Day 253 Writing Short Stories

Footstep

Tap, tap, tap sounded from the stairs leading to the attic. She listened to the sound, going over anyone who could be up at this hour. The footsteps went up and down the stairs in the hallway just past her bedroom.

She didn’t dare get out of bed to see who was there. She didn’t dare to ask. No one should be awake.

The sound stopped. Then it began again, and this time it rushed behind her door.

She gasped and slammed her hand over her mouth for making such a noise.

The steps circled behind her door. They seemed to mock her, knowing that she was awake; that she shouldn’t be.

She hurried on her back and drew the blankets over her. That seemed to evoke whoever was in the hallway. The steps hurried in. And she was sure the door hadn’t opened.

She didn’t dare to move. She trembled under her covers, waiting to die.

There came a laughter. It was sharp and nasty. Then something jumped on her bed.

She screamed and rushed out of her bed.

In the moonlight, she saw a creature unlike anything she had seen before. It was a small, human-like creature with pointy ears and huge black eyes. It had wings bigger than itself. When it grinned, its pointy teeth came out.

It hissed at her, and as she startled, it let out a laugh that sounded like bells.

“Prey,” it let out. “Come out to play.” The creature got up in the air and whooshed over her head, tugging her hair.

She screamed again.

The door burst open, and her father rushed in. As she blinked, he was there, and the creature was gone. She rushed into her father’s lap and trembled.

Grandson

The car made a whirl around the trees. It tumbled over, and there was a loud crash. The small boy grinned as the toy car took down the trees and as he made the sounds of explosions.

He watched the boy play on the carpeted floor with painted walkways and houses. The toy trees, the pedestrians, and the cars shone with cheap plastic. It was nothing as it had been when he had been a boy, when he had been his grandson’s age.

He glanced around the room. Every surface was full of plastic things. Figurines. Dinosaurs. Legos. Cars. Guns.

He sighed. He had bought some of them. And now, as he sat here on the boy’s bed, watching what it had amounted to, there was an odd sense of hollowness. He wondered what kind of adult the boy would be. He wouldn’t be there to see him grow into a man. Would all this plastic make him a kind man? Would it make him a genius? Would it make him dull and bored?

He didn’t know. He wished he could scoop the boy up and take him outside. But he had tried that once, and there had been screams, and his daughter had come rushing in and told him off. All he could do was monitor the play and wish he could give the boy something other than plastic toys.

Gambler

A man’s elderly father is a gambler, and they visit a casino together. I skipped this one.

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

Another rushed morning without enough time to write the prompts as I wanted.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a slow and wonderful day!