Writespiration #55 They’re watching you…

This week, I was thinking about Big Brother, in the form of a real satellite that hovers above us, The Black Knight. And so the writespiration this week, is to write about the person watching you.

Here’s mine:

A shudder tiptoed down my back like a knife slicing through flesh. My heart rattled against my rib cage, it told me what I already knew. They were watching. Just like they had been watching every night for the last year. I pulled my jacket in and tucked my mouth into the collar trying to hide from the icy air. My eyes darted round the park. Bin.  Bushes. Trees. Swings. Nothing, no Hunters anywhere.

“Where are you, damnit,” I whispered into my coat.

A hand slipped over my arm. I flinched. I hadn’t seen anyone coming. A giggle. Gracey-Mae. I suppressed a growl,  I should have been more careful and I definitely should have seen her coming. A smirk flickered at the corner of her lips.

“It’s not funny, Grace. What would’ve happened if it wasn’t you?”

“But it was me…”

I glared at her, this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“What’s the count?”

Gracey-Mae shifted her feet around for a while before finally looking at me, “not good Lou, not good at all. We lost Jack’s parents last night.”

My stomach furled into a knot. A pit opened somewhere deep inside me and threatened to swallow my heart.

“Shit.”

“We’re gonna do everything we can to protect your parents, Lou. I swear it. We won’t let the Hunters get them.”

My jaw hardened as I ground my teeth into oblivion.

“Don’t be so naive, Grace. They’re already dead.”

“We still have five days, we can save them.” She reached out to touch my arm but, I spun on my heels and stalked back to my flat.

She was wrong. There was no saving them they were already dead. It didn’t matter if we had five days or fifty. They were going to be taken, just like the rest of the adults were.

I reached the flats but a boy was sobbing on a bench outside. His blonde hair bounced with every rock of his shoulders. Jack. I stopped and took a deep breath. That would be me in six days time. I ran through the words I had recited to a thousand other kids since the adults started disappearing. My chest ached, I’d be saying this to myself soon. There was a time, when they first started disappearing I still believed my spiel. Not any more.

“It’s ok, Jack,” I said putting my hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t ok. None of this was. “We’re going to find them. You have to believe that. You have to stay strong.”

He looked up at me, eyes wide and bloodshot.

“It’s been a year, Lou, how can you say that? We haven’t found a single adult in that time.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean we won’t. Joshua nearly caught a hunter last week. We’re close, Jack. Real close. Trust me, they aren’t the only ones hunting anymore. I’m going after them. If they’re going to take my parents, I’m going to take one of them.”

His eyes dried up. He looked a state but at least I left him attempting half a smile.

I replayed my words, ‘I’m going after them.’ The sour taste of bile nipped at my throat. Was I? Did I really mean that? 

I was the oldest child in the city. In a week, I would the oldest person in the city. I wondered if that was why my parents were left to last, because I was next? The nausea subsided, replaced with a cold hard realisation.

I had to go after them.

If I didn’t, I was going to be next.

***

Now to last week’s writespiration the challenge was to write about the word Moist for 120 seconds. Here were the entries:

B.K Crawford

wrapped my arms around my head in the darkness. Moist. The throbbing told me I was in trouble. Not so much due to the pain, but because each time my heart beat it meant another spurt of liquid ejaculated from the side of my head. I lifted my hand and waved it in front of my face. Nothing. Had I gone blind after the fall, or had I ended up in the deepest hole inside the cavern? I heard a voice emanating from above. The first word echoed, “Die,” and the second, “Bitch.” Would he really leave me alone here in this…

***

Hugh

Tim and Maureen loved living in the warm moist place they had found. It was wonderful and it was not long before all their friends joined them in Moist Town. Parties were held and they did all they could to get the town even moister. They had lovely moist babies who grew up and went to the moist school whoes Head-Teacher was called Mrs Grime. The moist children loved her so much so, that they gained their entry to the moisture universality which was located just before noise hair tunnels.

***