Here's the voting for <b>round six</b> of the Writing Prompt Contest!

There were a total of three entries all labeled with letters <b>A - C</b> of the alphabet.

<b>Prompt:</b> WAR
<b>Word Limitation:</b> 5,000 ( 5,500 max )

So sit back, relax, and read through all these wonderful entries from the contestants. Once you're done, feel free to skim them over again, and vote.

Contestants may not vote! Sorry! Comments are recommended---feedback helps a writer improve, and tweak their work but do it in a constructive manner.

Each post contains one entry.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Entrant A (845 words)
Untitled
<b>Warning</b>: References to drug/alcohol abuse.

She fought two battles
But the war was in her mind
The line she was walking
Was between black and white
She was in a constant limbo
Between love and hate
Maybe this was her glorious fate
To walks between beauty and disgust
To keep herself alive to feel the guilt
After the passionate love
The filth was on her skin
Smelling rank and sour
She showered long, bathing in the steam
She scrubbed her skin and hair
She tried to erase the sin
But now that it was off her skin
She couldn’t remove it from her mind
It would be burned there forever
That horrid mistake
Burned into her memory
Between the black and white

She dressed and combed her hair
Long and dark, like the midnight
-Night, that’s when it happened
The “love” and the heartbreak
The love turned into hate
She didn’t want to hurt like this
That passion turned to pain
When he left her alone, ran away
He didn’t love her anymore
She lay broken on the floor
Her eyes opened just in time
To see him sneaking out the door
To find another amour
She just lay there feeling empty
Feeling dead inside
She fought two battles
But the war was in her mind
So on the floor she lay
Lodged between black and white

There was a battle with the boy
With the “love” and the passion of “forever”
She wanted him to love her
She wanted him and him alone
To show the passion she never knew
To show her love and compassion
While the only world she knew
Was cold and harsh and painful, too
Her parents didn’t love her
How could they with her perfect older sister?
With her cute little brother, too?
How could they love the plain-Jane girl
With ashen skin, dark hair, and nothing special at all about her
So here she was again
Between the black and white

“You don’t matter”, “You don’t count”
That’s what they’d always say
But she believed the lies they told
You could see it in her eyes
In her mind the war was raging
The war between life and death
Wasn’t the answer obvious?
Why even take another breath?
She didn’t have to life this way
Stuck inside the gray
She could die a painless death
And make the colors go away
And here in this mindset is where she lay
For days upon days
Lodged between life and death
Black and white
Stuck, covered in gray

The war behind her eyes raged on for days and days
Questions raced through her mind
She hoped it was just a phase
Her arms bled
Her legs bruised
Her hair thinned
Her teeth stained
She became too thin
No matter how she tried to fix herself
She could never win
The gray had turned into the toxic, smoky air
She inhaled the smoke
Life was a joke
She no longer cared
The black and white didn’t exist

She grabbed the makeup
Pasted it on
“War paint” she whispered with a smirk
“A plan that will finally work!”
She picked up and loaded the gun
Packed it in her purse and out the door she pranced
She stumbled to the car crashing from the earlier high
The day—white
Turned to—black—night
As she turned the key
And drove to his address
She wouldn’t be pulled two ways anymore
She had made up her mind
She was stealing her soul back tonight
The white was gone
So was the black
She was numb
She was gray

She stepped out of the car
Stumbled to the door
Knocked with a tightly clinched fists
Ignored he bleeding wrist
Sliced nearly to the bone after months of living in gray
This was going to happen her way
It was the only way
He opened the door
She shouted, “What’s yours is mine,
What’s black is white, what matters is this,
This little twist…”
And like a spell her words made her strong
She reached into her purse and grasped the gun in her hand
“Cross that line,” She whispered
Nodding to the doorframe
Instead of stepping forward he stepped back
She pulled it out and shot him
Right through the heart
She hoped it hurt his soul
Hoped it tore his soul in two
She put the gun to her head
“I wont be missing you”
Her last words fell on dead ears
Black and white had blurred to gray
In this colorless state everything was right, was okay
We must learn to end these wars by speaking up
By speaking up
By words we say
Not by pulling the trigger
And taking the “easy way”

That passion turned to pain
When he left her alone, ran away
She lay broken on the floor
Her eyes stayed open long enough to
See him fall to the floor
She just lay there feeling empty
Feeling cold inside
She fought two battles
But the war was in her mind
So dead on the floor she lay
Lodged between black and white

Entrant B (1,075 words)
"Believe"

He knew she was a new recruit as soon as her shaking form took a place beside him in the line. With all the quiet desperation and uncertainty of a misplaced animal, she clutched at her weapon. Every little noise made her shudder, while her eyes roamed with intense deliberation across the landscape. On her cheek a fresh scar bit into the dirty skin.

“First day?” The question wasn’t to gain information. It was a formality, an introduction. A way of escaping the war that they all lived in, battle or no battle.

