MCF RPG I Coda

Last time, on MCF RPG:

(1) I supplied the beginning of a story.

(2) I asked readers to continue the tale on their own blogs, linking back to the beginning.

(3) You could write as much or as little as you like, and take the story in any direction, from the definitive end to a short story to the conclusion of a chapter, leaving room for future adventures.

(4) I promised to post my own conclusion and links to everyone else's the following week.

I wasn't sure if anyone would play along, but a few people did, which means I have to write a conclusion or continuation as well. First, here's our story-starting paragraphs once more:

* * * * *

The wind was brutal, icy daggers clutching at my exposed scalp. Why does it take me so long each year to start wearing a hat? Or gloves for that matter? I pulled my hands back into the sleeves of my jacket, and continued down the trail.

My camera was zipped safely inside my coat, equipment better protected than its owner. I'd lost track of time, as well as the route I'd taken into the woods. The sun was setting, and my car was miles away. I shoved my hands into my pockets and shivered, taking comfort in the cell phone on the fingertips of my right hand.

It's good to get away from civilization sometimes, but with a cell phone one is never too far away. Sometimes though, all it takes is a snapping twig. Goodbye civilized; hello running like a panicked deer. Conventional wisdom dictates not to make sudden movements when faced with hostile wildlife, but fear and an active imagination trump conventional wisdom. So it was, running with my hands in my pockets clenching my wallet in one hand and my cell phone in the other, that I tripped over a branch. My hands flew out instinctively, numb fingers losing their grip on valuable items.

I checked the scrapes on my hands as I staggered to my feet. My wallet would be somewhere ahead of me and to the left; my phone ahead and to the right. The dwindling light of the day would make my search challenging enough, and I looked upon the blanket of autumn leaves with despair.

::SNAP::

I didn't run this time. I froze, and slowly turned around to face the sound's source. Between the trees, a glowing orb pulsed. Was it a flashlight? A trick of the setting sun? Whatever it was, I was about to find out....

* * * * *

Everyone took a different approach, both in story ideas and format. B13 submitted the following as a comment:

MCF thought to himself, "I guess this is where the probe come into play..."

There was no rule saying it had to be written in first person POV, and it does take the story in one of the myriad possible directions. Next, I received the following from Lorna via e-mail:

I should have known! There, like the window-dresser from hell, is my younger sister, bogged down with all the stuff I'd insisted on leaving in the car, carping about how I should have been carrying my flashlight, my purse, my hat, my gloves and a pashmina. Actually, since I had band aids in the purse, she was, unfortunately, and as usual, right.

I scooped up my stuff, removed my camera from my pocket, and capped this perfect day by taking a picture of my sister, looking like the cat with 5%-tastes-like-10% cream, standing 10 feet away from the car I'd just circled back to.

She hoped it would be a twist on what the guys wrote, and I think she succeeded. Finally, Kev Bayer offered the following on his blog:

The light bounced around and flickered. Feeling silly now, I noticed the source of the light: a small brown squirrel had grabbed my keychain and had somehow activated the LED light attached to the chain. The squirrel bounded over the log, scampered across my leg and ran off into the trees behind me.

Another snap from the direction the squirrel ran and this time I instinctively turned, expecting the happy bounding squirrel. Instead, I was faced with a multitude of squirrels! Rows of them, possibly hundreds! Some hanging from tree trunks, others standing tall. All of them holding keychain lights. As one, they all pointed the lights at me and turned them on. In the dimness of the dwindling daylight filtered through the trees, the light was blinding.

Then it was gone. Through the afterimages on my eyes, I could see squirrels still holding the keychains aimed at me. Somewhere in the trees, I heard one of them chitter. Then the lights starting strobing on and off, blinding me repeatedly. I crossed my arms over my eyes, turned and fled back the way I came, leaving my other belongings scattered where they had fallen.

Oddly, I came to the edge of a cliff that hadn't been along my path before. I turned back to retrace my steps but was blocked by the squirrels all holding flashing lights and advancing slowly towards me, strangely silent.

I turned and leapt from the cliff.

I love a good cliffhanger, or in this case, a Cliffjumper.

So, there are three great contributions, and three different directions. Vote on your favorite in the comments:

1) B13 had me worrying about alien probes.
2) Lorna found her sister, her stuff, and her bearings.
3) Kev Bayer faced a mob of keychain-light-waving squirrels, and was forced to go over a cliff.

The writer with the most votes will win a Mysterious Master Prize™, and should there be future installments of this game, we might even branch off from their contribution. You can vote only once, you can vote for yourself, and you can't vote for me, because I don't need a Mysterious Master Prize™ fragment.

There were a few ways I was considering going with my own contribution. Here's what I finally settled on:

I probably should have ran. That was the logical thing, the sane thing. A guy in the woods at night who manages to hurl his wallet and cell phone in two different directions however, is neither logical nor sane.

I approached the sphere of light, instinctively shielding my eyes. As I got closer, I noticed something odd. As bright as it was, though I couldn't make out anything but a blinding luminescence, there were no shadows. How could something appear to give off light, yet cast no shadows? Neither myself nor any of the trees had outlines upon the ground. It was improbability itself.

Improbability. I clung to that last thought. I pondered my personal life equation, calculated within the last decade. Whatsoever be 2% for anyone else, shall forever be 100% for myself. Those were the odds. I had followed that logic for so long that I'd begun to doubt it. How can anyone have mathematically certain bad luck? I even entertained the notion that my odds were determined not by fate, but by my own attitude. Improbable things befell me because I expected them to. I was a self-fulfilling prophet.

Subconsciously bending physics for years, I'd inflicted an imbalance upon the universe itself. Now here, in the middle of nowhere, Improbability had manifested itself. No good could come of it. I needed help, perhaps a real physicist's opinion and not that of a guy who'd read too much science fiction. After all, I had nothing to base my hypothesis on other than a feeling, a certainty in my gut.

The wallet wasn't going anywhere, nor was the cell phone. The logical thing, the sane thing would have been to pick a direction, any direction away from the Improbability Sphere, and depart with haste. That was one possible outcome.

As I placed the palm of my hand on the expanding orb, I could see that outcome and thousands of others. I drowned in a flood of information and reality, buried in the branches of my life. Every decision I'd ever made, or choice I abstained from, created a new branch. Some overlapped and led back upon themselves, some ended abruptly, and others continued beyond my field of vision. Within the sphere, my life was infinite. Out in the forest, in the reality where I'd conjured it, the sphere was shrinking.

With a pop, it was gone. A few feet away, a cell phone leaning improbably against a wallet on a treestump began to vibrate. Did it make no sound because the ringtone was off, or because there was no one to hear?