✧ a hundred stories to tell // one-shot challenge

[blackbird.]

"ｃａｎ ｙｏｕ ｐｌｅａｓｅ ｓｈｕｔ ｕｐ？" "ｎｏ．"
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a shattered mind // characters: hadley, tyler-james, niko// words: 1117


It was noisy.

The club was packed with people, talking, mingling, shouting, laughing. Loud music blared through the speakers, invading his ears, pounding in his head. There were so many lights, gaudy neon sights, hurting his eyes. The place smelled disgusting, a mixture of alcohol and sweat, and he was pretty sure people were doing drugs in the corner.

His palms were sweaty, his heart pounding in his chest. He could feel his shirt getting damper with every passing second, and his hair was starting to stick to his forehead. His lungs collapsed on themselves and suddenly he couldn't breathe. He gasped for air but he could feel himself being suffocated. His head was getting lighter and heavier at the same time. He was going to faint. He was going to die.

Someone touched him. A hand was on his shoulder. He spun round to face the assailant. "You alright, mate? You don't look so good." There was concern on his face and worry in his voice.

"I...I need some air." He ran out of the club, pushing past people and barging through the door.

Fresh air greeted him, cool air, brought by the coming of spring. He placed both palms on the wall of a building and breathed. In and out. He could breathe. Just inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and ex-

"Hadley, Hadley, Hadley...tut, tut." Hadley knew that voice.

He turned around to see who had called him, and instantly regretted it. "What do you want, TJ?" TJ never brought anything good. It was always mocking words and barbed comments with him.

TJ didn't answer his question. Instead, he shoved Hadley in the shoulder. It was meant to be a joke, a light-hearted movement, but it hurt, and Hadley stumbled a few steps back. "What the hell happened in there, buddy?" TJ taunted, laughing at him, mocking him.

"Go away, TJ." Hadley's voice was no louder than a murmur, shaky and soft. He held his tears in the best he could. He wasn't going to cry.

"How rude." TJ pushed him again. "What's the matter, buddy? Can't handle a group of people?" He stepped closer to Hadley, bending down to see Hadley's pained expression, invading his personal space. "What, you going to cry?"

Hadley willed the tears to disappear. "Can you please shut up?"

"No." TJ smirked at him. "What, don't you like it when people talk to you? I thought you get oh-so lonely and want people to talk to you." He laughed mockingly. "Always seeking attention, looking so weak so others would ask about you. 'Hadley, are you alright? You don't look so good. Do you want to talk? Do you want a hug?'" TJ mimicked the sickly-sweet voices of people who ever cared about him. "All because poor Mam and Pap couldn't love you enough."

"I'm not listening to you." He was going to cry. But no, he couldn't. He couldn't cry, not in front of TJ.

"You can try." TJ scoffed. "But I'm always here, Hadley. Always." His grin turned malicious.

Hadley shut his eyes, trying to turn away. "You're not real. You're not real. You're not real." He repeated it to himself, like a mantra.

"You don't think I'm real?" TJ cackled, but there was anger flashing in his eyes. "Why, because your therapist said so? Because he doesn't see me like you do?"

"I'm in control," Hadley began saying to himself, just as his therapist had taught him. "I'm in control."

TJ smirked, his brows furrowing. "Closing your eyes and pretending not to hear me isn't going to make me disappear."

Hadley didn't respond.

"Oh, so you're going to act like I'm not even here, is that it?" TJ gritted his teeth, but his lips were still curled in an evil smirk. "Let's see how long that will last."

Hadley had his palms clasped over his ears, his eyes shut tight.

TJ's artificial smile fell, replaced with rage. He balled his hand into a fist and punched Hadley, right in the face. Hadley's eyes shot open as he cried out in pain.

"Still think that you can ignore me?" TJ took another swing. Bam! Hadley raised his arms to defend himself, but it was futile. "Still think you can get rid of me?" TJ swung again. Bam! Hadley tried turning his head, but that did nothing to stop the blow. "Still think I'm not real?" TJ sneered and threw Hadley onto the ground.

Hadley crumpled to the floor, face stinging and tears falling. His fingers touched the spots where he had been hit. He felt something wet. He saw something red. "Why are you here?" he asked through sobs.

TJ kicked his abdomen, and Hadley lurched forward in pain. "Because you want me to be here. Because you want me to hurt you."

Hadley could hear the drops of his blood hitting the asphalt. Drip, drip, drip. "But..."

"But, what, Hadley?" TJ countered, his voice growing impatient. "You know why I'm here! Because you're a mess. Because you don't know how to survive, because you're so damn weak that you invented me to handle your life for you, because you can't handle it on your own."

"No." Hadley clenched his fists and got up. "I don't need you!" he yelled with newfound courage. He placed his hands on TJ's chest and pushed hard. "Go away!"

