Playing for Keeps

It's monday again! This is my entry for Menage Monday over at Cara Michael's blog. I had a lot of fun with it! The prompts this week were a picture of a female archer on a horse (beautiful, btw) and the phrase "play[ing] for keeps" along with the idea of finding ones fate. I emailed the photographer, and I've been told I can post the photo here with a link to the page here. I've been kind of MIA from writing since the Olympics started (I haven't even been online or on my computer since then...), so it was nice to let the kids watch a show (again, they haven't watched anything since the Olympics...I've been hogging the tv!) while I wrote this. I hope you like it...I really did. :)

I had it in my sights before it slipped into the woods at the edge of the clearing. That was unfortunate. I nudged Athenia toward the spot. I had to get down to see the tracks. The little beast was good…it took me several moments before I could find it – a partial print beside some moss.

I almost started to follow. Something wasn’t right. That little sneak! I turned a large circle before I finally glanced up into the canopy.

There!

I let loose my arrow and hit the bugger in the arm. Killing him would be really bad, but wounding him would give me everything I’ve always wanted.

“You shot me!” whined the squeaky voice from an upper branch.

“I play for keeps, you little sneak, now give me the fate I choose.”

His head peeked out, puzzled, “How do you know Arianna?”

“She’s my mother.”

A large, almost feral, smile spread across his face, “Ah, that explains much. How is her fate working out?”

“Like she always wanted.”

“Really? Fascinating.” He climbed down, ripped the arrow from his arm, and handed it to me. I took it, confused, “But she shot me in the leg, my dear.”

The sign read,"No Howling."

I wrote this piece for Motivation Monday. I posted it just before the deadline Tuesday morning because I was driving home from vacation all day on Monday... When I say all day... Yeah, it took about 14 hours. It's been a hard transition this week. I haven't had much writing time. (And I may not get much for the next several weeks, as I am an Olympic FANATIC!) Anyway, this was a fun distraction to plan during my long trip. It kept my brain awake and active during otherwise quiet moments. I thought through this one and one for Menage Monday which I didn't get home in time to write (although I've started it) as well as planned some things out for my book. The prompt was "The sign read, "No Howling."" and must be used as the first line with a 500 word limit. I wrote about dragons for my friend Rebekah Postupak!

The sign read, “No Howling.”

Typical. She never did like much noise, but using the same word that was used for those tiny, yipping creatures… Well, that was just rude.

I bellowed, “Adarra!” and smiled, flashing my teeth in the waning light of the sun. That was nothing like a howl. Those stupid dogs couldn’t get that much echo if they all yipped in unison.

A growl came from the entrance to my right. I started to turn that direction before recalling her architectural prowess and her paranoia. She could very easily rig some sort of tunnel or something to project her voice to a different area of her lair. I stayed where I could see all the entrances – those that I knew of, anyway.

Her voice echoed from within, “What do you want?”

“To talk with you, you old hermit, so come out where I can see you!”

“Tridan?” her snout peaked out from the entrance a little ahead and to my left.

“Who else would come all this way to try to talk some sense into you?”

She inched out of the cave. I didn’t know if she was nervous or flirting. The way her scales shimmered in the setting sun gave me the shivers and I had to flap my wings and take a few sidesteps to calm down. She really should reproduce. It would be a shame to lose her coloring – the way her scales had that iridescent shimmer over that deep scarlet. She was breathtaking. The fire in my belly started to boil. Focus! I wasn’t here to court her!

“Why did they send you?” She was definitely frightened. I’d never seen a dragon try to hide in the open, but she was doing her best – head down, neck folded double against her chest, tail curled around the front of her – It was a pathetic picture.

“I’m not going to hurt you, force you, or even reprimand you. Please. We used to be friends.”

“That was a long time ago. Things change.”

“You know why I’m here.”

“The same as all the others?”

“Yes.”

“What makes them think I’ll give you a different answer?”

“I don’t know, but I told them I’d try.”

“What if I just say ‘no’ right now? Will you leave?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I paused trying to decide if I would leave. I didn’t want to. I’d forgotten how spectacular she was. How radiant! Imagine if she were to stretch that neck toward me! I put my head down so I could clear the image from my mind. It was as hard to think as ever with her around. “I don’t want to.”

