[riddlestyx]

xii - the hanged man
when upright, this card represents surrender, self-sacrifice, contemplation, and uncertainty.
it's typically believed that the hanged man has suspended himself from the tree's branches of his own free will, indicated by the content expression upon his face in most depictions of this card.

for this competition, tell me about a moment in this kalon's life where they chose to sacrifice everything, and what exactly they sacrificed it all for. feel free to interpret this as liberally as you'd like!
there will be no word limit, but please try to avoid submitting any novels hehhh
no extras will be allowed, this is a writing-only competition!
prettying up the form is a-okay however

Code: Select all

username:
kalon name:
prompt:

edits
[s] custom shine, hair edit
[c] longer fur, custom tail
[uc] shorter fur, custom ears, eye edit

end date is dec 18th, at 23:59 CST!
extended to dec 21st, 23:59 CST!

[Dewy Feathers]

Mark

[OrangeSocks]

Mark - orangesocks

[König]

username:
Thoma
kalon name:
Apollo
prompt:
A soft breeze trickled along Apollo’s head as he and his mother sat on a swing, slowly rocking back and forth. His mother brushed her fingers softly through his hair as the sky darkened and thunder began to roar–only to leave as quickly as it had come. Apollo looked to his mother to see her staring directly at him, before she uttered a barely audible, “Save him.” And just like that, he woke up in a cold sweat.

Apollo walked to the bathroom slowly and splashed water in his face, then looked himself over in the mirror. He stood there for a good few minutes before repeating “save him.” He didn’t know the meaning, nor who she could be talking about, but a terrible feeling washed over him. He left the bathroom and made his way to his friend’s home, something felt wrong.


When Apollo arrives his friend seems alright if not a little off, they talk and joke before Apollo decides he can leave. As Apollo closes the door and begins to walk away, he hears a loud thud.

Apollo bursts through the front door, seeing his friend on the ground. He freezes, his mother’s voice washing over him once again, bellowing thunderously: “SAVE HIM,” she howls only to disappear. Directly after. Apollo lifts his friend up and sets them on the bed, before thinking of a way to save his friend. The friend looked at Apollo “I'm sorry I didn't know how to tell you. It’s incurable. ” they said weakly. Apollo shook his head, brushing them off. He sat for a moment before deciding what to do. Apollo looked towards his friend, who had seemingly fallen asleep right after talking. He decided he would go on a journey to get an old spell book that could cure his friend of whatever they could have.


Apollo set a wet washcloth on his friend’s head, in hopes it would somehow help. Then, Apollo left. to retrieve the book, it could take days, but he had to be quick. The days that would follow were difficult, he was beaten and bruised but he refused to stop. As he got to the final resting room of the spell book, he paused wondering if he would actually be able to just take it. Apollo approached carefully, running hand along the old book before slowly opening it. He skimmed through the pages, before finding the spell he needed. As Apollo read the page he froze “Those who wish for immortality also wish for endless sorrow and loneliness. Life force is sacred, are you truly willing to steal it?” Apollo sucked in his breath sharply before his mother’s voice once again echoed in his mind, and he remembered how desperate she had sounded the second time. Apollo took another sharp inhale before shutting the book and grabbing it. He would save his friend, no matter what it would take. The entire way back he prepared himself for the upcoming end.

Apollo stumbles into his friend’s house, a loud crash as he falls. He was tired and beaten down but he still offered his friend a soft smile. They looked towards Apollo and offered a weak grin, before slowly sitting up. “What’re we going to do, Apollo?” they said through a trembling voice, Apollo froze and his smile dropped instantly. He sighed softly “I uh, I’m gonna do this spell that should help but- I’ll die during it, but you’ll be fine!” he said with false excitement. His friend looked at him in shock before attempting to stand up, only to be pushed back down by Apollo.

“Are you crazy!” they yelled at him “I don’t want you to die just to save me!”

