This was a writing exercise I did based on a “Spark Word” in the book The Writer’s Block: 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Imagination by Jason Rekulak.  I’ve been looking at books like this when I’m completely cold, using them as warm-up exercises to force me to just write something even when I’m not sure what to write.  For this exercise, the “Spark Word” was “Virus.”  I spent somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes writing this out freehand without revision.

Cold.

Hungry.

Patience.

Waiting...

Timelessness.

Stasis.

Motion.

Change.

Warmth now.  Moving in, carried along.

Excitement as I feel the changes.

Detection.  I must act quickly.

A target found.  Carefully, I enter.  The mission is on.  I build.

I succeed.

A force, a rush.  I send myself on a million journeys.  I am legion once more.  Many missions, many invasions.  Many die, but more prosper.

A sudden gale.  Crystallization.  Time slows again.

I rest once more as the chill sets in.

Before my sleep, my lattice reverberates as my victim curses my name.

“Goddamn flu....”