Twenty-one weeks ago (it’s more than five months!) The Master Word Alchemist Hive account@f3nix started this wonderful adventure on his account and, with the help of everyone, he's pursueing it like a philosopher's stone quest.

The “thing” has quickly become bigger since then, resembling a cuddly and puffy Dunwich Horror in the attic.

Now, it’s the first time that this contest is hosted in the blog of Hive account@bananafish, this (not too) mysterious benevolent entity that loves and cares for all the friends who enjoy themselves to participate.

For celebrating this "passage", the first prize of this week is increased to 3 steembasicincome shares, for a total of 5 steembasicincome shares up for grabs!

Hive account@marcoriccardi took care of the first part of the story you will read, a short dip into a fantastic-surrealist setting, with some elements that could stimulate reflections and parallelisms, or bring to action scenes. Feel free to follow your creativity and good luck!

Things that please the Bananafish mighty god!

• use the tag #finishthestory.
• vote, vote, vote your favorite story!
• Try to post your story the earliest possible and not at the last moment.
• Sustain, comment and upvote each other as a true group of friends and fiction lovers.
• Respect the 500 words limit.
• Post in your blog instead than in the comment section.
• help our contest & workshop to grow by giving it some visibility.
  
  

And now.. let's introduce today's story!

The Border

In the scant shadow of the guardhouse, a greenhorn Border Legionnaire was waiting for the end of his first watch shift, gasping for the heat.

Below him, there was the stretch of sandy desert that the XIX Floating Fortress patrolled incessantly, moving back and forth in the sky like a surreal and phlegmatic cetacean, with the low and incessant buzz of the managems that powered it.

Behind the line of Fortresses, the Lands of Man ideally began. In that marginal strip, there were meager pastures and stretches of scrubby bushes, attacked for miles and miles by a fine sand, like yellowish talcum powder, that made the desert gain extension every year.

"This year the wind has put so much sand down," the marshal told him, biting a gray mustache, one of the last days before the Duty Beginning ceremony. "And behind the sand, the Those arrive".

He was glad he no longer had just a stunner to defend him from the Those, like the guardians of the border in former times, before the Legions. Once, it was thought to direct the Those into reserves to prevent them from doing too much damage with their insatiable hunger, but then they started to run away, to strip the flesh off every head of cattle, to waste fields and orchards, to devour even the people... and more and more came from the desert.

He had been among the first in his draft class in combat and shooting exercises, but in his heart he was afraid of when he would found himself in front of a real That, and not an illusory image created by the trainers. It took him months to get used to the slouching and snappy movements of those lean and black illusions, all teeth, which he found horrifying.

During that first day of service, however, only an armored convoy had passed, transporting ordered and dull clusters of goleminers to the mysterious and vital mines of managems, on the other side of the desert. The Those did not find goleminers edible, luckily.

The Horn of Danger snatched him cruelly from his thoughts. Intruders in the fortress! How did they get in? How did they pass under our noses?

He grabbed the heavy terminator and ran down the spiral staircase, toward his team's collection point, his heart in his throat.

A scraping noise from a corridor to his right made him stop. Pointing the terminator in the dark, with a trembling grip, he shouted "Who goes there?!?"

The Those came out, completely different from the illusions of the trainers...

Join the fun! Here is how this contest works:

1. An unfinished fiction story or a script is posted.

2. You finish it with your own post or a comment in the comment section. A limit of 500 words is recommended.

3. YOU WIN! four five Hive account@steembasicincome shares to the writers with the best ending.
   
   

Bonus: a special banner for the all the participants of at least 5 editions!

If you're among the braves, feel free to save this banner and use it in your footer!

If you like this contest..SPREAD THE GOSPEL! I'm grateful for your resteeming and word of mouth. Everything helps to grow together!

GOOD LUCK, BRAVE STORYTELLERS!

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This curation contest from Hive account@thedarkhorse is one of the best initiatives you can find on Steemit, created by a selfless worthy team whose aim is to scout great steemians and support them..check it out!