30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 4 Seven Days

*The challenge for today it to imagine you have been locked in a room for 7 days and write about your experience using 100 words max for each day. I have chosen to be accidentally locked in a storm shelter that is stocked but has no electricity. I have my phone, food, blankets, and of course a bathroom area. Here we go.

Day 1:

9:30am – Great! I came down here to grab some batteries and the wind slammed the door shut and now it’s stuck. No signal on my phone either. 75% battery life, better save that. at least there’s food, the boys should miss me soon and come looking. I’ll just sit here and wait.
Noon – um… Hello?
3:00pm – Seriously? Why haven’t they come yet? They will start searching around dinner time I know it. I have 5 lives on Candy Crush, that should pass the time.
11:00pm – REALLY?!?! Well I guess I’ll get some sleep.

Day 2:

I have pounded on the doors periodically through the day with no answer. Thankfully there is food down here with me. Made a meal of canned fruit and cold Spaghetti-O’s… Mmmmmmm… NOT! Where could these silly boys be that they aren’t missing me and looking for me? My phone battery is down to 33%, no more Candy Crush for me. It got really cold down here last night, but I found a few more blankets so maybe, if the boys haven’t found me, I wont be as cold.
11pm again… and I’m still here.

Day 3:

I’M BORED OUT OF MY MIND!!! Phone is dead, I’ve gone through one set of batteries on the flashlight already. There were strange scrapping sounds last night, I don’t think I’m the only living thing down here. The extra blankets made it warmer so at least I wasn’t shivering all night. Today’s meal was a well-balanced MRE… beef stew. I think I may be a little delirious because the instructions of “Lean it against a rock or something” made me laugh real hard and then brought giggles for a few more hours. Still no sign of anyone, I’m going to bed.

Day 4:

Mental Note… get more fun things to do while stuck down here! Found 2 decks of cards pack away in a bag so I’ve been playing game after game of solitaire, I even challenged myself to a pairs game. I won. Thought I heard someone outside the door today and yelled till I had no more voice. Dinner today was a beautiful, gourmet feast of Spam, Spray cheese, and stale crackers. I have no idea what time it is any longer as no light come in from outside. Keeping track by meals eaten and sleep.

Day 5:

I’m now beginning to worry that something has happened to the boys. Why haven’t they been looking for me? Do they think I just picked up and left them all? I found a bucket of sidewalk chalk today on one of the shelves, I’m now able to keep tally marks on home many days I’ve been here. Also decided to draw a mural of outside to keep my mind occupied. I have a ragging headache and decided to down a few bottles of water, that may have been a bad idea depending on how long I’m here. Dinner, pineapple and cold canned baked beans.

Day 6:

They’re coming to take me away, ha-haaa.
They’re coming to take me away, ho ho, he he, ha ha,
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time
And I’ll be happy to see those nice young
Men in their clean white coats and
They’re coming to take me away, ha-haaa!
I’m going to lose it if I have to stay here much longer. the walls are starting to close in on me and it feels like it’s getting hard to breathe. HELP! Dinner was cold tomato soup.

Day 7:

Today is the day I shall die of boredom. Another mental note… FIX THE DOOR! Oh and get more batteries. I put the last of them in the flashlight yesterday at some point and the light is slowly fading. I’ve been turning it off and napping today so I don’t kill them too fast. Does no one miss me? Have I been forgotten? When they finally find me will I just be bones and dust? My hands are bruised from pounding on the door so much. I have pushed, I have pulled, I have kicked, I have thrown my entire body at that damn door… Wait! What was that? I hear voices… HELP! HELP I’M IN HERE!!!

The door bursts open and there are the faces of my family staring back at me…

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 3 Footsteps

* Today’s challenge is to take the last bit of dialogue you heard and write 500 words from there. I was watching the Halloween special of Ghost Hunters when I started this so my dialogue is from that. And without further delay here is my piece.

