Microfiction from the last half of February 2019, based on the #vss365 prompt on twitter.
Updated July 13, 2019 to add links to original posts and adding a missed prompt on February 15, 2019.
Prompt: Rapporteur
Date: February 15
“I designate myself as this meeting’s rapporteur.”
“The hell?”
“The person who reports the meetings. I’ll tell the others.”
“A group of angry vampires doesn’t need a rapporte.. hell, reporter.”
“So we aren’t telling the hit squad what we just planned?”
Prompt: Abominable
Date: February 16
“So… vampires.’ His gums ached, taking him back to middle school and braces and sharp pains that turned to dull throbbing over long weeks. “What’s next, the abominable snowman?”
“Not in these parts, but we’ve got werewolves and witches.”
Middle school sounded better.
Prompt: Paradigm
Date: February 18
Everyone he saw seemed content with the paradigm of survival. Those who weren’t stayed in the shadows, struggling to live, struggling with the inability to end their lives. Barely existing, immortality was a prison when you hated yourself.
Prompt: Demotic
Date: February 19
The demotic words seemed so exotic on her tongue. Centuries of life made understanding the fledglings difficult. When common vocabulary became a foreign language, she found herself retreating from society more, hastening the language barrier cycle.
Prompt: Malinger
Date: February 20
He watched Charles swing the large bat. This was the only people he’d ever met that didn’t malinger. Everyone he saw was eager to help, eager to participate. Eager to bash in some heads and stake hearts.
Prompt: Behest
Date: February 21
Never had anyone listened to him in the OR residency program. Here he was the only vampire with medical training in 50 years, the only one who could mend a vampire from hawthorn stakes and remnant slivers. They obeyed his every behest. It was time to work.
Prompt: Teardrops
Date: February 22
Teardrops mixed in with blood drops. He’d vowed everything to never drink blood straight from a human, yet morality seemed to deny him. He couldn’t lose another friend, not his best friend, so he bit again, desperate to give life to the fading heartbeat.
Prompt: Lame
Date: February 23
His inexperience and injury left him lame in a fight, but he refused to wait out the war. He became their medic. His skills as a surgeon saved vampire after vampire. Stitched deadly wound after deadly wound. He gave the Red Lightning Pub vampires a new edge.
Prompt: Yesterday
Date: February 25
“Yesterday I–“
“Yesternight.”
“Yesternight?”
“Why should the day rule us when we only go out at night? Damn the day. Damn the sun. Even our language honors them, but we can change language. Yesternight. Moonly. Moonglasses. It starts with us, kid.”
Prompt: Epiphany
Date: February 26
“You don’t have to be human to be human. Humanity is about feeling empathy, discerning what’s right in a moral mud field, creating bonds. That’s what makes a human. So don’t give up on them. You can still be one.”
It was the epiphany that set him free.
Prompt: Celebrate
Date: February 27
His dying heartbeat renewed itself, growing stronger with each moment. He lived again, but it was nothing I could celebrate. One life was traded for another, and only he could decide if the trade was worth it.
Read More:
My #VSS365 Journey
January Part 1
January Part 2
February Part 1
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