Orange Crush

Today’s prompt: “Put your iPod on random shuffle, write down the lyric of the first song that comes on, and use it as an opening line.”

“Don’t,” you wheeze as your limbs flail through the thick underbrush, “follow me, don’t follow me!”

You’ve been running from Jane’s party for you can’t tell how long. It didn’t seem that long, but you’re already exhausted and the adrenaline took you well out of her neighborhood and into the undeveloped land beyond. You started running the instant those … things … broke through Jane’s back fence. They were giants. Behemoths. With long, sinewy arms and teeth filed down into points. And they were wearing clothes with human bones sewn onto the fabric. Fibula and tibia festooned on a makeshift breastplate. Metacarpal bracers.

When the fence splintered, you could see the bloodied bodies of Jane’s neighbors. And you didn’t need to know anything more about the behemoths. You ran, leaving the screams of the other partygoers behind you.

Your hand is clutching something. Enough adrenaline has ebbed from your body that you just now noticed you still have an orange soda in your hand.

You had a head start as the behemoths destroyed the party, but it’s gone now. The behemoths are faster than you. There aren’t a lot of trees here, so hiding isn’t a good option. You had hoped you could make it down the embankment a ways from Jane’s house before they saw you, but they have eyes on you now.

You can’t run. You can’t hide. So you scream. You plead. “Don’t follow me!” And then you trip, and roll down the embankment.

You pull yourself to your feet, and one of the behemoths is in front of you. You turn and run, clotheslining yourself against the outstretched arm of another behemoth. His arm wraps around your neck like a collar, and you struggle to breathe. You are starting to black out when he hurls you to the ground, and then kicks you until you are on your stomach.

The behemoth kneels next to you. He grabs the can of soda out of your hand and studies it idly. Then his other hand slams into your back. Sharp claws – you had not registered before how sturdy and sharp their fingernails were – rip through your T-shirt and erupt through your skin. He wraps his hand around your backbone and gives a great pull.

He’s got your spine. He’s got your Orange Crush.

Skin

Today’s prompt: “If your brother knew you’d said that about him, he’d flay you alive. What did you say?”

“Only complete half-wits like my brother, who believe themselves well-versed in the art of torture and death but are not, would begin flaying someone at the shoulders and torso instead of the thighs or buttocks,” you said.

Of course, he heard, and you were, for one last time, subjected to his incompetence.

Awkward, Potentially Lifesaving Conversations

Today’s prompt: “A conversation you regret never having”

Your dad never had his “the birds and the bees and the Cthulhus” talk with you. Maybe it could have saved your life, but you’ll never know.

Ocean Sounds

Today’s prompt: “Describe the sounds you heard the first time you swam in the ocean.”

Look, just because you don’t hear duh-nuh, duh-nuh, duh-nuh-duh-nuh-duh-nuh-duh-nuh doesn’t mean a shark’s not there.

Losing Your Senses

Today’s prompt: “Through a freak illness, you lose one of your senses. Which sense is it, what happens to you, and how do you deal with it?”

When Matt Murdock pushed a man out of the way of an oncoming truck carrying barrels of radioactive materials, the radioactive materials blinded him but heightened his other senses, leading him to become a superhero!

When you get COVID-19, your sense of smell disappears (and with it, your sense of taste), and you spend a significant amount of time with weakened lung capacity. No superpowers. Booooooo. But at least it’s supposed to be temporary, and, more importantly, at least you survived.

Until the gas leak you could not detect.

The Fun Job

Today’s prompt: “You know when it comes to a decision between the job that pays well and the job that’s fun? He made the colossal mistake of picking the fun job.”

“Yeah, it’s not as cool as you think,” you have to tell people at parties after you tell them you’re a video game tester.

Your first job was playing Wii Bowling. It wasn’t what you’d dreamed of, the next Super Smash Bros. or Call of Duty, but it was kind of fun at first. But imagine playing Wii Bowling 40 hours a week for eight months. And the one thing that would break up the monotony is when the game calculated your score incorrectly or it didn’t switch between players properly or the gutterball actually got stuck in the gutter and your screen froze, and you got to enter a bug. It. Was so. Boring. You realized before long that you were grateful you weren’t assigned one of your favorite games. Your job would have ruined it for you.

Your next assignment was Red Dead Redemption II. Now all your friends love that game, and you hate it.

The third game you were assigned was The Ring: Samara’s Revenge.

The a.m.

Today’s prompt: “A beginner’s guide to getting up in the morning”

1. Hit snooze on your alarm as many or as few times as you like. This is a judgement-free zone.
2. When you’re ready, maybe take a nice stretch.
3. Sit up.
4. Swing your legs down over the side of the bed.
5. Stand up, and walk to the bathroom for a nice, hot shower.

This works about 99.999% of the time. That .001% of the time, though, when you hop out of bed and into a wormhole that spits you out into the vacuum of space, is a doozy.