Action Writing Prompts

He puts a towel over my head. It’s dry and coarse. It smells, but I can’t pinpoint what it smells like…and maybe that’s for the best.

I can’t see him, but Glasses starts screaming at me. I can feel his spittle across my neck. It’s warm in the cold, and in a strange way welcome.

Someone wheels me toward the faucet. My first guess is Glasses, but the arms are wheeling me from the left. Glasses is to the right. I can feel the bristle of arm hair on my forearms. The arm hair, just like the towel, is dry, so my guess is it’s Beard. He grunts something, and I can’t tell if they’re words or not.

I can see the indentation of the faucet. It’s blots out a portion of the rusted-over light that hangs above. Glasses continues to scream and shout, and with it comes more spit. How the man hasn’t reached levels of dehydration is beyond me.

Beard turns the faucet. It’s rusted, I can hear the strain. The faucet groans, like a beast awaking from a winter slumber. And then it belches water. Warm for a handful of seconds and then it’s ice cold.

Damn fools. Stupid enough to think that they can drown me. The one and only. Captain Sponge. The water floods through the towel, and I consume and consume. Glasses is still screaming, and it’s hard to hear over the water, but he sounds panicked.

He should be.

I expand and expand. I can feel my fingers broaden. My joints growing fat with water. My torso gets wider and wider. Fulfilled is the first term that comes to mind. Beard is screaming too. Or just grunting in fear.

I am fully absorbed. I rip through the feeble restraints, the chair tornados into the wall. The towel falls from my face and slops to the floor. Glasses goes for his pistol, but I stop him before he can manage a grip. I extend my hand and launch a surge of water at him. There’s so much water that I can’t even see him, but I somehow can hear his scream. As well as his body colliding with the wall. I think I can hear his bones crack.

Beard grabs me from behind, his hairy arm wrapped around my throat. I tighten every muscle, jets of water shooting upward from my legs, lifting Beard high into the sky, slamming him into the ceiling.

I stop and assess the damage I’d done. Glasses doesn’t have a face anymore, can’t call him Glasses anymore. There are, however, shards of glass protruding around his eyes. Beard’s a mess too, and he also lost his title. Hard to call a man Beard when he doesn’t have a face. I’m glad they understood the power of Captain Sponge in their final moments.

I can hear the stampeding down the stairs. The shouts and screams. They’ll be through the door at any moment.

I am ready.

Captain Sponge is always ready.

My eyes slowly fluttered awake and I looked up at the wood ceiling. Wait. I jolted up in my bed and froze. How could I have fallen asleep?! I stayed a statue, waiting for the thunderous march of armed footsteps, for the sirens, the shouting, the gunshots, the explosions of bombs, the smell of smoke and fear and blood. I strained my ears, but surprisingly heard…birds chirping. I couldn’t help but wonder at the sound. Birds! I hadn’t heard their songs for months. Since the revolution started. I pulled my blanket off me and stepped off my bed. Wait. Bed? I whirled around and stared at the comfort I had just been sitting on, and slowly turned to see my room, neat and as if untouched. My room…that had been destroyed in the bombings. What was happening? Last night I had been curled up on the cold stone floor of a bombing shelter. How did I get here? To a place that doesn’t even exist anymore? I slowly crossed to my window and pulled the curtain open a crack, waiting for the dream to end, for the screams to begin. But they didn’t.

Outside, the smoke-scarred sky and burning fires was gone. In its place, the neighborhood gleamed up at me, as if repainted with bright new colors. The sun’s bright rays of light grinned down at me and washed the street in vibrant rays. I stared as a little boy, his clothes fresh and new, skipped across the driveway with a basketball in hand without a care in the world.

What was going on? I carefully made my way downstairs and out the front door, still hestitant. Still waiting for the bombs to come destroy my home. Again.

“Howdy, neighbor!” I jumped at the sound and turned to see a woman waving at me. A smile, taking up almost her whole face was plastered on as she held a hose over plants so green they looked fake.

I stared at her for a second. I recognized her.

