Lyrical100

[Κομμα]

Flipping through Livejournal last night--well, yesterday morning, really--and their various awesome prompt tables by community, I couldn't really find one that inspired me like I wanted.

And I need inspiration lately, since my writing has gone all... nonexistant and all. So, I decided to make my own prompts.

Out of song lyrics.

From one hundred songs.

Took me two nights, but yeah, I got it done, and was coming up with ideas the entire time I was creating it. For anyone who wants to use the list of lyric-prompts I came up with, if anyone else needs that extra burst of inspiration, I shall post it below.
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1. Now are you feeling enough
To verify what I love
To sanctify all I hate
Endowed with the need
To carry over the life I lead
(Intoxicated — Disturbed)

2. Where have all the wishes gone
Now that all of that is done
Wish I would've felt I've won
For once
(X-Static — Foo Fighters)

3. I’ll be waiting for the real thing
I’ll know it by the feeling
The moment when we’re meeting
Will play out like a scene straight off the silver screen
(Gotta Be Somebody — Nickelback)

4. Heaven is for heroes
And Hell is full of fools
Stupidity, no will to live
They’re breaking God’s own rules
(Revelation (Mother Earth) — Ozzy)

5. I see a bad moon rising
I see trouble on the way
(Bad Moon Rising — Creedence Clearwater Revival)

6. You longed to taste the shame
That everybody tries
(Fresh Tendrils — Soundgarden)

7. Through bad dreams I’ll be right there baby, telling you
Everything’s gonna be all right
(Angel Standing By — Jewel)

8. I’m your charity case, so give me somethin’ to eat
I’ll pay you at another time, take it to the end of the line
(Paradise City — Guns N’ Roses)

9. The world I love, the tears I drop
To be part of the wave, can’t stop
Ever wonder if it’s all for you?
(Can’t Stop — Red Hot Chili Peppers)

10. I see pictures in the clouds
So obscene, I gotta laugh out loud
I look back to find my way
Reminisce and laugh about the good old days
(When It All Goes Wrong Again — Everclear)

11. I pushed you then you stumbled
I kicked you in the face
You stare at me so hollow
Gotta keep that killing pace
(Dam that River — Alice in Chains)

12. You called me strong, you called me weak
But still your secrets, I would keep
You took for granted all the times I never let you down
(Kryptonite — Three Doors Down)

13. A little bit tired, and a bad attitude
A little bit of drinkin, and another piece of you
(Alcohaulin’ Ass — HELLYEAH)

14. So pardon me while I burst, into flames
I’ve had enough of the word and its people’s mindless games
Pardon me while I burn and rise above the flames
Pardon me, pardon me, I’ll never be the same
(Pardon Me — Incubus)

15. I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar, yet I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me
(Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town — Pearl Jam)

16. Feeling lonely, that’s the way it goes, sometimes
(Could I’ve Been So Blind — The Black Crowes)

17. When everything feels like the movies,
Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive
(Iris — Goo Goo Dolls)

18. I live tomorrow and you I’ll not follow
As you wallow in a sea of sorrow
(Sea of Sorrow — Alice In Chains)

19. They’ve come to see you rise and fall
They’re only tearing down your walls
(Rise And Fall — The Offspring)

20. Turn away from the pain you don’t want
Turning down to avoid them when they call
Strange words I heard a long, long time ago
(Fire Maple Song — Everclear)

21. She’s a symbol
Of resistance
And she’s holding on my heard
Like a hand grenade
(She’s a Rebel — Green Day)

22. He’s never been in love
But he knows just what love is
He says nevermind
And no one speaks
(Friend of a Friend — Foo Fighters)

23. And all I can do is just pour some tea for two
And speak my point of view, but it’s not sane
(No Rain — Blind Melon)

24. Don’t hang on
Nothing last forever but the Earth and sky
(Dust in the Wind — Kansas)

25. To find the queen without a king,
They say she plays guitar and cries, and sings
(Going to California — Led Zeppelin)

26. Take a breath and make it big
It’s the last you’ll ever get
(Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart — Stone Temple Pilots)

27. I’d like to fly
But my wings have been so denied
(Down in a Hole — Alice in Chains)

28. I am the shadow on the wall
I'll be the one to save us all
(Blow Me Away — Breaking Benjamin)

29. I see the blood all over your hands
Does it make you feel more like a man?
(Always — Saliva)

30. Freedom, that’s just some people talking
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
(Desperado — The Eagles)

31. Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
(Californication — Red Hot Chili Peppers)

32. I’m worst at what I do best
And for this gift, I feel blessed
(Smells Like Teen Spirit — Nirvana)

33. You’d love to run home, but you know you ain’t got one
‘Cause you’re living in a world where you’re best forgotten
(Broadway — Goo Goo Dolls)

34. The wheel in the sky keeps on turning
I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow
(Wheel in the Sky — Journey)

35. Although we both lie close together
We feel miles apart inside
(Every Rose Has its Thorn — Poison)

36. What did you dream?
It’s all right, we told you what to dream
(Welcome to the Machine — Pink Floyd)

37. Yesterday has been and gone
Tomorrow will I find the sun, or will it rain?
(Goodbye to Romance — Ozzy)

38. I could see you home with me
But you were with another man
(Are You Gonna Be My Girl — Jet)

39. It’s so relieving
To know that you’re leaving
As soon as you get paid
(Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle — Nirvana)

40. You’ve given me an option, you say I must choose
‘Tween you and the liquor, well, I’ll take the booze
(Fuck You I’m Drunk — ?)

