Writing Prompt

** Prologue**

Red. What once had been her favorite color now soaked into the pristine white carpet beneath her feet.

Calista dropped her new maroon backpack by the front door—the one she’d carefully chosen to start middle school—and froze. Her gaze fell to a crimson trail leading deeper into the small, simplistic apartment she shared with her mother.

Her breath hitched as fear gripped her chest like an icy hand. Stepping inside, she scanned the living room and kitchen, her heart pounding harder with every glance. To her left, the wooden kitchen table leaned awkwardly against the far wall, its legs splintered and broken. To her right, the old leather sofa they’d just bought the other day bore deep gashes and jagged holes, as if clawed apart. Shards of glass from broken picture frames crunched beneath her sneakers as she moved, the apartment unrecognizable in its chaos.

But it wasn’t the destruction that made her hands tremble. It wasn’t even the blood—growing in size and number the closer she crept toward the back corner of the apartment.

It was the silence.

Her mother was never quiet. She was always bustling around the house, humming along to the radio or singing her favorite pop songs. But now… nothing. The oppressive hush pressed down on Calista, thick and suffocating.

“Mom?” she called out weakly, her voice cracking. No response.

Her legs felt heavier with every step she took toward her mother’s bedroom. The blood trail widened, the deep red standing out starkly against the beige carpet. Calista clung to the fragile hope that this was all some terrible misunderstanding, that any second her mother would laugh and reassure her everything was fine.

When she reached the door, she hesitated. Her hand hovered over the handle, fingers trembling as tears blurred her vision. Finally, with a shaky breath, she pushed it open.

And her fragile hope shattered.

There, at the foot of the bed, lay her mother’s body.

Her cascading brown hair fell over her face, partially hiding the red stain blooming across her plain yellow t-shirt. The blood had spread in thick rivulets, soaking into her jeans and pooling around her scuffed tennis shoes.

“…Mom?” Calista whispered, her voice barely audible. She stumbled forward, dropping to her knees. With trembling hands, she reached out, brushing the hair away from her mother’s face.

Her fingers froze as they met cold, unyielding skin. Her mother’s bright hazel eyes—so much like her own—were dull, clouded over with a milky film.

Calista let out a broken, wordless cry as the reality slammed into her. Her mother was gone.

Her mother was dead.

The storm outside raged like a feral beast, hammering the old Victorian house with rain and howling winds. Inside, Emily crept down the narrow hallway, her flashlight trembling in her hand. The house had been empty for years—or so she thought. Every creak of the floorboards beneath her weight felt deafening, each sound ricocheting off the peeling wallpaper.

A faint whisper brushed past her ear.

“Emily…”

She froze, her breath hitching. The sound had come from behind her, but when she spun around, the hallway stretched endlessly, darkness swallowing the far end. She hadn’t come alone; the realtor was supposed to meet her here. But where was he now? She strained to hear past the storm’s groans, but all that greeted her was an eerie silence.

Then, the whispers started again—this time louder.

“Emily… run.”

The flashlight flickered, plunging her into darkness for a heartbeat before sputtering back to life. She gasped, her heart pounding. Her hands were slick with sweat as she tightened her grip on the cold metal.

“Is someone there?” Her voice wavered, barely louder than the whispers.

A soft tapping echoed from the far end of the hallway. Tap. Tap. Tap. It grew louder and closer, like the rhythmic click of bare feet against the wooden floor.

The flashlight died completely.

“Please, no,” she whimpered, fumbling with the buttons. Panic clawed at her chest. The tapping had stopped, replaced by the sound of ragged breathing inches from her face.

Then, the stench hit her—a sickly sweet decay, like rotting meat left out in the summer heat. A hand brushed against her arm. Ice cold.

The flashlight blinked on again, and Emily screamed.

A gaunt, hollow-eyed figure loomed inches from her, its mouth twisted into a grotesque grin. The skin around its eyes was stretched thin, almost translucent, and it tilted its head, studying her like prey. It raised a finger to its lips, the nail blackened and cracked.

“Shhh…” it hissed.

Before she could turn to run, it grabbed her wrist with unnatural speed. Her scream echoed through the house as the flashlight clattered to the floor, its beam illuminating the walls. They were moving—warped and writhing like a living organism. Faint, pale hands pushed out from the wallpaper, their fingers clawing and stretching, reaching for her.

