So, this week's prompt is going to be a surprise for Si, too, because I (Mars) think she forgot (I mean, it's 10 after 12 and there's no prompt up; wouldn't be the first time we've forgotten what day it is)! This means I get to pick some wild prompt for y'all and she's gotta deal, amirite? *fires up prompt generator*
Judge This Week: Si
Word Count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT! (~00:30 will still be accepted due to slightly late posting)
Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.
Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories, they're for inspiration (and sometimes our amusement)).
Prompt
"I don't want to be worshiped--I want to terrify!"
Inspirational Pictures
Inspirational Pictures
Sinister Saturday Night
ReplyDelete296 words
by Stephen Lodge
Twitter: @steveweave71
“I don’t want to be worshiped – I want to terrify.” Sharon smiled, a pretty smile, looking out towards the audience from the stool she was perched on. The audience were clapping semi-mechanically.
The cameras sought out the show’s host. Dave Sinister laughing maniacally.
“Oooooooh, ” traditional Dave. “Sooooo close. I thought you had it for a moment there, Sharon. Great answer, but wrong, so terribly wrong.” Sharon’s smile froze. “The answer we were looking for was Twenty Six.”
(Buzzer)
“That noise tells me that was your third wrong answer, my darling, so I’m afraid you are out. You’ve been a wonderful contestant, such a nice smile, the audience liked you, I could tell, but sadly, your answers were beyond crap and it would take some fixing for you to be in the Final. Audience, low-key applause as Sharon leaves us, yeah.” Dave soon hushes them.
“So tonight’s Finalists are Arthur, 54, from the East End of London’s East End, whose shirt offends most of us. His hair is a several strand comb-over. Then there’s the equally unlovely Nev, pushing 60 with all of his strength. Nev is originally from somewhere on the coast, I forget where. Both returned the 2 free tickets we gave them, so I’m guessing that not even their own families care if they win. And we certainly don’t.”
(Audience cheers)
“So the Rules say we now hand them both a gun, turn the studio lights out and while we run for the exits, Arthur and Nev shoot it out. Last man standing is the winner and will get a free ride to a nearby police station. So, before the fun begins, let me thank you all for watching, you’ve been great. I’m Dave Sinister. Call me Dave…no don’t. See you next Saturday.”
Supremacy
ReplyDeleteBy Ronel Janse van Vuuren
@miladyronel
86 words
‘I don’t want to be worshipped…’ the young woman at the head of the table whispered, staring at her reflection in the gleaming wood surface. ‘I want to terrify!’
Wind rushed through the room and blasted all the gifts away.
Everyone sat up straight; no-one dared look at her. Though they adored her for getting rid of the enemy navy with her power over air, she still scared them.
‘Too bad. Eat your eggs,’ her mother said as she placed a plate in front of her.
The last line had me laughing out loud! :-)
DeleteYes. The shift in tone is delightfully unexpected.
DeleteMarketing a Malevolent Messiah
ReplyDelete300 words
Benjamin Langley
@b_j_langley
“I don’t want to be worshiped – I want to terrify!”
Gerry recoiled from the beast. “If you could sit…” he said, before glaring at the multi-limbed creature, wondering if it had a posterior on which it could sit. “Or stand. Your choice…”
The beast flexed its limbs. Clearly, patience wasn’t one of its attributes.
“It’s tough to launch a new religion in the 21st Century,” Gerry said, “especially with terror.”
The beast showed teeth which terrified Gerry.
“People have become… intolerant of terror.”
Gerry braced himself, ready to be consumed, but the creature was pondering, folds of thought forming on its forehead. “The way I see it,” said the beast, “is that I’m a classic. Retro’s in, right?”
A confused wrinkle appeared on Gerry’s forehead. “Yes.”
“That’s me. I’m like an old-testament god. Smiting people, turning them into pillars of salt, floods, that’s what I do.”
Gerry nodded. Maybe it would be possible for them to form a working relationship; he just needed an angle, a unique selling point. “We need a name. What do they call you?”
The beast grew, the muscles in its many arms throbbing. “I am many millennia old. I have created galaxies, feasted on worlds. I transcend the concept of name.”
“What about God 2.0?” Gerry said.
The beast grew again, its mouth widening.
“New God?” asked Gerry, his sweat soaked shirt clinging to his body.
