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  Kenneth Lawson
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April 25th, 2021

4/25/2021

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I was standing on the sidewalk when a flash of light startled me, and now I’m here—but where is here?

There were no doors near me in the hallway, only what appeared to be stairs leading off the corridor. A single small door sat neatly centered on the dead-end wall. The stir of chilly air made me shiver.


The sound of a low hum reached my consciousness. I knew that sound, but I couldn’t place it. My footsteps on the floor echoed in the room as I approached the door.
I’d been on a busy city street seconds before when a light flashed over the roof of the building across the street from me—bright enough to blind me even in the midday sun. I wondered if anyone else saw it because I found myself here, alone.

Approaching the door, I saw no knob on the door, only the hinges on one side. I touched it and felt cold steel. There was a slight vibration in my fingertips, and the familiar hum continued.

I’d never seen the room or door before, but a thought sounded in my head. Only it wasn’t my thought.


“You’re almost home now, James.”

“Home?” I instinctively asked myself. The thoughts bounced into my mind as I pressed my hand to the door. It swung open to reveal another room. A disembodied voice spoke.
“We’ve been looking for you for an eon.”

“What? Looking for me?”
“Yes. Please, you must return home.”

The soft glow of the lights that diffused from the edges of the ceiling was familiar. I had been here before. I jumped as the door closed behind me


She materialized from a corner of the room. She stood slightly taller than me, her hair white and her features familiar. I knew her.


A thought sprang into my mind. “Mother?”

“Yes, son. We lost you quite a while ago. We’ve been searching the galaxy for you. You must never run off like that  again.”



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April 18th, 2021

4/18/2021

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“This ends now.”
His words echoed in my mind as I looked for a place to hide. I was in deep trouble. The deal had gone well until someone accused me of being a cop. Guns came out. I ran like hell—bullets flying around me. I stumbled and dropped my weapon but kept running. The sound of gunfire echoed in the alleyway, and all I could hear was my heavy breathing and my heart racing.
Keeping in the shadows, I managed to find a weapon of sorts—a long steel pipe. The only problem was that I had to get much closer than I wanted to use it. The glare of headlights blinded me as they worked their way down the alley towards me. The large dumpster I was behind wouldn’t hide me for long. They spotted me and closed in. Braced up against a brick wall and a steel trash bin, I prepared to fight for my life.
​
​I was on a sting operation to capture the criminal boss who paid off dirty cops. Backup hadn’t responded when the shooting started, but I wasn’t surprised. I was quite unpopular in the department after I had turned in several officers for being on the take and planned to testify against them next week. So, they set me up to die in the “line of duty.”

Four men confronted me, one with a crowbar, the others with guns point at me. The man whacked the crowbar across his palm. He sneered. “I told you this ends now. You’re mine.”
​

“Actually, you’re mine.” I grinned at the surprised look on his face as the lights flooded the alley and FBI agents appeared from the shadows. I took a step toward him. “Yep, this definitely ends now.”

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April 11th, 2021

4/11/2021

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Relief flowed through me as the glowing orb rose above the horizon—tonight, there would be moonlight.

The darkness was over, and they would retreat to their lairs and leave humans alone until the next Dark Cycle began. Every month this world goes dark for twenty-four hours as the sun disappears behind the enormous moon.

The humans gave the natives the name Shadow People. The natives had adapted to the darkness eons ago when an asteroid struck their moon and altered its orbital speed. Darkness fell over the planet as the moon remained eclipsed between the Earth and sun. But humans needed a new home and deployed missiles to change the moon’s orbit once again

Humans settled on the planet once there was more sunlight for them and the agriculture they needed to survive. The Shadow People offered to teach them to live with the darkness, but the humans—invaders as the Shadows called them— refused and tried to force the Shadow People to live above ground and work for them.

As time passed, the Shadow People retreated underground, venturing out during the dark cycle. Humans had learned to live in fear of the Shadow People as they disappeared or murdered, property destroyed during the Dark Cycle. The Shadows were cunning enough to cut off the power grid on the planet when they emerged, leaving the humans as prey in the darkness.

Bigger worries lay ahead for the humans, and they remained unaware.

​Soon the sky with ships from the mother world of the Shadow People would fill the skies. The Shadows had been colonists as the humans but lost communication with their homeworld when the moon shifted orbit. The Shadow People would take back their world and restore proper order to the galaxy. The humans of Earth and their lowly self-righteousness would learn their rightful place in the galaxy.

Now that my people were safely underground, it was time to put my orders into action



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April 04th, 2021

4/4/2021

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I had found the Scarlet Rose, hundreds of miles from where she reportedly sank three hundred years ago. That wasn’t possible. Ships don’t move across oceans on their own once they sink.

​Swimming around the wreckage, I was convinced it was indeed the Scarlet Rose. It had the proper shape, and features and known hallmarks of the ship were still visible. Everything was as it should be for a pirate ship that had sunk over 300 years ago. But It was all in the wrong place. Back on my schooner, I checked my coordinates and maps. This was the right spot for an old-world War German U-boat, but not the 300-year-old pirate ship I’d found. I went over the old pirate ships’ records, yet no records show any ship in 100 miles of where I had been

.But it was there.
That night, visions of the wreck floated in my sleep. Opening my eyes, I was no longer on the schooner. I was on the deck of the Scarlett Rose. The crew shouting orders and the yelling of slaves deep within the hold echoed in my head. Out of shadows on the port side, a giant creature rose, its wake sending the ship in the opposite direction that it had been. The creature followed us. Its momentum pushed us much faster and further off course. Unable to handle the stress, the Scarlet Rose broke up, sinking to the seafloor.


I sat up in a cold seat and looked around frantically, relaxing when I realized I was in my stateroom on the schooner. I rose and looked out of the porthole at the moonlight-drenched sea, soft whitecaps gently rocking the ship. There was only one explanation for the Scarlet Rose to be so off course, and I had just had the vision of what happened to her.


My next quest was born from the image of the sea creature seared into my mind. I had to find the monster of the deep.







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    Picture


    500 Words
      The idea is to write a short story  about 500 max short based on a picture and an opening line.  
    ​From there one can go ANYWHERE..
    ​
    Please note: the images used are free-use images and do not require attribution.

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