This is my entry into Finish the Story Contest hosted by the late and great @bananafish and the loyal tribe that keeps coming back each week to take a crack at ending a story.
I, unapologetically, bring you a story that went well over the 500-word "suggested" limit. There was just way to much good stuff to pass up and leave out as the prompt churned forth my creative juices that were used to create the ending to this story. At the end, you will find out how this story came to be created. For now, hold on tight. Things are about to get intense!
“You can’t to do that,” she said in her broken English.
Her face was contorted in a rage, highlighting the wrinkles that came with late age. Lee Minkyung slammed the door behind her as she entered. “Other students. Yes. Say this is not equal. You can’t do that.”
Lee Minkyung pointed her finger towards the student in question, Park Dasol. The child’s lips still quivered in fear and anxiety, after having flunked her summoning test with a total and complete bomb.
“She failed. Yes.” Minkyung said. “Why you give her…another chance?”
Sarah Lopez folded her arms. Her excitement after first having met Minkyung deteriorated five minutes after their first class together, half a year back. Where Sarah’s style was calm, orderly and authoritative, Minkyung’s was hectic, erratic and authoritarian. The perfunctory policy of the Korean Magical Education Bureau regarding Korean instructors always shadowing foreign instructors in the classroom weighed on Sarah. It was Minkyung, and Minkyung only, that she butted heads with. Every day since then had been like brushing teeth with a razor blade.
This conflict, Sarah knew, was inevitable.
All other classes were perfect. Latin Summons accompanied with Bek Jinsoo, went smooth and the children brought out a myriad of lesser demons without error. History of Incantations with Lee Jaeyun was exciting, with students ready to participate, eager to learn the variations on Germanic blood rites and how these symbols shifted over time.
Sarah didn’t want to hate Minkyung. But damn if that bitch didn’t make it hard as hell not to.
So when Minkyung taunted Dasol in front of the class for failing to summon a basic familiar, that was the last straw.
Minkyung paced up to her and pulled Dasol’s breathing mask down, asking her why she was afraid to speak in front of the class. Dasol, large for her age, and in fact the largest girl in the school, stared down at her feet. Minkyung pulled the mask and let it snap back on Dasol’s face and at that, Sarah intervened.
She’d never interevened before. A foreigner wasn’t supposed to intervene in a Korean’s affairs. Especially an older woman’s affairs.
But Sarah did. And when the class ended, she brought Dasol along for an opportunity to summon the familiar with just the two of them in a side room meant for student studying.
Minkyung rambled on about how unfair it was. And Sarah finally broke.
“Shut up,” she said. “Stop talking and leave. Let me talk to Dasol. Let me help her, and that will be that.”
“Excuse me?” Minkyung bawked. Her neck shrunk back like a turkey and her splotchy makeup grew disheveled as the woman’s taught skin stretched over her face.
“Leave!” Sarah demanded.
Minkyung protested. Then they heard it.
“Hajima!!!” Dasol shouted in Korean. Sarah knew enough by this point to understand.
The student was shouting ‘stop’.
But she wasn’t talking to her teachers.
MY ENDING
Paek Seung-Hee, the quiet, meek, strongly empathic, girl who, yet unable to control the pendulum swings of her emotions, was known to fly into fits of rage, lost control of her conscious self.
"Hajima!!!" Dasol shouted again but her voice was unable to pierce her friends' defenses this time. Paek with her head hung low merely cracked a smile below her darkened, vacuous eyes, giggling on the stool she was seated on.
By Paek's side stood a powerful familiar, the Faded Bauknight. A group of children stood behind her, their eyes were emanating a pink glow, their minds were under her control, their strength being drained from them to fuel her ability.
Sarah had asked months ago that the child be put through more intensive care directed at trauma survivors but was denied because Minkyung had to be in the right no matter what the cost of the effect.
"Paek," rang out Minkyung's tumultuous voice, the veins of her darkening, black splotched arm bulging as her fists tighten tighter into a ball, "이것은 마지막 짚입니다...."
Cutting Minkyung short, the group of children said in unison as the Faded Bauknight mimed with its lips and clasped its gloved hands together, "I'm here to take you down." The voice, barely above a whispered growl, sounded like gravel being walked on while in heavy rain. The smell of burnt rubber loomed in the air.
Minkyung hastily summoned the Twins. "The babies are coming," she stated as a matter of fact but before she gave the command to attack, she was hit in the side of the head by the Faded Bauknight's batbomber so hard that she fell to the floor unconscious. Green ooze seeped out of the bag that stuck to her face.
Dosal was the next to conjure up a familiar. For a second, Sarah thought that her student was finally going to be able to pull off a spell during a time that mattered most. Instead, half of a girl with a piano keyboard and a fully grown raccoon came into view. The half-summoned girl melted like white snow mixing with radioactive waste while the rabies infested raccoon, cover with fleas springboarding every which direction from its dry, hardened hairs, started to run around the space in a haphazard manner, bouncing uncontrollably off the ceiling, walls, and floor.
