Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 685. Year Lucky 13! The last year of the cycle, the Moon Year. To those who keep coming back, I’m delighted to see you again!
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 US.
- 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 685:
Anime specialist, Cosplay artist, and Coffee Snob, Muirlette #2.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together
The Prompt:
“You don’t scare me.”
NOTE: the judge is 18+ years old, so adult themes are fine.
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 in the Moon Year. Good luck!
I stared at the small bottle of pills. “Take 1 as needed for anxiety.” That’s what the bottle read. Small pills. Only 5mg each. I hadn’t needed one in weeks. That was about to change, and I knew it.
“My entire schedule is about to change.” Which is what happens when your other half retires. Suddenly, I was going to have her at home all the time. The thought was exciting. And terrifying. Because. It was a change. And I didn’t do change well.
That wasn’t the only reminder the Doc had given me in the last Psychiatry session. “We’ll need to meet again in a month, to see how you are doing.”
“Way to guarantee I get anxious, Doc.” I felt like the humor was needed. I’d spent two weeks slowly coming apart at the seams. Wondering what I was in for. Knowing my entire schedule was going to change. She’d be home for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I wasn’t ready for that. I knew it. I also knew I didn’t know how to get ready for that.
I looked at the small bottle of pills again. “Bring it, anxiety. You don’t scare me.”
I lied. And I knew it. I was going to be a wreck for weeks when she retired. It would take me that long to begin to adjust to her being home all the time. I shook the bottle and listened to the pills inside. “I hope I don’t need you guys.”
247 words (Per Google Write)
@mysoulstears.bsky.social
Borders – A Parable
It’s always there. Not always visible but ever present. A line to cross, a line to get beyond. And once beyond, perhaps there will be something better, something, maybe not beautiful but an improvement.
We meet yet again. Across from each other. In an ideal world, we, each of us, bring our beliefs, our dreams, our verbal of tricks.
I call them tricks.
You may think of them as distractions.
I suppose they are.
The gulf between us, whether a river, a canyon, a negotiating table, that gulf is as wide as we care to make it.
You don’t scare me. I need you to know that. Oh, you may think you have the upper hand. You are a blustery fellow. Words, damaging words, spill from your mouth with abandon.
You say whatever you wish and you believe you have impunity.
Immunity.
There is an imbalance between us. Your power, you believe, is absolute. Others, many who one might think would offer some measure of moderation for you, have demurred. Whether they fear you or your legion of followers, known and unknown, I can’t say.
I will say this though. No matter your vision, your delusion of absolute power, you are but one human being.
That is both your grace and your disgrace.
You are rewriting history. You expect your revision will absolve you of guilt.
Human memory is inviolate.
Truth will always endure.
Borders will always be crossed.
Some devils do not deserve their due.
250 Words
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
Aisling faced the dark entrance of the tunnel. Her frustration bubbled up and she spoke before she considered what might be hidden withing the shadows. “Come out of there.”
Something stirred in the void. “Who are you?” she demanded, while wondering if what might be the more apropos question. The feeling of being watched lessened and she imagined whatever was there retreating. Stepping closer that impenetrable darkness, she yelled, “You don’t scare me!”
Low, menacing laughter echoed back at her. She inhaled sharply and held her breath, listening, all her senses attuned to what might be happening there in the murky darkness. The words that followed held nothing but threat. “You should be.”
The words hung there almost as if they’d taken physical form. Still holding her breath, Aisling eased back suddenly craving the light that waited across the room. She put more distance between herself and the tunnel’s doorway. Leery of turning her back on the opening, she continued shuffling backwards without looking. And bumped into something solid, but not hard. Something warm. Muscled. That smiled of lilacs and sunlight and freshly mowed grass. She screamed anyway.
Ariel winced, his face screwing up as he tried to protect his eardrums. He just managed to get his hands up in defense as Aisling whirled and slapped at him. A part of his brain considering teaching her actual fighting skills. The rest of him was busy hiding his amusement.
Recognizing him, Aisling stopped flailing. “I’m not scared of you either.”
****
249 Penumbra Papers #6 WIP words
Silver James
https://silverjames.com
“You don’t scare me,” I said. In fact, he really did scare me. I mean, look at him!
He seemed, insofar as I could see him, puzzled at my discomfort. “Scare you? Why would I scare you?”
“Well, for starters you have a mask half covering your face. You have a bullet proof vest that says ‘POLICE’ and are carrying an automatic rifle and wearing a helmet with a bunch of military-type toys dangling from your belt. And, you know, the mask.”
“You’re just being paranoid. I’m just walking through.”
“In a mask that half covers your face?”
“I don’t want anyone to recognize my face is all.”
He held up his hand. “Really, man. Don’t be scared of me. Seriously.”
“Why not?”
“You’re white and old and well dressed and speak English without an accent. That’s why. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with some folks that really should be scared of me.”