Apollo grabbed his friend’s hand softly and smiled again. “It’s fine, I promise. I’m happy to do this for you, I really am.”

His friend eventually just sighed softly and nodded, too tired to speak anymore. Apollo sits next to them, once again grabbing their hand before beginning the spell. As the spell went on he realized he felt fine, he didn’t feel any pain from what he assumed was his lifeforce being stolen. Apollo figured it just meant it would be painless or it would all happen towards the end. As he came to the end of the spell, he prepared to die; each word coming out slower and slower.

Once the spell finished, however, Apollo knew that instant something was wrong. He was alive and something felt off about the room he was in. He looked towards his friend and noticed they were dying. Apollo in horror threw the spellbook, and grabbed his friend by the shoulders. Minutes passed and they had passed with a soft smile in Apollo’s arms, almost as if they had forgiven him for some mistake he had made. Apollo set them down softly, shakingly standing up and grabbing the book once again, he read more slowly, realizing his awful mistake. The friend is the one that had to read the spell out, not Apollo.


Apollo sat on the ground, realizing he was destined to be alone. An angry presence covered him; his mother, he knew he had failed her. His intentions didn’t matter anymore, no matter the sacrifice he was so willing to make. Apollo looked towards his friend one more time with sorrow, numerous apologies leaving his mouth as he cried.


The following day, Apollo disappeared from his hometown, knowing what he had done–no matter the intention–would cause him to be hated. He was never heard from in his town again, traveling from place to place for many years to come.

[937 words]

[rem sleep]

mark !

[Sadcat]

username: CatOwU
kalon name: Voeilla
prompt: "Rhaknar! NO!" Voeilla screamed, jumping in front of her friend,
her brother,
he who was being shot, claimed to be a chaotic creature deserving of death.
Rhaknar was inmortal and Voeilla wasn't, sure, but it didn't take away the need to jump and take the shot.
He would have survived, but it was better if she lost one of her four lives for him. She couldn't stand even thinking of him having to deal with the pain until it went away, unlike how it disappeared– or atleast decreased –postmortem.
The arrows hit her side, and she fell to the ground.
In the distance, she heard a muffled scream.
She smiled.

[PROD.]

mark!

[Kyar]

username: kyar
kalon name: kolhe

--

-- what good is today, if there is no tomorrow? --

--



chance hit us all like the high-strung rockets heat-seeking any light this cold world's got left. we weren't born to be anybody, much less somebody, and no matter of hardworking fortune was doing us squat. break your back for the machine that - turns out - runs you, pulling on your puppet strings while your head's about to loll off. keep 'em busy, keep 'em from thinking, they're bound to come around and bow down, leave their dreams at the doormat to kick off with the dirt. we never saw the rise in the skyline, no matter how high they said it was. leave it to the rich to leave out the poor, same as it always was till we found each other. chance ain't always a bad thing, in the end.


--


heat radiated from the barricade, the constant thunder of roaring gov't ships overhead reigning down with hail of gunfire. concrete shattered, and it was a wonder we weren't all shellshocked deaf. enforcement drones at our level, chasing down and taking down anything live in their sights. started to get me wondering how they tell the us from the them. evacuations were still in progress. didn't think till that time that they might hate us so much they'd give up their own to be sure. to make certain every last little dissenting piece of filth was wiped clean. just about sums it up, doesn't it?

"kolhe!" my name finally called up from the max-volume radio feed, stuck straight in my ear deep or that piece wasn't doing us nothing. too much noise.

"still breathin'" i shouted so close my lips touched the feed. "where's she at?"

"north -- fii--"

"whoa, whoa, interference," i cut him off, flipping to feed 2. took him a more than scary second to get there with me.

"here. north five units, no cover."

i didn't hold that button while i cursed out that number. no cover? i was greased at three, no way i'd make five.

"tell me you got groundlines," i persisted, but got static back. "karv, groundlines. hear me?"

nothing. guess he was busy.


