Free Reads

Prompt-Fill: 016. hand 2A

It was gone. Only a stump remained at the end of his wrist. They’d amputated his hand.

Tears gathered in his eyes. He’d trusted them when they said they wouldn’t do anything without his permission, yet they’d drugged him and cut off his hand. The betrayal stung even in the face of his loss.

The door began opening. He hurriedly wiped his eyes dry on the pillowcase and the shoulder of the hospital gown he wore.

By the time the nurse came in, he had a stoic expression on his face. She didn’t mention the redness of his eyes, simply gave him a smile and asked him how he was feeling.

“I’m feeling like they chopped off my hand,” he snarled, then bit his lip, instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

She gave him a sympathetic look. “From what I understand, it’s not your fault either. A decision had to be made or you would have died.”

“I know.” He avoided looking at the bandaged stump. He looked toward the window instead. “It’s sunny out there. All those days of rain, and now it’s sunny.”

The nurse—PAM, said her nametag—moved around the room. She opened things and shut things, checked readings on the machines and changed the IV so quickly and expertly he wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t watching.

“It’s a beautiful day,” she said. She crumpled up a blue paper cloth and tossed it in the garbage can. “I think I’m going to recommend that you get some time outside today.”

“What?” He gestured with his hand at his stump. “They cut off my hand yesterday.”

“That was yesterday,” she said. “This is today. And while the stump is still tender and I wouldn’t jostle it around, it should … Read the rest “Prompt-Fill: 016. hand 2A”

There is a kind of “Cabin In the Woods”-type horror scenario happening in “American Dad” S12E07: “Ninety North, Zero West”.

They fail to stop the Santa archtype from returning the Titan’s eyes, and the Endbringer wakes up.

In its weakened state, angry!Steve runs into it with the train, popping its eyes out of its head. But if he hadn’t done that …

“What is even happening?” He struggled to pull his right glove on, wishing once again that he’d ordered those new uniforms. But this is what he had – something leftover from ’02 and smelling just a bit dingy – and he’d make the best of it. He always did.

“I don’t know, Dad. They’re just telling us all to get out of town.” Ashley wore her uniform and looked so much like her old self that it ached, but he could tell by the uncertainty in her voice that she was still scrambled eggs.

“We’ll help with the evacuation, but we’ll keep moving toward the [exit] points,” he decided. She had no place being in a fire fight, and she wasn’t leaving his side. So he’d just have to stick clear of whatever disaster was rocking the town. “Grab our Go Bags. We leave in fifteen minutes.”

Evan strode down the short hallway to his favorite bathroom and locked himself inside. He was trembling and sweating and he didn’t know why.

Except she’d been dead. There’d been a funeral. She’d been out of his life for so long that he was beginning to get over her loss. The pain had never left, but he’d been putting his life back together. Then she was back again.

He’d been through an emotional yoyo-fucking. Like he’d been strapped down and the Safe Word was unpronouncable and the fear was … Read the rest “Thinking things; Excerpt of The Flameburst masturbating”

This is a rawfeed story, which means that it’s coming direct from my brain to the computer screen. There may be word usage errors and editing problems.

THAT TIME I TOLD YOU
by Sol Crafter

They met for the first time in the lunchroom when they were 10 years old. It wasn’t an instant connection–it took two weeks of sharing a table before they got to talking–but they became best friends after that.

To Conrad, meeting Jamie was the first time he felt alive. It was as though color flooded into an otherwise empty world.

It had never been great at home. His parents were always fighting, always yelling, always looking at him with resentful eyes as though to say “It’s your fault all our dreams are dead”. Going to school was his chance to get away from the tension and the loneliness. He did okay in his classes.

Until Jamie came, he only went to school to get away from home. The other kids were just the kids he played with at school–he wouldn’t call any of them a best friend.

Jamie was his best friend.

And so, because Jamie played the guitar, Conrad learned to play the bass. Because Jamie loved singing and music, Conrad learned to carry a tune and even started writing songs in a spiral bound notebook.

He would spend the night at Jamie’s house with Jamie’s doting mom who always tried to get Jamie whatever he wanted, even though she was a single parent without much money. He might have been jealous if she hadn’t been so nice to him, welcoming him into her home as though he were another son.

He became part of their family.

*

“We should start our own band.”

They were in Jamie’s room, each taking up an opposite … Read the rest “WIP: That Time I Told You (working title)”

“365 Prompts” by Harper Kingsley will be available as pre-release November 14. You can order a copy via Paypal or Patreon. Just send $5 and mention that it’s for “365 Prompts”.

.paypal.me/HarperKingsley.
.patreon.com/HarperKingsley.

Otherwise, you can pre-order via Amazon or Smashwords in a few days. The official release will be December 10, 2016, just in time for the holiday season.

*

2. Tangled in the blackberry bushes, the small child howled in fear and pain. There were red scratches marring the dirty face and arms, one thorn having scratched dangerously close to a teary eye.

A. Tangled in the blackberry bushes, the small child howled in fear and pain. There were red scratches marring the dirty face and arms, one thorn having scratched dangerously close to a teary eye.

Anna ran forward, waving her arms to signal No. “Don’t move, kid. You hold still and I’ll help you.”

“Get me out of here. It hurts! It hurts!” the child screeched, making an aborted lunge forward. Anna winced when she saw that a long thorny branch was wrapped around the child’s chest, digging into the patched and worn cotton shirt.

“I’ll get you, I’ll get you, don’t move.” Anna tried to hide her panic and project a sense of calm concern. The last thing she wanted was for the kid to realize how afraid she was. “Why don’t you tell me your name, sweetie?”

“I’m not sweetie. I’m Brandon.”

“Oh. Well, hello Brandon. I’m Anna.” Working slowly, she began untangling the small body. He couldn’t have been older than four or five, dressed in clothes that would have done better in the rag bin. “Can you tell me where your parents are, Brandon?”

“Don’t have any,” he muttered, his attention focused on her hands. Which is … Read the rest ““365 Prompts” – Prompt 041. blackberries 2A”

Things I like: bacon. Bob's Burgers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. cats. cheese. chocolate. crossword puzzles. Dredd. eggrolls. fried chicken. gochujang. Hannigram. HEAs. HFNs. jigsaw puzzles. kimchi. lo mein noodles. mushrooms. nectarines. Nintendo Switch. paperback books. pineapple. pizza. potstickers. raspberry jam. Rick and Morty. sleeping in. snickerdoodles. spaghetti. strawberries. sudoku. tacos. tomatoes. vacations. vaccinations.