Kazaiya
by MAK

Comment:
She glanced towards her tormentor, the boy that wouldn't leave well enough alone, who teased her endlessly. In class, on the playground, on the walk home from school. She did not understand why he had singled her out, she only knew that he was relentless, and looked upon her with disdain, loathing, and sneering hatred.

She glanced towards her tormentor, sitting there with his so-called friends, snickering with them and tossing casual glances her way, teeth bared in that obnoxious way of his. As she looked at him, something began to change about her. The air grew heavy and a breeze picked up. She began to smile so slightly it was barely noticeable, and the breeze turned to a wind, that circled around her, tossing her hair to and fro. The light then began to change, pulsing about her, the daylight disappearing, turning to haunting strikes of yellow and green, like a prairie storm gathering before a cyclone.

She glanced toward her tormentor, and the other children all began to scream and cry and run into the school. The commotion then caused him to look toward her, and he suddenly realized what was happening, and his eyes grew wide. He began to stumble backwards in a panicked urge to get away from her, but fell hard on his seat, and his wrist bent backwards with searing pain, and he cried out.

She stared at her tormentor, and grinned. He suddenly burst into tears and a dark stain began growing in the front of his pants, and he scrambled as best as he could away from her with a broken wrist and his mind beginning to become unraveled, and she glared, and she grinned, and she then said just a single word.

She spoke that word to her tormentor, and his mind was destroyed, and he collapsed on the ground, still breathing, but his eyes only staring, and a strand of drool escaped the corner of his mouth. With that, the wind about her died and the daylight returned, and her hair settled back into place, and she seemed to return to herself as if from a trance, and she stared at the boy that lay there.

She glanced at her tormentor, sitting there with his friends, snickering with them and tossing casual glances her way, and she held her head up high and walked off towards her class, and smiled at the revenge of her fantasy.

Come a Little Closer
by robinssong

Comment:
Boris tilted his head and let out a low little chuckle. The best years of his life lay behind him, he knew, but some days he found a humor in his existence that failed him most days, and those were good days.

He lounged there, his one good tooth glinting in the light, glancing at the funny animals that walked by him day after day, knowing that in his youth they would have stood no chance. Now, he just watched them go by and thought of the hunts of better days, of the savoring of the kill, and the joy of the throes of death and struggle of his prey.

Boris tilted his head and let out a little chuckle. Some days he could still find a humor in his existence.

Tourist Shot
by Melethia

Comment:
It was a day, like any other day. The sun was rising, and had just cleared the rooftops to shine down on the masses gathering for their morning tea and coffee and scones, and whatever else was the pleasure of the people starting their day. So it was when the first few people looked up an saw it.

Over the rooftops it came, the giant hovering... thing. Pure black, seeming to suck in all the light. The first few people to notice stopped suddenly, to stare, in awe and fright and disbelief. Some broke through the shock to grab for cameras. Others finally noticed the people looking and glanced up themselves, and were then entranced as well.

It advanced slowly, this thing. This massive hovering disc of blackness personified. Those that stood there watching it could not tell if it was an object, or some kind of advancing nothingness. It seemed to be both there, and not there. It seemed to be both round and flat. Then, without a sound, it stopped.

Now, most of the people in the streets had noticed it and had gathered and were standing around in an awed sort of silence. A few whispers slid through the crowd, but it was as if nobody dared to speak. They barely dared to move. Then, a strange humming began. It felt as if it came from within their very heads. Slight, at first, like the noise of an old television that was on, but not connected to any input. Just an annoying little buzz in their minds. Then, it began to grow, to change in decibel and pitch, to become both louder and lower, increasing more and more each and every second.

People began to grab their heads, their ears. Some screamed, some moaned in pain, some in a sort of disturbing ecstasy. Most of the crowd dropped to their knees, crying out in anguish and pain.

A sudden pulse came from that hovering mass of black then. A pulse that was both light and not light. Like a sound wave rendered visible. It came from that thing, and as it passed down to the city below, as it passed among the people gathered there, they were suddenly blown apart, turned to ash, and scattered on a wind that shouldn't have been able to exist.

They were obliterated, each and every one, and the deep and resonant humming ended as quickly as it had began, and the blackness began to retreat, and the sounds of emptiness in the streets reigned free.

le sposi
by rinac

Comment:
A 7 from me. Loved the creativity and sense of adventure.

Untitled
by smichener

Comment:
Huh. I wondered where my 9 ended up. Way the heck down here eh? That's unfortunate. This was simplistically clever and refreshing.

Island Holiday
by fldave

Comment:
In sunset, this would be a 6 or 7. In sand? Not so much.

On the Waterfront
by Nobody

Comment:
The 18-55mm kit lens is a true performer. Seriously.

Where Sand Is Born.
by jomari

Comment:
Actually, if you want to be entirely accurate, sediment is "born" in all the rivers of the land and carried to the ocean, where it is then deposited around the beaches of the world. The ocean refines it more, certainly, but it's not really the birth-place ;)

Having said that, it's not like it's a score-changing thing, but the fact that there is so very little sand and that your photo relies on the landscape at large for its impact is.

Kick up a Storm
by bobonacus

Comment:
I guessed 5.5 on mine, and got a 5.1, so I think maybe next free study we should guess a little lower eh? hehe

Watercolours
by TomCubis

Comment:
Something had drawn his attention that day. As he passed the tiny pond, more a slough than a solid body of water, something had flashed and caught his eye.

He stopped, the pleasant walk in this marsh suddenly disrupted, and with a tilt of his head looked into the water where he thought he had seen whatever it is he thought he had seen.

For a moment, there was nothing, and he was about to pass it off as a trick of light when, *flash*, there it was once more. Without much of a thought, he suddenly grabbed a stick, and had anyone been with them, they surely would have noticed the look on his face and perhaps tried to stop him. His face showed a goofy kind of grin, but went suddenly devoid of life. A kind of paradoxical expression, but there it was. Slowly, he inched towards the water's edge, leaned down, and poked the stick towards the area where that flash had been. That amazing flash. That wonderful, wonderful flash.

Then, with no warning and no sound other than a quick escape of a whisper as the air rushed in to fill the spot he had been, he was gone. Something, there under the water, had seized that stick, and in less than a half a second he was gone, pulled in with it, with only the growing rippling of the surface to show that anything had been there.

Time then began to move on, and the birds resumed their singing, and the breeze resumed the rustling of the grasses, and he was never heard from again.