Prompt for September 21, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

“This is going to hurt, Kiara, are you sure?” Travis was whispering, hoping that his voice didn’t carry in the still night air around us.

I nodded, panting as the pain surged through my body. Apparently when you’re running and you trip down a hill you should bring your arms into your body instead of spreading them out. I also discovered that a separated shoulder is painful. Really, really painful.

“Just do it,” I whispered back, my voice filled with pain. I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell at the universe for doing this to me but I kept silent. It wouldn’t bode well for us to be caught. Not now. Not this close to the border. Another couple of miles and we were safe. A few more miles and we could thumb our noses at the dictators running the country.

But not right now. Not like this.

Travis looked at me, regret coming out of every pore on his face. “OK, look, I’ve done this before, dozens of times actually, so I know what I’m doing. But it is going to hurt so you need to bite down on something or you’re going to be a beacon for every psychopathic shit-face in a ten-mile radius.”

“Here,” he said, passing me the end of his belt. He had folded over the end, making it twice as thick and it seemed like overkill. I crossed my fingers and hoped that he was right. I bit down on the belt, looked him in the eyes and nodded. He didn’t wait, didn’t give me a countdown, he just popped my shoulder back in.

I moaned. I damn near bit the belt in two, but I didn’t scream. Instead, I spat out the belt, uttered a few curse words quietly, and fainted.

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Prompt for September 19, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

It was a cold November night as Hastings circled the hospital for the fifth time. He needed to go back inside, to finalize things, to say goodbye for the last time, but he couldn’t face the pain. Instead, he was walking around the hospital, following the path through the hospital grounds and letting the cold wind rip away the tears before they could fall. While his coat had been warm enough while the sun was up, now that darkness had descended not just onto the city but into his heart as well, the coat could not prevent his teeth from chattering. His hands were in his pockets, curled into tight fists in a futile attempt to keep them warm while the cold wind froze his thighs and face.

He was cold and he couldn’t care less.

He thought back to the call he got from the hospital, the call that he had been fearing for weeks. His mother had passed away. The car accident, her already frail health and her lack of will to live all combined into a deadly cocktail. If his dad had been alive she would have fought and fought hard, but since he passed away last year she seemed to lack the will to live, the desire to see the next sunrise. He was sad that she was gone but happy that her pain was over. He just stared into the darkness that surrounded the hospital, his mind numb and his body increasingly so.

On his last lap of the hospital, he encountered a group of kids playing music loudly near the hospital. While he was sure that it was disturbing some of the patients, he was more disturbed by the music. The noise coming from the Bluetooth speaker could hardly be called music, Hastings thought as he got close enough to identify it. Rap music was not his favorite type of music, but as a singer he sang what was put in front of him and left it up to his manager to decide where his course should go. With the exception of rap. He refused to sing it, feeling that it demonized some people and dehumanized others.

He was about to walk past the group when one of the group stepped back and ran into him. The kid, no more than sixteen, just looked at him as if it was his fault, gave him a slight bump with his shoulder and went back to his friends.

“Asshole,” Hastings muttered.

“Hey, man, what did you say?”

He stopped and turned around, his grief not alerting him to the fact that he was facing a group of younger people that could easily overpower him. His grief, his rage, combined to blind him to reality. “I said ‘asshole’. What’s the matter, your hearing as bad as your taste in music?”

Someone turned off the speaker.

“What’d you say?”

“I said that your taste in music sucks, your manners are atrocious and you have the manners of a drunk baboon. Go home and go to bed you little zit.”

Hastings turned and walked back towards the hospital. He had gone maybe a dozen yards before he heard the popping sounds. He didn’t feel the bullet enter his right should and fracture his shoulder blade. He didn’t feel the next bullet enter his left shoulder mirroring the damage to this right. But the third bullet, the one that went through his throat. He felt that one. And it hurt.

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Prompt for September 18, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

“What do you mean it’s been five years since I died?”

The avatar she was talking too looked about as embarrassed as it could get and started to reply in that halting speech that she was beginning to despise. “You must understand … Ariel … that your soul was … torn … and needed to be … repaired … before we could … reconstruct you. It took time … to repair … the damage.”

