October Writing Challenge Tiebreaker

[Admin!]

The challenge topic was: Fear. Entries will be copied and pasted from the other thread, exactly as presented by the authors.

This poll will be closed November 4.

[Admin!]

Hush

Gabriel arched his back, groaning loudly. The man on top of him smirked and leaned down to nip at his earlobe, sending a shock through his body. He usually wasn't the one in this position, but he had to admit, the other man was good at what he was doing.

To spur him along, Gabe had been more vocal than usual, moaning and grunting. Occasionally, over suppressed laughter, the other man had murmured "Quiet. Shhh." but it had been obvious he was enjoying it too much to back up that statement with any more than another whispered "Hush." He gasped in response "Harder." and the man complied, still holding back his laughter.

Fuck, that felt good. Gabriel pulled him down into another kiss, and the man responded eagerly. "I was surprised to hear you beg like that." But he wasn't going to complain. The blond man knew every inch of Gabe's body, and what he wanted. In a show of thanks, he raked his fingers down the man's back, then squeezed his thigh. He was enjoying it, after all, no matter what the small, broken voice in the back of his mind said.

They were both close. Sweaty and moving and wrapped up in the adrenaline and the moment, it was almost hard for Gabriel to let go. But if he wanted to do this right, he had to focus....

"I love you." The man on top of him whispered and kissed his throat.

Now.

Gabriel released his hold, and sat up with a start in his own body, outside. Mission accomplished. He slunk back to his car, ready to return to his home, where he had a couple of blond options of his own, waiting for him.

James' fingers tightened on Chase's skin as sensation flooded back into him. Even with his power, he was disoriented. He knew how his body was reacting, remembering being in that position before. But as much as he physically was enjoying it, his mind rejected the entire situation. At least until his husband kissed him again, suppressing his own groan. "I've missed this. I've missed you."

James hid his wince. He wanted to be normal, or at least let Chase to have this. But he couldn't help letting out a small, weak sound.

The tiny whimper made Chase kiss him again, this time tasting salt on his face. "Jamie?" The blond man asked, stilling his body, "Jamie, why are you crying?"

By Tony

[Admin!]

Extortion

He was ignoring Vincent. The librarian was more than used to having the cretinous boy sitting on his desk, running his mouth off about sex, drinking, and whatever other things he was interested in and Eli absolutely was not.

So he had learned to tune the boy out, since he really didn't care, and it was easier than trying to get Vincent to go away. Sometimes though, stuff filtered through. Like "badger-fucking" and "knocked up" in the context of talking about "that hot chick you're always with."

That got his his attention, and when Vincent noticed that he was actually making eye contact, he said "Did'ja knock'er up? Think I can hit it too 'cause she's already preggers?"

Eli hated being angry. He hated feeling this hot lump of emotion down under his lungs. But that was more than enough to make him stand up. Even if the teenager wasn't sitting down, the librarian would have towered over him. He was thin, but he had proven often enough that he could be intimidating if that was what he needed.

He moved suddenly, planting a hand on either side of Vincent and leaning over, uncomfortably close to the goth boy. His voice dropped to a low growl, and he chose his words carefully. What would scare this little bastard the most? "Shut up. You will never say anything like that again about Ms. Hawkins. You will never insult her, and you will never even hint at anything bad about her."

From this close up, he could see the challenge in Vincent's eyes. But before the boy could say anything, he added the line he knew would secure the boy's silence. "And if you do, then I will tell your boyfriend all about how you were mean to a pregnant lady. And he will believe me, because I. Never. Lie."

There was a moment of silence as Verax processed that threat, and decided that it as threatening enough. "Fine."

Eli managed to hide his surprise that the intimidation actually worked, and decided to go one step more. "And what will you do if someone else says something bad about her?"

"Um, I'ma punch'em in the neck?"

Eli abhorred violence. But....

"Good."

By Tony

[Admin!]

Shadow Play

Cobalt isn’t really sure what he’s doing here. It’s coming on the middle of the night and here he is, wandering around the halls of Hammel’s main building. And he can’t remember how he got there. The dissonance bothers him, and he should leave, really he should, because he doesn’t know why he’s here and he can’t remember how he got here and he doesn’t like how Hammel looks at night: gutted and stripped, with nothing and no one to fill the spaces between the walls, whitewashed with moonshadow.

