Welcome back to the home of Paranormal & Dauntless Romance. Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing. We’re at the beginning of our ninth year of weekly prompts. It’s amazing we’ve gone this long! This is Week 483 of #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 Twitter handle or email in the post (so we don’t have to look for 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, Twitter, MeWe, and Google Plus, etc.
Our Judge for Week 483:
College professor, equality enthusiast, and romance author, Louisa Bacio.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Are you coming or not?”
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!
Jared waited as patiently as he could for the first chime of midnight to strike. For three years, he hadn’t been strong enough to touch things in this world, and on Samhain night at the strike of midnight, he could step through. He had things to do— a person to do— and he wasn’t letting his nerves win.
The eleventh chime rang out.
Jared pressed against the doorway and stepped through the wood and metal just as the twelfth reverberated, causing his body to turn from shadow to something almost solid. He had one hour and then would be incorporeal again. That was what his guide had said.
He turned and banged on the door, wishing he had a voice to go with the body, and he felt more than heard as Marcus got out of his reading chair and came down the stairs. The blond stopped at the top of the stairs, smiled, and opened his arms. “You kept your promise.”
“I did,” he mouthed, followed by, “one hour until next year.” It was something, more than he expected when he’d made that deathbed promise to find a way back.
Marcus reached out again and asked, “Are you coming or not? Our bedroom will be far more comfortable than the foyer.”
There were no questions about the other side, about if he had seen family or friends, just warm acceptance that he was back for the night and loving whispers as he was held tightly.
246 words
Twitter: @miya_kressin
She expected to feel pain. That would’ve been the rational expectation. Perhaps heat. Maybe pulling or tearing or something more. But it was more like a dull thing, sudden and shrill, shucking her breath away. She could smell metallic and was pretty sure she’d moved somehow, but just exactly where and how was foggy.
There was an awful long time to think for a moment. Caught in time. She had a sick feeling there had been some dramatic change.
“Vanessa?”
She hasn’t noticed Royce. How long had he been standing there in the doorway? And had she left the hallway light on? Strange how he cast no shadow, illuminated from behind like an Xmas tree bulb.
“It’s time to go.”
She’d lost her train of thought. Something had just happened moments before. Someone else had been there. Wait. They still were. Rummaging about, messing up the neat piles of papers on her desk, tipping over her grandmother’s lamp, and smashing a photo on the floor.
“Stop,” she yelled, reaching to grasp the villain’s arm. But something was wrong.
“He can’t hear you, Vanessa.” Royce stretched out his hand as the hallway light behind him flew forward, absorbing or eliminating everything else. Everything but her. “Are you coming, or not?”
Vanessa looked down. Down at herself. On the floor. A small hole in her chest still shimmering with blood. And then she remembered: Royce had died two years earlier. She took his hand thinking: death is too easy.
246 words @AngoraShade
Stung Love
The best-laid plans, eh! The Feds got a restraining order against me. There’d be no searching for Henry Samuels. On penalty of imprisonment.
I had no taste for prison. My mouth went dry as old bones at the thought of confinement. They did allow me to grovel in front of fourteen-year-old, Louella Samuels. Offer my excuses, suck it up.
The look of disappointment drifting out of her sad eyes wounded me.
I skulked back into my lair.
Spring ended.
Summer was a blow torch.
September disappeared in drizzle.
October arrived.
I had been quite busy. The most time-consuming case involved a runaway teen, Polly Baird. Internet love in the time of Covid. Her paramour, ostensibly an eighteen-year-old, lived two hundred miles to the east in a throwback burg, a town closer to being a village.
I had driven to Valeburg, checked in at Marlie’s Inn, which was less an Inn and more an auto court. The clerk, Joey, was in his forties, handsome in the way pretty boys are when they have lost their charm and their skin tone lacked its backseat lovers’ glow.
Joey wasn’t hiding Polly. Her no longer eighteen-year-old internet paramour ran this seedy way station and that seemed just fine with Polly.
I was sitting on my Cabin’s porch watching the sunset when I heard him bellow, “Are you coming or not, Pol? I want you to meet Jere.”
Date night, I thought.
Polly! Polly! Polly! What do you see in that over-the-hill cracker?
