.Org Mystery Writing Competition.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

I'm prob. in, if I can find the time.

[edyzmedieval]

I'm probably in, if I can get my laptop back....

[King Henry V]

Everyone, if you are good enough to enter this competition, please say so in the Flash of Inspiration thread. This is supposed to be where the stories are posted.
Thank you.

[Ludens]

In order to kick this competition of, I am posting an sample story. As AM I cannot participate. It is not true horror, as that never has been my thing, but it contains some of the elements of horror. The structure is borrowed (again) from The Shadow One.

Any comment will be appreciated, though preferably through PM.

Good luck to all participants!


Afterwards

  “Paul! Paul! Have you found him?”
  “No! And keep your voice down.”
  “Then where is he?”
  “I don’t know. All these bodies look alike. Are you sure the captain fell here?”
  “Yes! Can’t we make a light?”
  “For God’s sake, Michael, keep your voice down! Light’d make the other looters spot us and with these uniforms on, we’re dead! Are you absolutely sure he fell here?”
  “Yes!”

  The regiment loaded their guns, listening nervously to the rumbling noises of the battlefield. On the other side of the field, the enemy cavalry lined themselves up for a charge.
  “Okay you bunch of cowards, listen up! We’re going to give them two volleys, one when they are far away and one when they are up close. Now I know all of you have the courage of a sick rat, but if we hit them at point blank range they’ll bolt like rabbits. So you are going to stand here no matter what, and give them that second volley! And remember that if any of you does decide to run, I’ll personally remove his guts with my sword!”
  In the distance, the enemy horsemen were cantering towards the regiment.
  The captain waited a moment and then shouted “Raise your weapon!”
  Fifty harquebuses were pointed at the horsemen.
  “Fire!”
  The blow of the volley was deafening. Smoke obscured the vision of the approaching cavalry.
  In apparent silence that followed the blast the captain’s voice could be dimly heard. “Reload your weapon!”  

  “Paul! Paul! We’ll never find him! Let’s get out of here!”
  “Shut up. The bastard’s got all our money. I am not leaving without it.”
  Michael anxiously watched a group of torches approach. They were probably carried by a band of looters of the other army. “They’re coming closer! Let’s get out!”
  “Shut up! If you’re such a coward, why did you want to come with me?”

  The thundering of the hooves drowned out all other sounds. Michael felt his heart beat like mad. With sweaty hands he put a bullet into the barrel of his gun and stamped it down.
  “Raise your weapon!”
  The ground seemed to shake under the weight of the horses as they charged towards the regiment.
  “Fire!”
  Michael closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The harquebus did not fire. But those around him did. The whole first line of horsemen was blown of their horses. But the second line charged on. Michael turned, and ran.  

  “Paul! They’re getting really close! We should – What the hell are you doing?”
  “Searching for their purses. What do you think?”
  “But that’s stealing of dead men!”
  “Better than stealing of live men. If I can’t get my money, someone else’s will do.”

  Michael heard shouts behind him as he ran, still clutching his harquebus. He kept running, looking over his shoulder to see the entire regiment being scattered by the horsemen. Then he tripped over something and he hit the ground hard.  

  The torches were getting uncomfortably close. Soon, their light would give Michael’s and Paul’s presence away to the looters.
  “Paul! We don’t even know if the captain’s dead! He may just have been wounded and crawled away.”
  “You said you saw him die!”
  “No! I said I saw him fall!”
  “Damn! Why didn’t you say so before? Let’s get out of here fast.”

  When Michael regained consciousness, the cavalry had passed him by chasing the remains of the regiment. He stood up unsteadily and picked up his gun.
  “Michael! You poxed coward!”
  Michael whirled round to see the captain running towards, sword drawn. In a reflex, he pulled the trigger of his harquebus.  

  For the second time that day, Michael and Paul ran away from the other army. Michael only stopped running when he reached the edge of the forest. That day the trees had saved them both from the cavalry’s sabres, now it saved them from the looters knives. Michael paused a moment to regain his breath, but when he looked up he could not breathe. Right in front of him stood the captain, sword raised, a bloody hole gaping in the middle of his breastplate. Michael went rigid, unable to move.

