Welcome back to the Weird, the Wild, & the Wicked, and a whole new year of #ThursThreads flash fiction. So let's get started. It's Thursday again, so what should you be doing? Writing #FlashFiction, that's what! Welcome to Week 56 of #ThursThreads, the challenge that ties tales together. Need the rules? Read on!
Here's how it works:
- The prompt is a line from the previous week's winning tale.
- The prompt can appear ANYWHERE in your story and is included in your word count.
Rules to the Game:
- This is a Flash Fiction challenge, which means your story must be a minimum of 100 words, maximum of 250.
- Incorporate the prompt as written anywhere into your story (included in your word count).
- Post your story in the comments section of this post
- Include your word count (or be excluded from judging)
- Include your Twitter handle or email (so we know how to find you)
- The challenge is open 7 AM to 7 PM Pacific Time
- The winner will be announced on Friday, depending on how early the judge gets up. ;)
How it benefits you:
- You get a nifty cool badge to display on your blog or site (because we're all about promotion - you know you are!)
- You get instant recognition of your writing prowess on this blog!
- Your writing colleagues shall announce and proclaim your greatness on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus
Our Judge for Week 56:
The Steampunk maven, sci-fi fan, and #flashfiction author, Theresa Breaux.
So now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“You can get up now.”
All stories written herein are the property (both intellectual and physical) of the authors. Now, away with you, Flash Fiction Fanatics, and show us your #ThursThreads. Good luck! :)
Tony rapped his knuckles on Colby's helmet. "You can get up now."
ReplyDelete"Give me a minute," Colby rasped as she spit a black mix of dust and benzene into the trench. "Sumbitch stings."
Tony grunted as he peered over the trench. "Yep. Still burnin'."
Colby wiped her eyes and coughed before straightening up. Tony offered her his canteen. She swigged a mouthful of water, swished and spit. "Virginia Seventeenth?"
"Probably. Bastards love their firebombs, don't they?"
Colby cracked her neck and looked over the vinyl coping onto the wasteland. A wide swath of charred earth crackled with waves of superheated air. The skeletons of buildings warped in the distance, black girders bent and melting.
"Damn. I used to ski here."
Flak cannons pounded over the next mountain as the air rumbled with Eastern drop-jet engines. Tony snagged his canteen back and tucked it under his pack.
"Can't picture you in a snowsuit, Colby. Eerie as hell."
"Didn't used to be a war, you know."
The sky glowed with a red fireball as the Western flak rounds made contact with a drop-jet.
Tony shrugged. "Yeah." He shifted and asked, "Got any of that jerky left?"
Colby fished a slice of meat from her thigh pocket and handed it over, her hand trembling.
Tony gave Colby a long look before squeezing her hand and taking the jerky.
"There's gonna be snow again," he muttered.
"Someday."
They watched in silence as the jet wreckage fell over Denver.
244 words. @J_P_Sloan
Futures At Stake
ReplyDeleteAriella watched from the shadows as Erik disappeared beneath the villager’s onslaught. In spite of his enhanced abilities, the farmers were large, rawboned fellows with courage fortified by considerable quantities of alcohol. She shook her head as the spectacle unfolded. This, she surmised, could not help but go badly for her old friend.
She stifled laughter as the press of bodies parted and she glimpsed Erik struggling with impotent rage. His protests were silenced, in rather a final manner, as a two-foot length of sharpened ash wood was pounded into his chest with brutal efficiency.
Though she’d intended to remain solely an observer, she was forced to act when one of the stalwarts produced a short ax and made ready to lop of Erik’s head. With a sigh, she knocked an arrow and dropped the wielder to the ground. Five more arrows struck home before the mob found discretion the better part of valor and fled into the night.
Dropping from the rafters she bent over the lifeless body and quipped, “You can get up now. Those sheep will regain their nerve soon enough and be back to finish the job.”
With a grin, Erik sprang up, removing the offending stake with obvious distaste. “I swear it was not my fault this time, Ariella!”
“Save the story, fool, and let’s get the hell out of here. You can’t always count on having two hearts to save you.”
“Why, of course, I can’t my dear. That’s what I have you for.”
250 words @klingorengi
It seemed a night like any other, I dressed in my pajamas falling asleep quickly, awaking only to the sound of glass breaking. I jumped out of bed with a start and ran to the sound, baseball bat in hand. There I found a man in the shadows.
ReplyDelete“Come with me. You’re in grave danger.”
“You have to be joking! A complete stranger comes into my house, breaks my window and you expect me to go with you?”
“Gloria don’t you recognize me. It’s Tyler.”
“Tyler? But I haven’t seen you in years.”
