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Fifth--Element — An English class assignment
Published: 2011-11-09 21:48:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 862; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 10
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Description Her graceful wings slowly unfolded, and began to pound the air around her. Slowly, she rose.
She beat her wings, and she rose. She rose past the audience. She rose past the royalty. She rose past the clouds. She rose past the arena. And she kept on rising, and rising, and rising. she rose to heights hitherto unreached. Painstakingly, she beat her wings, knowing that this finalé, this magnificent crescendo in her performance, would ring through the halls of the city for eons.
Her competitor, grieving over her own failing performance, watched her rise to the end of her performance. Although all seemed lost, she knew that now, this very moment, was to either be her greatest, or her worst. Her ironclad will refused to submit to the great wave of despair she felt crashing against the core of her aching heart. She shook her head and took a final glance at her competition. She prayed a silent prayer that her finalé, one that she had practiced time and again, and had always failed, would not do so when it mattered most. She took flight as well. She quickly ascended, overtaking her opponent in seconds. Her rise was ungraceful, fast and flurried.
All of the audience's attentions were turned to the sole white object, indistinguishable from the clouds, save for her multicolored wings, rising slowly to the very top of their visions. Nearing the end of her great triumph, and with sweat gushing from her forehead, the first competitor beat her wings one final time. Nearly unconscious from the effort, she had, seemingly at the end of an eternity, reached the zenith of her ascent. She looked down upon the world, and in front of the omnipotent form of the sun, spread her wings to their fullest possible reach. The gossamer and morning's dew of which her wings were comprised coruscated with a light so pure and awe-inspiring that every one of the audience was hushed, and every single soul secretly wished that they could bask in this astounding light for all of eternity. For the single moment that she was up there, gleaming in the sunlight, she was, in every sense of the word, on top of the world, on top of all creation.
Suddenly, she was blanketed by an overpowering burning scent. She slowly turned her head towards her wings, which were engulfed in smoke. At first she did not understand, but then the sudden spark of understanding ignited the burning flame of fear and panic within her. Her hubris had become her demise. Just as Agamemnon, upon his conquest of the great city of Troy, felt his unyielding entitlement to the virgin priestess Cassandra, who had foreseen the future, and knew that fate would have it that she be the cause of his death, so too had the sun become the undoing of the performer.
She watched her wings evaporate under the immense glare of the all-powerful sun. She watched as if time had come to a near standstill. The small droplets of morning's dew slowly lifted off the wings, and evaporated in thin air. The gossamer slowly disappeared as the morning's dew left it, and it burned up in a fiery inferno. The audience's faces were a reflection of the performer, rapidly changing from confusion to undulated fear. For an instant, the magic surrounding her wings kept her there, locking her in place.
And then, suddenly, the ground decided to take her back, away from the burning sun. It rushed towards her, faster and faster. Her screeching shriek tore the audience from their frozen stupor, and they too begin shouting.
The judges of the competition, masterful fliers themselves, jumped to the call. They plunged down, at breakneck speed, to save the damsel in distress. Unaware of her surroundings, the falling girl flailed her arms and legs every which way, desperately hoping that she could grab some of the air that she flew past. As the judges approached her, she smacked each of the three of them, knocking them senseless. And thus it now seemed that the ground would claim not one, but four lives that day. The audience looked to one another, each urging someone, anyone to be able to do something. No one answered that call.
Eyes shut tight from the frightening speed of her ascent, the blood pumping in her ears, the second competitor failed to notice her's competitor's fall to her death. And then the scream of pure terror hit her with a startling force, where she abruptly stopped in mid-flight. She looked down, and saw the other falling. Falling past the clouds, falling past the royalty, falling past the audience. Without thinking twice, she turned around and sped down after her.
The wind rushed past her. As her competitor fell to her impending doom, she sped after her. Past the clouds, past the royalty, past the audience, she kept flying downwards, thinking of nothing, save reaching her friend and the judges. She beat her wings faster and harder than she had ever beat them before. The speed was so frightening her eyes were forced shut, tears streaming from them.
Faster and faster she flew, feeling the force of the wind press upon her, trying to hold her back from the one she was trying to reach. She felt herself come up against a new barrier, one that she had never before breached. Although the dark thought of failure did not reach her mind; her path was set, her motive clear. She pressed upon the barrier, forcing it to give way. It pushed back at her with a force unlike anything else, refusing to give up. It was as if an unstoppable force had hit an immovable object. Although the object in question was not so immovable. She felt herself accelerating faster than ever before, faster and faster and faster, until...
The months of practicing this daring feat could not have prepared her for this. As she slipped past the sound barrier, a great explosion tore open the heavens. From the single point at which she had broken the sound barrier, a magnificent, breathtaking, awe-inspiring rainbow emanated, the glory of which had never before been witnessed by mortal eyes. Those who witnessed the wondrous sonic rainboom had forever upon their souls inscribed the brilliant colors that filled the sky. The hues of each of the colors were so brilliant that they seemed to even dim the very sun's rays. With a rainbow streaking behind her, the second competitor raced towards her friend. At the very last instant, the split second before the four of them went on to meet their maker, she grabbed them and turned. She sped across the landscape, until she turned back to the sky, into the air from which they came, to fly over the arena in which they performed, her rainbow trail creating a radiant rainbow across the sky, for all to see.
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Comments: 4

ThePoeticPaladin [2012-02-09 16:12:43 +0000 UTC]

I believe that the colloquial expression summarizing my feelings on this subject is "I think you're trying too hard".

It's not bad. It's just not good. It feels forced. I mean... "The zenith of her ascent"? Really?

A homeric epic is not "lots of big words". What makes it an epic is the pacing, not the vocabulary. You kind of missed your mark here.

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Fifth--Element In reply to ThePoeticPaladin [2012-02-09 18:19:31 +0000 UTC]

Oh, I know I completely missed my mark here. It's not a Homeric epic, not at all. As to how forced it is... yeah, looking back, there are points at which I definitely went further than I normally do. If I went back and rewrote it, I'm sure it would flow much more.

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Morkai7 [2011-11-09 22:49:00 +0000 UTC]

I think something is wrong with your teacher...

Not only did you nail that assignment, you bolted; riveted; welded and damn near fused that paper to the desk you were writing on.
I've read a lot worse from million selling authors, this is amazing; within this short story I was kept captivated the whole time by your amazing literature skills.

Screw education, go write same damn books and take my money!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Fifth--Element In reply to Morkai7 [2011-11-09 23:11:21 +0000 UTC]

Haha, well, thanks for liking it! The words of encouragement really do help ^^.

But I think the fault is mine here. She told me it was an excellent piece of creative writing, it just missed the point of the assignment (which I guess I still don't really get? haha) At least she was kind enough to give me a C+ instead of an F.

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