You recently got yourself a new dog from the shelter, thinking he was just your average domesticated canine. However, one night on a bright full moon you witness your dog make the horrible transformation into a human. You accidentally just bought a werehuman.
Instead of heaven and hell, when you die, you find yourself in a room with a six year old girl who invites you to join her tea party. It dawns on you, you’re her imaginary friend.
“Sit!” she beams, patting a small plastic stool around her table, the other chairs filled by stuffed animals. My mouth moves to speak, but nothing comes out. She beams up at me and I sigh, sitting awkwardly in the chair.
“My name is Princess Maegan.” She says, flicking curls over her shoulder. “This is Mr Fuzz.” She gestures to a stuffed bear on the chair to her right. It had brown fur with a green plaid bowtie and black glass orbs for eyes. “And Lady Pearls.” A purple hippo plush with a pearl necklace to her left.
I sat straight across from Maegan, taking her in her features. Light skin and blonde hair with green eyes. She wore a pink, poufy, princess dress with an exaggerated plastic crown and wand.
“My name is Adelaide,” I reply.
“Would you like some tea?” Maegan offers a plastic teapot to me. I nod and she pours imaginary tea into my plastic teacup. “Cream and sugar?” I nod again and she pours fake cream into the cup and sprinkles fake sugar into the cup. Maegan does the same for Mr Fuzz and Lady Pearls.
“I’m so happy you could all make my tea party especially in the absence of Sarah. Momma says she went on holidays but I don’t know why I’m not allowed to join her.” I blink. “Oh. Sarah is my twin sister. Momma and Papa said she’d be gone for a while, so they took her bed out of our room.”
Oh…
Oh.
“Sweetie.” A woman, a mirror image of Maegan if she was older, stepped into the room. She looked tired and had a swollen stomach. “Who are you talking to?”
“Adelaide!” Maegan replies. “She’s my new friend. Say ‘hi’ Momma.” Maegan’s mom’s eyes trail over to my chair, but the look she gives me is transparent like she couldn’t see me.
“Hello, Adelaide.” She turned back to Maegan. “Are you telling her about Sarah?”
“Yeah! I hope she’s having fun on her holiday.” Maegan’s mother hesitates, then sighs through her nose.
“Can I join you?”
Maegan smiled brightly and nods. Her mother sits on her knees on the floor between Maegan and Lady Pearls.
“Are we having tea?”
“Mhm!” Maegan says, pouring her mother a cup. “Momma. When is Sarah coming home?” Maegan asks. Her mother bit her lip and searches Maegan’s face for any sort of knowing or understanding of the situation. Maegan seemed genuinely curious.
“She… she won’t be coming back, Maegan.” Her mother says softly, a tear falling down her face. “She’s gone.” Maegan blinked, not understanding.
“What?”
“Hey.” Maegan and her mother didn’t seem to hear that. But I did. I turned to look at the person reflected in the glass of the back door. “Tell Maegan I said hi.” She says. I didn’t need to know who she was. I nodded as she faded out of focus and I turned back.
Maegan was crying now, she still didn’t seem to understand, it was just a reaction to her mother crying and hugging her close. “My baby’s gone.” Her mother cried. “She’s in a batter place now, I’m sure. But…” she sobbed into Maegan’s curls.
“Sarah says hi,” I say softly. “And that she loves you, even if she can’t be here with you anymore.” That seemed to officially set Maegan off, sobbing into her mother’s shirt.
“I miss her Momma.” Maegan cried.
“I know, baby. I know. I miss her too.” Her mother replied, tugging her fingers through Maegan’s hair.
I simply watch and drink my tea.
(This got a lot darker than I was planning my apologies)
In the afterlife, souls can see how many living people still know you once existed. You, who had lived a fairly normal life, finally saw the count drop to 0 just 200 years after your death. 500 years later, 95% of the Earth’s total population suddenly knows about you.
And they all know I sold really, really shitty copper.
The minister pointed his finger at the queen. “The poison in your wine could only have come from her, your majesty! The queen is trying to kill you!” “No,” said the king. “If my wife wished to kill me she would look me in the eye and push a dagger into my chest.”
“Stop joking around when you’re dying!” I snarled at my idiot husband, now turning a delicate purple. The minister was backing away, so I leapt the table, ripping my dagger loose straight through the hole in my skirts.