--


sometimes, we'd all go out dancing, riding the streets on a half-broke ground cruiser, top panel torn off so the air could hit our faces while we roared into the nightlights. i met these kids too poor to own their own name but when we went out, we owned the night. we took over the streets of those secondary slums no gov't enforcement was bothered to look after. we were underground, deeper than daylight, free reign and untamed. let out those screams as we tore down trashed roadways, adrenaline pumping every gear in our veins. clubs filled you up, traded heartbeats for bass and let the sound take over. move your body, meet somebody, spend the night or fly on love fumes. romance was dead, but real raw feeling kept us breathing. we'll love each other more than anybody can touch. streets and circumstance hold something rich folk don't get. they throw away life cause they don't know what it is.


--


minutes were hours in this kinda time. couldn't tell you how long it'd been since the first blast, since rioters raised red hands and tore through the façade. keep us down so long they thought we'd quiet forever. but a voice grown in silence still knows how to scream. i watched the pale faces of kids out there, blasting down militia like old pros - real soldiers. behind the rubble walls of a temp shelter barricade, i was just a landlocked pilot letting 'em on their own. so what karv found us wings? five city units away that jet might as well be vaporized. i was never gonna get there unless we found an underground line that wasn't crawling with drones. no real news, they'd plugged up our homeland with no-retreat law bots. but pretty soon they'd gas us, and we'd have no chances left. fortune was never really on our side, so we make our own luck.

"raleigh," i grabbed the kid by the head, planting one big kiss on his coldsweat forehead. i felt him shaking, or maybe those were my hands. maybe the whole world right now. "give me cover."

didn't tell him how far i had to run. didn't tell him i didn't have a plan. we were never any good at goodbyes.


--

all the kids you kept down
all the hearts you turned cold
do you sleep at night?
do you remember my face?

--


i didn't feel nothing. dust so heavy wasn't like you could breathe, eyes cut by bright flashes and turret fire strobing senseless in the fog. steady bass pounded down from mega engines overhead, gunblasts and rockets sang the chorus line. pushing through clubs i was used to bodies, but not like this.

one unit passed, and another. buildings gashed open and teetering to crush you or hold you in shelter when you hit the deck, bombs away. saw drone lights in and out but the smoke was unreal. guess no cover didn't mean quite what i thought, cause one bit right past me and scanners couldn't even pick up my heat. every inch of this place was a deathtrap, guess even the bots were losing it.

third unit i was sure i was down - some high-end complex with a huge open courtyard, a lot less dust, and my lungs were taking a hit. starting to wonder if gases weren't already in the mix, but we'd have seen and that radio in my ear would be roaring like none other. wouldn't be long, though, and i couldn't wait around to find out. caught a busted pipeline, bottoms up, and crawled in. took ages and the ringing in my head didn't stop, but bloodied knees and elbows were no skin in hell like this. got me across the whole unit before i found a hatch and dared my way back up to the playing field.

thought a lot about the guys. couldn't really feel my body anymore, my lungs were shot but they kept me pumping, legs kept running on through shattered cityscape. we never really hit this part since gov't actually hung around here, but we weren't top level even now. those high class folk still reigned miles above us, their units castles in the clouds. but they were all gone now, cleared out when the rebels hit. my friends, my family, on the other hand, were all caught in the mix of it. we wanted to do this. we needed to do this. but i thought about those nights we went riding, the dumb jokes and dumb faces all the high-and-mighty wanted to snuff out. i think that's what kept me going.


