The First Facepunch Short-Story Competition - Theme: 'Valve Games' - General

I wish I had found this thread two weeks earlier. I could have dominated this. I'm currently working on a story, [i]The Wretched Empire[/i], currently at 17 pages and just over 9,000 words, and I'm barely into the first chapter. Ah well.

Can I use other games sold on the Steam Platform...? Red Orchestra and Garry's Mod in particular?

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;19210429]Can I use other games sold on the Steam Platform...? Red Orchestra and Garry's Mod in particular?[/QUOTE] Sure. We found a solution: Paypal.

Epic! :3 I'll get too work on the story once I'm done drawing for my friend.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;19215985]Epic! :3 I'll get too work on the story once I'm done drawing for my friend.[/QUOTE] The competition closed on the 20th, sorry. Zui; I don't have paypal. I'll try to set one up if I can though.

How's the judging coming along?

We have a winner. We'll be contacting him soon.

Ask him if his story can be posted.

Many of the entrants forgot to include their Facepunch username with their entry, which means that we can't figure out who to award the first-place to. We're going to need every entrant to post the title of their story (and a sentence or two describing it), then we should be sweet. Thanks guys!

Frank The story of the man that the hero of Half-Life 2 sees for all of one minute during his journey through the apartments. [editline]05:59AM[/editline] I believe my e-mail is the same as my username here, however, so there wasn't really much point in writing that.

I just wish I'd found this thread earlier. Not because I need ten bucks, but because I love to write shit like this. Oh well.

Forgot to add my name. My title was "A Rebel to Death" About a man named Ferrell who discovers the citadel has exploded and his brother is probably dead. He goes into a rage and gets himself killed, but just before he dies he sees that his brother is alive.

I didn't even name mine. It was a generic enough person to not need a specific title (and I sort of forgot, but anyway). It was about a citizen named Ian and his escape from the city. If that's too generic, at the end his train car gets tossed through the woods and he gets spat out. And a medic tells him how banged up he is.

I dont really have a title either. Also mine was the cheesey ripoff of the opposing force opening, not that i won :P

So has the winner already been contacted or what?

[QUOTE=Doomish;19399481]Frank The story of the man that the hero of Half-Life 2 sees for all of one minute during his journey through the apartments. [editline]05:59AM[/editline] I believe my e-mail is the same as my username here, however, so there wasn't really much point in writing that.[/QUOTE] *cough*[B]winner[/B]*cough* *cough*[B]youwillbecontactedsoon[/B]*cough*

[QUOTE=Doomish;19399481]Frank The story of the man that the hero of Half-Life 2 sees for all of one minute during his journey through the apartments. [editline]05:59AM[/editline] I believe my e-mail is the same as my username here, however, so there wasn't really much point in writing that.[/QUOTE] Can you post it since you won?

