The Fifteen Minute Novel is an attempt to take a single prompt and use the last sentence written each day as a start for the next day. This year I had several prompts circling around a similar story, so I have combined them. However, the story starts the same way each day, with the last line from the day before and a timer set for fifteen minutes. The hope is to end up with a complete, if very rough draft by the end of the year. Some stories are better than others, but I always learn a whole lot about my own writing when I do this so for me it is not only a nice way to work out a story, but it is a tool for helping my writing get better. And so, we continue this story for 2024 with…
Day 254: She shivered.
She shivered. Sophie felt a blanket being wrapped around her shoulders but she couldn’t stop looking at the hole in the window. Kristen had actually shot at her. The holes in the door could have been just aimed at breaking through the lock.
‘But then she aimed at the bedroom window once she saw me.’
Sophie blinked. There were people moving through her apartment. They were taking pictures and picking the bullet out of her couch and out of her bedroom wall. She took a deep breath and found herself absurdly grateful that her apartment smelled of lemon scented cleaner instead of barbeque sauce. ‘Even the pickle juice smell faded.’
Somehow the though steadied her. She still felt somewhat fragile inside, but she was able to think past the fear. Kristen smashed up her apartment and she fixed it. She shot into the apartment but did not hit her and this too would be fixed.
‘As long as Kristen is locked up,’ Sophie thought.
She swallowed and looked to the officer near her. “What will happen to Kristen?” She asked. “She won’t be able to just pay a fine and make it go away will she?”
“I doubt it,” he said. He looked around and Sophie followed his gaze. The detective who was dealing with her car was walking in.
“At least the car is safe,” Sophie said as he walked over. He let out a harsh snort of laughter.
“Yeah, it’s safe,” he told her. “And you should be getting it back very soon.”
“Because it can’t be sabotaged again?” Sophie asked.
“Hopefully not,” he said. “We will need you to make a statement.”
Sophie nodded. “I can do that.”
He looked around and spotted the chairs at her small two seater kitchen table. He picked one up and walked it next to her coffee table, He then sat down and took out a notebook.
“Why don’t we start with when you left the station,” he said.
Sophie nodded and found thinking about the mundane shopping trip helped steady her. Replacing a coffee pot was a normal thing. Appliances broke all the time. Not usually due to home invasions, but still it wasn’t that out there.
“We got the coffee pot,” she told him feeling steadier. “Then I picked up a slip cover so I wouldn’t have to see the stitches in the couch until I could make new covers for the cushions.” Sophie blinked, her gaze slipped towards the arm of the couch remembering there was now a bullet hole in the slip cover.
“Where did you go after?” he asked.
Sophie blinked and looked back at him, focusing. “The grocery store,” she told him. Again thinking of the mundane errands calmed her. She told him about cleaning up and thinking about how to sort out the spilled beads and then hearing the knock on the door. He nodded and wrote notes down although she doubted he was interested in her sorting of sewing supplies.
Sophie repeated the conversation she had with Kristen. “She looked so unhinged,” Sophie said. She shook her head remembering the crazy look in Kristen’s eyes.
Ten til Midnight 