Brought to you by Erica Drayton and Ross Bingham.
She pushed the door open, a familiar bell chimed overhead as it closed behind her. The long and narrow corner drugstore had a couple booths to one side and a bar on the other. A soda jerk cleaning a glass. He nodded towards a booth where someone waited for her.
When she sat, the suit-clad droid pushed a little black box across the table with skeletal fingers. Its unnervingly faceless head bowed slightly, servos whining. The box projected a hologram onto the table. Her wife. Gagged and hogtied. She glared at the droid.
“What do you want?”
Its head tilted.
When Erica put the call out for collaborators on these 100-word stories, where she’d write the first 50 and then send it to a collaborator to finish it, I jumped at the chance.
Being fairly new on Substack (still fairly new) I thought it was an awesome opportunity to engage with other writers on the platform as well as stretch some quick storytelling muscles. It didn’t disappoint!
It was a really fun challenge to try and tell a story in such a short format. I’m not a perfectionist, but I had to give these 50 words a few passes, just so every word was necessary and effectual. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.
Erica Drayton Writes these 100-word stories every day. Every day. In fact, she recently hit a landmark 100 days of 100-word stories. I highly recommend you subscribe to her Substack!
Cover photo by Michał Kubalczyk on Unsplash
These 100-word offerings are perfect for such 'lead you in, twist you off in another direction' beauties. Nice work!
Love this! Did not expect the ending!