First Round

[J.O.N ((Dragonwing))]

AWR Brawl
First Round

Welcome everyone to the first round of the Brawl. You will have until Friday, 10 June at 10am (AEST) to write your story and submit it to this thread. The story length should be between 500 - 3000 words. Your topic will be a simple one today. I want stories that delve into the dark parts of our minds. Stories that play at our emotions, especially the emotion of:

Fear

[Inkdrinker]

When you spoke to me for the first time I was terrified. People talk about butterflies fluttering around inside their stomach. I felt nothing so delicate—when I took your hand, rhinoceroses stampeded through my gut.

It had been a drab December, and January had so far continued the trend: days cold enough for frost, but never snow; a breeze just aggressive enough to get through my coat. It wasn’t the East Coast Cold I remembered from my kindergarten days, but this coast had other ways to oppress the spirit. There was no daylight in this part of the country, just miserable twilight followed by the long, tired dark.

I kept my vision pinned downward on the way to the library. The dull, grey sidewalk was interchangeable with the dull, grey sky anyway, each just as indistinguishable from the rest of the dull, grey scenery.

You were waiting on the corner, leaning faun-like on a streetlamp that was trapped-by-design in a futile struggle to bring some warmth into this godforsaken season. I didn’t recognize you at first, your knitted cap (worn low) and thick scarf (worn high) working in tandem to obscure your face. But your voice was unmistakable, and when you spoke, I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Hey,” you said, pulling down your scarf. “Don't I know you from somewhere?” Your words came out in frosty little clouds.

I blinked, started, stuttered, stammered, stopped. I always managed to screw up first impressions, too busy worrying about what to say instead of actually saying it. I couldn't even look you in the eye.

In contrast, you were the picture of composure, wearing your leather jacket, slightly green-tinged from age, like a knight would wear a suit of shining armor. You were head and shoulders above the rest, even when you were slouching. When you smiled at me I almost had a heart attack.

“Yeah,” I finally said. You were patient with me, I never told you how much I appreciated that. You didn’t interrupt or interject, you kept engaged, smiling at me while I stumbled over my words, as if I was reciting your favorite poem. “I did tech for Macbeth.”

Your eyes lit up and your smile widened and I melted a little more in your berth. My hands were all sticky with nervous sweat and I kept wiping them on my pant legs when I thought you weren't looking. You were looking, of course, but I didn't know that then. I didn't know anything about anything.

“Oh yeah,” you said, “of course! Milo, right? You ran the light-board.”

I nodded, drawing in a deep breath. I hadn’t expected you to remember my name. However, any warm feelings about that quickly faded away as my panicked mind began to wonder what else you might remember. Did you remember me forgetting my script, borrowing yours (because you were already word-perfect), and returning it covered in coffee stains? Did you remember when I got so nervous on opening night that I missed the cue to put you in the spotlight, leaving you to deliver the first half of your soliloquy in complete darkness?

Paralyzed by amok anxiety, I watched helplessly as civilizations rose and fell around us, untold eons passing in silence. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to say anything, you defibrillated the conversation yourself.

“You alright there? Your cheeks look kinda red.”

“Just cold,” I said. It was a white lie, and an obvious one at that. Sure, the wind was cutting through my coat and I was definitely shivering, but I couldn’t imagine feeling cold in that moment.

“Let’s go inside then,” you said, “I think there’s some volunteers serving hot chocolate today.”

I nodded without thinking. All the appointments and plans I had for the rest of the evening evaporated from my mind without notice.

You took my hand and lead me inside.

Hours later, a librarian found us, tucked away at a table in the biography section, five empty paper cups between us (three for you, two for me). She informed us the library had been closed for fifteen minutes and that we had to leave. So we did.

Every night since then, I’ve had the same dream.

Bent and broken, my body was skewered on the pinnacle of an obelisk of organic obsidian, it’s hadalpelagic skin dotted with beads of blood and oil. The night sky above (below?) me was bright and full, I could see all the stars in the universe. They swam together in circuitous patterns, lazily looping into new and bizarre constellations. I felt at peace.

