Flash Fiction / writing prompts

What lies within?

Chris Hall69 Comments
photo of an old trunk

Kneeling before the old chest, watching the winter sunlight filter through the dusty window of the attic, I’d paused in trepidation. I’d never been in this part of the house, as my uncle had forbidden it and his directives were not to be ignored lightly; but I’d been driven to explore the unexplained parts of my past and now I’d discovered that the chest contained the final few pieces of the puzzle.

Finally, I’d unlatched the lid and lifted it.

If only I hadn’t. My uncle had been right.

That day I learned that some things are better left undisturbed.

Image credit: Pinterest

Written in response to two challenges:

Di of Pensitivity101‘s Three Things Challenge – PAST, FEW, CHEST

Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – FILTER

69 thoughts on “What lies within?”

  6. Welcome to Six Sentence Stories, Chris. Excited you joined in this week 🙂
    Talk about a great example of “more is less”! Vivid description of opening scene, very nice tension build up and you left this reader wanting to know more 😀
    3 prompts? Excellent triple play 🙂

    Do come over and link your Six at Girlie. Post is published with the inlinkz code. Let me know if you have difficulty linking up.

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  9. Love the six, love the trunk love the visual of the filtered light. I have my grandfather’s trunk. He would be 152 were he alive, so I know it’s an oldie. Love things like that.

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  18. Excellent image use*

    (Part of my enjoyment of these Sixes is what I can learn from others), in this case, the ‘formatting’** of your Six is quite instructive.
    I suspect we all have ideas we’d like to try, but watching someone else go ahead and actually do it…. and succeed, is the best form of this ‘reading-Sixes-to-learn’.

    *while the use of a particular image is a part of the creative process for many of us, there’s a weird thing (often when the image is selected early in the writing process), when the effect (of a particular image) becomes more than we anticipated…
    ** the single line spacing to emphasize the narrative

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    • Thank you for your encouraging feedback! Your point about the choice of image is a good one. Unless I’m writing to a photo prompt, I almost always leave the ‘chore’ of finding the image to last, when I’ve already written my piece and formed my own picture in my mind. I really should try to do this the other way round.

      Single line spacing often appears in my narratives!

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  28. 😳 First catch-up read, and yep… Still wanting more! I’m hoping there’s a mystical heirloom in the chest… or a locked diary and a big bunch of keys… hmmm… my mind’s wandering already. Good one, Chris.

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