Prompt A Day Collection: Section 11

By: Shima And Tempis

Prompts 65-69

Prompt: flames

Her sister sewed constantly for over three weeks, until her feet swelled up from the hunched position and her hands were riddled with holes. All Jessi could do was watch, occasionally getting her some tea as she thanked her, silently, again and again for what she was doing.

"I promise, you'll be the belle of the ball, sweetie," her sister had said, smiling, running a hand through her younger sister's tangle of red curls. "Just you wait and see."

And saw she did. When she pulled the dress over her head, the cool black silk hugged each one of her new curves. Casey, the wonderful seamstress and sister that she was, stood behind Jessi to get a look at her face in the mirror.

The flames licked at Jessi's sides, a masterful match of reds, oranges and yellows that faded into the black of the dress, the deeper-than-ash black that made Jessi's scarlet tresses pop. The flames drifted and flowed around her knees at the edge of this piece of artwork her sister had made for her.

"Thank you!" Jessi said silently again, a flick of her hand, before jumping into Casey's waiting arms. The flames flew wildly about them both. Casey set her sister down and took her face in her tired hands, just so Jessi could read her lips.

"It's the least I could do to make your prom special."

Prompt: we sat together in silence

He was bad at English. I knew that, and he told me it all the time in that broken, quiet way he always did. But I never minded. It was hard to mind, when his messy brown hair was falling in his eyes and his long, thin fingers were clutching paper and pencil tightly as if working on a problem that would save the universe.

I didn't need him to give me the long-winded opinions that previous men in my life had tried. They played at being the smart ones, the ones with something to say, something people should listen to. It was like that all my life, men with opinions, women with slightly less worthy ones.

So it was nice, sometimes, when we sat together in silence and there were no opinions hanging in the air. I would joke about being on anti-depressants and he wouldn't have anything to say. He shrugged, or ruffled his hair, because he really didn't mind. There were so many things wrong with me, but he took them in stride, in that quiet way he always did.

I think that's why, two months into our quiet, often silent relationship, I leaned over the table and kissed him.

Prompt: you can never have too many…

She picked up the case (supposedly for pencils, but he knew different) and plopped down on the bed beside him. Almost reflexively he put his arm around her waist, leaning his chin on her shoulder as his dark, dark brown hair tickled her neck. She smiled, softly, and he wondered how in the world he had spent his days not noticing her.

"See?" She said, opening the little tin box. They came flying out on her lap, falling like leaves, twirling and spinning in suicide dives for her bedroom floor. She laughed, trying to catch them, while he kept his arms securely around her. "They're all a memory. Each one shows me something I've done, reminds me who I've done things with."

With the precision of a jewelry maker, she plucked one of them from between her knees. "This is my memory of you," she whispers, showing him. He laughs, remembering, those times when he was quiet and she was... not.

"I think I understand," he whispers into her ear. "You can never have too many ticket stubs."

Prompt: it’s just a ride

Navi stared at Mikhail, wide-eyed, at the car he just stole, and her collapsed best friend breathing raggedly in the back seat. He had his foot slammed on the brake after stopping in front of her. Now that Hayley was safely inside the illegal vehicle (illegal for so many reasons--Mikhail was only fifteen), she wasn't so sure she wanted to follow suit.

"Navi!" He yelled at her over the sound of the gas-guzzling engine. Navi shuddered. "It's just a ride!" His panicked brown eyes took in the sight of the fallen girl behind him, and then he turned back to the reluctant redhead on the sidewalk. "Get in! We have to get her to the hospital!"

Something about the word put an unusual bounce in Navi's step, and she was in the passenger's seat in seconds. She put on the seatbelt (years of a father's ever-present command had stayed with her, even after his death) and turned to Mikhail to tell him to go.

He wasn't going to let her off with just that, though. He knew her better. Leaning over, his lithe hands still on the wheel, he pecked her on the cheek. "Thank you," he said easily, before shoving his foot to the right and slamming the accelerator.

He knew how Navi felt about hospitals--they were the places they sent your fathers after they died, so you never saw them again. They were the places they sent freaks only to ship them back to Zenron Labs to be disected. They harmed people.

But for Hayley, the poor little girl in the back seat who was sweating profusely, they were potentially places that could save her life.

Prompt: Photo of a few dying purple flowers in a vase

Her arms felt stiff as she slammed her palms onto the mahogany bureau, her black bangs falling into her eyes so that her vision blurred before her. She felt the tears stinging but refused to let them win. Shaking her hair out of her face, she reached forward and grasped the bouquet of beautiful flowers that they (them, her parents) had put in her hospital room.

It was a rustle, a tiny bit of a whisper of wind. That's all that was needed for the lively color and firmness of the valiant plants to be sucked out of them, into her outstretched palm. She felt the things die, watched as the petals fell limp to the ground, a flutter of motion before nothingness.

"I'm not sick," she murmured, kicking at the broken brown stems. "I'm not sick!" Her voice rose and she kicked the locked door next to her. The mirror hanging on it couldn't take the blow and dropped to the ground, breaking into a million pieces. She slipped silently among the shards and cried, sobbing, in a silence full of a lack of birds singing, of bugs awakening, of a world alive.