Below is this week’s contribution to the 100-word story group Friday Fictioneers. This week’s photo prompt is courtesy of ©Rachel Bjerke.
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Friday Fictioneers prompt for March 20, 2015 ©Rachel Bjerke
Sacrifice
If stones could talk could they bear to tell of that to which they have borne witness?
Hunger drives people to desperate measures and the darkness helps to veil their shame. So it was that as the villagers were displaced they succumbed to that most abhorrent of acts.
First to go were the weak, the old, the maimed. But even the fittest cannot survive alone and soon all were gone and nature reclaimed their ramshackle settlement.
These stones can’t talk.
But every so often an anguished scream seeps through the cracks and the forest shudders into silence.
©Siobhán McNamara
Dear Siobhan,
You took us deep into the forest this week. Humankind is not.
Aloha,
Doug
Thanks Doug 🙂
Dear Siobhán,
I could almost hear the stones. The last line is quite lovely and made me shudder.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thank you Rochelle 🙂
Are we talking cannibals here? I often wonder why people are made of meat.
Meat is meat when times are hard, for some people at least. I hope I never have to put my own moral stance to the test!
This is such a good read. How that place must hurt.
Thanks Patrick, I’m glad the story worked 🙂
Moving story! The last line spoke volumes to me! Well done!
Thank you, I’m glad you connected with it 🙂
I can hear the anguish from here. Wonderful tale of darkness and tragedy.
Thank you Caerlynn, I’m glad the came across 🙂
Dark and creepy, excellent last line.
Thanks for reading Ali 🙂
Such a sad tale, so well told.
Thank you 🙂
Creepy yet poignant. Excellent
Thank you 🙂
This is incredibly sad! I will never be able to look at a homeless person the same again.
Thanks for reading 🙂
It was an excellent story
Gruesome– in a good way! Your last line is particularly chilling.
Thank you Jan 🙂
Very graphic..and that’s a good thing.
Thank you Dawn 🙂
Graphic and atmospheric. Well done Siobhan.
Thank you Sandra 🙂
Hunger does terrible things too people.. and maybe we should listen and learn from the rocks.
Thanks Bjorn, the stones see it all
Great perspective of the prompt, really takes you to a dark place and makes you think.
Thank you, I’m glad that came across 🙂
Glad I already had dinner before I read this. Good story, but “yuk”
It’s not a nice thought! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Wonderfully told. The brooding mystery of the setting is powerfully described. Such a tragic story.
Thank you Margaret 🙂
A great story. Sad and chilling. I liked how you started your story with the question. It drew me in and I had to find out what it was that these stones saw.
This is written so beautifully, that despite the grim subject, I enjoyed the flow of the words.