I'd like to offer my congratulations to the winners of the character contest. It was a very difficult choice to make, but the judges and I worked hard to pick who we thought was the absolute best.

First Place:
with SakiyuA small young girl, who had only seen a handful of winters at best, was thrust unceremoniously from the gates of her village into the forest enveloped in the dark of night by an older man she once regarded affectionately as 'pawpaw' and had been there to celebrate her birth - the village elder. She skidded to a halt across the ground, skinning the palms of her hands and her knees, sniffing hard and rubbing her eyes as she stood to look at them one last time.

Her father was behind the elder with regret in his eyes, holding back her mother that was inconsolable and sobbing uncontrollably but they could do nothing against the word of the elder


Second Place:
with Dante ''Doc'' Guerriero     
A chorus of voices cried out his various names as he was shoved backwards, over the railing that normally protected people from falling to their deaths.
Commander Guerriero! Chief! Doc! 
Dante!
Each shout was silenced by the roaring winds as it rushed past his ears, his entire body plummeting toward the icy water and shadows that waited below. 
This couldn’t be the end, right?
“Dante?” The faint whisper was enough to rouse him from his light sleep. His eyes fluttered open, and Dante found himself staring up at a wide expanse of blue sky. Beneath him were rolling hills covered with grass greener than his eyes. 
   He rolled onto his side, where Willa was lying, her head pillowed against one hand. She had a look of confusion and fascination on her face. She seemed to be studying his every feature. 
From the gentle slope of his nose, to his strong jaw, to his perfect, almond shape


Third Place:
with KimeraWhere did the essence of time go in a place that only recognized infinite evening night? 
Frivolous minutes felt as thought they had unraveled into tedious hours; and yet no movement, no shift of position had been changed in her quiet waiting outside of the sealed porthole into the hell-born, tooth-rotting office. 
Fair emerald Luna dared not peer through the gathered mantle of billowy charcoal clouds set beyond the edible marzipan walls. In its absence, the spacious red hall was bathed in cascading washes of ebon shadow and macabre illusion. Only the dance of fickle gold atop burning sconces illuminated the consuming darkness, if not ever somewhat. 
Not a single entity or generous patron lingered within those barren passageways. In truth, never had the voiceless hound been summoned during the more festive hours of the notorious Rotten Cavity. The promising decadent “Candies” of the refined bordello did not need to know about th


Honourable Mentions:

Distance Kagularwei"And a part of my secretly wants you
I want to hold you as you fall asleep tonight
I'll be there in your dreams, right beside you in my mind
A part of me secretly wants you
and I know you want me, too
I want to help you through the dark until
Baby, you can shine"
I listened to the sounds of the radio as I closed my eyes again, a deep sigh from somewhere within me escaping.
Jon was in the next room, that's where the sound of the radio was coming from. Jon was listening to that stupid-moronic-idiotic-time wasting band that- that- 
...
That stupid, moronic, idiotic, time wasting band that had posters plastered all over almost every shop window in town because their next concert was here. It was always here, the same date, every year ever since they became famous. And every year, we would go to that stupid band's concert and some teenage girl would push and shove us around and if I ever said anything about it, they would start to tell m ::CE:: ValentineThe insignificant slivers of rock that popped and tumbled down the slick edge of the cliff echoed over the vast sea of foliage below. They squirmed out from beneath the soles of my sneakers as I perched precariously at the edge of the rock face. It’s like they knew something was down there that I didn’t, they knew something awaited there far below the treeline. These impudent little pieces of sediment taunted me with their cracking and rolling sounds as I listened blindly. What were they trying to say? Why couldn’t they just tell me what was down there, why they so longed to come free from beneath my shoe and tumble down to Amethyst MarigoldThe dead doesn't know it's dead until another dead informs it.
For my case, however, I've known I've died the moment I lost consciousness. I knew that closing my eyes will mean never opening them again. But I was wrong... I did open my eyes. But I was also correct. I didn't open the eyes of someone, I opened the eyes of someTHING. I'm nothing but a part of some electromagnetic waves and the only thing that's keeping me in here is my desire, a passion, a mission I need to finish. I can't leave, I can't vanish, I can't recycle unless I...

His eyes darted me, NOT through me, but ME. He has a body. He's living. These eyes he uses to see, they a

Please take a look at these wonderful entries and thank you to everyone who participated and offered prizes. I think this was a great success in terms of creating some great characters to introduce into our community!

I cannot wait to see them really blossom!

If you offered prizes please contact the winners about their rewards. Likewise, if you won, send a note to those offering prizes. That way no one has the chance of forgetting about it.

Amazing work everyone!