A voice came from behind him. "Hadley?"

Hadley whirled around, his eyes red with tears, his face battered and bloodied. He recognised that face. "Niko?"

Niko stared at him. "Samuel said you went to get some air, but...gosh, what the hell happened to you?" He stepped forward to examine the split skin on Hadley's face.

"Nothing," Hadley mumbled.

Niko frowned. "And who were you talking to?"

"No one," came the mumbled reply.

Niko's frown deepened. "Was it TJ?" Hadley's silence was answer enough. He sighed. "I really think you should go back to therapy."

Hadley's eyes widened. "No, I don't need it!"

"If TJ is doing this to you, then he's gotta go. And therapy's the way to get rid of him." Niko folded his arms across his chest. "Why don't you wanna go for therapy?"

Hadley shrugged, tears coming once again. "I just...I don't want to feel like I'm crazy. And going for therapy just proves that I am."

Niko placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I don't think you're crazy."

Hadley looked away. "Not now, Niko."

Niko sighed again. "Fine. This discussion can wait. For now, let's get that cleaned up." He gestured to Hadley's face.

Hadley nodded and they began walking. He turned around one more time, and his smile a little.

TJ was nowhere to be seen.

[ note: don't stigmatise; accept. c:

[Alpha*]

hey that's really cool! is it on this site? because i'd like to read it, if so!
and thanks again haha, that's really sweet of you to say ^^

(Thanks! No, it's not - im really not as brave as you. It'd probably help, but I'm way to shy. I use here to improve scenes?? I've been thinking about it, but I don't know how to go about it..

I liked your next one, it's interesting. But if it's in his head, did he fall? Or is TJ real??? Questions, questions - are you going to expand any of them? You totally should at some point. )

[Ranger of the North]

Poor Hadley! D: That must suck...

[blackbird.]

(Thanks! No, it's not - im really not as brave as you. It'd probably help, but I'm way to shy. I use here to improve scenes?? I've been thinking about it, but I don't know how to go about it..

I liked your next one, it's interesting. But if it's in his head, did he fall? Or is TJ real??? Questions, questions - are you going to expand any of them? You totally should at some point. )

many people find comments and critiques really help, so i'd suggest using communities like writers on this site or on other sites to give feedback; there are lots of people who are willing to help, you just have to ask!
but ultimately it's up to you - post your stories only if you're comfortable with it!

i don't have any plans to expand on any at the moment. i had a violistair story in mind but the idea wasn't concretely good so i decided not to. maybe after i'm done with at least half of these one-shots!
tj isn't real - he's a figment of hadley's imagination (hadley's got schizophrenia, it seems). the way i imagined it, hadley sees tj,
even though he's not there, and everything tj does, hadley actually does, but sees it as tj. so tj isn't actually hurting hadley, hadley's hurting himself. it's a little like fight club, if you've seen the movie!

Poor Hadley! D: That must suck...

it really does :c
and for quite a number of people, it's a reality.
so the message of the one-shot is to see beyond the illness
and understand that these are people suffering.
ultimately let's just all spread love and acceptance c:

[Alpha*]

(Thanks so much

[blackbird.]

"ｉｃｈ ｓｐｒｅｃｈｅｎ Ｄｅｕｔｓｃｈ"
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vietnamese + german = ? // characters: hua linh mai, felix kahn // words: 936


Linh Mai was reading.

Her eyes were glued to the page, soft murmurs escaping her lips as she articulated each word, savouring it on her tongue. A thin sheen of sweat began forming on her skin.

She crossed one leg over the other and shifted in her seat. Maybe that would help a little.

Her brows furrowed lightly as her mind was whirling. Her breath hitched.

She flipped to the next page.

"Mai? I'm home!" a voice called from down the hall. It was Felix, who had just come home from work.

Mai's eyes widened in panic. "Cứt!" she hissed in alarm. She couldn't let him see what she was reading. Hastily, she closed the book and opened the drawer of the table. She could hear Felix's footsteps coming closer.

"Mai?"

"Yeah, I'm here," she replied, trying to keep her voice level. She stuffed the book into the drawer but it got stuck. Gritting her teeth, she pushed harder and shoved it in.

"Hi!" Felix entered the room just as she slammed the drawer shut.

She turned to face him, smiling innocently. A bit too innocently. "Hi!" She sounded happy. A bit too happy.

He frowned suspiciously. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing," came the immediate response. A bit too immediate.

Felix raised a brow and walked towards her. "Are you sure?" She just continued smiling that wide smile of hers. "You know I don't like secrets."

"It's not a secret," she objected.

He smirked at her and placed a hand on the handle of the drawer. "Can I see what you were doing?"

Mai sighed. She supposed that there was no point in hiding anymore. "Fine."

