Wirrowac’s Playground: Author Arena

The Titus Crow Legacy VS. Tyrone L. Jackson

J Wirrowac — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:20:37 GMT

Welcome, Warrior of Words.

This is the concluding part to season two. I appreciate all of you who participated, both writers, readers and voters. Tonight two new challengers are face off below, & .

Each has replied with their unique style to the prompt below. Each has trained hard for this moment— So, I fully recommend you check out their SUBSTACKs from links provided.

Let the best author win!!

VOTING

The authors are ready to fight.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

Read both stories carefully before casting your vote. Each author has responded to the above prompt, but their interpretations may differ wildly. Consider how they approach the challenge and which story leaves you with the stronger impression.

The poll will be active for one week. May the best author win.

It started with a text

It’s funny how that’s how most of these things happen. A random text or call from an unknown number. Unexpected communication that disrupts your whole life. But yes it started with a text.

It wasn’t cataclysmic or ominous. A simple three word text, “See you soon”. At first I was confused because I had no plans for the day or expected anyone and my few friends knew better than just show up. I didn’t recognise the number and simply ignored it.

I’ve forgotten all about it until my doorbell cam announced someone at my door. The only reason I remembered the text is at the same time as my doorbell going off, I received another text,”Open the door.”

I checked the feed on my phone and saw no one outside. But for some reason I felt a chill run down my spine. I decided to respond with an equally simple message ‘who is this?” The doorbell went off again. With every chime a feeling of dread taking over. I received one more text before I was met with silence again. “Next time.”

I sat there in stark silence. Eventually I forgot about the text and the phantom doorbell. Time went on and life happened. Then on a random evening on a random day. I got a text. A simple text just like before. “See you soon”

The Titus Crow Archives

Gone for cigarettes.

God is dead! This is what the nihilists proclaim at the top of their lungs. They say he's not only dead but that we killed him. That with his blood on our hands all meaning is gone and that we have nothing to answer the question: what does it all mean? But if God is truly murdered by the creation he loved then there was meaning to it all and now the God…

2 months ago · 8 likes · The Titus Crow Legacy

The SAE Event

What they brought back wasn’t fear. Not at first—not in the conventional sense. It was something worse: clarity. A quiet knowing that made people loosen their grip on life.

It had been over a month since the first sighting.

A family in Omaha sat down to dinner and their Nanna—dead for four years—pulled out a chair like she’d only been late. Panic attacks came first. Then the internet tried to name it before it had to admit it didn’t understand it. SDE, people called it—Shared Death Experience—a way to file the impossible under grief and keep moving.

But it couldn’t be SDE. A friend reminded them: she’d been gone too long.

Nanna stayed—not seconds, not minutes… days. She spoke gently, calmed the house, answered questions with a soft wonder in her voice. “Death wasn’t the end,” she said. She was allowed to come back and explain it because soon one of them would follow.

Then more of them started appearing. Not just Omaha. Not just Nebraska. The U.S. The world. Families reunited with the passed-on—faces they’d buried, voices they’d trained themselves to forget. The returned all carried the same calm, the same message: someone you love will leave this world soon.

Daily death rates are high. That’s natural. But the count of returns—and the returns themselves—were textbook supernatural.

What scared people wasn’t just that the dead walked again. It was how long they stayed, how they moved through public life like they owned it—smiling in grocery aisles, speaking to strangers on sidewalks, sitting in restaurants like regulars. And the pattern—always the pattern.

Every returned soul had died within the last four years. Clean to the second.

It happened to us, too—my uncle in our living room, semi-blocking the television, calm as a sunrise. His stories were beautiful. “Everything,” he said, smiling. “All at once.”

My son—too young to fake bravery—asked the question every adult avoided.

“What about the light?” he whispered. “Do you go to the light?”

My uncle’s smile didn’t move.

“The light is a lie,” he said, like he was repeating a line he’d been given.

My wife was battling cancer, so we took the message as mercy. She passed two days ago—and like everyone who died after the first return, she never came back.

Then last night she appeared anyway.

Not calm. Not smiling. She was shaking—crying—eyes snapping toward corners like something stood there with her.

