Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads. Wow. Year 11. Holy smokes! Y’all kept with me past a decade. I’m astounded.
Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing, like we have for the past 11 years. I had no idea when I started it would keep going! This is Week 581 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 social media handle or email in the post (so we can 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 581:
Dark fantasy author, archer, and horsewoman, Daelyn Morgana.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Where are you going?”
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!
His Writer’s Endgame
As Miriam drove him to the local library for his joint launch/reading, Gilbert began to get a convulsion of nerves. He had selected a few semi-humorous pieces to read, as well as a short section that referenced COP 26 in Glasgow and the ever-widening environmental logjam that always seemed to congeal when push, as so many have said, came to shove.
He worried that he was trying to be both amusing and serious, two qualities he felt somewhat bereft of on most occasions.
“Where are you going, Gronsky?” he suddenly blurted out rather loudly, causing Miriam to pull over, turn the ignition off, and glare at him.
“What?” he asked.
“WHAT?” she yelled. “Gilbert, you just screamed, ‘Where Are You Going, Gronsky?’ It was really loud. Earthquake loud. What’s going on?”
Gronsky was never all that skilled at answering direct questions, particularly when he was rattled, especially when he was going to speak in public, mostly because he had never spoken in public…except in a school play when he was seven. He had been a cow and all he had to do was say. “Moo.”
He had choked and had left the stage in tears. Though he had never forgotten that theatrical career ending humiliation, he had never examined it as an adult.
Now he was moments away from reading a string of MOOS’ to strangers in a public Library.
Writing was one thing.
It was done in private.
This…this public display…had the earmarks of another…MOOdisaster.
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
I believed when I was small, that I had lived a past life which tormented me, night after night with images of blood and mayhem. When you dream of blood on the walls and scattered bodies you wonder if there’s something wrong with you; but then you see the news on the television and realize that you must have watched some news when you were young and somehow absorbed it into your dreams.
That realization made the dreams go away, until yesterday, when I awoke to my nightmare (in my college apartment that I was sharing with four other girls). There was blood on my bedroom walls and the body of my best friend, Anisha lay in a pool of blood beside my bed and my other three roommates were also dead. My nightgown was saturated with blood, when I finally looked at my hand it held a knife dripping with blood. I had dreamed I had been a serial killer in a past life and now here I was again.
I ran to the door planning on fleeing in my car when I heard my boyfriend Damien, “Where are you going? I’ve killed all your roommates. You don’t think the knife you took will stop me., do you? You didn’t think I was done yet, did you?”
As his blade went in my body and mine in his he said,” You’ve done it again, you naughty girl. Meet you in the next life, Chelsea.”
245 Words
@SweetSheil
“Where are you going?” Professor Dali slammed his fist against his lectern, waking the auditorium’s front row. The bottle beside it bounced, showering a flood of water into the PA equipment which then crackled and began to fizz. The poor victim he’d bellowed at tried to escape but found the doors locked, and so he cowered toward the back of the hall, his face a white oval etched with fear.
“Yes. I meant you. You know we always seal the room. There are so many who’d love to listen to what I say. I can’t believe that you want to go. Maybe you should tell everyone why you want to leave. I’m sure you’ve got a good reason.”
Munch shook his head. He’d got wild eyes and a huge gaping mouth, his scream pitched so high it only troubled cetaceans in the higher dimensions, everyone else hearing nothing.
“Maybe he’s tripping in another realm,” one of the Dutch artists said. “Some of the literary classes boil up frogs and inject the distillate. There’s no knowing what they see. It’s got to be confusing if your husband wakes up as a cockroach, and you can only calm him by offering him a plate of decayed feet.”
Dali twiddled the waxed ends of his moustache. If he wasn’t careful, there’d be a panic; vortices were already appearing in the shadows and chittering noises as the Elder Deities began to appear.
“Everyone follow Escher,” he said. “He can always find a way out.”
250 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
Sophie pressed against the wall, ordering her thudding heart to slow. With great care, she inhaled. The male voices, muted as they were, wafted from behind the cracked double doors. Brian Boru’s office. She strained to hear the conversation and to identify the owners of those voices.
“Do you know where he is?” That had to be Boru, she thought.