41. Ranting and pointing his finger
At everything but his heart
(Eulogy — Tool)

42. They’ve gotta catch me
If they want me to hang
(Back in Black — AC/DC)

43. You might say that I’m sick of being lost in the crowd,
I hear the sirens but they’re never gonna take me
(Divide — Disturbed)

44. I’m not like them,
But I can pretend
(Dumb — Nirvana)

45. He who tries, will be wasted
Feed my eyes, now you’ve sewn them shut
(Man In the Box — Alice In Chains)

46. Ours is the fire, all the warmth we can find
He is a feather in the wind
(All of My Love — Led Zeppelin)

47. I tried too hard and she tore my feelings like I had none
And ripped them away
(She Hates Me — Puddle of Mudd)

48. Anarchy, the scourge of every sea
The antichrist, aboard a rig, with us your cutthroat thieves
(Salty Dog — Flogging Molly)

49. Wrong can’t be undone
Slipped from the tip of your tongue
(Blue on Black — Kenny Wayne Shepherd)

50. If you leave tonight, keep running
And you need never look back again
(Take it on the Run — R.E.O. Speedwagon)

51. And you always seem outnumbered
But you don’t dare make a stand
(Turn the Page — Bob Segar)

52. What does it matter to ya?
When you got a job to do, you got to do it well
You gotta give the other fella hell
(Live and Let Die — The Beatles)

53. But my dreams, they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
(Behind Blue Eyes — The Who)

54. You know I’ve done all I can,
You see I begged, stole, I borrowed
(Easy — Lionel Ritchie)

55. Take away, take away, take away this ball and chain
‘Cause I’m sick, and I’m tired, and I can’t take anymore pain
(Ball and Chain — Social Distortion)

56. And in the air, the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
(If Everyone Cared — Nickelback)

57. I saw that you held my hand, and knowing too well,
I couldn’t hide from those eyes
(Don’t — Jewel)

58. I’m your hell, I’m your dream, I am nothing in between
You know you wouldn’t want it any other way
( Bitch — Meredith Brooks)

59. Laying in my bed, I think I’m in left field
I picture someone, I think it’s you
(Green Day — Green Day)

60. I’ve got another confession, my friend, I’m no fool
I’m getting tired of starting again, somewhere new.
(Best of You — Foo Fighters)

61. I can’t remember anything
Can’t tell if this is true or a dream
(One — Metallica)

62. It doesn’t really seem I’m getting through to you,
Though I see you weeping so sweetly
(The Game — Disturbed)

63. Without a sense of confidence,
I’m convinced that there’s just too much pressure to take
(Crawling — Linkin Park)

64. If you find your family, don’t you cry
In this land of make-believe, dead and dry
(So Cold — Breaking Benjamin)

65. The world has grown cold
Now that you’ve gone away
(Gone Away — The Offspring)

66. There are shadows all around me
Like a bad moon on the rise
(Out of my Depth — Everclear)

67. This is a call to all my
Past resignations
(This is a Call — Foo Fighters)

68. When I see you smile,
I can face the world
(When I See You Smile — Bad English)

69. You tied my lead and pulled my chain
To watch my blood begin to boil
(Rusty Cage — Soundgarden)

70. Still shackled to the shadow
That followed you
(Sin — Stone Temple Pilots)

71. And though you stand in place
Your mind escapes
(Come Out Swinging — The Offspring)

72. Everyone I know has got a reason
To say, “Put the past away.”
(Jumper — Third Eye Blind)

73. Don’t want your hand this time, I’ll save myself
Maybe I’ll wake up for once
(Going Under — Evanescence)

74. When I talked about it, carried on, never was it true
But it’s you, I fell into
(Big Me — Foo Fighters)

75. I’ll savor this anger
My hate makes me stronger
(Avarice — Disturbed)

76. So you can wipe off that grin,
I know where you’ve been
It’s all been a pack of lies
(In The Air Tonight — Genesis)

77. There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground, you can beat him, you can cheat him,
You can treat him bad, and then leave him when he’s down
(Another One Bites the Dust — Queen)

