Wednesday Brief: Your Hump Day Dose of Flash Fiction

Happy Hump day!

I'm back today continuing Clare's paranormal story. In case you don't remember, we left a younger Clare falling through a puddle of red water. If you'd like to go back and reread chapters one and two, click on the tab above that says  "Wednesday Briefs", you'll find Clare's story at the bottom. Also, I'm renaming the story "Little Luna" (at least for now).

The prompt I picked today was "use red light". Oh, and don't miss out on the other Briefer's! (links bellow)

Little Luna 3 

Plop. Plop.Plop. Chime. Plop. Plop.Plop. Chime. Clare’s eyes fluttered and she absently wiped at the wetness on her face. Plop. Plop.Plop. Chime. She moaned and turned. Plop. Plop.Plop. Chime. Chime. Chime. The sound echoed in her head like a hammer striking iron. She groaned turning onto her back.

“I’m telling you something fell through.”

Harsh guttural voices mingled with the insistent wind chimes.

“It’s probably nothing, as usual.”

Something inside Clare clicked and her eyes opened. She blinked. The sky above was not blue. It was not dotted with fluffy white clouds or anything remotely similar. It was bathed in a hazy red glow that moved like the ocean in a storm. She scurried to a sitting position, her eyes never leaving the moving sky that rippled and lapped at the red light above that could only be a sun.

“Damn those portals. I really don’t understand why the King doesn’t close them and rid us from the humans once and for all.”

One of the voices snickered.

“Who knows how the rich think?”

Clare scuttled to her feet, her body aching at the effort. How far had she fallen? She glanced up. Panic threatened to consume her. Where was she? She turned in a full circle, barley taking in her surrounding, barely acknowledging the fiery trees and the yellowish grass at her feet.

“Shit. Over there.”

She turned around. The voices became figures, shadows that loomed in the distance. Her scream echoed in the world around her. She ran.

Clare jumped at the sound of her cell phone's ringtone. She swallowed dryly, absently turning around to gaze out the window. The sky was still blue, the sun still shining. Breathing a sigh of relief, she swept her sweaty palms on her jeans and hurried to retrieve her phone.

“Hello?” she croaked in a shaky whisper.

“Clare? Are you all right?”

Clare chewed on her lip. Did her cousin remember the incident? 

“Hey Feli. I’m fine,” she lied.

Settling on the couch behind her, she cradled her phone against her ear and stared at the ceiling. Everyone in the family remembered the day Clare locked herself in an abandoned bunker. It was a common family anecdote and was used to scare the younger children so they wouldn't wander too far.

“Feli?”

Her cousin stopped ranting about her upcoming wedding.

“What?”

Clare shook her head.

“Nothing.” She’d confided in her cousin that one night about the creatures with horns from the world with no sun. Her scared cousin had tattled on her and she’d been branded traumatized by the situation. A few visits to the doctor later demonstrated she was fine and that it had only been her imagination playing tricks on her. Clare didn’t agree. Not with the dreams that had plagued her childhood, not when every time she heard wind chimes she thought back to that day and especially, not when she looked in the mirror and saw the half-red moon mark at the back of her left shoulder.

As her cousin kept babbling about final preparations, Clare’s gaze slid to her laptop, reaching toward it she propped it on her lap and waited for it to reboot. Opening Mikelo’s email with the picture of the rusty old door, she stared. Her mouth fell open.

“Felicia, your wedding is at Saint Josephs? That’s close to—“

“Clare.” Her cousin’s voice was sugary sweet and full of undisguised pity. “After all these years and you still remember? The bunker is probably gone by now, destroyed. Besides, it’s still a bit far from the church. You have nothing to worry about.”

Beep.

A new message appeared at the head of her inbox. Her pulse quickened and a shiver raced down her spine. It was from Mikelo. 

To be continued...

On you go now to read more Wednesday Briefs: 

Nephylim     m/m

Chris T. Kat   m/m

Cia Nordwell     m/m

MA Church     m/m

Victoria Adams      m/f

Tali Spencer     m/m

MC Houle      m/m

Lily Sawyer     m/m 

Michael Mandrake     m/m

Julie Lynn Hayes m/m