Monday Morning Flash Fiction Challenge, Week 25

Morning Everyone!

Sorry I've been offline all most of last week and all of this weekend (except for the scheduled post on Saturday...).  First I was so ill I didn't want to move, and then when I started feeling better, I had to run around like a crazy person.  It's been super busy here, we had the high school play this weekend, Patrick was in it so of course I spent three days watching, reassuring, laughing.. it was too cute!  And Kirsten had a cheerleading competition this weekend that didn't go so well.  Their cheer coach was changed two weeks ago, and the new coach took out the harder stunts that they were struggling with.  So, while they looked very much together out on the cheer floor, they were graded down on the difficulty of stunts.  The other squads put the harder stunts in and took the point deduction for the falls.  This is Kirsten's last year for high school cheer, so she feels kind of screwed, but at least next year, the coaches will be know how to choreograph the routine better and what type of stunts the judges are looking for.

In case anyone notices, I had a blog facelift last week too, while I was offline, Lea took advantage of the opportunity to make some adjustment to make my blog prettier!!  Thanks Lea!  She's so talented!

Now it's time to get to why I opened my blog this morning (because I should be cleaning house, lol, I wasn't here for the weekend, so it's filthy dirty).

It's time for Monday Morning Flash Fiction Challenge!  (Week 25.... wow!!)

I'm going to choose an image that I've had my eye on for a bit, and since I wasn't able to ask anyone else if they had an image in mind.... I'm just going to use it... I really like it... hope you all do too!

It's another image for Luis Royo, who has some wonderful urban fantasy images!  If you have a chance to visit his photobucket page (where this image came from) or his webpage, there was many beautiful images to be found.  This is part of a larger image, a larger collection, but all are fabulous!

The rules remain the same, somewhere around 350 words and come back Friday to post your response.



I didn't have a chance to post my response to last weeks image, so I'm going to add it to the bottom of my post here, lol.  It was dark and brooding....

Willingly Given

by Dottie Taylor

Word Count: 700

Rose watched the retreating back of the bastard who had consigned her to this place, her onetime love and future husband, Marcus. He had taken to visiting this place where only her essence remained, but somehow he knew her even in this form, making his cruelty all that much worse. In a rare moment of mocking irony, he smiled before turning to leave, hand resting on the open gate which he pushed wider. Leaving the one means of escape open knowing full well she could never cross the barrier.

“Bastard!” She muttered as she looked away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her tears reflected in her cerulean eyes. Like waves on an ocean beach, tears threatened to crash across her lids and quiver upon her lashes. She sighed, who knew ghosts could cry?

Marcus sauntered down the leaf littered walkway, a spring to his step. His cape flung out as it shushed around him, flowing out in his quake. Rose was such a naïve little waif, incapable of knowing his true power... her life had been too easy to take and look, he still lived! He grinned manically, and barked out a laugh for the trees to hear. And he left her attached to the cemetery, happy it was her instead of him, the deal made with the demon said someone else willing to die in his stead would gladly be taken. He chewed his bottom lip, the 'willing' part had been tricky, and he thought back to the exchange between Rose and himself.

He came Rose on the day the deal came due, sweeping her up and swinging her around in this arms, proclaiming his love over and over again. Her eyes had glistened with his endearments, the smile one of true happiness. When he became pensive, she had pressed him.

“My love,” she began worriedly, “what has made this, the day of all days, the day our new life together begins,” she smiled, “an unhappy one?”

Marcus hid a small smile he made into a frown as he turned to fall into her arms. “Do you love me beyond all others? Would you do anything for me?”

“Darling, you know you only have to speak it for it to be my command.” She smiled playfully, and willingly, as she tousled his dark hair.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and a new gleam filled his eyes. He reached inside the very cloak he wore on this day, and brandishing a hidden serrated blade, he drove home his point. “You'll die for me?”

With a surprised look, a crimson flower of the brightest hue blossomed across her wedding dress as her heart shuddered one last time. Realization slowly found it's way to her, eyes glazing to became lifeless as she uttered her last word in her mortal existence. “Why?” She breathed through cold lips as death came for her, held tightly in Marcus's arms.

“Better you than I, love,” he bent down to brush his warm lips across the chill of hers with true regret, he hadn't yet tasted the sweetness of her virginity.

He had cried fake tears over prone body, claiming a thief had taken her life, and one had, buying his freedom with hers. No one questioned his sincerity.

But, Rose knew, and the demon knew.

“Foolish mortals, always willing to give so much for love.” It exhaled it's brimstone breath into her cringing face. “Such a shame, I'd much rather have Marcus, now he would have made a meal. You're hardly more than a bite.” The demon grinned to reveal row upon row of jagged teeth, and it scratched it's warty chin, “I can't give what's been taken, but I can offer revenge.” A steely glint filled it's elliptical eyes, hungry for a taste of what he'd been denied.

Rose hadn't wanted vengeance, she wanted life and love, she could have neither. Maybe she could live in this place of cold stones, but, to do so, she'd have to let the demon have his meal. “What do you have in mind?” And her ghostly visage smiled for the first time.




See everyone Friday I hope!!