Fictober, Prompt 18 – “Secrets? I love secrets.”
Warnings: creepiness? Implied monster? This one is weird.
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Secrets? I love secrets.”
That was…not an answer to my question. “Why?” I asked.
“Why what?” This was followed by a childish giggle that was very out of character for the woman I had been speaking with for the last several days.
“Why do you love secrets?”
“They’re so interesting!” She spun around, arms flung out in a parody of childhood delight. “Full of whispers and corners and shadows.”
Another not-answer. A chill crept through me as I realized that she was not what I had thought, not at all.
What she actually was, I didn’t know, and was beginning to think that I didn’t want to. Not something I could confide in, certainly.
She was watching me sidelong with a too-wide grin, hands clasped decorously behind her back.
Had she always been this other thing? Or was this a recent change?
“Tell me your secret,” she sing-songed, bouncing on her toes.
“What will you do with it?” I asked, voice low, wondering if I should risk backing away. We weren’t in a deserted area of the mall, exactly, but there wasn’t anyone else around right now.
“Keep it,” she said, “keep it forever. But there’s a price!”
I swallowed, knowing my eyes were too wide but unable to fix it, unable to blink. “What price?”
She grinned that too-wide grin at me and clapped her hands together in delight.
“You!”
(To be honest, I have no idea what is happening here, but I ran with it.)
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