@Zeldacroft here!
This week's We-Write is special, because we're celebrating the launch of the first book from the Freewrite House Beta Readers Group! @ntowl is our proud sponsor and a friend to the freewriting community here on steemit, and now an author!
Her book, On the Outward Edge, is a short-read (about 90 minutes) full of sci-fi goodness and interesting characters. You can read more about it here, or better yet you can read it for free on Amazon for the next couple days! Getting reviews as an unknown author is really important, so if you check it out be sure to leave some stars!
Our prompt this week is brought to you by @ntowl! It's actually an extended version of a freewrite she did on steemit a while back. Enjoy!
The Prize: 5 SBI Sponsored by @ntowl
100% Upvotes from the FreeWrite House for All Entries
What is a We-Write?
If this is your first time coming across a WE-Write post, have no fear! It's all quite simple.
Every Monday we'll give you the beginning of a story. Use that beginning and keep writing. Most people do the 5-minute freewrite method, but a little longer is okay, too.
Then, publish it as a post with a link to this post AND drop a link to your post in the comments below this one. To be eligible to win you must comment on this post with a link to your entry.
Or, you may publish your story as a comment to this post.
Please tag me, @zeldacroft, and @freewritehouse in the beginning of your posts, and add a link back to the contest. Also, please make it clear which part is the prompt and what is your ending. Thank you!
How Do You Win?
Each week the winner will be chosen randomly from the entries. The deadline for entering is Sunday night at 9:00pm EDT, aka the same timezone as Boston, USA.
The announcement will be made the following day in the post for the next week's prompt! If you're the winner, @ntowl will send you your SBI then. 😊
This Week's Prompt
by @ntowl
The Charged Up Cafe was dead. Not because its tables didn’t have the power to charge devices as promised, but because no sane person wants coffee in the middle of the night.
So I loitered at the cash register looking out at the emptiness. Benches lined the walls and a single line of small circular tables were set up between them. The space was small - the owner liked to call it "intimate" - but it felt strangely cavernous being there alone. Now and then I'd walk back to the kitchen to chat with Henry, the night shift cook. But tonight he wasn’t in the mood to talk and simply grunted at me in response to everything I said. Still, I kept going in since just seeing him made me feel a little less alone as the hours dragged on.
Somewhere around midnight I left the kitchen to clean the tables, again, and saw I had a customer. He wore a black business suit with a long blue tie and white shirt. His face looked like hell. It’s not that he was old, but the skin around his eyes and mouth sagged a little. It's how I imagined doctors look after long shifts in the ER. When he saw me he shuffled past the benches and tables towards me.
"I need to charge," he said. I looked at him, wondering why he was telling me. Every table had a charging station. Why didn't he just go plug in?
"Ok. Pick a table and plug in. I'll be over to take your order in a sec."
He looked at me, then at a table. After what seemed like forever he sat down. I took a deep breath knowing that this would be one of those nights. You know, the ones filled with weirdos and oddballs. Like the guy a few months ago that came in wearing pajamas. Pink unicorns and balloons on the pants and a purple shirt that said "I Believe". It was cute, but didn't match his bushy beard and mohawk. Another time a woman tried to order "fuzzy wuzzy coffee". She was rather insistent, even when I explained to her that we only served regular, non-fuzzy or wuzzy coffee. After yelling unintelligible words at me, she screamed and ran outside.
My mind tried to figure out what the dude-in-the-suit’s thing would be. I was fifty fifty on whether he was high or exhausted. I grabbed the coffee pot and went over to his table. And, of course, he's sitting half bent over staring at the fake wood pattern surface. Nothing plugged in.
"I thought you needed to charge?" I said, regretting it immediately.
"I need to charge..."
His words slurred together, like a toy when the batteries are running low. His head dropped onto the table hard, making me jump back. That's when I saw the back of his neck.
So what happens next is up to you! I'm really looking forward to reading your continuations. 😊
As always, any resteems and upvotes will be eternally appreciated (but aren't necessary for the contest or anything). Let's spread the word and get writing!
Want to be a Beta Reader or get feedback on your writing?
The Beta group is an initiative by @freewritehouse to help writers prepare for publishing. Find out more here!
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