78. I’d like to believe we can reconcile the past
Resurrect those bridges with an ancient glance
But my old stone face can’t seem to bring her down
She remembers bridges, burns them to the ground
(Cumbersome — Seven Mary Three)

79. I’m feeling that I’m sober even though I’m drinking
I can’t get any lower, still I feel I’m sinking
(Outshined — Soundgarden)

80. I feel so alone,
Gonna end up a big old pile of them bones
(Them Bones — Alice In Chains)

81. Everybody wants a thrill,
Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time
(Don’t Stop Believing — Journey)

82. It’s been awhile since I could hold my head up high
And it’s been awhile since I said I’m sorry
(It’s Been Awhile — Staind)

83. I want a reason for the way things have to be
I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me
(Calling All Angels — Train)

84. Going down, party time,
My friends are gonna be there, too
(Highway to Hell — AC/DC)

85. And when you lie
Down to sleep I’ll protect you
From the demons of the night
(A Song for Sleeping — Stone Temple Pilots)

86. Calm down, don’t you resist, you’ve such a delicate wrist
And if I give it a twist, something to hold when I lose my grip
(All My Life — Foo Fighters)

87. Behind a gun, I make my final stand
That’s why they call me, bad company
And I can’t deny, bad company
Until the day I die
(Bad Company — Bad Company)

88. Take a bottle, drown your sorrows,
Then it floods away tomorrows
(Suicide Solution — Ozzy)

89. And you think you have it still
Heaven inside you
(Heaven Beside You — Alice In Chains)

90. Woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand
Whose wine? What wine? Where the hell did I dine?
(Do You Feel Like We Do? — Peter Frampton)

91. Seems every path leads me to nowhere
(Rooster — Alice in Chains)

92. Let’s take a walk just to clear our heads
I don’t mind that you’re holding my hand
(Let It Out — Starrfadu)

93. Tell me, dear, what did you fear?
I’d do you no wrong, though no stranger to sin
(Death Valley Queen — Flogging Molly)

94. She says that love is for fools that fall behind
I’m somewhere between
(Shimmer — Fuel)

95. Flies in the vasoline we are, sometimes it blows my mind
Keep getting stuck here all the time
(Vasoline — Stone Temple Pilots)

96. Too much is not enough,
Nobody said this stuff makes any sense
We’re hooked again
(Adrenaline — Bush)

96. Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am free again
(Love Song — The Cure)

97. You can have it all, my empire of dirt
I will let you down, I will make you hurt
(Hurt — NIN)

98. Mellow is the man,
Who knows what he’s been missing
(Over the Hills and Far Away — Led Zeppelin)

99. A small reflection, on when we were younger
We had it all figured out and we had everything covered
(Still Frame — Trapt)

100. Well, look who’s going crazy now,
We’re face to face my friend
(Breakout — Foo Fighters)
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Am I psychotic for taking hours of my free time to do this? Maybe, but hey, at least I'm in a writing mood again!

I'll be crossing these off as I finish them, and posting links to any that I actually upload. Probably will all be oneshots, though I might work some into chapters of fanfictions.

[Κομμα]

Since I'm not going to upload this one anywhere, I'll just go ahead and post it here. I felt like writing, so I picked a number at random, came here, and used a prompt. I love prompts.

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95.
The dingy smell of rust, metal, and bodily odor in the morning was more than enough to inform Don of two things: he was in prison, and he was hungover. Something else, if only the horrible feeling of new beginnings that seemed to hang in the air around him, told him it was a Monday. He opened his eyes to glare at the ceiling, and instead found himself glaring at the wall. His eyes only narrowed further.

It was already quite evident that absolutely nothing was going to go right this morning, and he may as well just go back to sleep.

Even this was destined to go wrong.

"Oh, you up, sleeping beauty?" There was a cop outside his cell, a highly amused cop that Don most likely would have punched had they not been separated by iron bars. Sighing irately, Don sat up and stared at the man in the police uniform, his eyes reflecting every ache and pain and annoyance he already felt, daring the pig to push him, just a bit further.

The cop snickered. Don assumed he was probably wearing a dress and fell back onto the cot again, covering his face. This simply wasn't his morning. No morning that involved him waking up in prison in a dress--a frilly pink cocktail dress, as he now noted--was his morning. He quite wished it was someone else's morning, so that maybe he could be the one who got a laugh out of it for once.

"Get up already. You still haven't made your five minute call yet." Don moved a hand away from his face and looked at the cop again. "You dialed two numbers and passed out, we had to practically drag you to your cell."

He removed the other hand from his face as he sat up for the second time. He sighed. "I should really lay off the tequila for awhile..." he grumbled under his breath, squinting at the dimly lit room outside his cell--even that small bit of light hit his hangover with a force explosive enough to nearly flatten him to the mattress again.