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
Declan Donahue shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from rubbing at his temples. That action wouldn’t ease the headache forming there. Neither would arguing with the woman currently facing him down from across her front parlor. Who even had parlors in this day and age anyway? It was a living room, despite the fussy decorations and furniture she’d kept after inheriting the place. The outfit had wanted to buy the house when the old lady died but her great-niece moved in lock, stock, and barrel before they could make an offer. Ronan was insistent they eventually own the whole block and have most of the Boru men settled there.
If we claim her, there’s no problem. He growled at his inner wolf’s insinuation. Maggie O’Brien was not his mate. His wolf howled with laughter.
Maggie scowled. “Are you coming or not?”
“Do I have a choice?” No, he really didn’t but he wasn’t about to tell her that. He needed her… cooperation. Ronan told him to woe the townhouse out from under her. Easier said than done, especially since he’d ended up practically dead on her front stoop a month ago.
“You always have a choice, Declan.”
“The car’s at the curb.”
It was a short drive to his own personal hell and now here he sat, one of the scariest lawyers in Boston, watching Maggie’s nieces twirl around the recital stage in pink tutus. If any of his mates found out, he’d have to kill them all.
****
250 Moonstruck Mafia WIP words
@SilverJames_
The trees began dancing and coconuts started falling. Crabs emerged from their burrows in the sand. The sky, which had been cloudless, filled with stacks of clouds limned with lightning and the rain began to fall again.
“Well? Are you coming or not?” The alternate Olivia looked back toward her own dimension, her brow furrowing as she mouthed two short words the original would not hear.
“What’s it like through there? How will I get back? I’ve family here. People who depend on me.”
“Look around you. Can’t you see what’s happening? The aperture’s unstable; it could collapse at any time.” The doppelganger reached out a cautious hand and leaned forward, her head emerging into the light.
“It was you that started this. It was calm before you came. Why should I trust you? You’re a copy of me – it’s not natural that you’re here.” As if to demonstrate her point the wind began to gust, buffeting the birds that had begun to settle on the beach.
The second Olivia shook her head. This was taking too long. She stepped through the sparkling oval, finally standing clear of the dark.
The beach shook and a rumble of thunder sounded. The original Olivia began to glow, her hair standing out like the seed head of a dandelion. She crumpled down to one knee, her eyes fixed on the other.
The alternate died as she watched, her shadows pulling the life from her. Her darkness couldn’t be denied, not here.
249 words – twothirdsrasta.blogspot.com
I was shoved and locked in the house, the girls, snickering in the bushes, outside.
“See you tomorrow,” they shouted.
Starting high school halfway through my grade ten year (two years younger then them) had made me vulnerable to trusting girls who turned out to be bullies.
The wind whipped through the abandoned house and the doors rattled. The moonlight that had guided me through the cracked windows to the room, was obscured to near complete darkness.
I heard a voice in the darkness say. ”Another stupid kid!”
I felt a touch on my elbow.
I laughed.
The male voice tickled my foot.
The clouds that had obscured the moon lifted, moonlight filled the room.
A see-through man stood before me, yet I wasn’t frightened.
“You’re not scared. You can see all of me?” he guessed.
“I’ve seen ghosts all my life.”
“I ‘m going scare those girls. Bullied into coming to this haunted house, I fell down the stairs,” he stated
“I don’t know.”
“They’re back, are you coming or not?”
I went and those laughing girls ran away like bunnies. I maliciously filmed it all on my phone. They’d never bully me again; but what did this make me; was I any better than them? I deleted the video.
The ghost howled.; then griped “Bring me back some more kids to scare or I’ll come haunt you.”
“Go ahead,” I dared and that’s how I got my new roommate.
Do try to be nice to him he haunts.
250 words
@SweetSheil
Sorry, the wrong copy posted here’s the right one.
I was shoved and locked in the house, the girls, snickering in the bushes, outside.
“See you tomorrow,” they shouted.
Starting high school halfway through my grade ten year (two years younger then them) had made me vulnerable to trusting girls who turned out to be bullies.
The wind whipped through the abandoned house and the doors rattled. The moonlight that had guided me through the cracked windows to the room, was obscured to near complete darkness.
I heard a voice in the darkness say. ”Another stupid kid!”
I felt a touch on my elbow.
I laughed.
The male voice tickled my foot.
The clouds that had obscured the moon lifted, moonlight filled the room.
A see-through man stood before me, yet I wasn’t frightened.
“You’re not scared. You can see all of me?” he guessed.
