Welcome back to the home of #ThursThreads for Week 714. 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 Discord and the group on Facebook.
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 Bluesky, MeWe, Discord, and Mastodon, etc.
Our Judge for Week 714:
Most Consistent #TT Winner, Newfie mom, and Romance Author, Silver James.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“I’m afraid it’s a hostile takeover.”
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!
The Somnambulist’s Sonnet Society
I didn’t want to say it but I wasn’t surprised. We’d been in decline for several years. Sonnets just weren’t au courant these days as I am sure the centuries dead sonneteer, Pierre de Ronsar, might have said, if asked…in French, n’est pas.
Not only were sonnets not in favour with a younger tribe of poets, but the public had also moved on.
Spoken word was alive and entertaining.
Free verse was epidemic.
Not only was everyone a critic; everyone was a poet.
Though our membership had been dwindling, what with death and boredom infecting us at every turn, there had been an odd uptick in a certain sort of new member.
I finally mentioned it to Elvira Sneed, our President. “Elvie, have you noticed those two new members…I don’t want to besmirch them but they seem out of sorts.”
I used a gentle expression to describe something I sensed was not quite accurate. Elvie was a dear soul but not confrontational in the least.
“You mean Zip Rebel and Slash Wonder?”
I nodded. We didn’t actually know their real names but they were two of a small contingent of angry poets…very Ginsbergy, I thought.
“Yes, dear,” I said. “I hope I’m wrong…I can be quite wrong these days about many things but I fear…oh, gosh darn it, I’m afraid it’s a hostile takeover.”
There. I’d said it. We had been asleep at the sonnet wheel.
“It’ll be okay,” Elvie consoled me. “We’ve had our day.”
250 Words
@billmelaterplea
@sterlings-son-2.bsky.social
“Good. So before we conclude this session, is there anything else you want to talk about?”
“Uh, yeah, maybe. There was a guy who showed up at the bakery today. Normally, I wouldn’t notice who comes in because it’s a bakery. But this guy came in and everything about him seemed suspicious. All my instincts said he was a threat of some kind.”
“Interesting. What was he doing to make you think this?”
“I dunno. The way he was looking around the place made me think of special operators assessing access and security measures. And Corbin was standing right there while this guy cased the joint. It put me on edge.”
“Do you think this person was a physical threat?”
“No? I mean, maybe not yet, but he definitely had a potential. I’m afraid it’s a hostile takeover, but the guy has no standing or even any reason to make moves like that. He is the grandson of the man who sold Corbin the property, but the sale happened over a decade ago, so it’s strange that he’s showing up now.” Martin shook his head. “It was just weird, and my threat assessment meter was pinging off the charts.”
“Did Corbin think the visitor was strange, too?”
“Oh, yeah, He was suspicious right off the bat. Neither of us liked the look of this guy, and his visit doesn’t make sense. I mean, his grandfather sold the property ten years ago, and he wasn’t interested then. Why now?”
248 ineligible #WIP words
@siobhanmuir.bsky.social
“Uncle, kick it over here!”
“Alright, alright…”
Himeko Harada laughed as her uncle obliged the little boy in the park. Her protective uncle had insisted on accompanying her and now become entangled in some children’s ball game. As sour faced as ever.
“Which of you is Himeko Harada!?”
A booming voice reverberated over the hill behind Himeko. One of the children pointed past her uncle in that direction.
“Uncle, what’s that?”
Yoji Harada turned and straightened to his full height.
“I’m afraid it’s a hostile takeover. Please stay with the children, Hime-sama.”
Himeko nodded and hurried to the other side of her uncle before chancing a look back. The mutated humanoid on the hill was elongated by blade-like metal grafts and the spiked metal ball at his feet looked decidedly less friendly than the children’s.
“Hah! Must be you!”
The fiend grinned maliciously at Himeko. Her uncle walked toward the threat, reaching into his sweatpants pocket to withdraw his brass knuckles.
“I don’t know what you were promised. But this is as close as you get.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” the fiend laughed. “And this is close enough anyway.”
Lifting his ball on the top of his foot, the fiend rocketed it at Himeko with a flawless kick. Yoji leapt in the way. The halves of the deadly projectile hit the ground on either side of him.
“What?”
The slack-jawed fiend stared at the middle-aged man whose brass knuckles were emitting a laser blade.
245 words
@davidaludwig.bsky.social
I’d never really spent much time around a woman like Evelyn, and certainly not when she was dressed like this. Maroon velvet, cut to reveal soft, warm curves. Chestnut hair, cascading in waves over a bare shoulder. Some kind of perfume that was a combination of purple flowers mixed with her own natural scent wafted through the air, pulling me towards her.
And the look on her face, like I was about to become her favorite plaything.
Evelyn took a sip from a large goblet filled with a liquid the same shade as her dress, then set it down on a walnut table that probably cost more than my last car. She stepped closer to me, then closer, and then she was right there, close enough that I could feel the heat from her radiate through my suit.
Her hand came up to lift my tie, a gentle pressure on the back of my neck pulling me the last inches toward her.
When she spoke, soft and low into the cup of my ear, goosebumps rushed along my skin, down to my core. “You’ve been standing here alone for too long.”
I swallowed, my mouth dry enough that I was glad I only had to whisper back. “I don’t belong here. With these people. With…with you. This isn’t my life.”
Her lips brushed my ear, then she pulled back, her smile somewhere between wicked and compassionate.
“I’m afraid it’s a hostile takeover. You are one of us now, my dear.”
250 words
@drmag00.bsky.social
(Sorry!)
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.