Day 123 Writing Short Stories

Crumble

The crumbled old stairs were the only way out of the house. The cobwebs and the mold had taken every crook and every surface. The stale air was making it even harder to breathe. She glanced behind, hearing the floorboards creak. The hallway was empty. That meant nothing in this house. She should never have let her curiosity get the better of her. She hadn’t actually seen the thing that haunted the abandoned house, but she had felt it, and there was this sense that it was driving her deeper into the house until there was no single escape left.

One thing was sure. She wasn’t taking the half-rotten stairs into the basement. There was one way out, and that was through the back door she had come in. The front door and the windows were boarded shut. But she would have turned back.

Picnic At Midnight

The silver moon shone bright over them. The park was deserted at this hour of the night. There was only she and him. It had sounded romantic to have a picnic at midnight, but she was having second thoughts. He was jittery, but not in a first-date way. It was as if he were waiting for something. There was something off with the setup.

He was laying the food on the blanket, now and then looking over his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. She wanted to say that if he was afraid of the dark, then he shouldn’t have suggested this. She would have been fine with a normal date.

“Nothing,” he gushed out.

She crossed her arms.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No,” she said flatly. “I just don’t get why we are, when you are clearly afraid of the dark.”

He laughed. “Oh,” he added.

“Then why are you so jittery?”

“This is my first time, and I wanted to make it nice.”

“On a date?” She was ready to leave.

“No, no. First time killing someone,” he said and smiled a huge smile.

She tried to scramble up, but he was already on her, biting his sharp teeth into her neck.

Graveyard

The weeping willows draped the small paths between the graves. He wasn’t sure why he had taken the shortcut. He hated cemeteries. They gave him the creeps. Yet, here he was.

“Don’t worry,” a female voice said. “I didn’t like these places either when I was alive.”

He looked around, scared, searching for the spooky voice.

He saw a woman leaning against a willow, her hands crossed. She wasn’t older than thirty. She was wearing a dress, and her short hair was styled like they did in the fifties.

She messed her hair, and it returned to the same. “I have seen what the kids today wear, and I would love a fresh cut.”

“How—” he stammered.

“When you are dead, human thoughts are not that complicated to master. Shame really.” She shrugged.

“How—”

“You can see me? There are nights like this one when the veil is thin, and the dead are more ready for the living.”

“Is there just you?” He was feeling less scared. She didn’t look like one who would murder him cold and rob his soul.

“Around and about. They left me here to look after the graveyard. Honestly, it’s a silly job. There’s nothing I can do if someone with malicious intent comes trying to snatch their bodies and command their souls.”

“They do that?”

“Some do. There’s more to heaven and hell than they teach you in Sunday school, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“For all this. I could have let you pass, but I felt lonely.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah, now you can never unlearn, and you will be back.”

She was right. There was no going back to thinking the world was the same way.

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

Not so happy with the prompts today either. Something is off, and I don’t seem to get the words out as I want them to . Maybe it’s the restrictive writing with the cast, but I think it’s more than that. My mind seems to wander and think irrelevant thoughts, and I’m not happy with any suggestions that come into my mind about where the stories should go and how I should end them.

But what I love about the spooky season is coming, and the weather is getting colder. I love the long autumn days and the wait for the first snow to come. I have started running again, and my body feels better for it. Now that I can’t go climbing, I have to take my adventures elsewhere. I’m planning to start roaming the woods again. I am on sick leave until the end of September. Hopefully, they won’t have to do surgery on my hand, and I can return to work then. Here in Finland, it’s okay to have sick leave. There’s no pay cut or time limit (not at least with the shorter ones, and a few months is considered short). I feel better mentally now that I know I can actually rest. It feels like I have been running fast ever since my dad died, and now I finally have a longer period to stop to breathe.

Thank you for reading ❤ I hope you have an adventurous weekend!