“No, and that’s the problem, Brian.” She wasn’t sure who spoke.
“But you’re sure he was taken?” Boru again.
“Oh, aye. Several of the shopkeepers saw him get snatched.” That had to be Mick O’Connor.
“But no one could identify who took him.”
Ah, she thought. Ronan O’Conner. Her heart and lungs seized. If the brothers were both here, seeing as they were the Boru’s top lieutenants, that meant something bad had gone down. And then, with a certainty that stabbed her in the heart that had just started beating again, she knew. Callum. They were talking about Callum. That’s why he was late.
Well, they might not know who’d taken him, but she had a wicked sure idea. Easing back the way she’d come, she made it to the stairs unnoticed and dashed up them. She pulled on boots and a quilted jacket before adding a knife to her pocket.
With the stealth she’d learned as a teen sneaking out of her father’s house, she gingerly descended the back stairs and made it through the kitchen. Where Ronan stood, arms crossed.
“Where are you going?”
“To get him back.”
****
250 Boston Wolves WIP words
@SilverJames_
“Where are you going?” Mickey asked. Her half-unbuttoned dress, flushed chest, and swollen lips beckoned me back to her arms, but I had to go. She knew where, and she knew why. She knew too much about me, and she understood me in ways I didn’t understand myself.
I should have turned away from her to make our separation sharper. People cut themselves much more often from knives that are too dull, after all. But I didn’t think I’d ever see her again, and I needed to take in every bit of her as I could before Hell came down on me.
She sat forward on her knees, and I stared into the valley between her dangling breasts wanting to do nothing more than lose myself in that darkness. Tears started dripping from her eyes. Soon the storm would start. Fuck. I even loved the way she cursed me out. No one else had ever cared enough to do that.
“I’ll do that thing you like. I’ll do anything you want. I don’t care. Don’t…” Mickey’s voice broke. “Don’t go. Please.”
I finished straightening my clothes and picked up my duffel.
Fuck. Everything in me was telling me to stay. She’d drown me in her body and in her arms, and I could forget. Forget the pain. Forget the promise. Forget. Until it came for us here.
I heard the scream she gave as the door closed behind me in my dreams until my very last night.
247 words
@drmag00
@drmag00.bsky.social
Martin had arrived in Nectar Falls so he couldn’t be dismissed by hanging up a phone. He wasn’t leaving until they’d hashed everything out.
And by ‘hashed out,’ I mean I make amends for being a homophobic dick.
He wished he could say he wasn’t homophobic, but only a coward would’ve ignored Corbin’s overtures in public. Martin could admit he was scared—but he didn’t quite know what he was scared of. Others knowing he was in a relationship with Corbin? That didn’t bother him. Others knowing he was demisexual? Again, not something that scared him. So what made him freak out when Corbin was in California?
He let his gaze rest on the street outside the windows. Night slowly drained the colors from the buildings and trees, leaving everything as black silhouettes against the light sky. A flock of geese cut across the shimmering sky, flying southwest in a sharp V as if chasing the sun. Headlights illuminated the evening on cars that passed, heading who knew where.
“Are you going to jump out of the window? I assure you there are easier ways to leave the house.”
Corbin’s voice behind him made Martin turn with a snort.
“Even if I could jump out the window anymore, the landing wouldn’t be pretty and I already broke my body. No need to try it twice.”
“No, I suppose not.” Corbin had the grace to look chagrined. “Do you want dinner? I think I have some burgers in the freezer.”
250 ineligible #WIP words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
The machines, ubiquitous as they were on Cylinders, made a small hut for Sunshine to sleep inside, on a mattress, as opposed to outside on the hard ground. Being curious, they asked her, “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.” She sat on the mattress and thought about where to go next. “I’ve reached the limit of the flooding. I didn’t find any towns or villages. Everyone is safe that I can tell. So what do I do next?”
The machines didn’t answer her. They left the question open, for her to answer.
“I’ll return to following the ocean along the coast.” It meant she would have to backtrack for the first day, to reach the ocean, where the earthquake had happened.
The machines finally spoke, “Head south as you head back. It will bring you to the ocean, south of the mountains.”
