Flash Fiction Contest #5 Winner

Wow, you guys have some amazing projects on the go. Thank you for sharing your words. If you're doing NaNoWriMo, I hope you're doing well. If you're behind--you still have time to catch up. And really, the point is to get those words out, and if you wrote one more word than usual this month, that's worth it.

Flash Fiction Contest #5 Prompt: First 500 words from your NaNoWriMo novel or other WIP

Entry by Wendy Jo

Landon had never seen his own reflection. He saw hers instead. He grew up watching this girl through the mirror grow with him. Grew up memorizing every feature, every movement, every horror she endured. He could see into her palace, into the darkness she was trapped in.

When he was little, he told his mom about her. His parents thought she was an imaginary friend, and they humored him. But she didn’t go away.

She couldn’t see him, but the older he got, the more she sensed him.

And then she started talking to him.

She didn’t need the mirror. She couldn’t see him at all, but that didn’t seem to matter. When she was alone, she sang to him. And she told him her nightmares. Except her nightmares were her life.

She was a captive of the Queen of the Damned.

And when Landon was seventeen, he fell in love with her.

****

Eiress sat in the middle of her bed, rocking back and forth, humming and petting her pet dragon. Tears slowly soaked her cheeks and every so often she would sob. The ball must have been horrific last night.

Landon watched her while he brushed his teeth and got ready for school. There was nothing else he could do, and she couldn’t even see him, but he was loath to leave her. He put his toothbrush away and closed the mirror, trailing his finger down the reflection of her cheek, as if he could dry her tears.

She smiled, raised her head a little. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Any time.” Landon smirked, because he knew she couldn’t hear him, and yet here he was, talking to the mirror again.

Some people might think he was crazy, talking to a mirror.

Of course, if they knew he was actually talking to the princess trapped inside, they’d have him committed right away.

That was why he’d given up telling anyone about her.

“Landon! Cassie’s here!”

Landon swore, backing away from the mirror. With every step, Eiress’s shoulders hunched and she curled in on herself even more. “I’ll be okay,” she said quietly.

With one last, desperate look, he stumbled away, feeling his soul tear slightly as he left the bedroom. He rounded the corner, grabbed his bag, and jogged down the front hall. He caught another brief look as he passed the front hall’s mirror, Eiress crying over her pet dragon.

It nearly froze him in his tracks.

“Hey babe. We’re gonna be late.” Cassie nearly hit him with the door as she stuck her head in, frowning. “I knocked like ten minutes ago.”

This happened, sometimes. He’d get lost in the mirror, end up standing there for hours when he thought it had been minutes. Usually when she needed him most.

He tore his gaze away. “Sorry. Let’s go.”

***

I'm a sucker for dragons, what can I say?

Our next contest is Friday, Dec.4! It'll be the last one in 2015 because I want to give all of us a break. You'll probably have a NaNoWriMo hangover, but I still want to invite you to come back. It's about time for the holidays--celebrate with one more piece of flash fiction?