Captivating

Cassidy had lived in his basement for almost two years now. It was almost always dark with the only light being the small lamp he gave her. Her bed wasn’t really a bed, but it was better than sleeping on the damp ground. Here she had spent two years of her life wondering why. Why had he chosen her? Why did he bring her down here? But the most important question was: What was he going to do with her? So far he had done nothing. He gave her food and water, never touched her or hurt her. He never said anything to her no matter how many times Cassidy had tried to talk to him. At first she hated the man for bringing her down here. She had spun into a deep depression where she had just wished he would kill her already. But then that led to another thought, the man hadn’t killed her yet. He hadn’t hurt her, and he fed her a good amount every day. It wasn’t the most delicious food in the world, but it was food. Cassidy hated the man, but she was grateful that he was kinder than most.

                Today was Cassidy’s eighteenth birthday and she celebrated it by being thankful she had made it to her eighteenth birthday at all. She lay on her small bed looking up at the dusty floorboards where all the spiders seemed to dwell. She looked up and wondered why none of the spiders ever seemed to come near her. Not one of them had ever come close to her space before, as if they were afraid of her.
When she heard him unlocking the door, Cassidy sat up quickly. She could hear the wooden steps creak beneath the weight of his steps.
“Happy Birthday Cassidy.” The man spoke. It was the first thing she had ever heard him say. His voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Cassidy sat in shock as the man came closer to her with a small gift wrapped in pink paper. Pink was Cassidy’s favorite color.
He handed her the small present, but Cassidy just stared down at it in her hands.
“Open it.” He said with a smile on his face. Cassidy’s stomach churned with uncertainty.
She slowly began to rip the pink paper. The man waited patiently with a look in his eyes similar to that of a proud parent. She ripped the rest of the pink paper to reveal a small white box. Her hands began to tremble as she opened it. Inside the box was a key. Cassidy looked up at the man in disbelief.
“You are free.” He said. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at. In her hands was the key to her freedom. So why did she feel so scared?

“This is trick. It has to be. After everything…and now you just give me this key to leave? This has to be a trick. A cruel sick joke.” She said beginning to cry. The man’s smile faded away, replaced with a frown.
“No Cassidy. This is no joke. You are free to go.” The man said. He held out his hand waiting for her to shake it, as if this whole thing were some kind of business deal. She stood up and looked the man in the eyes. His pupils were a deep dark brown with gold flecks dotting the iris. They were mesmerizing.
“Cassidy!” He turned away from her. “Please don’t.” He said. He walked up the stairs and left the door open. “Please leave.” He said. She was so confused and scared; she didn’t know what to do. But seeing that door open, with the bright light shining in, she knew what she would choose.
She ran up the stairs, past the man with gold eyes. She ran out the door and into the sun. It burned her eyes, but it warmed her skin. She ran as far away from that house as she could.
The key was still gripped tightly in her hand, an unanswered question that would burn in the back of her mind until the day she died. Why did he let her go? What was the purpose of keeping her there for two years?

Cassidy stopped in her tracks. She had just noticed the world around her, and it was very different than how she remembered it. Houses were crumpled and broken down, and everything was covered in ashes. The world she had known was gone, everything was gone. Cassidy looked down at the key in her hands. He had kept her captive to protect her from whatever happened to the rest of the world. So many questions raced through her mind, but the one that plagued she was the same was she had asked before. Why had he chosen her? 

Challenge #49

Evening everyone!

The Challenge for this week is to write a story based off of the letter C. You want to choose a word from the current letter of the alphabet that we are on and have your story revolve around that word. You may, if you'd like to, just have the current letter of the week integrated into your work repeatedly.

If you would like to show us your work regarding the letter C, please do! Just e-mail your work to us at inkedfeathersfink@gmail.com for Fan Friday!

Big news will be coming up after the 50th Challenge! We hope it will turn out well, but you'll find out in a few weeks!

See you all on Wednesday!

Bloody Battle

                Benjamin was seven years old when his father gave him the sword. His father had said “Son you’ll fight three battles in your life with this blade. One of those battles you will lose.” A year later his father had died and Benjamin realized that his father had lost his own inner battle.
Now Benjamin was twenty years old and had already won two battles with the same blade his father had given him. He was a soldier in an army of rag tag rebels who planned to take down the King, who had been dead for almost three years now. Benjamin’s Sword was the only sword able to kill the Zombie King.