He’s about ready to leave—he’s turned on his heel, intent on going back the way he came—when a door slams shut behind him, the echoing sound wheeling him around to see something white flutter beyond his periphery. And a sound that might be bare feet. Cobalt stands, frozen, his breath stuttering in his throat, staring at a door he can’t remember seeing before.

Did you really not see it, just not notice it, or—

“Cobalt?”

A hand on his shoulder pulls his heart to his throat and sends him twisting around in alarm.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Hands up in surrender. “Hey, take it easy!” Josh. His eyes are wide in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Josh.” Cobalt’s voice is hoarse and strained. Sore. Which is odd because he doesn’t think he’s even been using it at all tonight. “What are you doing here?”

Josh blinks. “I just got back from talking with Sean. He… had a late night…” He trails off, ducking down to look at Cobalt’s face. “Cobalt? Are you okay?”

And Cobalt can’t really answer because he doesn’t know and he keeps turning back toward that door. “I think there’s a kid running around here after hours.” He says finally, his brain latching onto something that makes sense, “Went through there.” He points, and he keeps expecting the door to disappear. But there it is, standing half open at the end of the hall. And although the sound of a door slamming still rings in his ears, that doesn’t matter because the door is open and he needs to know, to find out what’s happening, what’s going on and the only way to find out is to go, now, go.

He grabs Josh’s wrist and tugs him along, ignoring the other man’s startled cry.

The air is cold when he pushes open the door, and a staircase spirals downward into the shadow. Both men stand at the threshold and stare into the black. Neither one can see the ground. Neither wants to say so.

“You say you saw a child go in here?” Josh asks, his eyes squinting into space. Cobalt nods, feeling the shadows roll under his fingers. “Cobalt…”Josh tears his eyes from the stair to look at him, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this door bef--”

Cobalt cuts off the sentence before it can take hold and steps firmly onto the first step. The wood groans, but stands firm. There is only one handrail. He begins his descent, Josh following behind him with more tentative footsteps.

It’s dizzying, feeling yourself twist in the dark, the next step isn’t really real until you touch it and if you step too far…

The staircase isn’t that long, and the sudden feel of cold stone underfoot is as startling as a hand on the shoulder. Josh stumbles behind him, feeling the same disorientation. Cobalt straightens and looks around. The space is cavernous, all arching ceilings and branching tunnels and that doesn’t really make any sense. There’s no way there can be this much space. But the shadows are almost intoxicating. His eyes don’t need to adjust, and that should at least confuse him, but he can’t bring himself to care because finally he can see clearly and there are no headaches and—

“Cobalt.” Josh’s voice is wary, and his fear pulls Cobalt back into himself. Spiderlegs crawl up the back of his neck. “What is this place?”

Cobalt swallows, his throat aching as though he’d been screaming for hours. “Dunno,” He rasps, “Basement, probably.”

Josh shakes his head vehemently, looking with wide eyes at the ceiling, “No, no, I’ve been to the basement, this isn’t the basement. This isn’t…” And Josh trails off, but Cobalt isn’t really listening anymore, because he thinks he sees something in the distance, something crouched and watchful shifting just out of vision. He reaches out and flicks a hand, tries to move the shadows around when he smells it. It’s rank and disgusting and brings nausea rolling up to his throat and every latent animal instinct in the back of his mind is screaming danger, danger because that smells like a dead thing and it’s only getting stronger which means it’s getting closer and he doesn’t know what it is, but he can feel terrible things riding along the wave of stench and decay and he wants to run but he can’t seem to get his legs to move and—

“We need to leave.” Cobalt gasps out, staring hard into the darkness even though he doesn’t really want to. He just doesn’t want to know what will happen if he takes his eyes off it. “We need to go now.”

“I think we should stay.”

Cobalt whirls to face his friend, dumbfounded. Josh isn’t looking at him, though. His eyes are impossibly wide and glassy and he’s staring somewhere in the middle distance. His lips are purple. Cobalt’s heart thuds in his chest. “Josh, don’t be stupid, we need to get out of here.”

