Another great BOD author took the win for last week’s Writing Prompt. Check out the original photo prompt: here. 

Congratulations Hanna Elizabeth! Great job! Your story was original and clever. 

I walked into what I was hoping would be a safe haven but there was already someone inside. He looked up and pulling off his mask, said, “Well, this is awkward.”

I gawked. “But. What? What’s going on here?” I stumbled over the jumbled thoughts pouring from my mouth like water. “I don’t understand. You’re…” I broke off, my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t finish the thought.

“Yep. That’s right.”

“But how?”

“You got me. But you’re not the first to traipse through here.”

“What? There’s more?”

“You’ve seen them.”

“I don’t understand. Seen who?” Really needing for him to say the words that lodged in my head and refused to let go.

“Those people out there, you been killin. Who do you think they are?”

The horror sunk all the way to my toes, rooting me to the dirt-covered floorboards. Bending over, I dry-heaved, thankful my stomach was empty.

“Now. Now. You couldn’t have known. I mean, how could you?”

“But. You’re…” There it was again. That same damned word. The one my brain refused to acknowledge. ‘Just say it!’ I screamed at myself. But I couldn’t.

“Why don’t you sit down. You’re as white as a sheet.”

I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to run, but my traitorous body moved to the bed along the wall, my knees creaking as I sat. Cradling my head in my blood and dirt-streaked hands, I said, “I’ve killed so many.”

“There, there. We all have.”

“How’d you get here?”

“The same way as you, I reckon. I woke up this morning and the shooting had already started. I fled. Ended up here.”

Swallowing hard, I managed, “So, we’re at war with ourselves?”

“It would seem that way.”

“I don’t understand, are y’all clones?”

“Hey now, maybe you’re the clone.”

“Well, that’s insulting,” I muttered.

“I thought so,” he said.