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Post subject: Hallowfest Contest 05: Writing Contest [VOTING]  Posted: October 26th, 2008, 3:25 pm |
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Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 15181
Location: Minas Morgul
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<center>
VOTING: Hallowfest's Offiicial Writing Contest!
<i>"It was a dreary night November that I beheld the.."</i>
<b>The Goal</b>: Contestants were asked to write an excerpt from a scary novel. It must be written as though it was taken straight out from the middle of a book. They were to try and add words such as <b>moonlight, shadows, graveyard, chill, creak, bloodcurdling, howl, slithered, and goosebumps </b> so consider that when you vote!
They limited to <b>550 words</b> so each entry shouldn't be that long and agonizing. Therefore, <b><u>you will vote. No, don't roll your eyes. You think I'm kidding? You will. You will vote and you will enjoy every second of it.</u></b>
You all should know what to do by now. Vote with the following:
1st:
2nd:
3rd: </center>
Contestant 01: "Still Here" (542 words)
Darker strands of clouds twisted against the cold gray sky of an autumn dusk. Anette leaned close to the dark neck of her horse, knowing her journey would be over soon. She neared her destination, and yet a part of her would have given anything never to reach it. Dark, dead leaves danced over the hard earth of the pathway as the horse and rider hurried by. The tall, black trunks of trees, half-naked in the chill embrace of autumn, marched on either side of the road like bitter sentinels.
The abrupt end of the pathway came into view, and Anette slowed her horse's pace. A wide space lay open to whatever the pitiless sky might send, broken only by stone monuments standing in weathered silence amidst the dry grass. Anette dismounted once she reached the first gravestones, smoothing out her black skirt once she stood on the ground. She murmured a few words of encouragement to her horse, who's eyes rolled in uncertainty. Anette decided it would be safe to leave him standing for a few moments, and walked into the graveyard.
Her hands felt icy and dry. Even after all the days she had spent preparing, fear still slithered through her veins like some insidious poison. Anette's dark eyes scanned the area, and soon locked on a single stone monument standing in a clear space in the center of the others. She moved forward, knowing that the others relied on her, knowing she should not be afraid, knowing that this could be the turning point the others longed for and she dreaded.
The monument stood before her, the weathered granite almost black in the deepening twilight. Anette knelt, her hands clasped tight in front of her. She tried to make out any kind of writing on the gravestone, even the slightest mark. She reached out one hand, the motion hesitant, and ran her gloved fingertips over the surface of the stone. A shiver washed over her as her worst fears were confirmed. The tombstone was completely blank.
A strong wind caught her, its sudden chill raising goosebumps on her arms. A voice, little more than a breath, whispered words near her ear.
I'm still here.
Anette cried out, the sound fracturing the fragile silence. She scrambled to stand and then looked around, her eyes wild.
I'm still here. The blood still stains the earth beneath the pitiless stars. The blade bites deepest when driven by the hand of hate.
The girl turned and ran, flying with a haste born of terror. A full moon glowed like a drop of pale fire in an ever-darkening sky.
I'm still here.
Anette reached her horse and swung herself up, her fingers clumsy in her haste. A howl rang through the cold air, razor sharp and piercing. Anette realized she didn't know if the howl came from a wolf or from something else, something inhuman.
I'm still here.
Anette couldn't bear it. She kicked the heels of her boots into the horse's flanks, and the terrified beast bolted down the road. Anette closed her eyes, afraid to open them to the eerie scene surrounding her, trying to shut out the voice that would not stop echoing through her mind.
I'm still here.
<center>*****</center>
Contestant 02: "Carlotta Street" (546 words)
I don’t know what first brought on the urge to revisit Carlotta Street, but I can say that the pull of the leaning, bleak and abandoned houses could not be ignored. Carlotta Street was a different part of New Orleans than most tourists know; it is one of the best kept secrets in the City of the Dead and the talk of the town in The City of Ghosts.
The street was narrow, the houses on either side launched upward into the sky, hiding what little light the great oaks let in- it was always night on Carlotta Street.
However, it was not the houses that drew me inside- they had been left when my ghost was put into business. After all who wanted to live near a sanatorium? The sanatorium, located across the street from the graveyard – the very same graveyard that held so many unmarked graves where doctors dumped failed experiments.
The Carlotta Street Sanatorium haunted not only my dreams, but my every waking thought. It drove me to near madness, caused hot, red blood to spew in rivers from my wrist in hopes of delivering myself from those tortuous nights and mornings when I could hear the screams. After that incident, I became not only a doctor of the Sanatorium, but an inmate as well. That stay may have been the total degradation of my psyche, each time a co-worker attempted to explain to me how I was sick, every time a deranged psycho asked me when their appointment was just to have me rail at them spitting curses that I dare not utter now. That very same psycho now lay – I hope – in the belly of Lake Pontchartrain.
I had prayed, while I watched the torrent of rain from Katrina flood the city that I so loved, that Carlotta Street had swept away in the tide - that the *beep* Sanatorium had been erased from my New Orleans. Even worse I prayed that all those who remember it be washed with it, a testament to my own mind.
The doors creaked as I pushed them in to wander the dark halls that loomed in front of me. The stench hit me it was a combination of mold, death and human excrement. In the time that I worked there it only held two of those smells, the addition of the other made the place unbearable. I mustered my courage and took the familiar hallway to my right, this is what I had come for, and to see what had happened, to gain closure – yes, closure…
The screams begin nearly instantly. Those bloodcurdling, hideous, hateful screams – the very same ones that terrified me my first day there, I hate them. I want them all gone. Dead. I wanted them to die, even then.
