Ended BYC Writing Prompts! A Short Story Contest

[Amer]

I'll play.

Fat Bird's Revelations.

There was an expectant silence when I said goodnight to Tribe 1 and closed the door for the night.

Mora was perched closest to the rear door, next was Ruffles, then Fat Bird and finally Able.

Once Ruffles was satisfied I was out of earshot, she shuffled a bit closer to Mora, hopefully out of striking distance of Fat Birds beak and unable to contain her curiosity any longer, asks Fat Bird,

"How was your night with Bucket Boy then?"

Mora craned her neck out as far as she could without toppling off the perch in order to see Fat Bird past Ruffles and said,
"Come on Fat Bird, tell us what happened? Able said you fell in the pond and nearly drowned."

Able, who was busy picking mites off his bad leg hoped on to the roof of the nesting box below the perch and fearing a bit of a scrap might be in the offing, jumped up between Fat Bird and Ruffles. After some foot shuffling, squawks of indignation and a few pecks, order was restored, and Fat Bird who was now standing, said in a tone that forbade any dissent,
"I didn't fall in!"
Able quickly pointed out he was only relaying the information he had received from Jenny the Muscovy Duck, who had told him when he went to escort Fat Bird home at bedtime she saw Bucket Boy's sister lift Fat Bird out of the pond and carry her away.

'The Pond' is a large concrete clothes washing basin with a sloping corrugated side on which the wet clothes were scrubbed long before washing machines were invented. All the chickens know the water is deep and the slope slippery. No chicken has ever 'fallen' into this basin in the past and Fat Bird is a very experienced hen.

Chickens don't swim and avoid deep water. Their feathers are not water-proof and when their feathers are soaked, they can't fly, their body temperature drops and their body weight increases, making running much more difficult and flight impossible.

"What did happen then Fat Bird?" Mora asked.

Fat Bird, looking slightly shifty, took an intense interest in rearranging her wing feathers and muttered,
"I can't say."

Realizing that opportunity to increase her status in telling the others the story of that night might be slipping away, Fat Bird gave one final sweeping brush of her wing with her beak and settled down on the perch, while casually mentioning that Bucket Boy takes his feather off when he goes to sleep.

Ruffles and Mora's neck shot forward and their eyes widened, their attention riveted on Fat Bird.

Fat Bird mentioned in a deliberately offhand manner that while she was recovering on Bucket Boys soft rocking chair, eating the last of the tuna she had been given off the blanket that had been carefully arranged around her, she saw Bucket Boy go to bed.

Ruffles beak dropped open and her eyes went all wistful and misty,
"I love tuna" she sighed and slipped into a reverie where she attempted to recount all her favorite foods in no particular order.

"Shut up Ruffles" Fat Bird snaps, "the point is he takes his feathers off at night."

"Not sure I could fancy a man with no feathers" Ruffles murmured, still deep in her food reverie.

Fat Bird, eager to get to her most astonishing revelation, set about telling the whole story of that night.

The others sat silent and listened, eyes wide, slightly in awe of Fat Birds experience, and slightly in awe of Fat Bird, who had after all cheated certain death and spent the night with Bucket Boy. Fat Bird arrived at the point where she's eating the Tuna, gave Ruffles a threatening glance to forestall any further lapses in Ruffles concentration and continued her tale.

"It must have been late; easily badger time when Bucket Boy finished fussing over me and got me settled for the night. He turned out the lights except one, went to the toilet, and then into the room where his perch is. He took off all his feathers, droped them on the floor and got on to his perch."

Fat Bird paused and even in the gloom of the coop you could see that the memory of what happened next still haunted her.

"I couldn't believe what happened next. I was close to panicking. How was I going to get out? Did anyone else known where I was? There was no more tuna, no water, I just sat there paralyzed."

Able, Ruffles and More were now on the very edge of their perches with anticipation, necks craned, eyes practically popping out of their heads and in chorus shouted,

"What happened Fat Bird?"

