The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Herbs and Soup
by Lynn Ruzzo

Long, smoke-filled days entrapped Ren year after year. She was the tender of the daily soup, just one part of lunch for those who had, made by those who had not. It was no more than a living, survival in a world that wasn’t what it had been so long ago, when she was a child playing in grass under a bright sun.

Those days no longer existed.

The clouds cast woe upon the world, and people starved by the millions. In the end, some ended up with power, others did what they had to do to survive this new era.

Ren was grateful she didn’t have it so bad, as there were much worse lives to live. But she never forgot the things her family taught her. She refused to surrender her pride in who she truly was beneath the forced conformity.

She found others among her fellow workers who were raised under similar faiths. They met in secret, beneath the light of the moon. It was in a forest of dead trees outside the compound that they practiced their ways and formed their plan. They convened not only with one another, but the spirits who haunted that desolate, forgotten place. They agreed this new society would not be accepted.

So while Ren and others in her circle prepared the daily lunch, an ingredient was added here and there. A blend fit for the new era to be quite short. Those who consumed it, the overlords of that place, would be rendered under Ren and her coven’s control. They’d soon be helpless puppets to their new masters, and the world would start anew.

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Fiction © Copyright Lynn Ruzzo
Image courtesy of Pixabay