C_T_O_IC Writing On The Wall

20250725

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

This part of town was covered in graffiti, usually bold crude pictograms in vibrant colours. Mark barely registered them now. So he wasn’t sure how long the game of hangman had been there.
Unlike the rest of the wall, it looked to have been applied with a brush rather than a spray-can. Glossy black letters laying on top of the mishmash of names and swear words and phallic sigils. The alphabet, laid out so tidily they must have used a stencil, plus four lines sketching out the empty macabre stand. Between were eight precise dashes for the letters.
And beneath that line was a pristine stick of white chalk, held to the wall by some off-brand sticky tack of indeterminate shade.
What fun! It must be some sort of communal art piece. Mark was happy to kick things off, peeling off the chalk to mark a circle around “E”. Everyone knew that was the best letter to start with, after all. He replaced the chalk and continued on his commute.
On his walk back he remembered what had happened that morning, and kept an eye out for the wall. To his disappointment his chalk circle had been wiped away and replaced with a tidy white painted “X” over the “E”.
Really? No E at all?
His attention was more captured by the fact that, in addition to drawing the circle for the hangman’s head, there was a sketchy face painted on which he felt looked rather like him. If so, that was a bit mean-spirited. They ought to be more grateful that someone was joining in on their little stunt.
But he didn’t want to make a fuss about it, and besides there was nobody to make a fuss to, so he took the chalk and circled the “A” before continuing on his way.
The next morning he found another X and that the hangman had a little line jutting down from the head. A neck? Certainly too short to be the full body. Well, at least they were apparently allowing a reasonable number of mistakes. Mark was starting to wonder if they’d picked one of those nonsense words without vowels, but stuck to his strategy and circled “I”.
At last! A hit! That evening his chalk circle had been replaced by a painted one, and the second-to-last letter space had been filled in. Mark scratched his chin, paced up and down for a while, then decisively circled “C”.
That had been Friday evening. Naturally he didn’t walk past over the weekend. And when he resumed his commute Monday morning he was pleased to see that his last guess had been correct, filling in both the last and first letters… and annoyed to see that the hangman now had an oval body and an arm.
What, had they dinged him for breaking some unspecified time limit? Tsk!
He would’ve shrugged it off except they’d also added a bunch of detail to the face. It was definitely him. Wearing a contorted, bulging-eyed panicked expression you’d expect from… well… someone dangling helplessly at the end of a noose. Looking at it made him shudder.
Perhaps it was best to stop playing. Yes. Indicate to whoever was doing this that their stunt wasn’t tasteful. After all, walking away after a successful guess made it clear he wasn’t just being a poor sport. Yes.
So he left the chalk untouched and hurried to work. Trying to brush that ghastly painting from his mind.
But of course on the way home he walked past it, and he checked to see if the mysterious artist had gotten the message.
They hadn’t. The hangman had a second arm… and the face had gained another level of detail. It was getting remarkably realistic.
Looking at it wasn’t just metaphorically uncomfortable; it made his throat feel tight. Painfully tight.
Mark took a deep breath, forcing air into lungs which seemed convinced they were oxygen starved, and briskly walked home.
But the discomfort didn’t ease. He found himself struggling to swallow dinner. Having to pause while vacuuming to catch his breath.
Finally he got his shoes on and walked back to the wall. Picked up the chalk and circled “O”.
The clutching sensation eased so abruptly that he nearly choked on the sudden gasping inhale.
He stood shaking, staring up and down the alley looking for cameras. For answers. Ideally for help.
But it was just an empty, crudely decorated concrete tunnel between two buildings he’d never been inside. As it had always been.
He put the chalk back and walked home. Jumping at any noise.
“O” filled in the fifth letter. C _ _ _ O _ I C?
Mark eyed the drawing. It looked worryingly like he only had two misses left.
“Y”? “U”? Or was it better to switch to consonants? He paced the alley until he had to get to work, finally settling on “T”.
Once at the office, out of the morning briefing, he pulled out his phone and looked up a “hangman cheat” site. Now, he wasn’t the sort of person who’d usually do this, but-
As his finger touched the link that choking sensation returned, this time so strong that dark roaring drowning his vision and he collapsed. It took a first aider propping his legs up and shoving smelling salts under his nose to help him out of it. And when they handed him his phone he saw that the page hadn’t loaded properly; it was a garbled mess.
Was he just imagining that it looked like a hundred angry eyes plastered across each other?
“Are you sure you’re alright now? I can call an ambulance.”
“I…” Mark swallowed and massaged his throat, which felt tender and sore.
Even if his last guess was correct, he could only miss two “turns” before… whatever was going to happen, happened.
He looked up at the crowd huddled around him and croaked “Yes, I need help. If they can see me quickly.”

Prompt was “Write a story where the central plot revolves around graffiti on a wall.”