Tag: Prompt

Don’t Tell

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

I know, I haven’t been keeping up with my storymatic prompts as promised! But here’s a new haphazardly thrown together one!

The cards were “teller of secrets” and “what was that sound?”

          Andrea considered herself a little bit of a real life gossip girl, or maybe a real life Harriet the Spy. It was less of a blog and more of a social media account. And mostly it was pictures – she was just adept enough at stalking and snooping that she always managed to grab the best pics to really get the rumor mill running. It wasn’t a big town, they only had the one high school, but her follower list included nearly every resident of their city excepting the people that didn’t have social media. No one knew it was her, and it made her feel a little important every time people talked about it. She reveled in it, sometimes wishing she could reveal herself, but she knew it was best to never divulge the truth to anyone – she had told so many of her fellow student’s secrets, and everyone would hate her.

          Andrea was currently in the middle of looking into a really fun story she had picked up on – of the most popular couple in school, it was possible the girl was cheating. It might not even be true, but if Andrea could capture an image that suggested it was… and if it did turn out to be true, all the better.

          She was hanging out under the bleachers, half listening to the game and half listening to the girl in question talk to her best friend. But something kept catching her attention. It was almost like a creaking noise. She had heard it a few times and brushed it off as the shifting of the bleachers under the weight of the spectators. But the sound grew louder, loud enough to scare her. She studied the way the bleachers shifted above her and concluded they weren’t the source of the noise.

          But what was it? Ever curious, she followed the sound. At first it got fainter, so she turned back, playing a strange game of hot and cold as she attempted to narrow down where it was coming from. She finally found an especially dark corner, the creaking so fast and persistent that it sounded like a strange purr. She squinted, trying to see if she could spot what was making the noise.

          Something in the shadows shifted, turning. Bright glowing yellow eyes stared at her out of the darkness. The creaking stopped. Andrea drew in a deep breath, but before she could utter a single sound, it had jumped forward – she only had the nightmare visage of teeth glinting in the dim lights, inside of a mouth that came down to cover her head completely.

          For a moment she thought the blackness was death, but then she realized she was still there, alive, somewhere in that darkness. She felt the sudden burning sensation where the many teeth dug through her clothes and into her skin, and she tried to scream, but no sound came out. She tried to struggle but she was held firmly in place. A large, slimy tongue ran over her face, and she felt something like an intense burning pressure within her head…

          The sensation ended suddenly, the humid atmosphere of the creature’s gaping maw withdrawing, and Andrea found herself gasping in a whole lung full of clean, crisp night air. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. She twisted her head, trying to see where the creature was, but the whole of her vision was still a deep black. The world was strangely quiet. She ran blindly…

****

          “What do you think happened?” Andrea’s mother was distraught, looking at her daughter where she lay in the hospital bed.

          The doctor shook his head. “We have no clue. The damage is extensive – her eyes are gone, and all the internal organs of the ear are melted, damaged beyond repair. Her vocal chords are severed. The teeth marks make it look like an animal attack, but the residue left in the eye sockets and the ear canal almost suggests an acid was used. It almost looks like it was done on purpose. Do you know if anyone would have had a grudge against your daughter?”

          Andrea’s mother shook her head, staring absently into space, hardly able to comprehend. “Andrea doesn’t bother anyone. She keeps mostly to herself. What kind of monster would do this to a girl?”

Last Kiss

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

Card prompts were motivational speaker and last, best kiss.

Kind of churned this one out quickly, didn’t care much for it.

          Mark had been a motivational speaker most of his adult life. It had been a surprisingly easy gig to slip into – he’d always been good at talking his way into and out of things, ever since he had learned his first words. Part of it was that the truth never got in the way of a good story or a convincing lie. It wasn’t that the things he was talking about weren’t good and true in and of themselves. He spoke at schools and at corporate events and to drug addicts, helped to encourage people in their lives and their goals and to set an example. And if he needed to seem personally invested to help set that example – to discuss overcoming addiction as though he had once overcome such a debilitation himself, and still struggled valiantly with it daily – well, giving people hope was the crux of the position. They needed the hope more than they needed absolute truths.

          Janet was the opposite. She had always been mousy and quiet, easily ignored or spoken over. Even here and now in the apocalypse, most people ignored her, preferring to listen to Mark. And she had to admit – he was easy to listen to. Easy to believe. She always had a knack for sniffing out the bullshit in the pretty things he said though. Maybe that was why, despite their differences, they had come together. They strangely complemented each other. Janet was practical, a steady presence that kept Mark grounded as he somehow rose to a leadership position in their little group of survivors. And despite the white lies that accompanied Mark’s speeches, Janet could always sense that he truthfully had hope for them. For their survival.

