Weekly Wattpad Contests

Contest #42 Results

The screen flickers to life at a frequency which you're unaccustomed to. Somehow, the images move a little too fast. You feel a headache coming on.

You turn down the brightness, and the glare reduces significantly in the darkness of this room.

There are millions of images flashing across the screen in a blur of colour. You can barely make out one before it's come and gone.

Slowly, the pace reduces. You can make out more detail, more and more, before the images become something you're used to.

Two different scenes seem to be playing simultaneously, super-imposed over each other and blended into one another.

It cuts to black, and a large '1' flickers on the screen, followed by the conflicted titles.

After some trouble, you recognise the word 'Survivor' lodged into 'A Breath of Fresh Air'.

At least, that's what you suspect. The next cut is two names you recognise, both having marked achievements in first place before: SabineDeMauvais and thelittlesttiefling vie for your attention.

The title images cut to two simultaneous scenes. As you fight back the wave of nausea which overwhelms you at first, you recognise two distinct and disgusting images overlaid. The words floating across the scenes are powerful, poetic, descriptive and delirious. The visages of severe countenances, alternately that of a drunken goddess and then that of a harrowed girl move through each other like ghosts. A beautiful man followed by a monster emerge from the chaos.

You don't know what to make of it – the contrast between the merging scenes suspend all possible disbelief.

The scenes fade slowly as the dramatic tension heightens by cellos – was it sirens? - then it all cuts to black.

The '2' floating just behind the Liquid Display seems much more solid, and your motion-sickness eases.

'White Blanket' the monitor declares, and you see a new name, jClevinger which slowly fades into the black.

It is ominously silent, and the darkness seems to be growing. You wonder briefly if the show has ended before the blaring white screen assaults your retinas, accompanied by the resounding lilt of static noise – white noise which you suspect might be precious music to the ears of other creatures.

If nothing else, at least this one is not as jarring as the one before. It is consistent, and decidedly less violent – or was it less melodious?

It quietens down, and you wonder briefly if you might return to your sleep.

The '3' which hovers was unexpected, perhaps only because your mind has been drifting. How long have you been here? You look around the darkness, but nothing seems to stir. Who knows how long the abyss holds your attention before you slowly cast your gaze back at the ethereal monitor, suspended in the void?

Nevertheless, the machine is patient, and it seems to have waited for you.

'She Fades', the machine whirs. The hum of its organs you only notice now in the silence. aaliyahchan  flickers much too quickly across the screen, and the whirring grows a little louder.

The vivid colours which meet you tell you that you are staring at a reflecting which is not your own, but still impossibly familiar. It is an aged and withered reflection, quickly fading in colour as the machine starts grinding its internals.

Something deep within it snaps, and the screen is filled with streaks of static, sharp lines that cut that mirror bleeding colours.

Then, without much more warning, the electric crackle lights the gloom, if only for a moment, before the darkness once again engulfs you.

This dream is different to last time, you realise with a start. In some forgotten memories, now resurfacing with the flood of joy, you recall the honourable moments of 'New Orleans Nightlife', stark and despondent, yet homely and alive. Who was that again? b_odelius probably.

As you return to your world, you recall fondly perhaps some of your other favourite dreams. One was on the 'Banks of the Nile', by plottingalong – a name once so familiar. Have you ever had such a vivid dream before?

Well, yes. You were once thrust into a world upside down and inside out. IT was beautiful, but you were stuck, you were 'Helpless'. That was Aminabeen should your memory not fail you.

Alas, even as you surface from the depths of the darkness, you wonder what other dreams there are to be had, what other incredibly beautiful and heart-wrenching sights there are to be seen. Over here, in this eternal, you can no longer return, but you resolve silently to explore in your own waking world once you regain your senses.

I'm honestly so proud of all the entries in this contest. All of them were so good and so beautifully written. I give out one final, special reward to  with 'Suspended' for hitting too close to home and also the most poetic way to vomit.

Much love

TimberWoolf