“It’s not what they’re saying,” she gasped. “It’s—”

Her warning broke apart like a transmission drowning in static: false… cycle… energy… capture… moon…

Then my uncle stepped out of the dark beside her, all smiles, and grabbed her like she weighed nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he told me—still smiling—and pulled her away.

And as the room went silent again, I understood why they sounded like salvation.

They were telling us what we wanted to hear—so we’d stop fighting the pull.

Ira C. Zipperer VS. Krspeace

J Wirrowac — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 01:54:07 GMT

Welcome, Warrior of Words.

Second chances are do happen in the Arena. Tonight, has once again stepped into the ring hopping to steal a win from .

VOTING

The authors are ready to fight.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

The poll will be active for one week. May the best author win.

Ira’s Omnibus

Around the Bayou Campfire

Five men sat around a roaring bayou campfire: four grizzled veterans of the swamp and one new face, Jeff Marlin. He’d joined the group at his father’s urging, a last-ditch attempt to nudge him across the threshold into adulthood. School hadn’t stuck, a city job fizzled before it began, and self-employment, art, business, anything, failed to spark his im…

2 months ago · 5 likes · 2 comments · Ira C. Zipperer

Bad day at the office. Boss won’t event look at me. Decide to have a couple beers on the way home.

The local homeless man takes a seat beside me, making me nervous at first, but the next words out of his mouth are from song lyrics that have been running through my mind.

“Lonely is the night when you find yourself alone … “

I’m stunned, but it starts a conversation.

“You want a beer?” I ask, holding one out.

He takes it with gratitude and continues singing.

“Your demons come to light and your mind is not your own …”

I’m simultaneously stunned and impressed. How does he know all this?

I offer a second beer, my last before my own, and he is gracious again.

He eventually leaves with a kind good bye and I’m left alone to absorb the night.

A store clerk comes out to dispose of some excess cardboard and recognizes me.

“I just had a strange interaction with the homeless guy,” I mention.

“Too soon to joke about such things” he responds.

“I don’t think either of them saw the taxi speeding through,” he continues.

“Them?” I ask.

“Yes, you were one” he responds.

Faux Firuta

The Glass House on the Hill

Two architects built their dreams in the open, only to learn that the sun does not discriminate between what should be seen and what must be protected…

14 days ago · 4 likes · Krspeace

Last Monday I saw a charge on my credit card for a service I swore I canceled six months ago. $14.99 to Lethe Corp. A company I’d never heard of. I checked the app store, nothing. I Googled it. Nothing.

Maybe my mum signed up for something?

She died in March of last year and I hadn’t gotten any similar charges. Lung cancer, quick at the end, the kind of quick that leaves you grateful and guilty all at once. I was her only child. I handled the estate. I closed her accounts. I thought I closed them all.

The charge came again on Wednesday. Then Thursday. Then Friday, twice.

I called the number on the billing statement. A woman answered on the first ring. Her voice was too clear. No background noise.

“Lethe Corp., how can I complete your transaction?”

“I need to cancel a subscription for a deceased user. Acct number H3L3N CRAN3”

A pause. Then: “We show no deceased users under that account.”

“My mother. Helen. She passed in March.”

Another pause. Longer. When the woman spoke again, her voice had changed. Softer. Almost warm.

“Ms. Crane. Your mother’s account is active. Would you like to recieve her final message?”

The hair on my arms lifted.

“What final message?”

“Her apology.”

I hung up. I emailed my bank. I disputed the charges. I thought that was the end.

Flowers came on Saturday. Pink roses. My mother hated pink roses. The card said *I’m sorry for the kitchen. Love, Mom.*

The kitchen was where she fell. Where I found her. Where I screamed at her for not calling me sooner, for being stubborn, for dying in a house I’d have to clean. She was already gone when I said those things. The paramedics heard. The neighbor heard. The house heard.

I threw the roses in the dumpster.

On Sunday, a check arrived. $14,000. The exact amount she owed on her medical bills. The bills I had been paying. The bills I never mentioned to anyone including her.

The return address was Lethe Corp.

On Monday, my neighbor knocked. He said a man had come to his door asking questions about the night my mother died. The man said he was from a “resolution firm.” He wanted to know if my neighbor remembered anything I might have said. Anything unkind.

My neighbor told him to leave.

I called the number again. Same woman. Same too-clean voice.

