Prologue Contest *Winners Anounced*

[RinORourke]

This contest is for the great, yet hardly recognized beginnings
to the adventures many embark upon daily.

First Place
Dizfox (score 9.625)

Second Place
Monster of Darkness (score 9.5)

Third Place
EmilyScissorhands (score 9.125)





Finalists:

dizfox
Ivydoll
[ .days. ]
Lain The Kat
EmilyScissorhands
NinjaKittiMeowMeow
Monster of Darkness

All semiFinalists will get 500g. All finalists who did not place will get 1000g

PM me if you want your average score

Welcome to my second Prologue Contest. Much like last year's, except with more gold and some items. However the same rules apply, so be on your best behavior and have fun reading/writing/judging.

And for those of you returning? Welcome back!

I have always believed prologues were among the most important chapters in a story. A prologue is meant to capture the reader’s attention, to drag them from the shelf in which they picked the book from over to the counter. A good prologue can weave a mystical spell around the mind to have them reach deep within their wallet and sacrifice a good five to ten dollars to continue the journey into the realm in which they had just glimpsed within the first thin pages of the very item they now carried from the store, garage sale, library or attic.

So whether it’s pushing aside card bored boxes in an old attic, browsing through a library, or stopping to glimpse at the newest novels on the shelf at your favorite supermarket, a prologue is where you grab the attention. The summary, the title, the genre, these all hold key values in getting a reader to pick the book up, but it is the prologue that binds you.

So tell me, do you believe you have, or can write, an astounding prologue? Can you capture a reader’s attention in a few pages or paragraphs so completely that they have no choice but to continue on to the first chapter?

If you do, maybe you should enter this contest.

The entry fee is a simple 50 gold and the entries can be up to five pages long.

The lowest prize will be 1,000 gold, the highest will depend on the amount of Entries this contest receives.

You may post a maximum of five entries but they must be paid for and you can only win a prize for one. So if you have two or three prologues and you love them all and can not decide which to use, fear not! You can submit all! Entries are limited to five so others will have a chance and the judges aren’t overwhelmed with your 20 something prologues.

Prologues do NOT have to go with an actual story. You may just write a prologue and not think anything else of the story, but if the prologue does have a story to follow into please post a link so readers may continue if they wish.

Each story will be rated from 5-10. Because nobody wants to get a one or two, it’s demeaning...

Ten {a must read}: Prologue is interesting and original, captures the readers attention quickly and efficiently with few errors. (Nobody is perfect!)

Nine {a must read}: Prologue is Interesting and original, captures readers’ attention quickly and efficiently but has several errors.

Eight {a must read}: Prologue is interesting and original, takes time to capture the reader’s attention, and has many errors.

Seven {worth reading}: Prologue is interesting not very original but has an imaginative twist, takes time to capture reader’s attention and has many errors.

Six {worth reading}: Prologue is slightly interesting, not very original, takes time to capture readers’ attention, and has many errors.

Five {worth reading}: Prologue is not very interesting, slightly original, takes time to capture the readers’ attention, and has many errors.

Zero {a waste of time}: Entry is poorly written, has many mistakes, and author had no real passion to write. Entries possess slang, l33t, and an abundance of misplaced/missing punctuation. Includes block text, joke entries, ect. These will be automatically disqualified and entry fee returned.

[RinORourke]

Judges

Tia_blue

Chibi.Hachi-kun

Ink_Weaver_Heart

Oh Hell Hoe

xXaLLiOo

Noriaka Kyousuke

Nishihana-hime

If you would like to judge, feel free to ask me. But not in the thread, thats what the PM button is for ^^

All judges get 2000 gold each, judges, however, are not allowed to participate in the contest, please don't ask. Also, I would appreciate it if the judges could save their opinions for the end of the contest, no helping or editing entries, no matter how much you really feel tempted.

Participants and readers are, however, allowed to read and critic entries if they want.

Unfortunately I am not judging this year, only managing the contest and tallying up the results. I am however reading each entry and I will comment if you ask.

[RinORourke]

Semi Finalists!

