Today I have the pleasure of
announcing our Red Light/Green Light round three contestants. You've all
submitted great work, and no matter the outcome of the competition, I'd like to
encourage you all to keep putting your words out there. It's been such fun for
myself and our judging agent, Kelly, to get a chance to peek at your opening
pages!
Here are the complete first pages of
our top ten entries.
FEAR NO EVIL
Rachel D. Hanville
The apples’ intoxicating fragrance
filled the autumn air, concealing the stench of the undead’s decaying flesh. I
sprinted through the orchards, occasionally stepping on a red apple rotting on
the ground. Squish. I almost wanted to pick one of the apples off a tree.
Apples were one of the few fruits I still got, but I had always adored them. I
hardly got to eat them fresh like this. New Seattle wasn’t far from orchards
like this one, but it wasn’t like I could go visit them and just get apples. I
wouldn’t go on the road with the zombies and road gangs.
I’d only evacuated New Seattle because of the road gang attacks, and I wasn’t even sure this place was safe, even if it had nice apples.
I didn’t have time to pick fruit now. I had to go see my sister Trinity. Because Trinity, her fiancĂ©, and their daughters had been evacuated also, I had seen her more in the last two weeks than I had in years. We would spend hours talking about everything. Our mother, her kids, the dangers on the road, everything. It was just like when we were kids.
Maybe better, because then Trinity had been convinced she was too mature to spend time with any of her siblings, even Aidan, who was only a couple years younger than her.
Still, back then she used to protect me from our father. From everything really.
Usually Trinity’s fiancĂ©, Jeremy, didn’t want her interacting with me or our siblings.
I’d only evacuated New Seattle because of the road gang attacks, and I wasn’t even sure this place was safe, even if it had nice apples.
I didn’t have time to pick fruit now. I had to go see my sister Trinity. Because Trinity, her fiancĂ©, and their daughters had been evacuated also, I had seen her more in the last two weeks than I had in years. We would spend hours talking about everything. Our mother, her kids, the dangers on the road, everything. It was just like when we were kids.
Maybe better, because then Trinity had been convinced she was too mature to spend time with any of her siblings, even Aidan, who was only a couple years younger than her.
Still, back then she used to protect me from our father. From everything really.
Usually Trinity’s fiancĂ©, Jeremy, didn’t want her interacting with me or our siblings.
DON'T
Kyra Palmer
I wish people came with a warning
label. Possible side-effects of association include: bad grades, missed
curfews, and lying to parental units. Or better, hazard signs. Caution:
majoring in narcissism with a minor in manipulation. Personal bubble
infiltrator. Heart-breaker for sport.
Except such a courtesy would be asinine and undermine a desirable first impression.
Befriend the lie.
If I ever got around to putting on one I'd admit to, aside from being a horrible liar, I deserved being branded… wait for it… a procrastinator. Guilty of skipping requisite freshman science, I’d been sentenced to the high school equivalent of a CIA black site, with busywork. An electric chair might be cozier. Ninety hours of senior year wasted. Test-out options nonexistent, to graduate I had no choice but to suffer through this class.
The room stunk of formaldehyde and juveniles. No amount of slumping in my chair spared me the humiliation. And not the anonymous, solitary variety either.
Nope, I had to endure the torture with him. In the last row sat Jasper Calvary.
His warning label: Don’t.
He’d entered the room with the air and confidence of a leader, someone who believed himself to be in charge and was not to be messed with. A strong angular jaw and well-defined cheekbones replaced the boyish face that haunted my childhood. The dark brown-almost-black hair and striking eyes remained unchanged. A shot of concentrated Caribbean blue I wished I could bottle and keep with me.
Except such a courtesy would be asinine and undermine a desirable first impression.
Befriend the lie.
If I ever got around to putting on one I'd admit to, aside from being a horrible liar, I deserved being branded… wait for it… a procrastinator. Guilty of skipping requisite freshman science, I’d been sentenced to the high school equivalent of a CIA black site, with busywork. An electric chair might be cozier. Ninety hours of senior year wasted. Test-out options nonexistent, to graduate I had no choice but to suffer through this class.
