Short Stories

[Supreme Marvel]

I thought it'll be a good idea to create a thread in which people can post a short story about anything. The whole point of this thread is to get an idea out of their head. Something that problem wouldn't go anywhere but niggles at them. I experience it all the time. I get an idea and I don't really want to go in depth with it. So this can be the place for that instead of people creating many threads for one story.
If people don't like it then, Mods/Admins by all means delete this thread.

This thread is designed (hopefully) to inspire creativity in people. And with some feedback from other users it can hone people's skills and make them even better.

The short stories can be about anything. But as long as it's like one post. If you understand me.

So I wish you good luck.

[masterprime64]

Fan-Fics?

[Supreme Marvel]

Yes, but not an ongoing thing. It can be as short as a few lines. I'm working on an example now.

[Supreme Marvel]

She’s the one.

A man is walking leisurely on an empty road. Silence throughout the night apart from a soft breeze slightly sweeping the lawns of the every house within this small neighbourhood. The man stops at a detached house marked with the number one hundred and seventeen. He raises he head upwards to the veranda. The full moon pokes its head out of the cloudy skies directly above the house. The man smiles as he walks onto the small lawn underneath the veranda.

A woman inside the house is snuggled up with her pillow in her bed watching her favourite film: Ghost. She's upset, but not from the film. When she watches this it's to comfort her. Music begins to play. It’s coming from the film. She then realises this. She finds this strange because there is no music during the scene she’s watching. Paying closer attention to the music, it becomes clear to her. This is her favourite song: She’s the one. She looks at the screen and to her disbelief the characters are singing the song. The music becomes louder, but not from the TV set, this time it’s coming from outside. She walks to the veranda to look out. When arriving outside she sees who made her upset in the first place. The music surrounds her; she can’t find any device from which the sound comes from. Her attention moves directly to the man standing on her lawn.

The man looks confident more than anything as he watches her face. It’s now he raises his arms slowly with clenched fists, he watches her face intently knowing full well what’s going to happen now. He quickly opens his clenched fists and the entire lawn bursts into multicoloured flaming lights of her face. He gets the reaction from her face he wanted, a look of total astonishment. Leaving his arms outwards he then levitates from the ground and rises upwards. Her head follows him until he’s above her. To her it beginning to make sense, but still the feeling is more than she can withhold. He outstretches his hand to her and for a second she looks at her thinking many thoughts until she clears her head and take it. He easily pulls her into his arms; they dance to the music that still surrounds her. Her arms around his neck and his around her waist, they begin to sway side to side in the night sky.

Before too long, he grows a wide smile and tilts his head to the right, using his eyes to indicate downwards. When she looks down she sees that they are very much in the middle of the sky far above her home. She quickly moves into him, her ear against his heart and her arms around his back. She can feel how warm his body is; even though she’s so high up there is no cold feeling within her. She moves her head and looks into his eyes. He confidently and lovingly smiling at her. She can’t help but feel totally relaxed, safe and happy. He then opens them up and gives her a trusting look. He lets go of one of her hands and she stretches it across her body. He then lifts his arm into the air and they gradually build in speed, raising and raising into the cloudy skies. She can feel a strong warm breeze brush against her cheeks as they increase speed. She looks downwards and her house in quickly shirking in the distance and where her legs dangle a rainbow of colours emerge from the point where they came from. She looks up and they are passing through thin layers of clouds. The clouds get thinker until they bust out and over them. He swings her around and catches her, her arms again around his neck and his around her waist. The music playing softly as they slowly dance above the skies in front of the full moon. She closes her eyes and leans into him until their lips press against one another. The feeling for her is like nothing she’s felt before.

The music begins to fade away. And when she opens her eyes she’s in her bed. She looks around and sees nothing strange. She moves to the veranda and looks around then at the lawn and nothing strange again. Her thoughts are all over the place; she walks back into her bedroom feeling very happy and has a big smile. On the roof is the man she’s looking for with a satisfied smile on his face.

---

This is the idea I had. I had this idea from listening to the song, She's the One by Robbie Williams, which I linked. A story that won't go anywhere. And people can post them all in this thread so it won't be loads of threads for just one story.

