(Monthly) Short Story Writing Prompts Submission Thread

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was gonna try to write this seriously.
But In the end, I just threw together a quick drabble that sketches out an idea I was too lazy to develop.

Bro White and the Seven Scarfs
Genre: Comedy, Parody
Other notes: Has some cussing. No scarves actually mentioned, but please imagine the MC wearing seven scarves like a mega chuuni.

Spoiler

TOP 5 ANIME BETRAYALS

5. Never having a fated meeting while running to school

4. Not developing any special powers after turning 13

3. Not having any childhood friends who have a crush on you

2. After being transported to another world, not getting a harem of catgirls and elves

1. Instead, getting stuck with stalkers outside your house



“Good day, fair princess,” said the glittering prince on my doorstep. “My name is Prince Charming, and I—”

“Not buying,” I said, and slammed the door in his face.



“Lady, seriously, I’m not buying.”

“But my dear girl, don’t you want some delicious red apples?”

The old crone reached her hand into her basket, pulling out a perfectly ripe and full apple.

“No. First of all, I don’t even have any money.”

“Then, my dear, you can have this one for free!” the crone cried, desperately trying to shove the apple through the small crack of the open window.

“That is suspicious as hell,” I said, closing the window shut. The old crone tapped her fingers on the pane, and I made eye contact with her as I slowly pulled the blinds closed.




“My fair princess—”

“You know that I have a—" A loud squawk erupted from the forest at the same time as I spoke, "—in my pants, right?”

I saw the thin veneer of the Prince’s smile start to tear, but to his credit, he held it together. Pretending he hadn’t heard a single thing I said, he continued, “My fair princess, I have ventured through the forest to present you this gift, in hopes that you will find it to your liking.”

He then pulled his hand around to present to me the most disgusting bouquet of flowers I’d ever seen.

“Jesus, that’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” I said. “The hell is that? Is that—is it oozing? What did you do to this thing, hack it apart with your sword?”

The prince opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, a terrible screech pierced the air. The two of us immediately looked to the side, where, from the forest surrounding my house, a frothing, writhing, angrily hissing flower spilled out over the ground.

“Wow,” I said, and watched the Prince run over to stab the spitting flower with his sword. “Okay—wow, yeah, I’m getting out of here,” I said, and closed the door as a wave of screeching flowers spilled out of the forest and surrounded the Prince.



“My fair… sir,” the Prince said hesitantly. He had deep rings under his bloodshot eyes, and he was covered in scrapes and torn clothing.

“That’s better,” I said. “Progress.”

The Prince stared at me with a blank expression.

“Well, nice chat,” I said, and started closing the door.

The Prince snapped back to life. He jammed his fist in the doorway, stopping the door from shutting. “You’re not a princess?”

“Dude,” I said, “That’s, like, what I’ve been telling you since day one.”

The Prince looked at me as if I had just stomped all over his family grave.

“But the Prophecy,” he said. “The Witches who blessed my birth said that I would find a princess in a cottage in a forest and that she was supposed to be my Queen and that if I don’t marry her then I would only bring ruin to the Kingdom.”

“Wow,” I said. “That sucks. But I’m pretty sure your princess is in another cottage. That’s, like, a really vague description of where you’re supposed to look, but you should probably try to get the key facts right, like that one small detail that the princess is supposed to be a girl.”

“I did find a girl in a cottage in a forest earlier,” he said, “but she was sleeping with seven dwarves.”

“Dude, that’s Snow White, and definitely Prince Charming’s Wife material.”

“I don’t think you understand,” the Prince said. “She was sleeping with seven dwarves.”

“…Oh.”

Crickets chirped.

I opened my door a little wider. “Dude. I’m so sorry. Do you want to hang out for a while?”

The Prince sniffled a bit. “Yes, please,” he said, and stepped inside.



-Epilogue-

“Dude, what the hell, you swing swords around in real life all the time. Why are you so bad at it in games?”

