May Writing Prompt: “The Choice of Three” (Closed)

Good morning, Arcians. Confidence ready? Check your doubt at the door and let’s dive in. If you don’t want to publish online, write your prompt in a notebook only you can see. Badda boom, badda bing. Let’s begin.

This month’s prompt is quite stirring…

You’re mowing the grass very early on a Saturday morning. You’ve taken on odd jobs to try to save up for a camera, one of those professional cameras that can record video and take close-ups of bees dancing on lillies in moonlight. You’re pushing a rusty lawnmower in front of a decrepit old Victorian house and have about a half acre of bumpy lawn and gopher holes to go. You stop the mower to get a drink of lemonade and to sit on the front porch. You decide to crack open your lunch tin early and have a few bites of your hummus wrap before finishing the job.

You shiver as you sit on the shaded front porch steps of the house, chomping on carrot sticks and massaging knots in the back of your neck. It begins to rain and suddenly downpours, forcing you inside the vacant house. You stand in the threshold of the door, glowering at the weather and the rusted lawnmower rusting some more. Oh well, you think; it belongs to the house and they both need some work as it is.

You’re thinking about calling up your supervisor to tell her you’ll finish the job tomorrow when you hear a noise from behind you. It was too loud to be a rat, too calculating to be anything but intelligent. You follow it, curious, but also wanting to know if someone’s squatting on the property.

You soon break out into a chase, your foot going through a floorboard more than once. You nearly break your neck rounding a corner, and crash into an old broom and dustpan when you hear a muffled cough. You have the interloper cornered…

You enter into a room that appears to have been an old nursery, complete with broken dolls and vacant stares. And there, sitting at a child’s dresser are three immaculate objects sitting on a long cloth of blue velvet:

A silver pocket watch, a gold candelabra and a strand of pearls. A small note, folded in a tent sits nearby on a rusted hand mirror. It reads:

You who so boldly enter this realm, lay down your tools and be away from this hell. 

But should you still keep Adam’s vain, stay awhile and forego your shame.

An object of three you see with your mortal eyes. Which one shall be your coveted prize?

A decision appears to be waiting for you. Which item do you choose to touch…?

Take it from here. Tell me what happens and why. Do you get out alive? The rules are below.

1. Keep it PG. Pretend your great Aunt Gertrude would read it and disinherit you if she smelled even the faintest whiff of impropriety.
2. No word limit. Just please don’t try to out write the greats.
3. You can do descriptives, a story, whatever your imagination comes up with.
4. Repost on your blog to increase the fun (optional). I do like to be pinged back so I can read and comment on your works.
5. What is the color scheme of the house? How much dust has settled inside and how can you tell?

You have until Friday, May 10th (11:59 pm, US EST) to make your post. Author reserves the right to approve and disapprove comments at her own discretion.

Have fun writing and exploring your imagination. Pass the carrot sticks, would you?🥕