But if people disagree and would rather create other threads for stories. Then, as I said delete this thread.

[Erik-El]

I think this is a good idea. If I was not trying to work out my own major story, I would post stories here.

[Supreme Marvel]

Thanks for the backing. I just didn't want the site to get cluttered like CV did.
And who knows from doing a short story and getting feedback, it may encourage people to write more. I know some people don't like writing long. They could write something short and then get the feedback they need to write a fan-fic or more.

[Erik-El]

It seems as though people are squeamish about posting their stories.

[Supreme Marvel]

Possibly. I'm working on another piece, well I'll start writing it soon.

[Erik-El]

Even though it is not getting much activity, I still think it is a good idea. Besides, most of the Fan-Fiction is treated like a ghost town anyway.

[Supreme Marvel]

I'm working a few things. I recently watched Avatar: Last Airbender. So my brain is getting ideas from that I want to jot down.

[Erik-El]

Nov 16, 2010 16:42:48 GMT -5 Supreme Marvel said:

I'm working a few things. I recently watched Avatar: Last Airbender. So my brain is getting ideas from that I want to jot down.

Awesome. You can count on me reading whatever you post.

[Supreme Marvel]

The Dark Side of the Room

A man walks out of a murky office room dejected. The door creaks shut. His suit stained from what seems to be patches of white ash. He exits into a narrow hallway just as sinister as the office he departed from. He glances at the doors of the rooms he has yet to search. This will be a minor annoyance for him. A creak suddenly echoes through the stairway, causing a shiver to run up his spine. He pulls his Colt М1911A1 from his long stained black trench coat with delight. He firmly grasps the metal handle with his left hand and places the right hand over the other. The gun has been slightly modified. He tries to control his breathing before he moves onwards. He then steadily moves towards the stairs. As he walks by the doors he uses his peripheral vision to check the rooms. He edges closer and closer to the darkness of the stairwell. He peaks through the gap of the door, perpetual shadows. He spins around on the door as he opens it, pointing his gun directly at where his eyes are focused. He studies the stairs carefully. He puts his back to the wall at all times while slowly moving up the stairs. As he glides down to the last step, light shines beneath the door, cutting across his eyes. He waits in the darkness,waiting. A moment of instinct. His focus on the light under the door.

Then he sees it; a shadow moves across the light just fast enough for him to see it. He runs up the stairs, kicking the door open. The office room is filled with desks, many place for shadows to hide. No walls to lean against this time; the sides of the room are all of glass. One half of the room is in total darkness and the other only half in light. One of the lights keeps twitching, making it difficult to focus on anything. He stands at the edge of the light. He waits; he knows its watching him. Absolute silence drowns the office. I bet that’s a first. The room temperature begins to sharply fluctuate. It’s nervous. The darkness is nervous. He can feel his hair rise on the back of his neck. He quickly drops and rolls and hears a metal slash. The door behind him has been cut in half. He steadies himself pointing his gun at the position he once stood. He takes a step backwards, into the dark side of the room.

Heat begins to slowly traverse to the other side of the room. Which is not a good thing. It gets closer and closer to its target. It can smell very well. Something is leading it straight towards a certain point in the room. It closes in on its target. The target is unmoved. Its hand quickly grabs its target; however it’s only the waistcoat of the man. He arises up behind it gun pointed directly into its head and fires. The bullet penetrates its head, leaving a fiery hole. The hole quickly grows in flame. Until the flame is turned to ash. The ash covers the man’s black shirt. This does not impress him. It’s over his waistcoat and now his shirt. He puts his coat back on and tries to wipe of the ash. As he wipes the ash away, he feels something, something strange. It’s getting harder to breathe. He messed up. Another one, he looks around the office the flashing light makes it harder to see anything. A small shriek streams through his ears and gets louder. It’s gaining on him and he can’t see or tell where it is or coming from. He takes his phone out as fast as he could. Quickly pushes in the numbers. His eyes widen and mouth drops slowly. It’s here. In a split moment, the window is smashed inwards; the man is ripped out of the office, phone in hand and descends rapidly down. The phones ringing; the whole falling part makes it hard for him to hear anything because of the wind brushing against his ears. Must be a higher form, he thinks as quickly as he can, he does what he never wanted to do. The phone call is answered. He won’t have long. The man speaks only one word. Venator. He then smashes into the top of a parked car. His parked car; a black 1967 Chevrolet Camaro. The now dead man’s blood begins to drip from his broken body down covering his black 67 Camaro.

