Flash Fiction Challenge: The Last Line Of A Story


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”

  1. “Shit, fine, you win,” he sighed as the dust of the explosion settled around them. “I DO fail at work-life balance.”

  2. “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.”

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. “If,” said Charlie, “two little letters of doubt and speculation best forgotten once the deed is done.”

  8. 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.

  9. Calliope had only one last thought before her head touched the pillow, who is going to wake me up tomorrow?

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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.

  16. 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.”

  17. 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.

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