Last Line Game

Last line game

Thank you @jay-avian for the tag!

“You always were such a clever girl. You held a knife so well when you were younger. We were all so proud of you,” her father’s smile dropped. “And then you got the silly notion of being a hero into your head, and you needed to so much correction after that.”

Melody let out a laugh that was closer to a death rattle. “Clearly I still do.”

Her father hummed, tilting his head. He watched her, and then, as if he had found something within her image that pleased him, smiled slowly.

“No,” he murmured. “You don’t, do you, little one.”

Her breath seized.

“Don’t call me that.”

His eyes darkened and that incredible violence—that wrath, surfaced. Melody looked away.

“Yes, you’d rather I call you Melody, wouldn’t you,” he spat her name like a curse. “No matter how much blood you spill, your blood is still mine. You are still mine.”

She was half her mother, too. But she was nothing more than an unmarked grave and a cut off scream.

“I was never yours.”

Her father grinned, and it was feral.

“You’ll be glorious when you’re older,” his eyes glinted. “So much bloodshed.”

“I have questions to ask you—“

“Do you still know how to hold a knife?”

She swallowed, and he watched her like he was waiting for a misstep.

“Yes.”

He leaned forward, handcuffs dragging on the table.

“You finally grew the spine to use it, didn’t you, daughter of mine.”

She stood, and her chair scraped. To hell with these questions. Her father was toying with her. He may have refused to speak to anyone other than her, but he wouldn’t ever tell her anything of use.

Just remarks, as sharp as his knives.

“I am not yours,” she said again, and then she slammed her hand into the table, dragging her father by the collar to whisper in his ear. “And I am already glorious.”

When she let go, she saw something close to bloodlust but even closer to pride in his eyes.

By the time she had exited the facility, her hands had almost stopped shaking.

Almost.

(I know it’s a bit long just roll with it lol)

Anndddd here are the people I’m tagging in!

@oh-no-another-idea @megreads22 @writeblrfantasy @writtentodeath @writingwithcolor @prettyquickpoetry

7 snippets 7 people

Thank you @oh-no-another-idea for the tag!

Superhero Novel snippets

1. Vidrian took a step back, just one, and the dagger glinted at her neck.

“It isn’t your fault,” she said, and somehow, by some twist of fate, Aletheia heard it over the alarm.

“Viridian, Wait—“

2. Her fists clenched, her jaw ground, and she finally let herself feel rage as she glanced down at her blood stained front.

Only this time, there was no one to fight.

3. “You could be my queen,” he offered, blood splattering from his nose onto the floor.

She stared at him, stunned, then said numbly, “Of what? Your fighting rink compound?”

He grinned, and it was half bloody.

“The world.”

Serial killer novel snippets

4. Jules looked mildly uncomfortable, but Melody wanted to know. Jules’s lips pinched.

“I have experience with this kind of thing.”

Melody tipped her head. “Children of serial killers?”

“Trauma.”

“Ah,” Melody laughed quietly. “Just that, then.” The tips of Jules's mouth went up.

5. She appreciated their faith.

But Melody had come into this world covered in blood. And she had never truly been clean of it since.

She would never be clean of her father. When the time came, she hoped she at least died quickly.

Siren Novel snippets

6. The salt and iron taste in her mouth intensified unbearably, and her eyes snagged on something she couldn’t quite make out in the waves.

It took her three seconds to recognize what it was as it floated next to the hull, just below the waves. Three seconds, for her brain to put the puzzle pieces together, then convince itself that it wasn’t seeing things.

Three seconds for the taste to make her gag, warning shivering up her spine.

Three seconds for Malcolm to finally get his mouth to say the right combination of words.

In the water, next to the planks of her beloved ship, the Siren winked at her.

7. “God, you idiots, can’t you see it’s just magic?”

At this, the Siren smiled, face so pleasant that it stunned Lucy for a second, like sunshine breaking through clouds, the smell of warm bread and bells tolling to mark the ships returning to harbor—

“Stop it,” Lucy snapped, and the Siren grinned further.

“Getting to you, darling?”

Lucy grit her teeth.

This was a lot of fun! I’ll be tagging @ettawritesnstudies @meadowofbluebells @megreads22 @prettyquickpoetry @silver-ink-iron-words @jay-avian and anyone else who wants to join!

Hello, I saw from your introduction that you are hoping for an ask and I think I have a prompt for you: A villain who is tasked with poisoning the hero only to realize that the hero is their little sibling. You don't have to write it if you don't want to, but it came to me while working on my introduction and I thought you might enjoy it.

Anyway, have a good rest of your day. :)

This is such an awesome prompt, thank you so much!!

