Competition: Boggarts

Finished
Boggarts

Tell me, young one... what is it you fear most? Your enemies? Your allies? The failures of your past, or inevitability of the future?

Indeed, one and all of us have fears lurking deep within our hearts. Some learn to harness that fear into strength, while others battle to conquer it. Most, however, simply succumb to it.

And there are creatures out there, young one, who'll feed off of that fear, turn it into a weapon against you. The Brotherhood has captured one such being, code-named "the Boggart" and taken it to the Shadow Academy for study. At least, that was the plan.

Only now, the Boggart has escaped its confinement, and is loose somewhere in the academy's halls. Only the horrified screams of unfortunate students serve as evidence that the monster hasn't fled the academy entirely. One student after another is being dragged down into screaming madness from the overwhelming terror of being confronted by their worst nightmares made flesh.

But you, young one, surely you have what it takes? You have the willpower to face your greatest fears face to face, without succumbing to your own terror, don't you?

In 500 words or more, tell me the tale of how you confronted the Boggart. Winners in the top 3 will, of course, be rewarded with Second Level Crescents, as befits such an achievement. Grading will use the Standard Grading Rubric, with a particular eye towards Character Development.

Good luck, and remember... we've nothing to fear, save fear itself.

Right? Hahahah...

Competition Information
Organized by
Major Jon Silvon
Running time
2019-10-01 until 2019-11-01 (about 1 month)
Target Unit
Entire DJB
Competition Type
Fiction
Awards
Second Level Crescents and Clusters of Ice as per VOICE guidelines
Participants
13 subscribers, of which 3 have participated.
Results
Member
High Inquisitor Anderson
File submission
Boggart.pdf
Placement
1st place
Member
Knight Ahsik Warren
Textual submission

The tale can only be told with a roaring fire place and a glass of chilled whiskey. Of how Ahsik Warren, fabled warrior in the making, sole survivor and Sith illusionist, was entirely and singlehandedly spooked in his first week of enrolling into the shadow academy.

It was three days after being assigned to his Master and house, Ahsik had set on the first task he had in mind: to learn all he could and find his place in the world he had immersed himself. Deep in the warfare and galactic histories section Ahsik had made a comfy home after 4 hours of study.

From the little table he had claimed there was a brief moment the zabrak had looked up from his holo records, several spread sparely across his table, and decided to rest his eyes. As he began to snooze away with his hand under his chin there was a chilling sound.

“AHHHH!!”
“WHY? MOTHER WHY ARE YOU HERE!?!”

The random sounds and shouts coming from each isle and from the lower floors, Ahsik had been very very much shocked into a lucid state. Blood now pumping the Sith jumped from his seat and reached the site of the nearest scream, coming from the front desk. “Hey! Anybody here? You okay?” Ahsik said, approaching the knocked over chairs. The sound of muffled crying was coming from under the counter. “Hey, what happened are you okay?” Ahsik asked, approaching.

As he neared he heard a door swing open, a chiss woman with a pair of half broken glasses hanging off her ears. “It’s tHERE RUN AWAY!” The woman cried with tears in her eyes.
Ahsik had throughly, and immediately dropped his stomach into the basement of deep dark secrets under the academy.
“gRRrRrrrr, RArarrrrr”
The sound of twisted snarling began behind the Sith. The sound of it like a serrated knife on chalkboard, grinding his vertebrae together and piercing the skin of his ears. Thoughts and memories of crying and desperate whimpering came to mind, as his neck and left shoulder began to ache.... “no..” Ahsik had spoken in soft tones, turning to what was under the desk.
What he saw was the growing form of a blood red hound, not even like a wolf. As those someone has taken the skin of an rhino and slicked it with blood, the maw full of razor sharp teeth and more rows than a shark. It’s nose was like a boar wolf, risked and it’s ears ended in long barbed tentacles. Hairless and snarling it’s drool pooling on the floor.
Ahsik stood once more before the figure of a Sith hound, the creature that had forged his fate with its sleeping presence, and had taken away the entirety of his home, what he spent 2 years hunting out of vengeance, a living nightmare that had ended a year ago. But like the nightmares he wrestles every night, and like the waking nightmare he lived through.
It.
Was.
Back.

“aaah... AHHHHHH. GRRAAGHGHAH!”
The conflicted sound that left the man’s mouth was torn between terror, hate and adrenaline. “RRAWWHH”
The beast pounced on him, teeth bared and reaching for his throat. Ahsik’s reaction had only been saved by the voice of his ancestors in his heart, telling him to act. To fight.
Raising his electro staff halves, they were ignited, and with a cry of his own he leaped to reach the creature in the air, “AGGH!” The maw of the beast was stuffed with a rod of steel and lightning, it’s claws managing to only scratch Ahsik’s left arm, already turned to steel and lost to teeth like these long ago.
“I.. I already killed you, All if you YOU WILL NOT RISE TO TAKE ANOTHER HOME FROM ME!”
The beast was disoriented, and Ahsik stood with eyes blazing, literally glowing with the dark side of the force. He raised a single hand to the creature, and with a gesture forced into its mind something worse than death.
“RaWRaw... Rrra...ahah..” The beast was crying in its pain. Ahsik had known full well that beasts like these had experienced torture from Sith Lords, often in the form of force lightning. While not able to conjure such a storm, Ahsik was more then adept at making people experience what they expected. The more the creature writhed, the less it looked the same. It’s skin became smoke, and it’s color was all but lost, like a puddle of water it lost all form.
All but a pair of eyes, staring back in pain and unable to blink. Ahsik saw two pupils in each eye, then 3 then 6 then 10, then it looked as if those pain stricken eyes were endless. Before such sorrow Ahsik was stunned, then the smoke formed a man shaped beast and leaped clear over him. It was a man now, running for its life, bright colored dots lining its spine and running on its limbs, it ran and never looked back.

Though many days and reports explaining what and why that day happened, Ahiks would never forget the look of a true boggart, not should he.

Placement
2nd place
3rd place
Mauro Wynter
Member
Mauro Wynter
File submission
The_Boggarts.pdf
Placement
3rd place