“I do not understand the mechanics of this puppeteering sorcery,” the Prince said, glaring down at the controller in his hands. On the screen, a silver-haired monster hunter got spit on by a giant flower.

 

Oh.

 

*rolls laughing* I loved it! It's a good comedy! Very well-made! *hugs*

Ah, I'll make the poll for next month's theme tomorrow, I kinda need to go work rn so I can't do it today~

Best reaction ever~

 

Theme: Fictogemino (because I'm sure this will be the one that is selected for this month)
Number of words: 442 (I really pushed myself even writing that much)
Genre: Tragedy
Title: A sudden death

This can be read from both the end and the beginning.

Spoiler: Hardest story I have ever written!

And that was the end of it.
My story ended the moment the car crashed, and me along with my family, all lost our lives.

I didn't have much to say before this, but looking at it now, it's silly how it all started. A toilet break, a coffee shop and a random stranger popping out of nowhere.

I don't know what happened that clearly actually, as it was too sudden to catch anything, but it happened.

The day started normally. My friend invited me and my family to a trip a hundred kilometres out of the city in a nice resort.

It was summer and I didn't have much else to do, plus it would be a great stress relief for my mom who worked so hard, and my father that had to deal with dozens of troubles daily.

He said to come visit him, and when I heard his proposition, he got my attention instantly. "A resort, huh..." I remember thinking.

A great chance presented, as I hadn't seen my friend in ages... perhaps I would also be able to catch up with him. We had a lot of stuff to talk about.

I still remember our earlier days vividly. In school, he was my only friend and all we ever did was skip classes and play outside. If I was with him, I was guaranteed to have a great time. In beach we would play with mud and have wars. Outside, we would be playing in the woods, running, hiding and losing ourselves, forgetting the passage of time.

We, well, my best friend and I, met purely from a coincidence. It wasn't the nicest kind of coincidence, but I have to say it was the one I loved the most. It was simple, quick and shit. He lost his allowance, I lost my allowance and we both ate nothing that day, but it was a conversation starter, and soon we were inseparable.

I remember, my parents worrying about me having no friends, but they couldn't have guessed how lucky my bad luck was that day. It was like a fated meeting of some sort!

All of this was in the past... a past I will never be able to visit again.
Because once the story had started, it had already ended.

As this beginning is my end, I have a lot of things I regret, but my biggest one is my friend... how will he be after my death? They do say an ending is only a new beginning, but I dislike it. I dislike this ending... because I left him behind...

 

I'm not even sure if I'm going to be submitting this as my main written work, but it's Fictogemino anyways! Enjoy! (^^)/

Spoiler: Prophetic Dream / Reality

Was it a dream, or was it reality?

She could not help but wonder, remembering how she had been jolted awake from a fitful rest.

The dream sequence was coming back to her. Every detail, every event; she remembered them clearly. It was as if somebody was trying to stuff a watermelon in her cranium. Naturally--

It hurted like hell.

As she crossed the doorframe that seperated the bedroom and the corridor, she tripped.

Rising unsteadily, she headed downstairs, deciding to pour herself a nice, cool drink.

The ticking of the clock caught her attention. It was almost three in the morning.

*Tick, tock, tick, tock*

At that precise instant--

She blacked out, and regained her consciousness a few short minutes later, confused.

What followed was a frightening numbness, robbing her of the ability to feel. All this while, time was trickling away.

A very familiar metallic smell assaulted her senses, causing her to shift uneasily.

Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't seen it; even blood-soaked merceneries would be driven insane by that sight.

The left half of her upper body was gone, exposing the ribcage underneath. Blood trickled steadily out of the wound.

The surroundings hadn't gotten off unscathed, it seemed. After all, she didn't.

To put it simply, the whole area was utterly devastated. A stagnant odour drifted across the ruins, invading her nostrils.

Without revealing a single expression, she scrutinzied her surroundings, in greater detail.

She didn't know this place. Neither did she recognize the bodies of the slain.

A humanoid figure sprawled unmoving across the floor, the blade of a massive war-axe lodged into it's skull.

