Congrats, and welcome to the club!
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
What comic?
The biggest Green Lantern fanboy on the Forums
((Perhapanauts, published by Image comics. 
))
War, you were already cool.
BTW, the link only goes to a login page--how do I see the letter?
Cheers,
T
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
friggin SAW-WEEEEET!!! gratz!!! 
-Pogoman, Master of Kick-Fu
-Co-Leader and recruiting officer of the Virtue Honor Guard
- lvl 50 ma/sr scrapper
-Ace O' Diamonds lvl 50 fire/rad controller
and waaaay to many other alts to mention right now
Very nice, and congrats!
Welcome to the club, Heroid!
*hands Heroid a badge*
[ QUOTE ]
War, you were already cool.
BTW, the link only goes to a login page--how do I see the letter?
Cheers,
T
[/ QUOTE ]
((We'll try Photobucket then. ))
Youre Nerd Factor just climbed a significant level. hehe
I think it's evolved into epic levels. A Marvel "No-Prize" is a pretty high factor, but basically a "homage" to your MMO character beats that.
Wow. That's awesome. I'd love to read the story that won you such a cool prize. *hint hint*
QR: Wow, that's either a really neat signature, or his kid is ghostwriting his letters for him. 
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
cool, grats.
-=Crey Threat Profile=- : : THE CHALLENGERS on Virtueverse
Shoot for miracles - the VALVe email campaign
((Here's the winning story. ))
Daisy Was a Good Dog
By Warren Thomas Newsom
Im standing here where our home used to be and Im looking at stars.
When we first got married, we lived in town, but when my great-uncle got too old and feeble to live alone, we got offered his house in the country. It didnt take too much talking to convince Annie, my wife, to move the family out to the boonies.
It was a nice, little two-bedroom house, and while our kids, Jacob and Missy had to share a room, they were still little enough to do so and there would be space enough to build on a room later when they got big enough to need to be separated. As little as the house was on the inside, there was plenty of space on the outside; surrounded by woods with a long dirt drive that connected us to the highway. We were finally able to get the kids a dog.
Daisy was a good dog, a big golden lab-shepherd mix. We got her for the cost of a checkup and shots at the animal shelter. I dont think you could find a gentler dog than Daisy. She never barked unless something came into the yard that didnt belong there. If a strange car came rolling up the driveway, wed know. One time a couple of hunters whod lost direction came strolling out of the woods. Daisy let us know we had company, and when we went out to see who she was barking at, shed had them penned up against our storage shed, just barking away never threatened to bite them, just barking. If a stray dog or a bobcat or some other animal that was big enough to hurt one of the children got in our yard, Daisy would send them running.
Daisy was a good dog.
I wish everything could have stayed the like that -- perfect. I wish we could have lived out there the rest of our lives, let the children grow up and me and Annie grow old. But then the sky comes falling on you and nothings the same again.
When you live out in the middle of nowhere, you can see the stars really good on a clear night. Some nights Id go out after supper to smoke a cigarette and look up at all the thousands and thousands of twinkling lights up there. I didnt know the names of them, but I knew them. It gave me a feeling of being a small part of something huge in a way that an entire childhood of Sunday school and preaching hour had never done.
Two weeks ago, on a particular crisp October night, I saw a light in the sky. It was almost straight up when I first saw it, and crossed the sky quick like meteor, only it wasnt a meteor. It wasnt an airplane either. Or a satellite. I had seen all of those things and this light wasnt any of them. For one thing, it pulsed not blinked like airplane lights, pulsed getting brighter and then dimmer and brighter and dimmer. And when it did that, with every pulse, it would change color. Red. White. Green. White. Blue. White. Just like that, changing to white between the other colors. It was getting bigger too, like as it crossed the sky, it was coming downward.
I yelled for Annie, but by the time she got out there, it had disappeared behind the tree line.
What did you see? I remember her asking.
I told her it was just a shooting star. When she asked me if I had made a wish on it, I told her Id forgot.
Too bad, she said, Wasted that one.
I didnt talk about it the next day. I just laughed when, at breakfast, Annie told the kids that I had wasted a perfectly good shooting star wish. It was a fake laugh though, and I think Annie sensed it. The UFO (thats what it was in my mind anyway) had left me with an uneasy feeling. I went to work and tried to get it out of my mind, but it was all I could think of.
I wound up asking to leave early so I could meet Jacob and Missy where they get off the school bus and drive them down the driveway to the house. Annie was already standing there when I pulled up, Daisy by her side. She said Daisy had been nervous all day, barking at the woods and pacing around the edge of the yard. When the bus dropped the children off, they all got in the car; wife, kids, dog, and I drove them to the house.
Things seemed calm then. Daisy didnt go back to pacing the yard and barking. She came in with us and stayed inside, and lay on the floor in the kitchen where the kids did their homework and Annie cooked supper. Nobody was real talkative, but I thought maybe everybody was tired. Or maybe it was just that time of year, with summer over and winter coming on. But that wasnt why we were quiet. We were quiet because Daisy was listening.
Sometime after midnight I woke up to Daisy barking at the back door. I ran through the house to see what had stirred her up so much. She was scratching at the back door and whimpering when she wasnt barking. I knelt down beside her and tried to calm her down. When she got quiet for a moment, thats when I heard it.
