5 min Writing Prompt "Image by @the.artist-98" #freewrite Chapter Twenty Five

Something about the sight of the queen in the painting, gazing out at him from beside her king's empty throne, makes him feel a terrible churning in his chest that rises through his neck up into his head. He turns away from the painting, his thoughts spinning, and lurches through the cabin space, looking for anything to distract him from this onrush of anxiety.

You left me… Through the museum of time ridden artifacts, within the hold of this descending underwater duck submarine he stumbles and crashes, blindly seeking - what? He doesn't know. He has no knowledge of painted queens or their lost kings! He doesn't even know his own name…

Eventually he makes his way to a door marked BASEMENT. How can a submarine have a basement? Nonetheless he pulls the door open and sees a stairway leading down into darkness. There is a flashlight affixed to the wall next to the door. He lifts the flashlight and switches it on, before making his way down the stairs.

The basement is all concrete and iron pipes, in stark contrast to the wood panelled walls above. Before him the flashlight casts a bluish glow, creating an eery otherworldly sense to his surroundings, as if that was any more possible at this point.

And as he moves cautiously along he can feel himself changing. He's different, somehow. His hair feels shorter, and his nose seems to have shrunk, and he feels skinnier. Of course this can't be true. But as he continues through the basement a nagging involuntary thought keeps crowding into his mind: She's changing me towards her…

---

Twenty Fifth chapter in an ongoing serial based on @mariannewest's daily #freewrite writing prompts. Here are the previous chapters listed below:

Chapter One>Chapter Two>Chapter Three>Chapter Four

Chapter Five>Chapter Six>Chapter Seven>Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine>Chapter Ten>Chapter Eleven>Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen>Chapter Fourteen>Chapter Fifteen>Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen>Chapter Eighteen>Chapter Nineteen>Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One>Chapter Twenty Two>Chapter Twenty Three>Chapter Twenty Four

And here is Chapter Twenty Six.


Written in five minutes from the writing prompt, "Image by @the.artist-98" as part of the #freewrite exercise. Needless to say but I'll say it anyway, today's image is by @the.artist-98. You can view the prompt here and check out the other entries; every one is an original work of art. Thanks to @mariannewest for creating and running this ongoing visualization exercise.