Writing Contest! (ANNOUNCED WINNERS)

Hi! I really wanted to enter this contest, but I seems I missed the cutoff time by a minute or two. May I still post my story, even if I cannot enter?

Edit: I think I will post my story on this post anyways via a google document link, as I am not sure when you will be online to respond. Whether I am able to enter or not, I just want to say that this contest was very generous of you, and that it makes me happy to see such generosity at times like these. I hope everyone had a happy time during their holiday/day, and good luck to all participants. :)

Link: A Story Forgotten

Rollover happened as I was pasting it unfortunately, so I couldn't take it out, but this part is supposed to say “Of course, our healer’s the best in the valley!” A cunning glint in her eye. “In fact, you should go and see her, perhaps you might learn a thing or two about etiquette.” without the brackets -facepalms-

Also sorry about the few mistakes I couldn't catch. Once you've read it can I go over it/re-post it in another reply to fix them before you show it to anyone else?

it's around 1496 words I believe.

It logged me out right as I was posting and I didnt realize that until I was trying to hit submit 20 times and it wasn't working. 

Posting anyway cause I worked hard on it. If I missed the cut off -oh well. Thank you for influencing me to write again!

“We have to leave,” she ushered, a growl barely heard over the blustering wind of winter.

He knew she was right, but felt the need to deny it as long as possible. Her silhouette was clouded, snow flurries getting worse by the hour, the storm approaching soon. He barely recognized her now - her once muscular form reduced to mere fur that clutched against her ribs. His own sister had been slowly drowning in hunger and madness. They had to survive. They were wolves after all. 

Bitter, he turned to enter their den. It once felt much bigger - full of life, warmth, and family. Now what remained was only a shadow of its former glory - dusty, barren, deserted. Small tufts of fur littered the ground, rolling about as they escaped their owners, taking shelter from the storm. He couldn’t remember if they were of wolf - or the meager prey they sustained themselves with.

Following his footsteps, Whisper ducked into the small cavern after him. Beaten, she threw the dead hare she had hunted at his feet. He looked into her eyes, and only saw his own expression reflected back. Desperation, hunger, sadness, and exhaustion. They had been here for twenty moons - and with the rapid decline of the wilderness around them, they wouldn’t make it much longer. She was right. They had to leave. 

“You take it,” Maverick said, plopping down on the ground and pushing the kill towards her with his grey muzzle. “You’ve worked hard.”

“Then we share,” she snapped, going to sit beside him. She made no move to eat, though he knew she was starving. Her ears and eyes remained focused towards the outside. Watching, waiting - wishing for an opening, a chance, a way. She would remain that way until certain of their safety. The evening was coming soon, the days were short, and the wind howled in maniacal laughter, sending chills up their spines that were from more than just cold. 

They waited in comfortable silence. The sounds from the wilderness were more than enough. The rampant storm grew louder and more impatient. Trees creaked in agony, swinging as if struck with a heavy weight. Snowflakes danced along snow-swollen hills, light in appearance but able to batter against the skin like chunks of broken sand. They were used to storms - back when the family dined with them, protected them, and kept their hearts alive when the shadows crept into their minds. When Logan disappeared, their parents followed, and never returned. 

This was home. Maverick had been convinced he would stay forever, would reside in the beautiful woods that held bounty and took care of them, as they took care of it. A storm was worth this. Now the lack of resources made that choice clearer to them every day. Whisper knew. She was always right. 

“Tomorrow,” he spoke softly before grabbing the hind end of the creature, and breaking into it’s flesh with a crunch. 

Saying nothing, the ruddy colored female grabbed the other side of the corpse and pulled, resisting the urge to swallow the hare whole. They ate in the comfort of the cave, the sounds of bone accompanying the howling outside.

***

A rumble vibrated through his body. Maverick woke with a start, green eyes widening in surprise. What had he heard just now? Whisper slept, the hare carcass bare and strewn between them. Looking outside - he noticed the world had quieted. A fresh blanket of snow made layers around the entrance, a few trees had torn at one another, and yet no snowflake in sight. 

What had he heard just now?

