The cry in the night, the sad sound that makes you think a woman or a child is weeping in the snow--that might be your fortune or it might be your death. There's a reason they say that the people who bond with a snowkiller are crazy, and that's it, right there. Sure, you bond with one, your future's assured. But you can only bond with one that's looking for a bond, or maybe--possibly--a young cub that has lost its parents. I don't advise that you try hunting a snowkiller parent in hopes of bonding with its cub. We make sure the stories of what happen to those people when they succeed are spread around the port and anywhere else that dumbass tourists with dreams of the bond go. We want to protect our snowkillers, after all. They are invaluable to us. And it's not like they kill anybody who knows better. Thing is, there may be some difference in the sound between their lure-prey and their lure-bond call, but we can't hear it. Me, I'm not convinced there is. I think sometimes they just like the taste of their prey enough to bond instead of eat. Or maybe it's how their prey responds to them and the nearness of death. That's another good explanation of why they're all crazy. And they tend to choose the fittest physically and mentally (that certain specific craziness aside). Darwin would have loved them. Biologists do call them evolution's claws. So when I heard the snowkiller cry outside in the middle of the blizzard, I stayed snug inside the ranger cabin, even if it did sound like a little girl screaming. There were no groups out, no missing travelers, no missing kids. Maybe you have to be a bit crazy to be a ranger, too, because if there had been, I would have gone out in that snowstorm even knowing that it was likely a snowkiller. But there weren't, and I didn't. You could have knocked me over with a 2-by-4 when the door to the ranger cabin swung open and I saw a little bit of a girl standing there, with the snow swirling around her. "Honey," I said, jumping to my feet and sweeping the blanket off the couch, "come in here!" Then the huge shadow moved behind her.


Inspiration: The baby fussing a bit in his crib.
Story Potential: High, because the story appeared to want to write itself.
Notes: This doesn't have any standout unique bits, but it evidently has enough pull to keep me writing significantly past my usual 2-minute cutoff.

The twist came when she thought she was about ready o give up. The sweet at the end of the race (or the threat, depending on if you were a news camera or someone running the damned race--and she meant damned in the most literal sense). Her little daughter, waving proudly to Mommy from the finish line. And god! but she hated them for taking her out, where she would see what happened when Mommy didn't win. There were a row of children at the finish line. She heard the woman behind her give a grunt of pain at the sight. And what would those children grow up with, seeing their mothers die in front of them? She knew they wouldn't shield the children's eyes: tears made such good television.

Inspiration: Um...a Halloween background and a running shoe ad.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Eh. Nothing new here.

The slave driver didn't have any idea of what was coming to him, she thought, and her lips curled up from her teeth in a silent, triumphant snarl. It had taken the the steady work of weeks to get this close to him. First, she'd had to let herself be captured, which was still plenty difficult, even though it was far from the first time she'd done it. Then, to protect herself until she was in an area where she might come to his eyes. She'd arranged to get herself to be one of the maids who would take in his food. Still, that was no guarantee, because as every wealthy man, he had a food taster. It took only a few scrounged cosmetics, a nicer dress, a different posture, to catch his--

Inspiration: "Catch a Fire" - Damien Marley
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Bo-ring.

The face looking back up from the pond was her own, but it was not the face that she had ever seen herself wear before. It had a quizzical twist to its eyebrow, but it's eyes wore the expression of a hawk mantling, longing to be after its prey. Despite the torn shoulder of the reflection's dress, the girl in the rippling surface of the pond looked like she was the hunter, not the prey. Involuntarily, she reached forward, and so did her reflection. Their fingertips brushed against each other over the surface of the water, and for a moment, she felt the roughened fingertips of a fighter beneath her own. Then she felt only the cool ripples of water in the holy pond--

Inspiration: "Happy - Bile" by Nocturne
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Eh. Either a sort of divine-possession, or changeling for a purpose, or some such.