Mirage

~ Nortina S.

We were within a mile-and-a-half of the service roads when we found it. Micah sprinted for the Jeep, climbed over the passenger seat, and raided the snacks in the back. Finding half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he ripped open the plastic bag and stuffed the sandwich into his mouth, the filling oozing from between the two slices of bread, down his wrists.

“Something’s not right,” I said.

“What’s not right is that cloud.” He pointed toward the darkening sky, giving the illusion of twilight, though it was just after one in the afternoon. “We’ll be buried under eight feet of snow by nightfall if we don’t leave now.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that we’ve been wandering around this mountain for hours with no luck. Then suddenly…the car’s just here?” A large boulder rested about ten yards in front of the Jeep. A carpet of moss covered the side of the rock facing south, while the northern face was blanketed in snow. “I know I’ve seen that rock before.”

“Micah rolled his eyes. “When we parked here! Now get in. I’m ’bout to freeze!”

I followed his command and cranked the engine as a rumble of thunder shook the ground, and the sky was instantly pitch black.

word count: 197

—Nortina

ffpf_3Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner is a weekly challenge for writers to create a story in under 200 words using the provided photo prompt and introductory sentence as their ‘muse.’ Click the froggy icon to read other stories inspired by the photo and add your own.

20 thoughts on “Mirage”

    1. Thanks, Yolanda! I can’t imagine how terrifying that was for you. Whenever I’m caught in the pitch black, I’m reminded that I never quite got over my childhood fear of the dark, haha!

      Like

      Reply

  2. Seems like something scary could happen to them. Especially with sky going so dark at the end. Hoping they’re going to be okay but guessing not. Great write Nortina.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Let me know I'm not talking to myself.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.