Words about things and stuff Vs. Oliver Losinski

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The authors are ready to fight.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

Read both stories carefully before casting your vote. Each author has responded to the above prompt, but their interpretations may differ wildly. Consider how they approach the challenge and which story leaves you with the stronger impression.

The poll will be active for one week. May the best author win.

WAS

Melody was a good kid.

She smiled and curtseyed and said please and thank you and your welcome.

At the store one day, she wanted a piece of candy. Her mother said no.

While her mother was distracted, a woman with a black hoodie and sunglasses urged Melody to take it anyway.

“It’s so small and the store is so big. No one will even know.”

Melody was a good kid.

She smiled and curtseyed and said thank you and your welcome.

There was a spelling test in school one day. She wasn’t prepared at all.

On the way to school that morning, she passed a woman with a black hoodie and sunglasses who was talking on her phone.

“…yeah well, I cheated. Of course I did. If I didn’t know the answer, someone next to me always did.”

Melody was a good kid.

She smiled and curtseyed and said your welcome.

A new girl moved into the house next door. Melody’s mother said she should go over and introduce herself. Maybe they could be friends.

A woman with a black hoodie and sunglasses was walking her dog. A pit bull with big teeth. The hoodie was unzipped, showing a white t-shirt. The t-shirt read “friends are enemies waiting to happen”. It had a picture of a skull on it.

Melody thought the shirt was cool.

Melody was a good kid.

She smiled and said your welcome.

During show and tell, one of the boys brought an super hero action figure to show the class. It had arms that moved and a cape. The boys were careless, throwing it back and forth during recess. When the bell rang, they ran back to class, forgetting to pick it up. Melody found it and picked it up.

As she walked back to class, a woman in a black hoodie and sunglasses, probably a parent, held the door open for her.

“Nice super hero, kid. If I had one of those I’d hold on to it. It’s gonna be worth something someday.”

“Oh. It’s not mine,” Melody said.

“You sure about that,” the woman answered.

Melody was a good kid.

She smiled.

She smiled because she learned how to take what she wanted without getting caught.

She smiled because it was smarter and easier to cheat than it was to study.

She smiled because she was her own best friend. She was the only one that would never let her down.

She smiled because she finders were keepers, and she was a finder.

Melody shortened her name to Mel. It sounded cooler.

No.

It sounded more bad ass.

Way more bad ass.

Melody was too cutesy.

She wasn’t cutesy.

Not anymore.

Mel changed her hair.

Mel wanted a pierced nose. Her mom said no.

She found a way to do it anyway.

Mel changed the way she dressed.

She found a black hoodie and a pair of sunglasses and put them on.

She looked at her reflection.

Melody WAS a good kid.

Was.

Never speak to that wood-skinned hag. Her barbed tongue turns souls to steel. Hear not her echoed song. Only one’s deceitful vision satisfies her hunger.”

Rivers of experience flood my mind. I was awake. How long since my eyes grazed the world?

The Elder ran his fingers through the sand, arming himself with the tooth of an ancient shark who swam here before the Earth burst from the sea. The Elder cradled the tooth in his fingers, held it in the air, and pierced both wrists. The blood gushed forth as he pushed it deeper and heaved the fang down from arm to elbow. Sanguine wine branched across his arm and spilled into the white sands.

“The flesh is God’s final meal. The mind is Satan’s. At any moment, they may feast, and all things will turn to air. We put you back together. Let no spirits of Wakulla deceive you.”

The Elder laughed in my face and turned his back to me. He collapsed from blood loss before he could enter his cabin. A lone child raced from the door, crying over him. She hoisted The Elder from his own pooling blood and dragged him inside, slamming the door behind them. I could feel them forget I ever existed, and I fled before rumors spread. That Elder told me all I needed. The volcano was to the south, deep in the Wakulla wilds.

Sand gave way to swamp as day gave way to night. This swamp, the boundary between land and sea, repeated with every passing palm tree. Deep within this swamp, there is a lone mountain, ensnaring every secret. I was concerned not with the secrets of the beyond, but with my own. I lost something very dear to me, something I cannot remember. Even my own name and the history of this world is lost to me.

Blotches of black ink cover the places they once lived. I chase them through the hallways and the libraries, but they vanish before they can be smeared away. They tease me with a hidden face, little hands grabbing mine, before blotting it all away again. The lonely mountain which stands above the cypress trees and the mangroves, could place them in my arms once again and allow me to smear the ink away.

Pillars of smoke swam through the sky, erasing the stars from view. I drew my blade and blindly slashed through the vines, thick as iron. The ruins of dead empires sat below my feet. I had been here before, and I am here again.

The volcano stood above the terrain, an onyx obelisk, billowing smoke. Nothing grew upon it, not even vines or moss. Surrounding sand and black water all flowed to the same place, a cave. I crept through this narrow cavern for an eternity. The roots grew larger with every grunt and wheeze, as tar pulsed from the black wood like wine from a broken bottle. My final push shoved me into the massive cistern, and death brewed in my lungs.

I stared at the purple veins flowing through the roots.

That old willow tree festered in the umbral smoke.

Leafless branches poured black tar on the dirt.

Bulging from its trunk was the pale face of a porcelain doll, rose cheeks identical to that face behind the ink. It was unworn despite generations of neglect, and its marble eyes stared into mine. This was the hag, and it anticipated an offering.

A burning itch whispered wordlessly behind my dry eye. A shark’s tooth rose from the tar, black resin dripping from the edges. I dropped my knife and wielded this fang instead. I pushed it deep to my spasming eye, and black blood covered half of my vision.

The glass mouth cracked open, and the eyes slid shut. Bugs crawled from its jaw and cracked teeth. I placed my bleeding eye in the mouth, and it slammed shut, scattering its lower jaw across the ground. I opened my mouth and asked:

“What am I—”

Before I could finish, a faint, ethereal whisper echoed through the cave.

Nothing.

I stood still, unable to move. All my memories had flattened, the lie of texture exposed. Decades, even centuries, reduced to a single instant. There were no memories, no little girl holding my hand. . My head pulled itself down. Smoke belched from the tar beneath my feet, cloaking everything in ink. I took my final breath without a mouth, and everything ceased.