CTRL

She ducked into the small studio apartment quickly, hoping to avoid her chatty neighbor, who always seemed to catch her at the worst times. Phone clutched in hand, the screen aglow with an unanswered call to Blake. Jacket shed, shoes flung, then she dropped her phone on the desk, powered on her laptop, and changed into comfy clothes. She grabbed a beer from the fridge, cracked it open, and plopped onto the stool.

She clicked the browser, and as soon as it loaded, a chat box expanded onto her screen.

OnlyEyes4u- “Hey, how are you doing tonight?”

She led the mouse to the “X” to close out the chat, and clicked it away as she took another sip of her drink. She began to type “Espresso” as the chat window sprang back to life stubbornly. This time with a new message.

OnlyEyes4u- “You know it's really rude to ignore people, and you're not rude.😉”

Sammy once again guided the mouse to the “X” and closed out the chat. Only as soon as it closed, it opened again.

OnlyEyes4u- “DON'T IGNORE ME SAMANTHA! 😡”

Stunned her clammy hand shot from the mouse to the power button.

OnlyEyes4u- “7890 Sadie Lane, Apt B26, Daleville, IL 60851”

“Samantha Lynn Davis, Social: 321-54-9876, age (23)”

“Family tree: Parents, Tim Davis(58) Linda Davis(48) Siblings, Richard Davis (25) Pamela Davis(18)”

Her jaw dropped as a cold wave flooded her body.

OnlyEyes4u- [Screenshot of Sammy reflecting at her]

“Hey now, no need to look so frightened.”

“You look like you just saw a ghost.👻”

“I just want to chat. You like to chat right? 😉”

RootedReader- “Who are you? What do you want?”

OnlyEyes4u- “I'm a friend. A far better friend than Ava.”

RootedReader- “I don't know you, you aren't a friend.”

OnlyEyes4u- “Oh I'm a friend, trust me, I know you better than anyone. You'll see. 😉”

“Honestly, I think it's funny you're still even friends with her.😂”

“Especially after she boned Blake.”

“Oh or are you still pretending you don't know that? Haha. 👺”

RootedReader- “How do you know I've known? I couldn’t bring myself to…”

OnlyEyes4u- “Like I said I know you. From the smell of your lilac perfume to your nurturing nature. Seriously, your plants are thriving, and we can't forget all the love you give Franny. That is the luckiest sick cat alive, I swear. It's why I know you deserve more. It's how I know you’re the one.”

“The way you're able to dance around when you think no one is watching, moments after finding out both your best friend and boyfriend are betraying you. It's a true testament to how strong you are. You've just got to cut off the rotting fruit to save the whole tree.”

“Seriously, what do you even see in this loser? 🤔”

[Screenshot of Blake passed on a couch, hand tucked into his pants, littered in cans.]

RootedReader- “Leave him out of it..! How did you even..?”

OnlyEyes4u- “I'll leave him out of it when you leave him. He's not worth your time. You should be mine!”

Sammy trembling, otherwise still as a statue. Her once tiny, cozy studio now felt like a vast, open field with no walls, as she shrunk inside of herself. Her breath was small and shallow as her heart raced.

OnlyEyes4u “You need someone who sees you, Sammy. Someone who will be there forever like I have been and will be. Someone who can tell you where your weaknesses are and help you cut them out.”

“I can do that for you Sammy. I WILL do it. 👺”

Sammy's body overpowered her mind as she slammed the laptop shut. Her phone rang with a call from an unknown sender. She grabbed her keys and rushed out her door, then down the hall to the staircase—where she encountered her neighbor Ethan.

“Hey, how ya doin’ Samantha?” Ethan asked with a wide grin ear to ear.

“Uhh, not great. Sorry, Ethan but I have to run. I've got something I need to take care of.” Sammy stammered, already turning to the hall.

“Okay, good luck! Oh! By the way, you're perfume, is that lilac? I've always loved that scent!” Ethan remarked.

He took one more deep inhale to savor the scent left hanging in the air.

“Mmm!” His eyes were fixed on Sammy, glancing down only once at his pocket containing his phone, lit with a call, then back until she was gone.

The end.

I am relatively new to both Reedsy and to flash fiction. In fact this is my first time ever writing a piece intended to be so short. Because of this I tried my best to research the limits of such a thing. I began by looking at Reedsy’s prompts this week and that led me to learning about WOW. As I tried to understand what WOW defined as flash fiction I found their link to the site explaining their goal for this contest. Listed about half way down the page is word count, which is a minimum of 250 words and a maximum of 750. With that as my limit and my new found understanding of flash fiction I picked the prompt that would best suit my ideas for a story and began to write. After writing my piece I went to submit only to find out that Reedsy has a minimum of 1000 words before it will allow you to enter, and I only have an hour left. Given the last time I tried to reach the help desk took a few days, I figured that in such a short time I'm not likely to have found the help I need. So please note this paragraph is not intended to be part of the story. I wrote this for two reasons. One, I need to gain a high enough word count to enter my piece. Two, I wanted to explain why my piece looks the way it does. I'm sure this is likely to hurt my chances at placing and I understand why. Now that I’m here I really am not sure what to do. If you are the judges I would greatly appreciate any clarification as to how I should have handled this situation, if you are another author reading this, thank you. I look forward to hearing what you think about this and I’m really excited to hear how I can improve on this craft. Thank you all for your time, attention and time are the two most precious commodities we possess today so for you to take your time on me I will forever be grateful. Explanation paragraph word count (364)