[QUOTE=Zuimzado;19489663]*cough*[B]winner[/B]*cough* *cough*[B]youwillbecontactedsoon[/B]*cough*[/QUOTE] Holy shit, awesome! Thanks! [QUOTE=Tahrok;19499236]Can you post it since you won?[/QUOTE] Sure. Here goes nothing: [quote]Frank was drunk, as usual. He sat at his favorite table, perched in a corner of the room away from all of the others. He couldn’t stand them. All they did was look at the Civil Protection go by day and night. Then again, all he ever did was get drunk and fall asleep. He hadn’t even gone to get his rations yet since he’d been rudely awakened. The sun shone in his eyes, the noises outside were loud, and possibly worst of all, there was a loud clattering coming from the hallway. He took another sip of his Everclear. Straight from the bottle, just how he liked it. Everclear was hard to come by these days, only a few managed to get their hands on it. Cream of the crop, this stuff was. He sighed and turned the bottle over in his hands, reading the ever-fuzzier label. In the next room, the other residents of his apartment mumbled on about the CPs getting closer every day. Shaking his head, he turned to face them. “Hey.” he grumbled out, glaring at them. “Some people are trying to enjoy their day here, and all you two’re doing is bringing me down. Things are depressed enough around here, I don’t need you comin’ in and talking about Civil Protection behind my back.” “We aren’t talking about you, Frank.” spoke Judy, the female and self-appointed “leader” of the apartment. “If anything, the CPs are going to go for David and Donna in 105.” Ah, yes. David and Donna. The bleak couple, as they were called. All Donna spent her days doing was wallowing about on the sofa, wondering how the world went downhill so fast, and all David spent his days doing was comforting her. Waste of a life, that was. Frank scoffed. “Next thing you know, Civil Protection is gonna come breaking down our door and bashing our heads in.” as if it hadn’t happened to other residents. Hell, with all that pounding outside, it might as well be happening that minute. “And you’re calling us negative?” called Larry, the other man who took up Frank’s valued living space. “Ah, just let me drink in peace, jeez.” Realizing he’d lost the argument, Frank went back to his Everclear. The day dragged on as usual. He occasionally came and watched the endless Breencasts on TV, wandered around the apartment, and drinking his Everclear. “Same as it ever was, same as it ever was…” he rambled to himself in a fuzzy stupor. He heard more knocking. CP noises outside, the usual nonsense. Unexpectedly, a newcomer to the apartments wandered through. He stood next to Frank and tilted his head to read the label on the bottle. Frank turned to him, surprised and in a stupor. “Oh, was that you knocking?” he paused for a second. “I didn’t even know we still had a door.” The man looked to the doorframe, where there was in fact no door, and continued onwards to the next room. Frank turned back to his bottle. He took it and shook it a little, then grimaced at the damn thing. Empty. He sighed heavily, then went to sit on the sofa for a little while. Perhaps he’d fall asleep there and forget the day ever happened, as he always did. ‘Good for me’, he thought. ‘At least someone around here is enjoying themselves.’ He was about to drift into slumber when he heard a loud, female scream from the next room. Jolting upwards, he felt someone shaking him hard. Eyes coming mostly into focus, he noticed Larry. He was yelling something about Civil Protection and getting the hell out, but he couldn’t focus on it. Larry stood him up and spun him towards the door, about to shove him out into the hallway, but that was as far as he got before a stunstick to the back knocked him to the ground. Frank stumbled forward, almost toppled from Larry’s sudden weight on his shoulders. He looked behind him to see a CP officer