From last month to yesterday, I spent time competing in a writing competition called Writing Battle. Writing Battle is exactly what you would think – duelling against other writers for a cash prize. This round I participated in was a 2,000 word short story.
Each contest in the battle is given three cards – one genre, and two cards that help influence your story. You must incorporate these cards into your short story, or else you risk being disqualified. After receiving your cards, you get five days to write your story. You may swap your cards for a limited amount of swaps. After you are done writing, your story goes to “duel” against others in your “house”.
A house is a number of stories all from the same genre that compete against each other to make it into the Top 8. It depends on how many stories are entered from each genre to determine how many houses there will be. For me, there were 4 houses in the genre, all with around 70 stories in each.
Judging is all anonymous and peer-reviewed, unless you make it towards the end. There are 5 rounds of duels. Feedback and results aren’t released until the end of the battle to find out how your story fared amongst the others.
I chose to stick with all the cards I was randomly given. My genre was Ride or Die. The other two cards I was given were a subject and an action card. My subject was Serenity and the action was Savoring.
The writing process itself wasn’t too difficult for me. I was really happy with my cards, so I was able to create a story and write it relatively quickly. I enjoyed having the randomness of a story to create, that part was fun.
I also enjoyed reading other competitor’s stories. I didn’t judge any in my genre, but read a few Halloween Frights and Locked Room Mystery stories. The judging process was straightforward – just write what you enjoyed and what you thought could’ve been improved.
So, what were my results? Well, I didn’t win. I definitely wasn’t expecting to since it was my first time competing and I read that it was their biggest amount of entries ever. I was up against some really good stories in my house. My final results were 5 out of 10 points – which means that half of the people who read my story chose mine over the other I was competing against. From reading my feedback, it was very mixed. Where some readers enjoyed aspects of the story, others thought it should be changed. I’ve decided to take the feedback with a grain of salt, as it’s a very subjective competition.
Will I compete again? Possibly. The length of stories vary each competition, with the next competition on 1 February being 1,000 words. I enjoyed feeling creative and the excitement of receiving my cards. I’m just not sure if I want to keep paying an entry fee for something that is so subjective.
Below is my story I wrote for the competition. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
xx Hannah
Serenity by Hannah Cross
Thomas wakes up with a jolt.
He rubs his eyes and looks around. Nothing out of the ordinary, he thinks to himself, still cold stainless steel everywhere.
Thomas comes to the conclusion that he is in yet another unknown, unnamed laboratory, lying on a cot in a small enclosed space. Everything is stainless steel, except for the heavy armored door. There is an empty table against one of the walls. No chairs. A fluorescent light gives a desperate glow to the room.
Thomas notices a vent in the room – a new addition to the usual facade of the sterile environment.
He stands on his cot to get close to the vent. He feels cool air on his face, but hears something peculiar.
Is that humming? He first ponders, then realizes. Wait, is that Liam?
“Liam, Liam is that you? Are you there?” Thomas whispers into the vent.
He hears the humming stop and a clamor. “Thomas!” the voice answers back hurriedly, “yes, it’s me!”
Thomas sighs with relief. “I’m so glad they’ve still kept us together after another transfer. Are you feeling okay? Do you remember anything?”
“Yes, I’m feeling just fine,” says Liam, “No, I really don’t remember anything. Just the usual fuzzy feeling, followed by darkness and boom, same old cot.”
Thomas sighs again. It was the same reaction for him. Fuzziness, darkness, wake up on a cot.
Just another normal transfer.
Thomas and Liam had been used to this feeling for as long as they can remember. The brothers have grown up within the government’s various restricted laboratories. Their parents, Jason and Donna Flish, have reigned as heads of defense and thriveability of Earth.
At the knowledge of Donna’s pregnancy, the two of them outlined a proposal to use their offspring as human test subjects for new drugs and tests to help the citizens of Earth thrive in their perilous world. Donna gave birth to Thomas and two years later came Liam, both unknowing of how closely controlled their lives would be and how little of a childhood they each would have.
