Welcome to a beautiful Writing Prompt Wednesday! It has been raining off and on for the last several days in my corner of the world and while we need the rain, it tends to make things a little dreary. The perfect time for working on a random writing prompt!
If you were here for last Friday’s blog post, you caught the first part of the short story writing prompt that I started. If you weren’t here, welcome! I’ve attached the link below:
https://www.bluedandelionpress.com/autumn-festivals-and-short-stories/
As a refresher, these are the random writing prompts and criteria that I’m working off of:
Genre: Paranormal & Fantasy Romance
Characters: Human & Vampire
Tropes: grumpy/sunshine
Writing Prompt #952
Growing up, there was a knock on the door every year at midnight on your birthday. With everyone sound asleep, you would always go and check who’s there, only to be met with nothing. On your 20th birthday, the knock happens as usual, but this time someone is standing in front of you. It is the handsome man from your nightmare last night—a person who wielded powerful magic and saved you from a dark being during your dream. You hope that your dream was not a premonition.
When we left our hero and heroine, they had just plunged into the sea to escape a coming darkness. Let’s catch up with them now!
.png)
I came to slowly, memories flashing through my mind, one right after the other. I remembered crashing into the water, the freezing waves like knives against my skin. I remember choking on that same water as it forced its way into my nose and down my throat. What I did not remember, was how I ended up with my cheek pressed against the damp wooden boards beneath me. It took a moment for my eyes to focus, scuffed black boots coming into view before me. I scurried back and tried to stand on shaking legs.
The man settled himself against a thick cylindrical wooden post. Was that, a mast? I looked up, following the post high into the sky where a flag whipped in the salty wind. An honest-to-goodness pirate ship. I hadn’t been dreaming.
“I told you, I wasn’t going to hurt you,” the man sighed heavily. I settled into a crouch as far away from him as I could get with the curved walls of the ship around me.
“How can I believe you? I don’t even know you!” my voice was shrill but I had a hard time caring as last night slammed fully into me and panic welled inside.
“My name is Sebastian,” his voice was deliberately low and soothing, “and, you do know me. You just don’t remember.”
I wracked my memory for any sign of this tall stranger; surely I would have remembered him, right? His presence was too strong and commanding to easily forget him.
“Trust me,” the sigh he gave this time was tired, “you don’t remember me. You never do. I need you to listen to me now though, Malia.”
I thought back to the way he had pulled me along last night, keeping just ahead of that menacing darkness that had pursued me. And how he had shown up in my dream as well, protecting me then too.
Sebastian takes my silence as an invitation to continue, “Everything that you’ve been told is a fairytale, is true. Every beautiful and deadly thing that goes bump in the night and takes up residence under your bed.”
I felt my face drain of color. Everything? There is a part of me that balks at the casual way he discusses these mythical things and another part that seems to whisper, see, you aren’t crazy.
“Are you,” I gulp, “a thing that goes bump in the night?”
A grim smile, “I’m a vampire.” He pauses and lets that that sink in. Again, there is a part of me that wants to scream and run away, or even laugh and call him crazy, but something inside says to listen to him.
“But you came in my house without permission. Isn’t that, against the rules or something?” I’ve wrapped a hand around my exposed neck before I realize what I’m doing and that grim smile is back. I wonder if he has any other kind of smile or if they’re all just grim.
“The fairytales, well, they didn’t get it all right. Some vampires drink blood yes, but I’m a different sort, one the fairytales have long since forgotten. Energy, I survive on stolen energy, and I’m the last of my kind.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up and the air seems to crackle with electricity, as if to punctuate his words.
I decide I’ve given up all logic and reason when I don’t immediately dive overboard and instead ask, “What was the darkness?”
Sebastian’s eyes dim, “That is the very thing that has been chasing us across centuries. It devours lifeforce as easily as a candle is snuffed out. We simply call it, “The Dark”.”
My mind snags, “We? And what do you mean chasing us across centuries?”
He stretches out a leg and for the first time, I notice how tired he seems. The last several hours have been anything but peaceful, I admit, and it occurs to me that Sebastian is likely the one who hauled me out of the frigid depths of the sea and onto the pirate ship we’re currently aboard.
“There are others like me, like us. Paranormals and things of legend that haunt the shadows at night or remain invisible to the human eye. We’re all at risk of The Dark.”
“You keep saying us like I’m one of you. I’m human.”
He lifts a brow, “After all of this, the dreams, The Dark chasing us through the night, sitting in the presence of an energy-thieving vampire, you still think that you’re human?”
Well, maybe not when he puts it like that. . .
“Okay,” I fight the rising panic, “if I’m not human, what in the world am I?”
Thanks so much for tuning in to this week’s Writing Prompt Wednesday! I’m looking forward to following up with Malia and Sebastian next week.
Also, keep an eye out for some upcoming news on Friday involving This Book Beauty and its parent entity.
Happy Reading!
