Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 651. Year 12! What a fantastic testament to the writing community. Y’all rock!
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 651:
Desk Jockey by Day, Writer by Night, Pecking her way through life, M.L. Gammella.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“He watched their faces.”
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!
Yelapa Bound
It was an easy boat ride south of PV to Yelapa in those days. An hour maybe. And getting on was a breeze. A short hop skip and a margarita jump to a charter boat moored at a dock.
Getting off that vessel, that was a whole other thing. In those days, he was thinking it must have been the mid-seventies, Yelapa didn’t really have a dock. And no roads. You couldn’t drive there. Still can’t.
Back then, the small indigenous community consisted of maybe 500 souls. Add in a smattering of ex-pats, artists, hippie escapees, all of them dreamers, all hoping nothing much changed, and it was a sort of paradise.
It was definitely a tourist primitive destination. Which was fine with him. He was fairly limber then, a recent bullet wound in his calf only acted up late at night if he partied too hard, so he made it off the vessel that first time without much to-do.
It was bloody hot. She said it would be, said, “I’ll try and meet you.”
They hadn’t seen each other in five years. Just after Altamont…that fiasco was in December of ’69.
Right after that, she split. “I’m outta here. Mexico, maybe.”
He hadn’t been ready then.
Now he was.
On the shore, he watched their faces. “Pie ladies,” she’d said. “I’m giving that a try.”
He took off his shoes, schlumped through the scorching sand until he found her.
She handed him a slice.
He was home.
250 words (possibly a future WIP)
@billmelaterplea
or @sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
Rosalind completes the final stitch in my flowing black robes. Friday I will take over the family business, and Rosalind will want to wash and press the robes. Father and I walk to the living room where Mother waits with my brothers and sisters.
“Have you chosen your human persona?”
Death must be relatable to all He meets. Thus, we choose a ‘human look’ when we become The One True Death. Ideally, I will not look like any particular time period, but I will also not be just a skeleton.
“I remember when your Father chose his persona,” Mother says, sitting on the edge of a red velvet arm chair, her black dress carefully draped over her lap, posture perfect with her corset and stays. Her black hair is nestled into a nested bun. “The entire family was there. He watched their faces as he morphed into this handsome man.”
Father blushes under his mutton chops, heat rising from his square jaw to meet his blue eyes, nearly matching Mother’s chair. Standing before my family in dark work pants, a long beige smock, straw hat, and neckerchief, I scan their faces. I thought a farmer would be easy for all to relate to.
“You will certainly blend in,” Mother says, after a beat.
Father nods, although I do not know if that is a grimace or a smile. “Yes. We need to work on your thumbs, but all things in good time.”
That is all the approval I will get.
@Aightball
250 words
Through the Fog
The fog curled around him, thick and heavy, as if it had weight of its own bearing down on him. As if it could press against his skin and pull him under. He remained motionless, rooted to the spot. Not feeling. Only seeing.
Through the mist, shapes appeared, sharpening, taking form. Familiar. Fragile. Their faces wavered and rippled like a pebble in a lake. He wanted to touch them, take comfort in their presence, but they remained out of his reach—always out of reach.
His mother—beautiful and light. Her warmth washed over him like sunshine. Laughter, light and musical, echoed through the fog, then faded, replaced by his brother’s crooked smile.
Next, his wife. Strong. Steady. Always there when he most needed an uplifting word. The teasing grin on her lips made his heart ache with longing.
And his daughter. God, his daughter. Small hands reached for him. He stretched out his own and swore their fingers brushed just for a moment. Could feel the jolt of love she had for him shoot through his body.
He watched their faces. Heard their voices. And he was desperate to join them before inevitably—
The fog swallowed them all, leaving him in perpetual darkness. Cold. Alone.
Always alone.
***
Around his hospital bed, his family gathers. They watch. And wait. And hope for one last miracle. For a moment, it seemed like—but the doctor assures them there is nothing of him left.
With a nod, the machines are shut off.
He was gone.
250 words
@wordrunner.bsky.social
@wordrunner5
Brianna joins the clump of students gathered in the courtyard.
“Oh my God!”
“Shit like this doesn’t happen around here!”
A quieter voice stands out, the words full of horrified awe. “He watched their faces.”
Brianna weaves her way through the crowd, intensely curious. Gerald from her coding class is perched on the stone wall with his laptop. The screen is filled with female faces in various expressions of fright, horror, and resignation. One of them is Nicki!
