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Fictober Prompt - #2

Original Fiction - Little Snitch

Rating -  PG13

Warnings/Tags - murder, blood, revenge, justice, language

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My boyfriend looked at me with a blank face and then started to laugh. I didn’t know if he was shocked or just thought I wouldn’t turn him in for what he did. His next words bit at my heart like little ice icicles on the coldest day of winter. “Look, Sammi. You didn’t see a thing. And besides… You have no proof.” 

“I don’t need proof, stupid. I’ll take care of you myself if you won’t admit to the deed and turn yourself in for me.” I quickly brushed a strand of red hair from my eyes, slipping out my switchblade from my back pocket and flipping it open behind my back. I had already set up the recorder on my phone and nonchalantly held it in one hand, per my normal pose. 

“What,” he said, eyes sparkling with something I hadn’t seen before, “Are you gonna take care of me? For real? Sammi, just forget everything. It was just a dummy. It was a prank.” His fists were clenched, but his face remained cool. Todd was always one to cover up. I knew it when I started dating him, but why not get in with the jocks by dating the popular dude? Right? All my besties loved the idea of it, anyway. Some of them hated me for it, though.

“Todd! I saw you shove the drunk guy over the bridge! He was unconscious and you did it anyway.”

“Nobody’s gonna know, Sammi.” He moved towards me, but I took a step back and felt the counter at the small of my back. “Nobody’s gonna know and you don’t know what you saw either. You were as drunk as he was!”

“You basically just admitted killing him, Todd. That’s all I need.” I raised my phone, proving that I had recorded the whole thing. “Besides, he was on the news. You think they’re going to let it slide? He was a businessman, Todd!”

For the first time, Todd looked flustered. And then, he was enraged. “You little snitch. If I kill you, I’ll get away with it no problem. How about that?”

I paused the recording, even though the danger was still so real. “No, Todd.” I said. He smirked as if I was joking. I wasn’t though. I smiled at him sweetly. “You should die instead.” 

That was his last straw. He hissed, “Bitch!” and lunged, hands ready to choke me out. But I was two seconds quicker and drove my switchblade straight up into his gut and twisted hard with a scoff. “I’ll never date a jock again.”

He stumbled back, holding his abdomen as his tight, white shirt began to turn dark red where I stabbed him. “You’re gonna pay for that, Sammi,” he hissed. But he was already turning a shade paler and blood dripped to the ground from between his fingers. I shrugged, stepped forward, and sliced the switchblade across his chest, cutting his shirt and skin wide open. “And that’s for sleeping with my best friend, stupid.”

Fictober Prompt - #1

Original Fiction - Left to Burn

Rating -  PG

Warnings/Tags - apocalypse, fire, trapped, rescue

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I stood between the ship and the flames. Earth was around us and behind me, burning in the hell of a thousand worlds. I shouldered up the little girl at my hip and lifted her into the closest hands that reached down from the hovering craft just above me. A man with the face of an eagle took her, his sharp bird-like nails scraping across my hands as she was pulled into the ship. I looked up at him. Who would have thought the last of the humans would have been saved by strange people who were not human at all?

But this wasn’t some sci-fi story. These guys weren’t aliens, obviously. I could see the man’s eyes through his feathers, and they looked as normal as my mother’s or father’s, or brother’s or lover’s. I turned back as the flames roared around me, looking for anyone else who might have fallen behind. The burning world around me was noisy. It was uncanny and surreal. Earth was gone. The last of the humans from my clan were pulled into the ship and the man with the face of an eagle reached for me and paused when I hesitated.

For days, I had heard the voice in the flames, but it suddenly roared so loud I couldn’t even hear the glow of the ship’s engines above me. Stay in the flames. The voice haunted me like a shadow of a past life. Stay in this world… with me. And then, as if seducing me like a succubus from hell, it always whispered: I will make you the queen of it all. 

