Today’s prompt: “Something more you’d like to know about”
You would have liked to know what it’s like to breathe the cold, thin air of Everest. To know the sense of pride of finishing your first novel. To know what it’s like to look into the eyes of your newborn grandchild.
You’re never going to know any of those things, because until the jellylike mass re-formed around you, you didn’t know that swords don’t work on Ghisguth.
Today’s prompt: “A present from your mother”
“I hope you like it!” the card from your mother reads. “The shopkeeper said it was the Amulet of Myrr-Kasham (not sure on the spelling of that). She said it protects the wearer from Ngyr-Korath. Not sure on the spelling of that, either, but she said he’s also called ‘The Ultimate Abomination’ and ‘The Dream-Death,’ and that he comes as a turquoise mist that invokes dread in everyone he gets close to. She said he got really mad when life began and he’s already eaten several stars. Funny, huh? Anyway, I thought it would bring out your eyes. Happy birthday!”
Unfortunately, when Ngyr-Korath arrived on Earth, still pissed about the existence of life, it was the day before your birthday and the pendant was still sitting in its package.
Today’s prompt: “Describe a professor coming on to one of his students.”
You watch a grimace flicker across the young woman’s face as the man in the tweed jacket hovers behind her. “It’s a basic cantrip, Celine.” You’re pretty sure she can feel his breath on her neck.
“I’m just not sure why we have to do this now. After hours, like this,” the pretty blond woman in the dark robe says.
“You have to learn basic mind-flaying sometime,” the professor says. “You’re going to need to know it if you want to be a warlock. You do want to be a warlock, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she says softly, eyes cast down.
“Good. Now then –”
“I was just wondering why I can’t learn this at the same time as the rest of the class.”
He begins to pace behind her. “You know full well what the pass rate is for my class?”
“It’s – not high.”
“Not all of your classmates are going to make it. Some of them are bright. Many of them are not. I would think a smart girl like you would want to take every advantage to get ahead.”
“Of – of course.”
“All right then. Arms out.”
She raises her arms then, and faces the wall where you are chained. “Mmmmmph,” you say against your gag.
“No no no. Let’s correct your form.” The professor stands directly behind her, pressing against her back as he adjusts her arms slightly. Then he steps back, and as terrified as you are for your own life, you can’t help but feel a slight sensation of relief for Celine now that the professor has stepped away. “All right. Go.”
The pretty blond’s eyes roll back in her head, and she chants in surprisingly deep tones. “Ahornah ymg’ ftaghu mglagln ahmgep hup ymg’ bthnkor. Ahornah ymg bthnkor mglagln ahmgep hup ymg’ fst’mahgrn.”
Your skin begins to peel away from your muscles, beginning at your fingertips and underneath your toenails, and quickly spreading up your calves and down your forearms. You scream in pain and horror as you watch the muscles in your feet unravel from their bones, the ligaments that once held them there splaying out in the open air.
As you die screaming, you can still see the creepy professor rest his hand on his student’s shoulder. “Very good.”
Today’s prompt: “Your favorite hiding place”
You try under your bed, but it turns out there’s a monster there. Kind of a giant three-headed iguana-looking thing, which might not sound intimidating, but it snaps its teeth at you in a way that tells you this place is off limits.
So next you try the closet. The second you open the door, a few thousand scorpions spill out of it. That’s no good.
There’s one last place – the cubby under the stairs. You open the door, and beyond the frame is a dimensional void. The darkness is intermittently lit by lightning flashes, which reveal no ground to step out onto. You hear a roar that sounds like a galaxy dying, and wind buffets you. You close the door. You open it again. Nope, same dimensional void.
Well, shit. The apocalypse is here, and you’ve got no place to hide.
Today’s prompt: “Write a scene full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr.
Come on, not now!
Rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr.
Stupid car.
Rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-rrr-voooommm!
The engine roars to life. You throw it into reverse. Scwrwaaaaaaahhhhhhh! The car peels out as you leave the compound.
You hear the shouts of a group of cultists in the distance. What’s the collective of cultists? A coven? A shadiness? An eldritch? Probably that one. The eldritch of cultists sounds kind of like when stage actors are doing a crowd scene and you know most of them are saying things like “rutabaga rutabaga,” but these guys are definitely saying things like, “Kill ‘em!” and “Don’t let ‘em get away!” and “After them, for the glory of Cthulhu!”
Vroom! Vroom! Vroom! Scwrwaaaaaaaaahhhh! Of course their cars start up with no problem.
You look in the mirror and you see a Hummer flanked by two motorcycles. Shit. They’re gaining.
Rrrrrrrrrrrr! You floor the gas, but you barely notice the difference. This thing’s probably only four cylinders. I guess that explains why someone might not bother to lock the doors or take the keys out of the ignition. But you’re pretty lucky to have gotten out of those ropes at all, and when you’ve been kidnapped by cultists and taken to a bloodstained room in their compound, you’ll take any transportation out of there you can get.
Still, they’re definitely gaining on you. The motorcycles are holding back for the moment, but the Hummer is approaching ramming speed. There’s no turnoffs on this road. All you can do is brace for it.
CRRAASSSHHH! Your car jolts forward with the impact. You hear a Ka-Spaaannnnnnggg! as your rear bumper falls to the road, and a Cr-Crump as the Hummer drives over it.
You’re surprised that your car is still functioning. You gun the engines as best you can, but he’s coming for you again.
CRRAASSSHHH! You swerve a bit, but recover nicely.
He seems to have decided to change tactics. You notice him creeping over the line and speeding up as if to pass you, but you’re pretty sure he’s going to try to run you off the road. What does he think this is, frickin’ Spy Hunter? What you wouldn’t give for some oil slick right now.