He knew full well he was going to get the worst of it when Pat or Al came to bail him out, and it almost made him adverse to making the call. Still, he managed to make it to his feet and stumble over to the bars where the snickering cop was waiting, holding up a key. He unlocked the cell, opened the door, and waved out his arms, stepping aside. "After you, madam," he said in a mock-gentlemanly voice.

"Fuck you, pig," Don spat at the man, stomping out of his cell and looking around. This was the jail on the eastern side of town, then. Then this cop was a new kid--up close, that was easy enough to tell now. Some smart ass fresh out of the academy, thought he had learned everything, seen everything, thought he was safe behind that badge of his. If he kept his current attitude, then he was certainly going to learn different soon enough. Don knew most of the frequenters of this particular jail, and knew that most of them had a good deal less self control than he did himself. New kids often got jumped, often got something broken, and only the ones who were tough enough to deal with it stuck around and formed rather rocky acquaintances with a lot of the jailbirds.

This kid, with his freckles and his bright eyes, just didn't really strike him as one that would be around for too long.

His feet had led him to the phone before Don had the chance to even comprehend that he'd been walking towards it. He had given up quite a long time ago worrying about his high level of familiarity with the jails of Newmarket and had just learned to embrace his closeness with them. Picking up the phone, he dialed the number for his apartment, quite hoping that Pat and Al had actually managed to make it that far last night. If his memory served him correctly, they hadn't been very well off when they decided to leave the pub at around midnight, but given the state he had been in himself, he really didn't trust his memory at the moment... particularly given that for the duration of his last conscious memory, he was quite sure he had been dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt.

A groggy voice cut off the ringing tone, speaking to Don from an apartment somewhere on the other side of town.

"Oi?" The sound of a bottle opening--Al had obviously just woken up to a hangover that he didn't much feel like dealing with.

"I hope you're planning on replacing that," Don said.

"I've still got a couple cases at my flat, keep yer bloody pants on," he said.

Don laughed, looking down at his dress. "Little late for that, to be honest. I'll be needin' you or Pat to come bail me out in a bit." He heard a weary sigh on the other end of the phone. "Please?"

"Where's it at this time?"

"West side. Some snot nose little prick has been making fun of my dress all morning," he added, rather loudly. He grinned in response to the glare he was receiving from the cop. "I'd guess this one probably won't last more'n a month, at the most. He pisses off one of the Connell brothers and he'll be lucky if he manages to leave the place on one stretcher."

"Yeah, your habit of pissing off cops aside, how much is bail?"

"Er..." He looked at the cop, who was glaring back at him. "How much is bail?"

"Two thousand."

"Two--! It was only a few hundred last time!"

"Well, you didn't take a baseball bat to someone's Lamborghini last time, either, apparently."

Don blinked, sighed, and said into the phone, "Two thousand?"

"Are you shitting me?" Don started to reply, but Al cut him off. "No, never mind. I'll be down there as soon as I stop at an ATM. Two thousand fucking..." He sighed, and a moment later, Don heard a dial tone. Something told him he was probably going to be getting a lecture about drinking by himself within the next hour.

[Κομμα]

Short little horror piece me and Matsu collaborated on. He's a really good Muse when on a caffeine high--he would not let me leave this until I finished it, so it was written entirely in one sitting. Was actually based loosely on a nightmare my older brother had when he was very young. The six-year-old boy here mostly only shares the six-year-old version of my brother's obsession with action figures. Would take place in around 1991, in New York.
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44.
“Where are they?!”

The frustrated question wasn’t heard by anyone else in the house, as it was spoken in only a whisper. Toys strewn about the hardwood floor in the bedroom of six-year-old Jamie Farren, he had no worries of anyone else hearing him. He had moved to the bedroom across the house when he turned five, because he had gotten in the habit of going to bed when he was supposed to and staying in his room, being a good boy, not getting up and wandering around the house and wreaking havoc and destruction in his wake. He was a good boy now, a big boy, and he got a bigger bedroom with more room for his action figures and posters.

But now, to his absolute horror, they were missing. There were plenty of action figures spread out over his polished bedroom floor, but not the ones he was looking for, not his brand new Hook figures that he had just gotten today at the toy store; a big bag full of them, because he had made A’s in all his subjects on his first report card of the year at school, because he was a good boy and paid attention in his classes.

Tonight was a Friday night, a rather chilly night, and even though he was a genuinely good kid, he was up a little later than he was allowed to be. Jamie had only intended to stay awake for a few minutes, because he remembered he had yet to open his new action figures and he absolutely had to see them before he went to sleep tonight. However, he hadn’t been able to find them, even after searching so long and so hard, tearing apart every corner of his room that he might have put them in, every toy bin and box and barrel that Mom might have dropped them in.

Standing in the middle of his mess and pouting, he couldn’t believe they were already lost, before he had even had a chance to tear into their plastic and cardboard packages, before Captain Hook had even had a chance to fight the Hulk or Stretch Armstrong, or team up with Skeletor to plan the downfall of He-Man. It was unjust, it was unfair, and he was quite certain there had to be some sort of devious plot afoot. Keeping him from his new figures—keeping him from sleeping like the good boy he really, honestly was!