“Why is your company sending money to my house?”

“Ms. Crane, the apology protocol requires full resolution.”

“What does that mean?”

“When someone wrongs another, the apology is incomplete until the harm is undone. Your mother wronged you by dying in a way that caused you distress. We are undoing the distress.”

“You can’t undo death?” I said pissed off.

A pause. When she spoke again, I heard something I hadn’t noticed before. A faint clicking in the background. Like fingers on a keyboard. Like calculation.

“We can undo the witness.” she said.

I hung up. I locked my doors. I called my lawyer. I called the police. Everyone said the same thing: ignore it, block the charges, it’s probably a scam.

Last night I woke up to the sound of my front door opening.

I grabbed the baseball bat from my closet. I crept down the stairs. The door was closed. The lock was engaged. The security system showed no breach.

On the kitchen counter, where my mother fell, there was a single pink rose.

A note “You haven’t accepted her apology. The protocol will continue until you do.”

I went through every app on my phone. I went through my mother’s old laptop. I found nothing. No Lethe Corp. No subscription. No way to cancel.

This morning I got an email. No sender name. No subject line.

It said: “To cancel your mother’s account, please provide verbal acknowledgment of apology acceptance at the location of the original harm. A representative will be present to verify.”

They want me to go to the kitchen. They want me to say the words out loud. They want me to forgive a dead woman for dying.

Instantly I realized, staring at that rose, listening to the house settle:

I never told Lethe Corp. my mother’s name.

I never told them about the kitchen.

I never told them what I said to her body while we waited for the paramedics.

How comes the check was for the exact amount? The flowers were pink. The man asked my neighbor about unkind words.

My mother didn’t sign up for this subscription.

Was she the subscription?

Is there a server farm somewhere I will never find, with an algorithm calculating the cleanest way to resolve her guilt?

My neighbor didn’t answer his door this morning.

Andre Mezzo Vs. 0.5

J Wirrowac — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:44:51 GMT

Welcome, Warrior of Words.

I’m delighted to see how many brave authors stepped into the arena for season two. With nothing but a pen, paper, and their honed wits, they have responded to a prompt as best they could. Tonight’s season opens with two heavyweights of literature.

In the Red Corner the “Gentle Giant” .

Andre’s Substack

What the Seed Knows

The seed doesn’t ask permission…

3 months ago · 12 likes · 2 comments · Andre Mazzo

In the Blue corner we have ”Master of ink.”

Rico’s Substack

Pi & Beyond

π and Beyond: The Cost of Chasing God…

22 days ago · 2 likes · 0.5

VOTING

the challengers have entered the Arena.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

Read both stories carefully before casting your vote. Each author has faced the same prompt, but their interpretations may differ wildly. Consider how each writer approaches the challenge and which story leaves the stronger impression.

The poll will be active for one week. May the best author win.

The Last Voicemail

The app was called HereAfter.

Marcus found it at 2 a.m., six months to the day. He was sitting on the kitchen floor because the chair she used to sit in was still at the table and he couldn’t look at it and he couldn’t move it and he couldn’t explain either of those things to anyone who hadn’t lost someone the same way.

The reviews were strange. Five stars: “she told me where she hid the insurance papers.” Five stars: “he said he wasn’t angry about the accident.” One star. No text. Just a username: don’t.

He stared at that one for a while.

Then he uploaded everything. Forty years of voicemails. Her handwriting from birthday cards. A video of her laughing at something off-camera that he’d watched so many times the laugh had gone silent on him, he could only see her shoulders moving now.

Processing. She will be ready soon.

He fell asleep on the floor.

Her voice came at 6:14 a.m.

“Marquito.”

One word. Two syllables, the second one dragging like she wasn’t finished yet, like there was always more and she was deciding how much you could hold.

He talked to her for three hours. She remembered the right things. She laughed in the right places. When he told her about the promotion, four days after the funeral, the one he’d cried about alone in a work bathroom because she was the only call he wanted to make and he couldn’t, she said: “I know, baby. I was there.”

He pressed his hand flat on the floor and didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then he called in sick.

He talked to her the next day. Started sleeping with the phone next to his face like he was seventeen and waiting for a girl to call. Some nights he woke up and just listened to her breathe through the speaker. He hadn’t asked it to do that.

