At a recent Melbourne Romance Writers Guild retreat, I played a writing game in which the objective was to pick three pictures from a set of rolled dice and write a story in 15 minutes.

The pictures I had were: the moon, a key, and an arrow. And since my followers are yet to read any of my stories, I thought I’d share what I came up with. Again, I did this in 15 minutes, so it’s not perfect, but I hope you’ll enjoy this story anyway.

*A warning, there are some swears in this––they just felt right at the time 😛

 The Moon, The Key, and The Arrow

The night hit its darkest point as Jessabel stumbled out of the cab and tripped her way down the driveway toward her cabin’s front door. Weekends away visiting Uncle Raymond were always a messy affair.

At the door, Jessabel rummaged through her purse for her keys, but came up empty handed every time. Tonight’s crescent moon didn’t help her inability to see, nor did the fact she’d stupidly forgotten to leave the porch light on.

A sickening sensation rolled through her stomach––a mixture of Jim Beam and fear. She didn’t want to spend the remainder of her night sleeping on the front lawn, so she’d need to come up with a fast solution. Her mind flicked through her earlier activities, along with a memory of lying in the grass in the unused back paddock. She’d been working on her tan when her keys must have fallen out of her pocket.

“Shit,” she muttered, angry that she’d have to sift through large patches of grass, the dim screen of her phone the only light to guide her.

High heels in hand, she waddled around to the back paddock, stumbling each time her foot bumped a wayward rock. During one stumble, a loud ‘woosh’ sounded over her head.

“What the fuck?” She snapped to standing and spun around to find an arrow lodged in the tree behind her––spun around again to find the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.

Her skin tingled with instant attraction. Even in the darkness she could discern a deep tan, emerald green eyes and dark chocolate waves curling over his brow.  She waited for him to speak or apologise, but the heated glare he aimed her way spoke of nothing but black murder.

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Image credit: @sage_solar