There is a flicker on the first screen and it dies out. More and more demons have congregated around the monitors now. Some are seen giving each other high fives, while others make snide remarks. The Mind demon hushes them up as he stares expectantly at the arrangement of monitors. Toxic ambles forward, all the better to see and to understand what the group of demons already have seen and understood.

As If on cue, another screen flickers to life and a beautiful young lady is seen. Fair and comely, seated with her back to the screen, she is staring out of the window with palpable dejection. She is seated so Still that one would wonder whether the breath of life Still passed through her nostrils. She was seated thus because she was crying.
Ese was crying. Not the loud, noisy sobs that drew the attention and sometimes, annoyance of those that heard it, but the quiet, hearftelt choke of they whose souls were in grief. The silent whimpers of a heart slowly being torn apart in pain. But that did not detract from her beauty. Even in her misery, one could still appreciate the smooth, fair skin that looked like the sun had never kissed it. Eyes that were so piercing, they seemed to X-ray your soul, lips that would have driven Aphrodite to envy and a body structure an artist would have worshipped. But she was unaware of this, oblivious to the fact that light skin was now mottled and red from crying, that her amber eyes were swollen. She was certainly not bothered that even her pretty lace nightgown had not been spared. They were streaked and stained from the generous ministrations of a rheumy nose. Ese was a perfect picture of misery. And she didn't know it, couldn't know it, but at that very moment she was the poster girl for the Spirits of Depression and Bitterness.

Like her mother, Ese's brain was a constellation of sad questions. Questions that she had been asking herself since the text message came in two days ago. 'What have I done to deserve this?' ' What did I do?' 'Why is this happening to me?' 'How do I survive this?' Each question seemed to send her further and further into depths of immense hopelessness and she was powerless to stop it.

She stared at her phone screen and read the offensive message out once again.
" Ese, it's over between us. I have tried to make it work without success. I can't keep deceiving myself. I've decided to move on. You should do the same."
She mouthed the words again and again and like an accurately fired dart, every single time, they found their way to her heart wounding her deeply.

Just gonna quietly come in here, finish the story, and leave before ppl realize wat's going on...

I am very impressed by your writing, quite an unusual imagination, I used to write here but those plagiarism things got me discouraged, well maybe I will give the short story thingy a try.

You dnt usually complete ur stories

Lol. What an accusation.
Dearie, haven't you heard of the plagiarists on the loose? My intellectual properties are of value to me o.

..

gghh

Great

UPDATE: OPENING DATE: 1ST DECEMBER 2015.
DEADLINE: 5th FEBRUARY 2016
ABOUT NAWOT:
The Nelson Adeyeye Writers Of Today(NAWOT) is an online competition that is organized by Sandra Adeyeye C.E.O of Eminent Creators in honor of her late father Mr. Nelson Adeyeye as a way to encourage the writing and reading culture of the Nigerian youth.
This competition promises to be an exciting and uplifting showcase of well-laid out Prose that promotes creativity at it's peak.
AWARDS:
There shall be a selection of the best twenty stories by our judges. These shall make up our anthology other prizes to be won include but are not restricted to:
Best writer Romance Category - 15,000
Best writer Science Fiction and Fantasy Category - 15,000
Best writer Mystery and Horror Category - 15,000
Best writer Action and Thriller Category - 15,000
Other consolation prizes, a copy of the anthology and other books shall follow.
RULES AND REGULATION:
In order to be eligible, participants are to note the following guidelines as regards submission of entries.
1) Participant must be a Nigerian youth between the ages of 16 - 30 years.
2) Participant must send a mail containing a black and white passport photograph, age, sex, phone numbers, email and facebook i.d in a separate mail from the mail bearing his entry.
3) Entry to be submitted must be Prose, original work of participant and must be an unpublished work, not submitted for any publication during the period of this competition.
NOTE: entry should not bear author's name on it. Just the title and the word count.
4) Entry must be between a 1,500 (minimum) - 2,500 (maximum) word count. Entries must be complete, concise and bear a comprehensive plot, i.e a beginning, middle and an end (no season). Entry font should be Arial size 12 and double spaced.
NOTE: subject of mail should signify what category the author is entering his story. No entries in PDF format will be accepted.
5) Participants can compete in four categories during this competition. I.e every writer is entitled to four entries per competition. Science fiction/fantasy category, mystery/horror category, action/thriller category and romance category.
NOTE: each entry attracts a fee of #1,000.
6) Every entry must have an attachment of the scanned bank draft which has the title of the submission boldly written on it.
Account name: Eminent Creators
Account number: 0201029142
Bank: Gtbank.
7) Every entry must be in English language, with minimal usage of vernacular; and if unavoidably used, must be explained as a footnote for better understanding.
All entries must be submitted to nelsonadeyeyewritersoftoday@gmail.com on or before 5 February 2016 (late entries will attract an extra fee of 500). Date for the prize-giving ceremony shall be communicated to participants via mail.
MODE OF SELECTION:
Participants will have excerpts from their stories displayed on our blog and Facebook page for voting by our public audience within a span of two weeks. Excerpts with the highest votes/comments within that period shall scale through to the next stage of selection.
Final announcement of the winners shall be left to the jurisdiction of the competition's in-house judges whose decisions shall be Binding and Final.
Finally: Writers retain the rights to the stories they submit for the NAWOT competition. The twenty winning stories are published as an anthology and open for purchase after the launching. After that, the winning authors are free to publish anywhere, as long as due credit is given to the NAWOT competition and/or Eminent Creators. Eminent Creators staff and NAWOT team members are not eligible to participate in the competition.
Good luck.

Signed:
Hillary Zita Successa
For the competition department.

For more information, send a message to nelsonadeyeyewritersoftoday@gmail.com or like our page on facebook. https://m.facebook.com/Nelson-Adeyeye-Writers-of-Today-NAWOT-1536651376625288/?ref=context_row or visit https://eminentcreatorsblog./ for more details. Thanks.