She squeezes in next to him. “What the hell? That’s Nicki!” Her friend had gone missing without a trace last semester.
Gerald looks at her with sympathy. “Someone released this blog. These are his victims.”
The title of the post is “Death Faces.”
Brianna gasps. “There must be a way to track this guy down!”
He nods. “That’s what I’m thinking. You want to meet up later? I know you and Nicki were close.”
“Yeah! After classes?”
He nods, offering a shy smile. “Let’s meet in the computer lab.”
***
Gerald is already working when she arrives. “Almost have it!”
He lets her sit at the computer to wait for the data. After a few minutes, Brianna starts feeling woozy. Gerald’s concerned face blurs and fades.
Her lids flutter open as plastic is pressed over her face. She gasps, sucking the plastic tighter, chest burning.
“It’s worse if you struggle, and you’ll ruin my shot.”
Gerald leans over her, camera clicking.
Her eyes and mouth open wide in a silent scream.
“Perfection.”
Facebook: Sarah Aisling
249 words
Shadows. Insubstantial as gossamer wings and not nearly so user friendly. They haunted. And hunted. The unwary, the profane, the innocent, and not-so-innocent all fell prey to them. They lurked, hunting in pairs, ready to pounce when chance provided them with a victim. Like the disenchanted urchins swarming around old Fagin, the Shadows plagued humans and Sidhe alike.
Ariel knew his job. For whatever reason, this woman had blipped on the King’s and Queen’s radar. When Oberon and Titania said jump, he didn’t pause to ask how high. She always walked home this way, at the end of her work day. He’d spent several nights watching, finding her rhythm. She wasn’t beautiful, at least not in the fairy tale princess sense. And she was human.
Movement in the gathering dusk jerked his attention from inward thoughts to defensive strategy. They were there. Across the street. Two Shadows. Waiting. Watching. For her. He watched their faces, noted the hunger and the cruelty.
What made her so special? He intended to find out. The Shadows stirred, their sharp faces turning to the north, noses high like blood hounds shifting the scent of their prey from the breeze. Ari heard laughter carried on that same breeze—hers—and the muscles in his gut clenched, even as something else tightened in anticipation. She swung into view, turning the corner as she all but skipped down the sidewalk, spreading her smile like sunshine and rainbows. That’s when he knew; that’s when it all made sense.
****
250 Penumbra Papers WIP words
Silver James https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSilverJames/
He watched their faces. He had to. It was part of how he understood what people were saying when they spoke. He could tell if they were being honest, or if they were saying something with a wink and a smile, something they pretended everyone understood.
He took the information from their face, the body language they had while talking, tones in their voice, and processed them. He fed them through his personal history. His experience. And prayed it was a case of them saying something in a way he had encountered before. That was his only way to understand the nuances of the conversation.
It was all a big comparison for him. And endless comparison. Placing the now against the past. Against the mistakes he’d made in the past, in an effort to not make those mistakes again.
It was futile, of course. Anytime anything changed. Anyone changed. So did the rules. And what was the thing to say, the way to respond, changed out from under him.
It was why he didn’t say much. If he didn’t speak, he couldn’t say anything wrong. Sometimes, he had to talk, like when someone directly asked him something. Directly interacted with him. And it was always a hair-raising experience for him.
Because he never knew when he’d make another mistake.
Mistakes were bad. People never forgot them.
He always thought the same prayer when he had to interact with someone. “Don’t let me screw this up.”
246 Words (Per Google Write)
@mysoulstears.bsky.social
Candy floss on a foggy day
Heaving mists hung over the traveling amusement park that had come to town. The rollercoaster yielded terror, its unseen passengers screaming as its wheels alternately glided and chugged along its tracks while the thrill-seekers went blindly around its course, their turned-olive complexions unnoticed in the shroud of low-hanging cloud. Navigating around the rocketing rides and captivating carousels, Jessica went through the entrance to the fortune teller’s tent, its crescent-moon-and-stars pattern barely discernible from all the other stalls and attractions in the milky haze.
“Please.” An old crone sat at a small round desk masked in a silk tablecloth. “Take a seat.” With a bony index finger, she indicated the empty chair on the table’s far side.
Jessica didn’t need further instruction, plunging herself onto the seat as she pulled out some banknotes from her purse.
“I need your help.” Jessica put two large denomination notes into the old woman’s hand. “The last time the fair was in town, last summer, you might remember that—”
“I remember you.”