[Erik-El]

That was pretty good. I liked what I got from the read.

I am sure this was the intention but I felt like I was dropped into the middle of a story that had already been going.

[Supreme Marvel]

Thanks. Yeah, that's the way I wanted it. I just wanted to build on the ending 'cause I knew it was going to end fast. In the long version of this, I had the part I was writing near the start of the "idea book" then the main protagonist enters, because the man dead is his police partner. Has no idea the world he was involved in. But I wanted to set it up as though at least it looks as he could have imagined it.

If that makes sense?

[Erik-El]

Nov 18, 2010 22:17:39 GMT -5 Supreme Marvel said:

Thanks. Yeah, that's the way I wanted it. I just wanted to build on the ending 'cause I knew it was going to end fast. In the long version of this, I had the part I was writing near the start of the "idea book" then the main protagonist enters, because the man dead is his police partner. Has no idea the world he was involved in. But I wanted to set it up as though at least it looks as he could have imagined it.

If that makes sense?

It totally makes sense. It was a fun read for sure.

[Nighthunter]

The real story of the Carpenter

Prologue:

Pinocchio is a name that many know; a little piece of wood that was made into a puppet and that later would again have life. His birth was in many ways a miracle, yet in many other ways, it was a curse. Never able to be a real boy, Pinocchio always felt lonely as there was no one else that shared his pain, no one who could really and truly understand what he felt.

However, this is not the story of Pinocchio, this will be a tale not about the puppet, but it’s master. The man that was always there, even before Pinocchio was even created; this is the tale of Geppeto, but not the old, tender and loving man you’ve heard of, this is his actual story, a tale so dark that not even the book…or the movies would dare to tell.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The sun was shinier than ever before, the waves of the ocean and the strength of the stream was making the old man fight for his life, with the fear of being drawn, he knows that there probably isn’t any way out of this situation, that no matter what he does…sometimes there isn’t a way to find salvation. Then suddenly everything changes. Near him there is a big creature that is coming right where he is, the creature reveals to be a big whale as she comes closer, everything is so fast, the whale opens her mouth and then everything gets so cold, so lonely…so dark.”

“Then….the darkness stops and a figure comes falling down to the floor. That figure is Geppeto’s son, Pinnochio. As he sees his son’s face; a bunch of tears emerge from Geppeto’s eyes, as soon as that happens, he runs and hugs his boy like never before, knowing that it may be the last time he can grab him on his arms. He feels joy knowing that his boy is still alive, but also feels sadness, seeing him now only makes things worse, he now has much more to lose than his own life.”

“This thought makes Geppeto react; he now has too much to lose and has to do everything in his power to try to save their lives, after much thinking he comes up with a brilliant idea; without losing any time, he and his son start a fire in order to make some smoke and cause the whale to sneeze and free them. As soon as that happens, the two of them along with a boat are launched at a great speed out of the whale and then landing on the beach.”

“Then what happens?” asked the young man, he was a new worker in the asylum where this conversation was taking place. A face of interest was easily noted on him, the story that his colleague was telling him was the most fascinating tale he had ever heard.

“Then the boy dies and is brought back to life” answered the older doctor as he took another bite to his cheese sandwich. “Fascinating!” exclaims the younger doctor as he plays with his French fries and the ketchup on his plate.

“You really think so?” asks the other man with an expression that showed complete disgust. “It’s quite a sad story the one of this man, he suffered from such a great trauma after what happened to his son and he is no longer able to differentiate the real world from reality. He now lives in that little escape world he built for himself, living his fairy tale over and over again; it’s such a tragedy” he explained.

