Halloween Writing Prompts 2025

What Exactly Is Going On Here?

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For Writober Prompt: TECH TAKEOVER

Was it really that long ago, thought the Nightmare Man as he sat at his desk, that he used to be able to look at his list of horses and match them up to a Sleeper.

He called them all ” Sleepers”  truth be told,  never bothered to learn their names. As far as he was concerned they were one big brain sitting in one fat head and all he had to do was send a Nightmare out to pay the Sleeper a visit.

His function was to choose a mare from his stables  who had a very tasty morsels – glorious images in bright colors floating in her dark heart that needed to be released. If his Mares let those images build up inside of them they blew apart and he wasn’t sure the Universe could handle another blast like that.

Recently though, Nightmare man was having issues.

Nightmare Man always waited at the end of the World for his Nightmares to return to their Stables.

As usual he found the right Mare for the right Sleeper and sent them out, but they were all returning at dawn with a glare in their milky Opal colored eyes that told him they had all failed on their ride.

That last ride did it.

One evening Nightmare Man went up and found a fat sleeping head and he slipped right in.

When he did that the Dreamer woke up and  wasn’t  able to open their eyes or scream or call out for help. He knew they felt a terrible pressure on their chest and they would swear when they woke up that they could feel someone watching them.

Of course that wasn’t true. Nightmare Man couldn’t  watch them because he was inside of their head snooping around.

On this night he found the Dreamers head full of flashing little eyes, he heard a mix of angry voices, music, clicking and snapping and popping and ringing.

He had never heard so much noise in a head since heads were invented.

Nightmare went back to his home at the End of The World.

He went to his dark, study and sat at his desk and he kicked the leg of his desk that started up the machine that sat on top of it.

He stared into the screen, his fingers danced over the keyboard, but they didn’t pick up anything from his Mares- not an image, not a sound. Nothing.

Well, he told himself, people are always so sad, or scared sometimes happy when they woke up from their dreams but they always woke up.

Sitting there in the semi-darkness   try as he might, Nightmare Man had the terrible feeling he was not going to wake up from this nightmare.

The Quiet Commuter

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Writober Prompt: THEY SAID IT WOULD MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER

I ride the same train to and from work five days a week.

I  take the same seat next to the window near the middle of the car  so I  can charge my phone, God knows why I hardly ever get calls or texts.

I suppose I do that because it’s what one does and when one is in public- one makes the effort to belong.

One day a new passenger got on the train and of all the seats she could have taken, she took the one in front of me.

She smiled.

I did not because it didn’t matter what I said or did. I doubt if she even really saw me.

The new person, phone in hand gave the screen  a little swipe with her finger and then she disappeared, as most people do, into the small screen.

New people chat or shift around in their seats and end up being a distraction.

I don’t like to be distracted and I like my quiet-I wasn’t always such a solitary creature. I suppose I evolved into one.

As per my custom, I  take my book out of my backpack and found my place. You see I read real books with paper pages because I like the feel of them in my hand. They are solid, they smell good and most of all they ground me here and hold me here like an anchor would hold a boat or ship in place  in a stormy sea.

At exactly 4:12 just before the doors close the usual passengers pile in and claim their seats and as if they were performing some sort of dance together, they all sit and take out their phones and swipe the screens at the exact same moment and like the woman in front of me they disappear into their phones, into their own little worlds.

I am alone now, in the car I ride every single day to and from work- sometimes I wonder where they all go when they jump through those little screens but I’ve never been curious enough to follow them.

Photo by Erik on Pexels.com

Germ of an Idea

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Experience Writing Day 12 -Microscopic Monsters

You’ve never heard of Alonzo Manzella  because he died a very long time ago in a small town in Italy.

His brothers ( Alonzo died unmarried  in 1835 ) dressed him in his finest suit and after his funeral his body was taken to the Crypts. After awhile in one of the small rooms   he was taken to a great hall  and he propped against a wall where he stood  with other unmarried men. This all had smooth white plaster walls and sometimes the plaster fell away from the ceiling and it looked like it was snowing.

Alonzo’s jaw had been tied shut from the inside, so unlike the Mr  Renata ( who stood to his left ) and  Mr Salvatrice ( who stood to his right ) Alonzo did not appear to be screaming or yelling.

But one of Alonzo’s eye lids ( the left one ) had opened just a little and as the years went on it opened a little bit more and eventually it opened completely.

Now, unless you went nose to nose with Alonzo ( not advisable ) you would see that his eye socket was empty and you could reassure yourself  that even though it looked like it- Alonzo could see nothing through his dried and desiccated eye socket.

Still. When you looked into Alonzo’s eye socked, it was like looking down a set of very dark and creepy basement stairs and even though your eyes told you nothing was there, something in your ear was screaming there was.

The tourists ( the Catacombs are very and people come from all  over the world to visit them ) will swear up and down that the ” Mummy who opened his eye ” was watching them.

” You can see it, you can see his eye following  you. ”

People weren’t supposed to take pictures of the mummies, but they did anyway and the internet is full of pictures of Alonzo’s eye- staring at you from the other side of your computer screen.

Alonzo even had a book and a movie written about him- in  these stories he can see the day you will die and how and a clever medium – who ends up being possessed by Alonzo sees her own death and blah blah blah- it’s not a very good story.

Of course Alonzo is not an empty husky in dusty clothes. He’s a little bit more then that.

There is a little spark, a little bit of Alonzo that sometimes wakes up in a dark room and he can hear people talking about his eye, how it feels like he is watching them.

“So stupid, ” Alonzo tells himself ( at least he thinks he’s alone in his darkness ) I can’t see a thing. I’ve been blind my entire life.

Face It

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EXPERIENCE WRITING WRITOBER PROMPT: DON’T LOOK HER IN THE EYE

Don’t look her in the eye, my educated friends who dwell in the world of the Supernatural, have advised me or the Witch that haunts you will turn you into stone

and I thought- as I have looked into the face of Evil  that lived in my attic  as it followed me from work to home and sometimes to the store on several occasion; then what should I look at when I meet her face to face ( as I often do ) her fangs? Her claws? The sight of her floating above the floor and dragging her toes behind her?

She I count the human teeth buttons  that hold the front of her dress closed?

Or maybe I should fact the fact that people who claim to know how to confront or fight evil, or ghosts or monsters can’t really know what they are talking about if they have never looked into the face of Evil, the kind of face that could turn you to stone

and I should keep doing what I am doing to keep myself safe.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Evergreen Washelli Seattle WA