I am revisiting Flash! Friday Fiction.
A place where writers were given weekly writing prompts. But it was so much more than that for hundreds of writers.
Last week I tackled week 1. I aimed to write a story for every week, but week 2 & 3 had picture prompts that are no longer there. So, this is week 4.
Write a story (140-160 words), starting with the words “Hands shaking, he opened the door”.
https://flashfriday.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/flash-friday-week-four-contest/
Hands shaking, he opened the door.
The citadel had changed since he left it five long years ago.
The exile had returned.
Home.
But was home what he had dreamt of all those years in the wilderness?
He remember it as as a burnished, gleaming beacon of promise.
At first, his trembling gnarled fingers caressed the dust and weather-beaten flint-knapped walls.
Was there a hint of sadness in his hesitation? In his eyes not filled with the reflective majesty of this once-perfect city?
There were new scorch-marks, the fresh cinder of fire.
There were signs of ice—of glacial scars in the bedrock.
What had happened here?
What was to come?
Behind, he could hear the rumble.
Not monsters, but the thunderous footsteps of old friends… returning home.
He imagined new comrades too.
Vibrant stories told in the amber flicker of fire.
Comfort in the ice.
He smiled.
It was still home.
Metropolitan Dreams 