Welcome to the final week of the Spring Writing Challenge!
It’s the final week! This has been such a fun challenge. You’ve all done so well with your stories. There are so many interesting and unique ways you have taken the prompt. It’s now time for the final week, so let’s do this one last time! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.
So, without further ado, here’s your final prompt!
Week Six Prompt – The Character Prompt
Write a story about a character that experiences a rebirth
Wait…what’s a character prompt?
A character prompt is a prompt that’s about a specific character. It doesn’t matter where your story takes place or what’s said. What matters is that your story must be about a character who experiences a rebirth.
Before you start writing, we have some important rules for you to follow.
Writing Rules
1. Please keep the content of the stories you post to a PG rating. Please avoid real curse words. Violence/fighting should be limited and purposeful. Please do not include any spice.
2. Your story must be 1,000 words or less, and must contain the prompt to be counted for the challenge. You’re not required to post it in order to “win” the challenge, but if you want it to count for your team, your story must be posted by Sunday at 11:59 PM ET, and you must include your team name.
Remember to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and post your story as an “answer” to this question, not a “comment”. 🙂 You’re all doing such a great job! I’m so proud of all the stories you’ve posted.
Happy Writing!
We’re so glad that you participated Juli! 🙂
Team 1
Note: this story is based upon a full novel that I have written and plan to publish at some point. If anything seems confusing, that’s probably why. But hopefully, it will catch some interest. Enjoy!
So this is what dying feels like.
Strange. I thought it would be more… entertaining.
My name is… well. You don’t really need to know that, do you? All you need to know is that I have been murdered. Heartlessly. Despite offering the chance of a lifetime to the only other cat I have ever truly loved. Despite offering her the chance to achieve the hidden hopes of her heart.
Dimly, I know that she has died too. She drowned while drowning me. Ironic.
Anyways, back to my death.
I felt myself fading, watching as my killer drifted away from me. The water weighed down on me like the heavy paw of a forest-lion. I felt my spine scuff against the riverbed. I watched blood, my blood, float away from me like a fog of menacing scarlet in the murky water. Then my vision went dark, and I felt nothing more.
I float in a dark void after that. Nothing is here, only me and my silent, cold heart. My mind wanders as I drift here. I remember hearing the rest of my colony discussing whatever happened after death. The matriarch and some of the older cats believed that you remained in this world as a spirit, watching over your kin. That would be nice, except there is no one left alive that I would care to watch. Except, well, watching the cats that I hate would be amusing. Watching them flounder in the wake of the destruction I caused when I was alive.
I hear voices sometimes. Wailing, growling, laughing. They seem just within reach. Just barely. But they hide in the darkness.
My mind begins to break further than it already was broken. How long will I spend here? Will I ever see the forest again? That lovely forest where so much blood was spilled by my claws? That lovely forest which I should have ruled over?
And with my killer, too. But now she is dead.
I wonder if she’s here, too, floating in this miserable, endless void? Or maybe she has already moved on. Already floating about as a spirit, watching over her friends.
A bitter taste fills my mouth. I tried so hard to take away every cat who loved her. And yet she still had faith in those who didn’t love her. She still tried to protect them.
Disgusting. I spit into the dark. The hatred settles in my gut like a frigid chunk of ice.
At some point—time seems to not exist here—I see something. A glimmer of light, faint and far away. I reach towards it, but it eludes me.
Slowly, almost painfully, it draws nearer. I begin to fear it. What is this light, bright and menacing, intruding on this comfortable darkness I have come to know as a friend?
Suddenly it surrounds me, washing my world in bright light. I close my eyes against the stinging brightness, and when I open them… I am in the forest. My forest.
I rise to my feet. Trees, tall oaks and elegant pines, surround me. Sunbeams gleam through the golden-green canopy far above. Birds sing and call. The forest, despite having been immersed in floodwater when I died, seems… normal, now. How much time has passed?
I prick my ears as I begin to walk through the familiar woods, aiming my pawsteps towards the clearing that my colony called home. Not a single voice comes from anywhere in the woods, not even a murmur from the clearing. Strange. The forest is usual bustling with life.
I reach the clearing, and sure enough, it’s completely empty. Not a single cat. An eerie silence fills the air.
I sit down and groom my paws. Where did they all go? Have they truly all left? Or is the void playing tricks on me, and soon I will wake up in the darkness once more?
As I sit there, the scenery begins to morph around me. The sky grows dark. I dig my claws into the ground, confused and dizzied. I clench my eyes shut, and the darkness behind my eyelids comforts me. When I open them again… the forest is on fire.
I stare at the skeletons of trees, consumed in a blazing inferno. At the smoke that fills the sky. The rain that sizzles weakly as it hits the burning ground. Thunder rumbles and crackles, lightning splitting the night.
Finally, the truth comes to me; my colony is gone. Fire has consumed the territory. Whatever is left of the forest now is not inhabitable.
A smug sort of glee fills me. Despite my failure in destroying the colony, nature, the very shoulder that they had relied upon, betrayed them and succeeded. My efforts, though small, weakened the colony and prepared them for the final blow that nature so coldly dealt.
I tilt my head towards the dark sky, letting the rain hit my face.
And then I smile, and I watch the forest burn.
When the new prompt arrive, my first thought is, Oh no! What am I going to write to make that work? But the Holy Spirit ALWAYS shows up and I get an idea every time. It amazes me. Thanks for a thought provoking six weeks.