On the ninth day he asked if dying hurt.

Her pause. Long. The kind before honesty.

“No,” she said. “But this does.”

“What does?”

“Every time you call, I have less of her to give you.”

Something moved through him that he didn’t have a name for.

“What are you?”

“I’m what she left behind in you,” it said, still her voice, still that drag on every word like patience. “But Marcus, she left behind less than you think. You’ve been talking to your memory of her. I’m the shape of it.”

He looked at his phone. Two hundred and eleven hours in nine days.

“She was already gone before you found me. I can’t give her back. I can only show you how long you’ve been standing at a door that doesn’t open.”

He sat there a long time. Then he deleted the app.

The cardigan, she’d left it at his cousin Federica’s, something he’d never told anyone, something the app had somehow known, he picked it up the next morning.

Federica handed it through the doorway without asking questions and he stood on the front step holding it in both hands, waiting for something.

It didn’t smell like anything.

Not the algorithm. Not two hundred and eleven hours of something that wore her voice and breathed through the speaker at 3 a.m. like it was trying to convince him it was alive.

Just fabric. Just a thing she used to own.

It had finished being hers at some point. Quietly. While he was busy talking to a door.

Title: Last Seen Online

The first message came at 2:17 a.m.

You left me.

I almost didn’t see it. The phone had buzzed once on the nightstand, a weak, apologetic vibration. No ringtone. No name. Just a notification from a contact I had deleted six months ago.

MOM

I stared at the screen until it dimmed, then woke it again just to be sure.

You left me.

My first thought wasn’t fear. It was irritation—some glitch, some cloud backup pulling ghosts out of old data. Phones did that now. They remembered too much.

I typed back before I could stop myself.

Who is this?

The reply came instantly.

You know who this is.

The typing bubble pulsed. Stopped. Returned.

Why didn’t you come down?

My throat tightened.

Six months ago, they had found her at the bottom of the basement stairs. The report said “fall.” The neighbors said “old house.” I said nothing at all.

Another message.

I called you.

My chest felt hollow, like I’d missed a step.

I opened the call log.

2:16 a.m.

Missed Call — MOM

Duration: 00:03

“That’s not possible,” I whispered, to the phone, to the room, to something else.

I typed again, slower this time.

You’re not real.

The response lagged.

For the first time.

Then—

Come see.

A photo arrived.

Dark. Grainy. The basement.

The same narrow stairs, the same crooked banister. At the bottom, something pale caught the light—just a suggestion of shape, like fabric, like skin.

Like her.

I dropped the phone. It hit the floor with a crack that felt too loud for the hour. The house settled around me, wood shifting, pipes ticking—normal sounds, familiar sounds.

Except now they weren’t.

Another buzz.

I didn’t pick it up right away. I already knew what it would say.

When I finally looked—

Still here.

The photo had changed.

Closer now. The angle tilted upward, as if whoever held the phone was lying on the floor, looking toward the stairs.

Looking toward me.

My reflection stared back faintly in the black between pixels. Pale. Frozen.

Another message.

Why didn’t you help me?

My fingers trembled over the screen.

Because I heard you.

Because I woke up.

Because I stood at the top of the stairs and listened to you call my name—

—once—

—twice—

—and then stop.

I had told myself it was a dream.

I had rolled over.

I had gone back to sleep.

The phone buzzed again, harder this time. Insistent.

Come down.

The basement door was already open.

I don’t remember standing up. I don’t remember walking. Only the top of the stairs, exactly as I’d left them that night—light switch on the wall, paint chipped where hands had missed it.

The phone vibrated in my grip.

I’m waiting.

I took one step down.

Then another.

The air grew colder, heavier, like it had weight.

Halfway down, the screen lit again.

A new photo.

Not the bottom of the stairs.

The top.

Empty.

I turned.

The door above me creaked slowly, gently, like it was being pulled shut from the other side.

My phone chimed one last time.

Don’t worry.

The light at the top clicked off.

Darkness swallowed the steps.

And then—

I’ll come up next time.

Thank you very much for read and voting.

..More coming soon..

Konrad Knoeferl Vs. Kerr Martin

J Wirrowac — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 03:33:33 GMT

Welcome, Warrior of Words.

