Story
Wall
At the end of every round, we will post our "Judge favorites"--a handful of stories that received the highest points from our Judges.
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Round Two
Challenge: Write a 300-word first person story based on the below picture aesthetic.
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Making Friends
by Beka Gremikova
The apothecary shop is quiet when I enter. I don’t use the front door. Instead, I slip through the back, passing shelves of deceitfully shiny vials—trust me, you don’t want to drink from one—until I reach the storefront.
Leaning against the counter, Georgiana sorts bills and coins into her worn cash drawers. A glinting silver dollar drops to the floor. Smooth and automatic, she swoops to retrieve it.
Business as usual, I see. Always money on her mind.
“Hullo there again!” I chirp, loud enough that she must hear me…whether she wants to or not.
She jumps back, a shriek erupting from her lips. Her gaunt face whitens, but, unlike our first encounter, she doesn’t faint. Instead, she smoothes her skirts and straightens. “Why are you here?” she snaps.
I sense the slightest waver, an undercurrent of fear, in her words.
A thrill courses through me. For once, I have the power. I materialize enough for her to see me as I shrug in response. “Perhaps I want to be your friend.”
Her eyes nearly pop, and her composed features crumple. “But I—I killed you!”
“Perhaps, but such things can be forgiven.” I hope she can’t sense my lie. Attempting nonchalance, I continue, “Why did you do that, anyway?” For money, obviously, but surely there must be more to it. I start to pace, hovering above the dark polished floors. “I didn’t even know you.”
Flinching, she bows her head. “Poisoning is never personal,” she murmurs.
Perhaps not, but hauntings are.
Though I cannot physically harm her, I will make her sorry. She will realize that, of everything she’s done in her life, killing me was the worst choice she ever made.
I will make friends with my murderer, and I will make her pay.
Haven't I Given Enough?
by Em Allen
Drip.
Put a man in a room with a steady, predictable noise—the ticking of a pocket watch, or the like—and he will adapt quickly, to the point of the sound going unnoticed. Most would consider this a rather agreeable feature of the human brain.
Drip.
Put a man, instead, in a room with the inconsistent leaking of a broken fountain pen, and the sound might just drive him insane. Under such duress, he may find himself doing all manner of crazy things, such as considering a deal with the devil—not that Peter Hughes was actually the devil, though that particular debate is pretty well split down the middle by those who know him.
Drip.
Put a man—put me—in a room with more money than I’ve ever seen just sitting there, to the right of that infernal contract, and call it my first paycheck? Enough to stop hearing my kids’ stomachs rumbling as I tuck them into scratchy straw beds, enough to fix the window that won’t close, enough for a winter’s worth of firewood. I might find my hand creeping towards the pen.
Drip.
Put me in a room with a monster guaranteeing the corrosion of my bearing, my morals, the skin under my fingernails, and one might expect me to hesitate, if not for the din of the ink falling to the floor and the promise of stability staring back at me.
Drip.
Put me in a room with Hughes, a line for me to sign, and a man who broke the devil’s contract, and perhaps I’ll pick up the pen, before I lose my nerve. Maybe I’ll do it, if not to save my family, then to rid my sight of the example slumped in the corner, eyes glazed and glassy as his blood drips onto the flagstones.
Beautiful Lies
by Rachel Leitch
Beware of everything, reads the sign.
It ought to know me better.
Stairs wind up and down the shop interior, lined with salamanders, succulents, and other oddities.
I slap some red-stained bills on the empty counter. Small price.
I could wander, no one to stop me. That’s the secret. Once wandering, one might never leave.
Focus. I’m here for just one thing. Took months to find this place again, the way it hops about the streets.
I take the stairs two at a time, studiously ignoring the mirrors and the regrettable portraits of Uncle Forrester. I glance in each room, but the wares camouflage what I seek. “Vain peacocks.”
Harmonicas whine. Teacups screech. Shyer items shuffle forward. Items I’d have looked at for hours. Items I’d promise to take home with me.
Promises I broke when I forgot to leave the shop.
I rub my eyes. I could search for hours and not find anything. I shake my head and dare to peep in the next room.
There she is. Dusty potions in ancient glass jars line the shelves, the lids lying on the ground.
“Alice,” I call from the doorway.
She drops a fairy-tale book on her scuffed shoe. “Maddox.”
“Are you ready to go?” Hope rises in my chest.
My sister only smiles lazily and turns a slow circle, stretching. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
I blow out my breath. “It’s all lies, darling.”
