Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello, and welcome to my second contest. Hopefully, this one will run a little smoother than the first. sweatdrop

Judging Scale

Judging will be based on this scale:
10 points for use of prompt
10 points for flow
10 points for grammar/spelling
10 points for creativity
10 points for unpredictability


10-9= exemplary. Entry shows clear understanding of the prompt, flows easily, has two or less mistakes in grammar/spelling, and is completely original and unexpected.
8-7= very good. Has good understanding of the prompt, flows well, has three to five mistakes in grammar/spelling, and is very original, and kept me guessing most of the time.
6-5= okay. Has moderate understanding of the prompt, flows moderately well, has six to ten grammatical/spelling mistakes, is slightly original, and had a few twists.
4-3= poor. Has little understanding of the prompt, flows poorly, has eleven to fifteen grammatical/spelling errors, is highly familiar to me (where did I read this before?), and is slightly predictable.
2-1= why did you even bother entering this? It's complete rubbish. Entry completely ignores the prompt, is choppy and hard to read, has more than sixteen errors, has been copied from another work, and I knew what was going to happen in the end by the end of the first paragraph. Note that if you get a 1 on the originality portion, that's a clear sign that you've been caught plagarizing, and are automatically disqualified. DO NOT GET A 1 ON ORIGINALITY!

Prizes

Prizes may rise if my shop picks up.

1st: 3000g
2nd: 2000g
3rd: 1000g

There will also be two "honorable mention" spots that will only be filled if I really like the story, but your writing itself was just not good enough. These will most likely have no prize, though I guess if the story was really good, I could send you about 200g or so.

Contestants and Where to Find Them

None yet...

This contest is now OPEN!

Hopefully, this will work better than the last one and bring more activity.

Lot of schools are probably in finals week right now. Give it a week or too and see if business picks up. I'm in a bit of a writers block my self, with work keeping me so busy

Well I guess I'll be the first... warning this might suck because it's my first entry in a competition.

I'm going to come back and edit it, since I'm on my roommates computer and she needs it.

Username: Kungfoochicken
Status (guild member or visitor): Member
Prompt # and sub-prompt (if prompt #1, put "1, n/a"): 3)self sacrifice to save another
Poetry or Prose: Prose
Your Entry: The War
The War

The thing I remember most about her is the moment I first saw her. She looked just like a doll. Her long blond hair was perfect like strings of golden silk fluttering in the wind. Her skin was pale and perfect with no scars or blemishes. She was like a China doll, and I suppose in a way she really was a porcelain doll. Princess's lived very sheltered lives after all. Her only real objective in life had been to look pretty to be shown off by her parents. Then someday she might be married to a king from some far away land, and it would become his turn to show her off.

Her hands were tiny, and soft. The girl had never worked a day in her life. She was never meant to work. She was never meant to suffer, or feel discomfort. She was not meant to think or form opinions but she did. She was heavily protected from outside forces but they never expected she might run away. And so she did, and so we found her. We kidnapped her to use as ransom for our side of the war. We were enemies to begin with, but all I could think about when I first met her was how obscene it was to create such a beautiful doll and give it such a face. Her lovely face, her clear aqua eyes, were all contorted in fear. She was sucking her lips into her mouth and biting down on them to keep from shaking. Tears poured down her face in a steady stream, but she made no sound.

"The girls terrified." Jake my superior said from somewhere behind me.

"No kidding." I laughed. I had to turn away from her now. Already I felt sorry for her and that was never a good idea.

The princess said nothing for three days. We traveled through the underground city. It's the dirtiest and most disgusting place you could ever imagine. Slime on the walls, and slime on the street trying to sell you drugs, humans, or stolen merchandise. We dressed the princess doll like a peasant to blend in down here. She cried and shivered but she never said a thing out loud. To be honest with you I was beginning to think she was a mute.

It was towards the end of our trek through the underground, when we came across a pile of dead bodies in uniform.

"I hate this war." She said. Her voice was so weak and quiet I thought perhaps it was the wind. I looked back at her and suddenly saw a fire in her eyes. The princess felt strongly about this that much was clear.

"All this death for nothing... It's so stupid, I hate it." Her voice was still hardly a whisper. I was the only one who heard her.

"Hey, Danny come and take a look at this!" Jake yelled at me from the front of the pack. I hesitated locking eyes with the princess. Here I was Danny the youngest soldier in the rebellion, Orphaned from the war, falling for the daughter of the king. The daughter of our great enemy.

"I tried to tell him to stop the war but nobody listens to me..." I looked from her to Jake feeling momentarily torn. The Princess opened her mouth to finish that though when gun fire rained down upon us.

It was chaos for the first three seconds. And those first three seconds felt like felt like hours. I saw my comrades go down like flies. They jerked back one by one from a bullet impact too fast for my eyes to follow. I saw Jake jerk back. I saw blood trickle down his shirt, but he did not give up. Jake pulled out his gun and went crazy on those uniformed bastards.

After three seconds I did the same. I had two guns. I fired them like a mad man. As you can imagine I wasn't exactly thinking straight. My ears were pounding with the thunder of steady gunfire, and my heart was screaming from the horror of seeing so many of my men just killed. At that moment I figured I was going to die, and all I wanted to do was take as many of the kings men with me as I possibly could.

Then I heard her. How I heard her weak little cry over all that screaming and gunfire is beyond me. All I know is that I heard her so I turned around. There was the princess huddled against the wall. She looked even more terrified than on the moment I first met her. There was a bullet hole in the wall three inches from her head.