I dared not look up. How would she respond? Would she ask me to leave? “What if I say ‘no’ and invite you inside?”

My head snapped up and I looked into her swirling, multi-facetted eyes. The rainbow of truth swirled around a very bright red spark. Perhaps my trip wouldn’t be completely in vain.

Old Faithful

This is a flash fiction piece for Emmie Mears' End Of The World contest. Here's the deal:

It's the day before the end of the world.
The twist? It’s an unexpected apocalypse.
The catch? You must use the phrase “end of the world” somewhere in your story.
One Rule: Don’t show the end of the world. Your characters don’t know it is their last day on earth.

So, basically, I had 500 words to write a story about the day before the end of the world, where no one knows it's the end of the world, and I can't show the end of the world...but I have to use the phrase 'end of the world'. Tricky, huh? It's a story about anything, but I chose to intimate the end of the world with my choice of location. I actually cried at the end thinking about what would happen to this precious family tomorrow... Yeah, I'm that pathetic! I hope you enjoy it as well! :)


Old Faithful Geyser; Upper Geyser Basin; William S Keller; 1966

“Ugh! It stinks here! Why did we have to come here for vacation? It stinks.” Adrianne had a whine in her voice that could shatter the teeth in my head. Plus she was dragging her feet.

“Please hurry up. We’re going to miss Old Faithful!” I had planned too much. I somehow overestimated the endurance of a five year old…or, perhaps, hoped for too much. We should’ve left her with Grandma.

“Doesn’t the fountain spray all the time?” Adrianne continued to shuffle her feet.

“It’s called a geyser, and it will be at least another hour before it erupts again, maybe two.” Timothy turned around and got right in her face, “so hurry up.”

“Erupts like a volcano?” she whispered.

“No. And Yes. It’s just water and steam, not ash, dust, gas, and molten rock, but it will spray it over 100 feet into the air, close to 200 if we’re lucky!”

“That sounds hot. I don’t want to be any hotter. It’s too hot here. Can we go home?”

Timothy turned to me with that look in his eyes, “Mom! We’re gonna miss it!”

I sighed and handed over the camera, “Here, take this and catch up with your Dad.” Timothy snatched the camera and took off after Brian and Michael. I hadn’t even realized they were so far ahead.

I picked up Adrianne. That set off a screaming tantrum that shook the earth, literally. Tremors are normal here, I had to remind myself.  I suppose blaming the tremor on my daughter was a little excessive, but she was acting like it was the end of the world. We’d seen the Grand Prismatic Spring this morning, and we were booked for a Wagon Train tour this evening. This was our window for Old Faithful.

As I carried a screaming five year old toward Old Faithful, I couldn’t help but notice the stares. I just wanted to die of shame, but I wanted to see Old Faithful more.

We didn’t miss it. They had saved us a seat. Brian leaned over and took Adrianne from me, “Hey Sweet Pea, do you want a lollipop?” He had pulled out our bribe bag. We tried to limit their sugar intake, but this was an emergency. She stopped crying immediately, so I wasn’t going to worry over it right now. One lollipop wouldn’t kill her.

Just then, Old Faithful erupted. Wow! I allowed myself several moments of awe before I turned to see that my family was also enjoying the moment. I reached for the camera from Timothy and snapped pictures.

Old Faithful sputtered out way too soon and the ground began to shake. This was a full-on earthquake! Also, not unusual here, I had to tell myself. But when the shaking only got worse, I felt Timothy pulling on my shirt. I looked at him with wide eyes and he was pointing. I followed his finger and saw a cloud of black. I turned back to Timothy, “That’s not normal, is it?”

Mischief Makers

Hehehehe! The Friday Picture Show is today over at Jen DeSantis' blog. It's a 100 word flash fiction contest with a picture prompt. I'm not going to copy the picture to my blog today, because I just read a really scary blog post about someone getting sued for have a picture on their blog HERE. I don't know how to check if the picture is public domain or not, so I'm just going to link to the friday picture show above and call it good. Check out the picture there.

