F. E. A. R.

Writober 2025: Day Twenty-seven Giants>Response Post

🔗Links in the Table of Contents are Jump links to my responses to each of the challenges
🐦‍⬛This is original work created by Maria L. Berg and this post counts as copyright. All rights reserved.

🎃OctPoWriMo 🦇Writober Flash Fiction 👻Halloween Photography Challenge

Today’s Theme: Giants

These are my responses to the prompt post for Day 27 of Writober: Too Big To Fail

OctPoWriMo

Each Step

Is this pain, tearing and ripping, death’s
clawed hand, and why does he linger
in daily torture, sometimes
merely poking, letting
hope in for moments
only to gnaw
at me more
the next
hour?

Pain
slurps up
creative
juice and spits it
into oily sludge.
It grows like a giant
roused from decades of slumber,
a mountain quaking the whole earth.
With every step the known world erodes.

Writober Flash Fiction Challenge

Complete Anonymity

In this troll farm, anonymity is key. Each of us was issued a different animal mask before we arrived, and we could never take it off. We worked at our computers with them on, we ate meals together with them on, we slept in our dormitory with them on. We were known by our animal identity only, and though we might post on social media as John, Jane, Laura, and Patriot, away from the screen we were Pigeon, Squirrel, Owl, Pig, etc. Most people couldn’t take it for long. We had a high turnover, and strangely, the masks were not reused. There were always new animals appearing and others just disappeared. 

Pig and I had been here the longest when Tiger and Fox arrived on the same day. They typed with mad speed, writing especially vicious comments that could have even convinced me they were real. At dinner, conversation lulled more than usual. I noticed neither Tiger nor Fox ate what was provided, they only pushed their meals around on the plate. I had never thought of our masks in terms of predators and prey before, but from the tension in the room, I think that was on a lot of people minds tonight. I don’t think there had been any other distinctly predator masks since I had taken the job as a full-time troll.

That night, when the lights went out, I distinctly heard a raspy voice say, “Yum. Yum.” Then the screaming started.

Halloween Photography Challenge

For today’s photos I cut a paper inspired by a picture of a large stone in the Seattle Japanese Garden. I wanted the layering and overlap of the stone shape to reveal a troll or giant. I think the photo below came close to my intention.