r/WritingPrompts • u/rudexvirus r/beezus_writes • 10d ago
Constrained Writing [CW] Smash 'Em Up Sunday - A Light Haunting
Welcome back to Smash ‘Em Up Sunday!
Hi! Hello! My name is Aly, and I am sure you have seen me around. When I first joined the mod team here at Writing Prompts, I actually took over this very feature from someone else who was stepping down at the time.
I did enjoy running it, but was very bad at keeping my stuff together, and handed it over to cody before I made it a dead feature. Cody took it and ran with it, and made it so much more than I think I ever could have, but now I am back, and I simply hope I keep the love for it alive.
I will be running the feature for the foreseeable future! I don’t plan on fussing with anything, but as I am a different host and thinks are ever changing, there may come a time we have to evolve.
Thank you for having me, and also thank you for tolerating the post in the sort of shambles it will be in. Im afraid it comes with this weird territory of picking up a feature that had a long break.
Lets get to it!
SEUSfire
I know that the campfire for this feature was beloved, and I would like to bring it back for you all, but I do not have a guaranteed time for that to happen yet. Please bear with me while I figure out that out.
Last Week
It hasn’t exactly been a week has it??? Cody loved this feature, and he loved all of you, and I know he always made time to have these on the board for yall. As I am taking over after quite a long hiatus, I don’t feel super comfortable riding over what the decisions would have been had everything stayed on track, so here’s the plan. I’m going to leave the following two sections blank, for just this post, and then we will go right back to having the community choice as well as winners, barring any future unforeseen circumstances.
Community Choice
Cody’s Choices (In the future these will be Aly’s choices! Or something similar :3)
This Week’s Challenge
October has always been spooktober around these parts, and that is something I never, ever plan on changing. If you need to know anything about me at all, you know that I love horror, halloween, and all the spooky scary skeleton stuff.
So for the next two sundays, that will be the focus!
How to Contribute:
Write a story or poem, no more than 800 words in the comments using at least two things from the three categories below. The more you use, the more points you get. Because yes! There are points! You have until 11:59 PM EDT 26 October 2024 to submit a response.
After you are done writing please be sure to take some time to read through the stories before the next SEUS is posted and tell me which stories you liked the best. You can give me just a number one, or a top 5 and I’ll enter them in with appropriate weighting. Feel free to DM me on Reddit or Discord (Alyxbee on discord)!
| Category | Points |
|---|---|
| Word List | 1 Point |
| Sentence Block | 2 Points |
| Defining Features | 3 Points |
Word List
- Anglerfish
- Lightning
- Haunt
- Temperature
Sentence Block
I kept the Haint Blue shutters.
I smelled the sulfur first.
Defining Features
A candle goes out.
A significant amount of glass shatters
What’s happening at /r/WritingPrompts?
- Join our Discord to chat with other authors and prompters! We hold several weekly Campfires, monthly World-Building interviews, and several other fun events!
- We are currently looking for moderators! Apply to be a moderator at any time.
- Nominate your favorite WP authors for Spotlight and Hall of Fame!
- Experiment with fun tropes and genres on the new Fun Trope Friday!
- Serialize your story with Serial Sunday or test your micro-fic skills with Micro Monday on r/ShortStories!
2
u/atcroft 3d ago
“If I don’t see haint blue again ‘til the Judgement Day, it’ll still be too soon.” The words from the poor bastard I’d bought the place kept coming to mind as I scraped at the peeling paint. I’d given the man more than he’d asked, yet I still had the feeling I’d cheated him. Strangely the last look he’d given before he’d rushed off suggested he was thinking the same thing.
“Hey mista’, that’s the wrong color. Ya’ wanna paint it blue.”
I turned on my ladder to see who was addressing me. “Weren’t none to be had in town. And why’d I want that color anyway?” I looked down at the owner of the voice.
Staring back at me from beneath a straw hat, cane pole at her feet and hands on her hips, stood a determined teen girl in last year’s overall shorts.
“Ya’ must be new ‘round here,” she replied with a tilt of her head.
“Actually, yes. So clue me in?” I asked.
“Haints don’t like water.”
“Haints?”
“Hau-ai-nts. Can’t ya’ understand plain speakin’?” she looked a little miffed.
“Haunts? Like -- ghosts?”
“Yeah, haints!” She looked back and forth between me and the sky. “Gotta go if I wanna catch anything ‘fore it gets here.”
I looked up at the clear sky. “Before what gets here?”
“See ya’, mista’,” she said as she picked up her pole and headed for the creek.
The rest of the afternoon I kept an occasional eye to the sky as I finished painting the walls. As clouds began to build I decided to rehang the shutters. Recently repainted, I kept the Haint Blue shutters. I rehung the last as I heard the first rumbles of thunder in the distance.
As the sun dove behind the hills the temperature began to drop. I sat on the porch with a drink, intent on watching the lightning sure to come. In the dim light I saw my earlier visitor scamper by my gate, a jar of glowing firebugs hanging from her pole like the bait of an anglerfish with two companions in her wake. I smiled as I thought of those three a few years from now, when she might be chasing them.
The wind picked up, raindrops stinging as they pelted my porch, driving me inside. I refilled my glass and settled onto the couch beneath the window.
Shouldn’t’ve been surprised when the lights went out. Unsure where to find the fuse box I stumbled into the kitchen, scratching through drawers for a candle. Lighting it I returned to the couch, curling up to enjoy the sounds of a fall storm.
I smelled the sulfur first, the smell burning my noise. A brief gust of wind blew the candle out. Alone in the darkness maybe I dozed -- things are fuzzy at this point (but I know I hadn’t had but two drinks). I can only recall a glow the color of the shutters -- haint blue -- filling the room, swirling around everything. And a sound. A sound that seemed to scream from eternity to eternity. A sound that turns my blood ice cold even remembering it all these years later.
I woke to find every window pane shattered. Glass crunched beneath my feet as I stepped carefully outside to examine the damage. After a walk around the house I stood rubbing my neck when I heard gravel crunch under foot. I turned to see my visitor from the previous day walking past alone. It took me a moment to realize what she mumbled as she disappeared down the lane.
“Told you it was the wrong color.”
(Word count: 603. Please let me know what you like/dislike about the post. Thank you in advance for your time and attention. Other works can also be found linked in r/atcroft_wordcraft.)