That said, the picture is this creepy masked guy in black robes and such... If you follow me on Twitter (@lissajean7) you may have seen a conversation this morning between myself and Rebekah Postupak (@postupak) and Jen DeSantis (@JenD_Author) about the creepy picture and how a lot of our flash fiction friends write more of the dark fantasy/paranormal romance type stuff, while Rebekah and I prefer dragons over demons. :) We decided that we needed to introduce dragons to our flash friends. I didn't think it would be possible with this picture, but seeing as my dragons are shapeshifters... These dragons are similar to the dragons found in one of my favorite books of all-time The Elvenbane by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey. This series heavily influenced my take on dragons in general. I hope you enjoy!

Mischief Makers

Thogan giggled, “Just walk really slowly and don’t forget to look down – you don’t want anyone spotting the red sparkle in your eye.”

“I know,” Mardis replied, “I have done this before. Wouldn’t the red eyes be more menacing?”

“No, it’s a dead giveaway you’re a dragon, then they won’t believe you’re death.”

“Is this really what they think death looks like? I mean, it’s papier-mâché! How convincing am I really going to be?”

“Humans are gullible. They’ll believe anything!”

“Just keep my eyes down?”

“Death apparently has vacant eyes, just make sure they’re in shadow and they’ll run screaming!”

Knowledge is Power

I'm revisiting the world of A Curse or a Blessing, the post from a couple weeks ago. Here I tell another classroom moment for Krisilloc. This is my first entry for Thursday Threads at Siobhan Muir's blog. I've never repeated worlds or characters in my flash fiction before, but this just seemed to work for me. Perhaps I will get enough information on these characters to write a longer story. We'll see. For now, here's my 250 (max allowed) word story containing the promp phrase: "I'll tell you whatever you wish to hear."

Maritax raised her hand, “I’ll tell you whatever you wish to hear.”

“No, no, no! That’s not it at all! Anyone else?” Professor Utleg scanned the room as Maritax put out the fire on her upper right elbow.

“Will you tell me what you desire…?” piped Brieont.

“Very close. Good job. Anyone else want to try?” Brieont was his favorite. He beamed. I just wanted to wipe that smirk off his face.

I raised my upper left arm. Utleg nodded at me. “Could you tell me what you need?” He looked angry. I supposed I got it right. Again.

“Yes.” He said grudgingly and turned away from me to continue the lecture. Why couldn’t he say ‘good job’ just once to me? My left leg ignited just above the ankle. I sprayed a burst from my extinguisher. Why did I let him make me so frustrated? Why couldn’t I just get over it?

When the lecture was finally over, we all headed to Community Service. Colaxil scrambled next to me, “How did you know that was ‘need’? We haven’t gone over that one in class before.”

“The root looked more like the one for require than desire. I just guessed right.” Actually, I’d been studying. Knowledge was power, and I needed all I could get if I was going to get out of here.

 “Oh. Yeah. Huh. So what do you think we’re going to do for CS today?”

“We hauled the rocks yesterday, maybe they’ll have us start construction?”

Review of Foreign Identity

Foreign Identity is a novel by Becca J. Campbell. I read it a couple days ago. I enjoyed it. I picked it up partly because I like sci-fi, but mostly because I have gotten to know the author a bit (she lives less than 5 minutes from me - yet we've only met online!) and I think she's pretty cool. I purchased the book on sale for my Kindle and finished it in a day. That is not necessarily unusual for me, but I would assume most people would want to finish it quickly to find out what happens. :)

The book starts with a man and a woman who wake up in a room, chained to the walls, with no memory at all. By working together, they uncover a puzzle that frees them from the room, but only releases them into a maze with more puzzles. Throughout the story they seek to escape and to find help with a desire to find home - even though they don't know where that is. They have to, somehow, work together and trust each other in order to be free.

The Breakdown:

I loved how she worked the amnesia. I've seen it used several times as a way to drive the plot, and that really bugs me. Becca, however, totally wiped their personal memories and left them that way. There's never a 'Oh! I remember that!' moment at a critical time to push the plot forward. That said, she has her characters have feelings or instincts for certain things - which they cleverly don't know if they should trust - which add depth to the character, both in what they remember and what they don't as well as how they react to it. Very fun!

The characters. I really liked them. They were believable and consistent. I enjoyed getting to know them even as they got to know themselves. And after the little bit of the past we learn about their lives, they are even more relatable and understandable.

