We start our schooldays with writing warm ups. These are 40 minute writing assignments from prompts that mom gives us each day. These are to help us to be able to write to a prompt in a typical testing amount of time.
Begin with this moody opening - stormy, night-time, then the power goes out. Build tension to the climax and give your reader a satisfying resolution. You can make it a horror, survival, romance, or invention story.
The sound of rain slowly falling onto the windows started; the rumble of thunder came closer. A bang on the door startled Mike who was the only one in the house. As he walked toward the door he glanced at the clock. It said 11:56pm.
"Who would be up this late?" he thought. He came to the door and opened it. The man on the other side looked disturbed. He was looking around as if the thought someone might be following him.
"Please sir, could you let me in. I came out of the mine. You wouldn't believe me, but there was something following me. I got lost when I was coming out, I saw your house and hoped that you might let me in for awhile.
"Sure, come on in." Mike responded. He often would help miners that got lost when going in and out of the valley. This was a pretty peculliar one though, arriving in the middle of a storm saying something was following him.
"Thank you" said the stranger as he walked in and began removing his wet jacket.
"Do you need anything? Maybe something to eat? My name is Michael by the way." he responded.
"My name is Jack, and yes, I would like something to eat." he said.
"Well then, I don't have much right now, but how about some toast?" Mike said.
"OK." Mike walked into the kitchen, turned on the light and grabed some bread. Taking out the butter, he looked over toward the window. Rain was banging against it faster and faster. He could barely see outside because of all the rain. He stopped for a second then started putting butter on the bread again. He put four slices in the toaster and set it to toast.
"Man, the rain is really coming down now." said Jack, who had walked in behind him. A crack of thunder nearby was almost deafing and made both men jump in surprise.
"I guess it was a good thing you found me, It wouldn't be very easy to find your way out in that kind of weather." Mike said,
"Yeah, I'd never find my way out there until morning." Jack responded.
Ding! "Ahh, the toast is done." said Mike grabbing a paper towel and put the toast on it. They went into the other room. Mike put the toast down on a table and turned on the lights. Right by the table was a fireplace. For now it was warm and pleasant. They began eating thee toast. Right when they finshed, the lights began to ficker and then went out.
"Now what?" said Mike.
"It doesn't matter. The fire has enough light." said Jack.
"Just a second. I'm going to go get some battery powered lamps." responded Mike. He went up the stairs which was behind the table and a little off to the side. Jack watched him disappear in the darkness. About a minute later, Jack noticed that there was light coming from the floor above. Light began to eluminate the the stairs, More of the upper floor could be seen. Mike came half way down the stairs. "Come on up." Mike told Jack. Jack worked his way up the stairs. He got to the top and looked around.He saw a medium sized room with two beds on one side. One the other side was a door.
"Where's that lead to?" asked Jack.
"That leads to the unfinshed part of this floor. It has the basics, but it still needs alot of work." said Mike, Jack was about to say something when they heard something fall and shatter outside.
What was that?" Mike said. They went down to see what it was. Mike went to the window by the door and peeked out. He saw a tall creature, about eight feet tall. Suddenly it saw him and sped towards the window. Mike stepped back. Then a green organic spike came though the window.
"Get upstairs!". They ran toward the 2nd floor. Mike went toward the door that lead to the section of the 2nd floor that was in progress. He rushed though the door, Jack followed. When Jack got in, Mike closed the door. Mike ran over to the midde of the room and pulled up a floor board. He reached into the hole and pulled out a long double barreled hunting shotgun. He loaded two shotgun shells and walked toward the door.
"Wait" said Jack,
"It is some sort of animal. It is probably what you thought was following you. It is huge and obviously dangerous. We can't let it stay alive or it could get to the main city." said Mike.
"You're right" Jack responded.
"Here." Mike tossed him a hand gun. "It's not very powerful, but it does the job." Mike approached the door. And then aimed at the door.
"Jack, I want you to open that door as fast as you can when I say to open it." Mike said.
"Ok" Jack responded.
Mike began "3,2,1. NOW!" Jack flung open the door. Mike looked. The creature wasn't there.
"Great! It's downstairs. There's not much light down there" said Mike. "There should be a mini-flashlight and laser-sight on that pistol." Jack turned on the light. Mike pulled out a flash light from his pocket. He got it when he was getting the battery powered lamps.
"Ok, we need to stick togeher or we will end up shooting each other. Follow me and stay alert." Mike whispered. They worked their way down the stairs. They got to the fireplace where they had toast awhile ago. A crash of lightning eluminated the room for a second.
"There!" Jack shouted. They fired at it, and it sped toward them. With it's spike-like tail it nearly stabbed Mike in the eye. Luckly, he dodged it and it missed by an inch.
"To the kitchen!" shouted Mike.They ran towards the kitchen. Jack got slammed by the side of the creature's tail. He went flying across the room. "NO!" shouted Mike at the top of his voice. Mike aimed at the creature's head and fired two precise shots. The creature swung its tail and hit Mike's gun. It flew to the other side of the room. He was forced to the corner. The creature tried to stab him. He dodged it, The sword-like tail went into the wall. Mike grabbed a nearby butcher knife and cut off the end of the creature's tail. It still chased him. Mike ran to the shotgun and tried to fire at it. Click. It needed to be reloaded and the creature was right behind him, Mike quickly loaded two shots and whipped around and fired both shots at it. It fell to the floor.
Mike ran to Jack, "Are you okay?" he said, gasping for air. "Sort of, I think I'll live." he responded.
Mike smiled, "Good to know." Mike stopped smiling. "There may be more than one out there."
"Well, if there are more. All we can do is hope that they don't come out." said Jack.
"Next time, we'll be ready for them. We'll be ready."
