***Then there was silence, and it swirled around with great menace. So long as the writer is stuck in a guard shack at the end of a road with only one lane the silence will continue. As the writer shivers in fear of car collisions and angry vocal displays the writing remains untouched***
 

It’s time for a challenge. Gather round for a story or poem that is sour or sweet, sliced or whole, but it must be about PICKLES! Pickled watermelon, pickled cucumbers, pickled pig’s feet, pickled beets -- what else can you toss in and pickle? I suppose you could find YOURSELF in a really, bad pickle. All stories are fair game as long as they’ve got a pickle!

Melachen restlessly drifted across the brig, back and forth. "This is a real pickle," he complained. They'd seized his luggage and pushed him into the brig along with the North Quarter Guide. It seemed wrong somehow. He'd recently received an okay for his transfer from the South Quarter dorms to the North at the military school he attended and on his moving day a drill had begun.

"At least it was a pickle," his Guide, an android who looked just like a human, said from the corner of the room. Melachen looked over, his brows drawing together.

"Was a pickle?" Had it found a way out?

"Yes," the Guide poked at something on the ground with the toe of its foot. Melachen walked over and squatted down on the ground to see a shriveled little cucumber thing. It smelled sort of like dill and rot. His nose crinkled and he stood, moving away.

"Right, it was, now it's a gross pickle. Come away from there. It isn't going to get us out of here." Melachen kicked moodily at the bars that held them. The dark brushed bars looked like they belonged on a movie set, or in a nightclub. It was more that they were fairly new. South Quarter had won an all new brig in the last war competition.

"Maybe it could," the Guide said thoughtfully. "We could plant it in front of the door, then call for someone. If we lure them in they might slip on it then you can grab their weapon while I take the keys. After that we lock them in the cell and seek out your luggage."

Melachen stared at the Guide, "That sounds unlikely."

"It has a forty-nine point seven percent chance of working according to my sources. Do you have a better idea?" The Guide stared at him.

"Not really," Melachen shrugged. It was better than no plan at all. "Hey," he called out loudly, rattling the bars, "this Guide is malfunctioning. Hey!"

"What the hell's going on in there," it was Zeek-ium, one of the big burly guys who had caught them. It was just an amazing feat all things considered. Melachen shook his head. The drill should never have been taking place at this time. New students were coming in and would have no clue what to do.

"There's something wrong with this Guide," Melachen reiterated as Zeek-ium came into view, "it's hurt or something."

"He," the Guide said, holding the mushy pickle in the air.

"What?" Melachen had expected the pickle to already be on the floor and the Guide to be acting injured or something. Besides, since when did Guides have a sex?

"I identify myself as being of the male persuasion," the Guide replied, holding out the pickle to Zeek-ium. "I am in need of immediate maintenance."

"The Hell?" Hell appeared to be Zeek-ium's swear word of the day.

"There is a ninety-one point two nine percent chance I will explode if I go untreated," the Guide informed him. Melachen couldn't help being impressed. He hadn't thought Guides could lie.

"Aw, Hell," Zeek-ium pulled out his key and put it in the lock, evidently unwilling to take a chance with a glitchy Guide. "You stay there," he commanded pointing his pellet stunner in Melachen's direction. Melachen put his hands up in the air.

"No problem, I'll stay right here, just do something about it... him I mean."

Zeek-ium waved the gun toward the door, "Come on then."

"I have a name," the Guide replied.

"Good for you, now get out here so we can get you to a mech," Zeek-ium replied.

"No."

Melachen stared at the Guide. What was it thinking? All it needed to do was get Zeek-ium to turn his back on one of them and... Zeek-ium turned to face the Guide full on, putting his back to Melachen.

"Look, I don't know what the hell your problem is," he began. Melachen jumped on him, slamming him into the ground with enough force to knock the gun out of his hand. It skittered across the floor. The Guide dropped the pickle and ran for the gun. Melachen grabbed the keys and moved away as his Guide held the gun on Zeek-ium.

"My name is Dusty," the Guide said waving the gun at Zeek-ium as they both backed out of the cell. "Remember it." Zeek-ium groaned but he wasn't off the floor before the Guide and Melachen had left the room. Everything had gone exactly not according to plan, but they were out and that made Melachen very happy.
 