The room stunk of formaldehyde and juveniles. No amount of slumping in my chair spared me the humiliation. And not the anonymous, solitary variety either.
Nope, I had to endure the torture with him. In the last row sat Jasper Calvary.
His warning label: Don’t.
He’d entered the room with the air and confidence of a leader, someone who believed himself to be in charge and was not to be messed with. A strong angular jaw and well-defined cheekbones replaced the boyish face that haunted my childhood. The dark brown-almost-black hair and striking eyes remained unchanged. A shot of concentrated Caribbean blue I wished I could bottle and keep with me.
THE PENDRAGON'S SON
Kelly Barina
As I hurried down the castle’s vast
stone corridor to meet my half-brother for the first time, his name echoed
around me, whispered like a curse: Mordred.
Likely no one else in Camelot shared
my outlook, but that did not matter; his haunted name brought me no fear.
Finally. Finally. I had a brother. Family. Surely he would not shun me
as the others had. Surely he would understand what it meant to be an outcast in
one’s own family. All other thoughts were whispers on the breeze compared to
this resounding truth—I had to meet him, had to know him.
I approached the vaulted doorway of
the Great Hall. Straightening, I walked toward the raised dais, careful to keep
my pace steady, though my legs urged me forward. A prince must always be calm
and collected. My muscles strained, but I reined in my eagerness. The dais
seemed so far away.
Knights and soldiers filled the hall
as I passed. Most paid me no heed, too absorbed in poisonous gossip.
“How is that bastard still alive?”
one said, wringing his hands.
“Vermin never did die easy,” an
armored knight said with a sneer.
I bit my tongue, not for the first
time this day. The hall had witnessed many such words since the news of
Mordred’s arrival. All over an unfounded—and unreliable—prophecy made decades
ago. My steps clipped the stones, leaving the boorish speakers behind. How did
they dare to speak thus?
MARKED
Lindsey Myhr
Catia de Rose sat on a bench in her
front garden, picking at a loose thread that was threatening to unravel the
lace cuff on her left sleeve. As hard as she tried, she was never perfectly put
together. Her governess always knew exactly where to find something amiss with
her appearance. Madame Elyse had pointed out the grass stain on her pinafore
when Catia was seven years old, the first time they’d met. Even now, ten years
later, if her curls weren’t perfectly tucked away or her dress hadn’t been
ironed, she was going to hear about it.
Footsteps clicked on the cobblestone
lane before the stern-faced governess turned into the garden, followed by
Catia’s best friend, Adele Lockwood. With a flick of her wrist, Catia snapped the
dangling thread from the lace and clapped her hand over it. “Good morning,
ma’am,” she said, standing to greet Madame Elyse.
The governess looked at her sleeve.
“Is something wrong with your dress, Catia?”
“No, ma’am, nothing at all,” she
said, tucking her hand behind her and hoping with everything that the cuff
wasn’t going to start flapping as they walked to the schoolhouse.
She waited for the reprimand, but
Madame Elyse just shook her head. “Let’s hurry to knitting class. There was
some commotion in the Square when I came to retrieve you two. I hope it won’t
disrupt our walk.”
Catia grabbed her satchel from her
feet and fell behind the governess to walk next to Adele. She shut the white
garden gate as they left.
FRAGILE CHAOS
Amber Duell
The musky hint of smoke follows me
through the ruined Kisken city, over twisted metal and jutting pipes. The
once-bustling tourist destination is hard to navigate without moonlight but
there isn’t time to be careful. Not tonight. The handle of a sledgehammer digs
into my shoulder as I find the edge of town and follow a line of olive trees
toward the cracked highway.
With a deep breath, cold ocean air
fills my lungs. War is captivating, magnetic disorder. And it’s mine. Only the
God of War can decide when and how it ends, and right now I’m perfectly happy
to let it rage on despite what my brother wants. He may be older, and the King
of the Gods, but this is my decision.
“Theodric?”
My muscles tighten at the sound of
my sister’s voice – especially this sister – but I don’t break my stride. “What
are you doing here, Astra?”
She catches up to me in steel grey
fatigues, her honey hair braided and tucked under a black beret. A round, blue
pin with a red triangle at its center is stuck through the stiff wool.
