Today’s prompt: “The secret that, if revealed, would upset everything”
Look, I don’t know why you need to exaggerate everything. The fact that Tharapithia, The Shadow in the Crimson Light, has been secretly tunnelling below your house and is going to burst through your floorboards and devour you whole, is certainly upsetting. But will it upset everything? In the grand scheme of things, no. You don’t have to be all dramatic about it.
Today’s prompt: “Go outside and notice three distinct sounds. Remove the labels and describe exactly what they sound like. Then write a story incorporating the sounds.
Whooosh. Vvvvvvffff. Rrrrrrr. [The sound of traffic in the middle distance.]
Kpaff. [The sound of a dog’s paw stepping onto a dry leaf.]
Hhhhfff. Hhhfff. [The sound of your own breath.]
Hhhhfff. Hhhfff. Hhhhhfff. You run. You didn’t think you were capable of running this fast, this long.
You tilt your head, listening for a telltale whooosh. A vvvvvffff. A rrrrrrr. If you can make it to the road, you could flag down a passing vehicle. Hitch a ride. Escape from this nightmare.
Kpaff. It’s still early fall, and the forest floor is only sparsely populated with dry leaves. The ones from earlier nights are damp from rain and early morning mists, so the only crisp leaves are the ones that have fallen today. You know that for every footstep you hear among the dead leaves, there is still a whole pack of dogs following, each trained in the arts of dismemberment.
You listen for the whooosh. If anything, it sounds farther away.
The kpaff comes closer. And closer.
Today’s prompt: “It’s 2100 and the world is running out of fresh water. Describe a typical day.” [I mean, realistically, global warming will affect our freshwater supply in a few different ways. In some cases that’s going to mean warmer temperatures for lakes and rivers, which will affect fish populations and the animals that depend on them. In others, freshwater systems could dry up or become salinated, possibly due to rising sea levels. We probably want to focus on the latter scenario for this writing exercise, but even then the melting glaciers will mean there’s plenty of seawater, which means that human beings will have to rely on desalination processes to get water. Third world countries, as usual, will be more drastically affected by this, and their people will have less access to desalinated water. And there will be the knock-on effects to ecosystems that rely on freshwater systems, so entire species will likely die out. Not than I’m an expert or anything. But of course it’s more fun to write about it as if it’s kind of a Mad Max scenario, so let’s just pretend that saltwater is in short supply, too.]
The door bursts open. Emily sings out. “Water! Nearly two quarts of it!”
From your vantage point on the couch, you smile. “Good job,” you rasp.
“I had to fight off a pack of wild dogs for it. And then a pack of Ravagers. And then a pack of Neo-Ravagers. I could take you to a pile of dead dogs, studded leather, and studded pleather.” She smacks the butt of her shotgun. “Ol’ Betts here was worth her weight in H2O today.”
“Wow.”
Emily empties her pouch of water into the old desalinator and sets it to boil. Your lips crack.
The hum of the steam dies away, and is replaced by the trickling sound of cooling water running down the sides of the second basin. You lie still. You’re so sleepy.
You haven’t tried to stand since yesterday. You were so dizzy then that you had to sit back down almost immediately.
Emily holds a cup of warm water to your lips. You close your eyes and take in just a taste of it, letting it melt into your tongue.
“Have some more,” Emily urges.
“No. That’s enough,” you rasp.
“But you’re dying,” she says, her words catching in her throat.
“Precisely,” you say. “Let’s not drag it out.”
Today’s prompt: “You wake up in an open field wearing an astronaut suit and lying on a surfboard. What happened?”
You’re being sacrificed to the ancient god of outer space and radness.
Today’s prompt: “The oldest item in your possession”
The Amulet of Amrathka is a red stone surrounded by a circle of runes cast in silver. You found it in an antique store in Duluth. They clearly had no idea of the real value. You bought it, scrubbed away the tarnish, and you’ve been wearing it around your neck ever since. It grants you protection from Nctosa, the daughter of Cthulhu, with her spidery limbs and sharp claws.
Unfortunately, it does nothing to save you from her twin sister, Nctolhu.
Today’s prompt: “A piece of clothing you keep just for the memory”
The suit you were buried in.