March short story contest-first place

Muffins -by Colby Cox

The thing about being a teenage boy is that you fall in a teenage-boy-version of love approximately every four minutes. Hot girl leaning against the wall of the school smoking, not worried at all about whether or not she would get caught? Love. Girl who sits down beside you to help you with your trig homework? Love. And, yeah, when my parents got me my own pet dragon for my sixteenth birthday, regardless of the fact that it was entirely deranged and would only answer to the name Muffins, that was another version of love.

           Trying to surprise someone with a pet dragon, my parents found out, is next to impossible. First of all, dragons are noisy creatures. They stomp if they walk, and if they fly there’s a WHOOSH sound as they flap their wings up and down. Second, dragons are HUGE. Basically, if I were to look out any window of the back side of my house, I would have seen the beast.

            This led to my walking out the back door of my house that day and saying, “Um, why is there a dragon back here?” and then my parents saying, “Uh, surprise?”

            “What’s this?” I ask, cautiously approaching them and the dragon.

            “This is your own pet dragon,” my father says. “It answers to Muffins.”

            “Muffins?” I say, hiding the fact that this is one of the most exciting things to ever happen to me.

            “Yeah, we didn’t name it,” my mom says. “Happy birthday!”

            “Well, thanks, guys.”

            When my parents go inside, I step closer to the dragon, remembering the advice my dad had given me before going in: introduce yourself to her. Make a good first impression. She needs to know that you won’t hurt her. She looks at me, lowering her head, curious. “Hi there, Muffins,” I say. She lowers her head more, allowing me to reach out and touch her salmon-colored nose. Breathing in quickly, she shies away from my touch before moving closer and lowering her belly to the ground. That’s when I understand what she wants: she wants me to mount her back.

            “Uh, hold on there, Muffins,” I say. The creature nudges me with her nose. “Okay. Okay.” I walk over to the stake and grasp one of the huge chain links that is connected to her metal collar. “Stay still now, girl.” I put my foot in the bottom chain link and begin to climb as if it is a ladder. It takes a moment, and I almost fall as the chain twists to the side once, but I make it to the top and sit on the upper part of her back, just at the bottom of her neck. The flapping of wings is something that it will take time to get used to. There’s a moment where it just feels like everything’s shaking, and then we rise up off the ground and are in the air. But when we get a good twenty feet up, a sudden jolt knocks me back. Even though I was holding on to the metal collar to hold on to Muffins, I hadn’t remembered to unlatch her chain. I catch myself on her tail, narrowly escaping death by falling to the ground, but Muffins just keeps flying in frantic circles, tail whipping back and forth, threatening to throw me off. She must think that something has her caught.

            “Muffins!” I yell. “Calm down!”

            I try frantically to pull myself up as I slide further down her tail. As luck would have it, her tail whips around just the right way, and I take my chance. I jump. Fall in what seems like slow motion. And—

My arms feel as if they are going to be ripped out of their sockets, but I catch onto the collar at just the right time. “Yes!” I yell, but I’m still just hanging over the side of Muffins, trying to hold on. I decide that the best thing to do now is to try and stop my dragon’s panicking, so I hold on for dear life with my right hand while reaching around the side of the collar with my left, grabbing the latch. Suddenly, we’re flying higher than before and the chain is falling to the ground with a thud. I use all of my remaining strength to pull myself up onto her back. Once atop her, I don’t have to do much except hold on as she does a lap around the city.

            Seeing a dragon with a rider atop it is not an uncommon thing since the Return of the Dragons, which happened when I was eight years old and a man who had been breeding dragons in the mountains in Colorado was killed when he was struck by lightning as he opened the gate of the massive cage he had built to feed his dragons and at least two-hundred dragons were set free, but it seems odd to be the one on the dragon. For my first time riding, I feel as if I’m doing a great job. But all of my built up confidence dies whenever I see another rider flying even higher than me. I recognize him instantly. He goes to my school and always ties his dragon in the field that used to be used for some popular sport before the Return, where all the dragons are tied during school hours. His name is Vincent, and he is, for lack of better words, the school’s resident douchebag. Which is why it freaks me out whenever he starts flying over here, his dragon’s nostrils spitting out short streams of fire. “Magnus! Halt!” he commands his dragon, which lands in flies over to a nearby park, startling a few children.

            “Muffins, halt!” I command mine, a bit quieter so as not to be heard by Vincent calling my dragon Muffins, and we land near Vincent and Magnus in the park.

            “Fagboy got a dragon?” he asks me, snorting. I want to ask him if his vocabulary is simply limited to insults such as fagboy, or if he really just thinks that being gay would be such a huge insult, but I hold my tongue because I remember how stupid my dragon is and how his is still spewing flames out of its nose.

