Friday 27 January 2012

Friday Flash - Waking Up

Dry lips moved without words inside dusty bandages. Empty eye sockets stared into the suffocating darkness of millennia. Voices echoed in the world beyond, voices strange and unfamiliar. Rotting ears strained to hear, and a lost mind struggled to understand. Ragged nails tore through ancient wrappings. Fingers more like talons scraped against thick painted wood. A panicked corpse thrashed against imprisonment.

The tourists moved away to another part of the museum, taking their cameras and guidebooks towards ancient Rome. A figure stepped forward from the shadow of Anubis. White hands pressed against the cold glass. Hungry eyes looked down at the sarcophagus, reading the story spelled out in hieroglyphs. Blackened lips curved in a smile to see the turmoil inside the case.

"Soon, my pretty, soon."

The necromancer turned away.

23 comments:

Carrie Clevenger said...

OOOH, excellent. More mummies in the works?

Tony Noland said...

Heh, here's a great way to start a tale of a mummy rising... with frantic desperation.

Icy Sedgwick said...

Carrie - Hopefully!

Tony - Well I think I'd be a bit panicked if I suddenly woke up about five thousand years!

Laurita said...

This would be a fabulous beginning to a longer tale. Say it is so.

Anonymous said...

Superb descriptions here Icy! I could feel the mummy looking out at all those poor innocent tourists...and I feel sorry for them!

Larry Kollar said...

I think you're at your best when writing ghosts & mummies. And you lived up to it here — I can see the panic of your mummy, struggling against its wrappings in the dark of its sarcophagus, while the living move onto the next display in blissful ignorance…

Tim VanSant Writes said...

Ooh, really nice how you packed so much in so few words. Cool.

Anonymous said...

Mummies! We never get stories about mummies. I'm with the others, I want to know what she's going to do with it now.

John Wiswell said...

Very neat in very little space, Icy. Dug this a lot - archaeologically speaking.

Anonymous said...

Love it! A mummies series? I want the next one.

Steve Green said...

I think it may take more than one stab at the snooze button before this poor soul is ready to rise.

Anonymous said...

So much coolness in so few words. I dig the notion of a mummy coming around only to completely freak out. I've never seen that before.

Fun as always!

Anonymous said...

The suggestion of so much more makes this piece so engaging. Precise and awesome.
Adam B @revhappiness

Unknown said...

I like the suggestiveness of the little details. Should be interesting to see what the necromancer releases.

Sonya said...

I love that it takes place in a museum, and hoping there will be more of this story.

Donald Conrad said...

A necromancer conjurs from the displays...niiice. Imagine strolling through and seeing a sarcophagus slowly open!

Helen A. Howell said...

Nice sharp writing - is it going to be curse of the mummy all over again ^_^

tom gillespie said...

Love the tension Icy! and the great line "The panicked corpse thrashed against imprisonment.." I loved too the sudden cut away to the unsuspecting tourists who are about to get it!!
Hammer Horror Splatfest!

Anonymous said...

Love a good mummy story. If this is the start of more to come - count me in!

Icy Sedgwick said...

I wasn't really planning on turning this into a serial but it looks like it's going to be a longer piece. Watch this space...

Anonymous said...

Wow your descriptions in this are some of your most powerful - fantastic. Really could see the mummy in its entirety

Anonymous said...

Love mummies! Brilliant piece of flash! More,more :) Thanks Icy

nerinedorman said...

Awwww, Icy, don't you want to write me a novella about a plague of mummies?

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