“That won’t terrify. What will terrify is a sign of my power. When they see me crush a head between my fingers, they’ll be terrified.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
The deity leaned forward. Recording with an iphone in one hand (corporate sponsorship goes a long way), it placed another hand Gerry’s skull. “You have an aesthetically pleasing head,” it said as it started to apply pressure.
Good pacing, effective end!
DeleteThe One Feared is the One Revered
ReplyDeletekellygriffiths.wordpress.com
@KLGriffiths
297 words
I don't want to be worshipped-- I want to terrify. My rival covets worship, but I've never been so inclined. You could say between the two of us, I'm the humble one. And between the two of us, I'm the one providing a service: I scare you, don't I? Scare you into looking before you cross the street, frighten you into taking the boring, bill-paying job, terrify you into aborting those inconsequential cells growing inside you because no way can you handle what's coming down the pike, my dear. No way. Be reasonable.
What does my rival do for you? ...What? He hung the celestial bodies, slapped them spinning... and what's bedecked His resume since then? Ask the burned-up, disheveled Syrian boy. Ask the refugees. Or the republicans. Ask the four-footed critters or winged creatures whose orb is fracked and fractured and asphalted, whose space is raped. Ask, what has He done for you lately?
I never asked to be worshipped.
But to petrify, that is my game. Humanity thrives on terror. I submit The Exorcist, all things Stephen King, the Autobahn on a rainy day, and Donald Trump any day. Who delivers this exquisite fright? Yours truly. And I never ask for applause. All I ask is you not applaud my rival, not send upward looks and wide-open arms and prayers for deliverance. No one's coming.
I want to terrify because the one feared is the one revered. The one feared, his fat, itchy finger perches awkwardly on the launch button. Did I mention North Korea in my exhibit list? Terror fuels the world, make no mistake. What scurrying when the alarm sounds, what an economic boon is war! Didn't your mother tell you she beat you for your own good? I gave her that phrase.
There is a big story in this monologue! It was a fun read!
DeleteSuccession (299 words)
ReplyDeleteBy Sara Codair
@shatteredsmooth
"I don't want to be worshiped--I want to terrify!" Prince Corvinstin flipped the table, spilling wine, gravy and meat on his counselors.
“That is not wise.” Dr. Banfiend wiped dripping gravy off of his robe. “Fear breeds rebellion. Worshipers are less likely to start an uprising.
Prince Corvinstin threw his knife across the table. Fortunately for Dr. Banfiend, the prince had terrible aim.
“I’ve been serving your family for seventy years, young Dale, and I will not tolerate your violence.”
“Yes,” laughed Prince Corvinstin. “You’ve been serving, as you will continue to do. Now tell me, how can I scare the foul farmers into submission?”
The counselors exchange looks, nodding at Dr. Banfiend. “Your great-grandfather also preferred fear. He had a mechanical dragon that he would fly over the villages, torching the ones those that refused to pay taxes.
Prince Corvinstin grinned. “That sounds horrifically delightful. Show me this dragon.”
“As you wish.” Banfiend lead the young prince to the castle’s deepest dungeon.
“It is through there,” he said pointing to a massive black door.
Prince Corvinstin took out his master key and opened it. Dr. Banfiend shoved him in and slammed the door shut behind him. He locked it, then leaned his back against the cold steel. He listened to heavy foot steps, the prince wailing in disbelief then screaming like a little girl, and finally, the sizzling of burning flesh.
When the door became too hot, Dr. Banfiend climbed back up stairs. He was exhausted when he got back to the dining room, but pleased that his brethren had reset the table, replaced the fallen food and refilled the wine decanters.
“Now that one was a disappointment.” He sat down and poured himself a glass of wine. “Does anyone know where his little brother was last seen?”
The Shroud
ReplyDelete297 words
T.R.
@_The_Mad_Monk
“I don’t want to be worshipped – I want to terrify!”
The wine glass shattered in the Pope’s hand. The two cardinals swooped in on both sides of him. Gilbert picked the glass from the Pope’s palm while Rochefort blotted the wine and blood dripping down onto his lap.
“You fool,” the Pope whispered.
Rochefort stumbled back on his heels, making small gasping sounds. He held the tattered rag out before him. It was soaked through with wine and blood.
