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hi! if you’re here from the writing comp panelist project, the following posts have a few excerpts of writing you can critique. thank you to moonsy (@moonlitseas) and sun (@sunclaw68) for providing said excerpts - and without further ado, have at it, and let a host know if you have any questions!

excerpt A: 517 words

— (stage two - anger)

As the years passed, we grew by the light of our suns and the seeds of our earth. Side by side, we reached for each other and stretched towards the sky, our limbs growing sturdier as we went. Our friendship flourished alongside our earthly beings, a bond weaving tighter with each passing year we spent together. It was a companionship between a steady, strong rooted soul and a forever wandering adventurer – we were a balance of nature, you and I.

But with our growing memory of the world we had rooted ourselves in, soon came the day when your mother told you of the future you were to have. You were to start school next week. At school, your mother told you, you would learn all about numbers and mathematics, reading and literature, nature and science, humans and history, and so much more you could barely imagine.

(You could barely imagine what you would become.)

For a while, you were resistant, clinging to the life that bound us together – you didn’t want to go to school, you said. You cared little for adding numbers and reading lines and curves set into a piece of paper. You just wanted to run through the forest, to feel the rush off the wind of your face. You wanted to taste the sweet scent of the flowers in full bloom, to cherish the world around you bursting into life.

You wanted to be with me.

Still, the promise of new friends and pathways to explore eventually swayed your mind. Despite our friendship, despite everything the forest had given you, you would give the world to be with someone like you. You wanted someone who could keep up with your energy and imagination, someone who could speak to you. You became complacent, excited, even, as the day drew near – school, your mother told you, would be like your new second home.

(Was that really all it took to turn your back on me?)

Little seemed to change at first – you would run up to me every afternoon, just as you returned from your learning endeavors, to embrace me as you had all these years we’ve grown together. I would bend my branches for you, just as you would wrap your arms around me, closing your darkening hazel eyes in contentment. You would settle down on the earth below your feet to tell me all about your day – about the children and the model trains, about the teacher and the words she taught you to read off a page.

But in hindsight, everything began to change. You began to spend more time inside, away from the longing life of the forest. You were learning to play with numbers on paper instead of racing with the chipmunks leaping across trees, learning to mix glorious chemicals instead of planting fresh seeding flowers along our forest floor. You were slowly drifting away from us, abandoning the joy we had given you, the friendships you had built in your very own kingdom.

(Were we not enough for you, the forest and I?)


excerpt B: 496 words

The all too familiar feeling of the air thickening begins to set in.
You close your eyes and inhale one last time before everything begins to move in slow motion, your body alone retaining any sense of movement. Even with your precise control you are still a bit more sluggish than normal; it makes you want to scream.
Even though you’ve done this (so many) times, you’re still not quite used to just how wrong it feels, your breath mechanical, foreign, like it belongs to someone else. Your muscles straining against a barrier they could never pass, the blood slick and heavy against your hands—

No, no, not that, never that, you will not have it happen again even though it already has (over and over and over again) and you cannot stand to see this whole scene play out again. You inhale slowly and plunge your hands into the web of time, determined to see them washed clean this time—

The threads of light spool around your hands, your eyes flickering as you stitch and unstitch the fabric of time. You know that if you do this too much the holes in the timeline will get too large, but it doesn’t stop you from pushing your limits, from rewinding it
(again and again and again).
Because you can.
Because you have to—

It’s not working it’s not working IT’S NOT WORKING—

Sometimes you get there in time. Sometimes you don’t.
(What meaning is there to “in time” now anyway, when it’s all blurring before your eyes—)
It’s always the same, the whining static of power being lost forevermore and fire crackling as it reaches for an overcast firmament you know she will never see again and the blood, always the blood, pouring from places you never knew it could come from as you struggle and heave and try everything—

You can’t afford to waste any time, even as drawn out as it is. (Even though you’ve wasted so much of the fabric already, stitching and tying again and again—)

Again.
Until it works.
Until one little change means this doesn’t happen, means there is no power taken and thrown back to the heavens, means there is no rain and lightning beating down upon the earth—
(“You must remember, little one, that even though you hold a power few could ever dream of having, you are still mortal. You cannot claim to control every part of the timeline or be able to do it forever. You can break. You can bleed. And you can pay the price for trying.”)
She will never have the strength to say such things again.

No, no, she will, if you try again she will—

You feel something snap inside of you, a thin needle finally reaching its breaking point, fabric unravelling as each of its threads separate and dissipate—

No, NO, you need more time—
And you keep thinking that, over and over again, until there is no more left.



excerpt C: 407 words

People always fantasize about the seaside. They dream about the air and the ocean-scented breeze and the constant drum of waves against the smooth sand. It’s a vacation spot - which is to say that when all of the crowds descend on the shore in summer, {Яedacted} wants to scream. Families lay blankets barely a meter away from each other, close enough for plenty of elbow-throwing and frisbee casualties. On the days that the kid tries to go out he doesn't even have to walk off the porch to catch the acrid smoke of portable barbeques.
How dare they, {Яedacted} huffs to himself as he walks to the hill. Really. Stamping all over the place as if it’s theirs. (Nevermind that {Яedacted} walks alone on the sand in the winter, claiming the territory as his own.)
When he crests the hill, all of the people down on the beach look like ants. {Яedacted} cannot help but chuckle - the wind picks the sound up and carries it through the forest so the trees can laugh along. They’re just a hivemind, except that instead of looking for food everyone is looking for fun.
“We’re all the same!” The eight-year-old shouts it to the world before doubling over laughing. “None of it matters!” At some point he loses control of his body and tumbles down to the bottom of the hill still out of breath. He hasn’t found anything this funny in a long time (except for his family, of course). {Яedacted} gives a long exhale before rolling over to smoothly stand on his feet. The world has been oriented correctly once again. People are people. “Dxmn,” he says, because there isn’t anything else to say. “Dxmn!” He doesn’t have an excuse for being petty anymore. He’s just one of them.
He walks to the beach and weaves through the throng of people, kicking off his shoes and walking barefoot into the sea. {Яedacted} can feel the salt grind against his skin (everything has felt so much more acute since then). The foam washes up to his knees, then to his waist. His shorts are drenched and the cold makes {Яedacted} feel more alive than everyone else on the beach. Suckers.
A particularly powerful wave crashes down on the kid and suddenly he’s under, eyes wide, cartoon bubbles floating out of his mouth to the surface. The ocean is empty for as far as he can see.
(Which isn’t very far).