“Lidia?” I took a step closer. Yes, I did. I imagined her face covered in ashes, the grin she now held replaced with sobs that racked her whole body. Her clothes bare rags against the cold stone floor of the shelters.

“Lidia, do you know how-what-whats happening? How are we here?! Last night, remember, we were in the bombing shelter. How did we get here? This place was destroyed!”

She tilted her head and her brows furrowed slightly, but her grin stayed bright.

“Bombing shelter?” She asked. “My dear, what are you talking about?”

“The shelter we were in just yesterday! To hide! To hide from the bombs they sent that blew up this whole neighborhood! And killed your brother!” I flailed my arms around me at the perfect haven surrounding us.

“Now, who ever would do such a horrible thing?” She said, clicking off her hose.

I gaped at her. “Who-who-what-? You don’t…remember?” I was at a loss for words. “The government!” I screamed, my voice pericing the calm surrounding us. Out of place.

“The government that tried to kill us! The ones who declared war on us after we started to think for ourselves, the ones who vowed to protect us then murdered thousands of innocents!”

“Oh, no, my dear. The government protects us,” Lidia said and, if it was possible, her smile widened. “They build us this sanctuary.” She opened her arms and the houses around us. I shook my head in disbelief, my legs carrying me back, away. I whirled around, looking for something-anything to bring me out of this dream. I stumbled across the street and made my way to another neighbor’s house.

“Howdy, neighbor!” Lidia said. I froze and turned to see her smiling up at me again, the hose pouring over her plants.

I banged on the door and a man opened it. I recognized him too. He was there, during the war, we were running for our lives together.

“Hi there,” he said to me, a grin breaking his face in half. The conversation went the same way. I slammed my fists on the other neighbor’s door.

“Howdy, neighbor!” I heard from behind me. A young girl opened the door for me. The conversation went the same. And again. And again. And again. “Howdy, neighbor!”

I slumped against a wall and stared out. No one remembered the very houses we sat in being obliterated by the government. No one remembered…well, anything. The war we fought so hard to end was simply…erased. I closed my eyes, my mind emptying itself of any reasoning. Of any simple explanations.

“Howdy, neighbor!”

I shoved my eyes closed.

The pitter patter of my heart grows louder as I stare into her eyes. My mask slowly starting to peel from my face as I dangle over the edge of the bridge just barely holding onto her, my love. The rain pours down heavily, the drops of water streaming over us. My eyes flick down towards our hands where my grip is strong, but slipping.

Her fearful eyes look into mine as she holds on for dear life. My stomach is riddled with knots as I once more try to pull us both up, I have to save her. Time ticks by slowly as the mask peels further, revealing some of my face. I stop, frozen in place. If she finds out who I am, she’ll be so disappointed.

Pictures of her flash through my mind, all the images mentally saved of her from across the hall, laughing and smiling with her friends, her eyes lighting up. Her voice, she’s spoken to me a few times, just trivial things. An aura of beauty and strength seemed to constantly float around her, drawing me in. But I’m simply an outcast. One who is barely getting by, who struggles to fit in and who’s worth is diminished every day. No, she can’t find out.

My broken image hidden behind a powerful and capable force would be bared to the one person who I didn’t want to know see it. For I know that deep down, she’ll never love someone like me.

Yet right now as I stare into her sparkling eyes, her strong aura is now broken into a petrified one. I know I must do whatever it takes to save her. With that thought in mind I hook my feet through the bars of the bridge and summon up all my strength. Slowly but surely I’m pulling us up until I’m securely on the bridge. My hands grip her tighter as hers begin the slip from mine, making the task seem impossible.

“You can do it,” she says her voice shaking a little but full of sincerity, that I believe her. My mask falls further revealing half of my face but I ignore it as I hoist her up once more. Now grabbing her waist, she latches onto the bridge and together, she’s pulled to safety.

Breathing heavily, her hands rest on the ground as she bends over. I watch as a sense of relief fall over her and she rises to my level. I feel the need to shy away from her as my mask falls off my face, her eyes following it. She trails her eyes back to meet mine and my heart lurches in my chest, my mind swarming with anxiety induced thoughts. Yet as the rain pelts down on us, her gaze softens.

