Classical Writing Prompt #52
There’s nothing wrong with getting story ideas from the stories and books of others. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and just because something has already been published doesn’t mean everything it contains is immediately off-limits. A word, a line, or a paragraph from someone else’s work can provide great inspiration for your own work. So each Tuesday and Thursday I provide a short excerpt from classic literature or other books in the public domain. All excerpts are taken from Project Gutenberg.
If you’d like to share whatever you write based on these excerpts, please feel free to do so in the comments below. At some point in the future, this may turn into a weekly competition with prizes. So get your practice in now!
A couple of basic ground rules for submitting your work. Please, nothing derogatory or defamatory about any person, living or dead. Also, please keep your writing samples PG-13 rated. I reserve the right to remove comments that I don’t find appropriate for the site or that I deem may be potentially offensive.
Classical Writing Prompt #52
Going below into the forecastle just after dark, I was inducted into a wretched “bunk” or sleeping-box built over another. The rickety bottoms of both were spread with several pieces of a blanket.
— Omoo, by Herman Melville
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Bad Magic
Going below into the forecastle just after dark, I was inducted into a wretched “bunk” or sleeping-box built over another. The rickety bottoms of both were spread with several pieces of a blanket.
“Sleep with one eye open,” said the man everyone called Bilge.
“Why? Because we might get attacked?”
“No,” whispered Bilge, “because of the rats. They’ll chew the nose off your face faster than you can wake up from whatever darling back home your sorry ass is dreaming about.”
I was given the last bunk in the overcrowded quarters. Men slept and snored as I down. This would be my new home for God only knew how long.
I wondered where the sorcerer was kept. I could only hope that the plan would work.
The night breeze drifted across the bunks. I could see the snowfall on the ground between the slats of the lattice on the window. Moonlight cast a pretty glow, like candles, on the white landscape.
The cold air crept deeper into my bones as I tried my best to sleep. My first night with these madmen. If they had any idea who I was working for they’d feed all of me to the rats. Or worse.
I thought about the mission. “You must free the sorcerer,” said Stephos, the commander of the Corcopian army. “You have to bring him back to Corcopia. He is the only one whose magic can break the dark fog. He is our only hope.” Stephos paused with that and then grabbed my head, putting my face into a vice-grip between his palms. “You, Josat, are our only hope! Do you understand me?”
I understood. I did not like it, but I understood. My good fortune of having been born a halfling – Corcopian on my father’s side, and Italivish on my mother’s side – meant that I looked Italivish and more importantly, sounded like an Italive. And that meant I could enlist in His Majesty’s Royal Guard…which meant I could gain access to the castle where the sorcerer was being kept prisoner. That was the theory at least.
I had to do this. I could not fail. I had to get to the sorcerer and get him back to Corcopia. The black fog that had overtaken our valley was like a poisonous mist. Our cattle had begun to die after it appeared. Crops withered. And now, with the winter season upon us, our very young and very old were becoming sick and dying. Everyone blamed black magic.
The fog was a curse. Only the sorcerer could combat this kind of strange magic. At least that’s what the good citizens of Corcopia thought. Even the rugged warriors of our army had become convinced that the sorcerer was strong in magic and the old ways.
What they did not know, what I could not tell them, was that the sorcerer was a fraud. His magic, an illusion. He did not possess any special powers to protect us from mysterious, lethal fogs.
I knew this, because the sorcerer was my brother.