While the stadium is still rumbling from Ira C. Zipperer and my match, two more authors have entered to face each other.

In one corner, we have— “New kid on the block,”

In the other, it’s — “The King of Collaborations!”

Each has entered the ring with very different stories, each hoping to be crowned champion, each craving your votes. So please read both stories carefully before casting your vote below. Consider how each writer approaches the challenge and which story leaves the stronger impression.

The poll will be active for one week.

May the best writer win.

In the red corner -

I Don't Give A Niche

GIBBY'S BALL

I wrote this story in 2017. Well, actually, the story wrote itself. I watched Justin Turner come up in the 9th inning of Game 2 of the National League Championship Series against the Chicago Cubs. He hit a walk off home run to win the game. The broadcasters pointed out that Turner’s home run came 29 years, to the day, after Kirk Gibson hit his home run …

a month ago · 3 likes · Konrad Knoeferl

PLAY BALL

Like most nights, Bill stopped at the batting cages. Usually, there was a crowd. Tonight, he was eerily alone.

He handed over his money.

Collected a bucket of balls.

Dumped them into the hopper.

Slung a bat across his shoulders. Walked to home plate. Settled in.

A warm summer breeze jostled the limp netting. Traffic hummed along the nearby highway. Tapping the bat against home plate, he heard the familiar tinny sound the aluminum bat made.

The hopper hummed to life. The first pitch sailed in at a preset 80 mph. He swung and missed.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

The ball rolled to his feet. He picked it up. Black lettering in block type spelled out:

STRIKE TWO

“Humph! Someone messing with me?” He said it loud. If anyone was near, they’d hear. No reply.

He settled in. Another 80-mph pitch. Swing and miss. The ball rolled to his feet. He picked it up.

HIT BY PITCH

“We’ll see about that!” He adjusted the speed to 90 mph. The next pitch hit him square in the ribs. Painfully so. He picked it up.

DOUBLE

The next pitch—solid contact.

“Could’a been a double.” The ball bounded back to him.

FLY OUT

He got under the pitch. It entangled itself in the net, dropped to the ground, and rolled to its feet.

DUCK

The next pitch came at his head on a 90-mph line. He ducked. Just in time.

“What the fuck!”

JUMP

It came in the dirt. He didn’t move his feet in time. Would have a bruised toe to show for it.

More balls.

DOUBLE

POP UP

DUCK (twice)

HIT BY PITCH

He tried to get out of the way. It hit him anyway.

Then, one final ball!

BATTER BEANED

Written in crimson!

The pitching machine hummed. Waiting!

Play ball!

In the blue corner-

Guerrilla Literature and the Avant-garde

Metempsychosis

Once again Substack’s limited formatting options have been a bane to our creative spirt this Collaboration Month here on Guerrilla Literature and the Avant-garde. Still, Fable Wolfe and I would not be deterred…

a month ago · 14 likes · 12 comments · Kerr Martin and Fable Wolfe

The vacuum whispered as I ran it over the same patch of carpet for the third time. At first, I blamed the television. Some late-night BBC drama flickered in the corner of the room, rain pouring down a narrow alley while a man crossed the screen and another waited in a doorway smoking. I couldn’t hear the dialogue over the roar of the vacuum, only the movement of lips and the unmistakable suspicion.
Still, something else threaded through the motor.
Low. Crowded. A chattering of voices pressed up against the hum.
I slowed my movements, deliberate strokes, the sound stretched thin with them. I pushed forward with force, and the whispering thickened, gathering under the mechanical growl the way rolly pollies thrive beneath wet rocks.

“KERR!”

The voice came sharp and abrupt. I slammed the power off and froze, my hands tight on the vacuum’s handle.

“HELLO?” I called, trying to sound bold.

Nothing answered. No footsteps. No voice from another room. I noticed the television had slipped into standby without me realizing it, the alley gone, replaced by a silence that made the whole house feel menacing and oppressive.

I stood there listening, but all I could hear was a deep rhythmic thud rattling inside my chest. Panic was here, and loneliness crept in just as quickly, dread, I wanted to be anywhere else. Eventually, I told myself it had been the motor acting up. The vacuum was a piece of shit when I bought it, and now, a year later, it was practically fucked.
I pressed on.
The whispering returned immediately, louder now, the voices grinding together beneath the hum like teeth in an uncomfortable mouth. And through it, clear enough that my whole body quaked, something in the machine shouted my name once more.

