Alice finds a key stashed away in the kitchen’s junk drawer, but thanks to her irritatingly failing mind, she can’t for the life of her remember who gave her the key. She does however remember the key goes to a small, wooden box stored in the attic on the third floor of her home. Fighting against her frail, shaking body, Alice goes on a trek to ascent to the top of her home to uncover the mystery of the key.
We run, darting into the forest, our hands clasped together. Mine is sweating. So is hers.
“NINE!”
Dozens of us are racing through the trees. Someone—the jerk, Billy—bursts from behind an elm, crossing our path. My feet skid along the dirt, and Anjali falters into my back. I scowl at Billy, but he is already dashing off further into the woods, smirking over his shoulder.
“EIGHT!”
I peer at Anjali. Her eyes are wide and her cheeks flushed. I tighten my grip. “Come on!”
We continue our sprint. My lungs are already burning. Anjali puffs high pitched spurts of breath behind me.
“SEVEN!”
Everyone else was scrambling to get away, running off on their own. It’s everyone for themselves. Anjali and I are the only ones escaping together.
I refuse to abandon her.
“SIX!”
We race across a clearing, hop over a fallen log, and sprint across an old dirt road.
“Five!”
I vault over a berry bush, but the world doesn’t rise to meet me.
I fall, bike-kicking through the air.
Anjali gasps.
My feet touch the ground, slipping across the smooth, mud-cracked creek bed in opposite directions. My arms flail, and I lose hold of Anjali. My shoulder and head smack into the ground. The world goes black as I yell in shocked pain.
“Four.”
Hands tug my shirt near my shoulders. I open my eyes and Anjali’s deep brown ones stare back. Her long, scraggly brown air cascades toward me.
“Up!” she shouts and heaves me to my feet. She grasps my hand. “We have to keep moving!”
“three . . .”
She runs and pulls me with her. She refuses to leave me. I smile.
We scramble up the opposite embankment and dive through the bushes. We emerge onto a road. Anjali tugs me to the left.
“We’re almost there, Aisha,” she says.
“two . . .”
We sprint across the street to an old two-story house on the corner and hop the fence into the backyard. An ancient oak tree looms above us. A rope ladder leads up into the lush branches. Anjali scrambles up first. I follow closely.
“one . . .”
We push through the trapdoor and sprawl onto the old red and tan rug lying in the treehouse’s main area. Staring up at the splintered wood ceiling, we gasp for breath over and over again. I look at Anjali. She’s covered in sweat and her hair is a tangled mess.
“ready or not, here we come!”
“We made it,” I whisper, clutching her hand.
She smiles and giggles erupt out of her. She looks at me, and says conspiratorially, “They’ll never find us here.”
Pixel and NeoBurrito arrive at a solar farm looking for a glitch. Turns out the glitch is an invading force of alien spaceships from the retro game, ETA: Extraterrestrial Attackers. The two Glitch Techs go old school to fight off the invasion!
Your son calls you back into his room, whimpering a little. “Mommy/Daddy, there’s a monster under my bed!” You softly shake your head at him and kneel down to look under the bed. You lift the blankets draping over the sides saying, “Now, you do know that monsters aren’t real—” You stop yourself as you stare under his bed. What do you see?
Elizabeth kneels down to scare away the monsters under Ben’s bed, but when she comes back up Ben is gone. Before she can look for him, the world goes white and Elizabeth must contend with fallow of her actions.
Minako gets dragged along for a day of bargain hunting at local garage and yard sales when all she wants to do is play her VR games. However, there be retro-treasure in them sales.
Gravball carrying the package, Jerome leapt up the stairs two-by-two, at one point springing over a sunbathing tabby, approaching his destination as the seconds ticked closer and closer to zero—he was down to the wire thanks to two collapsed wormholes, a rogue asteroid, and a whullgill migration—until he finally reached the top landing, using the last of his dwindling energy to rush to the door, place the package on the neon “Home Planet is where the Heart Is” welcome mat, smash the doorbell, and with only two seconds left to go on next Galactic Standard day delivery, he scanned the package and took a picture.
Your character’s home (whatever form it may take) is on fire, and they have about five minutes to get out. Write about what they save (or want to save) and how they do so (or fail to do so).
Ada’s building is burning down, along with a dozen other buildings on her city block. She has a way to escape, but it is risky and she only has five minutes to pull it off. That’s a very sort amount of time to upload 9 petabytes.
Diego forms a close friendship with his oddest customer, a seventy-five-year-old billionaire who comes in every day to get the same exact tattoo—a single skinny black line three-quarters of an inch long.
Monique, star senior of the high school’s softball team, hates playing softball. After the team’s latest victory, the coach of the opposition team gives Monique some helpful advice about doing things just because you’re good at them.
Cybernook 