Big news is on the way!

Stay tuned! In the meantime, here’s a prompt I wrote to a long time ago and never uploaded.

This prompt (in brackets) is taken from Complete the Story by Piccadilly Inc., which I got from the Scribbler box.

[Sometimes kids are the only ones willing to say what’s really on their minds, and our family needed a little dose of honesty. We almost never said something straight out. My mother was the worst. All she would do was] frown and purse her lips whenever the body was mentioned. We all saw it, hanging in the air and following one or another of us around. Nobody would say who killed it, though it had to be one of us, since it was haunting our family. Some of us mentioned the smell and tried to cover it up with flowers or candles, and some of us would complain about ‘the clutter’ if the body got in our way, but mom was silent on the matter. Any hint of discussion about the thing brought only a frown and disapproving glare from her.

But it needed to be discussed. We all secretly wished we could figure out how to make it go away. Only the kids asked straight out where the body came from, and said that it scared them. Only they cried about it and screamed when it drifted into their room at night. But mom wouldn’t even comfort them. She would only frown and leave the room, unable to face the consequences of the body.

So it went on, horrible days and sleepless nights of the body dogging our every step, its neck cracked at a hideous angle, its eyes bulging and shot through with red, its mouth slack jawed, its feet dangling above the floor. Until one day when the kids could take it no more, and one of them screamed at the body, “Who are you? What do you want? Who killed you?”

Mother pursed her lips and frowned, and lifted her chin away from the body. But the thing looked in her direction and raised a hand to point a bony finger at her. A sound rose in its throat, gurgling to a scream and then to a mournful howl – a siren wail of pain.

And now it won’t shut up. Now not only is the body here, but it wails all day and all night. It was better when no one had asked it anything.