Happy Friday the 13th!

Hooray! It's the second Friday the 13th of 2012 and we plan to celebrate with prizes (for you) and short stories (written by us)! Remember a few weeks ago when we asked you guys to vote on a genre to get us started? Well the results came in and the winner was...

Fantasy!

So us Thirteeners each wrote three sentences of the following fantasy tale before passing it along to another member of the group. Without further ado, we give you...

Game of Rouge

       After Breaking Into Song for the fifth time that night (o ‘twas full of dwells, plodding journeys, and much exclamation, to be sure!), Allandra chugged down the last of her EarthBalance Beer. She belched loudly behind her bell sleeve and shoved her royal fascinator back onto the top of her head.
       Over the boisterous noise of the Arcs still yodeling away in the castle’s Pit Pub, Allandra suddenly heard the sound of footsteps rushing up behind her, and she fumbled for her Bedazzled Sword amongst the pink froth of her gown.

       “Since when do you wear dresses?” Gilead, her fellow assassin and therefore competition, asked, unfazed by the knife she’d placed at his throat.

       “Do not blow my cover. Or I shall add you to my hit list tonight,” she replied.

       Gilead smiled and quirked one of his red eyebrows at her. “Which one?”

       “Please. I’d have to be drinking Earth UNBalance Beer to even consider it,” Allandra said, breaking the bottle over his head to prove her point.

       Just then a group of assassin cheerleaders twirled into the Pit Pub and formed a 19 person pyramid and then somersaulted their way into a murderous spree with razor embedded pom poms. Not to be upstaged by the viciously perky cheerleaders, the ballerina posse released their switchblade tutus and pirouetted their way toward the cheerleaders, slicing innocent bystanders to shreds. One very resourceful male ballerina pulled from his tights a long chained meteor hammer that had two large over-sized iron balls at each end of the chain, disappointing a number of his starry-eyed fans.

       Allandra eyed Gilead’s unconscious form on the floor, thinking perhaps she should have let his debauchery go unpunished just this once because he might’ve been useful against the well-known and very much feared Bad Theater Brigade. If she was rounded up with the other Pub patrons and couldn’t watch the official show from the mezzanine, her mission would be thwarted, the stupid dress she wore useless. How would she kill the lead actor and save the world from Bad Theater?

       Clearly, she had to revive Gilead. Allandra twirled an antique ring on her finger, summoning Rouge, an ill-tempered old barn cat with the uncanny ability to both wake and sedate humans at the sound of his mew.

       “You’ve pulled me away from a delectable saucer of warm milk, so this better be important,” said the cat, his orange tail flicking with irritation as he appeared.

       Allandra pointed to Gilead’s prone form and Rouge rolled his yellow eyes and uttered a disdainful, “Mew.”

       “Honestly,” the cat hissed as Gilead groaned toward consciousness, “you’re surrounded by cheerleader assassins and ninja ballerinas, and instead of asking me to sedate them, you ask me to revive the half wit?”

       Gilead pulled himself to his feet, hooking his arm through Allandra’s as he said, “That’s because she has a thing for me—and because I’m the only one who knows the password.”

       Allandra slid her knife up Gilead's torso and stopped again at his throat--she needed that password to get past the Shadow Guards at the House of the Seven Sins, and he knew it.

       “A password for a kiss,” Gilead said, tossing his red hair and grinning, “for that is the going rate and I'll take no less.”

       “I'd rather die,” Allandra whispered, bringing her lips to his while sinking her blade into...
       ...the rough wooden wall behind him, a hair’s breath between his legs.

       With a gulp, because he didn’t doubt her threat to rob him of the chance to have little red-headed assassin babies one day, Gilead mumbled, “Sassafras.”

       “Mew!” Rouge the cat cried magically, and as Gilead, Allandra, the ninja ballerinas, and cheerleader assassins all slumped to the ground unconscious, the cat trotted over and picked up Allandra’s ring with a triumphant smirk and said, “What a stupid girl, except for her exceptional taste in puffy sleeves…and now, with the secret password and the sacred ring, so begins the dawning of the long-prophesied Age of Calico, hiss hiss!”

THE END…?

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So? What do you think? We had far too much fun writing this sucker! (And we must admit -- For an exquisite corpse writing exercise, it came out better than we expected.)

And now, to celebrate this (un)lucky day, we're hosting a giveaway.

Sections of the story are highlighted above in distinct colors. Correctly guess which Thirteener wrote each passage, and you'll be entered into a drawing to win the grand prize listed below!

Here are some clues to help you sort things out:

• Red Thirteener's book features doppelgangers.
• Dark Blue Thirteener's book features mutants, Taco Bell burrito-eating contests, running from problems, and vintage eyeglasses.
• Gold Thirteener's book features water, target practice, and peeps being kick-ass.
• Green Thirteener's book features smelly demons, a kick-ass girl warrior, waterfalls, and mountains.
• Light Blue Thirteener's book features mind powers, alternate futures, and cute boys.
• Purple Thirteener's book features brothers, a wall, secrets, and crows.
• Pink Thirteener's book features a snarky boy, a sweltering desert, and one amazingly delicious In-N-Out Cheeseburger.
• Teal Thirteener's book features cemeteries, a rotting mansion, a stranger, a knife, a glow.
• Gray Thirteener's book features corsets, dramatically smashing wine glasses in fireplaces, and "manimals."
  

Not sure you can guess correctly? No worries. We're randomly selecting two winners from the comments (regardless of guessing accuracy) to win the runner-up prize! And if no one guesses correctly, we'll hand-select a grand-prize winner from the commenter who comes closest!

Entering is easy: make sure you are a follower of our blog (click "join this site" over in the sidebar) and leave your Color/Thirteener guesses in the comments. That's it!

Grand Prize (1 winner)

$13 gift card to Amazon or B&N (your choice)

+
3 of our favorite YA novels

Runner-Up Prize (2 winners)

$13 gift card to Amazon or B&N (your choice)

Giveaway is open now through midnight (EST) on Friday, April 20th. Please note: the books for the grand prize winner will ship to US ADDRESSES ONLY.

That's all for now, folks. May you day be free of black cats, broken mirrors, and ladders under which you accidentally pass. We'll see you again next week!