She sighs towards the ceiling. “But they’re beautiful lies.”
“Please come. We need you. We miss you.” I hold out one hand.
“They need me too.”
“But they won’t miss you when you leave.”
That has never occurred to her. She glances long at the rustling potions. Slowly, she reaches for me with one hand, the other hand lingering on the book.
The door closes softly.
A Dark Heart's Death
by Lillianna Joy
“Zerina, we got him.”
My head snaps up, meeting his cold eyes in the dark, as a dark curl of soft hair sweeps across my cheek. I lift my hand and wrap it around the cold, firmness of the gun at my belt. The wet, muggy dampness of the tunnel sucks at my lips, like the hollow anger swallowing my heartbeat, as I stand, pushing down the shadows of memories threatening to drown me in their suffocating depths.
I hear him before I see him, and the mere sound of his voice shatters my heart with screams of murderer. Betrayer. Killer.
And now I’m the one holding the power, holding the reins. Holding the gun. This time, he’s not getting away.
“Gentlemen, you’ve got the wrong man, I promise you. I’m not who you’re looking for—”
“Yes. You are.” My voice steals the warmth from the dripping sewage pipe, and the color from his face. A long exhale leaves his body, hanging between my men, as he slowly turns to look at me.
“Z,” he sighs, his voice almost… tender. Sad.
The butt of my gun slams into his jaw, silencing him with a trail of blood. “No, you don’t get to call me that anymore, murderer.”
The shock in his eyes, hidden behind a curtain of his curly wet hair, sends a bullet to my core, igniting it with fury. And pain. The ache of a thousand memories. “What?! Are you serious? They told you—no.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t—”
“Yes, yes you did. You killed him—you killed my brother!” I scream.
And now his eyes are serious, sad, and sucking me in, just like before. “No. I didn’t kill him, Zerina. You did.”
The Price of Trusting
by Ellisha Glover
A knife pressed against my throat.
Below me, storm-tossed waves buffeted the cliffs, but even they couldn’t help. I could only pray my King would give me strength. Out of the shadows, a familiar figure emerged, taller and stronger than when I’d last seen him. “So you believed me.”
I didn’t answer, trying to reconcile this cold figure with the boy I’d known before evil men stole his heart and encaged him in falsehood.
“You should have known it was all lies… sister.”
His eyes were wild, as if someone had taken the waves below and crammed them into two glass orbs. Wild, and scared.
“I’ll deal with it from here,” my brother said, taking the knife from my captor. Through it, I could feel him trembling.
“Why did you come?” he asked, when we were alone. “You were safe. Now you’re going to die!” His voice fell to a whisper. “And I have to kill you.”
For a split second, I didn’t think he’d do it. Then—pain, and sticky wetness started dripping down my neck.
“Why did you trust me?” His eyes had broken into glass splinters.
I smiled, despite my impending death. “I didn’t trust you; I trusted my King. I wanted to set you free and he sent me here. He wants you to come home… I want you to come home.” The darkness was turning to light, my breath fading, but I had one last thing to say. “The king’s troops are waiting outside to release you.”
My brother’s tortured, hopeful expression was the last thing I saw before I was kneeling in the King’s throne room, his hand on my shoulder. Far away, beside a stormy ocean, shining soldiers stood around a broken man weeping for his sister’s death and the life it had brought.
The Proposal
by K. Z. Richards
I let out a fitting gasp, light and feminine. “Oh, Martin, it’s beautiful.”
Actually, it’s smaller than my last, and heaven knows he could’ve afforded better, but I gape at the ring, nonetheless, turning it this way and that.
“You really like it? The jeweler was a real shifty fellow—I’m sure I saw him reach for my wallet once—but I had it certified. One carat, VS1, and verifiably not one of those lab-grown ones.”
“So thoughtful.” I smile, and blush for good measure.
The other guests in Le Palais offer congratulatory smiles then return to their dinners. Soon, a waiter brings ours, steaming bowls of beef bouillabaisse. It’s warm and savory and expensive, so it is not with feigned pleasure that I devour my first bite. Martin, though, sniffs his suspiciously, wafting the fumes toward himself with stubby fingers. He reminds me of a chipmunk every time he does this, his furry cheeks twitching around his prominent teeth, but I leave him to his ritual. It’s easy enough to read the thoughts circling behind his black, wary eyes: You can’t trust anyone, Jules.
When the sommelier presents a bottle of red cabernet, my fiancé studies the bottle carefully and sniffs his glass longer than most would think necessary. A small sip leaves a blood-red stain in his snow-white beard.
