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April Writing Prompts 2022
April is here! Though you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking outside... but the internet cares for no weather, so it's not going to stop us, is it? 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.
1. A practical joke gone wrong.
2. "And you're absolutely sure that's what you heard?"
3. The first nice weather of the year.
4. So much to do, so little time...
5. "What are you, twelve?! And April Fools was yesterday!"
Bonus image prompt:
1. The Joke's on You
2 - “And you're absolutely sure that's what you heard?"
“Did you even go to sleep, Bro?” He set down his bag (now with an omamori and a Norse amulet tied on for safe keeping), and pulled a container of fresh berries out of the fridge for a snack. There were three mugs on the table, all of which clearly once contained coffee.
“Do you know what this is?” He looked up at Minoru, the bloodshot look in his eyes answering the actual question so Isamu didn’t need to.
“Better question - do you know what TIME it is?”
“No, Minoru, listen! The gift, from Ziggy and his family. Do you know what it is? It is an in-depth chronological history of why Antheans fear humans. That is what it is.”
“…uh, are you absolutely sure that’s what you heard?” He asked with his mouth full.
“I have only made it through the first six hours, and one of the voices is rather difficult to follow, but I do believe I have heard more than enough by which to draw that conclusion, yes.”
“Bro, I’m sure that Ziggy meant…” Minoru tried to smooth things over, but was quickly interrupted by his brother’s exasperation.
“And damn it all, they’re right!”
Minoru’s attempt, along with his jaw, fell flat. Those were definitely not the words he expected to hear coming out of Isamu’s mouth.
“Uh…”
“I have spent the better part of the weekend running various statistical analyses on the Ministry data Damien provided. The traits that they were selectively breeding for - the faster reflexes, the enhanced senses, the immunity to the plague we were inoculated against - are not naturally occurring mutations in the human population.” Isamu continued, speaking faster and taking far fewer breaths in between. “The combined values are even outside the evolutionary projections of homo sapiens, unless you account for some degree of interbreeding with another similar species.”
“You mean Damien… isn’t human?”
“Oh, he is still mostly human. About 85% human, with about a 3% margin of error. But that is not important. Minoru, I widened the query to include other humanoid species, and the non-human portions of genetic code bear an unmistakable resemblance to IRIS data on Antheans! Just… just see for yourself!”
He turned his laptop around, scrolling through the digital readout of the genetic code. Minoru just stared, having absolutely no idea what he was looking at. To him, it was just one long string of letters with various sections overlayed in red.
A few keystrokes, and Isamu brought up the genetic averages for Antheans - all red, obviously. Then he brought up the data model for hybrids. The overlay was roughly 50%, not counting unpaired chromosomes. It was a limited data set, so it didn’t have the sheer amount of variations accounted for in the human model, or even the Anthean model.
“Do you realize what this means?!” He shouted over Newton’s voice, which was still playing in the background.
Minoru stared at the laptop, and then looked back up at Isamu. “…You mean Damien is a hybrid? Like Ziggy?”
“To a very limited degree. The prevalence of Anthean DNA in his line of breeding is approximately 15%.”
“So… he had an Anthean ancestor, way back when?” Minoru scratched his head.
“I would have come to that conclusion myself had some of the sequences found within the unpaired chromosomes of both Antheans and hybrids not clearly been, dare I say it, inserted into the human chromosomes. Some of the human chromosomal pairs are larger than normal. For multiple generations.” He countered. “Which means the Ministry is most likely working with a small portion of the genetic code their scientists have been able to isolate and successfully manipulate. Artificial hybrids, inbreeding...”
He stopped the ball, rewound it and replayed an earlier part of the chapter again. Newton was speaking candidly about his time in captivity - specifically on what they did to his eyes.
“Everything Ziggy fears… I think… Minoru, it happened… I think it happened in that world.” He flipped through papers. “There are references to an earlier study. The same reference numbers appear again and again. I do not actually HAVE that study, so I cannot say with absolute certainty, but it leads me to believe they had an Anthean in captivity at one time. It could have been that world’s version of Mister Newton or a hybrid like Ziggy… They never bred them, or never had the chance to breed them. They only have samples of…”
Minoru reached over, and turned the recording ball off.
“Isamu, Bro… you haven’t slept in, like a day and a half. You’ve had that ball going for six straight hours.”
“Nine. I rewound portions...”
“Okay, you’ve basically had it going since I left for my shift. Definitely time to shut it off for a while.” This time, he reached over Isamu’s shoulder and shut the laptop. “Go to bed. Then look at the data later.”
“Minoru…”
“Bed.” He pointed toward his brother’s room, but kept one hand firmly on the laptop, just in case Isamu planned on taking it with him.
With a long sigh, Isamu did finally acquiesce. He stumbled back toward his room, still muttering to himself about how part of the genes controlling eye color must have been within one of those other sections. After all, it was hardly a trait the Ministry would have researched on its own…
Eventually, the door shut.
Minoru, meanwhile, glanced down at the notes. Some were printed copies of what Damien must have provided. A lot were in Isamu’s own handwriting. He shook his head, popping another berry into his mouth before heading over to plop himself down on the couch.
