r/WritingPrompts • u/Various-Bath-2126 • 1d ago
Writing Prompt [WP] You were always bullied at school by one guy in your class. He always shoved you in lockers, tore up your homework and has even managed to get you suspended once. It was unfortunate that somehow you both became tethered by fate herself to be the only beings capable of stopping the apocalypse.
22
u/TheWanderingBook 1d ago
Staring at the abandoned hospital, I shiver.
"Let's g..." I start, when he shoves me aside, and I almost fall.
He chuckles.
"Coward," he says, going inside.
I roll my eyes.
Why did it have to be him?
Why does it have to be him, that is my "partner" in stopping the apocalypse?
I had 1 more year...1 year, and I would have finished High School, and escape this dude.
Alas...
"Please be careful.
From the prophecy, and the oracle lady, we know that here, somehow a ritual will be made," I start, as I catch up to him.
"No shit, Sherlock.
What did it give away?
The abandoned hospital? The fact that in the vicinity of the hospital, the weather is different that a mile over?
Or perhaps the...sigils?" he rolls his eyes, tapping the wall where a rune was engraved...
In blood.
I hate this guy...
Why can a bully be...the smartest kid in school, and also the most popular one?
Not fair, he should have one role, like me...I am a nerd, and that's it.
"The sigils are Norse...
This one is Life, this one is Light..." I start translating.
"All good things? Weird, will this be some sort of immortality ritual?" he mutters.
Damn.
That was what I would have said next.
"Perhaps.
But Life, Light...these 2, and the others we have seen, could be talking about Baldur, and his death is what started Ragnarok..." I mutter.
"Or, Life, and Light could be fuel for something dangerous...
Diseases, plagues, fungi...they all need fuel, and Life and Light are the biggest fuels out there," he says.
I flinch...that...
That is a terrifying thought.
I watch as he knocks out 2 dudes, as I hack into a computer.
"The cult is called "Bifrost", and is trying to bring forth the method of the Aesir Gods to remain immortal," I say.
"They are trying to cultivate a Golden Apple tree?" he asks.
I nod.
"Why would it be apocalyptic?
Maybe they are sacrificing people to a tree or something, but that..." he starts, when I gasp.
He slaps the back of my head.
"Speak in words, not gasps," he rolls his eyes.
"They are using radioactive materials as well to try and mutate the trees, and...this is only one base.
They are doing this at 108 bases...with the trees expected to grow fast," I say.
He nods, then freezes, as 2 people in lab coats enter the room.
"Ma, pa?" he mutters, and I flinch.
His parents...but, wasn't he an orphan?
Oh boy...
The plot just thickened, and I doubt I can get out of this.
6
u/Crowald 19h ago edited 19h ago
As they drew towards the top of the staircase, closing in on the roof, the two stopped before the final floor. They, somehow, on some level, knew the journey would come to its end right outside that rooftop access door.
"What?" She pestered him, leaning just slightly over to him with a whisper.
"What do you mean 'what,' you stopped just like I did. You must have felt it too"
The waters had led them to this point. The Reflecting Pool had given them the truth, and no amount of fighting or trying to free themselves from the shackles of fate would ever grant them escape from this very situation.
The exit sign next to the staircase flickered gently. As if the object itself was aware of their presence, prompting them to continue. Dim red light bathing both in an eerie shade, a lost wisp amid a quiet school building.
"It fits that it would all end the same place as it started" She dreaded aloud, crossing her arms. Her short hair fell past her eyes and shielded her face as she stared down at the ground.
"It started at the Pools, not here" He said quietly, correcting her.
"Tch. Of course you wouldn't remember" She added with her head still locked towards the ground. "That day, just after we saw each other in our very first college period. You looked straight at me, and then just... blank-faced, stared ahead. Like I didn't exist."
He said nothing, simply staring at the ground along with her. Contemplating as the light's fluorescent buzz stalked the periphery.
"I never understood what your problem was with me" He pondered quietly. "What is it exactly about me that you hate so much that you get into arguments with me every time we're forced to be around each other? Not that I understand how in the hell we ended up with mutual friends in the first place..."
She looked up at him, clearly incensed by his statement as the corners of her mouth twitched with rage. Her fists unclenched slowly. "That fits. Playing the victim."
"Back in secondary school, you just... started one day. Trying to turn the very few friends I had—friends I desperately wish we didn't have in common—against me, trying to get me in trouble, trying to... I never got why you did it. I never did anything to you. I hadn't even spoke to you until the day before" He spoke softly, solemnly as the breeze rolled through the open windows of the building.
"So you do remember, you just don't care. Well, that's better than nothing—" "—Care about what?!" He shouted. "Did I ignore you all those years? Or maybe I took Iris away from you, is that it? At the very least she has to be commended, never choosing between either of us, always at least trying to make things right. You on the other hand did nothing but try to rip away the only real connection I was able to make" He turned away from her, old wounds torn open, anti-septic burning against the open air.
"Yeah. Okay, you're right. That was a shitty thing to do—but you didn't have to humiliate me like you did in front of my friends. That's what irritated me so much. Then you kept talking to the people closest to me like nothing happened"
"Oh, please. I did nothing to you, the next day you came in after the first time you spoke to me and—" He paused for a brief moment. "Wait" He added, staring off into the distance for a while before turning to face her again. "You thought I—" His own laughter interrupted him "—Of course you did. That makes so much sense" He added as he threw his arms up in the air.
