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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 19, 2019 19:39:07 GMT -5
Introduction: Hello! This is my thread for this writing challenge: wcrpforums.com/thread/73801/100-shot-ch-llenge. I have tried to do this challenge before, and here I am again! I have no idea how far I'll make it this time, but I plan on getting the first prompt done in January, at least, I'll try to get them all done throughout the new year. I look forward to seeing everyone else's writings too! Good luck to everyone who participates! Prompts (1/100 complete): 1. Injured2. Sinking 3. Father 4. Exploit 5. Boredom 6. Art of Conversation 7. Take Your Best Shot 8. Creativity 9. Flash 10. Puzzling Words 11. Ill 12. Skeleton 13. Nothing 14. Servitude 15. Possibilities 16. Weightless 17. Just Say It 18. Last Words 19. Immature 20. Blazing 21. Help 22. Presence 23. Because 24. Forced 25. Reversed 26. Cast Away 27. Emotions 28. Questions 29. Wishing 30. Crackling 31. Curl Up 32. Together 33. Look Again 34. Brief 35. Space 36. Special 37. Jinx 38. Stop Fussing 39. Cozy 40. Breaking 41. Either Or 42. Tell Me a Story 43. Waiting 44. Willpower 45. Who Am I? 46. Idol 47. Unseen 48. Just Try 49. For Me? 50. Your Choice (Literally! You've made it to fifty, so write about any topic/theme you choose for this one!) 51. Useful 52. Treasure 53. Ceremony 54. Lightning 55. Protection 56. Stay With Me 57. Mint 58. Rescue 59. Dominant 60. Thief 61. Deserter 62. Stolen 63. Sarcasm 64. Darling 65. How Much is too Much? 66. Over 67. Try Again 68. Hidden 69. Forgotten 70. The First Time 71. Aging 72. Soldiers 73. Justice 74. Tread Carefully 75. One False Step 76. Connection 77. Mess 78. It Can't Be 79. In Due Time 80. Awake 81. Delicious 82. Fallen 83. Trickery 84. Around the Bend 85. Well Traveled 86. Choices 87. Surplus 88. Rough 89. If 90. Friend 91. Found Not Lost 92. Spiral 93. Deep 94. I Could Have 95. Desirable 96. Resentment 97. Build Up 98. Inch by Inch 99. Dilemma 100. Blue Sky
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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 20, 2019 13:29:26 GMT -5
Prompt #1- InjuredBleeding...bleeding...
Dying.
It was a fragile blur, walking on this thinning line. The string we chase ever so closer to death. Our fight with OakClan would not soon be forgotten, and our wounds would not soon heal. I lay there, in the midst of it all: shouts and yowls and screams of pain. I lay there as the world blurs, and I bleed. And I hurt. My leg throbs, stings, dies on its own as I still live. Dies on its own and I am forced to feel its pain. Red seeps from the wound, coating my leg in a sticky mess.
I do not care. The looks, the awful, awful looks don't matter nor do they process in my mind. Only that I felt I was dying, only that I felt I should still live. For some reason, I knew that was important to me.
My brother- he had disappeared during the battle. I didn't see him, or at the very least, he didn't come to see me.
I try to lift my head. It drops in an instant, barely off the ground.
"Shh. Don't move."
"W-" I can't form words, I taste a salty tang in my mouth.
Though my mouth feels dry and raw, there's something there, something that reminds me of pain.
"You're okay. You're going to be okay."
A blurry figure, a soft voice. Mistflower...I knew her...Medicine Cat of PetalClan.
I'm a warrior...I'm a warrior...
And my heart beats on, the thrumming of it a reminder, a pounding on my chest...
'Hey! Squirrel, wake up! You have to live! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!' it seems to shout.
"...help me," I let out a whisper, a faint noise through the pain. Through the hurt I needed to fight through.
"Oakpelt isn't here," a voice rambled on, "we haven't seen him since the battle."
My brother...he's gone...isn't he? Perhaps...
