Writing Prompt: Write a story (at least 900 words) about a $5 bill that is handed off between at least three people. Focus on character development and scene.

Naphtali Archeron’s apartment could at best be described as spartan. It was spacious, taking up the entire third floor of a three-story building close to the edge of West Nazca and Center City. She had occupied the place for the better part of a half-decade since her return from Zarephath, but in all that time had added little to the wood floor and faded white plaster walls of the apartment’s natural state.

Presently, Naphtali sat in her kitchen at the end of a small, rectangular table, Wyatt Learyn seated opposite her. Naphtali leaned into a plain wooden chair, her right arm resting across the top of the chair and her legs crossed, the chair chipped and scraped, worn from time. Like most of her few possessions, she had salvaged it from wherever it had been discarded in the city, valuing function over form. Naphtali was at the head of the table, the end closest to the door. Unlike Naphtali, Wyatt sat hunched over, his hair—recently cropped short on the sides but left long on the top like a horse’s mane—spilled forward, obscuring his face while he furiously attacked his sketchbook with his pencil. Every now and then he’d look up and steal a glance at Naphtali, then return to drawing. The rhythmic scratching of his pencil was the only sound in the otherwise silent apartment.

As he sketched away quietly, stopping occasionally to push up his cobbled together eyeglasses every time they slid down his nose, it occurred to Wyatt that, in a way, the emptiness of her apartment was reminiscent of Naphtali herself, who had become rather reticent after the end of their tour at the warfront. At first, he attributed her sparsely decorated apartment as a byproduct of her upbringing, one of constant travel and relocation that forced her to never accumulate many material possessions since her family was always on the move. But since returning to Nazca, Naphtali had remained withdrawn, and Wyatt now saw in her apartment a reflection of that. A general detachment forged in the fires of Zarephath.

Besides the table and three chairs, the kitchen was little more than a hallway, with slender windows to Wyatt’s right and chestnut cabinets to his left. A hazy gray light poured in from the windows, dark skies announcing a coming storm. He could smell its imminent arrival, the air pushed down by the buildup of rain, filling the city with that distinct pre-rain scent. That scent mingled with the smoky residue of Naphtali’s last and cumulative smokes, giving her apartment its own unique odor. Behind Wyatt was a pantry cut into the far back wall, mostly devoid of food. Instead, it housed an assortment of liquors—whiskey, Black Blood Whiskey primarily, along with a few bottles of rum and tonic water. Naphtali currently cradled a half-empty tumbler of Black Blood in her left hand.

Time inched forward, kept only by the scratchy progress of whatever Wyatt scrawled in his sketchbook. The next hour seemed to squeeze into long minutes and even longer seconds before there finally came a knock on the door. Naphtali raised the tumbler to her lips, threw her head back, and poured the remainder of its contents straight down her throat, the searing sensation that followed causing her to lick her gums. The warmth that flowed back up was an old, welcome friend. Satisfied, she stood up slowly, smoothed out her long duster, pushed back her bushy tangle of curly black hair, then made her way to the door and opened it wide. Continue Reading…