  When the smoke from the gunshot cleared, the captain was lying on the ground, his chest a bloody mess. In his right hand, he still clutched the sword. From his throat came a gurgling sound as he tried to lift his left arm.
  Michael threw away his gun, and ran.  

  The captain did not blink. He just stood there. Michael’s heart was beating so fast that it felt like it was about to explode. He had to breathe, so he coughed, but still the captain remained motionless.
  Slowly, very slowly, Michael brought his hand up and touched the captain’s armour. It did not feel like metal at all. The image of the captain faded. In its place stood an old and gnarled tree. Only with a great deal of imagination could the outline of a man with a sword be made out.
  Michael took a deep breath, and waited until his heart rate went back to normal.
  “I think we are safe here.” He said.
  There was no answer.
  “Paul?”
  Something creaked.
  “Paul? Where are you?” Alarmed, Michael looked around.
  Behind him, the leaves rustled.
  Michael whirred around, but was too late. The last thing he felt was a blade thrust in his belly.
  ...
  ..
  .

[Aenarion]

Ok here's my story...hope u like it! ... total words is 554.
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Art Exhibition

It was a bright and sunny morning. I had just passed through the school entrance when I saw a long, tall stand in the middle of the main hall. It was an art exhibition. Seeing I had time till my first lesson, I gad a quick look at the artistic presentations. The pictures varied widely, from charcoal sketches to water painted landscapes. All were impressive.

At the end of the stand hung a single painting. All alone. All by itself. Away from the others. It was a creepy painting by … the label on the picture was torn off. All it consisted of was a dark blue background and an indescribable black figure with two small red eyes … I knew time was up; I had lessons all day long. So I headed off to the classroom.

Things happened that day. Strange things. Apart from the murky air around the school, everybody, even the teachers looked tired and unwilling to work. It must have been the Monday morning start, but it wasn’t like this on other Mondays. The same atmosphere kept on all throughout the day. During lunch break I went into the bathroom to wash my face, since I thought it must have been me who had woken up badly … to make things worse, there was no water in the taps.

Coming out of the bathroom I was shocked for a moment. Nobody was there ... In the corridors or outside….nowhere. I thought everybody was back at work., but the break had started just five minutes ago. Concerned, I checked the classes and they were empty. I was alone. Quickly I headed to my classroom and surprisingly enough I only found my bag there. As I ran down the stairs, the atmosphere around me seemed to thicken and darken and I thought I could hear whispering voices, talking a language I couldn’t understand.

As I walked across the main hall and past the stand in the centre, I froze…I looked around in horror. The figure in the creepy painting I had seen earlier that day had vanished. It wasn’t there. The background was untouched. Unharmed. As if the figure had never been painted. Shadows suddenly surrounded me. I turned away from the picture and ran out of the entrance…

Everything changed. Everything was bright and calm. It was a normal day. People off to their own duties. As I walked away from the school I wondered what was going on, but at least I was out. Out from what I thought were the gates of hell.

I stopped, closed my eyes and breathed in the fresh air ... relief flooded through me. I opened my eyes, blinked, and rubbed them with the backs of my hands ... no, it wasn't my eyes that were blurred., it was a thick mist a hundred yards ahead of me and which I had not noticed ... I looked left, it was there, to the right, it was there. The people I had noticed a few seconds ago had gone, disappeared into the mist. I looked behind, and it was fifty yards away ... I spun round ... it was closing in, in a darkening, thick mist, and was it imagination or were those black figures with small red eyes looming out of the darkness ...
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[Edited: Sry just noticed the spelling mistakes and grammar and added 2 paragraphs to it. Seeing no one had yet posted another story I just went in for it!]

Cheers,
Aenarion

[Beirut]

This is my first try at anything like this so please be forgiving. I hope you have some fun with it. Even though the AMs can't win, I felt like joining in.

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Here and there


The transition was gentle, like a touch on your body so soft you weren't sure you were touched at all. There was little to differentiate where he was, from where he is. Only hints, mild at first, flowing like foam, gave him any idea that anything was happening at all. Then, with a return to a conscious control of thought, the only sense he had, he realized he faced another age of darkness and oblivion. Fright and panic descended upon him again. It always did.

