Stories generated by RAN (Random Access Narrative):
I )
Deep in a dense forest a boy is lost while hunting with his father. The boy comes to a path with a sign to a cabin. After a two minute walk he sees the cabin with the lights on. He hopes he can use the owners' phone to call for help. The boy knocks with no reply but the door is unlocked so he enters.
He calls out but there is no reply. Suddenly he hears a noise coming from upstairs and decides to investigate. The boy calls out again as the sound gets louder and louder.
He enters a dark room, a dark shadowy figure walks towards him, arms out. The boy freaks out and reaches for his 45. Calibre that his father gave to him for hunting.
Shots were fired, then he turned on the lights, it was his dad, shot in the leg. His dad went on ahead because he ran into some poison ivy earlier on, he had sent his son to get some help.
Oh well.
The End
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Comment: It was interesting to use blocks to form a short story. Though I wanted to use more than one or two of the sides to add to the story, but I think the maximum number of blocks makes you use your imagination more as you construct your story.
II )
I descended the black, craggy steps which led into the deepest depths of the earth. Down and down they went, spiralling ever further. Eventually they led into a cavern filled with white flame. Hunched in a corner of the cavern an old man muttered to himself. "The suns are fading, I might create new light from the core of the Earth."
And, so saying, he activated a large machine in the cavern, the fire began to gather into a ball and then ascended to the roof off the cavern. The roof then opened, revealing an enormous shaft leading up, but as this was happening the machinery began to fail and suddenly malfunctioned. The ball of flame exploded in the space where it had been, a visible tear in reality remained. Through the gap a city could be seen, full of towering skyscrapers and bustling with life. Unexpectedly a plane emerged through the tear and crashed into a wall of the tavern. A young woman climbed and began to run in fear, but the cavern began to fill with a black smoke which merged with the remnants of the white fire. Out of this a beast of white flame emerged and consumed the woman. The creature then began babbling an unknown language which caused the cavern to be filled with a pitch blackness. All I know now is darkness...
III )
Dinosaur lives in a big house but is too scared to go outside and cross the bridge into town because of the vicious cat.
The cat walks a tightrope carefully so to avoid falling into a pit where there is a dinosaur, he is trying to get home safely.
The dinosaur comes along and smashes down the house so that it is just left as rubble. The cat that was in the house managed to escape just in time.
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Marco's comment: It encourages and stimulates diverse stories with alternate combinations.
IV )
In the beginning there was just one world, and on that world lived every monster imaginable, the ground was ruled by fearsome monsters that ate everything that moved, the sea churned in darkness as leviathans too revolting to describe proclaimed their mastery over the sea. The sky was filled with lightning and heavy dark clouds as storms waged day and night and the air was blackened by the swooping forms of carnivorous birds. Everything was dark and everything was in darkness, even the mottled brown plants suppurated evil smells and bristled with evil spines. There was, however, one lone goblin who had, by an unhappy circumstance been transported to that world by a cruel spell. Whether or not the goblin deserved such a punishment is immaterial to this story. After many long years a sun appeared in the dark sky and at the sight of such a troubled, depressed world she wept and a tear fell to the earth and as it fell its essence became a baby. Down, down fell the baby, through clouds and winds, past the sparkling bolts of the storms, falling faster than the raindrops. The sound of his landing caused a sound that echoed around the whole world. Such sounds and bright lights disturbed the beasts of the land, sea and sky, and roused them into such a panic that the whole world shook with the stamping off their feet and the splashing of their fins and the beating of their wings. Every primal creature cried out in fear at such a thing and many of the more intelligent ones would remember the day for years and years to come. However the goblin had a good head on his shoulders and back in his homeland he had seen suns and heard stranger sounds so none of these events bothered him in the slightest. Out he strode on his long legs (for the goblin had very long legs, how else could he have survived on that world with all those monsters?) to the place where the baby lay in the large crater the impact had made, gurgling and babbling as babies do. The goblin picked him up in his stubby arms (the baby was naked and obviously a boy) and carried him over many miles to his house in a region where some of the trees were a bit better behaved. The goblin cared for the baby and taught him to speak his own goblin language which he had had to write down because, being alone for so long he himself was dangerously coming close to forgetting how to speak. In time the baby grew into a big strong man and with his strength he fought the beasts and felled spiny trees and by the time he reached his mid-twenties the world was a totally different place, there were large crops of corn and juicy vegetables and the beasts were held back by large fences of sharp spikes and the beasts of the sea hung from hooks by the side of the house. The sun-man, whom the goblin called 'O' because that is the shape of the sun, was a lot taller than the goblin, who had grown old and walked with a very long stick. 'O' was so big he could leap over mountains and dig canals with his hands. One day, after all had been done O had no more to do except sit and think. A thought came into his mind and he said it to his goblin father in goblin language.
"Father, there is no one on this world like me, where am I from?"
"You came from the sun my son," replied the Goblin.
The goblin pointed with his green, wizened hand to the yellow orb in the now stormless sky. O looked at the sun and wished and wished to know more about the place he came from and why he had been sent to this world and why there was no one else like him. The thoughts filled his mind until he could hear nothing, see nothing and as he wished harder, thought harder he began to rise from the ground. The goblin tried to hold him, tried to speak to him, imploring him to stay, but O could not hear or see or feel anymore. All the goblin could do was watch as his adopted son rose into the sky, toward the sun. He never saw him again.