                The Rebellion was gathered in the court of the run down Kingdom. They readied their weapons for the oncoming attack. Benjamin stood front and center and all the rebels looked up to him like his was the leader of the group. They could hear the King’s undead army stirring in castle ahead of them.  Bridget, one of the few girls in the rebellion, pushed her way to the front of the line.
“Benjamin Sir.” She said loudly, stepping closer to him.
“There’s not many of us Sir. The last battle wiped half of our men out. I don’t think we can win this one Sir.” She confessed. Benjamin turned to her with a sad look in his eyes.
“Bridget.” He said.
“Yes sir?” She asked.
“This is my third battle with this blade. I am not meant to win.” He said. Before Bridget could ask him what he meant by that, the King’s zombie soldiers bust through the iron gates. They charged ahead fast and unyielding. The Rebellion waited for Benjamin’s orders, their weapons ready.
“CHARGE!” Benjamin yelled with his sword high in his hand.
                The Two armies blended together in a massacre of red. The number of fatalities on both sides began to grow. Benjamin slashed his way through the undead army. The zombies turned to ash at the mere scrape of his blade. He pushed his way through, ready to fight the Zombie King. Benjamin was ready to die. He had made it to the iron gates, killing every undead soldier that got in his way.
They tore at him with their broken blades, with their fingernails, and even with their teeth. But Benjamin fought his way through until he reached the throne.
The Zombie King sat idly in his chair made of gold thorns. A crown made of bones sat atop his head.
When Benjamin reached the King he held his blade high and yelled.
“Father, I will fight for you and this land. If this is to be my last battle with this blade, I will try my hardest to win!” Benjamin charged at the Zombie King who now wielded a giant battle Axe.
The two clashed together in a fight to the death. The King was faster than Benjamin, slicing into his arms and legs and chest. Benjamin had lost his left hand and the blood now poured onto the cold hard ground. But he did not stop, he kept fighting. Before the King could give the final blow to him, Benjamin pierced his blade up into the Zombie Kings skull. His axe cut Benjamin down, killing him instantly. But the blade had done its job, and the Zombie King was now permanently dead  and so was his army. The Battle was over. 

Blind Freddie

            “Blind Freddie even knows how stupid that idea is!” Kelly shouted at Max, who had come up with the idea that jumping off the roof with a cape would enable him to fly.

            “If Superman can do it, so can I!” Max shouted back, twisting the blue towel into a knot and adjusting it so that it flapped behind him like a cape.

            “You need wings! Blind Freddie says!”

            “Blind Freddie thinks that two plus two equals seven. He doesn’t know anything! Silly Susan knows more than him!”

            “Silly Susan thinks that it’s fun to set things on fire. You should listen to Blind Freddie,” Kelly crossed her arms and sat on the roof, criss-cross-apple-sauce style and huffed. Blind Freddie and Silly Susan were the twins’ imaginary friends, and they always got into trouble because of them.

            Blind Freddie usually gave them the wrong answers to questions and was a bumbling fool. Silly Susan always got them into trouble when they were playing games because her games were always dangerous and she couldn’t see how. Max and Kelly were always getting into trouble because they didn’t know which of the two imaginary friends would give them the best solution to their predicaments, but they knew that one of them held the right answer and one of them held the wrong answer, the only problem was guessing which one was which.

            “I’m gonna fly away like Superman, and become an imaginary friend, just like Blind Freddie and Silly Sally.” Max shouted from the roof, looking out from the third story to the ocean ahead, and leapt.

            “Blind Freddie knew that was stupid! He knew! Why didn’t he listen!” Kelly sobbed into her pillow and beat her small fists into her mattress. Her brother’s funeral had been that morning and her parents were trying to comfort her, but they didn’t know how. They knew that the imaginary friends that the kids had were the problem, and had already consulted some psychiatrists about what to do, but they blamed themselves more than they blamed the children’s brains.

            “Sweetie, it’s okay. Max is in a better place,” Her mother spoke softly, sniffling and trying to sound so sure of herself so that she could be the rock her daughter needed. Her father was looking out the bedroom window, his eyes were raw from brushing aside his tears before they could fall and he was using his wife as support as they stood in the twins’ bedroom. He hadn’t looked at his son’s side of the room since they decided what wood his coffin would be made of.

            “The name is Flying, Flying Max.” Her brother’s voice echoed in her head.

            “My brother’s name was Max,” She whispered in the dream.

