Dragon Lady: *giggles* This is actually a fic that I wrote for one of my teachers when asked to write a horror story as a homework assignment. It was incredibly difficult for me to come up with an idea, because the first short story I turned in for his class was a horror story too, and I had a hard time coming up with a better story than that one.

Ken: I’m sure…*rolls eyes* That first “short story” was nine pages typed when everyone else in her class wrote like…one and a half…

Dragon Lady: *blushes* ^^;; I like to write all right? So sue me. No…actually please don’t.

Ken: Uh huh…

Dragon Lady: So anyway we had to use all these difficult vocabulary words to come up with a horror story, and it was a pain, but I finally turned out this.

Ken: By the way, this is Dl’s strange, pathetic version of “humor”. You were warned.

Dragon Lady: All right, all right, so I can’t really write a humor fic…but I’m pretty proud of this one. The vocabulary words we had to use for the assignment are in there. Some in the dialogue, some in the narrating. If anyone really wants to know what they all were so that they can go through and find them, I’ll tell you; but I don’t think you’re that interested. Below is the actual story that I turned in to my Logos teacher, Mr. Williams.

To understand parts of the following story the reader will have to understand certain aspects of the life of the authoress herself. She is helpless addicted to a certain Japanese anime…which will remain nameless in this explanation (unless the reader can guess it from his/her own knowledge of anime when reading the story below), and from this anime springs her personal writing muse, Ken.

It is also necessary to note that the name “DL” is a nickname for the authoress used by her muse, some close friends, and internet acquaintances, that springs from her internet pen name (which will also not be divulged, because it would most definitely give away her childish cartoon obsession), which is abbreviated in her stories to Dragon Lady, and finally shortened to DL.

By: DigimonDragonLady

I was running. First through a forest, then through a house full of twisting, winding corridors, then just through a thick gray mist. There was nowhere for me to go. Nowhere for me to hide! I looked around frantically, for anything, anything that could help me. Nothing!!

I ran faster. I was beginning to slow down…I couldn’t!!! I couldn’t let that…that hideous, horrible…thing catch me! A shudder ran through my body. No. It wouldn’t happen. That terrible occurrence…it couldn’t…it wouldn’t! Not to me! But oh…where was Ken when I really needed him?!!

Trust him to be missing now. When I didn’t need him…I was always tripping over him! But now, of course, he was conspicuous in his absence. Ken who was my loyal friend and closest confidant, Ken who went everywhere with me, Ken who knew every triumph and every sorrow that I had ever faced in my small lifetime, had left me to face this monster alone.

I felt like crying, but I couldn’t, there was too much at stake here…How had all this started? Why was I even dreaming in the first place? Yes. I knew it was a dream, a premonition rather, I suppose…

Well…it all started with an innocent school assignment. Or maybe…not so innocent, but that was the least of my problems at the moment…or maybe I should say it was the most of my problems…

Anyway, that’s what started it. But before I could even begin to worry about getting the assignment done I first had to worry about this. What a predicament right? What a huge mess I’d managed to get myself into this time…maybe I expected too much of myself…but I knew my capabilities…was it really so terrible that I wanted to achieve the best of my ability?

Focus Brittany focus, I admonished myself. I turned my thoughts back upon just what I was running from. Not that it did me any good to think about it. I was trapped. I didn’t see anyway out. I didn’t think I could run much longer, and I was entertaining much hope of a rescue.

Then, it happened. I tripped. I flew forward and lay sprawled across the ground. This was it. I was done for. I could hear the beast approaching. I could feel its hot breath. It made my skin crawl. As I turned to look it, the monster leapt through the air for the final kill, and I threw my hands up, screaming out, for help, for Ken…anything…just screaming…

“DL?” A worried voice asked me. I stopped shaking and stared up into the violet eyes of Ken. “DL, are you all right?”

“Ken…?”

“Yeah. I was worried about you…I didn’t mean to leave you alone DL…I’m really sorry…” he apologized.

I blinked at him, and I thought back to earlier in the evening…Just after having finished my Geometry homework, which took forever, let me tell you, there had been the Logos story…

“And I thought the Geometry was bad.” I silently apologized to whatever deity I had offended to make my life turn out this way. A horror story?! With those vocabulary words?!!” I sank into my chair in despair. “I’m doomed.”

“Oh honestly DL…” Ken sighed and rolled his eyes. “ Stop being so overdramatic. It can’t be that bad.”

I turned to where he was sitting cross-legged on the middle of my bed, playing with my stuffed dragon Scorch, and stared at him. “Are you kidding me?! This is terrible! Injustice, I say! How on earth am I going to be able to write a decent story with a limited list of vocabulary words, one night in which to write it, and blocks on my creative genius?!”

He raised an eyebrow questioningly. “What did you say? “Creative genius”? Since when did you go from writing a few decent stories to being a best selling authoress?”

