A Doorway to Nowhere – Mid-Week Flash Challenge

The light was definitely different. It was warmer, brighter, and at odds with the spot where Eva sat.

Eva squinted and leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. The light on her side glanced off her spectacles, flaring against the lenses, and she adjusted her position. She stared at the opening made of weaved twigs and sculpted into a doorway, and let her mind stray.

A portal, a gateway into another world, maybe the threshold of adventure … so many ideas spun through her brain and she let a smile spread across her lips. The leaves on the other side whispered, then the trees around her fluttered and so did her heart. It was all she could do to stay put on her small portable stool, but she did. Eva softened her grin and leaned down to pick up her book. The day was yet young.

About thirty minutes later Eva had read and reread the same page multiple times and she finally dropped the book. It rested in the moss at her feet and her gaze returned to the doorway.

Her sigh reflected the breeze and she knew the sun was different on the other side of the track. She repositioned her body again to her previous studious arrangement and watched the opening.

Eva’s eyes began to blur and her eyelids closed, just briefly as her elbow slipped off her knee, and then a bark cut through her reverie. The bark echoed bouncing off the trees and she looked up to see a golden flurry of fur flying at her through the portal. The dog, an excited retriever, bounded up and wound itself about her legs, snuffling at her feet. Unable to resist, Eva’s hands buried themselves in the dog’s fur, fluffing and stroking the animal as it pushed against her like a cat demanding attention.

“And who are you?” she asked. “Where have you come from? Somewhere exciting?” Her voice lifted and the dog licked her hands. “Another world? No wonder you want attention! What’s it like in your world?”

The dog stared at her with big brown eyes mesmerising Eva. When the dog finally strayed from her touch, snuffling back towards the portal following its own trail back through the leaf mulch, Eva followed. She didn’t even pause when the dog hurried back through the doorway, and she stepped right through.

The light shone brighter, glaring through the canopy, and Eva shielded her eyes as she tried to follow the dog, but it loped away too fast vanishing into the trees surrounding the meadow. Eva looked back through her portal. Her stool now lay on its side beside her book, dull in the lesser light, and she turned back to the meadow searching for the dog.

The sun tingled against her skin and Eva shivered with anticipation. Leaves rustled and the dog bounded back out of the trees followed by a young man. He paused when he saw Eva and called his dog to heel. Eva stood with the doorway behind her as the dog waited impatiently at the man’s side. She stepped forward and the dog leaped across the grass to welcome her.

Eva grinned as the dog eagerly jumped and the man issued a quick reprimand. “Fenrir!”

“It’s okay!” she replied, laughing.

The man hurried over with apologies slipping from his mouth and a smile in his eyes, but Eva smiled widely.

“He likes you!” the man said. “I’m Jake.”

“Eva, nice to meet you, and you too, Fenrir.”

“Are you local?” asked Jake, looking behind her at the gap in the trees framed by sculpted twigs. “I’m from the next village …” He indicated behind him with a sweeping hand. “We don’t usually walk this far, and I’ve never walked beyond the tree gate, but Fenrir got spooked and ran away – finding you, as it happens.”

Eva turned to gaze back at the sculpted trees. “Yes, a few miles back that way,” she said, smiling, and she knew her long-awaited adventure had begun. “Maybe you’d like to walk even further along the path today? With me?”

I only wrote three Mid-Week Flash Challenge pieces last year, which you can find on Miranda’s blog, and I’d like to do better this year! So, the prompt photo of an art installation by German artist Cornelia Konrads caught me. When have I ever been able to resist trees?

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.

From Dusk to Dawn – Mid-Week Flash Challenge

It was never going to be easy, and I’d pondered long and hard, and now the choice literally stared me right in the face.

The wind whipped across the moor and I glanced back as its chill bit through my bones. Faces worn with years of decay, pain, and fear stared at me. Crippled bodies, like mine, bore the brunt of the bitter gale atop this mountain and waited.

I’d spent more than an hour staring through the portals, trying to decide. There was no hurry, the chase had ended and we were all that was left. A few hundred of us, lost, but surviving, just waiting now for salvation. And that salvation rested upon my own crooked shoulders.

The storm whistled through the valley and across the crags, and the sun dived behind clouds as the mist rose below us, shrouding the world. The time was now. I turned to face them, my back braced against the blustery wind.

