[Summer Contest Entry 2012] Hurricane

There were runners on the sports ground throughout the whole summer. Out of my friends in school those who really like the sport – or just want to keep themselves in shape – would naturally continue to gather there without even asking. And so I was there too. In my case it may’ve been also the fact that I had nothing else to do, but for many people it was something more irreplaceable and I felt like rooting for them. Someone once said that rivals are the best way to progress and that’s what I tried to do. Be a rival.
I ran beside other girls and boys till my legs screamed, laughed with them until my ribs ached and went out to eat or shop with several groups after practice; the first weeks of summer break were really enjoyable. I sort of know everyone in our school – everyone that matters, I mean, I’ve always left the odd ones to their own peace – so I’m definitely never short of company or action during summer. This summer, though, my social standing suddenly arrived upon a hurricane.

I haven’t had a boyfriend; I’ve never really felt a need to have one. All the girls are pretty hyper about dating and so, but I’ve stayed loyal to the idea of “peace and love with all humankind”, as that’s what my big brother and I vowed to do after our parents broke up. We felt like “if this is the ugly side of relationships maybe it would be better if it was all neater, not too close nor too far, peace and love”. So I’ve kept a distance, befriending everyone I felt like I could and keeping the peace on my front.
The thing is, that one morning my neighbor Alice confessed to me. It happened while we were walking to the sports ground, before the pedestrian crossing, within a throwing distance from our houses, under the heat-relieving shade of the oaks bordering the street. It wasn’t a surprise to me, “the way she swung”, but that’s not it. When I waved it off saying I only believe in love without commitment, "because commitment cannot bring peace of mind and destroys love", she didn’t understand me. I was of course glad for her feelings, but when being asked to be her girlfriend, I had to share to her my views upon the matter and that was where everything went wrong.
By the evening everyone seemed to have some new opinion of me, as all the boys looked at me with eyes I could not make sense of and all the girls had more or less a difficult expression. The groups I had so fluently associated with before were speaking or whispering among each other whenever I was on sight and I felt like I needed to ask someone what was going on. From one of the girls’ groups I heard that Alice had said I’ve admitted to whoring. You can imagine how I felt then. I was trying to recover from my astonishment when suddenly there were questions raining on me. Like “How does it feel?” and “Aren’t you ashamed?” and “How can you live with yourself?” and I tried to explain what I had said to Alice and what I had meant, but when someone blurted out “Isn’t that anyway like saying: †˜I practice free sex’?” I had to shout “No!” and sprint away from their voices.

It was unbearable, how could they misunderstand me so badly? Sun was going down and I kept on running further away from the sports ground, and while I did, I could feel all the eyes follow me. I was close to crying, my face was red, my breathing was ragged, my heart was pounding like the condemning townsfolk on doors of witches during the great witch hunt; I was close to breaking down and the fact that my pure ideal was turned against me to accuse me of things I would be ashamed to even think of was shattering the whole picture of my life. That’s how it felt.
Without noticing I had traveled all the way almost to the hills behind our town and slowed down in time to notice a small playground in between the road and some suburb houses. My legs felt like filled with liquid lead and I pulled myself to the top of a slide there to rest and think.
I was sweaty; luckily I had made my escape in my white t-shirt and sweatpants and not in some other clothes. Probably I didn’t attract too much attention running through the town like this. Every single passerby noticing me would’ve made it twice embarrassing. Maybe the sweat had made the t-shirt a bit transparent, but that can’t have been too clear… And it was almost dark already by then. Sitting there now, safe in summer night’s humidity, only sounds I could hear anymore came from bugs and open windows somewhere out of my sight.
I sighed and started to collect the thoughts that were struck apart and wildly flying around in my head. How suspicious it must’ve seemed; when accused, I fled. But what should I have done? My prim and proper life had suddenly went down the drain, no one would believe or even think about a possibility to live without love, sex and all the kind. What was wrong with my way?
I could’ve started to answer myself, but with other things than “it permits free sex”. Oh God, I blushed while thinking about all the things they were speaking about back there. I was horrified; I wouldn’t want to live my life bound with those kinds of human instincts. The only fault that I had come upon was what I had figured from my encounters with Alice: one doesn’t ever get close enough to someone. My way doesn’t really let you be friends in any deeper kind of level. Maybe she was hurt from how I made light of her hopes, and I haven’t ever really tried to understand anyone too deeply.