(order by length of name, not rank people.)

dizfox
Ivydoll
Skedrix
Cracovin
[ .days. ]
Navenna
kohana28
Rino-chan
cafebrulot
Rainy Lain
Anti-Icarus
Lain The Kat
Mizuhara Reiko
Moya of the Mist
blackfadedvelvet
EmilyScissorhands
AoyagiRitsuka-chan
NinjaKittiMeowMeow

/ / / / / | | | | |


OMG its a flashlight!




Participants:


1. Aalif heart
2.dizfox heart
3. Itazu
4. Ivydoll heart
5.glik2win heart
6. Skedrix
7.Cracovin heart
8.[ .days. ] blaugh
9. icewolf9 blaugh
10.Laleanen heart
11.Shaperta sweatdrop
12. Sammy5 heart
13. favojavo
14. Ponderer
15. Navenna blaugh
16. Benovere heart
17.Rainy Lain heart
18.Cutina124 heart
19. Rino-chan heart
20. Toyomo16 heart
21. kohana28 blaugh
22. cafebrulot
23. Anti-Icarus heart
24. thecatsred
25. Modest167 blaugh
26. BloodMass
27. Nyoko Kuro
28. SydelleRein
29. VilandraMae
30. Lain The Kat
31. Ichigo_stone crying
32.TheLastFaerie heart
33. UndeadTiger
34.Lorelei Yeager blaugh
35. Blue Eyed Ditz
36. Mizuhara Reiko
37.Moya of the Mist blaugh
38.Scribbling Scribe heart
39.the hidden ghost heart
40. [Shadow.Wing]
41.yosuke_akiyama heart
42. PopTart-Sex-Fool heart
43.EmilyScissorhands heart
44. Hazuki-Ginnosuke heart
45.AoyagiRitsuka-chan blaugh
46.Techo_Nirate_Bunny heart
47.radioactive alchemist heart
48.NinjaKittiMeowMeow heart
49. blackfadedvelvet blaugh
50. Monster of Darkness .
51. xxvampiric_dreamsxx heart
52. Bill.Kaulitz.And.Deidara sweatdrop
53. Draken_the_Daywalker heart
54. A.C.Marafuji-Mouto-chan heart
55. DopeyTheChosen1 blaugh blaugh .
56. Hungry4ExplodingChicken .
57.
58.
59.
60.

Please if your going to change your name, tell me in a PM. We had several people last time change their names during the contest. Very confusing to the judges, and you may not be counted because we couldn't find you.

If you still haven't submitted an entry when the contest ends your monies will be returned to you in full. I promise ^^

List may be edited at any time to fit my love of sliding names.

Entry received=
Entry not submitted= sweatdrop
Double entry= blaugh
Disqualified= crying



If there is an error, please don't hesitate to PM me and say so.

[Arganova]

Count me in. I'll post a few other's when I type them up, but this one;s decent enough. ^.^

Cry of the Wolf Demon:

Mistakes…Easily made, but sometimes, uncorrectable…Permanent ink on the page of life, with no white out in sight. But even if they are corrected, they leave an ever-present residue upon one, a rusted dagger slowly dragging across the edges of their mind, much like sorrow and vengeance, until finally they snap….
Howls fill the twilight air, echoing, overlaying, in a beautiful and entrancing song. A million indescribable, undefined emotions fill this song full of melodic and ghostly melodies, which seem to hold no relevance, or even acknowledgment of each others existence, and yet still all mesh together in a dance of grace and power.
Tall, twisting, ancient trees stretch up all around, littered with strange bird resembling creatures and small, bright flowers which release noxiously sweet or thick and musky scents. A thin layer of dark green, almost black, moss covers the ground were nothing else occupies it, and produces large, cream colored, scentless flowers of its own. A faint breeze rushes through the trees, which creak and groan, but keeps in beat with the wolves.
A single stream winds through this forest, and can’t even be seen from above because of the canopy. But even from ground level, it resembles a long, glossy ribbon, or perhaps a mirror, depending on how quickly it moves that day. This stream feeds into a large, dark lake in the middle of the forest, referred to as the Portal, as nothing that enters it ever comes back, and which also appears to have no other feeds, going in or out.
On the banks of this lake is a set of once majestic ruins, which are now half submerged by the ever-expanding lake, and appear to have been burnt at least once.
Welcome, to the home of the Wolf Demons, and of one of the greatest mysteries of all times, but most importantly, to your demise, Aveera. Welcome, to the Nexus.