            “No, Connor got a dragon,” I correct him.

            “What’s its name, fagboy?” he asks me, ignoring my previous statement.

            “Um,” I say, trying to think of a name I could give it that might sound at least a little intimidating. “Viper? Right, Viper?” Muffins sits on its back legs, swiping at a bird she found flying around with her front legs.

            “That’s not really its name, is it?” Vincent says, smiling. I feel so small, like I’ve been caught in a lie. “C’mon, fagboy. What’s your dragon’s real name?” 

            “Muffins,” I say under my breath.

            “What’s that?”

            “Muffins,” I say a little louder, still ashamed.

            “I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Muffins sounds like a gay name, which is really fitting for you.”

            “God, do you seriously have no other insults than to call me gay? You know that being gay isn’t a bad thing, right?”

            “That sounds like exactly the response a gay guy would give.”

            “I’m just going to ignore that, because I know that I am straight, and also that your lonesome brain cell is simply lashing out at me out of jealousy for my many brain cells.”

            “You know what, fagboy? I’ve listened to about enough of this.”

            “What do you mean?” I ask.

            “You. Me. On our dragons. Now. May the best man win.”

            Within moments our dragons are flapping their wings and rushing into the sky, preparing to face off against each other. Muffins takes an oval-shaped curve around the park as Magnus holds his place in the air by flapping its wings up and down. Muffins flies a little bit too near Magnus, who sends a stream of fire out of his nose. My dragon squeals and flies down a nearby street. Magnus follows, Vincent now standing on his dragon’s back. Magnus surprises both me and a family in a minivan by picking up the van with his back legs. The dark blue dragon twirls in the air to throw the vehicle at us, but Muffins heroically catches the van right in her mouth. She sets it down, having taken the entire roof off, and chews the bit of metal before gulping it down. As Magnus flies in front of us, the roof of the minivan hits Muffin’s stomach and she belches. A stream of fire flies from her nostrils, surprising her a bit. The family in the minivan gasps as the fire hits Magnus and Vincent. As the smoke clears, I see that Vincent is nothing but ash, while Magnus is burnt, but not badly. Magnus takes off flying again, forgetting about her rider just like that.

            Thus, my teenage-boy-sort-of-love for my stupid dragon was affirmed.

Colby writes an awesome  BLOG -check it out!


---------------

Find information about my next writing contest, interviews, book news and more on my website.

www.TheNeverChronicles.com

In bookstores 6-5-2012

A Teen...On Teen Writing

 Guest post by teen writer, Colby Cox.

Colby writes his own blog, a teen's reads  -check it out!



     Have you ever wondered what writers did when they were teenagers? Well, in many cases, they do exactly what they were good at: they write. You might think that a teenager can never write something worthy of your precious time, but you might be surprised at the amount of talent that you can find on writing websites that are geared toward young writers.

     A lot of us think of our teenage years as a time to practice writing. You have to go to all of the basketball practices to be good enough to play the game, right? That’s how it is with writing, and that’s what we’re doing. I’m not sure how it worked in the past, but as it is now, the internet is very friendly towards those of us who want to be writers – there are support groups, critique websites, and places for us to waste our time socializing with other teen writers.

      As for me, while I’m not convinced I’ve written anything incredible yet, I think that this is a great time to practice and get better while still having fun and enjoying myself. Teachers are great, too, because they can really help you to feel confident about your writing. I can’t stress enough how important it has been for me to grow as a writer to actually listen to my English teachers, because while it may be hard to believe, they’re actually saying something important.

      Another thing that is characteristic of young writers – and any writers, really – is a love for books. You have to read books to hone your craft. It’s like how football players watch film of their opponents before their games. (This is just a note, I really don’t pay any attention to sports at all, so the fact that I’ve referenced them twice is an oddity. Hmm.) We also talk about books on many of those websites that I’ve already mentioned. It’s really awesome that there are great authors who are getting teens reading books that actually have some depth to them – authors like John Green, Patrick Ness, and Ellen Hopkins are just a few.

      If you’re thinking that you would like to somehow take action, there is one simple way that you can help teen writers grow, and that is to comment on what they are writing. You can do this at websites that are primarily used by teenagers such as www.figment.com and www.inkpop.com I’m sure that one day whenever that teen, now all grown up, has published a bestseller, they’ll be thanking you on the acknowledgements page at the back of the book and your fifteen minutes you spent to help them write better will have been worth it.






------
Brilliant advise!  Thank you Colby. 

Are you a teen writer interested in guest posting on this blog?  Email me! josh@TheNeverChronicles.com

------------
As always, for more information on my writing, short stories, videos, contests, give-aways and the release of my upcoming book, Exiled, book one of The Never Chronicles, visit my website, www.TheNeverChronicles.com

December short story contest 3rd place entry

This is the third place entry for the December short story contest. An excellent concept with novel potential!