The great transition that led to this milder one was far more brutal and direct in intention. His car sped down the highway, he hit something, his body flew from the car, his head smashing through the windshield, absorbing glass and metal deep within his skull. Then nothing. Then pain. No sight, no sound, simply pain. Then nothingness again. Thought became everything, nothing else was there. He could not see, he could not hear, he could not move or feel anything. He could only think. This was what he became.

At first he was able to reason his reality. He had been in an accident, he remembered that. He remembered nothing else except the pain that overtook him then faded away as if it never existed at all. He thought he was in a hospital, but that was only a guess. He knew he was paralyzed, he knew he was blind, he knew he was deaf, he knew he could not move or feel anything, he knew nothing else. The only feeling he had was the uncontrollable movement of his bowels, but it was more of a light pulse in the void than anything else. Just feelings that came and passed and might never have happened. Aside from thinking, this echo from his insides, was the only hint he had that he was still alive.

Time passed, though he didn't know it. He lost all sense except of being in human darkness. The transitions, the soft one that came like a slow whisper and faded into dreams, and the one that ended in a whisper that turned to a roar of deafening panic, was all he had. To anyone else, falling asleep and waking up were normal, even happy things. For him, they were the descent from heaven to hell and back again. In sleep, though he never knew he was asleep, his mind wandered from nightmare to euphoria in an elaborate play of light and shadow, of sound and fury. While awake, thoughts that grew emptier, falling lower and lower, were all he consisted of. The days of hope and imagination were gone. Now were the days of madness and despair, loneliness and endless futility.

Sleep was his only escape. He tried to sleep on purpose. Like a man clenching his teeth, fighting the pain, he urged his powers of self-control to fall away and let him back into blissful sleep. But he had no teeth nor could he control the muscles that moved the bones in order to clench them. His mind pushed against the walls of itself trying harder and harder to break through into unconsciousness. The only achievement was the despair of knowing that he was still imprisoned awake. Sleep came only by chance and only when it pleased. It started without warning, lasted forever, then, in the worst moment of his life, ended, softly, almost sweetly, turning from muse to madness as conscious thought tore through what was left of his body. The cold untouchable numbness that started behind his eyes and ran endlessly for miles to somewhere in another lifetime where his hands and feet were able to move was the breadth of his life.

As time grew on him, the moments of transition gave way to something more terrifying - The ending of all transitions. There was no more bliss in the loss of self-awareness, no more panic in the realization that he was awake. Now there was just a blur, a cloud of self-doubt that hovered inside his mind like an invisible fly. He no longer knew if he was asleep or awake. Whether he was controlling his thoughts or merely experiencing them was not clear. He could not decide if the ever fainter ripples from within him were his organs working as blindly as he existed, or part of a dream that he wasn't’t even sure he was in.

He floated in a void that had no bearing. Thoughts that could pass in seconds lasted forever. Seconds became weeks, weeks became years, and years were only seconds. Time flowed backward and forward without consideration of him. He was a wave upon a non-existent pond, coming from nowhere and returning nowhere. There was not even madness anymore, no terror, no panic; just a weak awareness that he was he and nothing was everything. Whether it was sleep or death, who could tell. Like a man in the final moments of a drug overdose, life and death melded like salt into water, inseparable, an everlasting moment frozen in time with no meaning other than itself. Perfect neutrality between nothing and less.

In a moment, a concussion wrecked itself upon him, tearing him from his blinded and paralyzed void. A shock larger than life broke him into pieces. Coldness, the first feeling he had in ages swam through him. Wetness bathed his body. Furious sound shattered his eardrums. Pain like thin hot steel cut into his mind. His eyelids blinked open, scratching across shards of glass embedded in his eyes. Light burned into his vision, refracting into strange colourful shapes, dancing like needlepoints of fire across all he saw.

Before losing consciousness and descending into a blind and deaf stupor, his neck and back snapped in a dozen places, the last sight he had was of his car, fifty feet away, smoldering, crushed, the windshield gone. He sank into an oblivion of nothingness. A hole he could never climb out of, where sleeping and waking in utter darkness and immovable silence would be his only companions. Seconds had seemed like years. Now years would seem like eternity.

