When two friends hear a commotion in their mysterious new neighbor’s apartment, they go to check, only to find the door open, and the apartment completely empty…well, almost empty.
Music: “Monochromatic stain” by Nicholas Jeudy
[Video Description: Trailer. Duration, 45 seconds. Music: “Monochromatic stain” by Nicholas Jeudy. Digital drawing. View down a stairwell, where a person with long hair sits within a shadow with knees drawn up and hands clasped around the left leg. The person is glancing up the stairs. A glowing pool of liquid collects on the highest visible stair, trickling down the stairs along the hazy border of the shadow. A door is partly visible at the bottom of the stairs. Title card with the words “Short Story” and “Genre: Mystery” and the story title are displayed in front of the image. The title card and story title fade. Lines from the story appear over the image: “The only object in the entire apartment was lying on the tiled kitchen floor. Broken into several pieces. A mug. I could make out a design on one of the larger shards. An eye. A wide open eye, just staring. I felt the hairs on my neck rise. I blinked. A liquid that looked like pink-orange milk was spattered across the tile, as if it spilled from the mug as the mug fell. Had we just walked into a crime scene.” The title reappears at top just as the last line appears. A watermark of the site URL appears at bottom right throughout.]
Welcome to Year 9 of Storyfeather
Every year’s short stories (mostly) follow a theme. This year, I will turn the Wheel of Fiction to help me decide what to write. There are thirteen spokes on this wheel. Eight are occupied by the eight themes from the previous years of stories. One is a prompt to turn the wheel again. One is a wildcard (hmm…curious). And three are covered only in question marks. I suppose I’ll find out what’s beneath those questions as we go along.
Welcome to the WHEEL OF FICTION
This spin, the Wheel of Fiction landed on PROMPTS. So I reached for one of the books of prompts I have around. The prompt I chose was this one that started a story that the writer has to continue. Here is the prompt:
Complete the story: The stranger moved in next door almost without us noticing. He seemed to have brought no luggage, no furniture, no boxes, nothing. Nothing but the dark suit that was all he wore as far as we could tell. We never even heard him utter a word until the day
So I started with the man having an argument, because that would make the main character pay attention, and I needed a way to get them into their neighbor’s apartment. Then I wondered just how empty the apartment was. If there was only one thing there, what would it be, and what would it mean?
Source: 500 Creative Prompts (Publisher: Piccadilly Inc)
[Video Description: Duration, 11 seconds. Choice wheel made on the Spin the Wheel application. Thirteen spokes or slices in various colors, labeled as follows, clockwise from the top: Objects of Power (the “of Power” is not visible), Prompts, Definitions, Turn Again, Elements, Creatures, S.T.E.A.M., Wildcard, Revisitation, (alternating question marks and apostrophes), Challenge, (alternating questions marks and asterisks), (question marks). The title at top reads “The Wheel of Fiction” and below that the words “Spin the wheel.” Below that is the date of the spin, 12/11/21. At top left corner is a flag icon labeled with the letter “F.” This represents a function of the application which interferes with true randomness by reducing the probability of receiving the same choice twice in a row. The wheel turns and lands on PROMPTS.]
Genre: Mystery
Tags: EYE, FELICIA, LIQUID, MUG, NEIGHBOR, ORANGE, PINK, SHADOW, TRICKLE
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