An Unsocial Nightcap

The following was a submission for NYC Midnight’s 2023 Microfiction Challenge

Story prompt: Horror/Social/Slippers/100 words or less. This story was edited based on feedback from the panel of judges. Enjoy!

Her demons visit nightly. Sitting, unsocial, around the wooden table, waiting. They hear her stumbling, slipper-clad feet shuffling, and smile in anticipation.

She arrives, squinting under the bare bulb. Pulse thumping her eardrums. Sweat creeping toward her brows. Cracked lips begging for relief.  She seizes the half-empty bottle on the table. 

“Finally,” the demons rejoice.

Returned to another stupor with bile rising and vocal cords taut, she tries to fight back in her dreams. The scream is always stifled. 

She’s jolted awake and flounders back toward the light. Her soul is theirs to keep, at least for another night.