Fat Bird took one more pause, shuddered and said,

He said "goodnight Fat Bird," rolled onto his back and went to sleep.

Pandemonium broke out. Mora who had leaned out the furthest in order to see Fat Bird as she told her tale, slipped of her perch with a brief squawk, and crashed to the floor in an undignified pile of flying feathers and dust. Ruffles, recoiled in horror, shuffled away from Fat Bird barging Able off the perch and on to the roof of the nesting box below banging his beak on the perch during the fall as he stumbled to maintain his balance. Mora, on regaining some composure and realizing what she was about to say was bound to bring an irate Fat Bird down from above her, dived into the nesting box, and warily craning her head out, neck bent so she could see Fat Bird above said,
"I don't believe you Fat Bird; everybody knows only dead things lie on their back."

Wow, that was a great story.

I don’t really get the point of the prompt.
Anyway:
I like the word limit, keeps out most of the pointless blathering.
Now the 500 word limit on the pullet surprise writing contest I have done, however…

 

[Shadrach]

They are allowed, you're just supposed to include the prompt:
View attachment 3483558

Fixed, I think (?)

 

[Blue Raptor]

Prompt: Murder Mystery/Fanfic
Words: 1,000

Not an entry.

The Skeld
A buzzing sound filled the air.
Rae grimaced, her mind slowly and painfully coming back into consciousness as she pulled her head closer to her body, feeling the cold floor rub against her aching skull. The buzzing noise in her ears slowly straightened out into a steady
womp.. womp.. womp...

It made her head throb even harder, and she could feel the vibrations of the sound through the floor. She finally found her voice and groaned loudly. Carefully and painfully, she blinked several times; trying to get a bearing of where she was. She squinted her eyes and tried to focus on the wall in front of her. It was blue, halved by a thick stripe of pinkish maroon on the lower part of the wall. The colors appeared purple, however, when the emergency lights in the ceiling flashed in intervals along with the alarm.
Womp.. womp.. womp...

That was going to get old real fast.
Something moved below her and, startled, she sat up with a grimace. A girl in a cyan spacesuit, flashing purple in intervals, with dirty blonde hair seemed to be faring just as well as she was. Rae finally got her legs under her and stood up only for her head to whirl with dizziness, and she found herself catching her stumble on the bench of a round, blue table. Rae’s long, black hair slid in front of her face and she swept it back with a shaky gloved hand. Her eyes traveled down her arm numbly, realizing that she was also wearing a spacesuit, a red one. A couple of sparse memories came back to her, and she stood up to survey the situation.

All around her, similarly clad people either lay limply on the ground or were beginning to sit up, wincing from a shared pain in their heads. “What’s happening?” Someone groaned next to her. He was dressed in an orange suit, grasping the table bench like Rae had been as though he’d float away if he were to let go. “I have no idea.” Rae found herself saying, subconsciously looking down at her left arm. A metal armband, flashing a red light perfectly timed with the alarm system, was blinking a message in red; warning her that the oxygen was depleting.
Because they were on the spaceship. Right.

Memories were beginning to come back to her.
“I’m sure we’ll figure out everyone’s names and all that fun stuff soon, but for now we’ve got to deal with this,” she said, pointing to her wristband and looking between the three of them as more people began to notice the crisis at hand.
“There’s a map on here too.” The orange-clad boy said, studying his appendage as he walked over next to Rae. “Alright,” a girl in a white spacesuit said, “we need to fix the O2 now before we all suffocate here.” She tapped her wristband, and Rae looked back down at her own.

Two minutes of oxygen left.

“We need to hurry.” Rae said firmly. “Someone needs to go to O2, and someone else needs to go to Admin. There’s an O2 panel in there that needs a code put in. The code’s already there, it just needs to be put into the system.” “I’ll go to O2.” The orange-suited boy said. “Cool, okay, I’ll go with him. Anyone else?” A girl in a purple suit and the one with the white suit volunteered. Rae directed them with the map where they needed to go, then nodded resolutely. “Alright, let's go fix this!”

