Pennywise  

Imogen Jackson

Benjamin Chandler

Jacob Sherman

Sean King

Perdy Gallop

Sam Becker

English

A knock hits the door, making Clarice freeze. "House keeping!" With gallons of sweat pouring down her neck, she shouts "Go away!" and continues scrubbing. As she does, she sobs in agony, for the blood that pools in the bathtub has stained her pretty blue dress.

She'd woken up like this, she wasn't sure how. Her pretty blue dress was now a crimson red, stained and tarnished by lack of recollection and sought after memories. Ears ringing, she tried to block out the banging on the door, persistent drumming echoing her hollow skull.

"If you don't open this door—" howled a voice from the other side, but she wasn't listening anymore. A nearby window leaked pale moonlight into the room. She opened it & saw the drop to the ground wasn't too far. As the door burst open, she leaped from the window & into the night

below. “Here’s Johnny!” the voice yelled, but it was too late. She had escaped. She ran as far away from the house as possible, not looking back. She ran through the woods in the middle of the night, the moonlight filtering through. She needed to survive. To make it.

She ran onto her street, towards her house, but ran right past it. She kept going, running onto Main Street then out of town. When dawn broke, she was 7 miles outside of town. “All that cardio is really paying off”, she said aloud.

She felt immediately self-conscious, as she noticed a squat pasty man in his 60s sitting on a bench at the bus stop in a heavy herringbone coat. He stared at her, slowly eating his cruller.

"You young," he began without taking his eyes off his pastry, "limit your lives trying to look cool." He reached into his pocket. "Here, have a donut hole and stop caring what others think." She paused, slouched back, accepted the treat, and thought: I am ready to change.

Perdy Gallop
@perdygallop

Lifetime
Lines

Awards
Earned

Member
Since

Awards

Perdy's Stories

Perdy Gallop@perdygallop

LifetimeLines