He shrieked and tried to run, but courtly life had not been kind to his dexterity or his strength. It was child’s play to take him to the ground, my blade to his throat. “What did you give him? Where is the antidote?”
The minister’s eyes were wide and he was blubbering. It was an embarrassing display from a senior courtier - you’d think the man had never been in a knife fight before. “I don’t - Madame, I - what are you implying?”
“You see, it wasn’t me so that means it must have been you,” I said sweetly to the minister. “Talk or I flay you alive from the balls up.”
It was too theatrical a threat. I could see the pompous mask settle again. “Now see here-” he started.
I stabbed him. He screamed.
“Darling please,” wheezed my moron husband, who should have been sitting down and conserving his breath. “We need… answer…”
“Working on it,” I sang back, grinding my dagger against the minister’s shoulder joint. He screamed again and a spurt of blood landed on my bodice. One of the summoned guards who’d been hovering turned away, his face green. Honestly, I was going to have to fire everyone next week. “I realize these aren’t your balls. This is the warning stab to make my point that I am quite serious.” I pulled my stiletto from my hair, considered the thin blade critically. “Not the best weapon for the job, but I’ll make do. Might have to stab your balls a bit instead of flaying.”
I reached down for his pants.
“Wait!” the minister screamed. “It’s golden rest vine. Golden rest vine!”
There were gasps through the court. At least a couple were clearly fake and I cursed my inability to look in all directions at once.
“Never heard of it.” I slit the fabric open. “I hope for your balls’ sake there’s an antidote.”
“I know! I know that one!” We all turned to look at the little court doctor, hitherto best noted for their ability to fall asleep on two glasses of wine. They blushed but kept their hand up like they were in school. “Standard milkweed powder and brandy.”
“Then go get it,” I hissed and the only member of the court staff who was still going to have their job next week bobbled off at full speed. I turned back to the minister cowering at my feet. “You’re a coward and a traitor,” I declared. And incompetent, I added but only mentally as I couldn’t very well critique an enemy assassin for that quality. “Guards, take him away to stand trial at the king’s pleasure.”
Now that I’d done all their job for them, the guards rushed in a great clank of armor to drag the stupid man away. That handled, I turned back to the stupid man I’d married.
The doctor was already back, trying to feed my husband a cup with their hands shaking worse than his. “Great… great work, my love,” he wheezed.
“No. Beloved. Rest,” I said and grabbed him by the nose. His jaw flapped open and the doctor poured the draught down his gullet. I crushed his head to my breast in a tender embrace before he could spit it out.
“How dare you try to die on me?” I hissed in his ear. “I told you your death is mine when I’m done with you!”
My husband wriggled his head free to look up at me, his color already returning. “Yes, dear,” he whispered back with his stupid, inane smile entirely inappropriate to a man nearly killed by a greedy minister and incompetent staff. He touched my face gently. His fingers came away wet. “Don’t cry, love. I’ll be fine.”
“I am not crying!” I protested, but my husband forestalled further argument on the topic by turning his head and emptying the contents of his stomach across my skirts. In the ensuing clean up of yet another mess, he slipped into gentle rest before I could conclusively prove him wrong.
Another thing I’d have to get revenge for. Another reason - no, another obligation to keep the idiot alive, no matter how exhausting.
It’s a hard thing, proper revenge, but absolutely worth doing right. I’d get him. Someday.
You are a street cat, fierce and feared by other cats in the neighborhood. One day, a woman picks you up and takes you to her house.
I have roamed this area for as long as I’ve known. I barely remember the others I was born with. When I was old enough to hunt on my own, we went our separate ways. Others tried to challenge me. They soon learned that I was much more cunning than they were. My only scar was a nip in my ear. Nowadays, they either avoid me, or follow me. I ignore them, my only concern is my survival. Every once in a while, I see someone “different”. It’s smell is not like any of the others. It stands, walks, on only two legs. It’s fur is unusual. The face is hairless, but with curly, gray fur on top of it’s head. The ears are about the same size as mine, but looks unusual on something so big. When it first started coming around, I hissed and growled. This was my territory and I was ready to defend it. But it didn’t react the way I expected. Instead, it offered me food. I waited until it relented and left before I ate it. It was good. Better than the scraps I’ve foraged. It happened with increasing frequency. It would bring me food every time. It made no moves to strike, but instead would hold out its large paw, as if it was asking me to mark it with my scent. Soon, I learned to trust it. One day on its visit, I instinctively approached it and rubbed my head against its paw. With a smooth gesture, it picked me up off the ground. “Hey, what the hell are you doing!? Put me down!” I screamed. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” it said. “Oh is it? Because a second ago I was on the ground and now I’m not!” “It’s okay, kitty, everything is gonna be fine now,” it said. I do not think it understood me at all.