(Edit: part two)

The villain was a lot of things, but they weren’t one to use poison. They planned, they sabotaged, unleashed mind games and carefully tilted domino effects—but they didn’t use poison.

But some ostentatiously rich benefactor wanted the hero to die without the mess of broken buildings and bones, so they had paid off a higher up, who paid off someone else, until an envelope filled with a packet of poison ended up tucked into the villain’s hands.

So here they were, at a party, a vial of something toxic and deadly and shimmering tucked up their sleeve.

Someone bumped into them, muttering an apology, and they straightened their suit. It took two seconds to snag a champagne glass off a waiter’s tray, one to empty the vial into it, and four, to arrive at the hero’s side, grin fixed on their face.

“Having fun yet?”

The hero turned, blinking beneath a masquerade mask—wouldn’t do to reveal their identity, now would it—and smiled, slightly.

“Absolutely loads of it.”

The villain glanced at the table the hero stood at, all but abandoned, and hummed.

“Looks like it.”

The hero did nothing more than sigh, elbows resting on the standing table. Somewhere, the mayor laughed. The hero winced.

“Why don’t you go talk to him,” the hero gestured with their head. “He organized this for us to make peace, you know?”

The villain slid a baleful look at the center of the party.

“He organized it to parade us around like dogs.”

The hero simply went back to studying the half crumpled napkins.

The villain blew out a breath.

They nudged the glass of champagne towards the hero’s hand. The hero didn’t take it.

“Peace offering,” the villain urged. The hero gave something between a grimace and a frown, eyes darting between the villains face and the glass.

“Oh. I mean, uh—thank you, but really, I can’t—” the hero went to rub the back of their neck, and stopped halfway there.

“Too much of a goody goody for alcohol?”

When the hero didn’t rise to the bait and take the glass, the villain clucked their tongue. “Come now, it’s only champagne.”

This time, they took it, fingers hesitant, as if they had never held a champagne glass before.

Too trusting, their hero, with their wide eyes and still soft face.

The villain clinked their glasses, indicating for the hero to drink. The hero downed their glass whole—which they hadn’t expected but made this a lot easier—and coughed.

“It’s champagne, not whiskey,” the villain laughed, and the hero squinted at their now empty glass. “You have to admit this is a relatively nice bottle.”

The hero coughed once more, looking a little green.

“I don’t know, I’ve never had it before.”

“What, champagne?”

The hero shot them an unreadable look.

“Alcohol.”

The villain paused. “What are you, sixteen? You sound like my youngest sibling.”

The hero choked on a breath, face flushing slightly as they looked away.

“Strange comparison,” the hero said, voice slightly strangled, and the villain simply stared at them.

A moment later, they shoved off their elbows. “I should go, mingle or whatever—” the hero stopped, frowning, as they swayed slightly.

They made to raise a hand to their head, and simply stared at it as it shook.

The poison was fast acting, then.

“I—bathroom. I should—“ the hero’s hand dropped, and they took a stumbling step.

A moment later, the villain had an arm around their shoulders, guiding them through the crowd with an easy smile. They were light, shorter than the villain, and for that, the villain was grateful.

They were one step into the bathroom when the hero dropped like a stone, slamming into the side of a stall with violent thud.

“Shit,” the villain murmured. They clicked the lock, leaving them alone together. “They didn’t say it would be this fast.”

Really, they just wanted to make sure the hero’s power didn’t go off, decimating the entire building. The villain knew it could—and under their right mind, the hero would never let it. But while dying…

The hero let out a sob into the bathroom tile, and shadows began to trail their way across the floor, as if desperate.

Control of shadows was an expansive and brutal power, stealing thoughts, forming beasts, sending terror down spines in broad daylight. It was the one thing the hero and villain shared—the shadows, even if the hero was gentle and the villain was brutal in their usage of them.

That’s what made it so, so easy for the villain to scatter them from the hero’s grasp.

The hero shuddered, and managed to shove themselves upwards in time to vomit into the nearest toilet. The building shook around them, and the hero’s mask dissolved from their face.

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t want you to die like this,” the villain admitted. “You deserve a valiant battle.”

The hero heaved again, and those shadows blasted outwards, as if on reflex. The villain tucked them away.

The hero managed an incredulous laugh.

“I didn’t think you would poison me.”

The villain blinked.

“You see too much good in people.”

The hero rested their head against the toilet, face still turned out of view.

“You hate poison,” they offered, and the villain hesitated.

The villain hated poison, yes, but there were very few people who knew that—one person who knew that, bearing the memory of small fingers swallowing pretty colored liquids and the number for poison control. Weeks in the hospital, their younger sibling’s hand clutched in theirs, as the villain watched them recover.

But the hero couldn’t know that; they had made sure nobody knew that.