Metallic bolts punctured the floor. Evidently, someone far too trigger-happy had gotten their hands on a crossbow.

A sword was impaled into one of the more intact walls. Something about it was very familiar to her.

She was surrounded by wreckage, the floor littered with corpses.

In her vision, there was nothing else particularly noteworthy, with the exception of a single object.

Straining, she reached out, grasping at the sparkling surface.

It had mass, but seemed so ephemeral. Like it could disappear any second.

Just like the abyss;

Hollow, unfriendly, and silent.

Her reflection stared back at her, sitting on a black throne.

 

Well I think I missed a point in there somewhere. LoL. Tho this theme is really hard and you did a good job.

 

I want to add more details but it makes a lot of whole in the story and paraphrasing is a little bit hard.

And it's a Fictogemino.

I'll try to post a longer one if I could.

Spoiler: Coffee every morning.

Like every ordinary morning, I slowly drink my coffee not caring even if it's the end of the world.

I hold my cup,thinking how everything will end.

A great earthquake ruptured earth, Meteors falling from the sky, and volcanoes erupting one after another.


I grimaced at the sight.

It will destroy the social order, anarchy will spread: crime, arson, murder, rape chaos. Everything that rarely happened, happened.

Devoid of humanity.

I fear the things that will happen to my family if everything really is true.

It have all stared at dawn after watching how the government announced that it is the end of the world in the early morning news.

 

Title:

Spoiler: The Death is Near

But at least, I found her even if she was the last, I would ever save.

Nevertheless, it wasn't easy, for whatever you really wish for, will never be easy to grant.

Even so, I would have never given up, for if I was to do so, it would truly be the end. So I did the only thing I could and used all my strength to reach for even a single glimmer of hope.

However, the reality was just too cruel, for no matter what I did, the death took everything I cared about. And slowly consume me deeper and deeper in fear and dread.

And when I thought about my family, friends, and even the random acquaintances I had never thought of before. If only I could distract myself, from the despair this bloody world had brought to me.

Suddenly, I felt a chill seeping deep into my bones and realized how painful the silence was. My tears couldn't be stopped, no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

I doubted there was anyone alive, yet I still attempted to talk, call and even yelled to the lifeless space. However, what I heard was the lonely echoes of my own voice.

A while later, the regrets filled even deeper, into my very core. Maybe if I came earlier, this would still be the place I called home.

For how long I had been in this place, was something I didn't know. Perhaps it has only been some minutes, hours or maybe even days has gone past. What I knew for sure instead, was the feeling of endless heartbreaking pain, much worse than a life-threatening wound.

As the warmth has slipped from my fingers and the cold slowly spread over my body, letting me know the death was near. Wounded as I was, I knew the medicine I brought with me, couldn't save my life.

By then I knew I was fated to die, though my life was fading away, at least I would meet my loved ones on the other side. However, before my life will fade out, I wanted to do something I wouldn't regret. It was why I was still fighting, it was why I still don't want to give up.

But maybe it was time to stop, perhaps it was all hopeless. For either way I would die, no matter what I did, I couldn't image the destiny would change.

It was when my version started to flicker, I struggled and struggled very hard to open my eyes.

As I lay so close to the death door, what filled me most was all the regrets that mixed together. One of my regrets was not to tell my beloved ones that I love them, and thanks them to always had been there for me.

And then I heard the whispering souls, waiting for me in the endless abyss, unable to accept theirs plead I told them to wait a bit more.

In the end, whether so I liked it or not, the darkness came and surrounded me.

Theme: Fictogeomino
Genre: Death and... hope maybe? Hmm... I don't know what else I can give as the genre
Wordcounts: Whew... 513... I somehow made it over 500
Waring?: It may be a bit too gloomy, I think?

 

Title: Edda the Mad
Theme: Fictogemino

Spoiler

They call me Edda the Mad,

The weakest demon lord of all the demon lords,

The biggest coward, a shame of my own kin,

The only one to gain the throne without fighting through a trial of succession.

I am what I am, a demon lord, unlikely as I might be.


