The First Campaigner Challenge
Today starts the first Platform Building Campaigner Challenge.
Rachael Harrie has cooked up a good one. Today's challenge is as follows:
Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.
If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut." (also included in the word count)
For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!
Here's my go & it's exactly 200 words (since I wrote it in first person present tense, I changed "swung" to "swings"):
The door swings open and crashes into my bedroom wall. I sit up and stare at the empty doorway. I hear my little brother screaming from his room. “You are a bad man, a bad, bad man!”
I leap from my bed in the darkness and stumble over my shoes. My hands grope for something to prevent me from smashing onto the floor. There is nothing to grab. I land on the hard wood and crab-crawl into the hallway, ignoring the sharp pain in my knees.
“Fi-fi,” Henry whimpers. “I need you.”
“I’m coming!” I shout as I right myself to standing. The hallway suddenly goes ice cold and my useless tank top, shorts and bare feet do nothing to help. My skin instantly aches. It’s that cold. I orient myself and feel my way down the hallway as quickly as I can.
Something shoves me backwards and I free fall for what seems like minutes. Every bone in my body feels the landing, especially my head. I blink once, twice, and then close my eyes.
My head. Hurts.
Henry’s desperate cries fill the hallway. “You don’t belong here! Fi-fi, he’s hurting me!”
From behind, my bedroom door swings shut.
Rachael Harrie has cooked up a good one. Today's challenge is as follows:
Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.
If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut." (also included in the word count)
For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!
Here's my go & it's exactly 200 words (since I wrote it in first person present tense, I changed "swung" to "swings"):
The door swings open and crashes into my bedroom wall. I sit up and stare at the empty doorway. I hear my little brother screaming from his room. “You are a bad man, a bad, bad man!”
I leap from my bed in the darkness and stumble over my shoes. My hands grope for something to prevent me from smashing onto the floor. There is nothing to grab. I land on the hard wood and crab-crawl into the hallway, ignoring the sharp pain in my knees.
“Fi-fi,” Henry whimpers. “I need you.”
“I’m coming!” I shout as I right myself to standing. The hallway suddenly goes ice cold and my useless tank top, shorts and bare feet do nothing to help. My skin instantly aches. It’s that cold. I orient myself and feel my way down the hallway as quickly as I can.
Something shoves me backwards and I free fall for what seems like minutes. Every bone in my body feels the landing, especially my head. I blink once, twice, and then close my eyes.
My head. Hurts.
Henry’s desperate cries fill the hallway. “You don’t belong here! Fi-fi, he’s hurting me!”
From behind, my bedroom door swings shut.