With that, he nodded and continued on his journey down the sidewalk, to where a bunch of guys were using leaf blowers to clear the yards of the houses at the far end of the block.
@JPGarlandAuthor (Bluesky). 191 Words
Thud. My phone tumbles onto the hood of my car for the millionth time in the last two minutes. Cursing, I set it up again, angling it a bit so maybe it will stay. It’s hard to get a video of the lightning if the phone won’t stay up. Once that’s stable, I focus the big camera and start shooting. My phone always does better than the big camera for some reason during a lightning storm. Checking my big camera, the photos are all dark, despite the bolts of lightning that have been zipping across the sky and onto the ground.
Thunder rumbles overhead as I click away, checking that my phone has stayed propped up on my camera case. Bolts flash in the distance, fingers snaking out from tendrils that seem to grip the black dirt of the recently planted corn and bean fields. Iowa does storms like no where else, and I can smell the incoming rain. One bolt lights up the clouds coming over the field and I grin: that’s a hell of a shelf cloud, and it looks like it’s spinning. That doesn’t mean it’s tornadic, but it’s a possibility.
I pause the video and turn the phone, then resume recording. My big camera clicks away and then a bolt hits fifteen feet from me.
“You don’t scare me,” I whisper, grabbing my things and hopping in the car. “Damn that was close.”
My folks always said I should be careful chasing lightning; it fights back.
@Aightball
250 words
Mourn lowered her black hood. Even with her tiny horns and fiery eyes, the petite young woman could have passed for human. If not for her spade tipped tail. Fiona stepped between her friends and the tiefling.
“You were here ten years ago? Were you part of the cult?”
“Yes.”
Roy began surreptitiously scanning the broken room and decayed bodies for a weapon. Connor couldn’t take his eyes off Mourn. He’d only been eight years old when his father’s party destroyed the cult of this compound.
“How old were you?”
“Nine. So, could you use a wizard for your party?”
Fiona and Roy both glanced at Connor. His father said that they had rescued all the children from this cult. There shouldn’t be anyone alive here from back then.
“You sure you want to come with us?” Turning back to Mourn, Fiona jerked her thumb back at Connor. “His father were one of the paladins who raided this place.”
The paladin’s son swallowed hard. He trusted Fiona not to let him come to harm intentionally. He still wished she hadn’t said that. Mourn shrugged.
“You don’t scare me. And I’ve run out of things to read here.”
197 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
“You don’t scare me, Pirate King! I’ll get you and your little parrot too! And before dinnertime!” I mock-roared and stomped toward the bed, err, pirate ship. Connor giggled and hopped up and down, holding his stuffed parrot onto his shoulder. Well, sorta. A real animal would have gotten a concussion.
“You’ll never catch me, Big Ugly Scary Stinky Stupid Monster!” (I’d gotten a promotion. When we’d started, I was just a Big Ugly Monster.)
Connor turned to run from me, but the uneven surface of the bed got him and he stumbled. Luckily, I’d known that was a possibility and caught him as he fell.
“Arrrrgh! I’ve been captured! Don’t eat me, don’t eat me!” Well, that was one promise I wasn’t going to be able to keep.
“Eat you? What a wonderful idea!” I put my lips on his exposed belly and blew, and the combination of the tickling and raspberry noise made him giggle like mad. I roared (less of a mock-roar than a real one that time – the real ones would come soon enough) and faked chomping on his nose.
Oh man – are my fangs growing in already? I knew I was feeling peckish.
Connor giggled again. For the last time. The next thing out of his mouth was a scream.
I might be Big and Ugly and Scary and Stinky and Stupid, but I was also Hungry. He’d make a nice snack. His mom would be dinner.
247 words
@drmag00.bsky.social
The sound of the gavel on the block jerked Ann out of the dream and she lay in bed, her breathing sawing in her chest and her heart thundering as much as her nickname. The remnants of the emotions—fear, anger, disappointment, shame, hurt—slid away from her, leaving trails of slime like slugs after the rain.
It’s just a dream. It’s not the truth. She repeated the words silently. I’m not defective, I’m just built different. And dreams aren’t the truth. You don’t scare me, dream gods. I know the truth and I know I’m fine.
Bold words that she didn’t quite feel in her heart, but she wouldn’t be bullied by old fears and emotions from days past. And her parents had never told her outright that they were disappointed in her. Of course, they’d never understood her need to serve in the military of country that hated her as a woman and as a Native. But the warrior in her needed to be released, to serve with strength and honor, and she couldn’t find that on the Rez.
Ann took a deep breath and sat up, scrubbing her face with her hands. A single look at the clock told her it was just after dawn, though the sun hadn’t crested the mountains to the east to bathe their little valley in sunlight yet. She pushed out of the bed and used the bathroom, stepping into the shower to wash away the nightmare.
She’d be fine. She hoped.
250 ineligible #SirensInc words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social