He opened the drawer and picked up the book. "German for Dummies?" he asked, half-amused, half-confused. "Why are you learning German? And why are you learning it from a book?"

Mai glanced away, an embarrassed blush on her face. "It was supposed to be a surprise," she admitted. "I just want to be able to understand what's going on when I visit your family in Germany. Everyone will be talking in German and there's me, not understanding anything, and everyone will think I'm stupid." She felt tears prick at her eyes. Why was she so emotional about this?

"No one's going to think you're stupid," Felix said. "You weren't born in a German-speaking country, so why would anyone expect you to speak German?"

Mai shrugged. "I don't know, okay? But it's my first time there and I really, really want to make a good impression and-"

"Mai, stop." Felix stooped down to look at her. "You are worrying too much about this. My family is going to like you, not because you know German, but because you're my girlfriend. And because I like you. A lot."

"Are you sure? I mean, I don't want-"

He gave her his serious look. "Yes, Mai. I'm sure."

"Okay." She smiled at him, and rested her palm against the side of his face. "Thank you."

Felix grinned and kissed her cheek.

"Now, come on, it's time for dinner," she announced, standing up and taking his hand.

They began walking to the kitchen. "So I'm curious, how are you finding the language?" he asked.

"Difficult," Mai groaned. "I only know the basic stuff, like 'Guten Tag', and 'Wie heissen Sie', and uh..." She paused for a moment to remember the phrase she was just trying to learn. "Ich sprechen Deutsch."

"Ich spreche Deutsch," Felix corrected gently.

Mai tilted her head in confusion. "What's the difference?"

"Well, in German, we conjugate the verbs. 'Sprechen' is the infinitive form, but when you're using the first person nominative - 'ich' - you have to conjugate it so that it becomes 'spreche'. So 'ich spreche', not 'ich sprechen'," he explained.

Mai shook her head. "It's so confusing!" she complained.

Felix laughed and shrugged. "You get used to it."

They reached the kitchen and Felix helped bring the plates out. "Ugh, I'm starving. Why did you come home so late today?" Mai asked.

"I stopped by the bookstore on the way home," Felix replied, pointing to the paper bag filled with books he had just bought.

"Ooh, I want to see!" Mai said excitedly as she began rummaging through the bag. She frowned at the sight of one particular book. "What's this?" She held up the book to him. Easy-learning Vietnamese, it read.

"Scheiss." Felix groaned in frustration. "You weren't supposed to see that," he admitted.

Mai folded her arms, a teasing smile on her face. "Why are you learning Vietnamese?"

Felix smiled sheepishly. "The same reason you're learning German."

Mai began laughing at the irony of it all as she walked up to him and hugged him. "You're such a hypocrite," she said jokingly. "But okay, how about this? Let's have language-learning sessions together where you'll learn Vietnamese and I'll learn German, and when we have questions we can ask each other." She glanced at him with a mischievous smile. "Was denkst du?"

He grinned back. "ý tưởng hay."

[ note: multi-culturalism is possible!

[Alpha*]

Awww!

[blackbird.]

"ａ ｓｔａｋｅ ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｔｈｅ ｈｅａｒｔ ｗｏｕｌｄ ｋｉｌｌ ａｎｙｂｏｄｙ．．．"
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manuel's debut story // characters: manuel mendez, violet lecter // words: 1192


Manuel burst through the doors of Harrenhall Mansion, a gun in his hand, a stake and hammer in his pocket. His skin reeked of garlic, and cloves of it hung on a chain around his neck.

He took a few more steps in. It was quiet. Eerily quiet.

The place was dark and damp, with only the moonlight shining through the windows to illuminate the haunted mansion. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of rotting wood.

A cold breeze wafted through and Manuel shuddered despite himself. The place was colder than the outside, and scarier too. Who knew what secrets the walls held, and what monsters. The thought itself made him reach up and hold the crucifix hanging from his neck.

A rustling sound came from his right and he whirled around, hand flying to the gun on his belt. But when he saw its source, he relaxed. It was just the wind, rustling the leaves on the trees.

He began looking around the place, noticing things that didn't belong in any normal human household. On the walls hung large oil paintings, depicting tall, thin people with gaunt faces. A variety of weaponry filled the place - from lances, to sickles, to maces, to battle-axes - weaponry that didn't belong in that century, or even the century before.

There was a book, thick and important-looking, resting on a book stand. Silently, Manuel crept towards it until he found himself looking at the cryptic words on the yellowed pages of the book. It wasn't in English, but rather, a rune-like ancient.

He looked closer and noticed small annotations written in cramped, spidery script. He moved his head a little closer and deciphered some of the words. aim for jugular vein. children have sweetest blood. human liver eat raw.

An involuntary retch came from inside him and he turned away from the book. He had seen all he needed to confirm his suspicions: the man living in that house was a vampire.

