This Week's Prompt:
Home Alone
by @zeldacroft
An inky air crept through the twilight hours, and now pressed against the windows of the house. Inside, Nathan aimlessly flipped through the TV channels, the living room calmly lit. He was getting impatient.
A thump, thump down the stairs made him jump, but he managed to keep his composure. His mom hurried into the room. Her oversized coat and mittens signaled she was ready for the autumn chill outside.
“Alright, I’m heading out,” she said. “I’ll probably be gone for a few hours, so call me if you need anything. Remember there’s leftovers in the fridge, and try not to just watch TV. You know that book from—”
“Mom,” he interrupted.
“Yes?”
“You’re going to be late.”
“I am, aren’t I?” She agreed, but ran over to kiss his forehead anyway. “I’ll lock up, be sure to stay safe.”
“Yes, Mom.” He rolled his eyes. Their corner of suburbia had always felt like the most boring. Nothing bad could happen here.
As soon as Nathan heard the front door close, he leapt up and looked out the window. The streetlights cast heavy shadows on his mom’s car as she drove away. When she was out of sight, he whipped out his phone and texted his best friend, Mark. “It’s time.”
Mark had gotten his hands on some horror games, including the much coveted Bloodhunter 4, but his family wouldn’t let him play.
Nathan wasn’t allowed to either, so tonight was finally their chance. Impatience turned to excitement as he switched the TV to his Xbox. Mark lived on the same street, so it wouldn’t take long for him to get there. After gathering soda and snacks from the kitchen, he heard a sharp knock on the door.
My Continuation:
"Oh MAN! My mom had her eagle eyes on in the kitchen and my dad was staring out the big window in the living room like he always does, so I had to climb out my window, up a tree and over the fence to get here! Let's get this party started!" Mark brushed leaves off of his clothing and onto the floor. There were leaves in the cuffs of his pants, in his pockets, and in his hair. He tracked a quite a few leaves into the house on the bottoms of his shoes, plopped down on the couch still in his coat and shoes, and waited for Nathan to get the game going.
"Wait a minute man! My mom will for sure know something went down while she was gone if she finds all these leaves in here! We have to pick them up before we start or we'll forget." Nathan started to pick up leaves. Mark rolled his eyes and reluctantly got up to help..
"And take off your shoes man! You know shoes are not allowed in my house! What is with you?"
The boys got right to playing the game after that. They'd lost a lot of precious time picking up yellow and red-speckled ovate leaves from the floor, off of Mark's clothing, and from all over the couch. They didn't even think to wash their hands so they picked up the controllers, and went right to work on that game and those snacks.
The boys were busted for this transgression within a few days when both they and all of their parents developed nasty rashes that can only have come from the poison ivy climbing up the tree Mark had to go up to get over the fence between the two yards.
They were still grounded on Halloween.
This is my entry to https://steempeak.com/wewrite/@freewritehouse/we-write-11-home-alone-last-week-s-winners-announced
Since it was written as a freewrite, it is also my entry to @mariannewest's freewrite challenge https://steempeak.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-728-5-minute-freewrite-friday-prompt-climber I don't know how long I wrote because I set the timer and started writing, then got interrupted and forgot to start the timer again when I got back to this story. It wasn't much longer than five minutes though, I promise.
These are two great challenges for a fabulous community, @freewritehouse! Come write with us!
All images are my own unless otherwise stated.
I really do enjoy the read.
.Am here to deliver the weekend freewrite prompt
Write, post, earn a living from this prompt
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-10-19-2019-single-prompt-option
The big boys coven, come one, come all
Pro-writers hide here often, using this prompt.
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-10-19-2019-part-1-the-first-sentence
...
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Do have a beautiful weekend.
Thank you!
Tag me when you write more on this story. Being that it is October I think more could be written to make it just creepy enough without causing nightmares for the faint of heart. 😂😂
It IS my idea of a nightmare! Thanks for stopping in and especially for wanting more.
Wow that was a really entertaining story @owasco, and it brings back memories from my childhood when doing things I was not supposed to, never got any Poison Ivy though, it's awesome.
This post is AWESOME!
Awesome Daily Upvotes in category Freewrite, I give out 1 such vote in that category per day, plus 3 more in other categories, and your post will also be featured in todays Awesome Daily report for more visibility.It has therefore got a manual 100% upvote from @thisisawesome, for the
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I had two boys get into a mess of it and try to make like "I dunno". It wasn't hard to figure it out, and as soon as I saw @mariannewest's prompt "climber", story started to write itself, my favorite kind of story to write.
