I was scrolling around yesterday doing some reading when I came across This Post by
He is running a contest at the moment for the Scholar and Scribe community, we are to write a story, using the prompts, comedy, and vengeance. Here is my attempt at the prompt, if you're interested in joining in, check out the post and get writing!
Darren Jameson woke up in a room that was unfamiliar to him. Even though it seemed to be somewhere he had been before, his mind was in a fuzz and he had to focus it in order to make any sense of his surroundings. His eyes darted around the room, while he sat up. He felt the floor he had been laying on was wet, before getting to his feet he gave the puddle a swipe with his finger, raising it to his nose to take a whiff. That smells so unusual. He thought to himself. But, at the same time, it's something that I've smelled before.
His mind was awakened by the smell, but, without being able to pinpoint what it was, his only option left was the taste test. When he opened his mouth, Darren realised how dry it was, as he heard clicks with each movement his tongue made. A light touch of his tongue didn't reveal what the liquid was. Water. It has to be. He told himself, dropping to his hands he lowed his face to the puddle and slurped up as much of the liquid as he could. As he gulped it down, he knew what it was. Piss!
He wretched, heaving like a sick animal on all fours. Soon the contents of his stomach came up, there wasn't much in it, so all that really came up was foam. Darren could feel his stomach expand rapidly as he dry heaved. He could feel that there was a little piece of half-digested food in his throat, but, a few coughs got rid of it. He had no choice but to swallow what wouldn't come up on its own, the taste was horrible and his throat was left stinging, no matter how many times he desperately tried to swallow the flavour away.
He got to his feet, and shards of memory came back to him as he looked around. Empty alcohol bottles filled the nearest table. He rummaged through the cold bottles, looking for the tiniest drop of something to drink. All he could get were dregs, flat and stale, but, it was something to wet his whistle. His eyes had adjusted slightly to the darkened room, enough so, to see a switch on the wall. Making his way over to it, he flicked it, the lights came on dim and slowly got brighter, one of the bulbs flickered. But, the room was revealed, as a dank dark basement of some sort.
Still, though, no memory of where he was, how he got here, or why he was in this room, came back to him. Looking around he spotted a chair on its back, a flash of a hazy recollection came back to him. He put a hand to his head while looking at it.
He was sitting at the table, there were people in the room, he wasn't sure who they were but, he remembered it was a party of some sort. Then, someone screamed. There was a man, he charged into the room like a bull and knocked Darren backward off the chair, he could remember rolling and tumbling. The onslaught of the stranger was relentless, he did well to defend himself
Did I or was it the others fighting? He wondered.
The memory ended there. Who was that? Why did he attack me? He looked to the couch in the center of the room and could see bullet holes in the cushions, not only that but there were also speckles of blood. He followed the trail, around the couch, and behind it, he saw a body.
Memories flooded in. It was a friend of his, his face was white, his skin was ice cold. He must have been dead for days. He could remember the shooting, it was the man who charged into the room. But, who was he?
Inspecting more of the room, he found more bodies. Each body opened up more faded memories, the fight, the struggle against this lone madman. He walked to the door, the only door in this entire room. He tried to open it, but, it was locked. It was large and it was cold steel. Darren gave it a kick, but all that did was let the metallic ring chime. He kicked it once more and all that accomplished was hurting his foot.
Darren bounced and skipped his way backward on one leg, not seeing where he was going, he tripped over one of the bodies of his old friends, knocking his head as he landed, he lay on the ground for a minute, in a trance-like state.
All of the lost memory flooded back to him, he was part of a gang, all of the bodies strewn around the basement; there hang out, were his old gang members. They had heard about an easy score, a small family, in the middle of nowhere, with enough valuables to live off for years. He and his group had raided the house, they wanted everything to go smoothly, but, the occupants had woken up. There was no choice but to kill them all.
It was days later, they had been celebrating the score, when the man of the house barged into the room, to claim vengeance on the group, which he did. He was possessed and wielded rage like it was a fine blade. The shock on everyone's faces when they saw the man, who seemingly rose from the dead to hunt them down. In the attack Darren had fallen, he must have been knocked unconscious. It was some kind of miracle that he had woken up, but, that miracle had turned out to be a curse. Left alone in a dank basement, with no supplies to survive.
He woke up and looked around the room, there was no way to get through the locked door. He knew he would stand a better chance of scratching his way through the concrete with his nails. But, there was no way of getting through it before starvation took him.
Darren sat on the couch, with nothing to do but wait, his final days in this world would be taken up by watching his old friends rot. His only hope was that he would die before the corpses started to stink up the room.
I suppose I could always eat them before they rot, is it worth prolonging my suffering? That question bounced around his head for a while.
He saw a gun on the table and picked it up to inspect it, another thought crossed his mind. End it all now.
He lifted it to his temple, with his finger on the trigger. I'll give myself the ole' one gun salute.
Darren let out a scream and pulled the trigger. "Click, Click." No ammo! He threw the gun in frustration and it bounced off the table, recherché back at him, knocking him unconscious once more.
This story was a fairly dark one, but, when all is revealed of the man's backstory and what he did, I suppose the comedy is a bit stronger. I had no idea what to write about for this one, I started it, left it, then came back to it here and there, each time a new idea crept into my head.
If you are interested in trying your hand at this contest, I'd say go for it, it's a bit of fun!