She thrashed against the figure’s iron grip, its eyes glowing faintly now, like embers in a dying fire. With an ear-piercing screech, the walls erupted, and the hands dragged her into the suffocating darkness.

The flashlight flickered one last time, revealing only the empty hallway.

Looking down Lost not found Head spinning round Hear the sound

Screams deepen Brain screaming Eyes dreaming Lost fleeting

“Are you excited, honey? It’s Christmas morning!”

The voice of my mother calls from down the hall. She walks towards my room, but I’ve been up for hours, waiting for this moment. Childish excitement running through me, my patience could barely last another second as she throws the door open and greets me with a hug and a smile.

“Good boy, leaving your pajamas on all night!” She tells me, and I look down at my pajamas: red and green with teddy bears wearing Santa hats. My favorite pair. Of course I’d leave them on all night.

“There’s a tear there,” she points out, under my arm. “We’ll have to get you a new pair! Maybe Santa brought you some?”

I follow behind her as she leads me to the living room. Only, as we turn the corner, father isn’t there, and neither are my brother or sister. There’s not even a tree. My vision settles and I’m staring at a family portrait, taken when everyone was happy. Before life happened, as it always does.

The kettle on the stove whistles. I shake my head. I’m sixty-four years old and alone. Mother isn’t here on Christmas morning.

Three strings left. Three. Dad played it out in the cold near the fire all on his own. He was so bad that no one could stand to be around him playing that damned thing but now it sits in my dorm. Pops isnt long gone just- gone ya know? I couldn’t cry at his funeral I don’t know why. I miss him one hell of a lot but we argued too much and I guess I don’t miss him the right way. Kinda like when a teacher dies or like a coach. We just stopped talking after I started working on my own. I was out most of the time but sometimes I’d hear him plink those stupid songs when it got colder. He’d hum a little, my favorite. He’d hum John Brown’s Body like it was the last thing he’d do. The last thing he really did was something way too stupid for him to have done. Dad was never good in school, he couldn’t help me with math work but he knew enough to not drive- like that. He knew not to drive after a long night at the fucking bar.

I was currently staring at the biggest star we had ever seen. My crew of eight had been looking for thousands of years. Eight different creatures from eight different world. Two things in common: all adventurous and all female. This star was the last thing we were sworn to find, and we said we would return to our worlds once we were done. But now that we were, I don’t want to be done. I wanted to keep going. All of us didnt want to be done. We wanted to keep exploring.

Chicory root and fresh ground coffee, Susan gave the hot bitter drink a cautious sniff. Her stomach protested with a truculuent rumble. At the massive farmer’s sink, Tabitha sucked her teeth dismissively. Susan willed her stomach to mind and set her china cup on the kitchen table. Her back twinged painfully.

“Told you,” Tabitha said without turning around.

Susan feigned confusion.

“What’s that, Tabby?”

Having none of her mistress’s foolishness, Tabitha scrubbed the potatoes and shook her head.

“I’s just a feebleminded maid. Not a fancy lady. Not the first colored woman doctor in the world. So what do the likes of me know. I mean my mama and my mama’s mama was midwifes. And even the slowest child on the plantation knows to put a knife under your pillow to cut the back pain and drink boiled gingerroot for morning sickness. But you know best,” Tabitha said, scrubbing harder with each sentence.

Susan sighed. It was hard enough being thirty seven and experiences one’s first pregnancy. So much would change Susan wanted to hang on to herself as long as possible. Already she had limited her practice to two days a week at St. Martin’s. But it was 1884 not 1784, she had heard enough of Tabitha’s old wives’ tales. Susan also hated to point out if she was really such a fancy lady she wouldn’t be sitting in the kitchen breakfasting with the help. She eyed her plate of hominy grits and cheese eggs

“Tabby, I’m the third colored female doctor in these United States and my coffee is just fine. It just needs to cool that’s all.”