whirling the stunstick in his direction next. Frank ducked it and was out the door before it could follow. He noticed a giant pile of objects blocking the way to the stairs, so he cut through Donna and David’s place. They were still in their same old spots, Donna weeping over some old bullshit and David with one arm around her. Shaking his head and hoping they were as good at dodging stunsticks as he was, Frank dashed out the opposite doors and took off up the stairs. Looking into the hallways in front of him, he saw the man from earlier head to the rooftop, and decided it’d be a good idea to follow. Frank stumbled his way up to the entrance to the staircase and attempted to open the door, which was being held shut. He banged on it and forced out a drunken “lemme in, iss Frank!” The man opened the door quickly and shouted for Frank to head for the roof, and be quick about it. Frank thanked the man, or, at least, attempted to thank him, and hurried up to the rooftops. Shielding his eyes from the glaring sun, he spotted the man getting pelted by bullets. He dove into a window and the CPs below were quick to follow, bashing their way into the apartment complex below. Frank made sure the coast was clear, and wobbled his way out onto the ledge. It was a sharp drop from where he was standing, and Frank had no intention of taking that drop. Avoiding looking down as much as possible, Frank crept along quietly, attempting to not alert and Civil Protection that might still be in the area. He felt along the edge until he reached a window, and spun around to hop in. As he turned, he lost his footing and slid. Before he knew it, he was dangling by a hand over the ledge of a god-knows-how-high rooftop, with no way back up. Frank knew he was too drunk to successfully make it back up the ledge, but damn it, that wouldn’t stop him from trying. Grip slipping quickly, Frank swung his body back and forth in an attempt to lift himself back to safety. He grunted with effort and just about got a hold on the ledge… …But then, just as suddenly as he’d grabbed the ledge, he’d let go of it. He felt a stabbing pain in his arm, which was now dead weight. He felt blood dripping down his arm and off of his fingertips. Looking back, he could see an APC parked beneath him, a CP positioned at just the angle to blast his arms and force him to let go. He grimaced at the CP and tightened the grip his remaining arm held, not giving up without a fight. The CP took it upon himself to fire a shot into Frank’s back. Though he didn’t feel the first shot due to a drunkenly numb extremity, he felt the second bullet like a knife to the chest. Yelping in pain and anger, Frank swung one last time and threw his legs over the edge, rolling to a stop in a small alcove on the edge of the building. A bullet whizzed past his ear, striking the ground beside him. Frank struggled to lift himself, but couldn’t bear it. Coughing, he laid his head back against the wall and let his arm fall to his side, blood slowly dripping out of his sleeve through a neatly pierced hole. Frank was sober enough to admit that he was glad he died doing what he loved, which he assumed was drinking. He didn’t even know what to think anymore. He focused on the goateed man who’d passed through, and how Civil Protection came through immediately after. He blamed as much as he could on the man, trying to take the weight off of himself. He considered that it might have been just his timing, and that CP had planned to reduce the population a little all along, but he dismissed the thought quickly. Hacking up a little saliva and blood, Frank tilted his head towards the outside world. Then, deciding the sun was too bright, he closed his eyes. At least now he would get the sleep he wanted so badly. Perhaps he’d wake up tomorrow, having forgotten the events of the past day, and everything would be fine. As he always did.[/quote]