“What do you mean ‘damaged’? How could my soul be damaged?”

The avatar cleared its throat, trying to make itself seem more realistic. “When a person dies a … traumatic death … the soul may be torn … damaged by the act. Your death was traumatic … for you … and for those around you. It took us time … five years … to repair the damage.”

She titled her head as she looked at the disembodied head. “Why can’t I remember dying? Why is it that everything just fades away? No, don’t answer that, just tell me where Drake is? Where is my husband? Did he die too?”

The avatar looked pleased at being able to relay information that seemed to be of a neutral nature. “No, your husband is alive. He is still in Seattle.”

“Thank God,” Ariel said, suddenly feeling weak at the good news. She took a step back to sit in the chair that she had jumped out of moments ago. “I miss him,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

“Is he okay? Was he hurt in the accident that killed me?” She could have sworn that if the avatar could have fainted it would have. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with my husband?”

“I am not … allowed … to give you … information … about those left behind. I can tell you … he is not well … your death caused him … a lot of … pain … great pain. He … spiraled? … out of control. If he continues … we will not retrieve his soul. He will die.”

To be told that you were saved from eternal death only to be told that your soulmate was going to die was not the way that Ariel had expected her day to go. But then again, she never expected to die.

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Prompt for September 15, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

Fifteen minutes.

He double checked the clock on the kitchen wall. Yes, it had been fifteen minutes since he had sat down with his parents and not a word was said. Oh, granted, a number of words were said fifteen minutes ago, but none now. He thought back to find a more embarrassing moment in his life but concluded that fifteen minutes ago was probably the most embarrassing moment in his life, in his father’s life, in his mother’s life, the life of everyone in his family and probably everyone at Stevenson High.

He thought his parents were out shopping and not cleaning up the basement when he got home as their car wasn’t parked in its usual spot on the driveway in front of the garage. He hadn’t known that they had cleaned out the garage, finally giving his dad the first chance in almost two years of parking inside the garage. So, because he didn’t know that they were home, and because Mrs. Stephanice Sinclair, the thirty-year-old divorced MILF next door was sunbathing, he thought he would spy on her from his parent’s bedroom.

Mrs. Sinclair liked small bikinis when she was sunbathing. Really small bikinis. And Jason liked to watch Mrs. Sinclair sunbathe, just in case someone tried to attack her while she was defenseless, he justified to himself. All the time. Today was a little different, though. Mrs. Sinclair was topless.

Sweat broke out on Jason’s forward as he looked down into her yard as she laid out on a towel beside her pool. The six-foot privacy fence wasn’t even in the way, considering that he was looking down at her from the second story of his house. He just stood there, daydreaming, when Mrs. Sinclair rolled over onto her back.
Jason couldn’t believe his eyes, nor his good luck. Thinking “what could go wrong”, he slipped his hand inside his shorts when the door to his parent’s bedroom opened and his mother walked in the door. That was fifteen minutes ago and not a word since.

He was just about to say something when the doorbell rang. He started to rise to get it but his mother gestured for him to sit with a stern look on her face. He watched her head to the front of the house and he glanced at his dad but his dad was doing his best not to look at him. Although, Jason could swear that there was a hint of a smile on his dad’s face. He heard his mom open the door and the word’s she spoke chilled him to the bone.

“Hello, Stephanie.”

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Prompt for September 13, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

OK, you have to believe me, this is a true story. I’m not making things up, it really happened. Oh, shit, I can tell, you don’t believe me, do you? Deep breath, deep breath. One. Two. Three. It’s not working, it’s not working. Let’s try again. One. Two. Three.

OK, my hearts not trying to beat it’s way out of my chest now. I think we’ve got a few minutes to talk. I’ll talk, you’ll listen. I don’t really know where to start, though. I mean, do I talk about where I first met them? Do I go further back and talk about where they started spying on me.

Or the girl, Jesus Christ, what a gorgeous girl. Beautiful dark hair, not black but a deep, deep brown. It hung to her shoulder blades but not straight, it had like a body wave to it, you know? Green eyes the colour of my mom’s jade necklace. Damn. I got lost in those eyes more than once. Her cute little pert nose and those lips. Full lips, not those little things that some girls have, but really great lips that she could curl up for a little smirk or really open up wide for one of her really contagious laughs.

