Five Memories

Today’s prompt: “Describe five memories – events you remember really well. Then take one of them further.”

One

The smell of the weird smoke that came out of the old ramshackle building on your way to the swimming pool with your friends. Derek says it’s marijuana. You remember passing the building again when you were a teen and knew more about pot. It was not any strain you recognized.

Two

The hum of machinery that started coming from the old ramshackle building on the way to the swimming pool about six months later. It was like whum-whum-whum-whum-BRABANG-whum-whum-SCREEEEEEEEEEEE-whum-whum-whum-CRICKCRUCKCRUSH-plip-plip-plipplipplipplipliplipliiiiiiip-whum-whum-CRACKABRACK! Derek says the building’s been turned into a factory for Frankenstein monsters. You all tell him he’s full of shit.

Three

The rusty brown stains that appeared on the sidewalk one morning in front of the old ramshackle building on the way to the pool. About the color of an old nosebleed on a Kleenex, and shaped like some weird symbol. Derek says that’s where all the hoboes pee, and claims the hoboes probably had diarrhea, too. You all tell Derek to shut up.

Four

The day Derek disappeared. About a year after Carrie, who was in Mrs. Vanderbeek’s class with you, disappeared. Which was about a year after Kyle disappeared. You all crossed the street for a while after that when you got near the old ramshackle building, and you told each other stories about a serial killer who’d escaped from prison and was staying there.

Five

The day you were passing by the old ramshackle building by yourself, and a hand reached out through the old ramshackle door frame and grabbed your arm. You try to pull away, but your assailant’s grip is very strong. You find yourself forced into the building, surrounded by three large men in black robes. One ties a gag around your mouth; one waves a scythe in your face; and the one who pulled you in pins your arm behind your back and pushes you toward stairs leading down.

The basement is lit by torchlight, and when your eyes have adjusted, you see the basement is massive. Men and women in black robes swing censers back and forth as they walk between pillars and past cryptic markings made in blood on the walls. They’re chanting quietly. Across the back wall is a giant wheel, scorched in places, and behind and above the wheel, you can see a crack in the wall.

The three men march you toward the wheel. As you get closer, it seems to you that some of the symbols on the walls are beginning to change shape. You can see a glow coming from the crack behind the wheel, and there are voices coming from it. Unearthly voices.

The men push you to the ground below the wheel. Several robed figures rush forward to tie your wrists and ankles to massive metal eyelets sunk into the floor. You struggle feebly. Honestly, this has seemed like a foregone conclusion from the moment your arm was grabbed. Maybe from the day Derek disappeared. Maybe from before that.

A man in a red robe stands ceremoniously by a series of levers. He throws one lever up and the wheel begins to spin. Whum-whum-whum. He lifts another lever. BRABANG! The wheel is hoisted up onto a post that juts out from the wall, over your body. The wheel keeps spinning, whum-whum-whum-whum. The man in the red robe slides a horizontal lever to the far right. The wheel spins down the post toward your feet, whum-whum-whum. When it reaches your ankles, the man in the red robe throws another lever. You hear a SCREEEEEEEE that appears to be coming from the post. It must have been the sound of the post separating at the point where the wheel was spinning, because it drops, crashing into the floor and your shinbones with a mighty CRICKCRUCKCRUSH. You scream in agony.

For a while, the wheel is silent, still. But then the man in the red robe throws another lever down. Clamps on massive chains lower from the ceiling with a series of plipplipplips, fasten themselves securely to the wheel, and raise it. The man in red slides a lever back and the segments of the post slam closed. The man moves the horizontal lever toward the left, and the wheel spins along the post, coming into position above your thighs.

When they’re done breaking you, your black-robed captors tie your body to the wheel itself, threading your crushed limbs through its spokes. They gather wood below you and light it with their torches. As the flames consume you, you can hear the unearthly voices in the wall reach a fever pitch, and with a CRACKABRACK, the crack in the wall begins to spread.

AFK

Posts will resume Monday.

So Mean

Today’s prompt: “The meanest thing anyone has ever said to you”

“You weren’t even that fun to kill.”

Ah-choo

Today’s prompt: “A sneeze”

Lazy Screenwriting 101: One of your characters is going to die of a terrible disease. Write a scene where they cough.

I know I’m not the first to point that one out. It’s right up there with dream sequences and amnesia, but it does seem like a particularly silly trope. Maybe it’s just a carryover from when all the ladies were dying of consumption, or maybe the writers just want to indicate the onset of an illness in a fairly genteel way, without all the mucus and body aches.

You don’t die of tuberculosis. You die of the flu. It leads to a lung infection that proves to be fatal. But up until then, it wasn’t a single gracious cough here and there. It was pretty gross. There was a lot of phlegmatic coughing, and there were many, many sneezes.

Found

Today’s prompt: “Something you found”

A pit trap, filled with spikes. The hard way.

Lost

Today’s prompt: “Something you lost”

Are you familiar with the Marvel villain Arcade? He creates these massive deathtraps, typically with an amusement park theme. He’s included giant, deadly pinball machines; giant, deadly carousels; giant, deadly mazes; and robot hockey players. He calls it “Murderworld.” He intentionally crafts his deathtraps so there’s always a chance you can escape, but your odds may be very low.

The witch seated before you must be a fan. And like any good villain, she’s monologuing.

“That draining feeling you’re experiencing is the feeling of having your life stolen away. Sucked out. I’m a Life Absorber. I can pull a person’s life out of them, all but the last minute of it, and trap it in an object of my choosing. They can reabsorb their life if they can find and destroy the object within that remaining 60 seconds.

“I’ve chosen to place your life in this ordinary blue plastic ball,” she says. “Simple to destroy. Just stab it with this pocketknife.” She tosses you a Swiss Army Knife. “All you have to do is find the ball,” she says, tossing it into a massive ball pit filled with identical ordinary blue plastic balls.

“Good luck finding it,” she calls over her shoulder as she strides out of the room. “Clock’s ticking.”

Hellevator

Today’s prompt: “Put two people who hate each other in an elevator for 12 hours. What happens?”

It’s not so much that the Tsavaroth demon hates you. It’s more that he hates all human beings. If anything, you’ve got to admire his restraint. The two of you sat in a metal box trapped between floors 4 and 5 for hours on end. Why he endured half a day of you attempting to make idle chitchat and drumming your fingers on the elevator doors before gutting you with his claws, I can’t say. But around hour 12, I guess he just got hangry.