Well, Doomish, congratulations. I...I...I refuse to be a poor sport and whine... Here's my entry (be warned: longer read): [quote] Ian Brown laid on a cold mattress, having been awake since four AM at his estimation. He had passed in and out of consciousness like a buoy bobbing in the cold, dark waters of thought that were his mind. One could hardly be positive these days; he could not count the number of times metropolice had broken down the front door and beaten him to within an inch of his life, only to find that they had raided the wrong apartment. He lived in an alien-controlled society, where one was not allowed to think. If they ever discovered him thinking, they would beat him. If he showed emotion, they would beat him. If he fell even slightly out of line in any way, they would beat him. The desire to rise up grew stronger within him with each passing minute, and he wanted to be free. Abruptly, the door to his apartment room flew open, and one of his roommates, Keith, quickly hurried through. He stopped to catch his breath, obviously having run some miles, and he dusted off his denim jacket, which bore much filth and suggested that he had done more than just run. His pants told a similar story. “It’s happened,” Keith managed to utter between his deep, heaving breaths. “We’ve got to leave.” At this, Ian rolled off the stodgy mattress and assumed a sleepy, unstable stance. He stammered as his mind hoisted itself out of the abyss of thought he had been in just moments before. “W-what do you mean?” Ian retrieved his boots and pulled them on as Keith continued speaking. “Remember Freeman?” he asked, disregarding all the other people in the apartment who were clearly trying to sleep. “He made his way to the coast yesterday. A few citizens at a Vortigaunt witnessed him single-handedly destroying Nova Prospekt with an army of antlions at his command. They told us we should revolt, and there’s already rioting downtown. Civil Protection is one-by-one locking down the apartments, and we’re next.” Upon hearing exactly what was wrong, Ian quickened his pace. He went through the apartment and checked it to make sure he had left nothing. A wordless nod later they had exited the musky apartment and were headed down the sidewalk. A light drizzle of rain dampened the street, and the long, intimidating shadows of gigantic buildings stood as if threatening to tell all. Apart from a distance roar of what must have been people, the signs of trouble were few and far between. Not a single Civil Protection unit was even present in the neighborhood, and only one scanner drone ever presented itself. It paid them no mind and continued towards the scene of revolt likely just around the next corner. “Dr. Vance had our men set up a weapons cache in the sewer, just beneath the square. The citizens are using the riot there as a cover while they excavate the equipment,” Keith hurriedly said, quickening his pace. Ian followed suit, and within a moment they were in view of the square. As expected, a thousand citizens had already gathered there, engulfing the statute of Wallace Breen mounted atop a pedestal in the center of the plaza. Not a policeman was in sight; they were likely busy locking down the apartments. A citizen at the edge of the mob spotted Keith, apparently recognizing him as they drew closer, and she gestured for them to follow her. “Keith, we’ve almost got the weapons out,” she said hurriedly, gesturing towards a manhole that was being opened wider to allow quicker access. A cheer went up from the mob-goers nearest the hole when the first box of equipment was hoisted up. “How strong are we?” Keith asked with a commanding air. “A thousand here, but it’s a diversion. There’s two thousand more waiting in the sewers, five thousand that gathered in the canals overnight, and possibly more coming from the apartments we managed to warn before they were shut down.” Keith grinned and acknowledged the young quartermaster. Ian’s wish had fortuitously come true; the resistance had become a force to be reckoned with. It was now a battle that could be won. Ian proudly stepped forward to take the first submachine gun hoisted out of the sewer, followed by a pistol for a sidearm. He took the MP7A1 and five extra magazines, and when the extra equipment was made available a moment later, a gray knit cap, an arm pad with a yellow Greek lambda painted on it, a makeshift holster, and a stolen flak jacket from a fallen metro cop. He disengaged the weapon’s safety, flipped the foregrip out, and activated the red dot sight mounted on the top of the weapon; he holstered the pistol, an H&K USP, feeling more like a Western gunslinger than an oppressed citizen and freedom fighter. Around him, others did similarly, arming themselves to the teeth with whatever they could get their hands on. Nothing otherwise important happened for hours; one might even come to the conclusion that the Combine themselves were sleeping, though such was clearly far from true. By daybreak, thousands more had arrived like the quartermaster had said, and before long the plaza could no longer hold the people gathering there. It overflowed, and many broke down the doors of the train station, which, until dawn, had been empty and dormant. Confused citizens arriving by train were hurried to the statue, where they received equipment. At 7 AM, the first signs of the Civil Authorities began to appear, and within a half hour, gunfire was heard crackling in the distance. The Combine had seemingly spent all night preparing to mobilize. Ian found himself waking up abruptly at the sound of extremely