Susan made a great show on unfolding the newspaper. Tabitha sucked her teeth again. She scanned the front page until a headline, lower right, made her draw in a sharp breath: Colored Millionaire Burton, 59, Dead By His Own Hands

Susan and her husband Arthur had known Benjamin Burton, the bus magnet of Newport, Rhode Island. The sphere of Black elites was a small one. Maria Burton, Benjamin’s dear late wife, had befriended Susan when they summered in Newport. They were sisters in the National Colored Women’s League. In free health clinics, they worked side by side from Boston to D.C. Just last summer, they had rode the horse-drawn Burton Express, a shuttle service for tourists and locals alike. They’d eaten dinner at the Burtons’ lovely home with therir daughters Marie and Emmie. Gracious and jovial, Mr. Burton was the embodiement of a good man hail went. How could this dreadful thing have happened to such a lovely family.

With Tabitha leaning over her shoulder, Susan read the too brief article. Her mind painted a scene, far richer than any newspaper article. Rain pelted the grand house on Levin Street. Muffled hooves from delivery carriages added to the steady beat of rain. A bell called out as the milkman made his morning round. A gunshot severed the typical autumn morning in western Newport. In the shadow of Belleview’s American castles a second shot soon followed. On Levin, passers-by stopped in their tracks confused. Frantic, a woman’s screams pierced the morning and nothing was ever the same again in Newport.

Her burgundy flannel dressing gown was drenched by the pounding rain, Emmie Burton, 17, ran screaming into the middle of the street. Furniture delivery man, Alfie O’Shea, 32, leapt from his carriage and raced into the Burton house. Emmie’s cries of “Daddy killed himself” followed O’Shea as reached the gore that was the Burton family kitchen. In a widening red pool, Benjamin Burton lay on his back on his tiled floor. Legs under the table, face near the stove, Burton had a neat hole over his right ear and another one on his left side. His kitchen chair had toppled over. His coffee cup, nearly full, waited by his empty plate. Half of a cheese danish was still in his mouth. Crimson bloomed on his crisp white business shirt. O’Shea reached across the red to feel for a pulse. Neighbors alerted by the girl’s screams rushed into the Burton house. Trampling the hand tufted wool rugs, muddying the polished oak floors, tumbling into the once tidy kitchen, the denizens of Levin Street crowded around Benjamin Burton as O’Shea gently placed the dead’s man hand over his broken heart.

Someone wrapped Emmie in a blanket and bundled her, still wailing, into a neighbor’s home. Someone ran upstairs to awaken Allen Dorsey, 22. Burton’s son-in-law and tell him the news. Someone held back Marie Burton Dorsey, 24, as she returned from collecting rents to her home in chaos. Somewhere a policeman’s whistle pealed. Somewhere the coroner put on his overcoat. Nearby the sounds of an ambulance echoed on the wet street. And Alfie, head bowed in prayer, waited with Mr. Burton’s side because it seemed the right thing to do.

Susan didn’t realize she was crying until Tabitha hugged her tightly. First all she could think of was the late Maria Burton, wife and mother and racewoman, born a slave Maria had worked hand in hand with Benjamin as a bookkeeper to build his business. Once successful the woman had devoted herself to uplifting the race. Susan knew Maria’s life work was her family. Why would Benjamin commit suicide? she thought. How could Benjamin commit suicide?

Sniffling Susan drank down the cool minty ginger tea Tabitha had handed her. She hiccuped and felt better. Tabitha put the kettle on. Legs crossed beneath her crinoline and head in one hand, Susan turned the details of the article over in her head with what she knew of the Burton family. Frowning she looked up at Tabitha, who had met the Burtons when they entertained the family during summer vacation.

“Tabby, how do you shoot youself twice on the right and the left?“

“The same way you sleep through two gunshots and a herd of looky-loos stampeded beneath your bedroom. You right it makes no goddamn sense. Suicide my hind quarters! Eat breakfast and I’ll pack our bags. We’ll telegraph your Mister from the station. God willing we’ll catch the Nor’ester to Rhode Island. We’ll brainstorm on the way up how to get you in to do a proper autopsy. Add some hot water to your tea, Doctor, you have another mystery to solve.”

Working until dusk. On Christmas Eve Do these people not have lives? My biggest pet peeve But wait a second, I have something up my sleeve But I’d rather get through it, rather grieve

Mr. Pemensmith corners Miss. Wiltshire in the library. Dozens of books serve as an illiterative backdrop for what would be a most disastrous conversation.

“Mr. Pemensmith you must let me go, I will not marry you sir for love nor money.”

“Miss. Wiltshire it is not your decision to make, I have settled the dowry with your father and we are to be wed before Christmas. You are a woman and more importantly, you are to be my woman. My wife and dare I say … slave.”

