On his blog on Saturday, Pinhole resurrected a challenge from a now-defunct blogging site. Somebody offers up a first sentence, and those that feel like participating take that sentence and run with it. I never took part in the original, but I’ve been needing some creative kick-starting lately, and this one just worked for me. So I’d like to present my offer, currently without a title (I’m open to suggestions, because I just might turn this into a full-length story.)
She couldn’t place the accent; it was thick, yet undefined. Accompanying the nearly unintelligible Wet Brother dialect was… What? Scottish? Irish? She couldn’t be sure.
The voice had emanated from the run-down hovel that had come to typify the Wet Brother lifestyle. Similar to the driftwood villages that had flourished in the late 22nd century, the shanty towns were situated on poles, constructed from varying pieces of flotsam and sitting about a dozen feet over the water at high tide. Sarah knew that a trap door in the floor of the cottage allowed the inhabitant to quickly and easily make the required trips to the depths below.
She leaned closer to the door, straining to hear. “Hello? Are you in there?”
This time the voice was easier to understand, though the unmistakable hiss was distracting. “Come in, Dry Ssisster. I haff not had air-breatherss vissit for ssome time now. Come in.”
Sarah swallowed hard. There hadn’t been any inter-species violence for well over fifty years now, but she was alone, and it was hard to shake the feelings of oppression and dread that tended to hang over the Wet Brother villages.
However, there was nothing to be gained by standing outside in the rain. She gave a slight push and the door swung open on silent hinges. It was too dark to see the interior, so she took a deep breath and stepped into the unknown just as thunder clapped overhead.
To Be Continued?
January 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Excellent! Thanks for participating, and by all means ‘continue’!
January 7th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
well I don’t know about anyone else but I want to know what happens next.
January 7th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Wow, wolf, that was getting pretty darned good until I tripped over “To be continued”!
January 7th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Continue. Please! This is good stuff.
I haven’t gotten to work on a story yet. I’ll be flying back to Singapore tomorrow — a 24 hour flight. Maybe I can get something together then, and post it when I get back.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Thanks, all. I’m glad you like it. I recently started reading science fiction again, and it’s funny (to me, at least) how obvious it is.
If/when I do finish this (and I probably will) I’ll let everybody know.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:51 am
[...] online community. The best part is … it’s all 100% free! Check them out here: Join Hey Nielsen! An old challenge: answered saved by 1 others Moonangel517 bookmarked on 01/11/08 | [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
hey, great story going here!!
January 24th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Thanks, silken. I’m trying to figure out where to go with it next.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Wolf, I am impressed, I am hooked, I want to know the rest!
Great job!
(And don’t you love these challenges?)
January 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I do like these challenges - I’m sorry I never participated in the old version. As for the rest of this: I’m almost starting to feel like this isn’t a short story. It may very well be a book.
Just great.
Good to see you here, by the way!
January 26th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Hey’ Wolf,
This does feel like the beginning of a book and a neat story that is going into places as yet unknown to many of us, good stuff…
January 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Thanks, Gary. Good to see you here, by the way!