--



four's where they caught me. had my own weapon in hand but gov't bots have eyes for a heartbeat i just don't have for big hunks of a.i. metal. felt like it knocked me, a rash of blows right up my side, but blood said otherwise. wasn't just a force blast. i was hit, bad. took three of my own shots through woozy eyes to send it out of the sky, but how was i gonna lift off like this? guess somewhere i knew it, that i wouldn't make it, wouldn't get back. but my boys ached for that tomorrow, and i did too. i'd do anything for it. just might happen when i ain't around to see it.

i was on the ground huffing debris with red all around, i think i screamed but i couldn't hear myself over the noise anymore. pain was all i had, shaking me down to the bone. but the drone was twitching next to me, lights out. one of us was walking away, if you could call that sad hobble a walk.

i pressed on with a hand pressed into the deepest of 'em, trying not to let myself go. had another street and then i was five, meant that bird was perched just on my horizons. i was makin' good on a bum leg - hell, a bum body - when i felt a fist at my neck. reflex i went for the blaster but his hands got there first. damn good thing or karv would've been matching my mess of a look. he was talking like mad and i could see it in his face. heard something about medics and they needed to get me out. other scouts were coming around and in the heat of the moment i started to feel cold. karv was already trying to patch me up when i got it all together to shove back, and i think that was what did it. we stood at odds for a long jaunt, and i was working up to say it when the radios roared.

bioweapons. they were gonna drop gas. it needed to happen, and it needed to be now.


--


in the end, i remember ichor, thick red poured out over the dashboard. don't remember unit five or where karv ducked off when i fried the door circuits and slid into the rich kid cockpit. gov't fighter, top of the line, locked and loaded with us in our sights till we slammed the frequency and the pilot bailed before wings left the ground. now it was painted red with the blood it wanted anyway. i had the controls under my hands until the beast leapt up, the force of that jump speed knocking me back to the ground where i laid looking up at a burning sky.

time slowed down. i had all these crazy memories of mom and dad i didn't know still clung in there. my mind dipped in and out of old dreams and slow memory, brain fog and all i wanted to do was rest. had one thing left to do, though. good thing a set course could hold for me, cause i could hardly hold my eyes up as the jet and i raced upward.

my body was icy, i was shaking, till a heavy warmth hit me again. it felt like sleep, washing in with a heavy tide. couldn't focus anymore, but i was set to impact the gov't tank ship any second, and it felt alright to close my eyes. lighter than air, i was, high above it all. i don't remember if the radio was still going, if the voices i heard were real. they faded, too, as i felt myself sink, dipping into a pool i felt no need to surface from. jet pressure held me in a blanket, and i was on top of the world.

i don't remember much. but i hope to hell those gov't you-know-whats are gonna remember me.


-- -- --

1799

[Zephara]

Oh man mark~

[deerbroken]

username: triglyphs
kalon name: atropos
prompt:
There is an endless expanse of harsh, bright white. It feels blinding, overwhelming, consuming. The only sound that can be recognized are his own thoughts. Where am I?

For a moment, there is silence. Then, Atropos can feel a presence, despite the lack of a figure, and the lack of his own body to experience the sensation. He tries to gasp, but his lips do not exist to take in the air; his body feels vacant, floating. He’d never been in one of those sensory deprivation tanks, but he assumes this is what it would feel like.

You are gone, a voice says, deep and booming, clearly one separate from Atropos. The white begins to dim, and Atropos can relax, at least, as it fades to black. The white had been putting him on edge. The darkness is more comforting, and far more familiar.

You were caught in the fallout. But you may return.

Atropos feels himself perk up, though it’s also followed by a feeling of exhaustion. The information he’s been given is impossible for him to process. He didn’t experience this 'fallout.' He was fine, doing a job, and then he was here.

I can return? Return to… where? Will he be there? The last question follows as if it were as natural as air; returning is pointless without him.

The disembodied voice gives an emotionless No in response to the latter part of the question. You will return to the world of the living. You will go on as you once were.

What about him? He feels odd, panicking over his lover, but he can’t help it. They were always inseparable, and existing in this void without them brings a creeping feeling of dread.

There is not much I can do for him. He will cease to exist.

Could you revive him instead?

The thoughts come too fast. He doesn’t have a chance to rethink it, but with the following silence, he feels more confident in his choice. His partner had always had more drive than Atropos; he made it feel like living was something to be enjoyed, something to share with others. He would use the time better than him. Atropos could guarantee it.

