Thursday, March 7, 2019

March Writing Challenge - Silence


(This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.)

Silence 
- By John Schairer


Word Count: 600 (611)
Genre: Suspense
Character: A Hermit
Material: A Spoon
Sentence: “I haven't found a soul”
Bonus: There is a great storm.

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It has been forty years since that day. The day where I went from wealth top having nothing more than a spoon to my name. I had been a CEO of a large corporation, hundreds of employees, big houses, lots of cars, and all the money a man could ever want. It was truly the life. However, all good things must come to an end I suppose. It was June 23 when I arrived at the office for what I thought was a normal day. Oh, how foolish I was. If only I knew what that cursed date would bring about for me. I had arrived at the office around 7:00am as usual. I found my parking spot and headed straight to the stack of paperwork that was awaiting me. I grabbed some coffee and sat down to get started. After a few hours of mind-numbing number crunching I stopped for some food. When I got to the break room, I caught the breaking news story that was informing all of us on the west coast to brace for “The storm of the century”. Now I have heard these claims before as did everyone else at the office. I kept working and finished around 6:00pm and I began to left the office. I stepped outside to see the wind whipping around and the rain beginning to fall hard so I walked to my car and began to exit the parking garage that I always park in. I began driving home and the weather just kept getting worse and worse. The lightning cracking at regular intervals and the thunder booming like a cannon and rocking my car as I drove along the highway. Now by this point I knew this storm was bad, but this was just the start. When I got home I ran inside and slammed the door behind me. The wind screaming outside and the rain slamming against my house, I decided to get into something warm and maybe start a fire in the fireplace. Time seemed to creep forward as the house began to shake and shudder. Now my home is no shack. I did spend a few hundred thousand on this place so the way the house was reacting to this weather was making me nervous. Eventually 10pm rolled around and the weather wasn't letting up a bit I decided to just go to bed and hope everything would be better in the morning. Around 1:00am I was violently awoken by the sound of metal and wood being torn apart and glass shattering. I jumped out of bed to see my home starting to fall apart. I grabbed a few things from right at my bedside and ran downstairs. As I was running my home began to rip and fly apart around me. The adrenaline pulsing through my veins I barely made it to the basement with my life. I slammed the door and locked the basement down to try and weather out the storm. I pulled out the couch in the basement and tried to fall asleep. I woke up who knows how much later and made my way upstairs. I found nothing but destruction. Everything was gone, with nothing but bent metal and splinters everywhere. I looked out from the wreck of my house to see the whole neighborhood was devastated. Not a home was standing. Nothing but silence and pieces of homes dotted the landscape. I began going around to the homes near me but sadly no one made it. To this day I haven't found a soul, and well I don't mind it honestly. You get used to the quiet after thirty years.

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