I hated every person in that forsaken place of the world where only Satan feels the urge to throw it his affections.
I pressed open the door to the main lobby. There they are, I thought. The bodies! Oh, the excitement, joy even.
Yes, I admit it – I am happy. No one cared enough to save them. They cared for me!
Wait…No!
They can’t!
They are moving.
The bodies are moving. Even now I can hear my screams join their own.
<center>*****</center>
Contestant 03: Untitled (499 words)
<i>Shadows. Naught but vague, empty shadows with no life to them.</i> But Keila was afraid nonetheless. She held her breath and waited for the fear to pass, willed herself to imagine that it was morning and they were gone. But sleep did not come, and still Keila was afraid of the hovering darkness.
She could just hear Dulcia's morning taunt. "Sleepless again Keila? Did the monsters of black chase you from your bed?"
If only she were younger, and not ashamed of running to her mother's great bed, burrowing deep into the satin quilt and waiting. But now such vulnerability could do great damage to her age and status. Honesty was not for princesses. Perhaps the bakers and watchmen and sheepherders could all be honest, perhaps scorn was all they had to expect for such petty fears. But the Princess Keila, royal heiress, beloved daughter, the fourth jewel of the King's crown?
It would simply be scandalous.
Keila took small breaths of air, choking, gasping breaths. The night air was thick and wet and horrible, filled with beasts of dead passion and cold grip. They were there, and the darkness cleverly hid them. The darkness was their one true ally.
It was no use tossing about in bed. From incessent habit, from exhausting routine, Keila knew it wouldn't work. Once lost, sleep simply refused to return, and the dazed and foggy state of half-wake would leave her drained and dull.
The very worst thing of all about the night, without question, was it's emptiness. She loathed the way the infinite vastness of nothing surrounded her. Nothing. After all the hype and business of her days; after all the speeches, suitors, studies, and soliliquies; after being constantly surrounded by people, events, and significant objects... suddenly there was naught but an empty hollow begging to be filled. Keila hated it with all she was worth.
In the ethereal, hollow moment of pre-dawn, her mind drug out all of it's most buried thoughts and forgotten events. They troubled her without her permission, they preyed upon her like carnivorous birds, flying when she sensed their presence, but returning with bloodthirsty eyes when her back was to them.
Flinging the smothering blankets off of her cold body, Keila stumbled gracelessly to her feet and towards the window. She shuddered, feeling the hostile presence of the night demons around her. How could her sisters not feel it when it was so obvious? Why was she the only one who woke in cold sweats, sensing the clammy pawings of unwanted presences?
Her window was open, some thoughtless maid's doing, letting in huge streams of thick, choking night wind. It hesitently touched her hair and face, slimy fingers of want. Well, they would not have her tonight. She wrapped her arms about her, and stood, picking out her favorite eastern stars. There they blinked, little bits of hope in the sky, little promises of light that would return. But too far away. Much, much too far away.
_________________
<center>
THE HALLOWFEST 2010
<a href="http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20958">information here</a>
</center>
Last edited by Kitoky on November 10th, 2008, 10:58 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post subject: Posted: October 26th, 2008, 9:53 pm |
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Joined: 04 February 2006
Posts: 9445
Location: Southeast of the Northern part of West Hyglemr
Country: 
Gender: Female
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1:: Contestant 2
2:: Contestant 1
3:: Contestant 3
_________________ going on a journey through my old claims
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Post subject: Posted: October 26th, 2008, 10:17 pm |
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Joined: 13 August 2006
Posts: 1407
Location: Montana
Country: 
Gender: Female
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1st: Contestant 1
2nd: Contestant 3
3rd: Contestant 2
_________________ 
and I'm still a dreamer, a believer
I've lost my faith in so many things but I still believe in You
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Post subject: Posted: October 26th, 2008, 11:09 pm |
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Joined: 03 June 2005
Posts: 4079
Location: In my dreams
Country:
Gender: Female
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1st: Contestant 1
2nd: Contestant 3
3rd: Contestant 2
_________________ 
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Post subject: Posted: October 27th, 2008, 10:05 am |
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Joined: 02 May 2008
Posts: 3694
Location: A hidden forest in Middle-Earth
Country:
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1st: Contestant 1
2nd: Contestant 2
3rd: Contestant 3
_________________  Banner from Nellie
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Post subject: Posted: October 27th, 2008, 5:07 pm |
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Joined: 02 July 2008
Posts: 2675
Country:
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1st: Contestant 1
2nd: Contestant 2
3rd: Contestant 3
_________________ 
i'm back for a little! i'll see how this visit goes. 
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Post subject: Posted: October 28th, 2008, 12:21 am |
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Joined: 01 November 2005
Posts: 4785
Location: Middle Earth
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1st: Contestant 1
2nd: Contestant 3
3rd: Contestant 2
_________________ <center> all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us
Thank you for five-plus wonderful years of obsession, friendship and fun
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Post subject: Posted: October 30th, 2008, 10:27 pm |
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Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 15181
Location: Minas Morgul
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Contest will now be closed.
THANK YOU FOR VOTING!
_________________
<center>
THE HALLOWFEST 2010
<a href="http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20958">information here</a>
</center>
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