[RinORourke]

TheLastFaerie

Count me in. I'll post a few other's when I type them up, but this one;s decent enough. ^.^

Thank you very much. I look forward to the others. This one was great!

[the hidden ghost]

Prologue by the hidden ghost

“Where were you?”

Jessica shrugged. “Out for a run.”

“For three days?”

She shrugged again, staring at her worn joggers. To think they’d been brand new last Monday.

“Why, Jessica?” her mother asked. “We were really worried.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Jessica looked up to face her parents, her expression blank.

“I wanted to get away from me for a while,” she replied.

~~~
I may be entering more later, possibly something longer. But I am proud of this one.

[blackstarninja13]

“ATTACK! BRING THE STRONGEST MEN TO THE FRONT! TODAY, WE FIGHT FOR VICTORY!” the head knight of the North Snow Tygre clan, Terrif Skaa shouted above his fellow Tygre knights, roaring their cries of war. Their white furry skin lined with stripes were covered in armor, from the tips of their tiger ears, to their padded tiger feet. It seemed they could be protected from anything. Anything but…


*****

The North Glacyer Rapticles adjusted their armor as their leader Garamound Asche walked up and down his line of warriors, inspecting them. His black tipped gray hair ended a bit past his shoulders and was pulled back to stay out of his face. He hooked a few stray hairs behind his oddly pointed demon ears and walked back up his line on his clawed raptor feet. He scratched at an itch on his blue tinted skin before stopping in front of one soldier, a bit shorter than the others. Even though he was 67-years-old, he was only just starting to show signs of maturity. His shoulders had finally broadened, the curved ice blue hunting claws on his feet had finally finished developing, and his voice only squeaked part of the time. He had blue skin that faded to light blue on his belly and chest with black stripes and rings in random areas, like all Glacyer Rapticles. Two stripes lined each of his cheeks and one over each eye. His long black tipped silver hair was pulled back into a braided tie and his green eyes looked eagerly into his father’s. “Seraph, are you ready to show your devotion to the Rapticles Clan?”

“Yes sir.”

“Don't slip up," Garamound said only for Seraph to hear with a wink. He straightened his face to one void of expression and shouted, "Draw your weapons!” He raised his own sword above his head as they each drew their weapons and shouted, “PREPARE YOURSELF FOR BATTLE! WE WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH TO END THIS WAR!”

They all gave off a battle cry while releasing ice cold energy, and charged onto the battlefield.


*****

Each clan of all different races, both human and demon alike, joined with themselves to partake in the war. While the war was being fought on the battlefield and many lives were being lost, the elders of each clan met to try and sort out a way to compromise the land they lived on. They came to the conclusion of an accord. They called in the head knight of each race, or if they had been killed in battle, their oldest son or daughter would witness the signing. The accord stated, “We, the elders of each race, whether it be human, demon, or a mix of both, have signed this accord as a sign of peace. The war of the clans is over. Each race will live in peace with each other, living in villages called ‘Dimensions’. Each of them will have a designated ruler, whether it be male or female. The ruler will be either the head knight or the head knight’s child, if the head knight has died in war.”

Seraph Asche, Exousia Skaa, daughter of Terrif Skaa, and many, many others witnessed the signing of the accord. Each of the witnesses was then made either Lord or Lady of their races’ Dimension.

400 years passed. Everything had run smoothly with absolutely no flaws ever since then… except for one Dimension. A Dimension called Delania. The humans that inhabited that Dimension were evil. They never agreed to the accord like their elder Telscha had. Delanians loved war. They loved to make their blades sing and cry out for the taste of blood. They loved the sound of an arrow being pulled back in its bow to be launched at the enemy in swarms like bees. But they lived in peace like they were told; only it was a bitter peace. Then, one day, a young Delanian named Lucifer came across a power that was forbidden to all those in Delania. It was a power that if you possessed enough strength on your own, you could open the 6 gates of Hell and rule the entire underworld if you could defeat the Almighty God of the Underworld. Lucifer, already attaining quite a bit of power, tried to open each gate. He got to the fifth one before he was defeated and flung back to his mortal body with so much force that it made the building he was in crumble around him.

When he was found, he was only sealed away instead of buried. No one could unseal him if they wanted to live. There was only one who could get away unscathed. One of green dragon blood who shows enough courage could do it, and only he could seal the monster away again.