            “I know. I’m friends with Blind Freddie and Silly Sally.”

            “I hate them.”

            “Why?”

            “They were both stupid enough to think a person could fly.”

            “Blind Freddie was right though. You do humans do need wings to fly. You know, airplanes?” There was laughter in the voice, and Kelly woke up. She smiled, laughed a bit at the joke, and cried herself back to sleep.

Challenge #48

Alright everyone!

The Challenge for this week is to write a story based off of the letter B. You want to choose a word from the current letter of the alphabet that we are on and have your story revolve around that word. You may, if you'd like to, just have the current letter of the week integrated into your work repeatedly.

If you would like to show us your work regarding the letter B, please do! Just e-mail your work to us at inkedfeathersfink@gmail.com for Fan Friday!

See you all on Wednesday!

Fan Friday

Anxiety

My heart starts to pound and my hands begin to sweat. My breathing becomes erratic and my mind races on and on. Knots begin to form in my stomach and I can feel the acid rising in my throat. Why does this keep happening? Breathe I tell myself...breathe normal, breathe normal, breathe normal! I look at them and my vision blurs for a minute. Stop! I scream to myself in my head. She loves me she's with me she'd never do anything with Hannah.
But they're always together it's always Hannah and Olivia this and Hannah and Olivia that. The way i see them look at each other or whispered conversations they have. Plus she's known Olivia longer and Olivia is so pretty and sweet and why wouldn't she like Olivia more.
"Cass...Cass...Cassadee baby are you ok?" Suddenly my eyes focus on her face infront of mine. She reached up to touch my check and her eyes filled with worry. "Babe you're soaked, let's get you home, you don't look so good."

Even an hour later after a shower my mind still hadn't slowed down. My nerves pulsed in my body like thousands of tiny spiders crawling under my skin. A noise from the kitchen made me jump and as a grabbed the bat from the hall closet my heart stopped a second. I felt like one of the girls from those horror movies, and as I turned the corner and tightened my grip on the bat I half expected to see Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees fighting over something to slaughter me with. However the face that met mine in terror was a face I knew well.
"Holy shit Cassadee what are you doing with that thing." Hannah gasped. Lowering the bat I took a deep breathe, my first in what seemed like five minutes. My lungs shook as the oxygen filled and emptied them.
"Sorry honey I thought you went to bed already." Olivia rounded the corner and took my face between her hands before bringing her lips to mine and kissing me softly.
"Why don't you go find something on tv and I'll finish the kettle corn." I nodded and shakily slid my hand down her side hoping she wouldn't feel the shake. Luckily I made it to the couch and turned on the tv before she said another word. "Babe don't we still have a CSI to watch?" I like all the CSIs so the thought of that, instead of spending ten minutes trying to find something we agree on, is like heaven. Finally with kettle corn on my lap and my girl at my side I feel my body start to calm down. However it doesn't last long...they are chasing a serial killer who is breaking into houses in the middle of the night. Slowly I feel my eyes start to wonder from one window to the others and to the door. A commercial comes and I stand up in what I thought was a normal way until Hannah asks what's wrong. Walking towards the door I answer over my shoulder.
"It's getting late so I'm gonna lock the door."
"Umm ok well I'm going to the bathroom if it comes back on before I get back pause it for me please." I turned and nodded after flipping both locks on the door. As soon as Hannah disappeared behind the brown door in the hallway I ran to the windows and locked them. Surly we would hear someone smash through a window right. Maybe I'll take the bat to bed with me tonight and the phone just in case. Then as if right on que my hands started up again. I tried to rub them on my pants but my eyes caught sight of a shadow through the window and I felt beads of sweat form on my forehead. I do not want to die tonight or anywhere close to tonight. Oh my god what about Hannah! As visions of some man climbing through the open bathroom window and taking Hannah by surprise formed in my mind my heart rate spiked. That sudden spike was not a good feeling let me tell you that. Because the next thing I know I hear Hannah yell my name and my head hit the kitchen tile. A second later          (which according to Hannah was actually five minutes later) I woke up to Hannah on the phone frantically talking to what I could only assume was 911. After that night Hannah knew my secret. She was slightly pissed at me for not telling her about my anxiety but slowly she forgave me. As a sweet yet slightly annoying bonus, she never let me forget to take my pill again.

-Sadkatana

Taken Down For Editing

challenge: write a story based on the letter A
Feather's story is taken down for editing