The figure appeared out of the fog covered in blood and carrying a large stone tablet. He made it only a few steps towards us, then collapsed.

Boiled down, it read, “Stop being assholes to each other.”

Hernando lowered himself into his chair and began the painful process of unbandaging his feet. The mines took a lot out of him and the thought had crossed his mind many times that surviving might not be worth the effort anymore. He winced at the bloody mess. Even if he’d once been the one lecturing his friends on the need to keep fighting, no matter how small the act of resistance, he was now reaching the end of his resolve.

But if humanity was ever going to win back its freedom from the outerworlders, Hernando could not abandon all hope.

Today’s Story was based on a prompt from Lillie McFerrin Writes.

Kurt returned home after several hours at the bar, slightly buzzed and no longer furious at his wife. He expected the house to be spotless after that disaster of a Thanksgiving dinner.

What he found was that damn turkey sleeping in his bed.

It was once a daily ritual I looked forward to.

Now it was the most agitated moment of my routine, wondering if today was the day she had decided to poison me.

Dax Morgan policed the town of Ashland with a harsh tongue and pair of Colt revolvers. He tolerated no dissent, even from his own sons. The town tolerated him in return, as long as peace was maintained.

As Gil rode away, a rivulet of blood soaked into the thirsty clay behind him.

Test day had arrived. Paul entered the arena with overwhelming trepidation. Failure today would mean death.

In any case, he looked forward to graduating to middle school.

Ralph hated thunderstorms. Tonight’s had him cowering in his father’s study. Each crack of thunder shook the shelves, rattling his father’s war memorials and the family bibelots, and left him cringing abjectly in the corner.

But tonight, he knew exactly why the storm had come. His bloody hands and his father’s limp body told the story in full.

He begins the search casually, with a measure of optimism, fully expecting it won’t be difficult to find, but with every crossed-out possibility his equanimity lessens, as he goes from pocket to pocket in all his jackets, even jackets that haven’t been worn in years just to be sure, and finally to the pockets of his man-purse–the one she always mocked him for–until he’s all out of pockets, and then it’s to his Range Rover, where he looks methodically from back to front so that he’s really beginning to panic because all he finds are stale fries and dog hair and a few drops of blood, which are all attributable to her and he needs to clean up soon, but there’ll be no point in cleaning if he can’t find it, and now he begins retracing every stop of the last six hours, first to the ATM that is supposed to be his alibi, but there’s nothing in the parking lot, and then to the dumpster in the industrial park that was a really stupid place to put her bag but it’s too late now, and in any case, it isn’t there either and now he’s driving to the waterfront and he’s nervous because it seems like those headlights in the rearview mirror are following him despite his driving so slow and steady because it would be really bad if he gets pulled over when he hasn’t washed the blood and he’s still wearing the same clothes and the car is speeding up and its lights are flashing and oh my God it’s the cops, so he thinks about speeding up too but that never works and he best play it cool and he’s just about to ask what seems to be the problem officer when the cop demands to know why there’s a handgun on the top of his car.

Today’s story is a deviation from the 100 word format. Instead, as you probably already noticed, this is a one sentence story, a concept first introduced to me by Matthew Bennardo. It turns out they are quite addictive, and the thrill comes in trying to make them as long as possible before they collapse in upon themselves, much like a house of cards (I was going to say a game of Jenga, but the analogy doesn’t really work.

The students were blindfolded as they entered the arena, and the roaring crowd left them nearly deaf as well. When the bell sounded indicating they were allowed to uncover their eyes, they found an array of weapons waiting for them.

Not many people realize that Julius Caesar first sprang to fame as a winner on Rome’s most popular reality show, Juvenile Gladiators.

They descended from the north in what was now known to be an annual migration. They infiltrated homes and attacked numerous places of business and seemed to be standing on every street corner. There was no escape.

When they finally retreated to their Arctic home, they left behind nearly total devastation. Their ritualistic sacrifice of baby Jesus was the worst part of all.