Friday, July 29, 2016

Prompt Drabble #9

Prompt: Celtic mythology says that leaving a graveyard a different way than you entered means spirits will leave with you. A fugitive sprints through a graveyard.

You know, they say leaving a graveyard a different way than you entered would release spirits to follow you. I wonder if how many spirits are released depends on how fast you’re going. If it does… I’m screwed.
The thoughts that go through my head when I am running away from the police always intrigue me. This one is definitely worth looking into. I mean, I don’t think I had twenty-five really weird guardian angels before I ran through that graveyard last night. Not that I’m complaining, honestly, they’ve already saved my life twice today. But the one that only has half a head is a little disconcerting.
I don’t know if all of them like me. As far as I can tell, only three can appear at any given time. Which means I’ve only met nine of them so far. But the one dressed like a baker said that there were twenty-four others hanging around me. The first nine were ok I guess. The first three stopped me from falling out of the tree I was hiding in. The next three pulled me back onto the sidewalk right before a bus would have hit me. Right after they saved my life both times the next set appears. Maybe that’s what they need to do to return to the graveyard. Save my life in return for eternal rest. Sounds like a good plan to me. Here’s hoping they don’t have to almost kill me in order to save me.

Prompt Drabble #8

Prompt: There’s an odd little town out in the desert where the length of your shadow has nothing to do with the height of the sun.

People talked about a time when the shadows followed the people and the people followed the sun. These stories are spoken in whispers in back rooms of iffy establishments. The town hadn’t seen a shadow follow a person in hundreds of years. They say the shadows used to be cast by the sun. Tkhey say that the shadows never left the person or thing they belonged with. Honestly, we’ve never believed them. Not until today.
Today, an old man walked into town with a shadow attached to his heels. The shadow moved when he did and didn’t when he was still. All of the townspeople gathered to watch him walk down the street. The town’s shadow population did too. We could all hear the rough scratchy sound of the shadows talking amongst themselves.
None of us knew how to approach this man with a shadow. Was he dangerous? Was his shadow? His shadow. What an odd thing to say. “his shadow” Shadow’s didn’t belong to people and people didn’t belong to shadows.
Finally, the mayor decided to talk to him. So, taking the sheriff of the shadows and the guard of the people he moved into the street, hoping the man wasn’t here to harm any of us. “Hello Sir Human, and hello Sir Shadow. I welcome you to our town, and wish to ask you what your business is.”
The man looked confused for a moment, watching our mayor and the sheriff of shadows. “My name is Philip. Why isn’t your shadow following you?” We all gasped and the shadows rattled angrily. How politically incorrect of him!

Prompt Drabble #7

Prompt: Write a story from the point of view of a character who happens to be a powerful cosmic creature. The catch? This character failed their mission, and thus they have been punished by their elders. Double catch? The punishment is to be bound in a human body.

“Oh my ME!” I yelled, pushing myself to my feet and brushing off my bright purple suit. “You could have gone with a slightly less horrifying color you know!” I shouted at the sky. “uh, are you ok?” a young lady asked as she walked past me. “Yes, yes, I’m fine now go on about your tiny mortal existence.” She huffed as she walked away, but I didn’t care about human emotions right now.
I walked into the closest building and found a bathroom. I had to see what they had done to me this time. Looking into the mirror I saw a thin faced, scrawny looking young man looking back at me. I had kind of expected the human part, but being so slight I couldn’t even protect myself? “HEY!” I yelled skyward “at least make me a strong human!!!” I didn’t expect an answer so when I heard a voice from the mirror I might have jumped but I certainly didn’t scream.
“You failed. You have had so many missions, and you failed every single one, but this time. This time you had to be punished. You made those creatures defenseless. They are going to have to rely on their allies from now on to be safe. So, in order to teach you a lesson, you have been put in a nearly defenseless human body. Once you have either learned to defend yourself, or made an ally who will defend you and give up their life for yours, you can have your cosmic body back.”
I was amazed. “You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am!?!?!” I screamed at the sky.
“Not yet. But we know who you were, and we didn’t like it. Change it.”
And then I could tell they were gone. For good.

Prompt Drabble #6

Prompt: At your job, you have one task. Every day you go in, sit at your desk and wait for a red light to turn on. When it does, you push a button. You repeat this process until the end of your shift. One day, you find out what the button does.

