The Cursed Coast
apparently I need to fill out this field.
The Growth has covered the entire coastline for as long as we could tell, and it grew out onto the ocean in some places. Some kind of toxic organism, killed five of ours. No safe landing anywhere.
It had been too long. Rations were dwindling, the crew started to lose all hope. Some still protested, but they all knew: turning back was not an option. Hasn’t been, for weeks.
I rue the day I volunteered, with the heart of a naive explorer, to set sail to these remote lands, to find out what happened to all those who came before us. But I had to keep going.
One day, we ventured close to the shore, and one of the men threw a torch on the blasted thing. Fire seemed to have an effect. After that, we tried burning out a patch for us to make landing in a small bay. But it was dangerous work, with the Growth spewing toxic goo whenever it got hurt.
That was the day the strangers came. They arrived in ships like dragons, breathing fire, and that is how we knew they'd been here before. They are the reason I am alive today.
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Comments (5 so far!)
Average reader rating 4.00/5
nuclearsubmarine
Thanks for the comment!
I guess I could've better communicated the fact that my character is on a ship, that part was not meant to be cryptic :) The rest totally was, I have no idea what most of it is hinting at, I just went with what made sense to me based on the prompt.
I have not heard of any of those works you mentioned, so I guess I should look into them!
- #3345 Posted 5 years ago
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ElshaHawk LoA
Thanks for this entry to prompt! I like the fire and water, the adventure, and the danger. You've got it all!
- #3350 Posted 5 years ago
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rhubarb_j
Nice story, good world-building within only a few paragraphs.
I thought it was pretty obvious that your character was aboard a ship. 😁
One small criticism, the entire take is told in the past tense but you use the present tense for the first sentence of the second paragraph.
Thanks!
- #4138 Posted 4 years ago
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- 4 out of 5
nuclearsubmarine
Thank you!
And thanks for the correction, English is my second language and I'm sometimes confused with tenses.
You mean that "It’s been too long" should've been "It had been too long", right?
- #4140 Posted 4 years ago
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Story prompt:
From Twitter, Jennifer Shelby writes, "They arrived in ships like dragons, breathing fire, and that is how we knew they'd been here before."
Who are they?
- Published 5 years ago.
- Story viewed 12 times and rated 1 times.
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Robert Quick
The majority of it makes me think of Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, and also the second season of Pandemic Legacy. Oh and now I think of the War of the Cthorr as well. I'm a sucker for ecological invasions. Like most good ficly there's a fair amount of hinted information. There is a main character, an explorer and volunteer for some society or service. There is a crew, which means there is a ship of some sort. And lastly there are these strangers in ships like dragons. Interesting.