Defy the Dark - Redux

Back and ready for the flailing. 
Since we last spoke, I've been back over the piece, stripped out twenty-eight more words to be within the 4,000 word limit, tagged, published, and entered the story, and refreshed my page on Figment about five-million times hoping for reviews.
Not that they matter, 'cause it's not a heart-hogging popularity contest this time (not to be rude, I promise). The powers that be have sworn to read every single entry, which is nice. And, while peer reviews are great, I'm not allowed to edit a single word of the prose. So no matter how glaring a grammar error somebody points out, I can't go fix it. Still, affirmation, you know.
The actual writing of the piece was a roller coaster. As great as the prompt was ("It's not about the darkness, it's about who we are when we defy it," or something like that), I had ABSOLUTELY no inspiration. I went through about thirty useless ideas I didn't care about before deciding to go back to the beginning, use a little bit of ALL the ideas, and just throw something together.
So then I spent three days on Nana's couch (still haven't covered the living-with-Nana thing, have I?) tapping it out. Four-thousand words later, here I sit. I wrote through mind-numbing frustration, a darling little cousin who I love very very much but who didn't exactly help the focusing idea ("Whatchya doin? Are you STILL writing? Don't you want to play a game?"), sharing a room with a brother who wants all lights, laptop included, off at ten-thirty, a blinding, teeth-hurting headache, a pulled muscle in my side, Mum ("You haven't done anything all day!"), my own self telling me it wasn't worth it and wasn't any good and that I had no chance. Twitter and Tumblr (I think I updated my Twitter about fifty times) were both a help and a hindrance: standing at the ready when it got to be too much and I needed a break, but also standing at the ready to distract me when I felt like procrastinating. I think I skipped upwards of six meals and lived mostly on tea (new, lovely, loose-leaf tea, bahaha). I even survived a college-themed melt-down, and kept on writing, can you believe it?
I wouldn't have survived it without White Noise Radio, Write or Die, Edit Minion, Owl City, or my frightfully long Youtube music playlist. The internets must love me.
And, now it's done, and I'm about to gnaw my arm off waiting for the results. I know I'm just one name in upwards of a thousand; the chances of my winning are, shall we say, negligible. But, fingers crossed anyway!
You wanna know what's funny? I'm all of a sudden wildly looking forward to NaNoWriMo.