This 100 word micro-fiction story was a submission to the NYC Midnight writing contest. The prompts were as followed: genre: horror, action: making a down payment, needed word: piece.
Unfortunately the story didn’t rank in the winning top fifteen, but it still felt worthy of being read.
A funny bit of information about myself: I grew up loving horror (Stephen King for example), and any media that had a surreal, supernatural, or unexplainable plot (House of Leaves/Mark Z. Danielewski for example). These days, I find myself mostly avoiding reading horror (though House of Leaves remains my favorite book) and practically never writing it. With that being said, I felt pretty good about the end product, even if it pushed me outside of my comfort zone with the genre and content I wrote. With that, below is “Payment Failed.”
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Years ago, at Dominion’s Conception Superstore, we sold our innocence to afford the down payment we made on Ayanna’s life subscription.
Today, Dominion returned with a gavel-like knocking as Ayanna played blissfully in the garden.
Their associate beamed. “Good day. I’m Reaper. I’m here to repossess the child due to subscription payment failure.”
“Please. No.”
“Request denied. Payment failure limit reached.”
I hadn’t heard Ayanna come inside. She handed me a Chrysanthemum. Reaper smiled down at her.
“Excellent. She will be recycled piece by piece to fuel our workers.” As they departed, he yelled: “Please remember to rate your purchase!”
Seeking the Better Way 