“Um…I’m working on it! But the restrictions are killing me!”

“Didn’t you write your last story for that class in one evening?”

“…Yes…” I admitted reluctantly.

“And didn’t it turn out to be an incredible short story attempt?”

“Not…really…”

“Yes it did. That was the shortest “short story” you’ve ever written DL. I’d call that pretty incredible,” he smirked.

I glared at him, and then rolled my eyes. “Its not my fault I have slave driver for a muse.”

“I am not a slave driver!” he declared hotly, crossing his arms and pouting in that childishly cute way of his.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He was just too cute.

“What words do you have to use anyway?” he asked curiously. “It doesn’t sound so hard…Maybe if I help you.”

I sighed dramatically. “Lets see…how to use impertinent, retinue, tenet, monitor, monument, mandate, countermand, remand, ohh…listen to this one…writ of mandamus, creed, affidavit, fiduciary, etcetera, etcetera…in a horror story.”

Ken snatched the list which I held in my hand and blinked. I waited for him to provide some helpful insight or inspiration of any kind. After all, he was my muse…that’s what a muse is supposed to do right? He looked up at me and handed the list back.

“Hehe…look at the time…I really should be going…good luck with your story thing DL…”

“Oh no you don’t!” I shouted at him. “Don’t you dare leave me alone with this assignment Ken! Ken!!!”

He had disappeared, retreated back to…well…wherever he went when he wasn’t helping me with some story, which didn’t happen often. I sighed. Well that was just great. Even Ken couldn’t help me with this one. “Yeah…accredited muse all right,” I grumbled. “Note to self…return Ken to wherever I got him from.”

I sighed and stared at a sheet of notebook paper in front of me in undisguised disgust. I tapped my pen thoughtfully on my desk and then started writing. I frowned and pulled back from my work.

“Someone was hunting. Someone was killing us. Someone knew who we were…” I scowled, and snatching up the sheet of paper, crumpled it into a tiny paper ball and tossed it in a trash can.

The pencil hovered once more over the paper. “He moved quickly and silently down the long, seemingly endless hallway. Every five feet or so, on every other wall a candle in a gargoyle candle holder burned, their flickering flames sending dark shadows to dance upon the walls of crimson red…”

Once more, another sheet of balled up paper flew into the wastebasket. “No! Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I groaned. I resisted the urge to bang my head against the desk. “I’m never going to come up with a good idea…why did I have to use a perfect horror story for my last attempt? Why couldn’t I have written that story this time?” I sighed. “Its not fair.”

I yawned suddenly, covering my hand with my mouth. I glanced briefly at the clock. The red, digital numbers proclaimed the time to be only slightly after seven o’clock. “I’m so tired…maybe…maybe I’ll just…rest my eyes for a minute or two. Then I can write my story…”

Was I really so credulous as to buy that? Some distant part of my mind screamed at me to pull myself together and just get the story over with, but another, more audible part told me that sleep was the thing…

That’s when that nightmare had started…that horrible, horrible nightmare. I shuddered in memory. “DL?” Ken looked at me in concern. “I’m really, really sorry…I’ll help you with the story, I promise. If we work together we can come up with something…”

“That’s all right,” I declined his offer with a wave. I had already picked up the pen that had previously been discarded on the desk, and snatched a fresh sheet of notebook paper from my drawer. “I’ve already got the perfect story for Mr. Williams.”

“You do?” He looked at me in confusion.

“Yep.”

“What?”

“When you left I fell asleep, and I had this really scary dream. And I was all alone, and afraid, and I didn’t think that I would ever get out of there alive…” Ken winced at the reminder that he had left me to fend for myself on a writing assignment, school work or otherwise.

“And because of this dream I’ve come up with the perfect horror story. After all…what could be scarier…than writer’s block?”

Ken starred at me, his big, expressive, violet eyes wide in obvious horror. “Do you honestly think they can handle that?” he squeaked.

“We’ll just have to see…” I responded.

::smiles:: Yes. I am insane. Thanks for asking. ^_~

Dragon Lady: Well. There you have it folks. The complete version of my homework assignment, save this little muse rant part.

Ken: And dl’s teacher was so sure she was sane before she turned this in…

Dragon Lady: ^^;; Actually I don’t even know if he read the whole thing. He might not have, but knowing Mr. Williams I’m sure he did, just to see what I’d write, as the last one I turned in really was nine pages…

Ken: Well dl, when those nice men in the white suits come to take you off to that padded room don’t forget me.

Dragon Lady: *sarcastically* Of course not Ken, thanks a lot. ^^;; Anywho…whatever Mr. Williams thought…I got an A on the assignment. ^_^

Ken: Read and Review please. Even if its just to tell dl that she is insane.

Dragon Lady: Only by association. ^_~