2025 Chapter Open Season

Blackness. Massive machines thrum through miles of granite, a distant bass drum booms a steady, slow rhythm. Strings of light swirl into a spiral galaxy, tinted phosphorescent green. The galaxy recedes up and to the left, shrinking down to a thin horizontal line. The line blinks, and is now an underscore, a cursor.

"here's one... when an unbegun girl is given the Practice as a pastoral allegory eg Watership Down...but not rabbits"

beep

In a forest glade, dappled with sunlight, a young doe dips her head to munch a tuft of sweet grass. With a swish and a thunk, an arrow lodges in a tree just above her head. The arrow is handmade, with crow feather fletching and an obsidian point. Startled, she raises her head, and looking back behind her, finds the arrow's origin. Her gaze seems to focus, and twin red laser beams flash out from her eyes. There's a horrible scream as the beams find their mark, followed by a heavy thud of a body hitting the earth. The sweet doe blinks and the beams flicker off. She returns to grazing.

"hey, that's great!"

beep

The underscore becomes a blinking ":)"