Animation by Nevit Dilmen

Round 4 of Build A Story is still alive! Not sure how far into December this thing will go, but we’ve no need to bring the crash cart in just yet. So thank you to all who have contributed thus far, and for those out there who have a sentence or two burning a hole in their pocket, give this story a read and send it off in style.

He said there’s nothing to be afraid of and soothed his bitten hand with our last stick of butter. He wasn’t thinking about how fond rats are of butter. Suddenly, there were scratching and squeaking sounds coming from under the floor boards. This was soon followed by a distinct shaking sound, which grew louder by the second.

“What is it?!?,” I screamed.

I’d never seen this man before in my life. A pleasant dinner with open windows and screen doors leads to this. Teacups vibrating off their hooks, shattering on the countertops. I pushed Bobby behind me and backed into the dining room. The house was coming apart.

Suddenly everything was still, and I could hear my own heart beating wildly.

Bobby lunged in front of me and shouted, “What is that?” As he pushed me under the dining room table I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t seen in years. After all this time, I thought I’d successfully disappeared, but it found me again.

Yes, it was the magician, come back for the audience volunteer who had vanished from his Chinese box all those years ago, and this time he had a blunt instrument!

“I’ll be blunt,” he sneered menacingly.

Bobby erupted in menacing laughter as I leaped toward the gaping hole that had been my dining room wall just minutes before. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him pull out a gleaming blue magic wand and point it at the magician. 

“You know what I’ve done, but not what I’m capable of doing, you nefarious fiend,” he snarled; I had no idea he was capable of sounding so menacing, so otherworldly.

I could scarcely believe what I saw next. I pinched myself to make sure I really was awake, and I was!

Bobby morphed into a creature that can only be described in small bits: green scales here, smoke coming from his three nostrils there, leathery wings that shone with an inner light sprouting from—what were those things? My son! I thought, but was he?

This emerald imp grasped the hem of my dress as it struggled to rise on one horribly deformed foot. As we came eye to eye the skin below its nostril split and that gaping wound grew until it formed a mouth large enough to hold a human head. Its breath was foul.

And like some monstrous chicken it squawked one terrible word: “Mama.”

That word. It snapped me out of my terrified paralysis and an icy calm came over me. I knew what I had to do. I crawled across the floor and opened the desk drawer. I knew what I was looking for was there somewhere.

Where to next? Only you and your sentence know the answer…