Writing challenge and feedback

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD4hSJybyCY

Setting – Post Apocalyptic wasteland in a run down city Emotion – Elation and resentment Noun – Sword and Map

Wait.... …….did I actually find it? ……… Finally, I found it! I found some goddamn hope… finally!!

I'm so tired of living under the rule of a bunch of thugs. It was either go out and survive in this empty, brown, shithole that was once a city or just join a dirty tribe run by some street rat who got lucky with this whole bullshit nuke aftermath. Oh, he was offering free protection so, of course, I'll take that chance!

I'm tellin’ you, I feel like this guy was a fucking homeless nobody before all of this; he just gives off that feeling y'know?

The nuclear war gave him and everyone else a second chance in life which has its own benefits in a strange way, but no longer will I have to see that ugly mutt's face again! I've found all that I need in life on this little, dirty map. … … …

This baby leads a path to some weird sword only told in legends but… it's finally real!

I can just swing this thing and my problems…Gone! Like the hand of God parting the seas!

Hey, y'know what… maybe I don’t even have to live alone after this? Maybe I could just kill that scum bag that everyone keeps calling a leader. Now that I think about it, why do I hate him again? Oh, maybe just the fact that he's too nice to be a leader. He's too much of a pussy to be ruling over this many people. He doesn't deserve this! Everyone might agree with him, but I could see how much of a cripple he really is! All I need to do is execute him in front of everybody's eyes! YES!! After that, I need to do is intimidate and subjugate anyone else who is gonna’ stand in my way!

Well, I actually have something to look forward to… time to head out.

… … …

I'm half way there already! Hell yeah, I can taste the power already!

Weird though, nothing really attacked me so far....

It just seems so strange to finally be able to enjoy a nice drive for once. No raiders, wild animals, or anything like that. It almost feels like god himself is opening that path for me, and here I thought this would be some wild death race with others getting a map of their own.

I even brought my ‘shotty’ just in case, ha!

This is just too good, everything is just going so great for me and …I love it! I honestly deserve all of this! Everyone else could go to hell! No one understands how great I am, not even god himself, ha! Well baby… here I come!! I'm going to grab you so hard and swing you around a bit, ha! I crack myself up!

>>9626546
>Cont.
Heh.... Motorcycle broke down...

….just going to have to walk I guess….. Who needed that piece of junk anyways? It was bound to fall apart sooner or later, all I need is that beautiful sword, ha!ha!ha!

Aw hell I can't wait, I feel like I could sprint the whole way there! Why do I need it? I have no idea. I just know it's what I wanted for a long time... I can't even think straight with this heat cookin’ me alive, but again, all I need is that sword.....

This air just smells so good right now, even with the radioactive fumes floating around, I could still smell that hope, heh heh ha! ha!

Hey, I never knew I was so funny.

… … …

Finally.....I'm here....where the hell is it though? I'm at the right location...it should be here. Heh seriously, where is it! This isn't very funny! The hell...WHERE IS IT!?!

……."You really are crazy huh?"

Who the hell said that?

What the hell is going on?

Just....JUST LET ME HAVE THIS! WHO ARE YOU! GIVE ME THE FUCKING SWORD!

Heh heh heh, why are you…guys… laughing at me? Stop, you're going to make me start laughing heh heh heh.... This isn't fair! Let me just find some fuckin’ joy for once... Just give me the thing I was looking for! ….. please…..

….."What are you looking for exactly?"

....I'm looking for the....the thing I just said…

…."Why did you even want it?"

For.....hope, I think…

…"What are you even hoping for?"

To leave…

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>>9626538
>Setting
Car, Outskirts of Chicago
>Two Emotions
Distant, Worthless
>Two Nouns
Traffic, Death

Pic related may be used to narrow down an emotion with ease.

> The framework of the challenge was simple. Pick one setting , two emotions, and two nouns and write a short story around it less than 1000 words

awesome, i love this, give it to me

>Post Apocalyptic wasteland

this is where the reaction face .jpg goes

>>9626615
The majority of the drive along I-80 East and up I-55 North met Ryan and Jolene with little issue. Ryan has made the trip himself into the city several times beforehand, making sure this visitation would be on a date and time which would arrive the two at Navy Pier with little crowding, and with little traffic resistance on the way. Some ten miles from the city on a stretch of I-55 North just outside South Lawndale, the great skyscrapers of Chicago's heart rise to sight on the horizon as a '99 silver Chevy Tahoe creeps to the overpasses crest.

"See. There it is. I told you we'd make good time."

Jolene continues to stare over Archer Heights, opposite the direction of the city.

"Could've gone Sunday."

A brief moment of silence lingers before Ryan hits the steering wheel to sound the horn.

"All the fucking cars ahead of you are still moving; why the fuck are you still stopped! Holy shit learn how to drive!"

"Calm down Ryan. They're starting to move."

"It's never like this--not now. You did check the app before we got onto fifty-five and saw it was clear, right?"

Jolene doesn't respond. She carefully stares at the license plate of the car in front of them. She reads out loud:

"'Oh-six-nineteen'. That'll be John's sixth birthday in two years."

Ryan looks to Jolene a moment before again watching the traffic ahead of them.

