STACH Short Story Contest #23: 199 words, 5 winners, 15SBD prize pool!
Hello Everyone, @kingst here with the announcement for the STACH Short Story Contest #23.
What is a Short Story.
A short story is a story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel. It makes use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components to a far greater degree than is typical of an anecdote. You can read it in less than 90 seconds.
Contest Rules:
•Write a Short Story based on the topic that will be given every week.
•Write an Original Short Story (Plagiarism will be flagged and reported).
•The Story must contain no more than 199 words.
•One entry per user.
•Story should be pasted in the comment section below, no links.
•Contestants are permitted to post their stories in an article on their blog, so they also get upvotes from the @stach trail.
Winners Selection.
Winners will be selected based on the topic, story plot, number of words and delivery as determined by the selected Judge. One word above 199, disqualifies the entry.
Contest Topic.
Write a 199 words story based on A BLOOD RED SKY.
PRIZE.
FIVE winners will be selected for a share of the 15SBD. The story with the most interaction gets a 1SBD prize from @ejemai.
First Prize: ----------------------4SBD
Second Prize: ------------------3.5SBD
Third Prize: ---------------------3SBD
Fourth Prize: -------------------2.5SBD
Fifth Prize: ----------------------2SBD
Good luck guys!
STACH is a physical Accelerator Hub dedicated to decentralizing the offline by breaking the barriers to accessing the internet like light, internet and conducive working space.
STACH is supported by @Sndbox as a Sndcastle project.
Source
"Run Ada, Run!" was the last he said as the cursed bullets pierced his chest. I stood there frozen watching his lifeless body hit the ground. Everything seemingly stood still as more bullets flew past my face. I was lost in an oblivion of the event I yet didn't understand; in a moment that seemed eternal.
I crashed down besides my father's lifeless body as I stared at his open eyes. All around me the commotion continued, but I was in another world. Men with guns kept running past not caring to even look. I wanted them to see me, and maybe help me join Pa. Or maybe they didn't care anymore.
People kept dropping around me like birds in a hunt. All I could do was see for I deaf to the sound of their evil guns. In heaps bodies rose, slain be the enemies of truth with no remorse.
In what seemed like centuries, I sat there holding Pa's lifeless hand, getting soaked in the blood that flowed the streets. The blood of my brothers and countrymen.
Those who could fight for us were all gone, and all we could do was watch as they slay our people.
But we shall not forget how they tainted our soil with blood and colored our skies red.
A BLOOD RED SKY
For the first time, Mary saw the bloody sky at the age of 6, in full, just before the awakening. On that day, her father went down into the subway, and then an explosion followed.
Then the girl several times saw a bloody sky, already in reality. She suddenly lifted her head, and even the sky was clouded with flames. The sky was stained with blood before the death of her friend, in front of a serious trauma of a classmate ...
The girl was walking with her mother along the quay in Nice, when her head began to spin, and she saw bloody clouds coming down from the sky, and a truck was emerging from them.
Screaming, Mary forcefully tossed her mother aside, and took a step forward. And she squeezed her eyes, feeling the calm blue turn to replace the bloody rays.
Richy was not the superstitious type but it was hard for anyone not to after series of nightmares, he just had another. He reached for the remaining bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on the nightstand to calm his nerves.
He gulped a cup full of the wine and laid on his back reminiscing how a brilliant graduate of architecture like himself got mixed in life of crime. He wanted out but Emperor would have none of that, he has heard of how killed those that tried to leave. Richy was determined to escape to Ghana after the next 'operation' next Friday.
Chidi drove in like a Formula one driver. The cops standing outside became aware it was a robbery instantly. one was about to cock and raise his Ak49. Emperor shot him. The other two were also down in no time. Kelvin and Emperor were about to enter when shots started raining from everywhere and the two dropped dead immediately. Richy tried to reach the car but chidi zoomed off before he could. Lying in his own blood a moment later and gazing onto the sky. A blood red sky was the last thing he saw before it blurred out.
"Don't make me do something I will regret later bitch!"
Christy couldn't believe her own senses. Henry never used any harsh word on her not to talk of calling her a bitch. Though she had noticed something was amiss since last session after he was beaten up at a party.
"It is non of your business girl" he would answer anytime she asked what went down.
She had know Henry from Small. Their families are very close, which was why they couldn't define their relationship.
But She could not understand this new Henry ever since he started rolling with the FA guys...She wondered why Henry couldn't see they are trouble.
Christy couldn't concentrate on her revision. She hadn't see him in days. Missing this test would mean extra year. Call home was looking for his trouble. Then he walked in and sat with a straight face. She was interrupted from talking to him by the sound of guns from outside. Then commotion ensued. Founding courage to out of her hidden many minutes later, she found dead bodies and everywhere painted with blood...She was surrounded by her friends, she couldn't look. She looked up and saw a red blood sky.
