The second exercise that I worked on is one that I love, mostly because it is open ended and allows a lot of free reign on whatever you are writing.

The Prompt: Using  the name of any setting, free-write until at least 1000 words are on the page.

This of course had a lot of flexibility. I used the setting Jungle and simply wrote until I felt finished, but I was also minding my words. The ending was tailored on purpose, as you will see, so that I would not need to continue writing to finish the piece.

Note: I made this post special! This is the unedited, longer-than-it-should-be version of the story. The next exercise will be my example of how one can "exercise" their editing skills and how you can use other people's hints (as well as a few tricks of the trade) to fix your story and make it amazing. I'll show you how I did it using this story! (This might also be the next section because I am too lazy to edit right now...)

So without further ado:

Jungle

There were days where life was a struggle. Where it was hard to even try to survive, when every minute was a danger in itself, another trap, another step closer to death.

Everything in this place tried to kill you. She was sure that for some, it was a survival tactic. But for others, it was for fun. The plants with their large leaves, broad trunks, and vibrant colors obscured countless predators and things just waiting for a taste of her blood.

Already that day she had narrowly avoided getting attacked by a man-eating plant. She knew it was a man-eating plant because she had observed one of her companions (enemies?) getting devoured by it, slowly dissolved by a loud, bubbly acid as the plant locked him in its immobile jaws and gained a new taste for human.

New taste, indeed, because this area was obviously untouched by human hands. It was so pure in its natural state that she almost felt bad for breaking leaves and crunching on unmentionables below. The only reason she felt no guilt was because she knew that the jungle would like nothing more than to kill her, to slowly, cruelly remove her from the area in tiny, painful bites.

You wouldn't automatically associate a jungle with death, she knew, if you were simply reading its name in a book or hearing it in passing. You would probably imagine with fascination the exotic plants, the hot, humid environment. One more educated would think of the dangerous but beautiful beasts, the creepy, large insects on the forest floor, perhaps even the birds and monkeys that live at the canopy.

But living in it? Even the least intelligent human knew what an improbable feat that was for an outsider. How the deadly creatures could end you instantaneously, how your luck might run out and day after day you get attacked by nameless fiends or becoming the potential for a juicy meal.

Yet here she found herself, on one of the least- preferred assignments. If you could call it an assignment. Assignment implied a willingness to be removed from the comforts of home to perhaps explore or study the land. No, this was forced upon her and every child her age in this new generation, this new horrible world.

Resting now on this large tree root, standing away from any unwanted bugs and wary of hanging snakes, her mind flew back to every history lesson she previously had.

It had began with the Powers. Places with a lot of sway in the world began fighting again. It was like the Cold War (was that it's name? That war where they all threatened those nuclear explosives but nothing ended up happening but talk? She WISHED they were in those times. It would be like a vacation.) but now they had the high-tech devices to actually back up their words.

People lived every day in fear, knowing that if any of the leaders were in a bad mood, they could simply press a few buttons, evacuate themselves for safety, and watch the world crumble. The tensions were so high that the leaders had actually publicly promised (with fingers crossed behind their backs) that they would not use Warfare in this fight, including those dangerous bombs.

Instead, similar to the Cold War, it turned into a race for intelligence. There were still so many things humans didn't know about the natural environment around them, space, the oceans. And together the Leaders decided to instill a Program so that we could discover more about every available environment. The Program, of course, was meant for those younger than them, people between the ages of 18-40.

When it was instilled, you were thanking God that you were any age around 35 and up. Anyone lower was soon dead.

The Program created a "safe" contest between the Powers. The pool of selected people, called Subjects (and Guinea Pigs when the government wasn't listening) were all forced to draw from a selection of environments that they would then be forced to live in and study for two years. Every two years was a new drawing, which was good for people who were 17 on a draw year. They were able to skip a year as they were younger, but often suffered with an extra year at the age of 41.

She had been 18 on a draw year. The program itself had been going since her birth, and she had long since calculated the days until the inevitable time arrived. The "invitation" had been delivered by hand from a six foot four guy in a suit with black tinted glasses and a bald head. She later learned that he was the lackey, the guy who organized and did the real work of the program.

The invitation had contained specific yet vague instructions. An exact route in the main city leading to an obscure building, an exact time for her to arrive and wait there (10:00 am sharp, she could never forget) and to wear all black. And she did. And when her back was turned from the door to examine the inside of the building, she felt something crack sharply against her skull and she was out until what must have been hours later when she woke to someone telling her she had an hour to get ready for the ceremony.

There she had been dressed for the occasion in a dark blue gown, hair done in beautiful hanging curls and she was led to be another nameless doll in the sea of people from her region waiting to be assigned.

She still couldn't remember how she felt that day. She remembered thinking "anything but the desert or ocean, ANYTHING" and the initial, startled relief of getting the jungle, which was none of those options. How they had called her name in a list of eight others from her country, how they had all silently gotten up to the background claps and polite cheers, how they walked onto the stage to join 16 unknowns from the other places, to be given their thick, 5 pound package of information and sent immediately to our rooms to prepare and get ready for final goodbyes.

How her family hadn't come to see her off. How she had stood, blank faced next to three foreigners, the only one from the region who had not been visited by their family. (Surely they had gotten the location? the time? had felt some sort of remorse, some sort of need to come and see their only child walk to her death?)

And how suddenly she went from the comfortable atmosphere of home to the thick, steamy jungle with instructions to discover SOMETHING hidden before any other person (even on her side) and bring it back to headquarters. There was no time limit except death or the two year mark. People who found nothing were re-assigned, usually to a different, more dangerous area. (Only one person had come back successfully from the desert, and no one from the ocean. At least three people had come from the jungle, so those odds were amazing in comparison).

Now she stood from her rest, taking a moment to kill an unknown bug crawling up the side of her tree. It's guts splattered everywhere including dangerously close to the open wounds on her arm, but in that moment she didn't care. The water from the nearby waterfall was most likely not safe for her to be sticking her arms or hands in (especially with blood) and it was not her top priority at the moment.

She still had just enough mind to scoop what few remains of the insect into a little jar for the specimen, and to capture a live sample before she stumbled off into the jungle.

She didn't know how long she would be here.

She couldn't tell if she would be able to discover something. To finally be taken from this hellhole of a place, to end this torture.

To be free, gain prestige in her life.

Make herself worth something, higher than a simple number.

Higher than a worthless life, another expendable soldier in a long line of children waiting to be exploited, used, and killed. Higher than nothing. Higher than these animals she had to kill for information.

The resolve strengthened in her mind, her will to discover SOMETHING, to obtain some sort of new cure, new medicine, new killing tactic, new poison, anything! She walked on with a steady purpose, with a set drive that burned through her exhaustion, fear, reluctance. She scooped up her backpack and brushed ants off of it with one thought burning through her mind.

To finally be free.

Please do not be alarmed by this monstrosity! I have yet to edit it, which is why its so... fresh. I literally wrote it, didn't evn check for typos or spelling, and just posted it. Editing is the next section, so come back to read a better version of this. It might be completely different!