“You’re stupid.” Josh’s voice is indignant, childishly so, but his face doesn’t change. “We should stay. You could play in the shadows forever.” And that voice isn’t Josh’s. Not really. Josh’s voice isn’t exactly baritone, but it’s never been this high. And he’s never had a lisp. Cobalt’s hand balls into a shaking fist. He’s not sure what to do.

Before he can do anything, though, Josh hits the ground, gasping and coughing. Cobalt falls to his knees, leaning over Josh, hands hovering over him.

“Josh? Josh, what the hell?” Cobalt is trying to keep a handle on his fear, but he’s panicking. “What happened to you?”

“I couldn’t—I couldn’t breathe.” Josh gasps, his face ashen, “Felt like… squeezing my throat… what…” He’s shaking, curling in on himself, and it’s painful to watch. Josh’s hands wrap protectively around his own throat. Cobalt grabs his shoulders.

“Josh, lemme see.” He tries to keep his voice gentle, “C’mon, lemme see.”

Josh takes a few more gulping breaths before he moves his hands. They shake in his lap. Around his neck are little black bruises, dark and vicious and even though Cobalt’s never seen this kind of thing firsthand, he knows what they are, knows in some secret place in his mind what kind of marks fingers make when they bruise flesh—

A child’s laugh, pitched far too high, echoes in the cavern. Josh twitches under his hands.

Cobalt wheels around to see her. Crouched by the mouth of a hallway, her white nightdress curls around her as she watches them. A little, tiny thing with scraggly black hair, she puts a hand to her mouth, giggles, and runs down the hall, swallowed up by the darkness.

White-hot rage floods Cobalt and he’s on his feet before he can even think about it. Josh doesn’t react, just sits and trembles on the floor, and that makes it worse. Cobalt snarls and leaps down the hallway, fury propelling his movements as he runs, intent on catching whatever it was who hurt his friend.

He skids to a stop once the hallway curves; it’d been a straight shot thus far. He takes some deep, even breaths and turns the corner.

The hallway has been colored on with what appears to be crayon, the colors faded and crushed against the rough stone. There are people, grotesquely childlike stick figures with scribbled-out eyes. And hands traced out in different colors.

He stops in front of a certain pair of handprints, shakily etched into the wall at eye level, the crayon wax peeling on the stone. Without really thinking, he raises a shaking hand and touches it to the childish drawing on the wall. When he was a child, he broke his pinky, and although it healed well, the knuckle of his pinky is crooked and bent. It’s a relatively unique feature, something that a random picture drawn by a child shouldn’t be able to pick up on. Yet his hand fit perfectly.

High-pitched humming, tuneless and wavering, fills his ears. He freezes, the chill of the stone leeching the warmth from his hands. He turns slowly and sees her. She’s not looking at him, turned instead to the wall at another drawing of hands, sprawled desperately on the rock. Her little-girl face is flickering, shifting in the shadow to reveal sloughed-off skin and dark, scribbled out eyes. She touches the other pair of hands, leaving a trail of something dark and wet chasing after her fingertips. She’s not meta. He’s not even sure if she’s real.

“Where’s your fwiendy?” It asks, smiling like a self-satisfied child.

Cobalt’s breath catches violently in his throat. Josh. The wall is dripping. He stumbles away from it and sprints down the hallway without a backwards glance. It’s laughter chases him down the hall. He turns the corner, keeping close to the wall because the hall is bigger than he remembers and there are branches that spread out into the darkness and he can’t see as well as he could, the shadows dancing around him. He pushes them away, trying to follow the winding, twisting trail of stone and dust that turns and spins around and around beyond corners and curves and hidden pockets of dark and the shadows make leering faces at him as he wheels around another turn, his shoes skidding in the dust. Another turn knocks him off balance, his speed making him almost dizzy.

You left Josh. You made him come here and then you left him and if anything happens to him, it’s all on your hands—

There shouldn’t be turns here.