What followed was the most humiliating indignity I have ever experienced. I was brought into a room, and placed on a cold, slick surface. Another like this one walked into the room, also on its hind legs. It’s fur was long and black, and it held me in a different way than the other one. I was poked and prodded, and ever so briefly violated. I looked at the only familiar face, and in a moment of helplessness, I cried out for help. It looked at me gently. SHE looked at me gently. “It’s almost done, sweetie, then we can go home.” I almost couldn’t wait for that. To crawl under some bramble and sleep this whole ordeal away. Instead, as a final insult, I was soaked worse than the hardest rain ever could. I felt mishandled, but at this point I had resigned myself to whatever fate I would encounter. A once tyrant, reduced to a shivering mess.
We arrived at what she called “home”. It smelled like her, but there was also another, fainter smell of another creature that must have left a while ago. She released me into this, her home. I wasted no time in trying to examine these new surroundings. I coursed around, looking for any possible way out. Then I see it. My hunting grounds. I try to sniff at it, but the smell is different. There is something in the way, like water, but hard. I can still feel the setting sun on me, but this was different. I sat and stared for a while, with an unusual calm. “Kitty, dinner!” she called. I approached with the same caution I had when we first met. She looked at me with the same kind eyes she had always shown me, a detail I had just noticed at that moment. Before her, she presented me with food the likes of which I had never smelled before. Beside it, was water. Clear, odorless water. Different than the puddles I was used to. Instinctively I devoured the food. I felt her paw gently stroke my back, but instead of flinching and lashing out, I allowed her to continue against my nature. “Slow down, you’ll get a tummy ache!” She said. She was right. I vomited a bit soon afterward. I drank some water to clear my throat, surprised at how sweet it tasted without mud in it. She picked me up, but instead of protesting I allowed it. Her paw was gentle, warm. I found myself purring heavily, feeling content and tired. “I’m going to call you Michael because you look so much like him,” she said, as she wistfully looked at the wall. There was an image there, of two of her kind. I recognized one of them as her, even though the fur was different. Beside her, was one that was thin, and his ears stuck out with a little nick in one of them. Then something unusual happened. I could feel her trembling a bit, the look in her eyes changed. It felt sad and helpless, like how I had felt earlier in the day. I climbed up to meet her face, and gently licked it. She held me close, and I was filled with a new sense of warmth. Different than lazing about in the sun, this filled my very being. Up until then I had never truly known what belonging felt like. As I cozied up to her, drifting off into sleep, the word “home” now had a meaning for me.
You kidnapped the child of a rich family to get a big ransom, but you soon realize that his family doesn’t care about him at all. So you do your best to be a good parental figure for him.
You recently got into blacksmithing as a hobby. As you proudly finish assembling the first sword you ever made, you get a text from your local pastor. It’s says “I don’t know what you just did. But God is pissed at you for it”
A married woman saves an uninteresting Japanese high schooler from a truck crash, but dies in the process. She wakes up in a world of adventure and harems, clearly made for the boy.
writing-prompt-s: Describe your favorite color without using the word color, rainbow, or the name of any other color.
It is the calm of the clearest sky and the smooth water that lies beneath it. The Torah tells us that in the beginning, G-d separated the waters above from the waters below, and I think the waters below never truly forgot that they were once one with the sky, and that is why the ocean and the river and the pond do all they can to reflect their sister above.
It is calm, never attacking the eye as its cousins on the wheel do, never demanding that you come and see nor that you look away. It is gracious and willing to step aside; it disappears at night to give way to the stars and the void between them. It is difficult to find in nature - pluck a feather from a peacock and you will find no true trace of it there, though you were quite sure you saw it when the feather was attached to the bird. It is shy and unassuming in that way.
It is calm, and that calmness speaks to the soul. We may say that it is sadness, but we know this is not the case. We are drawn to it; it is a subtle yet pervasive joy to our eyes. The websites which use it keep us up all night. The teams that use it, we root for. The gems which have it, we value. When the sky shows it, we awake.