“You warned me about my partner, Roy?”
“I did. Once a cheater, always a cheater. You want to find love again?”
Jessica nodded.
“A man with blue eyes approaches. Go out and meet him. Go!”
Jessica stepped out of the tent with haste, and scanned the surrounding area. There were people all around, struggling through the mist. She watched their faces when she could, but the fog was so thick that it was impossible to see.
250 words @ragtaggiggagon
“We definitely need to upgrade your security measures, but I’m really just down here to get the wifi password so I can make my therapy appointment.”
“You’re going to therapy?”
“You have a therapy appointment?”
Avery and Corbin spoke at the same time, and Martin nodded. He watched their faces to determine how each felt about that, but he wasn’t encouraged. Avery’s lip curled in distaste, while Corbin looked pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah, it was something I found to be really helpful after the TBI. Can you write down the password?” He held out a post-it pad so he could try to memorize it. Old SpecOps habits were hard to break, but the TBI meant his wiring was faulty.
“Of course.” Corbin wrote on the pad and handed it back to him while Avery just shot him a pitying look. “Did you ever get one of the croissants this morning?”
Martin shook his head as he turned to leave. “No, I emptied the dishwasher, and started some of my therapeutic reading and got distracted. I’ll find something to eat later. Thanks for this.” He waved the post-it pad and retreated from the office, not bothering to look at Avery.
“Martin, wait!” Corbin’s voice came from behind him along with the sound of the chair scooting back. “Are you telling me you haven’t eaten anything today?”
Martin shrugged. “Like I said, I got distracted and now my appointment is in a few minutes.”
241 ineligible #StainlessSteelSEALs words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
The next space alien was due any minute now. Lord Eric Pembroke rested a hand on the pommel of his epee and did one last visual inspection of the perimeter. Normally, the world’s militaries would respond to the incursion thanks to Eric’s algorithm predicting the event site. But he liked to take the occasional alien for himself.
The air rippled and distorted a mere instant before being ripped viciously open by swirling magenta energy. The energy formed a large circle just long enough for the intruder to come through. A hulking beast with matted brown fur, wild eyes, and an overlarge fanged maw. It looked like a hunch-backed nightmare of a bear.
Eric’s men shifted uneasily, some raising their firearms. He watched their faces. Breaking in a new team was such a nuisance. Especially with no survivors from the previous one.
“Easy,” he waved his men down.
Just because this wasn’t one of the humanoid aliens didn’t mean it couldn’t be reasoned with. Eric slowly approached with his hands out to his sides where the beast could see them. Its wild eyes roved over surroundings and humanoids unfamiliar to it, somewhere between snarling and hyperventilating.
Eric calculated its likely speed, mobility, and power based on visible features and adjusting for the average advantage shown by the aliens over Earth creatures. Positioning himself just outside of the creature’s reach, Eric waved his men further back. The beast’s left leg was injured. Interesting.
“Welcome to planet Earth. Can you understand me?”
249 Lord Pembroke and Dream Girl words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
**Phases**
He sat cross-legged on the floor, the house nearly empty. Pale rectangles and squares marked the walls where all his phases used to hang. Framed calligraphy. A taxidermy crow. Elvis.
His children stood before him, grown.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
His daughter exhaled. “Of course you are.” She’d noticed the website. A monastery in Vermont.
Frank, Jr. shook his head. “And when that doesn’t work out?”
The man smiled, calm. “It’s different now.” A breeze lifted the curtain. Outside, the sky was the color of something ending.
They’d heard this before. When he swore off sugar. Sold his car and walked everywhere. Shaved his head and chanted at the grocery store.
And the driveway incident. They could never forget that. When he stood at the edge, rocked, then lunged in front of the sedan. The sickening thud. The screaming.
He watched their faces.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Another one of Dad’s phases.” He turned to the window, light sharpening his age. “But I’m not running. I’ve sat with it. All of it.”
An ancient TV sat unplugged in the corner. A clock ticked.
“So now you just disappear?”
The man met their eyes, each one in turn. “This is a good thing.”
Lily swallowed. “If we visit, will you be there? Or off on another transformation?”
He smiled again, softer. “If you come, I’ll be right where you left me.”
They didn’t believe him. Not yet. But when they left, they took longer to say goodbye.
249 words
@krvanhorn (Bluesky & X)
#ThursThreads Week 651 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.