Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 613.
Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing on #ThursThreads, the challenge that ties tales together. Want to keep up each week? Check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook and the Group on MeWe.
Need the rules? Read on.
Here’s how it works:
- The prompt is a line from the previous week’s winning tale.
- The prompt can appear ANYWHERE in your story and is included in your word count.
- The prompt must be used as is. It can be split, but no intervening words can be inserted or tenses changed.
Rules to the Game:
- This is a Flash Fiction challenge, which means your story must be a minimum of 100 words, maximum of 250.
- The story must be new writing, not a snippet from something published elsewhere with the prompt added.
- Incorporate the prompt anywhere into your story (included in your word count).
- Post your story in the comments section of this post
- Include your word count in the post (or be excluded from judging)
- Include your social media handle or email in the post (so we easily notify you)
- The challenge is open 7 AM to 8 PM Mountain Time
- The winner will be announced on Friday, depending on how early the judge gets up.
How it benefits you:
- You get a nifty cool badge to display on your blog or site (because we’re all about promotion – you know you are!)
- You get instant recognition of your writing prowess on this blog!
- Your writing colleagues shall announce and proclaim your greatness on Facebook, Bluesky, MeWe, and Mastodon, etc.
Our Judge for Week 613:
Book promoter and fantastic beta reader, Heidi Rundle.
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And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Only one minute remained.”
All stories written herein are the property (both intellectual and physical) of the authors. Comments do not represent the views of the host and the host reserves the right to remove any content. Now, away with you, Flash Fiction Fanatics, and show us your #ThursThreads. Good luck!
The last minute is always the longest. Waiting for that minute to finish, knowing what comes next, is sometimes excruciating. Somehow, that last minute becomes more than 60 seconds.
“Are you anticipating something?”
The low voice behind me shakes the floorboards, mostly because he can and less because he needs to. I nod, never taking my eyes off the timer. One minute remained.
“This seems like a silly thing to anticipate.”
The microwave dings and I eagerly open the door, pulling the bag of popcorn out. I give it a few vigorous shakes and then pop the sides open. I shove the wafting steam under his slightly crooked nose.
“Silly to you. Delicious to me.”
I retreat to the recliner, setting the popcorn next to a glass of water and a bottle of juice. Clicking play on the movie, I glance at him.
“Joining me?”
Death sits down on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table. He’s in human form tonight and he sighs as one of my popcorn bowls appears in his hands.
“Only if you are sharing.”
He takes a portion of popcorn and pulls a blanket from the back of the couch.
“You were right. This is delicious.”
The movie starts and he materializes another bag for himself, sharing a portion with me. I hope he likes sci-fi movies.
@Aightball
223 words
Times Up
Anne returned to the bedroom just as Danny was hitching up his pants.
“Thank goodness I didn’t get here a second sooner,” she quipped. “We would have lost the rest of the day…”
“The morning at least,” he bantered back. “Did you reach June?”
“No answer. She could be working. I don’t know her shift schedule.”
“I should have asked when she hired me. That was a mistake.”
Anne came closer, said, “You didn’t know that it would escalate. Ted had never lost control before…”
“That we knew of…except the smacking of Timmy…”
“I suppose.”
“No supposing at all. So much of that, wife beating…well, this is 1961. It shouldn’t surprise anyone…”
“So, should you go over to her house…check…?”
Danny picked up his watch from the bedside table, glanced at the time…It was just short of ten a.m.
Only one minute remained before he was due to call Sig Traynor.
“I need to ringl Sig Traynor first,” he reminded her.
She nodded. “Of course. You’ve told me that you don’t expect much from the police.”
Danny smiled. “Oh, if there has been a crime, then yes, they’ll take action. Sig’s only a constable, so he’s not in a position to rush in like Joe Friday…this is Canada. We take our time…often too long.”
Even as he said it, he remembered that it was old news to Anne.
“Make your call quickly,” she advised. “Then go and find her. Make sure she’s safe.”
Danny had his marching orders.