“This is it. It’s all or nothing and this world won’t survive much longer. This is the only way.” I began, raising my voice as loud as I could against the squall. Hundreds of pairs of eyes never left my face as I spoke. I indicated the rear portal. “That one won’t work; look at the storm raging inside… And this one,” I swept my hand out. “is reaching its own twilight, its own dusk. We all know what happens next. So, it’s this one, at the front. Look! The sun still shines as if morning breaks. A new day, that’s what we need and that’s where we’re going.”

I stepped aside and motioned for those at the front to shuffle forward. Tired limbs brought them to the gate, to the portal, to a new life, and with only my words to trust they stepped through. I didn’t realise I was holding my breath until I watched their twisted frames straighten and breathe deep in the fresh air that wafted through the gate as they moved through. The queue moved, gaining momentum, until I was alone. I stood for a moment, staring through the threshold, sudden uncertainty overwhelming me. Then I took a deep breath and stepped though.

It was indeed the dawning of a new age.

Another brilliantly evocative picture for Miranda’s Mid-Week Flash Challenge, this time from Emerald Depths – Danielle Clifton.

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.

Flash! Friday: Casting Pearls

Underwater by Toni Frissell found at flashfriday.wordpress.com

Eloise disliked the constraints of the time she found herself in, almost as much as the heavy, corseted skirts and laced-up boots she’d been bound into, and when the opportunity had arisen to rid herself of these constrictions she took it. She slipped out of her skirt with the same ease she slipped the knife into his chest.
The look of incredulity upon his cruel, angular features had been worth every last minute that she remained staring into his dying face.  
She wiped the blade’s crimson stain on her discarded skirt and slipped the knife into her belt, before fingering the sumptuous strings of black pearls at her neck, the only possession that truly belonged to her.
She was out on the pier in a matter of moments. The moon’s rays danced like teardrops on the black ocean as she jumped. A siren rang out up at the house, its warning piercing the silent night air, and she knew his guards had rallied. Her underskirt clung to her legs as she sank into the murky depths. Behind her bubbles effervesced through the gloom, but even his aquatic guards held no fear, not this time.
She flung her head back, brought her hand to the heavy necklace and tore it away from her neck. She threaded pearls through her fingers until she found the right one, and then she squeezed.
One flash and the ocean glittered, and she swam like an eel through the portal, hoping to emerge in a slightly more equitable time…

(253 Words)

Written for Flash! Friday #13. 

Write a 200-300 word story based on the prompt picture.

Writers’ Week: Blaze of Violet

Artwork by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)

There was a loud bang, and then pain ripped through my soul. I landed on shingle, knees skimming gravel. Tears slipped down my face as I stared in disbelief at the vortex wavering before me, I would never reach it that was sure. He leapt inside just moments earlier, but my leap was interrupted, the consequences of which would rebound across the galaxies.

The portal shimmered and faltered, and as I desperately clambered to my feet it vanished within a fizzing burst of violet flames.

I stood bereft, my hand clutching at my chest, and while my soul writhed in agony, a stain of crimson bloomed beneath my shirt and my heart broke. He was gone and there was nothing I could do.

I turned and watched the sparks fly as the armoured Riders gained and my haemorrhaging heart paled.

The Riders slowed as I sank to the gritty soil, my legs no longer able to assist, and I stared back. My sweat-drenched hair whipped across my face and I moved my scarlet hand from my heart to my head. Words had disappeared from my dry riverbed throat and I had no weapon more than my eyes, so I stared and I stared at death as fiercely as I could.

They laughed and their horses stepped closer until they all stopped and waited. The silence tore me apart, but my eyes flashed and bore into their metal shells.

They raised mail-clad arms and huge, rifle-paired crossbows glared at me. I braced and placed both hands over my heart, ruby tears seeped through my fingers, bruising my robes and I prepared for death, for I knew they would never allow me to live.

I held their gaze, clumsily stood and waited.

The Riders flexed and loosed and I waited, waited for the cold steel to pierce my body…

I gasped as effervescent flames danced and sturdy arms snatched my trembling body backwards, and then I was in his arms and we were gone within a blaze of amethyst.

This is my entry for the Writers’ Week 2012 Writing Contest: Choose one of 50 prompts and write…