The realm has been at war for over a century. Humans, goblins, elves, trolls — the four races have never known peace.
Until a new decree is passed. In an effort to stop the never-ending bloodshed, a new law allows students from different races to study at other kingdoms’ schools. No school is allowed to discriminate based on race, and all applicants must be accepted.
The only problem? A dragon has applied to go to dragon-slaying school.
During the last stream, chat voted that we write this prompt created by red580: Due to a loophole in the rules, a dragon has enrolled in a dragon-slaying school.
Or you can watch a quick video
of us writing/reading it here.
We also wrote a story based on a random fact from the Japanese book “Unfortunate Animals.” We did this before and it was a lot of fun, so I was excited to see which “unfortunate” animal we would write about this time.
Here’s what we got: Stinkbugs stink so bad that they can make themselves faint and sometimes die.
After coming up with a bunch of great ideas, including a reality TV shows putting a bunch of animals together in a beach house, and an Animals Anonymous support group meeting, chat voted for this one: an erudite stinkbug gets captured by a small child.
Enjoy!
Prey cannot provide immortality to the hunter, but it helps keep the hunt alive. I am chased in the constant pursuit of survival. My being is nary a small drop in the everflowing fountain of youth pursued by all, yet a drop is a flowing river to one dying of thirst.
And yet, nature has a strange sense of humor. The beast that seeks me is ravenous, even though I am far too small to sustain it for more than a moment. What folly! Why then, must it pursue me so? This creature as tall as a towering tree and fast as a summer wind. Yet it lacks the cooling breeze; it is just sweltering heat incarnate.
I run through the green forest, blades of grass that loom overhead, whispering promises of protection against the predator as I scuttle past. They grin grins of deception behind my back as I pass them. They know the truth; now that I have been spotted, the pursuer would sooner fly into the sky with its wing-less fleshy arms than give up my eventual capture.
I dare not look behind, and yet fate compels me. This creature, what sort of abomination is it? It reaches down to me with a solid, clear appendage, the likes of which I have never seen before throughout all of the Earth’s great taxonomy. It is a gaping-wide mouth that lets the sun pass through it clearly as if it were made of water as solid as rock.
The mouth slams onto the ground around me, encasing me in the translucent prison. I climb up against the side, the grass smashed and bent underneath mocking me as I struggle to continue forward in vain.
My arms and legs slide against the alien surface. I slip down to the ground, falling on my back, writhing in a pathetic attempt to turn myself back over.Yet another cruel decision by nature! I can see my captor perfectly from my immobilized position. I stare up at the horrific beast as it brings its true face down close to its strange, clear mouth. Wiggling tentacles attached to its protruding arms wrap around its mouth, and it picks it up, scooping up myself, dirt, and one of the cocky blades of grass along with it.
The sudden movement flips me back rightside up. Such freedom I have never tasted! I dash for the opening outside of the crystalline mouth, but before I can make it to the clear blue sky that I see outside, darkness slams over it. A metallic screeching sound seals me into the clear digestive tract of the beast, and I am shaken back to the ground, colliding with the dirt and the grass.
“You’re really in for it now, honey,” the grass cackled into my ear. It coughed and wheezed. Plucked from its roots, it was on its final breaths. “Always glad to see one of… you bugs… get what you… deserve.”
The soul of the grass phased out of its body and through the jar, back into the air. I cursed it for being so lucky. Would my own soul be so safe within the jaws of the creature? Or would it devour that as well?
My answer came in the form of a death greeting. What else could it be? The beast pressed its true-face against the clear mouth-organ surrounding me, presumably to begin the digestion process. I clasped my hands together as my mother had taught me so long ago and found myself praying to the same god I had scorned in my youth. What I wouldn’t give for one of the miracles that I had laughed at so often to happen to me now.
It begins. The clear mouth shakes as if the Earth itself has gone mad with rage. Side to side I slam against the impossibly hard mouth-organ, my exoskeleton ground down with each impact. It was a rainstorm of stones. A hundred crushing collisions that made me so sick I couldn’t even feel the searing pain. The dirt crumbles into my eyes. The dead grass scrapes my antennae, reminding me of my fate that I just wish would come!
And yet, something percolates inside me. An itch within my intestines that screams out to be scratched. I feel deep inside me for how to grab onto it. Once I find it, I squeeze as hard as I can.
Mistakes! So many mistakes!
All of my mistakes in life come shooting out of my rear in a frothy stream. Regret in liquid form, all of the friends I should’ve been nicer to, all of my family members I shouldn’t have fought with, all of the places I shouldn’t have traveled, all of them squirt out of my rear end as a sort of final farewell, ensuring that they get the last laugh over me.
The smell! It is everywhere. It is thick like swamp water and a hundred times more putrid. It permeates into every pore of my body, seeping its way deeper and deeper inside, filling me with such toxic waste I never knew possible. I can no longer see, taste, feel, or hear. Only smell. Everything is the smell of rotting meat that has been sitting in the sun for weeks. Everything is the smell of rotten fruit stuffed inside of a bloated pig corpse on the side of the road. Everything is the smell of a bear who just woken up from hibernation and unleashed four months of stored food into the wild.
I can’t take it. I’m vaguely aware of my body curling up involuntarily. From outside the clear-mouth, there’s a shout of something that sounds like, “Dinner time!” Then the sensation of falling. I think I’m just falling deeper into my own rotten existence.
Mind is shutting down. Can’t think. Cant breathe. One last mercy from nature: I can no longer smell. Everything goes black. The sweet relief of becoming nothing.
As the last synapses of my brain fire off, I hear my mother calling out to me. Hear my 27 brothers and sisters. They’re calling to me! From somewhere that doesn’t smell. I must… I must get to that wonderful place.
I do. It’s the last thing I do, actually. I am become a drop in the everflowing fountain.
***
“Hey, Molly,” Mom said as four-year-old Molly walked inside for dinner. “How was your bug-catching adventure today?”
Molly shrugged. “Enh, it was kind of boring. I just got one bug and it smelled bad.”
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published, the writing exercises, or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Deviantart/Eva-the-DragonLady