The Sci-Fi aspect. (I love sci-fi, fantasy, etc in case you didn't know) The aliens (I hope that's not a spoiler) are fun and different. I would have liked them to be a little more prevalent and explained a little more in-depth, but they were an interesting puzzle. This is definitely LIGHT sci-fi. It's much more of a mystery/adventure/romance-ish with a sci-fi twist. I have so many questions about her aliens and how they interact and why the problem occurred... It just wasn't that book. They were fun though. I liked Zap. :)

The puzzles. I found them to be fairly simple. That doesn't mean they're not interesting for the characters to figure out, but they weren't fascinating and intricate for ME to figure out. (just fyi, I LOVE puzzles and I'm fairly good at them, and I read a lot of sci-fi, so the twists that may seem shocking to someone else, were fairly expected to me). That doesn't diminish from her writing, it just made it a really light read for me. Like I said, it was fun to see them figure some of the things out. (Although, sometimes one of them seemed a little too dense...the squares? Really? Didn't get that one? So the balance between the characters was a lot slanted most of the time.)

The plot. Was it completely shocking? No. Did I know exactly what would happen? No. I had several guesses, some of which were fairly close to the mark, while others not so much. It was fun to guess, and just because I got close didn't mean it wasn't fun to find out what was happening. It was both fun and interesting.

My Favorite Bit: The idea of a new beginning. That at any point, no matter what has happened, no matter how hard life has been, you can start over. You can choose to do things differently, better. Life is not stuck in some rut that you can't get out of - if you just have the perspective to see the rut, you can climb out and start over.

The end was very satisfying. I really enjoyed it. The themes of trust and faithfulness were beautifully done. I recommend it.

The Flood

So, here's another one I haven't tried before. It's called the 55 word challenge over at Jezri's Nighmares. I don't know if a story can really be told in 55 words...even after writing one, but I thought I'd enter anyway. Here's the picture prompt I used:


55 words exactly. Aren't you proud? :)

They say the water is starting to recede. The rush of the water makes that hard to believe, but I suppose it has to be rushing somewhere. Rushing, and taking with it everything I’ve ever known, ever cared about - even Marian. I think I’ll find a different road. Start over somewhere else, without the memories.

5 Minute Fiction

Yes, you read that right! 5 MINUTES. Did I make it? No. Not technically. Well, probably, but it didn't count. :) Apparently there's a flash fiction contest that is posted at 8:30pm (EST) on Tuesday evening called 5MinuteFiction. I just found out about it today. I decided I'd try to do it if I was around at 6:30 Colorado time (I'm on vacation). Well, I was finishing up the kids baths and I ran to the computer...6:39...Hmmm...there's time. :D  Well, I wrote that thing so fast I'm sure I burned tons of calories because my heart was pounding so fast I could hear it! Literally! Unfortunately, after putting it on the comment section and filling out my info, it was one minute late. 8:46 EST. Bummer. Oh well, I didn't make the cut off this week, but there's always next week...and it'll be 7:30 then...past bathtime anyway! Well, here's my first one: It had to include a new beginning and something ending.

“I can’t believe it’s time.” Sydney had been planning for this moment for as long as she could remember. Every day for years, this day had been in her mind – not necessarily in her conscious thoughts, but in the back of her mind, driving her.

Her mother stepped closer and placed her hands on her cheeks, “You’re ready for this.”

Sydney blushed, “Mom! You’re embarrassing me!” She half-heartedly batted her hands away. Once it happened, she missed her touch, so she grasped both of her mother’s hands in her own. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Her mother smiled, “I’m not far. I’m sure I’ll see you when you get a free moment in your busy schedule… Hmmm, perhaps not all that often.” She bit her lip. She had told herself not to cry. This was her only baby, and she was an adult now. “You’ll have a great time. Go. Have fun. Don’t forget to study!”

Sydney turned to go. She looked at her dorm for a moment, and smiled.

That's all I got finished anyway, and it was finished enough to try to send it in. However, if I had a few more minutes, I might've finished a little differently. Perhaps turning back to blow her Mom a kiss or squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath before telling herself that she WAS ready for this... Or both. But I didn't have that time, so...oh well. I'm off to write some more of my novel-in-progress now...no more flash tonight for me!

Canoodling

Today it's Tuesday Tales over at Glitterword! It's a 100 word flash fiction with a word and a picture as a prompt. The word is canoodle and the picture is beautiful:

See? Told you. Anyway, I had fun using both definitions of the word (To engage in caressing, petting, or lovemaking; To win over or convince by cajoling or flattering). I hope you enjoy!

