Horror in a Flash - a collection of prompt based live-writting

Prompt: Haunted Theater

Ever wonder if a horror story can be created out of the prompt "The Fillpino revolt against Espana and how the US used that to gain a strategic foothold in the south China sea?"

This is a collection of flash fiction written on the fly. I asked for prompts and then wrote each piece right then, taking between 15 minutes to an hour. Some came out okay and some not so much.

Prompt:

 Haunted theater

Jessie pushed on the old oak door, putting all her weight into her shoulder as it inched open with a rusty creek. Cold stale air escaped from the darkness within, like the building itself had bad breath, breath filled with rotting wood and time. Jessie turned on her flashlight and stepped inside.

The room spread out in a circle, with rows of moth eaten chairs that reminded her of old teeth, bent and broken and surrounding a sagging stage of wood. Everything had the feel of aged opulence, from the torn and dusty paintings on the walls to the ornate lights hanging from the ceiling like bits of loose metal flesh.

Jessie touched one of the chairs and felt the once plush velvet padding crinkle under her fingers and fleck away. She looked up at the stage and the few remaining props, an old umbrella, half a child’s bike and dull bladed sword, all surrounded by the empty beer bottles of the teenagers and college kids who used to sneak inside for dates and parties.

No one came anymore. At first it was a just a few knocks and creaks, things easily explained and ignored. Then the sightings started, strange fleeting glimpses of costumed people wandering across the stage. As time went on, these sightings grew more frequent and less human, strange twisted things that drew in the surrounding dark, centering it and giving it substance.

People claimed these creatures drew in their emotions as well, drinking them in and giving them back as numb fear and something darker than anything they could adequately describe. Some of them claimed the feelings followed them home, taking weeks and even months to fully go away.

The theater went back to being abandoned, with only the bravest souls daring to set foot inside, thrill seekers and skeptics looking for fun or to prove that nothing lurked in the darkness but the imagination. Jessie was one of those people.

She wasn’t sure if she was a thrill seeker or a skeptic, maybe she was a bit of both. All she knew was that this place held secrets, either paranormal or mundane. She really didn’t care, since secrets were secrets and no matter what they were, Jessie could never let a secret go without at least trying to delve into it.

So, here she was, stepping onto a rotted stage in the dark, with only a flashlight to guide her way. She stepped into the center and looked around, trying to see anything that might be out of place, but only saw dust and various reminders of the passage of time.

Then something darted across her peripheral vision, a bit of shadow that seemed too real to be her imagination. She turned her head, but saw nothing. Another shadow darted by, this time on her other side. Each time she turned, she saw nothing, but the shadows get coming, hiding at the corners of her eyes, almost as if they were circling her.

Jessie quit spinning around and the shadows appeared in front of her, dark shapes that made the normal darkness of the room almost light. They spread out, surrounding her on all sides and covering any means of escape. What passed as their chests moved in and she felt her fear exit her body, leaving her as empty as an empty jar.

They breathed out and the fear returned, this time with a numbness that locked her limbs in place like they were filled with molten lead. Another feeling filled into her as well, as dark as the being around her, cold and hot at the same time. Jessie’s mind filled with horrors, both small and large and each beat of her heart drew the feeling and images deeper into her body and mind.

One of the shadows slid over to her, fast and inky like a blot from a broken pen. It slithered around her body, wrapping across it like ivy, while she stood there with her molten lead limbs.

“I think we’ll keep you,” the shadow said in an oil slick voice, as it drew her awareness out of her body, and sucked every last bit of her away, until nothing was left except another shadow. She looked at her body, now empty and could barely remember whose it was, except in the back of her mind. After a few seconds, the thought was gone and she slid away to join her new family.

The end.