Hello Hello, welcome to this weeks response to the six-sentence story prompt of the week FILM. I wanted to write something in the horror genre for Halloween, but while it is horrifying, I didn’t quite hit the mark. Follow our narrator as she returns to a perfectly quiet house, which can be one of the worst things when the house shouldn’t be empty!
She knew something was wrong from the moment she opened the door, to the intense kind of quiet that had never existed in her home, and a layer of dust on the floor.
In the living room a half cup of coffee sat, with a film of separated milk floating on top, and when she hit the kitchen, she knew that the news was going to be terrible.
A glass lay shattered on the floor, the dried juice around it the parody of a puddle, and three servings of macaroni and cheese sat on the table, entirely untouched.
She began running then, calling out for her husband, her children, as she went from room to room, only to find it empty, looking for all the world as if they were simply there one moment and gone the next.
She pulled her phone from the nightstand and watched as it turned on with agonizing slowness, wishing for once that she had the kind of job where she could take it with her, but nothing would change that now.
When the backlog finally loaded, she scrolled through them, horror mounting with each new message, until she reached the one that spoke of a loss that could not be overcome, and she knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
So you could ask me what happened, and I could tell you about 12 different stories, because I didn’t really plan that. This is one of those stories where you get to decide what happened. I have always found that what we can imagine is much worse than what actually occurs.
Anne McSommers' Writing Nook 
As Bill Waterson said when he refused to explain “the Noodle Incident” in his Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, what the readers can dream up is certainly much more than anything he could think of.
You’ve left us to image the horror and dread of what she has to face now. Excellently done.
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That was the exact intent, glad I got there. Thanks for the feedback
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Top shelf work in keeping us in suspenders. Loved it, especially ‘the dried juice around it the parody of a puddle’.
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hey, cut it out! you keep grabbing my favorite lines! (the parody of a puddle)
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Glad you liked the puddle!
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That was my favorite line as well. Glad you liked it
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veru well done
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Excellent Six. (A story with the last page torn from the spine…the best kind!)
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It was actually inspired in part by that concept. I was watching the episode of MASH where they were missing the end of the book
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Well presented buildup. It makes me wonder what happens next even if it is only one of 12 possible endings.
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Provide your OWN twist. I like it!
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I always enjoy a story where you get to decide what happened.
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A true horror. Reminds me of how some of the family members must have felt in the series The Leftovers when they discovered their loved ones gone.
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To leave the macaroni and cheese on the table untouched, it must have been an absolutely horrific event that had overtaken them.
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I know, not even time for the KD…
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Confident drawing of the impact of life changing events.
And bravo, for the open ending…the places our minds take us!
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Imagination running rings, lol.
No kidding, Anne – the possible storylines are many. Nicely done.
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I actually came up with a whole event, and then realized it worked better leaving what happened out.
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