The wind—a dark, hungry, howling thing—descended without warning. My clothes whipped against me, tearing and then falling away. The stars were disoriented, scrambling and stumbling over each other to try to get away. But the wind was swift and merciless, and one by one, the stars were extinguished. Satisfied, the wind died down and returned to nothingness, leaving me still and alone in a place without light.

The obelisk began to speak through me, using my collapsed lungs and my mangled vocal cords as its own. It told me of my mistakes and shortcomings, potential and pitfalls. As the wind had stripped me of my clothes, the obelisk stripped me of my pride. Eventually, I succumbed to sleep.

Whether alone in my bed or tangled up with you in yours, I invariably awake exhausted and shaking. It’s wearing me thin—the bags under my eyes, the stubble on my chin, the useless coffee on my breath—but it is a weight I can bear. If this is the price to be happy in the waking world, then I’ll pay it. I am more than willing to spend my nights tossing and turning in isolation if it means I can spend my days with you.

[Injin]

The darkness that accompanied the night greeted the awakening man as he awoke again, a pale face meeting the glamour of the moonlight. Many nights had been like this. The stirrings of dreams became the shock of reality the moment the nightmare became worse. Thoughts of weary excess, visions of his most pressing question would come to mind. He shook, not daring to go to the land of dreams once more.

Every night the same pattern repeated. Sleep. He’d dream of vistas far away, each dream having the same endlessly repeating result. Arousal from slumber and a cold sweat. The other side of the bed was not empty, yet, at the same time it might as well have been. No matter what awoke him, the thought of shaking his partner out of her sleep was unthinkable. She didn’t need to know what he felt, what he burnt inwardly about. Anguish should not be shared.

Anguish could not be shared. Looking over at the snoring form of the woman he married all those years ago, Henryk Petersen wondered what he was going to do now. She knew the bills were paid. She knew the kids’ college was taken care of. His wife’s knowledge of it all was seemingly complete. Magda didn’t know one thing, and that one thing sank the pit of Henryk’s stomach like a lead musket ball into flesh. Eviscerated from the inside, Henryk felt years of lies and deceit pile into his soul.
Deceit, not just from his dearest Magda, but also of himself.

“Hello Henryk” a voice called, reaching through the window, sinking through it without the slightest movement, “you remember our deal, don’t you?” the voice said, chuckling the barest amount possible, “Do I have to remind you every night what you owe?”

“No, I seem to do that for you” Henryk muttered, his voice kept near-silent, “why are you here again?”

“You owe me everything, Henryk. Your job. Wife. Kids. All of this is because of me, not because of anything you did”

“Go away” he said, louder, “you’ll make up Magda. And I don’t enjoy this nightly reminder”

“I’m only reminding you, Henryk. I’m only saying what you know and I know”

“Do I need to be reminded of it on a nightly basis? I can’t sleep like this”

The sound of chattering teeth. Shifts in the bed. A tired breath.

“What is it, Henry?” a sleepy voice called from beside him on the bed. Gone was the voice at the windowsill, replaced by the softer, more human voice of the woman whose eyes he adored.

“Maggie, its nothing. A bad memory. An old one”

“Henry, you need to sleep. I know you enjoy your late night ruminations, but if we’re going to catch our flight to-“

“I know Maggie, I know. I’ll be asleep soon. I’m fine”

“Are you having that dream again?”

The question echoed for what felt like an eternity. Blankly, Henryk turned to his beloved wife, his mouth opened for a moment before closing. A thought.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, during the flight”

A silence followed. Magda huffed slightly, turning back over and fluffing up the blanket, “Okay, Henry. We’ll talk about it in the morning. No funny ‘making me forget business’, okay? I’ll remember”

“I know, Maggie. I won’t do anything like that”

The room was quiet. Half a minute went by before a soft snoring resumed on Magda’s side of the bed. His face continued to face her, his hand reaching out to touch her.

“You lied” a voice said, the accusatory echo bouncing inside Henryk’s head, interrupting.

