence is totally killing me.
“I AM NOT A BAD PERSON, OKAY?!” I finally yelled, unable to stand the silence any longer.
One of the three faceless judges made a noise, then moved his head a little. Had I just sealed my fate? Had I offended the faceless judge? A little brazen defiant part of me said “who cares” and “good”. The jerk side of me. I don't really know. Then with horror I realized that there was one thing in my life that could seal my judgement as a bad person. One thing that could ruin any chance for Elysium, or even the boring roaming fields of Asphodel.
It wasn’t really my fault, I rationalized. I had been rationalizing the guilt away or trying to block the memory for six years. Now everything came back as if I was there again, doing it all again. My journey to Camp Half-Blood had met a great deal of resistance. My mother didn’t know who my father was, Hephaestus, a god who had wooed her like no one else had before. When the monsters came, well, I didn’t know my own abilities, and I was panicking. It wasn’t my fault. A few chemicals here, a few chemicals there. I knew it would make a bomb, enough to cause a distraction and let me get out of the house and run. I didn’t know it would spark a wildfire that spread quickly, injuring over a hundred people and killing two. I was only twelve. I didn’t know.
It was amazing that even dead the guilt still physically hurt. I hadn’t been exactly breathing for a while now, so it didn’t catch my breath, but it did hurt. I stood transfixed, unable to really form words for a while. What could I say to save myself from that? Another memory hit me like a brick wall before I could say anything. A fire blazing through Camp Half-Blood from the forest, damaging the cabins and setting the volleyball nets on fire, and the feeling of both horror and glee. The time the Hephaestus cabin got half blown up because I was playing with chemicals again. The time I set my brother’s hair on fire and laughed for two weeks. Maybe I wasn’t as good of a person as I thought. Maybe I really was a horrible person.
“Judgement has been reached. You have not performed any great acts of heroism in your life, and you have performed acts of evil, acts which have harmed many people. To the Fields of Punishment for you.”
“NO!” I screamed, stepping forward to angrily lunge at the judge that spoke. I was pulled back by demonic guards, who slammed me hard into a wall and slapped manacles on me. Do ghosts have adrenal glands? Because I swear it made my heart beat...which I don’t have...jump twenty beats a minute. How does that work? Nevermind. Terror gripped me as tightly as the guards did, dragging me off to the Fields of Punishment. An eternity of hell for this? “I’M A GOOD PERSON!” I yelled in protest, but no one listened.
Fear can make everything important come strangely into focus. Because now I was even more focused on what was going on around me, even as I thrashed and tried to escape my bonds, as futile as that would be. I knew whatever was coming would be awful, because the first punishment I passed was run of three or four people covered in papercuts being rolled in salt and then into some sort of yellow juice that smelled rather citrusy. Was that a margarita of pain? What on earth had people done to deserve that?
The next punishment we passed wasn’t any better. A pool of chlorine much stronger than any regular swimming pool, and people who looked raw and chemical burned... I guess these were being punished for a more carnal reason, because the punishment looked like the name of a bad cocktail. Sex on the bleach.
Several more punishments were passed, each horrible in their own way. I was mortified beyond belief by the time we stopped, although now confused. It looked like a classroom. One chair with straps, which I soon found out were for me, as I was strapped down unable to move an inch. A power-point presentation popped up on the screen in front of me, and all I could think for several moments was “Hell has an orientation?” Then I read it.
Fire Safety For the Damned.
Duration: Eternity.
Well. That didn’t sound too bad at first. And then the lecture started, in my brain, encompassing every single thought I had except to finish this. A flat monotone voice, describing in great and boring detail how to not set things on fire. Fire examples included the wildfire that I and the injuries I had caused. I wanted to move so very badly, set. I tried to tap my fingers restlessly like I had my entire life, but I couldn't. I couldn't move. And the realization of just how horrible this punishment was hit me. I would surely be insane by the second hour, much less the day or century. The gods did not have mercy on my soul.