I cannot just bring him back. He is missing his form. I will have to reconstruct him from the fragments of his existence.

I feel like there’s a catch coming. Atropos would laugh if he had the body to do it, and give the entity a crooked smile. It always has to be like this. It’s textbook. Fairytale.

I will make you a deal.

Uh-oh. He wants to laugh again. Why is this funny to him? Maybe it’s humorous that it’s almost too predictable. He focuses, though, his mind trying to pinpoint the being communicating with him against the expanding void in front of him.

I will revive him. In return, you will give me your form.

The silence that follows as Atropos thinks is deafening. Give up his form… What does that even mean? This is all too confusing. He just wants to go back home, lay in bed for the rest of the morning. He has to be dreaming this.

You are not dreaming, the voice interrupts, before giving him a moment. I will explain the details, if you are interested.

I’d like to hear what my options are. They feel dread, a twist in the spot where their stomach might be if they were in a normal state.

Your partner will be revived. He will return to the world with everything intact, and believe that he escaped the destruction that consumed you both.

Alright, he thinks, feeling a little comforted by that, at least. So what about me?

By accepting this deal, you will become my vessel. You will lose all of your memories. You will have control of your body, but at times it will be mine, and you will be put in the background while I work.

What are you? The question comes out as if he’d blurted it from his lips, the curiosity overwhelming him more so than the fact that he would have nothing from his past life.

I am what you would call ‘time.’ Atropos wants to raise a brow at this ‘time’ he’s speaking to, and cross his arms. That’s ridiculous. Is this a demon? Sounds like a demon. Not that he ever believed in that kind of thing, but he really doesn’t know what to think of all of this.

That doesn’t make sense. Atropos has to put it out there, it’s what he’s thinking. These actions are one in the same now, it seems. If you’re going to take my body, at least be honest.

I do not know how to explain it to you properly. I govern that which has happened, is happening, and will happen. I am all of these things and more. You will have to take me at my word.

It takes him a moment. The answer only brings more questions, more confusion. This sounds like a fever dream he’d tell someone later, bewildered at what his mind can come up with. He moves on, to the part that really concerns him: My memories? He doesn’t like the idea of them being gone. His memories are a part of him; they are what make Atropos himself. Every choice he’s made, every action he’s taken. It will all be gone.

They will be removed to make room. Your body is limited as it is.

I won’t remember… anything? He feels a little bad, the idea of saving his partner by essentially deleting himself. But, he doesn’t have a lot of choices. If he declines his partner won’t exist anymore. He’d be alone for the rest of his life, knowing he could have done something.

I will allow you to keep 3 of them. The voice comes suddenly, making Atropos feel surprised. He feels as though he’s flinched. That is all I can allow. You will not have access to these memories, either. When or how they will return to you is unknowable, even to me.

I have to save him. His thought comes clear and precise as he wills it to be. He has no choice. He can’t let him disappear. I want to accept your deal.

There is a feeling of relief in the air. Whatever entity this is, they were really hoping that Atropos would accept. He can feel it. Maybe he’s playing into this hand, falling for some trap by a cosmic being, or a demon, or who knows what else. But, a deal like this means that the other end will be kept, at least. Right?

I will revive your partner. When I return I will adjust your form to suit me; you will not remember this, either, though it will be extremely painful. You will not need to do mundane things like eat or sleep as you return. Functions stored in the primal part of your brain will be altered to minimize space and make your body efficient. You and I will continue to communicate as we are now, though the distance between us will be much smaller. You may refuse this deal now, it is your last chance. Are you sure?

I’m sure, he thinks, and he wants to nod. Being a disembodied consciousness is kind of irritating. He won’t mind forgetting this part.

I will allow you time to come to terms with your fate. Decide the memories you wish to keep and the rest will be removed. I look forward to working with you, Atropos.

[1,265 words]