Hat tip to
Wanderings in the Fantastic World for this intriguing prompt!
Jamel walked out
and carefully closed the front door behind her. She stood on the narrow covered
front porch and looked up with a crinkled nose as she pulled on her long gray
gloves. She could already see Borek Ghon’s cursed light through the glazed city
dome.
She shook her
head in aggravation. She had errands to run and would soon be too loaded down
with bags and packages to carry her parasol. She flicked it up and twirled it
so the light green fringe spun against the dark blue silk. Papa had given it to
her for her 16th birthday, the year before he was touched once too
often by Borek Ghon’s evil sunlight and fell ill beyond the best of the Skralethian
medics’ abilities to heal. He didn’t live long enough to see the blessed night
take over the days’ skies again.
Jamel shrugged
such thoughts away. She had mourned for Papa, and now she would not give Borek
Ghon the satisfaction of another tear. Carrying her head high and her parasol
close, she climbed down the few steps from their door to the cobbled city
street. She nodded to the few others out in early morning, daring the sun’s
light through the glass panes of the city dome. It stretched across the four wealthiest
cantons. Jamel was only recently coming to understand that Papa had not earned
the money; it was all Mama’s. That’s why they stayed.
She reached the
first shop and glanced up as she tucked away her parasol. The Ghon’s cursed
sunlight cast a rainbow of color through the curved dome. Jamel shuddered at
the nauseating sight and hurried into the port-mein, pulling out the list she
had tucked in her glove. With any luck, the terrible colors would be gone by
the time she emerged.
|
Dogs
in house
|
Houdini, Brindle
|
|
|
|
|
Time
writing:
|
20 minutes
|
|
|
|
|
October
word count:
|
6,028
|
Prompt: Don’t let the cursed light touch you
ReplyDeleteJimmy’s cousin Will craned his neck upwards, gripping his lunchbox. “Why’s your outside still inside?”
Jimmy glanced up at the shimmering dome, which arced over the street. Out here, in the outskirts, only individual streets were covered; the town centre was underneath one large dome. Jimmy barely thought about the forever-roof that had been above his head his whole life. Will had come from an ‘earth-like planet’, though – which Jimmy’s parents explained meant there were no domes. Jimmy suppressed a shiver at the thought of the sky bare above him, nothing between him and empty space other than mere gas. “It protects us from the light,” he said. And from falling into space.
“Light?” Will’s lunchbox hand tightened. “How could light hurt you?”
“It’ll turn you into a frog,” Jimmy explained. Or at least, he was pretty sure that might happen. They had frogs at the zoo, and the zookeeper had explained they were mutated. Like the light would mutate you without the domes.
Time writing: ~20minutes
Love the description in your piece! And nice world building with rainbows being bad.
ReplyDelete