The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Looking Up
by Rie Sheridan Rose

I suppose I asked for it, in a way. I simply had to know what it felt like. It looked so cool in the movies and on TV. Astral projection—out-of-body experience—whatever you called it. The consciousness drifting out of the body to wander around invisible.

I was obsessed by the idea. Read every book I could get my hands on, chatted on the Deep Web with people who claimed to have done it. I tried every method that I encountered. Nothing seemed to work. Until I met Devon.

Devon is a real witch—wiccan to the third generation. I learned so much…spells, curses, divination. And Devon taught me the secret of astral projection.

The first time I tried it, I stayed in my room…just looking down at myself. It was a real trip.

I had to do it again!

This time, I decided I’d venture down to the local tavern and spy on my friends. It was a very enlightening evening. I learned a lot of secrets that no one would have spilled in front of me.

But—here’s the thing… I know how to reenter my body. It’s simple. You just hover over your shell and just…sink into it.

But you can’t do that if you aren’t in the same room. And a non-corporeal being can’t open doors or climb stairs. That drifting through space in the media is a myth.

And there is one thing Devon never taught me…how to go up.

That’s my window—right up there. My body’s on the bed behind it. A lifeless empty shell.

And I’m stuck here…looking up.

Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Author Rie Sheridan Rose:

The Marvelous Mechanical Man
Book One of the Conn-Mann Chronicles

Josephine Mann is down to her last five dollars and in desperate need of a new job, when a chance encounter with Professor Alistair Conn completely upends her life. Soon she and her cat have steady employment, a new home, and a string of adventures that quite takes her breath away! Steampunk meets Dime-Novel in this first volume of The Conn-Mann Chronicles.

Available on Amazon!