She smiled. “South of the volcanic zone, yes?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder. Does Mystica know what the world looks like?” There was no answer. “I know Merlin knows.” She wondered why Merlin had told her to see the world. “What does Merlin think I will find?”
As she slept that night, she had a dream of searching for something. Something she could not find, no matter where she looked. As she searched, she heard Merlin talking, “You will never find what you seek outside. It does not exist in the world.”
233 Words
@mysoulstears.bksy.social
“Where are you going?” I sighed as I watched him head down the path away from the sanctuary of my home. With a growl of frustration, I swept up my jacket as I headed after him.
I knew letting him stay and dig around had been a bad idea. But his sister had been my friend and to be honest I had wanted nothing but revenge too.
It didn’t take long for us to end up in the main part of the city, I only lived a short walk out and Rafe still hadn’t noticed I was tailing him. No-one ever really noticed the little slip of a woman following people in the dead of night. I frowned, he was headed straight for the Lodge. How on Earth had he found out about this place? I sped up, ready to catch up to him before he went in guns blazing.
I fell in just behind him as he was half-way to the back door. As I laid a hand on his arm, he spun round with a gasp, fists raised.
“What the…”
“We have to go.” I insisted.
“The hell we do. Mona’s killers are in there.”
“I know but it’s complicated.”
He recoiled, face contorted in confusion and anger. “I know what they are. Vampires killed my sister.” He pulled out a silver cross and I stepped backwards.
“No, they killed your sister because she was a vampire.” I let my fangs slide out. “They are hunters.”
248 words @Lexikonical
“Psst!”
An elf with wild brown hair and eyes like polished ebon hissed from outside the prisoners’ cage. Shinrin confirmed that none of the guards were paying attention before scooting closer to his fellow elf.
“What are you doing here?”
Decades of temple training had left Shinrin very good at whispering. It was nearly impossible to evade the ears of the elders.
“I’m here to get you out! Get everyone ready to go!”
The stranger pulled what looked like the keys to the prison cage from her belt meaningfully.
“How did the army get here so quickly?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“I’ll tell you later!”
It took ten minutes to spread the word to Shinrin’s fellow prisoners quietly and get ready to go without drawing the tigerlings’ attention. Then, their rescuer unlocked the heavy padlock. Shinrin had no idea how she managed to mask the sound so completely.
The elders went first, following their rescuer’s directions around the edge of the cliff their cage had been built against. Next, the priests with other important duties, then the most vulnerable of those remaining—including the youngest acolytes.
The night’s dark was being remarkably cooperative. Though, if it came down to it, the tigerlings could see in darkness as well as any elf. Still, Shinrin was astonished how smoothly their escape was going.
“Where are you going?” a burly guard growled.
Their rescuer sucked a pained breath through her teeth.
“Crap.”
240 Tale of Tenko words
@DavidALudwig on Bluesky
Epitaph
Cal muttered as he strode past the waiting vampire and pushed the barn door open.
“Cal?”
Cal turned towards the night dweller, ignoring the bottle of beer in the man’s hand, and shook his head. “Not now ‘Xandr,”
Wiping his knife off on his ruined shirt, Cal continued to the back of the barn.
“I need to warn you about what’s coming,” the vampire replied.
Cal turned, glowering at him. “Ya think? I think you’re a day late and a coupla bourbons short with dat warning ah’ yours.”
“Cal?”
Cal pulled what was left of his shirt and threw it at the vampire, his eyes glowing in the dark. “Ichor. Do you know how hard dat is ta’ get out of flannel?”
“Cal, we need to talk.”
Cal turned then shook his head and continued walking. “Now ain’t the time. I need to wash up, then we can talk.”
“But your house is that way, Where are you going?”
“You think I’m trackin’ ichor through my house, you got another think comin’ An after what your people pulled, der ain’t no way you settin’ foot in mah house. You lucky you allowed in mah barn. Now you got the length of my shower and however long it takes to drink dat der brew ta say your peace.”
“It’s not my fault,”
Xandr’s words were interrupted as Cal threw his t-shirt and his jeans at the vampire’s face.
“I didn’t know.”
“Dat’ll be a good quote for your headstone.”
250 words, not incluidng title
@msihmhem
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.