She frowned at the devious smile in front of her.
“No.”
The smile widened.
“No.”
The smile started to turn into a smirk which underscored the deviousness of it all the more.
“No!”
The venomous quality of the final shout did nothing to curb the mischief sparkling her sister’s eyes.
Sparked by the words for this last week’s Three Word Wednesday. It’s been a while since I used a prompt from here and I’m sorry for the long absence as I’ve enjoyed 3WW a great deal.
She glared at me through misty eyes, “I don’t even know if you’re alive in there or some horrible golem placed here on earth to trick and deceive me!”
He said nothing as she hurled her words at him, dripping in vitriol and agony. When he continued to say nothing under further verbal assault she shoved her way past him and left, stomping just loud enough for him to hear her until she’d rounded the corner.
Forgotten in his hand was a slim circle of gold, the light glinting coldly off of the stone set within it.
This snippet is brought to you by the prompt from Three Word Wednesday last week.
Why do I write sad things?
It’s not anger that is the true villain here
But fiery frustration.
It is the gateway to the greater toxic emotion
But anger isn’t the first step.
Frustration is sometimes a notorious swing
It can move by so fast
That you’re in the anger zone
Before you even know it.
Controlling your anger begins here
When it is still a smaller step.
Don’t let your frustration grow so quickly
That it speeds by without anything to stop it.
Inspired partially by the ongoing fight against lashing back at pre-teens and teenagers and also from last week’s Three Word Wednesday.
By hook or by crook.
There wasn’t much more she could do to hide. Her children were sent away, she’d never see them again. She’d make certain of it. She didn’t want to leave any trace of her magic where he might pickup on it and find the only bright things left in her life.
So she ran and ran and ran and tried her hardest to never even think about the varied places she’d sent her young ones. She didn’t think about how they might not be so young anymore. Some were sure to have grown up over the years and become adults. The time between worlds didn’t run the same, some went faster than others and some might not even move at all.
That was the trouble with dealing with her kind. Time and space and what is or isn’t were very hairy things.
That was why she had to run, because he had, had access to her abilities for so long. Too long. He had done truly monstrous things with them, but even he had not found the furthest reaches of them.
For that she was grateful, even if she could never find peace for herself, she knew that eventually he would run out. His time had not been stopped like hers, only delayed and he could not stop it again unless he found her.
She could not allow that.
Overhead the birds flew and played and had a breezy time, either not knowing or not caring of the troubles beneath them.
Most of this sat in my draft folder for a really long time. I was looking at it again for a bit when I also wandered over to Three Word Wednesday and saw this week’s words.
With a forward slash the body in front fell to the ground, nothing more than a carcass the previously erroneously identified geek panted, a bloodstained sword clasped in his hands.
A terrible grin spread across his pale face, the blood spatter across his-
Her head dropped with a dull thunk against where her keyboard met the desk.
“Why did I think writing would be any kind of career again? All I seem to write are horror slashers that aren’t any different from what is already on the shelves in the local dime and nickel store?”
The sound of a vacuum cleaner went off down the hall, “This isn’t bothering you is it?” came the yell.
The loud noise actually soothed the slight migraine that had been picking up over the last half hour.
“No,” the young author wannabe smiled, “it’s rather like a nice white noise machine but with more functional use.”
Little slice of life kind of thing brought to you by Three Word Wednesday.
Who says, who says you’re not worth it? Who says you’re not perfect Who says you’re the only one whose hurting Trust me, that’s the price of beauty, Who says you’re not pretty? Who says you’re not beautiful? Who says? –“Who Says” by Selena Gomez
Why were people so heartless? So eager to cast someone, anyone down into the dirt and mock them as they flung stones? Why did they only feel better about themselves when they were destroying someone else?
It didn’t always end in death. Oh no, it was far more fun if their victim lived on, that way they didn’t have to find another to trap in the entanglement of their chosen entertainment.
Even those that had once been in the dirt were eager enough to squash someone else beneath them so that they knew that, for all their pains, there was someone worse off.
What would it take to stop this cycle? To change it so that pulling someone up and out of the mud would make you feel better instead of shoving them back down in it.
Is it even worth it some days?
Only you, yourself, can know the answer. It’s not the same for everyone, because some people just need time away from it all to rest. To step back and do something else, worry about anything else, because they’ve been int he trenches so long, that they’re starting to forget that anything else ever existed in the first place, let alone that they can make it.
In the end all it takes is time. Time that you use yo out-stubborn, outlast and out-believe that your way is the correct way in the first place. Because there’s no other way to do it.
Not that I’ve seen.
This mini-rant was inspired first by a post from Oliana that I read today, Sense of Loss, but the rant isn’t just about what was contained in her post. It was further pushed out because of this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt.
There are many, many, many different ways to hurt someone, to push them down.
If only we had more ways to pull them back up instead.
It was different this morning, though she didn’t know why it should be. It wasn’t like there was any change in her circumstances, any word that something might change and not just in the future but at all.
The days dragged on, she hadn’t bothered keeping track of them from the first and so had no real idea of when it had happened.
(If she had wanted, she could have asked the police, they kept track. They would be surprised if she asked simply because most parents counted the days themselves and needed no reminder.)
