Last week’s challenge: “Down The TV Tropes Rabbit Hole.”
This week’s challenge is short and simple — though perhaps not easy.
I want you to come up with the final sentence of a story.
One sentence. The last line.
Shorter is better than longer. No more than, say, 50 words, please.
Drop the line right in the comment section below.
By next Friday I’ll pick five that I really like and hand out some Digital Swag.
Then we’ll take those five and use them in the next challenge.
Y’dig? Y’dug? Y’DO IT.
316 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: The Last Line Of A Story”
We pretended to be happy for the others sake knowing our paths would never cross again.
If the food runs out before I’m rescued I can always eat my last bullet.
“Shit, fine, you win,” he sighed as the dust of the explosion settled around them. “I DO fail at work-life balance.”
“Yeah,” he said, as he licked the sludge of peanut butter and jelly oozing from between the bread slices. “This really is the best sandwich ever.”
He stepped off the bus, handed the stuffed unicorn to a little girl waiting near the curb, and began the long walk back to the bowling alley.
Win! Love it.
At last the tree stood strong against the current, it’s tentacles stretched up to the surface seeking the sunlight so it could worship once more.
I guess I just went a little mad…it happens.
It had worked perfectly, flawlessly, but his words of triumph were quickly swallowed by the terrifying realization that there was no one left to hear them.
“I was wrong,” he said softly, but of course, it was too late.
Finally, Jimmy turned and walked away from his father, disgust and disappointment evident in every movement of his body.
“Maybe,” he mumbled, as he walked away with my livelihood.
As the wicker gondola pushed gently into the Gobi sand and the deflated balloon draped itself over the dune behind him, Zachary found comfort in the realization that the professor would never find out that she had been right all along.
Fear paralyzed what little was left of me as I realized I may never see or know my own body again.
But what really cooked his noodle is he could have sworn the minah bird had swallowed the key.
He injected the serum into his thigh and hoped for the best.
“If,” said Charlie, “two little letters of doubt and speculation best forgotten once the deed is done.”
Sally picked her victim’s roasted flesh from her teeth savoring this dish of revenge served hot.
Or the basically the same sentence reworded as: Whoever said revenge is best served cold thought Sally, picking the roasted flesh of her victim from her teeth, didn’t know how to cook.
Calliope had only one last thought before her head touched the pillow, who is going to wake me up tomorrow?
Long gentle fingers caressed the soft earth as the light sank slowly behind the hills. The wheels continued in their dark circles and the waves washed over the shore. “And I endure eternally,” she said.
If it helps, the quote is from The Inferno.
And if ever I return to that desolate hole in the earth, I should hope someone will be there there this time around to welcome me home.
And as she walked away with his still beating heart in her left hand, blood dripping from the knife in her right, he couldn’t help but notice just how nice her ass really was.
He turned East, the morning sun filling his vision, and began the long flight home.
In spite of his joy, he had a feeling he’d forgotten something terribly important.
And that was how it had to be.
And so it came to this: he loved her, he lost her, he lost her again, and both realized this would be their story, on endless repeat, their attraction not strong enough to keep them afloat, not weak enough for one to sink beyond the other’s inevitable reach.
Just as surely as mountains rise and empires crumble, the canopic jars will not remain buried forever.
After a long silent stare into each other’s eyes, they simultaneously raised their glasses in the air.
I felt the echoes blasting back at me and all I could do was watch.
Aunt Janet screams; I look upon the scene impassively and wonder if double jeopardy works with grief, too.
“Take it,” she breathed as the clockwork softly whirred, and reset, “I don’t want it anymore.”
If it wasn’t for the inflation the devil could have bribed them.
They restrained me as my brother set himself on fire to bring peace to the clans.
The sunset was stunningly beautiful, the towering clouds every shade of pink and orange, the sky red as fresh blood, the stratosphere thick with the smoke of all of the Earth’s burning cities, while the ghastly white glow of the approaching comet grew ever brighter above the clouds in the east.
[…] Wendig’s “Flash Fiction Challenge” for this week over on his “Terribleminds” blog was simple: I want you to come up with the final […]
This time when Kira left, she didn’t turn around to say goodbye.
She yelled in a whisper, but it no longer mattered.
After he let the ashes trickle through his fingers, he watched the cloud of dust blow away in the wind–marking the end of an era.
His body loosens, falling limp, puppet strings cut; his eyes fade to a glaze of grey blown fuses and with a final burst of breath and an exhaled bloody gargle sigh, the vapor of whiskey escapes his last breath and whisks away into the night.
Here is my entry…
The demon blade no longer at his hip Yoritomo sat again looking at the white glowing eyed gaijin seated across from him, reached out and poured the demon or sorcerer sake inclined his head and smiled; the white man rolled the runed rifle shot and smiled back accepting the drink.
And then when the widow teetered back into the room with the silver serving tray–white porcelain tea pot, finely sliced lemons, nine perfect squares of sugar… but no tea of any kind–something inside me finally connected, softened, and I thought, “Finally, a world I can once again understand.”
She stared off into the night sky from the serenity of her rooftop and thought to herself that this was, without dubiety, her coldest winter.
The story began.
Here’s to hoping the second time I died would be better than the first.
Damn, I’d better hurry.
She closed her eyes and lost herself in the music of the wind.
[…] Last week’s challenge: “The Last Line Of A Story“ […]
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