One minute and twenty-seven seconds of oxygen left.

“This way.” The orange-suited boy said, leading Rae into the Northernmost room.
Red railings prevented anyone from falling to where the machinery and wires lay humming in organized disorder below the metal floor; Rae glanced at her map.
Weapons.
She paid little attention to the rest of the room’s furnishings as they ran through.

One minute and nineteen seconds of oxygen left.

One more right turn, and they were in O2. Plants grew in sealed glass boxes in the floors as the walls of the room flashed red over and over in intervals as Rae and her counterpart ran into the room; the siren still blaring.
Womp.. womp.. womp...

One minute of oxygen left.

Rae was beginning to feel lightheaded as the effects of the oxygen depletion and her run to O2 took a toll. She fumbled with the console foar moment before finding a pale yellow sticky note on the side. “Put it in.. hurry.” The boy panted, clearly feeling the same effects she was.
“Five, five, oh, nine, five..” Rae mumbled aloud as she put in the numbers and pressed the green button.
The panel flashed “OK,” but the alarms and emergency lights stayed on.
“What’s happening? It should’ve worked!” The orange-clad boy yelled, his voice frightened. “The other two must not’ve finished..” Rae responded, her heart beginning to race.

Thirty-two seconds of oxygen left.

The flashing suddenly stopped, and the sirens finally shut off. The fans in the oxygen room began whirring noisily, and Rae could feel cool, fresh air begin to flow through the vents. She took a deep breath.
“That was terrifying,” the boy next to her laughed nervously. Rae’s expression stayed grim. “Let’s go see what’s up in Comms. We need to contact MIRA HQ and see if they know what happened here, because I feel like I should know you..” She studied the boy closely, and he nodded in agreement. “For some reason, MIRA HQ thought it would be fine for us to meet each other on the dropship rather than in person on Earth, but I can’t remember anything past boarding, especially meeting everyone.” He shrugged. “Heck, I don’t even know who the captain is.”
“That’s me,” Rae said with a weak grin. “Rae, the new captain of The Skeld.” She stuck out a hand, and he laughed. “Honor to finally meet you Captain Rae! I’m Owen.”
He shook the proffered hand.

 

[casportpony]

Fixed, I think (?)

 

[ColtHandorf]

Wow, that was a great story.

I don’t really get the point of the prompt.
Anyway:
I like the word limit, keeps out most of the pointless blathering.
Now the 500 word limit on the pullet surprise writing contest I have done, however…

I found the 1000-word limit to be absurdly difficult to stay under.

 

[azurbanclucker]

I found the 1000-word limit to be absurdly difficult to stay under.

Some people like to watch the world burn.

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

Promt: mystery/thriller
Title: The Story of Angela

Angela had always been a peculiar girl, maybe it's because she had never known her parents. When she was just an infant she was left at the doorstep of the orphanage, when the head mistress, Miss Robin, found her she was tucked safely in a box with a blanket, a note, and an emulate. The note read, "Her name is Angela Brown, I can not care for her, please take good care of my baby girl".
Angela began showing extraordinary intelligence at a very young age, at just 3 years old she could do simple times tables and division and at the age of 5 she was doing complex mathematic equations. Angela was a very quiet child, she never wanted to play with the other girls or go outside, she never played with dolls or tea sets, all she wanted to do was read books or do her math. As the years passed, Miss Robin became concerned about Angela's antisocial tendencies, but she had never bothered to bring this up with her, until one cool fall day. Miss Robin asked Angela why she never joined the other girls, Angela answered, "To lower myself to that standard of "play" would be the same at to kill myself", this answer troubled Miss Robin, but there was nothing she could really do. As weeks went by, Miss Robin started noticing changes in Angela, she seemed very troubled, sometimes a sharp, peircing scream could be heard from the room, she wouldn't leave her room, not even to eat, Miss Robin brought food to her room but she wouldn't eat it. Three days past, and Miss Robin called a psychiatrist to see Angela. When they came in the room, Angela was lying on the floor, she was scrawny and pale, but her eyes were black, they stared at the doctor with a stare that seemed to look right though you. The doctor tried to talk to her but she would only speak in a jibberish language that was impossible to understand. The doctor was baffled and, not being able to do anything, left. Another week passed, it was Angela's 13th birthday, still she wouldn't leave the room or eat, the now would not speak in an understandable language ever and seemed to be almost possessed. It was 10:00 pm when Miss Robin heard loud banging noise coming from the room. She quickly ran to check on Angela but upon entering the room all the saw was a empty room, the bed was made and it had seemed as if nobody was ever there. For weeks they looked high and low for Angela, bit to no avail. Angela was never seen or heard from again.