You (or your character) are waiting in a room full of strangers. Where are you and why are you there? Write a story or poem about it.

"Hey, you," Frank felt something hard and sort of round poking into his side. Something had happened. Oh, right, he'd woken up in some girl's room. The girl, her name was Tabitha, just like his little sister, had screamed his eardrums out. After she had waved the funny little gun at him, which had to be a toy, or maybe a BB Gun or something, he'd made a hasty retreat through her heavy stone door. Unfortunately, outside there'd been a whole hall of strange girls and... had he'd fainted?

"I think he's down for the count Catha," both voices were female which didn't bode well, because that had to have been a dream. There was no way he could be in some sort of bizarre place where girls carried all manner of weapons, and wore grey cameo uniforms. Besides, he'd gone to sleep in his own bed. Wasn't that where he should have woken up? If so why had he woken here?

"I think he's already awake," the first voice said, and the hard, round pokey thing rammed into his side so hard it took his breath away.

"Ahgh," Frank sputtered, trying to roll away. He'd been on a stone bench though, so all he did was bury himself in the seat back a bit, sort of. Well, he wasn't so much buried in it as against it.

"See?"

Frank sat up quickly and then regretted it as a wave of dizziness overcame him.

"You know, if you were supposed to be a spy you did a terrible job," he recognized the blond who spoke. She'd offered to castrate him earlier.

"I'm not a spy," Frank denied. "Why would I be a spy?"

"To find our about our defense of course," the blond replied. Frank looked around, they were in a room made completely of cement bricks. All around chains hung or stuck out from the wall. There were handcuffs, ankle restraints and collars, as far as he could tell, all made out of heavy looking black metal.

"What..?" Frank had been about to ask what the chains were for but thought better of it. Someone might try to demonstrate. "What are we doing?" There were five girls in the room with him. He recognized three. One was Tabitha who still held her funny plastic gun. Another was the blond. She had two long, nasty looking knives and a tighter fitting uniform than the rest. The third was the girl with the mace, Catha evidently. Frank knew that was who'd been poking him in the side. Being poked in the side with a mace was not pleasant. Frank could testify to that.

"We're waiting for the enemy," Tabitha replied shortly. She lingered in a small doorway, gun pointed out of it. She didn't look at him as she spoke. Frank was glad to see that everyone was in uniform now, even though the uniform seemed odd. It certainly beat out the negligee Tabitha had worn earlier, which was way too revealing. Frank shook his head, still trying to clear it.

"Okay, but who's the enemy?" Frank still couldn't make sense of the whole thing.

"Any of the other three dorms, moron. What, do you have amnesia?" Catha asked shifting her bulky form and lifting the mace in the air.

"Wait, do you know me?" Ten eyes rested upon him for a moment. All of them seemed to express the same thing. They all thought he was crazy. Then the eyes turned on the door. A bright pink beam of light was emitted from Tabitha's gun and he could just barely see a boy fall over in the outer hall. His cameo uniform was a traditional army green.

"North Quarter," Tabitha hissed, but it meant nothing to Frank. Frank was too busy pointing at the gun.

"It, it..." he didn't understand. Was he trapped on a movie set or something. Were all of these people actors?

"Shhh," the blond hissed, glaring, "there are at least another seven out there. Back off and let a few in."

"B-b-but..." It had looked like a laser gun, but usually those had a blue light and they were on TV, not real. "What is that?" Frank pointed at Tabitha's gun. When no one answered he tried asking more loudly. "What is that?"

The blond slapped him, "I told you to shut up," she hissed. "If you don't know a laser gun when you see one then it's not our problem, but if you keep making noise I'm gonna kill you."

"But there's no such thing as laser guns," Frank objected in muted tones. His voice sounded weak even to him.

"I don't know where you came from," Catha said as Tabitha ducked back and let a couple of guys charge into the room. Both carried swords and they sure did look like they knew how to use them. "But around here that's a stun laser." She swung her mace at one of the boys sword arm. It made a sick sounding thud as it connected. "It hurts a lot to get hit with one and you'll be out eight hours."

Somehow the boy managed to hold onto his sword which he swung. Catha blocked it. The two girls who hadn't spoken were dancing circles around the second boy, dodging his blows without returning them. Catha slammed her mace into her opponent's side. He grunted, dropped his sword and fell to his knees. "So I'd dodge if someone shoots at you with one." Catha finished.

