For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 73: ‘I really need to find out if anyone really is after me,’ she thought.
‘I really need to find out if anyone really is after me,’ she thought. She knew she couldn’t keep up this level of paranoid suspicion every time she went out. She picked up her purse and slipped her keys into her pocket as she exited the car. She locked the car door and stepped away. She wondered if that strange feeling would warn her if something was going to happen. She didn’t know if it was reliable or not.
‘Amelia thought it was reliable, but then everyone said it couldn’t be a magical skill,’ Penelope shrugged. She would think about magic later. For now, she needed to deal with the world of finance, specifically her bank account.
Penelope went into the bank and after a brief questioning of the teller was shown to the office of Mr. Alvis Fairchild. To her surprise, he was the bank manager. He hadn’t mentioned that on the phone.
“Ms. Douglas,” he said, welcoming her in. “Please come in.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” Penelope said. “I didn’t expect the bank manager to deal with a fraudulent charge personally.”
“Ah yes,” he said. Fairchild closed the office door and walked around to sit behind his desk. “Much as the law office handling your inheritance deals with certain families, this bank does as well.”
He lifted his left hand and twirled it in the air sending a circle of silver sparks spiraling to the ceiling.
“I understand,” Penelope said as the sparks faded. “Although I must admit I am still on the strange dream phase rather than the sparkly one.”
Fairchild laughed. “I understand. I had months of the dreams before anything happened and I was convinced everyone was wrong about me. Then one day, poof.”
“That is encouraging,” Penelope said.
He smiled and then turned serious. “This afternoon we had someone try to use your former password to get into your account.”
“I changed them when everything was transferred,” Penelope said. She had always used this bank. The fund set aside for her education came from here and so it seemed natural to use it. When everything was combined she updated all of her information including her password.
“Yes the account that was attempted was the one set aside earlier and administered by your family instead of the trustees. We, due to our additional resources have extra ways of tracking who attempted to access the account and we tracked it to your former residence.”
“I see,” Penelope said. She knew that the account set up for her educational fund had been tapped before. By the time she was ready for college it was depleted enough that it paid for tuition but nothing else. She had to get a part time job to pay for her books and other necessities. It was also why she lived at home during her schooling.
Ten til Midnight 