close gunfire. Confused, he realized he had fallen asleep during the preparations. Keith was nowhere in sight. Rising to his feet, Ian picked up his weapon and ran to the nearest checkpoint. Several fellow resistance fighters had taken cover behind a pile of sandbags, and up the sloped street, metro cops had done similarly. Ian raised his weapon and fired three random shots in the general direction of the advancing units. The sound stung his ears, and he was distracted just long enough to forget to take cover. He snapped back into reality and did so as a bullet flew past his ear in a sharp buzz. Raising the MP7 and sticking it over the wall, Ian pulled the trigger and let off another burst of rounds. Several more citizens in resistance garb showed up and initiated suppressing fire from the rear, giving the others a chance to move up. Ian followed two citizens brave enough to make the push. Heading up the street, they took cover in the foyer of an apartment with it’s door blown off. In a moment, the new arrivals had had an opportunity to move up, and had joined them. The one who had initiated the suppressing fire, carrying a bipod-mounted AR2 Pulse-Rifle, had headed upstairs. Above, he set up the rifle and briefly following could be heard raining fire down on the metro police behind the car barricade up the street. The others took up positions along the windows on the first floor, providing fire for their friend on the second floor. There was no more room on the first floor; Ian’s submachine gun would be useless on the second floor. Reluctantly, he split off from the others, heading through a back door into a storage room and finally into an alley. No sooner had he cleared the door than a cop had emerged from behind a dumpster. The masked foe opened fire with a pistol, and Ian took cover behind a trash can. Several bullets tore holes in the side of it, and Ian rose to fire at his foe, who had retreated to the dumpster. They exchanged fire until both had expended their ammunition. Unwilling to pause the engagement, the cop charged at Ian with an activated stun stick. The cop swung his stick for Ian’s leg. He vaulted over it clumsily, nearly losing his balance in the process. He slammed the butt of the MP7 on the cop’s head, stunning the man for several seconds and causing him to stumble backwards. Ian kicked him in the gut and hit him on the head a second time, finishing him. The cop fell back against the dumpster, sinking to the ground and slumping over, unconscious. Ian seized the stun stick and an extra pistol magazine from the unconscious form before setting out yet again down the alley. At the end of it, two cops were guarding, foolishly not watching their backs. Ian hooked the MP7 on his belt, and, taking up his sidearm in one hand, wielded the stick in the other. He hit the first cop over the head with it, and as the second spun to face him, jabbed the other in the gut. Both fell. It occurred to Ian it was set on a higher power setting, likely the reason they had fallen with just one hit. Ian continued to sneak down the street, where three other cops were hiding behind sandbags. One spotted him before he could get within melee range and fired. Ian responded by returning fire. His assailant was struck, fatally wounding the offender. The other two promptly surrendered. The others exited the apartment and joined up with Ian. With any luck, they would push through to the canals and clear an opening for reinforcements to pour through from the underground. This feeling of hope was immediately crushed when the first Combine dropship landed. ======= A whole week had passed. A bloody, costly push towards a segment of the canals had proven successful days earlier in the attempt to offer another breach for reinforcements, though it had cost many resistance fighters. With the flow of hundreds of allies from the underground, real progress began to be made against their oppressors. The initial first waves of Combine soldiers had been all but obliterated with the reinforcements, a prospect completely foreign before the reinforcement flow had been increased; Ian witnessed most of it from behind the front lines, having been put on mostly secondary duties. He thought on this as he peered out the window of a nearly destroyed office building. The damaged floor felt as if it might give out and send him plummeting to his death on the concrete sidewalk of the courtyard four floors below. Gunfire now crackled across the city even more forcefully than before, erupting in massive, prolonged bursts rather than rare and distant impulses. Somewhere far off, auto-guns and suppression devices were booming dully. This block was fairly quiet, and most of the citizens and rebels in the area were on watch or milling about. The only calls to arms in the area that day had been false alarms. For all intents and purposes, the area was secure. Ian wondered where Keith had gotten to, or if he was even still alive. The thought bothered him as he took up his submachine gun to report for patrol duty. No sooner had he risen than a scout had returned, frantically waving his arms. He stopped down below to catch his breath and then shouted to get everyone’s attention at once. “Freeman’s in the Citadel! He’s going to take out Breen himself!” the young man screamed with all his remaining might before sinking to a slumped sitting position on a planter. As if on cue, the Citadel lit up shortly thereafter with many gigantic spotlights, and promptly went into what must have been a high alert mode. Immediately following, the ground began to rumble violently. Ian fell off