Have you found yourself stuck in the middle of a particularly bad writer's block? Need a dose of inspiration? Or are you simply looking for some creativity to kick-start your newest novel? Then look no further!
Paranormal Prompts aims to bring you...
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Hello and welcome to our brand new prompt. This week, we'll be featuring a word prompt. Remember that you do not need to include the wording of the prompt in your entry if you don't want to. You're allowed to interpret the prompts in any manner you see fit, provided that there is a clear link between your entry and the prompt provided. For more information, make sure to check out the guidelines below!
WORD PROMPT:
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WINNERS:
Please note that winners are not listed in any specific order. To read the rest of the otherworldly entries we received, check them out in the comments section below!
I looked at my wings in the mirror. No. No. It can't be...
Wings were the staple of our society. White, which most had, were a sign of purity and innocence. When someone had black wings... A devil. A living devil. That's what if signified.
I hadn't done one bad deed in my life. How could it be? How could I have pitch black wings when I'm not a bad person?
I had to hide them. No one could find out. No one.
I hid them under a jacket and walked out of my room. My parents smiled at me, telling me how good of a morning it was, and how beautiful it was outside.
I played along, though it was hard to keep the wings up, tucked tight against my back. A feather peeled out of the bottom of my jacket, and I didn't notice.
My mother's face dropped. My father stopped mid-sentence and stared.
"Just like the last two," my mother spoke.
"We have to get rid of her, just like the last two," my father returned.
I backed away and tried to run out, but fumbled for the door. My parents pulled me toward the basement. I was never allowed in the basement.
They dragged me down, kicking and screaming. I didn't understand. The last two?
Before I knew it, my arms were chained up. There were two perfectly black pairs of wings hanging on the other side of the basement.
"You're a disgrace, just like your siblings. You'll see them in hell."
I let out an agonized scream as they used a thin wire to saw off each of my wings individually. It felt like fire. Fire, burning me, burning my wings to a crisp.
They acted as if this was normal. They hung up my wings. That was their goal, to let me bleed out and die.
The fire. God, the fire. It hurt.
The chains were melting, what was happening to me?
Soon, I fell away from the chains, fire flowing from my fingertips. Less and less blood flowed from my wings. The fire was healing them.
My parents only saw the fire before they themselves burned, though they didn't heal.
Maybe I was impure, but I wasn't going to die. Not today.
I told them they hadn't come yet and they believed me, I was a late bloomer after all.
That was three months ago.
The council was getting impatient. I had to present my wings before The High Council tomorrow or they'd force it out of me.
I awoke at one in the morning dressing in all black pocketing my store of Demonshine stones curtsy of the babies at my back. I shook sleep away and took to the skies, wings the color of sin and the length of pride.
Not that you could tell in the night.
First was Elder Weiss, I crept in through the back window into in his room as he slept soundly, if snores were soundless. I quickly placed the stone beside him lingering for a moment before taking off.
They started at his shoulderblades, tiny little tufts of downy feathers. Just like every baby starts out with blue eyes, every baby starts out with white wings— the real color sets in as time goes on. By the time his sister was born, just as small and sweet as he was, the feathers reached down his back. They were still light. Downy. Gray, like wet pavement. We worried about him, a little bit, but it wasn't an unusual color. Not unusual at all.
When he was eight, and his sister was five, his wings were even darker. In contrast to the light, snowy color of his sister's wings, they stood out starkly. Longer feathers, less down. Our feathers were white. Your feathers show who you are, what you are. We were worried.
A year passed. The tips of his feathers were blacker than the darkest night of a new moon. We wondered what we had done wrong. He grew more distant from us, expressing distaste in the activities we wanted him to do. He was kind to his sister, but he clearly hated her nature. He hated all of us at that point.
There was no more down in his pitch black feathers, which crept nearly to his knees. Just as his eyes had settled at a coffee brown all those years ago, his wings were full-grown. He barely spoke to us, and we had nothing to say to him. It was our fondest wish that others would accept him, but we knew nobody in our community would.
He smiled at us, but we had no smiles for him. He reached out for us, but at that point, we did not want him. We did not want his pity, his kind words, his sympathetic looks. His sister scowled at his attempts to help her with her studies. His wings were pitch black, ours where pale. We were demons. He was an angel.
