Writer Battle_Chaos Read online

  Forward from S Shane Thomas

  I entered a writing contest like none I had ever heard of. Author Versus Author. Initially, I was hesitant because the person who put the website together and hosted the competition simply referred to themselves as “The Commissioner” and stated in their bio that “A full-time day job in a totally unrelated field keeps him (at the moment) from pursuing his writing passion”. It came as little surprise based on the foreshadowing that the contest fell apart before the work that follows reached publication.

  Three emails over the course of a few months went unanswered. It is unlikely the Commissioner will be able to revive the contest at this point. I am unable to reach the other author of this story, since Commish kept things unanimous. This story is permanently free, since it would be unfair for me to profit in part from another person’s work. If the other author is you and you’d like your name on it, or you’d like to try to sell the story, I can be reached through the contact form at www.LARC-SciFi.com, but will require proof of your work in the form of unedited chapters that match the ones I received before cleaning things up for publication.

  Despite the contest falling apart, I fell in love with my tactic for keeping the story within my perimeters. I present to you, Dear Reader, a Writer Battle. It is my hope that all enjoy the contest and some among the readership rise to challenge me at WWW.LARC-SciFi.com/WriterBattle.

  Join Shane’s newsletter here Http://eepurl.com/ cQc861 to read other Writer Battles, his ongoing monthly serial- Shugarra Corps, book reviews, and news about freebies.

  Chapter 1 Unanimous Author

  The City

  “I hate to bother you on a Sunday morning, but I just read your stupid emails. I swear I am gonna shove my foot so far up your butt, I’ll never get the stink out of my…”

  Carter hit the red icon on his cell and the horrid voice ceased. He paced from one end of his tiny apartment to the other. Agitated.

  What a knuckle-dragger, Carter thought. He considered shooting back something caustic via email, but rethought that. Carter found it impossible to not second-guess himself when he got carried away in the moment.

  That voice may no longer be vibrating the air he moved through, but he could still feel its resonance.

  Another voice called from the bathroom, “What was that about?”

  Carter ignored the second voice and continued to pace. He tried to calm his breath, to unhear that voice in all its self-importance, its self-righteousness and condescension.

  How should he respond? If Ben had read it already, then it was likely his boss and coworkers had read it also. Every time he thought he had overstepped, thinking his boss was going to let him have it, his boss liked it. This never failed to surprise Carter.

  “You need to crack the whip more,” he would say.

  Then he would laugh at a particularly salty barb. “Ha, ha! I never heard anyone refer to a subcontractor as a Three Stooges routine; not to their face. No, really, maybe it will sink in.”

  The door popped open, “What was that about?” Kate asked.

  “What do you mean?” Carter asked, finding it more difficult to avoid her standing right in front of him.

  “You said, ‘Hey Ben’…and then nothing. Not another word,” his girlfriend grilled him. One thing he could count on, if it was audible, she was listening.

  “It’s nothing, just an issue at work.” He could see it wasn’t a satisfying answer, but she let it go. He hated to be painted into a corner; maybe he should have stepped outside before taking the call.

  “Hon, I’m gonna need to go to work today,” Carter told her. Crap, he thought, everyone talks about “babysitting” sub-contractors. It’s more like herding toddlers.

  Stony Palace

  There was a crispness to the air as Sarah ascended the goat trail out of the canyon. Trail might not be the right word for it. It was more of a steep scramble up through brambles and crags that only a goat could love. It was more an enormous pile of lava rock—a pile a big as a mountain.

  Looking out over the slope toward the mid-morning sun, something caught her eye. Was there a camp on the out-crop of rock? Not a camp, it looked more like some kind of vehicle, but not one she recognized...and how would it have gotten there?

  Hard to tell what it was, she thought. She continued to climb, dismissing the distraction.

  She thought about how Radiohead was pretty much the sound track to her life as she raced up this impossible mountain. Karma Police was playing in her earbuds as she hustled through a stony crevice and pulled herself up the narrowed space at the top. She was barely breathing hard and not even broken a sweat.

  As she crested the hill at last, she spotted a gray-haired lady who looked far too young for such a decrepit creature. Sarah thought her skin looked so smooth juxtaposed to that silver pixie cut. She was beautiful, but Sarah couldn’t help thinking she really ought to mess it up a bit. She looked too…groomed.

  What Sarah didn’t consider was how the hell this lady got here, in pumps and a very smart Capri pantsuit.

  As she approached the lady, the lady remained calm even serene. She stood there watching Sarah approach.

  Sarah considered for a moment muddling her hair, but chose instead to pull the pistol out of her back pocket and shoot the lady’s bodyguard right between the eyes.

  For the briefest moment, she speculated about why neither had made any move to protect themselves. Why hadn’t the bodyguard made any attempt to protect her boss? Or was she her boss? Who was she working for? But, mostly, she wondered how, at twenty-four, she was such a mess of contradictions.

