Welcome to a piece of Wednesday Word’s flash fiction on Darkling Dreams!
A good friend of mine, P.T. Wyant, is doing a blog post every Wednesday called Wednesday Words with a new prompt for a bit of flash fiction writing, just to get in the habit of writing something, anything. (Even if said flash fiction is complete garbage at the time. Garbage is better than nothing though, right?) If you’re looking for some inspiration yourself or just something to aimlessly write, then go check out her blog for this week’s prompt!
With that being said, I am going to share what I came up with for this week’s flash fiction Shard based off a photo prompt. So here is my very rough around the edges minute of inspiration based off her prompt. I’d love to hear what you guys think of it!
(Please excuse any errors you may see, I said it was rough around the edges.)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A Moonlit Find
Justin sat within the only patch of moonlight flitting down through the high windows, legs pulled up Indian style underneath him upon the hard wooden chair he sat on. Various notebooks and old, dusty textbooks were strewn about the table he leaned over. Shadows cast long and eerie depictions over everything by the moonlight.
He tapped the nub of his pencil on his open notebook, one hand propping his head up as he stared down at the musty smelling history book. A yawn threatened to pull him further into the throes of exhaustion but he stifled it. Hours had gone by with almost nothing to show for it but more scratched out notes than helpful ones written down.
It was late into the early hours of the night’s prime and he was ready to call it quits.
With a weary sigh he dropped his pencil and sank back in the chair heavily, rubbing at his face. “This is impossible,” he muttered. The sound of his hands slapping his thighs rang out in the still silence of the archives when he dropped his arms. “No textbook is going to give me the answers to finding some ancient rift from colonial times that sealed up and blocked off the damned of the supernatural from infesting our world hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. I’m looking for something that probably doesn’t even exist and was but mere myth.”
Even as he said it he knew he was wrong. His eyes drifted lazily to the brass talisman sitting on the table. Or, at least he was half wrong. Such a rift existed, or did at one point. He had the proof of it in his possession, along with the journal of a three-hundred year old vampire bent on preserving the race deemed evil and needing eradicated.
It was fascinating in a way, to read of supernatural races living right alongside humans for so long and no one ever having noticed. Of course, some did notice when the it came to the formation of myths, legends, and unexplainable instances, but most never had any idea the person walking down the street next to them could be a werewolf, or a vampire, or even a banshee.
Justin knew it was going to be a long shot to find anything regarding that rift in regular old history books. That was why he traveled from archive to archive of the some of the oldest, most prominent supernatural cities in the world, searching for answers.
He had spent months, years, tracking down dead ends, new leads, bits of facts that weren’t always fact. It was a whole new level of a treasure hunt, one that wasn’t turning up much gold and jewels.
With another sigh he decided to call it a night and started gathering up his materials. Perhaps a fresh start in the morning after some sleep and a cup of coffee would freshen up his mind to find the answers he sought, most of which always happened to be well hidden within the words of the text like a code he had to break. As he was putting his things away exhaustion made him slip and drop one of the history books. It fell open onto the floor with a dull resounding thud.
A curse slipped from his lips as he bent over to pick it up, one hand extended. Then he paused, his eyes catching upon a yellowed envelope falling out of its pages. With a new spark of adrenaline and excitement, he scooped it all up and set it back on the table, abandoning the rest of his things to pull out the envelope.
In the shaft of a full moon’s light he examined the envelope, fragile with age. Careful hands turned it over and over, holding it up to try to look through the thinning parchment to see what lay inside it. He could just barely make out scrawled writing inside. When he finally looked to see if there was an address to the envelope he found two sets of words that sent a thrill of excitement down his spine.
The words were in Latin but he understood them perfectly, and recognized them as the same set of words written within the vampire’s journal. A set of words that were the key to creating and maintaining the rift. With careful quickness, he unsealed the wax symbol using the tip of a pocket knife, then fished out the letter that lay within to read it.
Justin unfolded the weathered parchment on the table, eyes scanning over the words and not even reading full sentences just yet. His lips began to part the further he skimmed the text, eyes widening fraction at a time. Finally he began to re-read it, slowly, carefully this time while he picked apart its meaning.
This was it. This was every answer he was ever looking for.
He had found his gold and jewels.
Now you can find this flash fiction work and others on my profile on Wattpad! Click here for my profile and go dive into a sea of Shards of Imagination!
Darkling Dreams 