“Footsteps!”
“Footsteps?”
“I totally heard footsteps over there by the door.” ~Ghost Hunters TV Show
“Liz, you are hearing things” I said as I peered cautiously down the dark hallway. “There’s no one there.”
“I know was I heard Sam…” Liz jerked her head towards the hallway “There is was again.”
The two girls look at each other, this was a bad idea spending the night in an abandoned haunted building. Why had they agreed to this? Was winning a bet worth it?
“Hello?” I said “Is there anyone there?”
The darkness blanketed them to the point they couldn’t see their own hands in front of their face. Liz reached into her backpack to grab the flashlight she had brought, upon switching it on they saw what had made the sounds down the hall. A cat, with a mouse hanging from its mouth!
“Shoo! Go away!” Liz yelled “Stupid Cat”
Just then a door behind them slammed. The girls both took off running in the opposite direction screaming all the way. Liz locked herself in a bathroom and I found a closet to hide in. Fumbling through my pack I found my flashlight and flicked it on. Looking around the small closet there was an old coat that the moths had been feasting on and a glove on the floor.
“Get a hold of yourself Sam,” I said to myself “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
I cracked my door open slowly and looked around. “Liz? You okay?”
“Yea… I think so.”
We both came out of our hiding places and stood in the hall. At some point this had been a beautiful grand house. You could see what remained of the expensive French wallpaper and the crystals that hung from the lights, even covered in years of dust, sparkled in the light of our flashlights. A family had lived here, a mother, a father, and their two daughters. Storied were told about how he had gone mad at the death of his wife and locked the girls in their room and set the upper floors of the house ablaze and then took his own life. But those were just stories, right?
The girls wandered into what use to be the kitchen and looked around. The cupboards hung open, no sign of the fine china that use to be stored there. More footsteps creaked down the hall to the sitting room.
“Come on.” I said as I started to follow the sound.
“Sam, I don’t want to do this anymore! It’s not worth the fifty bucks the boys were going to give us!”
“Then stay here, I’m going to see if I can see anything.” I quietly crept down the hall and entered the parlor. The wall had burn scars and the piano had warped from the heat and water damage.
One note, clear as a bell sounded from the damaged piano. It carried through the air like a pure note of warning. As I came around the piano to look at the keys I saw her, and then I saw no more.

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 2 Her Smile Wasn’t Real

Don’t judge too hard on this one guys… it was a hard one for me to do. The assignment is to use the sentence “Her smile wasn’t real” I struggles with this one and then decided to just let it be as organic as I could. This will be a hard Christmas and I’m not looking forward to it but, my kids make it worth it and usually make me smile. Thanks for reading.

A time of joy for one and all!
Mistletoe hung, waiting for loves kiss.
Trees brightly lit with tiny lights,
Twinkling like stars in the sky.
The smell of fresh-baked cookies in the oven
Pies cooling on the counter.
Songs being sung of Christmas Joy and Goodwill to men,
Children’s eyes trying to stay open to see Santa.
Laughter and Smiles all around.
But, her smile wasn’t real.
Try as she might,
She couldn’t make things right.
Behind the smile was a girl
Who missed how things use to be,
Who longed for the days when her family was whole.
When Grandpa would sing O’ Tannenbaum with made up words.
When Grandma would be in the kitchen cooking away with her apron on.
When life was good,
And her smile was as bright as the twinkling light on the tree.

 

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 1 (again) Life Is Like

So the assignment for today is to go to this website http://creativitygames.net/random-word-generator/creativitygame/lifeislike  and get 3 random words and compare them to life in no more that 100 words each. My 3 words are Tide, Quilt, and Iceberg.

Life is like the tide, it’s highs and it’s lows determining how the beach will look and feel, leaving small gifts in its wake, showing us the treasures that lurk below the surface that we rarely see. Not every wave brings a pearl but every wave changes who we are.

Life is like a quilt, we take the little pieces of our life and put them together in a beautiful patchwork quiet that covers us when we are in times of need, when the sad and cold refuse to retreat the quilt will come and protect you and keep you safe and warm. The quilt is made of friends, family, memories, songs, stories, and so much more.

Life is like an iceberg because we hide so much of ourselves under the water, only the tip of who we are is seen by people. It’s only when you get really close that you can see how much more there really is under the surface.