  She stood face-to-face with the older lady and was slightly annoyed that she, even now, remained so serene. It was inconsiderate.

  Sarah reached out a hand and tousled her hair. “It’s just too much,” she said calmly.

  Chapter 2 S Shane Thomas

  Stoney Palace

  Those smooth features bent into a hateful scowl. A hand stroked tousled hair back into place. Beside her, the bodyguard tucked knees to chest and leapt to standing. The bullet had hit its mark. A hole right between her eyes smoldered. Thin wisps of smoke trailed lazily up into the still air.

  Sarah gaped. The Order. Only the Order would allow a creature such as this out under the light of day with hardly a disguise. Its skin looked like tree bark made flesh. Long brown hair had the texture of fine moss. Things writhed within. Its deep set sockets held two dull black orbs. They blinked slowly and Sarah felt herself cringe. A thin slash of a mouth cracked into a smile, revealing row after row of teeth. The smell of rotten meat emanated from its open mouth.

  “We never joined the Coven. He was marked by their witches, but he turned his back on magic, on all of you!” Sarah took two steps backward while she spoke.

  “Child, I had come to talk about your twin, Carter, and the Order. However, now I’d like for you to learn manners. My familiar will have to live with that dimple now, and I don’t like being touched,” the woman spoke with the same serenity that her countenance bore.

  Just great! I live outside the magic community for a couple years and now I think I’m untouchable. “Pardon the poor etiquette…” Sarah gestured a grasping motion.

  “Ophelia, my dear.”

  “Pardon the poor etiquette, Ophelia. Since leaving your world behind, I’ve taken contracts against a few criminal organizations. I thought a couple well-dressed ladies out on this trail were here for retribution,” Sarah said. She desperately looked for an escape as she spoke. A sheer cliff face to her back and a magician with her familiar in front. I guess all my luck rides on the apology.

  Ophelia’s serene features were now alight. “Your brother may have chosen a normal life for
himself, but his talent is an essential part in the Order’s plan. He alone in this age can contribute the last part of our spell. The spell that will shift the tide in the conflict between the Order and the Coven. After his help, my friend and I will never be mistaken by a pathetic human like you again!”

  “He won’t help you!” Sarah blurted. There I go again. A bit of smooth talking would have gone a bit further.

  Ophelia turned to her familiar and gestured back at Sarah. “We don’t need to have this discussion any longer.”

  Sarah flashed into action. Gunshots rang in her ears and reverberated in her grip. The bullets ricocheted off Ophelia, but downed her familiar again. One final squeeze of the trigger, leveled at Ophelia’s smug face, and…

  Sarah’s stomach burned and she gasped. She felt that last bullet as it bounced off Ophelia and slammed into her gut. Her head bounced on the rocky trail beneath her. Purple spots swam in her vision.

  “Foolish little human girl,” Ophelia withheld laughter, barely. “We were going to hold you in exchange for Carter’s cooperation. Now, you’ve mortally wounded yourself. A pity.”

  Sarah struggled up to one elbow and tried to speak, to beg for healing, but blood gurgled in her throat instead.

  “Are you hungry, my friend?” Ophelia asked her companion.

  Sarah barely heard the woman speak. She struggled for her life, even as her mind began to slip away. The familiar leapt upon her. It was the last thing Sarah saw.

  Tearing and chewing were the last sounds she heard, aside from her own desperate sobs.

  The City

  “And one last thing…” Carter paused to watch the subcontractor’s lip tremble under watery eyes. “If I want your opinion on the data entry interface, I’ll give it to you!”

  “Of course, sir.” The subcontractor tore his gaze away from Carter’s and locked eyes on his screen. Tears splashed his keyboard.

  Nothing like tearing into one of the half-wits to make up for the trip to the office. Carter caught his reflection in the glass of the high rise. His sucked in his belly as best he could and flexed. His reflection, set in front of the city skyline, suddenly lurched. He doubled over in pain.

  Carter rolled onto the thin office carpet, his mind wracked with sensations. It felt like his guts where on fire. He whimpered aloud. Pain burst from the back of his head. He had fallen forward, but he knew he hadn’t hit his head.

  Sarah. He remembered the time when they were kids and she fell from their treehouse and broke her ankle. Carter limped around for months. Their doctor said that twins have a strange bond.

  “Sarah, what happened?” Carter asked aloud. The pain in his stomach was so intense, the man forgot where he was. Then he felt the sensation of his twin sister being eaten while she was still alive. His screams rang in his own ears.

  Then there was nothing.

  ******

  “Sir? Sir? Are you okay?” the subcontractor’s face was close.

  Carter blinked away tears and reached for his gut. He patted at where the bullet had punched into him. Whole. He sighed out in relief. Whole, but wet. He uncurled from the fetal position and sat up. His pants were wet. I imagined that whole Sarah bit. I’ve been stressing over work too much. I must have fainted and pissed myself.

  “Should I call an ambulance? A relative?” the subcontractor’s voice trembled.

