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I have to tell you this because I think its pure awesomeness

I went to the word count site to check my word count.

I have 666 words so far.

I KNEW I WAS THE SPAWN OF SATAN!!!!


EDIT

So here is the story exactly 1000 words, or so says this


A thunderous clap echoed deep inside her soul. Rain started to pound at the windowless walls; lightning flashed across the pool of blood. She sat in the corner, staring blankly at the body slumped against the wall. She stared at the blood slowly running down his cheek, down his neck, down his arm. White knuckles gripped a dagger dripping with blood; I killed him, repeating over and over inside her head. I killed him. I killed him. I killed him. She was shivering. Her mind was blank.

They all said the first kill was nothing, that it was easy. They lied. I killed him. I killed him. The same thought over and over. Endlessly repeating. A cry of a bird, a dog’s howl, footsteps; She ignored all of it. She was oblivious to everything around her, her vision started to tunnel.

“Well done Lynx.”

Her head snapped to the doorway, her mentor and father smiled at the grisly scene. He examined the body, stepping into the pool of blood. Don’t.

“A little messy,” he lifted the body’s chin, admiring the slash. “I expect your next kill to be clean.” He released the body and walked to Lynx. “Don’t just sit there like a coward. I raised you to be the best. He walked to the door and looked back, “Clean yourself up then go back to the office.” His footsteps echoed in the stone hallway, slowly fading the farther he got. She heard a door slam then a car fire up and drive away.

Next kill? How could she forget? She is an Assassin. Raised to kill, trained to have no emotion, and here she was. Cowering in a corner afraid to look at the life she stole. I killed him. She shook the thought from her mind. No more, no more cowering. She lifted her head and looked at the man she killed. Her fist assignment.

He had black hair and blue eyes, eyes that no longer shined with life. Dark skin shinned with blood. She had a difficult time taking him down. Slowly she stood up, still clinging to the wall. She took a step towards the man, then another, then another. Standing in his blood she felt like a traitor to humanity. She turned her head to the window a gust of wind sprayed her face with rain. She wanted to cry, scream, and run. She wanted to destroy the place, to let the rage inside control her. Instead, she turned and walked out, her shoes leaving bloody prints. She never felt her hand loosen or the sound of the dagger hitting the ground. A stray cat hissed and backed into a room. Ants crawled one-by-one across the floor.

At the stairs she contemplated taking her own life in retribution. Instead she took the steps one at a time. A mouse ran into across her feet and disappeared into the stone wall. She placed her hand on the wall, feeling the cold on her blood soaked hands. A bloody print marked the stone, I have marked this place, she thought. Another spray of water sprinkled her face. She turned towards the window; the scent of rain filled her mind

Darkness settled into the horizon, lighting danced across the sky to the drumming beat of thunder, striking the ground here and there. She was teetering on a ledge, a ledge between humanity and inhumanity. Her mind struggled against the barrier between light and dark, good and evil, pure and tainted; a barrier that was thinning as the moments passed. Lynx took the next set of stairs just as slowly as the first.

Rain dripped from the ceiling and pooled around the windows. Blood caught her attention, blood in her reflection. Her reflection in the puddle opened her eyes. Blood streaked down her face, soaked in to her hair and clothes. She lifted her hands palm up, blood covered every inch of her skin and nails. Her balance shifted.

Clenching her fists she shook her head to free her thoughts. Just make it out, she thought. Again she starting walking, no stairs anymore, just an uneven floor with puddles of water. Pure water, innocent water, being tainted by the blood of her victim, her sin. No door held the wind and rain back, no door to hide her secret, her sin. She stood at the doorway, afraid to step through, afraid to stay. An unknown force pulled her through the entry. Her feet sunk into the damp ground soaking her socks. She looked up into the sky and closed her eyes. She let the rain wash away her sin. Moments later she was soaked to the bone. She opened her eyes and stared into the rain trying to wash away the visions. She hardly noticed the weight of the earth as it tugged at her feet when she started to move again. She reached the opened gate unsure of her own fate she stepped through. After locking the chains she looked up at the abandoned building. Plants of all kinds covered the walls; it was as if Mother Nature was trying to reclaim her land. A land polluted with the blood of innocent. The building was a training ground for new Assassins. All their first kills took place out here, where no screams could be heard and where no rotting flesh could be smelt

She turned her back to the building. Mentally battling her next decision. Left took her back to the office, back to another job, another life to be stolen. Right took her out of town. To a new beginning, a beginning that would end with her own death once word reached base. Live or die. Do I even have a choice? She thought. Do I have the right to live? She hung her head.

Light and Dark battled inside her soul, thunder clapped, lighting flashed. Silence. She turned her back to the building and starting walking, never looking back. Darkness had won.

