Writing Prompts Day 16

Day 16 of the daily prompts:

Knot

The tight knot in my stomach got tighter. I knew I was doing wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself. I felt my jaw drop open, and a scream come out. Then my hand shoved her down the floor, and I kept screaming.

“You fucking toxic, self-centered twat. How dare you laugh at me? How dare you act that way and make me feel small and insecure? Do you think you are high and mighty? You are nothing!”

She just lay there on the floor, her face twisted in hate, terror, and anger. I could see myself reflecting in her eyes. I was a horrible monster. I have let my insecurities, jealousy, and fear take over me. All she had done was to exist. Yes, annoyingly. Yes, aggressively. And yes, judgementally and in constant competition with me and everyone else, but it was her, and I had taken her emotions and actions in me. I should have known better.

I stopped screaming and stared blankly at her.

Crate

She let her fingers graze the crate, and its coldness tingled against her skin. It had come from him—or so she thought. With it had become a note explaining that the content was made to touch her heart.

She flicked the box open. Ice-cold air steamed out, making the content flow in a silver-blue light. Inside the crater, a small metallic egg was securely attached to the iced interior. She reached for the egg. Its coldness burned her skin, and she let go of it.

Bluebeard

She was barely sixteen, and her parents were willing to marry her off to the ugly old man, who probably had murdered all his previous wives. They didn’t seem to care. All they could think about was the fortune and the fame they would have as his in-laws.

She snarled at her husband-to-be as they walked down the aisle, and she snarled at her mother and father as they smiled so big.

“You know, I’m not doing this for the kindness of my heart?” she asked him before they stepped before the priest.

“Me, either,” he said.

“Good, then we both know where this transaction leads.”

“We do.”

This was the longest conversation they had had all this time. It was the longest one they had before he had her and told her that he would leave the country, leaving her in his big mansion with all the keys and a command that she shouldn’t go into the underground chamber. It was strictly forbidden from her.

The Prompts are from the book: A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

Trying to retell Bluebeard with a surly teenager felt difficult. In hindsight, I should have written it before the wedding because writing about a teenager marrying an older man is just wrong. I should have given her wit and a way to escape him and expose his deeds, how he had killed his former wives. I have lines I don’t want to cross, yet I did. And I wonder if I should redo what I wrote.

I have been slacking off writing my sci-fi book without a good reason. I’m not sure but maybe I’m scared to finish it. There’s only the last chapter and I can give it to be judged. I know my beta readers are good, and I have worked with them before, yet it still feels like a huge thing to finish a book and let it go off my hands.

Thank you for reading! Have a magical day!