“Remember the day we met? That tantalizing red dress accentuated every perfect curve, your eyes sparkled and your smile was as bright as the sun…”

“Don’t think you can canoodle your way back into my life!”

“Canoodle? Hmmm, sounds like fun…”

“That’s not what I meant.” She crossed her arms and sidestepped his reach.

“Now honey, don’t be that way.” He traced his thumb down her arm, “We were so good together.”

She shivered and blushed, “But it didn’t work out.”

“We could try again.” He moved closer.

She looked up. He was holding out a red tulip. Her favorite.

Barking Mad

So, I am judging this weeks Motivation Monday over at Wakefield Mahon's blog, so I am unable to enter... I instead went over to Cara Michaels blog for Menage Monday. Unfortunately, hers closes at 10pm eastern time and I am in Colorado this week...I was still putting the kids to bed at 8pm. Ah well, I posted it a bit late, so I'm not in the running to win. Not that I think I would because I decided that I was going to attempt to write a dialect this week. I've never done it before. I'm not sure it works. But I need you all to tell me what doesn't make sense or what doesn't come through because I hear it in my head...I just don't know if I effectively put it on the page. That being said, the promts this week were a picture of some bones, the phrase "barking mad", and a story about werewolves. I was really light on the last one...it's only slightly intimated actually...ah, well. If I had more words, perhaps I could've developed that a little bit more... Anyway, I hope you like it! Let me know about that dialect thing...

“Well, now, yous just barking mad, ain’t ya?”

“Of course I’m not mad! I’m telling the truth.”

“Naw, yous jus’ confused, is all. Dem bones was prob’ly jus’ a natural dyin’ animal. That’s what they do, ya know?”

“I swear, Grandpa, it was NOT natural. I’ll show you.”

Naw, I don’ need t’ see nothin’.  I been all over this mountain since I was a young’n. They ain’t nothin’ unnatural ‘bout nothing up here.”

“But this wasn’t when you were young, this was recent. The bite marks went deep into the bone and the spine was completely severed—”

“Ya done tol’ me alriddy! I ain’t deaf! But thinkin’ that they’s some monster roamin’ these parts just a’cause—”

“Grandpa, I think we ought to call the police…or the Department of Wildlife.”

“The DoW don’t got no need to come pokin’ they noses in our bidness.”

“Grandpa! It’s not safe—”

“Jus’ drop it, Sonny.”

“But what if you—”

“Don’ you worry none ‘bout me. I can take care a myself. Always have, always will. ‘Sides, I got a few things goin’ for me that no other beast got.”

“What? 80 years?”

“Naw, but that helps.”

Miss Marie

Since I was unable to enter Flash Factory Friday today because I'm the judge, I looked around for something else to write... I found The Friday Picture Show over at Jen DeSantis' blog! Her flash contest is a 100 word exactly picture prompt. I wrote two, I liked the picture so much! Here it is:



Cool, huh? Yeah, I liked it. The first is more sweet, the second is more creepy (in honor of Friday the 13th). I hope you like them! :)

By the way, do you know how hard it is to write a story in JUST 100 words...EXACTLY 100 words? Try it. It's hard. The second one gave me a lot more trouble than the first. It wanted to be a lot longer. Ah well, I think I got the point across...

My Dearest Marie,

You wanted to know about my life? My past? Things I’ve done? Well, I have this thing for postcards - some I find, some I receive, some I purchase - Each marking a life event, several I’d like to forget. I’ve kept them. Painful memories. Happy memories. Some best left hidden.

You deserve to know. I hope they explain things I’ve had trouble saying. I’ve placed them for you to find. The first is in our tree. It will tell you how to find the next.

Come find me when you’re done… If you still want to.

Forever, James

Here's the second one!

Marie had a bounce to her step, like this was the best decision ever - being alone with me.

“What’s that?” She pointed.

“A piece of trash?”

“It’s a postcard! Someone’s wedged it in.”

“It’s probably been here forever.”

“It rained yesterday. This ink hasn’t run.” Observant. “Oh my God, Bill! It’s addressed to me! You wrote this, didn’t you?” She smiled and began to read.

I knew what it said, ‘Bill is not who he says he is. Run. Now.’