From the basement came a creaking sound, and Manuel eyed the narrow flight of stairs leading downwards. Of course the monster would be hiding in the basement. He removed his gun from his holster and held it up, aiming at anyone - or anything - that dared to attack him.

One step at a time, he descended into the basement, his heart thumping loudly and forcefully in his chest. His mind was sharp, his eyes peeled for any form of movement. He knew to shoot first and ask questions later. A monster couldn't continue to roam the world and killing people just to satisfy his own disgusting appetite. He knew what needed to be done, and he was the one to do it.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stared at the door for a moment, left just slightly ajar. A thin streak of dim light streamed from the basement. He took a breath and tapped the door. It opened silently.

The place was dim, lit only by a small, single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. But even in the darkness, he could still see.

He could see the monster himself, tall and thin, clad in a long, dark cloak, arms raised and hand clutching a bloodied knife. He could see the table in front of the creature, on which lay a man, strapped down with rope and covered with blood.

Manuel didn't hesitate. He cocked his gun and fired five shots at the murderous beast. But he knew better than to wait. Gunshots and metal bullets would do nothing to kill an immortal creature. So he ran forward and plunged a stake right through his heart.

There was blood everywhere. The man let out a pained cry and began weeping. And Manuel watched. He watched as the life left the eyes of another man, a man he just killed.

But something wasn't right. The vampire was dead, but his body was still upright, his arms still raised and his hand still holding a knife.

Suddenly, the lights turned on, bright white light shining in his eyes. And Manuel saw the truth.

The body lying on the table was a fake. The knife in the man's hand was tied there with string, his body was propped up with stilts and wires suspended his arms from the ceiling.

Confusion shot through him as he stared at the sight, then at the fresh blood covering his body and his clothes.

"Bravo, Manuel," came a voice. He knew that voice before he looked up to see its source. That was the voice of sweet nothings in his ear, the voice which echoed through his bedroom as they lay together, the voice he thought belonged to an angel. He was wrong, he saw that.

"Violet," he greeted, turning to face her. "What's going on here?"

"An execution of justice." All kindness and affection that was ever in that voice was gone, replaced by coldness as sharp as ice. "Believe me, if there was another way, I would have taken it."

Manuel looked at his blood-stained hands and at the lifeless body of a man standing in front of him. He had murdered a man. "There was a trail of blood that led to his house, and that book about eating human livers..."

"I needed to find a way to convince you to kill him." Violet shot him a wry look. "You always were the righteous type, and well-" She paused and shrugged. "A stake through the heart would kill anybody..."

Manuel put his head in his bloodied hands. "I killed a man...I killed a man..." Then he faced Violet, fury in his eyes. "You made me kill a man."

"I didn't make you do anything," Violet retorted.

"You tricked me!" Manuel snapped. He seethed through a clenched jaw. "Why? Why couldn't you have killed him yourself and leave me out of this?"

A glimmer of guilt flickered through her eyes, but she remained calm, professional even, with her branded, dry-cleaned purple dress. "It's not my style to get my hands dirty."

"And it's 'your style' to make me kill an innocent man?" he spat back.

"That man was far from innocent!" Violet cried. For a moment, she broke. Her cold and rigid exterior cracked and beneath that was fear and anger and hatred in their purest form. It only lasted a second, and her mask was back on, her walls back up.

Manuel shook his head. "This wasn't right."

"Right and wrong isn't so clear, Manuel. Sometimes we have to define it ourselves." She pointed a manicured finger at the dead man. "That man was a monster. He needed to die."

Manuel remained silent, gaze fixed on his blood-stained hands, tears forming in his eyes.

"Manuel..."

"Leave, Violet. I never want to see you again." He tried to sound angry, tried to hurt her like she'd hurt him. But he just sounded sad and pathetic.

Violet sighed, but complied, her stilettos clacking loudly against the concrete floor, the sound echoing through the room.

Once she left, once he heard her close the door and ascend the stairs, he crumpled to his knees.

And he began to weep.

[ note: justice is a human construct.

[Ranger of the North]

wOw, that would be devastating... But I like Manuel; his character seems very sharp and defined, even in a short one-shot. c:
I'm so sad for him, though... Poor guy... <3

also yaay I'm so glad someone's still doing this haha ;p

[blackbird.]

wOw, that would be devastating... But I like Manuel; his character seems very sharp and defined, even in a short one-shot. c:
I'm so sad for him, though... Poor guy... <3

also yaay I'm so glad someone's still doing this haha ;p

thank you for your comment! yeah manuel sees things very black/white and so i thought it'd be the most interesting to test him like this.
and yes, i haven't given up quite yet! i'm hoping one day i'll finish all 100 but until then i have short-sighted goals. (almost at 20% completion!)