Crunch. He nudges you from the left. Screeeee! You skid out of your lane for a second, but just recover in time. He’s still right there to your left.
Voom! You hit the gas. Vooooomm! He’s right there with you again.
You watch as closely as you can out of the corner of your eye. You can see the driver. You can see his hands on the steering wheel. And you can see him ready to pull to the right, hard.
You slam your foot on the brake with a loud SCREEEEEEEEEEEECHHH. The Hummer passes right through the thin air where you would have been and drives straight into a ditch.
You drive past the Hummer. The motorcycles fall in behind you.
This whole night has been crazy. You remember you were sitting down to dinner at a restaurant when two hands reached around from behind you. You barely managed to get out an mmmph-mmmph as one clamped closed around your mouth. You could only see his hands and his right arm as it clamped around your chest and he dragged you off. They were big, beefy hands. Hands with something tattooed on the knuckles in big, Gothic script. What did it say? FAT HOG? Something like that. He dragged you to the parking lot and then he knocked you out. Then you woke up in the compound, and now you’re driving for your life.
BLAM!
And now the motorcyclists are shooting at you.
There! A freeway entrance! You swerve on, hoping you might be able to outpace them or lose them. And at first it seems to be working. You never quite lose them, but you’re out of firing range, and putting a little more distance between you and them.
Until a construction zone narrows the highway to one lane and you find yourself stuck behind a semi.
VvvvvvvvvVMMvvvvvvVMMM VMMM VVMMMMM! One of the motorcyclists pulls up besides you. He aims.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You shove into him, and he hits a pylon. His motorcycle goes down, with his leg under it. It looks like he’s down for the count.
The other motorcyclist is more cautious. He stays behind you and to the side. You see his arm raise a pistol.
BLAM! Kkk-krsssh! There goes the rear window.
You have to do something. You look around the car, but there’s nothing, no weapons, just one of those windshield scrapers.
Hell, it’s worth a shot. You pick up the windshield scraper, roll down your window and chuck it at the motorcycle. In a million-to-one shot, it bounces off the pavement and lodges in the rear wheel’s spokes. The motorcycle jolts up and to the left, and the driver is launched forward.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! He shoots at you, but his aim is wild. You watch as the motorcycle tumbles down the bank. You did it! You’ve gotten away from them!
SCRAAAA-BAAMMM! You were so busy glancing over your shoulder you didn’t even see that one of the tires on the semi truck had just blown out, probably shot by a stray bullet, and that the trailer was jackknifing. You plow right into it.
You’re blinking in and out of consciousness. You can hear a wooo-wooo-wooo of sirens in the distance. There’s a thunk that kind of sounds like the door of the semi truck closing as the driver hops out. You struggle to keep your head upright as the semi truck driver approaches your car. He plants his hands on the window frame. Big, beefy hands, with FHT in Gothic script on his right ring, middle and index finger knuckles, and AGN on his left index, middle and ring.
Today’s prompt: “Things you should throw away but can’t”
Your corpse, and all of the evidence.
Today’s prompt: “Begin a letter: ‘I am telling you this story because you are the only person who will not judge me…’”
I am telling you this story because you are the only person who will not judge me. Most people would never sympathize with me because I serve the Old Ones coming to devour our plane. And my fellows in the Church of Starry Wisdom would condemn me for my utter incompetence, for setting the Order back 10 years in their progress toward summoning the Haunter of the Dark.
Only you will not judge me. You’re like the patron saint of cultist fuck-ups.
I recently translated the text of a newly uncovered summoning ritual. Only, I think I may have transposed a few letters, maybe conjugated a few words wrong. I should have figured something was wrong when the blood curdled, but the egg whites never formed stiff peaks.
It seemed at first like things were working right. We painted a pentagram on the floor, copied all the symbols from the book in each corner, put on our dark robes, slaughtered a goat, and held hands and chanted at midnight. And this tear started opening up in the fabric of reality. We saw glimpses of a surreal dimension beyond, with a sky like an acid trip. And the Haunter appeared at the opening portal. My heart skipped. I had done it!
But then everything started going wrong. The tear began shrinking, before it was ever large enough for the Haunter to come through. He bellowed, and then he reached out a shadowy hand and grabbed me, just as his arm was forced back into his home dimension.
I had about two seconds to take in the dimension before the Haunter swallowed me whole. The atmosphere felt like my skin was boiling. I’m still not sure if the air was filled with the screams of a thousand damned souls, or if that was just me.
I know I screwed up. I know it’s going to take another decade for the stars to align for the ritual again. But I take some solace in knowing that I’m here with you. At least, I assume that’s you.
The Church of Starry Wisdom has records of another cultist who tried a similar ritual decades ago, back in 2019. That’d be you. You found the Amulet of Nephren-Ka, called for in the Rites of the Shining Oculus. You translated the rites, gathered the ingredients, made a big potion in a cauldron, and once it was bubbling deep black bubbles, you dropped in the amulet. It immediately melted, and then the mixture boiled out of the cauldron onto the floor. A deep ring formed in the floor where the potion boiled out, and the Haunter’s hands and head reached through. But then the hole began to contract, and the Haunter of the Dark grabbed you as he was sucked back through into his own dimension. One of the priests looked over your work afterwards and noticed that you didn’t carry the one. I’m not trying to rub your nose in that or anything. I just feel so relieved I’m not the only one, and I’m sure you’d feel the same if you could still feel anything.
There’s no way you can read this letter, of course. But I felt like I had to tell this to someone, to get it off my chest. I’m just going to stick this over there in your ribcage.