Flash Fiction Friday: Chinese Lanterns

This was written using the following writing prompt from my writing group

Chinese Lanterns

The glowing Chinese lantern rose high in the sky and then faded away into the distance.

“They are still here,” murmured Josie.

“Pardon?” my mum crouched down to hear my little sister’s muffled voice behind a tightly-wound scarf, but she refused to say anymore. Instead, she ran down the hill, flapping her arms as if she wanted to take off. We thought nothing of it.

We did not listen. Not when our rabbit disappeared, along with many others in the street and Josie whispered, “It was them”. Nor when my dad looked up from the local paper in shock at the sudden rise in dog abductions. We did not notice the lack of insects buzzing around the garden; we enjoyed the lack of flies infesting the wheelie bins. Birds no longer sang at dawn and we casually ignored it all.

It was the knock at the door we heard and the slam of Josie’s bedroom door. She stood at the top of the stairs dressed in her favourite clothes, along with her fairy wings crushed beneath an overpacked backpack.

She grinned and declared, “They are here”.