V )
The plane was cramped, I had been sitting in the same seat, not including toilet breaks, for eleven hours. I breathed a sigh of relief when I peered out of the tiny window to see the familiar Manhattan skyline bathed in fluorescent lights. I gripped the seat a little as the plane touched down. Within fifteen minutes I had slipped through the barrier, had my passport stamped and picked up the small carrying case that was my only luggage. Within twenty I was cruising down the highway out of town in a hire car. The radio was playing some crappy radio station, I wasn't interested, I was more interested about getting on the interchange and back home.
The moon hovered ominously overhead as the pointed tops of conifers appeared above the dark horizon, blotting out the bright, twinkling stars. I was dead certain there was no forest between Manhattan and my home, there was a bit of countryside, rolling hills, I hadn't been away that long for a whole forest to grow in my way. I decided, seeing as I was pretty sure I had been going in the right direction before, going through the forest and coming out the other side couldn't be a major detour. I had the window open, the night was cool and now, far away from the orange and blue glow of the city the surrounding area was bathed in moonlight. The headlights of my car lit up the grey tarmac road and the cats' eyes glittered. Soon the forest became totally enveloping and all I could see of the moon was an occasional white flash through the branches of the pine trees. The forest was all about me now, but I reasoned that the forest couldn't go on forever, eventually the road must lead to civilisation and home.
Suddenly I saw something in front I broke just in time and skidded on the tarmac in front of an old gate, rickety and worn, placed across the road. The wood was old and greenish and a mud-spattered sign was hanging at a rude angle with the words PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT inscribed in reddish paint. From my incarceration on the plane I was eager to stretch my legs and the inside light turned on as I opened the door. The multitude noises of crickets and cicadas met my ears as I walked through the cluster of moths that gathered around the headlights of the car. I took a long breath of the clean, pine-scented air and looked down the darkened road at both sides. How had I ended up here?
The road behind seemed just as promising as the road ahead of me, if I went to ask the people who lived in this PRIVATE PROPERTY I'd be on my way and back home in no time. Under my own steam in a place I didn't know could have me driving aimlessly for hours.
Instead of bashing the gate down or breaking the the heavy padlock that secured the gate I gingerly vaulted the worm-eaten gate. I left the car with its headlights on, just so if I wanted to find it, it would be easier. Loose tarmac crunched underneath my boots then gave way to dirt as the road turned into a rough path. I heard the difference in the sound off my footfalls rather than saw anything. The stygian darkness was all-pervasive save for a sliver of starlit sky above me through the pointed trees. I expected to find a small farmhouse, or a little cabin at the end of the path, but as I walked further the path carried on and on. I wondered to myself if this forest would ever end.
Suddenly above the trees to the right there was bright green glare, as if someone had lit up a flare. I turned off the road and quickened my pace, hoping to find a bunch of families at a light show or fireworks display, the pine needles on the muddy ground were soft underfoot.
As I walked on I saw the same greenish light much dimmer than before. but still visible through the trees. As I neared the source of the light I began to see the identifiable shapes off moving figures, but their movements were far from familiar. I slowed my pace and stepped quietly and with care on the needles, crouching lower. Trepidation gave way to abject fear as I came closer to observe with more clarity the horrific spectacle before me. With my last resolve I positioned myself behind a tree and gaped in horror.
A large clearing had been made in the woods, large enough for a mass of what looked like people, a large stone monolith and a giant hole in the ground that yawned cavernously. From its depths came the greenish glow, which was so dim it barely cast a shadow.
Around the rim of the hole in a large crowd a group of people in robes knelt on the muddy ground. They all rocked up and down in a fluid motion and babbled a chattering, disgusting language I am glad I did not understand. The babbling reached a creshendo and the kneeling figures plunged their hooded heads to the grass. The silence returned.
My attention was drawn to the rim of the pit as slowly greyish fingers crept over the rim of the hole. Dark figures rose up from the pit, clawing at the earth and raising themselves to their full height in the chill night air. Some of them, I could barely tell from the glow, had a least semblance of a humanoid form. Some were unnaturally short and squat, with stumpy legs while others were disturbingly tall, with great, elongated arms and legs that defied the basics of physiology. In the dim I could make out the shapes of faces that were carven out of nightmares, others looked as if they had been hardly carven at all. A fetid stench reached my nostrils and caught in my throat.
They hobbled about on stunted legs and twitched and groaned among the prostate mass of worshippers as other monstrosities disgorged from the chasm. I heard a flap off large wings and the sound of gnarled, deformed legs being dragged through stunted grass and snufflings and whisperings. I saw faces that were little more than just a mouth gape open and suppurate long strands of saliva that oozed to the grassy ground. All was bathed in the sickly green glow from the pit. I watched as one of the worshippers rose up slowly in front of the abomination with the large, leathery wings that hung about its misshapen form like a cloak. The nameless creature towered over the robed man as the thing opened what appeared to be one of many mouths to speak.
I felt something touch my boot and looked down to see a many armed, wrinkled thing worrying at my leg with a snuffling, pig-like nose, muttering softly. I gave a started and looked back in horror to see the eyes and half-eyes and eyeless sockets of every single one of those abominations glaring coldly at me.
I kicked up a spray off pine needles into the wrinkled face of the creature at my feet as I turned and ran for my life, back to the safety of the car. I ran and ran, back the way I had come, my heavy boots thudding into the ground. I could feel the wind rushing past my ears and felt sweat on my brow as I pushed past low branches and glanced tree trunks in my desperate effort to find the car. I could hear behind me fast approaching a babbling and a chattering and a shrieking, louder and louder, accompanied by the slow, steady beat of large, leathery wings.
With a gasp I thudded onto the road and my heart skipped as I saw the white glow of the headlights along the road ahead. I ran and ran, faster than I have ever run in all my life, and the slow, steady beat of those large, leathery wings came closer and closer.
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All text (except III) © RedSnow Studio
