Welcome back to Wednesday Words Reborn, Week 14! To honor P. T. Wyant’s legacy as an author and her incredible influence on my success as a writer, I am taking up the torch of continuing her flash fiction challenge. Every Wednesday I will be posting some kind of flash fiction prompt, hopefully just after midnight Eastern time.
The prompt might be a single line, a photo, a group of things to include, a question, some weird news of the week, a theme, genre category, an idea, or quite literally anything my twisted ADHD-addled mind can come up with. Hell, if I get callbacks and engagement, I might even choose a line or something interesting from a participant’s response as a prompt sometime. (With their permission, of course.)
After the prompt is live, the rest is up to you. This isn’t any kind of contest. At least, not in the near future it isn’t, and whether or not you choose to participate is entirely your choice. The goal here is simply to have fun and exercise that writing muscle with, say, no more than 500 words. You can choose to leave your flash fiction story as a comment below, or you can post it on your own social media of your choice. If you post elsewhere, I’d love if you dropped a comment below with a link for me to follow and read. You can also tag me across my various social media accounts (Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook; all of which you can find under my Contact info) when you share your snippet. And if you post on your own blog, a ping back to the original post would be appreciated, though it’s not necessary. Share your #flashfiction tales with the hashtag #WWReborn across social media for others to browse and find.
Hey, if a prompt inspires more than 500 words, too, run with it!
This week’s genre prompt:
Write a romance tale with a touch of sci-fi.
Now off with you, Darklings! Write with the frenzy of an overly caffeinated hamster on a wheel! Just don’t trip. Or maybe do trip. It might be more fun that way. As always, I’d love to see what you come up with!
**All stories written hereafter from this prompt are the property, both intellectually and physically, of the author.**
Here’s my response to the prompt: “The Dome” by Ashley Apples:
The sky above me sparkled with a pearly iridescent sheen, telling me the dome was growing weak. I could even see a hint of dark clouds through it. I stretched my legs out and huffed a long sigh. It was supposed to be my day off, but if the dome was failing I would have to go into work. The grass underneath me was soft and silky, it begged me to stay. To remain where I was. To luxuriate in it. I wanted to strip down to my short pants and undershirt and just roll around in the grass.
To let the simulated sun light warm my skin and the grass cool it back down. But if the dome failed everyone would be sick within a matter of hours. The damage would be permanent within a day. I sighed once more and using my core strength rolled up and then onto my feet with a grunt.
I had been lying in my front yard and my sprinklers turned on just then. Splattering me from legs to my chest. I looked down feeling my eyebrows draw down.
“Today is going to suck.” I muttered to myself. At least I hadn’t been on the grass when they turned on. I shook my head and strode into the open doorway of my bungalow. Time to get to work.
###
Lucky me, as an engineer it was only a five minute walk to my work place. I strode into DCHE (Dome Central Housing & Engineering) and he was there. My heart sped up. Of course he was here. Peder was the best, brightest engineer of our generation. If anyone could fix a failing dome it was him.
He turned toward me and the moment his brown eyes met my green eyes an electric shock zinged through my blood stream. I fought back the shudder that went through me. He smiled broadly at me and said, “Hey, Nadia! Good, I was going to send someone for you, I need your help. Can you go get me the Argonite Crystals from storage? We’ll need to refill the chambers to help insult the outer shell of the dome generator?”
“You got it, boss.” I said, breathlessly.
I thought I saw him wince, probably at my asthmatic response. I didn’t stick around to find out. I rushed off to storage. I found several large metal containers with a glass windows that seemed to contain nothing in them. That was argon for you. It was odorless and colorless. I put the containers through the crystallization machine, then returned to Peter.
We spent the next hour working on insulating the outer shell and then power cycling the dome generator. When we stepped outside the dome had solidified once more into a solid, milk white color. Blocking the view of the polluted cloudy sky beyond it.
I gave a satisfied sigh.
Peter turned to me and said, “I’m not your boss, Nadia. I want to be more.”
My heart raced at the thought.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great tale! Thank you for sharing and joining in on #WWReborn!
LikeLike
Thank you for giving the chance to share one of the stories floating around in my head! Will Nadia and Peder get to go on a date? Maybe sometime in the future!
LikeLiked by 1 person