There are many websites out there that offer writing prompts and writing challenges and things like that. And one that I stumbled upon was called Creativity-Portal. They have some great activities and they were really fun to do and they are a little more involved than just a simple writing prompt.
So today we are tackling one called Super Wordacious. This challenge was to create a new word. They give you a list of prefixes, root words, and a suffix and you have to blend them together to make a new word. Once you have your word, they offer a list of ten famous first lines to help you start your story.
So I created the word Microbugmania and I decided to use the line "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen (George Orwell, 1984). I used this opening but I didn't really stick to it. That's one thing about writing and this is a great way to learn that. Don't let anything limit you. As you write your story may grow and change and that's okay.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Peter Pennyworth was watching from the shadows as the young woman briskly walked from her car up the cathedral steps. He pale complexion and bright red lips stood out in the empty streets and even with only the light of a street lamp, he could see her fire red hair blowing in the wind. You’d never know she was a trained assassin. She picked the lock of the church like an expert and slowly opened the door. She slipped in and made sure to gently hold the door until it quietly closed behind her. She’s good.
Once she was inside he left his hiding place and went around the back of the building. He had already broken in a few hours ago and the shot up door still remained open as he entered the backroom of the parish. As he screwed the silencer onto his gun, he wondered if what the Doctor had told him could actually be true. If not, he would just have to kill her.
He watched as she made her way down the long isle, she was heading to the office in the back. She was there on a mission and she was going to try and get what she had come for as quickly as possibly. But he was about to make that much more difficult. The small hallway between the backroom and the office was nothing to write home about but he was sure the stained glass looked beautiful in the daytime with the sun shining in. Too bad he would never see it.
She was already sat down at the desk when he reached the opening to the small room that housed the church records. She was looking for an address. One that would lead her to the family of her next victim. That part he could care less about, he wasn’t there to stop her. He was there to obtain her.
Samantha Jefferson was not her real name but she had been called so many things, she could barely remember the name her parents gave her 30 years ago. No one called her that anymore anyways. It was Sam now, or Nakita if they were trying to be cute. There weren’t many world class assassins and someone her age, was rarely taken seriously. That was until they saw what she could do. She had trained in Russia under Niko Zimbaroff and she had learned tricks that would make even the KGB stand in awe. The new breakthroughs in science and technology that the Russians were doing amazed even her. If the trails continued as planned Lord only knew what the future held. And that was good for her. If there was any way of getting the upper hand in her line of work, she needed it.
She didn’t see him standing there, she didn’t hear him, she couldn’t even smell him. He had been trained well, but still the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. He was watching her. Samantha kept her cool and continued on as if she were alone. Five, four, three. She couldn’t down in her mind as she continued searching for the information she was there for. Two, one, now. She pulled her gun up and pointed it straight at him.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“That is of no importance,” his thick Russian accent put empathist on certain parts of his sentence. “ Polozhit’ pistolet.” Put the gun down.
Not on your life. She could see him now, and she was tracking his shadow. His movement was confident and as he walked out of the shadows he revealed his face. She didn’t recognize him, but if he was this experienced and speaking Russia, she could only imagine he was her enemy.
“Ne Podkhobi blizhe.” Don’t come any closer. She couldn’t be sure though. There were many Russian trained agents in the world he could have very easily been a comrade too. But he wasn’t acting very friendly.
“You will not shoot me,” he returned to English now.
His arrogance would have made her chuckle if it were under any other circumstances. But for now she was unsure of everything. “Try me.” She clicked off the safety on her gun and aimed it directly between his eyes.
“You hear that don’t you?” He started walking around the room now, his fancy dress shoes making a clicking sound against the wooden floors. “The cockroaches crawling on the floor, the spiders spinning their webs in the corners.”
As he talked she watched him wondering what on earth he was talking about. And suddenly she could hear it. The clicking of his shoes was being drowned out by what sounded like marching of sorts. The movement she caught out of the corner of her eye and instinctively she turned her attention to it. As if it were magic, hundreds of cockroaches approached her, the squeaking and hissing of the Madagascar cockroaches sent a chill down her spine. Where are they coming from?
She tried to step on them as they neared her feet but that didn’t seem to affect them. She could see them now crawling up her legs. She screamed as she tried desperately to shake them off, she even so much as put her gun down to try and brush them off her pant legs. Almost immediately she felt a prickle of pain in the back of her neck. They got me!
As Peter carried her limp body out to his car, he couldn't believe that had actually worked. Microbugmania. Peter had to admit he was very impressed. He knew by the end of the night he would be loading a body into the trunk of his car, he had just assumed she would have been dead. But Doctor Protrovsky was right. Zimbaroff had indeed placed a little failsafe in each one of his soldiers and one by one Peter was going to hunt them down.
All Rights Reserved by A.L. Keegan (2020)
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