[Ludens]

Cowhead418 sent in this story for the competition. Enjoy!

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Grand Prince Olaf slowly walked down the long, winding corridors of the local prison. He was unsure of how or why he was in this unfortunate place of lost souls but there was some sort of force emanating from the end of the corridor that attracted his senses. As he passed several closed doors he heard screeches of extreme pain.

As the sounds grew more intense, feelings of dread and horror began to fill Olaf. “They’re being tortured!” he thought out loud as realization hit. Overwhelmed by his fears, Olaf turned and attempted to flee. The Russian monarch, however, was unable to escape the pull of the mysterious energy at the end of the hallway. The harder he pushed against this force the stronger its hold on him became. As Olaf turned helplessly around he suddenly became aware of a constant droning and the sound of grinding metal. Before he could discover the source, a door behind him slammed shut.

A dark figure draped in a black cloak that covered its face appeared to Olaf’s right and simply pointed with its disfigured hand toward the middle of the dungeon room. Hanging down from the ceiling was a contraption with a glass box situated on a wooden plank with two holes wide enough to allow an arm to squeeze through. Directly between these holes was a plastic vial filled with green, bubbly liquid. Suddenly Olaf’s body started to convulse wildly out of control. Olaf’s shrieks of terror mixed with the evil laugh of the cloaked figure.

Yuri woke up with a jolt. He was sweating up a storm and his blood pressure had risen significantly. After a few seconds of fleeting fear, Yuri climbed out of his massive, four-poster bed and walked quietly down to the castle courtyard. Finding himself a comfortable bench, Yuri lay there for a few minutes gazing at the clear, night sky before falling into a light, dreamless sleep.

The young prince was awakened from his slumber by the sounds of trumpets. As Yuri rubbed his sore eyes he was startled by a royal messenger tapping him roughly on his shoulder.

“Sire! I bring terrible news! Your father and brothers are dead! Murdered by some assassin that slipped past our sentries during the night!”

Yuri was third in line to the Russian throne. His father Olaf was the Grand Prince and he had two older brothers, Prince Ivan and Prince Yerik. Shocked, Yuri broke into a sprint and burst into the bedroom of his father. There was no sign of a body but a trail of blood flowed from the middle of the mattress and stopped at the base of the window facing the east. Examinations of the bedrooms of the two Princes produced the same results.

Unable to comprehend the situation, Yuri slipped into his own room for some privacy. What he found was even more distressing. His bed was an absolute mess. The posters were torn off and strewn on the ground. The bed sheets were ripped to shreds and several of Yuri’s prized possessions lay in pieces upon the stone floor. What was most horrifying was a sharp, 5-foot long sword in the center of the bed with a note attached to the handle. “YOU’RE NEXT” was written on the note in bright red letters in blood.

Over the next two months Yuri committed himself to extensive training in self-defense. He trained for six hours a day with the best swordsmen and the most skilled archers in all of Russia. Yuri had not yet assumed the throne and had hired a highly talented minister to carry out his duties until the assassin was caught. Nearly 10% of the budget was poured into an international investigation regarding the whereabouts of the criminal.

Everywhere Yuri traveled he brought along a bodyguard of at least 20 soldiers. He slept with four heavily armed bodyguards in his bedroom at night with 10 more soldiers guarding the entrances to his room and 100 more assuming patrol duties in various areas of the castle.

Seventy-six days after the death of Olaf and his two sons, Yuri married to a young Danish princess Thyra and presented her with half of his estate. Together they lived in adjourning bedrooms, his wife receiving a bodyguard of her own.

One night after a long, productive day of training and administrative duties, Yuri retired to his bedroom and sat at the foot of his bed, enjoying the vast landscapes that lay outside his window. This night was a particularly stormy night, and every thirty seconds or so a spectacular bolt of lightning would flash and light up the beautiful landscape of southern Russia. During one of the flashes something caught Yuri’s eye. He thought he had seen a shadowy figure dash across a farm at blazing speed while the lightning struck but he dismissed the thought as being part of his imagination.

