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Tildes writing prompt week 2!
You're home alone and watching TV. Yawning, you tilt your head to loosen up the knots in your neck and out of the corner of your eye see a dark, fast, blur. When you focus on that spot, you can't see anything, so you turn back and continue watching. It happens again during a blink, but as you turn your head you almost catch it. Another round of this and you are positive you aren't going crazy, so you blink but turn your head as you open your eyes.
Shout-out to Mozzribo for the idea. I hope this is inspiring enough to the writers out there! If anyone is interested in doing a prompt next week just say so in the comments. Thanks everyone!
"Since then I told him many lies, led him by his nose, fooled him, covered him in illusions, deceived him, fabricated falsehoods around his reasoning, I tricked him." I love this part, and in fact that whole paragraph. Reminiscent of my own writing, or rather, something I wish I had written!
The whole thing was really great. I love how your mind turned the prompt to this.
I am home alone and watching TV. Yawning, I tilt my head to loosen up the knots in my neck and out of the corner of my eye I see something dark -- and I see it move -- and I blink.
I am home alone and watching TV. Yawning, I feel a knot in my neck and tilt my head to loosen it. Out of the corner of my eye I see something move in the dark -- and I blink.
I am home alone and watching TV. "Oh boy," says Scott Bacula as he leaps from one life to the next. I try to focus on the show and ignore the nagging tenderness in my neck. Something dark ripples at the edge of my vision. I twist my head to look. The pain in my neck pangs -- and I blink.
I am home alone and watching TV. "Oh boy," I say with Quantum Leap's refrain. I check the run time for the episode and stand to get some ice for my neck. Walking into the kitchen, a sliver of sunlight light strikes my eyes -- and I blink.
I am home alone and watching TV. "Oh boy," says Scott Bacula, alone this time. Wasn't I in the kitchen? I check the episode run time. I scan my room and squint to focus on the growing, shimmering, darkness that does not sharpen. I feel the strain on my eyes -- and I blink.
I am home alone. Aren't I? I tilt my head back, ignoring the sting in my neck. "Oh boy," says Scott Bacula. I try to calm my nerves and slow my steadily rising heart rate. I breathe deep -- and I blink.
"Oh boy," says Scott Bacula as I crack my front door. Cold air rushes in and stings my eyes. I squint as they fill with tears, trying not to close them. Don't close. Don't. -- and I blink.
I scream -- and I blink -- and I blink...
This is great! I really like what you did with the prompt.
The chair is warm, welcoming.
The TV fills the room with a dull glow, and the haze of white noise as the latest drama plays out.
I feel myself begin to drift off, and my eyes grow heavy.
I blink.
I feel a kick in my chest as my heart starts - I saw something move.
My head swivels, the room is empty, as it should be. Nothing disturbing the dull roar of chaos that my trash has.
Nothing there, just the paranoia of tiredness.
I settle back down, calm my heart and close my eyes.
The flash happens again, stopping in front of me as my eyes open, revealing nothing. But something had been there.
I swear it. It had been right in front of me, and right when I was about to see it, it was gone.
I shiver, and I blink.
Terror fills me, and I scramble up my chair, falling backwards and cracking my head on the hardwood floor as I tumble.
Something had been there, some sort of black shadow, standing, waiting.
I stood up, eyes sweeping the room. Nothing. I rub my face with frustration. As my eyes involuntarily blink, the figure reappears, directly in front of me.
A shade, a monster hidden in black cloth, holding a weapon by his side.
The scream comes before I realise I've made it, and I turn to run, tripping on my own goddamn mess, and the floor slams into my face, hard.
A flash of white bone feet beside me.
I force myself upright shakily, starring at the red patch on my floor in confusion, before feeling the sticky mess on the side of my head.
Hell.
I've got to be sleeping.
This has to be a nightmare.
I stumble forwards unsteadily, grabbing for a knife from the kitchen, spinning to look around the kitchen for the thing.
An empty, but disturbed apartment greets my gaze.
I was making an arse out of myself, for what? Sleep-deprived delusions?
I relaxed, and closed my eyes.
Opening them again was a mistake.
My eyes gazed into an empty hood, falling into eternal darkness, and the end of all things.
I dropped forward, the knife falling first.
I like near the end when they doubt themselves a final time before they meet their doom.
Ah yes. A good question.
Thanks. The inevitability of death, and consequences of fate are always fun ones to play with.
Heh. I've written about that too... In my mind, there's no way a human wouldn't go utterly insane if it happened to them. It's maddening enough watching people repeat mistakes when they should know better. But watching civilisations rise, make the same mistakes and fall? When anybody you reach any kind of connection to always dies? It'd strip you of everything and anything you could call yours.
I'm not sure we can define humanity that way. Everything would be new (artists around the world shivered in excitement).
Some of our defining features, like family, and work, and hobbies and invention, all rely on change, and growth. You raise a kid in attempt to create someone better than you, and you pass on everything you can to them, and then die... If you both live forever, that motivation may be gone. Familial attachment might become unnecessary.