So until then, Lucifer was sealed away in a tomb, never withering away, and withstanding the destruction as his Dimension was destroyed around him. Waiting for the day to be brought back to the land of the living. Until then, he was doomed to walk the misty path of nothingness.

[blackstarninja13]

hope you like it mrgreen

[Cracovin]

*Subscribes.*

I'm writing it now, this sounds cool.

[RinORourke]

Ichigo_stone

hope you like it mrgreen

I liked it, lots!

[RinORourke]

Cracovin

*Subscribes.*

I'm writing it now, this sounds cool.

I'm glad your interested^^

[Cracovin]

Here it is, I may have read a little to much of a certain book....

Don't know how good it is...

"All hail King"

Michael struggled to put a few words down in his diary, and it had been a downward spiral for the past decade or so. Ten years ago he was able to write pages and page about his day, but now, he would struggle to write a sentence, and not a very complicated one. Why had this spiral started, Michael wasn’t sure, but he had a sneaking suspicion it was because he was afraid. He scratched down a sentence, and slammed the diary closed and quickly jotted a look to the right, away from the wall, the only thing that couldn’t look at him. He looked out the window; the whole apartment was covered in windows. There were more skylights then the average neighborhood would have had twenty years ago in this one house. But the window he was looking out was the most accessible, the most vulnerable, and the most dangerous. Anyone could see in it from ground level, and it was the most intimate area of the house, the bedroom. All bedrooms were now on the first floor, any suspicious activity had to be reported. They eventually found that with curtains this was nearly impossible so they decided to ban those too. However there was no one looking into Michaels window, and he was safe for now. He hid the diary under a pillow and walked to his front door.
Out the door he walked, and down the street, where he stepped on the bus. The bus was a complicated system developed by the government to transport people around, only instead of going where you wanted to go; you went where they wanted to go. It was a drastically different concept that worked for this society. The bus was lined with small screens that displayed messages, usually just dribble about wars that were being won, and criminals that were being punished, usually harshly. The current display was that of a woman being shaved, while getting prodded by a metal object in the nether region. An extraordinarily gruesome image meant to instill fear into every citizen, and it did its job. Every woman on the bus cringed during every moment of the video, and then it cut to a message, by King.

The human mind is a social mind
It’s remarkable what it can do in a social situation
Even to the point where something so gruesome can happen
Such as a terrorist attack in a large crowd
That I can keep that crowd maintained because eventually
The human collective will out power, outsmart, and outdo the disconnected.

This message was played daily, especially the last line “The human collective will out power, out smart, and out do the disconnected.” It was true, and the society was a perfect example of it, King was smart, clever, and knew far too much psychology. He ran the society through fear tactics, but most of all his cleverness. Every thing in the society was spearheaded by him to keep absolute control. He had too, or else he wouldn’t be rich. And he was. He was richer then every country combined, staggering into the trillions. And the people were left to suffer, but they loved King, because King was providing everything they needed, and security, especially security.
Michael got off the bus with everyone else, and headed down a street, it was jammed with thousands of people all heading in the same direction. It was the weekly march. Businesses were closed, televisions did nothing but display the above message, and so in the end there wasn’t anything else to do but attend the march. Millions gathered into the large square of Capital. And they all did it to get a glimpse of King. Michael worked his way through the large crowd, and eventually found a spot high in the bleachers off the main square and further down Main Street. Main Street was a three mile long road that met no road, only the Department of the Military, a sprawling building that puts The Pentagon to shame, to the south, and The Palace to the north. The road was lined with bleachers, five stories high and could seat three million people. And it did, every week. The main square was located in the middle of the span between the two buildings, and that was where most of the bleachers sat, where the best bands played, and the most important people sat. Off of the main square was where all the average people sat, and all they did was wait to see King, and then leave. They also chanted, and moved their arms up and down in the motion of a hammer, fists clinched to look like a hammer.
