Black Water Moon
A writing experiment based on your prompts
Yes, I am jumping on the Prompt Bandwagon. Why not? Life is short, and right now it feels extremely ephemeral. Besides, this is pretty darn fun. My idea is to try writing an ongoing story based on weekly prompts. Today, I am going with Original Worlds (Ira Robinson) and Sam’s Spaghetti. I’ve already got the next installment lined up based on Labyrinthia Mythweaver’s new prompt. And I am looking for more! Hope you enjoy.🪶📜🌕ִֶָ☾♡
I. The Visionary
Billowing red in the gloomy ether. Billowing like clouds of blood in the water. The predators strike from above, and the medium is atmosphere, not water. The All-Seeing Eye scans the land, searching. Getting the jump means survival. But nothing is visible. Only birds soaring and dipping playfully on the steel breeze. A good sign.
II. The Night Gardens
Far below, in the depths of the shattered valley, the helpless souls wander. They experience endless night. No golden rays pierce the blanketing shadow. Safety comes in numbers and cover. The wraiths glide amongst the wild blooming flowers, tending the midnight gardens. Their children run through the springy cushion of grass, velvety and fragrant, slick with dew. The laughter chimes like bells in the soft dusky air, drifting away like wisps of smoke.
Inside the forbidding stone manor, the Lord and Lady sit in high-backed chairs before a crackling fireplace. When the tinkling childish cries of joy and wildness echo in the empty cold rooms, the Lady gasps and goes to the tall mullioned windows and peers out fearfully.
“The noise! They will bring scrutiny.”
The Lord tuts reassuringly.
“Don’t fret, darling. The cloak is impenetrable. We are safe.”
She continues looking out, a hand curved protectively at her throat.
“I doubt that” she murmurs to herself.
But she relents, and returns to her seat by the fire.
Deep within the midnight gardens, nestled in the heart of vines, leaves and thorns, a perfectly formed wild rose quivers in full blown glory. The petals throb with blood red vibrancy, glowing faintly in the comforting gloom. A blob of liquid sable oozes from its center. It slowly wells up and drips over the trembling crimson until it plops onto the ground. The black spreads into the rich earth like poisonous veins, seeking, searching.
III. Beacon Transmission
The All-Seeing Eye twitched. The birds abruptly ceased their calls, and simply circled. Waiting. A vein in the Eye began to pulsate gently. Rhythmically. His scarlet garments blew out behind him and hung suspended without wind. The birds suddenly dispersed. The Eye tensed.
“We have been discovered” he announced to no one.
Down below, the valley lay quiet. Unknowing. Dreaming. Vulnerable.
As always, top notch imagery!
This has a really striking, cinematic quality to it. It feels like three lenses held over the same world, each one revealing a different layer of threat and innocence.
What stayed with me most is the contrast you hold between the vast, almost god-like perspective of the Eye and the intimate, sensory detail of the gardens below. The children running, the dew, the softness of the grass… it’s so alive, so tender, and because of that it makes the danger feel sharper rather than softer. There’s something quietly devastating in that joy existing without knowing it is already being watched.
The wild rose is a powerful centrepiece. That image of something beautiful, full, almost pulsing with life, and then the black seeping out and into the ground… it feels like corruption, or signal, or both. It reads as the moment everything shifts, even before the characters fully understand it.
I also really like the restraint in the final section. “We have been discovered” lands cleanly, without over-explaining, and trusts the reader to feel the weight of it. That line carries everything that came before.