“Working.”
“Right.” I raise an eyebrow and scan
the uniform. It suits her, despite her small frame, but is nothing the Goddess
of Love would ever think of wearing. Not with pride, anyway. “When did you
enlist in the Asgyan army?”
She tugs at the wide buttoned cuffs
and crinkles her nose. “Most of the men and women deployed on this forsaken
island have families waiting at home.”
SHROUDED GODDESS
Patricia Moussatche
Only Uncle Hector would hang a man
then go fishing.
The giant jatoba tree, where the noose is set, shades the corpse but doesn’t protect it from the heat. Winter is more merciful than our hellish summer, but only slightly. Noon is fast approaching, and the stench of emptied bowels permeates the village like early morning fog. I press an arm over my nose and quicken my pace to the bakery ahead. At least there is some advantage to being forced to wear long sleeves in warm weather.
Vultures circle the cloudless sky above the tree, but not even they dare to defy Uncle Hector. Why does Aryeea insist I fetch flour? I glance over my shoulder at the fortress’s four-story tower spiked on the Igjommi Hill. The fluttering white cloth, billowing like a sail in the valley breeze, can only be her skirt. My grandmother on the balcony, watching me as if I’d go anywhere other than where she sends me.
I enter the bakery and shut the door behind me. The warm scent of dough overwhelms the heat. Steps approach from an inside room, and the baker’s rosy face beams at me as he ambles through the doorway.
“Lady Sophia.” He wipes his hands on his tunic. “What do you like today?”
I’d like someone to cut down that man and bury him before he rots. But if I voice the request, the baker will feel obliged to carry out the order. No need to tempt another hanging.
The giant jatoba tree, where the noose is set, shades the corpse but doesn’t protect it from the heat. Winter is more merciful than our hellish summer, but only slightly. Noon is fast approaching, and the stench of emptied bowels permeates the village like early morning fog. I press an arm over my nose and quicken my pace to the bakery ahead. At least there is some advantage to being forced to wear long sleeves in warm weather.
Vultures circle the cloudless sky above the tree, but not even they dare to defy Uncle Hector. Why does Aryeea insist I fetch flour? I glance over my shoulder at the fortress’s four-story tower spiked on the Igjommi Hill. The fluttering white cloth, billowing like a sail in the valley breeze, can only be her skirt. My grandmother on the balcony, watching me as if I’d go anywhere other than where she sends me.
I enter the bakery and shut the door behind me. The warm scent of dough overwhelms the heat. Steps approach from an inside room, and the baker’s rosy face beams at me as he ambles through the doorway.
“Lady Sophia.” He wipes his hands on his tunic. “What do you like today?”
I’d like someone to cut down that man and bury him before he rots. But if I voice the request, the baker will feel obliged to carry out the order. No need to tempt another hanging.
STARLESS WORLDS
Nicholas Kelly
The Echelon hovercrafts arrived
right on schedule, roaring down the green valley of Ceirk the day after the
harvest, just as they had done the year before and the years before that. Maybe
that was why Jane’s brother and sister didn’t seem scared. There was no reason
to be scared. This was normal. Nothing was going to happen. But if something
did happen…
“Just talk to them,” Kyna, her
mother, said. “Let them hear your voice. Tell them a story. Tell them about the
stars.”
Jane’s eyes drifted to the silver
bracelet on her mother’s wrist, the one that had been passed from mother to
daughter for generations, the one with the symbols of the stars. No one on the
planet Enisfre had seen the real stars for 500 Echelon Accorded Years. Most
people didn’t even believe the stars were real. Jane Mayul wasn’t one of those
people.
“You think they’ll listen to me tell
that story for the hundredth time?” Jane asked.
“Carra will,” her mother replied.
“Finn on the other hand… Just keep them distracted. Stay outside the village.
Keep to the fields.”
“Do you think something’s going to
happen?” Jane tried not to sound too worried. She was 17 accordeds old, and
she’d decided that she was too old to be scared. Or at least, too old for
others to know she was scared.
Kyna smiled and said, “It’ll be
fine. It always is. You just can’t be too careful.”