“All hail King,” They chanted like a chorus. A very loud chorus.
“All hail King, All hail King, All hail King.”
Michael felt obligated to join.
And the anticipation built, tens of thousands of people were chanting “All hail King,” the band in the distance was growing in tempo and resonance. The ground trembled in unison with the people, and the people grew louder to overcome the other noises. The only thing they wanted King to hear was them hailing King.
It took five minutes for King to traverse the one mile long road, but it took an hour for the ceremony to complete itself. This was mainly because it took so long to gather the large amount of people, and the band started playing long before King arrived, and the people chanted long before King arrived, and thus the anticipation grew long before King ever needed it too, but it had too because the anticipation was key to the collective, if they all felt the same, then they would be same.
“All hail King!”
The anticipation climaxed, cheers roared down the road, King had started his drive down the road. The cheering escalated to the point where one couldn’t hear himself, the noise of the city disappeared; the only thing heard was “All hail King,” over and over again. Then an explosion ripped through a section of bleachers, overpowering the collective cheering, killing thousands in front of the eyes of millions. The chanting stopped.
The collective stared struck in fear, frozen in awe as the event took its place in the hearts of the people. Main Street was silent except for the screams of dieing people. Smoke billowed through the street, and then someone yelled.
“It’s King! Everyone its King!”
A few people turned to look, and then a few of those started chanting, “All hail King.” The chanting spread slowly, then rapidly, up and down the bleachers. The king raised his hand out the window of his car, something he rarely did. The crowd responded by chanting his name louder. “All hail King! All hail King!”
Michael stood struggling to move he wanted to help the people who were dieing, but the crowd grew louder, and he felt more uncomfortable with every passing second. Would he be a bad person to help those people, would he be punished? He turned to look at King who was waving his hand in the thickening smoke, police sirens could be heard in the distance. King would protect him; Michael became convinced of this and reluctantly raised his arm in the salute of the society. Up and down, one, two. He started chanting, “All hail King!” He grew louder, the collective grew louder, and the sound of the police sirens grew distant under the roar of the collective. Millions began chanting again, the smoke of a bomb roamed over them, and still they chanted, unmoved. Michael now screamed “All hail King,” not entirely sure he wanted too.
King passed the smoldering ruins of the bleachers strewn across the ground, dying people everywhere, police cars surrounding it, and King noticed that in the wreckage one lone man was standing, blood pouring down his face, he was motioning with the societies salute, and he was chanting with all his heart. Death had nearly met him, and instead of turning toward help by doctors, he turned toward King, and knew help would come from him. King smiled, rolled up his window and silently chanted to himself, “All hail King.”

This would be the prologue to a book I've been wanting write, but probably won't start it for a while, I'm currently on another project, I'm sending the entry fee right now.

[Hott-Chicken-Limbo]

A [ Sinful ] Fault

"The following statments that I am about to read, is considered the cause of the virus that only hit The United States over ten years ago."

The paleontologist said to his peers as she moved about the mircophone of the stage to fit her now sitting postion. In her small fraigle hands she held about three sheets of paper, each contain material that was assumed to be the upbringing of the epidimic.

"Let the sin's of the old humanity
Be discarded amoung the darkness
That is this Holocaust, Lost forever
In a storm of pestulances
And from these ashes, rise again
My pheniox stronger than ever."

She read aloud, as she finished she moved the paper behind the other two and then proceed to explain the other's as well.

"Now the next one, we believe it to be a statement from someone who either surrvived the incident or was alive during it."

She again begain to expain before clearing her thoart to speak again. Not only was she amazed at the stories and papers her and her team had found but also were the people listening.

"They wrote, It seems that god had plans for us. Big plans for the U.S anyway. It seems that our so called president is wanting to fund for a Dr.Snovlin cure program. The news on television tell us that it will go through. Then there is a few days missing and then the day after it happened."