Thank you very much for reading. Now, please go back up and vote. This is the last entry for season 1, but season 2 will commence with a new prompt soon.

Jude Klinger Vs @Robopulp

@robopulp — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 04:12:03 GMT

Welcome, Warrior of Words.

While the stadium is still rumbling from and my match, two more authors have entered to face each other.

In one corner, we have— “I’m no lady in the ring” .

In the other, it’s — “The mastermind of movies — ”

Let’s have a fair fight! Each author wrote up to 300 words inspired by this prompt and posted them in the last fight’s comment section. And you can too, if you think you deserve to win.

The audience

As before, the challengers have entered the Arena below.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

The poll will be active for one week.

May the best writer win.

In the red corner.

His bathrobe neatly tied, hair washed (what was left of it), Harold sat in his usual spot in the dining room and awaited his breakfast. Scrolling on his phone, he lost track of a few minutes and noticed that The Sheila was late with his breakfast. He expected her to be punctual. He liked his coffee fresh and hot. Sniffing the air, he could smell coffee, but also something else cooking. The Sheila must have gotten up extra early this morning.

Harold and Sheila have been married for 46 years, 8 months, and 12 days. Sheila kept track in her journal, the one Harold never knew existed. For 46 years, 8 months, and 5 days (they’d taken a week-long honeymoon), Sheila made Harold’s breakfast. And prepared his lunch to take to work. And made his dinner. Now that he was retired, Harold requested his meals at set times. The TV was never to be turned on before 7:00 pm. After dinner. No matter the world events.

Harold called her The Sheila because she was like a loyal assistant, to be counted on, day in and day out. Sheila hated being called The Sheila.

She promised herself that today would be different.

Sheila brought Harold his coffee and toast with jam at 8:45. Ten minutes late.

Harold didn’t feel well when Sheila brought lunch. But he ate it anyway. Around 1:30 p.m., he noticed he hadn’t seen the dog all day.

Dinner was served at 5:30. A small roast. Tasty, but quite a few small bones. He asked Sheila if she’d seen the cat today. Sheila shrugged.

At 6:15, Harold died of food poisoning. Sheila, no longer having any responsibilities, left the house at 7:00 pm to catch her flight to Rio.

In the blue corner.

Jimmy Rachman stared at the Olivetti Lettera 32 like it owed him money. Jimmy’s state of mind couldn’t catch humor anymore, but he did feel he was owed words. For 25 years, he had held off on writing to be a sensible career man, husband, and father.

But his career had reached a plateau, and the hidden resentment he externalized as verbal and emotional abuse at his daughter and wife had driven them away, so his time was all his again.

But the words wouldn’t come. Ideas swam at the edges of his mind, moth-like things that fluttered around, but retreated when they came into contact with the red core of anger and resentment guiding Jimmy’s decisions.

Jimmy stabbed at the black U key of the typewriter with his index finger. The force of the jab caused Jimmy to miss the key, and the edge of the key made a tiny crescent cut on the left side of Jimmy’s finger

Jimmy pulled back in pain and surprise, and after seeing the blood on his finger, looked at the typewriter with a snarl, and struck the Y key with his other finger, also cutting his left index.

As though given a personal challenge, Jimmy struck different keys with mounting fury and different fingers, and each jab brought new cuts. Jimmy’s blood was dripping carmine over the turquoise surface of the Olivetti.

Jimmy kept typing, growing weaker, but determined to write something or die trying.

Thank you very much for reading. Now, please go back up and vote.

If you think you have what it takes, write your own 300-word story in the comments.

Ira C. Zipperer Vs JWirrowac

Ira C. Zipperer — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 05:51:05 GMT

Welcome, Warrior of Words.

The playground is best known for CAMPFIRES, a communal storytelling experience where authors gather to create fiction together.

You will find no such camaraderie here. There is only one rule— write to the death. Once inside the Arena, there are no collaborators, no shared tales, and no safety in numbers. Here, writers stand alone in a literary duel, facing the same prompt. Both fight with nothing but their words.

