#Shuffling #bravely down the dark #passageway, Ruby wondered where she could be. The last thing she remembered was reading a #rare book of #poetry by an ancient #oracle. The distant light came into focus. It was…a #marquee? WELCOME TO #PURGATORY it flashed.
#vsshorror #vss365 #vssmystery #vssmagic #flexvss #vsslocation
“I predict that your next #paycheck will be your last.”
Liz slammed down her #mug of tea. “They’re going to fire me?”
“I only #embody the spirits, my dear. I don’t make the #connections.”
Later, seeing the car #drive toward her, Liz thought, “Oh, that’s what she meant.”
#vsshumour #converstory #vssmagic #366FF #vssdaily
“With the #internet down, we can make a real #connection on your lunch #break. You’re always playing that morbid video game.”
“Ugh! This tea tastes like #flowers.”
After Lisa moved Steve’s body and fixed her router #hack, she happily killed zombies. “My turn at last.”
I did the NYC Midnight 100-word microfiction challenge again, and had a lot of fun. Here are my prompts:
Genre: action/adventure
Action: slicing a lemon
Word: commit
“Ready the cannons, women!”
Clara poked the lemon among the nails with her cutlass, slicing through. “Scourge of the scurvy dogs!” A cannonball splashed beside the Puckered Lips. The Navy. After a decade of peaceful pillaging.
“Fire!”
Nails and cannonballs rained down on the naval ship, tearing through sails and sending the crew running. Ruby peered through the spyglass. Flames were spreading over the deck and a cannonball had breached the hull. “Set sail! We’ve committed an act of war. Best not to stick around.”
Their yellow flag fluttered as they turned southward, shouting together, “Our lemon means death!”
Nicole sighed. Dragged to another #seance by Nana.
“A spirit has crossed the #barrier between worlds! She has some #advice for you, child.”
“For me?” Nana elbowed her. “I mean, thank you, Madame Esme.”
“#Pack a sweater. The #plane will be chilly.”
Wasn’t that just like Mom?
#vssparanormal #vss365 #366FF #flexvss #vsshumour
“Excuse me, but are you the #Grand Purveyor of #Ancient Wisdom?”
The old man stopped #whittling. “Need #advice, eh? No, you want her.” He jerked his head toward a #dirty child with #flowers in her hair, parading in a jaunty fashion with a black #cat #prowling behind her.
#converstory #oxj #vssmagic #vssnature #horrorprompt #vssdaily #vssmystery
Mirelle breathes in the #crisp air and calls for her errant #cat. Maggie finally pads through the snow. She drops a #bumblebee-sized thing on the step and cleans her #whiskers. The thing #glimmers and feebly flaps its wings. Great, another fairy to patch up.
#vssdaily #flexvss #bravewrite #vssnature #vss365
I plan to do a new weekly twitter prompt this year, #vsshauntedhouse. I thought I’d try it out as an ongoing story, so I’ll pin it up here and we’ll see where it goes. I may write in between prompts as well, using the weekly 280 characters as a jumping-off point.
A Hyssop Falls Haunting (Placeholder Title)
“Let me be the first to #welcome you to Hyssop Falls, Mrs.–?”
“Lucy is fine. Lucy Bishop. And I lived here when I was a little girl. Do you have the paperwork?”
“Surely you’d like to see the house before you–”
“I already know everything I need to know.”
A light upstairs seemed to be #flickering. Lucy counted the windows. Great Aunt Enid’s room, the blue guest room–the light was in the nursery. She shuddered and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the window was dark. Was the lace curtain moving?
Lucy sneezed. Her flashlight illuminated the dust clogging the air and played over the cobweb-draped dollhouse that dominated the dining table. She’d loved the replica of Great Aunt Enid’s house as a child. Had there always been a tiny row of carved #headstones in the garden?
She leaned closer, but the names were illegible in the dim light. Her thoughts were interrupted by a #scratching at the back door. No, not at the back door. Something was scratching inside the walls of the house. Somewhere. Inside. With her.
She crept slowly through the living room, toward the once-majestic #staircase, squinting into the deep shadows. Great Aunt Enid never wasted electricity. She’d taken the lightbu
lb from six-year-old Lucy’s only bedroom lamp for a week after Lucy had left it on all day.
Lucy’s feet felt heavy as she went up the stairs, tiptoeing out of childhood habit. The scratching was soon joined by faint #music. “London Bridge is falling down, falling down…” Did she really hear it, or was she humming it herself?
The nursery. Of course that’s where the scratching was coming from. The #restless things in the house always found their way to the nursery. It had been off-limits when Lucy and her sisters were children, but that hadn’t stopped them from picking the lock.
Lucy remembered the monstrous #silhouettes in front of the moonlit windows, and her screams waking Great Aunt Enid. “I can’t abide nosy children,” she’d snarled, then shut Lucy in for the night, turning the key as Lucy pounded on the door in terror.
She slowly pushed open the door. #Cold air enveloped her as she walked in. She crossed the room to turn on the single lamp, watching her breath puff out in clouds. Nothing moved. No shadowy figures, no scratching, no singing. The silence almost echoed.
“How is it you always #pop by or #call when I happen to be feeling #amorous? Such an odd #talent.” “Isn’t that a bit #hyperbolic?” “Let’s not argue. I’ve got a #sextet of #tropical oils and a delightful #cludgeolut waiting.”
#vssdaily #flexvss #vss365 #vssmagic #converstory #vssnature #vssnonsense
“Now watch as I transform this chicken into a #phoenix! #Taadaa!”
“Ew, what is that?”
“A #tadpole. Again.”
“Can you turn it back?”
“I can turn it into a frog. Eventually. Pass the fishbowl.”
#vssmagic #converstory #vssnature
Words words words 