Attached Link: The city was not always this dark...

Arizona, 2024 The city was not always this dark. She still remembers when the neon lights danced across the night sky like the amber flames of a campfire. Now it is the black, foreboding smoke escaping from the burning tires at the Sentinel compound that awaits them. When the loneliness engulfs her like this, the memory of the acrid copper smell that permeated the air when the world changed awakens to haunt her. Everything is dark now. They have learnt to embrace this darkness as one that welcomes a long-lost lover from a sojourn in faraway lands. Even the blanket of the night never allows them to break free from the reality of the cold, steel blue sky that has been with them for almost three years. Ah, the simple comforts flicking a switch for light or warmth brought them. Some of the younger ones struggle to remember that magic that was electricity. The brooding darkness has become a way of life for them. Now, communities have come to rely on them for so much. She must never forget this. While many of their group will not return from this battle, the fallen will not be forgotten. The farming communities surrounding this shell of a once thriving city will commemorate their deaths. It is these communities that will prosper from the supplies the warriors sacrificed themselves for. An explosion awakens her from this murky stupor. It has begun. Arizona tightens her grip around the sword and rushes off to join the raid... [Narrative by Iwan Pienaar and Picture by Dark_Whisper]

"A perfect marriage of words and image! Very original !" (My comment under the art) Nice writing to compliment the art. And, it surely doesn't hurt having Dark_Whisper doing the art. I wish more pictures were like this. Thanks for sharing.

They can't all be like that because there is only one Dark_Whisper.

See, if I could JUST write with clarity.... Let me take another swipe at it... (ahem <---clearing "throat") I wish more pictures were accompanied with 100 - 200 words to add that "extra" dimension to it. (There...is that a bit better...hehe)

LOL--I was just tweaking. I could sit at Poser a hundred years and I couldn't come with an image like that...even if I changed my name!

Thanks Chuck for the kind words. This is my first attempt at posting in the Writer's Forum so I did not really know what to expect. Iwan

Ah, well, you never what you'll get here...except we always welcome new writers. :) I hope this won't be your last posting. Clearly there is more to the story.....

Thanks for the encouragement. To use an often quoted line: "Watch this space!" ;)

I'm a quibbler - is Arizona the location of the story, the name of the woman, or both? I realize you're using the picture's title, but since Arizona is also a location, I got confused when you used it as her name. You might want to give a name to the location that she's in, or name her as Arizona early on: It was not always this dark. Arizona still remembers when the neon lights of the city danced across the night sky ... (I live in Arizona, so seeing a character named Arizona threw me for a loop.) My other quibble is the fact that you used the present tense instead of the past tense. I know that you're trying for immediacy, but it's harder to keep the word flow even. You did a really good job on keeping the verb tense consistant for the most part, but you may want to look at putting it in the past tense, especially if you decide to expand it out. As for what to expect here, expect a lot of encouragement with the occasion nitpick. (That would be me. And when I post stories, I beg for nitpicking, so you can have all the revenge you want.) ;-) Hope to see more soon!

Thanks for the comments Crescent. Arizona is the name of the character. I tried to add to the tension of the piece by leaving her name out to the very last moment where she finally springs to action. As for the tense structures, I wanted to combine both the present (what she is experiencing now) with thoughts of the past (they way things were). Obviously that still needs some work. Thanks again, Iwan