 

[AmeraucanaHank]

Promt: mystery/thriller
Title: The Story of Angela

Angela had always been a peculiar girl, maybe it's because she had never known her parents. When she was just an infant she was left at the doorstep of the orphanage, when the head mistress, Miss Robin, found her she was tucked safely in a box with a blanket, a note, and an emulate. The note read, "Her name is Angela Brown, I can not care for her, please take good care of my baby girl".
Angela began showing extraordinary intelligence at a very young age, at just 3 years old she could do simple times tables and division and at the age of 5 she was doing complex mathematic equations. Angela was a very quiet child, she never wanted to play with the other girls or go outside, she never played with dolls or tea sets, all she wanted to do was read books or do her math. As the years passed, Miss Robin became concerned about Angela's antisocial tendencies, but she had never bothered to bring this up with her, until one cool fall day. Miss Robin asked Angela why she never joined the other girls, Angela answered, "To lower myself to that standard of "play" would be the same at to kill myself", this answer troubled Miss Robin, but there was nothing she could really do. As weeks went by, Miss Robin started noticing changes in Angela, she seemed very troubled, sometimes a sharp, peircing scream coukd be heard from the room, she wouldn't leave her room, not even to eat, Miss Robin brought food to her room but she wouldn't eat it. Three days past, and Miss Robin called a psychiatrist to see Angela. When they came in the room, Angela was lying on the floor, she was scrawny and pale, but her eyes were black, they stared at the doctor with a stare that seemed to look right though you. The doctor tried to talk to her but she would only speak in a jibberish language that was impossible to understand. The doctor was baffled and, not being able to do anything, left. Another week passed, it was Angela's 13th birthday, still she wouldn't leave the room or eat, the now would not speak in an understandable language ever and seemed to be almost possessed. It was 10:00 pm when Miss Robin heard loud banging noise coming from the room. She quickly ran to check on Angela but upon entering the room all the saw was a empty room, the bed was made and it had seemed as if nobody was ever there. For weeks they looked high and low for Angela, bit to no avail. Angela was never seen or heard from again.

Wow! This is awesome! Good job!

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

Wow! This is awesome! Good job!

Thanks!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Fourth Entry:

Prompt: Science-Fiction; de-extinction; climate change

Title: The Mammoth Steppe

Dmitriy Nikiforov looked up from his notes to watch the world below him. The plane was approaching the runway, and he sighed in relief. It had been a long flight, and Dmitriy still had more traveling to do before he reached his destination. He flipped through his notes on the project again, studying an area of particular interest.

The project’s primary aim is to re-create the steppe environment lost 10,000 years ago to manipulate ground cooling throughout the winter months, curbing the thaw of permafrost during the warmer months and lessening the emission of methane, carbon, and other harmful greenhouse gases. Global warming cannot at this time be reversed, but it can be slowed with intentional human intervention through the restoration of this ecological habitat.

The density of megafauna must be raised as the population is too low to affect the environment positively. Areas of the proposed Pleistocene Park will be fenced, and populations will be raised through their introduction, concentrating our efforts on localized areas.

