Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 614.
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 614:
College professor, equality enthusiast, and romance author, Louisa Bacio.
Facebook | Bluesky | Instagram |
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“The clock was ticking.”
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!
Tree Leaf Explains Roofians
We climbed trees initially. Occupied trees, more like it. Protested the clearcutting of Old Growth. Some went too far. Spiked a few. A chainsaw buzzing into one of those steel pegs would snap a saw blade and send it whipping back onto the faller, slicing his arm off, or his face, wherever it landed, whipsawing into the flesh.
There were only a few of those anarchist saboteurs but really, it only took one. We tried to police our group, if police is the right word. Monitor, I suppose, might be less triggering but the truth of it was that we didn’t want to injure anyone, even if they didn’t grasp how close the earth was, is to extinction.
The clock was ticking. Anyone with half a brain knew that. Trouble was, of course, half the world had half a brain and even that half couldn’t grasp the imminence of global destruction.
Like I said, we climbed trees, parked our butts there, tried to stave of the fallers. The press lambasted us. One corporate wit called us ruffians.
I write environmental poetry. It’s a release but also its another way to get the message out. I play with words. That’s how “ruffians” became “roofians.”
Here I am at my second writers’ festival. It’s all so polite and proper.
It was time for a new action.
Rich houses that killed a forest.
Rich owners who appreciate literature.
We’ll sit on their damn roofs until the earth is saved.
249 WIP
@billmelaterplea
Ronan didn’t look up from the laptop on his desk as his brother walked into his study. “Where is she?”
The question was met with silence.
He leaned back in his chair and studied Mick’s face. Uneasy, he waited.
“We can’t find her, Ronan.” Mick’s words rasped out from a throat filled with tension.
The two men stared at each other, the uncomfortable silence stretching to the point of boiling over.
“Who was on her?”
“Devlin.”
Ronan considered that. Had one of the younger Wolves been assigned to Maura, he might understand how they’d lost her. He’d still be furious but Maura could be devious when it came to ducking her bodyguards.
“Where is he?”
“At home, nursing a giant lump on his head. We found him unconscious.”
“When did Devlin lose her?”
“About five.”
Ronan erupted from his chair, terror clutching his chest, making it hard to breathe.
He now understood the sense of unease that had been building all evening. “Where have you looked?”
“The boys are covering everywhere—her condo, the DA’s office.” Mick rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re also checking out Crenshaw’s place.”
Ronan forced his wolf down so he could think. “What about Danny Boy’s?”
Mick’s cell rang. He held up one finger while he answered. He didn’t bother putting it on speaker. Ronan could hear the conversation just fine. “What’ve ya got, Sean?”
“Her scent at Danny Boy’s.”
“I’ll kill the bastard,” Ronan snarled as he headed out. The clock was ticking.
****
250 Boston Wolves WIP words
Silver James, http://www.silverjames.com
The clock was ticking on his time with Allira and his reticence about his true nature. She thought he was a friend, a companion who felt the same about the people of the Tombs. And she wasn’t wrong.
Except I’m the Dreadstone King, a long dead pile of bones on a stone throne.
He should’ve had the courage to tell her who he was, what he was, and owned up to his feelings for her. In the days where they’d done domestic things like build her camp, and gather herbs, and spar, he’d fallen for her smart, practical ways. He’d watched her learn from her mistakes and take a stand against the humans who saw the orcs and goblins as nothing more than monsters. It all just made him want her more.
But he couldn’t have her.
Josten stopped in the throne room and stared at the skeleton wearing the Iron Crown. There wasn’t anything spectacular about it other than it denoted rank and rested at an odd angle on his bare skull. No one would ever know it was the very relic the humans came to the Tombs to find. The crown held the magic keeping him ‘alive’ in this twilight existence. He didn’t even know why—it just did.
He stared at the throne and lost track of time, until a new sound reached his ears.
“Get in there, you treasonous bitch, and show me where you’ve hidden it!”
Allira stumbled into view, followed by a knight.
249 ineligible #WIP words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
They always say the clock is ticking, but you think that’s an exaggeration. How selfish, I was being! My father was dying yet all I thought was get it over with. He suffered for months now, a slow growing cancer they’d claimed but now this. Tears came to my eyes and I thought what a bratty teen I’d been. He wasn’t perfect, but who is? In my twenties Realization came that he had done better than his abusive, absentee father. He had stepped up when his girlfriend, my mother had died giving birth to me. I thought of all the things he had given up to raise me into the man I had become. Seventeen years old he’d still found a way to go to school get a career paying for my education as a doctor. He had loved me since the day I was born and he was only hanging on in pain because he was afraid to leave me. I looked at the clock it would soon be a new day.
“Dad, I love you but it will be okay to go. Myself, my wife, Melanie and your grandkids, will always remember you.”
Miraculously his eyes opened, he smiled and said,” Love you”, and then was gone.
