Chairs and Pears, Pairs of Gears, People Upstairs

One of our weekly writing prompts.

Granny’s house is a strange place. The main floor seems normal. There’s a rocking chair in the living room with an orange and gold afghan draped over the back and a sofa that has ugly flowered upholstery. The kitchen is tiny and there is always a bowl of yellow pears in the middle of the miniature table. Her bedroom is also on the main floor and not too interesting except for the cuckoo clock on the wall that ticks and grinds and makes all sorts of noises, and then on the hour, the little wooden cuckoo explodes through the painted doors and screeches its mechanical coo.

But these are the normal things. It’s the people who live upstairs who are strange. The first thing that’s strange about them is that Granny tells me they aren’t there even though she has pictures of them in frames on the mantel. The second thing that’s strange about them is that they never seem to sleep. When I visit Granny I sleep in a bed upstairs, but even when I wake up in the middle of the night the people are awake and staring. They don’t talk much, the people upstairs. That is the third strange thing about them. When they do speak their lips don’t move. I think that is also strange.

There’s also a cuckoo clock upstairs, but there are two cuckoos in it, one is white and one is black. The white one cuckoos on the hour, but the other only cuckoos when someone dies, like when cousin Emma was sleep walking and fell down the stairs. I only heard it cuckoo then.

Dark Dreams and Darker Crimes

Warning: Strong Language

This was a prompt designed to allow writers to flush out a scene. They wrote three segments separated by about 20 minutes of the same crime scene. After wards they were asked to fill in those twenty minute gaps however they wanted. The gaps in mine did not need much to expand them to keep the flow going.

“Captain, Someone moved it. The pooling of blood and the streaks suggest it might be hauled towards the alley down there.” I said.

The Captain muttered for a bit and said, “Fine. Finish up here and we will take a look down there. I hate the weird creepy shit that happens in this town.”

We wrapped things up in under 30 minutes and head to the alley.

“The alley is a dead end. I don’t like this. Maybe it is hidden in one of the dumpsters. Or beneath those boxes.”

“This is a high profile case but we need to keep it on the down-low,” the captain emphasized. “Check every corner of the alley. For all I know it could be a maniac serial killer. Just what we needed.” He sighed audibly.

It took us another 40 minutes to do our due diligence and it was nearly dawn. It had been a long night.

“There is absolutely nothing here. I see the blood trail but it disappears in the middle of the alley. No tire tracks anywhere. No doors, windows or grates either. This isn’t looking good. It simply vanished. Doesn’t make sense, Captain,” I said. “Captain?” I repeated.

The Captain had turned white. He turned to me and said, “I had hoped they were gone. But they are still here. We should talk, you and I. In private.”

Playtime

Warning: Mature Themes

This is an extension of the original prompt "(1m) A thief breaks into a house and encounters the owner of the house with a gun (write 4 lines of dialogue only and see what ending you take it to)."

“Hey Mister, watcha doin’?”

Jeremy sighed heavily and turned to the source of the voice with a huge, forced grin on his face.

“Oh hey Little Man! I’m just picking up a few things for your folks, what are you doing out of bed this late-“

Jeremy’s grin faltered as he saw the pistol in the little boy’s hand. It was matte black and stood out in stark relief against his baby blue, dinosaur pajamas. Solid and weighing down the toddler’s wrist at an awkward angle, Jeremy knew in an instant that it was real.

“Where did you get that?”

El'Tash: Elliott's Story (part 1)

Warning: Graphic Violence

Part of our group is starting a Pathfinder campaign in an original setting of the DM's (Suleman's) creation. Here I shall record the events of the campaign from the perspective of my character, Elliott Durand.

     The air crackled and took on a static charge. A light breeze began to blow through the darkened chamber, though nothing stirred, too heavy to be moved by a simple brush of wind. Sparks danced along the metallic surfaces of the room, coalescing towards a focal point in the middle of the room. A moment later, reality itself seemed to tear apart as a roaring rift opened near the ceiling. From its flashing lights a dark, humanoid shape tumbled, crashing into the floor.

     “Owww…” the shape said, though the howling wind of the rift drowned the word out. After being unceremoniously dumped on the floor, the figure was left in total darkness as the rift vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

     Shuffling about, the figure rose to its feet. Its clothes rustled as its arms moved about, trying in vain to cast a spell.

Withered the Flame

Warning: Strong Language

Now comes Her hue and cry,
Change the tresses upon their sighing trestles.
Hark!
Matrimony of Mother Nature and Father
Time marred, malleable, molded so
The creeping chill heralds the new hue.
Hitherto emerald alas now the flames rage
Hew the tendrils and the sparks fall to
Wrap Her in their coat of embers.