2019 Writing Challenge

[thefolksbetween]

⭐ The Challenge:
Four times a week, we follow the same prompt to write something at least 150 words in length. It can be over but never under. It can involve any character or no character at all. At least one of the four days must be tailored toward a writing skill that we know we need to work on. The prompts can be from a website or from our brain - one word, many words, a setting/location, or anything that will inspire.

Drabble Header:
Week #, Day #
PROMPT
Name/Canon
Word Count

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⭐ Prompts Week One
Day One: Freak
Day Two: Numb
Day Three: You appear in an infinite white room with nothing but yourself and a piece of paper saying "You have been banned from existence."
Day Four: You run a tattoo parlor. Every couple of weeks, the same customer comes in, always requesting the same tattoo - an additional tally mark on an ever-growing cluster of tally marks.

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⭐ Prompts Week Two
Day One: "I accept no responsibility, and I would do it all again."
Day Two: Try Again
Day Three: Dance/Dancing
Day Four: Venom
(I got that) adrenaline momentum
and I'm not knowin' when I'm ever gonna slow up
and I'm ready to snap any moment.
I'm thinkin' it's time to go get 'em.
They ain't gonna know what hit 'em.

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⭐ Friends:
bullethewords
arabbitholeofwander

Comments

Week 1, Day 1 | FREAK | Ben Hargreeves/The Umbrella Academy | WC:355

[thefolksbetween]

He's heard the word before. Spoken from the bad guys in horror, or from the people they were saving, in fear as they ran. Freak. It was what people called him when the creatures came out to do their job. None of his siblings have ever said it, but sometimes the look on his fathers face made him feel as if he had written it down before.

Perhaps Reginald Hargreeves had never said it out loud, but every time he looked upon Six as he did his training, he sure looked as if the word was right there on the curl of his lips. Ben felt shame for his powers, for the clear nausea it caused their father and others to look upon him while displaying them. He hated them himself. Felt dirty and disgusted by it sometimes. And then he felt guilt, because so far they hadn't done anything to him but keep him safe. His tentacles always took the brunt of the battle and they protected him every time.

He felt guilt for not loving his power more, but he didn't want to be the Freak of the Umbrella Academy.

Maybe that's why he got along with Klaus so well.

He had brought it up to Klaus once when he was younger, scared to admit it but needing to talk about it. Klaus laughed at him and pat his belly, telling him not to worry about what others thought. Ben knew that they both had occult horror powers, but he always assumed Klaus was just well adjusted to his. That was when he learns about the nightmares. The fears of his power. They shared that much in common.

Klaus also taught him to live up to his freakish nature. If he had to be a freak, wear it with pride. Ben wasn't sure he could do it like Klaus did, but he also knew he couldn't imitate Klaus either. Especially after the heels and broken jaw incident. He wouldn't follow in his brothers foot steps, but he would live up to what he was.

A freak of nature and a real awesome guy.

Week 1, Day 2 | NUMB | Ben Hargreeves/The Umbrella Academy | WC:604

[thefolksbetween]

Ben found he went through stages as a ghost. Stages around Klaus. When he first appeared he was upset and happy all at once. He wanted to talk and talk and update his not life with everything the other was doing. Not needing to sleep was a problem though, and Klaus' addictions was another problem.

The far end of the scale was where he was at now. Wanting to nag the other to stay sober. Pushing him to try and deal with his powers and the ghosts around him. If he could push enough to make him get sober and use his powers he could HELP some people. SO he pushed and he nagged and he got pushed back at often enough. Klaus almost never stayed sober.

There was some point in the middle ground that he didn't feel anything at all though. A numbness that hit him at one point that he couldn't explain. He didn't talk as much, and he wasn't nagging yet. He just was.

Ben would sit there in the same room as Klaus, but his interactions were minimal to none. Resting with his hands in his pockets and staring off at nothing. When Klaus was on a bit too much but not enough to disappear him, he'd just sit there, feeling almost stoned himself.

Numb.

It was like being trapped sometimes. Trapped in a small box and unable to get out. He had to stick around Klaus, and Klaus rarely did anything he wanted to do. And he knew it wasn't fair to want Klaus to do shit he wanted. This wasn't his life. He had lost that already. This was Klaus' life and he had no place to make demands of him. He couldn't tell him to go places nor could he tell him to sober up. It wasn't fair.

While sitting with Klaus in Rehab, he sat in the corner of a bunk bed, staring off at nothing. Hoodie up and hands in his pockets. Rehab was just as boring to Ben as it was to Klaus. Sitting in one place for 30 days to try and get clean. It was the loudest he could be, once Klaus was sober. And yet even then he didn't feel up to being much for entertainment. Klaus did what he normally did, schmoozing with the people in Rehab and pushing their boundaries. Ben generally enjoyed watching Klaus be loud and obnoxious, but when he felt too numb to care, he honestly didn't interact or react to it all.