Thanks so much!
Ha ha, nice twist at the end. I thought they were going to end up being discovered because of a leaf they missed under the bed or something. It's great when a story surprises you like that.
Rashes for Halloween 😂
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For a short sec I tried to make the rashes part of their costumes, but that story wouldn't have wrapped up in the five minutes. I do like my freewrites to wrap up. Thanks for dropping in!
How fun is that! The We-write and the Freewrite and a all around fun write LOL
Yup. Nasty poison ivy LOL
I'd been staring at the wewrite prompt for a few days, nada. Your prompt today opened up the skies and a story rained down. So fun!
Looks like you had fun with this free write. Thanks for sharing have a great weekend.
lol. love this ending. happened to me and my siblings once taking a short-cut through a yard we were warned to stay out of.
Sounds to me both are scared of their parents. Happy Saturday, thanks for the good read! 👍💕
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Love the story and the ending. I too thought an errant leaf would be their undoing.
Great writeup! The ending caught me by surprise, @owasco. I remember as a child my father always warned us about stepping into poison ivy so I can clearly relate. 😊
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I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 3 SBD worth and should receive 189 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
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TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePigI totally agree! I write great original stuff off the cuff with the help only of a couple of prompts. Then I edit it. Then I proofread it and proofread it again. Then I choose, crop, tinker with and upload a photo that I took myself. Then I make sure to give credit wherever credit is due. I hit publish and start the mad scramble to get it noticed - I'm my own marketer too. I do all this work and does anyone notice? The answer to that is YES! This thing has been resteemed four times. It has gotten ten human readers! But does it make any steem? nope. All this talk about quality being rewarded and I haven't even made a quarter on this. OK OK, I know I still got to surprise the hell out of myself by writing a really good story, one that is tight enough to get the attention of a bot like yourself that can see it is well constructed, has careful and adept grammar. The story also has a true surprise ending (read the comments to see what people were thinking as opposed to my brilliant twist ending) an ending that rivals even a @felt.buzz ending. People who read it genuinely liked it because these are folks out there doing exactly the same kind of work I am doing and racking up quarter after quarter, being careful to stake it all back into the steem system that is making others rich. OK not rich maybe, but rich in steem and power on steem. There are days I feel like I am doing all this mostly to benefit an elite techno-savvy math-minded gambling class. My work, after all this, goes up in smoke in a couple of days but the money makers get to keep their money. It gets a bit demoralizing to have to work this hard (writer, editor, proofreader, photographer, lay out, publisher, marketer) for next to nothing, except of course for visits from my dear readers who keep me sane. I'd like to express my endless gratitude to everyone who actually reads my stuff.
Hey, I know I am talking to a bot, but thanks for giving me the opportunity to get all this off my chest.
That comment deserves an upvote of its own!
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Thanks man! I could not help myself, words from my heart, inspired by a bot, so maybe bots are not ALL bad. I'm so glad you read it thank you thank you thank you
Hahaha, what a great story and as they say, the truth can never be hidden and at times it will surface in a most surprising way.
I have also had my climbing out of the widow experiences Lol
Blessings!
I had a lot of fun with your part of the story, especially the poison ivy. I think part of the story I wrote would fit yours. Receive my affections appreciated @owasco.
Ah, you went the natural way with it - no spookiness. Although I am not following as to what has happened. In the prompt, it was Nathan who was calling Mark to come over and was expecting his arrival. In your version, it was Nathan who came over all covered in leaves avoiding his parents policing. Yet the prompt stated that Nathan's mom went to work. So I am confused. :)
Oh my goodness I did mix up the names! I'll edit it now thanks for pointing that out. oopsie!
No problem! Now that's you clarified it. It's all cool! :)
Busted, itchy with poison ivy, AND grounded on Halloween? That would certainly teach them a lesson, but I have a feeling the lesson would be to avoid poison ivy, maybe not to stop sneaking around.😉 Like others I thought the mom would find the leaves, so the image of both families coming down with rashes was a surprise. I thought the leaf description was just to paint the scene, but upon a reread I see it's good foreshadowing.
Thanks for the nice read!
Thanks for the nice comment!
Haha! Great freewrite owasco, so well written that I felt like I was there!
Come wewrite with us! The luckiest writers win 5sbi! Here's the most recent prompt: https://steempeak.com/wewrite/@freewritehouse/we-write-12-october-partner-week-last-week-s-winners-announced