First Campaign Challenge

First challenge of the campaign and you guys! It's flash fiction!  The exclamation marks are probably misleading.  Here is how I feel about flash fiction:

Basically, I hate it.  I admire people who can do it, though I am not one of them.  I believe the problem lies in my inability to write a story in 50,000 words, let alone 200.  Plot! It will be the death of me!

So anyway.  On with the challenge!

Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “Shadows crept across the wall”. These five words will be included in the word count. 

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), do one or more of these:

• end the story with the words: "everything faded." (also included in the word count) (DONE)

• include the word "orange" in the story (DONE)

• write in the same genre you normally write (DONE)

• make your story 200 words exactly! (DONE)

My "story" (Untitled. As usual.)

Shadows crept across the wall and over the floorboard.  They stretched along the hardwood floor and made their way out of the window.  Molly pulled the covers up to her chin because it always made her feel more protected, like nothing could get past that orange handmade quilt. It was a suit of armor against the night monsters – those creatures that crawled into her ears and planted nightmares in her brain.  They were the opposite of the Sandman, a figure who seemed to never visit Molly. 

She jumped at a slight rustling, but it was just the curtain blowing in the breeze.  Molly laid her head back on her pillow and, rolling onto her side, curled herself into a ball.  Over the years the shadows had shifted.  The one on the ceiling used to look like a witch on a broom, but her mom told her it was a good witch.  The one on the wall used to resemble a beast with outstretched claws.  That one, her mother told her, just wanted to scratch that itch she couldn’t reach. 

Molly took a few deep breaths, counting to ten as she did so.  Then slowly her eyes closed and everything faded.

*****

Here is something better than that story.  A picture I accidentally posted approximately eleven times on Pinterest and then emailed to a friend and is still in my "pictures" folder on my work computer.

This picture is in my "Book Inspiration" board.  I bet you want to read my book NOW, right?!  Yep.