It should be me who die first.

Yet, Baal, why it was you o mighty one?

Our golden sun

Thou art strong and invincible

Why it was you?

Beleth, why did you die? Why did you leave me, old friend?

Shouldn’t you deceive mistress death herself?

Aren’t you the Deceiver?

Why it was you?

Oldest and wisest of us all

Beloved teacher, Gremory

Why it was you?

O death, why it wasn’t me?


Why it was I, Edda?

The last of us.

Why it was I, Edda?

The most unbecoming of us all.

Why it was I, Edda?

The one who see through our path

Why it was I, Edda?

It ends here with me, Edda

War, what is it good for?

O beloved demons, is this the glory you after?

War, what is it good for?

O human, is this the victory you seek?

War, what is it good for?

O human, are you not exhausted?

War, what is it good for?

O human, are you not overwhelm with grief as I am?

War, what is it good for?

Why are we fighting still, o human?

War, what is it good for?

Here is my answer to our unending war.

War, what is it good for?

Neither of us lose nor win

How is that for an answer?


It is I, Edda

O kings, your army starved, your granaries aflame

It is I, Edda

O saints, your followers desecrate your temples

It is I, Edda

O heroes, your people betrayed you

It is I, Edda


Beloved soldiers, your home was no more

It is I, Edda

Beloved generals, our capital burned

It is I, Edda

Beloved subjects, famine destroyed our fields

It is I, Edda

War is beyond us. War is beyond you human.

How is this for an answer?

It is I, Edda


O beloved subjects, o beloved soldiers, o beloved generals

This is how the war ends

With my death, you shall have peace

O human kings, o saints, o heroes

This is how the war ends

My demon kin, your enemy is now your greatest ally

This is how the war ends

They call me Edda the Mad.

I blame Slayerwolfx2, Pandamonic and everyone who submitted tragic stories ahead of me for my tackle on tragedy genre.

I was supposed to go with comedy, but after I read your submission, mine suddenly became tragedy

Spoiler: (fiction I'm working on)

https://royalroadl.com/fiction/17368/the-king-of-desire

 

This has nothing to do with the current theme, but I thought I’d just drop this here. A little short story I wrote months ago, based on the popular Steam game, Town of Salem.

Spoiler: Salem

The Vigilante's fingers closed around the cold metal in his hoodie pockets. Pulling his deerstalker hat lower to hide his face, he stalked along the dingy alleyway.

The Serial Killer had been at it again. Just when they thought he'd disappeared, he'd returned -- and with another victim.

Mary Johnson had been discovered by her fiancee in the morning a few days ago, her cold and stiff body slumped on her favourite rocking chair. God knows how many times the poor woman's throat had been slit; the scene was not as scary as it had been hideous. The body had been nigh unrecognisable when the police had arrived on site.

The police had been left utterly baffled by the case. The position of the cuts suggested that the third victim had been killed from behind, but there was the question of how the Serial Killer entered her room. Her door had been latched tightly, there were no sightings of her inviting anybody into the house, and certainly nothing to suggest that she had been on familiar terms with the Serial Killer. Even her room's door had been locked, and unless it was the superstitious work of ethereal beings, not even a master burglar could enter her room without being discovered.

Perhaps the most haunting discovery was when the autopsy results came out. Rigor mortis had already begun to set into the body, but the blood around the corpse had yet to coagulate. This meant that the victim had been killed at least 4 hours prior, but then what of the blood? Whose blood did it belong to, and where did it come from? The coroner was unable to provide a sufficient explanation despite conducting the autopsy several times.

The shocking case had provoked an outcry in Salem. It was the third of its kind, and Salem's villagers were outraged at their police's incompetence. They were at the end of their ropes and wanted solid answers as well as security from the police. The media's coverage and fear-mongering did not serve to help either. A curfew was immediately established, but the issue of security had never been addressed. The villagers were no longer as trusting or as endearing as before. Conversations were often brief, children were locked in their houses and employees hurried straight home after work. The Vigilante was guilty of this too. In all his paranoia, he had even slept with his firearm beneath his pillow every night.