Frank curled up on the bench, held his legs against his chest like some sort of shield, and watched the fight. He hoped he'd wake up soon, but had a terrifying feeling that he was already awake.
 

Write a STORY or POEM about going to bed one night in your own bed on planet Earth, and waking up the next morning to find yourself on a space ship hurtling through space.

I simply couldn't figure out a way to make this one fit in, so I've altered it for my purposes below.

Write a STORY or POEM about going to bed one night in your own bed, and waking up the next morning to find yourself in a futuristic military school.

Frank put down his fork and laughed nervously. "What would make you think I was gay?" He didn't know where his little sister had heard the word, but he very much wanted to know why she'd decided to apply it to him. He especially wanted to know because his mother was religious, and because his father hated homosexuality. Maybe he also wanted to know because he thought he might be gay, but no one needed to know that.

"Ha, ha, I read it in your diary," Tabitha taunted, her bright green eyes sparkling and her brown braids bouncing as she moved her head.

"You did not," Frank felt his brow crinkling. His diary was locked away securely. There was no way a six year old had gotten into it. "Even if you had it doesn't say any such thing." Frank risked a look at his mother. Her pursed lips and sharp grey eyes didn't make him feel any better. "Mom, honestly, how could she have gotten my diary anyway?"

His mother spoke firmly, "Tabitha, that's enough. It looks like your done eating. Go to your room and play." She began clearing the table. "Frank, I'd like to talk to you when you're done."

*

Frank's cheek still smarted where his mother had slapped it during their talk. Some talk, it was more of a speech then anything else and when he'd dared to voice his opinion he'd been slapped. Wasn't being gay just as natural as being straight? Frank thought it was. It was just something you were born with. Saying it was wrong was just plain... wrong. It was discrimination. That's what it was.

Still, Frank would have done anything to be normal in his parents eyes. He fully intended to date girls and try to find one he could marry. He didn't want to be hated, and he knew his parents would hate him if he acted on his true feelings. Hot tears sprung to his eyes and he squeezed them tightly shut, as if to hold the tears inside. If only he could go somewhere so far from his parents that they would have no way of knowing what he was doing. That was the only way he'd ever get the opportunity to be himself.

Frank didn't cry much, or at least he didn't think he did. Soon he was fast asleep, drifting along in a dream he wouldn't remember at all when he woke.

*

The piercing screams did more than enough to wake Frank. Between that and the loud, high pitched beep, like a timer gone wrong he leapt out of bed. His feet hit cold, hard stone and his eyes opened upon a strange room. There was a girl in a see through negligee screaming at the top of her voice. He was in a small room with two grey stone framed beds. The first word that came to mind considering the decor was dungeon.

"What?" Frank shook his head, "Why are you screaming? Where are we? Who are you?" More importantly would she shut up? He thought about asking her that but thought better of it pretty quickly.

"No boys allowed," the girl screamed. At least her scream was informative now, "get out of my room."

"Wait, but," Frank was trying to form words out of all the questions he needed answered, but they were no use. The girl was pointing a little toy gun at him and waving it around.

"Out," she screeched, "out now, or I'll shoot."

Frank just barely managed not to laugh. Still, if she was so upset she was pointing guns, toy or not, he wasn't hanging around. Besides, seeing that much of a girls body was creepy somehow. He put his hands up to show that he was submitting to her demands.

"Alright, alright, I'm moving," he said softly walking sideways towards the only door he saw.

"Move faster," she screamed. Frank did. He lunged for the door, opened it and skidded out. He didn't go far. There were no less than twelve other girls outside in various states of dress. Many of them wore a military looking uniform in grey cameo print. Others had on pajamas, or nightwear. A couple girls wore half uniform and half night clothes.

"What were you doing in Tabitha's room," an especially bulky girl asked waving what looked like a mace around at Frank. He'd never seen a mace outside of video games, but he was pretty sure that was what she had.

"If you hurt her," a blond girl, with arched eyebrows snapped, "I'll rip your dick off."

Frank's eyes rolled up into his head as his mind sort of gave up. He didn't know what the hell was going on, and before he figured anything out at all the world went dark and he fell to the ground.