He thought back over the years. The first grazing experiments began with the reintroduction of wild horses. Then they’d brought more moose to boost their numbers, and reindeer, muskox, European buffalo, or wisent, bison from the US, and Altai elk had been released in sufficient numbers to establish breeding populations. Recent additions of domesticated yak, cattle, goats, sheep, Siberian roe deer, and Bactrian camels had significantly boosted the numbers of herbivores in the park, and shipments of saiga were scheduled in the coming months.

Scientists have observed and documented tangible and measurable changes in the forty years since the project began. The grazers trampled the snow and helped keep the permafrost intact. This was recorded through temperature, and high towers in the park allowed researchers to watch the animals and monitor levels of methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor in the immediate atmosphere.

But the researchers still had to manually and artificially create the effects of large animals on the landscape to create paths through the mosses, willow, shrub, and young trees. But after the call he had received from George Church of Colossal Biosciences, it seemed that would finally change.

Dmitriy had monitored the biotechnology firm closely as they’d partnered with Pleistocene Park. Church had already been instrumental in the discussion of de-extinction and had successfully cloned the Pyrenean Ibex after previous attempts had failed. The Quagga Project and Aurochs Project had opposed the work of Church and his colleagues as the successful cloning of those extinct species undermined the decades of work that had gone into selective breeding programs to re-create them. But the United States owed the reintroduction of the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet to the former Harvard researcher. And Colossal Biosciences had publicly announced an effort to restore the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, to its former range.

The plane set down with a bounce, jolting Dmitriy from his ruminations. He organized his notes and waited impatiently to disembark.

The Russian researcher reached an undisclosed location in the Northwestern United States early the following day. After the commercial flight, he’d boarded a private jet and landed at a small, private airstrip. He saw a vehicle waiting to take him to the facility. The door opened, and George Church greeted him as the driver took his bags and placed them in the rear of the car.

The two men greeted each other enthusiastically with a broad hug and thumping on one another’s backs.

“Dmitriy, my friend. It’s good to see you! I’m glad you could come.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the researcher said. “How many animals did you say you’ve bred?”

“I didn’t say,” George said with a laugh. “But you’ll soon see for yourself.”

The vehicle moved down a road, winding through thick conifers. Dmitriy could see mountains capped with snow through occasional breaks in the trees. It was growing lighter, the sky a pale blue as it brightened. And then he heard it; the unmistakable sound of an elephant trumpeting in the cold morning somewhere past the trees. Dmitriy rolled the window down, and the air chilled him, but he listened again and heard an answering roar farther away. George was grinning like an idiot.

They burst out of the forest with unexpected suddenness, and a broad grassland stretched below them; a river wound through the thick grass with the mountain range as a glorious backdrop. The sun had fully risen, the plain glowed golden in the early morning light, and the snow reflected the light, making his eyes water as he looked toward the rugged peaks.

And there they were; elephants. They continued along the road, drawing closer to the magnificent animals. Tall at the shoulder, with long, curved tusks of ivory, shaggy coats, and small ears held close to the head. He saw they weren’t elephants. They were woolly mammoths, an entire herd feeding on the grasses. Dmitriy leaned out the window, counting the animals. He was so excited his breath was coming in short gasps, but by his count, he saw thirty-nine animals. Four adult bulls were identifiable by their larger tusks and more robust frames, twenty-eight animals that could be cows or adolescent males, and seven calves between several months old and a couple of years.

Dmitriy sat back in shock but couldn’t take his eyes off them. He thought they were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The vehicle stopped in front of a nondescript building, and the two men climbed out, separated from the animals by a strong cable fence. The Russian scientist stood there silently, watching them raise their trunks from the grass to feed themselves. The largest bull jostled a younger one as he browsed. One of the young calves was suckling, and he smiled. Dmitriy raised his hand to his face and realized his cheeks were wet with tears.

“This is more than I could have ever imagined,” he said to Church, never taking his eyes away. He felt like he’d stepped back in time.