LISA
The Split
Me and Paula were great together. I got the card details, I could play people, got them practically handing me their wallets. She’d call them straight after pretending to be from the bank’s fraud squad, this blocked the line so they couldn’t report anything. Meanwhile I’d go and spend, spend, spend. Expensive stuff we listed immediately on eBay. We were the perfect partnership, divided everything equally.
No one could see what would come next, someone conned me Nan, honestly it split me in two. I couldn’t do it after then.
Then Paula left. Apparently she loved the money, not me.
RICHARD
Your choice
I decided to write one of those ‘choose your own plot’ novels. You know the kind: Every time a plot-changing decision comes along, you decide which choice to take, and everyone’s story will turn out differently.
So, let’s give it a try!
What happens next? Did I finish the story in one hundred words, or not?
Yes, or no?
If you chose ‘no’, then read on. If not, skip to the last line.
So, you chose ‘No’, and as you predicted, I didn’t get to one hundred words… Only ninety-one!
And, since you chose ‘yes’… Of course I did!
LIZZIE
It was damn dark.
She unblocked the phone with his finger.
“The cheating bastard. That bitch will never get the jewels.”
She buried his hand. The rest of the body was somewhere out there, floating in the cold river.
So, what happens next, she thought.
“Get the damn jewelry box, that’s what happens next.”
Total silence.
“Fancy house, he bought her.”
She roamed about in the bedroom.
“Ah, here it is.”
When she opened the jewelry box, she gasped. A bullet?
When she turned around, it was too late.
Damn, it was dark and she had killed the wrong twin.
SERENDIPIDY
So, what happens next?
I think we both know the answer to that.
First, I’ll torture you in ways that can barely be imagined, then I’ll kill you and dispose of your body. Your remains will never be found.
Maybe, they’ll catch me; So what?
I’ll be famous. Newspapers will carry front-page spreads with my picture, books will be written about me, and – who knows – perhaps Netflix will serialise my life?
They may even make a blockbuster movie, about me.
And you?
You’ll just be a blurry photo; a location; a date.
Mostly forgotten. Just another of my victims.
NORVAL JOE
They stepped under the overhang near their classroom as the rainstorm increased in intensity.
Billbert nodded toward Sabrina. “Sabrina is a weather witch. She can control the weather.”
Linoliamanda sniffed. “So, what happens next, lightning and thunder?”
Sabrina shrugged. “If you want.”
With a flash and a boom a bolt of lightning stuck behind the school close to the football field.
Linoliamanda rolled her eyes. “Let me see you hit the flagpole.”
A second later, lightning struck the pole.
“Wait,” Sabrina said. “You said you believe I’m a witch.”
“I do,” Linoliamanda said. “I just wanted to see some magic.”
PLANET Z
While performing trials of the latest cancer drug on mice, Mindy observed that half of the mice turned blue while the other half exploded.
She ran the trial multiple times, and the results were the same.
Half blue, half exploded.
She handed the results to her supervisor, and he tore them up.
“Nonsense!”
Two hours later, watching blue mice scurry from the exploded carcasses of their fellow mice, he wasn’t so dismissive.
“Have you tried this on an odd number of mice?” He asked.
Mindy filled a syringe with serum, injected it into a mouse, and they watched and waited.
Every one of them a treasure.