Frigo Bridge prompt:  Police actually found a car parked on the shoulder of the Frigo Bridge.  Write the story that explains why it’s there with the keys on the passenger seat and a flashlight on the railing of the bridge. No sign of a person around.

One day, after having worked at the same power plant for over 10 years, I had grown tired. Everyday was the same routine, executed without failure. I had lost the will to truly live. The days went by faster every year that passed. I was going through the motions, and I had to change. Otherwise it would be the end of me. I was collapsing under the weight of my inability to change. I was imprisoned by my workplace. In order to escape this everyday routine, I had to find my will to live. Most importantly, my reason to exist. 

All of a sudden, one day I woke up, then went to work as usual. What was unusual was this feeling in my stomach. It’s the kind of feeling you get before you ride a roller coaster. Adrenaline rushed through my body, as if it knew what was going to happen before I did. After work ended, this feeling in my stomach had not only grown stronger but had also moved upward toward my chest. This caused me to grow nervous, so I decided to drive home as quickly as possible. When I began to drive over the Frigo bridge, I heard a whisper in my head. At first it was subtle. However, it became increasingly louder and louder, until I was forced to listen. Without hesitation my body moved the car to the side of the road and parked it. I knew for a fact that I had not moved my hands, so why did they move without my control? Suddenly out of nowhere, the voice started yelling. It said, “Sit on the rail, enjoy the sunset. Say goodbye to the life you previously had. Nothing will be the same.” As I listened to the voice in my head, it slowly returned to a soft whisper. I did as the voice told me. Initially I wanted to take a flashlight, since it was getting dark. However, a deep part of my soul advised me to leave it behind.

As I walked up to the side of the bridge, I looked over the edge. I had never done anything like this before. It was such a steep fall. I knew that if I had fallen down that I would not survive. A fall that high would result in a slow painful death. If it wasn’t the impact that killed me. it would be the inability to move my broken limbs in the freezing water. Regardless, the voice within my head told me to sit on the edge of the ramp. I could feel the cold air pushing against my back as I sat on the edge. Once I took a deep breath, I was able to calm myself enough to stare directly into the sunset ahead of me. The colors seemed as if they were perfectly arranged–a masterpiece of God’s creation. Every cloud, every shade of orange to red was assembled in a harmonious fashion. It was breathtaking. The cars that zoomed by me as I sat on the ledge, no longer existed. My perception was the sunsetting. Through this masterpiece of scenery, I came to know who God truly was. From this day on, I would no longer value material possessions like my car. I no longer feared death. The anxieties that I had previously felt left my body. I would now live my life through the will of God. Once the sunset ended, I stood up from my glorious front row seat to God’s creation. I walked down the shoulder of the ramp with a clear mind, now searching for how I can fulfill my duty to God.  

–Andrew Ocasio

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Classic Shoe Prompt:  One shoe in the road.  How did it get there?

On Thursday night there was a crazy bar fight at the Long Branch. My dad was the bartender and one of the customers was underage so they couldn’t go inside. The guy was so persistent and didn’t want to leave. He pissed my dad off so bad that he punched him in the face and both of them started fighting. There was handing, chairs, pool cues, and beer bottles flying across the bar–all because… this guy wouldn’t leave because he was underage. When the cops finally showed up and calmed everything down, there were broken things everywhere. The funny thing was that I saw one shoe sitting in the road right next to the cop car. It was the guy’s brand new Jordans, weren’t scuffed or anything, just one shoe sitting in the road where the guy was being put in the car. So I picked it up and I gave it to my dad for him to remember the night he beat the crap out of an underage person.

–Levi Diederich

It was a cool, Friday night when Hannah and Lexi decided they wanted to go out to the bar. The girls loved to drink; however, they were only 19 and 20 years old. Lexi was 19, and Hannah was 20. The girls both had fake IDs that they used at the local bar. Nothing was out of the ordinary, for the girls did this almost every weekend. These two girls had been best friends since birth.

It was about 9 pm when they left for the bar. Hannah drove to pick up Lexi, and they went on their way. Blasting music, the girls sped down the road. They were listening to their favorite songs with not a care in the world. 

The girls got to the bar and drank, drank, and drank. They had shot after shot. They met new people, talked, and laughed all night. It was around 12 am when a sober, young lady asked the girls if they needed a ride home. The girls politely declined and kept drinking. 

It was around 2 am when the girls decided it was time to go home. Hannah got in her car with Lexi and started driving away. Lexi was sitting in the backseat, passed out, unbuckled. This wasn’t a nontypical night for the girls. 

“I’m fine to drive. I’ve done this tons of times before,” Hannah thought to herself as she shifted her gear into drive. She started to dose off, but she was almost home. “Everything will be all right.” She fell asleep but caught herself going into the ditch. She overcorrected her stirring wheel and ended up slamming into a street light. Everything went dark. 

