October 1: Something Followed You Home

Well, October is here, and apparently I have decided our writing lives need a little more creeping dread. Welcome to 31 Days of Visual Horror Prompts here at Savvy Word Slinger. Throughout the month, I’ll be sharing images to get our imaginations moving, give us something strange to play with, and hopefully help us find our way back to the page.

Some days will be eerie. Some will be weird. And some might make you wonder why you opened this post right before bed. I do love a good scare, especially when it starts with something ordinary. A porch. A window. A pair of boots someone forgot to bring inside. Nothing that should make you nervous, until you look a little closer.

Which brings us to today’s image.

At first, this looks like a farmhouse settling into evening. There’s a light over the door, flowers in an old pair of boots, and the kind of porch that has probably seen years of muddy shoes and people coming home tired. I can almost hear the boards creaking. It feels familiar enough that I might walk right up those steps without thinking much about it.

Then there are the footprints.

I have questions. Mostly, why are they going up the door? That is absolutely not where feet belong. Once I notice them, I look at everything else differently. Those flowers don’t seem especially welcoming anymore. Neither does that window. There’s something behind the curtain, and I would really appreciate it staying right where it is.

That little change is what I want us to play with today: the moment a familiar place starts feeling wrong. Your character knows this house. They know which step squeaks and how hard they have to turn the key. They may have lived here their entire life. What would make them stop before reaching for the handle?

You don’t have to explain everything you see in the picture. Choose the detail that catches your attention and follow it. Maybe the boots belonged to someone who died years ago. Maybe the flowers were fresh this morning. Maybe your character is more afraid of the porch light than of those impossible footprints. There could be a perfectly good reason for that. Well, a reason, anyway.

Today’s writing prompt:

You arrive home to find a pair of muddy boots beside your front door. Bare footprints climb the wood and disappear above the frame. Before you can decide what to do, someone inside calls your name.

What happens next is yours.

If you need a place to begin, think about whose voice your character hears. Would hearing it make them relieved enough to open the door? Would they recognize it immediately? Or would they have to stand there listening while something inside tried again, getting the voice a little closer each time?

Give yourself ten minutes if that’s what you have. Write a paragraph, a conversation, or the beginning of something you might come back to later. You can also sit with the image and jot down questions. I don’t want this month to turn into another thing we feel guilty about falling behind on. Join in whenever a picture grabs you.

I’m warming up for October right alongside you, and I’m curious where these images will take us. If you feel like sharing, tell me which detail you noticed first or leave a line from what you wrote.

For now, we’ve got a porch to investigate.

I’m letting you go first.