"Did he just faint?" Catha-lee, the bulky girl with the mace, asked it sheer wonder.

"I think he did." Shee-rel-ah shook her head. "Some fighter he's going to make."

 

Write a STORY or POEM about discovering a friendly ghost in your house.

"So, you're happy now?" The soft feminine voice startled Kel-drey-nar, Kel to his friends, into dropping his newest copy of "Boy Toy".

"Honestly Thea, do you have to?" He glared around until he saw the mist that signaled her existence. "You know females aren't allowed here."

"After dark," the pulsating curves of white mist glided from the large gleaming metal locker that held his clothing towards his bed. A few droplets formed on the cold sheet metal floor. The dorm was designed to imitate a starship as closely as possible. Most everything that one might expect to be wood was bright silver or dark brushed metal. "It's daytime right now. Besides, you told me I didn't actually count as a female."

Kel took a deep breath as he reminded himself that she was right on several levels and let it out slowly. She was wrong about Melachen however. He'd actually hoped Melachen would stay. The guy was obviously gay, and it was bad for him to repress it like he did. Thea continued approaching him, a look to her mist that reminded him of the day they first met.

"Mom, I've got the chair," Kel called. Sweat had gathered on his fourteen year old brow as he struggled with the wooden chair.

"Just set it in the dining room and come get another dear," his mother called. "Just wait until your father sees all the work we've done." Kel half walked, half stumbled into the dining room wondering how he was supposed to be handling military school that coming Fall. He was the least coordinated kid in his school, and probably also the weakest. Well, probably the weakest guy at any rate. He set the chair down, turned and tried to walk.

He didn't get very far, as for some reason his left foot was rooted to the spot. The unexpected development caused him to topple forward. "Ow," he moaned, rubbing at his achy head with his newly bruised arm.

"Oh, did that hurt?" The friendly female voice came from his foot which suddenly unstuck.

"What?" Kel sat up, as he now had both feet available again and looked around, but all he saw was an odd mist coming closer, and closer. If he were pressed to give a more thorough description of it he might have called it curvy, but he'd have had little firm evidence to back his claim up with.

"I could make it up to you," the mist was very close to him and the voice was soft and suggestive.

"NO!" He pushed away from the mist which had begun to touch him in a very odd way. "What...? What... what are you?"

"Don't say it like that, I'm just a girl," the mist replied, but Kel was already shaking his head. It had a female feel to it, yes. That was why he really didn't want it to touch him, but it wasn't just a girl. It was an alien, or some sort of mythical creature, or maybe an accidentally summoned demon.

"No, you aren't," he modified his voice, "girls are more... solid."

"Kel? Are you okay in there? The rest of the chairs are off the transport, come on out here and help your mother," Kel's mother called.

"Oh that," the mist replied, "that's just because I'm Thea, a girl ghost." The mist hadn't smiled. How could mist really smile? No, it hadn't, but Kel knew that was the expression it had on somehow.

"I've, uh, got to go," Kel replied, turning the idea over in his mind. Did this mean his parents had bought a haunted house? That sort of thing didn't really exist though right?

"I'll see you later then. I'll just hang out in your room until bedtime. Yours is the one with the dagger patterned sheets right?" Thea remained cheerful in tone.

Kel made a sound he didn't like admitting to, let alone trying to define. It was something between an, "Eeep," and a, "Yuhuh." Then he ran back to the transport like his feet were on fire.

"Don't come any closer," Kel instructed briskly, "it makes me ill."

"You're so mean," Thea complained, but she stopped moving forward all the same.

"If you don't like it you should have stayed home," Kel replied picking up his magazine and closing it, returning it to the safety of his brushed black nightstand.

"And missed you striking out with all the guys you like? No way," Thea returned brightly. She claimed to be a good ghost but Kel remained unconvinced. She sure wasn't good to him. The high pitched alert tone prevented him from following that thought. A drill? It seemed like odd timing.

Nonetheless he scrambled into his South Quarter uniform and took hold of his dagger. A lot of people laughed at his weapon until they saw him use it. It was the one skill military school had really given him so far. As he rushed to the door Thea faded into non-existence. She never stayed for fights, something about a vow to remain non-violent.
 

Prompt: Write a short story or poem about being stuck in the South with a guide.

