Weekly Writing Prompts - Story Thread

Some of you may, or may not, have seen my Weekly Writing Prompts thread in the Writing Help part of the Stories Section.

In short, the bi-weekly challenge is to write a story of approx. 1250 words taking on the genre and themes outlined in the writing prompts thread. This is just for fun and practice.

This thread is designed to house all the submissions for those interested in taking up the challenge exercises in order to stop cluttering up the Stories board with short experimental fiction.

Please post your stories below with:

1) The challenge wording.

2) The Story - wrapped up in spoiler tags for ease of browsing.

3) The number of words in the story.

If you have any questions or comments please use the Weekly Writing Prompts thread to bring them to my attention, or PM me.