          And it was hope that they especially needed. Civilization wiped out, and the remaining pockets of humanity hunted and destroyed. The creatures that hunted them seemed alien, but no one really knew where they came from or why they were there. They acted like savage animals, but worked together in groups, always seemed to be at least 3 steps ahead. They were relentless. Still, there was hope. There were other groups. Humanity, Mark assured everyone, would persist as it always did.

Then the group had started losing contact with the other known settlements, one after the other. Sometimes it was suggested that maybe the communications equipment was no longer working, but those that knew how these things worked were certain – the equipment was fine. There was no one on the other end to answer. The map in the situation room looked grim – community after community crossed out with x after x. Only their own small group remained on the map now. It was hard to look at and keep hope.

          And the creatures were massing outside.

          Mark wasn’t a soldier – he had never even held a gun until the past year, and he suspected he missed more often than not. They didn’t really have the ammunition or resources to practice regularly. The one thing he could do convincingly was talk – he could stand, and give a speech about persevering, fighting, facing the enemy. He could give hope one last time. He could see the spark of it lighting in the eyes of the people around him – his small found family, his friends. But as he finished his speech before their final battle, he caught Janet’s eye. Janet’s worried frown.

          As always, she had seen right through him.

          He maintained his smile for the others as he stepped down from the boulder he had been speaking from. Janet wrapped her arms around his waist, staring deeply into his eyes. She said nothing. She didn’t want anyone to overhear. But she knew. And he knew.

          They were likely the last humans, and they weren’t surviving the night.

          He leaned in and kissed her, deeply, losing himself in the moment, and she lost herself in him as well – this last, best kiss.

The Answer

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The cards for this week: architect, and no answer.

The result feels like a bunch of edge-lord bullshit that doesn’t pull its meaning together very well at all (and also doesn’t fully represent my own ideology, but hey, the card said no answer, soooo…). I kinda like some of the idea and hate a lot of the result. Blah.

              They had designed the entire system from scratch. It had started as a joke, a reference to a book about a planet sized simulation run simply to discover the answer to life, the universe, and everything. A way to entertain themselves in the void of space. Humanity had died out, and They were all that remained – and They had become something else, something powerful, but also something pointless. In the hopes of finding some answer, some purpose, They had found a place to start.

              Part of Their power involved moving through time. They couldn’t move freely – They couldn’t move back. There was never any going back, no way to see if the end could have been something different for Them. But They could move forward, shifting hundreds, thousands, millions of years at a time to see the results of what They started. Understanding the conditions for life, They sculpted the clay, the rocks, the dirt, and filled in the oceans. And then They created the spark of life within that primordial sea. And They let it run its course.

              They remembered movies – some of Them, at least, those from the time before mass media died out and flights of fancy became less important than basic survival. It was like watching a time-lapse or a video on fast-forward. The weather and land shifted with the ages. Life evolved. They slowed to a crawling pace sometimes to catch moments, or study how far things had progressed. There were some things that were familiar in the creatures that evolved, and some things that weren’t. They had been relatively hands off, creating and building the original framework and then letting things run their course. Grand architects, god-like if not god. The most complicated simulation, born from mere boredom.

              There were many things with at least a base animal intelligence, things that ran, flew, slithered, and swam. Things that hunted, and things that foraged, and things that played and grew curious. Things that mated and lived. Things that sickened and died. Entire species wiped out by calamities and chance and accident. They watched life rise and fall in waves.

              There was some stir of something like excitement when sentience took hold. A handful of creatures that communicated in a more complicated manner, about more nuanced ideas, and worked together as a society. These creations understood the concept of tools, and made them to fit their needs. They altered their environments with buildings, altered their bodies with coverings. They spread, much as humanity had once spread across the Earth. It filled some of Them with a longing for what They had once been – to feel alive again. But now They could only watch.

              They watched the spread. They watched the development. They watched as cultures clashed in massive wars, or came together to build great works. They watched with trepidation as the technological advancements began to pile, one upon the other, until this new society was close to what humanity had achieved before it had withered and died. Many of Them felt some joy that perhaps things would be better for them, the little creations.

              And then it ended. As abruptly and nastily as it had for Them.