“You dare not!”

“Oh, but I do Miss. Wiltshire, oh, but I do.”

A wicked grin befalls the face of the grotesque elderly man. He licks his lips, savouring the thought of having a young maid to be his wife. But Miss. Wiltshire was not without her own tricks.

“I may have no choice, but to marry you, but I must remind you, one cannot marry a dead man.”

Mr. Pemensmith looks uncertain as he allows the arm that is pinning Miss. Wiltshire in place to slump slightly. She takes the opportunity to sink her teeth into his wrist causing an almighty howl of pain.

Once distracted she slips past him and hitches up her dress to reveal a dagger tied to her thigh with a ribbon.

Mr. Pemensmith laughs at the sight and proclaims “you couldn’t wait till the wedding night to show me your garter.”

As he’s distracted by the knife he feels a hand grab his neck from behind. He begins to choke as he claws at his throat gasping for air, until he stops gasping and breathing altogether.

Mr. Pemensmith drops to the floor like a stone and Miss. Wiltshire smiles warmly at the man standing behind the bookcase looking out from a gap on a shelf.

“My love.” She whispers as the man disappears from view before making his way round to embrace her.

“I love you Emilia” he takes her by the hands.

“And I you Jack, but…” she takes a step back.

“My love?” Jack asks with concern.

Emelia turns away from him and a tear rolls down her delicate cheek.

“I regret to say that I love another.”

“Who is he!” Jack demands.

“Not a he.” A voice preludes a beautiful woman as she steps out from behind another bookcase.

“Miss. Pemensmith! Daughter of Mr. Pemensmith!” Jack exclaims.

“No!” She smiles as she takes Emilia’s arm in hers.

“My name is Mrs. Louisa Pemensmith-Wiltshire. You’ve already met my wife Mrs. Emelia Wiltshire-Pemensmith.”

Jack’s mouth drops agape.

“Wife? How can this be? There is no church that would allow such … such heathenry!”

“No church would,” Emelia smiles as she loosens her collar to reveal the shape of a pentagram attached to a chain round her neck. “That is, no Christian church.”

Jack holds his hand up to his mouth in horror, but before he can respond Louisa lifts up her wife’s dress and grabs the dagger before throwing it at Jack’s throat. He too falls to the ground beside the deceased Mr. Pemensmith.

“Oh, Louisa,” Emelia smiles as she places a tender hand to her wife’s cheek. “Thank you my love.”

“You are very welcome” Louisa responds as she leans in for a kiss, but as their lips graze slightly she gasps as crimson blood escapes her wet lips.

Emelia sighs as she pulls the knife out of Louisa’s stomach. “I could have found true happiness with you. I thought I would my love, but I am nobodies fool, I know all about you courting that rake!” She screams as she points the bloody knife down at Jack.

“But … I chose you” Louisa cries out as her legs give out on her and she slides down to the floor.

Emelia lifts her chin up with flare as she looks out to the vast library.

“And I choose myself.”

Blood sprayed across the field, hitting my cheek as I ducked behind a mound of dirt. I gasped and whipped it from my cheek. Who it came from was unknown. I just knew that it was sticky ans wet blood.

There were more shouts and screams as more shots were fired. I could see women and children running for safety in the king’s fort. Only time would tell if the man would actually provide them with what they needed. It was the selfish man’s fault after all. All of this is his fault.

When the Scratta came, the other world leaders offered alliances with them. They gladly accepted. Peace was forged. Until they came here. The king refused to make peace with them. They brought thrust weapons upon us, killing us with painful shots. That was just the start of the War of 2076.

I fired my revolver at one of the Scratta. I managed to hit it in one of its six heads, killing it. I then ducked back under cover. I reloaded my revolver with the electric bullets meant for killing these beasts.

It would only be a matter of time before this battle was lost. So many others had already died. It would only be a matter of time before I followed.

Suddenly, a Scratta jumped on top of my mound of dirt. It’s scream pierced the air. I screamed as well. A thick, scaly claw grabbed my neck. I pain rippled across my body.

Blood flowed from a new gash.

There was a squeezing.

Then a hiss.

Then more pain. So much more pain. Piercing pain.

Then I saw my heart in the creature’s hand.

Then it all went dark.