A Prompted Story by /u/prompted-writing
You woke up, took one look at the *thing* standing at the foot of your bed... and promptly went back to sleep. Damnit, it's too early in the morning for this shit.
(reddit link)
Annie tries to keep hold of the feeling as the dream details fade. She was chasing something, or was it someone. It wasn't a frantic chase, not fearful or desprate or angry. It was the pleasant kind of pursuit, secure and safe. Towards happiness. An easter egg hunt as a child, or hide and seek with a lover who isn't trying very hard.
But conciousness is unrelenting and she can only savour the feeling a few moments before the real memories flood back. The blood. The screams and the silence. The panic, the fear, the mud, the weight of the body. Her eyes shoot open and there it is, at the foot of her bed. The Thing. Thirty kilos of gold and precious stones, forged into an abstract swirl that idiots believed was art.
It still smelled of the bleach she bathed it in, a final attempt at destroying evidence before exhaustion had overcome her. That memory triggers another, also fading fast. She'd woken earlier, an hour ago, two? Somehow she'd managed to forget what it was, what it impled, and had retreated back into dream. It had been too early for this shit. This shit she'd burried herself in last night in a single moment of greed and desperation. This shit that would destroy her life or remake it.
There was no more time for retreat, no more pretending this was just another shitty morning. Someone would have noticed the artist missing by now. How long before the police started questioning everyone connected to the gallery? How long before they checked alibis? How long before they searched her house? The feelings, both the good and the bad, faded to a whisper as her mind focused on the problem. She was going to get away with this. She had work to do.
Annie glanced at the clock.
"Robert", she called out, voice croaking, "do you need a ride to school today?"