“Gloria there isn’t much time. Come with me now.”
I followed him outside to the park across the street, where he told to sit in the grass. Seconds later I saw with great horror my house blew up all that left was rubble.
“You can get up now, the danger has past,” Tyler exclaimed.
He smiled at me and I felt a soft brush against my lips.
“Goodbye Gloria,” he said as he disappeared into the shadows of the dark night.
The firemen told me that I would be dead if I had been in my bed.
It was then that I truly came awake and I remembered the reason why I hadn’t seen Tyler in years. Tyler had been killed in a car accident when we five. He’d run in front of a car to save me and now he saved me again, but I would have given anything to have him alive with me again.
250 words
@SweetSheil
Thirty five years I have been part of this play, a drama no a tragedy a million men under the thumb of brutal oppression. The Vigs grabbed power before we were born and passed it on to their sons and daughters. They control the steam and steam powers the earth, their machines create and destroy at will. They say we should be thankful, they feed us and cloth us dish out food and occasional medicine to keep us alive so we can shovel the coal, pour the molten steel, build even greater machines to conquer even greater men, the wild men who still resist, the ones not owned, the ones free who mock our masters and steal from the periphery. Living lives of plunder and lawlessness, taking food from the wild instead of the factories.
ReplyDeleteMy brothers you do not have to live under the yoke of oppression, you can get up now. Rise with me open your eyes, those are not outlaws, they are righteous men let us join them in fighting the Vigs, my words carry a death sentence, yet I scream them out at the top of my lungs, because my life is not worth preserving, but it should be, please I beg you join me do not shovel another load, do not break another bone in the service to someone who thinks you are less than a man. Stand with me and if we are to die lets die as men.
@antonioangelo21
word count 250
A life without you. I don't know what that is like. I don't like changes. They make me question what I know, they snatch my security blanket, leaving me all alone in the cold, being on the outside, looking in.
ReplyDeleteYou left our house this morning said you needed some time alone. Didn't you have that already? We have become two strangers, occasionally bumping into each other. I don't remember your smile; did you ever smile or did I just dream of it?
Do I still love you? I don't know. I know I love the idea of you and me being together. I know I love thinking that our years together actually meant something. I know I love your shadow in the house. I know you will reach out to catch me if I fall...won't you?
''That is perfect Jo. No more takes needed. You can get up now'' said the director, flipping through his notes.
Word count: 157
@MaryPapas2
Excuses
ReplyDeleteHead throbbin’. Feels like I’ve been hit by a freakin’ eighteen wheeler. Last thing I remember was walkin’ along, mindin’ my own business, when outta nowhere….WHAM! Everything went black.
“You can get up now.”
The voice is soft and musical, but hurts my head all the same. I blink a few times, lookin’ up. Vision’s blurry at first, then clears. There’s a girl lookin’ down at me. She’s really pretty, in an odd sort of way. Slowly, I sit up, bracin’ myself with my hands to keep from fallin’ over again. Her gaze is wary, and the thick club she grips keeps me sittin’ down.
“What is this place?” A boy has joined her, looking sharply at me.
I look around slowly. Things are still spinnin’. I’m not on the road any more; they musta dragged me off inta the trees.
“Answer me.” The boy pokes me with a…sword?
“Gimme a minute, willya? After all, ya nearly knocked my brains outta my head.” I think for a minute. “I was on the road, comin’ from Knoxville, toward Smithville. Don’t know where ya dragged me though.”
Impatient, the boy shakes his shaggy head. “What planet?”
“E..earth,” I stammer out, lookin’ more closely at these folks, and realizin’ they ain’t a girl and a boy, but full growed.
“By the Gods, Tisdale, I told you we overshot!”
They join hands and are gone in an instant.
An’ Honey, I swear to ya, that’s why I’m late gettin’ home.
247 words {including title}
@Angelique_Rider
“You can get up now.”
ReplyDeleteI imagined my glare was a heat-ray, melting my interrogator into a foaming pile of blue glop. “You get up first, snot-head.”
His face remained impassive. “Hostility hurts only the hostile, young man.”
The top of his head came to a weird, narrow point, and his skin glinted green in the light. I imagined the roof crashing on his head and ripping it right off.
But all I said was, “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you get up first anyway. Walk a mile in my shoes and all that. Maybe you’ve heard that one.”
“I’ve heard it. However, perhaps you will observe that you are not in a position to give orders.”
His gravelly voice filled the room. It’s true he towered over me and was probably three times my size, and there was something about that lima bean-colored skin that made my stomach hurt. I considered what he said, I really did; I thought about it real hard before doing what I did next. I don’t want you to think I was being dumb or anything.