Jamie gave a small sigh before stepping over the mess of toys on his floor to look out the window beside his bed. Staring back at him in a dark part of the window was a wide-eyed boy with messy brown hair that grown-ups always said was “mousy”—he thought they had to be mistaken, since mice had hair all over their bodies and he only had hair on his head. Past his reflection, he could clearly see the front yard and the driveway, which he had run across earlier to come inside and eat lunch after getting home from the toy store. They had picked up a pizza on the way home and he had been half starved. The black, wood panel station wagon still sat in the front drive, where it had parked when they got home. It wasn’t a nice car like any of Jamie’s matchbox cars, so there wasn’t much worry of anyone taking it if it was left out in the open.

Did I leave them in there…?

The thought, once it was in his head, didn’t leave. Looking outside, across the front porch outside his window and at the Buick, he couldn’t think of anywhere more likely for his action figures to be. He had been so hungry when he got home, maybe he had forgotten to bring them inside, left them on the floor of the car. It seemed very unlike anything he would do, but at the same time, had he carried the bag into the house with him? He couldn’t remember it, and Mom had her hands full with the pizza boxes and groceries she had picked up, so she probably hadn’t thought about bringing in the toy store bag.

Jamie frowned as he looked out. He had never really been scared of the dark, didn’t even sleep with a nightlight. The light that came into his room through the window at night was plenty for him, mostly moonlight and a little from the streetlight at the very end of the driveway. The moon always seemed to do such a good job of cutting through the darkness that he could hardly understand why the roads had to have streetlights. Even their front yard glowed more with the silvery light of the moon than the yellow-orange of the streetlamp.

It was well illuminated, nevertheless.

And just in case, there was always the porch light.

Taking one deep breath, as though preparing to plunge into a deep, dark pool of water, Jamie nodded to himself. Yes, he would have to go outside and check the station wagon, or he would never be able to sleep tonight, and he had to sleep. He had to sleep because that’s what good boys did at night, and he was a good boy. He made good grades in school and always ate every bite of his supper, and he always slept in his bed at night. So it was absolutely necessary that he go and get those figures. If he didn’t get them, someone else might, and that would be a very bad thing. Then he might never sleep again.

If he was going to sleep, he had to have those toys. If he was going to get those toys, he had to sneak outside and go check the car, where he was, at this point, positive they had to be. If they weren’t there, they were nowhere. They were in the land where all of his missing socks and pencils and spare change went to, that strange dimension linked to clothes dryers and pockets with holes in them. But no, they couldn’t be there, because new things weren’t allowed there, only old things. This meant that it was an absolute fact that those figures were in that car.

Jamie was already out of his bedroom now, staring down the long hallway. He could hear Dad snoring, which meant Mom was probably asleep too, which meant it was really late, it’s-way-past-your-bedtime-mister late. This also, however, meant that he could sneak all around the house if he wanted to, as long as he didn’t make any loud noises, without Mom or Dad ever waking up. But of course, he wasn’t going to do that. He was going to go outside, get his new Hook action figures out of the car, come inside, and go back to his room, because he was a good boy.

His room was at the very end of the hallway— all he had to do was turn the corner next to the door to his bedroom, and there was the front door. He turned the deadbolt and opened it slowly, very carefully so it wouldn’t creak, and stepped out onto the front porch. A shiver ran across him as the chilly autumn wind nipped at his ears and neck. Normally he would have to come out in a jacket at this time of year, but all he had on now were his red and blue Spiderman pajamas, which were short sleeve. Mom probably would have been very upset with him if she knew he was outside with no jacket in this weather, but he had to come out here so he could get his new Hook figures, and had to be as quick about it as possible so he could come back inside and go to sleep like the good boy he was.

Jamie nearly shut the door behind him, but instead decided to leave it open a crack so the deadbolt wouldn’t turn back again as soon as he needed to get back inside, like it always did in bad dreams and scary movies he wasn’t supposed to watch. If he left it cracked open, then it would be okay, and he could come back in as quickly as possible, as soon as he was done in the car.

Happy with his ingenuity, Jamie strolled across the wooden porch. He glanced in his bedroom window as he passed it, saw the mess on the floor he would have to clean up before he went to sleep, and frowned a little as his feet came to the top of the stairs. Those very feet were clad only in white socks, but he supposed that was okay, since he did play outside barefoot quite a bit. Shrugging to himself, he took the railing at the side of the stairs in one hand and descended them slowly, one step at a time so he wouldn’t fall and hurt himself.

