. It's called "Click" (for obvious reasons, as you will see). No idea as to the outcome of the contest at this point, but just in case I don't win, here it is for posterity. It's written entirely around the prompt "Write a story in which one character reduces another to sobs without speaking or touching him." Leave me a comment if you read it. I love derision!
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SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Darkness.
A rough cloth bag over my head, making it hard to breath, filling my nose with the smell of mildew. A similar piece of cloth acts as a gag. I'm not sure where I am or how I got here. I'm sitting in what feels like a hard metal folding chair, hands and feet bound. I realize in a detached sort of way that I'm not scared, but I can feel the fear picking at the edges of my mind. Stay calm, I think to myself, try to figure out where you are and how you got here.
I think back to before I awoke here. The last thing I remember is getting into bed, sad and a little lonely. I live a pretty solitary life. I have few friends, my family lives on the other side of the country (though we're still relatively close), and I work from home, so no coworkers. Days pass without me speaking to anyone short of the voices I deal with over the phone. It's not a great life, but it's what I have to work with. I remember closing my eyes, thinking some action was needed to break this rut I'd worked myself into. Feeling my body grow heavy as sleep overtook me.
Then, darkness.
And now this place, this chair, this gag, this hood. Still no solid answers, just more questions. So I settle in to wait. Wait for rescue, wait for some hint as to why I'm here. Just wait.
After what feels to me like several hours (but is probably only a few minutes), I hear the light "tock tock" of hard-soled shoes on a cement floor, coming close to where I now sit. I neither heard a door open, nor detected any change in the quality of light to suggest someone's entry into my "cell", and yet here he comes. The steps come closer and closer, until they stop right behind me. For a moment, nothing, and then the bag is lifted away. I blink rapidly, expecting the pain of bright light to sear my eyes, but there is no light to blind me. I strain my neck to see my tormentor, but he is beyond my range of vision.
I sit for a moment, wondering what the next move is. I decide to try to engage my captor. I try to say "Hello?" or "Where am I?", but the gag turns the questions into meaningless grunts. I realize suddenly how thirsty I am, so I try "water" next. It comes out "ah-er", but it apparently does the trick. A soft light clicks on behind me, and a hand and arm, clad in a red leather glove and black featureless sleeve, enters my vision on the right. It's holding a water bottle with no label and a straw sticking out of the neck. The straw stops right in front of my mouth, and I do my best to wrap my lips around it despite the gag. It's not perfect, but a cool stream of water marred by the taste of the cloth, dirty and old, slides down my throat.
Just as I'm about to try to force out a few more questions, I'm stopped by the sound of a small motor fan, and a white square of light appears on the wall directly in front of me. A slide projector. The first slide appears. It's a white title card, with five simple words in a bold typewritten font.
"Your life is a dream."
I'm confused by this statement, but have very little time to process it, as the projector behind me clicks and a new slide flashes on the wall.
*CLICK*
"All dreams must end."
*CLICK*
"Before a dream can end, its connections to the waking world must be removed."
*CLICK*
The card is replaced by a photograph. At first I can't comprehend what I'm seeing, but when I do, my breath rushes out of me as though I have been punched.
My two best friends, faces beaten until they are almost unrecognizable, lying on morgue gurneys.
*CLICK*
My brother on the floor of his bedroom, shadows where his eyes should be, a pool of deep red blood surrounding his head like a halo.
*CLICK*
Now inside my parents' room. It's mostly dark, except for the glow of the small nightlight my parents keep for early morning trips to the bathroom. It's just enough for me to see my parents' faces, deeply asleep. I can feel my pulse racing, my breathe forcing itself raggedly in and out of my body, tears on my cheeks. My chest is hitching as I try to fight the dread and the pain and I'm beginning to cry.
*CLICK*
My parents' bathroom, the door open, the cool tile an abattoir. Blood staining everything, even reaching the ceiling. I hear an odd noise and realize it's coming from me; I'm sobbing and keening.
*CLICK*
Close up on the shower's sliding doors. The glass is translucent, but I can see the tub filled with dark red and unnamable shapes. A hunk of my mother's platinum blonde hair, encircled by my father's wedding band and stained red, sits on the tub's edge.
*CLICK*
The shower doors, open now. Two faces stare out at me. I'm screaming, sobbing, pleas for surcease spilling past the gag.
*CLICK*
"And now, you are awake."
*CLICK*
The projector snaps off, and the room is once again dark except for the light behind me. I mumble, asking why, expecting no answer but asking all the same. The footsteps approach my seat and stop directly behind me. For a moment I expect, welcome, death. A blade's whisper, and I can sleep forever. Then the bag once again slides over my head, blocking out what little light remains. As I sob in the darkness, the end of all I've ever known like an open wound in my mind, the figure walks away, turning off the small lamp on the way.
*CLICK*
