Challenge
October 2024 Drabble Challenge: Spooky
Halloween is upon us. Give me a spooky prose story in exactly 100 words using standard English, punctuation, and spelling. Stretch those flash-fiction claws and rake them across the screen with a gut-wrenching tale of woe and horror.
Please do not tag me, I'll read each entry and select a winner in early November. There is a HUGE CASH PRIZE of two hundred pennies for this amazing competition!
Silence in Red
Red. Everything’s red. No—black. So dark it’s suffocating, but I feel the blood. Thick, warm, clinging to my skin. Alive.
The knife hums in my palm, cold, familiar like Dad’s old pocketknife. He’d let me hold it, just for a minute, if I stayed quiet. Shh.
Quiet now. Except for the dripping. Plip. Plop. Like Mom’s sink. Dad never fixed it.
She’s still breathing. Barely. Sandpaper on wood. Her eyes find mine—wide, pleading.
Lavender. Her shampoo.
The ground tilts, cold grass meets my cheek. Sirens? Maybe. I should run, but I’m frozen.
Her eyes, still open, searching—finding nothing. Not anymore.
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