story

Writing Prompt

The small girl ran away from ……………

The Shadow

The small girl ran away from the shadow sitting at the foot of her bed. She thumped down the hall and slammed into her parents’ room, waking them with a full-on fit of terror. The girl was so worked up that it took several minutes before her parents could coax out a cohesive explanation of what had scared her so.

When she told them about the shadow, the girl insisted that it looked like her own shadow, but fatter. It had been going out on its own the last few nights and having adventures without her, she told her parents, but the shadow always came back looking more or less the same.

Tonight, however, it had changed. The shadow had plumped up on something. The girl couldn’t explain how she knew, but she was pretty sure that something had been another child.

As the girl spoke, a boy shouted from somewhere in the house. It was her little brother’s voice, and he did not sound happy.

By then, the girl’s mother had already inspected the girl and noticed she cast no shadow. The mother moved quickly to the bedroom door and pulled it open. As she did so, she called out to the girl’s father, asking him to grab her bag. Without waiting for a response, she rushed out of the room. The father hurried out behind her, leaving the little girl with no shadow to cry softly into her father’s pillow.

Writing Prompt

Jenny slammed the door in John’s face because …………

You’ve Changed for the Worse

Jenny slammed the door in John’s face because she couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. He’d changed, become monstrous. But worse than that, he’d betrayed her when she needed him most.

John banged on the door, but she leaned against it and yelled for him to go away. A few tears dripped onto her hands as she fumbled with the privacy lock. She twirled the stupid little thing and silently urged it to protect her.

God, how had it come to this? All Jenny had wanted was to find a good man – not Mr. Perfect, just someone nice would do. She’d almost had it, too. John had seemed more than nice. They were a pair that others envied. Jenny wasn’t much for social outings, but she’d actually dragged herself and her man out to several parties just to show him off.

It was a good thing her friends couldn’t see John now. She should have known it was too good to last. How could he do it? How could he get taken by that other woman? Jenny had watched it happen – knew what was happening even before John.

The woman was obviously diseased. As usual, John was putting others before himself, but this time it wasn’t Jenny he was putting first. It was this other woman. “We have to help her,” John insisted. And then the woman ate a chunk of his arm.

John’s transformation was rapid. Faster than what the news reports had led Jenny to expect. John bent over, clutching his torn arm. He groaned and then gurgled. His skin became pale and splotchy. When he stood again, his eyes found Jenny, but there was no “nice” left. John had abandoned her, and now he stood on the other side of the door, wanting nothing more than to eat her.

Jenny slumped to the floor and cried. Would she ever find Mr. Right? And even if she did, could she ever really give him her trust? Jenny wept harder as John, that traitor, smashed through the flimsy door. It figures, she thought – he isn’t even here to apologize.