Young Writers Society

I do believe I used all the words!

You awake to the sound of deep silence and the light of early afternoon. You always stay in bed past noon; you often think of yourself as a clinomaniac. But truly, the reason you spend much of the day in bed is that you cannot will yourself to face the people in your village. They are cruel to you; they mock you and they laugh at you, because you are clumsy and because you are not a warrior like they are. Your only talent is with books and words, but nobody wants a bard; wars must be fought, so they only want soldiers.
Because of your dislike for the company of all but yourself, your bedroom has become a growlery of sorts. And you are always in need of refuge, so you hardly ever step outside it. You are better off on your own, you tell yourself. You and your lonesome, and also a high stack of books and a few stuffed animals. You give a cwtch to Ted the Bear, who is your best friend. He kissles you in return. You feel safe and warm; life will not be so bad, you think to yourself, if you can spend it like this.
There is a banging on the door, and you sit up in bed as the door is flung open. Into your room walks your father, who is the king of the village. It is not uncommon that your father sends a servant to wake you around noon, but you cannot remember the last time your father himself came into your room.
“Get up!” he shouts. “There is going to be an attack on the village. Come with me now!”
You sit up abruptly, shocked and enraged by his demand. “You don’t think I’m going to fight, do you? I would surrender before fighting in a battle. I’m sure your army would do much better without me.”
“Of course you’re not going to fight,” your father snaps. “There will not be a fight today. A terrible beast has been sighted in the Forest of Terror. It is thought to be the same beast that destroyed many of the villages near ours. Now it is heading toward us, and it will attack our village before nightfall. I have called for a mandatory evacuation. The beast is much too powerful to be fought. We must find a new home.”
You listen in silent wonder and terror. A sudden sadness overtakes you. You never realized how much you cared about your home, but now that you must leave it forever, you feel great reluctance.
“Isn’t there anything you can do to stop the beast?” you ask. “Anything I can do?”
Your father laughs humorlessly. “I am the greatest warrior here, and even I am afraid to fight the beast. I cannot ask any of my people to fight it. The only way this could be stopped is if a brave and stupid villager decides to challenge the beast and manages to slay it. Of course, that would never happen. Pack your things; we are leaving in one hour.”
“No,” you say. “I will slay the beast.”
Your father looks at you, confused. “You don’t mean that, do you?”
You do mean it, although you wish you didn’t. It is because you are an athazagoraphobe. You have a terrible fear of being forgotten, and slaying a terrible beast would appease your fear. Also, this is a perfect situation for you to prove yourself as a warrior. If you slay the beast, the people will glorify you.
So you cannot stop yourself when you shout, “I will slay the beast!”
The next hour is a rush of preparation. In the dining hall, you scarf down your breakfast in less than a minute, and when you rush from the room, your cappuccino leaves a cualacino on the table. You return to your bedroom to get properly dressed. You put on a light helmet and your favorite herigaut. You decide to wear no shoes like the nelipot that you are. You arm yourself with the vorpal sword that hangs over your door. You’ve never used a sword before, but it’s big, and it looks quite sharp. It also happens that you’re a bit of a toxophilite, although you’ve only ever read about archery; you’ve never tried it before. You swing a bow and a full quiver over your shoulder nevertheless.
‘Tis brillig when you leave the village. Your father has postponed the evacuation in the chance that you succeed in slaying the beast. Everyone in the village gathers around the gates to watch you leave. Their faces are hopeful, though somewhat doubtful. Someone mutters something about how they wish a real warrior had volunteered to face the beast. But there is undoubtedly an air of excitement among the people.
“Farewell, my son,” your father says. There seems to be a tear in the corner of his eye, perhaps from sadness at your inevitable passing, or perhaps from pride at your boundless courage.
You walk away from the village lickety-splitly, making your way toward the Forest of Terror. It does not take you long to arrive at its entrance. As you make your way cautiously through the trees, you think of the glory you will receive when you return. You will be respected and honored by the villagers. A frisson slides down your back.
