Coming in under the wire, is the flash fiction for day 7! One week is down. I hope you enjoy my take on today’s writing challenge from Fyrecon’s Fyretober!
I looked between the scrap of paper, the only thing handy when I’d answered the call, and the townhouse. This was the place, but something was off. I glanced up the rows of houses to my right and left. Same architecture. Same design. But no basement doors on any other, and no basement windows anywhere.
Disconcerting since the numbers I jotted down matched the lone basement door. Still, I wasn’t about to turn down work. More weeks had passed than I cared to consider since my last gig transcribing, and the pay was excellent.
Approaching the door, I rapped firmly wondering why they’d eagerly handed the assignment off to me. The pay was higher than any other.
“Enter!” the voice boomed through the door immediately after my knock.
“Okay,” I said. Grabbing the knob, it turned easily in my hand. There was a short hallway within, a thin table, and a coat rack. I wrinkled my nose as whiff of smoke hit my nose. Not tobacco or a fireplace. Maybe Franie had handed off the job quickly because the guy vaped? “Hello,” I called as I wriggled out of my jacket and hung it on the rack.
The ground rumbled as something heavy slide over it. Rearranging furniture? “I’m just back here!” the same voice called as loudly. Too loud to be far off, but no one appeared or seemed to be inclined to.
I glanced right and left, unsure where the voice had come from. Brilliant light blossomed from either direction. “Back where?”
“Either way leads to here.”
Right then. I turned and walked the short hallway before the passage opened into staircase descending quickly down and a massive chamber. Chandeliers illuminated the room to nearly blinding, still in the center of the room was a shadow–
My foot was on the third step when my thought cut off as the thing in the center of the room move. Eyes blinked at me as the creature rose onto its hind legs. A tail swished from behind it, pushing a chair back toward a table.
A dragon. I opened my mouth unable to form a word. How was I seeing a dragon in the basement apartment in a row of townhouses?
The creature shifted heavily between its legs. “Oh, do come in.” The creatures head bobbed downward as if it were trying to hide dismay. “I’d prefer that any other reaction.”
I raised a hand a scratched behind me ear. “You… called for a transcriber?” Somehow those words came out instead of a scream and a sprint back up the stairs.
The dragon nodded, its head lifting as if snatching a morsal of hope. “I’ve called many! But finding a transcriber who’s willing to stay has proven… complicated.”
“Why?”
“Because they like to scream?”
“No, why do you need a transcriber.” I could figure out myself why they like to scream.
The dragon slumped again. “Because trying to record my memoirs myself has proven difficult.” He glowered at a pile of ash in the corner and muttered, what I suppose was quietly for a dragon. “Dang paper ignites far too easily but no one accepts submission etched in stone anymore.”
“Oh.” The word felt lame as I said it. “And you’re going to pay me, right? Not eat me?”
The dragon snorted, a puff spurting from his nostril. Oh, that was the source of the smoke smell. “Yes! I’m going to pay you. Handsomely too. Centuries of hoarding has made that bit easily anyway.”
I stood still for a moment, thoughts whizzing about my head quicker than I could decipher them, but in the end, there was one fact I couldn’t get around. Shrugging, I continued down the stairs into the sunken room.
“You’re saying!” I could have laughed at how excited he sounded.
I nodded, pulling out the chair from the table and around to the other side. “Rent’s due at the end of the week. Shall we get started?”
Be sure to check out all the #fyretober creations.
#fyretober #fyretoberflashfiction #fyretoberday8
“Fyretober isn’t for just writers or just artists. It’s for everyone who loves to create, and this month we’re looking to see your flash fiction, poetry, and illustrations every day. We’ll be providing daily prompts for the month and want to see what new concepts and wonders you can make with them.
Join the creation fun and share your work with us.
This isn’t a contest. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be giving out random prizes for amazing work.”
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