The Winter Topical
Seeded 10th, lost in second round
Round 1: Picture Challenge
Topic:
Posted on Jan. 16, 2014
Result: Beat No. 23 seed Mike Wrecka 5-0
"Run! Now!"
I could feel the Weatherby lighten as each shell dispersed,
but they weren't stopping; escape is the best option in hell on Earth.
I grabbed her hand. She stared blankly. I pulled it hard.
The mindless horde followed as we stumbled down the boulevard.
These streets were empty now. The homes and shops, too.
Led the girl to my basement apartment below the mob's view.
She's crying. The way her black hair shielded her glistening opals,
I could tell she really had no clue.
Her visage was soaked through — lost, broken and frail.
I handed her a tattered rag, sighed and told her my tale.
Jennifer looked so pretty the day they destroyed her.
Bracelets from oyster. Pleated skirt, lacy embroidered.
My eyes strained through the glaring radiation of light
as they desecrated my wife, her head invaded and spliced.
The monsters were rumors at this point, still faded from sight,
a shadow fiction, crazy and trite, the very idea that aliens might
stray into sight, taking human form and tasting our life.
That day I witnessed it, splayed on my side, Jen prone in its arms,
as it released a glowing discharge, captured her brain and her spine.
Her hazel-ish eyes went faded and blind.
She stared blankly. I grazed the back of my hand on her face. And I cried.
Jennifer looked so pretty the day I shot her and laid her to die.
Their faces are empty. The zombie masses showed no emotion,
no hunger, no yearning, no stress, strain or hopeful convulsions.
So when Amber first saw Zach, the boy she had been with,
sauntering down the street with no purpose or interest,
she rejoiced. I grimaced. She had to learn for herself, even after explaining the rules:
• The humanoid monsters were aliens, using our brains as a fuel;
• the electrical charge of conversion caused the irradiate hue;
• the people weren't people anymore, empty shells left graceless, consumed;
• and the zombies were, well, zombies, controlled by what their creators bid do.
Amber wouldn't eat for three days after that sighting of Zach.
She put her head on my shoulder, her weight on my shoulders. I couldn't keep fighting them back.
Every day comprised an attack. The vacant police stations were short on munitions.
and the aliens were driving us back, engaged in a war of attrition.
We mostly watched, stayed in the backstreets and scavenged for food.
We mostly watched, as the aliens began to build their own habitat new.
Amber was on watch the night of the first explosion, disturbing my sleep.
Then, a car alarm heard through the trees; we emerged from beneath.
Turned a corner to the hordes were unleashed, masses ebbing and flowing like murderous seas.
That's when we saw them, the aliens, facing off, cursing in screams.
Brother and brother battling, irradiate light releasing and bursting at seams.
The zombies fell limp with their masters, horde after horde.
We walked through the scourge of the war, wondering what had triggered disaster.
One alien lay prostrate under a tree, unable to move. Its stomach was bleeding.
Amber aimed her revolver without hesitation, but first I wanted a reason.
"The energy that kept us sustained for our mission also created the schism
because what we didn't know was that humanity's fuel has always been its hateful ambition."
Amber fired.
Round 2: Quote Challenge
Topic: "Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons." — Aldous Huxley
Posted on Jan. 25, 2014
Result: Lost to No. 7 seed Lars 7-1
Master gave me the assignment. Thank you, Master.
For Master, I flipped the pages oh so quiet, kept my pacing in alignment,
kept my face in yellowed lining of the phrases for the time when
Master will take us to the brightness, escape to new horizons.
Thank you, Master. I'm still so taken by your mind, and
ready to serve your every word. I quake in your consignment.
Master loves me, but never as much as I worship at his feet.
So I nervously reread, ensuring that indeed I've found the sermon that he needs.
"Master! Master!" "Please don't say you've failed again."
"Master, no! Master, I have caught my sails in wind!
Master, here, I bring you everything you asked for."
"Yes! Now I may begin."
Master left me. He always does. Master's time is running low,
so he silently withholds all his mind's impressive notes.
But he is Master, and Master knows best.
He says we're on a passage to death. He says he's planning our next.
He'd spoke of immortality without an alchemy set.
He'd spoke of incantations, spells and the Halcyon nest.
Master's words were mumbled, renounced under breath,
probably because he doubts I can hear his denouncements of stress.
But now, down in his cellar study, Master has his chance.
I found him the text.
The silence was broken by the shatter of glass.
It came from the basement.
"Master!" I screamed. I grabbed the ladder, then gasped
and gaped with amazement.
Its eyes glowed like the coils of an electrical stove,
with skin wretchedly gross, infected and mauve.
Its engorged wingspan stretched to the bone with talons like sharpened machines.
This is... This is... This is... This is the mark of the beast!
Master's cloak was in shards at its feet. He'd served as this harbinger's meat.
That's when it started to speak. "You, there!"
Wait. God. No. It's talking to me!
"You did well." "Please, let me live, and I promise to leave."
"You fool, do you not honestly see? I am a god now. I am the product of dreams."
He cracked a smile. Strangely familiar. Could it possibly be?
But no. It couldn't possibly be. "Human, I have solved my disease!"
"The disease." That's Master's term for the human condition.
He had been consumed with his vision to find a remove from this prison,
and here he was, free at last, in the form of a lunatic demon.
I scanned the room. There, on the floor, the notes I had jubilantly scribbled.
"Master, please, show mercy and let me come with you to glory.
Teach me the ways of the spirits, let me bare witness to your feat."
The beast stared, fiery eyes taking in my meek disposition,
and beckoned me over to the same table where he dreamed up this vision.
Seated, I listened. "You have done well, and I believe in conviction.
You shall serve me as you served me here. Now complete what was written.
Soon the time will come for me to reign as God, unleashed on the living."
I exhaled deeply and stared at the paper, this vile curse of a passage.
I set my plan. I began to speak with thoughts of reversing this madness:
".retfa reve ylippah devil lla yehT"
Master collapsed, returning to the human form he despised.
And though lifeless, I could see the smile borne in his eyes.