The Story That Won Our 20 Words Writing Contest

A+map+of+Uzbekistan%2C+which+was+one+of+the+20+words+that+students+had+to+include+in+their+stories

A map of Uzbekistan, which was one of the 20 words that students had to include in their stories

The Knightly Scroll’s second writing contest has come to an end! Due to our lack of submissions—we only had one—it looks like junior Jessica Vandiver is automatically our winner, and she’ll receive the prizes for first AND second place: a $10 and a $5 Visa card. Awesome job, Jessica! We challenged the school to write a story that contained 20 ridiculous words, and you put them to surprisingly good use. Well done.

Check out her story below. The 20 words are highlighted in bold.

Disclaimer: We understand why hardly anyone got involved with this contest—the end of the year is crazy, and not everyone likes to write in the first place. But the moral of the story? Entering our writing contests could be an easy way to get some prizes!

This story is about to follow one wild ride of a jellyfish named Robert. Robert has the adventure no jellyfish could ever dream of; he ends up in an Uzbekistan hospital rather than being in the decorative aquarium at a luau. Now you all may be curious as to how Robert managed to end up in Uzbekistan but that will come later.

This entire situation happened due to the panic in Uzbekistan over what they thought was an apocalypse, the citizens seemed to think that there was some type of virus spreading around and that it could be the end of all they knew. The government wasn’t sure what to think of the situation so they attempted to keep it as a clandestine matter. The only other places that knew of this issue were hospitals in other nearby countries. The people of Uzbekistan were cantankerous and running rampant through the streets. The hospitals that were contacted about the matter were rather dubious on the authenticity of the claims they were making but agreed to assist regardless of their doubts.

One poor man was not up to date on the activities outside of his home which resulted in a gunshot wound straight to the pancreas. In that man’s impromptu visit to the hospital, unknowingly needing a new pancreas the doctors were unsure on how such an injury could come out of something so seemingly ridiculous. (Now is when you need to pay attention, Robert the jellyfish makes his debut into the story.) Now, Robert was being shipped to an aquarium in Uzbekistan on the same truck as what they were shipping the pancreas on. When the truck arrived at the hospital nobody was paying all that close attention to which container was grabbed due to the pressing urgency that they needed to grab it, unfortunately this lack of focus led to a much bigger issue.

The questions that could arise would be why is Robert the only jellyfish being shipped? The world may never know, and also why was a necessary package being shipped by truck? Again nobody really understands what goes on over there. Anyways, moving on.

When they brought everything in and had the man ready for transplant they opened the box to find a jellyfish. This was the most bumfuzzling moment any of them had ever experienced. One doctor was so disappointed and shocked that he utter the words “Phooey! We grabbed the wrong box!” How had they ended up with a jellyfish when what they needed was a pancreas? The answer lies in them being in too big of a hurry when grabbing things. But that is in the past so the next step is deciding what to do with the dying man on the table. From that moment everything was a blur of the doctors doing everything they can to salvage this man’s pancreas and having someone try to get a hold of the truck driver to bring back the actual pancreas. Unfortunately both of these things were a bust.

This is the point in the story where it takes an odd twist. The hospital staff wanted to know more about what the citizens of Uzbekistan were thinking and what type of disease was spreading through the country. They though the best way to do this would be by getting a necromancer. They thought this was the most stupendous idea they’d ever had and it would reveal a lot to the hospitals and they could then share it with the government. They went through the appropriate measures to find one and made all the preparations, but nothing prepared them for who showed up.

The man who showed up looked like he should’ve been in the crazy house rather than advertising service as a necromancer; although a person must be pretty crazy to involve himself in the things he practices. So this crazy looking man shows up and tells the staff who he is and they move him to a room for his preparations. Among many things that looked normal about his equipment he also pulled out a tambourine with no explanation as to what it is for. Once he had everything set he began doing whatever it is that necromancers do to talk to the dead. He began with a beat on the tambourine that was almost hypnotic. Those who were watching became mesmerized the faster the beat went.

The necromancer suddenly came to an abrupt stop with a wild look in his eye. He didn’t say that he had found out any information from the dead but he looked as if something had gone terribly wrong. When somebody finally nudged him out of his trance to ask him what he discovered, the answer was not quite what they were looking for. What he explained when he had his wits fully about him was something crazy. The man explained that while speaking to the dead he discovered that they vowed to annihilate any of the living citizens that still believed in this theory, the idea was termination is key. Not only were they going to eradicate every one of the citizens that believed in the virus but they also swore there would nevermore be another disease scare as the one that had just happened. After this point things started to settle down; the rioting stopped, people didn’t believe or really even remember anything about an apocalypse. And so that brings around the end of what apocalypse there could’ve been in Uzbekistan. You all may be wondering what in the world happened to Robert. To tell you the truth, I have no clue.