Great Tales Prompt
Five Words – Three Hundred Word Limit
Key, Straw, Fault, Message, Chandelier
Best Laid Plans
Stars swam through John's head.
He was aware of pain, lots and lots of pain. An ominous creaking from above helped him to focus. Relief flooded through him as he realized he could still move.
Grimacing, he pried one eye open, hearing a muffled groan next to him. The stars he saw cleared and merged to become a myriad array of crystals, glinting and sparkling in the dusty sunlight.
"Owwwww..." he heard and rolled his head ever so slowly to the left, trying to ignore the waves of pain coursing through his body.
Sherlock -flat on his back, eyes squeezed shut- experimentally moved limbs, making sure nothing was broken. "John?" He managed to croak.
"Yeah..?" John replied.
"Next time get a better ladder..." Sherlock groused. He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling of the decrepit old mansion.
"Me? Get a better ladder?" John growled, realizing they had landed, more or less unscathed, on the floor. "Didn't I say that thing was about to come down?"
"You're right..." Sherlock said, staring at the maze of crystals and prisms dangling precariously above them.
"I'm right? How?" John asked acerbically watching as the crystal structure in question jerked suddenly downwards. Rainbows of light sparkled and shimmered in a macabre, frenzied dance, as the crystals jingled ominously.
"It's about to come down... MOVE!"
They split like the Red Sea, rolling away from one another as the massive structure parted from the ceiling and crashed with a jangled cacophony of sound to the floor between them.
John finally exploded.
"This is your fault, you know! You said you had the key to the message! You didn't say it was hidden in a rickety old chandelier that you could knock down with a straw!"