GAHH! all that effort to nail 1k words on word and I run it through your link and it says 1016.... oh well- I'll edit my post when I've finished trimming 16 words -.-

Edit1: just on a whim I ran "It's" through that word counter and it came up as two words... that's kinda silly >.>
Edit2: Meh- I guess it makes sense when I think about it- it is an abbreviation of two words- and it apparently is smart enough to recognize mother's as only one word

Edit3: hah- after hitting 1001 I nicked it down to 1000 even for your reading pleasure, I give you- The Earth is Green.

The Earth is Green
by Aaron Ray
9/11/2012


The world is going green. We are in man’s last haven. The walls are already green as the planet wants to swallow us whole. The fence is already breached; vines make their way upon us.
It would be wrong to say Earth was angry. The planet wasn’t angry, the planet didn’t hate, didn’t love- it just wanted to bring back the balance we destroyed. In some places it was a white death, a hurricane of sheer ice, in others, like here, it was an infestation of green.
So now we’re huddled here in what might have been a hotel or even a parking garage for all we could tell under the foliage. We are the last few humans as far as we know. We sit huddled here on the third floor, afraid to go onto the fourth, afraid to go any lower. The growth is coming. It starts with vines, little feelers like roots to ferret out the local environment. Soil, cement, even iron, it moves through it; corroding and worming its way.
We tried poison first, it adapted. We tried fire, it wouldn’t catch, and what did burn just fertilized the next wave.
The Earth is coming for us. After countless generations of trying to balance Earth with people, a new food chain forms, a green chain. It’s that silent, no birds, no crickets, no stray cats; just a mother comforting her daughter in the corner. A wounded soldier stands by the door, burns scarring his face and down under the uniform as well. He has an axe in one hand. His sidearm probably discarded, either spent or simply tossed aside after realizing its uselessness in this situation.
The vines are already at the windows, the grass follows. The plants move like high speed playback of an abandoned lot.
The grass is growing, the moss is spreading. It’s all closing in, choking us, locking us in. The last haven of humanity is shrinking as the green grows.
The little girl is crying, her mother dabs at her tears, powerless to stem the real source of her terror. She rocks back and forth, hushing, as if the noise will draw the plants. Quiet or loud, the plants keep growing. One of the vines begins tapping at the glass windows. Already the moss is encroaching. The moss moves like fog on a window, growing first at the edges, then both filling in over it, and seeping under the cracks at the same time.
The green has come. It is here, our haven is breeched. The solider by the door tenses, his grip on the ax tightens. He looks at the window with one wide eye, the other covered by loose and falling bandages.
Another man takes a scraper, like one used to take ice off of car windows and desperately scraps away at the moss; in moments the plastic of the scrapper warps and bends to the corrosive acids in the moss. And still it keeps coming. The man drops the moss covered scrapper. The moss keeps spreading, now it’s on the floor. The man gasps in horror at his own action. The soldier looks sad, resolved even.
The window gives way; first a tiny hole melted by the corrosive forces of the moss, then in a loud crash as one of the vines tentatively pushes against it once more. The vine slowly dips into the room like squid’s tentacle, feeling its way around for food.
Now the mother is crying, holding her daughter tight against her. The girl has cried herself unconscious. The man who had the scrapper is on his knees praying for the first and only time in his life, forsaking a lifetime of disproving the existence of the being he now seeks a final comfort from. The soldier raises the ax. He steps forward. With a fierce swing he hacks at the vine. The first swing only grazes the vine; it spews green ichor. The kneeling man cries out as the viscous fluid splatters onto him. He screams out in pain moments later as it begins burning him. The ax is already blunted as the soldier swings again, cutting off a chunk of the vine. The cut vine retreats back out through the window. The kneeling man’s screams cease as he falls forward.
Pollen blows in through the broken window. As though attracted to the green fluids that burnt and killed the man who had been kneeling before, many of the bits of pollen fly straight for him. Immediately growing, more vines sprout, feeding on both the fluids from the plant, and the body on which the fluids lie.
A man and a woman stand up from the corner opposite the crying mother and daughter. In a panic they head for the door. The soldier calls out for them to stop, but they’re too afraid to hear. The door opens, and more vines spill in from the door; one wraps itself around the leg of the closest new victim, the woman. The man screams and runs around putting the soldier between him and the incoming vines.
The soldier glares at the man, and then looks at the vines. He begins verbally abusing the man for his stupidity, but most of that is washed out by the woman’s fruitless cries. After a moment, her voice falls silent as well.
The soldier brings up his axe again; he points at the door and tells the man to shut it while he pushes the vines back. The man looks about to protest, but seems to understand what the soldier is planning. He looks saddened and even apologizes.
The solder gives a shout of charge and rushes with the half melted ax. Going straight into the mass of vines, they wrap around him as the other man pushes the door shut behind him. The soldier’s screams are blissfully short.
Now is our end. The Earth is Green.

