Genre Scribes: Friday Fiction Writing Challenge #35 — Bronze

Welcome to #35 of the Friday Fiction Writing Challenge! Here’s a complete list of all the posts so far. Feel free to join in (see end of post for info).

Today’s word didn’t lend itself to any immediate story ideas for previous characters, so I decided to start afresh with the introduction of a new character, Maddie. She feels like a character I’d like to spend some more time with–prompt words willing. 🧐

This week’s prompt word is: Bronze

Maddie tightened her fist around the report that contained all her detailed findings. The report where her name had been magically replaced with John Brampton’s.

“John trained you, it’s only natural you picked up his phraseology. Every year or so, someone makes this kind of accusation, and every time they retract it when they realize they’ve soaked up John’s style,” said Donnie, the Research Center’s administrative head.

“Does this wee speech ever work? What’s he got on you, huh? Must be something juicy.”

Donnie stepped toward her, jutting his chin up toward her face. “Work this out, or you’re out on your arse.” He spun on his heel and marched down the corridor with more swagger than his five-foot frame could accommodate, and called over his shoulder, “John’s a reasonable man, he’ll accept your apology with grace.”

The little shit expected her to apologize to that thief? Not gonna happen. What she was going to do was strangle Brampton with his pretentious bow tie. Wait, strangling was too merciful for him; he needed to suffer. Something poetic.

She stormed down the hallway toward Brampton’s office, blanking the baseball-capped apprentice who wisely body-swerved her.

Brampton’s office door was shut, and Maddie barged right in. She’d hoped to elicit a yelp from him, but he didn’t even flinch. A metallic tang hung in the air, mingled with the stench of an open sewer. She stepped closer. “John, you okay?”

She jumped away. One of the bronze age daggers she had found protruded from John’s gut.

“What did you do?” Donnie demanded with a healthy dose of caution from the doorway.

Maddie dragged her eyes from the horror show before her. “I didn’t do this. You’ve got to believe me.”

Sirens pierced the air; she didn’t have time to convince anyone. With her history, no one would believe her anyway. Adrenaline flooded her system as every fiber of her being screamed run.

Thanks for reading and have fun this weekend!

How To Join In:

• Using the prompt, write a maximum of 250-ish words–don’t fret over the count–of fiction. (This can be a scene, flash fiction, some dialogue, a bit of description, etc.)
• Link to this post in your post.
• Add the tags ffwc, genre scribes, and the genre your post is in.
• The deadline is 6 PM the following Friday.

Full information is on the Genre Scribes: Friday Fiction Writing Challenge page.