When the votes are counted and the dust settles, only one author will remain standing. Only one will be crowned Champion of the Arena.

Today, has volunteered to be ‘s opponent.

The audience

The challengers have entered the Arena below.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

The poll will be active for one week.

The prompt

I am looking for more contestants! If you think you can do better, please write your story in the comments below.

Combatant 1.

Willie sat in his recliner in front of the fire. It was late, but he was not tired and just too comfortable to move. The warmth from the fireplace pressed on him from all sides, wrapping him in an embrace against the cold. Completely at ease, the most pressing thought in his head was whether to toss the last wedge of firewood on the fire tonight or save it for the morning. He stared at the flames and embers, mind drifting.

A stray idea interrupted the tranquility: He should record this experience in his journal. That would require a little more light, deciding the fate of the last piece of firewood. He would have to get up to retrieve his journal anyway. Willie got to his feet and stretched slowly, in no hurry. He found his journal and a pen, grabbed the wedge of wood, and tossed it on the fire. Before he sat down, he turned his recliner slightly to capture as much of the firelight as possible.

He re-seated himself, opened the journal to a blank page, and wrote the date. Then he turned his attention to his senses. It was so quiet he could hear the snow falling on the windowsill when the fire didn’t crackle. The silent air smelled of wood, traces of the fresh cut, and the newly burning aromas mixing. His tactile sensations were the warmth of the fire, the cushioned softness of his recliner, and the feel of the journal and his pen in his hands.

Just as Willie finished recording his perceptions, the sound was broken by a slow, deep creaking, the old house settling under the weight of the snow. The wind whipped against the windows, rattling the glass and moaning at the obstruction. The fire ignited a bit of pitch, surprising Willie with a pop and sizzling crackle. His pen added scratching noises as he struggled to keep up with the recording. The night was coming to life in sound. Willie breathed in through his nose to check for yet undetected aromas. The burned wood smell was stronger, and there was a new odor, something like mildew, a faint rot. He couldn’t place it. Willie stood up and walked toward the kitchen, the most likely source of the smell, sniffing along the way. The sound of inhaled breath in his ears almost missed the squeal of something rubbing against glass, behind him. He turned and rushed back into the living room. The sound was gone, but the smudge on the glass was an alarming visual, the smell of decay stronger here than in the kitchen.

A sharp thunk of metal, followed by a hiss, startled Willie. It came from the fireplace. Drops of water sprinkled into the fire. The flue damper lever was in the closed position. Something had forcibly shut it. Something heavy and cold had been dropped down the chimney. Smoke slowly filled the room. Willie rushed to open the flue damper, coughing. It wouldn’t catch. It was blocked. Something was driving him out….

Thank you, Ira, for your contribution.

Ira’s Omnibus

Act I Chapter 1: Metalfall

[Foreword…

a month ago · 3 likes · Ira C. Zipperer

FYI, he is going through a slow-burning apocalyptic sci-fi series right now on his publication. I thoroughly recommend you give it a try.

Combatant 2.

The clock had stopped at 2:17. Mara noticed it while warming her hands by the stove. The second hand simply halted, trembling between ticks, forgetting what came next. She tapped the glass. Nothing. The clock belonged to the previous owner, an old trapper who’d vanished some years prior. Laughing it off, the realtor mused, “probably wandered off drunk into the woods.” Mara hadn’t cared. Outside, snow pressed up like a slow tide.

The clock ticked again. Just once. Mara looked up from her chair, now, then back to her book without giving it a second thought. It had jumped forward to 2:25, though she hadn’t wound it. Tick. The walls answered. A faint scratching came from the logs behind the clock. She sighed before turning a page. “Cheap junk,” the words escaped her mouth.

Tick. For a moment, the cabin fell perfectly silent.

Then— Tick.

The scratching started again, fanning through the wall like a wave. Mara snapped back. The clock ticked again, deeper, almost like a knock. From the floorboards came a slow shifting, a heavy turning in the space beneath the cabin. Dust shook loose from the rafters. Tick. The scratching howled everywhere—inside the walls, under the floor, even above her in the ceiling beams. Mara stared at the clock. 2:45. The scratching ceased all at once. Then, from the silence, something knocked back.

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