CYNISCA AND THE OLIVE CROWN
S.Q. Eries
A model Spartan princess was a
champion in the battleground known as the social arena. Dignity was her armor,
wit her blade. She could win allies with a glance, thwart rivals with a word.
And she never ever embarrassed herself in public.
I was not that princess.
My ears burned as my sister pressed that
point within the storeroom's thick brick walls. "Gods, Cynisca! How could
you not remember Lord Polycles' wife?"
"I said I was sorry." In
retrospect, I probably should've known better than to assume the pretty young
woman accompanying the graying Assembly Leader to the town square was
his daughter. Hoping to cast my mistake in a positive light, I said,
"Maybe his wife was flattered–"
Proauga's fist slammed a shelf,
rattling the clay lamps within. "Maybe you should have thought harder
before opening your mouth. Considering how often you race against Polycles'
son, you should know the man doesn't have any daughters."
"We don't exactly chat while
harnessing the horses," I mumbled beneath my breath.
Proauga inhaled deeply, regaining
composure with an effort. Her anger was far from spent, but with
Agis returning
from Delphi in two days, she had more important things to do. "Anyway, try
not to insult anyone else. And fix your hair." She snatched the hairpin
from my drooping knot and tossed it at me. "You're the king's half-sister.
Look like it."
Easy for you to say. Envy wormed up as Proauga sashayed out. With Mother's
golden beauty and our father's height, she was the darling of the upper
echelon.
VALLEY OF MIST AND MEMORY
Michelle Collins
Bearing the collective memory of an
entire village is a burden meant only for a person of great strength and power.
As my little sister perform the Gathering ritual, I know it is right that Mama
chose her to be the next Water Bearer instead of me. My energia has not
developed as Nyree's has. Her young shoulders carry much weight, yet as she
dances among the damp tendrils of mist she appears to be as light as air
itself.
She raises her arms above her head, grasping at the mist as it curls between her fingers, smiling at whatever memory she just captured. I wish the memories I catch could bring me such rapturous joy as hers.
She raises her arms above her head, grasping at the mist as it curls between her fingers, smiling at whatever memory she just captured. I wish the memories I catch could bring me such rapturous joy as hers.
Nyree recites the incantation,
spinning and swaying her body as the mist collects on her shoulders, midriff,
and long gangly legs. Her face contorts from joy into something less pleasant.
Because she is Ja, she has felt far more grief and suffering than
someone of twelve years should. I ache for her.
I slip out of my huipil,
exposing as much of my skin as modesty allows, then lift my arms above my head
praying to snatch something real from the mist.
A stray thought of a margay slinking
in the trees, gingerly carrying an egg in its mouth appears in my mind. My fist
closes over the mist as I clutch at the memory trying squeeze as much out of it
as I can before it fades.
Useless. Wasted energia on a
pointless memory.
DREAMMARE
Shannon Thompson
I wasn’t afraid of nightmares,
because the real nightmares were people. Folks like Will’s father or my old
neighbor or the person who cut Paige’s face. But this nightmare looked real,
like they all do.
Every line of her body was solid,
down to the unusually deep curve between her jutting ribcage and her hips. When
she moved up my bed, her bones cracked, and when I moved back against my
headboard, she crawled halfway up my torso. Nose-to-nose, she smelled like
rain, and water dripped off her hair onto my sternum. This woman had horns.
Three horns as black as night and as difficult to decipher from the shadows as
her inky, stringy hair.
I told myself what I always told
myself, what my mother told me, what my doctor promised me, what my father used
to say.
She was not real.
But she grinned when our eyes met,
and I couldn’t help it. I screamed.
My mother burst into my bedroom on
cue, as if she’d been anticipating another one of my midnight episodes, and as
much as I wanted to tell her that I was fine now—that I understood my
diagnosis—I secretly loved what happened every time she came. The hypnopompic
hallucination disappeared, a side effect of my narcolepsy. A reoccurring,
paralyzing side effect. They happened between sleep and wakefulness, and lasted
anywhere from a few seconds to a minute.
In public, I referred to them as
nightmares, because people tended to shy away from anyone who had
hallucinations, but they were nothing like nightmares.
I really enjoyed reading these! What delightful talent. Congrats to everyone!!
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