An eerie silence crept along the grounds. A pit lowered itself into the wolf’s stomach. He hadn’t heard anything, but was certain he had felt something. Pulling his feet out from under him, he stood, taking one look back at his sister before pushing himself towards the snow. 

A cold vibration pushed itself through his bones as he wandered into the wilds. This place had been home for so long - but now felt unsafe. Unnerved, he approached the treeline and paused, the crunching under his feet silencing momentarily. Ears twitching, he took in every sound, every scent. He had no idea what time of night it was, the world cleverly hid it from him, and he tipped his nose to the sky. If only he could just…

The snow behind him buckled. Fear overtook his senses, adrenaline flushed his brain, and he swerved, coming eye to eye with the culprit: his sister. It took him a moment to gather his senses, fur that had raised in alarm settling back along his back. Instead of trying to calm him, she pushed past him, attention reaching out to the woods, gold eyes scanning every shadow. 

“I don’t like this,” she breathed. Her body looked calm, but he knew she was sitting on pins and needles just as he was. Her claws gripped the snow as she searched for the source of this...feeling, nostrils flaring with tension. 

Then it came.

A faint rumble, seeming to start in the stomach and move along the body. It lit the nerves on fire, rattled bones, accelerated the heart, and made Maverick want to run. Run far away, and leave as fast as he could. But Whisper stayed, and seeing her resolution, he would too. 

Large eyes appeared from the woods. First one, then two. Slowly searching, unfocused, as if waking, before turning and landing on the two siblings. Like glowing orbs of sinister gold, it cast its gaze on them, looking nowhere and everywhere all at once. The two young wolves were frozen, even as the voice of the forest washed over them. 

The intonation lurched, and worked its way inside and outside of them. It tried to speak, words unrecognizeable. Instead - it’s intentions were made clear. It was almost as if the wilds spoke for it - the rumbling in their bones, created by the ground, the wind, and the trees, rattling aggressively. It demanded answers.

Maverick’s voice caught in his throat - and it was Whisper, who steadied herself against the two large orbs. She cried out, and the wind blew her howls away, snuffing them out like a dying fire. 

The forest roared in reply, and the ashes of the earlier storm began to pick up strength once more. The snow battered and ripped at Maverick’s sides, and he yelped, as the white powder began to pool around his ankles. Green eyes frantic, he looked to his sister, and tried to call for help, but found his voice lost to the wind. Fur whipped his face, blurring his vision, and he squinted at what he thought was a large shape among the trees. 

This creature was blocking their way. Grimacing, the ruddy wolf unplucked herself from the snow, and howled angrily at the large monster. It seemed to almost laugh - the ground sputtering at her, like stones tossed upon stones. In the chaos, a glint appeared in the trees. Two giant jaws formed from the shadows, moving ever so slow, they came steadily, reaching to the young wolves like arms. Stretching, inviting, waiting, wanting. 

Yelling, Whisper turned to her brother, braced her head and shoulders, and shoved against him, dislodging him from his frozen captor. Shaking free of the snow, he followed her lead, disoriented. A piercing cold leapt through his heart when he realized she was not leading him away - but towards the jaws of the forest. 

“Run!” was all he managed to hear, before she took off. Squinting through the blinding white, he howled as if his life depended on it, muscles pumping, pushing his legs further and further. The jaws seemed to close around them, no matter how much they ran. They were followed by the teeth and eyes of a giant wolf, made of shadows and shattered dreams. Every time Maverick opened his eyes, they were there to swallow him whole.

He could feel the hot breath of the forest now, leering over him, wanting, waiting, wishing, hoping he would dive straight into the darkness. A large tooth pierced his side, and he squirmed, thinking this would be the last journey for his body.

Then, a crow erupted from the foliage. A flock of birds took to the sky, and the trees cleared overhead, opening to a canyon with the view of a newborn sun. A streak of orange blessed the sky, a new day was soon and spring was on the horizon. A ragged Whisper stood at the canyon ledge, panting, but only looking forward into the coming future.