Standing on the last step, Jamie looked at the Buick. It was very close, only a few seconds away at a quick run. The driveway was plenty bright, between the streetlight at the end of it and the light from the full moon. It struck him quite suddenly that he had forgotten all about the porch light, but it didn’t seem necessary now that he was outside and could see just how bright everything was. It wasn’t as bright as it was during the day, but it was definitely very light in its own way, because of how big and bright the moon was in the sky.

Jamie’s eyes wandered off to the side—the forest was dark. They lived outside of the town—rural was what grown-ups called it. There weren’t many people very close by, no neighbors like the houses in town had. People lived up or down the road a little ways out here, and the closest “neighbors” here were a short walk up the road, his friend Helen and her family. It was a short walk, though a long enough one that he couldn’t actually see their house from the top of his driveway, and had to go with Mom or Dad when they did visit Helen. This meant that his actual closest neighbors were the animals and shadows in the forest around their house, the dark forest he was eyeing now. That darkness seemed a little too close to the bottom step, like maybe it was planning on encompassing everything the second he stepped down onto the ground.

With an audible gulp, Jamie lifted a foot. He was a big boy—he didn’t have to be afraid of the dark. It wasn’t like he was going in the forest anyway. Staring defiantly at the trees, he put one foot down on the ground, then the other, and waited.

A few crickets chirped at him, but the dark forest took no preemptive action against him.

Remembering why he was out here so late, Jamie’s eyes swiveled over to the station wagon, and he took off for it at a sprint. It was just as close as he imagined—he was at the door in a few quick seconds and pulling on the handle at the passenger door to open it. Though he hadn’t thought until now whether or not Mom had locked the doors, she luckily hadn’t; the door opened easily, and Jamie climbed into the vehicle, and—

“There!”

Stretched out over the seat, Jamie triumphantly grabbed up the toy store bag from between the two front seats and held it open—his action figures were there, just like he had known they would be! Grinning ear to ear, he slid back out of the car and waited until he felt all of his toes touch the ground to stand up straight. He shut the sedan’s door quietly and looked into the bag again as he began walking back towards the front porch.

A small snapping sound nearly made him trip before it clicked what it was—just a twig snapping under his foot.

But had he stepped on a twig? He certainly hadn’t thought so. Jamie lifted one foot, and then the other, and then looked around him—there wasn’t a twig to be seen. Just dirt, a few rocks, and some grass. He blinked in confusion before he resumed his trek towards the porch, but both his heart and his feet were going a little faster this time.

A slight rustling noise stopped him next, and he had heard clearly where it had come from this time—it was the dark place. Jamie wasn’t afraid of the dark because he was a big boy. Not in the least little bit, not at all. He looked over at the dark trees, at the thickest, darkest patch of them, precisely where the noise had come from, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed. Nothing about the dark scared him—it just meant that the moon’s and the streetlight’s arms weren’t quite long enough to reach that particular place.

Or maybe they don’t want to reach there. Maybe they’re afraid of it, too.

Jamie gulped a little, but kept his eyes on that patch of trees for a moment longer, glared at it, walking slowly towards the porch steps.

When the tall person stepped out onto the grass, Jamie’s feet froze to the worn, dusty driveway.

The person stood where it was just light enough to see that there was something there other than trees, but only light enough to be able to see a silhouette, an outline of whom or whatever it was. It was just a shadow now, dark as the darkness behind it, and very tall, definitely taller than Mom or Dad, or even Uncle Danny, and Uncle Danny was taller than anyone else Jamie had ever seen in person. It might have even been taller than Michael Jordon. If it was just a shadow, then that would explain why it was so tall—Jamie had seen his own shadow get at least twice as tall as him before.

But it’s not a shadow, you know that it isn’t.

It wore a big hat and was shaped like a man, and he could barely make out some of its features, which meant that this was almost definitely a real figure.

It took another couple steps, ambling slowly forward, until it was bathed in the silver-orange mix of light from the moon and the streetlamp. Up close, it definitely looked more like a man than a woman, but a very slim man, in long blue jeans, black boots, and a flannel shirt like Dad wore all the time. The tall man’s head was declined, so his face was still covered in shadow from the wide brim of his big, black hat. It struck Jamie that this might be one of those badmen that his Mom and Dad had told him about before— men that snatched up little kids from their yards when grown-ups weren’t looking or took them away at grocery stores when they were separated from their parents, took them far away from their Moms and Dads. This tall person might be one of the badmen.

The person took one more step forward, and he was still a decent length away from Jamie, so Jamie stood a chance of getting away from him and getting inside if he needed to. Right now, that wasn’t an option. The darkness had reached out and snagged his feet, tied its invisible tendrils around his ankles so he stood no chance at all of moving. Now all he could do was wait for the person to make his move.

“Nice night for a walk.”

The voice rang out so suddenly that Jamie wondered for a moment who had spoken. The tall man hadn’t moved again before speaking, hadn’t given any indication that he was going to speak before the voice came to Jamie’s ears. Now, however, the tall man lifted his head, so the orange-silver light pooling across the yard could reach his face. Jamie’s eyes widened.

