Plot Challenge: The Scarecrow Under the Bridge

[Diana]

PLOT CHALLENGE, dodgerblue

A PLOT CHALLENGE is where you are given a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a setting and you have to come up with a plot idea that is inspired by those words!

The object is to THINK FAST and share the first ideas that come to mind. It's an exercise in quick creative thinking. You can do this challenge any time. Or multiple times!

To Participate: THINK FAST. Don't waste any time. The first idea(s) that comes to mind, write it down and post it! You are to write down a plot premise or basic idea. This isn't about writing scenes, this is about writing up a setting!

NOTE: If you decide to borrow someone's concept for a roleplay, make sure you ask permission or give credit to the muse.

Challenge Phrase: The Scarecrow Under the Bridge

 

[Falcon]

There have always been stories about other worlds. Narnia, Terabithia, OZ, Wonderland, Neverland, The labyrinth, The realm of Harry Potter, the world the Wizard Howl managed to escape to . . .
All of them more wonderful and strange then you can ever imagine.
But different isn't always better. Different isn't always grander. And different, isn't always safer.

The world of Skiáchtro is one such example.
Accessed by passing under a small bridge at the back of Central Park in New York City, Skiáchtro may at first seem to be a dream world, but it is made from the stuff of nightmares. Anything you have ever imagined comes alive here, and I mean ANYTHING.
And as the world outside grows darker and more violent, so does ours. But unlike the outside, when the outside gains peace, here the darkness stays.

There is a chance to save us though.
As our curse is a spell laid by a magician from the outside, So our salvation lies in the fulfillment of a prophecy by a hero from the outside.

I know our world doesn't affect yours the way yours does ours. I know you don't know any of us, and neither should our lives mean anything to you. But will you come anyway?
Will you find the bridge and cross under it?
Hero, will you save us?

Will you save Skiáchtro?

 

[Dawn]

Your parents always told you never to play on the bridge...

They were superstitious, suckers for old wive's tales and traditions. They would lock the doors and shutters each night, no matter how hot and humid a summer night could get. They claimed that it was bad luck to loiter in places that spanned between Here and There. And for a small town in the middle of the forest, you would think that there would be more superstitions, that there would be more stories told to children to keep them from misbehaving. But there was only really one that ever stood out:

They say that the bridge is an unholy place.
They tell you that you should never ever peer over the edge.
They whisper about the scarecrow.

They claim that it has hung by its neck from the bridge since before they were born. Well, at least until it walks the streets at night.

You're not scared are you?

You'd probably like to take a peak at this so-called night walker.

Good. Let's go visit the bridge tonight.

I just hope you don't go missing like the others.

 

[ashjaygrass]

Thousands of years ago a man was wrongly and horribly crucified, his body desecrated, and the carcass thrown into a ravine to rot. Over time as the Earth changed, the location the skeleton laid became part of a trench that later filled with running, flowering water. Eventually a bridge was erected across the very spot the skeleton laid, its spirit alive with the flowing energy from the water and eager for grisly revenge.

The small town surrounding the bridge had learned long ago that the skeleton's spirit, somewhat resembling a haphazard scarecrow, would main and murder abundantly unless a sacrifice was performed at least once a year. In this particular year the group to be sacrificed, resembling the group who had crucified him, had escaped and were on the run from the hunting towns people as well as the skeleton's spirit himself, angry at being denied the offering.