I guess it always starts with a girl, doesn’t it? There’s always some sort of love/hate relationship that starts off a sequence of events. But nothing like this. No, I’m serious.

When was the last time that kissing a girl meant the destruction of your planet?
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Prompt for September 12, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

He glanced at the clock: 23:55, June 5, 2035. Just over forty-eight hours to go. As he looked up into the sky he saw Satan’s Torch. At least, that was what the religious people were calling it.

Satan’s Torch, a collection of five asteroids that were on a collision course with Earth. Three months ago it had been a single asteroid and it was only coming close to Earth, just inside Luna orbit. But the governments of the Earth concerned that the asteroid was a little too big to let it come so close, decided to intercept the asteroid with a nuclear warhead and make a course correction.

It failed.

Instead of either disintegrating the asteroid or pushing it away from the earth the explosion split the asteroid into six pieces, one of which heading out into deep space, but the others were heading for the Earth. It had been ten weeks since the fiasco. Ten weeks in which the peoples of the Earth had to come to grips with their own demise for each one of the pieces had enough kinetic energy to create their own extinction level event. But five were coming.

The sounds of gunfire could be heard sporadically throughout the city as it appears that the end of the world brought out the crazies. He laughed at the thought, wondering who was crazier, those attempting to kill people with guns and knives or those that used nuclear weapons and asteroids?

He continued to sit on his back porch, watching the dark city around him. There was no electricity, the city having fallen into anarchy within weeks of the announcement, and with only two days left no one really cared. He was about to go back in his house when he heard the screaming. A woman screaming. He stopped. Should he help? With two days left did it matter what he did? Would anyone care about his response? The scream rang out again and before he knew it he had leaped over the railing and was running in the direction of the scream.

He cared.

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Prompt for September 11, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

“Lisa? Lisa? Where are you?”

He shouted as loud as he could in order to be heard over the sound of the fire as it made its way through the tinder dry apartment building. He had been walking back from the store with dinner – two steaks and some potatoes to be grilled – when the first fire truck raced past. By the time he got within a few blocks from home two more had passed and he had started jogging back.

When he saw the smoke pouring from the building he ran as fast as he could to the parking lot across the street where everyone seemed to be gathered. Looking around he saw his next door neighbours, Bob and Julia McKenzie, holding each other, soot staining their faces and clothes.

“Have you seen Lisa?”

They looked at each other and then at him. A quick shake of the head sent him rushing towards the building, the grocery bags falling from his hands. A firefighter reached out in an effort to stop him, but he quickly got passed, thanking his collegiate football experience for his agility. Up the stairs he went, the smoke getting thicker with every step until he reached the third floor and burst into the hallway. The smoke entered his lungs like a hammer, forcing him to bend over and cough.

“Second door on the left,” he repeated his mantra for finding Lisa. He stumbled forward, his hand keeping him next to the wall and counting the doorways. When he reached his own apartment he found the door closed, but not locked and he threw the door open, yelling her name as he crossed the threshold.

“Lisa? Lisa? Where are you?”

He stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed a tea towel sitting next to the sink. He quickly got it wet and wrapped it around his face in an attempt to keep the smoke at bay. The sound of the fire was loud and angry and he knew he didn’t have much time.

“Lisa? Lisa? Where are you?”

The smoke was thicker, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. As he looked down the hallway to the bedroom he saw the smoke thicken around a shape as it stumbled towards him. He rushed forward and grabbed the shape. Lisa! She looked up at him, her face covered in soot but her eyes bright.

“I knew you’d come back,” she said.

“I’ll never leave …” He never finished the statement as the apartment exploded around them.

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Prompt for September 10, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

“It’s dark, Simon, so very dark.”

I heard the words before really comprehending what they meant. I had been sleeping, curled up in the very uncomfortable chair in the private hospital room, waiting for my Mom to wake up. The surgery had taken longer than they had said, almost ten hours. And since Dad was still in the air, his flight from London hadn’t arrived, I was trying to be the man of the house. Barely fifteen years old and having to pretend to be in control when my mother was on the verge of death. I shook my head, clearing the cobwebs that had appeared and leaned forward to listen to her more closely.