At 5 am a lady was driving down the street when she slammed on her brakes. She saw something in the middle of the road. It was a shoe, one singular shoe. She pulled over and searched for whose shoe it might be. Then, she saw it. She saw the two young girls dead in a car, flipped over. The girl in the back had been missing a shoe, for she was unbuckled. As the woman was in utter shock, she dialed 911.

–Riley Ditscheit

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Ring Prompt:  A woman is working her flower garden when she uncovers a ring with the initials  A. M. W. engraved in it.  Whose ring is it?  How did it end up in the flower garden?

I decided to spend the day in the garden. I’ve been working on the house all week, painting and cleaning it up. It hadn’t been touched in ten years since the last owner. Being that it was already an old house built in the early 1900s, it needed a lot of tending to. 

The garden was like a jungle, with vegetation taller than me. I tackled the weeds then brought in my own flowers to plant. As I began to loosen the soil, something got stuck on one of the forks of my tool. The light hit the object, creating a ray of light that dodged to my right. Curious, I bent and picked up the mystery object. It was a gold ring. I glanced at my own finger to make sure it wasn’t mine. I looked closer at the ring and realized it had the initials, A. M. W. engraved on the inside of it with a ruby diamond sitting on top. I had no idea who this was. My mind raced with the possibilities and what I should do next. 

I stopped what I was doing and ran inside to my computer. I decided to look up the history of the house to see if I could dig up any evidence of whose ring it might be. I searched and searched until I came across an article. It was titled, “The murder at the Johnson home,” I knew for a fact that the previous owner’s last name wasn’t Johnson. I did some more research and stumbled across a picture of a young couple in a garden. They looked like a normal couple as the woman linked her arms around her husbands. As I took a closer look, I realized the women’s wedding ring looked identical to the one I had found. I skimmed the article below the picture and it stated, “… Mr. Woodson and his new wife, Abigail Marie recently moved into the old Johnson home…” The clues clicked in my head. The initials of Abigail Marie Woodson is A.M.W. My heart sped up as I read on and it went on to say that the wife had mysteriously disappeared one day after she had been home alone while her husband was on a business trip. They never found her body. I had to catch my breath as I stumbled out of my chair, back to the garden. I began digging and digging until I finally hit something hard with the shovel. I picked it up and realized what I was holding: a skull.

–Celia Brummel

As I was working in the garden I found a ring in the dirt. It looked like it was brand new. About 30 seconds later my neighbor comes stomping over, anger in her eyes. 

“Did you find a ring in your garden by any chance,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I did. May I ask why?” I asked? 

“My horrible husband just divorced me and threw his ring into your garden,” she exclaimed. Oh shit, I thought. I carefully put the ring in her hand and ran to my house. My mother always taught me there is nothing scarier than a woman’s scorn.  

–Joe Diny

Connie stared at the ring, moving it around in her hands. She moved her finger across the initials, trying to think. “I wonder whose ring this could be,” Connie said, putting it on her finger. It sat crooked, being too large for her finger. She slipped the ring in her pocket and dug around a bit more. All of a sudden her hand touched something solid. She grabbed the item and took it out of the dirt. Connie looked at the object and wiped some of the dirt off of it. A part of it reflected light. She noticed it had a little hinge. She opened the box, realizing it was for the ring. A piece of paper sat in it, unmoving. She grabbed it and folded it open.

“Dear Annie,” it started, “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize how I felt about you. I was always slow when it came to romance. I’m finally ready to return your feelings. I’ve always noticed you. You always caught my eye. Drawing my attention to you, it wasn’t anything special that did it. I was just always drawn to how bright you were. Even when everything around you was awful, you always seemed to shine bright. You were the sweetest girl I knew, that was probably why I had so many cavities,” It wrote, and Connie snickered a bit.

“Sorry, that was a bit cheesy. You just always had kindness in your heart. When you were down you would always pick yourself up, bring everyone around you with you. You were the life of the party, dancing and singing like no one was watching. You always followed the rules and were kind to your parents. Even though you thought it was annoying, you had the prettiest laugh. It was so contagious. I could never stop myself from laughing with you. I’m sorry I was never able to stand up to the people who hurt you. You deserved the world but didn’t receive it. You never did anything wrong, and yet you were always the one being punished.” the letter continued.

“You were always the prettiest girl in the world. That’s probably why they were so jealous. I wish I could go back in time and save you from all those people who hurt you. I say I loved you but yet I could never stand by your side, I am truly sorry for that. I noticed how you always planted flowers here when you were sad, your favorites being marigolds. You always did love the color yellow. I wish I could’ve planted flowers with you, at least once. I was always too shy to ask you. I know it’s too late to ask you now, but maybe one day we can plant flowers together. Instead of it being a sad memory, we can fill that spot with happy ones,” Connie read, as she teared up slightly.