Entry on my blog here
A legend which dates back to 1641 has it that a Dutch ship sank off the coast of the Cape of Good Hope. The Captain, a Dutch man named VanderDecken, was blind to the signals from the red blood skies raging with signs of a deadly storm. He only realized they have landed on the palms of a crazy storm when the lookout screamed out in terror.
The captain and his crew struggled for hours to get out of the storm. At a point it appeared they would make it. But then the reverse was the case when the ship collided against the treacherous rocks of the sea. The ship began to sink. As the ship plunged downwards, Captain VanderDecken knew that death was approaching. He was afraid to die, thus screamed out a curse: “I WILL round this Cape even if I have to sail unendingly!”
Till this day, whenever a storm strikes off the Cape of Good Hope, the ghostly presence of the Dutch Captain appears through the eye of the storm as a blood red imagery of a ship and its captain. Whoever beholds this blood red imagery in the sky will die a terrible death.
It was 3am I had to hurry before dawn, to evacuate my family. The war had begun, just a few hours before ...
The plane where the vice-president of the US was traveling was shot down by terrorists of Russian and North Korean origin. The repercussions of the allied and western countries were immediate.
The United States attacked with all its force the countries responsible for the events, and they responded. In less than 12 hours, World War III was unleashed.
He drove like crazy, through the zigzag curves of the mountains, to go to the city. I am a geologist and I was in the mountains, studying caves whose walls grew rare minerals.
When I left the mountains, it began to dawn and at last I see the bridge that connects me with the road that leads to the city. When crossing it, he observed with horror, as in the distance a giant mushroom transforms the sky into " A BLOOD RED SKY. ..." In a second I realize that I lost everything I loved, and it is the beginning of the apocalypse.
That evening, grandfather took his grand son on a walk by the sea shore.
"i have sailed several times and wrecked my ship because I was not minded of the signals", he said. "Look", pointing upwards, "a red blood sky is the sailors compass: red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning".
"But grandpa", his 12years old son replied, "I am not a sailor why are you telling me this?".
Still pressing further, he said, "life may sometimes give you warning signals. Before it rained, ants moved to higher ground, cos lay down, pine opened up, and even the frogs croaked more frequently. You must keep your ears and eyes open to hear and understand the time you are in lest you end up with an amputated leg like mine".
He son hearing those words listened with keen interest. "my son always look and look again before you leap. A red blood in the sky is not just a mere artistic display of dexterity by the hand that holds it. Every symbol and every signal has its implications, do not take them for granted".
The Red Night
Hidden among the trees of a yellow building with large windows Michael watched the party organized by the UCLA fraternity, only attended by the most successful and beautiful students of the university, he could not contain the anger and the rejection he felt for not being invited, since he was a child that feeling had been chasing him and he was tired of being mocked.
He waited for the party to end and little by little his anger grew, a voice inside his head told him that the time for revenge had come, that all those girls who had made him feel that way would pay for their mistakes. He entered the fraternity and seeing a group of girls gathered talking in a corner of the room he pulled his gun and the shooting began, one by one they fell into a pool of blood, the screams were heartbreaking and Miguel as if waking up from a dream to see what he had done pulled the trigger directly to his own head.
The next day the headlines in the newspapers read: The night that the sky turned red.
Many years ago in my teenage years, I had a group of friends and we liked to go camping every weekend to the Grand Canyon, we brought food and lots of alcohol. One night, being there, just after assembling the tents and emptying two bottles of vodka in the process, we saw in the sky a set of festellos, we thought that they were shooting stars and we even joked about the desires that would be granted to us. We continued on our own, Carlos turned on his battery radio, we had a lot of fun when we heard a horrible rumble and I swear to God that when I looked up I saw how the sky turned a deep red. Everything happened in a matter of seconds, the atmosphere became tense and my friends panicked. It started to rain, a heavy red rain
The sky bled pitifully, we ran to take refuge in one of the tents and we began to pray, two hours later the storm seemed to have ceased, we left our shelter and everything was dry, the starry sky above our heads seemed to mock us. We never really knew what happened.
Mr Jones, a very good friend of mine, narrated this scary experience to me as he pointed me to the sudden change in the colour of the sky; it started turning blood red and oozed out strange feelings of horror and fright. He explained it was a bad omen stating how terrible his last experience of it was.
“I was driving home late one night when a pretty girl in a white dress hitchhiked me. The girl was very nice and such a great conversationalist. As we drove close to the St. Lukes cemetery, there was a sudden change in the colour of the sky as is happening now. This girl pointed up calling my attention to it. I looked up and felt a weird spasm through my body. As I turned to share my sudden experience with her, she had disappeared. I was utterly terrified. I drove as fast as I could to get away from the vicinity of the cemetery. The whole occurrence made me lose control over the vehicle only to wake up the next morning on the hospital bed; they said I collided against a brick wall.”
I wondered what this one would bring about.