Prediction Winner

Thank you, everyone for coming back. I was afeared, I confess that something prettier and more dangerous might come along.

This week's words were an odd combination but everyone polished their pens and delivered short pieces of perfection. Judging obviously won't be getting any easier.

A little summary to get us in the mood...

• Sandra Davies exposes her unwilling victim's fundament, torn asunder by a churchman's vessel born to draw in a bubbling, chalky elixir in Shattering.
• Antonia Woodville sings us an unexpected Siren Song, the flautist's tunnel swearing and tearing at her hero's senses, ripping into his phobia. Nothing is as it seems.
• Thomas Pluck with the lovely name whisks us onto a nostalgic flight where men wear high-waisted trousers and talk with cool seduction, not slime in their voices in the cleverly named Cary Me Home.
• William Davoll slips a dancing creature, almost an Ouroborus between his protaganist's innocent, waiting lips as the Devil's daughter plays him a merry dance with The Serpent's Fife.
• My Stitch in Spine has a needle-phobic lover labouring over his healer's back, sweating as he ribbons her tight and waiting to tie a tidy black bow.
• RR Kovar's mythological pantheon plays with the long-serving proletariate, casually observing their actions and failures whilst flicking through the intricacies of human behaviour over time, in A Gift in Appreciation for Your Many Years of Service.
• Chris Allinotte's Nightcap traps Elizabeth and Edward in a Noel Coward nightmare, arachnid phobias sending a vague shiver through the room despite the caged creature in the corner.
• Phil Ambler shoves his slim whistle into our grateful visual space before teasing us with a big fat brass of a tuba in Innocence Lost. Ouch.
• AJ Humpage steers us through dripping gothic halls, forcing us to circumnavigate a monk's foul attempt to save souls from within Vlad's domain in the gorgeously entitled Execrate.
• Pixie J. King's executioner plays with his/her victim's senses in Arches of Sin, forcing him to wallow in the above and below before plunging him to his death.
• AidanF gets the girls' cherries as they dabble in a dangerous dance with the handy-bendy undead. Limbo keeps going, the kissing's just starting in Summer Raving.
• Vix mixes pantheons and throws us to the pleasure of the Gods and acolytes in her musical, untitled Pandemic of poetic words.
• Col Bury's Rendezvous has the reader shivering in fear and anticipation of the forthcoming encounter; fingers tremble and brows sweat as all he must do is step in to the world of people.
• Kim deals us The Hanged Man in a marked deck of tarot in Party Line. All he is, and all he will become is drip, drip, dripping into the dark-haired one's flute, for the supping therefrom.
• John Xero slips his fingers into a troubled world where musical bliss lies in tremor, awaiting the touch of a player - his notes awakening the beauty of his nemesis/muse.

I am in awe at the delights laid before us on the Feardom this week. Well done everybody. My winner is Reba Kovar for her beautiful, Escher vision of the gods playing with us like so many pawns. Congratulations Reba - I swear I have dreamt this vision.

I'll return in the morning with the new Friday Prediction; in the meantime, do sleep and dream well. May your inspiration feed you.

______________________________________

Prediction Winner

Life has been horribly demanding for many of us lately and I've had a series of apologies from regular Predictioneers who have been unable to contribute these past few weeks. You're not forgotten; The Feardom's doors are always open. However, in a major attempt to catch up myself, I'm announcing that there will be a two-week Prediction break at the end of May. Details to follow soon.

As for this week, I am shaking my head (you can't see it, but I am). You knock me out, and the quality of writing continues to rise. How can that be? No, I know exactly how - such talent...

So to summarise this week's outstanding fiction (sorry for lack of links):

• My Children of the Sand were 'Children of the Damned', blond and bored of playground competition between rival mothers.
  
• Erin Cole exposes the sibling hunter for what he truly is; and fortunately 'deals' with the problem in A Shot To The Left
  
• In Eaglewing & Mastermind to Save the Day? Aidan Fritz parades his nemesis Super Heroes across a perverse and illogical world.
  
• Antonia Woodville's Spring Sacrifice glides us through a beauty found only in this floral season before declaring the 'sacrifice' that man chooses to make of beast. Poor beast.
  
• Pixie J. King treats us to a glimpse of her realm in Beautiful Prison, where the victim - despite everything - will not survive,
  
• The Unwatered Well plunges us into filth and flesh until we drown in bilious and noxious liquid. A.J. Humpage goes full-scale horror.
  
• Monsieur Allinotte invites us back into the doll-like world of vampiric Ma petite homunculus, ma fiérté. Michaud va mourir, c'est sur.
  
• RR Kovar, Reba creates as if from the whisper of Mother Nature herself in the poetic Truth and Consequences. Meanwhile she misleads us into believing we are amongst naughty children in boarding school, until skin starts to smoke and a vampire flies to his exquisite death in Sunshine Laws.
  
• David Barber chills, making us all face our innermost demons as a judgemental reflection in the murderous Your Reflection?
  
• We hang from a spout of fear that captures mankind's perception of sin whilst evacuating The Devil beneath in John Xero's galactic, tremulous Tower.
  
• Ravens feed with relish at the bound body dealt up by Steven Chapman in his debut, untitled Prediction entry (entrée) as nourishment.
  
• William Davoll has us by the fragile bits - not once but twice. The Devil Inside forces us to linger inside the mind of a psycho-killer as he stalks and tortures his victims. In Pilot Error - OMG what a clever, and oh so Easter-timely play on words the Christ figure is only crucified because of a joke - a heckle. How our history might have been different without a Comedian from Coventry. ;)
  
• Kim slips in at the last moment with a fight. A carefully-planned and terrifying observation of the preparation, the circling of combatants in a raw pit as they attempt to blindside each other in The Pits.

A winner? Well, do what you will but - it's me! No, not really. I have two joint winners - as Antonia said last week, everyone else truly is a runner-up. Not a cop-out - a reality, and testament to your talent.

So - the winners are A.J. Humpage with the visceral, claustrophobic and hopeless The Unwatered Well, and Reba with the first (as if I could choose between them) of her entries Truth and Consequences, a beautiful birth.

But seriously, a huge well done to everyone; you are so inspiring.

Sleep well lovelies; I'll be back.

__________________________________