The Prompt
In a mysterious valley, two rival abbeys of nuns and monks serving the same strange god play a secret game unbeknownst to their superiors. When the stakes for the game become souls, how can the game be ended — and the debts to the demon of chance be paid?
The Author
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She is the author of speculative fiction novels ‘Beneath the Rising’ (2020), ‘A Broken Darkness’ (2021), and novellas ‘These Lifeless Things’ (2021), ‘And What Can We Offer You Tonight’ (2021), and ‘The Annual Migration of Clouds’ (2021).
Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of venues and she can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus and on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
This prompt didn’t resonate with me so I picked out the words I liked (mysterious valley, rival abbeys, secret game) and wrote from there. Could become a very long story! I managed to write to the end of a dramatic scene which hinted at what came before. A win for me, since I tend to make the intro go on and on without ever reaching the end.
Excellent way to keep writing when the prompt doesn’t do it for you.
What a fun prompt! Not knowing where to go with the story … I just let the writing unfold the story. I have some good bones here. I’m a newbie to the challenge – it’s very challenging to write one a day. I’m going to continue to write to all the prompts if it takes me 2 months to do. Maybe next challenge I’ll be able to keep up better. We’ll see. I am enjoying it because it stretches my imagination. My other writing is coming along well so .. I’ll continue to stick with it.
These stories are taking me longer and longer to work out! I had to tweak this prompt to make it work. But in the end, I had a lot of fun, and wrote something humorous for a change. It has a writing theme, so you all might appreciate it:
https://slforrester.com/2021/05/08/literature-liturgy/
https://lyncrain.com/2021/05/08/story-a-day-day-8/
I saw immense potential in Premee Mohamed’s prompt and jumped right into it, but half way through I realized that I had nearly a thousand words and needed another thousand – at least – to finish the story that was in my head. I was also motivated by the constant appearances of angels in the Bible whose sole function was to impregnate certain ‘chosen’ women. In every other ancient culture, such as the pregnancy that bore Alexander the Great at a time when his father, Philip II of Macedon, was away, the conception was always attributed to a god. Zeus, for example, was known for not being able to resist available – or unavailable – women!
So I chose a ‘dark’ angel posing as the messenger of God and saw the potential of a double, perhaps even a triple-layered betrayal. So much fun to write it. Even though the story remains in an unedited format, it is available at https://www.facebook.com/IntuitionIntellectReport
There are links on site to my published stories on the books and writing page
I had so much fun with this prompt!
https://tammysreadinglife.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/day-8-story-challenge/
Tammy, I followed your links and found lots of descriptions of your process but not a single story. Am I missing a link or are the actual stories not posted? I would love to read some. On my comment you can find a direct link to mine.
I do not post my stories online because they are considered published that way.
Today’s story surprised me. It is set in the Valley of the Gods, where the twin Gods of Day Sky and Night Sky are worshiped by Brother Monks (by day) and Sister Nuns (by night). One Brother and One Sister meet up at the trap they set to catch something forbidden. They end up doing something else a little naughty, only to have their sacrificial prey escape, causing them to flee their valley and all they know as man and wife. They return with their child as sacrifice to the twin Gods a year later.