Our friend and BOD member, Author Monica Enderle Pierce stole the show for the writing prompt below. Check out her winning story!

Original Prompt & Photo can be seen here.

PROMPT: “You’re serious?” Stella stood atop a slide at the long-abandoned amusement park feeling anything but amused. “This is really the only way to get there?”

“You’re serious?” Stella stood atop a slide at the long-abandoned amusement park feeling anything but amused. “This is really the only way to get there?”

“Don’t you want to see the jewels?” Bean whispered in her mind.

“I—I’m afraid.”

“That didn’t keep you from fighting for me.”

Bean. Stella swallowed. She’d tried, but the Watchers had stolen her baby brother anyway. Bean they’d wanted. Bean could soar. Stella they’d thrown away.

She nodded. “If you can fly, so can I.”

“Yeah.” Bean’s sweet voice enfolded her like a hug.

Stella sat at the slide’s edge. Blue and yellow paint—chalky with age—graffitied her palms and gray pants. They looked better that way, like a painting she’d seen when she was little. Before the world had burned. Was that painting gone now? Probably.

“Fly,” Bean said.

Stella pushed off.

She skidded toward the forest below. Fast. She shivered. The scabs on her scalp were sensitive where the razors had cut deeply. Faster. The blue and yellow blurred. Cold air rushed over her face, snapped at her tunic, and whistled in her ears. Something sliced her palm. She screamed. “Bean!”

Then green trees replaced gray sky. Stella hit a bump and pitched forward to tumble head-over-heels-over-head. Pain stole her breath.

“You’re almost free.”

The slide ended at a cliff. “No-no-nooo!”

Stella fell.

Sunlight cut through the clouds to light the world below. Blackened skeletons and broken buildings littered the ground. But a billion shards of glass sparkled in the sunshine—mirrors and windows amid puddles of blood.

“Do you see the jewels?”

Stella flew.

“I see them!”

“There’s treasure in the broken stuff. Like you, Stella.”

She soared.

“Oh, Bean. Thank you.” Stella closed her eyes and didn’t care when the ground rushed up to break her into a thousand pieces.