A few moments later a lightning bolt struck a tree and a piercing sound soon followed. Yuri was suddenly aware of muffled shouts and screams from within his castle and jumped to arm himself with his bow and sword. Kicking his bedroom door open, he descended slowly down the spiral staircase and peered around a corner into the courtroom. Unable to sense or see anybody there, Yuri crept slowly toward the courtroom door that would lead him to the courtyard, where he heard shouting.

Lightning flashed again. Yuri was stopped dead in his tracks. Lighting a candle, Yuri peered around the courtroom. The handle of the candle clanged loudly against the stone floor and the flame spouted out instantly. Yuri had seen the remains of several of his soldier bodyguard strewn about the room. There were pools of blood everywhere but all of the corpses had one thing in common - they were all missing their heads. Horrified, Yuri stumbled into the courtyard and backed up against a wall, stringing an arrow to his bow.

Suddenly the gatehouse main doors burst open and a dark figure draped in a black cloak appeared. As Yuri gazed into its blood red eyes a disfigured hand came into view and pointed directly at Yuri. He began to feel tired and dizzy. Struggling to regain focus, Yuri aimed and let loose the arrow. It struck true and the cloaked figure collapsed to the ground, clutching its heart. Yuri sprinted over to examine his quarry and turned the limp figure over on its side.

The hideous, scarred face of Thyra appeared. Horrified, Yuri dropped his weapons. Thyra’s body began to go through massive convulsions and she opened her eye slits. Throwing Yuri a look of pure hate and evil she began to shriek “You killed me! You killed me! Now you are going to die!” Overwhelmed by his emotions, Yuri blacked out.

Yuri found himself in a dungeon room. As he looked around at his surroundings the big wooden door leading to the prison corridor slowly creaked open. Yuri approached the door warily and after peering into the hallway he decided it was safe to continue. The hallway corridor was pitch black, but somehow Yuri knew where to go. He had visited this place in his dreams before. Yuri knew that the same assassin who had killed his family was here to kill Yuri too but he was ready to face him. But as the screeches of pain and torture reached his ears, Yuri’s courage left him. He tried to turn back and flee but a forcefield had trapped him. This time there was no time to resist, Yuri was thrown off his feet and into another dungeon room, where his body crumpled onto the floor.

The same dark figure draped in a black cloak appeared he had seen twice already appeared. Feeling for strength deep inside, Yuri jumped to his feet and rushed his would-be executioner. The figure simply pointed with his disfigured hand and Yuri collapsed. The cloaked figure then pointed to the stone wall on the far side of the room where a black drape fell away revealing a mass of wooden shelves. Yuri gasped in horror as the heads of Olaf, Ivan and Yerik stared back at him. Turning away Yuri saw the figure point to the center of the room.

A contraption with a glass box situated on a wooden plank hung down from the ceiling. In the plank there were two holes wide enough for a human arm to squeeze through. Inside the glass box between the holes was a plastic vial filled with green and bubbly liquid.

Yuri became aware of a hissing sound. It took him a few minutes to realize it was coming from the cloaked figure “While you were unconscious in this dungeon you inhaled a poisonous substance. Over the next two weeks this poison will eat at your organs from the inside and cause a slow, extremely painful death. The vial you see is an antidote to this poison.”

Struggling to his feet Yuri felt himself walk over to the contraption and stuck his arm through one hole. Some kind of mysterious energy was guiding his actions. Unable to grip the vial firmly he squeezed his remaining arm through the other hole. Grabbing the vial, Yuri attempted to free his arms. But sharp knives suddenly filled the holes and pierced his skin. Yuri suddenly became aware of a constant droning and the sound of grinding metal. He looked up and saw a lever with a gigantic sword attached to it.

“Over the next two weeks, the lever you see will slowly descend, inching ever closer to your head. You will experience extreme pain from both the poison flowing in your veins and the puncture wounds on your arms. You will bleed but will not lose enough blood to warrant death. After this time the sword on the lever will free your head from your body and my collection will grow.”

The hissing suddenly stopped. The cloaked figure glided over to the dungeon door and vanished into thin air. Yuri tried and tried with all the energy he had left to free his arms, tears streaking down his face. “No! You can’t do this to me! NO! I’m heir to the Russian throne! Somebody help! Anybody! This can’t be happening to me! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo…!” All that could be heard in the distance was a hideous, evil laugh.