[2010: MAR-APR] ...and new civilisations...

[Nimue]

Kar and Rawena were from neighboring tribes. As kids from the families of leaders, they were both promised from the day they were born, but fate played with them, making them meet and fall in love.

Both encountered the same response from their families when they asked to be allowed to get together. “What are you talking about?”, “What feelings?”, ”Who made you think of that wrong and strange thing?” “Forget her/him”, “It’s just illusion”.

They listened, and tried to forget, but mind and heart were telling them different things so they ran away from their families and went to seek their life away from their tribes.

After traveling for a few months they were finally far enough away from home to feel safe to approach a tribe that lived in tree-houses on the edge of a big forest. There they encountered friendship and acceptance and they made their own house in the one of the suburb trees.

After three years of life together they were finally blessed with a child...

... but happiness didn’t last long. The child, beautiful girl had strange markings along her body. As strange and unusual as they were there was nothing wrong with the child, but still local people started to talk that it was a curse and if they stayed it would hit the rest of the tribe, so they were forced to leave their home all over again.

Since it was cold they decided to go into the forest. It was frightening and really dark in the places, but they finally passed through it and ended on the edge of it again. Now really deep into the winter they decided to make a treehouse here since they had a spring with fresh water nearby, and a hot spring a few hours walk toward the mountain on the north, and pastures with lot of animals in between.

They lived there for a three years, being blessed by another child, a son who was “normal”.

But at the end of their fourth winter there, people from the tribe who had exiled them when found out about their new home, still being afraid of the “curse”, decided to attack them again and chase them away from their forest.

Again Kar and Rawena were forced to leave their home and seek new life away from the place they knew. They were aware that best they could do is to go over the mountain and seek a new home far from this place. With little Wan and just a year older Sah it was a long, and at moments, seemingly impossible enterprise.

They spent the whole summer passing over the mountain. The first snow caught them completely unprepared close to the bottom of the mountain, but it was obvious there was no way they would get too far through the blizzard.

Fortunately on the second day they found a warm and spacious cavern and it was, unbelievably, empty.

While Kar went to hunt for food, Rawena left Sah to “take care” of Wan – leaving them to play in fast built-up parapet while she took a torch and went to check the cavern more thoroughly.

It was not just one cavern, but soon she found it was a braid of caverns connected by several short corridors. It was a perfect place for a family to grow in safety, but Rawena’s happiness with finding it was short. In one of the more secluded back caverns she found strange basin with warm mud and lot of bones in the corner. First she couldn’t say for sure, but checking it more thoroughly she was able to say for sure that those bones were humanoid.

Frightened she returned to her family and when Kar returned she told him about the finding. Since they were all tired, he promised her that they would investigate it the very next day after eat and get some so needed sleep.

And they did, and really wanted to leave that place, but the snow didn’t allow them to leave until the summer. Till summer they got used to the fact that the mud pool and bones were there and decided to stay. Just when it was warm enough to dig, they gathered all the bones and buried them with respect, cleaning the room.

They lived there for two years when Rawena gave birth to another boy... a boy who was “cursed”, the same as Sah. As happy as they both were for having another child, they both now started to question their conduct and their life, almost believing that the curse was real. They talked about what to do, discussing even killing the second “cursed” child when a scream from deep inside the caverns attracted their attention.

When they reached the strange room they found Sah standing in a basin screaming while something was protruding from her belly. The girl screamed one more time and collapsed. When they asked her what happened, Wan told them that she often played in that mud, saying that “they” were talking to her.

“They, who are they?” Asked Kar, and little Wan only sighed not knowing what to say, or how to explain.

Kar took his daughter and carried her to the front room they used for living. The girl’s breathing was shallow and she was coughing. He tried to pull at the thing that was protruding from her stomach, but every time he tried, Sah started to scream and cough harder.

Sah was hot and trembling, obviously in a fever. They did everything they could to get the temperature down but could only watch as their child suffered while the strange thing in her stomach moved deeper and deeper inside her. What was strange, was that the girl was not bleeding and the wound was closing around the thing, naturally and clean.

After a three days of fear and tears, Sah got up from her bed and looked at her parents with a smile. “I have to explain a few things to you, but let me start with introduction. From now I’m Sah Rotha, and we are Trill...”

[Msgrv32]

Wow, I gotta say I really enjoyed reading this story!

Well done!

[Nimue]

Wow, I gotta say I really enjoyed reading this story!

Well done!

Thank you!

[kimstapledon]

Wow, I gotta say I really enjoyed reading this story!

Well done!

Thank you!

Wow. This was a great one with a punch that was reminiscent of Ridley Scott's Alien . I loved that you concluded it with the creature turning out to be a joined trill.

This story reads like a legend or a fairytale. The mythic quality mixed with the continued expulsion from society worked well. Keep working on improving your spelling and grammar. For example:

As strange and unusual as they were there was nothing wrong with the child, but still local people started to talk that it was a curse and if they stayed it would hit the rest of the tribe, so they were forced to leave their home all over again.

You might rewrite this as:

"Even though the child was otherwise healthy, rumours began to grow among the locals. Whispers spread of the strange marks being harbingers of a curse that was soon to strike the rest of the tribe. Afraid for their safety, the people banished Kar and Rawena to live out their accursed lives in solitude."

Just an idea.

[Nimue]

Thank you!

When saw message and found out I'm second I was so sad I couldn't write, couldn't "think" of writing for days... but you see English is not my first language, and I know how "disabled" I'm because of it. Being considered as a possible winner in this competition is a winning for me!

What I'm trying to say is that I'm not lacking in ideas, but in delivering. In lot of cases I want to say something, but cannot find a words or cannot form thought in a way I'm able in my own language.

But, I'm learning!