Hi! I wrote this short story from the prompt, “You wake up trapped in a strange castle with no memory of how you got there and there’s something lurking in the shadows as you explore the halls.”. I hope you enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a faint, dull throbbing in Emery\u2019s head as she looked up to see stone, more stone than she\u2019d ever seen in her life, elaborate windows, and a gorgeous, gorgeous<\/em> view of rolling hills and green pastures. She sat up, pressing a hand to her forehead, adjusting the tiara (tiara?)<\/em> that sat on her head, walking over to the window. The glass was cool to touch, foggy with condensation, and she resisted the urge to draw on it, to sit there and doodle and forget her senses and why she was there and really where<\/em> she was. Hi! I wrote this short story from the prompt, “You wake up trapped in a strange castle with no memory of how you got there and there’s something lurking in the shadows as you explore the halls.”. I hope you enjoy! There was a faint, dull throbbing in Emery\u2019s head as she looked up to … Continue reading “The Shadow: Poetry Prompt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,172,154,1,384,93],"tags":[11,260,1280,1281,235,207,90,211],"class_list":["post-2196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbies","category-imaginative","category-reading","category-uncategorized","category-writing-hobbies","category-writing","tag-mint-girl","tag-mint-girl-writes","tag-prompt","tag-shadow","tag-short-story","tag-story","tag-writing","tag-writing-prompt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
She took a deep breath, walking over to the door, and pulling it open with a sense of finality. The hallway was deserted, completely silent. Emery\u2019s gaze darted to the side, seeing a faint wisp of something<\/em>, something dark, menacing, hiding in the corner, a shadow, really. It called to Emery, telling her to touch it, to let its cool, refreshing solitude wash over her.\u00a0
Emery blinked and the moment was gone, the voice of the shadow just a figment of her imagination. Maybe the whole castle is too. Maybe I\u2019ll wake up in just 5 minutes and I\u2019ll never see this place. <\/em>Wouldn\u2019t that be nice. She continued walking down the hallway, pausing as a stairway appeared in front of her, so sudden it was like it was enchanted. She risked a glance behind her, watching the shadows in the corner shrink and grow, pulsing towards her. She pushed down her growing sense of dread and continued up the staircase, counting the steps as she did, pushing open a small door at the top of the stairs to open up into a small room. One of the castle\u2019s turrets, she would assume, a square one.\u00a0
The shadow was back.
It sat at the top of the stairs, as if waiting for Emery to turn around and notice it. Emery closed her eyes. On top of everything, this\u2026creature (?) just had to be following her. As she turned around to examine the room, its voice spoke in her head once more, loud, bold, unafraid. I know you want to go home\u2026Emery. Or Emmie. That\u2019s what they call you isn\u2019t it? And you hate it, but I bet you\u2019d be ok with being called Emmie if it got you out of here. If it got you away from me.<\/em>
Emery closed the book she was studying with a thud<\/em>, letting the cover slam down on its antique, ink-ridden pages. She shook her head. She was imagining things, because shadows couldn\u2019t talk, let alone talk in people\u2019s heads, and this place must be making her dream. It must all be a dream and she would wake up and be normal and go to school and live her normal life and-
You know, it\u2019s sweet how you have all these hopes and dreams. Most people that end up here don\u2019t. And so, they end up being these unsatisfying hosts, but <\/em>you<\/em><\/strong>. You\u2019re different. Aren\u2019t you, Emmie?<\/em>
The shadow was almost on top of her. And then it was in<\/em> her and then it was <\/em>her and her thoughts and the shadow\u2019s thoughts were just one and the same and there was no distinguishing, no real difference between the two.
The shadow wanted a host, after all. And it had gotten one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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