I kicked him. Kicked him hard as I could.
His legs buckled—-he talked all show-offy, but he obviously hadn’t expected THAT, ha!—-and then he fell hard on the ground and lay there for a long minute, not talking. I just stared.
“I'm no expert,” came a soft voice from the door, “but I bet this is the last time your father takes you camping, Ben.”
250 words
@postupak
"You can get up now. I think they're gone."
ReplyDeleteKendra held her hand out to the small girl in front of her and helped stand her on her feet. She was unharmed. All except for the tears running down her face from the shock of the event. Kendra couldn't blame her though. She had been through the very same thing only five years before.
To watch your parents eaten alive by zombies was not something you could get over quickly.
Kendra kneeled before the girl and held her close. The racking sobs coming from her frail body caused a single teardrop to fall down Kendra's cheek.
"Shhh...." Kendra rubbed the girl's back gently. Slow circles like her own mother used to do to her. "It's going to be okay."
The girl hiccupped a little. She pulled her head back to look at Kendra, her pale blue eyes still shining with unshed tears.
"Will they come back?"
Kendra's heart seemed to stop at that question. Of course, they would. And when they did, they were going to finish this little girl off. Kendra had to save her. She stood.
"Yes." She held out her hand and the little girl gripped it tightly, like a lifeline. "But by then we'll be long gone."
211 words @bookwormattack
With a final grunt of frustration, the massive beast turned away from the liquid onslaught, and ran off through the thick bushes.
ReplyDeleteJyslin dropped her arms back to her sides, releasing her hold on the water. It splashed to the ground, lifeless and disappeared as it seeped into the sand. She swept her panicked gaze to the injured wolf, stomach knotted.
The black mass of fur was gone, and in its place lay a naked, bleeding man.
After a moments hesitation to ensure she wasn’t hallucinating, she rushed to his side on weak legs and fell to her knees. Jyslin studied him, unsure if moving him was a prudent choice. She might injure him further, but the only way to assess the extent of his injuries, was to turn him over and get a better look.
The man’s tortured groan made the decision for her. Jyslin carefully rolled him onto his back.
His head lolled to the side, black curls falling away from his face to expose his profile.
She gasped, recognizing the handsome, overtly sarcastic Lupine from the day before. Her eyes narrowed.
Has he been following me?
Jyslin darted a glance over her shoulder, wondering if Renark wasn’t close behind. When nothing moved but the breeze, she returned her attention to the injured man.
“You can get up now.”
The Lupine didn’t move.
226 words
@bexbrennan
Drake rolled over on top of Aliandra and pressed his hips against hers, grinding a solid ridge of wool-covered flesh over her mound. Delicious shots of pleasure hit her clit with each slide of his hard cock through their clothes and she moaned, rocking her own hips.
ReplyDeleteTheir tongues dueled for erotic supremacy as she dug her fingers into his shoulders and he drew back with a hiss. Blazing eyes of red looked down at her, hunger flushing his cheeks a rosy color. His lips pulled back from his teeth and his elongated canines flashed, sending arousal straight to her pussy.
Goddess, I want him to bite me.
“Drake,” she whispered. “Bite me.”
As if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over them, Drake froze and the red retreated from his eyes. All the color faded from his cheeks as his expression turned to chagrin and his canines retreated back to human length.
“Sweet Goddess, I’m so sorry, Dr. Cantora. I…I don’t know what came over me…”
Drake started to pull away, but she locked her arms around him to hold him still. “Wait.”
“If you want, you can get up now, Doctor. I won’t hold you here.”
“Aliandra.”
“What?”
“The name is Aliandra, and what if I don’t want to get up yet?”
He blinked, the thoughts churning behind his as she reached up with one had to stroke his face. “What if I would rather you feed from me again as you make love to me?”
250 ineligible #WIP500 words
@SiobhanMuir
Ugh. Found a typo. Heh, that's what makes it #flashfiction. The word "eyes" should be after the word "his" in the last paragraph. ;)
DeleteI set the can down on the coffee table, kicked off my shoes, and then racked out on the sofa. I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. When Danielle came back from getting dressed, she saw me and said, “You can get up now.”
ReplyDeleteI laughed, shook my head, and croaked, ““Nope. Can’t. Not ‘till da room stops movin’.”
She grabbed my hand, and pulled it upward, “Come on, you. Get up.”
“Nope,” I didn’t budge. I pointed to the coffee table.
“So, you’ve had a drink. That’s nothing. Get up.”
I laughed some more. “Chugged four.”
“Four?”
