It wasn’t a sure thing, but Jillian, @jtotheill was a clear favorite this week. And it isn’t hard to see why. What a gorgeous piece of prose. Can’t you just feel/see/smell it there? And that last line is a killer. Love it.

So congrats, Jillian, @jtotheill, for your 5MinuteFiction WIN!

Don’t forget, Jillian gets her pick of a copy of our guest judge, Kathryn Magendie’s novels, Tender Graces or Sweetie.

Enjoy your well earned win and all of you be back here next week to kick her butt. I mean, display your literary talent. Here’s her entry one more time for you:

In the movies there were strong arms and tender words to shelter from disaster, but the table legs are nothing like limbs. Paired together, two and two, they feel like a cage, like naked tent stakes waiting for a show. But there aren’t any shows anymore, no circuses, no movies, either.

The whispered agitation of your bunk mates, your CO, ring and rattle against the linoleum and concrete and steel of the shelter where you live, where some of you may die. But maybe not today.

“Duck!”

Your CO’s shout is swallowed by what sounds like hell from above, bone and stone shattering sounds. You press your face against boots two sizes too small, dirty ankles and the stink of too many bodies too long underground, but you can’t get any lower.