Lorey, the paleontologist who was reading, paused a moment uncertain if she should continue reading what was in fron of her. Her blue eyes had scanned it over quickly and she didnt think the public of London needed to know that bit.With a small breathe she continued.

"After the expriment was complete, certain men of the military were called forth to be text dummies; I being one of them. Only at the age of nineteen they called me forth, saying I had a rare unknown blood type, which at the time was Known as Type G."

Not wanting to continue Lorey gave another small breathe as the people sending it out to millions urged her own. Apparently the rest of the world needed to know, but she thought otherwise.

"Type G was a rare blodd indeed, only one out of thirty people had it. I was the unlucky one. After testing day after day after day, my body started showing signs of the 'cure' acting weirdly while the others had nothing. One night as I laid staring at my ceiling my stomach felt like it turned over three times at once; my head ached more than an average migrain should. Falling from my bed onto the cold cell floor my body burst open and I felt like my insides were spuing everywhere."

About to gag she slowly covered her mouth and gulped it back down. This was too disturbing even for the public. Lowering her hand she continued to read slowly and with less emotion.

"The gaurds quickly came into my room and hauled me off to the Doctor who seemed to be laughing. Soon after that, I lost memory of what happened and they told me that Everything would be fine."

She finished reading and folded the paper down and behind the last one she read it went. Only one more to go, she thought. Lorey's lip began to quiver as she tapped the microphone lightly. Then began again.

"Another thing we found was a letter to london government coming from the U.S. It read, We are sorry for this distrubance but it seems that six of our test subjects maybe around the ages of sixteen to eighteen have escaped and made their way to London. They are three males and three females each of a different place of living. They were the best of those countries and now it seems they have delevoped elemental related powers, each varying slightly in power and by element. We call them 'S.I.X.S' which at the current moment doesnt stand for anything."

Lorey quickly dropped the papers after readint the last sentence. Everybody in the room was freaking out; harshly throwing chairs at on another. Yet another incident had be caused because of this Virus. Slowly Lorey walked to a nearby camera man and smashed his head into it, creating a puddle of blood. Her body transformed quickly to a males, and his voice echoed as he yelled out.

"Six Different Paths.
Six Different People.
Six Different Elements.
Six, Who we have become."

[Laleanen]

All right! Sounds like fun. This is the prologue for a novel I've been working on for awhile:

Normally, the sun rising over the city of Esselya was considered one of the most beautiful and sought-after spectacles in all of Aclasia. The valley in which the town was nestled was known throughout the country as Meadowlark Valley. Every morning, as the golden-white light of dawn began to seep into the early morning sky, the meadow larks were aroused into a twittering chorus, greeting the new day. On this particular September morning, however, the sun rose blood-red and cold. A dark cloud of smoke hung over the valley, winding up to meet the rising sun from the heart of the city. The meadow larks were silent.
Two grim figures watched the sunrise from the roof of what had once been one of the Healing Houses; the only building within sight that had not been reduced to smoldering ashes or piles of rubble. But even the Healing Houses, which had always remained protected by virtue of the mountain streams which encompassed them, had not survived without the western building burning to the ground. The spirits of the two watchers dampened as the dawn illuminated what was left of the once beautiful city.
Her name was Myra. His was Aaron. At first glance they appeared to be normal enough; an ordinary young man and young woman, each with the proper arrangement of facial features, limbs, and appendages, and perfectly unpeculiar coloring. The young woman had deep, sea-blue eyes and waist-long golden brown hair, which she had tied back into a traditional braid. Her garb was simple and practical; she wore brown trousers, a green, long-sleeved tunic, a brown leather belt with a sword around her waist, and a longbow and arrows on her back. The young man was dressed alike to her; he wore a long, short-sleeved, tan tunic, dark brown trousers, and carried no weapons except a long staff made of cedar. A steel belt was clasped around his waist; it was studded with sapphire stones, which matched his eyes perfectly. Now those eyes and the eyes of his companion were darkened with anger, helplessness, and bitter grief.