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
“The clock was ticking,” Groton said, “Find a bride before midnight or lose your estate.”
“There’s only three hours.”
“Women who have been summoned and await your choice.”
“Like they are cattle? I can’t do this.”
“You must.”
The women were ushered in they were all stunningly dressed, beautifully dressed, but they were not Teresa whom I had loved and who had moved away to the continent before I could tell her I loved her and I could not find her.
The front door rang it was five minutes until midnight, when she came in the room dressed all in a light pink gown, a veil over her face but the way she moved intrigued me. I nodded to the minister. He began the ceremony, still I hadn’t see her, when the said man and wife,
Only one minute remained, but I had fulfilled my duty when the clergy reminded me, I needed to kiss my bride. As I drew back the veil I gasped for before me was Teresa.
As I said “I have found you at last, my love,” Teresa echoed the same words.
I had made a love match and fulfilled my father’s will. I lifted Teresa in my arms and carried her to my bedroom leaving the party behind. Nine months later Benedict junior was born, followed by fourteen more we’ve had a life of love sixty years, now on my deathbed I want to tell my children the only thing worthy in life is love.
250 words
@SweetSheil
“What do you think?” said Brand. “Are we going to make it?”
Finbar drew in a weighted breath, considering the options. They were grossly mismatched as a pairing but that could work to their advantage. There had been thousands of failed attempts to storm the citadel – not one had been successful. The moat was filled to the brim with broken mechanoids and the carcasses of clones, enough of each for them to spontaneously attempt to repair themselves, prompting a perverse range of forbidden mismatches, many repugnant to his eyes.
“We could hide among the dead and the dying. The drones rarely disturb them. There’s enough competition between the ones that are still sentient to prevent any of them from becoming a threat to the Abbot. We’d have to be sharp and watch each other’s backs, but I think we could do it. We’d be safer on the wall than sitting here waiting to be noticed, so I think we ought to move.”
Brand looked up at the battle droid. Finbar was eighteen feet tall, equipped with a nuclear pulse cannon and impervious to radiation. Brand was a seven-inch plushie animated by the ghost of a ninja warrior. He was softer than a marshmallow, but he had the teeth of a shrew. He could chew through titanium like it was butter.
Only one minute remained before it would be dark. The cyber wolves would begin to stir, sniffing for organics to tear apart.
Brand would be less than a mouthful.
250 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
I can’t believe Corbin has a bakery.
There was a lot Martin couldn’t believe. Like how much he missed Corbin when he left the hospital. He’d never had that issue before, but just like his hair, the TBI had flipped a switch in Martin’s brain and now he couldn’t wait to spend time with his old friend. He wanted more of Corbin than he’d ever needed from anyone. Corbin was both new—older, mature, handsome, successful—and familiar—same humor, eyes, easy smile, history—and Martin had a better understanding of himself to recognize the value in time spent.
Only one minute remained in the hour, but it too, creeped by at glacial speed, and Martin resisted the urge to fidget. Not that his body would let him. The damaged brain still had a pretty good lock on how often or when his muscles would move.
Frustration rose in a wave and fury followed behind it as if either would change anything about where Martin was or what he was doing. Could do. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth because at least those things he could control.
“If you strain any harder, you might just break the bedrails.”
Corbin’s voice washed over Martin and he opened his eyes, his frustration draining away as if it had never been. “Corbin.”
“Did you miss me?” The darker haired man came in and set down a shopping bag on the chair. “I’m serious about that straining. You made the whole bed shake.”
248 ineligible #WIP words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
She did not want to be here. In fact, this whole situation was so far above her pay grade that she was within seconds of hyperventilating. To bad that wouldn’t help. Neither would running screaming from the room but it was a thought. A good one, to her mind.
A voice whispered in her ear. “You got this.”
“Nuh uh,” she mumbled. She so did not have this. Too bad, so sad, she was in too deep. A giggle, far to close to hysteria for comfort, bubbled up in her throat. Using a great deal of self-control, she choked it back. This was not the time nor the place to lose it.
