More info plz?

Is there a word limit? Type of writing preferred? Just anything is allowed?

Can I be a judge?

Anything is allowed. Except swearing an other things the Admins would ban. Let's keep it easy for them. :)

@Jithkeeper, the first-place winner will be the next judge. Good luck! 

Heck. Yesssssss. 

I think you might want to extend the deadline... that doesn't give us very much time. 

I'm in! Cool prompt. 

I agree with you, Soren. We probably all could need extra time.  

Understandable. Does the 25th sound alright?

Yes, the 25th sounds fine.  

16 days left guys, please get your submissions in soon.

Kay, SO, short story contest. I don't often do this sort of thing, but it's time to stretch my WRITING MUSCLES, SENOR! 

The tree's branches, at rigid right angles, bare as a lady's ankle, waved in the wind like a grave salute to the barren landscape.

Dry, brittle grass which seemed to have folded over in little hillocks of defeat over the ground, making any unwary step likely to twist an ankle. The dirt was just frozen enough to hurt if you fell, but not so frozen as to be sure footing. 

Someone had been here before.

Someone with military boots, someone with time to spend, someone who probably seriously hurt themselves in the treaterous landscape. It looked like the person had tripped several times over the grass, but had persevered on through the half-frozen muck, to stand, on top of what might have been, with love, care, and a large amount of hope, a graceful hillock, if it brushed itself up and got rid of the murderous intent on making your small tumble down it a deadly fall into oblivion.

Three feet can kill.  

The field was, truly, out to get you, either emotionally by getting you down, or physically getting you down on the ground with a bloody nose.

Actually, it looked like several other people had already gotten a bloody nose, to judge by the specks of red all over the place. There were red specks on every rock. The rocks - stones - were lined in rows. Each speck was a flower, red as a Regimental uniform.

It looked like people had died here.

Not because of the geography, but because of the gravestones. The little hillock overlooked them. Each of them had a name. Some of them had quotes underneath them, or just sentences trying to sum up all the love and emotion that someone had felt for the person buried under the harsh, brittle earth. The lifetime they could have had, the hole that was in the world now that they were under the cold ground. The happiness that someone had felt for the one now sleeping with a stony pillow, on sheets of soil, tucked up, save, never to suffer heartbreak, loss, sadness, ever again. Words that tried to say that, someone, somewhere, had cared.

Would always care. 

And some said nothing. Sometimes silence says more than a thousand words.

Near the end of the row, past expensive, white headstones, past old limestone blocks, past rocks that someone had simply heaved over the grave and crookedly chiselded in a name, was a mossy plack set deep in the ground. Earth had started to cover it, but someone had dug it away, scraped off a bit of the moss, and traced the words on it.

It looked like someone had stood in front of it for a long time.  

An old military cap was beside the grave. A bright red poppy, a speck of blood on the barren landscape, rested on it. 

The wind would soon blow it away.

But whoever put it there didn't care. 

Hope that was good - I abruptly changed style mid-piece, but I mean, I can't miss cracking jokes at deadly geography. Hopefully the ending was nice. 

Ooh, I'm in! 

I wrote a poem, is that okay?

last one standing

(when you’re the last one standing)

(and everyone else is lost and falling falling fallen)

(and you feel you should fall too)

(it’s not fair to be the last one standing)

(they don’t deserve this) 

(oh, but you do?)

(no, no but-)

(there’s a terrible loneliness in being the last one standing)

(they all should stand or i should fall)

(and oh, i know which one is easier, love)

(i can’t)

(i have to keep on standing)

(but oh)

(but)

   ( it’d be

so

easy )

why does this place feel so strange?

it’s just an empty battlefield

’salute for the dead and leave, love’

there’s nothing left for us (me) here