In the dreams of Michael Derrick the vine-covered gates stood tall, imposing, but always ajar, as if inviting the fated exploration that always followed. Michael crept through the gates into the stone courtyard of the abandoned estate and the sky was clouded and impenetrable, the whole environment tinted with a sickly green hue. Michael marched further into the courtyard, the hairs on the back of his head rising all the time in the damp, green air. He knew what was to come, what had always come, and he would do nothing. Exhilaration and terror together made up his mind as he heard the final clang of the cast-iron, vine-covered gates as they came together, closed by no one. He ran to the door leading into the estate and found it to be locked. He tried it several times in conscious futility before turning at last back to the courtyard. He watched as the horrors came, as the world contorted and out of the green haze came– He saw his fate and felt the burning eyes upon him, surrounding him. Grotesque arms, tentacles, claws, cutting through the ever-thickening green fog yet part of it, came to Michael and the last light of hope escaped him and the end came.

And he awoke. The dream unnerved him more than frightened him: he awoke not drenched in sweat, not gasping for breath, but cautiously, as if he required only brief assurance of his current reality before he was content. Michael Derrick lived not quite in the city but close enough to it that any talk of haunted green estates in the densely forested country was quite out of the question. Michael had a regular house and a wife most beloved. She was next to him under the sheets at the moment, still asleep, and he could barely hear the rise and fall of her breath. She breathed more frequently than he did: he took long, deep breaths. Michael got up. It was Saturday, a fact he remembered whilst halfway through buttoning a week-day shirt. After re-hanging the shirt Michael decided to go for an early morning walk. He often missed the action of walking during the busy week, and the release was just what he needed. Motion, neither specific in destination nor constrained to time, free motion through the world, this is what he craved. During the week Michael was shoved along his path by the demands of his surroundings, but now he may let himself drift downstream in peace, to land only where the day’s river ends.

Past the Johnson house he walked, and the Heinicke, and the Ferguson. Michael knew these families well. He had inhabited this neighborhood for a long while now. He remembered meeting Joe Ferguson at the barbecue shortly after moving in; he remembered the shared Superbowl games, the short but pithy chats; He remembered the day the diagnosis came in; He remembered losing his old friend Joe. Michael kept on walking, thinking it was only a matter of time, he supposed. You live anywhere long enough, you see people come and go around you. He saw the flowers blooming beside the sidewalk and remembered impermanence works in more than one way. He thought back to his wife so serenely contained within the warm folds of their bed. He envied her in a small way, but Michael couldn't sleep anymore if he tried: it was his waking time now, and the week was over, so he was going for a walk.

The bulk of houses familiar to Michael were behind him now and his wife slept on in the house several streets away. He was now truly adrift, beyond the reach of those things which had on a daily basis comforted him. But this was a deeper comfort, being carried where his feet would take him on the long street. The week was over. This deserved a sigh of relief. Michael halted and breathed in the air at the end of his journey. It was crisp. The street stretched on for some time, eventually blending into a different street with all new houses inhabited by unknown families. Michael would not meet them for he had reached the end of his walk. The surrounding neighborhood was empty and isolating in the early morning: a world for him entirely, and he had found its center.
Michael Derrick wished that his dear wife could have walked with him this morning, but he supposed she still had some sweet dreams to live out, and this comforted him. His comfort distracted him and he did not notice the fading. The houses of the neighborhood were losing color, evaporating into a listless gray. The gray was momentary though, for the light was filtered green, and as Michael looked on in muted horror the rose bushes on the side of the road had converted to vines and were slowly twisting themselves up an old, heavy iron gate. Look behind! The house, taller, the walls aged; the green fog was setting in. The walk was over indeed. He knew.

No clang of iron was heard for Michael had already entered the enclosure, the gates were already shut before he knew of their presence, and the fog closed in. The feeble heart raced inside of Michael Derrick as the asphalt turned to stone beneath his feet and the sickly green atmosphere choked his vision and his comprehension. Not a wisp of the street remained now and Michael stood in the middle of the stone courtyard. In the end Michael did not envy his wife, doomed to wake up in a world alone, doomed to repeat week after week until– The green haze was all-encompassing, permeating him. He knew the horror to come and waited, his very being hinging on this moment.

And the haze became resplendent. Not nightmarish tentacles but flowering life rose from the fog; Michael Derrick walked away from the fear into the emerging forest to lie down at last. The reality was beautiful.

I love your story. I am quite certain you will win first place.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED:

First Place: Jun Valson. Very well done! Your imagery is beautiful, and what an interesting idea. I greatly enjoyed it.

Second Place: Devrayne. A creative take on the image, and an interesting journey through Michael's nightmares.

Third Place: I e u n e. A lovely story; I'm quite the sucker for a story about loss.

I enjoyed reading all your entries, I do hope to hold more contests in the future. Well done, everyone!

thanks to you as well, I'm glad you enjoyed reading it, since I only entered because I enjoyed writing it ^_^;