November 2021 Writing Prompts

[iam_senpai]

Did you know it's the first day of November? I sure didn't until about halfway through today! But that's fine by me because it means I can continue to share with you all some of my very favorite fall images and a few hand picked prompts to keep you lovely folks inspired through another month.

We hope you enjoy them!

And As Always--

Disclaimer: I never close old writing prompts from previous months. People can and should be encouraged to post on old month's prompts and I highly encourage players to track these posts to catch stragglers or new people writing on old prompts.

Now. With that out of the way, onto this month's prompts.

November's Writing Prompts

1. "As the nights grow cold, unfamiliar sounds carry through the mists."

2. "I wonder if they would be proud of me."

3. Your character read the directions wrong, if they read them at all. Now something's not Quite Right.

4. "...And STAY there!"

5. "Maybe we should just stay here until this blows over."



Bonus image prompt:

Comments

5 - Maybe we should stay here until this blows over.

[itmeanstruth]

Minoru leaned against the doorframe for a moment, listening to the unusual sound of his brother retching. The party at the Angel’s Retreat had certainly been something else, and not entirely for the right reasons. Isamu had gotten himself completely wasted, and was now paying the inevitable consequences.

“Bro, I know I said you’d find some common ground and stuff with the rock stars while you were doing your research study. But I think you’re taking that a bit too far.”

Isamu grumbled, his response muffled by the toilet bowl and his aching head.

The bad attempt at humor couldn’t stop Minoru, however, from thinking about Ziggy and that infamous weeks-long binge of gin and coke. This was just one night, one binge. Sure, Isamu drank. But he never drank to excess. Not like that… it was weird, and a little bit frightening.

“Seriously, though… What’s gotten into you? You are more than smart enough to know that what you did last night was the exact opposite of smart.” Minoru knelt down beside Isamu, carefully stroking his back. “Whatever it is, I promise, you can tell me. I can help. Or we can just stay here until it blows over… but you have to talk to me, Isamu.”

He lifted his head enough to shake it. “I can’t…”

“Please… when Ziggy…”

“Don’t say that name…” he slurred, coughing and gagging.

“Ziggy?”

Isamu nodded. He would have pulled away from Minoru, but he was basically trapped between brother and bathtub at this point. Their apartment was modest and the rooms were small. That, and the messy parts of the hangover definitely weren’t over yet.

“Did Ziggy say something?”

Again, Isamu nodded. Ziggy had said a lot of things, but he started with a weak, “…he called me an addict.”

Minoru cocked an eyebrow, trying to make sense of that. It made even less sense than Isamu chugging Jack Daniels laced with angel booze. But the latter had definitely happened.

“And you were trying to prove him right?” When he felt Isamu’s shoulders shudder and a whimpered sob escape his lips, he quickly softened his tone. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. Crap...”

But everything that Isamu had been holding in quickly came out.

“Curiosity… theoretical thought exercises… He said I was an addict… and a tyrant… just like the scientists that… that took Mister Newton… and couldn’t trust me…” his voice slurred, making contractions that were rarely, if ever, present in his normal speech pattens. “selfish, unethical… I’d hurt other beings just to get what I want… he’s telling his parents… everyone in his species, to never ever work with humans again… and it’s all my fault…”

The gentle rubbing stopped as Minoru tried to process that disjointed explanation.

The rock star study happened a while ago. Ziggy hadn’t talked about anything bad happening during it. Neither had anyone else. To the contrary, Aarne excitedly bugged him at least half a dozen times about when he would get to read it. Isamu returned to the Nexus just as excited, and had immediately set about writing it. It was currently in review with the IRIS board, or something like that. Minoru didn’t know all the procedures, just how long it usually took to get something published once his brother turned it in.

“…uh… what did you do?”

“Nothing!” He sobbed, turning to Minoru and slumping over on him instead of the toilet. “I swear, we were simply talking… About abilities… what’s normal. What’s paranormal. Everything’s normal in the end because it can be measured… even prophecy… or… or why I put Zayda to sleep… his eyes glowed…”

Minoru wrapped his arms around his brother and pulled him into his lap. If anything glowed, he knew that meant the Anthean was upset. Probably pissed off, given the context. but Tom had said before that it could happen with any strong emotion, not just anger.

