Prompt Me, Prompt Me - 5. Week 5, 9/8 to 9/14

Week 5

9/8/2019

Prompt: Attic

The stairs creaked as she used the rope to pull them open. Unfolding them, Brinda looked at her shoes before looking up at the stairs to the attic. “Gotta change them,” she muttered, heading for her bedroom on the bottom floor. “Why am I on the first floor again?” she asked Alex as she passed by.

“So that you don’t have to hear what me and your brother get up to in our bedroom,” Alex called back. Brinda groaned, pulling off her heeled boots and replaced them with a pair of flats that Brian had set out for her.

“I’m just glad that I wore jeans today,” she said as she passed by Alex once more. “Are you coming up?”

“In a moment. I’m replacing batteries,” he replied, unscrewing the top of the heavy-duty flashlight.

Brinda hummed and bounded back up the stairs towards the second floor and her brother. She had only been up there once, blessing the entire area through the very carefully laid out items that allowed them to walk, but not since then. The three of them had decided to wait until they had the rest of the house fixed before digging through things. Grabbing the three lanterns, she hooked them to her belt and turned one on so that she had light going up. With light on her, she started to climb the steep stair-ladder, using the side railings to get up into the attic space.

Standing in the middle of the room, a few feet from the stairs, she unhooked the first lantern and looked around. “Now, I know that we left a step ladder up here,” she muttered, finding that it had been put aside after they had been done with it. Unfolding it, she set it under a lantern hook that had been a left-over from the early days of the house. Alex had made sure that it was still good, the chain not rusted, and the spot that it was hanging from, still good.

Climbing up the ladder, she carefully hooked the first lantern onto it and turned up the brightness as much as she could, throwing light. Looking around, her eyebrows rose.

“It looks as if they used this attic as living space,” she said as Alex climbed up, his flashlight hooked in his belt. “I can see about five more chained lantern hooks, and a few spots where candles would be placed behind glass.”

Alex hummed and helped her step down before taking her spot on the step ladder, frowning as he caught sight of what she had seen. Using his flashlight, he scanned the darker areas and found more lantern hooks and candle shelves. “We’ll have to get some more re-chargeable lanterns and things like that,” he said.

Brinda smiled and nodded, watching her friend step down. “Shall we start here and work our way inwards?” she asked, looking around while rocking on her feet. Alex hummed and nodded.

“Yeah. It’ll be easier. Since we’re moving boxes and trunks down as we start going through things to the dining room, it’ll be faster to just work inwards.” He reached down and took the large backpack with everything that they needed in it. He then took half of the cooler that they had packed so that they didn’t have to go down unless they had to use the bathroom.

Setting up their small station, Brian joined them, and they pulled on specialized gloves that most antique dealers used to go through things. It would protect their hands and the pieces as they went through everything. Brinda turned to her first pile and smiled as she adjusted her bandana, ready to take on the last part of their house and making it truly theirs: The Attic.

If she could find things that they could donate to the local museum, even better.

9/9/2019

Prompt: Possessed

The body he had chosen to use was flaking. Not like paint that flakes off the side of the house through years of rain, wind and sun, but as if the layers of skin were curling upwards, leaving red welts in their wake. Clicking his tongue, he stared at the bits of skin that had already come off his shoulder. “I should have chosen a better soul,” he mused.

He felt the soul that he had pushed down stir, making him frown.

“This one is much to pure for a being such as myself, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” Looking away from the mirror, he found the first aid kit and started to patch his body up just enough to hold on while he finished off his work.

He silenced the soul of the body once more, frowning at how short it had been since the last time that he had had to quiet it into sleep. It was getting harder to keep such souls quiet while he used their bodies, but there was just no other way to do some of the things that he had to deal with.

Shaking those thoughts off, he left the bathroom and pulled on clothing, brushed out the hair of the chosen body. He made sure that none of the bandages and gauze showed and tugged on a pair of shoes.

He only had a bit more time to use the body that had been offered up before the soul fully awoke and pushed him out. If that soul continued to live in the body would be based on how much longer he kept it under his control. He doubted that the one who he had taken over would walk away without scars that were deep if the peeling was any indication.

Too bad that when he touched an open wound on the body that he had to feel it. Otherwise he would have just snipped off the skin that was lifting and make sure the wound didn’t become infected.

Really too bad.

9/10/2019

Prompt: Confidence, Forest, River

He had told her once that when in the forest, you needed to find the river and be confident in that it would lead her home. If it led you to a cliff, you went back upstream and continued to follow the river. It would always lead you right, you just had to figure out which way to go.

Looking up at the sky and noting the way the sun was working its way down towards the horizon, she decided that it was probably a good idea to find a place to sleep. Frowning, she continued up along the river, feeling that following it upstream would be the best idea for the time being. The next morning, it might be better to go down river, or it might stay upriver. It was always different, and she always woke up in a new part of the forest.

Finding a small area near the river’s edge, she placed her bag down and started to move things around carefully so that she didn’t have to worry about burning the forest down accidently. She moved the leaves around in a circle and laid several stones down. Using a small shovel, she moved the dirt to a ring around the hole, making sure the dirt wouldn’t just fall into the fire pit.