the makeshift platform he had chosen to take him from the office to an adjacent building and grabbed a rope dangling from it with his free hand, slowing his fall and causing him to land hard but almost harmlessly, save for some minor pain in his legs and his hand, which felt as if it was on fire. He attempted to shrug it off and approached the battalion leader, who sat with relative composure despite the rumble, questions in mind. His attempt was cut off by an exchange between the battalion leader and the messenger. “How long ago did they tell you Freeman got in, and where?” the leader asked forcefully, speaking quickly as a sudden concern abruptly showed in his eyes. “A half-hour ago, at the Horse Statue, Ilyich Plaza. They told me Freeman had just breached one of the Citadel forward battlements.” The commander’s eyes only showed deeper and deeper concern. Rising, he began to shout. “You’ve seen what the man can do. He could bring down that tower, and the whole city with it!” The man paused to inhale deeply and continue. “You ran five miles on foot to tell us. If Freeman touches the reactor-” the commander could no longer continue speaking. He was shocked at the notion all their work might have been for naught. Ian was about to insert his own two cents on the matter when a final massive heave from the ground threw everyone down. Ian covered his face in a vain attempt to shield himself as a wave of dark energy swept over the whole city. Time seemed to grind to a halt, and the distant sounds of fighting, regardless of how hard one strained, could no longer be heard. Everything went quiet, and Ian could no longer see, hear, smell, feel, or even taste. The city was plunged into a black void. ======= There was no telling how long they had remained engulfed; it felt like years, though it had probably only been a few hours, perhaps a day; none of them could be sure, as they had all seemingly lost consciousness quickly after being engulfed. When Ian rose to his feet again, several of the buildings around them had buckled and crumbled. The lighting was an eerie orange. The Citadel was no longer just simply on full alert; it was in what was possibly a self-destruct stage. It certainly looked it: a swirling black vortex, a bright orange cauldron of dimension-tunneling energy at it’s center, had materialized atop the looming spire. Freakish green lightning shot forth from the disturbance at the top, and occasional rumblings were also present. Alarm klaxons were distantly audible, as were the sounds of renewed battle. Sooty debris hung in the air like a sort of thin but imposing fog. Everywhere, men could be heard yelling orders, cursing, praying to their respective deities, all with fervor. The city had come alive yet again, similar to earlier, as a roaring, writhing mass of struggling men versus trans-human super-soldiers. This time, however, the whole establishment was shaking and crumbling around them amidst a massive uproar of the quickly alienizing environment. Bizarre Combine barricades were springing forth from the ground to halt any sort of reasonable advances; enormous numbers of striders were being let loose without any further regard for the city’s structural integrity; and even non-Combine trains were being one-by-one sabotaged to prevent escape, all of it in a last ditch effort to prevent the citizenry from winning the battle. Perhaps it was pride; either way, it was grim, with a vague hint of being in favor of the human resistors. Ian had lost his submachine gun, though in a moment he had taken up an AR2 and primed it. One of the bustling lieutenants, seeing him wandering around the site aimlessly for lack of orders, had addressed him specifically to inform him that one of the train stations near their encampment was prepared to take refugees escaping the city and had multiple trains available. Ian inquired and found that it was actually in the general direction their push had taken them earlier before they had set up in their current position. Hurriedly, Ian checked for any sort of equipment scraps to take with him besides spare ammunition and then headed out of the courtyard, taking a path to the street and joining up with several citizens he vaguely recognized from his adopted detachment. “What do you think it was?” one asked of another beside him as the group headed up the street, which was littered with bodies and some random equipment but was otherwise secure. Ian avoided the passing anywhere near the bodies, as if one of the corpses would somehow reach up and grab him in the hopes of dragging him down beside it to make him as they were. “Dark energy, the captain said. Don’t know if he even has a clue what he’s yappin’ about, though. He once told me antlions spat acid,” the other replied, dreadfully ignorant of his own knowledge shortcomings. “Sounds like he’s read too many Combine Weekly articles,” the first said, clearly skeptical as well. They both laughed unnecessarily loudly. Ian kept going and eventually increased his pace so as to pass up everyone else in the squad except for the leader, who himself seemed absent-minded and oblivious to the violence present mere meters away, separated from them by a flimsy wall of buildings on either side and assorted piles of destroyed vehicles on the street itself. In a moment, the train station’s façade was visible, and the pace of the whole group seemed to quicken as it further came into view. The troop marched up the steps, and Ian was the first to swing the doors open. Rather than a group of citizens ready to greet them, however, several Combine soldiers were