Those weren’t the words it whispered today, though. The voice was roaring in a language I couldn’t even understand. It gave me a headache. I needed to ignore it, so I dragged myself back to the hand reaching for me, the hand of the eagle-faced foreigner. I meant to take his hand, but the terrifying voice from the flames silenced suddenly with a breath of heated wind as a massive flame ball roared into the only unburnt space left on earth, straight towards me, straight towards the ship.

These people who came to save us were prepared and the ship swerved, pulling away my one chance to get on without looking back. The man with the eagle face yelled at me, “Jump!” But my eyes caught something beyond the ship, the shadow of a man in the flames. He was also reaching towards me, out of the fire. They will die if you choose them. 

The clearing was quickly becoming enveloped in hot devastation as the free land was swallowed. I looked up at the ship. “Jump!” the man yelled again. I was ready to jump. I could make it. I knew I could. Until the moment the ship's door began to close and I realized I waited too long, second guessing the words of the man in the flames.

Prompt number: 02

Original fiction: Untitled

Rating: PG

Warnings/Tags: Sensuality

--

The stopwatch dropped into the well and hit the water with a soft flwoop as it sunk below the dark surface. Above, Karoline leaned over the edge of the rocky barricade around the well, staring into the darkness below. She smiled slightly, satisfied with the sound of the watch’s watery grave. “That’s the easy part,” she whispered, before she turned away. The little well was situated in the middle of a courtyard, abandoned by the knights of King Arthur and now inhabited by vagabonds. Humming like a child, Karoline skipped along the well-beaten path leading to the village beyond the hill. Vagrants watched her out of the corner of their eyes, while their activities were consumed by whatever ailments and pickpocketed treasures they owned. “The hard part,” Karoline paused just outside the forsaken courtyard walls and rocked back on her heels, “is killing him.” She crossed her hands behind her back, waiting. She saw the cloaked man walking towards her from beyond the well-beaten path, but remained where she stood. He had come from the hills around them. She sighed as the breeze rustled her skirt.

He approached her with inhuman, fluid movements. “Ah, Olina, good to see you, my dear.” His voice, rasping in the short distance between them, reminded her of the storms that came to the land every autumn. Powerful. He quickly moved forward and gripped her elbows affectionately. “Do you have it? Do you have what I require?”

“Of course, master,” Karoline smiled sweetly. She slowly lifted the hem of her skirt to reveal a jaded bracelet on her ankle. “Your jade is magnificent.”

The master suddenly paused, pulling back his hood. His features were dark, forbidden, blackened by the curse of immortality. He stood taller than any man she had met in this world, and his hair was the color of moonlight. “Strange…” He leaned down, levelling his height with hers, studying her features like a lonely friend who knew inner darkness too well. “Olina,  where has your heart gone? I hear no ticking in your chest.” He touched her chin, but she did not react to the tingling sensation that spread across her skin at the contact. His fingers trailed down to her blouse and pulled the drawstring holding it together. She hissed as he pulled her shirt open, but he was not interested in her exposed breasts. Only the empty metallic cage inserted in her chest, right where her heart should have situated itself…

“What have you done?” Her master pulled her shirt closed abruptly. His black eyes took on a red hue. “What have you done with your heart, Olina? Where is my heart?”

Karoline shrugged. “Sorry, master. But I have someone to kill.” She leaned down and unclipped the jaded bracelet, handing it to him. “I have no need for my heart, because it broke.”

Time seemed to stop as her master closed his hand around the glittering bracelet. “In that case,” he whispered as he leaned into her, lips brushing her earlobe, “I should like his body and his heart to make you whole.”

“As you wish, master.” Karoline smiled, lifting her mechanical hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wish me luck.”

Prompt number: 01

Original fiction: Untitled

Rating: PG/PG-13

Warnings/Tags: Violence

--

“No, come back!” The girl fell to the ground, sobbing hysterically at the small figure fading into the distance. She threw her hands in the puddles on the ground, splashing the muddy water on her white, crystalized wedding dress. “Come back, please…” But it was over. Tuxedos and wine covered the ground around her. It had not rained. It had only bled, the sky weeping its toxic woozy alcohol onto her disastrous remnant of a wedding. 