With that done, she moved away from the area and dug a hole to use as her temporary bathroom, making sure it was as far away from the river as she dared. With that done, she went back to the river and washed her hands and the shovel before walking back to the camp. She put the shovel away and pulled out a small hatchet out, making sure the cover was still on it.

She walked around the area around her chosen camp site and found several deadwoods that she felt okay with using for wood for the night, keeping the small sticks for kindling. Going back and forth three times, she soon had enough wood for the night.

With heat taken care of, she was quick to put up the her tent tarp, using three trees to hang it at a slant. She then added two of the sides onto the tent, the tarp hanging just enough over the fire pit to keep any rain off. She placed her sleeping bag somewhat close to the fire pit but still somewhat out of the way.

Standing back, she smiled to herself, surprised that she had gotten all of that done with more than enough time to forage for fruits and berries. She still had a lot of the jerky that her boyfriend had made, so she wasn’t hurting for meat. But fresh fruits and vegetables would be a lovely thing for her at that moment.

Leaving the campsite, she felt that she was doing good enough to last until the river once more lead her home. She was confident that it and the forest itself appreciated, in some small way, that she was taking the time to treat them with respect while lost.

And it made her warm with happiness.

9/11/2019

Prompt: Unyeilding

She would never bend or break.

She would never speak or cry what they wanted.

She had been trained to withstand the tortures that they had placed upon her body and then some. She was no stranger to pain and would never be a stranger to such things.

She stared at them and sneered, spitting out the blood that had flooded her mouth when they had hit her in the face, cutting her cheek on teeth. She smiled a bloody smile and asked if that was all they had.

They went to work, trying to get to her break...bend...do something beyond laugh and spit out blood or cough and wheeze each time they hit somewhere. They worked until they were sweating and all she could do was stare at them with bruised eyes that were dull from pain but still unwilling to give them what they wanted.

She cackled, the sound wheezing and soft, as her partners broke in and took them down in a flurry of knives and carefully placed shots to body parts that wouldn’t kill them. She greeted the group of four with a bloody smile and a question asking them where they had been.

Her leader smiled in return, released her and set her into one of the recliner chairs that the idiots had been using to sit between beatings. She groaned and settled in to wait for their medical team to come in. She watched as her group carefully made sure that the idiots would bleed out and cuffed them before starting to collect evidence. She watched around the medical team fluttered around her, asking questions that she absently answered as she was checked over.

She told them how she had kept her secrets and would have continued to keep her secrets no matter what they were planning to do to her. Her leader smiled and smoothed a bit of her matted hair back, telling her she did good and now she had to rest until she was cleared. That the entire team was on case clean up to make sure nothing was left unturned.

Someone had targeted her as being the second longest on the team, and they had wanted information on certain cases. She would tell them what she remembered, and they would use the tapes that the bastards had recorded while torturing her.

Smiling once more, she carefully rinsed out her mouth using the special water mixture and allowed the doctor to make sure the wound in her mouth wasn’t bleeding any more. She was then placed onto a stretcher, an IV placed into her arm and she was rolled out to the waiting helicopter that would take her to their medical building.

She fell into a light doze on the way there, listening to the sounds of those around her and knowing that she was safe.

That she had stayed true to her beliefs and trust in her team.

9/12/2019

Prompt: Calm, Watch, Mouse

It was a quiet night. Calm outside of the ticking of the pocket watch that sat on his desk and his mouse as she squeaked at him from her cage. He smiled at her for a moment before turning back to the window in front of him. He sat back, rocking his legs back and forth, and frowned. He pushed a bit of his hair out of his face, wondering just what he was going to do in the long run about the letter that he had gotten.

Looking down, he reached down and pulled it closer to himself.

We are regretfully writing you this day to tell you…

He sighed and stopped reading the letter, already knowing what it said, having read it a dozen times since he had gotten it. The letter came from his father’s lawyers, telling him that the man had died and left things for him in the will. He had to leave his small home, the home that he had inherited from his mother and had moved into the day that he had turned eighteen.

When his father had learned that he dared to date whoever caught his attention for more than two seconds, the atmosphere in the house had been tense. More so than normal since they hadn’t really gotten along with each other then. And less so in the last few years ever since he had started to write about gay couples, shopping his manuscripts around.

Now that he had three books out, was gaining a good amount of people reading and buying his books, and was happy with how life was going, his father died. Leaving him things.

Knowing his luck, the man had decided to add a bunch of ‘you need to do this to get this’ clauses. He sighed, checked the time on his pocket watch, and clicked it close. He stood up and walked over to his mouse, making sure she had water, before placing the heavy blanket around it, allowing just a very thin strip of the blanket to allow light in.

Checking the radiator, he turned it down to just enough to keep the room warm enough for the little mouse in her cage, before turning off the lights. The night light popped on as he walked through the house, locking doors and windows before he headed up to the loft where his bedroom was.

Giving his brand-new cat a stroke down her back, he stripped, put on new clothes and set his power alarms. Should the power die, he knew he would have to get up and get the fire going so that the house stayed warm for all of them.