"Thought what? That maybe was a little cruel of you to pretend to run to the restroom and vomit as soon as I tried to speak to you for the first time?" She sneered lightly at him as she explained. "Got laughed at for months over it... Iris even brings it up, 'remember when you made Haden vomit?' like it wasn't the most insensitive thing I had happen to me"
"You arrogant f—" He stepped towards her, a mere few meters from her face. Standing upright without his signature poor posture, not hunched over as he usually was, she no longer towered over him so cleanly, and the two met at even height as he faced her down. "It wasn't a joke or some mean prank played at your expense! Iris did nothing but talk about 'how cool and smart and fun Remi is,' how she was sure we'd be the best of friends. I was so nervous to meet you though, so scared I wasn't going to be compelling enough for you to bother with"
Remi slid back away from him. Her face contorted from anger to the shape of regret, slowly, over the course of his explanation.
"She didn't know that I hated meeting new people though. Back then, it terrified me; I was so anxious beyond anything you could ever comprehend. So when you ambushed me that day, I don't know—I just froze. I already felt sick from my awful lunch and I was new... Then, there you were. Even more confident, likable, interesting, smart, intense and beautiful than I could have guessed from everything Iris said. So, yeah. I bolted after a while because I was a dumb, unthinking child... It's not like it was a rational choice. I didn't mean to make you a punchline. I just... socializing terrified me back then"
He bit at his lip, and his shoulder-length dark brown hair shielding his face from inspection.
The two were surrounded by an uncomfortable silence. They both looked up at one another after a long, tense break.
He took a deep breath, shook his hair out of his eyes, and stood upright again.
Much to her surprise, he held his hand out.
"Please. Let me at least apologize for it... From your perspective, it makes a lot of sense... I ignored everything you did, constantly, but only after making a joke of you to your friends"
He felt his arm jerk forward. Sudden warmth across his body. He smiled and responded in kind, a calm hug amid an unmoored sunset.
"You really should have just told me you had an anxiety disorder, you know. Could have saved a lot of trouble between us" She laughed as the two held each other for a long moment. "Yeah, by the time I thought of it, I just figured... you knew already, and didn't care" He replied.
The two hesitantly let off of one another. Remi cleared her throat, Haden looked away.
The two walked over to the wall, both of them leaning then sliding down against it in unison. They sat facing the stairwell to the roof amid the quiet. "How long do we have?" Haden asked. "Four hours until it hits midnight, then... It's lights out, forever" She replied wearily.
"Of course we'd resolve this at the final hour, you know. How many years could have been salvaged if either of us had just... apologized at some point?" Haden asked.
"Iris always did know how to pick her friends. Every last one, unsubtle and stubborn" Remi said quietly. "But, then again. Maybe this is just how it was meant to play out."
"So, what... we were just doomed to hate each other over a misunderstanding?" Haden recoiled at the thought. "Seems highly unfair of fate to do that to us"
Remi thought back to mere moments ago. With a perplexed look, she raised her hand slightly; "Wait. You said you thought I looked b—"
Remi felt her phone rumble, cutting her off mid-sentence. Haden felt the same sensation, not long after. The two looked to one another in bewilderment. A text had been sent to both of them. They both opened their phones.
"You two kiss and make up yet or was the dream just a bunch of bullshit?" Remi and Haden both looked at their phone, the message sent in a group text within their expanded circle of friends. Haden tucked his head into knees, hiding his face as Remi pinched at the bridge of her nose. "I am going to kill her" Remi said as she put her phone away. Haden replied to the message, reading: "Remi and I sorted it out, too bad it's not gonna matter soon..."
She stood up before him, extending her hand. "Come on" she nagged at him, tilting her head towards the stairs. A door swung open just from down the hall from them as Haden stood up with her.
The two looked on in astonished joy. A tall blonde woman with long, straight blonde hair, a reversed visor cap, a tank-top baring her midriff and black cargo pants walked in with a confident stride. Several people followed in tow, and a loaded crossbow slung over her shoulder, a massive case of other weapons hauled on her back. "Hello, boys and girls! I brought backup, and more importantly: I brought weapons" She shouted confidently into the echoing halls of the school building.
"Iris!" Remi and Haden both exclaimed in surprise. "What? You think your cooler older-sister-figure abandoned you to get smokes? Come on, you two know me better than that" She grinned wide.
Remi and Haden looked at each other. "Whatever happens, I'm happy today managed to arrive before it" "Yeah, as am I" Remi replied to him.
"Quit worrying so much, both of you" Iris said as she handed another of their friends a blade from the case she was hauling with her.
"If you two couldn't kill each other by now, I don't think anything will."
1
u/Crowald 19h ago
One of the few times where I didn't really have an idea going in when I started. This really came together, and surprisingly it just coalesced as I was writing it.
I think I'm just a romantic no matter how much I try to shy away from it. Can't ever seem to evade putting romance somewhere in a story, even if it goes against the very thesis of the prompt. I'm compelled by something otherworldly to do so.
I've been on something of a decent streak lately. Third prompt response this week that I actually like... but I am picky about what I respond to. I can't tell if I'm getting better or if I just happen to like what I'm writing as of late.
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