This is a short story that I wrote for the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition! It won an honorable mention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It had been a nice, normal, spring day. Before the man, before his daughter, before\u2026well. It started with cherry blossoms. They were the first thing Aryan noticed as he headed outside, his plan to relax, to take a break. The pink flowers littered the pavement and as Aryan passed the movie theater, the smell of popcorn wafted through the open doors. All around, kids were laughing, couples were talking, and, well, everyone seemed joyful. As Aryan scanned the crowd, a pleasant smile lit up his face. It really was what some would call a perfect day.\u00a0 Aryan and the man walked together in relative silence, the man occasionally glancing over as if to make sure Aryan didn\u2019t disappear completely. Aryan surveyed the apartment complex they walked up to, satisfied when he saw nothing wrong.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you enjoyed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a short story that I wrote for the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition! It won an honorable mention. It had been a nice, normal, spring day. Before the man, before his daughter, before\u2026well. It started with cherry blossoms. They were the first thing Aryan noticed as he headed outside, his plan to relax, … Continue reading “The Spanaritar”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713,38,172,311,154,1,384,93],"tags":[11,260,235,1459,90],"class_list":["post-2660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-characters","category-hobbies","category-imaginative","category-reading-hobbies","category-reading","category-uncategorized","category-writing-hobbies","category-writing","tag-mint-girl","tag-mint-girl-writes","tag-short-story","tag-spanaritar","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2664,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
As he continued to observe the sights, setting a leisurely pace, he startled at the sight of someone unhappy<\/em>. A middle-aged man was sitting on a bench, his face buried in his palms. Something drew Aryan to the man, something that he couldn\u2019t quite explain, but couldn\u2019t quite ignore either. Aryan laid his hand on the man\u2019s shoulder, startling him. The man looked up, alarmed, his teary gaze meeting Aryan\u2019s calm, steady one.
\u201cHey. What\u2019s wrong? Well, obviously, I\u2019m a stranger, but\u2026if you have anything that\u2019s troubling you\u2026you can tell me\u201d.
The man tried in vain to smile, \u201cThat\u2019s-that\u2019s nice of you, thanks. I-, well, I guess I sound stupid, but um. My daughter- she, she\u2019s going to kill me, I swear\u201d
Aryan furrowed his brow, \u201cUm, well. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not that bad, but you can stay with me for now? If you prefer?\u201d\u00a0
The man shook his head frantically, \u201cNo. I must get back to her, I must! I can\u2019t, I have to see her again!\u201d As much as Aryan was put off by the situation, he couldn\u2019t help but pity the man. He must have been having some family problems, maybe a fight had broken out between the two and his daughter had gotten terrifyingly vicious. Though I don\u2019t understand why he\u2019d exaggerate so much\u2026<\/em>
Aryan sighed, \u201cFine. But promise me you\u2019ll let me walk back with you. I don\u2019t want to see you get hurt.\u201d
The man\u2019s face collapsed in a relieved grin, \u201cYes. Yes, thank you so, so much. I\u2019d appreciate that. Just\u2026stay back, ok? If\u2026if it happens again, you should stay safe.\u201d
No matter Aryan\u2019s wariness, he nodded, following the man closely.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He turned to smile at the man, \u201cThere. Is your daught-\u201d. He stopped suddenly, surveying the man\u2019s withdrawn expression, the fear returned to his eyes, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d
\u201cShe-she\u2019s there. Don\u2019t you see her?\u201d He raised a finger, slowly pointing at a figure in the window. Aryan\u2019s eyes narrowed, watching her closely. On first glance, she had blended in with her surroundings- her matted black hair and rumpled clothes matching the darkness of the room behind her.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Aryan continued to pay attention, the figure turned around, an almost evil gleam in her eye and a manic smile making its way up those red-lined lips. He found himself backing away subconsciously, his overwhelming selfishness and greed to live overpowering his desire to help the man. Even as his legs trembled, he couldn\u2019t look away, eyes locked onto the girl in the window.\u00a0
She lifted an instrument to her lips, then began to play. Aryan watched in horror as the man seemed to collapse onto himself, clutching his head desperately. As he gazed upon the man\u2019s obvious turmoil, terror bleached his brain.\u00a0
The instrument\u2026.it couldn\u2019t be? Unless\u2026 it was what he thought it was. But there\u2019s no way- she shouldn\u2019t have one of those\u2026<\/em>
If it really was what he thought\u2026well, they were all screwed. It was a device of legends, an instrument said to control the listener, to force them to listen to its twisted tunes, burrowing its way into their brain, until\u2026well, until they were gone.\u00a0
The last Aryan saw of the man was him getting dragged into the building by some kind of force, his eyes dark and tornmented, his lips barely pushing out the words, \u201cNo- please. The Spanaritar, please. Save me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n