“I’m falling through the darkness, I can’t see you, but I can feel you.” Her eyes are closed and a sweat seems to have broken out on her forehead as I can almost see the moisture appear. I use the edge of the blanket to mop up her forehead while she moans and tosses from side to side. She’s talking in her sleep but it seems so real as if she’s actually talking to me.

“The darkness burns my flesh like acid, dissolving my flesh, my facade and show the real me. I don’t know what to do in the darkness. Your presence is around me but I can’t see you. I’m scared Simon, hold my mine. Hold my hand.” I grab her hand, holding tight, and she continues. “How you ever looked into the darkness and been blinded by it’s power, Simon? Have you ever felt the weight of darkness as it compressed your flesh and bones? There is all this pain, all this agony, all this living, breathing darkness. And then there is you. I can’t feel you. I can’t hear you. But I know you’re there. You are my rock and I will love you forever.”

Her back arched as her limbs stiffened and a horrible sound came from her throat. Choked from within, I thought but banished the thought as I shook her shoulders, trying to wake her up. She froze, her body contorted into a position that I knew should be painful, but she didn’t move.

Until she flatlined.

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Prompt for September 9, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

The Hall of Heroes was deserted. Almost.

The bar had a single occupant, Lord Kenwick, and he was sitting at a large table with a bottle placed just out of reach so he would need to move to refill his goblet. It was his concession to merely drinking out of the bottle. It worked, most of the time, and he would leave the bar drunk, but not excessively so.

As he lowered his cup to the rough-hewn table top the door to the bar burst inwards and the loud clomping of someone in chain mail echoed through the empty chamber. He wasn’t concerned. Only Heroes could enter the hall and he had nothing to fear from a Hero.

“Is that you Fergus?”

“Aye, it is Kenwick.”

“Find any demons?”

“That I did,” said Fergus, as a long blade was tossed onto the wooden table top. The blade was charred and the edges were nicked and gouged, but most of it was covered up with the black demon blood that coated the blade. “A portal opened up while I was making a young lady’s acquaintance at a friend’s establishment. The screaming and cursing interrupted our session before it could start so I grabbed my sword and rushed to the parlour. It was big, Kenwick, really big. A Destroyer.”

Kenwick spat out the drink that he had in his mouth as he tried to put the goblet back on the table, but he missed the edge and it fell to the floor, splashing his tunic.

“A Destroyer? In this backwater hell ole? Now that he’s come through and weakened the barrier between worlds we can expect to see an increase in demons in this area. Shit.”

“It’s worse than that, Kenwick, much worse. He wasn’t the first through the portal. There’s a Destroyer loose in this city and we have no idea where to find it. It could kill thousands, tens of thousands, and we would never know.”

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Prompt for September 8, 2016

Complete the short story/flash fiction, that has the following opening:

“I read this fascinating article the other day,” he said, leaning back into the cracked plastic seat on the subway car. The car was full with the tail end of the rush hour crowd just now heading home to the family and dinner. The press of the crowd kept him and his companion in their seats and looking warily at the backpacks and shopping bags that were swinging by their faces.

“Another psychology paper?” His companion, a rather short brunette with a large coat that looked too hot for the mild fall day, looked at him with a small quirky smile.

“Yes, indeed. It was a study of the prevalence of psychotic and sociopathic tendencies within an urban setting. A random sampling of individuals, on a subway train no less, was given a standard survey in an attempt to determine their mental stability. The survey was a work of art, allowing the researchers to accurately determine the current mental state of the respondent.”

He paused, and when the pause went on too long she prompted him. “And what was so fascinating?”

“The mere fact that those two disorders accounted for approximately 3% of subway riders was fascinating, but even more fascinating was the fact that during busy periods, like now, the proportion of psychotic personalities drops. They seem to dislike crowded situations and only use the subway when it is less crowded.”

“Now that is interesting. So the odds of a psychopath in this particular car or even the subway train as a whole?”

“Considering the number of people and the number of cars, if the article is to be believed there should be approximately three or four psychopaths on the train.”

She smiled at him. “I wonder who the other two are?”

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