Wednesday Brief: Your hump day dose of flash fiction

Let us all cheer for the fact that half the week is over! Hurrah! I'll be sincere, Monday and Tuesday  have been hard. I hadn't had such crummy days in quite some time. *sigh* Anyway, enough about me! I'm continuing with last week's story that you can read here. The prompt I've used is the one that said "use a rainbow".

Oh, and do come by on Thursday and Friday too! Tomorrow I've got author Julie Hayes popping in for a visit! She'll be talking about her latest release, Revelations. On Friday, author Freddy McKay is stopping by for a spell to share chat about her latest release, the anthology Cabin for Two.
Come over, leave a comment and have some fun :-)

Enjoy! And do visit the other Briefer's (links at the bottom). They've got some great stories going on.
And now without further ado...

Clare (chapter 2)

Clare looked out the window. It was Saturday morning and after the storm of the previous night, a dazzling sun had come out and a beautiful rainbow glittered in the sky. She’d barely slept, her thoughts on his last email. She hadn’t replied. She couldn’t. Not with the image of the door and the words. Clare pulled out the coffee pot and set it to brew. She passed a tired hand over her face. Reclining against the kitchen table her gaze was drawn to her laptop in the living room. Mikelo. She’d never heard that name and yet when she mumbled it aloud in the dead of night it rolled off her tongue naturally.

“Mikelo.”

She closed her eyes, savoring each syllable. It was an exotic name, one that didn’t belong to this world. A name that came from another time and another place, a name that could be found behind the iron door. Her eyes popped open and she turned her back to the computer.

She’d been a child, barely eight years of age when she’d found the hidden bunker while playing hide and go seek with some neighborhood friends. The door was ajar, the perfect place for a child to hide in.

Clare ran across the jungle of leaves and fallen trees that dotted the landscape. She heard her mother screaming after her, telling her not to stray too far, but she paid no heed. Her cousin was it and she had to hide as quickly as possible. She saw the wall of leaves, swinging slightly with the wind. Perfect! She stumbled and fell across to the other side. Her heart pumping and her eyes wide she only saw the old door slightly open. She heard her cousin’s voice, calling her name and scrambled into the tight space. Smiling wildly, she pulled the door closer and put her ear on the door.

Wrinkling her nose, she waited. She couldn’t hear anything. Not the sound of the wind or Felicia’s acute singsong voice. It was dark, but she wasn’t afraid of the dark. She waited. Minutes ticked by slowly and she started to wonder if her cousin had given up on her and left. Annoyed, she pushed at the door. It was stuck. Frowning, she pushed again. Nothing. Huffing with exasperation and trying hard not to succumb to the growing panic in her gut, she pushed once more. The heavy door did not budge. A noise caught her attention. Plop. Plop. Plop.

It was like a water faucet that had been left open. Her tiny hands pushed at the door again. It was just her imagination, just her imagination. She closed her eyes and pushed with all her strength to no avail. The sound grew louder. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Chime.

Her eyes widened and she spun around. A light shone in the distance illuminating a small pond. Clare’s brow wrinkled. She watched mesmerized as water dripped from an unknown place onto the translucent water. Plop. Plop.Plop. Chime.
There was that other sound, like wind chimes tangling in the air. She looked around but there was nothing. Plop. Plop. Plop.

Where was the water coming from? Her feet dragged her toward the source even as her brain told her to stay put and away from something she didn’t understand. She stopped at the edge of the enormous puddle and looked up. Darkness. She couldn’t see the ceiling, the rafts or a faucet in the black darkness pooled above. Her gaze followed the drop that mysteriously appeared. Her mouth opened in utter horror as she realized the color of the bead. Her childish mind associated it with one thing and one thing only as the droplet mingled with the water. She scrambled backwards, her tiny feet slipping. Her arms flailed in the air and suddenly she was falling, falling right through the puddle of blood. 

To be continued...

Wednesday Briefer's

Nephylim    m/m

Chris T. Kat   m/m

Victoria Adams      m/f

Lily Sawyer      m/m 

MA Church    m/m

Tali Spencer    m/m

MC Houle      m/m

Julie Lynn Hayes  m/m

Cia Nordwell m/m