Weekend Writing Warriors: 7/21

This 8-10 sentence blog hop is hosted by The Weekend Writing Warriors. (Click the link for the list of participants, or rules if you want to join!)

Here’s a new WIP–“Discovering Gremlins.” Seth had a bad day at work–hit his head and saw a monster, which he dismissed as his imagination. That night, a shadow follows him home, and in the morning, he breaks his phone screen, his shower sprays water everywhere, and the subway car he’s on is delayed more than an hour.

Previous snippet: Just as Seth was sinking back into the flow of words, the screech and lurch repeated. The lurch shook the car hard enough that Seth toppled onto the lap of the guy sitting behind him. He pushed himself up quickly, muttering apologies, while around him other people regained their footing or grabbed for spilled briefcases.

And then the lights went out, and the car slammed to a halt in a symphony of screeching brakes. The crowd let out a collective, and heartfelt groan.

A few moments later, weak emergency lights flickered to life, emphasizing the shadows without really casting out the darkness.

“Pardon *static* -ruption, folks,” a voice blared from the speakers. “Ser- *static* will resume *static* -teen minutes or less.”

Seth was more than an hour late for work.

 

 

 

He powered grimly through the rest of the morning, head down, focused. So when a hand came down on his shoulder, he jumped out of his seat, and smashed into the side of his cubicle.

“Oh, hey, sorry!” Harry held her hands in the air, palms toward him, and offered a crooked smile, “I’m headed to lunch, want to join us?”

Seth glanced at his still-incomplete work.

“It’ll be there when you get back,” Harry said, “You have a minute before we’re gone, Monty!”

He reached for a post-it stuck to his monitor, and a spark of static jumped from the machine to his finger before he could peel up the top layer that he was certain covered something important.

Seth shook his hand, and hurried to catch up to Harry. He needed to get out of this office–too bad he had to come back.

*    *    *

Gremlins have camouflage magic, and a way of making people who catch just a glimpse forget them. This is good for humanity, because they’re powerfully ugly, and react violently to being discovered. But when Seth hits his head and lands on the floor right next to a gremlin, he sees it… and it notices that he’s done so. Things are about to go downhill for Seth.