Writing Spark #102
Your prompt:
A door closes behind you and you hear a lock click into place.
Writing Spark #101
Your prompt:
You keep doing the same thing over and over and over. It takes you a long time to realise this. What happens when you do?
Writing Spark #100
Your prompt:
Killing someone gives you all the time they had left.
Writing Spark #99
Your prompt:
You develop the ability to always know when someone is lying.
You meet up with your best friend and realise that everything they tell you is a lie, including their name.
Writing Spark #98
Your prompt:
Whenever you look in the mirror, there is an extra object behind you.
Writing Spark #97
What will happen when you unpack this prompt and unbox your story?
****
A package you didn’t order arrives on your doorstep. The label has the correct address but the name has been worn off and you can’t make it out. You’re sure you’re not due any presents and you haven’t ordered anything in a while.
It can’t be for you, and you probably shouldn’t open it. Right?
Writing Spark #96
Will you let this story in and keep it?
****
You find a small, baby creature in your yard late one day. It’s tiny and its fur is sticky with mud, and it mewls piteously at you. It’s hard to tell what it is: you think it’s a kitten or possibly a baby squirrel. You scoop up the shivering animal and bring it inside, so you can get it warm and clean.
You’re going to take it to the vet, but after a night of a warm towel bed and a good meal of cut-up meat, it seems fine. It sets about exploring your home and you’re not keen to give it up.
You ask around the neighbourhood in case anyone is missing a baby animal, but no-one seems to know anything about it. There’s no harm in keeping it, right? After all, it likes to climb up you and snuggle against your neck every chance it gets.
It grows quickly and you begin to wonder exactly what it is. It doesn’t look like a regular cat or any other creature you’re familiar with. Its ears are the wrong shape and its tail is a little more useful than it probably should be. You swear its eyes change colour from one day to the next, and its fur seems to be shifting into a dark shade of purple.
It does have the cutest face and loves to snuggle against your neck, though.
Writing Spark #95
Where do you see yourself taking this one?
****
You’re visiting your friend one evening and talk deep into the night. Its late and quiet outside when someone bangs on the front door.
“Help! Let me in!” a voice calls. It sounds strangely familiar to you and your friend also looks puzzled.
“It sounds like you,” they say.
“Don’t let it in,” you tell them, holding them back from answering the door.
The person outside bangs again and then the noises stop.
The next night, you’re going to visit your friend when your car breaks down. You’re close, so you get out to walk to their place; you’ll call the breakdown service from there.
You have just started walking when you sense someone following you. You feel the presence as a crawl between your shoulder blades and quicken your pace. Before you know it, you’re running, and so is the person behind you.
You make it to your friend’s door and bang on it, frantic now, and call for them to let you in.
“Don’t let it in,” you hear someone say from inside. The voice is strangely familiar to you; it sounds like yours. You bang again, but your pursuer is catching up with you. Terrified, you run down the street.
“Stop!” your pursuer shouts at you. The voice is strangely familiar to you; it sounds like yours. And it’s getting closer.
Writing Spark #94
What would you do if you could make your dreams anything you wanted?
****
“Just one more minute.”
You hear the request every night. Your child lies in bed, tucked in right at bedtime, looking up at you with wide eyes. They clutch a book, or a device, or the story you were telling, or the light glowing beside them.
“Just one more minute, please.”
It’s such an innocent request at first, especially if you were telling them a story. Don’t go, stay with me. But as the nights roll on, the eyes get wider and more urgent, and the tone becomes more pleading. Then it becomes crying and begging.
“Just one more minute, before you die again,” your child says.