She woke in the morning, went through the motions of surviving-
(-not living, living implied that you actually did something to make it look like you weren’t morosely waiting for the die you died-)
-trying to make it look to anyone on the outside like she would be able to survive losing her only daughter.
(That they knew about. The knowledge of her many, many children was sparse, not even their sire knowing how many there were.)
Sometimes, very rarely, she would feel the impulsive urge to just end it all. To cut what little she had left of her daughter out of her life and move on.
But…
She couldn’t.
She couldn’t leave this life and try for another until she knew, knew whether her daughter was still alive somewhere or dead and waiting to be found in a ditch.
So she would stay here and wait for word, whether from the police or from her daughter or even from the ones who had taken her. She didn’t care how long it took.
It’s not like she would die waiting, not with what she was.
Inspired from the prompt from Three Word Wednesday this week. It’s been a bit since I did a prompt from here and I found I missed it.
This is the sort-of sequel to an older work of mine, Won’t Leave You Behind.
Mary’s face was grim, this farce of a meeting was really starting to get on her nerves. Her husband’s former employers were refusing to honor his will. He’d stated that, though they were no longer married, he wanted his benefits to go to his wife and children.
“I’m afraid that everything isn’t quite in order.” The man in front of her was pale and nervous looking, the sweat glistening on his forehead. “There seems to be a misfile on the information regarding Mr. McGregor’s benefits.”
“How can there be a ‘misfile’ when everything is electronic and I know for a fact that the filing system for the Corporation is excellent.”
The man in front of her looked even more pale and sour, “Sometimes, these things happen-”
“I wish to speak to your supervisor and if this little runaround keeps up, then I might have to go to the Department of-”
“Is there a problem here?”
Mary smiled brightly and just as falsely back to the woman who’d just entered, “Why of course not! We were just discussing how luck I was to still be included in my ex-husband’s benefits. I know that the paperwork was all submitted correctly as Warren never left things unfinished.”
Mary’s eyes glinted in a dangerous fashion and she knew that the woman in front of her understood how close she was to landing the Corporation with a case in court. A case that would likely be very publicized without something more interesting showing up. The news hadn’t had any stories heavier than a few fluff pieces to run lately. They’d fall upon this like piranhas in the Amazon scenting fresh blood in the water.
“Let’s get this taken care of right away then.” the other woman responded.
Inspired from this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt.
Mary was really starting to worry about her eldest son. She knew that he was an honorable teen (well, as honorable as a teen could be in this day and age where such things weren’t really thought of on a conscious level, unless you lived in Asia somewhere) but the fact that most of his time was spent in nocturnal activities for his new boss made her uneasy. She didn’t see him as much anymore, only caught him as he was on his way out the door, whether to work or school only depended on the time of day and whether or not it was a school day.
Mary missed her son and she knew that, though he would never admit it, Matt missed his older brother as well.
Of course, getting Matt to admit to such a thing was a course fraught with peril.
“Why would I want to hang out with that dweeb anyway, Mom?”
Mary smiled, “Because he’s your older brother. I remember when you used to toddle after him begging for his attention.”
Matt turned red, “That never happened!”
“And you dragged your little ducky blanket along with y-”
“NEVER! HAPPENED!”
Mary’s smile didn’t fade, though she did wish that Terrence was here as well to help her poke a little fun at her youngest.
Inspired by this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt.
Also, I’m really tired today.
The room was quiet and Mary sat staring out the window. The lights were out and her sons were asleep though she could hear the sounds of Terrence tossing and turning even from down the hall.
A small smile graced her mouth, he had never been a particularly quiet boy.
The smile faded just as easily as it had come, but he was far more guarded then ever before. He hadn’t been happy when his parents had separated. No one had been happy, but it had been necessary for the work that Warren was doing. Matthew hadn’t been happy either, but he hadn’t been as vocal about it as Terrence.
Terrence (Terry as he was more and more insisting on being called) was rather translucent about his feelings though Matt wasn’t far behind. This was the reason (other than their young ages) that the boys hadn’t been told about the plan. They were the children and they had responsible parents, parents who could conscience the idea of putting that kind of pressure on their sons.
They wished this hadn’t been necessary at all.
Mary shook her head, these thoughts wouldn’t help her. She looked down at the black clothing she was still wearing though her shoes had been placed by the door as always. It would be some time before she changed out of these clothes and into a pair of Warren’s sleep clothes, ones that he had left behind when he’d initially moved out.
It was eerie how little like him they smelled.
(She had only been wearing them every night since the separation had begun. The boys hadn’t known as she always went to bed after they did and woke long before they started to stir for the day.)
Once she had changed into the sleep clothes, she reached down to where a pocket in the pants would have been located, her hand seemed to disappear into a pocket though if anyone had looked closely (there was no one else in the bedroom) they would have realized that the pants had no pockets. Once her hand came back out, it was holding a simple golden band. It was larger than the one she still wore on her hand.
Mary slipped it over her thumb and spent the few hours she tried to sleep turning the large ring over and over with the fingers of her right hand.
Inspired by the words from this week’s prompt in Three Word Wednesday.
Breathing In 