“What choice did I have? You know how she is”

“You’re getting her nervous, Henryk. Too much. She’s already noticed that you can’t sleep lately, but she has no idea why”

“I know that”

“Then why fight it? Why force her to guess what you are going to do next?”

“Because it is far better than telling her everything”

A thick, dull ringing in the ear. The darkness seemed to flutter for a moment, wet, long tendrils creeping down Henryk’s cheek as he said nothing else.

“Coward”

“I’ve admitted that much. You know that” Henryk said, coughing a bit as he slumped down into the bed. A crack of his back and a soft movement of his head punctured the silence. Dry.

The voice was silenced again, the air in the room reverberating as the fan whisked the air above him. Vibrating shapes, spinning around the same ceiling he’d been staring at almost every night for the last eighteen years.

“Tell her, Henryk. She deserves to know”

“She doesn’t need to know. No one does. I’ve dealt with this myself since-“

“I wouldn’t call it dealing” the voice said, Henryk’s own voice silent as it continued, “Without me, you wouldn’t even have-“

Anything. He wouldn’t have anything. He’d be dead.

“There. Easy, right?”

Empty air.

“What now?”

Even breaths turned the relative silence into a rhythm, a great stirring emerging from Henryk’s spine. He felt himself trembling, clutching at the covers of the bed. Eyes dilated. Breath staggered.

A field on the Russian Steppe. Formerly Ukrainian. Flashes of gunfire in the distance, the echo of sirens as jets blasted by overhead. They were almost to Kiev.

Uman. Uman was a lovely city. He’d been stationed there before, the small military base next to the green lake, one of the few ponds not having been emptied during the approach. It reminded him of his hometown, the air crisp and serene even in the midst of industry.

They were almost to Kiev. Resupply mission. Air transport was too unreliable at this stage, especially with the dogfights still taking place in the skies to the north. Too close.

They were too close. A flash of light. He felt the air first, as if completely ejected from the breaths of millions of people at once, decrepit and rotting. A taste of copper. Dust.

Fire. They were too close to Kiev. Chernobyl had been a feverish dream and this was a nightmare. His nightmare, theirs.

A body. The Humvee flips around in the air, but that same body, the one he’d fought with, trained with, and drank with, covering his in an effort to secure his life.
His younger brother.

The side of the bed was wet. Wiping his mouth, he turned to the window, finally, the burnt, shredded, and decayed body of his friend before him.

“You owe me everything and yet you never told her”

“I can’t. She wouldn’t understand”

“You owe her, too. Tell her. Tell her now”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning or the night that we fly back”

A hum. The fan above, circling gently, buzzed along the air before him. Soft, crinkled noises from his beloved once more interrupted his thoughts, the sweetest, oddest sounds coming from her. He was safe.

Laying back down into his bed, the bile at the back of his throat receded, the taste of the night’s dinner sinking down, down into his stomach once more.

“Promise?”

“No. I’ll try”

[J.O.N ((Dragonwing))]

Inkdrinker

Interesting and sweet story that touches on the fear of being around someone you are attracted to and the idea of screwing it all up. You do a good job of painting the protagonist as the love sick puppy they were and how they failed to deal with the emotions they felt when around their crush. It takes a really weird turn though at the end and I'm not sure it was necessary in anyway. If you were worried about sticking to the theme, than playing on their fear of screwing things up when around their crush would have sufficed. The obelisk dreams were just a unneeded distraction.

Injin

Right from the start you begin with repetition “The darkness that accompanied the night greeted the awakening man as he awoke again”. I'm sure you know this, but try and avoid something like this.

You have a interesting story here. I can see you wanted to go for a subtle kind of fear, a man who is scared of revealing a horrific truth to his loved one. However I don't really get a sense of concern for the main character or really anything because your plot seems rather bare bones. All we have at the conclusion of the story is that he should have died on some battlefield? But it's never explained why he owes his brother in arms anything he has. I can only assume he stole the dead man's identity or that the protagonist felt like he owed the dead man for saving him. But then it is never revealed what he had to do to pay him back. Like I said, you could have had a good story here, but it fails to actually deliver anything.

Rankings

1st Inkdrinker
2nd Injn