I let my thoughts linger, messy and incomplete. I let myself stay, injured on the Medicine Den floor. OakClan may have lost the battle, but we hold no victory. Of course, we don't.
I try again to lift myself to my feet. Pain shoots through me with every motion.
"Squirrel! Don't move!" Mistflower shouts. "You're going to make it worse!"
I glare at her, she holds cobwebs in her mouth, her voice is muffled through them.
"There's no help for me now," I shake with each word. And with each word, I mean it.
I want to at least see the sunlight again. I don't want to stay in here, surrounded by cats like me...too weak to take care of themselves.
I barely get to a crouch when I collapse again. Breath heavy. Telling me that someway, somehow, I still have to survive, I have to breathe, bring it all back to its normal calm.
I can't.
I slump on the ground, spitting out who-knows-what in frustration.
When was the last time I ate?
"Squirrel, you know that-" the gray-white she-cat begins softly.
I refuse to let her continue.
"-that what, Mistflower?! That I'm going to be fine because I-" I force from my throat, being cut off by a storm of coughing.
-I don't feel fine!
The words linger. My throat is in the claws of that warrior again, gripping it, cutting off air. If weren't for Oakpelt, I don't know if I would've-
I stop. I don't know where he is now, either. Violent thoughts hack through my mind as coughing hacks through my throat.
It's all stupid. I hate it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And I hate how she looks at me- with sympathy, like I'm something to protect.
It makes me feel more helpless than I already am.
Her eyes glitter with tears and hurt that's not physical. I avert my gaze. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see her like that, not because of me.
She begins to wrap my wound in cobwebs. It's soft, she tries to be gentle, but it hurts all the same. I don't look at her, I don't look at anyone.
I stare on through my glazed vision, hoping for it all to be over soon. The den bends and breaks and blurs in front of my eyes. I try to breathe, let it all go. Let me live for a few seconds more. Let the pain ease off, though it doesn't, and I still fight.
I still fight, 'cause I still have reason to; it'll be over soon. Over soon.
Cold bites the warmth of my throbbing leg. Numbness fights against the hurt. A battle all of its own after the one we had just thought. A battle for only myself. A battle I didn't even know I was fighting.
That night, I dream of winning. That night, I have nightmares of others...Their faces twisted into unfamiliarity. Mocking me. My leg on fire, but doused out only because I drown, I swam out of the river. And they laughed. They laughed and I was the monster apparently. I was the monster, that's what those who I had loved most told me in that dream. And still, I won, I won but I lost everything I knew. I was a stranger. A stranger as I had once been before I joined the Clans.
I wake up in a scream that feels more like a whimper. The stars glitter softly now. My leg protests as I rise to my feet. My breath still comes out shaky. But at least I can get up. I walk a few steps.
A few steps, more like a few leaps considering how hard it's been to get here. I collapse again at the den entrance, I just couldn't push myself any farther.
Will this be it for me?
A gray tom sleeps at the other side of the den, his face ravaged almost beyond recognition. His whiskers twitch in what I can assume is a nightmare. A brown she-cat lays across from him, her breathing heavy, her breath sickly as it sounds like she is dying. It's like seeing the cats in this den for the first time. They're all hurting...My vision is less glazed, though the night makes the den look dimmer.
Seeing them doesn't help, only reminds me of the unwarrior-like strategies of OakClan. Only of the battle, only for the fleeting victory that melted in cries of pain. Only the anguish, the aftermath with no celebration.
We all lay here, injured. We all lay here, waiting...
I try to drag myself out of the den again...a line of color breathes onto the horizon, the sun waking after a long night. Its yawn slowly spreading into the sunrise. Maybe I can make it out there in time. Maybe I can catch the glimpses of sunrise, maybe I can see beauty through all this mess right now. I shove my real thoughts to the back of my mind, forcing myself not to think of what I really want right now. Oakpelt never made it back...I know he didn't. And he was the only family I had left.
