Morning all and happy Monday. Or as happy as Monday’s get I suppose. We are still letting the manuscript rest so I am going through my writing prompts and trying to get basic mini outlines for some of the prompts I would like to see become real stories. I found a bunch from 2025 so I am working with them for the moment. I will post the slightly cleansed up prompt below with the break out underneath. Personally I think that with a bit of work this would be a fun one to use for next year’s fifteen minute novel. Maybe, I would need to add details first as it is a mystery. But for now, I like the break out.
Monday, January 13th: It was smashed into small pieces.
It was smashed into small pieces. Hank stared at the mess of broken bits and twisted wires. He saw the dents in the casings and sat down hard as he stared at it, his knees turning to jelly. He drew in a deep breath and could smell no scent of burning electronics.
He sniffed again, hoping he was wrong.
No.
There was nothing.
It was just a cold cinder block shed at the edge of the property. He could smell cold and a bit of damp, but no burning electronics. This did not overheat. It did not break down. He reached forward and picked up the casing.
He could see the impact dent in the thin metal. ‘Hammer, maybe baseball bat,’ he thought.
He set it delicately to the side and stared at the ruins. Someone did this.
‘Deliberately,’ he thought.
He couldn’t bring himself to say the word out loud. It would make it real in a way he didn’t want. He stared at the shattered remains of the emergency radio, his eyes struggling to believe the truth.
It was gone, nothing inside remained that he could reconnect and fix. Looking at it, he was certain there were some parts that were actually missing.
‘Taken,’ Hank thought. ‘So that even if someone could repair the broken bits it still wouldn’t work.’
His mouth was dry and for a moment all he could do was stare, swallow hard and try to tamp down the rising panic. The avalanche cut off the only road to the nearest town and outside help.
There was always the possibility that the two deaths at the house were natural ones.
‘Twins die at the same time right?’ he thought he remembered some sort of old wives tale about it. He was willing to believe it right now if it would help.
‘Except the doctor thought poison.’
Hank took a deep breath. He stared at the remains of the radio. This tended to lend weight to the doctor’s deliberate death theory rather than accidental. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself.
‘Okay,’ Hank told himself. ‘The twins could have been a target and now there is no point to killing anyone else.’
It was a slightly calming thought. While there were many people in the world who wished him dead, Hank knew that none of them were here. It was in fact why he was here.
‘We have electricity and heat,’ he thought.
The hotel was often cut off for long stretches in the winter and had its own generator as well as backup generator. He looked at the remains of the radio and scrambled to his feet as a new thought hit him.
‘The generators.’
He scrambled to his feet leaving the radio behind. He left the small shack and raced back towards the main building. His feet sunk into the snow and his race back to the house was slowed. His heart pounded.
What if someone destroyed the generator? The snow seemed to weigh him down. It was falling heavily now where there were only a few delicate flakes when he agreed to go to the emergency radio and call for assistance.
‘How long was I in the shed?’ he wondered. He knew he took time to gather himself, to let the shock sink in, and in that time the snow seemed to have erased his path. The sun was going down and he could feel the temperatures dropping.
SETUP: Hank took a job at an out of the way hotel because he wanted to hide from his past. Two of their guests, twins died in the night and the doctor on site thinks poison.
COMPLICATION: An avalanche has cut them off from the only road access, not an unusual occurrence in winter and why they are usually only available for private parties instead of general visitation.
RISING ACTION: When he goes to check on the emergency radio he finds it smashed. He checks on the generators and finds them to be okay, but he secures them and makes certain to hide the keys in a place only he can find so he doesn’t have them on his person. By the time he gets back inside, another death has occurred and the small staff is trying not to panic. He uses his skills to find out more about the party to keep the staff alive.
MEANWHILE: Someone from the party is killing off all the others they invited and plans to kill the staff as well in what looks like an accident involving a gas leak and a fire/explosion.
CLIMAX: Hank faces down the murderer and takes them down to keep the rest of the staff safe.
DENOUEMENT: The roads are cleared and while the others have a story that doesn’t involve him, he knows that some secrets can’t really be kept so before the police arrive he slips out, leaving the hotel behind to seek another safe haven.
Ten til Midnight 