31SentenceContest Round 20 – Oivas’ Entry
About the Contest
This story is an entry to @tristancarax’s 31Sentence Contest. The contest is exclusively on Hive.
If you fancy participating, you can find the contest here.
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Prompt
Here is the expected sentence order:
27, 30, 5, 14, 3, 29, 11, 31, 19, 4, 24, 12, 13, 22, 6, 25, 20, 8, 16, 17, 23, 26, 21, 9, 18, 7, 10, 2, 28, 1, 15
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Mysterious Disappearance
“It’s just weird how pets are vanishing every day and the numbers just go on piling,” Clara hardly looked at Aaron who was waiting for his orders.
The small town of about five hundred families was spread between a hill on one side and the river on the other side, making it vulnerable to wild animals, occasionally.
“It was a record, yesterday.”
“The only record is the incidents happening every night,” Clara turned to her deputy.
“No, besides that.”
Aaron knew getting Clara’s attention was one of the toughest things, and more so now, that her childhood town was immersed in panic at the back of those incidents.
“I meant that there were 22 pets lost,” Aaron tried again.
Clara was preoccupied with the lack of leads to the incidents, “I think someone has messed things up with the forest and all these wild animals have gone out of food.”
“Well, I worked with the ranger on that angle too and we were dumbfounded that all predators are missing.”
“What are you blabbering?”
Aaron was happy that he got Clara’s attention finally, “the rangers monitored the forest, and they did not find mountain lions or wolf packs.”
“So then what is hunting the pets, the bison and the deer?”
“No, their population has been wiped out too,” Aaron put the report down.
“Wait, wait, wait, so you are saying that there are no wild herbivores or carnivores and yet these pets continue to disappear.”
“That’s exactly what I am saying. The ranger feels there is some apex predator out there which first took down the wild herbivores, then the carnivores and now the domestic animals.”
“Mountain lions are apex predators and I don’t think that even a Siberian tiger would want to take it on.”
“Well, after exhausting the logical explanations, I happened…”
“… you jumped to the absurd, so what were they?” Clara did respect Aaron’s investigating technique.
“You remember the dinosaur artworks placed around the park?” Aaron already sensed Clara’s disapproval of the topic.
“Aaron, you are a smart lad, and I like you, so don’t give me something that you will rue forever,” Clara warned him.
“No, hear me out,” Aaron gestured for her patience, “these were given as a gift from the Egyptian museum when our Governor last visited the country. After that, when our Governor visited us six-months back, he gifted these dinosaur artworks to our mayor during the annual ceremony.
“I know the story, Aaron, so what’s your point?”
“I found that the Egyptian museum was famous for cursed artworks, one of which also sailed the Titanic.”
“Go on,” Clara’s frown acknowledged Aaron’s story.
“That dinosaur had an amulet,” Aaron showed Clara a photo.
“It’s missing.”
“Sheriff, that’s a Velociraptor which is faster than a cheetah, stronger than a lion, and sooner than later going to exhaust its food sources before turning on humans.”
“S**t.”
“Without the amulet, every night the curse brings the Velociraptor and its mayhem to life.”
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Image Courtesy: @tristancarax
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Reblogged, Upvoted and Tweeted: https://twitter.com/FreewriteHouse/status/1252284655916761089
The good thing is, there's only one of them! 😄
A very well-written story @oivas!
Thanks @free-reign.. On hindsight, a velociraptor would be a snack for a mountain lion. Had to overlook facts here... Hahah... :)
Ha! @oivas, I think the mountain lion would run in this case.
At least, my story believes so. But if you have to believe archaeologists then the velociraptor would have been just about twice the size of a chicken. Hmm.. definitely a meal for the mountain lion.
Of course, we will overlook that part for our story. ;)
You have garnered support from the @bananafish community. We appreciate your fine work and hope that you will continue to produce awesome content for us to feast our minds on.
Thank you @bananafish!
I think this story would be the horror version of "Night at the Museum." I think I'd love to see more of this story fleshed out. Looks fun.
Yeah, I wanted to start from the curse and then talk about how they find the amulet, but that was not coming out well. So, had to start with disappearance and end with the curse. :)
This is brilliant! I love the curse, and the way it builds up, Clara being too occupied to really hear what's being said until part way through is such a great element, it really helps set the reader up for hearing something so fantastical.
This was really fun, it would make a brilliant blockbuster story. It builds like it is the known, a dinosaur emerged from some forgotten place or escaped a lab somewhere, to terrorize the local town, but then the curse twist is so good. It being an amulet that's been removed adds so much - who has it? why? does it do anything if someone puts it on? I love how much wondering this one sparked :)
Hello @letalis-laetitia,
Yeah, I knew the story would leave a lot to be explained. I was telling Tris how I wanted the story to start with the curse and how the Sheriff and the deputy work to get back the amulet. Somehow, I felt this story came out better than the other. So, yeah, this is what it ended up being.
Thanks for stopping by! :)