Wednesday, 25 October 2023

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 310

This week's picture prompt was created by Jeffrey Smith, it's called Summoned. I used one of his recently on Week 307 & couldn't miss this one with the build up to Halloween! He has some incredible art worth checking out.  

A short dark one this week, with an edge of hope. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.


A painting of a muddy field scattered with orange pumpkins and a tree in the middle ablaze in orange flames, shaped like a pumpkin, and yellow flames depicting the eyes & sinister grin of a jack o lantern pumpkin. Above the dark swirl clouds in the sky allow a full moon to peep through over the top of the tree. A man stands under the tree, one hand on it, looking out behind him to a dense forest of fir trees on either side.  Created by Jeffrey Smith

The Hunt

From our hidden burrow we saw it; the sequel had gone up to call them to him. It blazed with its evil grin and we shivered in the darkness.

We could hear the rumblings of the others coming to the call. All the depraved and twisted faces flashing past, lit up by the burning orange light making them more grotesque than normal.

We scuttled deeper under ground, running this way and that, hoping to be far enough away by the time they were gathered ready for their hunt – their ‘trick or treat’ as they liked to call it.

Both were for their benefit: the trick was to catch us, the treat was to eat us. Our bodies would join the blaze in the field. We only hoped they weren’t fast enough, clever enough, or thin enough to find us.

Some of us climbed trees, becoming like four legged creatures as we scurried to the tallest limbs. They rarely looked up making it would be the safest way. They would be expecting us to be underground, where we had burrowed for generations, since they cast our goodness out. And there would be weak among us who would not manage to remain hidden and from the tree tops we would watch their sacrifice as they were torn and roasted.

The only hope was that each year there were less of them and more of us. They were dying out, along with their rituals, which took place is fewer places. Each year they looked more ragged and feeble, some only there to watch, no longer able to walk. As they fed on our weakest, we grew in strength.

Our time would come soon and the only thing ablaze would be the remains of their lives.


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