“There is one last thing I would like to ask you, even though I know I’m too late. Annie Mari Warren, will you marry me?” the letter wrote. “Now if I only I could’ve asked you before you left this place. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save you from yourself. I will never forgive myself for that. I will miss you, my love. Rest peacefully. Love, Sam N.W.”

Connie sat in the grass, wiping her eyes gently. She folded the letter back up, placed the ring and the letter back into the box, and buried it back into the flower garden.

–Fyn Drust

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Radio Prompt:  Write the “rest of the story” to this starting sentence:  When the song came on the radio, every part of me reacted.

When the song came on the radio, every part of me reacted. I looked over at you, your head bobbing, but all I could think about was him. I didn’t know that you knew this song, god knows he didn’t. I watch as you move along to the song, your face slowly morphing into his. The way he would sing along to his music, just a little off key. He always had the music up loud, but not loud enough to drown out his voice. Sometimes I would just watch him, like the weirdo I am, but I couldn’t help myself back then. 

He was so alluring to me, always saying something to make me laugh. His smile was always my favorite thing about him. When he smiled at me, nothing else mattered. There were certain times, like when I would sing in the car, and I would look over at him smiling at me. Times like those were when I felt like nothing could ever bring us down. Nothing would ever happen to us, but somewhere along the way, you stopped smiling at me and I stopped watching you. It all sort of, just fell apart. 

Now all I have are the memories of us, and this song. Oh boy, this song. This song was when I thought I knew how life would turn out. Now I look at the boy who’s driving me, and I can’t help but feel relieved. Relieved that it didn’t work out, because now I know better. I wish I could regret the time I spent with him, but I can’t. Not when he led me to now.

–Rylei Anders

When the song came on the radio, every part of me reacted. This is the song where the light in my mom’s eyes shines so bright. I remember sitting in the back seat while we were driving home from a family vacation with my dad driving, my mom in the passenger seat, and my brother and I in the back. This is her song. This is my parents’ wedding song. Both of their hearts aglow with glee and they just couldn’t help themselves but sing along to it together. As soon as the song comes on, they both look at each other and begin to move in their seats. They jitter their bodies as they sing the song together. I remember that every time my mom will look at my dad and ask him if he remembers what song this is, and he replies with “Of course I do, honey.” Their eyes will light up as the song plays, and my parents are definitely their happiest when they are singing this song together. They have first-date type of love when this song comes on. 

Times like these are the best memories to love and hold onto. The love that they share together is the love that I want to share with my husband someday. My parents are my role models when it comes to love. The way their hearts light up when they see each other is something that I aspire to have. Moments like these are the ones that I will cherish forever.

–Grace Delveaux

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Powerball Prompt:  Choose one of the persons on your list and write what happens when that person wins the $730 million Powerball.

“Breaking news someone has finally won the $730 million Powerball. It is a teacher from Notre Dame Academy and her name is Crystal Dory, ” said the news reporter.

Once Mrs. Dory found out she had won the Powerball she had press  waiting outside her house to hear what she would do with all the money. The day she found out that she had won, Mrs. Dory had gone into hiding and even called in sick for a couple of days. After a few days she had finally left her house. Once she got out all she saw was press and cameras everywhere. 

“What are you going to do with all the money?” stated one reporter from Fox 11 News.

By the look on Mrs. Dory’s face you could tell that she didn’t want to say anything or talk to anyone. Mr. Dory stepped in and said, “She would not like to talk right now.” After Mr. Dory had said that loud and clear, the press was still at their home bombarding them with even more questions.

“Why aren’t you answering any of our questions?” said one news reporter. 

“We just want to know what you’re going to do with $730 million dollars,” yelled another one. When the cold night was approaching all of the press had gone home and left the Dory residence. The next day Mrs. Dory had decided to go back to teaching and just live a normal life.

“I know I have been gone for about a week, but I just want to let you guys know I will be retiring after this school year,” said Mrs. Dory. After she told the class the news, they were all too stunned to speak and were just quiet for the rest of the class. After Mrs. Dory got home from her day at school, she had decided to finally publicly address the press about what she was going to do with the $730 million dollars.

‘I have decided that I want to open a dog shelter and make a non-profit organization that helps dogs find their forever homes,” stated Mrs. Dory loud and clearly. After she had talked to the press, weeks had passed by without her speaking or even leaving her house. Three weeks after her initial speech she had finally left her home and announced that she will be opening a dog shelter and having a nonprofit organization to help find dogs their forever home. After a year passed by, she had donated more than 2 million dollars in helping dogs find their forever homes and help them have all their needs met.

–Adriana Bustamante