As Thomas grew older, his longing for normalcy grew stronger. In the downtimes in their test sessions, Thomas and Liam spoke about their wishes. One that has frequently been brought up between both boys is the subject of camping.
One day when they were sitting in a room, hooked up to IVs pumping some strange concoction into their veins, they watched a movie about a family camping in the woods. The family enjoyed the stillness of the lake, the warmth of the fire, and the comfort of their cabin.
Liam looked over at Thomas and said, “You think we’d ever make it to somewhere like that some transfer day?”
Thomas, tears glistened in his eyes, answered back, “Yes, I promise you we’ll make it there.”
“We’ve got to do it today,” Thomas says hurriedly into the vent.
“Today?!” exclaims Liam, “What makes you so sure we’re going to be able to do it now?!”
“Well, for one thing, we’ve never had an opportunity to speak like this before outside of testing sessions. This makes me think they’re starting to ease up on worrying about us leaving,” Thomas says with annoyance.
“Okay, okay, you’re right,” sighs Liam “We’re going with our plan?”
“Yup,” says Thomas, “Serenity.”
They wait until it was time for a session. One of the lab’s security guards would come and escort them to a testing room. Even though they aren’t sure which lab they are in or where they are in the world, both notice that each lab is set up the same. Bigger vents in the bathroom that a man can easily fit through – meaning the whole space can be open to them.
When the escort comes to pick up Thomas and Liam, they ask if they can use the bathroom on the way. In a stroke of luck, the security escort lets them go and points them in the direction of where the testing room would be.
“What an idiot,” Liam says as they enter the bathroom. No one else was present in the bathroom.
No turning back now, Thomas thinks to himself as he quickly walks to the corner of the bathroom and hoists himself up to pry open the vent. The vent opens with a clang and Thomas climbs in. Liam then boosts himself up into the vent. Both brothers are now crawling on all fours, trying not to make a sound.
As they round corner after corner, figuring out the layout of the lab through the vents, they hear voices talking about them.
Thomas abruptly stops in front of the vent where the voices were coming from and listens. Liam seems anxious to keep moving, but is curious as to why Thomas stops in his tracks.
Beyond slats of the vent, Thomas could make out the faces of his parents speaking with some unknown dignitaries. They are smiling and pointing at figures on a board.
Thomas begins to sweat as he realizes this was the closest he had been to his parents in a few years. He continues to listen intently.
“The boys are helping increase our projection numbers,” their dad, Jason, boasts, “their results help prove the effectiveness of Phializican and how this will promote vitality in the nation’s elite.”
“Oh yes,” their mom, Donna, adds, “they are in peak health and thrive in their environment. No allergies at all.”
Anger boils inside of Thomas and he wants to scream through the vent: You don’t even know how much we’ve suffered or how Liam almost died from your stupid rich people drug!
He keeps his cool and continues crawling on, while Liam lingers, looking out of the vent at his parents’ faces.
“C’mon man,” says Thomas, “they won’t miss us.”
After continuing through more passageways through the vent system, they smell something intoxicating. Below them was the cafeteria, filled with scientists, security, and dignitaries. Scents from the various cooked foods filled their noses and they each suddenly have this animalistic urge.
“What if we go down into the kitchen and have some real food?!” Liam whispers excitedly.
Real food, Thomas thinks, we’ve never had real food. Only pills of all colors and IV bags that make us barf.
“That isn’t part of the -” Thomas starts to speak then stops himself. Who cares if it isn’t part of the plan? This may be the only time you ever get to actually taste.
“Okay fine, let’s be quick,” says Thomas as he opens the vent that leads into the unmanned kitchen.
Thomas drops down onto the floor and helps Liam down as well. Hunched over, the boys start grabbing brightly colored food packages and quickly run over to a corner. The corner was the perfect blind spot to feast.
Liam rips open a package of flavored potato chips and shoves a handful into his mouth.
“Wow! This tastes amazing! It’s like…it’s like…” says Liam as bits of potato go flying everywhere from his mouth, “it’s like…way better than those orange pills!”