Reina’s stained dress was unforgiving in the sunlight, no longer pure and no longer without innocence. She stood, tears of red dripping down her face. This was not wine. As it touched her lips, it tasted of iron. She smeared it across her face, desiring her vision to clear. But all she remembered was the moment before the wine casks burst and everyone fled. Before he threw acid at her face. Timothy was the best soldier she knew, but she could not have guessed that this wedding was actually the ritual of the blood god, a cult her ex-fiancé had been involved in since… she didn’t know when. It was new to her.

She ripped at the buttons of her dress, tearing the satin and ivory fabric, fleeing in her undergarments across the wine-soaked ground as the wounds on her face continued to seep. She did not register the pain, only the fearful desire that she was being left alone among the dead. She tripped over the edge of her slip and crashed to the ground. She reached toward the blood-colored sunset where her fiancé had disappeared to. But on the horizon, she saw a figure and it was not her fiancé. The creature was tall and humanoid; its silhouette towered against the enormous glow of the setting sun. The sun god himself was coming for her today. “No,” she wept. “Go away…”

She grit her teeth at the approaching figure and forced herself back to her feet. She clenched her fists and braced herself as the giant suddenly moved towards her at unsuppressed speed. She was prepared for his onslaught, her death, as she knew she was the sacrifice. The sun suddenly swept up around her, causing the heat to rise from the ground in a stormy sea of dust. A soft touch grazed her face, right where the acid had damaged her beauty, and the burning sting of her corrupted flesh suddenly faded. “Bride of mine, come with me, for I am your light among this bloody sea.”

Reina opened her eyes. The giant was on his knees in front of her, his massive hand caressing her face, his monstrous head beautiful against the long red hair flowing in the heated wind around them. She bowed her head, submitting to the terror before her. Before her death, she had one request. “Kill him for me,” she whispered.

Standing among the books, Laurie sifted through the titles. She was looking for one specific leather bound treasure. The Island of Sea Women had haunted the back of her mind since she first heard of the story and she desperately wanted to read it. However, though she was among the Korean literature, the title was not there and probably was not available. 

Presently, she heard a tap at the end of the book aisle and looked up. A man was standing there, leaning against the shelf, observing her. He wore a dramatic black trench coat and his hair was ruffled like the wind had suddenly whipped around him. The trench coat was open, revealing a pair of slacks and a tight black v-neck shirt. He looked a little older than her, maybe 25 years old.

Laurie quickly replaced the alternative book she was looking at and moved in his direction. “Can I help you?”

“Sure,” he quipped. “I’m looking for the girl with the heart-shaped scar on her thigh. You must be her.”

His unexpected and somewhat inappropriate comment caught her off guard. She tensed, stepping away just a little. “I don’t know about that,” she offered uncomfortably. “You must have the wrong person.”

“You run this place, right?”

“No.” She jerked her head toward the front of the store. “I’m just a customer. You better check the front desk if you need help.” With those words, she turned and headed out the back of the aisle. She moved around the perimeter of the aisles, but realized out of the corner of her eye he was trailing her on the opposite end. Every aisle she passed, he was right there on the other side.

Eventually, she found the door. Before she could open it, he swung his arm around her and pushed it open instead. “You sure you don’t have a heart-shaped scar on your thigh?”

“Please leave me alone,” Laurie said, resolute. “I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“I guess we’ll see about that,” he laughed, but even his laugh seemed to hide unspoken motive. “My name is Tom,” he said and shoved a piece of paper in her hands. “Give me a call if you change your mind.”

Laurie didn’t respond. She didn’t even nod. Rushing out the door, she jogged to the end of the street and did not look back. The piece of paper he gave her remained clenched in her sweaty hand. She glanced back at the shop, but he was nowhere to be found.  A wave of relief washed over her and she paced herself to the next block. 

