Prompt: A scream echoes outside. One by one, the houses on the street go dark. My house is next.
A/N: I know it's a kind of horror themed prompt, but it's not going to be scary. Well the begining of it yes, but after that... I put a little twist to it. And I don't think I'm really good with horror themed stories so... Yeah if you don't like horror story, you don't have to worry about this one!
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It's getting late as my roomate and I try to decide to either go to bed now or listen to another episode of the show we are binge watching. I don't really want the night to end since it's one of the last one we have alone together. Her girlfriend is moving in in a few weeks and I'm moving to my new place in two months. But we both can't keep our eyes open so it's best if we call it a night. We stand up from the couch the best we can and we freeze on the spot when we hear a loud and scary scream coming from outside. We both look at each other, confused and a bit worried. We carefully walk to the window, cracking open the curtains just enough for us to see. One by one, the houses on the street go dark. Our house is next. As more screams echoes and all the lights turn off, we run away from the windows and go straight to the kitchen to hide under the table ''Why are we hiding under the table exactly?'' my roomate asks in a whisper.
''I don't know, they always do that in movies...''
We wait for something to happen. And we hear another scream. And another. And another. They are getting louder, closer. It's coming for us. All of us. the whole neighboor. We hear the front door swinging open even if I know that I locked it after I came in earlier. We hold our breath and hug each other out of fear. An etheral smoke slowly float towards us.For some reason it seems to know where we are. It stops a few inches from us and I can swear that I can hear it smell us. Feel us. It stays still for a few seconds and leave without a sound. Leaving us both under the table frozen in place but alive. After what seems like an eternity, the lights goes back on. I take a quick look at my phone. Only 5 minutes passed since we closed the tv. We slowly crawl out of under the table and take a quick look outside. All our neighboors are doing the same. We all gather together. We all experienced the same thing. But for four of them, the smoke surrounded them for a few seconds before leaving. We all look at them, not knowing what to say or do. They still look 'normal' after all. A few police cars and ambulances finally come with all lights flashing loud and clear. They go through the questionning and checking, bringing some people that are in shock to the hospital to make sure they are going to be fine. They don't really know what to do with the four 'victims' of the smoke. They all agree to spend atleast the night at the hospital, to make sure they are going to be fine and the few neighbours remaining go back to their respective houses. Let's say nobody slept well that night.
The next morning, when I get to work, I am more than surprised to see my four neighbours. I work in a research lab and seeing people here is not uncommon for clinical tests and all but... all four of them? I get closer and give them a quick wave ''Hey, are you all okay?''
''We don't know... Something happened last night.'' Samuel tells me. I'm about to ask more questions but one of the main scientist asks them to follow him. We wave each other goodbye and I go to my locker to get ready. I can't wait for the morning meet up to understand what is happening to my neighbours. And soon enough, my boss calls a meeting. An urgent one. I look at the few coworkers that are in the locker room with me and they all look as puzzled as I am. We all gather in the small conference room, like every morning, but this time I can see that my boss and the leader scientists are nervous. Something bad happened to my neighbours and I really want to know if we can help them. I hope we can. They are explaining that they put them in the rooms meant for the long studies, the ones that look like small studios since they didn't know how much time they would stay. They look nervous, but I don't think it's because they are worried about them, more like they are scared of them. I can't take it any longer ''I know them. They are my neighbours. What happened to them? Are they okay?''
YOU ARE READING
52 stories
Short StoryI heard about this writing challenge from a youtuber I'm following and I wanted to do it too! Writing one small story every week for a year for a total of 52 stories. Let's go!