Her head bobbed with a short, “Yes.” The way her eyes riveted on him, he might as well have had ‘spy’ written on his forehead. Though he found no humor in it, he smiled anyway, trying to reassure her. They were in this together.
“So they’re recruiting girls now.” Another unnecessary fact, stated for sheer formality.

“They’re desperate,” she answered, making no attempt to defend them, but quietly sure of herself anyway.

They’re foolish, he thought. They’ve taken those we’re fighting for and put them on the front lines. He glanced up at her again. Her eyes were large and blue. In another world entirely he would have thought she was pretty.

The girl ran her fingers over the blade, he could see she was avoiding his eyes. She was humming a light tune, carefree and reminiscent, but at his words it caught in her throat.

“I’m still not used to it either.” It was what he told every new recruit, thought it was a half-lie. By now he’d grown so used to the war that he sometimes wondered what he’d ever do without it. Long, thoughtless treks and skirmishes. Being told what to do when one was too tired to think independently. And yet every time he found himself taking a life, he was shocked and appalled. Glimpses of life before the war frayed the edges of his careful existence. “I was a musician,” he told her.

But the girl's eyes were unresponsive, and he berated himself for offering such an abrupt, senseless piece of information. What difference would it make if he had been a farmer or a mercenary or a carpenter? If he had been her father or her first cousin? Identities were null on a field strewn with death.

In fact, there was no point in further addressing her.

Except for her blue eyes and high percentage of death. He wondered if she knew how difficult it was for a girl to slip into that same instinctive, brutal survival that had sustained him so long.

Then again, it wasn’t as if she had any choice in the matter.

“Our captain said that over half of Phalin has been taken.” She shook her short cropped hair and stared ahead, as if trying to see the part of the country which was no longer their own. “He said they’re destroying everything. Land, homes. Children even.”

This was not a turn of conversation that he had anticipated or desired. He wet his lips, pondering a response. He tasted the grit, blood, and the scab that was still there from three battles ago.

“I suppose that is why they are so desperate then,” he said at length. It was an idiot’s response, an easy escape. An intelligent musician would have at least thought of something clever, if not reassuring.
They both stared ahead now, nameless individuals awaiting further orders. Even though he wasn't cold, he wrapped both arms around himself.

“It’s better not to think of it.” Her eyes turned to him, looking for answers to the questions she didn’t even know. The words scratched his throat. “You know, the war. Our leaders will trouble themselves over solutions, victories, and failures. It’s not so bad if you just follow and obey.”

“Not so bad?” she asked uncertainly. “They killed both of my brothers.”

“I’m sorry.” As soon as he said it, he wondered why. They’d killed his brothers too. He wasn’t sorry. He didn’t even know how to regret anymore.

“If there is any chance that we can hold the land we’ve got, spare a few more lives from being mercilessly slaughtered, then it won’t be purposeless, will it?” It was a plea; for her, for him, for any higher power who might be listening. “They won’t have died for nothing.”

“No,” he reassured. “We’re doing the right thing.”

She sighed, and looked at the line ahead of her. “The right thing,” she repeated.

When his thoughtless words reached his mind, they unraveled. How had he once defined the right thing? Justice? Honor? Freedom? Now it was just the will to live. Forcing himself to reassure the young recruits so he wouldn’t feel as guilty when he saw their blood-soaked body fall to the side.

But this concept of right still gripped her, driving her to do things that would fill her mind with shock and horror.

A fog was creeping in, moving with damp stealth around their ankles. They would soon march, onward, towards a parasitical enemy, growing fat off of their own land. Death and torment might be the last thing her eyes rested on. Dark bloodstains soaking the front of her shirt.

He shook himself. It was wrong to feel emotional for another. It would distract him, and in this life, distraction was failure.

But she seemed so earnest.

“You’re afraid,” he stated. “Of course. But you still believe in your ideals.”

“I must,” she answered simply. “They’re all that’s left.”

He remained silent. The commander general gave an order, and they started forward. The fog dampened his clothes and made him shiver. She looked at him one last time, expecting something. A farewell? Surely not encouragement. Couldn’t she see he was beyond such trite words?

“Hold on to them,” he said at last. She nodded once, and met his gaze for the first time.

The musician remembered with a sudden pain what it was like to believe. The weapon hanging at his side could have been a musical instrument, he might have been marching to another town to perform and delight. A small smile crossed his face, a sincere one this time, and it hurt all the worse for it’s honesty.

A musician or a soldier. Neither were very different if they both believed in the same thing.

Taking a firmer grip on his sword, he broke his gaze with the girl and they started forward in stride.

Entrant C (761 words)
"The Madness of War"


Shells whistled in the sky, giant metal omens of death and tiny steel spirits of dread, landing in explosions of fire, dust, and shrapnel in the fields ahead of us. Bullets sang their ode for the underworld as they flew through the air. My desperate breath was barely audible in the din that the artillery and machine guns created. I clutched my rifle for dear life. The rifle that seen more days than soldiers. Leaning against the mud trench, I could do nothing but listen to the sounds of doom all around me. Each impact seemed to creep closer and closer to us. The ground quaked and shook ceaselessly as if the gods were bouncing the earth around themselves in a game.

