Pentober 2026 - Day 17: Flame

Ok so, what is Pentober? Promptober? It's a writing tradition that's been around the web for a while where you write up a short story every day in October based on prompts. Some go for pen and paper, some digital; everyone has their own style. I'll be posting here, and I'll be using the prompts from https://www.topinfiction.com/p/pentober-2026 

House rules are that I vomit-write the story; no planning, just taka taka taka on the keys. I get ONE edit at the end of the draft (if I even have time, lol), then we post it. House rules also say that I get to play catch up and do multiple days separately on one day or combined if work gets wild and I can't write. Get it? Got it? Good! Here we go.

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You think you're mistaken at first. That can't be them: curly brown hair in ringlets, tall, hourglassy, bespectacled and nerdy with an air of upper class conditioning. The voice is right, too. It's deeper but bright, commanding and feminine. You turn to get a second, better glance. You see the face. It is! An old flame from decades ago, from college. Do you? They wave; they recognized you too.

You walk over through the wending throngs of airport crowds trying to find their way to the gate that their gate was, then was changed from, then was again. It is delay season in Atlanta. It is Christmas season in Atlanta.

They're at the bar drinking a whisky. You say hi and they offer you a seat next to them. You order a gin and tonic. It's awkward. The silence hangs in the air the same as that lilac perfume she still wears hangs around her like an aura, reaching tendrils out to curl around your neck and waft up your nose.

"So, what have you been up to the last...god, what's it been...two decades?"

You give a brief overview; it's pretty standard fare, but you try to jazz it up as much as you can. More or less you've spend the last twenty years traveling, working, and refusing to settle down at all. You redirect and ask her the same. She's had an even duller turn: suburbs, flyover, house, husband, no kids, no dog, no major travel. You dig further in and ask where she's going. She's connecting here, too. Delayed. The same delay you're also riding out. She's headed home for the holiday. So are you. Same flight, same airport.

You get to reminiscing about old friends and stories from way-back-when. You both find some interesting material: gossip about mutual friends, stories about awful dates, joy over having broken up. The flight keeps getting pushed back. The drinks and food keep getting ordered. The flight cancels. It gets rebooked for the next day.

You look at each other. The question is obvious. It's palpable on the air: 'We need to get a hotel for the night. One room or two?'

Two. The answer is two. You're both Hyatt people, so you end up at the same hotel. Different floors. It's the smart decision. If you've learned one thing over the last twenty years it's to not retread, to keep moving forward and on to the next city, job, group, opportunity, step. If she's learned one thing over the last twenty years it's to keep on the straight and narrow, no unnecessary risks, no impulsivity, no spontaneity.

You fall asleep, hangover already forming. It's an uneasy sleep. You toss and turn, the alcohol makes you sweat; the thermostat in the room never gets cool enough at these hotels. You're intermittently overheating, waking up from shallow sleep in pools of sweat. Eventually, sleep finds you.

You're burning up in some fiery place. As you explore it, you realize where you're dreaming you are. The airport's folded in on itself vertically and horizontally, creating a warren of hallways and terminals and tunnels bending in and across and through each other at odd angles. The walls have been replaced by basalt and pumice, the windows by obsidian and quartz. The lights are flows of lava that disappear into thin air. The air itself is rippling like the hottest of summer days despite it being a rare Deep South snowstorm shutting down the airport.

You wander and wander. You think you see the old flame again. She's different. You can't quite catch the face to be sure but you're certain it's her. She's nude. You'd recognize that big, round, jiggly white butt anywhere. The same goes for the garters and corset and lace everything; she's got the purple, black, and red sets intermixed this time, with some waist-long see-through silk chemise over top.

You keep trying to get closer but you can't. It's so hot, you're sweating in your dream. You know this must be a dream. Your travel suit is burning up and off of you, turning into floaty paper ash. Your leather accents and gold jewelry and watch and melting, sliding down and off your body into pools of bubbling ichor. You can't take it any more. You slip in a pool of your own sweat. You've tread this pathway before.

You look up, wondering when you'll jerk awake. She's there before you, you can feel her before you can see her. You realize it. It's not lingerie. Red, black, and purple hellfire is seeping through cracks in ash-white skin. It's not a chemise, it's wings. The old flame isn't an old flame, they are the flames of hell themselves made flesh. They squat down before you, legs spread, ice blue eyes burning white hot. You can't see straight for the light and heat is too bright, too strong, searing your eyes shut.

You jerk awake, or so you think. The afterimage of your old flame is burnt into the back of your retinas. What was the white-hot winged figure of a woman once loved deeply is now the black shadow of what was painted against the hotel room wall. Alarm clock and smoke detector lights cast odd shadows across the room. You blink. The afterimage is still there. You swear in the blinking of the colon dividing hour and minute it moved forward. You blink again, trying to clear your vision, trying to bring it back into focus. It takes too long to do that now, you're getting old.

You feel weight on your chest. The shadow is straddling you, riding you, one hand on your chest and one on your throat. It's sleep paralysis. You know it. You were haunted by it in high school. You know what to do. You can't move but you have to, focus on moving one finger, one single phalange of one single finger. Slowly, you can feel your index begin to lift up.

You jerk awake. There's a knock at your door. You look over at the clock: it's only been an hour, it's not even midnight. Your sheets are soaked through; thank god they gave you a two queen bed room. It was all they had. You need to shower before you try to sleep again. You're grateful you made the decision to just sleep in a pair of old boxers.

You clamber out of bed, stumbling for the tightness in your ligaments and muscles and look through the peephole. It's your old flame knocking, wearing a robe. They knock again. They know you're in there. You have to open up. You open up. They push their way in, said they couldn't sleep and were having weird dreams so they showered and got bored. You mutter much the same, saying you still need to shower.

Then nudge you with their hip, flick your waistband, tell you to get showering then and settle on one of the beds, turning on the TV to the guide. This is confusing. This doesn't seem like her. Did you miss something? Some change? You can't think straight, so you go shower. You're soaping up your hair, hot water scalding the oil off your skin as steam fogs up the room, making it impossible to see more than a few inches even if your eyes were open. You hear footsteps, hear the curtain move, feel the weight of a hand on your shoulder. You can't move. You know it's them. You can't know if this is real. It has to be fake.