A single female voice cried and begged for mercy somewhere in the shadowed alleyways. Under normal circumstances, the two watchers would have dashed off immediately to help; but their hope had been muted from witnessing hundreds of other women and children being raped, beaten, and murdered before the eyes of their husbands and fathers, who perished in a futile effort to rescue their loved ones. As the night grew older, the screams and cries of grief slowly began to die away with those who had uttered them. Now, all that was left was the silence and grey emptiness around them, and one final, desperate voice, pleading for someone in this dead city to rescue her. She soon joined her friends and family in their fate, and the silence took over…
Auria gasped, startling herself awake. Freezing-cold sweat plastered her dark hair to her brow, and her knuckles were white from clutching at the pillow into which her face was buried. She threw off her blankets and sat upright, shuddering. “No…no, the war is over…” she whispered, trying to calm herself. Through her window in the uppermost tower of the library, she could see the beginnings of dawning sunlight. The meadow larks were singing. “It was only a dream…”



Hope you enjoyed it. I'll start a trade with you for the 50g. smile Looks like I've got some awesome competition!! Great work, everyone!

[[ .days. ]]

silent_sara

Cracovin

*Subscribes.*

I'm writing it now, this sounds cool.

I'm glad your interested^^

I need your love to get up from my knees;
I can't seem to see the forest for the trees.

Oh, who drew the art in your signature? I love it. ^_^

I'm a-gonna enter. I have at least one that would be good for this. It's the edited version, and I haven't uploaded that to my FictionPress yet, so what's there is slightly different from what I'll be posting.

Quote:

This is from something I'm currently working on. The format of the story is similar throughout: Each chapter starts with lyrics from a song by the band The Working Title, from their album About-Face. Song.

If you would like to read the rest (it is incomplete, however; still being worked on), click here, or click the banner in my signature.

Never Run Again

Prologue

Everybody wants to see God—
So clear, with their own two eyes;
I feel alone.
-"The Crash"

To understand why he did it—to know what was going through his mind as he fell—that became my purpose. To be able to look at his grave and see beyond the cold grey marble, beyond the grass and dirt and flowers, down deep into his soul, his heart—that became my goal. It was something I needed—closure, of sorts. A reason not to cry when I thought about him.

Staring up at the rooftop, toward the clouds and the wide railing on which he stood—those were the final moments of my life. Forever captured in my gaze, emblazoned on my mind for an eternity, blocking out memories I had shared with him, the scene would haunt my dreams until I joined my brother in the ground.

I can't forget the day; it's constantly replayed before my eyes—so I try to ignore it. I try to ignore the bright sun that day, surrounded by puffy white clouds that promised no rain or snow. Inadvertently, I remember how normal the day had started out: Elijah was hitting on all the girls he saw while I followed beside him, exactly like him in every way save for personality. That may be the reason I never noticed the slight changes I remember now—the way he hugged me before we went into our homeroom; the way he gave his girlfriend one last, long kiss; the way he paid special attention to his surroundings, a wide smile on his face as he gazed around himself. I never noticed, and I never knew the difference until one of our friends came to find me after lunch.

Elijah stood on the railing atop the main school building, five stories up. A crowd had assembled below, their faces turned upward as I fought my way through them to look. Crying out his name, I ran up the stairs, and when I got to the roof, he was still there. It wasn't a matter of balance that caused him to fall; the railing was flat on top, half a foot wide. It wasn't the wind, either, even so high up. It was his own problem—his secret internal battle—that sent him over the edge, no matter what I said to him. I shut it out, and it took me a few hours to remember it, but he was crying, the tears streaming down his face and falling five stories to the ground. The last thing he said to me was, "We'll be together again."

Then he spread his arms and let himself fall forward.

I remember the sickening smack as his body hit the concrete, and the screams from down below. I rushed back down the stairs in a daze, the deluded idea that he had survived clouding all other thought. There was no way my brother—my twin—had just committed suicide.

My memory doesn't show me any blood, but I'm sure there was a lot of it. I vaguely remember a wet, sticky substance on my hands and clothes as I held the body, waiting for help to arrive—I can only assume it was blood. That, or it was the life I used to live falling through my grasp.

As I wait in my silent misery,
All I'm asking is please, forgive me?