Day 56 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Your character is experiencing one emotion very intensely.
Shannon: Karen was excited. She didn’t know why. She wasn’t doing anything particularly different today than she did any other day, yet she felt the buzz of a spark running through her veins. Maybe she was sensing something that was about to happen, maybe it just couldn’t be explained. Either way she couldn’t calm herself.
Erin: When I walked into the door Ronald’s head spun 365 degrees. “What is wrong with you,” I questioned.
“I thought you were someone else,” his hands literally shook.
“Who did you think I was,” I asked placing a hand on his shoulder, he jerked away from my touch.
“There’s been a strange man following me around all day,” his eyes were frozen out the window.
“Where,” I asked trying to touch him again before he would try to run.
“At the doctor’s office, the man in the waiting room was staring at me,” he explained. “He looked like he was possessed.”
“He was probably sick I reminded,” he immediately shook his head violently.
“I saw a bald-headed man, which mind you was what the man at the doctor had, rushing away from me at the store,” he seemed to be replaying the incident in his head.
“Was he just trying to get out of the cereal aisle quickly,” I offered.
“Then a SUV with tinted windows followed me for 50% of my commute home,” he added.
“You’re acting a little paranoid,” I underexaggerated as I looked at my husband who was picking at his already bleeding finger.
“Paranoia is an exaggeration. Someone is seriously trying to kill me,” he took out his phone, but dropped it on the floor in the process.
“Now he’s trying to kill you?”
Your character is overwhelmed in an emotion, what’s your pick?
Pelky Sisters 
Kate: This is only the first part of this short story; the other half got a little darker than I was expecting so I’m not going to post it here. This half still has Lily feeling an emotion strongly so I feel it’s enough to just post this part.
I woke up cold, damp and alone in the dark. All around I could hear humming with nothing in sight but flecks of pitch laid into an ocean of onyx. As my heartrate began to climb, a terribly disturbing feeling settled into the pit of my stomache like a bad dream and I felt around with numb fingers. Beside me I could sense the frozen concrete give way to slick mud and, beyond that, was a wall covered in squishy moss. When my deadened hand clambered up the wall I felt something wriggling touch me and screamed.
Instead of a high-pitched shriek, the only sound that came from my parched mouth was a gasp similar to a cough. Rending my arm back against my chest I tried to speak and let out a second tired sob, the force making my head pound. I took in a few almost-deep breaths in the unknown space, tasting brine and dust, to calm myself enough for silent magick. Though I had nothing here to concentrate on, the type of spell I was attempting would take all the focus I could muster.
When I could no longer see my pulse hammering wildly behind my eyeballs I shut my lids and focused all my energy on the space between my outstretched fingers. “Light be mine, light my way, light of life. Lux mea est, illustrent via, lux vitae,” I chanted in my mind, allowing the space in my head brim with warmth and radiance. Sunlight licked gently at my closed eyelids, exposing whatever hole I was in, and I basked in the comforting glow for a moment.
It was so lovely and peaceful that when I finally opened my eyes and took in my present situation I wished for the ignorance of darkness back. But it was too late; I’d seen where I was and I couldn’t get the image out of my head not matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut. Before my lay the scattered remains of what appeared to be hundreds of people, mostly in bone form. Without the ability to scream I could feel the horror in my rapid pulse, shallow breathing and involuntary backward momentum.
I was leaning against the solid wooden door before I could think, with my thin dress dampening at the hem. Still hovering a few feet from me was a tiny brilliant star, glittering benignly amidst such carnage, casting odd shadows on the bones. Shivering, I felt the door for enchantments but found the frosty wood clean of any spells or sigils. Without glancing at the decimated corpses I stood on shaky legs and shoved the door open.
Immediately the orb of light faded into oblivion and I was thrown back into near-darkness with nothing to go on but a faint memory of Serena’s basement. There was a pause where I stepped across the threshold and the door slammed shut behind me, triggering some sort of noisy mechanism that whizzed around the room. When whatever it was finally landed, popping noises reverberating around the enclosed space, they lit ten pillar candles around the room.
Drama really was a villain’s best friend, though I suspected this setup wasn’t entirely my cousin’s idea; this convoluted operation was exactly what Hugo would have done. I took a few more tentative steps toward the door, and into the middle of the circle of light. As an eleventh candle came to life behind me, closing the circle, I felt the atmosphere change. Scratched into the solid concrete were symbols I couldn’t begin to describe with candlewax melted into the crevasses; they practically burned with power.
Around the circle a serpent slithered swiftly, flicking its alabaster tail about hypnotically. Tensely, I shuffled around to keep an eye on it, not trusting the slippery demon to stay on that side of the sigil. But as I became dizzy I realized perhaps the snake wasn’t the dangerous part of the trap and scanned the symbols for familiar lines. I realized quickly that they weren’t modern enough to be written up in texts from this realm and sighed, defeated.
Whatever Serena and Hugo were up to, I was just going to have to play along until I could plot my escape. The air was thick with the tang of ocean spray and the intoxicating scents coming off the candles but I was determined to stay fully conscious.
As I attempted to read the Latin inscription on a stout grey candle the snake made its move, launching onto my leg and slicing through the flesh right to the bone. Razor picks dug in as it wrapped around my bare ankle, squeezing tightly. Falling to my knees, surprised at how rapidly the venom spread, I held onto my consciousness as long as I could bear before passing out into blackness.
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Created to Write:
Heather looks out her window again. The soft sloping hills greet her, with the fence bordering the lawn and a dirt road stretching into the distance on the left. The sky is an impossible light blue, so much so it almost looks white. The ground is coated in a thick blanket of white, where green would be if it was summer. The room itself is shades of purple, with highlights of green and blue.
This is Heather’s home. But she is not at peace.
The door is firmly shut, locked from the inside. She has the power here, she decides who can come close. She sits there, in the wheelchair, the only movement is her languid heartbeat. She looks out the window, without truly seeing.
She came home because it was her constant, her safe haven. No matter what happened, she could come home and find herself again.
And so she is home. But what did she find?
Nothing.
She doesn’t feel a change, but maybe that’s because this is different.
The farm hasn’t changed from the last time she saw it. …She has.
And far too much for hope.
She can’t do what she used to. She can’t pretend life never took a turn for the crazy. She can’t pretend that nothing is wrong.
Because the presence of the wheelchair, and her dependence on it, is what keeps her from moving. The pain in her leg, and the knowledge that it will never heal, is crushing. And the nightmares that plague her sleep keep her up at night, staring out the window until the blue sky replaces dulling stars.
Even with her grandparents knocking every so often each day, asking her to let them in, or to come eat…
Even with her cousin who knows nothing of her past…
Even with Sammy, and Blaze, and Storm, and all the other animals…
Even with her phone ringing so much that she hid it in the farthest part of her room…
Heather has ceased to feel much of anything.
The only she can seem to feel, is alone.
And she doesn’t know why.
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