Creative Writing | SAMPLE
Sara Jones
PROMPT: Write a horror story about an ordinary situation (e.g., buying groceries, going to the bank, listening to music).
“Are you finding everything okay?”
His voice startled me. I looked up and noticed the grocer was standing next to me, smiling cheerfully. In his hand was an orange. He was stocking the produce and must have noticed me standing here. He felt so tall. Was he growing? No. That’s just my anxiety. I nodded feebly then slipped away and around the corner to stand in another aisle where nobody else was standing. I just needed to be alone for a moment. I could feel the panic creeping in.
The atmosphere can change so drastically from one aisle to another. The bright openness of the fresh produce area contrasts starkly to the towering shelves of red wine standing next to me… over me… imposing… enveloping me… like the walls of a cathedral. It seems like this aisle is shadowed when the rest of the grocery store is so bright. Is it getting darker in here?
What’s happening to me?
How did I get here?
“Are you finding everything okay?”
I jumped again and looked up. Oranges. Bright fluorescent light. Did I move? I thought I was standing in the wine aisle. But he already asked me…
“Are you finding everything okay?”
He is growing. He’s towering over me. His smile is stretching too wide and too thin. He leaned down, sneering at me, and held the orange inches from my nose. He squeezed the orange so tight it broke the skin. I felt a splatter flick over my cheek and a thick syrupy liquid dripped from the fruit, down his awful fingers – dark, blackish red. Is that blood? I felt an awful creeping fear. “No!” I moaned, covering my face.
I dropped my hands and found myself in the wine aisle again.
What’s happening to me?
How did I get here?
It definitely is darker in here. In fact, all the lights in the grocery store seem to be off save for a flickering fluorescent light several yards away. Everyone seems to be gone now. I couldn’t hear the bustling of other shoppers anymore. Just then, the silence was punctured with the sickly cheerful grocers voice again, though I was still alone. Terribly alone. More alone indeed than I’ve ever felt.
“Are you finding everything okay?”
Then, a loud pop! Glass shattering. The wine bottles were exploding. Starting from far away and moving towards me, the wine bottles exploded one by one, as though by some paranormal domino effect. Red wine flooded the floor. I wanted to run but I felt stuck. I was paralyzed while the red liquid splashed around my ankles. It was thick. Thicker than wine. Like molasses. Was it blood? I closed my eyes tight, threw my head back and opened my mouth wide to scream, but only a thin whisper could escape from my throat.
“Are you finding everything okay?”
Oranges. Lights.
I need to leave this place.
What’s happening to me?
How did I get here?
The Local Gazette
A young woman died tragically this afternoon at the local super-market. Autopsy revealed she had suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. Brian Parker, an employee of the store, witnessed the tragic event. “I asked her if she was finding everything okay,” he recounts, visibly shaken. “Then she just looked up at me and a light seemed to leave from her eyes.”
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Posted Mar 8, 2023
Short horror-themed creative writing sample, written using a prompt.
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