Hook me in 25 words or less

[MrBF1V3]

I'm stealing, I mean borrowing this idea from at least two other forums.

Though we all know that the hook is not the story, there is still a sense in which the first few words of a story are kind of important. (I generally give it a chapter or two before I consider giving up.) So this is practice. Give it your best shot. Write, in 25 words or less the first sentence or so of a story, be it a story you've already done, or one you might right some day.

Also, feel free to rate the "hooks" before yours. Don't be unkind.

And, to be fair, I should go first.

The elves were out standing in their field.

"We are not amused," Eonovelia said, her little hands resting firmly on her hips.

B5

[Wiggin]

I'm confused. Are the elves outside, standing in a field, or are they very good at whatever it is they do?

Here's one of mine:

Seven years in, the war was over.

With the rebel House Burgundy driven from their strongholds and forced
into the sierra, ...

[Konrad]

Good, I liked yours. I´ll give it a try:

Deep in my mind, what was it that my father once told me? With anger in his voice and in his eyes. "Kill them all".

[Bob Lock]

The crow on my chest cocked its head and leered at me before driving its beak into my eye. I couldn’t complain. I was dead.

I like Konrad's

[kater]

Sharp start Bob, I'm liking the relaxed undead guy/gal already

“Correct me if I’m wrong but you’re having the Apocalypse to oust God and live in peace?”

[James Somers]

Cool Thread Guys...may I try?

Nineteen, eighteen...seconds ticked away in David's mind. Won't this fool listen to reason?! Horrified stares fell upon him. His next words could kill everyone in the room.

I went slightly over the 25 word count, but you get the picture.

James

[MrBF1V3]

Slightly?

Try again, and edit this time. However, your subject matter was interesting.

There were only three ways it could have gone. The hard way, the harder way, and the way it went.

B5

Multiple submissions are allowed.

[Wiggin]

Here are some openings from my favorite author, Jorge Luis Borges:

In London, in early June of the year 1929, the rare book dealer Joseph Cartaphilus, of Smyrna, offered the princess de Lucinge the six quarto

The gardens ravaged, the altars and chalices profaned, the Huns rode their horses into the monastery library and mangled the incomprehensible books and reviled and

In Buenos Aires the Zahir is a common twenty-centavo coin into which a razor or letter opener has scratched the letters NT and the

It is said by men worthy of belief (though Allah's knowledge is greater) that in the first days there was a king of the isles

Islam tells us that on the unappealable Day of Judgement, all who have perpetrated images of living things will reawaken with their works, and will

That day the yellow Emperor showed his palace to the poet. Little by little, step by step, they left behind, in long procession, the first

The original manuscript may be consulted in the library at the University of Leyden; it is in Latin, but its occasional Hellenism justifies the conjecture

When the armies clashed at the Battle of Clontarf, in which the Norwegian was brought low, the king spoke to his poet and said: “The

The line consists of an infinite number of points; the plane, of an infinite number of lines; the volume, of an infinite number of planes

A famous poem by Blake paints the tiger as a fire burning bright and an eternal archetype of Evil; I prefer the Chesterton maxim that

There are devotees of Goethe, of the Eddas, of the late song of the Nibelungen; my fate has been Shakespeare. As it still is, though

Anyone leafing his way through the morning paper does so either to escape his surroundings or to provide himself with small talk for later in

Now I shall not journey to the Estado Occidental; now I shall not set eyes on snow-capped Higuerota mirrored in the waters of the

Absorbed in our discussion of immortality, we had let night fall without lighting the lamp, and we couldn't see each other's faces. With an off-handedness

[Monty Mike]

We're not talking about just any chicken. We're talking about Steven's chicken. The one that eats zombies.

LOL, excuse the stupidity, I couldn't resist!

[Moonfoot]

"She lay fallen, throbbing, trying not to breath. The little man inside her head came out with a stern look, then gave way to tears."

[Power to the J]

Mostly about killing--sorry, it's how I think.

The room was filled with hundreds of people and, Tray realized, in ten seconds they'd all be dead.

It didn't take much for Mahxe to find out that his wife was planning to kill him.

The boom came first, then the rumbling, and then the black.

When I woke up, my life had officially changed forever.

"There's nothing to be nervous about," Byll said, clapping Elem on the back.

Then, an arrow hit him in the neck, and he fell.

Writing this will be the last thing I do, for by sunrise tomorrow I shall be dead; they are coming.

We watched Rey pick out fruits from the market. I nodded to Val and we both attacked with perfect accuracy.

He waatches the preist in the square like the hawk next to him. The bell rings twice. When it gets to three times, the preist and all of his followers will be dead.

No offense to anybody else, but I like Konrad's the most.

[Merancapeman]

You may ask how I ended up in this dark cave, but it would be better to ask the beast that chased me here.

[MrBF1V3]

... And where exactly is that beast now Merancapeman? I would just have to read on.

Here's one for my minimalist stage:

"Wait for it," she said.

B5

[Holbrook]

Linda's legs had the ability to make men stupid, god help them when their eyes move upwards.

It came out of the fog. Squealed and vanished in a flash of red. The post van had missed the turning again.

Actually the above has just happened at the bottom of the lane! I blame the loose chipping from the resurfacing of the road. Folks keep sliding across the crossroads...

[Konrad]

Ok the second try:

The black raven, because it was a raven, flew through the open window and right into the open fire and, alas, disappered from my story.

Perhaps a little abstract?