Empties


by Colby Cox

     It was my first time outside the white-painted dome, and I was immediately struck by the colors. I had heard the stories of the colors before, but I wasn’t sure whether I believed them. All I had known—all I had ever known—was black, white, and grey.
     I blink my eyes, and I notice that some of the other Hunters are doing the same. The Head,
Anton Meier, and the rest of the seasoned Hunters laugh at us for doing so—they know that they looked the exact same way when they came out here for the first time.
     The world is immensely different. Where under the dome we had skyscrapers, in the Outer
World, there are thin, dark towers that stretch to the sky and end in dome-like canopies the color of the ground. These towers stand in a large group together, stopping only for the dome that covers the White City and continuing as far as I can see. The spaces in between these towers are dark, the light from the whitish orb in the sky blocked by the vast canopies at the top of the towers.
     Anton Meier stops laughing at us and points towards the dark areas. “Well,” he says. “Let’s
roll out! Come on!”
     The lot of us walks behind Anton into the darkness. We have to step over things that have
fallen from the canopies now and then. At one point, a river, much like the artificial one that men
have built in the middle of the White City, comes up in front of us and we have to jog over to a
simple footbridge that can only handle one of us at a time.
     Anton holds up a hand, stopping us. “Michelson, come here,” he says. At the mention of my
name, I step forward, stopping slightly behind and to the right of Anton. “You can be the first
newbie to see this. Look—between those trees.”
     I look, but I see nothing at all in between the towers—trees. “What…What is it?” I ask.
“It’s an Empty. Do you see him?” he asks.
“I don’t,” I respond honestly. “What am I looking for?”
“Look for something that looks like a man, only it doesn’t move quite like one. Don’t expect
to see smooth movements—they will be slower and more rigid than what you would expect to
see from a man.”
     The other new Hunters stand far enough back that they don’t hear what we’re saying, but curiosity is obvious on each and every one of their faces.
     Suddenly, I notice movement, and I jolt. The Empty, as Meier called it, looks exactly as he
had explained it—like a man. However, you can easily understand how it got its name—the
creature seems like it has a missing piece of the puzzle—the one thing that keeps it from being
human.
“Is that what we hunt for?” I ask, confused.
“Yep,” says Anton.
“So…we’ve been eating Empties in the Mess Hall all of this time?”
     Anton laughs out loud. “No, Michelson, we don’t. It always gets me that the newbies believe
that we actually hunt for food out here.”
“Well, what are we eating, then?” I ask, annoyed and embarrassed that he is laughing at me.
     The other new Hunters look very confused; they can’t quite hear what is being said.
“It’s all manufactured in that factory by the river. Hell, I couldn’t respect myself I caught
what was made into that slop that they call food.”
     He sets his sight on the Empty and lets his arrow fly, releasing the bowstring. The arrow
sinks itself into the creature’s head, and it falls over.
     Anton Meier motions for the Hunters to follow, and we walk through the space between the
trees deeper into the woods. He explains to us that the Hunters used to hunt for food, before they had to cover the city with the dome because the Empties were multiplying too quickly. Then, the city officials ordered engineers to come up with a way to make food out of synthetic materials so that the Hunters could focus all of their efforts on the eradication of the Empties. He explains that people used to live past forty in the Outer World; that they would eat animals and plants; that they would run and lift heavy things to stay healthy and keep themselves alive longer; and that all of that changed when the dome was added.
     Soon, we come to a clearing and Anton stops us. “This is where the White City was
originally. If you will notice, the ground changed from where we have been walking. You can
see the roads and building foundations from the old city.”
     I look to the White City that we live in now. It is odd to see it like this—convex instead of
concave. It is an absolute behemoth.
“This is where we take our breaks. We always sit on this foundation for about thirty minutes
before getting another start. It’s outside of the trees, so it is much safer because we can see
everything.”
     We sit down on the hard ground, and only now that I’m sitting do I realize how badly my
calves hurt from all of this walking.
     But almost before I get a chance to rest, something on the horizon changes. It is moving,
throbbing, unnoticeable at first, like ants on an ant hill. But there is something coming up from
below the ground.
“Um, Anton,” I say, but when I look at him, I see that he is looking at the same thing as I am.
     Empties. There are at least fifty of them, outmatching the fifteen of us greatly.
“Lukas, do you know if the buildings that were over there had basements?”
“I’ve never been over there.”
“I think they did.” Anton draws his bow and, and we all do so, but the Empties are moving
much too fast. Within seconds, they overpower us.

Check out Colby's blog HERE
---------------
Check out this story and the other top entries at my website.  HERE.