Sighing, he stretched with a groan, he flopped back onto the bed and decided that he would worry about the will reading the next day. When he had to go to the lawyers. And not before.

9/13/2019

Prompt: Believe, Club, Chaos

The music was late nineties, early two-thousands, Cher pumping through the speakers and getting the club dancing. He was enjoying himself, pressed against his boyfriend as he smiled and celebrated his twenty-first birthday. He had turned twenty-one the day before, having decided to truly celebrate when he had a day off. His boyfriend had been all for it and had set up a wonderful day.

They had spent most of the day in the chaos that was Little Tokyo, going from shop to shop, picking up things for their new apartment kitchen stock. They had gotten so many spices and ingredients that they couldn’t otherwise find for a good price that they had christened the kitchen counter after putting things away.

After that, they had an early dinner at the old fashioned diner that they had their first date at, going for lighter foods instead of anything heavy. The chicken fingers and fries were still the best they had found over the four years that they had been together and dating. With food in their stomach, they had called for a ride, deciding that while they were going to drink, they were going to be smart.

From the restaurant, they joined in the club and had been dancing since the first song of the theme night. He had been introduced to alcohol with a light drink called ‘Believe in Flights’, which had been a sky blue with swirls of caramel on the sides and a strawberry shaped into an interesting bird. He had decided to stick to drinks that were light on the alcohol, not wanting to get drunk to fast if he did get drunk.

He smiled when his lover leaned down, lips brushing his ear and caramel scented breath flowing to his nose when he turned his head slightly. “Wanna stay or go home?” the man asked, promise heavy in his voice.

His lips curled upwards and rolled his hips. “Let’s go home,” he replied, tilting his head to say it directly into his lover’s ear, getting a low chuckle. “Let’s get some food on the way though,” he continued. “Walk down to that store and pick up some finger foods.” He felt his lover nod and they pulled apart, he hooking his arm in his boyfriends as they walked to get their coats from the coat check.

His boyfriend made sure that their tab was paid for in full as they handed over their drink bracelets and left the club. The cool air made him shiver and he pulled his jacket on, following his lover to the store. A strong arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him close, his own curling around the other man’s back. “Best. Birthday. Ever.”

“Good,” the bigger male rumbled, pressing a kiss to his lover’s lips as they continued to walk and just enjoy each other.

9/14/2019

Prompt: High

“This is...not cool,” Rose breathed, clinging to his lover’s hand and resolutely refusing to look out of the planes’ window. Lex had surprised him with a trip to Hawaii for their anniversary. He was excited to be doing this, but the only issue he had was the fact that they had to fly to the island state.

“I know you hate flying, but, at the very least, first class has some double seats and you don’t have to look out the window,” Lex teased, patting his lover’s head. “Look, drink some of your champagne and just breath,” he said, getting a glare from his lover. “Calm down.”

Rose huffed and stood the moment the plane leveled off and he could unbuckle. He went around his lover in their apartment seat and closed the blinds before sitting back down. “You’re lucky that you bought these seats together,” he said, flopping back into the extremely comfortable seat of the First-Class apartment. “And that the bed is big enough for us.”

Lex smirked and offered him the menu. “I know. But I figured that first class apartments on a new plane with good reviews for the last year was a good idea,” he said, Rose taking the menu. “And they have a good selection. The entire menu is customizable,” he drawled. “I did warn them that you had minorish dairy issues, so they made sure we had the dairy light menu on hand,” he continued.

Rose sighed and smiled as he picked up his flute of champagne that they had been handed the moment they had settled in. Sipping at the crisp drink, he looked over the menu, finding that each meat selection had two types of options for it, deciding to go with one of the chicken dishes for dinner in an hour. When the stewardess walked past, they placed their dinner orders in, along with their early morning coffee and a light breakfast.

They had a nearly eleven-hour flight due to a storm from that was brewing in the usual path of the plane, but they didn’t mind. They had plans on enjoying their dinner then getting a cat nap. Rose also made sure that they had time booked to shower before breakfast along with a wake-up call for some coffee before-hand.

With everything planned out, they settled in to watch a movie, using the offered headphones and plugging into the jacks on their headphones. Rose pulled out his tablet to do some work on his next book while Lex stretched back and concentrated on the movie they had chosen.

Dinner was served on the table that the steward pulled out and set up for them, leaving them to eat and only coming to see to them when they needed a plate removed or a refill on their chosen drinks.

It was as they changed in a rather large bathroom that Lex asked Rose, “How are you holding up? Not feeling sick or anything?”

Rose shook his head as he pulled on the pants and shirt that had been left for them by the flight. “No. Nothing like that,” he replied. He went to the sink and wet down a cloth. “I’m feeling better. That champagne actually helped calm my nerves. Usually I’d drink something light if I was in economy but that was probably a better option then like beer or something.”

Lex chuckled as Rose started washing his face. “I can admit that it’s always a good idea to have something light. The nice thing about first class though? Everything that you have here is paid up front with the ticket,” he drawled, brushing out his hair before packing up the small laundry bag with their dirty clothes. “Come on. The bed should be ready for us,” he said, tilting his head with a smile.