The young man waited for a few moments and then restarted the conversation; he knew that the poor old man had a problem beyond the one any man should have, yet he could not help but be fascinated by this tale, easily worthy for being published. “So how did he end this way? What is the trauma you are talking about?”

The second man told him to wait for him for a second while he went for the police inform involving what happened to Geppeto, fifteen minutes later he came back with two folders on his hand; one of them being the police inform and the other one being his own notes about the case and how the story of Geppeto and what had happened before he got insane were connected.

Without waiting any second, the young man grabbed the folders and started to read them through quickly, after a few minutes he finally stopped reading and put the folders back on the table, one could see an amalgam of fear and confusion on his face.

“Jonathan…is this true? Is this what really happened to the poor man?” asked the young doctor.

“Yes Mark. It’s all true, that’s what turned a good and sane man into the crazy guy that has been here for the last 20 years” said Jonathan, then he sat down again and didn’t say a thing, instead opted for finishing his cup of coffee to give his partner time to finish reading the notes and reports from them.

Jonathan McLain’s notes 3/5/66 4:35 PM
I’ve started working with a new patient, according to the police inform in my desk he was the victim of a crime as well as the father of the victim of another one, he has started to tell me the story of his life, or at least the life he thinks he lived.

He talks a lot about his son, who he refers to as a “living puppet”. According to my files his son was a top student in many different areas; he was a natural athlete, especially in football and basketball, he also seems to have been a top student, the best of his class in a top-level private school.

Personal theory of why he continues calling his son a “living puppet”: After the attack against him, the boy was beaten so bad that he was left brain-dead; so technically he is a living being but unable to do anything, just like if an inanimate object had life, the puppet may be his choice for describing him because of the similar appearance to a human. Theory still to be proved

Jonathan McLain’s notes 4/5/66 3:21 PM
The patient told me today about the kidnapping of his son when he was walking to the bus stop; he describes the kidnapers as a fox and a cat, this could probably be interpreted that he sees the kidnappers that are responsible of his son’s fate as something below a human being, that no human would be so savage to do, he then describes them as two savage animals because it’s the only way his brain can see them.

Another theory of this is that, he is somehow describing how the kidnappers actually looked, yet that’s quite improbable considering how the patient wasn’t at the bus stop when the kidnapping took place.

Jonathan McLain’s notes 9/5/66 5:22 PM
It had been 5 days since I last had a session with the patient; he didn’t remember me, it seems that he is deeper into his fantasy world than what I first thought. He can no longer maintain a connection with any element of the real world, anyone who he doesn’t see regularly on a short period is erased from his memory and then he returns to his fictional world.

Jonathan McLain’s notes 10/5/66 2:35 PM
After finding out yesterday that the patient needs to maintain a constant connection with people; I’ve decided to move my schedules to see him earlier than before. Today he told me about how the kidnappers of his son took him after promising that they would make him a great actor, they instead sold him to a puppet master named Stromboli who used his son to do performances to kids, he said a few times that he was a success, everyone loved to see him perform.
I would love it if this was indeed the story, it would have been a better world, but not the real world. According to the police inform; Stromboli was actually a man who bought kids from the scum of the streets, he then made them pose for old degenerated men who found pleasure in this, and this idea just sickens me.

Stromboli wasn’t only a manager of a business that involved buying kids that had been kidnapped and then using them as sex objects for his costumers, he also was responsible of putting them in cages where they would be until it was their show’s time.


Jonathan McLain’s notes 11/5/66 3:59 PM
I’ve finally found a part of the story that it’s difficult for me to try to figure out; he says that a whale comes in the ocean and then eats him and his son, now in the stomach of the whale is where they reunite.
My only guess is that it has something to do with the fact that he finally found his son when he was going in front of a disguised store that was on the shore; he also tells me that in his story he escapes the inside of the whale when she sneezes, however soon after that, his son is quite injured due to a big fall caused by that very same escape, almost dead while he is still intact.

According to the files; soon after they were reunited, they were attacked by Stromboli’s men. Geppeto was hit on the back of his head; that probably is responsible in some part of the mental disorder he recently acquired, on the other hand, his son was beaten so bad that he was left on his previously mentioned state.