“You saved me,” she says. My head nods on its own while my mind is still trapped in itself fighting for control. Suddenly, I find light and warmth when she embraces me and I realized she didn’t care who I was. As I stood there in the arms of the woman I loved most, I saw my mask be carried away in the wind and in that moment, I couldn’t find it in me to care.

She understood it. The deep rooted mistrust he had for her. She didn’t even blame him for admitting it out loud and to her face. But something still pricked her heart as the words projected from his mouth.

Lila took a sharp breath, her deep brown eyes staring at him consciously, ready to flick away if he turned to face her. She knew he wouldn’t though. Caleb hadn’t looked at her in the face for a year that very same night. It upset her to think about that night, but Lila didn’t regret it. She didn’t regret her actions that shattered both of their souls. She did what had to be done.

It was unclear whether Caleb was expecting a response but after a few strenuous moments of silence, the hunk beside Lila pushed himself from behind the wall and fled to the one opposite, his companion cursing soundlessly all the while. She held her breath, waiting for the sound of footsteps or shouts but there were none. He had made it to the next wall. And he had left her there, expecting she would follow just as easily behind.

Lila knew Caleb was aware that her speed and agility would cause no trouble for her to cross to the next wall, but she still felt bitter for him having left her there. Lack of communication was what would get them killed if they were not careful.

Cautiously, Lila peered round the corner. Two guards stood patrolling on the right, beside the boxes loaded with what Lila could only assume were weapons, drugs, or something worse. A light from a watchtower, located to the left, circled the area she had to cross. But the way it moved was rhythmic and easy to predict. Counting under her breath, she waited until the guards had turned and then she ran.

Lila’s footsteps barely hit the floor. She was as silent as a mouse, unlike Caleb whose footsteps were only covered by the shouting of orders an officer gave to a guard in the close distance.

She was at the other wall, beside Caleb, in milliseconds. He turned to run, once more, but Lila grabbed his arm, pulling him harshly back. The way his forehead creased failed to hide his surprise.

The night was dark but Lila was used to seeing the shadowed features of Caleb’s face. Even now he wasn’t looking at her - not properly - and Lila could tell.

“Christ, will you grow up! I get it,” Lila hissed, her teeth clenched together to prevent her voice from rising and alerting the guards. “I understand that what I did that night, you will never be able to look past. But we are both stuck here now -“

Caleb’s eyes flickered to his damp surroundings, the clouded sky threatening to rain alongside the guns and the knives that each skilled fighter would wield if either of them were caught.

“- and if we do not rely on each other, we will both die. Do you understand?”

His jaw was clenched and eyebrows furrowed but he nodded. “Fine. But as soon as we get out of here, I never want to see you backstabbing face again.”

Caleb was looking at Lila now. She knew he meant it.

That very same night only a year ago, both figures stood as close as they are now, their eyes interlocked in a battle of hatred and love. He was helpless with her blade to his neck, Lila was too quick for him. One wrong move and Caleb knew she could end him.

Lila on that night not only took the valuable data from the West that Caleb had collected for his side - the East - but she had also taken his heart.

And crushed it.

“I’m sorry,” she had whispered, on that night, over and over again, knowing her empty words could never heal the damage she had caused.

That was the danger with being a spy. She had to break hearts and get hers broken. But she was worth the sacrifice for her side - the West.

Yet despite that, here they both stood, once more only mere centimetres away from each other, and more dependant than they ever had been before.

The North had decided to put their foot in the war between the East and the West; members from both sides were taken. This included Lila and Caleb. They were the only survivers of it that they knew of. And they now relied on each other to get them back to their own respective sides once more. Caleb in the East, and Lila in the West.

With Caleb’s “strength” and Lila’s “speed”, as she had put it, Caleb was aware that there was a chance of him getting out of there alive. If that meant working with his love that had betrayed him, then so be it.

Lila wondered if there was ever a world in which Caleb and her hadn’t been on opposing sides. Or a world where they chose each other over their country. She knew she had been the one to hurt him, but if the roles were reversed, she knew Caleb wouldn’t have hesitated either.