Her nerves returned to her slowly as she walked. It wasn’t until she reached home that she finally looked at the note in her hand. Four short lines were scribbled on the moist paper.

Hello Laurie,

I know where you live.

Wait for me.

Girl with the heart-shaped tattoo.

She swung around, eyes wide. A faint tap was coming from living room. She slowly moved down the hallway, fearing for her life and desperately hoping the tap, tap, tap was a rodent in the wall. Peering into the living room, she looked around. No one was there. The tapping had stopped.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she entered the room confidently, sure she had imagined it. Empty. Like it should be. She turned, still trembling from the adrenaline. “Don’t worry, Laurie,” she whispered to herself, “You’re just paranoid.”

“No, you’re not.” The masculine voice came from behind her.

Laurie spun with a scream as the figure peeled himself out of the wall, as if he had been inside the wall, been watching her the whole time. Tom’s lightening speed was no match for Laurie as she bolted. He grabbed her wrist, swinging her against the wall and pushing his body against hers. She couldn’t move. “Next time, don’t lie,” he hissed, pulling the edge of her shorts down to reveal a small heart-shaped birth mark on her left hip. An ironic smirk teased his lips as he whispered into her ear, “I’ll find you anyway.”

I am a puppeteer, moving pieces by taut string and rippled lines. I am a puppeteer, moving my hands in the masks of spiritless faces. 

I am gifted in the art of speaking what I do not think, while my hands play quite a different piano tune. Remember me, I am your guide. Follow my words, listen to my teaching, remember what you learned. 

Yet, here I am hiding my own face from the children of the modern world, because I am not typical, I am not a school’s ideal role model. I am a puppeteer, without the ability to move the events of history. 

I am your puppeteer. I can speak all the words in the world, while you smile past my face. But children, even you know... Cool does not mean accepted.

Oh google, ‘tis life of mine. I experience full joy in inviting you to dine. Recall the days when G-CHAT just arrived And now we have Google classrooms virtualized.

I hear the toll bells of classrooms donging From another side of the web where children sit longing. Some students will ride the semester on cam, Because, guess what, corona health be damned.

Here we are, one week from school. I’m creating an 55 gallon angelfish pool. Teachers will bounce from class to class, My students forced to sit fast.

We’ll see how this semester goes, But even Google Suite knows Corona loves us all too much To let everything return without a crunch.

I've often heard people make a distinction between author and writer. Some say a writer is someone who is unpublished, or someone who doesn't write often. Others claim an author is someone who is published and well-known, or publishes regularly. In my bachelor's program, we often debated when the right time was to distinguish ourselves as writer or author.

The conclusion? We didn't reach one. For it seemed relative to the individual's experience.

For instance, let me introduce myself:

Hello, my name is Ace Shion. I have been writing for 14 years. I write 5 novels a year, but I am not published.

Now for the real question: Does this make statement make me a writer or an author? Most of you might decide I am just a writer because I am not published.

Let me tell you how I define myself. I am an author because I am invested in my platform (aka the stories I write and the worlds I create for them). I may not be published, but I am invested in the community and I aspire to connect with an agent and publisher. I am an author because of my investment in the career.

I am also a writer, because every author is a writer before they become something greater. In other words, I was a writer, first, before any real sacrifice came. I sacrificed four years of my life to achieve a degree in Creative Writing. I experienced months of intense writing sequences. I teach Creative Writing to junior high and high school students. And yes, for the record and despite what has already been said, I am published. I just don't talk about it because first publications usually bite the dust.

So, fellow storyists, I hope I persuade you to explore these two terms and define things for yourself. Who are you? Writer, author, or neither?

If you don't have an answer, don't stress. Because... Guess what? We are all individuals and we don't owe classifications to anyone!

Let me say that again.

We are individuals.

We do not owe classifications to anyone.

And, finally....

We write what we want and when we want. Start true and stay true!

In the end, I'm just a storyist. Who are you?