Jonathan McLain’s notes 12/5/66
It’s been a weird experience treating this patient; he surely has problems that are beyond my abilities as a psychiatrist. I doubt he can actually be cured, however, after all he’s been through the least he deserves is my best effort in this lost cause. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be able to find a cure.

Today, he told me the end of his story. He told me that when he is crying for the loss of his child a woman comes and with her magic; she cures Pinocchio from what had happened to him and he is now a real boy. This is in my opinion just how he wants the story to end; he wants his boy to be good again and is now waiting for that miracle to happen.

Mark stood silent without doing any noise until he finished reading the last word of the notes from Doctor Jonathan, when he was done; he looked at his partner and finally started talking “That’s all? Is there nothing else that has been said and that you haven’t figured out? Maybe a hidden clue, a way to repair his mind?” asked Mark; he hadn’t finished processing everything that he had read.

Jonathan didn’t say anything for the next few seconds but then he finally broke the silence and the tension that came with it. “There’s one thing. He frequently talks about a cricket; he is Pinocchio’s conscience around the story, at the end when Pinocchio becomes a real boy, the cricket says that Pinocchio doesn’t need him anymore and then leaves” after saying that he started to eat his cake.

Mark sat there, thinking about what Jonathan had just said and merging it with all of the information he had gathered in the last couple of minutes and in no time was able t come up with a theory. “I have this crazy idea, what if the cricket is also Geppeto? I mean, what if the conscience is supposed to be the guide for Pinocchio that Geppeto couldn’t be when he was kidnapped? And that in the end of the story, when Pinocchio becomes a real boy and the cricket leaves…it means that he has accomplished his mission and Pinocchio is safe. What do you think?”

Jonathan didn’t say a word for the next five minutes, and he simply wandered on the train of his thoughts as he tried to run the possibility that his partner had finally solved the problem. “Well done partner, you just found another piece of the puzzle” said Jonathan with a smile on his face, he quickly got up and told Mark to come with him to the cell of Geppeto. When they were on their way, Mark noted something strange in the notes of Jonathan, curiosity taking the best of him, he decided to ask. “These notes of yours…haven’t been updated in so many years, why is that?” asked Mark in a low tone.
After hearing this question Jonathan stopped and after taking a deep breath he replied. “I got scared, at first it was only tales of fantasy, but he quickly developed some…strange actions, haven’t been in contact with the subject in 18 years because of that.” An even bigger curiosity was born in Mark as he desired to know what could possibly creep out someone who has been working with mentally ill people for so many years, what had this Geppeto done that made him scarier than everybody else?

“Care to explain?” requested Mark, nothing could stop his curiosity now, if he had only known what the answer would be; he would have never made the question.

“He started to go to carpenter lessons about two weeks after the last note; it was a way to get his attention and energy on something else. However somewhere along the way he got worse, he…I guess that you should see it to fully understand.” Said Jonathan, he now had a more serious face than he ever had since Mark met him, this made Mark feel both confused and scared. “Before I show you though I need to remind you of something; this man was once a good, sane and hardworking man and it only took one really bad day to change him completely.”

He then opened the door so that his partner could see, as soon as Mark did, he started to vomit, what he had in front was way too much to handle. In the room there was an old man sitting in the shadows, his body had a lot of skin missing from different parts, as he saw the door open he started to talk.

“Sometimes all it takes is one bad day, we’ve all had one.” Whispered with sadness Jonathan to himself, not able to look at his patient after all these years, the feeling of failure and guilt were too much to handle at once.

“Who is there?” asks Geppeto without leaving his spot. “Ah who cares, I need to show you something! My boy, my little and precious boy; some really bad people kidnapped him…it took a whale’s hunger to reunite us, but that’s ok now because you see…” then suddenly, the man stopped talking and started to look for something in the shadows, grabbing from there a statue made of a few big pieces of wood, it was also full of skin pieces that coincided with the ones that were missing in Gepetto’s body, they were screwed to the wood statue.

“…My son is a real boy now”