Written in response to Reedsy prompt from Contest #304 "Center your story around an author, editor, ghostwriter, or literary agent." Expanded from original version.
*Originally published 6/22/2025; updated and split into four chapters on 8/25/2025.
Want to start from the beginning? Here’s Chapter 1.
Sarah stood frozen, unable to wrap her head around what had just happened. She’d had weird customers before—almost on a nightly basis—but this was so far beyond what she’d experienced, she just couldn’t.
Her mouth dropped open several times in a row, like a dying fish gasping.
Finally coming back to herself and the present, she looked around. Still alone in the store. Good.
She peeked in the restroom. Clogged toilet. Not good.
She sighed so hard this time, she felt the shift settle in her toes. This night just kept getting better.
Muttering to herself, “No toilet paper, huh?” She plunged the toilet and cleaned up the mess. By the time she finished and resumed her station, she had shaken the weirdness off.
Chalking the whole incident up to yet another high customer acting out, Sarah went back to barely existing behind the counter again. Normalcy restored.
As she was locking up for the night, she was daydreaming about chocolate. She had a stash of truffles at home. Thinking blissfully of her future indulgence, she was unprepared for the glass next to her head to suddenly shatter.
Sarah jumped a foot in the air, yelping like a scalded dog.
She dropped into a crouch and scanned the area: a man at the far edge of the parking lot, dressed all in black, was tossing a brick in his hand. Stunned, she watched the brick rise and fall for a moment, before reality set in.
Hearing him cackle, she sprinted toward her car. Her hands were shaking violently, and she found herself thankful for her key fob and keyless start. She narrowly avoided the projectile, which instead smacked into the windshield of her boss’s second car, parked next to hers.
While peeling out of the parking lot, she thought wryly that the car had never looked better.
All the way home, she kept glancing out the windows and in her rearview: no menacing man in black on the horizon.
Once home and safely ensconced in her sanctuary, Sarah breathed a sigh of relief.
What a weird flipping night!
She worked to calm her still-present jitters, preparing to call in a police report. After getting a drink of water, she turned around to the see same man standing at the end of her couch, tossing one of her knickknacks—a porcelain cat—from hand to hand.
Dropping her glass, she ran to the nearest escape from harm—her coat closet—pulling the door shut behind her just as the cat shattered against it. Hearing the man’s menacing laughter, she frantically pulled her phone out of her pocket only to realize it was dead.
For the love of all that’s holy…
Outside the closet, she could hear the man moving about and more of her precious belongings being shattered against her walls and the door behind which she hid.
Stressed to her max, cornered and out of her mind with fear, Sarah was shocked to hear the words the man then spoke.
“I see you gave up on ‘trying on voices’. What was I? An experiment gone WRONG?”
Her mind was cracking… yes, that had to be it.
“Why am I wearing leather? It’s the middle of summer! Do I own stock in a tannery?”
Inside the closet, Sarah thought frantically to herself: Weiss? It couldn’t be.
She remembered taunting his fashion choices in her description in much the same manner.
Oh.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?”
No, she hadn’t known what she was doing.
Fresh out of college, Weiss had been a side character from her very first manuscript. She had been trying different ideas to bring her characters to life, but there were so many ideas, she had left him like that.
Her muse had been a harsh taskmaster. But then, she had never questioned how her characters might feel about her literary choices.
A small giggle involuntarily escaped her lips.
Weiss then roared, “Are you still mocking me? Even now?” His last word was punctuated with a particularly loud crash against her door.
Sarah thought frantically for a beat. “You’re right, Weiss. I’m sorry I left you hanging like that. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I never meant to hurt you.” Feeling a bit embarrassed to be apologizing to her own creation, she didn’t anticipate his response.
“I just wanted to mean more to you.” His voice was small; there was no anger left at all, only resignation.
Silence.
After a few minutes of complete silence, punctuated only by the beat of her heart, Sarah cracked the closet door to peer out at the wreckage. Nobody was there.
She straightened and cautiously crept out of her refuge, slightly flinching, half-expecting to be slammed over the head with a chair.
Along with the wreckage, a black leather jacket lay on the back of her chair, neatly folded.
Damp with sweat.
← Chapter 1 | Next → Chapter 3 — Forgotten pages want their say
Thanks for reading! — Liora
voice through fire | www.liorawrites.com
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I love how this spun from “weird customer” into full-on metafiction horror. That moment Weiss called out his own leather jacket in summer was gold 👌🏻
Oh, man! Sarah has SOME gall...giggling(?!) after all of THAT?! I hope That Giggle will help her explain leaving The Store unlocked to Her Boss. SMH