No amount of widening could do anything to match this man’s eyes, however. His eyes were big, dark taking up nearly half of his oblong face, silver rays of moonlight glinting off of the huge black orbs. He blinked once, twice, and the lids of his eyes close side to side rather than from top to bottom. The skin visible on the man’s face wasn’t the color of any flesh Jamie had ever seen, but was a pale, smooth sort of gray, smooth and shiny like the skin on frogs and salamanders. The man’s lips were thin and colorless, a near nonexistent line across the bottom half of the man’s face. He looked like an alien in one of those scary movies Jamie wasn’t supposed to watch, but occasionally caught a few seconds of when Mom or Dad would watch one and he would wander out into the living room at night. A big, sleek, gray alien.

As Jamie observed this, those thin lips began to spread into a smile. At first, the smile was quite friendly, so much so that Jamie was nearly tempted to smile back himself. The spreading, however, didn’t cease. Slowly, so slowly it was painful to watch, that amiable smile widened into a derisive grin, and Jamie could see light glinting off of several razor-sharp, metallic somethings in man’s mouth—teeth? The grin widened further, into a strange, hungry sort of grimace, and those metallic things weren’t just teeth, oh no, they were fangs, a mouthful of huge razor-fangs set in a mouth large enough to swallow him whole.

The invisible tendrils of darkness broke away from Jamie’s ankles suddenly, and he ran, ran from the monster, from the badman, up the front steps of his house, for the door that he had left open by a crack a few inches wide—

“No!”

The door was closed. His hand came to the doorknob and turned it, though he knew what was happening, though he knew that the door was dead-bolted shut, and pulled helplessly at the handle, fully aware that he was screaming now, tears streaming down his face, his bag of brand new action figures fallen beside his feet—he didn’t care now, he didn’t care about the action figures or about Mom and Dad finding out he had been out past his bed time, he just wanted to get inside and be safe, not be swallowed whole by the badman’s gaping, razortooth mouth. He would have given all of his action figures just to be inside and safe, on the other side of the dead-bolted door with his parents, regardless of how angry they were with him.

His hysterics calmed only very slightly as he turned the doorknob over and over and pulled on the door, when he realized he could try to break his bedroom window with his bag of action figures and climb in through there, block of the window from the badman with something big and heavy. Tears still streaming down from his horrified eyes, his screams resolved into helpless sobs, he bent to pick up the bag and turned quickly—and found himself stumbling backwards into the front door of the house, screaming again, because the badman had followed him, was standing over him, his manic grin, his hungry grimace still in place as he opened his mouth, spread those monstrous fangs apart and moved slowly forward, closing in on Jamie as he huddled in the corner, unable to even close his eyes so he didn’t have to see the horrible metallic teeth or forked tongue before he was swallowed.

Jamie let out a final yell of terror and sat straight up on his bedroom floor.

Had he… fallen asleep? Jamie looked around at the toys strewn about his bedroom floor, wondering when and how he had gone to sleep here. He couldn’t remember lying down, or even sitting down on the floor, but he supposed he must have if he was asleep here. The last thing he remembered

(giant metallic fangs glinting hungry black eyes)

was tearing apart his room to find that bag of Hook figures. Were they really still out in the car? Jamie frowned as he stood up in the middle of his floor and looked around his room. His eyes landed on his bed, and his heart skipped—there, sitting in the middle of the neatly-made twin bed, right there on top of his red and blue Spiderman bed sheets, was the bag from the toy store. But was it really the same bag? Could it have possible been? No, he couldn’t have possibly torn apart his entire room looking for that very bag when it was sitting on his bed the entire time…

It wasn’t there the whole time.

The back of Jamie’s neck quite suddenly felt rather prickly as the small hairs there stood on end, and a chill ran through him as goose bumps rose all over his arms. This made no sense. Had he really fallen asleep looking for the bag, or had he gone out to the car to get it? Jamie hurried to the window, as though there might be some sign of his having been out there, and looked around. It was still dark out, and the moon had travelled further down the night sky. The station wagon sat in its proper place, the front drive and lawn still well-enough lit to see everything, the forest still as dark as it ever was at night—

Jamie’s wide eyes landed on something at their edge, something very tall, too tall to be a man though not quite tall enough to be a tree. It was close enough to the forest that it was totally black like a shadow, but seemed to have some substance to it… and it was shaped like a man, wearing a wide-brim hat. He gulped as he stared at it, unable to move from the window, hands glued to the sill. It felt like hours before the shadowy figure moved an inch—to stride ever so slowly into the forest.

Nice night for a walk.

Jamie quickly pulled the blinds down over his windows and closed the curtains over them, and ran across the room for his bed. Come morning, he would have to explain the mess in his room to Mom and Dad, but he didn’t care. The safety of his warm bed was much too inviting to resist at this point. Not even bothering to toss the toy store bag off of the bed, he drew the covers over his head and shut his eyes tightly.