I lay out on the ground, splayed in a broken heap of ginger fur, I had never been more miserable than now. A cool breeze drifts into the den, it flutters on the barrier, it sways the grass beyond. I'm cold. so cold, yet heat waves across me in scratching claws.
They wouldn't want this...my Clan wouldn't. My brother wouldn't. Not even OakClan would want to know one of their victims got defeated so easily. Not even they would want to see me suffer this pathetically. I drag myself outside, finally tasting the breeze untainted by the inside of the medicine den. I'm not surrounded by those sick and injured cats any longer, yet sickness and injury still find their way to me. And so is the loneliness: the feeling that no one else is there. Sure, Mistflower tries...she tries...but...trying doesn't always work. I sigh and close my eyes. My leg is still sore and creaking and I can barely move yet I stare on the horizon, I stare at the sun rising, the purple waves opening across the sky, the pink sparkling and grinning. And I can't help but be at awe at its beauty. It makes me forget, at least for a bit, how hurt I really am.
Of course, it couldn't take it away completely, of course, it couldn't be long.
I-
"You really came all the way out here," a shocked, yet soft voice giggles behind me.
"Yes," I nod, neck almost closing in the movement, I nearly choke.
"Squirrel, don't hurt yourself!"
"I'm fine now," I whisper. My voice is hoarse and unrecognizable, I wonder if I look the same.
"Beautiful sunrise today," Mistflower sighs. She sits next to me and smiles.
"Yeah..." I manage.
I stare at the beauty of the sky, then close my eyes and let only thoughts surround me.
And again that thing in my chest beats and tells me to live. This time I nod- a soft, slow motion, my wounds painting me in scars. I take a deep breath and open my eyes to the glimmer of sunlight.
I will.
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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 20, 2019 13:29:40 GMT -5
Save 2
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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 20, 2019 13:30:04 GMT -5
Save 3
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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 20, 2019 13:30:27 GMT -5
Save 4
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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 20, 2019 13:30:40 GMT -5
Save 5
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Post by Tanglefire on Dec 20, 2019 13:31:23 GMT -5
Aaaaand one extra save, just in case!
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Post by Tanglefire on Jan 21, 2020 13:22:08 GMT -5
First prompt up!
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Jan 21, 2020 14:50:55 GMT -5
Congrats!
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Post by Tanglefire on Jan 21, 2020 18:41:03 GMT -5
Thanks!
(I don't really have a plan right now, so I don't know when the next one will be up.)
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Jan 24, 2020 3:58:42 GMT -5
(I've never plan writing ... whoops. )
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Post by Tanglefire on Jan 24, 2020 22:14:58 GMT -5
I hardly ever plan writing either tbh.
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Post by phantomstar57 on Jan 25, 2020 12:11:52 GMT -5
I usually plan out writing in my head, then jot down notes or a very rough draft and how it goes from there depends on the story! I rarely use the traditional outline. I'll work on the rough and 1st drafts and break them into different chapters as the story calls for it. Right now in my book EYES IN THE DARK, I have things like Chpt18, then Chap 18a, and chap22, chap22a, chap22b, and then I had a Chapetr 22c, but went into the files and renumbered many. In big books like this I have separate chapter files. If I did not I think I would have gone start bat ass crazy. But nice thing about that is if I remember something that should have happened I can slip it in that way or move a chapter if it needs moving just by altering its number. Sounds crazy but with this book that looks like another 700 pager if I did not my old brain would go "TILT" It isn't like in the days I wrote the 1st two and all drafts were handwritten! That was crazy too with all the large post its with "INSERT" in the top on the page it needed to go it, LOL I think bacl and wonder how I did that.
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Jan 28, 2020 2:59:14 GMT -5
I ... actually think that's a really good idea. o.o Gee. Why didn't I think of editing that way. I honestly keep slogging through a long word document to find that place this new chapter should be when I could have just put them in different folders.
But apparently I tell a lie. I do outline, but I tend to do it in my head.
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