Her face turned ghost white, terror in her eyes. She took off.

It was so much more fun this way.

A Curse or a Blessing?

One of the things I like so much about Motivation Monday is that I get to write 500 words! That gives me a little more time to create depth and explore ideas that may need more explanation than others. This one, for example, is an alien species. I could've written way more that 500 words (and I did go a bit over, but I was able to edit it to 498)! This is the one with the first line as the prompt, so I was given "you're on fire!" and went from there. I hope you enjoy!

“You’re on fire!” Colaxil whispered behind me. I looked down. Sure enough, my lower leg had ignited. I reached for my personal fire extinguisher and sprayed a couple one second bursts. I checked the gauge, I’d used over half the coolant already this morning. Ugh, professor Utleg was so frustrating! I stashed the extinguisher beside my chair and tried to focus.

“The warrior clans have the most difficult time learning the techniques, but crossbreeds, for some reason, have even more. Even a crossing of the most peaceful clans, sibvenner and congitslat, produce offspring with an excessive lack of control.”  My upper right arm burst into flame. I sighed, and reached for the extinguisher with my lower left. It was like he was trying to prove his point, and I was helping him. I sprayed the coolant and decided to keep the extinguisher in my hand while I took notes. If this was his topic today, I’d be better off not putting the thing down.

“However, if we breed within clans the reverse is true.” Professor Utleg paused when a student’s hand went up. “Yes, Brieont?”

“Professor, do the warrior clans still have difficulty with control when they breed within?”

“That’s hard to say, Brieont, because they don’t often do that. They actually pride themselves on finding mates from other warrior clans.” Utleg continued in that vein for a while. It annoyed me watching him. He didn’t even carry an extinguisher, like he was so controlled he didn’t need one. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe his ‘pure sibvenner for nine generations’ really did give him excessive control. I’d never even seen him spark!

I raised my upper left hand, indicating a desire to speak.

Utleg sighed, “Yes, Krisilloc?” I guess he was anticipating not liking my question, he usually didn’t.

“But, professor, why do we have the spark at all? The fires don’t even hurt—”

“You would know.” Maritax said under her breath just loud enough for me to hear, but not Utleg.

I turned to glare at her, but continued, “They don’t, so why are they a problem?”

Utleg crossed both sets of arms over his torso. I almost wanted to take the question back, but it seemed like he might actually answer it, so I kept my mouth shut. “Krisilloc, your exoskeleton will burn eventually. And when it does, it will make your body hot enough to do damage.”

“But isn’t there a reason we have the spark other than impetus to learn to control our tempers? It doesn’t make sense! –”

“Of course it doesn’t to you. You want to be special. You want your curse to be a blessing. Well it’s not.” My shoulder ignited. I sprayed a five second burst. “Your parents made you an abomination. You must live with it.” My hip ignited, then my upper left elbow. My coolant ran out.

Colaxil reached his extinguisher forward, “Here, use mine.”

I looked at it. What would happen if I just let myself burn?

The Interrogation

Flash Factory Friday was late this week due to travel (a wedding and a vacation by the host and the judge respectively) so I ended up writing this at 11pm on Sunday night. I'm actually shocked at how well it came out. I was brainstorming and thinking about it during the day on Sunday, but I didn't have time to get to writing until late...and I only wrote it then because I was having a birthday party for my eldest this morning and knew that there was no way I was going to have time to write anything then...So if I wanted to enter this week...well... That said, I really liked it. It flowed fairly quickly and while I had to tweek some things it came out pretty much whole. That was nice because I didn't have time for editing. The word prompts this week were: Patriot, apple, congestion. My brain built a lot of backstory, but I didn't include most of it. I may have to revisit this world in the future! :) Oh, and I won again! :) Yay! *does a happy dance* This flash fiction stuff is rewarding! I'm looking forward to sharing my novel with the world someday as well! :)

“So, you consider yourself a patriot, I assume?” The man paced back and forth in front of me asking questions, yet expecting no response.

Perhaps that was why I answered, “Of course.”

The pacing stopped. “Of course? Some would call you a traitor.”

“I know.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

I shrugged. What was the point of arguing? The man would only hear what he expected to hear. I wasn’t going to change any opinions today. That was coming.

“Do you know how dangerous that stunt you pulled was?” The man said it as though he assumed I had no idea what that bomb could do as well as no actual desire to cause harm. Like it was some game.