  “Get back to work. If it weren’t for your screw-ups, I wouldn’t be having these anxiety attacks!” Carter pulled himself to his feet and kept eye contact with the subcontractor as he backed out of the man’s cubicle. Maybe he didn’t see the piss, Carter hoped.

  Carter opted for fresh air to clear his head. He walked home instead of hailing a taxi. The city was quiet in the middle of Sunday morning. He would get back to his apartment before the God fearing masses got out of church, hopefully.

  He bought a coffee from a street vendor and rounded the block near his building.

  “Hey bro. Long time no see.”

  Carter gasped. “Sarah? Your Facebook status just had you checked in at Stoney Palace.” He spun to see his sister and then gasped, fell against the brick building, and slumped onto his soggy butt. He stared at his sister, and through her. It seemed as if her body were made of thin white curtain billowing with the breeze on a spring day. Then he felt the coffee scalding his crotch and gasped.

  “I’m guessing by your appearance that you felt how rough my morning went,” Sarah’s ghost replied.

  “You… You’re dead? Mom’s going to have a heart attack!” Carter resumed weeping. Tears left over from his incident burst like a cheap trash bag.

  “Let’s just say I forgot my manners around a magician from the Order.”

  “What did they want with you?” Carter asked, regaining his feet. He gestured for his sister to follow and continued the trek to his apartment.

  A passerby heard him talking, looked right through Sarah, and gave Carter a sympathetic look.

  “Hold your phone to your ear, genius. People think you’re talking to yourself. The Order wanted to kidnap me to get to you. Some old lady named Ophelia. She said your talents would complete a spell, sounded like trouble for the Coven.”

  “This isn’t happening!” Carter shouted. “I turned my back on magic. That prick at the office must have drugged me! I’m hallucinating you, Sarah.” Carter chuckled and dashed away.

  It’s all a hallucination. A cold shower and some hot coffee and I’ll come off it. Sarah’s fine and there is no magician alive that’s taken any interest in me. Carter consoled himself for the entire run to his building and up three flights of stairs.

  “Hey hon, I’ve had a hell of a morning! I think I got…” Carter trailed off.

  Their tiny apartment was trashed. It looked as if someone had been in a fight. Deep claw marks where gauged out of the walls and floor. The kitchen sink was running. The tea kettle began to scream.

  “Kate?” Carter turned off the burner and slid the kettle aside. He tore through the kitchen, living room, and their bedroom. Kate was gone.

  “I was afraid they would try her next,” Sarah replied, she appeared next to him on the bed. “We’ll have to meet with them to get her back.”

  Carter slumped unto the bed. His wet pants made a squish as he sat. “This is really happening? I’ve got to get Kate back. This tiny apartment. My crap job. All that was for her. For this.”

  Carter pulled out a little black box and tipped the lid open. A diamond glinted on its setting.

  “You’re getting married?” Sarah asked.

  Chapter 3 Unanimous Author

  Alliance Headquarters

  “That was so freaking real,” Sarah told Roxy, “I actually thought I was dead and following some guy around the city.”

  “Which city?” Roxy asked. ”How did you die?”

  “I don’t know, some fantasy city.” Sarah replied, “You know, a fictional game city. But before that, I shot a witch, no—wizard and the bullet bounced off her and hit me in the stomach. Then she had her…uh, creature eat me.”

  Roxy looked concerned. “Then what happened?” she asked with a sigh.

  “Then I was in the city and following this cute guy around, uh, back to his apartment.”

  “Oh yeah? Well that’s an improvement. Then what happened? Spare no detail.” Roxy smiled a devilish smile. “Was he a gentleman, if you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, he was…”

  “So how was he?” Roxy said, pretty sure Sarah was being too literal.

  “He was my twin brother…and he had a girlfriend he…”

  “Bummer,” Roxy moaned, rolling her eyes and ready to give this story line up.

  “First of all,” Chester cut in, “It’s a simulation, not a game.”

  The pair turned to Chester who was sitting with his feet on his desk.

  “Second, Ophelia is a magician, not a witch…or a wizard for that matter.”

  “Oh, right…” Sarah sighed, shifting he
r six-foot, two-inch frame.

  Chester read her drop in self-esteem. “Don’t be hard on yourself. You have everything it takes to be a top agent. You just need to focus. Observe everything—clues are everywhere.

  He got up and walked around to the front of the desk, crossed his arms and leaned against the desk, his eyes never in a fixed gaze at Sarah.

  He continued, “It wasn’t a fantasy city, which city was it? What was Ophelia’s organization?”

  Sarah wanted to crawl into a hole. She had been in the program for six weeks already and she just wasn’t getting it. Why had they chosen her, she wondered?

  “You were chosen because someone saw something in you very rare,” Chester said, seeming to read her mind. “Don’t question why you are here—you are here. Focus on what matters. Don’t worry about your progress—six weeks is just scratching the surface—you are progressing just fine.”