The first challenge of Rachel Harrie’s Writer’s Platform-Building Campaign is to create a 200-word flash fiction story that begins with the words “The door swung open.”
The opening words have a sinister implication to me. For one thing, the phrase is passive: “the door swung open,” not “he/she opened the door.” The phrase implies that the door may not have been opened by someone, but rather by something. As you will see, this impression colored my response to the challenge.
For bonus goals, campaigners who accepted the challenge could end the story with “the door swung shut” and try to write exactly 200 words. Well, according to MS Word, the following story is exactly 200 words, and it starts and ends with the challenge words.
I hope you enjoy it.
***
The door swung open and admitted a cool, moist draft. The light breeze circled the room and ruffled the papers on my desk, which I pinned in place with a slap of my hand. The lantern on my desk flickered, but thankfully did not go out. I didn’t bother turning around because the stench of carrion that accompanied the draft told me exactly who, or should I say what, would be lurking at the threshold.
At that moment, nothing mattered more than the rune on the block of wood in front of me. If I turned around now, the rune would never be finished, and nothing would matter to me ever again.
I bent back to my task, trying to calm the shaking hand that held a razor-sharp carving blade so I could lay the final stroke that would complete the rune. I peeled a thin sliver from the block’s dark surface, revealing the lighter-colored wood underneath.
A deep otherworldly moan rose behind me, and the surge of adrenalin it caused threatened to spoil the stroke. But I finished the rune and spoke its eldritch name. With my utterance, the moan rose to a shriek, and the door swung shut.
***