This isn’t right. This isn’t. The hallway wasn’t curved and twisted when he ran down there before, all rage and fury and that’s how it got him to follow, stripped him of his reason and his control and had him blast through without stopping to think—

He cuts his thoughts off, trying to get a hold of his fear. He has to find Josh. Find Josh and get out of here…

“Josh?” Cobalt hates how his voice wavers, weak against the stone and dark. He straightens up, “Josh!” His breath is coming short and fast, exploding from his mouth in loud puffs. He’s losing control

Or maybe you never had it…

“JOSH!” Cobalt shouts, as he starts running again. He can’t stand not moving and the shadows aren’t doing what he wants them to and he can’t find Josh, can’t even find the place where they were so he could get help. “Josh, where are you?!”

You can play in the shadows forever…

“Josh!” Cobalt’s voice is hoarse and his throat hurts as his breath tears through. The shadows roll around him in leering silence.

-

Between the desire and the spasm between the potency and the existence between the essence and the descent

Falls the Shadow.

-

END

By Kayla

[Admin!]

***A Message from your Local Fear Monger***

You want fear?

I’ll show you fear.

Every nightmare you wake up to screaming, and every distress you keep locked in your head, I’ll rip it out. I’ll flesh it out. I’ll tear open the cellar doors, and your monster will rip free from its chains. I’ll throw open your closets and let the skeletons from the depths rise from the floorboards and come waltzing in with the saints, teeth chattering in their heads. They’ll samba out to me, clinking and clawing, and whisper in my ear as they pass my rigid form. They’ll rasp and groan your secrets and I’ll smile, because I know how to make you scream and writhe and despair in every way, shape, and form.

***BUT REMEMBER SOMETHING***
BEFORE I’M CHASTISED
You gave me the key.

You see me in the dark and call my name, approach me. I wear the mask of your friend and comrade in arms. You think you know me because you have seen my face and speak to me. You might have had dinner with me. You might have held me once, thinking I was clutching you in the same warm embrace. You all think me so warm. To me, you are all as cold as ice. But in the end, when all of you fire into my face, the façade crumbles, be you friend or foe, and the real me is already behind you. I am chopping your legs out from underneath you with my rusty claws.

***WAIT A MINUTE***
They aren’t rusty.
My mistake entirely.
That’s merely the remnants of
the dried blood from everyone else.
Do you really think you were the first
to be deceived?

You all think so highly of me.

You all think yourselves so special. You think you all are the first ones to have handed me trust only for me to suck it down without a second thought and choke it back out. Let me tell you a secret: trust is easy to come by. You give it to the person you sit next to on a bus, on a train. You trust them not to jump up and shoot you at random. You give your trust to everyone; you just don’t realize it yet. You think handing me trust is an honor? Please. If you want me to stay, hand me something a bit more sustainable. Trust has a bitter taste to it and, after having so much of it for so long, it’s bland. Trust to me tastes similar to black as night coffee- unfiltered, unprocessed, and much too strong for anyone to be taking it in gulps.

I am the paranoia that makes you turn when you hear a rustle. I am the worm in your brain that makes your pulse quicken. I am the blanket of paralysis that spreads over you when you see the round eye of the gun staring you in the face. And, believe it or not, I am the finger pulling the trigger.

Even the feared have fears. I am no exception. I fear many a thing, but after feeling fear for so long you cannot endure it. You grow immune. You master it. You move on. Those who are afraid of height overcome it when they are suspended above the ground day in and day out. They must. If they don’t, it will consume them. To be honest, I often wonder about those who are afraid of heights. Being as I have never had a problem with it, the reason escapes me.

***MY QUESTION***
Is it only the distance,
The point A to Point B?
Or is it simply that you
are not afraid of the height,
but of how hard the ground
may be?

People tell me often they aren’t afraid of spiders or snakes, and I nod slowly, because I’m thinking the same thing every time. ‘You aren’t afraid of one spider or snake.’ But try ten. Or a hundred. Uncomfortable yet? Sweating yet? You think discomfort is different than fear? Wrong. Discomfort is the same as fear, and I am here to serve.


So go on, distrust me. In fact, I’d commend you for it. Keep your distance from me. Warn your friends and coworkers. Keep your keys clutched tight to your chests. Keep your skeletons wrapped tight in your closets, the monster within you chained. If you don’t, something bad will happen to you. That something bad is me.

My name is Emiko Nakajima.

Please. Be afraid.

By Fedora