              Without the leftover that was They.

              There was a lonely silence for a time, and then an outcry of disappointment. Certainly some species at some point could surpass Them, find a way to take life into something more meaningful, or maybe even join Them in this strange nonexistence of god-like power. Using the same base, They wiped the little rock clean, placed the conditions, and lit the spark again. They did not pause as often on this round. They sped forward, eager to see the outcome.

              And just as before, it ended. With nothing remaining.

              Unsatisfied, They started again.

              And again.

              And again.

              Until the fear began to take hold. The realization creeping, as They watched civilization after civilization fail. They began to watch the waves and undulations of life and death and truly feel within the void of Their existence, the truth – the inescapable truth. That there was no rhyme or reason or answer for anything. That They were still alone.

Camping

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Have you ever been camping?
View all responses

Writing using the prompt from WordPress’s dashboard today, because the prompt cards I pulled require a little more thought – I have the feeling that there is something that can be quite cleverly funny, and I will completely miss my target even when I do write something, but we’ll see next Tuesday.

We used to camp a lot when I was a child. Between the ages of 4 and 13, my family lived in Oregon. We spent nearly every weekend out in the national forests, camping, fishing, or just driving through the mountains and stopping for cans and mushrooms near the road. We’d find a place near a creek or a river that was out in the middle of nowhere and pitch a tent and build a fire, and spend our time exploring the surrounding area. I remember three spots in particular:

The first was a semi-regular place for us to visit, sometimes just on daytrips to go fishing, though we did camp there a few times. It was less private, being known to other people – a stretch of sandy beach past the Painted Hills near the John Day River. The Painted Hills were so named because the dirt of the hill mounds were multi-colored, reds and pale tans and blacks, all running in striated streaks. I believe, though do not know for sure, that it was also an area where students in nearby universities would dig for fossils. The river was popular for rafting, and the small beach was a nice swimming spot, with a cliff on the other side that people liked to dive into. They used to mine for gold in the river, and gold flakes flecked the sands there – I’d spend time trying to separate out the tiny, glittery flakes from the rest of the sand. The beach wasn’t far from the road, but still a little troublesome to reach because of how steep the incline down to it was. There were a few trees at the edge that provided good shade, and a place to chase blue-bellied lizards while my parents fished for bass.

I don’t know the name of the second place. I don’t think it was unknown to people, but we rarely saw anyone there when we visited. It was a small reservoir, and not very deep so you could also fish for bass there. There was no gentle incline to it – straight at the edge of the water, it was immediately at least 4 feet deep. Once we took our cousins camping with us there, and my youngest cousin leaned too far over and fell into the water, and was shocked enough at the depth that she got very upset and was crying. There was a path that looped around it, and it could easily be walked around. Along one side of the dam, there was a small, shallow, stream that ran down an incline and into a valley below. Once, my brother and I caught a bass by hand because it happened to be stuck in that stream. I’m not sure how it had gotten there in the first place, the water was shallow enough that it’s top side was halfway out and exposed to the air, and it had been there long enough that the exposed bit was discolored, though it still had a lot of fight to it.

The third spot I remember was one we only visited once, but it was fairly similar to most of the others except for the stream. There was a mountain stream running through, a thin enough trickle of water to be able to step across in spots, but still a good home for trout. Most other spots maybe didn’t stand out because the creeks or rivers were wider, more typical fishing and camping spots. I’m not even sure if Dad knew it was there, or if we just happened to run into it while driving around and decided it was a good spot to camp. But I do remember it was a wonderful sunny day, and there was a green grassy meadow filled with wildflowers through the whole area.

I think camping then always stands out in my memory because it involved getting out and away from people and signs of people. Dad has mused before that these days he wouldn’t want to risk it again – being in a small tent overnight in land that belongs more to the bears and mountain lions and far from any help if something were to happen. But I always enjoyed it. There were other times when I went camping with grandparents, but those were at campsites near lakes, with cordoned off spots that you had to pay to stay at and public restrooms and showers and RV hookups. Fun, but in a different way.

After we moved, we didn’t go camping anymore. In part because my brother and I were teenagers, and also because of my parents’ new work schedules; we rarely had weekends together as a family anymore. But I also think in part because Dad had been born and raised in Oregon and knew where to get comfortably lost there. I’m sure there are places to go in Oklahoma, but the lands seem mostly private and fenced off, and the few places you can go are kind of known, so it’s not unusual to see other people once you get there.