"In parting I would like to say I hated it here, and I can't wait to meet my new roommate," Melachen finished, looking to the Guide North Quarter had sent to assist in his transfer. Kel-drey-nar, his one man audience, yawned and rolled over in his dorm bed to face the wall. His back on Melachen he returned to his "Boy Toy" magazine.

That was one of the many reasons Melachen had decided to leave. Like it wasn't bad enough to have a roommate who was into porn he had to have one who liked looking at naked guys. He'd even tried explaining that that stuff made him uncomfortable. Kel-drey-nar had insisted that was because he was secretly into it. Which he wasn't. He didn't like other guys at all. He turned to the Guide.

"Okay, I'm ready to go."

"Great," the Guide reached over and picked up one of Melachen's bags. "We have a decent walk to get to the North, so lets get started." Melachen tossed his backpack over his shoulder and picked up the other suitcase. They left the room and he sincerely hoped he never saw Kel-drey-nar again. It didn't matter that they were in the same school. The place was huge, over ten miles from edge to edge.

"So, aren't we taking the Rapid?" Melachen thought the question was reasonable enough. The Rapid was the only way to get from class to class on time considering the size of the campus. Classes were divided by department and many departments had multiple buildings representing focus.

"We would," his Guide replied, "but the Rapid went down this morning." Melachen had been packing all morning, so it was no surprise he hadn't heard.

"Shit," he responded automatically, "we... but... so..." He paused to let his thoughts fall together. Sometimes his thoughts started racing ahead of him and he was left saying only the first word of each thought, leaving the impression that he was a yammering idiot. He didn't really like to leave that impression if it could be helped. "We aren't going to walk the whole way, are we?"

Melachen sounded horrified. That had everything to do with the fact that he was. Imagine trying to walk from one side of a ten mile by ten mile campus to the other. Now imagine doing it with luggage.

"It is the most likely mode of alternative transportation," his Guide replied. Before coming to school, Melachen hadn't understood what a Guide was. Now he knew them as these android things, designed to appear and act human, which really weren't human at all. The Guide wouldn't tire of a menial task such as walking, but he would.

"That will take hours," He objected, "I mean we might not even make it for dinner."

"It will actually only take about three hours and twenty minutes if we walk at the standard human rate of three miles per hour," the Guide replied knowingly. "However, we are currently averaging about three point seventy-five miles per hour, If that trend continues it will only take two hours and forty minutes."

"Right, great," Melachen looked away, watching familiar buildings pass as they walked. The problem was that he would probably slow down a great deal before reaching their destination. He brooded silently as they continued moving, knowing better than to share his thoughts with the Northern Guide. He knew he should just be glad he'd managed to transfer for his second year. Many transfers were denied. It was the purpose of the school to foster bonds between the students in the same dorm.

North and South were the all male dorms, while East and West were females only. It made it a lot harder for a guy to sleep over in his girlfriends room. However, Melachen thought it was having an odd effect as well. He'd never met so many guys who thought fooling around with guys was alright and he suspected it was at least half because of how difficult it was to get with the opposite sex. The other half had to be a South thing. As soon as he got to North Quarters he would be safe from the insanity.

"Stop right there," a familiar voice commanded. Melachen looked up from his thoughts and saw that there was a line of familiar guys blocking the path. They were in full uniform with weapons at ready. His brow creased.

"What's up Zeek?" He asked the tallest and broadest of them. It wasn't that Zeek was the one in charge, or a friend of Melachen's, or anything like that. He just happened to be moving forward while the others stood there dumbly, glaring.

"Zeek-ium to you, turncoat," he growled, like they were actually in the military instead of a military school.

"Fine," Melachen didn't feel like fighting, his day was looking gloomy enough, "but why are you blocking the walk?"

"There's a drill," Zeek-ium replied, "and look what we've found, our first prisoners of war. You know what happens to prisoners of war, don't you?" He leered at Melachen who thought it was a bit overdone. After all, no one actually did anything to prisoners of war in real life or in school.

"Yeah, yeah, okay, but I really need to get to the other side today," Melachen told him pointedly, "with my luggage."

"Too bad about that," Zeek-ium returned, shaking his weapon at Melachen, "seems you and your Guide are stuck, in the South."