Date: November 16, 2025
Location: Cream & Amber, Hopkins
Prompt: Write a piece using these words (Healing, Coffee, Horror, Normal, Potato, Fresh, Writhe)

Mornings like this were difficult. There was never enough time to cook the breakfast potatoes. On this particular morning, there wasn’t even time to brew a single fresh cup of coffee. The unholy shrieking grated on my ears as, like clockwork, the shadows slithered from the dark and mysterious wall of pristine forest to surround the cabin. My own personal horror movie, every single morning, for the last several years. I’ve learned to live with them, but it’s difficult to maintain a normal routine when you have angry and likely malevolent spirits testing your walls and windows for weaknesses at dawn.

I glanced out the window and identified their individual shapes, some resembling inkblots on a piece of fabric, or amoebas overwhelming a bacterium; dividing and regenerating, healing themselves, spreading and shrinking and spreading again. Others appearing as slender tree branches, snapping in two and growing on the spot, each new entity of fluid shade determined to writhe and roil against the glass. 

I filled my mug from the tap, and dunked a bag of tea into the lukewarm water. I settled in on the tattered sofa. I took comfort in the knowledge that as the sun rose higher in the sky, these creatures – whatever they were – would fade and disappear entirely by noon.