The dark… he wasn’t afraid of the dark, no, because he was a big boy… but he would be sleeping with his curtains closed and his blinds drawn from now on, and might even consider asking Mom about getting a nightlight. He was a big boy, and he wasn’t afraid of the dark. It was what lurked inside the dark that scared him.

[Κομμα]

Original oneshot thingy for a short story contest.

To base a story or poem on this photo.

Takes place after an epidemic of some kind has ravaged the world, briefly named at one point within the story as The Sickness.

Because I'm lazy slick, I've also made it cover one of my lyrical prompts.

I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar, yet I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me

Man on the Wall

A cough echoed over the rocks, out towards the ocean, and she covered her mouth perhaps a moment too late. The man sitting on the stone wall glanced back at her, but paid her no further mind than that.

The setting sun burned into her back as she watched the tide rush in. It had been too long since she had been able to gaze upon such a beautiful sight; though exactly how long, she couldn’t say. Fifteen years, maybe, give or take a little. Everyone was rushing lately, what few there were left, and select few took this new excess of free time to do anything else. They had to find the direction that had been so tragically taken away from them.

She had been a little girl, the last time she watched the tide roll in. Her mother on one side, her father on the other, a teddy bear named Mr. Ruffles clutched in her tiny hand, they had strolled the sands of this very beach, their feet sinking a little every time the water washed over, smiling and laughing like the happy family they had been then. Alongside them and passing them by had been more faces than she ever really had noticed before that moment. An elderly couple who shared as many lines upon their faces as they had years together, young lovers absorbed into their own private world, strangers sitting among the rocks alone and thoughtful, other families with children younger and older than herself…and everyone seemed to smile at one another, whether they knew each other or not.

Now this lovely stretch of beach sat near empty. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, rocking to the left and right a little on her skateboard. Only one other was near her, the man sitting upon the wall yards away from her. It was impossible to discern anything about him from this distance; and even in these lonely times, most strangers preferred to remain strangers to one another.

The sensation welled in her chest again, and she was coughing, covering her mouth with one hand and holding onto the skateboard beneath her with her other. As it subsided, she sighed softly, pale blue eyes focusing in on the water.

Nothing was the same anymore, nothing but the water. It rolled in and out all day, washing away the footprints of the passing hours, however many there may be. The water didn’t discriminate; it was there only to renew and erase. Everything else was different. No boats, no sails coursed through the horizon. No feet left their temporary marks upon the sand. No litter was strewn about the shore. Even the sky seemed bluer lately, but that was to be expected. No more factories, no more big business polluting their air and their way of life. Everything that had defined society was suddenly gone, no one left to run it.

And those who were left, were running from it.

From what had she been running in the first place? Immune or not, running wouldn’t help. There really was nowhere to run to. Empty promises of domed communities down in Florida, out west in California, on the beaches where spirits were high and everyone could be happy again, the Sickness just a nightmare of the past that would eventually fade. Why couldn’t everyone just stop for a moment and see the paradise around them? The world was finally empty of greed, of the rich and the poor alike, of everything that once had troubled them, and they were rushing to rebuild it all again. Everyone was suddenly, indisputably equal, and everything was beautiful, but no one would stop to look.

Her time for running had passed. It had seemed important to her once as well, but this was her destination; she knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt. This little stretch of sand and salt and rock, more beautiful than she ever had remembered it, was her slice of paradise, where she could finally rest. Away from the dank city streets that now smelled of death and decay, away from the bustling life she once led there.

Her throat seized as another coughing fit overtook her, doubling her over. She fell from her skateboard, a single hand still clutching it, and couldn’t find the strength to pull herself up again. Her vision blurred on the horizon, on the man on the wall rising to stand against it. He walked in slow, even strides across the rock, perhaps towards her, perhaps with intent to walk right past her.

Jenna.

Jenna…. When had she last been called that? It had been so long. Fifteen years, maybe. Give or take a little.

“Jenna?”

He was no stranger.

Jenna sat up, and night seemed to have overtaken the beach during her brief siesta. The urge to cough was gone from her chest, and the stars in the sky twinkled vibrantly overhead, blocked out only by the shape of the man hovering over her. Though darkened by the night, his smile shined down upon her, brighter than any of the stars.

“Come on, Jenna. Mommy’s waiting for us.”

She was lifted by the man, as though she weighed little more than a ragdoll. Her tiny hand clutched a small, ragged, black teddy bear, missing a button nose and a bead-eye. There were people across the beach, all going about their own business. Some watched the water, some walked in line with it, some were lost within their own private world.

Jenna looked back as her father carried her off towards the beach, watched as Jennifer and her skateboard washed away like footprints in the sand, and the little girl smiled.

Her time for running had passed; this was her destination.