Day 173 Writing Short Stories

Vivid

The little sparkle was, at first, just that — a sparkle. It wasn’t strong enough to change the elements, but there it was, existing beyond her imagination. She watched it gradually diminish and disappear completely between her hands. There it had been. She hadn’t dreamed it. It had been real.

She spoke the litany again and pictured the sparkle between her hands. This time it was there faster, and it was more vivid than it had been. She shifted it from one hand to another, letting it slide between the air molecules. It was her power manifesting itself.

She glanced over her shoulder at the attic door. She had barred it with all the boxes she could find. There was no way her mother would get in without her knowing. She returned her attention to the sparkle and then to Nana’s book. Suddenly, the book had been there, waiting for her at her bed when she got home from school. Her mother had shrugged, saying she must have put it on her bed by accident while dusting her bookshelf. She had taken it away to the attic and hidden it in one of the boxes from Nana’s house. Her mother hadn’t looked happy when she had come with it to the kitchen.

She had thought nothing of it, but then the book started to haunt her dreams. It was like she knew which box it was hidden in and which page to open it on. And now the sparkle was alive, and it was growing stronger between her hands.

Colors

Every car honk, every step, every rustle of leaves, every word uttered out had a color. There was a cherry red for the sirens. There was a mustard yellow for the car honks. There was a light blue for yawns. All so vivid in her eyes.

Her teachers at art school marveled at her paintings. Her strange cityscape seemed full of color that seeped from the objects. They said she had a gift. She accepted that, but sometimes she wished that the quiet background noise wasn’t so gray. That the sobs didn’t come out indigo blue. That she could just close her eyes, and there was nothing but her thoughts without color.

Vampire

“I hate it when they make a mortal woman change us,” the vampire gushed out.

The circle nodded.

She had been listening to the vampires bemoan their grievances about pop-culture vampires for the last hour. The list was endless, and one by one, they had gone through all the stereotypes, even the ones they actually possessed.

Sometimes she wondered how she had landed this job. She had become the councilor of the strange. On Wednesdays, she had the werewolves. On Thursdays, the vampires. And on Friday, she had the miscellaneous group. Everyone went over how the modern era sucked. How people were not what they used to be. How movies have gone bad. And how no one feared them anymore. They all begged in their final moments to become like them. They didn’t fear for their souls.

She had heard it all, even the bemoaning that the vampires were agreeing on. And she hated the fact that she agreed with them. Vampires were like cats. They didn’t change. The owner changed and accommodated their habits.

“I think we have covered today’s grievances well. If anyone has a personal issue they want to talk about, we still have fifteen minutes left,” she interrupted another round of pop-culture references from starting.

They all looked at her as if she were their prey. Their teeth were drawn out, and then they remembered she was untouchable. If anything were to happen to her mortal soul or even to a strand of her hair, there was a hell to pay. She had strong patrons, and they didn’t look kindly on her going missing.

They shifted their focus to their feet, and no one took it upon themselves to speak out. She ended the meeting. These meetings had been going on for a long time. They were meant to keep the peace between different factions. They were meant to keep them protected and hidden from humans. And she had agreed to hold their secret. She knew that if she ever uttered to another living soul what she did and what she knew, there was a far worse fate than death waiting for her. But sometimes the knowledge weighed her down. She knew people died and went missing, and on those days, it was hard to remember that the death toll could be bigger without her service.

Tonight wasn’t any different. A girl not more than eighteen had died not so far from here. The neighborhood was full of flyers asking for witnesses. And all she could do was stay silent.

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

I wanted to make the last one run longer and make it into a plot, but once again, I don’t have time for it. I’m happy that I got the mood and the potential for a story right.

My sci-fi book is now done. I still haven’t found the right title for it, and I need to write the afterword and the synopsis, but the actual book is finished. It feels so odd.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a day full of peculiar adventures!