Suddenly I heard a voice and lifted my head. On the road, illuminated by the streetlights, I saw few figures gathering and starting to approach me. I started to feel terrified when I recognized some of them to be boys from my school, and the closer they got, the more I was ready to jump and flee. Except that now they blocked the only path out I knew. I had no other choice than to wait and see what their intentions were and clenched myself to prevent shaking.
“So here we have our famous mistress open-minded” said one of them, the most famous and generally liked of all the boys in my school. “What do you say; would you want to spend some time with us tonight?” Now I knew what to call that expression, how to interpret the eyes they had. And I was frightened.
“No! You’ve all been misunderstanding! I never said anything about - - !”
“But hey, everyone knows already!” he disrupted my protesting. “So isn’t it only natural, now that we know about your true nature, to make some closer acquaintance? I doubt you would’ve come all the way to the park beneath my room’s window with no intentions to meet me at all?!” He was clearly all set on accomplishing whatever he wanted to accomplish by calling up his gang late at night to a park where there was a girl sitting on a slide, the girl with the fame of being open to all suggestions.
The worst that could happen would happen. That was all I could see. All the little courage I had left ran out of me and nothing remained. I was empty. I had tears in my eyes and those boys wouldn’t stop. Not if I begged and cried. Not if I tried to escape. Not if I waited. No route, no miracle could save me.

Summer night was humid and the sky was lightened by stars. Bugs were making noise, and, as I later imagined to myself, there was a righteous hero, Dandare, walking down a lonely road from the hills towards a seaside town. He walked past a park, noticed a commotion, a girl surrounded by a crowd of boys with a “rape time”-expression on their faces. And he saved the day anyway. He made a chance for the terrified damsel in distress to sprint away from the grasps of the ordinary schoolboys, made into demons by lust, by walking to them and asking directions; which had the result of the gang of boys turning against him, leaving an opening for me to escape. Good Gracious, I hope he wasn’t hurt too badly.
Even though I ran the streets like my life depended on it, I soon heard the voices of the boys catching up to me. So[size=12][size=12][/h][/h] I got on my last hope: a bus leaving town.

To be continued?

Nice story to read. The start in fact somehow reminded me of an eroge games, but You can count it as my twisted mind's schematic behaviour. Later as the story progressed I could not help but to find it a little similar (in favourable way) to Marco Ikusaba and Ai Mikami storyline from Mirai Nikki. Though the point event of their high-school tie did not end that happily... well it was a 10 minutes too late. Also it was not their ;meeting point' so differences are huge.

I like the conception of different points of view on moral standards. Also the well known 'catch' with majority of people getting easily influenced and driving main character (or chapter character) to breaking point was neatly used here. It's really popular move lately... mostly probably since media influence, short self-awareness of singular people and (oh joy) plain but popular in each time genuine need to wind out own stress on someone... overall we can count all those as growing stupidity of humankind ;P (as I said: I am a terrible person)

I would like to see some continuation. Hell!: I would not mind it to be an actual game XD (only thing I demand are yet new twists on the plot ;) )

Thank you for your words!

I will continue. Not sure if I dare post more before they've finished judging the top three ('cause of the fact that I was supposed to compete, that's how I tried to start it), but I promise to fight over my own lazyness too, and continue writing on this. The game idea... Is out of my reach right now, but it won't die too soon from my mind. Thanks for the inception!

Hi there, Poet. Good to see more people taking part. I'd just like to bring your attention one of the rules stated in the main post for the contest.



I brushed through your whole story, but didn't really see anything that references Fakku.

Yes, I'm really sorry about that. The fact is, there was this well-known Fakku god there in my first version, but I later remembered how I should ask permission before using a user cameo, so on posting I just put there that "(insert the cameo)" line. I'm planning on filling it, the part of the occasional saviour, with some user's name when I decide on - and get the permission from - the user, and I'll take care that part is filled before the deadline.

As Art had pointed out, there's no reference to Fakku in your entry. Your entry has a cross-through now on the list of entries until you meet the condition of the rule. Thank you for your submission, regardless!

That said, this needs more spaces between those paragraphs which are literally sticking together - making it uncomfortable to read.

Damn, I loved this. This is probably the entry I liked the most amongst all those (4 of them I think) I've read up till now. Though Cinia has a point saying those paragraphs look like a tight pack, it personally didn't bother me at all. I guess the best way I could describe my feelings about this would be: A well-written short story about humans.
That's just my way of saying it though.

Edited today, the cameo is there now, many thanks to user Dandare for the permission!