You hear a soft psithurism in the treetops above you, and the tinkling susurrus of a river nearby. As you continue to walk, darkness slowly envelops you and presses upon you. The twisted limbs of the trees appear to be reaching toward you, and you hear strange clicking noises in the branches that brush against you. You feel a formication, and you shiver again, but this time in displeasure.
You begin to wonder if you’re going in the right direction when you hear a great brontide that shakes the cracked dirt beneath your feet. The noise did not come from far away. You hurry toward its source, and then you stumble into a wide clearing. At the center of the clearing is the beast.
Your body seems to fail. Your eyes widen, and your jaw slackens. You feel suddenly dizzy. You cannot possibly describe the simultaneous horror and splendor of the beast. Your eyes slide over its awe-inspiring features. Its scaly armor is impenetrably thick and aerodynamically curvaceous. This, along with the spikes lining its back, makes it appear ostentatiously erinaceous. You could almost say it is Chinoiserie, because its flowing, slithering movements remind you of the dragons in the festivals on the New Year. Its head is high above you, atop a long, stretching neck. You struggle to focus on anything aside from the hooked claws on its feet, or the spear-shaped teeth in its open mouth, or the thick horns protruding from its forehead. It is swarthy, and the shadows of the trees make it appear like a shade. But its ultramarine eyes pierce the darkness and make it terribly conspicuous. If you have to describe the beast at all, the only truly fitting word you can of is jabberwocky.
The beast hasn’t noticed you yet. Finally, you scrape up the courage to speak.
“Hear me, terrible beast!” you shout. “I have come to challenge you!”
You wave your sword a few times. The beast slowly turns its head toward you and narrows its eyes. “Greetings,” it says.
“Thank you,” you say. Now that the beast is looking at you, a bell of recognition rings in your head. “Before we fight, may I ask you something? I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but you remind me a lot of someone I once read about. He’s a dragon, goes by the name of Smaugh. Do you happen to know him? It’s just that you look a lot like him. Maybe he’s a kith of yours?”
The beast curls its lips. “I am Smaug,” it says.
“Are you truly?” you ask, awed. “I can’t believe I am actually meeting you! I am an enormous fan of yours; I have been for years. Would you—would you be willing to give me an autograph, or something?”
The beast laughs; there is a raking sound in the back of its throat, and hot smoke is dispelled from its nostrils, making you cough.
“You are such a gobemouche,” he says. “I have never met someone so foolish as you. I have never heard of this Smaug. It is an insult that you would believe I am called Smaug. I am older than the sun; I am more terrible than the pits of Hell; I am feared by the night. I have no name.”
“Oh,” you say, slightly taken aback. “In that case, it is nice to meet you, nameless beast. To get back on topic, I have come to stop you from destroying my village. By the way, I was just wondering, why are you coming to destroy the village? Don’t you think it’s a bit cruel?”
“I am only destroying it because it is necessary,” says the beast. “I like treasure, and there is treasure in your village. It is my passion in life; I fly around and destroy villages, then I glom all the treasure they have and take it back to my cave, where I whelve it so no one will ever find it.”
“Well, why do you want the treasure? What do you do with it? Do you really think it’s more beneficial for you to have lots of treasure than for villages to remain in existence? Anyway, where do you keep all of this gold? And why don’t you just take the treasure without destroying the villages?”
“You’re a nasty pochemuchka, aren’t you?” the beast says. “You ought to do some more thinking, instead of talking so much. It makes you sound quite stupid.”
“Well, you’re hardly any better!” you cry, outraged. “Your just a lowly thief; you’re a cadge! None of your treasure is rightfully yours! In comparison to you, I am an absolute kalon.”
“You’re quite micawber to think so highly of yourself,” says the dragon. “You’re certainly no gemutlich.”
