SCI prompt: Open Topic
Author’s Notes: Fiction. Continuation of last week’s Help Wanted ( link). I hope you enjoy!
( He still wasn’t terribly comfortable with the idea that things he never even considered in the realm of possibility not only existed, but were his responsibility to look after. )

SCI prompt: Second Look
Author's Notes: Fiction. I hope you enjoy.
( The shop in question was always overlooked, except, it seemed, to those who knew to look for it. )

Prompt: High Wire Act
Author's Notes: Kaidan refers to traditional Japanese ghost or horror stories. I hope you enjoy.

( Word spread of a butterfly woman, only two inches tall, and when the Emperor heard of this he invited her to come to his court to entertain him. )

Prompt: What's Missing?
Author's Notes: Fiction. I hope you enjoy.

( Suddenly, she didn’t feel much like telling stories that day. )

Throwing my hat back into the ring.

Challenge Name and Number: #12, Some Assembly Required
Author’s Notes: Fiction. Hints of magical realism and fantasy. I hope you enjoy.
( Where the clouds were thinnest he could see the ground below, patchwork fields and bumpy hills and the intermittent village, but mostly it was nothing but grayish, discolored white. )

Challenge Name and Number: #11, Open Topic
Title: ecosystems in acrylics
Word Count: 1701
Warnings (if applicable): None
Summary: For someone unable to differentiate between imagination and reality, eventually they become the same thing.
Author’s Notes: Fiction. Magical Realism. I hope you enjoy.
( I’d painted the meadow outside, and while the first canvas is still matte and smooth, the last-tilted against the others, almost flat to the floor-sprouts thin, even blades of grass, growing up and out to cover the length of it. )

Challenge Name and Number: #10, Sticks and Stones
Title: Pura Vida
Word Count: 1130
Warnings (if applicable): None
Summary: This is my first experience rafting, and while I’d signed up primarily for fun, gliding out into those first rapids is nothing short of terrifying.
Author’s Notes: Non-fiction this time around! I hope you enjoy.
( In Spanish, Andrés explains, Reventazón means explosion of water. )

Challenge Name and Number: Free Topic, Here Comes the Sun
Title: a matter of perspective
Word Count: 1049
Warnings (if applicable): None
Summary: Instead of looking at the ground, she should’ve been looking at the sky.
Author’s Notes: Fiction. I hope you enjoy!

( The magic of it had left this place, left it dry and empty and it had never quite recovered. )

Challenge Name and Number: #08, A Traveling Travesty
Title: Dealings
Word Count: 1547
Warnings (if applicable): Mild horror
Summary: Everything could be obtained for the proper price, and Mr. M would never suffer for customers.
Author’s Notes: Fiction. Hints of magical realism and horror. Again, more of an “old-time” setting. I hope you enjoy!

( “I am just a humble salesman looking to make my way in life, would you be at all interested in any of the fine wares I have for sale?” )