No prompts used.
Challenge: Comment “Challenge me” to today’s FFM Links post and challenge other writers with the following things: a one-line description of a small event that should happen in the story, the tense of the story (past, present or future) and a genre the challenged person cannot write in.
As of posting, I have received 7 challenges. I picked the first 4 challenges, which all were there in the morning when I woke up, and wrote a total of three stories as responses. I decided to add them to the same post to keep them from cluttering my post history.
The challenges I didn’t have the time to use are the following:
- Challenge from Francesco Sarti: A comet is late, past tense, not sci-fi.
- Challenge from gdeyke: A meteor strikes the earth, future tense, not science fiction.
- Challenge from MinneWinne: A homeless person succeeds, present tense, cannot be a rags to riches story.
There will be a carnival
Challenge from Damon L. Wakes: An octopus playing the bagpipes, future tense, not steampunk.
A carnival will come to our city in a week. They will advertise it by dropping bagpipes to the city. It will feel kind of… something-bad-ist, considering the way they will lean on the stereotype. But what will get everyone feeling something, whether it’s amusement, confusion or righteous anger, will come once their show starts.
Their drawcard will be an octopus. “A local octopus will finally return home”, they will say.
We will all see an octopus playing the bagpipes. How will it do that, considering it’s a sea-dweller and not a land-dweller?
…The police investigation will hopefully explain when an animal rights activist will raise hell for using outlawed magic.
An Hourglass
Challenge from Serenity Feueropal: A broken hour glass can still tell time, present tense, not science fiction.
This story is (probably) set after FFM 2023 18: A Quest for A Pegasus. Not sure about the timeline here.
Miakil looks at the horizon for a moment more before he turns to Scarlet. The half-demon sits still, her eyes trained on the pegasi and griffins flying around. That allows the dark artist to take a proper look at her — the hints of horns rising from under her fire-red hair, the ash-colored eyes that look human to anyone who has not met a demon before, the prim backwater-town-girl posture that is either a way to hide the fact that she can burn you to coal within seconds or ingrained to her growing up… And the hourglass pendant she always carries, its glass cracked and halves only together because of the magic it holds.
He has not been burned yet, so Miakil asks, “Do you mind a question?”
The ashen eyes go from serene to distrustful in a way that would make any mortal not ingrained in dark magic terrified of what is to come. “Just ask.”
“What’s that hourglass you have? I can sense magic from it.”
Scarlet smirks, takes the hourglass into her hand — showing off the predator-like claws that she has instead of nails on her fingers — and flips the hourglass. “It tells the time.”
“So, the magic is to keep it working despite the damage?” Miakil has a hunch he is correct, but the pride in Scarlet’s eyes makes him want to hear more.
Scarlet nods. “My first project of magic.” She puts the pendant back against her chest, the sand still falling down, and turns her eyes back to the horizon.
Miakil cannot help but be curious about the story behind it, but it is clear that the conversation is over. He might be a dark artist, but even he knows better than to irritate a demon when he can avoid it.
Maybe someday Scarlet will tell him more.
Bankruptcy, here we come!
Challenge from bunnythewriter: A cat and dog playing together as friends, past tense, not fantasy.
Challenge from Wearyrains: A wounded man wakes up completely healed from his injuries, but something else is off, past tense, not fantasy.
I could have sworn I had bled out, yet I could still hear noises… a dog barking, a cat meowing…
I opened my eyes. I was hooked up to some futuristic-looking machinery, looking at a cartoon of a dog and a cat playing around… in a friendly way, even. Huh.
I looked around. No one was in the room, but it was filled with monitors and more machinery. Even the monitors looked more expensive than any I had ever seen.
I was not injured at all anymore? But… that was a premium treatment option, one that I couldn’t ever afford even if I sold my kidneys…
…Wait. Oh no, don’t tell me…
The monitor playing the cartoon flipped to a familiar-looking logo. “Welcome to the Stevenson Hospital G2. You were moved here for treatment due to your preferred hospital having been bombed and the rest of the hospitals in your tier being full due to transfers and additional patients caused by the bombing.”
…well shit.
WindySilver 