I almost pity him. His will be easier than the last. Easier to make look natural, that is. A genuine smile pulls at the corners of my lips. “To our wedding and every day after,” I say and drink deeply.
Medicine
by Lulu M.
(Website coming soon at www.wordsandwildflowers.com)
“Give them a taste of their own medicine.” She’d choked.
My fingers tremble as I rifle through my satchel, emptying the glass bottles into her mixing bowl. A pinch of chrysicha, a drop of malentine, some tilaphen. Separate, life-giving; together, deadly. The Northman invader beside me groans, tossing his head back, face reddened in the flame-light. His breathing is as weak as hers was when she slipped away in my arms. I still can hear the ghosts of her sobs in the deadness of the street.
“Let me die knowing Justice is swift somewhere in this world.”
Timbers crack behind me as the home we built together, that we built for our future children, collapses in flame. Swiping an arm across my eyes, I snatch her spoon from the pouch, combining the elements. The liquid turns acheron black.
This soldier will be the first to pay for her precious life. I’ll kill more of them in my sickbay than an army of warriors. They’ll understand what it means to murder a healer, to murder my wife.
The Northman was hit by a poison arrow. Usually fatal; not always. Remediable with terresca powder. I’ll give him just enough of this to kill him, but not make it quick. Cupping the bowl in my hands, I ready myself to pour it down his throat.
The young man’s darting gaze lands on the healer’s crest dangling around my neck. His hand, clutching spasmodically at the hilt of his sword, drops. He forces himself upright, gritting his teeth. Nods.
“T-thank you.”
I don’t move.
He waits, breath hitching, shuddering, warm eyes fixed on me with childlike trust - with gratitude.
I drop the bowl, inky liquid spilling over the dusty street, and snatch the terresca bottle.
I’m sorry, Landaylia.
Pretium Fallax
by Alyssa Chesterton
I’ll never forget the day you entered my shop with clear determination. As you demanded to speak with me there was no hesitation. You were desperate, and I’ll admit it started then.
Desperation drives people to the greatest lengths, no matter the end.
You were dying and no answers could be found, you could only be kept comfortable till you
were laid in the ground. You refused to accept this and in asking around, your search led you to
my small town.
Little did you know of the oath I lived under, for centuries upon more my good will was
plundered. Being forced to lend aid to all who came to my door, this was the price of the years I
asked for.
No cure existed, but you refused to stop there. You demanded my help and asked for my fare.
“Money is no object, I have more than enough. I have too much to live for, too many things to
give up.”
My mind started reeling, I’d heard those words before, spoken from my own mouth when my life
seemed no more.
This caused a stir for what you did ask, my time could be over, my contract fulfilled at last.
Rejecting your offer of payment I instead proposed a trade, your services for the cure that would
take a year to be made. I spoke of my work and the time I had lived, your eyes seemed to light up
deep from within. This deal I offered was everything you desired. All the time in the world
where sickness could not transpire.
As I reached out and took your hand in mine. You’d never have known that my smile hid lies.
This life I had lived, far longer than I wanted. Now fell upon you, and immortality daunted.
Round One
Challenge: Write a six-word story based on the theme "Buyer Beware".
Author:
Lillianna Joy
They warned me. I loved anyway.
Author:
Sandrina de klerk
The price? His flag-draped casket.
Author:
Grace Hsu
A soulmate, for half your soul.
Author:
Esther Sears
Dead bodies line the grocery shelves.
Author:
Elizabeth Holden
Midnight Auction: sirens and shapeshifters common
Author:
Ellisha Glover
Proven: product erases user. Source unknown.
Author:
Beka Gremikova
Biggest regret? Buying that comb.
Author:
Olivia Gratehouse
Reminder: giant squid insurance is nonrefundable.
Author:
Anne of Lothlorien
"Trade my memories for peace? Deal."
Author:
Rachel Ann Michael Harris
"Just... watch the teeth."
"What teeth?"
Author:
Bethani Theresa
Buyer beware! Don't free the jinni.
Author:
Kayla E. Green
Selling a self-playing piano; definitely not haunted.
Author:
Ava Thompson
Terms & conditions include your soul.
Author:
Lulu M.
"Cause of death?"
"Small print, sir."
Author:
Skye Hoffert
Product is prone to emotional outbursts.
Author:
Em Allen
Used Honda Civic! (Minimal fire damage).
Author:
Silas Carter
*Urn may prophesy loudly upon opening.