Maverick dared a glance behind, the rumble in his chest dissipating. No longer could he find the jaws that wished to consume him. No longer could he see the gnashing teeth that dug at his sides. In fact, nothing awaited him other than the reminder that his family home was long gone. A small golden orb lurked in the shadows, giving him a small wink, before disappearing into darkness.

Okay ah this is sadly very late but I wanted to post anyway because I enjoyed writing it! Thank you for this opportunity, it's very generous and it's great to see so much creativity sparked!

1500 words exactly

Ochieng was a brave wolf, and strong, and as such he had no hesitation in volunteering for night guard duties for the first time. He was grown up, now, he assured himself, looking at the stars through the silhouettes of trees above him and feeling very small. He could take care of his pack.

In the forest the nights were a pressing kind of silence. He couldn’t hear his pack’s snores and shuffles from where he was – all that he could hear was his own paws padding through the snow, and distant hoots of owls. And the heavy arms of trees creaking against each other. He uncurled himself from where he had been huddling and moved a little away, where there was a shallow dip in the ground and less trees. He would be useful to nobody if he was crushed by an errant branch.

The creaking continued. It sounded close, still, and had gathered a lighter crispy sound, like rain, or the crunching of leaves and twigs underfoot. He looked up, but could see nothing except for the still, reaching arms of the pine trees, the fuzzy bodies of the firs. The noise stopped.

Hesitantly, still watching the forest with keen eyes, he retreated further down the dip in the ground. A few grey rocks formed a shallow cave; telling himself he was being careful, not cowardly, he pressed himself as far in as he could go.

The noise began again, from close. From behind the incline of the slope behind him.

He felt his muscles stiffen. The sound continued, and along with the creaking and the crunching this time came a noise somewhere between wind and the breath of a dying wolf. He did not want to look. He wanted whatever it was – certain now it was a creature – to go away without him needing to do anything. But Ochieng was a brave wolf, and loyal to his pack. So he stood up and looked over the snowy rocks.

A branch was reaching towards him, but nothing about this branch indicated it came from a tree except for its material. It was smooth and wrinkled, and at the end, coming towards him, was something like a mimicry of a huge, clawed paw.

He ran.

He did not look behind him until he reached his pack’s den, even when his back legs punctured the snow as he scrambled up the slope of his hiding spot, and he realised he had been sitting on an obscured river. He heard himself yelping, high pitched and frantic. And even with the air washing over him, he could not clean what he had seen behind the branch-arm from his mind.

He had seen huge, round, yellow-green eyes. Like a sick moon.

*

The pack was torn on whether to believe him or not. Ochieng didn’t much care for most of their scepticisms. He only really wanted to know the mind of one wolf.

She was curled up in her cave when he found her, as she always was. She wasn’t sleeping: her eyes looked out of the cave’s mouth, past the camp, down the green and white hills.

“Yessica,” Ochieng said. He went to her and she picked herself up, touched his nose. Her eyes were amused.

“So,” Yessica said. “It’s the pack scaredy-cat.”

“It’s true!” he said, disappointed. “Why would I run away from my duties for something that wasn’t even there?”

“I’ve been alive for a lot longer than you, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.

Ochieng’s ears drooped.

“Hey, I’m teasing.” She pushed him lightly with a paw. “I believe you.”

Ochieng stood up, his tail wagging. “It was terrifying. It was bigger than ten wolves, and camouflaged completely. And it had these eyes. Huge. A strange green, like a leaf in summer. I saw them in my dreams.”

Yessica’s gaze was mostly far-reaching and only vaguely tethered to any conversation. But here, her eyes sharpened.

“Tonight, I want to come with you,” she said, and there was no room for argument in her voice.

*

In the moonlight, the edges of grey on Yessica’s brown fur lit up in silver. Ochieng felt safer with her around, even if they were probably as good as pups if the monster decided to visit them again.

For a long time, there was only the cold smell of snow, the sound of little critters rustling through thickets and the roots of trees. Ochieng began to wonder if he was more fainthearted and imaginative than he believed. And then he heard the creaking again.

He stopped. “It’s here,” he murmured to Yessica. “I think it’s here.”

