Writing prompt by Michelle Martin:
You're walking down a road in the middle of the night, alone when you see a falling star light up the sky as it crashes and lands in the field beside where you're walking. Upon investigation you find.......
Crickets chirp their nightly song as I walk down the dirt road through the rolling hills. The summer air feels pleasantly warm, a welcome relief from the heat of the day. I kick a rock out of my way, listening to it clack against other rocks as it rolls into the ditch that runs parallel to the road.
I look up at the stars, basking in their brilliant light. It's been years since I've been out in the country, and I've missed seeing the night sky in all its glitter-encrusted glory. A shooting star catches my vision, and I close my eyes to make a wish. Please let me make it to Nationals this year. I open my eyes.
I stop dead in my tracks. The shooting star hasn't faded away like I expected. Instead, it grows larger, the white ball of flame leaving streaks across my vision as it plummets to the earth.
A high-pitched whistle sears through the silence of the night as the gleaming ball of light rockets to the ground on the other side of the hill in front of me. The sky around the hill lights up, a split second before I'm knocked from my feet from the reverberations of the impact.
An ear-splitting boom thunders all around me, and I clamp my hands over my ears. And then--nothing.
At first, I think that I've lost my hearing, but when I pull my hands away from my ears I hear the faint rushing sound from cupping my hands over my ears for a brief moment before I hear the sounds of the night again.
A strange hissing noise is coming from the other side of the hill. I scramble to my feet and up the hill to get a better look. When I get to the top, I look down to see a pillar of dense smoke and dust rising up from a small crater.
I make my way down the hill, moving cautiously so as to not lose my footing. By the time I reach the bottom, the smoke and dust are beginning to clear away.
A white-hot flaming ball sits in the center of the crater, tendrils of blue flame twisting off of it and curling up toward the sky. I take a tentative step closer but stop as the heat bites at my face.
The ball of flame is so bright that it does crazy things to my vision, and I almost think I see it move. I blink, rubbing my eyes, and look again.
It is moving. The ball begins to unfurl, its shape morphing and stretching until...until it stands up.
I gape as the fiery white shape takes on a humanoid form. It is so bright that I can't see any facial features or anything other than brilliant white and blue flames, but I can clearly see that it has a head, two arms, and two legs.
Hissing and crackling, it raises one arm, wisps of flame leaping and dancing up from its limb. It points to me, and I hear a voice, both quiet and booming, full of echoes and sizzles. Human, the voice says. I have come here to die. Do not let me die in vain.
YOU ARE READING
That Touch of Magic
Short StoryA collection of flash fiction pieces, mostly written as responses to writing prompts, as well as some writing prompts of my own. Due to the nature of this collection, updates will be submitted sporadically.
