Category: Prompts

What the hell was going on? We had landed with no problems. The previous host had easily sent us on our way and the group commander was aware of our intended target. But now that we’d landed, it was almost impossible to move away from the landing sight. Under ordinary – well, for some values of ordinary – circumstances we should have been able to set up a base camp at the landing site and then almost immediately move out to explore the near in area before sending out larger groups of colonists into the further reaches of the new host.

Continue reading “A Living Prison”

Roses. What was it with roses and Gran? Lina stared around the kitchen. Between the paper rose in the front window, the writing over the door into the kitchen from the hall, and now this. She had accepted that there was something strange, even otherworldly about this house. Somehow, she knew it had always been like this, even when she was a little girl, living there.

Continue reading “Falling Roses”

I stared at the house. I had grown up in that house, but it held no happy memories for me. No, I didn’t have an abusive childhood. Rather, it was simply a neglected childhood. I’d been fed, clothed, and sent to school, but that was it. The people who’d raised me had done so out of some sense of obligation to my parents, but that was it. They’d agreed to look after my needs – you couldn’t really say ‘took care’ of me – until I turned eighteen and was a legal adult. They’d told me I could stay in the house until I’d found a job and my own apartment, but it had been made clear that that had to happen quickly.

Continue reading “Odd Prompts: Invisible No More”

Wandering along the ridge top, Mikhail admired the view. The chain of mountains stretched east and west, and the setting sun sent long shadows streaming across the canyon below on the south side. To the north, broad plains stretched away to the horizon. He could see the rising crescent of what the landing crew was calling Moon #1. Mikhail shook his head in bemusement. The landing crew was devoid of poets or any other creatives. Moon #2 would rise about one Earth hour after Moon #1. He decided that one thing he would do tonight, before sleeping was come up with actual names for the moons. He knew the landing crew would take whatever they could get.

Continue reading “Exploring the Wild”

Kyra stared at Wainwright. He was standing just inside the front door, gazing around the pub, and rubbing his hands together in a weirdly gleeful way. She totally did not trust him and vowed to herself that she was going to keep an eye on him and make certain he didn’t sneak anything past her. Several of her regular customers had stopped by the bar to tell her that Miller Wainwright was not to be trusted at all.

Continue reading “The Game’s Afoot”

A few days later, Lina got a text from the movers letting her know they’d be at the house later that afternoon. She’d managed to arrange to move her stuff out to the west coast without having to return to Boston. Thank goodness for the internet and neighbors with keys who were willing to act as her agent while the movers cleared out her apartment.

Continue reading “A New Life”

Sophia glanced around the cottage and sighed. The shrouded furniture gave the room a haunted, waiting feel. And the dust bunnies were taking over. Wait. Did that one move? She rubbed her face.

Continue reading “Keeping the House”

Abbie sighed and stared into her coffee. “Okay. Owen Hopkins. Like I said, he’s a witch who has always been an asshole, and lately seems to be moving in a darker direction. As in, he’s been dropping major hints that he’s increasing his power through dark means.”

Continue reading “New Sensations”

A couple of days later, Lina stood in the living room of her grandmother’s, now her, house. She shook her head. How had this happened? Just a few weeks ago she was a wildly successful lawyer, on track to make partner next year, and now, she was finishing up the paperwork to open her own law office in the small town of Hidden River. Even though she’d grown up here, she’d never expected that she would give up city life and Big Law to come back and deal with the much less momentous problems of a small town population.

Continue reading “Strange Visitors”

“What’s that?” Abbie asked Lina as they walked arm-in-arm into the kitchen.

Lina’s eyes tracked up, following Abbie’s pointing finger. On the wall above the arched entrance to the kitchen, were the words

Let all who enter under this arch rejoice!

Done in black in a fanciful swirling calligraphy, the phrase gave an aura of blessing to the kitchen door.

Continue reading “There’s More to the Roses”