Day 141 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about a childhood experience that changes your character’s life.
Erin: “What’s your secret?”
I thought about what the interviewer was asking. I tried to think of something profound, but all I could think was “my mom.”
“Aww,” she cooed.
I didn’t retract my statement though, because it was true. My mom loved me enough for a lifetime before I was even 12. In her doing that I learned to love myself. The confidence that came with that made me “inspiring” to young women. It was a sad truth, but for that reason I was ecstatic to have the mom that I did so I could be the person I was.
Shannon: “You’re weird, we don’t want you here. Just go home and leave us alone,” Ruby giggled looking down at me from the top slide, still declaring herself queen of the jungle gym. Her two suck-up friends were blocking me from even placing a hand on their newly claimed territory.
They were her puppets, and in the past I used to be too, but looking at it from this angle it didn’t make sense anymore. Why did we always let Ruby tell us what to do, and why did we always let her decide who got singled out everyday? I liked having friends to play with, but we only ever played her games. They weren’t fun and they usually just ended with someone running away crying. Beforehand she had never picked on me, so I could easily let it go. “Fine, I’ll start my own kingdom,” I shouted back. “Feel free to join me the next time she kicks you out,” I directed my offer to Harper and Riley before heading over to my bike. “In my kingdom everyone gets to be queen, or whatever they want to be,” I shouted as I rode off.
That day I vowed to never let anyone make me feel that small and powerless ever again.
How has your character’s past changed their present?
Pelky Sisters 
Whenever I closed my eyes, I dreamt of that moment, so many years ago, when my world was changed forever in a swift, cocoa-scented moment. Finding myself in the same dream, I would wake immediately in a cold sweat with wide, child’s eyes searching the room for secrets. It had taken me years to get over the revelation at the time and I feared this terrifying new land may reset the whole process.
Sneaking down our rickety stairs in my eight-year-old slippers, I’d made my way, silent as a mouse, into our living room where a cheerful fire was blazing away in the fireplace and the stockings hung empty. Blanket wrapped tightly about my shoulders, I lay down behind the couch to wait for Santa to show himself and fell asleep almost instantly. Though there was no one around, I figured my parents had gone to bed so Santa would come, I felt a shiver as though someone were watching me.
A few hours later, long after the embers burned themselves out, there came a commotion and quiet whispering that aroused me from my deep slumber. Yawning and stretching my sore arm, I peered around the fabric furniture and spotted my parents picking up the presents piled under the tree. My mother, who was munching loudly on one of the reindeer’s carrots, was holding a bag full of stocking-stuffers and was carefully filling each with care. Beside her, my father was laying, not taking, the presents out while eating Santa’s special cookies. The two of them appeared to be in cahoots to steal all the Christmas joy I’d put out for the big man!
That was the night I vowed to personally apologize, on behalf of every parent who’d ever taken his place on Christmas Eve, to the big man at the North Pole. Though the images still haunt me as they’re tinted with my child’s eyes of wonder and trust, I suppose it was a silly pivot point to hang my entire career path on.
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Nikki was little when it happened. Back then, no one understood what a gifted person was. They were new to the world, there were so few of them. And all people knew was they were dangerous.
But as mentioned, Nikki was little. She indirectly witnessed a trauma in her home town, which took her mother from her. Her father handed her to her mother’s best friend, Nikki’s god mother, and hoped she could do better than him.
And Nikki didn’t understand. She didn’t know why she couldn’t see her mother, or why Daddy didn’t come back. All she knew was something bad happened, and a bad person with non-human powers was at the center, then both her parents disappeared from her life.
She woke up one night from a terrible dream. She ran out of the house and down the street, looking for her mother. She fell and almost got ran over by a night driver, only to be saved.
Nikki looked up at the person that set her down on the sidewalk. The being was crouched just inside the alley. Her face was dark and her hair was black and braided. Her clothes looked torn in a few places. But her eyes were glowing, with a little blue around the centers. She was smiling softly at Nikki.
Nikki stands up and thanks the woman. But then she starts to cry. “I don’t know the way home,” she says, “It’s too dark.”
The woman then stands, and flips a hood over her head. She takes Nikki’s arms and a light comes out of the long sleeve of the strange woman’s coat. Nikki pulls the fabric away in curiosity, finding the woman’s hand is lit up on its own. The woman helps Nikki back home. Before Nikki goes inside to her god mother’s calls, the woman turns the young girl to look at her.
“People fear the unknown little one, but the unknown is not always there to frighten people,” she says. Nikki smiles at her. The woman then stands and walks away, her light giving Nikki hope, and respect.
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