Day 207 Writing Short Stories

Hill

The city was burning. The airplanes swooped over the destruction, feeding the fire. The outbreak had taken over the city, and there was no other option but containment. The fortress up on the hill felt so distant from the dead and dying. She could separate herself from reality and concentrate on her work to find a cure. But down there, under the airplanes, and in the fire, real people were burning alive, not only the dead. She knew she should feel something. She hadn’t in days. There was only the numbness. It had come along with the dead.

The fences rattled again. The dead always find their way here. None of them could get through. This was the safest spot the army had confined her to. There was nobody else here with her. They couldn’t risk it. They couldn’t risk them turning into one of the dead outside and killing her. She was to be their hope. She didn’t like the whole hope part, but she liked the solitude.

The research was painfully slow. There were enough samples to play with and mice to test with. Thus far, she had only been able to turn the mice into the dead like the ones outside, but not to reverse the process. Today’s test hadn’t been any different. Like the fire in the city purifying the streets, her small, mice-sized crematoria was full at work. She would have to write yet another report of a failed experiment. It would hit them hard after today. They were already seeing her as useless. She could sense it with every food drop she got and every return message. They were losing hope out there. Too many were dying.

Baba Yaga

There’s always an old house at the back of the street. It’s always that house people whisper about in low tones. They speak of ghosts, witches, and demons. There was one at the back of his neighborhood. He was sure that it hadn’t been there a month ago, but others seemed to take it for granted as if it had always been there.

He observed the house from the tallest tree in the neighborhood. He had climbed up the branches and had taken a good spot at the strongest shoot. The tree had been his observation deck every day of the week. He was trying to catch whoever lived in the house. He was getting flak from his friends and his mother for his obsession, too, but he needed to know. Houses just didn’t appear out of nowhere and convince people to think that it was normal, that nothing strange had happened.

The lights turned on in the house. It was the first he had seen. Then the curtains came open. It looked like the house was opening its eyes. He took his binoculars and tried to catch a glimpse of the person inside. All he got was darkness inside the house. He sighed. This had been the best session thus far. He waited for a while, but nothing happened.

He slid down the tree and got to his bike. He circled past the house, and the door to the place slowly opened. There was a pull. He stopped his bike and let it fall on the curb. He slowly crept closer to the gates and to the yard, watching the open door like a bad invitation, but he didn’t want to turn back and run home. Somehow, it felt like a worse option.

He was almost at the door when there came a caw behind him. He spun around and saw an old woman looking down at him. She leaned on a tall oak staff that had a crow sitting on it. The woman’s white hair coiled down on her shoulders. She grinned a toothless grin, and he screamed and ran past her.

“Come back,” the woman said.

His feet stopped in their tracks. He felt them turn around and march him to the woman. She towered over him, and he felt his trouser legs get wet.

“What a curious mind you have,” the woman said. She tilted her head from side to side as if reading his mind.

“You see as I am, and as the house is. It has been a long time since I have seen one of your kind.” The old woman stopped her head from swaying and fixed her gaze on him.

“Powers like yours shouldn’t go to waste. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll see what I can do.” And like a release, the words set him free, and he shot out of the yard and got to his bike and rode like the wind home.

Blackmail

This is a prompt about blackmailers who think they have an easy target in the airheaded popstar, but as it turns out, she is not her image, and she will get back at them.

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

I love that these prompts let me play with writing. It feels so good to write today. Of course, there are days I wish I didn’t have to write these and could just skip them, but I’m always happy afterward that I didn’t. I have learned so much by writing these prompts.

There will be a pause for them, though. I will leave for Edinburgh this Friday and will be there for the long weekend. I’m turning 40, and my husband is taking me to Edinburgh to escape any need to celebrate my upcoming birthday with a huge party. I don’t really like being the center of attention. But as soon as I get back, I will write again.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a wonderful day!