"When this is all over go home," I ordered at the girl as I jerked her arm up. Bullets whizzed over my head and I tried my best to ignore it. There was a cold sweat down my spine that was soaking into my shirt. Somewhere in the back of my mind I prayed that she would at least get out of this alive.

"War is so ugly." As if she had ready my mind. Her voice was trembling, and so was her body. It only took a second and I had her hidden safely behind an old rusty car frame. The old technology, wasn't that what this stupid war was over anyway?

"When this is all over go home. Go back to your life." I told the princess.

"I... I can't." She whimpered pathetically. For a brief moment I hated her for how weak she was. Then I felt a sudden burst of pain in my shoulder. I'd been shot. Within a second I was returning the gun fire.

"Danny, this is it." Jake said from my right. How long had we been fighting like this? It was just the two of us now again a dozen of them. Both Jake and I had been shot. It didn't look good. Jake my superior, my teacher, the guy who took me in and raised me after my parents died. The greatest man I had ever known, turned to me and smiled. We were surrounded by bloody corpses, garbage, and filth. He pulled the trigger and his gun clicked empty. Jake my hero shrugged his shoulders still smiling. He put tossed his gun aside and put his hands up in surrender.

I was about to do the same thinking that soon enough they would be torturing us for information, then a bullet hit Jake in the head. He fell down and he did not get back up again.

I didn't realize I was screaming as I fired my gun in rapid succession. I didn't realize I was crying. All I knew was that my soul was on fire and now I was truly alone in this god-awful world.

When my gun ran empty I simply dived for a dead comrade and stole his weapon. This worked for sometime, I took down our enemies from twelve to seven all by myself. Then I looked back.

I needed a new gun and there one lay on the ground, only a few feet from where the Princess was hiding behind the rusty car.

"Grab that gun!" I screamed at her. I wasn't thinking straight, I was overwhelmed by grief and horror. The throbbing pain in my shoulder wasn't helping much either. "If you want to help end this war then help me fight these soldiers!!"

She didn't move.

"Come on! Do something! At least kick it towards me." The princess did not move. She looked at the gun and then at me with apprehensive eyes.

"I can't," She whispered "I'm afraid... I'm afraid to die." I was shot in the leg as I sat there facing her in disbelief. I was numb to the pain, I was already feeling too much from the inside.

Then the explosion came, and it hurt my eyes. The smoke got in my lungs and made me cough like mad. My head was swimming as someone helped me to my feet.

Once were were out of the alley way I could think again. It was four of my own people who had saved me. I looked over and realized they had saved her too. The princess who would watch me die for fear of risking her own life. There she stood, staring down. She was too ashamed to look me in the eye.

"We have a situation, there's a bomb." One of the four who had saved me explained. They were all large men in their forties experts in some field no doubt. I myself was only eighteen and had little training.

The four men never asked us who we were or where we came from. If they new who the girl in peasants clothing really was they might change their plans. I seriously considered telling them, but before I could make up my mind we reached the bomb.

It was a huge metal round thing, like a great big ball. I could clearly see a little door built into it's side and electrical wires powering it up. This was old technology all right, old and powerful technology. The sort of power people killed over, the sort they started wars over.

"This bomb will take out all of the underground and most of the cities residential."

"He's going to destroy everything but his castle!" The princess gasped as she covered her mouth in horror.

"But what about..." I began to ask.

"He has his son, his bloodline will continue that is all he cares about." The princess said this with a still face. Her voice had gone very dry. "We must stop him." She said with a sort of determination I had never expected from her.

"That's the idea little missy, but unfortunately that's easier said than done. You see this bomb here has protections again being turned off. It will shock you, until you die. So you have to do it quickly or you will..."

"Die." the princess finished for him.

"But the door is so small, you couldn't fit in there. I'll be lucky if I could." I said with numb disappointment. Looks like I'll die today after all.

"I'll do it." The princess said.

"What? I thought you were afraid..." I protested. She shut me up by very quickly kissing me on the cheek. It was a light and sweet kiss. As she pulled away I saw that fierce determination in her eyes. It blazed like fire.

"I want this war to end, and If I can do anything to help stop it then... my life will have been worth something."

It all happened so fast, too fast. All I could dumbly think was how silly it was that I was the one crying and not her. She looked just like a strong determined porcelain doll as she turned from me and walked up to the bomb. She was so tiny standing before it.

"Wait, let me..." I protested weakly. My voice was disgustingly weak and pathetic. It's a wonder she heard me from so far away. She hesitated but did not look back. She did not say a word. Her blond hair fluttered behind her as she climbed into the little doorway. Those perfect strands of golden silk were the last I would ever see of her.

One of the men was shouting instructions to her as my heart pounded.

"She's so brave." I whispered. Several seconds passed. Then several minuets. At last it clicked off. I hadn't even realized the machine was making any noise until the dead silence surrounded me. The four men were cheering and jumping with joy. I did not say a word. I stared blankly at the door to the bomb and waited. I waited and waited.

"Princess," I whispered as I walked up to the evil old technology.

"Princess?" I called again but a bit louder. The other men grew quiet. It was so quiet, too quiet. As if the whole world was put on mute.

"Princess!! Princess!!" I screamed as I banged my fists into against the hard metal ball. I banged a screamed until my fists were bleeding and my voice was gone.

"I'm sorry son, she's gone." One of the guys said as he put his hand on my shoulder. I had to bite my lips to the point of bleeding to keep myself from screaming. Tears streamed down my face but I said not a word. She was so brave, so beautiful. I loved her and I never even knew her name.