“Yep. Had that last chug. Looked out the winnow. And da trees took off for da hills.” I smiled. At least, I think I smiled. Maybe I leered. Danielle was cute, you know, and I was blitzed, so yeah, maybe I leered. “An I ain’t movin’ 'till da trees, ceiling and walls stop movin’.”
She pouted, with that look. The one grabs you where it counts and squeezes. The one you can’t ever argue with. “But, you were going to come to the banquet with me.”
I remember thinking I was toast.
“This is how you get out of it? Get drunk, so you can’t go?”
“Lead on, darlin’," I said, as I staggered to my feet. Standing before her, swaying I continued, “ I’m ready when you are.”
Then the ground moved up, toward my face.
I don’t remember anything after that.
250 Words
@LurchMunster
“Analyzing…and we’re clear. Alright, you can get up now,” the man in the white lab coat said.
ReplyDeleteJak opened his eyes. Deep inside his body, the cybernetic implants pulsed with heat.
“Did…did I save them?”
Major Davis stood over him, smiling and offering a hand. “You’re a god damn hero, son.”
Jak exhaled and all of the tension in his muscles vanished. “I can’t believe it worked.” He reached for the Major’s hand and struggled to his feet. The air was thick with the smell of burning wood and roasted flesh.
“Ten hostages rescued and all the bad guys killed. You’re a real life Captain America,” the Major said. “The ultimate fighting machine. Fast, strong, and deadly accurate. Do you remember anything?”
Jak shook his head. He remembered little of what happened after he jumped from the helicopter.
“Good,” the Major said. “Less PTSD problems, I would think. This couldn’t have gone better. You’re going to be remembered forever, son. By this time next year, all of our boys will have these implants.”
Outside of the compound, the hostages approached him, hugging him, thanking him and commending him on his courage and fearlessness. He smiled and nodded, but his eyes were focused on the compound door. Major Davis’s soldiers were dragging out the burned bodies of the captors and the mutilated bodies of their wives and children.
“You’re looking at the future,” Major Davis said, patting Jak on the back.
240 words
@hlpauff
“You can get up now.”
ReplyDeleteI looked down at my sister, who’d wiped out on the gravel. It’s a problem of living in the country.
“I can’t,” Priscilla said, as she shoved her bike off her leg. “I think I broke my leg.”
I snorted, stomping my foot.
“Just get up. You’ve wiped out on the gravel before, Cilla. I’m hot and I wanna go home.”
“Get dad!” she shouted and I sighed, stomping off to my purple bike.
Making my way back home, I ran into the garage where dad was.
“Where’s your sister?” daddy asked.
“She says she broke her leg. I left her up the gravel,” I said, pointing in her direction.
“Holy hell,” dad muttered, running for one of the work sheds he and Daddy Jacoby had. He returned with a four wheeler. “Let’s go.”
I held on tight as he moved up the gravel. “She’s faking, dad.”
“Hush, Eliza. A broken leg is very serious.”
I was quiet as daddy pulled up by Cilla. She was sitting on the gravel, crying, and I frowned. A skinned knee doesn’t hurt that bad.
“It’s broken,” dad said and I looked again. “Looks like we’re going to the hospital tonight.”
“Ow!” she cried, when daddy picked her up.
“Sorry, baby, but we have to get back to my truck. Eliza, you can ride on my lap this time only.”
I wonder how much attention I’m going to lose. I think she’s a wimp. It can’t hurt that bad!
@Aightball
250 words
“Come on, devil boy.” A dirty sneaker nudges my tender ribs and I hiss. “Satan called, you creepy bastard. He wants you back in hell.”
ReplyDeleteSand turned to mud by the afternoon storms oozes between my fingers, my hands clenching into fists. As though I ever throw the first punch.
Or the last.
I don’t have to. Patience is a virtue, though historically not my strong suit.
You can get up now. That’s what I tell myself in whispers they can’t hear. Show them who you are. Show them who they are fucking with.
But it’s the same everywhere I go, so I stay in the dirt where things are safer. Experience has taught me a downed target is less entertainment than a fighting one.
Be patient.
Strong hands grip my shoulders and help me to stand. I cast a cautious look over my shoulder and I smile at my savior.
“You okay?” he asks. He towers over me even when I regain my feet.
“Thanks, man,” I say.
“Don’t worry, kid,” he says. He slings an arm over my shoulder, an announcement to all. He’s taking the new kid under his proverbial wing. I’ve been accepted.
When they think I’m beaten, they stop paying attention to instincts as old as Man.
And then I strike.
I smile at my tormentors. The leader shivers. He sees his future in my face and knows he should have followed the primal fury driving him.
I’m not the devil boy.
Just the Devil.
@caramichaels
250 words
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thank you to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to see you next week. :)
ReplyDelete