But not this night. The Vigilante had waited for answers that never came from the authorities for far too long, and he had to take things into his hands. If it had been any other person who had been killed, he would have been horrified, but he would not have lost his cool. But no, it was Mary. Mary, his fiancee, no less!

Never would the Vigilante have imagined to relive a similar scene as appalling as during his times in the trenches when he'd fought on the front-lines on that late morning. He'd rapped on the familiar door of his fiancee's without reply. After hours of futile knocking and hollering, his suspicion turned into fear and he busted down the door.

That image would haunt his nightmares forever.

The five stages of grief had been true to its order. First came Denial. What of their marriage due the coming week? What of their plans for life, their silly promises of love? What of his child she was two months pregnant with? How could everything just crumble so easily?

Gone. It was all gone. The Vigilante blinked hard as the tears threatened to seep out of his eyes.

Denial was succeeded by Anger. Red, seething, explosive anger. Unprecedented raging anger he never knew he could feel.

The Vigilante needed justice. He ached for justice, he longed for justice, and he desperately desired for it to be served on a silver platter in front of him.

He had seen the terror in his lover's wide eyes, her mouth opened in an unending scream. He had to pay that terror back twofold. And the foetus inside her belly. Everything had been destroyed with just one deranged, sick bastard and the cut of a scalpel. The sadistic fucker would pay for everything, tooth by tooth, with his filthy life.

His anger had funnelled into action. The Vigilante still had his trusty Glock 17 he had from the war in the '60s when he deserted. It was rusty after negligence, and slightly worn from skirmishes. But it would do.

The Vigilante had one remaining bullet. He'd cast away all bullets but that as a reminder of his cowardly desertion as well as the many he had gunned down. It was a testimony to his sins; the comrades he had left behind as well as the blood he had on his hands.

Running his fingers along a familiar dent in his pistol he'd gotten from diving to save a comrade-in-arms, the Vigilante sucked in a cold breath of air. He hadn't held a firearm for years, but the actions were long ingrained in him after the war.

He had sworn to Mary never to hold a gun to anybody again, but that seemed like that promise could not hold. I'm sorry, Mary.

--

The police had zero leads on the Serial Killer, and there was nothing to assume the Vigilante had either. However, the Serial Killer was notorious for leaving a note at every murder which were rumoured to contain the information of his next unfortunate victim. The Vigilante had found his note on his fiancee's body when he had searched for her pulse. He palmed it before the police arrived.

He'd spent the entire afternoon attempting to decode it, but to no avail. Desperation could not make up for incompetence, after all. Frustrated, he turned to a detective he knew and pleaded with the detective for his help.

The detective, full of pity and regret for the Vigilante, had agreed to the task. After a week of sleepless nights, the detective finally deciphered the coded note before the Serial Killer struck again.

The Serial Killer's victim was John Hathorne, the town's doctor. A compassionate christian who was renowned for his medical skill, and a genuinely good person at heart.

Turning a corner, the Vigilante finally arrived at John Hathorne's house. Slinking into a dark corner, he made himself unnoticed as he quietly waited for the Serial Killer to arrive.

He did not know how much time passed, but his concentration was broken only when the strident knells of the belltower rang out, signifying it was four o'clock.

Was he not going to arrive? Doubt began to worm into the Vigilante's heart. Perhaps the detective had made a mista-

The soft sound of crunching gravel beneath a sneaker was explosive to the well-trained ears of the Vigilante. The dark and striking figure of a man could be seen approaching John Hathorne's house. It was long past curfew. Nobody would be out here now, save the police patrols. But all the patrols wore a cap.

The figure was steadily nearing his position as it made its way to the front door.

The Vigilante froze. His body and fingers were cold, but his head felt hot. Like an ocean rising above the levies, he felt his angry tears flow down his numb cheeks.

Pulling out the gun from his hoodie's pocket in a swift motion with both hands, he stepped out of the shadows. His hands shook as he pointed it at the figure.

