Complete this sentence for today’s writing prompt: “When I woke up this morning…” Keep reading to see the full writing prompt and my completed version of it.
Today’s Writing Prompt: When I woke up this morning…
Today, start writing by completing the sentence: “When I woke up this morning…” Today’s writing prompt is about suspense and mystery. Try to incorporate an element of suspense into your writing.
Completed Version of Today’s Writing Prompt
Not a False Alarm, by K.E. Creighton
When I woke up this morning, I smelled smoke. At first, I thought my wife was burning the toast again, so I wasn’t alarmed and didn’t even open my eyes. I just stayed in bed, not wanting to get up yet. Yesterday was brutal. We had received at least half a dozen prank calls to the fire department where I work. So we had been running around, responding to calls every hour, with no fires to put out.
I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to buy a new toaster on the way home from work yesterday, one that doesn’t burn toast or set off the fire alarm every time we use it, but I forgot. Again. Along with some other random household items. Then, just like that, my day began whether I wanted it to or not, with a steady stream of lists rolling through my exhausted mind.
When I opened my mouth wide enough to yawn, smoke filled my lungs and I started coughing. My eyes shot wide open and I jumped out of bed. There was smoke billowing into the room from underneath the door. And my wife was nowhere in sight. I had to get to her and Rachel. But if there was this much smoke in my room already, I would pass out from the smoke in the hall outside the door before I could reach them if I opened it. I would have to climb out the window.
I quickly put on a pair of pants and a t-shirt that were on the floor from the night before and opened the bedroom window. Neighbors were congregated at the end of my driveway and I could already hear sirens in the distance. Luckily our bedroom was just above the covered front porch, so I jumped onto the roof of the porch before jumping off the roof and rolling onto the lawn. It wasn’t the most graceful landing, but I didn’t twist or break anything.
As I turned to head into the house again to find my wife and daughter, I noticed that my wife’s van was no longer parked in the driveway. And I saw that the entire first floor was completely engulfed in flames. What now? Without my team and my gear, I didn’t know what to do.
“I saw her drive off with Rachel in the van about ten minutes ago, Tom,” my neighbor, Sue, from across the street said as she walked up behind me. After she said that, all I could do was stand there questioning everything about my wife and the past twenty-four hours, as I watched my entire life go down in flames and the firetruck arrived.
[All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton and Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. All names and locations referred to are the product of the author’s imagination and are used entirely for fictional purposes. Any similarities to real-life persons or places are purely coincidental.]
Notes on Completing this Writing Prompt
I liked today’s writing prompt because it can go in a variety of different directions. I wanted to go in a more dramatic direction, apparently.