Spooky Stories: Halloween Vault 2020 -2021

Plot Knot Solved (JustWriteIt)

Profile: JustWriteIt

Prompt title: Not So Alone

Prompt: It's Halloween night and you're at home watching scary movies. You hear a thump upstairs, are you alone? (500 words)

My word count: 497 

Plot Knot Solved

The last trick-o-treater disappeared into the night, fairy wings flapping, a few hours ago, and now I'm lounging in front of the TV watching horror flicks, procrastinating getting back to my novel, Cyberscape 7. 

There's a particularly difficult plot knot I've been struggling with for a few days involving the villain and her backstory. I don't feel like tackling it tonight, so I stuff more candy into my face and watch some teenagers get slaughtered in a forest. 

A loud THUMP from above, like something heavy fell over, makes me look up at the ceiling. All the hairs on my arms stand up in alarm. 

Is somebody up there?

Leaving the TV on, I creep up the stairs, careful not to make noise. The lamp in my writing room is on, a shaft of light falling in the otherwise dark corridor. 

Oh crap. I know I didn't leave it on. 

I'm about ready to slide down the stairs and call the police when the door slowly opens and...no, it can't be! 

"There you are! I've got a bone to pick with you. Ms Writer Lady." 

"Arliana?" The woman standing in the doorway is an exact copy of the villain in my novel, down to the chartreuse green hair and skin-tight smart-rubber catsuit.

"Point one!" she snarls. "This outfit is majorly uncomfortable. Write me a different one."  

"But you're the sexy villain. You—"

Arliana whips out her Synthborg G-17 and points it at my head. 

My arms shoot up in the air like startled gophers. 

"Write. Me. A. New. Outfit." A green ray of energy hits the wall next to my head, frying the photo of Grandma Thompson, frame and all.

"OKAY! OKAY!" I scream. "You got it. Just put that thing down!"

"Point Two," she says, as if I hadn't spoken. "I'm not the villain. Write somebody else in that role. Xranla, or Yarlon, I don't care, just not me." 

"Uh, okay. But, I mean, we are already at chapter forty-seven and -."

"Don't argue." She points the Synthborg at my navel. "I want Kringla's role. You should've known that."

"Branx's love interest?" I yip, hoping she hasn't taken any Uganol tabs. Why did I write hallucinogenic drugs into her world?  

"I am a delicate FLOWER, not a CRYNO-TRAFFICKER, you idiot !" she screams. "Now get in here and start writing."

Arliana forces me at Synthborg point to sit at my writing desk and totally redraft the first three chapters Cyberscape 7, framing her as the hero's one true love...in a comfy velvet tracksuit.

I watch her out of the corner of my eye. 

After a few hours, her eyelids flutter and she drifts off, lulled by the frantic clacking of keyboard keys.

And that's when I run over with a passing heavily-armoured hover cruiser, just as she's crossing the street to meet Branx for a romantic candlelight dinner in Quadrant 8. 

Dead on impact. And I mean really dead.  

I look over to the couch. 

It's empty. 

Plot knot solved.