The hero was just delirious, that was all.

“You seem to be grasping at straws.”

The hero laughed again, and it sounded like it tore something in their chest. “I forgot how much this hurts.”

The hero had been poisoned before?

“Hero—”

“It was never supposed to end like this.”

The villain took a step closer and the hero didn’t flinch, even though they undoubtedly sensed them.

“We’re on opposing sides, someone was bound to get hurt—“

“I never hurt you,” the hero shivered, and then retched once more.

“You’re a hero, you’re not supposed to.”

The villain took a step forward, until their shoes almost touched the hero’s sprawled legs, and the hero slumped further.

“I never caught you, either,” they murmured, and the villain frowned.

Something was wrong. They were missing something, a vital piece of information.

“I was supposed to keep you safe.”

The villain froze.

“Hero, what are you talking about—”

“I’m sorry,” the hero sobbed. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt. If I wasn’t your hero then someone else would be and they would hurt you and catch you, and I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t—“

The hero dragged a hand down the back of their neck, as if wiping off sweat, and their hand came away smothered with concealer.

The villain stopped breathing.

There, on the hero’s neck, half covered by foundation, was a birthmark.

A birthmark only one person carried, imprinted into every childhood memory and scrapbook photo the villain had.

The hero was still rambling, half desperate and half broken, but as soon as the villain touched them, their voice fell away.

They hauled the hero up, glancing desperately over their sweaty face, their unfocused and half delirious eyes, body shivering with pain. Those too trusting eyes latched onto the villains face, and the hero smiled. A smile the villain had been looking at for the past sixteen years. A smile that had never had a drink before. A smile that had been poisoned once, by a cleaning product under the sink. A smile the villain looked forward to seeing every day. A smile that belonged to the only person the villain had left.

“You were never supposed to poison me,” their sibling whispered—and collapsed into the villains arms.

(Part two)

Did I daydream this, or was there a website for writers with like. A ridiculous quantity of descriptive aid. Like I remember clicking on " inside a cinema " or something like that. Then, BAM. Here's a list of smell and sounds. I can't remember it for the life of me, but if someone else can, help a bitch out <3

If one more person uses the phrase “you always get A’s, stop worrying” around me, I’m going to become an episode on forensic files

“You should find a better way to source your goons,” the new kid remarked. They straightened, rolling their shoulders as if lifting some unseen weight. They had looked terrified before, all doe eyes and heaving chest and stuttering questions.

Now… now they looked prepared.

Adelaide eyed them with uncertainty.

This was not the new kid she had brought into the fold for their uncanny ability to crack safes. This was not the gawky teenager whose tragic backstory shimmered at the edges of their eyes.

No. This was someone else entirely.

“You are not the person I hired,” Adelaide tugged a bit on the edge of the handcuff, found it binding her to the edge of the car door.

The new kid smiled, all polished confidence.

“No, but I play them well, don’t I?”

Police sirens began to howl as the museum alarms stirred to life, as if blearily saying “something has been stolen, something is missing, someone has been bad.”

If it was up to her, they’d be long gone.

The new kid tucked their hands into their pockets.

“Who are you,” she asked then, because what else was there to say? The rest of her team had fled into the framework of this city, like they were trained to. It was just her, and the person wearing the costume of the new kid.

The new kid shrugged, jauntily.

“Youngest up and coming agent, at your service,” they tipped their head. “High test scores, fast reflexes, people pleasing perfectionism. The works.”

Adelaide studied their face, the outright arrogance, and frowned.

“That’s as much of a mask as the one you wore earlier.”

The new kid’s eyes glittered.

“They did say you were the best,” they said amicably. They sauntered closer as police cars threw themselves onto the pavement around them, corralling them in walls of metal.

The new kid grabbed Adelaide’s collar and pressed their mouth to her ear. She flinched against their hold, and their fingers tightened around her lapel.

“I’ll have you out in three days time—the valuables will be sold and dispersed, and the money filed into an impossibly long line of untraceable accounts. By the time they realize the money trail is cold, you’ll be gone with the wind.”

The new kid glanced towards the cop cars as doors slammed.

“Now. Act as if I’ve taunted you. All arrogant young operative high off their own success, yes?”

Confusion flooded her—then cool understanding.

“You do this every day? Double cross the police and propagate crime.”

The new kid pulled back, cat like in the satisfaction smeared across their face, and grinned harder.

“Only on Tuesdays.”

They winked at her, and she lunged for them, screaming obscenities.

“You bastard,” she put as much conviction in it as she could. By the reactions of the police, they bought it. “You traitorous piece of—“

The new kid—or more aptly named, Monarch—had them out in three days, as promised.

They ruled the city in two months.