Out of Focus

Hello Hello, the word of the week was blur and it got really weird.  The word blur was used for something moving to fast to see, and this week is horror, with all the blood, gore, and implied murder that I could pack into six sentences.  Don’t read if you are squeamish, and if you aren’t. then join our poor narrator, witness to something unspeakable. Really, it’s never spoken.


It was moving too fast for me to keep my eyes on it, and trying was starting to make me dizzy, or maybe that was the blood loss.

It was like a blur, moving in and out so fast I couldn’t focus on it, and when it stopped long enough for me to see, the carnage beneath it made me look away.

I was never one to have a weak stomach, but I had never seen so much of what should be on the inside spread in pieces across a white tile floor, and if I hadn’t been able to smell the copper thick on the air,  I would have thought I was looking at some bizarre modern art piece.

I knew that I was going to die, no one was going to survive this, and I should have fought it, rallied for life, but there was no way to forget this kind of horror, and there came a point where I knew that death would be a mercy, at escape from a life of trauma.

I wasn’t so lucky though, because that’s when the sirens rang in, loud and clanging, lights flashing blue and red, making the scene surreal in the ever-changing light through the window.

It ran, and I survived, not lived, survived, because I was missing too many pieces to enjoy my existence, every hour awake was pure agony, and yet it was the only respite I got from the abomination that haunted my dreams until the day I finally died.

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Repent

This one is a picture prompt response to this weeks image below. I want to continue the story of Lottie, the troubled teenager from Monday’s six-sentence story, who has been repenting for her sins, but hasn’t quite managed to get them all…


Lottie looked up the street from the passenger’s side of her mother’s car, and felt a fission of fear  go up her spine as she recognized the buildings around her.  They were almost there, almost at church. 

There was a time that thought would have thrilled her, but that was when church was a place she felt welcome, and she was young and innocent.  Now she had sinned, and this is the place where she would be judged for that which she had done.

Each week it was worse, as the wrath she felt grew from a tiny ember to a raging inferno with each day at school fueling the ever-growing flame.  She had managed she shed her pride, her envy, and battled her sloth daily, but the wrath she knew now was her one great weakness. 

As it was fed from the cruelty of her classmates, it had gone from being a timid thing to a monster that she could barely control, and she knew that one day it would be let loose upon the world.  That would be a day of reckoning, not for her and her trespasses, but for all those who trespassed against her.

For now she would bide her time, give them the chance to earn their salvation, while she knew for her that time had passed.   She would sit in the pew, bow her head, pretend to pray, and hope that no one would notice her falseness….


The story doesn’t end here, if you want to read what happens next, got to Part Three

Penance

The word of the week is SIN, and this is the direction my mind went.  Follow the story of Lottie, who feels like she is being punished for her sins, and must repents, because after all, that’s the only option….or is it?


Lottie sobbed as she looked down at her ruined clothing, knowing that the blood wouldn’t come out, and that there wouldn’t be any new clothes until Christmas.

It was her own fault, her own sin of pride that had made this happen, and the bloodstains she would be forced to wear would be just as much a punishment as the bleeding.

If she was honest with herself, and she should be if she wanted to repent, there had been quite a bit of envy, wrath, and greed that had led to this as well, to the day of her reckoning.

She should have known better than to try and leave her place, to rise above the station she was granted, but she had always thought that she could do better, be better, if she tried.

Maybe she should add sloth to the list, as her mother was always telling her she was lazy, that she wasn’t doing enough, and that if she just applied herself she would excel, but it seemed she never got there.

There was a part of her that felt guilt for her trespasses, but there was another part, a deeper, darker part, that looked out at all those people laughing, giving her mocking or pitying looks, and felt a smouldering rage that with each incident was being fanned up into a fire that could consume them all, or maybe just her, but only time would tell which way it would go.


Lottie’s story doesn’t end here, do you want to know more? Head on over to Part Two

Nos Sumus in Tenebris

This week’s six-sentence story prompt by girlontheege was EDGE. I wrote about a woman walking home after dark, with the feeling she is being followed. Or alternative summary “you aren’t afraid of being alone in the dark, you are afraid of not being alone in the dark.”


She wasn’t a paranoid person, and she couldn’t explain it, but tonight as she walked down the empty street towards her house she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was not alone.

She stopped and started a few times, took a few detours, picked up her pace, but every time she surveyed the area she could see that there was no one else around.

She could feel them through, the eyes watching her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up as every primal instinct told her that she was being hunted.

The area was residential, all the house lights off, and she had moved from a speed walk to a run when she she finally heard something scraping behind her, followed by a growl that reverberated down her spine as she was paralyzed by fear.

Then it was in front of her with the dim light of the street lamp glinting off the razor sharp edge of the teeth that were about to end her life and she had one final thought.

You aren’t paranoid if they are actually out to get you.


For those wondering about the title, we are in the dark nos sumus in tenebris