Games of Words

Write out a World of your own imagination. It can be a future world or a past, a world of fantasy etc and create your story around it. Any length but not a book.
1. No erotica
2. No collaboration
3. AI not encouraged
4. No chatting on comp thread

Canto I:The New Jerusalem

Beneath the ash-gray skies they roamed
The faithful few with heads bent low
Across the endless, barren loam
To where the desert winds did blow

A voice, like thunder, called them forth
The patriarch, his eyes aflame
A shepherd from the hollow North
Who wore a tattered prophet’s name

With cross held high, he led them on
To build anew Jerusalem
Upon the bones of ages gone
Beneath a sky that knew no sun

He called the land a holy waste
The prairies wide, the broken plain
A place where sins could be erased
And man could taste of death and pain

Canto II: The Chant of Ash and Dust

In worn procession through the dust
They carried icons black with rust
And kissed the wood, and kissed the stone
In whispered tongues, in solemn tone

“Rejoice, O Mother,” came the cry
“For we have left the world behind
To walk this path where martyrs lie
And cleanse the blood from mortal mind.”  

Yet in the night strange visions came
The saints they saw were twisted, pale
With faces veiled in shadow’s flame
And halos cracked and dimmed and frail

Canto III:The Patriarch’s Sermon

“O sons and daughters,” cried their priest
His voice like fire, his robe like night
“This place was wrought for holy feasts
This ground will purge all earthly blight

We build a kingdom here in dread
The city of the prophet’s tale
Where angels fear and devils tread
We raise our prayers, though voices fail.”  

Yet murmurs stirred beneath his words
The faithful’s faces, gaunt and gray
For death had stalked them like a bird  
That knew the scent of souls astray

Canto IV: The Vision of Bones

Beneath the moon’s relentless stare
The dead rose up in silent rows
The prophets, saints, and martyrs fair
Arrayed in robes, in crimson glows

They gathered ‘round with hollow eyes
Their fingers long as twisted reeds
And sang as mourners, bleak and wise
Of holy fire and mortal needs

“We built the walls of Heaven’s gate,”  
The phantoms cried in ghostly song
“We carved the stones of blood and hate
And died in faith, yet suffered wrong.”  

And there the patriarch did kneel
To kiss the bones of saints laid bare
Yet in his heart a frozen steel
A silence void of love or prayer

Canto V: The End of Days

At dawn they saw, in eastern light
The city risen, sharp and black
A kingdom in the morning’s blight
Where towers cast their shadows back

Yet none dared enter through its doors
For shrieks did rise from deep within
As if some ancient, restless war  
Had found new voice in songs of sin

And there the patriarch, alone
Stood silent ‘neath the barren sun
A king upon a shattered throne
Where time and faith had come undone

In that desolate New Jerusalem
No trumpets sang, no candles burned
And all who sought to be redeemed  
Were lost to dust, and never learned

ThePalestRider, thank you for starting the competition and LunasChild8, thank you for your participation.

olliec, thank you for your entry

Thank you for your entry PAR