Day 287 Writing Short Stories

Hunger

He pulled his hood deeper over his head, watching in the shadows as people moved about in the world. He pitied their cluelessness, their childlike understanding. They were cattle. Yet, he was the one to be cast in the shadows with his hunger for life. They flinched at his crude appearance, his disjointed movements, his dull, colorless eyes. He had heard enough screams to last a lifetime.

He stood there, watching as the lighters moved from lamp to lamp to banish the darkness away. They hopped from circle of light to light, fearing the darkness, the creatures that lurked in the lines between.

When they were gone, he stepped out, his hood still lowered to cover his face. He moved from shadow to shadow, avoiding the light, avoiding the drunken people who had emerged onto the streets from their miserable lives. He wasn’t hungry for their flesh; their tainted, booze-filled blood. No, that was not what he was looking for.

And there it was, a child, among her parents. A little girl, wearing rags, shivering there, yet her eyes shone bright in the night. They still had that zest which made life a life, a curiosity and hope. His mouth twisted into a snarl, his teeth bared. He could taste her blood, her flesh. The hunger ached in him. Yet, he pushed the teeth away. That was the carnal part of him, and he wasn’t here for that. He was to offer that life meaning.

One moment, he stood there in the shadows, and the next, he was there behind the mother and the father, snapping their heads broken. Their disjointed bodies collapsed on the street. He could smell the booze on them. He could smell their degradation. And before the child could scream, to let out that hollow sound he hated so much, which harrowed his soul, he had his claws over her mouth. There was a bite. He could barely feel it. He tightened his grip and whispered in the ear the lullaby his voice could induce. Her body fell limp, and he drew her under his cloak, shielding her from the world.

She would grow. She would become more than he was, and then the cattle would have their hope. She would be their star, their prophet, and he would not hunger anymore.

Naming

Grandparents are demanding that the new baby be named after a relative. The mother grows tired and tells both grandparents to leave, declaring she will name the baby after a character from a book. I skipped this one.

Teen

A teen has taken to using text lingo, and their parents can no longer understand a word they say. I skipped this one, too.

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

I soon have to leave for work. Luckily, I have a relaxed day today. I can enjoy myself and plan the actual therapy session without having to hurry from client to client. We have winter vacation here in Finland, so my clients are away enjoying their time off. The winter vacation is literally called a ski holiday. I don’t have time off as I postponed my holidays until April as I’m heading to Barcelona to climb. But I could really use a holiday by now. I find it hard to motivate myself at work, and that’s bad for an OT.

Writing was fun today. I had fun writing the Hunger prompt and my book, both of which went where I wanted them to go. I had my cat on my lap the whole time. He makes it difficult to write, blocking my keyboard, but today I found a way around that, and he was content the way he was on my lap.

Yesterday, I read about Amazon and DRM things. I’m reading Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification. I highly recommend the book, even though it paints a grim picture of the world for me as a person and as an author who relies on Amazon sales. I’m not yet at the point where he proposes a way around the enshittification, but I hope there is an insight I could use to circumvent the whole Amazon thing and find a way for my books to reach the right audience.

Anyway, thank you for reading ❤ Have an amazing day!