Paek golf clapped, mocking her friend. Dosal had a tear in her eye from the shame she felt.
Sarah, who had been working on a new familiar for the last couple of months, summoned the Brown Box. It took center stage and demanded Paek's attention.
The Faded Bauknight ran to the side of the Brown Box and released a hail of bats inside of its empty head to scrabble the air. However, the bats became docile and found places to hang from inside of the Brown Box's head. When the bats where settled, the Brown Box used its head like an amplified stereo, knocking Faded Bauknight in the chest with repeated echoing attacks. When the attack was over, the Faded Batknight came through with a flying kick to the side of the Brown Box's stomach. Not only did the Brown Box double over but Sarah as well, for when the familiar gets hurt, the summoner feels it too.
Shivering in the corner of the room were two new familiars Dosal conjured up. They sat cow-eyed, lifeless, and uninterested. "God Damnit!!!" shouted Dosal at her failed attempt. The raccoon ran over to them and started biting them. Dosal's face formed huge red bumps with each attack the raccoon made.
The Brown Box stood back up. Through slow movements of the Taijiquan form, Brown Box conjured up a sidekick, Organgy.
Paek responded with Pink Tutu as back up for The Faded Bauknight.
Organgy and Pink Tutu engaged in the middle of the floor. Pink Tutu plied, releved, and then sauted, doing a full split in the air that hit Organgy square in the face. Organgy fell back on the ground and disappeared. One of Sarah's tooth came flying out of her mouth. The Faded Batknight caught the tooth with his gloved hands.
The choir of the children's voice under Paek's control sprung forth from the Faded Bauknight's mouth as it asked, "You want this back?"
Gesturing with its hand, the Brown Box enticed the two familiars to attack. When they did, The Brown Box countered with single whip. The Faded Bauknight was hit in the chest so hard that it fell back and Paek had some blood spew forth from her mouth while Pink Tutu's arm was caught by Brown Box's hooking action, which allowed it to take full control of Pink Tutu's body by having full control of its arm. Paek howled out in pain.
Sarah knew that pain could bring the child back to conscious control of herself. Just before she acted on her knowledge, a booming voice rung out from behind her, "ENOUGH!!!"
All familiars vanished. Paek's control over the children relinquished and her calmness returned. As if nothing had happened, the children ran back outside to the playground to resume the games they were engaged in before their minds were hijacked.
The room was eerily silent.
Sarah turned to the door's entrance where the head master's silhouette was seen. Minkyung, eyes blurry and suffering from a pounding migraine, woke up and saw the head master's silhouette in the doorway, also.
The Clocker appeared with a pocket watch dangling from his hand alongside a judge with a gavel, which stood in front of the head master.
"Minkyung, report to my office where we will discuss your apparent attitude problem. Sarah, ... good work. You will be taking head position of this class. Come speak with me later. Dosal... we'll... ah... we'll work on it."
The Clocker snapped his pocket watch shut, silencing the clock's ticking sound, and the judge brought down his gavel on his stone hand, a large cracking sound boomed forth - the sound was blistering to the ears. This meant the final decision was made and those who protested at this moment would face harsher punishment. Minkyung almost protested until she remembered what harsher punishment meant.
So, this year, I've been volunteering for the people who run the Hollywood Finge Festival. Last night I was asked to be a Fringe Freak for a gathering happening at Fringe central, invited by one of the lovely people who keep the place running smoothly and is, also, a fellow steemian, @stinawog. I agreed to go.
I didn't know what I was doing beforehand. As I listened to the announcements, I figured out that people were going to be drawing people who were standing still in front of the artist (me dressing up as a Fringe Freak later [The Brown Box]). Instead of missing the opportunity before me, I found a pencil and paper and joined in. Some sketches were done in 2 minutes, others five minutes, and others 10 minutes.
Later on in the night, after all was said and done, I saw that I had plenty of familiars to conjure up a fun story for this week prompt.
The only pictures I did not draw are the ones of me as the Brown Box, but the pictures were given for me to use.
Thanks for stopping by. Peace.
P.s. - Here is me in the as the purple freak performing my Taijiquan form.
| Previous | Finish the Story Contest | Entries | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Town That Changed | Even the Clouds Smile | The Border | Horror Vacui | |
| Black Star | Quitting Life | LER | It Awakens | |
| Apocalypse and Pretzels | Metallic Kisses | Curie upvoted The Battle of Bloodneck Valley | Awakening | |
| Curie Upvoted Obstinancy | The Last Will and Testament of Geralda Connors | Curie Upvoted Pirate Hunters | Spoon-fed Memories | Lucid Dream |
| The Taste of Chicken | Curie upvoted Hunt More Precious Than a Green Stone | Kayla | Curie Upvoted The story of Mr. Renhe Ren | Second Prize Winner Blue Inferno for Tres Culos |
| Leitner | Collaboration A Game in the Hall | Curie upvoted The Extraodrdinary Café | The Package | Curie Upvoted The Abysmal Biscuit |
| The Devisal of Mr. Dankworth | Pointy Eyes Shine in the Dark |
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