[Writing Contest] - THE ARENA

Mr E wrote: »

Can we go for an 800 word limit? I'm struggling to finish with only 600.

Tell me to feck off if you want.

Sure

I'm hate-writing my way through mine as we speak...

The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was almost horizontal. A violent flash of lightning silhouetted the small island and derelict house that was to be their final destination. 18 year old Frank was the unofficial leader of the group. Second oldest was Amelia, his next door neighbour in Bantry. Frank was steering the boat, while Amelia and two younger kids clung together for dear life. The waves were throwing the boat around like a toy. They all agreed that this was a terrible idea, but they were past the half way point so it was too late to turn around. Jim, also known as Jiggles, was only 15 but he was as big as a grown-up - his young age belied his strength. The final member of the gang was Conor, Amelia's 9 year old brother.

At the end of their summer holidays, they had been playing in Amelia's attic when Jiggles knocked over an old framed picture, shattering the glass into a zillion pieces. While cleaning it up (or hiding the evidence, depending on how you looked at it), they noticed a yellowed parchment behind the picture. Curiosity got the better of them and they pored over it, under the light of Frank's torch.

"Holy crap, it's a treasure map!"

Two months later it was Halloween mid-term. Weeks of stealing time with Dad's tablet, looking up Google and exploring Google Maps, they figured out that their map lead to a tiny island off the far coast of Whiddy Island. An island off an island off an island, Amelia had joked. It couldn't get more remote than that and it was the perfect hiding place for treasure.

After a particularly violent wave dropped the boat from a height, Conor started to cry and Amelia tried to comfort him. She gave Frank a look to tell him to speed up, and Frank put three fingers in the air. A few minutes later, they made landfall and they all worked together to pull the small boat high up the beach.

Amelia had to shout over the howling wind - "This house better have a roof, Frank."

Despite how near the house looked, the camping rucksacks carried by Frank and Jiggles seemed to catch the wind and made for a tough 15 minutes' walk to cover the distance through the storm. The house was definitely abandoned. Nobody had lived here for a very long time. Frank, Amelia and Conor ran to the nearest window and cupped their hands on the glass to try and see inside. Jiggles was a bit more direct and his right shoulder led a charge at the front door. The rotten lock gave way and the others followed Jiggles inside. There was some water dripping from the roof in places, but it was considerably more sheltered than where they had just been.

It only took a couple of minutes to explore the old bungalow, and a couple more minutes to be sure.

"Where's the tweasure?" said Conor.
"There is none, dude," said Frank.
"Or else someone got here before us," said Amelia.
"ARSEHOLES!" said Jiggles.

Amelia found the driest part of the house to set up the sleeping bags. They were glad she insisted that they pack towels and dry clothes. Half an hour later, they had finished sandwiches, tayto crisps, mars bars and fanta and sat together in the sleeping bags, unable to sleep.

Jiggles got serious for a minute. "What if the storm hasn't stopped by the morning? There is no way I'm going back on that boat if the sea is rough."

"Me neither," said Conor. "No flippin' way."

Amelia and Frank nodded in agreement. "We'll figure it out in the morning. Try and get some sleep."

Sometime in the middle of the night, Jiggles' bladder woke him up. He looked around and noticed that the others were out for the count. He chuckled quietly when he heard that Amelia snored. He carefully tiptoed away from the sleeping group and went outside. The rain had stopped, but the wind was as furious as ever. He went around to the side of the house that was some way sheltered from the wind.

As he started to relieve himself, he noticed something weird. Even though the house was made of stone, the sound of liquid hitting wood was obvious. He redirected his stream and finished up. After he found the source of the sound, he ran in to wake the others.

The transition from grumpiness to excitement was a quick one, and they were all standing around the partially overgrown wooden cellar door a few minutes later. As before, the door was well rotted and easy to get through. Frank's trusty torch led the way into the darkness.

Four simultaneous "wows" broke the silence, followed by a curse word from Jiggles. Both sides of the room were lined with framed paintings, up to ten deep in places.

Conor said "We're gonna need a bigger boat," and the others laughed hysterically.

Well done TP.

brilliant stuff from both of you.

Yeah I had lots of ideas that I had to drop. More dialogue, more descriptions, coastguards and even some romance.

Would have been great for a 2,000 word VOAT. Hint hint.

Ah no, I think there is still a place for a limited daily challenge.

I'm not sure if you were around for the VOATs (the last one was 7 months ago), but they were extended writing competitions around a word, phrase or theme. One week to write 2,000 words.

For the last one, this was the setup and this was the outcome.

The Pooka wrote: »

It definitely could have done with another pass, but glad that aspect wasn't completely impenetrable

I didn't find it impenetrable. I got it on one reading but maybe I can see the dark side more easily than some.:)

I read it as him disliking the comparison between the happy child's toy and his distinctly less happy job of killing people with a remote controlled drone.

It's well known that civilian "collateral damage" is a side-effect of drone strikes so I read it as very specifically the association with happy children, especially on the packaging, that soured him to the gift since he must have known that his drone strikes were likely to have killed the occasional child.

But I had treasure. TREASURE!

I'll give it a go but can I request that we lift the max word count? I find it hard to write to a limit like that and have to do a frozen

Sounds good, cheers. Not a clue! Let's give someone else a couple of hours to suggest something?

Cool, I have to go to a funeral over the weekend, so will we say 9pm Sunday night for a deadline?