"Give Mary back to me!" The Vigilante let out a throaty roar as he pulled the trigger.

The figure turned, alarmed by the sudden shout. Despite the Vigilante's trembling, his shot hit true. The bullet hit centre mass, passing straight into the figure's stomach. The figure let out a shriek as the shot propelled it onto its bottoms. The piercing gunshot shattered the silent morning.

Lumbering towards the figure, the Vigilante screamed, "You fucker! You-!"

The figure recovered with astonishing speed, climbing to its feet. The Vigilante caught sight of a glint of metal in its hand but he was too slow to avoid it. The scalpel sliced into his belly, and retracted with a sickening sound. The Vigilante felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, but he ignored it, dashing his pistol into the figure's face.

A satisfying crack was heard as a few teeth flew off. The figure retreated, clutching its jaw as it choked out a curse, blood dripping off its cheeks. The glint flickered again, and this time, the scalpel was driven deep into the Vigilante's chest.

Screaming, the Vigilante tackled the figure to the ground and hugged him in a vice-like grip. Both figures grappled in the darkness blindly until the Vigilante got the better of him. The Vigilante climbed on top of the figure.

Straddling the figure, he pulled out the scalpel from his chest and plunged it into the figure's chest repeatedly.

One for every cut his wife had suffered. Another for his son which would never see the light of day. Another for the victims, and another for the villagers.

When the Vigilante was finally done, the figure beneath him lay unmoving, a pool of red spreading steadily from it. Then the Vigilante noticed the sirens.

Gasping deeply, he got off the figure and staggered off into the darkness.

The second stab of the Serial Killer had been fatal. He could tell from his wheezing that his lung had been perforated. He had survived countless gunshots and fighting, but he would not survive this one.

Stumbling, he groped his way out of the village. When he finally arrived at the entrance of the village, his eyes had adjusted to the dark. He limped his way forward determinedly. He could not die here.

When he finally reached the cliff, his chest was burning and his abdomen was stinging. He collapsed in front of a gravestone.

Sobbing, his tears dripped onto his bloodied clothing. His eyes clouded over with emotion.

"I'm sorry, Mary, I'm sorry. I broke our promise and all-" His voice broke as he lapsed into a bout of weak coughing. "B-But I'll join you now. Along with my comrades I never said farewell to."

As the Vigilante took his last breath, the first light of the amber sun broke over the ocean. The orange glow illuminated the silhouette of a man and tombstone.

'Sacred to the memory of Mary Margaret Johnson
wonderful wife, loving sister, beloved by all

12th January 1974 - 20th May 1999

Aged 25

You were my wife; my one and only

Even if death doth us part,

Let us be reunited in heaven.'

 

Hmm...I feel like someone is blaming me for something...

Well... I just want to point out that you repeated the same sentence too many times, I almost stopped to read because I was so tired of "It is I, Edda." But since he was mad, it wasn't strange that he would repeat the same thought again and again.

(Though my story repeat the same thing about how he fall deeper in despair, I just wrote it in different words...)

Al least, I like the way he talk like an great being XD

 

This is a fine place to make an inaugural post, I think ^^

Hope this isn't too late for the June topic; I saw it and thought it would be fun to try. Since the backwards version isn't as exact as reading sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph, I put both versions in a spoiler.

Theme: Fictogemino (June 2018)
Word count: 518
Title: On Grief

Spoiler: A Side

The morning rays streamed in through the window. He'd forgotten to close the blinds last night. After lying under the covers for another hour, his alarm rang, and he finally dragged himself out of bed.

He cleaned himself up and dressed for work. Stopping in front of the mirror, he practiced a smile. Hm... Maybe not so wide.

And then he headed out and went about his day because that's just what you do.
—

It was late when he got home that night. He felt exhausted, but he couldn't seem to fall asleep.

He walked over to the 24/7 corner mart, grabbing a light jacket on his way out the door.

When he got back home, he turned on the TV and sunk into the couch. He popped open his can of beer and tuned in to whatever re-run marathon was broadcasting.