“In fact, I’m something of a weltschmerz, mostly induced by your horribleness. You…you are a scab on the plane of existence. Just looking at you gives me the mulligrubs. Your face sends me into the doldrums.”
“You are nothing more than a piggesnye. You have a fast tongue, but you have no brains to back it.”
“At least I’m not a fissilingual! Or a practicer of leechcraft, or a gods-damned eldritch applepicker! You say you have no name? I have a perfect name for you. I think you ought to be called Edentulous!”
The beast hisses. “That doesn’t even make sense; my teeth are longer than your entire body! And I have a few names to call you. You are Mr. Bumptious to me, or Sir Noisome, or Sirrah Crapulous!”
“You are a dirty pesmenteiro!” you shout. “And you wouldn’t even give the funeral family flowers!”
The beast breathes heavily. The woods are silent for a few moments. It speaks to you in one low, intense breath. “You are a nothing. You have written your page in the history books, and it is no more than an adoxography. You will die, and you leave nothing. You will be entirely forgotten, and no one will ever care or remember your name.”
The beast’s words strike terror into you. Your eyes widen, and your face becomes pale. The beast has described your strongest, innermost fear. You try to shrink away.
But then something occurs to you. If you fight back, you can conquer your fear and you can conquer the beast. You induratise and resolve yourself to the fact that you will fight the beast, and you will not be forgotten.
“You are weak,” the beast continues. “You will soon become nothing.”
“I may appear to be a wimp,” you say, “but I become undeniably muscular at the crepuscular hours!”
“I will not wait until nightfall to kill you, then.”
Your entire body begins to dirl, and you look down at your sword.
“You can talk,” the beast says, “but can you fight?”
The beast raises its claws threateningly, preparing to strike. You raise your sword above your head and swing it in a wide arc toward the beast’s neck. You close your eyes as your vorpal blade goes snicker-snack, and you hear a great thud. You open your eyes to find your sword stuck in a tree-trunk and the beast rearing before you. It flicks its tail, and you feel a searing pain upon your back.
Blood seeps from your shallow wound, and you smell a strong petrichor. You struggle with your sword, but you are unable to pull it from the tree. You reach for your bow, and you draw an arrow. You shoot wildly at the beast, three arrows at a time, until your quiver is empty. Most of the arrows miss entirely, and the ones that hit the beast glance harmlessly off its armor.
You are unarmed before the terrible beast that sits calmly before you. You notice that its throat is incalescent. You realize what will happen moments before it does. You turn and dash from the clearing as a river of orange flames pours from the jowls of the beast. They singe your back, but you do not turn around. You run from the forest, and you do not stop running until you have reached your village.
'Tis brillig when you return to the village. It feels as though days have passed since you left, but in truth, you realize, it has hardly been part of an hour. As you enter the village, the people watch you in silent prayer. You fall to your knees, breathing hard. Your father slowly approaches you with his arms spread wide.
“And hast thou slain the beast, my boy?” he asks you, his eyes shining.
You shake your head wordlessly, and the entire village looks at you in disappointment. You hear a leathery sound, and you turn your head to see the beast rising from the trees. It soars toward the village.
“Run!” cries your father, and the villagers scatter.
They regroup in the fields outside of the village. As one, they walk away from the village. They do not turn to watch as their homes are torn from the ground and engulfed in flames.
The beast does not pursue the villagers; it has found its treasure, and it is satisfied. But the villagers are without a home. You hear them talking among themselves. They call you useless; they say you have failed them. After a while of walking, the leaders of the village hold a conference, walking ahead of the others to talk in privacy.
Your father stops the procession to address the villagers.
“We have decided to go to our neighboring village. We will ask them for refuge until we can rebuild our own village. We face a time of great sadness and pain, but we will fight through it together. Except…except for my son. This was a difficult decision, but he has failed in his duty as a warrior. He has allowed our village to be destroyed.”
Your father turns toward you.
“I am sorry, my son, but you are hereafter banned from here.”