Flash Fiction Day 2016 Stories

12:15 AM

Red was all she seen for days. Red rain; red sky; the red that her skin became when she huffed up another steep hill that painfully forced itself out of the earth. The range of spiked dirt created a spine that rose and twisted in uniform with hers. Something wanted to get out from beneath her feet.  She felt it move like an unborn baby as she strode in the day's heat, squirming and kicking its feet against the soil.  At night it felt more like a heartbeat; vibrations ran up her legs to her head, making her brain tremble and rock against the sides of her skull.  She watched the moon quiver in its far away bed when the thing beneath her threw stones into the air and black dust flying across her face. She moved faster, trying to tell herself she'd be long gone, tucked into her bed, when it arrived.

12:45 AM
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9:50 AM

She stuck tacks into each door to remind her what it lead to.  Blue was safe; yellow was caution; red was danger and most certain death. She had green ones too, but couldn't quite decide what to use those for yet. You could tell which color to use once you opened a door the first time.  That's when all the critters were unhidden and unprepared.  When she came to one she jerked it open, watching as plants pulled their roots and their leaves back into the shadows and each creature sunk themselves into their bones and cried in the sudden light, before escaping farther into the dark.  She knew the good ones when she seen them, just as she knew the bad.  As she stood there, thinking, she'd hear faint snickers and teases. Those were almost always bad.

She'd done this through the entire maze.  She knew she couldn't find her way back, not anymore anyway.  She didn't expect to go back the way she came.  All she could hope for was to mark each door, then pick one that she believed was safe.  

She had just pushed a tack into a door when a sound found her ears from down the hall.  Something- something so small, she wasn't sure she really heard it- was falling on the stone floor.  She leaned around the curve in the wall.  A short, spiky creature was hobbling down the path.  It had a spiked spine and rough skin, like the skin of a snake covered in rocky patches.  It had two little horns and a barbed tail.  Waddling on two short feet, its arms were full of little sharp objects.  She let out a sharp cry when she seen they were her pins.

"What are you doing?!" She ran, skidding on the smooth floor, towards the creature.  It shrieked, throwing the pins in the air and flinging them across the ground, before running the way he came, tail tucked between his legs.  She fell to the ground, a pin sticking itself into her leg.  She felt sick at the sight of all her work wasted.  Standing, she crept  to the end of the hall.  There were no more  doors.  She opened one, a small hole searing in her eye where the tack was missing. Nothing moved in or out of the light.  They wouldn't be fooled by her again.  Sighing, she reached down for a green pin.  Sticking it into the door, she stepped inside.  Closing it , she could hear the growls.  She decided what green meant.

Mistake.

10:45 AM
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12:50 PM

The rim of the glass was covered in flies.  She watched them from her lounge chair, leaning uncomfortably to stay under the shade of the umbrella.  Ice melted and created a pale puddle where one fly floated dead.  The lady readjusted her hat and picked up a bottle of sunscreen, only to find sand inside.  She could already feel herself frying.  Standing, she looked the beach up and down.  It was full of other chairs, umbrellas, and drinks, but no people.  Slowly, like waking from a long sleep, she left the shade and walked into the sun towards the water.  It was a sickly color, dark and murky.  Not like it was when she first came here.  Objects floated in the water, far from the coastline, where she couldn't make them out.  She left her hat in the sand and waded in.  Something slipped off her leg and floated behind her.  A dark, rotted piece of skin.  She sighed.  At least it was less skin to get sun burnt.

1:00 PM
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8:18 PM

She only could buy presents for her friends on Christmas; she had so many friends, she couldn't afford any more.  But when the snow was building mountains on the scalloped, grey roof and the white shingles and picket fence became indistinguishable from the color of the ground, she shook cobwebs from her hair and went shopping.

It was dark when she returned on Christmas Eve.  The snow was almost to her knees and burned through her old coat.  Inside, she sat down ten bags- all of which were filled high with different sizes and shapes of presents- and slipped off her wet clothes.  They were all gathered around the Christmas tree; it was tradition to open presents on Christmas Eve.  Waiting until morning with anticipation would kill them.  She took each present in, and when the floor was covered in bundles of ribbon and glitter, she sat down in the biggest chair in the corner.

She smiled.  Her teddy bear was closest to the tree, always an attention bug.  She met him when she was little.  Her stuffed cat was by the chair.  She met her at a thrift store last year.  She slowly unwrapped each present for them; savoring the moment more than they ever would.  After hours went by and many tons of wrapping paper was ripped, she gave the last present to her boar.  He wasn't a wild boar; she'd given him a collar and a waistcoat and everything.  Obviously he was delighted at his gift- a studded ankle bracelet.  After putting it on him, she stood up.  They were surrounded by a sea of corpses from their presents.

But it was so late.  She could feel her already garnered eye bags sinking deeper and turning darker with the tick of the clock.  She looked down at her dress.  She never noticed all those stains and rips. She sighed.  Ready to go to bed, she noticed that among her friends, one was not given a present.  A porcupine, withered and full of rips where stuffing was poking through, sat in the corner of the room.  She bit her lip.  How could she forgot someone?  How could she forget him?

A lump was forming in her throat.  Suddenly her room seemed less festive.  Less joyous.  To her, the scattered paper and Christmas tags were just a sore reminder of what she didn't have.  The hearth burned in the corner of her vision.  Her nails were digging into her wrists.  Before she realized what she was doing, she picked up a stuffed toy- a duck who was given a red scarf- and threw it into the fire.  It began to shrivel pathetically in the heat.  She grabbed another one and threw it in.  She didn't even noticed who it was until he was sinking into the logs.  Her teddy bear. Screaming, she ungraciously began to throw them all in, heaping many in her arms and forcing them into the fireplace.

By midnight, the house was burning.

8:50 PM