"I'm sorry I yelled back there. The traffic isn't supposed to be like this."

He places his hand on her lap a moment. When she doesn't respond he takes it back to the wheel. He then turns up the volume of his CD, which was lowered to help with driving, when he catches the riff of one of his favorite songs.

"Please turn it down. I'm not in the mood."

"But this is one of our favorite songs."

"It's one of your favorite songs babe. Please."

Ryan reluctantly returns the music to quiet. He also turns off the air conditioner. Rolling down his window to feel the wind as thick Chicago air starts filling the car.

"It's hot."

"Really? Can I do no right here?"

"I'm sorry, I'm just hot. If we were moving faster I'd feel the wind. Point your side away."

"I am sorry I yelled Jo. I just wanted today to go smoothly. Just wait til you try a Cheezeborger for the first time. Then we'll ride the Centennial Wheel at sunset, and walk the beach under the moonlight, maybe just end up staying last minute. I know a hostel that Phil, Noel and I stayed at that let us get away with anything."

Jolene watches a large thunderhead empty over the suburbs on the horizon out her window as it and several other great clouds steadily drift northeast.

"I told you I'm not eating meat anymore. Don't you ever listen."

"Look I'm trying here. We both know what today is about. Can you at least try and go along with it? Help me out hon."

"I'm just saying I don't eat meat.. You didn't have to yell."

1/2

"Alright babe. Would you at least look at the city? The smog makes the buildings look even more massive than they are; the only good thing to come of it I suppose. C'mon, it's part of the whole experience."

Jolene's demeanor lightens. She finally looks over to the skyscrapers veiled by a greying haze which does in fact make them appear very massive and distant--as if growing toward her yet moving away at the same time. She then thinks about the license plate, looking from the city again to the numbers on the back of the car before them.

"Imagine what the world would be like without cars driving everywhere polluting the air. The haze is beautiful in its own way. But only because of the city behind it. Otherwise it's just poison in the air."

Ryan digests the words a moment.

"I mean, yeah. But everyone can't just stop driving their cars. There wouldn't be a city in the first place."

The traffic has again come to a complete stop. Ryan taps his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel. Jolene watches him.

"People would have less health problems, there'd be less sickness in the city. There wouldn't be car crashes. Nobody would die from them.

Ryan looks to her and she holds his eyes in hers a moment before looking out her window.

"Accidents. There'd be less car accidents."

"And crashes."

Hot air again fills the car as Ryan rolls down both their windows. Jolene doesn't say anything. She turns up the air and points the vents directly over herself.

"That storm is moving for the city Ryan."

"What do you want me to say? I checked the weather. I checked the traffic. It's not my fault they can't make up their fucking mind."

Ryan has one arm hanging entirely out the window. His fingers tapping against the door fill the car with rapidly pulsing triplets.

"You checked today?"

"I checked soon enough for it to not change right away."

"You checked yesterday?"

Ryan doesn't respond.

"Maybe we should go back."

"No fucking way. We need this trip, I'm not going to let a little rain ruin everything. We can find something else to do. It's early enough, maybe we can go to a museum. How does that sound?"

Traffic continues holding still.

"You should've checked yesterday. We're stuck in traffic and it's going to rain. We should go home."

"What about the theatre? Maybe the Aragon has a show tonight. Or the House of Blues? I think you'd like the hostel if we stayed there. I can show around. We'll still have fun I promise."

"What are the odds we crash on our way into the city?"

"None babe. Trust me. Tonight will be exactly what we needed. Forget I yelled and forget the haze, the rain and the plate. Look, the traffic is letting up."

Jolene watches the hazy city begin to rapidly approach and overtake them, fully expecting to crash before arriving.

2/2

>Setting – Post Apocalyptic wasteland in a run down city Emotion – Elation and resentment Noun – Sword and Map

"Darsh," he says, again.

And again,

"Darsh! Darsh!"

And he finishes the bottle.

"Well, fuck you too. I was about to tell you the end of it,"

Sours uses the rebar to get to his feet, turns around at takes a look at the slogan that used to mean something to the people coming home on the freeway the opposite way he would come.

"Everybody's tuning in!" he parrots, "Darsh! Darsh!"

his piss rings metallic off the post. Three hundred feet down, the dead have tried and failed to climb their way up. Three full weeks now.

"Fuck you, Darsh!"

He zips his ruined khakis up, kicks at the crate and hears the whiskey bottles crying empty.

"We're not good, man,"

Sours long ago discarded his powder blue tie. Now he mock straightens it.

"They were going to catch me, Darsh. Fucker..."

Sours goes barefoot along the grated walkway.

"Hey! They knew I stole the money,"

Sours goes to the other side of the billboard. He expects to see the chubby brown boy tittering as he always is.

He's not though.

Darsh is keeled over and his skin is yellow and pink.

"They knew I did it, Darsh,"

and Sours takes off all his clothes.

"You couldn't even keep it going to figure out I did it? I did it, Darsh!"

The city is beautiful, looking out, all on fire from the ruptured gas lines.

"Well," Sours says,

Shitfaced and smiling, he takes a flip off the catwalk.

>>9627024

Hey, I borked the whole sword and map thing, but come on, that's not bad.