There was a whistling. Thats the only way to describe it. It wasnt like a tea-kettle, but it wasnt like someone whistling a tune either. It didnt waver in tone. It didnt rise and fall. It didnt fade out. It was constant. But somehow, it didnt seem like it was coming from a machine or something like that. It sounded like something alive was making that noise. Thats the only way I can describe it something alive was making that sound.
Daisy got all excited again and tore away from me, attacking the back door with her teeth and claws.
By this time Annie was there too and when I reached for the doorknob, she said, No! Dont let her out!
But I didnt see no other way. Daisy was going to get out that door even if she had to tear it down. I opened the door.
She dashed across the yard to the woods with me following behind as fast as I could. The whistling seemed even louder now, filling my ears so that I could barely hear my dog. I stayed with her right up to the edge of the woods, and then before I knew it, she had disappeared into the thick underbrush. I heard her tear her way through the honeysuckle and kudzu, her bark booming the whole way, and that damned whistling over and above it all, seeming to come from everywhere at once now.
Then things went silent. The whistling stopped. I couldnt hear Daisy either.
I turned to see Annie standing on the back porch and the kids looking at me out the screen door.
Send them kids back to bed, I said, and go get the gun.
You hear it said all the time, the silence was deafening. Im here to tell you that aint just an old saying. The only sound was my own breathing. It seemed right then that the rest of the world had disappeared, just up and gone, and I was the only one left.
When I heard the sound of something crunching its way through the woods toward me, it was a relief. Then I realized that it might not be my dog that came running out to me it might be the whistler. I stood my ground, and when I definitely heard the sound of paws pounding the ground, it was a sweet sound.
Daisy! I shouted when she came out from the brush. I threw my arms wide and knelt down to hug our hero who had protected us from the Unknown. Looking back, that was the wrong thing to do.
She didnt slow down, and as she bowled me over I knew something was wrong. Before I could get away, Daisy had me pinned down. She was growling now, and her eyes were rolling wild with way too much of the whites showing. I tried to push her off, but she was strong too strong. All I could do was try to protect my face and neck. Her jaws clamped shut on my arm and I screamed. It hurt like hell when she wrenched a chunk out of it.
Daisys jaws opened wide. Her teeth came down across my face. I could feel them sinking into my cheeks. She was going to kill me and there was nothing I could do to stop her.
I should have closed my eyes. Anybody else would have. I could have closed my eyes and then maybe the universe would still make sense to me. But I didnt. I kept them open and when I looked between those jaws into her maw
I saw stars.
I know. It sounds insane. It would make things easier if I was crazy.
I saw stars. Not the stars I knew. Not the ones that filled me with wonder. No, these were strange stars. Stars that didnt belong in the same creation with the night sky I had loved to look at. For a moment, I could feel them pulling me to them.
The sharp sound of my old thirty-ought-six rifle pulled me back to earth. Daisy left me and darted toward where Annie was on the porch. Annie fired again. Daisy fell in mid-leap and never moved again.
We buried her that night at the edge of the back yard. Annie wanted to get me to the emergency room, but Id have none of that. She did most of the digging and together we lifted Daisy and carried her to her grave. The kids watched the whole thing from their bedroom window. I didnt tell them about what Id saw.
When the sun came up, I finally let Annie take me to the doctor. The kids came with us. Didnt see no point in sending them to school after a sleepless night. After my 800-and-something stitches, we went to Annies folks to stay. Annie, Jacob, and Missy all decided they didnt want to go back home. Ever.
I just came here to start getting our stuff out. But its gone. The house is gone. Where it used to be theres a deep sink hole, and down at the bottom
Im standing here where our home used to be and Im looking at stars.
Most people in forums who claim to be writers, or who talk about writing contest they enter... well to put it nicely their writing sucks.
Such is certainly not the case in the above story. It deserves publication in a major magazine at the least. Hopefully entering it into the contest didn't mean giving away the publication rights. It should at the very least be entered in the Writers of the Future contest.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
That is a really good story.
Nice work!
\o/
Rock on HEROID, sir.
That's a very good story. Reminded me of some published Lovecraftian works.
Thanks for sharing.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything. ~ Donald Hall
Great story!
Poor Daisy.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
I didn't read it.
Let me explain--I read it the first time Heroid mentioned the contest. He had a link to where it was hosted. I went, found it, read it, and goosebumps ensued.
Just thinking about the story today, and more goosebumps.
I'm not going to...
I'm...
Okay, I'm going to read it again.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Thanks for posting the story, Heroid.
I'm a long time lurker of your rp postings. I never miss them. I'm envious of your writing talent. There's an art to making the words flow and sing. Your words sing.
Congratulations.
((A few months ago, comic book writer, Todd Dezago had a story contest on his blog , and I won. Now, I am going to be a comic book character! They had me send some photos and the character is gonna have my real name! And in a case of fiction copying virtal-life -- I'm head of security at BEDLAM, the organization in the Perhapanauts comic book! (Roy "HEROID" Kirby is head of security at Maggie's Rock on CoH.)
))
Here's a copy of the letter!
I'm so happy!