I shrugged again.

“If that area had been congested with people, you could have killed—“

“Oh, please! There’s no congestion during the sleep cycle!” Perhaps I hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, but I did intend the damage.

The interrogator lunged and stopped short of my nose by mere centimeters, “Who are you working for?”

Was that supposed to work? That intimidation thing? I shrugged again.

The interrogator pursed his lips and stood. “Fine.” He walked to the door and opened it. I thought he would leave me to stew, but instead he turned back into the room. He was holding an apple. An honest to God apple! Not that reconstituted mush they serve below in the grunt cafeteria, but a shiny, beautiful apple. My mouth filled with saliva and my stomach rumbled. “You hungry?” The interrogator said casually.

I swallowed and paused, gritted my teeth and shrugged.

Insanity?

This one I'm not so sure about. I don't know if I got the feel that I was going for across. In a perfect world I would have more words to add more description around the tags...or more time to shorten up the dialog so that I could add those descriptions. It didn't help that I didn't know what was going to happen at the end until I got there. I was going to go a different way with it, but it didn't work as well. I almost didn't submit this. I was running out of time for the deadline (just like last week) and the kids were screaming and I kept getting interrupted... Yeah, that's how I feel about it. However, there was something in it that I did like (unlike last week), and that I thought was worth it. I've never tried to write anything even remotely creepy...And a writing prompt that was "I'm going to kill you!" and a twilight zone clip necessitated the creepy thing. I don't know if I pulled it off. I kind of like the irony of the first line at the end of the story. Anyway, let me know how I did! I'd enjoy hearing your comments! :) Oh - I almost forgot - This was entered into the Motivation Monday Flash Fiction Challenge over at Wakefield Mahon's blog.



“I’m going to kill you.” I mutter half under my breath.

“That won’t do you much good, now, will it?”

“Of course it will. It will end all this…insanity.” I reply, waving my arms around wildly.

“You like this insanity. You cherish it. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself otherwise. It makes you feel special.”

“No. I would be so much better off without you.” I clench my fist.

“Better off? How so?”

“Well, I would get out of this rotten place, that’s for sure.” I kick the plastic chair as I begin to pace the room.

“You really think they’ll let you out if I’m not around?”

“You’re the reason I’m in here at all!” I scream.

“Maybe. That doesn’t mean they’ll let you out if I’m gone. Trust me. The only way you’re getting out of here is with my help. And I’m working on it, alright?”

“Working on it?” I snort. “What? Are you drawing up escape plans while I sleep? I haven’t seen you working on anything.” I bang my fist on the sink.

“Just calm down. There’s no need to get all worked up.”

“I am calm.” I take a deep breath, “I’ve just decided that I’m going to do it. I’m going to kill you.”

“Really. And how are you going to manage that?”

My eyes shift across the room. “You remember Linda? They say she snapped the leg off her chair and it was sharp enough to do damage. It would be enough.”

“Yeah, I remember Linda. She was a complete loon. I’m surprised they let anyone keep their chairs after that.”

“They took some of them away. Barb lost hers.” I sit on the cot and put my face in my hands.

“Well, Barb has issues. She’s certifiable.”

I laugh, “Yeah? Who isn’t?”

“You know what I mean. She deserves to be in here.”

“And I don’t? I don’t know, Addy, maybe they’re right. Maybe you are a figment of my imagination.”

This time she snorts, “Sorry, but your imagination doesn’t have the ability to make me up. Not all of me. Haven’t I proven to you time and again that I’m real?”

“Then prove it to them! Why am I the only one who sees you? Who hears you?”

“I told you before, I’m—“

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t want to hear it again. Blah, blah, astral projection, blah, blah, focused on me, blah, blah, stuck. I’ve heard it too many times before. Maybe it’s just me trying to convince myself it’s plausible. Doesn’t that mean you’re a ghost? That leaves me the one with the problem.”

“My body is alive! Trust me!”

“I just want to kill you.”

“You can’t kill me! So how--? Oh. But it will end everything, and you know it.”

“Maybe, but at least it will be over.”  I sigh, wishing it were over.

“You won’t do it…You can’t.”

“Maybe it will free you, too.”

“Maybe it will kill me.”

“I can hope.”

@lissajean7
500 words