“I’ve felt that before.” He shuddered. “Like a migraine…”

“No! I didn’t feel a thing!” Isamu shouted, but cringed due to the headache he had now. He could feel bile rising in his throat again, and groaned, “Just… just indignation… I… I’m a monster…”

Minoru paused, squeezing his brother tightly. His voice softened, “You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a monster.”

He was no expert on the science part, but he was pretty sure that, as far as scientists go, Isamu was doing things right. He grumbled far too often about reviews taking so long because he was eager to get started, but he also checked and even double-checked his consent forms. The background check for IRIS for the clearance he was seeking took months. He came up clean for that, and hadn’t had any issues with their security.

But this wasn’t about the details of one experiment or another, even though Isamu might think it was. This wasn’t about ethics either. This was about emotion - something that Ziggy had an abundance of and Isamu, honestly, didn’t.

“Bro, can you speak Norwegian?”

The question was absurd enough that it actually made Isamu stop crying just to answer it.

“I… I don’t understand the relevance…”

“Can you?” He asked again. “Like, can you understand everything Vars says?”

“No?” He asked in place of an answer. “I mean, he does have some fluency in English, which we both speak. Although his is bro…”

“Don’t say broken.” Minoru cut in. That was definitely not the point he wanted to make.

“Then, what…”

“What I’m trying to say is Antheans use emotion as a part of their language. So there’s a disconnect there if you don’t speak it. And probably just as much of a disconnect if you do and the other doesn’t. You’re not a monster if you can’t speak Norwegian. So you shouldn’t here either.”

Isamu looked at Minoru, confused, his mind rapidly cataloging everything that Ziggy said. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through the list before burying his aching head back against his brother’s shoulder. There was too much light, and trying to focus on anything just made his head spin.

“Think about it… I know how hyper-focused you get when you want to figure something out. But I don’t know what that comes across in Anthean. You think before you feel. Literally. And sometimes, to a human anyway, that comes off as cold. I don’t know what that comes across in Anthean either. But if you put those two together, it could be something really scary. Newton was held captive by scientists, you know. They experimented on him, tortured him, because he wasn’t human. If Ziggy was outed as an alien there, it wouldn’t be IRIS he’d be dealing with. There wouldn’t be consent forms.”

Minoru felt Isamu nod against him.

“Most people would feel some kind of physical or emotional discomfort long before anything started glowing, so there’s a lot that didn’t translate to a language you could speak either. You couldn’t feel his fear.” Minoru explained. “I think you both just really, really misunderstood each other.”

“I scared him…”

“Yeah. You really really scared him.” Minoru nodded. “But it’ll be okay… I’ve misunderstood him too, remember? It took us a while to figure it all out. And we still make mistakes too.”

“But your mind…”

“Isn’t any better at speaking Norwegian than yours, Bro.” Minoru sighed, laughing nervously. “I mean, I was texting with Rekker a few days ago, and everything I said to try to cheer him up just ended up making things worse. And when he said how selfish it was for anyone to expect someone to love them when they can’t reciprocate what they need intimately… It made me feel kind of like a monster too. Because those are things that I don’t feel… and Ziggy… you know…”

“But you talked it over and…” isamu whimpered, but Minoru cut him off.

“Not really…” he whispered. “I kinda told him I had to go study. Which was the truth. I’d been putting it off and I’m not really looking forward to seeing grades come back tomorrow... But yeah, I’m… kind of afraid to bring it up again…”

“You?”

“Yeah. I speak depression about as well as you speak Anthean.” He nudged Isamu gently. “Except I’m not the one trying to out-drink a rock star to hide it.”

That got a small chuckle, followed by an immediate groan.

“Tell you what, once you’ve recovered from your hangover, let’s apologize together. To both people. I’ve got your back, and you’ve got mine. Okay?”

It took a few moments of silence for Isamu to finally nod. “…okay.”