A few times he even saw Klaus snap his fingers in his 'face' to try and get his attention. 'Ghost bro, are you awake?' Ben let out a deep sigh and waved off the hand simply saying "You'll look crazy talking to the air like that." And closed his eyes.

The Numb phase didn't last too long. One too many times of being called emo, perhaps. He hated being dead. It felt slow and everlasting. Like there would never be anything to do that he COULD do. He just had to bare it and realize there wasn't anything to be done. Which is when he started to push Klaus again. Push him to get sober more often. Push him to make good choices. Push past the numbness to something more lively.

Let's go to the Ocean.

Let's go to the Movies.

Anything that wasn't a drug induced coma for Ben. Anything to keep from feeling so numb again. If that meant Klaus got in a bit of trouble, so be it. He'd deal with it with him. Anything to feel alive again.

Week 1, Day 3 | EXISTENCE | Self | WC:712 | Work on: First Person

[thefolksbetween]

"You have been banned from existence." I spoke the words out slowly, reading each one with care, as if my brain didn't quite understand what it was I was reading. "You have been banned from existence." I repeated, trying out each word in a more firm voice.

Curious, I thought, staring at the little white piece of paper with the very firmly stamped typewriter letters on it. I don't remember writing those words when I attempted to fix the errors of my life story. I don't remember this blank white room with these clean white walls and white floors.

As a matter of fact, the floors and walls weren't even there. Nothing was there. Just an expanse of white. I stood there dressed all in pure white, an oddity, I thought to myself, as I never wear white. Too easy to get dirty. Too easy to ruin. The walls were nothing, and I stood on nothing as well. There was no ceiling nor no sky. There was just nothing.

I stood there (or did I float, for if there is no floor to stand on, would that not be floating?) looking around in the stark white space I found myself in.

Banned from existence.

Yet here I was? Is this not existing still? Having a formal full thought about the existence of self?

"Hello?" I called out, though I knew no one would answer. I was, after all, banned from existence. Banned from anything and everyone. How, I wondered, as I started off into white space, feeling as if I were trapped on a clean white page in which to draw a new life on. How did I get here? Who banned me? Was it myself?

I had wished to start anew.

Wished that I had never existed.

There was no bang or collision. There was no meaningful instant of realization. There was just this. A white space and a note.

I looked over the note again. The E was off kilter, like my old typewriter. Had I wrote this myself. Had my wish come true? To ban myself from all things, to protect others from my own existence. Had I managed to abolish all things around me so easy that I ceased to exist?

Or had I finally wished all things around me to be gone? Bringing the end of everything and leaving only myself with my lone thoughts. My depressed mind and morbid imagination. Neither of which would do me much good in a blank space of endless white and nothingness.

I lifted my hand with the note in it, seeing the page slowly fade in my finger tips. Slipping away into nothingness.

I felt alone.

Even just the paper that told me I had been banned was something, and now it was nothing. I existed in a world of nothing, but the words said I existed no longer, so how does one manage? How does one cope? What does one do?

I try to walk, but with new vantage point, no view of anything, it's like I was going no where. Just like I had always thought my life was going. No where. I stop and move to sit, or was I crouching. There was nothing there to sit on, but no gravity to stop me from falling. I floated there in nothing, lost in rambling, jumbled thoughts.

Why was I here?

Who banned me?

Was it a wish?

How long will this last?

Will I fall off into a void of self loathing and depression, or was that gone now as well? If I ceases to exist, does that mean all the self pain and hate stops as well? In this non existence, am I free? Or can I start over again.

I float there feeling as if I could cry, but tears are something and I am in nothing. I no longer exist, and have been banned from everything.

It tingles at first but then feels like nothing. My body starting to fade as if it were the paper. My feet going white to translucent. My legs dissolving into the background. I look at my hands and they too are becoming clear. Soon I melt away into the white.

Banned from existence, I am no more.

Week 1, Day 4 | TATTOO | Self | WC:263

[thefolksbetween]

Tick. Tick tock. Tick. Tick tock.

The ticking of the mans pocket watch reminded me of how much time I had spent on these tiny marks.

He always cam into the shop in a suit, nice, neat and clean. Almost as if part of a mob from the early eras. His hair was brushed back cleanly and his face was shaved perfectly. His nails were filed his shoes were shined. And yet here he was, at my tattoo parlor, asking for another mark.

Each mark was placed on his ankle and if my count was right there were 24 of them now. I was adding the 25th mark, drawing it through 4 others. I didn't ask what they were for, but my mind runs wild with the possibilities.

A hit man for the mob. A sales men marking each successful sale. A air plane pilot, making every conquest from every port of call. It could have been anything.

I wanted to ask, but for some reason that felt wrong. Not because of the idea that I wouldn't want to know the real answer or even that it would be rude? But more for the fact that it was just fun wondering what he did for a living.

Tick tock, his pocket watch ticked. Who used pocket watches now a days anyhow? "Okay, you're all done, Mr. Giuseppe. See you again next week?" I joked likely. He simply winked at me and left a substantial check for the smallest of tattoo marks.

Maybe that was another reason I never asked. The pay was good.