PHOTO PROMPT ©Yvette Prior

“Who puts up a Christmas tree in November and why only yellow lights?” Griffin thought. He turned from the window and back to his enemy.

Kemp developed the invisibility program for the government. Griffin was their guinea pig, but it was never about science. Griffin was their ultimate political assassin, an invisible man.

“You said you couldn’t bring me back,” Griffin mused. “You’re my next victim…”

Griffin’s skin lit on fire and he collapsed on the carpet. Kemp put down his smartphone and rose from the sofa.

“The yellow lights are my security system, Griffin,” said Kemp. “They’re killing you.”

It’s Wednesday and time once again to participate in Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ 7 November 2025 edition of Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to use the image at the top as the prompt for crafting a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

Cover art for iSoldiers anthology by Shacklebound Books.

The photo reminded me of a scene from a movie released directly to DVD called Hollow Man II (2006). It’s actually not that bad and I also borrowed the plot from the film, a soldier turned invisible by a covert government group to assassinate their political enemies.

Of course, you want a safeguard against that assassin turning against you and I used the odd assortment of yellow Christmas tree lights for that purpose.

The names “Griffin” and “Kemp” are directly taken from characters in H.G. Wells’ (1897) novel The Invisible Man

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit inlinkz.

You can now purchase the two latest anthologies featuring my short stories.

Cover art for the anthology “Fantastic Schools Familiars”

“iSoldiers Anthology of Military Science Fiction” is available for purchase and contains four of my military SciFi drabbles. The skill to create those “100 word” stories was honed right here on “Friday Fictioneers.” You can order it at Amazon.

Fantastic Schools Familiars has just come out at Amazon and can be downloaded to your Kindle device. It contains my short story “Dead Cat Fever.” The paperback version should be ready in another week or so.

The most exciting news though is that I’ve signed a contract to have my latest science fiction novel published. You can read all about “A Wobblegong And His Boy” (well maybe not ALL about it) in my recent blog post.