Jack had been in Ministry custody for a while, but Minoru didn’t necessarily want to think about that fact right now. Especially if Jack was truly a future Ziggy. Did Jack even know he was half Anthean? Did Damien have an inkling he wasn’t fully human? And more importantly, if not, how on earth did Isamu plan to tell him?
Oh boy… No doubt about it. This was about to get really crazy.
5 - April Fools was Yesterday!
Suffice it to say, when he tried his key and it didn’t work, it honestly took a solid minute to determine he was at the right building on the right floor, looking at the right door. But sure enough, he was.
“What the…” He tried the key again, and it still didn’t work.
Taking another full minute to determine he had the right keys - he’d locked the door when he left last night, he was sure of it - Minoru tried yet again.
“…”
Finally, he knocked.
“Isamu?” He knocked again, listening. It was late enough that Isamu had to be awake. It was actually late enough that Isamu could have left for IRIS, but Minoru swore he heard something coming from inside the apartment. “Bro? You home? Can you open the door?”
Yawning, he leaned his head against the door. The voice he heard was weirdly modulated - Isamu was listening to that Anthean recording ball again.
“Come on, Bro!” He knocked again. “There’s something wrong with the door! My key won’t work!!”
There were no footsteps, no reply. Nothing. Maybe a snicker. Maybe he just imagined it.
“Isamu!!“ he knocked louder. “Come on, what are you, twelve?! April Fool’s was yesterday!! Open the door!!”
After a few more minutes and just as many attempts, Minoru finally gave up. Hopping up and over the railing, he made his way around to the backside of the apartment. He’d jumped out of his window plenty of times just for the fun of it, but he rarely went back in through it. Their apartment was only on the second floor, and it had a brick exterior, so it was an easy climb. He spent more time trying to carefully traverse his downstairs neighbor’s garden than he did on the wall. Hoisting himself up and over the balcony, he went to lift the window and suddenly found it locked too.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!!” He exclaimed, only to look up and see Isamu staring back, arms crossed, from behind the glass. “Isamu, what…”
The older twin reached in his pocket and pulled out a key on a newly-purchased keychain. Smirking, he dangled it in front of Minoru’s face, albeit still behind the glass.
“Very funny, Bro. April Fools. You got me.” He sighed. “Come on, it’s been a long night. Will you please let me in?”
This time, Isamu acquiesced, undoing the latch on the window. Minoru lifted it up before his brother could change his mind. He climbed inside, dropping his bag on the floor.
“I suppose I had something coming for filling your bathtub with goldfish last night.” He admitted sheepishly.
Isamu shook his head. The date, honestly, was an amusing happenstance. Between waking up to crop circles of popcorn kernels on the floor to coming home to find drunken naked rockstars sleeping on his couch, he’d had quite enough surprises.
“Minoru. Do both of us a favor, and do not let anyone in that massive Rock n Roll entourage make copies of our key again.” He warned as he dropped a brand new key into his brother’s hand. “Or the next time I have the locks rekeyed, it is going to feel a lot less like a prank.”
“… okay.”
3 - The First Nice Weather (Ziggyverse AU)
Those may be the kind of people you admire from a distance, but they're not the kind of people you're supposed to fall in love with. It's nearly impossible, they say, to be strong enough not to be uprooted, while also being flexible enough to bend without breaking. But damn it, when I stared into the beautiful blue eyes of this storm, so help me God, I got swept right off my feet.
From our very first date, I knew I'd be with him for the rest of his life. But it wasn't until about a year ago before I decided I wanted be with him for the rest of mine.
You can't change the path of a hurricane. No amount of persuasion, manipulation or brute force is going to stop them from crashing into the shore. Dee didn't want to treat his condition, and to love him unconditionally was to accept that. Truth be told, when he was in his last semester at CalArts, even after he graduated and he moved in with me, you could have easily fooled me into thinking we were still thriving in the gulf, nowhere near the coast.
He wrote such passionate melodies. He sang with a siren's grace and I played my heart out. The wind howled and when the rain come down, we rode the waves like there was no tomorrow. Every inch of him was beautiful. Every sound, every taste, every touch was beautiful. We recorded our first demo and tried to shop it around, but the storm was already moving inland. The hurricane that was supposed to take the music world by storm was a tropical depression at best - an apt word, when you realize you're mourning the man you love.
Watching that once powerful storm march further inland as his muscles broke down and his body really began to waste away, was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life. But I carried him and I carried on. It was like boarding up the windows after the storm had already passed. A little too late, perhaps, but wht choice did I have?
Learning about the new treatment from World Enterprises was like seeing the sun again for the first time. When Dee agreed to talk to a doctor about it - not to do it, just to actually set foot in their office and talk about it - I couldn't even fathom how much light there still was behind the clouds. When he dared to try it, when the doctor said it was working and Dee actually decided to stick with it, I swear to God, I could have flooded the world with the tears I'd been holding in.
For the first time, we had a future without a deadline. He wasn't going to die. At least, not soon.
That's when I knew we'd weathered the storm.