There was a thinner line between hate and love than most people realised. Possibly some people with these opposing feelings could coexist, but that wasn’t the case for either Lila or Caleb. But now, these conflictions fuelled the fire that would give them their best chance of survival.

It would give them that fire that would push them through what none of the other captures survived. It would lead them to the comfort of their own sides. And by doing that, maybe they would begin to understand that each side isn’t so different from one another.

That Lila and Caleb weren’t so different from one another.

Sophie did not like working with thieves, they were sticky fingered, conniving, backstabbing lunatics who only looked out for themselves. Upon telling people this she was often met with weird stares — after all she was a thief herself. However, she was also a thief low down in the criminal food chain and therefore had no control over who she worked with when her boss dictated that she must take someone else on this mission with her. But just because she had to didn’t mean she wouldn’t resent it.

Sophie had put in all of the hard work, scaled down the wall from the roof with nothing but a rope to keep her from falling to her untimely death, she had rolled through unforgiving lasers that had leaped to try and graze the slivers of her skin exposed to their wrath — almost singeing off her eyebrows! And yet here he was, strolling arrogantly through the brooding corridors, prize in hand as though he had done a thing! He had all but snatched it from her grasp as soon as her silent feet had hit the floor, after she had done all the dirty work and he had just watched like some incappable moron. Told her he would “keep it safe” for her. She knew what that meant, it meant he would hand it to their boss and get all of the credit for it. He had caught her on a bad day though, because it’s not like Sophie wasn’t used to this happening, it was the reason she despised working with other thieves. Normally she would let it go, would limp back to their headquarters ignoring the pain in her legs, the strain in her back from all the work she had done and let them claim it as their own. But tonight she had decided she had just about had enough. He was whistling as he swaggered along, swinging the necklace around the tip of his finger its long chain dangling lazily from his hand. She trailed slowly behind him, studying him as he walked, waiting for a sign of weakness, an opening. Despite being a sinner, God seemed to have heard her prayers and decided to answer them because the sound of heavy footsteps came from the other end of the corridor. Security. The other thief turned to her, eyes wide in alarm, and so she too masked the panic upon her face. She grabbed his arm, dragging him into a shadowed corner as they watched the security guard stroll by. The guard was coming closer and closer and Sophie always felt that nervous thrill of excitement at almost being caught. When you knew you were doing something bad and there was a chance you’d get away with it. It had her on edge. And just when the guard was a heartbeat away from them, when she could see every pore and wrinkle marring the man’s face she grabbed the necklace from the thiefs hand and before he had time to object she kicked him in the back of the leg and watched as his knees buckled and sent him stumbling to the ground. “Hey!” The security guard yelled but Sophie was already running, running for the rope attached to the ceiling, running to freedom running like hell on earth. At first the guard was too busy tackling the other thief to the ground to go after her, not realising it was she who possessed the stolen item. Upon reaching the rope she hastily put the necklace around her neck, and using two hands began climbing like hell. By the time the guard came over to her he just stared helplessly up at the mountain of a rope in defeat, a rope he was never going to climb in time for she had already reached its top. It led to a window on the roof and she clambered through letting the cold evening breeze kiss her face. Let it unfurl her hair and coddle her in praise. Untying the rope to ensure she couldn’t be followed, she allowed herself a moment to pause on the rooftop. Her boss would kill her when she returned for leaving her partner behind, letting him get caught despite him being stupid enough to turn his back on a thief.

That was if she decided to return at all….

Looking down at the jewel around her neck Sophie decided she liked the way that it looked hanging between her collarbones, the jewel bright against the flushed skin of her neck. Why should she return the necklace when she was underpaid and definetly underappreciated. She was a thief after all and it was incredibly stupid of her boss to trust a thief with something so expensively shiny and pretty. She decided her boss had brought it upon himself, after all she was only what he had perfected her to be. You don’t train a dog to bite and withdraw your hand in shock when it finally does. So Sophie looked out into the cloudless night, at the endless possibilities suddenly presenting themselves before her and decided she was going to be a very rich woman indeed