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.
147: They paused while he locked the door and then he led her down the hallway.
They paused while he locked the door and then he led her down the hallway. To her surprise they did not exit the way they entered. They took the hallway in the opposite direction from the receptionist. She wondered if he thought someone else was watching the door.
She decided not to ask. She was content to let him figure out how not to get them blown up.
‘Or shot,’ she thought. People could always resort to guns when car tampering failed. Penelope wondered if she should ask about bullet proof windows. As she followed behind Michaelson, she found that all sorts of ways a person could try to kill another person kept cropping up.
Somehow her brain kept listing them as though determined to hammer home the danger. She kept trying to refute them as they walked.
‘Poison,’ her brain kicked up.
‘I won’t drink or at anything someone else gives me,’ she thought. She recalled the water Michaelson gave her. ‘It was unopened and that sip was the last I will take from someone else for now.’
‘Strangulation,’ her brain said.
‘I’ll keep out of reach of anyone while I am out and then stay inside for a bit.’
The answer was repeated for most of the methods her brain kicked up in the long list of mostly stabbing and strangling related deaths.
‘Gunshot,’ her brain said when the up close methods were done, circling back to projectiles.
‘I’ll stay inside protected spaces,’ she told it,
‘Arrows,’ her brain said.
‘Still projectiles,’ she told it as they reached the outer door. ‘And who is running around the city with bow and arrows?’
Michaelson checked his gun before opening the door. Penelope tried not to let it spook her as she thought about masked men armed with bows and arrows flitting through the city. She followed Michaelson outside and found she was stepping directly into a parking garage. There was a car waiting with the engine running and a man behind the wheel. As the door clanged shut behind them, the man got out.
Michaelson didn’t seem worried and she guessed this was the car they were taking. The guess proved correct as the other man stepped away and the two of them got into the car. Penelope slipped into the passenger’s seat as the other man typed a key code into the pad by the door. ‘478924’ she saw him type. He angled his body to keep the cameras in the garage as well as Michaelson from seeing his number, but Penelope was just far enough away that she could.
‘Bit of a safety flaw that,’ she thought. Somehow it made her feel better about leaving the safety of the building and her thoughts settled. ‘After all, if I know the key code to get in, how secure could it be?’
Penelope fastened her seatbelt. She then frowned as the car felt oddly warm to her. She looked at the control panel. The heater wasn’t on. Penelope lifted a hand to the vent.
Ten til Midnight 