Day 197 Writing Short Stories

Mark

The huge red mark on the wall was the first warning she saw when arriving in the village. As she stepped past the first house, she saw the same red mycelium spreading from house to house. She drew her scarf against her mouth and nose, holding it in place with her hand. She had arrived too late. It had taken over the entire village.

The eerie silence had taken over every inch of the place. The life that had once been there haunted the yards, but now it was absent. She waited for a child to burst onto the street. She searched for the elder aunts sitting beside the road, judging and gossiping about every person passing by. But there was no one. No living soul. No cat or bird in sight. The dogs didn’t bark.

She imagined all the lost lives she could have saved, taken by the rot. She would have to burn the village down so that no one would ever know what happened here. The rot had to be stopped from spreading. People had to live ignorant of the fact that there was a war between humans and the aliens, that they were already amongst them.

It was a lonely war she was fighting.

She took her phone out and typed the pre-coded eradication message, knowing soon there would be nothing left of the people that once lived in the peaceful village. That was war for you. It cost more to those who never wanted it to happen.

College Friends

A group of college friends meet after years apart, and there’s a discussion of lives lived.

Sick

Her face was twisted into an angry pout. This was the first time he saw her in a flue and it wasn’t a pretty sight. The flu came with sound effects. There was the usual coughing and sneezing, but then there was the growling and barking. Her lovely amber eyes had turned red, and her skin glowed a greenish hue.

The worst part was that she was muttering gibberish as she was asleep, and some of the sentences spoken were oddly coherent, like she was having a harsh, hidden conversation with someone.

He tiptoed carefully to their bedroom, bringing her yet another serving of ginger, lemon, and honey water, heated scorching hot.

She opened her red eyes, and he was sure as she took the cup in her hands that her fingernails had grown long like talons. She groaned and downed the hot water with one gulp. As she moaned out a sigh, she almost appeared as he knew her to be. Her angelic smile was angelic, and not a snarl of some goblin.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m feeling a lot better.”

“Good to hear that, honey,” he replied, still slightly scared of her and what she actually was. But he didn’t believe in goblins and monsters.

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

None of the prompts spoke to me today. I struggled to find the angles to write, but once I relaxed and drew inspiration from the previous stories I had written and read, the prompts came out relatively easily. The Mark story didn’t go as I planned. It was meant to be a witchy story tied to the one I wrote a couple of days ago, Lost – prompt, but suddenly there were aliens and wars that I didn’t know existed.

Writing these prompts is sometimes exciting, like the prompt Mark. They give an opportunity to play around and let the story or an idea lead somewhere I didn’t think of. I think the prompts have opened up another level of creativity and ability to see a story, a character, or a setting in everything. Pursuing creative things like storytelling has made my life a lot better. It has given it meaning, even if I will never be able to support myself with it. Your likes keep me going when creating doesn’t feel enough. I appreciate them and a lot. It makes me think that there is room for my storytelling and writing in this world. Thank you for that!

Happy writing and reading! I hope you have a pleasant day. Thank you for reading ❤