Thomas, unlike his brother, carefully unwraps what is in his hand. He reads the label and it’s a chocolate bar. Thomas bites down into the chocolate and stops.
What is this? It’s bitter on my tongue, but tastes sweet. Thomas suddenly remembers the camping movie where the family makes something called s’mores and they use chocolate to make the snack.
Thomas closes his eyes and breathes slowly as he lets the chocolate melt on his tongue. He thinks about the movie, when Liam was born and meeting him for the first time, and all the times he dreamt of someplace different – someplace where he could feel like someone.
Thomas is pulled out of his trance when Liam shakes him. “Let’s grab as much as we can and go!” he says, shoving food into his pockets.
Thomas nods and does the same, though more cautiously than his brother. They go back up through the vents and continue on to find a vent leading to the outside.
“I see it! I see the outside!” Liam yells excitedly, not caring if anyone still heard them in the vents.
Thomas pushes the vent and jumps out, Liam following close behind. They were along one of the outside walls of the lab facing towards, to their disbelief, a wooded area.
“The woods..a forest..” breathes Thomas, his head dizzy with excitement, disbelief and anxiety.
Suddenly, alarms sound. Bright lights flash around the two brothers. Little did they know that the vent they just crawled out of had triggered a secret alarm. Security cameras were now pointed at them and their faces would soon be all over the screens of that hellhole.
“Run!” screams Thomas as he grabs Liam’s hand.
The two boys sprint across the pavement towards the woods. Thomas comes to the realization that neither of them are wearing shoes and his feet begin to ache. He looks over to notice Liam’s feet were bleeding from stepping on unseen glass. Liam looks back at Thomas and shows a painful grin.
Gunshots start ringing out as the boys continue holding hands and running. Thomas keeps his eyes focused on the tall trees fast approaching.
Almost there, almost hidden, thinks Thomas.
The brothers keep running once they reach the woods. High on adrenaline and whatever effects of drugs had been pumped into them over the years keep them going for a few miles until they slow down. They both collapse onto the forest ground, breathless.
“We did it, Thomas,” breathes Liam, “We made it out.”
“We sure did,” agrees Thomas, wiping his face.
Liam’s feet are still bleeding as Thomas removes his shirt and rips it, making bandages to wrap Liam’s injuries. Liam doesn’t complain that the pressure makes him feel like he is stepping on a thousand needles. He doesn’t need Thomas to be worried about him now that they are outside.
After Thomas finishes wrapping Liam’s feet, the two sit in silence. The only sound in the forest are the leaves on the trees rustling as the boys are stuck thinking, now what?
“I think we should go and see if there is somewhere warm,” says Thomas.
“Somewhere warm? In the woods?!” exclaims Liam, “where in the world could we possibly go?!”
“Well, let’s see if there is a cabin, like in our favorite movie,” Thomas grins at his brother. Liam returns the grin as Thomas helps him up to his ragged bloody feet.
“Wait,” says Liam, “let’s eat some of this food we grabbed before we keep moving.”
“Great idea,” Thomas smiles as he helps himself to a bag.
“What do you think those are?” Liam points to Thomas’s hand.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll share with you,” Thomas pours some of the pieces from the bag into Liam’s hand.
The two of them eat, talking about the taste and laughing about how their parents must’ve looked when they saw their faces on the security screens.
Thomas then starts to feel hot. His hands begin to shake and he starts to feel itchy. He looks closer at Liam and notices he is starting to turn red.
“Thomas..” Liam chokes out his words, “what is this feeling?”
Liam then falls to the ground, his eyes and face swelling.
Thomas can’t respond, for his face was starting to swell up too. He begins to panic and his breathing quickens. Liam is quiet.
Thomas lays down next to his brother and lays his head on Liam’s chest. He hears no heartbeat.
The woods are still quiet around them as Thomas can feel his throat closing on him. He holds onto Liam and thinks about the cabin in the woods.
He thinks about his brother as he drifts into darkness.
Darkness.
Death.
Serenity.
Idealistic Iowan 