“What were you thinking?…Oh, wait, you weren’t.” Had she said those words out loud. She glanced around from beneath lowered lashes that felt heavy and cumbersome.
She rolled her head on her neck and rolled her shoulders to ease the tension that had built up. Off in the distance, the strains of a familiar instrumental echoed. The scene of the witch’s guards marching and chanting flashed in her mind and almost unleashed that hysterical giggle again. She flashed on the scene of the Cowardly Lion swatting at his tail as it swayed out from under the long uniform coat.
Glancing at the clock, she gulped. Only one minute remained.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. This would all be over in… She counted down in her head. Five. Four. Three. Two….
****
249 totally random words
silverjames.com
Only one minute remained.
Lien-Shu hated these self-important, rich assholes. There were fewer of them these days, but she wouldn’t be satisfied until there were none left. Mr. Chen had information that the Party needed. Lien-Shu would get it.
She slammed one of his guards into the floor while kicking another through the window behind her. Even with his chief of security’s knowledge of the compound, this was taking too long. At least none of the other guards approached the chief’s martial skills.
Lien-Shu entered the code to open the penultimate security door.
Only half a minute remained.
She used one of her dispatched foes as a human shield to close with the last four guards. The four best after the chief himself. Discarding the bullet riddled body, she landed a series of strikes on her first opponent. Blank shock overtook his face as he forgot everything he knew about fighting, and Mr. Chen’s operations.
Using him as her next shield, she repeated the process with the remaining three. She couldn’t drain as much from them. They landed more counterblows on her than she would have liked but she needed to save room.
Lien-Shu sighed as her last opponent hit the floor and the security chief’s skills and knowledge left her head. She checked the code to the safe room written on the inside of her left arm.
Now to find out what Mr. Chen knew.
236 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
They say what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger but in this instance, she wished for death.
Every movement shifted the sand closer around her body. She’d fallen into the hole … more like sucked under. One moment she was strolling on the sandy beach under the full moon and the next her feet caved in under her.
The wet grainy substance nestled against every curve of her feet, her calves, her hips – all the way up to mid-chest. She attempted to shift her toes, bending them and stretching them out, until it constricted, tightening its hold. One arm pinned to her side and the other lifted in an obscene gesture.
As the tide came in, the water’s edge crept closer and closer. Small sand crab sentries scurried across the land, hunting for food and digging holes. “Watch out for the ghost crabs,” her Granny told her one long summer ago. The moniker “ghost” echoing impending death by suffocation or drowning.
The waves crashed closer and closer and higher and higher, sending sprays of water across her face. A crab dug toward the underarm of her raised arm, and she didn’t know if she imagined its slinky touch or felt it.
The first dousing waves shocked her system and she gasped for air as it retreated to the sea. Only one minute remained before the next set.
She leaned forward and back, and forward and back, shifting her position in the slightest way, attempting to break free.
@LouisaBacio
247
Time seemed to come to a standstill as his brother manifested from the shadows, his boots echoing across the cement floor. It had been years since he had last seen his brother and he looked exactly the same. Of course he would. He didn’t age unless he wanted to age.
“Brother, you have five minutes to divulge what you know before I make you regret your ill-advised scheme.”
“I’m sorry about C-“
“Don’t you dare. You don’t get the privilege to say her name,” he snarled.
His brother held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry all the same. I always liked her.”
“If you liked her so much, why wouldn’t you just tell me what you know? Or was that just a ploy to get me to come meet you?”
“We both know you wouldn’t have come if you knew it was me that reached out to you.”
He stared at his brother, his arms loose at his sides, his weight on the balls of his feet. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he would be prepared for whatever happened. The minutes ticked by until only one minute remained.
“Time’s almost up, Brother. Tell me what you know about my wife’s death or we are done here.”
The screech of metal startled both men, as a large freight door at the back of the warehouse slid open, a figure illuminated in the doorframe.
@mlgammella
237 words
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.