Writing Prompt – Day 13

We’ve made it to the middle of the week! Hope everyone is doing well!!

Sooo… here we go with the thirteenth day of writing prompts!

You hear news of your next-door neighbor vanishing without a trace.

my example :

I walked outside, hugging my arms around myself as I stared at the circus of police officers surrounding my neighbor’s house. A twinge of guilt ate at me as I examined the scene. I hugged my jacket around me tighter. The chill in the air was biting at me, although I wasn’t sure if I had chills from the cold weather or from the gut-feeling forcing its way to the center of my conscious. I watched as a lady officer approached my porch.

“Good morning officer,” I nodded. “Can I ask what’s going on over there?”

“Ahh, quite a lot. I’m afraid I can’t disclose too much information but what I can tell you is your dear neighbor there is missing. That’s actually why I’m here. I’m Officer Daisy,” she said, shaking my hand. “Can I have a minute of your time?”

A lump formed in the back of my throat but I forced it down. I had to remain calm. I smiled, “Of course. Would you like to come in, we can talk in there? It’s a bit nippy out here today.” I turned too quickly without waiting for an answer.

Holding the door open for Officer Daisy – what kind of name was that anyway? – I screamed at myself in my head. A smile? Really? A smile seemed too suspicious after hearing news of a neighbor’s disappearance, and yet I so stupidly plastered one on my face. I might as well announce out loud that I’m partially guilty.

I closed the door behind me. “Would you like anything to drink? Water, coffee, tea?”

“No, no. Thank you though. I won’t be too long,” she said, pulling out a notepad and a pen to take notes.

I gestured for her to take a seat on the couch and I sat in the recliner across from her. “How can I be of help Officer?”

“Last night, was there anything that seemed out of the ordinary? Maybe you heard something coming from Nancy’s house? A strange car? Anything that seemed suspicious?”

I played it off as if I was retrieving memories of last night. “Hmm, no, I’m sorry. I can’t say that there was. I came home from work and like I always do, I immediately came in the house, kicked my shoes off, and that was that for the night. I always close the curtains when I come home and to be honest, I don’t pay much attention to the neighbors.” I finished with an apologetic look.

Officer Daisy looked disappointed. “Okay,” she said, staring at me for a brief moment.

I hope I had a better poker face than how I was feeling inside. If it wasn’t for her brief stare, I would have coasted through this, but I couldn’t help feeling uneasy under her intense gaze. If she did sense anything from me though, she hid it well.

“Well alright then,” she said, closing her notepad. “Listen, if you think of anything or hear of anything, anything at all, please give us a call. That would be a huge help.” She stood up and handed me a card with her number on it.

I nodded. The thing is, I knew all the information she needed to crack the case. But in telling her that information, I would risk getting my own self in trouble. And I just wasn’t willing to take the risk for Nancy.

Sorry Nancy.

I last-minute decided to try recovering from the inappropriate smile I gave the officer earlier. I quickly frowned and made sure to soften my voice. “I sure will, if I do think of anything that is. I sure hope you guys find her. Nancy is a wonderful person.”

Officer Daisy nodded and thanked me for my time. She even wished me to have a good day. A good sign hopefully.

I escorted her to the door, closing it behind her, and leaned against it. Why did I have to go outside in the first place? How stupid could I actually be? But I can’t go back now.

I acted the best I could with no time to prepare. Now I just hope like hell Officer Daisy bought it.

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Okay pals, times up!

The funny thing about this one is that as I was writing this, I had no intention of going in the direction I went with it, but I allowed the words to take me where they wanted to go. That actually made it even more fun and interesting to write!

How about you? How did yours turn out?

I would love to hear it in the comments below!

& as always, if you have a suggestion for a writing prompt, feel free to suggest one in the comments or you can click here to send your prompt idea my way! I will surely use it in a future post. (:

That’s it for today. I’ll see you guys back tomorrow for another day of creative writing! (;

We have a calling to write & together we will make our dreams come true – one prompt at a time!