First Campaigner Challenge!

Yes, I surely am! And it's time for the First Campaigner Challenge. Dude, sometimes it's not easy saying 'campaign' instead of 'crusade', but I'm doing my best to get used to it! Anyway, the challenge involves the following: Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut." (also included in the word count)

For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!

Now, before anyone leaps upon my post accusing me of being a liar, my story is precisely 200 words...in Scrivener. I don't know what it is in your word processor, but I have no doubt at all it's either over or under 200 words. But I SWEAR to you that Scrivener tells me 200. So, without further ado, here's my little ditty, all glorious 200 words (and by glorious I mean forced and unpolished and all that stuff, yeah):

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The door swung open and Elsie staggered through, crystal glass flying from her hand. Bennett's heart stuttered then swelled. Elsie hit the ground seconds before her glass. The crystal came apart as if in slow motion, glittering shards spraying out. Mother and father care more about the family crystal than they do a human life, he thought. But now wasn't the time for bitterness.

It was time for Elsie.

She was all he cared about. And she was here, alive. With him.

"Elsie! Oh God, I thought— I thought they'd…"

Bennett trailed off, staring at her still form. She hadn't stirred since landing, and she lay so still. Too still. Fighting back fear, he sank to his knees beside her and reached out a hand, scared but compelled to touch her. "Elsie?" He gripped her shoulder and shook her, first lightly, then harder. "Elsie?"

Then he saw the dark tide of crimson pooling beneath her, and he knew. They'd got to her after all.

"Oh, how sweet," came his mother's voice behind him. "You two, together at the end." He looked up into her haggard, bitter face, and knew it really was the end. Behind them, the door swung shut.