Eventually, he ended up stumbling into his bedroom.
————

He was in an oddly nostalgic mood that day. On his way home, he picked up a bouquet of flowers and stopped by the cemetery.

The dirt was still loose the last time he was there, but the gravestone was already erected now.

Without him realizing, a teardrop rolled down his cheek, swiftly and silently. And then another and another...
————

As he was getting ready for work in the morning, his phone buzzed with a notification. He stared at the screen awhile, suddenly realizing the date. He'd requested the day off what seemed like eons ago.

He took a breath, exhaling slowly.

He let himself sink into the couch and closed his eyes, expecting to waste away the day. His face warmed from the sun outside.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and stood up, deciding to go for a walk on that fine day. He thought it might help to clear his mind.
—

What makes a person get up in the morning and decide to move on with his life?

He did it, but he didn't know why.

It wasn't something he usually wanted to ponder too long about.

He knew why he used to do it, but...
—

He had trouble sleeping again that night. Even after a few drinks, his head was still whirring with activity.

That's when he saw the small bottle on the table. The doctor had prescribed it when his insomnia first started. He poured himself some water and swallowed a pill.

And he continued staring at the bottle of pills.

He walked into his room, the bottle in his hand, wondering if he really wanted to wake up in the morning.
————

A female officer was taking statements from the landlord and a colleague of the deceased, who were the first to discover the body and call the police.

It seemed pretty clear to her what happened there.

In the other room, her partner looked at the man lying in the bed. He thought to himself that at least the man looked like he was at peace.

Some of his colleagues talk about becoming desensitized to these kinds of scenes, but each and every one still took a toll on him.

Spoiler: B Side

A female officer was taking statements from the landlord and a colleague of the deceased, who were the first to discover the body and call the police.

It seemed pretty clear to her what happened there.

In the other room, her partner looked at the man lying in the bed. He thought to himself that at least the man looked like he was at peace.

Some of his colleagues talk about becoming desensitized to these kinds of scenes, but each and every one still took a toll on him.
—

He had trouble sleeping again that night. Even after a few drinks, his head was still whirring with activity.

That's when he saw the small bottle on the table. The doctor had prescribed it when his insomnia first started. He poured himself some water and swallowed a pill.

And he continued staring at the bottle of pills.

He walked into his room, the bottle in his hand, wondering if he really wanted to wake up in the morning.
—

What makes a person get up in the morning and decide to move on with his life?

He did it, but he didn't know why.

It wasn't something he usually wanted to ponder too long about.

He knew why he used to do it, but...
————

As he was getting ready for work in the morning, his phone buzzed with a notification. He stared at the screen awhile, suddenly realizing the date. He'd requested the day off what seemed like eons ago.

He took a breath, exhaling slowly.

He let himself sink into the couch and closed his eyes, expecting to waste away the day. His face warmed from the sun outside.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and stood up, deciding to go for a walk on that fine day. He thought it might help to clear his mind.
—

He was in an oddly nostalgic mood that day. On his way home, he picked up a bouquet of flowers and stopped by the cemetery.

The dirt was still loose the last time he was there, but the gravestone was already erected now.

Without him realizing, a teardrop rolled down his cheek, swiftly and silently. And then another and another...
—

It was late when he got home that night. He felt exhausted, but he couldn't seem to fall asleep.

He walked over to the 24/7 corner mart, grabbing a light jacket on his way out the door.

When he got back home, he turned on the TV and sunk into the couch. He popped open his can of beer and tuned in to whatever re-run marathon was broadcasting.

Eventually, he ended up stumbling into his bedroom.
————

The morning rays streamed in through the window. He'd forgotten to close the blinds last night. After lying under the covers for another hour, his alarm rang, and he finally dragged himself out of bed.

He cleaned himself up and dressed for work. Stopping in front of the mirror, he practiced a smile. Hm... Maybe not so wide.

And then he headed out and went about his day because that's just what you do.

 

Fuck, this actually links really well both ways.