I really had no idea who we were fighting. Just an enemy of the crown and the country. At the distant home, I was told that to fight in war and shed blood for my country was glorious. That I would return with banners and badges, medals and marches, parades and parties. Return like the heroes of the old. Like gods. But no glory could be found in the muddy trenches or in the grey fields or in the pale green mist. Instead of gods, we became animals, scrambling for our survival like rats for crumbs. Each day took a little bit of our humanity with it, scattering them far away in the wind. We were no longer fighting for king and country. We were fighting for our chance for survival, if only for one day.

Thoughts of home never reached us. We were never blessed with the old nostalgia of earlier times. When everything was just a game. Now, it all seemed a dream. The trenches, the endless barrages, the gas, the songs of war. Those were our life. As if we died and were reborn in blood and battle. Our mothers sang us lullabies to sleep. Guns replaced our sweet mothers’ voices with soft hisses as they bade us to our deaths.

Every day brought more deaths, young boys killed for the pride of old men. Poor lads never saw their killers, never saw their eyes. All they saw was the black emptiness of the guns, a cruel reflection of the abyss that waited patiently for them. The ones who were killed in battle were the lucky ones. The unhappy hundreds that lay in cots, wrapped in bloody bandages, could only envy their departed comrades as the passing agonizing seconds drew them closer to their deaths. There they lied, helpless and crushed. Those with their legs stolen by shell, those with their eyes lost by gas, those with their arms rotted by disease. Praying for the oblivion to take them. Then there were those whose pains were not those of flesh and blood, but inside their mind. Those whose brains soured at the sights and sounds of war.

Then came the inevitable command, audible even in the din.

Leaping into action, like bows stretched and released, we climbed over our earthen ramparts and sprinted in the fields. We ran like blind men, blinded by our dreams of glory, blinded by the clouds of dirt. Like a rushing tide, we rose…and fell under the hail of shells and bullets that rained like April showers, whispering to us.

I ran alongside with a soldier whose name and face I did not know, running in the race for our own personal survival, when the shell came and landed with a loud boom, throwing me back. As the dust settled, I laid gingerly, trying to regain the senses that I would never find. In front of me, in the flat field was a dark hole, like a scar on an otherwise perfect face. And at the bottom of that hole was the body of my comrade. Flesh was stripped from his body as rich red blood flowed freely like rivers. His teeth bared an eerie grin while his eyes flashed white as Death took him under its wing. Transfixed by the horror under me, I felt the strong ropes in my mind twist and tear, ripping through my head. The foundations trembled and fell, collapsing like a severed puppet. All I could see was the mangled corpse, lying in the grave prepared for it. My ears rang like crystal bells before silence fell upon them. Nevertheless, I could hear the laughter building up inside me before it was unleashed, echoing inside the crater. Shadows overtook me soon but I was not dead. Death could not retrieve me. No. I was mad.

1: B
2: C
3: A

_________________
going on a journey through my old claims

You guys just inspired me to go write myself Consider yourselves responsible for my latest story page.

Comments:

A: I'm not a poetry connoisseur, first off, but I do like how you've told a story in poetry, because I find that hard to do. However, I'm hard pressed to find any sort of rhythm, which for me makes it a bit hard to read. The way you didn't give away the whole story immediately was an aspect I liked; I think it makes a reader keep reading. I'm not sure about the third verse, though. It makes the main character seem very stereotypical, and I'd like to see a more unusual take on the situation. Your refrain-ish statement about being stuck between black and white is a good theme, I think. Maybe tie it into the rest a little more? Overall, tragic story, well portrayed.

B: Okay, first off, I really like how you've revealed a lot about the characters and their situation through their conversation. It's better for creating interest than introspection is. Another thing I liked is how you didn't give them names - it's short enough that I think names might just be distracting. They're just the girl, or the soldier, or the musician. On that note, perhaps tie the POV character's profession into his mindset from the beginning? The mention that he was a musician seems just a tad random. One more little thing - - I am an apostrophe nazi. Should be 'its honesty' instead. I like your concept. It would be interesting to go more in-depth with the idea of a desperate country throwing girls into warfare.

C: I like your imagery and description. You evoke a sense of hopeless warfare very well. I would have liked to see a main POV character with a little more personality, though - he seems like just a vessel through which to describe the battlefield. Because he does go mad at the end, maybe have some foreshadowing of that a little earlier on? The way he finally breaks is very vivid - "I felt the strong ropes in my mind twist and tear, ripping through my head" - which I like. Altogether, I like your style, but I think that as a reader, I should be able to identify more with your viewpoint character.

Vote:

1st: B
2nd: A
3rd: C

_________________