present. Ian raised his rifle. A quick trigger pull was all it took to fell the first, who had never seen his assailant. The second he took down by a headshot before the soldier could completely bring his weapon up to a firing position. The third managed to return fire but missed, and attempted to run for cover in vain as a round from the pulse rifle caught the back of his head and brought him down as well. It had all transpired in the space of several seconds; the station remained still after the altercation; Ian surveyed his work, and the horror of it began to get to him. Blood had gathered around the three bodies on the floor, and for the first time the glory of war, as he had assumed it, was long distant from his mind, and instead was replaced with a feeling of guilt for the men he had struck down himself; his only consolations were that they were likely too far gone to ever be reversed back to humanity, and it had been a matter of self-defense. The others scarcely even noticed that three people had just died right in front of them, and continued carelessly on as Ian stood staring at the closest soldier’s body. Reluctantly, after a moment, Ian continued to freedom and caught up with the others, who were gathered in a small side room. By the side access door that led directly to the train yard itself, a ragged-looking man in a police uniform directed the others through the door and gestured for Ian to join them. He seemed too busy to speak to them directly, and instead appeared to be speaking with a man in an orange suit. The man carried a glowing yellow device of some sort. He did not speak, but seemed to understand the urgency of whatever information had just been passed to him. In a moment he had turned and headed back out the way he likely came, the same way Ian had entered. In a moment, Ian had stepped outside and boarded the nearest of the remaining trains idling in the yard. The door shut behind him, and he was crammed in a train car with at least twenty other people. There was little room to sit or even try to move. Ian could see Keith, who spotted him and elbowed his way through the crowd just after the train began to slowly creep forward. A large cut ran across his left cheek. “Some crazy stuff back there, huh?” Keith said almost enthusiastically. He masked the obvious signs of fatigue that showed everyone on him; everyone bore the fatigued and grimy mine worker appearance to some extent, and likely few of the citizens had slept lightly more than a few hours each night the past week. “Yeah. We made it, though,” Ian replied weakly, his adrenaline from the earlier encounter beginning to wear off, and his drained nerve endings finally catching up with him. He could barely stand, now that he thought of it. As Keith turned and attempting to reclaim his previous spot, Ian realized just how exhausted he really was, and he would have collapsed were it not for his position near one of the windows. As he leaned against the window, he peered out at the Citadel in the distance as it came into view on a bend in the path. Dozens of small pod-like objects ejected from the tower, and in a moment it began to shine a bright white. Blue energy of some sort began to gather in a tumult at the base of the Citadel, barely visible over the building-tops. It was quickly growing and expanding outward at an alarming rate. “Hey, uh, guys,” Ian mumbled. When nobody took notice, he shouted it, drawing marginally more attention. Finally, he just screamed and slammed his fist on the window. He had everyone’s attention at that point. A panic cut through the train car, followed quickly by the next after some hand signals to a nearly asleep citizen leaning out an open window in the car ahead of them alerted him to the possible danger. The message spread like wildfire to the other two cars and finally to the driver, who increased the train speed as much as was possible. In the distance, the blue energy which had been a haze behind the distant buildings grew to a deadly low-flying, roaring cloud of light blue, nearly cyan, irradiated particles mixed in with dust and debris picked up from the city, growing ever closer to them. Briefly visible to one side was another train, lagging behind somewhat. It came into clearer view after several more curves in the train tracks, and the man in the orange suit was visible for a split second before a low hill had cut off the line of sight. The city buildings had thinned gradually until there were only outlying farmhouses and small suburb remnants, long since abandoned and cut off from Combine territory for their proximity to the wilds, an area well-suited to concealing a belligerent resistance base. Ian’s heart raced as the blue cloud of energy drew to within a few dozen yards of the train car. Chunks of concrete, metal, and soil fell like rain everywhere as the cloud drew nigh. They banged loudly on the roof of the train cars; one large piece scratched the window on one side, and another simply cracked the window next to Ian. His heart raced like a Greek Olympic athlete as he realized how helpless he was to avoid the storm of alien particles thundering up behind them. The sound of the panicked commotion on the train car was completely smothered by the massive external gust of sound produced by the blast behind them. “Hold on everyone!” the driver called over the small speakers in the corner, almost a whisper in the face of the vastly louder sound waves encompassing them. “We’re about to get hit. Brace yourselves!” There was one car behind Ian’s. The energy wave likely lost a considerable amount of energy, as they