The Pope waived Gilbert away. He stood up slowly, pushed back his chair even slower. The legs screeched across the tile, the sound echoing out against the high ceilings and wide walls.
Then the room fell quiet for the first time in days.
They’d spent countless hours locked away in that room while the world outside fell apart. The walls shook. Plaster fell from the ceiling. Daylight turned to darkness. The overwhelming stench of putrefaction rising.
They’d salted the corners of the room, said the old words and invoked the old gods. They’d used the one thing they knew the gods would want, their only remaining bargaining chip.
The Shroud of Turin.
The same sopping wet Shroud Rochefort now held in his trembling hands.
The Pope slapped Rochefort hard across the cheek with an open palm. It sounded like a thunder clap but it left no trace of blood on his cheek.
The Pope looked at his hand, a smile creeping across his face. He held it out for Gilbert and Rochefort to see. No gashes, no blood.
“It worked,” the Pope said. “I have the power.”
“But your holiness,” Rochefort whispered, always the naysayer. “How will we pay our debt once it’s done?”
“We will promise them the future, like we always have.”
He opened the doors.
ReplyDeleteThe Scallywags of Ego-Nest
"I don't want to be worshiped--I want to terrify!"
I listened to Scaly Sam, the God of All Things Terrifyingly Toxic, spew out his standard saliva-drenched imaginings. The fire in the barrel roared ferociously, the flames reaching up to the dark skulking sky as if they were intent on scorching the heavenly rainclouds who might have the temerity to rain on our poor parade.
The storm clouds were fast approaching The Sea rumbled with wind and wave.
Sam had sought high water ground and was braying his gloriously mad poetry to the rest of us. There was no humour in his ravings. Most of us were occasionally willing to confess some modest doubt as to our ultimate superiority.
No one in our curious little circle doubted that Sam was a dour Anarbrexit. He had been with us much too long and a few of us wanted to shorten that stay as quickly as possible.
He made a much too reprehensible God.
Foolishly I was about to say, “Will you listen to yourself, Sam?” when I realized that, of course, he listened only to himself. That’s about all Anarbrexit’s do.
“Sam,” I reconfigured my thoughts, “you haven’t been exiled to Demon Island because the Ruling Vanguard is frightened of you. You’re here, we are all here, because WE ARE GODS. THAT is our crime. We are all raving Caligula’s, at once too few and too many.”
He gave me a look; Kings, I thought, must offer that look as the executioner is about to wield the ax. Kings and your run-of-the-mill everyday ego-maniacal Gods.
“Oh, for Christ sakes, Sam,” I finally said, “get off your stone soapbox and have a beer or three. You’re here for the duration.”
Drunk, I thought, this idiot God might be disposed of with ease.
300 words to worship
@billmelaterplea
Food of the Gods
ReplyDeleteSian Brighal
298 words
@sian_ink
"I don't want to be worshipped—I want to terrify."
The black-clad priest paused mid expressive wave of incense as the deep, guttural voice rumbled around the small room. He'd have to have words with his assistant about sticking to the script: he still had to get through the burning, then the atmospheric, if trite, cockerel slaughter...and then the lights had to flicker. The congregation were still on the edge, their deep-rooted skepticism in balance with their gullibility. Baby steps! Going to the finale so soon was counterintuitive. Yes, he'd have words with him later.
He inhaled and lifted his arms higher, in an attempt to bring the amassed true believers' attention back to himself. It was mildly frustrating to note that their eyes—as wide as their mouths—were fixed on something behind him.
Damn it, Sid, he groused mentally. No theatrics until the end!
"Oh," he continued, "we hear you, our most terrif—"
He was cut-off as a tentacle snaked past. It was quite impressive...especially the suckers. Sid had been busy! Fantastic the way it curled around the whole front row and began to squeeze! It even sounded real as each sucker connected with a slurping, organic sound. Sid must have worked through the night to set it up. Oh, and the fake blood seeping through the wound coils...delightful. The donation pots will be full tonight!
Still, that grip was starting to look a little painful, and whatever was powering the device was humming in a most unpleasant way and was giving off some very peculiar fumes. But judging by the glassy and manically ecstatic faces in the crowd, it was winning them over. In his fiscal delirium, he turned to thank his industrious and imaginative assistant...nay, soon-to-be-partner.
"Oh!"
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