My job you ask? I just push buttons. I mean, I know a lot of people can say that, like, pretty much everyone who works with computers. And like… uh… telemarketers. But really, all I do is push buttons. I don’t make any choices or talk to anyone. We aren’t really allowed to talk at work. I go in to work, sit down in my very uncomfortable chair at my completely boring desk and I wait. Oh, my desk it’s sort of an L shape and on the left side are bunch of little red lights. On the right there four buttons.
My job is to watch those lights, and when they flash, I push one of the buttons. If it flashes once I push the first button and if it flashes twice I push the second button and so on.
Today, when I was there, one of the lights flashed six times. I didn’t know what to do. I went to the manager’s office and told him but when I did he said I could go home. EARLY! In the ten years I’ve worked there, I’ve never been sent home early. As I walked out, I saw there was absolute chaos around my desk.
So I decided to investigate. I followed the cords from the back of the building to this warehouse. And these tiny houses. It looks like… this is my town. Every house in my town is here. And the cords turn into wires and the wires go into the houses. This is my house over here. The wire coming out is shining red hot. I bet it’s the one that flashed six times.
Oh. Oh no. Every in my town has four people living in it. But I have six other than me. Six. Six flashes. Six people. I have to get home, I need to leave right now. Those buttons I push are the disposal lasers! My family is dead.

Prompt Drabble #5

Prompt: In a world where kids are scared of the monsters under the bed, you tame them.

Walking across the darkened lawn, I made my way to the window I knew belonged to the youngest child in the house. I peeked into the window and saw the shadow move to the side of the bed. I took the flashlight out of my bag and shined it onto the bed, making sure the kid was still there. Slowly pushing the window open, I quietly stepped into the room.
I know you might be thinking that I’m a creep, or someone who should be stopped, but I promise, I’m the only thing between this child and what resides under her bed. You see, they are called The Scry, and they feast on the low-level fear that all young children harbor at night. The Scry very rarely hurt the kids physically, but they do put terrifying thoughts and ideas in their minds. They’re only a little bit telepathic. Just enough to plant the ideas, and then, being children with active imaginations the kids make and think the very worst. And they work the ideas into nightmares. That is what The Scry feed on. The fear.
But don’t worry about little Abigail in here. I know how to tame them. See, they may feed on fear, but I am fear. I was born from the nightmare of a world weary five year old boy. His mother, she was human… but his father was one of the Scry. He followed the boy’s mother until he fell in love. But having one of The Scry as one of your parents isn’t easy, and little Timmy had quickly grown tired of the squabbles. He dreamed me up to save him from the rest of The Scry, who wanted to take him as an experiment.
After saving Timmy, he sent me to do the same for the rest of the kids. The ones who just wanted to sleep.

Prompt Drabble #4

Prompt: Write about a character who is living in a planet that was conquered by aliens, and humanity now lives under their rule. The catch? One day, a strange person shows up in the human slums. Double catch? This person does not have any alien branding. No ships. No barcodes. Nothing.

      He kept to the side among the rush of people. Gear thought the humans might not notice, but They certainly would. There was one of the GB’s floating at the end of the alley. The tall gangly man knew he couldn’t hide from the Guard Bot so he turned back the way he had come. Squeezing between a few of the human workers he prayed the tight group would be enough to disguise the fact that he wasn’t tagged.
As he made his way backwards he saw a deep doorway and pushed through the crowd and into the shadow. Peeking around the corner he was completely surprised when the door opened and a strong arm pulled him backwards. Landing hard on his back he flailed until he could see that it was one of Them that had grabbed him. Nearly panicking, he scrambled back until he hit the wall. They couldn’t find out. They couldn’t know. But when he hit the wall, he finally noticed there were two other humans in the room.
One of them was obviously tagged, having chosen the facial tattoo. But the other… The other human had no visible tags. No microchip bump, no tattoo, no glowing barcode on his wrist. “Are… are you like me?” Gear asked.
“My name is Aron” the one with no tags said, “and this is Krian” he motioned to the tattooed one “and this is my friend Mio” he patted the alien. “and we grabbed you to help you break into the Capitol.”