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General

The world was dark, illuminated only by the few dim stars in the sky and a tiny sliver of the soft light that was being reflected from the moon. A comforting silence enveloped the earth, and people slept peacefully in their own pleasant little homes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary on this particular summer night, but somewhere in the small town of Caershire, was a woman named Morgan Carrie, enveloped in a whole of her own, who was just about to finish her very first novel.

. . .

Morgan had just moved here a few days ago and was still getting familiar with this small town. She had lived in a populous city for her entire life and wanted to expand her horizons, so she rented a small house a little ways off from the main road of Caershire and took her belongings inside the cozy house to get situated. She had just gotten fired from her last job. It wasn’t because she wasn’t a good writer because she was one of the best in the industry. The company she had been working for was losing money. Their articles were being pushed out of stores to make more room for their “trendier” competitors. Their writing wasn’t bad, it was just … outdated. Just like Morgan. Being a 46 year old writer meant that she had more experience in the field — but it also meant that she wasn’t as contemporary as the young writers who worked a few blocks away at the towering, sleek building with abstract lines and curves decorating its shiny exterior walls.

The people who worked with her enjoyed their time together as well. Morgan would bring a box of assorted doughnuts to the work firm on the first Monday of every month, and as mentioned before, she was also an exceptional writer. But as the times changed, the writers around her began to change as well. Like the falling of the leaves on a chilling autumn day, people around her disappeared and were instead exchanged with more juvenile faces accompanied by modern thoughts. 

Her last day came in the blink of an eye, and she was boarding the hour long airplane ride that would take her to her new temporary residence. The house was definitely not large by any means, but it wasn’t cramped either. It possessed all of the necessary utilities of the accommodation Morgan had lived in back home, but the walls were bare and bland, giving her the chance to adorn the house with her own personal belongings. 

It didn’t take long for her to get her to sort out her luggage, as she simply set most of it beside the four poster bed residing inside the modest bedroom beyond the door entry. She ambled around the quaint abode and stumbled upon what seemed to be an old storage room. The small door appeared to be slathered with a plaster of some sort — almost as if it were meant to be concealed. Looking as she had nothing better to do, Morgan began peeling away at the already chipping substance around the edges of the door. The door didn’t have a knob or handle, so she brought her right arm to her chest and pushed on the door, her body weight leaning against the right side of her body. She felt the door groan under her weight, and after a few moments of jostling the door, it finally jolted upon, bringing clusters of white chalk tumbling to the smooth wood floor.

She peered into the room before stepping inside, as if something was going to jump out at her at any second. But the room seemed pretty ordinary — dull even. There was not much inside of the room, which made it look large and vacant, despite the fact that it was no bigger than the bathroom around the corner. There were no windows, but a large light bulb hung from the ceiling. Morgan pulled the cord suspended next to the bulb, and with a crisp *click*, the room was illuminated by an envelope of light which was slightly masked by the thick layer of dust that seemed to be covering the entire space. 

Standing against a wall in the back of the room stood a single desk accompanied by an old wooden chair. As Morgan made her way towards the fixtures, she noticed a stack of parchment laying on top of the desk. Sitting beside the paper was a polished fountain pen in the color of merlot. It looked odd to her, how every item in this capacity was layered in dust, yet these two mysterious objects seemed like they were brand new, with not even a speck of dust gracing their surfaces. 

Curiosity got the best of her, so she brushed the gray particles off of the chair and sat, glancing between the paper and the pen. Hesitantly, she lifted her arms above the table, hovering over the pen with her right hand, and resting her other hand on the parchment. A moment passed as Morgan thought over the situation in her head, and gradually lowered her hand to pick up the deep red fountain pen. She examined it carefully and grazed the silver symbol of an intricate winter scenery with her thumb.

Almost instantly, she felt the room around her change as she fell to the floor. Except, she wasn’t sitting in the dusty old storage room anymore. With the fountain pen clutched in her right hand and the stack of parchment strewn across the ground near her legs, she noticed that she was in fact, sitting on top of a hill, where big blankets of snow covered the ground and treetops. 

A chill ran through her body as she gathered the heap of paper and stood up, admiring the view. The world that surrounded her was magnificent, it was nothing like she’s even seen before. The luminescence from the brilliant blue sky reflected on the snow white earth beneath her. Mystical animals that she has never seen before stirred around her. Big, cat-like animals with brown streaked hair and wings pounced around in the snow, playing with their cubs in the snow. Tiny little mice with big floppy ears and long rope-like tails scurried around trees and bushes. Albino white phoenixes graced the sky, soaring through the air with their mighty wings, while smaller blue birds flitted from side to side. It was a world like no other. So she did the only thing that came to mind. She began to write.

June 19, 2020 17:44

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3 comments

Jessica X
18:12 Jun 19, 2020

Really amazing story! You've done a really nice job with the imagery in this story! It's unbelievably well written and I like how it goes back in time to show how the main character started writing her book. The place that she appears at sounds so magical yet kind of realistic too! I love what you've done with this prompt! Nice job!! :)

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Matt Jones
21:43 Jun 26, 2020

Hi Joanne, I really liked two things about your piece: The first is the contrast between the protagonist and the world she was leaving behind - it seems like you were very much portraying the world today; how traditions, experience (in this case writers) and old methods are being traded in for cheaper, more popular alternatives, like young people and new, flashier ideas. Which doesn't necessarily mean it is a good thing. I also really loved how the discovery of an old fountain pen, and touching it, instantly transformed Morgan Carrie (...

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Joanne X
16:52 Jun 28, 2020

Hi Matt! Thank you so much for reading my story and for your feedback! I agree, sometimes I try to add too much to some parts of my story to make it sound more "technical" (word wise), but I do tend to overdo it sometimes. I have been trying to work on that, as it's a super important aspect to any great story, so I really appreciate your feedback on this point! Thanks for your kind words!

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