My father was at peace, but I was like a child again an orphan without parents all I wanted was my father back. Looking out the window I saw a rainbow and smiled he was telling me everything would be okay.
250 words
@SweetSheil
Sunshine approached the boat slowly. The men watched her. She landed on the deck of the boat and looked at the men. One man approached her, the others kept as far away as they could. “What is it that you want, witch?”
The men spoke the same language as Sunshine.
“Are you fishing?” Sunshine started with an obvious question.
“Yes.”
“Any luck?”
“No. But now we know why.” The man clearly did not trust and did not like Sunshine.
“You have families waiting for you to return home?”
The man refused to answer. After a short pause he blurted out, “What do you want?”
“Nothing you have.”
If she was Rose, she might have had some fish jump on the boat. She was not. “Given your lack of interest in talking, I will depart now.”
Sunshine headed back to the coast, and then flew down the coast in the direction the boat had come from. “Let’s see how they react to a witch heading toward their home.”
The machines informed her that the boat had turned around and was pursuing her. “They wish to protect their homes from the wrath of a witch, obviously.”
She wondered, as she flew along the coast, why the men hated fairies so much.
The machines didn’t provide an explanation. They left it to Sunshine to find out for herself. The clock was ticking as she proceeded along the shore. The sun set. Sunshine flew inland a bit and set up camp for the night.
250 Words
@mysoulstears.bsky.social
“Tick, tick. Tick, tick. Tick, tick,” said the simulant, racking another shell into his weapon’s breach. He pressed the muzzle of his double-bore shotgun against the neck of my mother, turning his face up toward the camera’s eye. He was a machine, made to look like a man but devoid of humanity. He had a quota to satisfy: a list of people to kill.
“What can I say?” I said, not knowing how to persuade him. He was a governmental algorithm made real. I could no more reason with him than argue with a lawn mower. He would cut his way through my family, meeting no more resistance from us than a heated blade through butter. He was making a show out of offering me a choice. He would execute every one of us before he left our home.
“You could try to appeal to my better nature,” it said, lifting her up like a doll. She dandled like a puppet, too stunned to kick out or make any effort to resist, his hand without a weapon closed around her throat. If he didn’t shoot her soon, she’d suffocate. The clock was ticking for her, whatever happened. She would be dead soon; the only choice I’d have was how she’d meet her end.
I turned toward the camera. “But she’s an innocent. She’s never cheated on her tax returns.”
But it wasn’t enough. The State wasn’t listening. Not even with an audience of a million or more.
247 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
Jian vomited as the tip of her own indestructible sword impacted her stomach. Her indestructible cheongsam saved her from any critical damage, but the pain was blinding. How did normal people live with pain?
She rolled backward over rocky ground but couldn’t put any distance between herself and her assailant. The hero stumbled to her feet and into a flurry of sword thrusts. Jian managed to protect her face but now had several bleeding wounds on her arms. She needed to stay conscious!
“Why are you doing this!?” Jian gasped.
The young woman who had disarmed her radiated absolute loathing from her cold eyes.
“The world we fought for will come to be, despite your betrayal.”
For the first time in her life, Jian was the vulnerable one facing an invulnerable opponent. Worse, her opponent had taken the fighting skills she’d spent her life mastering. Only her muscle memory had kept the hero alive to this point.
“I have always fought for the people. But you’ve exchanged one tyrant for another. Wake up, Lien-Shu!”
“You don’t get to call me that!” Lien-Shu shrieked. “I’m Exemplary now!”
How had the little girl who once idolized Jian become so bitter and blinded by rage?
“Exemplary, our people are still being brutalized and slaughtered.”
Jian needed to keep her talking. The hero’s former sidekick could only steal Powers and knowledge for so long.
“Not OUR people,” Exemplary sneered. “Every dog we put down deserves what they get.”
The clock was ticking.
248 The Unbreakable Jian words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
He knew he couldn’t hide forever. As much as he tried to re-enter society—re-enter reality, he found it was nearly impossible. Doing so would make it real, acknowledging her death happened, that she was irrevocably [i]gone[/i].
Everyone kept telling him that everyone handles grief differently and to take all the time he needed to process her death. There would never be enough time for that.
He would stop time if he could.
Despite his wishes, the clock was ticking. Time continued to move forward, steadily and sure, tick tick tick.
He poured himself another whiskey, having stopped counting them a long time ago. The alcohol did little to assuage the pain, no matter how much he drank. If she was here, he’d be right well drunk, but she wasn’t, so he wasn’t.
Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, a familiar wisp of golden blonde hair. The scent of the ocean soon followed.
“Come to torture me some more?” he asked her ghost. “Thought you had enough fun toying with me already.”
His wife stood there with the same sad expression that she had the last time he saw her ghost. She looked perfect, not a single hair out of place. No broken bones or fractures or blood, unlike the day he had to identify her body at the morgue, mangled and lifeless.
“Why are you here?”
232 words
@mlgammella
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.