In an effort to keep my writing skills up to par and to keep up on blogging, my friend Nicki and I have decided to do a prompt fueled Wednesday every couple of weeks that we’re calling “Writing Wednesdays” (yay alliteration!!)

Here is how it works: This will be a semi-monthly feature here and at Nicki’s Blog. On the first and third Wednesday of every month we’ll post a prompt that we’ve either found or thought up ourselves along with our drabble for said prompt. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join in, all we ask is that you link back to one of us on your own Writing Wednesday posts.

Also, be sure that you comment on this post with a link to your own post so that everyone can check out the other blogger’s stories.

PROMPT: First Line “It was the only road out of towm, but in retrospect, taking it was a terrible decision.”

(from Wonderful Writing Prompts on Tumblr)

It was the only road out of town, but in retrospect, taking it was a terrible decision. My car clanked to a halt and I slammed my hands against the steering wheel.
“You have to be kidding me!” I could feel the tears beginning to well up in the corners of my eyes. I stared out my front window and let out a sigh trying to attach all the pent-up emotions I was feeling to it.
After sitting for a moment, I gathered up my courage and stepped outside my car, slamming the door behind me. Popping the hood of the car I stared at the engine.
“Jaime… what are you doing? You don’t know anything about cars.” I said to myself looking at the darkness of the engine with no idea I was actually looking at. Tapping my fingers against the grille of the car to the tune that was playing on repeat in my head.

The only road out of the small town that ran my life was empty. And I doubted that anyone was going to chase after me. Dark was beginning to fall over the woods surrounding this town, and it was making the hairs on my arms stand on end.

The tune in my head moved from my fingers to my toes. The anxiety that I had managed to push down for the small amount of time that it took me to walk from my car to the engine and stare at it like I knew something, began bubbling up. I couldn’t decide if I was feeling nervous about leaving my home, or just about the fact that I was now stranded on the side of the road.

As my anxiety began to build in my chest, I felt my lungs struggling for air. My chest hurt, my eyes stung with tears and my heart was pounding against my ribcage like it was trying to break out of it. Gripping the bumper of the car, I doubled over holding my head in my hands trying to remind myself how to breathe.
“In, two, three….out, two, three”

My hands shook against my knees as I gripped at them to try and ground myself. After a few moments, I was beginning to feel a bit more normal, but my heart continued to pound and punch against my chest. With a whimper escaping my lips I stared up at the sky attempting to count the stars to level off my heart rate. Combing the sky for my favorite constellations, instead my eyes focused on the one thing that I hadn’t been counting on when I left my house this evening.

The moon.

The full moon.

My heart sped up and my body began shaking again. With a gulp I ran into my car and groped for my bag. The car didn’t matter anymore. My fingers closed around the strap to my bag and my feet carried me into the woods. As fast and as deep as they could take me and at this moment, that was pretty fast.

I could feel the growl of the beast within breaking toward the surface as I sprinted through the trees with more stability than I would have on any other day. I counted the heartbeats in my head as I ran, trying to keep an eye on my pulse, knowing that once it got too high, there was no coming back.

Coming through a particularly dense pack of trees I arrived in a clearing. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness the further I got into the woods. The smell of wet leaves and dirt invaded my nostrils and consumed my head, drawing my focus from hiding to something else. There was something mixed in with the scent, a tangy smell. One that I know that I had smelled before.

The beast grinned within me and a growl escaped my mouth before I could stop it. “Blood?” I said to myself in surprise, but it was too late. I was already on my way to the scent and nothing could stop me.

As I ran through the forest after the scent, I could feel parts of me falling to the wayside with each step, and more of me being taken over by the beast. I focused on my breathing and on the sound of my pulse ringing in my ears, trying to force it down.

The change happened smoothly. It always did. One moment I was girl with brown hair and a big mouth, the next moment I was a wolf with only one thing on my mind, the next kill. The human part of me beat against the beast, fighting for dominance, but it was no use. The carnal instinct mixed with the full moon, there was no stopping the beast.

I made a mental note to never take this road again.

The prompt for next time will be: Flip to page 42 in the dictionary (or maybe do the word of the day on Dictionary.com) and run with it. on October 1st.
You can find Nicki’s post here.

Please leave comments, future ideas and links to your own posts below! We’d love to see what you come up with.

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