The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Floor is Lava 
by Elaine Pascale 

“The floor is lava,” Amelia said, pulling her feet onto her chair. Despite her cheerful tone, she wore a serious expression.

“We haven’t played that since we were kids.” Samantha balanced on the other chair in the room, sipping tea. She suspected that she hadn’t been invited over to reminisce about childhood games. The room had a war torn look to it and the chairs they sat on were missing cushions.

“Your feet.” Amelia pointed to Samantha’s shoes that remained planted on the floor.

“Really? We’re doing this?”

“Humor me.” Amelia took a swig from her glass of wine. “I’m in the mood for games.”

Samantha pulled her feet up onto the chair as instructed. “We might play something…more adult? Like Chess or Rummy 500?”

“I like the floor is lava.” Amelia smiled mischievously. “And spin the bottle.”

Samantha laughed. “That wasn’t a kid game, we played that later. As kids, we played the floor is lava and…trap door. Remember that one?”

Amelia’s facial expression was difficult to discern. “Yeah…trap door…”

“Remember when we played that with my cousin, Tom? He didn’t know to avoid the rugs—”

“But we did play spin the bottle,” Amelia interrupted, “And seven minutes in heaven.”

Samantha was not sure where this was going. “I guess…”

Amelia took a deeper pull from her wine. “And you kissed Eli and you went in the closet with him.”

“I barely remember that.”

Amelia began rubbing her forehead with her free hand. “Just admit it. You went into the closet with Eli.”

Samantha laughed nervously. “What can I say? You won, though, you married him.”

Amelia bent her head. Her hair fanned in front of her. “He’s leaving me,” she said softly.

“I am so sorry.”

Sniffles emanated from behind the curtain of red hair. “You know why?”

“No.”

“He wants to be free. Like when we were young.”

Samantha scoffed. “We’re adults; he needs to grow up.”

“No. He’s right.” Amelia’s sniffles had graduated to sobs. “I want to be free, too. I want to be young and play games.”

Samantha looked around for Kleenex and spotted some on the bookshelf at the far end of the room. She walked to the shelf to retrieve the box of tissue. As she stepped on the throw rug, the floor fell out  beneath her.  She landed on her back, hard. Her head hit the dirt floor next and her eyes lost focus.

“Amelia?” she called, trying to make sense of what had happened.

Amelia’s head appeared in the opening, her tearless eyes peering into the storage space. Amelia smiled fiendishly. “Trap door was fun.”

Before the panel in the floor could be closed above her, Samantha saw a woman chained in the corner of the crawl space. The cushions from the chairs were on the floor and it looked as if the woman had been sleeping on them. Her ribs were visible through her torn shirt and her hands and arms were covered with lacerations.

The woman nodded at Samantha. “I dated Eli in college,” she said in answer to the unspoken question of why she was there, before they were both submerged in darkness.

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Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Pixaby.com

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