24-Hour Short Story Contest update

It's 6 pm on Sunday, 6 hours after the close of the WritersWeekly 24-Hour Short Story Contest (as mentioned in my previous post). This round's prompt was eerily reminiscent of one of the previous contest's prompts, which had me pulling my hair out in frustration, perhaps because I was taking the whole thing a little too literally.

This time around, I gave myself plenty of time to brainstorm, as well as churn out several rejected drafts before hitting upon the one I thought was the best. The...