“I’ve seen ghosts all my life.”
“I’m going to scare those girls. Bullied into coming to this haunted house, I fell down the stairs,” he stated
“They’re back, are you coming or not?”
I went and those laughing girls ran away like bunnies. I maliciously filmed it all on my phone. They’d never bully me again; but what did this make me; was I any better than them? I deleted the video.
The ghost howled.; then griped “Bring me back some more kids to scare or I’ll come haunt you.”
“Go ahead,” I dared and that’s how I got my new roommate.
Do try to be nice to him he haunts.
248 Words
@SweetSheil
“This is a bad idea,” the little black bunny shook her head. “And even among trickster spirits I’m not exactly considered the voice of reason.”
“We have to do something!” the blonde human shot back, using his horse’s saddle as a hard surface to pen his letter. “You sensed that he had been released and then they came and took her away!”
Puca hopped over to Ken’s boot and placed a paw on his ankle.
“Those were greater spirits. There isn’t a lot we can do. But the fire mage won’t be able to do much either.”
Ken folded his letter and placed it in Barnaby’s saddlebag. Removing his broadsword from the saddle, Ken strapped it to his back.
“Barnaby can warn the castle.”
“Yeah…”
“And you’ve wanted to take me on a Spirit Journey since we met.”
Puca slapped the ground with a hind paw.
“Yeah! But I can’t control where the Spirit Journey takes you or when I can bring you back!”
Ken cinched his sword belt and grinned at his little spirit friend.
“I understand. But we don’t know where they took her or if there even is a physical way to get there.”
Puca hummed thoughtfully.
“You said your Spirit Journey takes humans where they need to be. I need to be by her side. Whatever it takes. Are you coming or not?” Ken pressed his case.
“You asked for it!” Puca shifted up to her mare form with a laugh. “Mount up, human!”
248 The Ice Queen words
@DavidALudwig
He’d gained a wife and another daughter all in one event. And he didn’t mind a bit.
They read the girls bedtime stories and kissed them goodnight before retreating to the kitchen. The catering staff Amanda had hired cleaned up and stored the food from the reception while she changed into comfort clothing rather than wedding finery. Mike took the opportunity to put on sweats and a t-shirt before returning to the kitchen and walking the caterers out. Amanda joined him just as he locked the front door and set the alarm.
“All good?” She stood in the entryway in a slouchy sweatshirt that bared one shoulder and a pair of soft fleece pants.
Mike nodded. “Yeah, all good. What do you want to do now?”
She gave a short laugh. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a wedding before. I’m tired, but I don’t want to go to bed yet.” She rubbed her arms with her hands. “Maybe we could do some Netflix & Chill now that we’re not under the gun to get married?”
“That sounds great.” He followed her toward the living room, but took a left into the kitchen.
Amanda paused. “Are you coming or…?”
“Not yet, I thought I’d make us some tea or chai or something. Do you want anything?”
“Oh, yeah, maybe some tea. Peppermint is my favorite.” She smiled and the surprised pleasure on her face made his day even brighter.
Which is silly because this marriage isn’t real beyond the license.
250 ineligible #WIP500 words
@SiobhanMuir
In order to cross over the souls of the dead, my horse, Destiny, flies me hither and yon based on a list. In a normal night, our list is easily completed in a few hours. But tonight, Destiny doesn’t seem in the mood to work, which is unlike her.
We’ve got a long list and I want to get it done. She starts to land, and I slide out of the saddle.
“Are you coming or not?” I ask her.
My feet are inches from the ground, and she takes off and I barely get back in the saddle. I hold the reins tight, grateful for whatever mojo it is that keeps me in the saddle. Sighing, as she refuses to land, I open the mental link I have to The One True Death. According to our list, this is the home of Marvin and Matthew Smith. And unfortunately, Marvin will find himself a widower.
“Horace? Help?”
Seconds later, a sleek black steed gallops toward me. Destiny stops and I take a few deep breaths while I explain the situation.
“Allow me to briefly assess the issue.”
I run my hand down her neck while we wait.
“I have corrected the situation.”
“Thanks. Any idea why she hesitated?”
He shakes his head. “No. Please have her see Sean upon your return to the Dark Plane tonight.”
If we say vet, she’ll fly away to another country and never return. I agree and we head off to finish our list.
@Aightball
249 words
#ThursThreads Week 483 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.