Fiction Friday: Story Improv

I love these story improvs--and you seem to, too! Thanks for participating. At the end of this post you will find this week's Story Opening. Here is last week's complete story:

written by: Michelle Massaro, Jessica Patch, Katherine, Daphne Michele Webb, Gary L Wade, and April GardnerI died on my fifteenth birthday and it was so lame. I'm still getting the hang of being dead. Before you glamorize me as some sort of ‘self-healer’ or immortal vampire, let me tell you it’s not that cool. 

I wrote about it in my diary. My mom sent me to a shrink. I've been diagnosed with biophobia--the fear of living. As if! So here I sit surrounded by four white walls and Mario--he's afraid of dying. We're a real pair, but sometimes I tell him my story just for entertainment.

Mario, naturally, is an opossum. He plays dead all the time. It used to freak me out, back when we found him in the backyard, but now it just drives me crazy. I really hate it when I talk to him about how much I hate being dead and he flops over, his eyes roll in the back of his head and his tongue hangs out of his mouth. I'm tempted to pick him up by the tail and stick him in my brother's shoe when he gets like that.

Let me stop here and explain a few things before I continue. Yes, I am dead. I'm a dead Amish fifteen year old in space. Cool thing about this is that I can space walk around the station without a suit, if I could get outside these white walls, that is.

The bad news is those cosmic rays and micrometeorites are killer on my complexion. During my last "walkabout" a stray piece of space junk took off my thumb all the way to my wrist—it's been over two hours now, and only the bone has fully grown back. It itches like crazy!

"Michelle? Are you pretending to be in space again?"

"No."

"Are you pretending Mario is a opossum?" She gave me a pointed look.

I swallowed. "No way. Just playing scrabble, Nurse Banner."

I don't think she believed me, but she took the small white paper cup out. Meds. Again. I sighed but obeyed. Sometimes, Nurse Banner could be scary. If only I could walk through walls like ghosts. Not me I have limitations.

An idea came to me. What if they knew I was dead and were experimenting on me? What if these meds kept me from walking through the walls and out of here forever. I did lose blocks of time. It was possible.

"What are you thinking, Michelle."

"Nothing. Thanks for the chill pill." I smiled and hid it under my tongue, pretending to swallow.

Oh yes. I was getting out of here.

"Triskelion," said Mario after Nurse Banner left the room. As he placed the letters on the board, he added his points up. "Isn't it interesting that a word meaning three legs amounts to 14 points?"

The door clicked behind Nurse Banner, and a lock slid into place.

She peered at me through the tiny square window of the door. Did she think I couldn't see her? I wasn't THAT crazy.

Mario smirked from his corner of the room. He bounded a tennis ball against the floor. It bounced and hit the opposite wall before flying back into his palm with a thwack.

Nurse Banner said Mario didn't exist, but I had proof that he did.

"It. Is. YOUR TURN ALREADY!"

Of course Mario was real. If I were going to make up a pet opossum, I would make one that was more patient. I couldn't do much with these letters: U,V,C,I,O,V,Y. I had other things on my mind. "Do opossums dig?"

He rolled his beady little eyes. "Do you mean burrow?"
"Whatever. Can you dig through the ceiling or the floor?"
"Maybe. If I had your dessert for the next six months."
"It's yours. Game's over. Start digging."
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Today's improv starter:

"Crikey--would ya look at that!"