were at this point no less than five or ten miles outside the city’s outermost boundaries, but it looked as if the rear was about to be eaten whole by the ogre of a storm following them. Now even tree pieces were raining down like organic bullets, imbedding alongside microscopic metal fragments all along the outside of the train cars as they went deeper and deeper into the woods. Finally, the rearmost car was ripped completely from Ian’s, lifted up from back, and hurled off into the woods, the inhabitants faintly visible from Ian’s perspective being tossed around inside it like a squishy sack of marbles. The energy was lapping at the train car and had clearly lost much power, though it had stubbornly refused to halt it’s velocity significantly. Ian braced himself against the wall as blue energy, now more like a decreasingly vibrant blue-tinted white, completely engulfed his train car. It rumbled loudly as the energy shook them, the human marbles, as it did the other car. The glass shattered. There was even more screaming, and Ian let out a hoarse gasp as something, possibly someone’s knee, slammed into his gut. He ended up on the floor, and then on the ceiling briefly as the train car was flipped once. It eventually crashed hard on the ground and came to a stop just beside stream, half-buried. For a brief moment the energy storm swarmed over their car but ceased shortly. It had met it’s match; the train car was, unbeknownst to the inhabitants, lodged against a gigantic boulder. The blast waves had expended too much energy to continue pushing the disconnected car. Somewhere in the distance, the train’s klaxon could be heard echoing, it’s horn being sounded in victory. The other three cars had survived. ======= Ian had blacked out shortly after the train car had flipped and landed again. He opened his eyes to find himself lying in the grass, tall conifers rising all around his immediate field of vision. It felt as if he had been dropped in a pool of liquid relief. He had survived and escaped in one piece. Or had he? He could barely move one of his legs, and he noticed, with a slow, sluggish turn of his head, that there was blood on the grass next to him. Another wave of relief, the antithesis of the previous moments, flowed over him as he spotted a resistance medic approaching. The man was black, middle-aged. Some scruffy facial hair that looked like it had not seen any sort of care in years. He had initially appeared somewhat grim but, upon seeing Ian was conscious again, had quickened his pace. “You’re one lucky kid,” the medic said, kneeling beside Ian and examining a minor head wound and shortly moving on to the nearly immovable leg. “Hit that wall a bit harder and you would’ve been dead. Your leg’s pretty banged up, and I don’t suggest you put much weight on it until we can get you to White Forest to be examined some more. You’ll live, though.” “White Forest?” Ian asked, his pulse briefly quickening at the mention of a possible resistance headquarters. “We’ve got a base up in the hills. The Combine don’t know about it yet, too. We’ll get you and the others there when we can get a few trucks down to pick you all up.” Ian contemplated that briefly. The medic was satisfied with his work, and he set a medkit down beside Ian before he began to rise. He turned and was about to leave when Ian interrupted him. “One more thing,” he said, sitting up and withdrawing some rations from the medkit’s food compartment. He was starving, almost literally. “What happened to the last car?” The medic thought. His eyes lit up as he remembered. “The one furthest back in the woods, right?” the man replied. “They’re mostly alright. Everyone’s gotten banged up a bit, but you had it the worst.” Ian nodded, and with that the medic departed. He wolfed down the saltine crackers he had retrieved from the ration bag. He withdrew a canteen from the bag and stopped to think of his good fortune. He had tried to put the memory of the kills earlier out of mind, distracting himself with the water. It was a salve on his dry tongue and throat. He finished the bottle and, relaxing, leaned up against a nearby tree. He took one last look around him, taking in the surroundings. It was almost nightfall, and all around him the others were setting up for the night, in various states of consciousness. Most of them were well enough to get moving on foot if necessary. Closing his eyes and grinning ear to ear, Ian fell into a deep sleep, well-pleased with his survival more than his actions those past few days. He would not be worse off if he never had to kill something ever again. [/quote]

They're a lot longer than mine.

[QUOTE=Samiam22;19562436]They're a lot longer than mine.[/QUOTE] lol I really liked Doomish's one. Don't have time to read anything longer, unfortunately. Maybe that's why Doomish wins? Succinct and entertaining.

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been on recently. I'm confirming that Doomish is indeed the winner. While Zui will no doubt give his reasons for choosing 'Frank', mine are as follows; Engaging plotline Reasonable length No excessive/unneeded description and above all a satisfying, well-rounded ending. Well done. We'll be sorting your prize out soon.

Wish I knew about this earlier. Grats Doomish.

I would've participated in this, just I'm a mess with coming up with ideas and wording them. Bravo to Doomish, but personally, I liked Jenkem's entry a bit more. It was just the style of it.

My reasons are the same as Maloof, with the difference that he made a story out of a character that has only 1 line in the entire game.