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 113: She thought about the note someone tossed her way.
She thought about the note someone tossed her way. The note warning her that someone was afraid of what abilities she might develop seemed like decent enough advice since she did seem to be developing odd abilities. She thought of the plant and the storm. ‘Although I still don’t know if the storm had anything to do with me.’
She knew she was responsible for the plants as the same thing happened more or less twice. She might have caused a storm once. “Possibly,” she said aloud as she paced. If she repeated the instance in a way she could be sure was her doing then she could believe it. “But testing that out seems like not the best idea in the world at the moment,” Penelope added thinking of Agent Michaelson’s call.
She paused by her notebook and wrote testing abilities on the page at the bottom of her growing list of questions and concerns. She somehow suspected that if she voiced that to Agent Michaelson he would be more than happy to help her test for abilities.
“And having a government agent, even a well meaning one test me seems like the first step in becoming a lab experiment,” Penelope decided.
She began pacing again. ‘Then there is always the grocery store incident and the car in the parking lot.’ Both times she had some sort of internal warning system letting her know something bad was happening or about to happen. It wasn’t something to trust, at least not yet, but it could be helpful.
“And included in the list of abilities,” she added deciding it didn’t need a separate bullet point on the page. “and I have Amelia’s research to help with that.” She told herself.
Regardless of anything else, she would be reading that later today, or at least starting on it.
“The real question is the note,” she decided. Even if the information was true, she didn’t know who sent the note or if they could be trusted.
She paused by her notebook again, picking up the pen. Penelope hesitated. She wasn’t exactly certain how to phrase what she wanted to know. “Person with note,” she added simply.
“I’ll need to figure out actual questions later but it is something of concern,” Penelope said. She didn’t know who the note bearer was and without knowing couldn’t begin to decide if they were trustworthy. “They could also be delivering a note for someone else. Someone who didn’t even want to risk being seen.”
As Penelope put the pen down she noticed the time. Somehow the day managed to slip away from her. Soon the neighbors would be gathering downstairs and having their nightly happy hour. As the sky was clear and not a single rain drop falling, she knew it wouldn’t be cancelled.
“Although I should probably bring a towel.” She suspected that the table and chairs would be wet from the earlier rain. Since time was drawing near, Penelope left off her pacing and her notebook of questions and issues and began assembling her own little tray of goodies to take down. This time she went with crackers and cheese instead of cookies and added a bottle of lemonade and a glass.
She placed all the items on a tray she found in one of the cabinets and then grabbed a towel from the linen closet. It was slightly musty as the linen closet hadn’t been opened in quite some time.
“I should probably take things out and do a grand wash,” she decided. She was certain there were some things that might not be salvageable buried in the linen closet. “Or at least things I don’t want to save.”
She hooked the musty towel over her arm and picked up the tray. As she descended the stairs Penelope realized how little time she spent in getting to know her new home. She expected to mov in and rummage through all of the closets and cupboards to find what was left behind and make the place her own. Instead she was dropped into a sea of mysteries.
Ten til Midnight 