They were hiking up the mountain, when a rock slide blocked the trail just behind them.

They heard the noise, run back to check.

“On no! How are we going to go back now? Do you think we could climb over?”

“I guess it would be too dangerous. The rocks may not be settled.”

“What do we do then?”

None of them wanted that, as they did not pack for overnight camping, but there was no other way than spending the night in the woods.

They wore all their jackets, created a bed of leaves and snuggled together.

As they were about to fall asleep, he hears a hustle around them, and feels something passing over their bodies. He raises startled. What was it?

Then he hears giggles.

Giggles??? Are there other people here?

“Who’s there?”

No answer.

He remembers the night goggles laying at the back of his backpack and, when he puts them on, he sees 4 playful weird creatures peeking from inside a tree trunk.

He freezes… it’s gonna be a long night….

This post was written in response to the Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers, with photo prompt by myself, and contains 175 words.

The funny thing about these challenges is that I always have the hardest times with my own pictures. I provided the picture because I thought it could inspire nice stories. In this case I actually created the picture by layering 2 pictures into one. Still…

One of the difficulties I have is to keep it short. I always tend to write a lot on the first draft for my own pictures.

Then, I’m never really satisfied, thinking other people was able to use my picture much better than myself.

Oh well. I guess it may be just a case of being harder on myself for feeling ‘responsible’ for the prompt…

(PS. the inspiration to create the picture with my monster buddies was a story written by E. A. Wicklung for some other prompt. I guess it was this one. So thanks E. A.! ;o)

To see other stories inspired by the same prompt, click the blur frog below: