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Friday, May 29, 2015

Generated Prompts--First Lines

Today I'll give you first lines and you can turn it into any kind of story you'd like! Let's keep it around 500 words.

Choose one:

It will be spring, the season of art and howling.

You can kill a famine - she told me how.

Sanity was an ugly boy, and that's before everything went wrong.

Dad was my worst enemy and my greatest betrayer, but the truth isn't quite what some think.

7 comments:

Tyrean Martinson said...

These are awesome prompts. For some reason "You can kill a famine - she told me how" is the one that's sticking with me - with the one about spring as a close second. Maybe I'll write with a combo of those two today. :)

Tyrean Martinson said...

Here's my bit of story start, after my rambling around and trying to decide which prompt I liked best:

It will be spring, the season of art and howling. For now, this last bit of winter, I can revel in the quiet of the library with my research spread around me, but when the sunlight burns through the acidic clouds and everyone gets restless, even the library won’t be quiet anymore. Howls, laughter, wild artwork, and spontaneous dance parties will erupt everywhere. Young people will fall in fever-love.

I remember last year when Ewan and I chased each other around the reference desk until we were giggling and breathless.

I close myeyes. That won’t happen again this year, at least not for me. Ewan is dead. I press my fingers into the spiral wire of my notebook to leave an impression on my fingers. It doesn’t even come close to the pain I feel inside. It doesn’t matter. Does any of this, even this sea of research in front of me?

The words of my notes blur and I blink back my emotions. Finals are coming and I’m not even studying for them. Instead, I’m drowning in my own personal research into Spring Fever. It seems that in times ancient before we became Unified, it didn’t mean what it does today: millions of young people burning bright for a few weeks followed by half of them dying.

Before the interruption of a soft laugh behind me in the stacks, I had found something, an old news clipping on an old database – something about population control. I sifted through my notes, and then through my screen database. There – the second tab down – a headline: Population Control Experiments Threaten the West. It’s not a compete article – just a headline in a group of headlines from the ancients. I search the uni-net, and my books and papers, and I find only one definition for population control: “the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.”

My screen dings with incoming call from my academic advisor, Mr. Rue. I sigh, but then I tap my ear implants, and touch my voice-box to make sure I’m wired in for whisper-talk so as not to disturb the other library patrons.

“Yes, Mr. Rue? I thought our appointment was tomorrow.” I try to keep my tone polite.

Mr. Rue’s face appears onscreen and his hair and clothes are disheveled, much unlike his usual, neat appearance. “Ms. Hill, I must interrupt your studies to warn you that two of the Unified Guard will be there shortly to apprehend you.”

“What? Apprehend me? For what?” I don’t understand. Could my research have tripped an alert?

Mr. Rue shakes his head and looks to the side of his screen, his brow wrinkled. “No time to explain, Ms. Hill. You must leave campus now if you wish to escape Unified Correction Center.”

“But where will I go?”

“Get to the Underground, Ms. Hill. Now. Or, this will be the last time you see the sun, or even the acid rain.”

Huntress said...

*myAwedFace*
Very nice Tyrean.

Tyrean Martinson said...

Thanks, Huntress! :)

Huntress said...

Sanity, the ugly boy.
Sanity had a face of a pasty mushroom and was so disfigured that none would talk to him. I watched from afar and let the other kids judge him. Tease him. I stayed silent. Pity was foremost in my heart. Turns out Sanity hated both equally, the cruel comments and my sympathy.

As far as I knew, Sanity’s features, his flat, face and two arms, were a detriment. Sure, he was clever but with only two eyes, everyone thought his sight was defective. Especially colored blue rather than red like normal people. I mean, he didn’t even have a snout.

His misguided adoptive parents made the first mistake. Maybe their actions were laudable. I mean who doesn’t feel sorry for a pet but gimme a break, throwing his kind into civilized society is just cruel. It breaks up the community and causes people to take sides.

The day I decided to talk to Sanity was a day that I wish I could have a do-over. I mean, I did feel sorry for him—big mistake. I thought he needed my protection. Mistake number two. After the initial coolness, Sanity became a semi-friend. We ran around together, watched the moons come out at night, and guessed what cargo was on the landing star craft. We grew into adults. He got longer, taller than normal people by half while my horns emerged and my girth stretched out.

Sanity was quite the conniving little Terran. Like I keep my fifth arm hidden, he kept his abilities and intelligence out of sight and never let anyone in on what was going on in his single brain. But who knew he’d really do it? Even asking me is a waste of time cuz he never mentioned his deadly idea to me.

There’s enough blame to go around in these last days. Yeah, his parents messed up when they adopted Sanity on Invasion Day. I didn’t catch on until it was too late that his plan was to release the Deluge Device on our planet as we did his Earth.

But the authorities screwed up worst of all. They said it was luck when he succeeded in his plan to wipe his adoptive planet clean of life like we did Earth.

Sanity told me once about something he called was a display of satisfaction made by humans. He did it that day when we knew the Device could not be turned off. His face on the viewcasts will be with me until the last moment, the last breath before our extinction.

He called told me it was a smile, pulling back his lips and exposing those ugly white teeth.

Huntress said...

Odd. Blogger added several unnecessary "I mean"s to the post.
Bad blogger. Bad bad

Charity Bradford said...

Tyrean, that was wonderful! I'd read that book. So much sadness and then the intrigue hits you in the face.

Huntress, I LOVE your take on the ugly boy. :) Way to go Sanity.