They were in the thicks of the woods. They could barely move without disturbing one of the squat bushes growing thick around them. They stayed in careful silence. And then Ochieng heard the waterfall sound of the creature again, heard its hollow breaths.

He could not look up. He could feel its presence, see in his peripheral vision where it stood, mountainous, absorbing the light of the moon. Yessica looked up. He watched as her expression changed, and there was something there he had not expected.

“Is that…” was all he heard her say, before he recovered use of his frozen limbs and shot off into the trees.

He made it twenty paces before Yessica caught up with him. Stop, stop! she was saying, and the certainty in her voice did stop him. She took a breath.

“That… What we saw back there is not what you think it is.”

Ochieng didn’t know what to say to that. He glanced behind him, but the creature hadn’t caught up to them – yet.

“What do you mean? It’s not a monster made out of the forest?”

“Exactly,” Yessica said, something alive in her eyes. It was something new on her: vigour, enthusiasm.

“Have you been under the moonlight for too long? That is clearly a monster.”

“Not a monster,” she said. She smiled, and her smile was surprisingly charming and convincing.

Behind them came the sound of wood against wood. Whatever Yessica was trying to persuade him of, his patience was wearing thin.

“I’m sorry, Yessie. I can’t just let myself be eaten by that thing.”

But she had a mind of steel, he knew that. She approached him and looked at him with conviction. “You have to trust me. Just stay, unless she gets violent. You can hide.”

He was dubious, and worried, and afraid. But he did. And the creature approached, its long limbs parting the trees.

Ochieng could see its brown fur, coarse and bristling. It had ears, and a long nose. And when it approached Yessica, standing boldly in a clearing of trees, it sat on its haunches, and Ochieng thought that it had the posture and shape of a wolf.

It leaned its head down. From the cluster of trees Ochieng hid in, he could not quite make out what Yessica said to it. But he could see the looks on her face: a careful consideration, and then an expression of such relief and joy melted over her face that he almost felt he should look away. He had seen nothing like it on her in all the years he had lived. But he kept watch, for she pressed her nose to the monster’s face, and nuzzled its neck. He kept himself still in a promise to her, though his claws extended and retracted into the snow under him. But the monster, so gently he immediately wondered whether the word ‘monster’ was right, closed its tunnel-light eyes and curled itself around Yessica.

“Come out, Ochieng,” Yessica said suddenly.

He found that the compress of fear on his guts had almost dissolved. Slowly, he slunk around the trees. He almost retreated when the creature lifted its head again and regarded him with those eyes, but at Yessica’s encouragement he went to them.

“This is Kareena,” Yessica said softly, from within the furry mass of the creature.

Ochieng found himself at a loss for words, again. “It has a name?”

“She,” Yessica said reprimandingly.

Ochieng looked up at the creature – Kareena – so tall above them. He was wary, still, and his heart had barely slowed, but he managed a stiff nod. And she brushed her paw against him in return.

She opened her maw and something like the croak of a frog came out. And then she began moving again, around Yessica. Ochieng stepped back a little. She circled Yessica, slowly at first but then faster. She began to loop so fast that Ochieng felt a little wind ruffle his fur. Had he been wrong? Was she hurting Yessica? But from inside Kareena’s whirlwind, his friend sat calmly, only watching.

Slowly, unbelievably, the huge, creaking, wooden wolf-monster became smaller. The moonlight was bright here, and as Kareena spun a white glow grew from her. And then she stopped, finally, and Ochieng realised the white glow was the white fur of a wolf.

Thank you everyone for participating!!! I will be now reading them <3 there's a LOT of entries so let's give it few weeks! ;D I appreciate every entry so so much <3 thank you for your time and hopefully you had fun!!!

Also due to christmas being busy time I accept all submissions right before this post even if they are few hours late pls <3

ahh no i was too late ;_; well have fun!

Has the winners been decided yet? Just wondering! ^-^ Wait nvm, I saw a few posts up oop

As much as I would really like to continue in this contest to see if I win, because im poor, I have to withdraw from it because I am out of both food and amusement and all my wolves will be leaving in a few days, so im forced to leave the game.

Winners will be announced on March 2nd!

Ohhhh I am looking forward to seeing who won!